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Chapter Text

Kory squeezed her eyes shut and the splendor of galaxies rushed past her eyes; soft, fluorescing collisions of purple, pink, blues and lime green. She felt the air knocked out of her lungs like she were really there, flying through it all --- even catching the wind and space dust on her face.

A strange feeling it was, yet not so strange at the same time. She could compare it to sipping a different brand of tequila, the tequila always tasting the same no matter what bottle it came in. That was space to her: a distant familiarity.

Home, she thought. But there was still an awkward ring to the word. Not like when …

“Hey.”

Dick was standing in the doorway, his eyebrows knitted together.

Kory sat up straighter on her bed. For how long had Dick been standing there, watching her zone out?

“Hey,” she responded instead.

It had barely been a week since Trigon happened. They were both tired from the toll of it all. Dick had just started going outdoors again. His skin was gaining back its color, but his personality was still a long stretch from returning.

Kory’s situation was no different from Dick’s. She was nowhere near doing her laundry and Donna had had to lend her jeans and sweatshirts (all in some annoying shade of black) for the few days the team had spent in her two bedroom apartment, figuring out their next secret base. The war with Trigon was over, but the battle was still on.

“Anything new?” Dick said, managing to fluidly close the distance between them.

She must look like such a mess for him to be worried like that, Kory thought listlessly. Her arm was just close enough to brush Dick’s as he sat beside her, the closest they had ever gotten since arriving there.

“No … yes,” Kory frowned, “I don’t know.”

Dick looked confused. “What exactly?”

“The woman’s voice in the memories I told you about,” Kory explained, “I still here it.” 'We thought you were dead', the voice had once said in her memories.

“Who could she be?”

Kory squared her shoulders more out of irritation than anxiety. “I feel like I should know but I don’t.”

“You must’ve been close,” Dick muttered. The corners of his mouth attempted to stretch into a smile, but the effort melted away half way up. He was still struggling to be happy for her.

“Maybe,” Kory said, because she could not imagine knowing anyone else as closely as she knew Dick, Gar and Rachel. But she had dreamed of knowing the people from her past given the chance. Would she be a bad person to want to know them?

“I remembered something different last night,” Kory blurted out. “Again, coming from that voice.”

The mattress bounced as Dick turned to look at her more directly. His lips barely moved when he said, “What?”

A blow of guilt hollowed Kory’s stomach, and a lump constricted her throat at having to give Dick the agonizing answer.
“That they … they were waiting for me to return. Home,” she said the last word quietly, as though doing so would reduce the suffering Dick was visibly undergoing.

“Are those flashbacks or actual … astral-projections, like with Rachel, in real time?” There was a dry edge to Dick’s voice as he spoke. He was still mistrustful, even doubtful, of the extent of Rachel’s powers. Now he was supposed to believe that aliens from another planet could tap into Kory’s mind at will and she would oblige. His warm, brown eyes narrowed. “Well, are they?”

Kory shrugged her shoulders. “I’m not sure, Dick.”

“So what now?”

“I need to get to my ship.”

“Obviously,” Dick snorted.

Kory drew in a long breath as she braced herself for the conclusion she had come to. “I need to get more closure. Stick to my instincts__ not my heart,” she finally set her eyes on Dick, determined to make him understand, “It’s not enough to know what I am, or where I’m from. I need to feel it … see that all of it is real. ”

“Instinct, I get you.” Dick leaned in closer, and Kory stilled herself from flinching. He was having none of her bullshit, if there was any, in what she had just dropped at him. “But what does your heart say?” His voice was a mere whisper now, and it did things to Kory’s feather weight heart. “What do 'you' think?”

“That all I love is here,” was Kory’s summation of what home was to her. Rachel, Gar and Dick … Puppy Dog Eyes Dick Grayson … were her home. She was a no nonsense woman, but now her cheeks were burning like a hundred degrees at what she had just admitted. She tried to collect her pride. “I didn’t mean … It’s not like I meant you and I …”

Dick crashed into her so suddenly, covering her mouth with a feverish, wet kiss. Kory eagerly responded, drinking in as much of him as she could. How she had missed this so much! He was warm, cool and tasted sweet; determined, stubborn, confused, broken.

He was like a vapor to her now. Even though their arms and lips were tangled up, she was already feeling the distance. Feeling him drift away from her. So she reached for the deepest recesses of his heart in the depths of his mouth, and Dick gleefully allowed their tongues to entwine in a long passionate tango.

“You do know the kids are right across the hall, right?” Donna was like a blaring horn when she made her entrance.

Dick huffed a breath of frustration when Kory’s lips jerked out of reach. “Jesus, Donna, can’t you knock?” He growled.

Chapter Text

“Jesus, Donna, can’t you knock?” Dick said, running a hand over his face.

Kory suddenly got the impression that that was not the first time Donna had run into him with someone. She grit her teeth, wanting nothing more than to shut out her dark curiosity surrounding Dick’s past love life. So she focused on the 6 foot frame of the black clad woman in the doorway, instead.

Donna was a seemingly plain person, all about the simplistic fashion sense that Kory actively opposed. Her knuckles bore red scars from last week’s battle, a remarkable recovery for a person who had preferred ‘mother nature’s’ healing power to conventional bandaging.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Bird Boy! For a moment there I was under the impression this was my house ---” Donna tossed her head back dramatically, “oh, wait, it actually is!”

Last week had left everyone beat and scarred, but it was really the internal wounds that were difficult to recover from. To Kory, Donna was the least damaged of the group. And that gnawed at her insides in a way she could not quite explain.

“Has Rachel eaten anything?” Kory asked.

“A little, yes,” Donna replied, only to return her attention to Dick. “Which brings me to my reason for coming. Dick, you can’t just leave your stale coffee on my table --- this isn’t your pigsty!”

Dick’s face turned a deep, rose red. “Is that all?”

“No,” Donna snapped. She was giving Dick no break, and that had Kory fighting an out-of-nowhere urge to break into laughter.
But when Donna pursed her lips, the fun ball dropped. “How close are you to finding a new place? A business partner of mine called this morning --- said she’d be jetting in from Sweden in a week’s time, kind of has no place to crash so…” Donna trailed off, her face soft with concern. “I’m sorry, Dick.”

Ever since leaving the disaster at the Roth Home, Dick had shown complete opposition --- even outright alarm --- to the suggestion of settling in any of Batman’s safe houses. Of course, Kory had pressed for answers. If Rachel’s face was anything to go by after speaking with Dick about his ‘problem’, though, Kory had to lay off. Until a later time, obviously, because she was no fan of secrets.

“Oh,” Dick said. He locked eyes with Kory, reaching a silent agreement. “A week’s long enough for us,” he told Donna. But his eyes never left Kory.

“Could you go clean my cup then, Dick?” Donna cried out. “Before the kids follow your bad example?”

Dick knew best not to argue. He rose from the bed, pausing at the doorway to sneak a small, reassuring nod at Kory, before uttering a word to Donna on his way out.

“Yeah, yeah,” Donna grunted, rolling her eyes.

Kory was glaring at Donna by the time Dick had fully disappeared into the hallway beyond.

“What?”

“You can’t rope me in by throwing him out, you know?”

“I’m guessing the pun is intended,” Donna chuckled. But it was short lived as an urgency fell upon her face. “Say, do you know what’s wrong with Dick? He’s been a lot more aloof lately, and Gar claimed he heard him gasp in his sleep last night… I was hoping Dick would tell you why.”

Kory sighed, running her fingers through her shock of magenta curls. Dick had clearly not recovered from his knack for ‘secret-zoning’ everyone. At least not fully.

