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Hal Jordan is alive. Hal is alive and well and filing a fuck ton of paperwork. Barry was back too and it made him queasy sometimes to stare too long at the other man which made the paperwork help significantly more difficult. Apparently he filed a lot of the same shit. Apparently this was just going to be life for everyone now. Lots of paperwork and responsibilities they didn't have when they died dropped into their laps.
Helen's shifting again in her seat across from him in the little diner he decided to take her too. Carol already offered him work and he had to bite his tongue from asking her why she even trusts him still. He could have built her the perfect life. He could have given her all she wanted if he had won all that time ago. He sighs a little and puts down the menu to look up at his niece. She's staring at him with her big eyes and it probably would have made him uncomfortable a long time ago. Right now though, he stares right back at her until she has to blink. A smile crosses over Hal's face as he laughs a little now.
"I won the staring contest, that means you have to forfeit your fries to me."
"That's not fair Aunt Hal," she sniffs now as if the words out of her mouth were a normal thing, "You got used to not blinking before you came back and you still don't blink as much."
Hal hasn't heard Helen call him that since he came back. A month of hard work in proving that he was very alive and not one of the many dead of Coast City or so forth. It was a pain in the fucking ass, but this? This might be a greater pain in the ass.
Something inside of his heart seemed to flutter at the thought of leaning more towards Aunt in title some days than Uncle. He doesn't know what to say in return to that, but Helen's already opening her mouth again and sitting up a little straighter.
"And I don't want fries and nuggets this time. Dinah and Ollie took me here when you were busy with Uncle Bruce and I got chili! Uncle Ollie even told me I would be having some of his chili soon!"
Another mini heart attack for Hal. Not even the fact that she so easily accepts all the heroes in his life that have been patting him down on whether he's fit to be a parent or not. It's the threat of Oliver Queen's famous chili night that gives him the heart attack. He's already dreading the fact Helen seems so happy and excited for it. She'll be immune to it and Hal will keel over again eating that fucking chili.
"Well, Ollie didn't tell me of a chili night so you better hold your horses in waiting for that," and he turns to their waiter now as the teenage boy stumbles to their table to take their orders.
The entire time they eat all Hal thinks about in the back of his mind is being both an uncle and an aunt. Helen regales him with tales of her toy bow and Oliver making her practice it by sneak attacking Mia and Connor at different points in the day.
—
Helen's been with an alive Hal for three months now. Everyone's so hands-on deck with it that he genuinely hates all the help he gets.
Hal is not meant to be a father or a mother or anything parental at all. He's built for long space voyages that'll make Helen resent him some day when she realizes just how much he's gone.
She stays with Jim so much that it's a miracle Hal is still considered her legal guardian. He doesn't get why he is. He never tries to change it though because he has the sneaking suspicion Helen would warp something around just to stay.
Jim never pushes and prods in the specific ways their older brother did despite the fact he should. It makes him miss Jack's prodding. It makes him ugly cry for an older brother he continuously argued with. Hal hates being the eldest brother now. He was always meant to stay the in-between renegade.
He wants to go back to Jack's rare moments of giving him something about planes. He wants to go back to his older brother standing up for him in school. He wants to go back to when they started speaking more again and how happy Hal was to hear about Helen and Jason.
Helen's here now though and Jack is gone. She wanted to try online classes this year and the kiddie therapist whatever said it was a good idea. Carol's work is a godsend with that fancy ass insurance Ha's on now. It pays for Helen's therapy so generously because no way is he touching the life insurance money she has. That'll be for when she's eighteen.
The Guardians haven't called him to space in about a week now. He knows Helen brought it up in therapy that her dear auntie Hal has to go sometimes for top secret missions. He's pretty sure the therapist thinks he's some sort of spy. He never bothers to correct it. Best alibi ever and a cool one even if the aunt comment made the therapist stare at him pretty hard.
As he watches Helen idly draw and something around her shimmer, Hal has a thought. He needs someone familiar with meta shit to talk with her in a year or two. Something he has no idea about really.
