Fix You

Epilogue

"One move and I shoot."

The words still echoed in Artemis's head like it was yesterday. She could still feel the icy grip of fear encircle her body as she saw him hanging there from the man's arms, covered in blood, a gun at his head. Closing her eyes, she could smell the dankness of the alley, the sharp tang of blood; she could taste the cold, December air, hear the heavy pants of her teammates and the deathly silence that followed the Red Hood's ultimatum. Even as she returned to the scene, four years later, she almost couldn't bear to stand where she'd stood. It was too real – it would always be too real.

The entire city reminded her of the days she'd spent with Roy, combing the streets of Gotham, in the grips of a nightmare. All the shops they'd broken into, demanding answers. All the bodies they'd beaten until they were no longer even capable of reply. All of the false leads, the calls from the League confirming negative, the desperate pleas from the Team demanding to know what was going on. Artemis could still taste the utter despair she'd felt after exhausting every corner, every drug lord, every. Last. Thing. It still hurt, like an old wound deep in her body. She would never be able to forget, never be able to erase those nights from her memory. Gotham would forever hold the pain, torture, unbearable suffering for her that it held for so many others. But the difference between them and her was that she couldn't take it anymore. She was leaving.

Wally had an apartment Palo Alto and was attending Stanford. Artemis had never really entertained the idea of going to college – the sorority life wasn't really for her – but, with Dick's help, she'd manage to scrape by with a pretty impressive GPA her junior and senior year and her test scores were above average. She may be a couple years late, but…. She missed Wally as well; after he'd 'retired' (Artemis still teased him about that) it had never really been the same. She grasped now that maybe the speedster had realized earlier what had taken Artemis years to figure out: she just couldn't do this anymore.

After the entire incident, Artemis had managed to move on and it seemed Wally had too. Roy hadn't and he'd been the first to leave, chasing down leads on where Cadmus's new base was, determined to find the 'real' Roy Harper and enact some of his own revenge on the malign institution. He'd offered to both Wally and Artemis to come with him, but Artemis hadn't been able to imagine willingly confronting Cadmus again. Wally refused as well and stuck around with the Team for a few more years. Once he graduated and moved away to California, however, balancing heroing work with college came to be too much and he left as well.

Artemis could still remember Dick's face when Wally told him he was leaving. And now Artemis was planning to do the same.

Artemis let out a sigh, turning away from the alley and everything it held, letting it slip through her fingers as she prepared to leave Gotham and all its pain behind. She'd never been one to run from pain or difficulty – she faced everything head-on and fought till it was beaten. Now, though, it was different. The wound ran too deep; no matter how hard she tried to fix it, it would never be enough. She had to leave, to get out while she was still alive. Maybe it was selfish, maybe it was weak, but if there was one thing that Artemis learned over the past four years, it was that she couldn't fix everything – not even herself.

The letter to Dick fell out of her hand as she turned and walked away.

oOo

"Blake."

Blake turned slowly, his hand resting easily on his gun as he spun to face the young man. He was dressed in dark clothes, a hood pulled over his face, his hands in his pockets as he leaned against the brick wall.

"What do you go by now?" Blake asked, narrowing his eyes as he tried in vain to peer under the shadowy hood at the man's face.

"Haven't decided yet," the man replied casually. His form was a picture of ease as he so insouciantly tried to goad the cop into the open.