“Trigon must’ve shown him something,” she concluded, going by her instincts. “I can sense it, but he won’t tell me anything,” she looked up at Donna, “Why won’t he tell me?”

Donna’s eyes protruded from their sockets, alarmed. “Don’t look at me, I’m the worst at relationship advice!” When Kory scoffed, she cried, “You know you’re the only one slightly better than me at reading Dick's warped mind. Heck, if I know how you do it!”

“Must be an alien ability,” Kory remarked dryly.

“Yeah, how’s that going for you?” Donna wanted to know, leaning against the doorframe.

Kory huffed a humorless laugh. “Things can’t get any worse than finding out I’m an alien, child assassin of sorts, right?”

“That’s not exactly true,” Donna protested. But more fiercely than usual…all Dick Grayson-ish. “Besides, the kid is kind of creepy---”

“Donna!”

Donna threw up her hands, backing down. “Sorry … sorry!”

Kory understood her, nevertheless. Rachel was in truth a very complicated, even strange, child. And people tended to react violently to things they could not understand, just as the Killdeer community had done to Kory and the team few days ago.

Worry dented Donna’s face as she surveyed Kory. “Look, just because your first moments of getting your memory back were a train wreck doesn’t mean all of it will be.”

“I know that. It’s just…”

“What?”

“What I have here with them --- Rachel, Gar and Dick …” Kory took a moment to undo the tangle of words in her mind, surprised at how they sounded out loud when they aligned. “I wanna choose who to be. I wanna be here and live whatever this is. But at the same time, what’s out there for me…it feels larger than what I want---beyond my power, even. Donna, I can’t have both.”

Donna seemed just as bewildered as Kory was at the statement. For a few, stretched seconds there was silence as they both pondered.

Donna was the first to break. “Maybe, you’re right,” she admitted with a shrug of her shoulders. “But one thing you’re forgetting, Kory, is that you have a choice. Everybody does! It can’t be any different in another planet.”

“You don’t know that!” Kory retorted, incredulous.

“I see Bird Boy’s rubbed off on you in more levels than one,” Donna exploded, the laughter dissolving as fast as it had come, per her standards.

“Oh, shut up!” Kory wanted an opportunity to be as petty as Donna had been.

That was before something suddenly crossed her mind. An odd thought. Of her, bickering childishly with someone else, just as she had been from doing with Donna. Like two siblings, arguing.

Kory started at the realization that she probably had a sister out there, or a brother, that she had shared petty fights with. Just like that, her determination soared up with the rest of her body. She rose from her bed as Donna regarded her warily.

“I could have people that care for me back there,” Kory breathed, dizzy from standing up too fast. “Were you in my shoes, wouldn’t you have wanted to find out too?”

Donna frowned. “That story didn’t go so well with Rachel, remember?”

Kory scowled. What did Donna know about what she was going through? At least she had Diana. Still had her. Someone to look up to, someone familiar, a fellow Amazonian.

But Kory was alone. Had no one. Except Dick and the kids, of course. But how could she possibly give anything to the trio if she knew nothing about herself, her origin? What would she refer to when Dick and the kids needed all of her, not just part of her?

When Kory pulled back to reality, Donna had moved some steps closer. Hardly strong enough to provoke a fight with a lasso-bearing dame at that moment, Kory chose to listen.

“I won’t stop you from going wherever,” Donna made it clear to her, “But, Kory, you should tread carefully. Many times what we see or hear counts for nothing. It’s what we know inwardly that does.”

Anyone could think that Dick and Donna had lifted sayings from the same book. Or hatched a plan to talk Kory down. But there was a truth to what Dick and Donna had said, and Kory could not deny that.

“Can you just not be right for once, Donna?” Kory cried. She was rewarded with a smug grin from Donna, who tapped her shoulder amiably.

“Oh, no, Kory,” Donna said, “I don’t let my friends get away with making bad decisions that easily.”

Kory reveled in Donna’s approval. Perhaps the Amazonian did have a point, she thought. After all, she had never been one to be bossed around. So why should she feel intimidated by her alien, warrior identity now?

But one thing Kory could not deny was that she was changing. And she needed to find out what she was turning into. Desperately.

“I need you to show me how to do my laundry with that thingy,” Kory found herself announcing.

“You mean the washing machine?” Donna said. Her eyes flickered down to the prominent, golden ring Kory was fiddling with. “Kory, what are you up to?” She demanded.

Chapter Text

“You’re leaving?”

Kory whipped around from the dresser to find Rachel standing before her.

The girl appeared aghast, her normally cool, expressionless eyes now raw with worry.

Kory swallowed the urge to chide Rachel about creeping up on people, smiling at her instead.

“Yes! Apparently, Dick needs help finding a motel.” Kory paused to brush the lint off of her deep purple wrap dress, smoothing out the fabric around her hips. “And I thought 'I' was the amateur,” she added, smirking.

But Rachel was not laughing. “I’m coming with you.”

“Rachel, it could take all day to --”

“I need the fresh air.”

“You got a lot of that yesterday with Gar,” Kory pointed out, slipping her golden ring into her finger. “Too much of it, if I might add.”

“What if something bad happens?” Rachel blurted out. She threw up her hands feebly. “What if you get hurt, and need healing?”

Kory wheeled around, pinning Rachel with a curious, narrow eyed gaze. “Where’s all this coming from?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Rachel gritted, as her hands clenched into fists. And for a short, frightful moment, she resembled Trigon, her demonic, biological father. “The point is to stick together, remember?”

Kory tilted her head to the side to smile softly at the 13 year old. “Well, people who stick together need a place to settle, together.”

Rachel was still heavily blanketed with the loss of her family, despite of how deceptive they had been. So it was not surprising that she had expressed an amplified fear of losing Dick and Kory like that -- not when she had just started to gain some semblance of family.

Family, Kory mused. Who wouldn’t cross a line, or two, to protect it? Maybe she had done it before. By razing the Asylum to the ground for hurting Dick, Gar -- and now Rachel (Angela, whom the team had been tricked into saving from the Asylum, was the primary cause of Rachel’s pain).

“Rach, we’re not going anywhere,” Kory affirmed. “And I’m pretty sure Dick and I can handle motel owners and highways.”

At last, Rachel appeared to ease up as her fists unclenched. But the glint of restlessness in her eyes remained, and Kory braced herself for the inevitable.

“Do you still get them,” Rachel asked hesitantly, “…the nightmares?”

It was really just another way of asking Kory what more she had remembered from her past. It was quite adorable, though.

Kory reached out her hand to pat Rachel’s cheek, which was cold under the bubbling warmth of her fingers.

“It’s nothing I can’t manage,” she told Rachel, wishing she could believe her own words.

Mechanically, she turned back to the dresser, and began assembling her jewelry into a tiny pouch.

Then Rachel suddenly spoke. “Don’t be scared of those people. Sometimes there’s no time to be scared. You know what,” she added, not quite meeting Kory’s perplexed eyes.

Of course, she had drawn out that information from their touch. But perhaps Kory had wanted her to know just how much she feared everything: confronting the people of her past, taking steps back in time --or forward steps in the present--to learn about who she was and, perhaps, unlearn it. Because she was not quite sure if she wanted to relearn who she was born to be. In truth, Rachel understood her better than anyone else. Even more than Dick could ever dream of doing.

Kory drew Rachel in for a hug. She smoothened the hair on top of the girl’s head before softly planting a kiss there, so that her lipstick would not rub off.

“Well, great,” she laughed, “You should’ve told me something like that before we bought this dress.”

Rachel pulled away, pouting her lips in protest. “But I love it! It’s dope.”

