SHE THOUGHT SHE'D have a big reaction, but as she sat there, staring at her sister's gravestone. Calypso Wan felt rather calm. A stab of sadness, certainly, but she didn't feel the urge to break down or start sobbing like she thought she might. Instead, she just swallowed and stood there helplessly, watching as Jason laid down the flowers they'd brought on the way there.

After a moment, Callie took out a bottle of Japanese green tea she'd brewed that morning, opening the cap and pouring it on the ground. It was a Chinese custom. Cyrene used to always bring cans of coca cola (their father's favourite) whenever they visited their parents' graves, which was what she did this time as well. But she'd already gone to her parents' gravestones before moving onto Cyrene's.

"I know I'm five years late," Callie said with a sigh. "But hey, better late than never, right?"

From the way Jason had immediately known the way to Cyrene's gravestone, she knew he'd visited a fair amount over the years. Which made her feel even more guilty. Sure, she'd spent three years in London, but what about the other two?

She should have come earlier.

"We got Scarecrow. Well, again. We're still working on Swinton," she murmured. "Sorry about being slow. Promise, I'll send him to hell where he belongs."

Jason didn't say anything, just soundlessly moved behind her.

"I miss you, Cy." Callie sighed. "I've graduated from university, I have my own apartment, I'm taking good care of myself."

"She's not," Jason huffed. "Cy, your sister's friendless and obsessed with finding vengeance for your sake."

"Jason Todd."

"She should know. Besides, she probably already does."

"You've died once. What is it like?"

"I don't remember," he confessed. "I just remembered it being dark. Really dark. One moment I was dead, the killing blow delivered, the next I was coughing water out my lungs and alive again."

"I hope it's not dark for her," Callie murmured. "I hope she's somewhere with our parents where she can be happy."

"Wherever she is, she will be happy. That's part of her superpower. She's always able to find the bright side in everything, bring out the best in everyone."

"Is that why you and Roy were always at mine? Because Cyrene brings out the best in you two?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Jason hummed. "We could feel a little less miserable in her presence. Like we had a purpose."

"You hear that, Cy? Now we're all miserable because you're not here." Callie let out a sigh. "Can't believe I've spent the past five years without you. Feels like yesterday you were still sneaking in in the wee hours of the morning and waking me up every damn time."

"Stealth was never her strongest suit," Jason offered.

Callie shot him a glare. "Shut up."

Jason raised his hands in mock surrender. "Your sister is a barbarian, Callie. I don't know how you two are so different. You sure you weren't adopted, Callie?"

She made the wise decision to ignore him. "I wish I'd spent a little more time with you. And I wish you'd just gone to Yale instead of Star City. But I guess I never understood your need to help people, to be a hero, and I still don't know. You're the good one, after all."

Now, Jason fell quiet. It felt embarrassing, but she kept talking. And at this point, she didn't know who she was speaking to—Cyrene or Jason. Maybe she was talking to both.

"I think I'd always been a little envious of you," she admitted, tilting her head skywards. "I wish I'd told you that. I loved you with every inch of my body, but sometimes I also wished I was more like you. And now you'll never know that and I'll have to keep that in my head forever. I wish I'd talked to you more about my feelings and how lonely I was while you seemed to move on so quickly. I wish I'd known that night would be the last time I saw you alive."

She let out a little laugh. It was bitter.

"Damn, Cy, I miss you."

She didn't know what else she was supposed to say. It had been five years. She'd thought about this moment over and over again, but now that she was actually here, her mind was blank. Her sister's legacy was reduced to a simple gravestone. It looked like it had been kept meticulously, and surely Oliver and Dinah must have visited often. Roy too, maybe.

Speaking of Roy... She turned to Jason. "Where's Lian buried?"

Jason winced. "Her body was never found. But she has a gravestone here too. It's on the other side of the cemetery, I can bring you there if you want."

"How..." she shut her eyes. "You know what? I don't want to know." If there wasn't even a body to be found... Did Lian get roped up in all her father and mother's business? That was, perhaps, the danger of life.

She'd been acutely aware of the fact that, should her relationship to Spiritbird be discovered, her life would be at risk. That was one of the more selfish reasons she didn't want Cyrene to get involved.

"Do you want to go now? Or do you want to stay here a little longer?"

"Give me a few more minutes," she told him with a sigh. "And be quiet, for the love of god."

She let her eyes shut, standing there, feeling the slight wind blowing against her cheeks. She imagined, for a moment, that it was Cyrene's hand caressing her cheek.

What on earth am I going to do with you?