He just needs to know what was him and what was her during Spectre. It's a headache, but it's not a process for a grieving little girl to go through. She's lost her brother and parents. Grieving grown man? Yeah, time to use his contacts in the League for meta shit.
—
Kilowog and him don't talk about it. The hatred, grief, anger, and tears in Hal's eyes back then as Kilowog burned into a crisp. Sinestro's body laying behind them, neck bent at an awful angle, and so many Corps members chiming through their rings trying to figure out what was happening.
Helen's asleep and curled up tightly against Hal's side on the little arm chair in his living room. Kilowog stands up from the couch and he hurriedly looks away from his old murder victim. It's weird. He can barely wrap his head around the fact that so many things are different now.
He remembers throwing up violently when he finally registered just how many people he would have to look in the eye that he tried to kill or did kill. None of them feel as personal as Sin or Kilowog. It's disgusting. It makes Hal feel disgusting. He has no idea how anyone trusts him with Helen when he did everything he had done with little regret outside of Sin and Kilowog. Some days he thinks he's waiting for the other shoe to drop and for one of his fellow Leaguers or Corps members to take her away from him.
It's six months into Hal Jordan being alive again and Helen's doing nice in online classes. Kilowog showing up threw a wrench in her classwork earlier because she was so excited to see him. They've maybe had enough time to hang out once before and it was done under the careful supervision of John and Guy both. He still isn't sure if they though Hal would kill Kilowog again or if Kilowog would kill Hal in revenge. He doesn't ask them because the way they look at him sometimes makes him feel like they can never be like they used to be.
"You can't avoid me forever, Hal. C'mon. Take her to the room so we can actually talk." Kilowog's quiet and careful to mumble it out in a way that wouldn't make Helen wake up. It still makes Hal's heart rate skyrocket so dangerously he's surprised his ring isn't chirping out coordinates to another Lantern about a medical emergency.
He gathers Helen in his arms carefully and takes her into her room. It reminds him of reading stories to her as the Spectre. The way he recreated Oz for her just for the sake of her smiling up at him. His green constructs don't offer that same sort of realism yet she still smiles up at him. She still says he's the best uncle and aunt to ever exist. He pretends his heart doesn't fracture more each time she says it. He brushes hair out of her face as she curls up and holds onto her stuffed lion. A soft kiss pressed to her forehead the way his mom used to do it for him when his dad was still alive.
Leaving Helen's room and walking to the kitchen is a death march. When he went into the sun, it was easy to pretend Hal had no one he cared for really. Telling Kyle goodbye and thinking little of the fact he was abandoning Helen.
Kilowog grunts now in the living room and he realizes how long he's been standing in the hall. He's certain when he steps in it'll go poor. Nothing good ever happens to Hal Jordan. Law of all universes or something. He steps out now and sits carefully on the couch next to Kilowog. What a miracle this thing hasn't broken from years of Kilowog tossing himself onto it. Maybe he'll kill Hal here next to the frayed thread from Kyle picking at the damn couch lately.
"You know, I forgave you the moment it happened." It's said so quiet Hal thinks maybe it's a hallucination. Maybe all of this is just a dream he's been having as he dies in the sun.
He looks at Kilowog watching the highlights reel of Coast City losing another baseball game. The alien's always liked watching humans play baseball even if Hal's hometown has sucked before being blown up.
"You need help. Past just with Helen, Hal. You need something for all that shit in your brain since before Coast City blew the fuck up." Kilowog never pulls the punches. A harsh truth that he didn't quite want to hear.
He turns his attention back to the TV. The score on the rerun has Coast City at a goddamn zero. Hal's whole life feels like that.
"I think about how I left your body there smoldering sometimes," he's confessing it as his hometown gets a rare homerun for once, "I would have carried your skull around with me forever. Maybe given it to Helen some day to take care of. I was gonna bring back your people."
They don't talk about it further. Neither of them are built for the truth of feelings. Neither of them want to wake Helen if Hal ends up having another ugly little breakdown.
