[He remembers combing knots from Dana's hair- or trying to at least. She had gone the way his dad had sometimes, where the person was empty and the soul had no way to work its way back into the body. It had only been for a day. Tim himself had only barely gotten out of his bed, his eyes bloodshot and his life changed in a way he hadn't understood yet. But he had been startled- shocked to see her in her own room. Unmoving, unseeing, but alive. Tim had sat her up and tried to comb her hair, had gotten her to drink water. And then he had gotten scared.

Scared because his dad was dead and he had heard him die and had seen him dead and he hadn't known what to do- Dana had been crying, so Tim tells himself this isn't the same. Kate is talking. She's aware of what she's saying and not doing. Tim tells himself this isn't the same.

He's already seen people die and he's already seen dead people- in greater numbers than he would have imagined. He's sat next to a man who was going to jump. And even back then, Tim had known- he can't stop-

he can't stop-

his breath catches in his chest and it's a testament to the self-sabotage called self-control that he swallows down the fear instead of crying out because of it. It's black and it crawls out of everyone he's loved and everyone he hasn't, and there's no stopping it.

His fingers had found her hair,
brushed away a stray blonde few from her face. That was before Tim had remembered being all alone, before he had fallen into the nothingness that feels like the promise that he can never save the people who matter to him the most.

Please-- but Tim can't hear himself. He thinks this is a panic attack because he can't feel anything but the way his heart skips, and it's an uncomfortable and unwelcome reminder that he's alive.

She's closed her eyes.

The pretty girl he kissed not too long ago.

Sometimes, when people die, they look--]

Please don't.

[In some forms of Christianity, suicide is--

Tim can't do anything but be afraid. As afraid as someone who has never seen this before, who has never been able to comprehend this before, who has never been so alone through this before.

He remembers Steph, the girl he loves, and how she had-

and Tim, like a kid who's never had to be alone, throws himself at her.

She's there, still. Her soul. And her body is-- cool, not as warm as it ought to be under so many blankets--

he's scared that--

he holds on because if he isn't grasping at her body, at her back and shoulders and neck, she's never going to be warm again. (His face is an ashen red, not from agitation for his neediness and selfishness but because if he cries out he's going to shout because of the hurt, the pain that is so new despite him knowing it so well, and Kate's never wanted him to-- be loud and--)]

Please.

[Against her blankets, Tim can remember- the training, the logic, how he shouldn't be adding pressure... and he shudders, because it's what his mind latched on to and because he can't do anything else but beg in callused desperation,] I lost my little brother, and my d- and Bruce is gone now too, and I... Kate. [This is everything he's not supposed to do.

So Tim lifts his head and a hand and he braces for a kick or maybe even a shooting, if one of the men wander in and find him all but smothering her with this ill attention; he finds her hair. Cards his fingers through it.

Like that'll help.] Kate.

[His voice is too small, Tim thinks. Not his own.] Kate, no one's going to hurt you again. [In his fear, a stupid thing to promise.

Tim remembers the promise he got, and how it only ever stayed said.

He won't only say the words. He'll keep the promise. He'll...] I promise. I mean it. I promise.