In her head, Cyrene was alive and grinning at her. She was twenty-one and had a brilliant path ahead of her, and Cyrene was utterly unstoppable. And they were in their old apartment again, Callie angry after Cyrene came back far later than she'd promised once more. And because it was a weekend, Callie didn't need to be asleep either. She sat on the couch, arms crossed, eyes narrowed as she glared at her sister.

Cyrene was just amused.

But those were just memories now.

Callie opened her eyes and leant forward, allowing her pinky finger to skim the surface of the cool stone. The memories hit her instantaneously.

Oliver. Dinah. Roy. Jason. Faces she immediately recognised, and faces she was less familiar with too. Starfire, Kid Flash, Zatanna... So many faces. Some she didn't recognise. Everyone was in their civilian outfits. She even saw a few of Cyrene's old schoolmates in the mix. She doubted they knew the truth, the full story. But they mourned too.

She saw the flowers people left, the solemn expressions, the tears. And some of the memories were clearly recent.

People remember.

Cyrene Wan had not been forgotten. Her legacy remained. People might not mention her name in every conversation, but she lived on in their memories. Jason was right. Her presence made people less miserable. That was her Midas Touch.

She hadn't noticed the single tear rolling down her cheeks, or that Jason was calling out her name in worry. She didn't realise how long she'd been standing there, processing the memories and the visions the gravestone offered her.

"Callie!"

She snapped out of it, sucking in a deep breath. "I'm fine."

"Jesus," he cursed under his breath, "you scared me."

"How long was I?"

"At least a couple minutes." He wheezed. "What did you see?"

"A lot." She lowered her head. "A lot of people have come by over the years, huh?"

"Yeah," Jason told her quietly. "She was friends with a lot of people."

"I wonder if she ever got impatient. Everyone coming here but me." Callie shook her head. "She's probably quite annoyed at me for it, she didn't raise a coward."

"She's one of the most patient people in the world," Jason whispered. "She'd never blame you for it."

"She was perfect, wasn't she?"

"She was the closest thing to it."

—

"SHE USED TO sleep while I was at school," Callie confessed. "She'd still be awake when I was up at seven. She'd make me breakfast, send me on my way, and then go to bed. Usually by the time I came back she'd be up."

They sat at a cafe near their hotel, each with a cup of coffee before them. His jacket was hanging on the back of the chair, while Callie hadn't bothered taking off hers. It was autumn in Star City, not quite freezing cold but not warm either.

"Roy and I didn't have that kind of regularity," Jason snorted. "We'd sleep as little or as much as we wanted."

"Lian?"

"At the Crocks', usually."

She didn't know too much about the complicated relationship Lian's mother had with her family. Or the relationship between Roy and Cheshire, really. She knew the basics, but not much more.

"I don't know how she did it. Basically taking over our parents' role while stepping into the world as a superhero. Only good thing was that she'd already graduated from high school by then, I suppose," Callie murmured. "I know I don't seem that way, but I am very grateful for Oliver and Dinah. Or life would have been much more difficult financially."

"I get why you don't want to see them. And Dinah was... harsh."

"She had the right to be," Callie said with a shrug. "She's the only one who ever dared to be harsh to me."

"She said she coddled you before," Jason said, frowning.

"Until the end. She was much harsher near the end."

"Was she right to do it?"

"I think so," Callie muttered, staring out the window. "I'm not mad at her. It hurts, but I have no reason to be mad. And she made some good points."

"You've thought this through a lot more than most people think you have, haven't you?" He raised a brow, though not quite sounding accusing.

"Everything she threw at me, I'd already told myself before." Callie pressed the coffee mug against her lips, taking a small sip before placing it down. "It's just the first time anyone has externalised it. I didn't see it coming."

"How would you describe yourself?" Jason asked suddenly, leaning back, observing her expression with care. "Give me some words."

"What?" Her brows furrowed as she stared at him in confusion.

"Humour me," he said with a shrug. "Give me some words you'd use to describe yourself. Be accurate and honest, there's no need to lie to me. Trust me, no matter how bad of a person you might think you are, I'm probably worse."

Callie snorted. "I don't think I'm an awful person."

"Then describe yourself."

She gave it some thought. "Vengeful. Clearly, if I'm still doing this five years down. Difficult. Stubborn. Cold. People always say I'm cold. Selfish, I suppose. I always seem to put self-preservation first, or at least my own interests." She shrugged. "People keep telling me it's not a bad thing, but I don't think so. It's never self-preservation that's sung about in the history books."

"Have you realised," he murmured, "that almost everything you describe yourself as is in comparison to Cyrene? Or at least relates to her? Vengeful for her sake. Difficult, but only compared to Cyrene, who's much easier to talk to. You're hardly the coldest person I've ever met—not even in the top ten, and even your self-described selfishness, only in the face of Cyrene's heroic sacrifices. Wanting to go down a different path than her doesn't make you selfish. It just makes you you."