—
Ten months in.
Helen's sitting on the couch curled up comfortable pressed against his side. It feels like when Kilowog stopped by that first time alone.
Hal still hasn't looked for help. He never will. What's the point? No one seems to understand quite the weight pressed on his chest by the death of everyone in Coast City then his brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. Sometimes it feels all like a sick joke. He'll wake up some day in the past to Sinestro barking out a command for training. The Lanterns on Oa will still look at him with distrust, but it'll be because he's the first human there. It won't be because he tried to kill them all in a grief-stricken haze.
The dream never ends. Hal presses a kiss to Helen's forehead again and picks her up gently. This time she does stir awake and blink up at him blearily.
It makes some part of his skin crawl to see her affection for him. She turns and cuddles into him further until he gets to her room and deposits her on her bed. He's tucking her in gentle and he's about to be out the door back to a lonely night watching Coast City lose another game. Maybe he can change the channel to basketball tonight and ignore the tears in his eyes when he realizes his favorite player Nicholas Walts was someone he heard died in Henshaw's explosion of the city.
"...Auntie? Could you stay here a bit?"
Helen's voice breaks through the grief hitting Hal like a truck. He wonders, morbidly, if this is how Guy had felt when he noticed he was about to be hit. He's kind of glad there's no telepath nearby to pass that message on. He walks back into the room and sits down on a rickety old chair by her desk. Helen seems to frown more and she glances up at the ceiling. He can't quite fathom what might have her afraid to tell him something, but Hal waits nonetheless for a few minutes.
"By my bed. Sometimes my dad used to... He'd sit by the bed in a chair when it was a bad night."
A lifetime ago for Hal, Martin used to sit by his bed. His dad had his awful moments, but all the fond memories tend to override the fear his father used to put in him. Hearing that Jack used to sit by Helen's bed the same way their dad did makes him violently ill for a minute. He wants to tear apart the universe to hunt down that fear entity again. He wants to share a body and make things right again. He wants to so desperately be in one of the worlds they won, but he isn't. He picks up the chair and moves it to sit next to Helen until she sleeps peacefully.
He ends up falling asleep by her side as a faithful guardian. The crick in his neck, awful lower back pain, and unbrushed teeth are worth it for the million dollar smile Helen gives him in the morning when she wakes him up gently first.
—
The moment it hits one year of being alive again, Oliver and Dinah invite him and Helen over for dinner. Hal silently considers begging them for no chili in front of everyone in the Watchtower until Dinah tells him there will be none. He does not hide the look of relief on his face at that.
Sitting at their table though feels far different than sitting at home with Helen and maybe whoever is visiting that day. It feels even more drastically different than sitting in Jim's home as he tries to persuade Hal every other visit that Helen would like staying with Jim more when she's busy playing. She always seems to know when that conversation happens and turns to ask to go home soon after. Hal can't leave her. He can't leave her despite the fact he knows she'll hate him one day for being gone in space. Sometimes she speaks of seeing something where she follows him along in space, but he never holds high hopes like that even with the vague impressions of futures she'd never hate him haunting him with other Spectre memories.
Hal hates himself more than enough for both him and Helen. He hates himself more than enough for Oliver and Dinah's kind offers and friendships. There's a scar on his chest and sometimes the two of them have put a hand over where it would be. Where the arrow pierced him. He considers making a bad joke every time, but he never quite manages to spit out the words. Barry seemed about the same the one time he caught the scar's appearance when he visited too suddenly one day.
Oliver seems content beyond belief tonight whenever he looks up at Hal. He avoids his friend's eyes half the night. He can't even look at Dinah as he tells her thanks for all the food. Helen's happy beyond belief and definitely in some sort of footsie game with Mia under the table. She's real good with kids with all the youth center experience. He wants to ask her how he's doing as a parent half the time and never does it out of the sake of not wanting to hear he might be doing bad. He's already damaged Helen with the Spectre. He's already done enough harm disappearing on the whim of the Guardians. He barely feels hungry today and yet he keeps eating mindlessly. Good food can't go to waste.
