Title: Past Imperfect
Word Count: 1600
Characters/Pairing: Artemis Crock, Lawrence Crock; Artemis&Lawrence
Rating: T (for violence, blood, trauma)
Disclaimer: Young Justice does not belong to me, I just have all the feels.
Summary: The first time she killed someone, Artemis was nearly ten. (This life was never a choice for her.)

Note: A slightly belated birthday gift to my darling Karisa. She has made being in the YJ fandom so much better. All of our Crock ladies feels, let me show you them. Special thanks to mswyrr for being a truly fabulous beta, and everyone else who was kind enough to look it over for me and give me much-needed feedback.

The first time she killed someone, Artemis was nearly ten.

He surprised her, sneaking around in her dark and empty house. Mom was in jail, of course, and Jade had been gone for months by then, and Dad was out on business ("I'm going out on business tonight, baby girl. Don't wait up for me," he'd always say, though Artemis was starting to suspect that her dad's business wasn't quite the same as other people's business).

She didn't know at first what woke her until she heard it again: the creaky floor in the kitchen, too soft to belong to her father's heavy frame. Still half-caught in the cobwebs of sleep, one thought made it through—Jade, Jade is back, it must be Jade—and once she thought that she couldn't think of anything else. Her body was already ahead of her, rolling out of bed, stumbling down the hall, flipping on the kitchen light.

A tall figure stood by the sink, dressed all in dark clothes. Her breath caught briefly in her throat, but before the figure turned she already knew it wasn't Jade.

Stupid stupid stupid! her mind screamed, but her body stood frozen; all her dad's lessons flew right out of her head. The intruder had a hoodie pulled low over his face so she couldn't make out much, but he seemed as surprised to see her as she was to see him. In one hand he carried a black cloth bag.

"Shit," he said, low and to himself, but in the small room it carried. "Shit, a kid. Shit. Shit. Shit shit shit."

He still hadn't moved either, and Artemis's eyes flicked to the phone on the counter to her left. Maybe she could get to it and call for help—not the police, how many times had Dad told her never to call the police, but he'd given her a number for emergencies, and this had to count.

It wouldn't make a difference though, because he'd never get home in time. Her best bet was to run outside and hide.

She looked back at the man to find him scowling. "Don't even think about it, kid." He shifted on the balls of his feet, reaching toward his pocket.

He thought she'd go for the phone. Maybe that could buy her a few seconds.

She lunged toward it.

He jerked forward, shouting. Suddenly she saw a knife flashing toward her, and every single thought in her head abandoned her.

Her body was already ahead of her.

Her limbs moved fluidly, precisely, without thought or command, too quickly for her mind to follow—she remained distant and unattached, as though watching herself in a mirror. Several long seconds later (or perhaps minutes, perhaps hours, perhaps days) her body slowed, then stopped. Gradually, her brain began to catch up, but her thoughts remained strangely sluggish.

The man lay on the floor, unmoving. The knife was in her hand. It was very shiny, but the blade was red. How curious.

Her legs felt funny, so Artemis decided to sit down; she dropped abruptly, legs and palms jarring on the cold tile. She didn't want to be near the man on the floor, but she couldn't seem to go anywhere and he wasn't coming any closer, so she supposed that was okay.

His hood wasn't up anymore, and she could see his face clearly for the first time. He wasn't as old as she'd thought he was. He looked like the boys that Jade used to hang out with sometimes—though he couldn't have been any of them, because all the neighborhood kids knew better than to try stealing from her father's house.

She wondered vaguely if he had a family—maybe even a nice one. Maybe he had a little sister. Maybe she would miss him. (Why would she miss him? Artemis couldn't remember.)

His eyes were open; he wouldn't stop staring at her. She wished he would stop staring. It was making her head hurt.

She didn't know how long she sat in the kitchen, blank and bewildered, but after a while she heard a voice. The words she could hear clearly, but they didn't make any sense to her; all she knew was that the voice was coming closer. Panic ran electric fingers violently up her spine and she whipped around to face the new threat, a looming shape so much larger than the man-boy on the floor. He was so big, and she couldn't see around the throbbing in her head,but she bared her teeth and held up her hands to ward him off, to do whatever she needed to protect herself.

