the light must always shine

[cantstopmoving]

dated February 27

He's gone. Back to Lian. Home, where he belongs. I keep telling myself that, that he's not dead, just time-shifted back to where he's happiest

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[changing_lane]

"Hey."

Lois laid her hand against his shoulder and sat beside him, shifting a bit to get comfortable on the ground and get the heels of her shoes out of the way. Her fingers looked fragile against his body, and though he never made her feel quite so ridiculously delicate as Clark did...things felt familiar enough to bring an ache into her throat. Squeezing the curve of his shoulder, she kept quiet, because she absolutely sucked at offering comfort and she damn well knew it.

This place was eerie. Her eyes followed the long scrawl of names until she found his--one of three, and the one by which she had never called him, but she still hated to look at it. She had come here once, when she'd first found herself on the island, and she hadn't come back since then. The knowledge that she had missed him was a little too much to stand.

She swallowed, but the silence seemed increasingly uncomfortable. "You need to talk about it?"

[cantstopmoving]

Shins in the dirt, palms on his thighs, Dick sits, head bowed and weeping freely for all the lights they've lost. For him, the grief of losing Roy is acute and specific, but it can never be only the one. Each loss reenacts the others, but this is how he heals. How he copes and deals.

By the time Lois settles beside him, the tears have dried and it's just the ache. She doesn't ask and he doesn't speak and her hand on his shoulder has a comfortable and comforting weight. When she does finally talk, a faint, pallid echo of a smile plays over the corners of his mouth.

Of course she asks a question, a request for information. She's Lois Lane. And he's Dick Grayson, so he hasn't missed the soft hitches in her breath or the swallow before she spoke. Without lifting his head, he turns it, sliding his gaze across to her face. "Do you?"

[changing_lane]

She blinked and said the first thing to cross her mind. "God, no." Not very diplomatic, she supposed, but talking about emotions wasn't one of those things she willingly did. Not unless she was under duress, in fact. Besides, he wasn't asking about Roy, but about Clark, and she wasn't about to let him get away with turning the conversation away from himself. He was a little too good at that even when he wasn't being intentionally evasive.

Ashamed of her tactlessness anyway, she slid her arm around his shoulders and sighed, closing her eyes. "There's never anything right to say."

[cantstopmoving]

"And way too many wrong ones." His head tips forward again, hair grown too long slipping over his forehead. Under it, the gaze that focuses on the soft flickering light of the flame shines too bright again, too limpid, in vulnerable boyish blue.

He sits quiet for awhile, breathing through the ache of it, before he slides his arm around her waist and draws her nearer. "I've known him almost as long as I've known Bruce." And loved him almost as much. More, some days. Entire years. "His daughter's my goddaughter."

Behind the simple statements lies a hint of a plea. Not that of a lover losing his heart's desire - he loves Tim - but of the boy losing the best friend who replaced clowns, dwarves and girls in pink on pretty white ponies. And the man losing his oldest friend and second-in-command. The words he has spent his whole life being told not to say, let alone to feel. But I need you.

[kaleidoscopeyed]

As soon as Monet tells her, there's nothing else that she can do but go. She's not close with Roy like she is with Dick, but she's seen him almost everyday since December. The shock that he's gone hasn't really hit her, but she's not the one that matters right now. Family first. While Dick will never be Chase, or Nico, or Molly, he's made her part of his family so she's got to find him. She can't do anything else.

There's are a few places she checks first but the memorial is high on her list and she sees him from a long way off.

As she approaches, she knows he's heard her, probably even knows it's her by the sound of her footsteps or some crazy thing like that. She steps through his personal space and kneels down behind him, a little off center and slips her arms around his neck without a word.

[cantstopmoving]

He told Monet he needed to be alone, but the sound of Karo's footsteps behind him comes as no surprise. No question it's her. If he thinks about it, he could break down how he knows, and it helps a little so he does

[kaleidoscopeyed]

She sits silent for awhile, demanding very little from him. If he'd been stiff or disengaged from her right away, she would have understood it. He didn't though, and so she takes and gives physical comfort.