Since Kory was still under the police radar, Dick had insisted they all do a wardrobe overhaul. But specifically Kory.

To cheer Kory up, Rachel had helped her shop for ‘Retro style’ clothes, supposedly the next best thing to Kory’s funky 80s looks.

Nevertheless, Kory missed wearing her shiny, purple clothes. She twisted her mouth and glumly tugged at the bow holding her wrap dress together at the waist. “Don’t you think it’s plain looking---?” she began to whine.

“Hey, Rach!” Gar exclaimed, swinging into the room. But he broke to a stop halfway in, his mouth falling open, as his smiley eyes ran down Kory’s silhouette. “Whoa!” he breathed.

Rachel turned to Kory, her cheeks swelling with a smug smile. “See,” she giggled, “I told you its dope!”

“What is it?” Kory addressed Gar.

Gar did not immediately drop the silly grin on his face. “You look great,” he told Kory. When he turned to Rachel his face finally gained some urgency. “Wondergirl needs our help clearing the living room.” He paused, looking confused. “No, actually 'we' need her help. The Chips wrappers we left there last night are enough to foil the coffee table, you know,” he added with a nervous chuckle, as Kory openly seethed.

Before Kory could launch into a lecture, Rachel’s voice, icy and dripping with contempt, cut her off. “She has a name, you know,” she said, rolling her eyes. “It’s Donna. Troy.”

Gar fidgeted with the sleeves of his jacket. “Geez, Rachel. She’s not all that mindful of what we call her.”

“It’s barely been a week, Gar. We barely know her.”

Kory looked from Gar to Rachel. “Am I missing something here?”

But Rachel spared Kory no time. “Just call me when you reach safely, okay?” She said. And she glided out, almost walking through Gar on her way out.

Were Kory not so preoccupied with her problems, she could have thought Rachel was throwing a jealous fit. But why exactly, she was yet to be sure.

Gar was still standing in the doorway as Kory fetched her clutch bag. “Better join her before Donna jumps on your throats,” she sighed.

“I wanted to…” Gar threw up a hand. “You know … check up on you maybe?”

Kory frowned. “Why is everyone so concerned?”

“Because you’re a part of us.” Gar’s eyes narrowed. “Isn’t that obvious by now?”

“Of course … I mean, yes,” Kory exhaled, rubbing her temple. The last thing she wanted was for the kids to be put upon by her problems. “I know that, Gar.”

“Rachel told me, you know. About what you’re going through.”

Kory folded her arms before her chest. “So what do you think?”

Gar dropped his gaze from Kory. A beat of silence passed, then he brought his eyes up. Even from a distance, the tear drop trapped in his eyelashes was visible.

Kory’s heart suddenly sunk. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Gar half-smiled, flicking a finger across his eye. “It’s just … sometimes, I wonder if they -- my parents -- would have wanted this for me...”

“Don’t…”

“Sure, I think they’d hate it---on many levels, honestly!” Gar spotted the confusion on Kory’s face before she could help it. He gave her a reassuring nod, indicating what he would say next was meant especially for her. “But, you see, I’ve got to be this … Beastboy. I have people who depend on me now, people I care about. A purpose. That’s what I’d tell my parents if they, you know, came back.”

“What if they still wanted you to stop?”Kory was genuinely curious.

“I’d tell them I’ve changed --- that’s pretty much it,” Gar frowned, looking bewildered by Kory’s question. “Are you okay, Kory?”

“Yeah,” Kory replied. “Just wanted to know this is what you wanted.” But it was her who needed to know what she wanted.

Gar lit up, oblivious. “Well, duh!”

Dick abruptly peered into the room, throwing a glare in Gar's direction. “Hey, what did I tell you?” He cried.

“Oh, yeah!” Gar glanced at Kory and whispered, “I knew I was forgetting something---to call you out.”

Dick’s gaze finally fell on Kory’s dress.
“Huh,” he said. But his voice was flat and heavily impatient. He pointed his prominent chin at the hallway beyond. “C’mon, let’s go.”

Chapter Text

All through the journey, Kory’s mind kept weaving back and forth between Rachel’s and Gar’s words.

'You’re a part of us. Isn’t that obvious by now?' Gar’s voice, soft and ghostly, echoed in her head. Then Rachel’s came on: 'Don’t be scared of those people … sometimes, there’s no time to be scared.'

But the mysterious woman’s voice, deep and imposing, always won over the contest. 'Koriand’r?' It blared. 'We thought you were dead …'

We thought you were dead … we thought you were dead …

But why had the woman thought that? And who was she, anyway? Could it be true, what Dick had suggested about having a history with the woman?

X’hal! Kory wanted to cry out loud, even though she had not the slightest idea what that meant.

“We’re here!” Dick announced.

Kory started out of her reverie to find her vision engulfed with a three storied, modern, real estate jewel, much like the safe house they once held Dr. Adamson in. She blinked twice, not believing her eyes. Not believing Dick.

“I’m very sure you got the wrong address,” she told him. “This looks nothing like a motel.”

Dick shrugged. “That’s because it’s not.”
And he slipped out of the Jeep before Kory could unload a host of questions on him.

An out-of-nowhere wave of agitation pooled in Kory’s chest at Dick’s behavior. It rose to claw at her throat, just waiting to thrash at him.

But she swallowed it, easing herself out onto the flag stoned driveway as Dick walked up to somebody. A woman. Stubby, late forties, suited, holding a pen and clipboard. No eminent threat there. Just a harmless, real estate agent.

“Mr. Grayson,” the real estate agent shook Dick’s hand. “Right on time.”

“It’s a gift of mine, Mrs. Drew,” Dick dipped his hands into his trouser pockets, glancing round the perimeter. "Occasionally, though, it can be a curse.”

So Dick had had the house in his plans for a while?

Kory rushed up to Dick, only to break to a halt right behind his shoulder. She felt odd, all of a sudden, being the subject of the real estate woman’s scrutiny; and something within her still refused to trust the sweet exterior the lady harbored. Instinct or paranoia, Kory could not tell what was setting her off.

“Oh!” Mrs. Drew looked from Kory’s face to her new pair of ankle boots. She then turned to Dick, a wide grin across her round face. “And who’s this lovely lady?”

Dick glanced over his shoulder. “This is Kory. She’s my ...”

Kory held her breath so hard, that her face flushed up.

“My eyes,” Dick completed, but the curl at the corner of his lips showed everything that went unsaid.

“You mean your feminine eye?” Mrs. Drew came up, gesturing for Dick to walk ahead of her through a pair of tinted, glass doors. “Of course, that just makes the selection process easier.”

She then turned on her heels, spotting the blush of embarrassment that had not quite melted away from Kory’s face. “Follow me, then!” she sung. “Right this way, Mrs. Gray---”

“Miss. Anders, ma’am!” Kory cut in.

But that did not stop the elderly lady from giving her a lazy, knowing grin. “Mhmm, ” Mrs. Drew hummed, and the frown on Kory's face melted away despite herseld.

…………….

The house had a cool, homely air to it. Nevertheless, the walls and floors smelt new, as did the quaint furniture, purely in mahogany shades.

Mrs. Drew gushed about the creamy, white carpets, flint-colored walls, and beige curtains being ideal and vogue. But all Kory had her eyes on were locks, bolts and alarm systems. She examined the electro-controlled, living room glass doors with interest, as Dick pretended to listen to Mrs. Drew’s rambling. His eyes were glinting with concern when Kory finally met his gaze, so she went over to him.

“Where did you say the gym room was again?” Kory asked Mrs. Drew, her mind already on training.

