3282/Among The Shadows

Among The Shadows
Date of Scene:	08 September 2020
Location:	2D - Terry's Apartment
Synopsis:	Terry goes and Pratchetts Colette before she starts going postal. He makes sure everything is up to snuff.
Cast of Characters:	Colette O'Connail, Terry O'Neil

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Colette O'Connail has posed:
    Colette hasn't really been paying attention to the news. There was an invasion. Sure, she's aware of that. Absolutely not her business though. She may have killed a few Warzoon, but only because they were bothering her personally. I mean aliens gonna invade, right? Dealing with that is superhero business, not hers. So long as they invade /around/ her, then whatever.

    Talking of superhero business, she really should check up on Terry, Kian, Gar and Kate. They were probably in the thick of it all, knowing them. There's something... huh. Something... she doesn't really like that thought. No matter. She'll check on them tomorrow.

    She really hasn't been paying attenention to the news. Maybe she should.

    Colette flicks on the lights in her living room and flops down onto her sofa. Outside the full-width windows, the lights of Metropolis shine brightly below - mostly. There are still a few patches where power was down and hasn't been restored. In this relatively wealthy part of St. Martins, they tend to move fast on these things. The Tower is lit up - she can't see it from here, but it's visible from the kitchen window, and she'd noticed it earlier.

    The room is showroom tidy in the way that a room doesn't get unless you don't live in it too hard, and have cleaners coming in every day. Colette does. It's a nice apartment with expensive decorations. She has never invited Terry and Gar to visit her place - they've seen her car, but this is a more clear indication of her wealthy background that maybe some shred of reluctance to demonstrate to her friends exists.

    She picks the remote up from the couch beside her and switches on a giant OLED screen facing it, turning over to the news. On the screen, Amazons and US army soldiers mingle in a slightly tense but mostly curious cultural exchange of the weirdest type.

    Her phone pings, a notification appearing on the screen, and she glances down at it. Terry. Yep, he's fine.

    Colette shrugs and leans back to watch the news report. She's glad Terry and the others are fine. It's sort of... odd. Relief maybe? Huh. Maybe she should check the message, just in case.

    Nah.

    The news moves to talking heads as some so-called experts discuss the Themysciran presence. As is so typical in these cases, the experts know nothing at all abut what is going on, and just share their speculations. Guys, it's this isn't news, this is filler. She picks up the phone again and stares at the screen. Not a text, a video message. Huh.

    Colette mutes the TV and presses play.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Heeeeey..."

Anytime anyone starts a video like that, it's not good. Terry is sitting at his kitchen table, staring at the viewer. "Colette. The Meddler. She who knows all of my darkest secrets. A star shines on this meeting..." he smiles a little.

"I hope you're okay. See, I'm recording this not too long after the Brainiac bullshit. You remember that, right?" he shrugs, "Alien invasions and all. Things got me to thinking about what could happen... so... I looked up this Dead Man's Switch thing..."

Meaningful glance. "Yeah. If you're seeing this, there's a big chance that I missed inputting the code at the determined interval. And that's a big chance that I'm..." he tilts his head this way and that, "... you know."

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    "Dead," Colette says for him. "Oh you fucking idiot Terry, what did you do?"

    She straightens up in her seat, thinking strange, unfamiliar thoughts. She frowns and pushes them down. Dead man's switch? Already? No kind of double-check? Jeez, that's so... amateur. She's going to have to have a word with him about... uh.

    Colette clucks and bites her lower lip. Who else will he have sent one of these too? Gar for sure. His mom. April. Harley. Lois. Goddamit, he'll have sent one to Lois. She should have talked to him about things like that sooner, he's too inexperienced. Should have taken him under her wing a bit more.

    But she did, right? She was giving him combat training. Well she called it combat training but that was mostly to get him to do it, because he thought that was important. It was observation training. Eventually he'd have been observant enough to...

    Colette wonders what the hell is wrong with her tonight. Her mind is wandering for some reason, and she just missed something Terry said. She rewinds back to the "...you know," and resumes playing

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"I don't know how it happened. But I hope it wasn't embarrassing. Nevertheless... I might be a goner. So I had to talk to you, obviously. Colette... you've been... interesting to know, you know." He smiles a little. "I want to thank you for being a friend, especially when I could tell you wanted to strangle me instead of giving me advice. Believe me, you are not unique in that sense, you're just the first person who actually would have been able to actually strangle me for real." He pauses. "Unless Lois is stronger than she looks."

"But I digress..."

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    "Get it right Terry, I don't have fucking super-strength. That's even worse than the ninja thing." Colette leans forwards, phone still held in one hand, and pinches the bridge of her nose. She feels a headache coming on. Those are annoying. Much better to get a physical injury, you can erase those. Messing around with brains is tricky. Not really worth the effort.

    Besides, she'd totally have zapped him, not strangled him. Zapped him with a big old bolt of dark energy. Blast him into dumb Terry smear on the ground for being such a pain in in the ass and not listening to sensible advice.

    She's not going to be able to do that now. That's... that's not fair. Not that she would /actually/ do it, 'cos Terry was okay, even if he was a bit of an idiot. But it was fun to think about it. Well, she's going to find out who's responsible, and /they/ can be the smear on the ground. That will be satisfying.

    Except that it was probably Warzoon. Those guys are freaking insane. Absolute lunatics, wandering from system to system with that big ass space station, fighting anything they could find to fight. Surprised they came back really, after the beat down they got last time they tried visiting Sol.

    Maybe they knew there were no more Martians, though. Yeah, probably. Bit different planning to take on a pack of primitive humans than the fucking Martian...

    GOD DAMN IT. Colette hits rewind again. "But I digress..." No Terry, that's me. What the hell is wrong with me tonight?