He stopped, and for several long moments they stayed in tense standoff. Then, very slowly, he crouched down and took off his face—

His mask. He took off his mask. His face was underneath.

"Baby girl, can you hear me? It's Daddy. I'm home now, okay? You can give Daddy the knife."

She struggled to focus on anything beyond the pounding rhythm at her temples. "Daddy?"

"That's right, baby girl. You're safe now, so just give me the knife before you hurt yourself."

She looked at her hands, confused; why would she have a knife? But he was right, she had a knife clenched between her fingers like a lifeline. The blade ran bright with red.

"Why is the knife so red?" she asked, dazed, and something struggled to break free in her memory. She clamped down on it quickly; she didn't know what it is, but she knew it was terrible, and she didn't want to remember. It was very important that she didn't remember.

Still, the terrible thing tried to slip through; Artemis's breath started coming in short gasps, ragged and just this edge of a sob. She couldn't cry though, she couldn't cry, not in front of Daddy, not ever—but that didn't stop the tears from coming. It distracted her, and she focused instead on keeping everything inside.

"Give me the knife now, Artemis." He squeezed her elbow with his hand, rough callouses catching on her skin, just tight enough to make her pay attention.

When did he ever call her by her name?

One by one, she unfolded her fingers and let the blade drop into his other outstretched hand; he dropped it carelessly to the side.

"Come on, let's go get you cleaned up." She didn't struggle as he picked her up swiftly and headed for the bathroom, leaning limply against him as he ran the water in the tub. Once it was full, he set her down in it, pajamas and all. "Start scrubbing," he ordered, and left.

She was so tired, but Artemis tried to do as she was told. The water turned pink though, and she could feel the panic stirring low in her gut again. She scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed, trying to get rid of the sticky red. Her wet PJs clung to everything, the wrong color now too, so she pulled at them frantically, trying to get at more skin, trying to banish all the feelings crawling just under the surface and the frightening thoughts lurking at the edges of her mind. She didn't know how long it took, how long she spent battling with herself in the water; she lost time again, until large hands pulled at her own, stopping the desperate motion.

"Up."

She stood, glad to leave the accusing pink water behind. Once she was changed and dry, he picked her up again—she couldn't remember the last time he'd touched her this much for anything besides their training games—and carried her out.

"Daddy, can I stay with you tonight?" He hesitated at her door and she held her breath. She hadn't climbed into bed with anyone in ages, and even then it had always been Jade. But Jade wasn't there anymore.

"All right, baby girl," he said finally, almost softly, caught on the tail end of a heavy sigh. "Just for tonight though."

He laid them both down on his bed and she curled up against him. For a while they stayed just like that, and Artemis listened to the way he breathed. Sleep remained far out of reach; her mind wouldn't settle and something kept nagging at her, some piece of the puzzle that she was missing, but she couldn't for the life of her figure out what. A question came back top her.

"Daddy, why was the knife so red?"

"Because you killed him, baby girl." He held nothing back, of course not, he never had; it knocked the breath right back out of her, froze her lungs, and she remembered— "You did good, Artemis. Kid was stupid enough to try robbing Crocks; he got exactly what he deserved." His voice rumbled through her from where her ear pressed against his chest, and it would have been comforting except for the words coming out of his mouth. How could she have killed someone? It didn't make any sense. She wasn't a killer.

She wasn't.

"I didn't mean to. He just came at me with a knife; I didn't know what else to do."

Her father laughed, and this too moved through her. "You took him out with his own knife? Baby girl, you are something else. I'm proud of you."

She stilled completely. He'd never said that before, and she craved it nearly as much as her family being whole again.

"Now," he said, stroking her tangled hair with one of his big, strong hands, "go to sleep. I'll take care of everything."

She still felt strange, sick and scared and so, so small, skin too tight and lungs too heavy, but Daddy said he'd make it okay and she trusted him to do it. She had to; he was all she had left.

She closed her eyes and hoped the nagging itch in her palms would go away soon. In time, she fell asleep.