After awhile, the only thing she says is, "Sorry." It's a soft word encompassing a lot. Xavin once told her she wished there were another word for it. But there isn't, so she says it. "I'll go if you want. I just need to see. I needed to find you."

[cantstopmoving]

For awhile, he simply sits quietly with her tucked into his arm. When it feels safe to breathe again, like movement won't shatter him, he tucks his head over hers and his nose into her hair. As if somehow Karo-scent, clean and sweet and bright can replace what he's lost.

Even after she speaks, he doesn't have an answer for a long time. When it comes, it's calm, a little distant but still warm. "No. Stay awhile." The instinct to be alone isn't as strong as the need to know he's not and to take care of his people. He smooths his hand over her hair and glances to her. "Need to talk it out?"

[1st_zack]

Truthfully, Zack didn't recognize any of the names on the memorial. It just seemed like the place to be, despite it being the last place Cloud would have gone.

He didn't know the other man at the memorial, but he looked like he was going through a rough time too. Worse than Zack was having.

"Hey," he said quietly, observing the hush around the memorial. "Did you know someone on the wall?" he asked politely, trying to create some semblance of conversation.

[cantstopmoving]

He hears the footsteps long before they arrive at his side. An instinctive go away tightens both stomach and shoulders, but the memorial is a public place and this boy - Dick cuts his gaze toward him and recognizes Zack Fair, swordsman and soldier according to their files - has as much right to be here as he does.

Exhaling on a soft huff of breath, Dick cups his hands around the flame to shield it from movement - the light must always shine. "We do this at home to commemorate the ones we've lost," he answers, tone distracted, almost musing. "Honor their memories and channel our grief."

It's easier than talking to someone who knows him or Roy. He can talk in the abstract.

[1st_zack]

If it wasn't awkward enough, Zack felt a definite sense that he should have just left the other man be. Conversation was unwanted.

But then he spoke of honoring the memories of those who are lost. For a moment he heard Angeal. Embrace your dreams. And protect your SOLDIER honor. Neither of which were particularly helpful pieces of advice. Just memories of another person he'd lost.

"Does it work?" he asked. "I've lost people before. But from this vantage point, it doesn't felt like the pain will end."

[cantstopmoving]

The lesson learned long ago and again when he disbanded the Titans, that leadership won't pause for a broken heart, serves him well now. Easier to be what others need from him than to be here with the poignant ache of candle-shadow on memorial stone.

His head lifts, chin tilts, gaze locks sapphire and steady on Zack's. "It helps. Rituals and symbols provide structure and focus. If you give grief its due, it's easier to function." Which is why organized religions have masses or services for the dead throughout the year, and not just the funeral or wake. "Losing someone never really hurts less. In time, it hurts less often."

That's his experience anyway. It never won't feel like his heart's being carved when missing Bruce, Roy, his parents hits him hard. It just doesn't hit him as often.

[forhawkeye]

The graveyard here borders on empty, but the memorial is covered in names. Tabula Rasa, I've been told, rarely leaves behind bodies. Having lost my mom not all that long ago, I doubt this is the better option. Actually, I'm pretty sure they both suck, but that's just the way of the world, I guess. I've only ever been here the once, to see if anyone I knew from home had already come and gone. A few of the names were familiar but that's about it. The jury's still out on whether that's a good thing or a bad one.

Anyway, what brings me here today is mostly an accident; I got a little turned around on my way to see Tony. I'm about to head back along the boardwalk when I realize I recognize the guy sitting in front of the memorial. Well, hello, 'Nightwing'.

Quietly, I make my way over to him. I'm careful to give him his space, knowing how hard losing someone can be. When I said I wanted to meet him without the mask, this wasn't quite what I had in mind.

"Who?" I ask after a long moment.

[cantstopmoving]

She hasn't been to training yet, but he already recognizes the weight of her footfalls. The weight of the air when she's near. Her movements have a careful quality that has no hesitation in it; she moves like Tim and Dinah, precise and well-trained.

He might've looked up to acknowledge her, but instead he lets her decide whether she'll come. Not family, but not an intrusion, either, he spares her no more thought until she chooses. Once she does, he exhales quietly and gives a small approving nod for the question.