“Second floor to your right,” Dick answered instead. When he registered the surprised look on Kory’s face, he explained, “I did a digital tour of the house, just so you know. The gym room’s pretty much the star of the show.”

“But so are the master bedrooms,” Mrs. Drew chimed in. “Would you care to have a look, Ms. Anders – or will the open plan kitchen do it for you?”

Kory twisted her golden ring round her finger. “Can I talk to you, Dick?”

“Perhaps, you could do so upstairs, Ms. Anders?” There was just no stopping with Mrs. Drew. Kory wriggled her shoulder out of the real agent's hand as she directed her attention to the zig zag staircase. “You will find the ambience even more pleasing with every floor…”

His face mirroring everything Kory’s was hiding, Dick started his way up the stairs. “Thank you, Mrs. Drew,” he said through clenched teeth, then beckoned with his head for Kory to follow. “Kory and I can take it from here.”

“Oh-- okay then! Take your time, Mr. Grayson.” Mrs. Drew scribbled something on her clip boarded paper. “And get back to me in twenty minutes, will you? I won’t have gone too far.”

“You’re too kind, Mrs. Drew…” Dick called back, his voice an echo beyond..

Kory ran up the stairs after him when the doors beeped shut behind their overbearing real estate agent. ...... The walls on the second floor were thick, so Kory felt like she was walking through a deceptively beautiful horror house, in those old, silent horror movies she watched occasionally with Gar.

“Dick?” She called out, her heart jammed in her throat. “Dick!”

“Hey!” Dick emerged from the room at the end of the hall. “Over here.”

Kory took her boots off when she finally reached him. And man, was the master bedroom something! It was spacious, moderately furnished; a wide, silver ray of midday sunlight slanting in through a glass protected balcony, facing the urban skyline.

At the center lay a king sized bed, covered in beige and white beddings with a row of hazel, silk pillows neatly arranged over each other, at the head.

“Not bad,” Kory remarked, dropping her boots at the door. She groaned when her bare feet rubbed through the fluffy carpet. “But I need to know what’s going on,” she set her eyes hard on Dick, who had his back to her as he stood in the balcony, “How will you pay for all this anyway?”

Dick spun around. “Trust fund.”

“Bruce Wayne’s?”

“Under my name, of course.” Dick flicked his tongue across his lips. “Might as well put one thing from him to ‘actual’ good use.”

Kory heaved a sigh of exasperation. On the one hand, she was caving under all the surprises Dick kept throwing at her. On the other, she wanted to know why he was so comfortably tackling his insecurities all of a sudden. Then, of course, there were the questions concerning her own identity, playing like a broken record in her mind.

So she asked Dick the most average question. “Are you sure about this?”

“I don’t want to run anymore. Trigon’s not a done deal, I know. But we can do this, don’t you think?” A smile cracked Dick’s face open. “Take him on. Together.”

Kory wanted to cry yes. Yes, she wanted a safe space with just Dick, Gar and Rachel. More than anything. She wanted to fight for them. With them. No matter what it cost her. Because they were all she had come to cherish in the little time she had spent consciously on Earth.

But she was also an alien warrior, commissioned to protect Tamaran from harm. Somehow, though, she had woken up on Earth, having no clue as to what her mission was, and a strange someone only recently started whispering in her ear that they had thought she was dead.

“I’m afraid for Rachel,” Kory admitted. “She’s wavering. Maybe, me too.” She fiddled with her ring as she reached the inevitable conclusion. “It’s more complicated now, Dick.”

Dick did not immediately react. Instead, he watched her quietly, his lips a tight line.

“Are you still going with your plan?” He addressed Kory eventually. “We’re not so far from your ship.”

Kory had not really thought about visiting her spaceship. At least not that soon. All she had wanted was fresh air, and when Dick had pleaded with her to go motel hunting with him, she had said why not.

“The Starfire,” Kory remembered out loud. “That’s the name of my ship,” she explained, when Dick’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “And before I put it in that abandoned warehouse to continue with my mission, I remember crashing.”

“An accident,” Dick speculated.

“Hell of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

Dick shifted on his heels. “Kory, are you suggesting …?”

“To cloak the ship, I must’ve been running from some kind of trouble.”

“Or you just needed to keep humans at bay,” Dick suggested, but his jaw clenched. “If what you’re thinking is true, wouldn’t you have remembered who was hounding you by now?” His eyes were darting when they settled firmly on Kory’s. “Kory, if you think you were in danger maybe …” He trailed off and fell silent.

“You think I shouldn’t go to the ship,” Kory deduced.

“No!” Dick shook his head, alarmed. “’All I’m saying is you should apply tact. You know --- go low key, take your time, get solid details about what must’ve happened.” His face softened. “Kory, you need to be well prepared.”

Kory’s heart did a flip. Had Dick just admitted that he wanted her to stay with him? Longer?

She should not feel elated like that, in the middle of a serious conversation, but there she was --- unable to help herself. Because she was yet to come across a person so damaged, so mysterious yet so beautifully unpredictable, caring and tender.

There could only be one Dick Grayson, and it saddened her to imagine a life beyond several galaxies, where no such person existed.

“Okay, then,” Kory conceded. “But I’ll need one thing to prepare myself with. And it’s in my ship.”

Dick looked skeptical. “Death of Worlds…”

With the help of the ancient Tamaranean book, Kory had managed to summon a black hole and, with Rachel’s help, thrust Trigon into a foreign dimension. For how long the black hole could hold, the book could not say. So the team had agreed to keep the Death of Worlds under lock and key, in the Starfire, where Trigon could not gain easy access, should he escape. And he surely would try.

“There must be something in there I can use to fill the gaps in my mind.”

“The book is not safe outside your ship,” Dick reminded Kory. He lifted his hand to his face, heaving a sigh into his palm. “But we could save the information you need from it on my phone … take pictures.”

“Great idea.” Kory returned Dick’s smile, equally grateful as she was wary. Her journey had officially began and the relief trickling down her body was so overwhelming, that she wanted Dick to share in that feeling, that precise moment.
“So you’re never gonna tell me…?”

She did not have to finish the sentence for Dick to realize where she was headed.

“Kory, no,” he groaned.

“You trust me enough, don’t you?”

“You know I do. I’m just … not ready to talk.”

“Okay…” Kory walked over to a dresser and leaned on it. She was now just a few steps away from the balcony area where Dick was standing. “So what if Rachel tells me?”

“Wh--?” Dick began, but he stopped to shake his head when things added up. “Right! I forgot.”

Rachel could learn people’s secrets without even asking about them. At one touch, the teenage empath had stumbled upon Dick’s nightmare; the one Trigon had conjured up to turn him to the dark side.

Kory tilted her head, trying to catch Dick’s eyes as he looked anywhere but at her. “How bad was it? Because Rachel has not spoken a word of it to me ever since seeing you.”

Another resigned sigh, and Dick brought his eyes up to meet Kory’s searching ones. “I don’t want to go over the details,” he said, his voice low in his throat.

“Then don’t.” Kory dared to close the charged distance between them, so that just 4 feet stood in their way. “Just quit pushing me away.”

Dick’s gaze wavered. He dipped his hands into his pockets before steadying his eyes on Kory again. “You got hurt. Seriously.” He pulled his hands out of his pockets to run them through his hair, and Kory noticed his eyes glistening with something. Tears. Just a thin film of it.
“And I just lost it. I turned to the darkness…” Dick paused to shake his head. “No. I became the darkness.”

“Trigon’s a liar,” Kory found herself bursting out. She could not help it. Seeing Dick that way made her want to smash something, or someone. “None of that bullshit he showed you was real, okay?”

