The Last Goodbye

Mars

She dreamed she'd go to California

There everyone would adore her

And all her mates will call her'Til four in the morning

Is there any life on Mars?

Is there any life on Mars? 

Dick coughs, his lungs burn deep in his belly. 

His back was under the sand, it was cool now. His hair is wet. 

"You with me now kid?" Slade's gruff voice is over him. 

Dicks vision swims, "I think so."

Slowly he sits up. Slade's wet too. "Why are we wet?" 

"What do you mean why are we wet? What's the last thing you remember?" 

"I walked down here to clear my head. I was thinking about Joey, now I'm wet. You're here and wet too."

"Are you alright to walk?" Slade dodges explaining, and Dick sort of notices. 

"Yeah, should be." 

Standing invites the spinning, but it's easy to push through. 

Slade keeps a brutal pace and kept looking back at Dick suspiciously. 

When they make it back to the safehouse Dick asks again "why are we wet?"

"You seriously don't know? Kid, don't play games with me."

"If I knew I wouldn't be asking."

"You just tried to kill yourself, you are really lucky I went to go check on you since you'd been gone too long." 

"What?"

"So you weren't trying to kill yourself right now? Cause I thought we had moved past that years ago." 

"No, Slade I swear. I honest on high and just went for a walk. I started thinking about Joey and woke up coughing." 

Slade did not look convinced and relented, "go get some dry clothes on. You look sick enough is." 

Dick goes to take a hot shower to get some semblance of warmth back into his body. His eyes burn from tears and he guesses salt. 

You are a fool little Saphia. So brave. For what. 

_________________________________

Jason is learning he knows even less about his brother than he thought he did. 

Apparently, Dick drinks like a sailor, has had multiple suicide attempts, and was thrown out by Bruce as a teen. 

Tim shows up and Dicks shell of an apartment with his laptop and immediately gets to work. He moves some boxes in an attempt at a makeshift table. He looks over to the kitchen and seems to momentarily despair at the ghost of Dick's coffee machine. 

"Give me like 20 minutes to get passed B's encryption. While I'm doing this someone needs to explain when the hell is going on."

Donna speaks up first, "So you remember that senior Titans mission a couple months ago?" 

"Yes. It happened at the same time as Titans East had that mission to Atlantis." 

"So, we sorta had to fight a demon and it possessed Dick." 

"And he's been possessed for months."

"Yes."

"And no one thought this was pertinent information to share with anyone."