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Fandoms: DC (random JLA time) & Gormenghast (chapter 75, I believe - Fuchsia's death)
Characters/Pairings: J'onn, Fuchsia. No pairings, though Fuchsia/Steerpike obviously had a lot to do with getting Fuchsia to where she is.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: J'onn lands in Gormenghast during the flood, and senses a spirit in despair ...
Notes: for Jen_in_Japan
Wordcount: 520
J'onn stood very still, disoriented and confused by a transit he hadn't been expecting, battered by the sudden tumult of emotion that flooded over him. This place, wherever it was ... panic, and fear, and violence, and hate ... Age, the weight of so many years, the sensation of foot after foor treading the same paths through the dust ... And the people, the panic, so many in fear ...
He looked out a nearby window, looked out over the blackness, and the panorama of rooftops revealed by the lightning, and the water, pouring, flooding, devouring ... he could feel their fear, feel their desperate attempts to control the rising flood ... and behind that, the war, the glittering fury of minds bent to violence, the passion of mutual injustice ...
And then, something else. An island, in the midst of the chaos. No fear, no anger. Shock, numbness. A bone-deep melancholy, the despair of a sensitive heart. He turned in place, turned towards the woman he sensed, above him, distant, her exhausted heart heavy with the weight of all her shattered dreams. She was in danger, he felt. Unconsciously waiting for death, readying herself for it ... He couldn't allow it. He didn't know who she was, this Fuchsia, and nothing told him she was any more important that the hundreds of other lives in danger this night, in this place. But her despair, the loss behind it ... he remembered. And had to help.
He felt it, as he slipped ghostlike through the castle, felt the moment come, felt her panic and disorientation, felt her begin to fall ... he flew, fast as thought, feeling the sharp shock of pain as her head hit the sill, feeling her distant realisation that she was going to die ...
He burst free, solidifying the instant he cleared the wall, seeing her hit the water, seeing it reach up to claim her. He caught her before it could, pulled her up, pulled her free of its grasp. He pulled her into his arms, and took her once more to safety.
He laid her on a bed in the bedroom above them, brushed gently at the blood on her head. But he knew in his heart that that wound was not the one that had almost killed her. Not really. This young woman nursed inside her a far more grievous ill, and it was hard to heal a broken heart. But he had to try. So he did the only thing he could.
Gently, softly, he slipped inside her dreaming mind, felt the fragile spirit that lived there, felt the pain. Then, with infinite tenderness, he eased her free of it. Not forgetting. It was her right to remember. Not removing. No-one could remove such pain as this. But he dulled its edge, made it as if she had been wounded weeks ago instead of aching hours. He lifted her a little way from its grasp, away from the despair that would have claimed her.
And as he felt something tug on his own mind, felt the call of home behind him, he hoped it was enough.