“But what if he gets to you?” Dick snapped. But he was addressing the air more than her. “What if I never get to see you again?”

“Never see me again?” Kory watched Dick anxiously. The sag of his shoulders, the labored breathing, and the utter brokenness in his dilated eyes all spelt bad news. But she shook off the temptation to prod him further, remembering her promise to not have him go over the details of his dream.

A quiet moment drifted by, Kory watching Dick, Dick watching her.

“There’s many ways of hurting a person, Dick,” she eventually said, cocking her head to one side. “For instance, how do you think 'I' feel when you keep secrets from me?”

“Am not…” Dick began to protest.

“Don’t answer that,” Kory interjected, rolling her eyes, “It’s more of a rhetoric question, than me being a pain in your ass.”

And Dick laughed at that. Really laughed: eyes crinkling up, head thrown back, the dimple on his cheek deepening. He looked even more handsome carefree.

Unable to contain the warmth swelling in her chest, Kory drew closer.

Dick stopped laughing when he noticed her proximity to him. His eyes grew wide and the sunlight beatifully brought them out, casting an amber flicker across them.

“And how about this place?” He asked softly, referring to the house.

“It’s a surprise, Dick,” Kory giggled, “not a secret. And I like it.”

Dick wrapped his hands around her waist, keeping her at arm’s length, so that his eyes could tread down her body. “Never seen this dress before. Secret of yours, or what?”

"What, you don’t like it?” Kory frowned.

“I wouldn’t be picturing you out of it if I did.”

Dick leaned into Kory so fast, only to brush his lips (soft and reminiscent of that morning’s maple syrup) against hers. Kory snatched them, and he relented, kissing her at last.

The kiss was neither intense nor gentle. It was mild and slow, and Dick was always sweet and patient with her; moving along fluidly with every brush, twist and jolt of her lips.

His breathing grew more ragged when his fingers found the knot holding Kory’s dress together at the waist. “Here,” he breathed, desperate, “help me get this off of you, please?”

Kory fought to break the spell she was under, emerging just partly from it. “But Mrs. Drew ...”

“Won’t be back in ten minutes,” Dick kissed her jawline, “25 seconds,” her neck, “and whatever milliseconds,” and playfully ran a finger along the plunging V-neck of her dress. He then dug his fingers into her waist, gently leading her towards the king sized bed. “C’mon. We’ll be done in 8.”

Chapter Text

Kory stared at Dick from the corner of her eye, because he never looked more perfect than at that moment: strands of hair flapping about his eyes, his hands gently maneuvering the steering wheel, his lips slightly parted, as he worked on concentrating on the road… which he was doing badly at.

As far as it went, Dick was poor at pretending. Throughout the drive, she had caught him stealing glances at her lips, her hand on her lap, and at the way she kept tossing her curls over her shoulder.

Kory had done her fair share of staring too. And why should she not?

The last couple of days, let alone the last couple of hours, had been the most eventful in her present life.

She had made friends, made enemies; nearly lost her life, and watched her friends at the brink of losing theirs; skipped one motel for another, then moved into a three storied house, with Dick.

She had also, perhaps, learned (or grasped the idea of): what it was like to fall in love, and fall out of it. In the most unexpected, inexplicable and twisted way possible… with a hard set cop she had come to know in just a couple of days.

Kory adjusted herself in her seat, making it apparent to Dick that she was staring. “Thank you,” the words slipped out of her mouth.

Dick took his eyes off the road to face her, perplexed. “For what?” He asked, laughter in his voice.

Kory took a moment to think. How could she even begin listing things down? She had lost count of all the ways in which Dick, Rachel and Gar had anchored her, in their respective, unique ways, throughout their ordeal.

“I don’t know…” She admitted. “Everything, I guess.”

Dick shifted his attention to the road, maybe too conveniently. “How generous of you,” he blushed, and stretched his arm to flick the air conditioning button on, “But I believe we’re not through yet.” He chuckled pensively, and then his eyes were back on her. “This isn’t a goodbye, remember?”

Kory did not answer. She just groaned, slumping back into her seat.

“We have an hour and a half to go,” Dick informed her. “Get some rest.”

“I don’t need to,” Kory grunted from the corner of her mouth, too tired to argue. Sleeping was not exactly her idea of relaxing these days, seeing as they were almost always accompanied by nightmares and waves of puzzling memories from her past life. Not only did those memories cause her excruciating physical pain, but they also, only recently, stirred up a relatively new emotion within her: dread. The chest tightening kind.

“Can’t wait for all of this to be over,” she mumbled.

Dick nodded discreetly, and when his eyes found their way back to Kory, an intense warmth was brewing in them; a brown sea storm of affection, that turned her insides into mush.

“It’s okay,” he said, “I’m right here.”

“I can see that.” Kory rolled her eyes, anything to get him to lose that killer expression on his face. “Also,” she sighed, “I’m not going to sleep, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”

Dick glanced at the road overhead, the smile on his face untamable. “Says the girl who’s yet to maneuver through her mammoth sized ship --”

“Dick, we only need to do one thing—get the book,” Kory interjected.

“Well,” Dick flicked his tongue across his lips, his eyebrow shooting up, “that’s not the only thing we can do in a mammoth sized ship, Kory.”

“What happened to mission critical?” Kory teased back, her grin wider than Dick’s. The world must have turned upside down, she reasoned, for him to be the less focused one for a change. After all, it was she who was embarking on a personal mission today, and he was the one apparently championing the flirting.

Or maybe the world was just normal, and Dick was just as enchanted by her as she was with him. Perhaps Dick Grayson actually… really liked her, as much as she did him…

Dick rounded a bend. “The mission still stands,” he said, tossing yet another lop-sided smile in Kory’s direction. “But seriously, Kory. Get some rest.”

“Only if you keep your eyes on the road, Grayson,” Kory bit back, smirking. At least one of them had to pay for bossing the other around.

She sighed resignedly as Dick drove over a bump, the stretch of road ahead of them still desolate and grim. “Just wake me up if I get weird,” she conceded defeat. “I know Rachel won’t tell me this, but I freak out in my sleep.”

Dick drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I’ve been there too, remember?” He cast her a solemn look. “It helps, though. To remember the good things.”

“Okay then,” Kory drew up her fur coat from the right side of her seat, wondering exactly how much of the silly smile on her face Dick had seen after the ‘good things’ part. She coiled into the side window, and lazily watched her breath form on the glass.

One breath. Two breaths, three breaths… four… five…

Then darkness.

Chapter Text

Dick was hovering over her, eyes heavy lidded but his hand against her cheek: hot and throbbing. He wiped the tear from under her eye with a feather light stroke of his thumb.

“It’s okay,” he said, voice low and soothing, “I got you.”

Kory gave in as he dipped down to kiss her, still sore from the torture at the Asylum, but longing for the warmth he radiated nevertheless.

“How’s this feel?” Dick whispered, before taking her nipple into his mouth. Something in Kory snapped, and she was suddenly less sore. She grunted, the words in her throat unable to escape.

“Kory,” Dick mumbled.

“G-good … so good.”

Then he was ducking down between her legs, at lightning speed. Kory collapsed into the pillows, brimming over with the pleasure of Dick's ministrations.

“How ‘bout now?” she heard him ask over the light buzz in her ears. All she wanted was for the idiot to stop talking, so she could drown further in the sensation of him on her---the warmth, the heat, the cool wetness from him, feverishly shooting up her groin. “Huh, baby?” Dick groaned, intoxicated.

Kory said nothing immediately. She just watched his head bob up and down under her, before finally reaching down to lace her fingers through that luscious mane of brown hair. “Faster, Dick …” She moaned, “Faster!”