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"What can I say? We had one heck of a ride together. Remember going to the beach with Gar and watching Kian get so excited when Gar turned into an Akiar?" He smiles. "And the time we got ambushed by mobsters?" He pauses. "And I kind of abandoned you because I had a sudden case of paw and- remember that OTHER time when we had a pic-nic? That was fun."

He shrugs, "You know, without you I wouldn't have made it as far as I did. Gar was the key to bringing the Titans back together, but you were the one pushing me to grab a hold of that key."

He pauses. "I know a little of what you're fighting. Trying to fight. The thing you haven't told me the fullness of yet. Or at least by the time of this video. But now that I'm dead, and something caused my death, or someone... I have to wonder." He takes a sip from a glass of water, "What are you going to do? Are you going to go on a rampage and rain holy hell on someone? Because... we kinda talked about that, right? About the whole not going to the dark thing..."

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    "Yeah," Colette replies softly to the phone. "Yeah, I remember. Those were..." She draws in a sharp breath. Why the FUCK is she talking to her phone. To a pre-recorded message on her phone. What the hell is wrong with her tonight?

    He was a friend. I cared about him

    So what! Friends die too. If he didn't die now he'd be dead in a century or two. That was always part of the deal. What difference does a few centuries make? This is ridiculous. Absurd. Pathetic!

    Human.

    The message plays on. "...not going to the dark thing...". She hits pause, stands, and walks to the window, staring out at the city. Yeah, Terry would hate that, wouldn't he? But damn it, he knew. Somehow that fucking idiot actually knew that he was... that he... what. That he was..."

    An anchor.

    Yes. An anchor. And he's gone. So why the fuck not? What does it matter if he's about to say 'please don't' or some kind of bullshit like that, when he's dead? It's not like he cares any more. Who would care if she goes on a rampage? Nobody who matters.

    Colette's eyes are always unusually dark, but they grow even darker. As she stares out over the city, faint, hair-like tendrils of darkness flow out from the her eye sockets, writhing around her face, knotting up and distorting her features. Deep shadow grows around each hand, and starts to spread up either arm. A sweat of blood breaks out over the surface of her skin, sheening black in the light of the city.

    Nobody who matters.

    "Nobody matterstersters," she growls. Eight million lives here, and not one of them mattersattersatters So... why not?not?not?

    It would have mattered to him. It will matter to Gar, to Kian. To Kate.

    They are probably dead too. And if they are, does that change things? Does morality change, because someone dies?

    "Morality is a fantasy of the livingvingving"

    You are living. You chose to be living. This is what you wanted. You're hurting, that's all. You want to change reality, because you're hurting. You can't change it the way you want it changed. You can't bring them back.

    Slowly, inch by inch, the darkness draws back from Colette's body. She stays at the window for a few more minutes, staring, without a thought in her head. Finally she goes back to the sofa and unpauses the video.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Well... I'm gone, but that isn't really that important. I know, easy to say. But I read somewhere that it doesn't matter if something isn't there anymore, what's important is that it meant something. And..."

He reaches over and grabs a paperback book. It looks well-read, by which I mean that it looks like it's about to turn into a rain of pages if someone sneezes on it wrong. He opens it to a page that was bookmarked, and reads, "Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?"

He looks at the book, gives it a pat and puts it aside. "Even if I'm gone. Even if Gar, Raven, all of the Titans are gone /somehow/, it mattered, and it matters. And if I'm gone, Colette... you might need to a light in the darkness to someone. If Gar survived me, he's going to need someone who /understands/ what it's like to feel like they're all alone in the world, even when surrounded by people, because it feels nobody can reach you. Harley- Harley's going to need a light, too. "

He sighs a little and clasps his hands together. "There are two things that will essentially tell me I never did anything right, my friend. One of them, the thing that /you/ can control, is if you abandon everything and follow down... that path. You know the one. The other one isn't up to you, but I hope that what I have done helps him... but as for you."

He reaches over and prods the screen, "I may be a fool, I may be an idiot at times, too, but there are some things I do know. And I know that my words mean something at times."

He leans back. "So this is my bequest, Collette Cottontail," he says with a mischievous smile. "I leave one thing to you. I leave you my name."

He reaches over and the video goes dead.

Colette O'Connail has posed:
    "Don't you dare fuckin' Pratchett me Terry," Colette whispers to the screen. Her face suddenly crumples in misery. "Don't you fucking dare."

    Terry is so damn incompetent. He can't even make a final words video without it going blurry. What is /wrong/ with the guy?

    Was wrong. What was wrong.

    Gar is going to be devastated. That is if he's still alive. Good chance he isn't. That... that sucks. Gar is... Gar is even more of a fucking idiot than Terry, really. Head so far up his own... Shit. He's had a lot to go through. Poor Gar. And Kian. Birdy buddy doesn't need this crap. She should be there for them. Somehow.

    Colette blinks a few times and Terry must have done something to the video, because it's less blurry now. She better go find Gar. Suppose he's dead too? Check the news. Check him on social media, he's bound to have posted something.

    A memorial maybe. Fuck.

    Colette has apparently forgotten to take a breath for a while, so she does so - but it doesn't feel right, it's all kind of juddery and sticking in her throat. Fuck this, fuck all this. It's not fair.

    The video goes dead. Not quite sure why she's doing it, but knowing it feels right, Colette whispers "Terry O'Neil. Terry 'fucking idi-" The words stick. For some reason she can't end the sentence. And her cheeks are wet. Why are...

    This isn't fair. This was never the plan. I did not give you permission to fucking DIE, Terry.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
The hand withdraws, showing Terry again. "OH... I forgot. I still haven't told mom. I don't know if I have by the time you watch this... just a heads up."

He pauses. "... I told Lois, though, okay byeeeee don't punch me!"

And this time, the video ends for real.