Cold-Blooded: A DC Universe Fanfiction (#Wattys2015)

Chapter 36: Gar: Coda

"So that accounts for a week, a week and a half of the time you were gone," Robin pointed out. "You were gone for another week after that."

"Yeah…" Beast Boy grimaced. "Y'see, Rose and Kitaro realized something had changed a lot when the temperature suddenly dropped, but they didn't know why. At least Rose didn't, so she came running up to the house, yelling, 'Dad! Yukie! Are you okay? What happened? Gar? Where are you, Gar?' It was kind of hard not to get busted, after that. Anyway, saying that Deathstroke wasn't happy to see the three of us is an understatement.

"Ms. Kuwano was still all shaky and weak and crying like she lost her best friend, so he picked her up and told us that if we knew what was good for us, we would follow him because he was going to find out what was going on like he was performing an autopsy. If we didn't follow, somebody was going to need an autopsy. I don't know that I've ever seen him angrier."

"Wheeooh!" Robin whistled. "And considering how angry we've seen him…"

"Uh-huh. It was pretty scary. He carried her out of the house and then out of Nerima. We followed him like ducklings following a behaviorist. When he got to the fence, he didn't bother going over it. He just asked Ms. Kuwano if she was sure the ghosts were gone and nothing bad could get out, and when she said she was sure, he kicked a hole in it and we walked through. Because she'd gone into cardiac arrest—everything that happened in the spirit realm took only like a couple of minutes in real time, so it wasn't that long—he wanted to take her to a hospital, but she said she was all right. We wound up in this restaurant by the train station, after Ms. Kuwano wiped the writing off his face…"

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"All right," Slade Wilson said, his mouth grim and set. "I will now hear exactly what happened in there, beginning with you," he pointed to his lady friend.

"I did not know I was going to go into cardiac arrest," she said, downing a shot of the whiskey he had ordered for the two of them. "Kayako wanted to get rid of me immediately, and thought that killing me would do it. That made me, briefly, a ghost like her, a ghost with a need too great to let go of the living world. Only where she was angry and wanted to strike out at the world, what I wanted was to help her."

She placed the shot glass carefully on the table, and said, " 'Perhaps everything terrible is, in its deepest being, something helpless that wants help from us.' Rainier Marie Rilke wrote that. That was Kayako. Once I was dead, once we were on an equal footing, it was like…knocking down a child's blocks and then building something else with them. Something better. I went back to childhood with her, grew up with her...We went to high school together, graduated, got married—my subconscious has some very interesting ideas to do with you and Rose—all of it was as real as though I lived it.

"She and I were best friends our whole lives. I could not stop her from meeting and marrying Saeki, but I did keep her from forming a dangerous obsession with a man named Kobayashi, the one her husband thought was her lover. It didn't matter. He found another reason to try and beat her to death—but I stopped him. That was enough to set her free." She started crying again. "Except now she is gone, and I am left to grieve."

Gar raised a hand, timidly. "Umm…I was kind of there too. Not dead, and just as an observer, but everything she says is true. It was really, really…real. I know that doesn't sound smart, but that's what I've got."

Slade glowered at him. "Thank you. Yukie—you're sure you're all right?"

"Physically, yes. Emotionally, I will mourn her for some time, I think—but if my feelings were not real, she would not have responded."

Kitaro raised his hand, emulating Gar. "I have Mage Sight, and there is no sign of any damage, spiritually or any other kind. It was a very kind and compassionate act to free Saeki Kayako and her son from the bonds of anger and rage, and there are very few who would have seen them as people and not as monsters. Fewer still who could do anything about it."

Slade glowered at him, too. "And your part in this?"

"My part…When Rose introduced us, I saw that the two of you were on your way to deal with the forces of the supernatural, and I followed you. When I got here, I ran into Rose again."

"He helped me a lot," Rose confirmed. "His fox-fires kept Kayako's darkness at bay."

"And why were you here?" he turned his attention to his daughter. "Repeating the behavior that brought you to Japan in the first place? Did we somehow fail to make it clear that was unacceptable, and you were essentially on parole?"

"No…," she said. "You did, but—."

"Um….sir, it was me. Rose didn't know I followed her to Japan until Kitaro helped me find her today, and then I was the one who insisted on following you. She said she was sure you two weren't doing anything bad, and I didn't believe her. She just came along so I wouldn't get into trouble again." Gar said.

"And look how well that worked out for you," Yukie Kuwano murmured. "But I think this requires a more detailed explanation."

Gar sucked it up and told them how he hitched a ride in Rose's backpack, then got lost in Tokyo, was found by Kitaro, got sick and was taken care of, and finally located Rose, only to wind up in Nerima.

"That's not all of it," Rose admitted, drawing patterns on the table with the water condensation from her glass and her finger. "When I realized you must be going ghostbusting, I felt left out and I wanted to find out what was going down just as much as he did."

"Rose, do you now understand why we left you behind?" her father's lady friend asked.

"Yes. I'm sorry. I wish…I guess you're going to be packing us both back to the states, aren't you?" Rose said more than asked.

The adults exchanged glances. "Him, yes." Slade Wilson jerked his thumb at Gar, who he then addressed, "And you're going back the hard way. Tomorrow we're delivering you to the American Embassy, where you will have to deal with the consequences of sneaking into the country without a passport or a visa. Rose…"

Yukie took up the sentence. "If this were the first or second day of the trip, I would say, 'Send her back too', but at this point, I think Rose has earned the right to make a mistake and be forgiven. She has shown that she truly appreciates being here and spending time with us. I plead for clemency."

"One mistake," Slade clarified. "Only one."

"Oh, thank you!," Rose gasped.

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"So that night, I slept in the Asago suite, on the other side of the screen. In the morning, Deathstroke took me to the Embassy, and I was basically under house arrest there for several days. Finally, I got all the paperwork I needed to get home, but before I did, we three got together again. And I had to borrow a bunch of money from Rose, but I rewarded Kitaro's grandparents for taking care of me when I went and said goodbye and thanks for taking good care of me. I paid it back into her Titans' account, of course."

"But what about your change of attitude towards girls and women?" Robin asked. "Was it all because of Rose going off on you like that?"

"Partly it was, but it was also Kayako. I mean, I saw what it was like to be a girl and then a woman. Okay, she was undersocialized, but when guys said things to her, she cringed inside. It made her feel a little sick. That was bad. Then the way she died… We guys, when it comes to girls, we're most afraid that they might reject us or laugh at us. Women and girls—they're afraid men are going to beat them up, rape them and kill them. That's a really big difference! It's a really bad difference, too.

"So I decided I don't want to be somebody who makes anybody cringe or feel scared or like they're less than a person. Maybe that means I'll get friendzoned a lot…but being a friend at the right time is important too." Gar shrugged. "I guess maybe I grew up a little."

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A/N: 'Ducklings following a behaviorist' is a reference to Konrad Lorenz, who demonstrated that ducklings and goslings will imprint on whatever creature is there when they hatch and take it for their mother. 

A short chapter to wrap things up, and you can thank the long weekend and a snow day for it. I think I will play with the order of the chapters so this sequence comes before 'Okinawa', as it does in story time. Then on to what happens at Hakkoda….and beyond.