She looked amused. "Your point is I've let Cyrene consume my life."

"Have you not?" he asked, raising a brow. "She's the only thing that's kept you going for the past five years. Don't even try to deny it, we both know it's true."

"I suppose so."

"You know what my first impression of you was?"

Callie was curious now. She'd been fourteen the first time they met, though Jason and Roy didn't start frequenting their apartment until the year after. Christ, that was eight years ago. How had time passed so quickly?

"What?"

"You were a small little thing. Well, not that small, I suppose, but still. I immediately saw the resemblance. I'd always thought Cyrene looked like a fox, but the moment I saw your face, I realised that was you. And your personality was much closer to one anyways. Cyrene was smart, but she wasn't half as observant as you were. You looked at me and I felt like you saw through everything and right into my very soul."

"I hadn't," she replied with a shrug.

"Perhaps not. You didn't trust any of us and I could tell. That was intriguing. And I recognised it too. You'd shut yourself off from the rest of the world as a way of grieving. You were much more aware of everything that was happening, all the words between the lines than everyone else thought. You just didn't show it."

"So what," she asked, amused, "you thought I was clever."

"You want to know what I see now?" he asked, raising a brow. "I see a haunted girl. I see you wanting to mimic your sister and become more like her, but worrying that it meant you'd follow her path. You're not her, Callie. Never have been, never will be. And you shouldn't aim for it anyways."

"I'll be myself again once I get Rudolph Swinton."

"And how much of you would be left by then?" he asked softly.

"You keep trying to improve my life." She glanced up. She didn't like the way people kept dissecting into her soul and psyche in the past few days, pulling up bits and pieces that she'd always been subconsciously aware of but never wanted to acknowledge. She felt vulnerable. Exposed. Like all her secrets were being pulled out and dried under the sun. "New friends, moving on, making peace with the past... I appreciate it, Jason, I really do. But at the same time, I know what my problems are. I just don't have time to deal with any of it until I complete my goal."

"Right." He flexed his jaw, looking rather exasperated. But then he changed the subject, as if he knew pressing on this matter would do him no favours. "What was your first impression of me?"

Callie pinched her nose. "I can't really remember." She'd only been fourteen, after all, and she had bigger things to worry about than Cyrene's new friends who kept making a ruckus in her living room.

"There has to be something," he insisted, looking curious. "Anything."

"I think I found you intimidating," Callie admitted after a long moment. "You were already a massive guy. You towered over me, and I didn't quite like that. And Roy tended to just take my quips and remarks, you always fired back. I didn't quite like that. Little me felt threatened, I think. I was used to people just... letting me have my way."

Jason eyed her. "You know that's basically exactly what Dinah said. You were always coddled, especially after your parents' death. But what you needed was some harshness. Some pushing back."

Callie shrugged. "And I think you were one of the first people to do that to me in a while. I didn't quite like it. And I was really competitive as a kid. Felt the need to beat you in this war of words somehow."

"So you kept going."

"So I kept going." She scratched her chin. "Strange. I'd never even thought of it that way, but you're right. Explains a lot, doesn't it? I always felt like I just... disliked you more than Roy."

"I'm hurt."

"That, and you two refused to shut up sometimes. I can probably blame half my insomnia on you two," she said glumly.

"I apologise, then, albeit a few years too late." Jason tilted his head. "You should probably try and do something about that insomnia, though. Sleep is important. I know it sounds rich coming from me, but we do still try to get as much sleep as possible when we can afford it."

"I don't know what to do about it," Callie said with a shrug. "After all those years of waking up to Cyrene coming in early in the morning... Laying there wondering if she was safe or not, it's difficult to just... go to sleep. And I guess it gives me more time to be productive. It's nice, really."

"But not healthy. Hell, if you were sleeping in the day and being up at night, I wouldn't say shit. But you're just not sleeping much."

"Whatever sleep I get tends to be high quality, though. I feel refreshed every morning."

"Still not good." He paused. "Tell you what, let's try to get you to sleep early tonight, yeah? Let's see what we can do on this trip."

"It's not going to work," she warned.

"We never know until we try."

suddenly got the idea to write something for cyrene by the name of midas touch. but erm. prob not. it'll either have to be an alt!universe or she'll somehow have to come back, which would make callie's entire path in this book completely pointless. maybeeee something occult justice league dark ish, but likely not. not gonna completely shelve the idea tho...

on another note, this is the last regular update in a bit. i'll prob try to do weekly updates for the next month and a half? but no guarantees (i have mocks).