The Project •On Hold•

🌊 Chapter Thirteen 🌊

Kaldur dumped a couple of floats into the pool. He smiled as Arthur chucked a few pool noodles in. "You said she has one leg and it doesn't work properly?"

"Yeah."

"I can definitely work with that. You said she's an archer, right?"

Kaldur nodded.

"Well then, she must have a strong upper body, which will come in handy."

"Thanks for agreeing to help her."

"She's your friend. Of course I'll help her. Knowing how to swim is important, no matter your physical ability. If there's a way for you to be able to swim, you need to learn it."

Kaldur nodded in agreement. He had been able to swim for as long as he could remember. He couldn't imagine not being able to.

"You stay with me, and watch how I do this."

Soon, they all arrived, and Megan helped Artemis take off her prosthesis, and helped her get out of her shorts and get to the pool and sit down on the side. Artemis looked very skeptical as Arthur pulled her into the water. As far as Kaldur knew, the only experience she had with being up to her chest in water was taking a bath. She shot a look at Wally, who smiled reassuringly as he swam over.

"Can you hold your breath?" Arthur asked the blonde. Artemis nodded, hesitant.

"How long?"

"A while."

"Ok, do it now." He pushed her under the water.

She popped back up. "What the hell?!"

Arthur laughed. "Just checking to make sure you can come back up when you're not expecting it. Ok, now you can't support your weight for very long on your leg, and water is making you more unstable. Being able to move around in the water is a must. So, swimming is really your only option. So what I want you to do is move your arms like this." He gently took hold of her arms and pushed them to the sides, brought them back together and out again. "Now, do it yourself."

She did, and he told her to keep doing it, and to shift her weight forward when he grabbed her waist. She obeyed (reluctantly) and to her shock, she moved forward. After a few minutes of swimming with help from Arthur, Mera called them in for dinner. Soon they were all on the couch in dry clothes. Wally had his arm wrapped around Artemis, telling her how awesome she was. After dinner, the adults left the room so the teenagers could work on the assignment.

"I live with my foster parents, obviously. My mom couldn't take care of me anymore, and I never knew my dad. The Currys took me in, and I'm grateful to them for that. I don't know much about my dad, other than he was a criminal," Kaldur said.

"That sucks, Kaldur," Megan said.

Kaldur shrugged. "It is unfortunate, but life isn't perfect. I love Arthur, Mera and Artur. I couldn't ask for a better family."

"Anyone else notice the running theme here?" Dick asked.

"What?" Zatanna asked.

"So far, each of us has had at least one crappy parent."

"Huh. That's weird."

"Isn't it?"

"Well, we've got the comparison down then."

Everyone laughed at that.

Artemis' phone rang. "Again?" She muttered. "Này, Mẹ... Tôi đang ở nhà bạn bè của tôi cho một bài tập ở trường như tôi đã nói." (Roughly translated: Hey, Mom. I am at my friend's house for a school assignment, like I said.) "Đừng gọi tôi như thế!" (Don't call me that!) "'Tại sao không?' Vì con không phải là Zephyr, mẹ ạ!" ('Why not?' Because I'm not Zephyr, Mom!) "Vì vậy, hãy ngừng gọi tôi như vậy, tôi ghét nó!" (So stop calling me that, I hate it!) "Tôi là Artemis, Mẹ! Con gái của bạn, nhớ không?" (I'm Artemis! Your daughter, remember?) "You know what?! I'm done!" She angrily hung up.

"What was that?!" Megan exclaimed.

"Did your mom blank again?" Raquel asked.

Artemis sighed. "Yeah. I'm so SICK of it!"

"She's trying to get better, Artemis."

"Is she really, though?"

"Ok, what exactly just happened?" Kaldur asked carefully.

"My mom has a nasty habit of calling me by my sister's name. Which wouldn't be such a big problem if my sister was A) close to my age, B) looked like me, C) lived with us, or D) it didn't happen on a regular basis. I guess it isn't really even her just calling me my sister's name, she genuinely mistakes me for her, and doesn't understand at first when I explain that I'm not my sister. Sometimes she'll even get mad at me."

"That's... not good," Zatanna said. "I hate to say it, but-"

"You don't think my mom is mentally stable, I see how it is! My mom has depression, Zatanna! It's to be expected that she messes stuff up sometimes! She just gets mad cuz she thinks I'm lying! There's nothing bad about it, it's just really goddamn annoying! Stop jumping to conclusions!" Artemis stormed off, slamming the front door behind her. Wally ran after her.

"I didn't-" Zatanna started to say.

"We know. She is just being sensitive," Kaldur said. "And I think that you are right, my friend. But Artemis is her daughter, so she doesn't want to accept that you are right."

"I guess. But I feel bad."

"You can apologize when she cools off. But right now, she's still mad," Megan said. "I don't know why Artemis' mom mistakes her for her sister when it's apparently easy to tell them apart, but I would be mad if someone said something like that about my mom."

"She really doesn't look like her sister, you know." Raquel pulled up a picture of a photo on her phone. It was of a younger Artemis and two other girls a few years older than her. "The one Arty is being mistaken for is the older one, who, as you can see, doesn't look like her really at all, except for the eye shape."

"Jeez," Dick said. "How could you mess that up?"

Raquel sighed. "Don't tell Arty I said anything, but if I had to guess, it's because Zephyr- the sister- died a few years ago. Paula- Artemis' mom- wasn't home, and was devastated when she found out. And that's when Artemis started being mistaken for her sister."

"That's terrible." Megan whispered. "I mean... I can't imagine what loosing a child unexpectedly can do you. No wonder Artemis got so defensive of her. You can't help trauma."

"I saw my mom in every dark haired woman I came across for the first few months after I lost her," Zatanna admitted quietly. "I can imagine how bad it would've been if she had a sister I still saw regularly."

"I was going to go more in detail tonight," Kaldur said. "But I think it will be best to wait until another day. See you guys at school tomorrow."