"Roy," he tells her. And Stephanie, Jason, Bruce, Jack, Thomas and Martha Wayne, John and Mary Grayson. He could give her more. Speedy, Arsenal, his best friend, his second in command, his partner, his lover, his support, but even saying his name rips through him like razorwire and leaves him breathless.

Even so, her presence isn't unwelcome. She's not family but she's cape enough to bear witness to the loss.

[forhawkeye]

It's not a 'get the hell out of here' so I sit down a couple of feet away, legs crossed and my elbows resting on my knees. I have no idea who Roy is or was, but I'm not heartless and I can still empathize. Cupping my chin in my hand, I turn my head to look over at him. He looks likes a wreck.

"Someone from home, then," I say. "I'm sorry."

[cantstopmoving]

Another nod, tight, because movement will rip him wide; he can't contain his emotions in motion. Even so, he inhales after and doesn't exhale until physiology forces it. He breathes, slow, until breathing isn't motion again, then glances to Kate and tries out words.

"His daughter's my goddaughter. I brought her to him in the hospital." In spite of the pain, he knows how that sounds. He knows how it looked, too, since everyone teased them about it for months. Offering her a bruised smile, heartbreaking the way a perfect daffodil on a broken stem is heartbreaking, he explains, "A youthful indiscretion. When we went to rescue Lian, Roy was injured and hospitalized. I brought her to him when we saved her."

Those memories don't hurt as much as more recent ones. Lian, teaching Roy not to be afraid of guns again, even throwing each other up against walls over Bruce and Ollie and smack addictions and sidekick angst don't hurt as much as patrolling with Roy here. They're just part of who he is.

[loveasthouwilt]

I'd never asked to have Hyacinthe's name put on the memorial, nor Ysandre's, yet I found some solace in going there from time to time nonetheless. There were others whose names I knew, and betimes it gave me comfort to think on them, betimes to pray for them.

I hadn't expected to find someone keeping vigil there when I arrived; even less had I expected to see it was Messire Grayson kneeling there in front of a lone candle. I could recognize a posture of grief when I saw one, and decided quickly that he had more need of the memorial's solitude than I. I turned to go, hoping to do so without disturbing him, but a stick snapped beneath my foot and he lifted his head to meet my eyes. "Forgive me," I murmured, "I was just leaving."

[cantstopmoving]

Long before the twig snaps, Dick knows he has company. The weight of the air changes when you are not alone. Tim would explain it in terms of ions or air currents, and he can if he needs to, but for him the feeling makes as much sense as the science: the air rests heavier on the bared back of his neck when someone approaches.

Even in his kneeling posture, he's far from defenseless, but he tunes his hearing and his attention toward the intruder anyhow. The snapped twig brings his head up to identify Phedre before she speaks.

"Don't let me chase you away," Dick answers, voice hushed and raw, eyes bruised, and soft smile of welcome all the more heartbreaking for it. Intuition - and Alcuin - say that if anyone can understand what he's lost with Roy, Phedre will.

[loveasthouwilt]

I turned back, sympathy wringing my heart at his lost look. "You aren't," I said gently, smiling, "but I would happily find my peace and quiet elsewhere if you wish to be alone."

I could not but think he has lost someone; I recognized the haunted expression, twin to the one I wore in the weeks after Ysandre's death and Hyacinthe's departure. And I too had often sought solitude in the sight of Elua's likeness in the temple-- solitude from the pitying eyes of others, with the hope that it would silence the unending questions in my head.

[cantstopmoving]

Part of him screams to send her away and dives for the cover of the solitude she offers. It bows his head down over his knees again, but he doesn't want to grieve for Roy alone.

He shouldn't be grieving for the soul of his team alone. He should be surrounded...by Donna and Kory, Wally and Gar and Vic and Raven and they should be doing this together. Or Monet and Karo, at least. But if he were home, there'd be no grieving, because Roy isn't dead, just gone from here. And Roy's been like a ghost since he got here, a pale shadow of himself, only bright and warm with Dick.

"No." He doesn't lift his head again. Any more movement will shatter the calm he's built: Roy's where he belongs. The pain will fade if he can just hold on. "Alone is the last thing I want."

Five minutes ago, it was a lie. Now...it's as true as anything he's ever said.