For a split second, she thought she saw the walls rippling like a blue-grey wave in the ocean, even as her vision whitened with tiny stars.

She looked harder, but Dick suddenly crowded her line of sight, puzzled. “What is it?”

“Uh…”Kory glanced at the wall again. Nothing but solid brick stared back.

“Kory,” Dick pushed her curls from her face, pulling her focus back to him. “Everything’ll be okay. You’re safe now.”

Then the flutter in Kory’s chest returned, descending sharply into a burning need for him. She obeyed the instinct, and Dick whimpered in surprise as she flipped him over onto his back, pinning him at the wrists to the bed.

Dick’s lips curled up to one side, devilishly. “What just happened?”

“I can be full of surprises,” Kory smirked. She laid a hand on his built chest, and ran it down the smattering of hair between his pecs to the depression in his navel, and down to…

Dick jolted up before she even got there, nose to nose against her face; panting heavily, before his face twisted… morphed, into something else. Someone else. An older man, reeking of German Whiskey, with a satisfied leer across his wide, clean shaven face: Konstantin Kovar.

Bewildered, Kory landed onto the floor with a thud, and struggled to cover her body with the little bit of bedsheets she had gotten away with.

“I TRUSTED YOU!” Kovar roared.

But Kory could not move, somehow glued to the floor below his approaching, towering form.

“You’re dead!” She gasped, her voice hoarse and scratchy in her throat. “You’re dead…you’re dead…”

When Kovar’s form stepped out of the shadow, however, he was Dick again. Fully dressed, just as she was now. His lips peeled away into a snarl, and his teeth ground out: “You tried to kill Rachel!”

Rachel, ghostly white, peered from behind Dick. Kory winced, looking away from the innocent brokenness in those eyes.

“No, I would never do that,” she sobbed, Dick’s accusation unleashing a pain so raw within her, she had not known existed. “Never. Please…no, Rachel--”

“You played us all, you crazy bitch!” A man’s voice, Russian, sneered at her. Kory already knew who that was. How could she forget? And his point was damn clear too. It cut through her heart like a blade, and she bled anger.

“I’m not a murderer!” Kory yelled. The moment she caught sight of the Russian man, from the Austrian hotel, with the fresh strangle marks around his neck, however, the words hang limp on her lips.

She scooted up her feet and tried desperately to move her foot forward, but, alas, she was still nailed to the ground.

There were no walls around her now, just pitch blackness; and the echo in the formless room sent a wave of Déjà vu over her; although she could not figure where it belonged in her mess of a mind.

Dick huffed a scornful laugh at her, and it just felt wrong. But it hurt her no less.
“Try not to kill this one, okay?” He tipped his head to the side, directing Kory’s attention to the charred remains of Kovar, whose eyes, black and beady, rolled in their bony, hollowed sockets.

Kory fell to her knees, squeezing her eyes shut, but she could still see the charred body behind her eyelids.

“What?” Rachel’s voice, deep, distorted and oozing Trigon, scoffed at her, “It’s not like you’re a murderer. HAHAHA!”

A fragment of a memory occurred to Kory the more she shut out the hysterical laughter around her. What was it exactly…? Remember… good things… Yes--- that was it! Remember the good things --- someone had told her that before---

“Wanna play a game?”

Kory startled, opening her eyes. “Gar?”

The blue-grey walls were back, and they were in the living room but Dick, Rachel, Kovar and his Russian goon were nowhere to be seen.

Gar tucked his phone into his jacket. “You okay there, Kory? You’ve been doing yoga for like an hour.”

“What?” Kory confirmed that she was indeed on the floor, her legs crossed and in a pair of violet yoga pants she had never seen before.

“Not funny.” Gar moved forward to stretch out a hand. “C’mon, Rachel’s finally about to finish making lunch…”

“No, I can help myself,” Kory wrenched her hand away from Gar’s firm grasp, steadying herself onto her feet slowly.

And when she moved her foot forward after having failed to do so in the bedroom, she immediately knew something was wrong. Even though everything seemed normal in that moment.

“What is it, Kory?” Gar asked, worried.
But Kory was not falling for it, or the pair of leggings she did not remember purchasing. She drew back so that there was a safe six feet distance between them.

“Those ‘things’ were not Dick and Rachel,” she asserted, her heart thumping crazily in her throat. “So what are you?”

Gar’s lips turned deathly white, and they violently rolled away to reveal saber sharp canines, flashing an alien silver hue.

Kory fell onto her back, gasping, when Gar began convulsing, swamp green spikes ripping through his jacket.

The green creature unwound itself before her, standing at a formidable nine feet: an alien, reptilian hybrid, bearing a scowling face, a barreled chest and a golden Bo staff. “Let the games begin, Tamaranean scum,” it snarled, a sly leer cracking its scaled face.

Never before had Kory experienced such blistering hatred than at that moment. Not even for Trigon. It clogged her up to the point of numbness, to the point that it scared her who she would turn to, were she to unleash all her firey glory on the slimy monster…

“Remember the good things,” she whispered to herself, hands to her ears. “Remember, remember, remember…”

“Kory?” Dick called out to her.
She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, a whimper at the tip of her lips.

“Kory!”

Kory’s eyes flitted open, and the wind was rushing in her face, cool and sobering. She turned to him—to Dick, as he surveyed her with concern. “I don’t feel so well,” she managed to say.

Dick’s jaw relaxed and his smile was wide and sunny. “Of course you don’t!” He chuckled. “We’re pregnant, babe. It’s normal.”

…………….

Kory jerked awake, just as the car hit the rough road, white soil crunching under the tires.

She could tell everything was back to normal, but the awkwardness she had just been ripped from was still doing all the crazies in her fever of a body.

“About time!” The real Dick Grayson exclaimed.

“Not now, please,” Kory grunted, kneading her temples with her ring finger. “How long was I gone for?”

“More than an hour.” He attempted an apologetic face when Kory grunted, “You deserved a break, Kory. It’s not like I was thinking of turning the car around.”

“Not a bad idea,” Kory muttered, but Dick had not heard her. His eyes were fixed ahead, on the derelict warehouses looming up on them.

Kory’s heart clenched momentarily when the memory of the swamp green reptile flashed before her eyes. Whatever it was, and the intense hatred it had roused in her, must be explained in detail in the Death of Worlds.

Would it come looking for her? Did it pose a threat to the people she cared about? Was it worse a threat than bloody Trigon?

“Rachel called by the way,” Dick came up. “Worried ‘bout you.”

“Oh, fuck!” Kory cried. “Yeah, I said I’d call her once we got a place.”

Dick squinted at the sunset flare on the windshield. “She told me to tell you to remember… whatever it is you two talked about?”

Kory smiled as Rachel’s words came rushing back to her: "Don’t be scared of them…sometimes there’s no time to be scared," the empath had told her.
Everything now added up.

“Here goes nothing,” Dick sighed, braking the car to a stop.

Kory beat him at unbuckling seat belts, stepping out into the dust filled air just as the sun set over the rusty warehouse concealing the Starfire.

“You came around fast,” Dick remarked, as he slammed his door shut.

Kory threw him a cheeky smirk. “What can I say? I’m full of surprises.”

Chapter Text

Kory’s senses swung into full drive when they stepped into the warehouse. She supposed it was a hidden talent, or inclination. But it could as well have been the Tamaranean within her bursting out, right?

Her hearing snapped mute, effectively shutting out the noises in her surroundings: she could no longer hear the slosh of Dick’s misguided feet in the water puddles, the click of her ankle boots on the worn cement floor; the chirping of crickets in dark corners, and not even the distant creak of rusted pulleys on high rafters.

