This is the final scene, the glorious finale to that story that began in my writings with Superman compassionately asking J'onn Jo'nzz if he was Dinging on Ashes. Hence the name of the plot-line.
When Ashes are Turned to Nectar
“Oh my God I just realized how stupid I was being!”
It was the absolute last thing I expected to hear out of Nikita's mouth. I'd spent almost an hour talking with her about what had happened between her and J'onn and why.
“I was this close to making some sarcastic comment about being an empath not a telepath. And for once the point wouldn't have been that I wasn't a mind-reader. My people, like Enkarens are constant low level empaths. But we don't read emotions we receive them, like no matter what. I wouldn't say it's very good asa lie detector but we can actually sense ignorance and innocence. And in that moment, in my apartment Me'gann was innocent and J'onn had his head so far up his ass. I'm sorry but he did.”
That's when whatever the light-bulb was went off in her head.
“How he reacted to Me'gann is perfectly understandable. I've been asking myself how he could suddenly forget who I was, and think I would go along with it. In that moment, looking at me he actually reminded me of Hank. Not because of the hate in his eyes but because of the single-mindedness, close-minded and hard. He just wasn't thinking straight. I keep saying his reaction to Me'gann, his belief about her was understandable. But that's all this ever was, a reaction to having Me'gann in the room. Hell, given what they are to him I can't say I blame him!”
I didn't know what to say, so I just waited. I knew she didn't need prompting, just a breath.
“Me'gann's people are...what Hank and I thought J'onn was when we met him. You remember about White Martians and Green Martians, right?” I nodded. “What I never had the chance to tell you, is that if J'onn had been the kind of person he is, but looked like Me'gann, I would have had trouble seeing it. Seeing him for who he really is. Even without my personal experience, I would have assumed the worst of him. The White Martian I met was a dick. But White Martians are horrible. I would actually call them monsters. They are known in the galaxies as mindless, aggressive, one-would-say militaristic-except-they-don't-have-discipline, monsters. But to J'onn's people they're something worse. They are more like...Demons.”
I was starting to catch on. “So the idea of a White Martian you would actively defend, was hard wrap his head around. And taking her part was hard to swallow. He must have felt...betrayed.”
“He didn't forget what I was or our history together. He must have thought I had betrayed that history! I mean don't get me wrong. I still stand by the whole 'She's a guest in my house and you have no right to take her from under my roof' part.”
“Can't argue with you there.”
"I just kind of have trouble with the thought I was so busy being hurt he pulled a Jekyll and Hyde to realize it actually made sense!"
“Do you truly believe she's different?” I asked her in a low voice.
Nikita raised an eyebrow, sat up straighter than I'd ever seen her and set her face. “Me'gann is as different from her people as Lena Luthor is from her family. She's not only different, she's worth it. And I don't just believe that. I know it. Which was kind of my entire point.” She looked over at me, almost inquisitively. I didn't say a word. “And you weren't asking that for yourself, were you?” I shook my head. She turned to the front door.
J'onn was standing at the doorway.
"Nikita, as always you are too quick to blame yourself." J'onn said warmly.
"I...will you please explain that?"
I chuckled a little bit at the irony. "Can I field that one?" J'onn nodded solemnly. "I've had a lot of time over the past 8 years to miss you, and to regret not having the chance to get to know you," I said pointing to Nikita and then to J'onn. "But one thing that stands out when I look back on the day we met is that you weren't just absorbing the blame to keep it off my shoulders. You actually blamed yourself for making such a baseless assumption about him just because of what you believed about White Martians. Even though that belief wasn't baseless. And now here you are again, absorbing fault that doesn't actually belong to you. Nikita, you were Hank's prisoner for six years. Even at the end when you didn't live in a cell, you were his prisoner. But you never had a problem with J'onn wearing Hank's face until he actually lived up to it. And I'm sorry but I have to ask...was she right?"
J'onn sighed deeply and looked down. He wasn't particularly on edge, just kind of pondering his answer. "Obviously I didn't know him like you did. But he seems to have been nothing if not a blind, militaristic idiot. Someone who couldn't see past his own preconceptions -what he knew as certainties- to see the goodness in a person. If is what the two of you see when you remember him. then yes, I lived up to his name." he looked up, with a fierceness I'd never noticed before. "And Nikita, you were right to call me out on it!" Nikita looked like she couldn't believe her ears. "I came into your home to take someone away just because I had a problem with them. But not even with them, with thier species. I treated them like a criminal because of thier race. You were right that is NOT what we do here anymore..." He looked at me, helplessly.
"It is however what Hank would have done when he was director, without a second thought." I said. "Hell it's what he did as director...to you. Nikita, I don't imagine you've had much occasion to talk about your time in the D.E.O before Hank saw you for who you truly were. I imagine it would have been too painful to talk about. Before I came back it would have been too sad...reminded you too much of me. But I'm telling you know, your reaction to J'onn...to a reawakening of those feelings makes perfect freaking sense: You were having your own memory flashbacks!
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