Helen's off with Mia seconds after the two of them finish. It feels like it was pre-planned with the way she pats on Ollie's shoulder as she leaves with his niece. It feels even more pre-planned when Dinah gets up rather abruptly and picks up the plates and leaves. She has no shame in giving the two of them a look as she leaves the table. Traitors, the lot of them.
He has a feeling Dinah will be back soon after hovering in the doorway to hear when it's her turn to speak. He meets Ollie's eyes head on and takes him in proper. Death had ruined what the two of them were really. He felt like death was even harder on Dinah. Losing Oliver then Hal back-to-back. Sometimes Kyle seemed to purse his lips and not really meet Hal's eyes when he asked too much about the time in between dying then coming back as the Spectre in particular. Even as the Spectre, he had not taken much time to think of the fact he was a literal haunting for everyone. Bruce made his feelings on the haunting more evident than everyone else for once. He knows Oliver was glad to have Hal back in any way and he hopes now that he's even more content with him being here at all. He doesn't deserve the happiness of this meal, but he showed up nonetheless.
Ollie's eyes flicker down to Hal's chest and then back to his eyes. "I think about you being dead because of me too much, Hal." There's not much elaboration past that. Hal understands what it means because he looks at Kilowog about the same way. Maybe not perfectly the same with the way the traveling heroes tread a different line, but it's still there nonetheless. He gives a weak smile and decides for once to be brave in the face of being back to life.
He stands up, pushing the chair back, and the scrape of it on the floor makes Ollie stand up. It's like he's expecting a fight with the way he tenses up yet seems to accept that Hal's about to hit him or something of the like.
He's gathering Oliver up in his arms though and squeezing the damn life out of his friend in a way he hasn't really hugged anyone but Helen lately. He was so cold as the Spectre and he remembers Kyle's look of surprise the first time he ever felt Hal's hand again and it was warm this time around. Ollie melts in and hugs back just as tight. The silence from the two of them seems to have alerted Dinah because Hal can't help the small jump he does as she joins in on the hug. Worming her way in and a hand on his neck so he looks at her. Hal tries to smile for her too, but he can barely handle the grief coursing through him looking at her.
There's so much the two of them have to say. Oliver's death did something to fracture their friendship a bit. Hal wants to start apologizing and he knows Dinah's going to tell him to shut up for it. He opens his mouth to start it, but she gives him a look already that makes it snap shut. Oliver's moving out the hug now and Hal lets them both go. They're still hovering over him like he's going to be gone in the blink of an eye. He can't blame them too hard for the fear they have in that because Hal runs. It's his most notable quality. It's made him damn antsy being here this long and he's even antsier with the fact he's been here so long with Helen.
"Stay the night, Hal. Guest room's already prepped and Helen would have fun." Dinah's got her hand over where the scar is again. Hal thinks of the three of them on the road and how often he was ready to throw himself in front of Dinah for the sake of her being fine. She's his friend. She means so much to him that Hal regrets dying to Oliver's hands if it even slightly upset her more than he had thought it would.
He isn't quite there for laying anywhere but the guest room. He nods and he has to move away from Dinah. He has to do this much at least for the sake of her not feeling the rhythm of his heart increase.
She doesn't seem ready to go though because there really was no actual talk had between him and Oliver and she knows it. She knows the two of them will keep burying it the way Hal knows it. To the hallway for a blanket and an extra toothbrush before she's really looking at him.
"I thought of what it would be like if I stepped in earlier about how you were spiraling. You were called crazy on television and all I could think is maybe we should have all thought of it earlier. You still are pretty damn crazy, Hal. We love you with all that crazy. Us, your fellow Lanterns, the rest of the League, and your family," she's glancing now at direction of Mia coming out of her room with Helen running out full speed to crash into her uncle. The conversation's cut off for now and hopefully for Hal it's cut off for a while.