Then, in the seemingly clear space before her, she picked out a distinct sound. A hum. The hum of the Starfire, come to life. Pulsing into slow activity. Waiting for her.

Dick came to a stop just as she did. “The floor’s yours.”

Kory took a few, slow steps forward. Talking endlessly about making a pit stop there should have prepared her for that moment. But as it turned out, she wasn’t as prepared as she thought she’d be.

The air above her cracked, and purple light swept down her eyes. She shuddered as the beam ran down to her feet before making a return trip up her body, and dissipating.

“Okay,” Dick breathed, as a purple beam disappeared over his head as well.

The Starfire’s cloaking screen -- a shimmering sheet of electrical charges -- noisily materialized, before dissolving to reveal the mammoth, jet black body of Kory’s spaceship.

“KORIAND’R!” The Starfire confirmed.

Kory gasped in surprise. How had she forgotten how exhilarating-- how right-- it had felt being there, watching her ship unveil, calling out her name? Some called that sensation fate. Others, destiny. But whether either of those would turn in her favor, Kory had no clue. That was what worried her the most.

“X’hal!” The word finally left her lips.

A ladder clanked down from under the belly of the spaceship, inviting Kory into a world she should be excited to explore, but that she mostly feared.
…………………….

Dick never ceased to be amazed by Kory’s ship. He stepped into the passageway like it were his first time again, eyes darting around and his hands all twitchy.

On any other day, Kory would have been amused by his behavior. Today, however, was hell of different.

Before her eyes was a long stretch of…well…metal, and blue lights filtering through the decks and bulkheads.

Overhead, on a raised platform, was the cockpit, looking out into the warehouse through a long stretch of clear glass. And at the center of all that outlandish glory was the console, bearing the Death of Worlds. Or the Ghoulren-desdai, in Tamaranean.

Kory swallowed deep. All that belonged to her: a ginormous reminder of how her past life dwarfed her present one on Earth with Dick, Rachel and Gar.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Dick startled her, walking from behind her to the console. He wanted to be done with things fast, obviously.

“I didn’t think you’d keep it,” Kory remarked, as he flipped open his Wayne enterprise phone, the one he’d used in his Robin days. “Why can’t we use any other phone?”

“Because it can’t be tracked, won’t break under stress, and,” Dick exhaled loudly, “yeah, insane pixel quality.” He drummed his fingers on the console. “Mere necessity, is all.”

“If you say so.”

Kory rounded the console to stand across from Dick and reached for the Death of Worlds at the center. Dick frowned, and was soon by her side.

“Kory, I’m not going back to Robin.” He dipped his head down, trying to capture her eyes. “Hey,” he whispered, “I promise.”

“You’re okay, Dick,” Kory said, meeting his gaze for a short, tender moment. “But you have to keep your chin above water, not get carried away by the nostalgia.”

“I…” Dick trailed off and exhaled (she always beat him at his game, and she loved that). “Okay. Let’s… let’s get through with this.”

Holding her breath, Kory drew the Death of Worlds closer. It weighed thousands of lifetimes of knowledge from the faraway planet of Tamaran; a planet of light and community, solidarity and loyalty. She could tell all of that just by touching it.

As she flipped the worn leather cover open, her hands could not help trembling.
At Donna’s, she and Dick had pondered the possibility of astral projection, after she had dreamed of being called back ‘home’, by the mysterious woman’s voice.

Kory flipped through a few more pages, scanning for any information on Tamaranean communication systems.

Then, seeing that she had about one thousand pages to wade through, her hand mechanically moved to press itself against the computer interface on the console.

“Astral-projection systems,” she said, as Dick quirked an inquiring eyebrow at her. The words had left her mouth flawlessly in Tamaranean. “Communication systems,” she explained to him in English, just before a blue projection, displaying Tamaranean inscriptions sprung up from the interface.

“What’s it say?” Dick asked, squinting at the lettering.

“That my imagination runs wild.” Kory cleared her throat as she flipped through more pages. “What the woman told me in my dreams … what I thought was astral projection, it wasn’t real.”

“Kory, I’m--”

“Let’s move on,” She cut him cold. Dick only meant well, but who knew what other bad surprises lied ahead?.

“Here,” Dick said, giving her his phone. He closed a firm hand around hers in the process, squeezing it just right. Reassuring her. “I think you need to do this alone?”

“No, I prefer you be here,” Kory countered, without batting an eye. She needed him as much as he needed her. Even though they were yet to openly acknowledge whatever was blooming between them.

“Okay,” Dick blushed. He pointed to the phone, which was already set to camera mode. “Knock yourself out.”

Kory inhaled deeply before allowing herself to venture further into the Ghoulren-desdai. Pages, pages, so many pages. Because she hardly knew what to look for, it was like drowning in an ocean.

Then Trigon, an illustration of his diabolical, beastly form, emerged from that ocean.

The sound Dick made in his throat was loud enough for Kory to hear. “We’re taking this,” she told him, clicking away at the camera; capturing the entire chapter documenting: Trigon’s extra dimensional nature, how to temporarily hold him captive, and the exact set of trials Rachel would have to complete (when she got stronger) in order to permanently defeat him.

“Any info on how long we can hold that bastard?” Dick grunted, referring to Trigon. He peered over the book, squinting his eyes, as though he would understand a word or two if he just looked harder.

And Kory’s stomach twisted at how so different they already seemed from each other: a human and an alien, the intellectual gap between them only widening with every passing minute.

She peeled her eyes from Dick and ran a finger down the Tamaranean inscriptions on the page, coming to a sharp stop at the middle. “It says five hundred and fifty five days,” she gasped in surprise, turning to Dick.

“That’s a year and a half from now,” Dick deduced.

“And a little past Rachel’s four hundred days of training,” Kory added.

“A hell of training coming our way too.”

Kory locked eyes with Dick and, in that moment, shared the weight of his previously stated facts: Rachel. 555 days. Training. Worrying. Agonizing pain.

But it was nothing they could not manage, together.

She soon found her mind slipping back to Dick’s words from their time on the road: “Well, that’s not the only thing we can do in a mammoth sized ship, Kory,” he had suggested, his eyes dancing, and his smile devious. Just like now.

Kory promptly dropped her gaze, redirecting it to her hands on the Ghoulren-desdai. And she just kept flipping through pages, until Dick had wandered off, leaving in his wake the mild waft of his cologne.

Then, for the first time, she took notice of the page her hand had settled on: ‘The Vega System’. A diagram showed her that it consisted of the planet Tamaran, along with few other planets, whose histories were summarized in untidy lettering, like someone had merely scribbled them.

Wayne Enterprise technology was amazing, Kory could not deny, as she liberally took pictures.

The clicking noises alerted Dick. “What you got?”

“The solar system for Tamaran … Vega system, they call it,” Kory explained. She let the smile on her face reign free when she looked at Dick from over her shoulder. “Nothing interesting.”

“It’s getting dark,” Dick peered through the wide, glass porthole, “yeah, Donna and the rest could be worried sick by now.”

“I love your enthusiasm.”

“You have beds here, right?”

“They’re more like tubes,” Kory cracked up, “so I’d prefer our bed any day_”

“I…” Dick blinked at her, bewildered, “…wasn’t aware we were sharing.”

“No, we aren’t exactly--we just--” Kory clamped her mouth shut, defeated. Damn it! Why had she gone ahead of herself? How was it that she was already imagining a year and a half, and possibly more, with this man; sharing a bed, which would look perfect draped in purple and cream beddings? How was it that she desired so much to fill this man’s life with light, laughter …and love, when it had barely been three weeks? How was it that her heart split down the center and bled out grief, at the thought of him depriving himself of feeling what she felt for him?

