Grief was like a room without doors, and what happened in that room, all the anger and the pain you felt, was meant to stay there, nobody's business but yours.

— The Passage by Justin Cronin

The strange thing about crying yourself to sleep, Zatanna thinks, is that when you wake up, you know it wasn't all just a dream. You know by the raw ache in the back of your throat, by the palpable silence from everyone's hushed tones as they mutely go about their business outside. You know that, given a choice, you'd curl up and let yourself depreciate in this one room, so you could pretend you'd found a pocket dimension where the world was still sane, and fate still kind.

There is no clock in this timeless room, but the empty feeling in the pit of her stomach tells her it's probably morning. Unless that was just the hollowness in her heart.

"Dad!" She stepped forward to embrace him, and felt him kiss her forehead like he always used to, before she finally convinced him that tucking her in was babying her.

"Zatanna. Remember: I love you." With that same, familiar Italian accent no one else had, that she herself had lost. Her smile fell, then; he was too serious, too solemn. Surely he didn't mean to really—

A solid thud at the door. Too heavy and loud to be a knock. She doesn't want to hear their comfort anyway; words, even spoken backwards in a spell, couldn't fix this.

"Glad you're back, Zatanna," Artemis said as they left the elevator together. "Does this mean you're officially joining the team?"

Huh. If only. "I don't know... Zatara's so overprotective. I mean, just getting him to let me visit takes a full day's wheedling. I wish he'd just give me a little space!"

A second thud, and the teenaged magician stands to open the door, not trusting her voice.

Artemis inches into the room, crab-walking past her juggling a jumbo plate of snickerdoodles, a pile of assorted... things, and a mess of papers. A miniature radio is hooked onto her straining pinkie finger; in a daze, Zatanna reaches forward and relieves her of it. The archer proceeds to dump her entire load rather unceremoniously upon the bed.

"What is all this?" This being the first time she's spoken in hours (by her guesstimate), Zatanna's voice comes out as a weepy croak. Thankfully, Artemis seems not to notice. "Random stuff that everyone hovering outside your door now wanted to show you. At the same time. For reasons that still escape me."

Outside, Miss Martian, Superboy and Aqualad simultaneously pull away from the door, bumping heads and creating a chorus of Ow's. Artemis halfheartedly smirks and rolls her eyes.

"Comfort, Martian-Kryptonian-Atlantean style." Put kindly, the comment is a weak attempt at 'lighthearted' — but an attempt nonetheless. Zatanna moves over to the bed, picking up 1001 Cupcake Recipes and a rubber ducky.

She can sense Artemis watching her tersely, and tries to look nonchalant adjusting the dial on the mini-radio. Every station is static. Evidently a prized possession of Conner's.

"Would you prefer it if I left?"

A wry smile, verging on bitter but sort of curious, too, flashes across Zatanna's face. "Did you guys rock-paper-scissors who to send into the lion's den?"

Artemis merely shrugs and waits for her companion to realize she can't change the topic that easily.

"I don't know, Artemis." She keeps her gaze locked on the cookbook page, re-reading and re-reading the exact proportions of flour, eggs and chocolate as if to make sure they were still constant, still there — that the world still made sense, somehow.

"It's been a couple hours. We didn't want you to have too much alone time. Maybe you need to talk."

The magician almost flinches at the familiar words. It's an ironic role reversal of that Halloween night when the two went out into Manhattan stopping petty crimes — in Artemis's case, not without some score to settle with the world, apparently.

Artemis gave the museum, still crawling with cops, a brief once-over before judging, "Whatever happened here is over. I want some action." She revved up her bike as if in anticipation. Beside her, Zatanna hesitated, then prompted, "But maybe you need to talk."

Zatanna leans over and carefully extricates from the pile a relatively unburnt snickerdoodle. "I've never tried these," she remarks, a wistful tone sneaking into her quiet voice. Dad was always the one saying, "Try the spell this way", "Have you considered...?"

She wants him to be here, now, if only to bug her about going home soon, to continuously reject her requests to join the team. To frustrate her and be obsessively protective. Just to be there.

"Neither have I," Artemis quips, too casual to sound casual. Silently, Zatanna watches as the older girl helps herself to her own snickerdoodle and wedges herself in amidst the mess on the crowded mattress.

"Artemis?"

"Mm." The blonde acknowledges her through a mouthful of cinnamon filling.

"You're like my sister, you know that?"

Zatanna joins the archer on the bed, abruptly fascinated with finding just the right spot on the soft biscuit to take her inaugural bite. So much so that Artemis's sharp intake of breath at her statement goes unquestioned. A moment of content chewing passes, and the fragrance of cane sugar permeates the still air.

"I just... wish you knew what it felt like — I mean, I don't wish that — look, that came out wrong..."

"I understand," Artemis interrupts. There is a pause as both girls look askance. "It's like he's not even gone. You know he's still there, still alive — but he can't..."

"Can't be Dad anymore," they both say together.

Eyes wide, Zatanna darts a quick glance at Artemis's face. For once, it gives away the tiniest bit of emotion, of raw hurt, in the rapid blinking of grey eyes and the tension as she bites her lip.

"At least, not for a while." Not for you, Artemis adds as an afterthought. How long has it been since Lawrence Crock permanently became Sportsmaster?

"That's what I hope," her companion finally responds. "That it's only for a while."

Despite herself, despite all her years waiting for him to come home, despite her mother's face when Da— Lawrence didn't show up the day of her release from prison, Artemis finds herself agreeing, saying anything if only to keep alive the glimmer of hope in the magician's eyes.

"You have to keep telling yourself that," she surprises herself by saying. "As clichéd as it sounds, you can't let yourself stop hop—"

"Why'd he have to go and be the hero?" Zatanna interrupts, her voice hollow and a wild look in her eyes. Gone was the placid sadness, the regret; Artemis recognizes from personal experience the transitions through stages of grief and loss. Now comes the anger, the attempt at self-justification. "I mean, it's easy enough for him; sure, go be Doctor Fate," she continues, volume steadily increasing. "What's hard is losing someone you—"

"Zee—"

"He was an idiot, an idiot for taking my place," the magician concludes. Artemis allows the silence to disperse the tension for a moment.

"An idiot who loved you enough to be so selfless he seems selfish."

Zatanna doesn't say anything, but her whole body seems to sag, as if in defeat. Here comes the acceptance, Artemis narrates mentally.

"I'll be... returning the snickerdoodles. Wally'll eat all the burnt ones."

"Huh. Yeah." The words slip out without the brunette's lips moving.

Still that stuffy-nosed sound, but a lot better. "You coming?"

Zatanna pauses a moment, turning to the bed. "In a minute." She waits till the sound of Artemis' footsteps fades away down the hall. Then, even though any words now are impossibly inadequate, she closes her eyes, imagining these words transcending all barriers, physical or magical, to wherever he is now so he would hear her, somehow.

"I love you too, Dad."

Somewhere her new teammates are in collective uproar; Zatanna smiles a small smile hearing Robin playfully berate Wally — something about hogging the snickerdoodles. Then she opens her eyes, gets up and goes to join them.

Robin turns the moment she enters the kitchen. "Hey," he greets her, voice gentle, quiet, intimate as though they are the only two people in the room, sharing a private conversation. "Feeling whelmed?"

She grins a little wider, although he can probably still see the tear tracks. "Close enough."

Love you too, Dad.

Wrote this immediately after watching Misplaced, but put off editing for days convinced Zatanna was OOC. How'd I do?

m.e.