He's not too sure how much crazy he has left in him before he'll snap again. Hopefully he lasts longer this time. He's picking up Helen despite the small protest she lets out and offering her this night here. Mia's way older, but she's a good sister figure for Helen. Someone into the girly things Hal denies himself.
—
One year and one day.
Mia stands in the kitchen at 3:54 AM when Hal slinks out of a sleep filled with grief-driven dreams. It takes a moment for either of them to acknowledge one another until Hal sits on the stool furthest away from the current Speedy.
There's no pre-built relationship between the two of them, really, nor much with Connor. Roy calls him Uncle Hal and seems to have mourned him all the same. Him and Mia are distant. An odd thing to know so much and so little of her. He knows though that she's more hesitant around people. She seems afraid sometimes of what they'll think of her and the diagnosis surrounding her. He doesn't say the first word between them. He'll let Mia decide if she wants to talk at all.
She's picking at a hangnail on her thumb when something seems to finally escape her. "Everyone talks about how unexpected it was when you went crazy but Dinah. It's like she knew you were on the border of it too late."
Hal can't quite wrap his head around on Mia understanding what it means for the old trio to understand each other so well. The thing is, Hal knows the League eventually realized. That they had some sort of clicking together that Henshaw was just the final straw. A crater in the ground where Coast City once stood was not inevitable. Hal's mental breakdown and subsequently letting a fear entity ride along for the sake of power was inevitable.
Dinah having connected the dots from the start explains the concerned glances and offers to speak. The way she tried to pry open his past. He thinks of Helen asleep on Mia's floor after pleading for the chance of hanging out with the older girl. He wonders if anyone gave Mia a life like Helen's. He wonders why he never had a life much like Helen's. He doesn't look at the current Speedy as he drums his fingers on the countertop and thinks of what to say.
"Yeah. I was going crazy. One the guys that trained me wants me to go get help." Hal likely never will. No one is equipped for the grief in his life, at least in his eyes. Nor can he even tell Mia that he burned Kilowog to a crisp.
"It's alright, I'm not judging," she sighs out her own words and takes a drink of water, "I miss out on my sessions pretty often."
She's slipping off the stool now and walking back to her room silently. It's weird. It'll likely haunt him for a while to remember this conversation. Crazy, they call him.
He slips out of his own stool and lays down in the guest bed.
—
Helen says she misses their dreams a year and one month into Hal being alive. He thinks of how he could slip in and out of other forms and says me too. He misses it. He misses the femininity he could put on sometimes or slipping into the masculinity in a more androgynous way. Corrigan never said it was like this for him. It makes him wonder what the fuck the Spectre did to his brain.
"Okay, Auntie Hal, close your eyes... Carefully. I don't want to poke your eye out with the eyeliner again."
Kilowog is visiting again and curiously watching Helen do Hal's face. She's been interested in makeup so maybe he splurged on some drugstore stuff for the sake of sating the curiosity. He had no idea it meant he'd be stuck modeling in front of others. He had told her off-handedly about missing the dream Spectre him and now he's got makeup on his damn face. Kilowog said he looked nice for a human earlier with the black lipstick on. It made his heart race in a good way. He wants to look nice in Helen's amateur attempts at makeup. It's not like Hal would do any better if he tried it on his own.
She's probably doing this out of order, but it's worth the pain of eyeliner and mascara if it makes her smile brightly at him. She's been yapping to Kilowog about makeup techniques she saw on TV and on YouTube. It's kind of all leaking out of his ears because half of what he's thinking about is the fact he likes the feeling of makeup on his face. He's been alive a year and hanging out with friends and family. He's been okay. He still hasn't seen a therapist for any of the shit that happened. He probably never will.
He can handle it on his own. He opens his left eye and peers at Helen's concentrated face. She sticks her tongue out when she's in the zone in the way her mother used to. He swallows harshly and closes his eye again before she even thinks about scolding him.
For right now, he's just Auntie Hal and Kilowog's just a buddy. No blood on his hands and face. No grief. Just a girl getting makeup done up by her beloved niece.