Dick was still not ready, yet aliens were called ‘complicated’.

“You’re distracting me,” Kory murmured, whipping her head back to the console so hard, that her vision blurred.

And when it stabilized on the Ghoulren-desdai, her spine frosted over.

A familiar, scaly face with menacing saber sharp canines was scowling at her, live-like, even on paper.

But it was nothing compared to the majestic, ape-like being trampling over it with.

A Citadelian, it was called: savage and domineering, and wielding the same Bo staff its scaly faced beast had brandished at Kory in her nightmares.

“Let the games begin, Tamaranean scum,” the menacing words resurfaced in Kory's mind.

Suddenly, memories came tumbling in: the blows to her head, the twisting, burning and grinding of chains round her wrists and waist, the biting cold of the floor on her naked body as cold, guttural laughter filled the dark torture chamber…

Kory’s fists clenched so hard until the veins on them throbbed. The all-consuming anger she had experienced in her nightmares bubbled hot and thick, and threatened to spill over.

Not in front of Dick, she prayed. X’hal, not in front of him.

“Hey, Kory…” Dick began.

“Not now.”

“Was this on the last time you were here?”

“Lemme guess, another surprise?” Kory could not tell what upset her more: Dick’s snubbing, or her apparent torture under a rival planet called the Citadel, who she was yet to link to a specific point in her past life.

“No, it looks pretty serious,” Dick insisted, and his face was all levels of concerned when she spun round. He stretched out a hand to her, and Kory forgot everything. “C’mere,” he said.

His hand on her shoulder was unwavering as he guided her into the cockpit and before the computer interface.

“It’s a distress button,” Kory confirmed, taking a close look. It had been turned on, its blinking purple light fickle, like it had grown tired of waiting.

“I must’ve called for help before crashing,” Kory concluded, turning to Dick.

He furrowed his eyebrows. “Yes, but wouldn’t they have come for you immediately?”

“A slight interference."

“Kory, this ship is as technologically sophisticated as they come.”

“I know you think there’s cause to worry--”

“Is there something you’re not telling me?” Dick’s voice broke, and had he known what she was keeping from him… No, he wouldn’t know any of it yet. They already had enough trouble coming with Rachel. Now her too?

“No…” Kory said, holding her breath. “Of course not. I mean, there could be something to worry about, we just don’t know what it is yet.”

“I don’t know,” Dick sighed, running a hand across his mouth. “It could be too much for you, digging further. What if you won’t like what you find, what then?”

“Then you should trust me to deal with it,” Kory answered, meaning every word. “I’ve done it before, Dick…we’ve done it before, and we saved Rachel.”

Dick swallowed, then he was looking at her straight in the eyeballs. “And what if you like what you find?”

“Dick…” Kory tried to stop him.

“It could happen, Kory.”

Kory swiped her tongue across her teeth as her chest tightened. Dick was demanding to know about their future, but the truth was that she had no clue what she’d choose: Earth or Tamaran. Each had shown themselves to be as problematic as they were puzzling, and the more she learned, the more one fact became clearer to her: Earth was her heart, but Tamaran was her soul.

Dick touched her arm, snapping her attention back to him. He was desperate to know, barely breathing, eyes wide and inquiring.

Kory could not run away from that discussion. She knew they would reach there eventually. “Then I’d tell you not to wait for me,” she said, deadpan. Her nostrils flared hot, and her eyes stung because she had actually acknowledged how concrete ‘the thing’ between Dick and her had become.

Dick just blinked at her, but Kory could sense he needed an explanation.

“Build a life for yourself,” she continued, “and Rachel and Gar. Protect them, and whoever else needs help.” She attempted a smile. “The best way you can…the best way you know.”

“Even after all we’ve been through?” Dick laughed, the sarcasm in his voice scathing. “If we mattered to you at all…if I mattered…” He let the words go unsaid, huffing a breath through his nostrils. “Kory, Donna told me you’ve been considering leaving us for your…family,” he finished, dragging out the last word with difficulty.

“Not because I want to,” Kory argued. The idea that he could believe that about her scared her. “I’m not selfish, Dick--”

“Nobody said you are!” Dick interjected, leaning closer. “I’m in over my head,” he sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” Kory exhaled. She reached up to the side of his face, running her thumb along his cheekbone. He closed his eyes, letting out a groan. “What is it?” She demanded.

“I have no right to stop you from knowing more about your past, but I can’t help it sometimes.” A smile slowly crept across Dick’s face. “I was getting a hang of the ‘team thing’ we have going on here.”

“We’ll always be a team, Dick.” Kory smiled back, dropping her hand from his face. “So let’s go through with what we’d planned…”

“What’re you doing?”

She had been walking two of her fingers around the Distress button. “You were right,” she answered, glancing at Dick. “If Tamaran needed me, they’d have saved me a long time ago.” She let the words reverberate through her mind, and do what they could to affirm her conviction. Then she immersed herself in Dick’s eyes, never letting up her gaze. “I’m not in distress anymore,” she said. “Maybe I’m where I need to be.”

Home.

Kory turned off the button without a second thought. She needed none. Rachel and Gar were the ones that needed her. And when Dick looked at her the way he was doing-- like the happy, untainted man he could have been had the pain of loss not damaged him… Gosh, was there a reason to reconsider anything?

“WHOA!” Dick exclaimed as the ship quaked, and metal rattled. Kory clung to the pilot seat, steadying herself fast enough to catch Dick from falling over.

'What have you done?' a woman was raging, in the back of her head.

“What’s happening?” Dick shouted over the roar of the Starfires’s engines. It resounded across the passageways and walls, but it was not as powerful or shrill as the cry of a siren preceding it.

“DISTRESS MODE DEACTIVATED!” A Tamaranean Artificial Intelligence declared over a PA. “INITIATING FLIGHT MODE!”

“KORY?” Dick cried.

'You can’t help yourself. You’ve done it again, haven’t you?' the woman's voice continied, tempered and impatient.

'Let me go! I said let me go,' a younger Kory was screaming, wrenching her arm from a firmer, more experienced hand. 'Don’t make me do this.'

'Koriand’r, NOOOO!'

Kory’s blood curdled when she zoned back to reality, the siren cries filling her ears.

Dick had dragged her to the console, and her body was aching in places, like she had fallen a few times on her way there.

He cursed when his phone fell onto the deck, and quickly picked it up, securing it in his jacket. Then he pulled Kory to him, to drag her out, because they were a few feet from the exit.

But Kory wrenched her hand from his. “Dick, run!” She gasped. “Get out of here!”

The floor below them rumbled as the ship begun to gain height. “Not without you!” Dick growled, snatching her arm. He was angry and confused, but also in love. Even though he didn't know it.

Purple beam light filtered in from the ceiling, tickling Kory’s skin as it went through her.

Dick was staring at her, his face blank and purple. Why was he fucking there still? He had to leave. He had to run from them.

“You don’t understand!” she cried. “Dick, you could die.”

His eyes widened in horror at the realization of what she meant. The wind in his hair started picking up, and the ladder behind him creaked as it began rising to close the door.

“Don’t do this,” he said it like his life depended on it. So Kory rushed forward to remind him that it did not, placing her lips on his for a quick second.

“Take care of them,” she breathed. Dick, agape, never saw the push coming.

“NO, WAIT…!” He shouted, but he was sucked out of the half closed door before he could finish.

All Kory could do was squeeze out the hot, stinging tears from her eyes when she heard Dick’s rough landing, and the cry of pain that followed.

“KORYYYYY!”

Then purple, then blackness.