Dawn's changed.

Nothing has been the same ever since they came down from the mountain, and he's still trying to make sense of everything that's happened. It's difficult to return to the ruins again, to any part of that mess; Galactic feels like a disease, something foreign and disgusting in his blood that his body is trying to reject. After Lake Acuity, the doctors say he's lucky to be on his own two feet without any help. Barry thinks that he really isn't lucky at all.

When he thinks of Dawn, he feels numb. He'd seen her on television four months after Mt. Coronet, a period in which they'd never once talked face to face, only texting or messaging each other online. He'd been too scared to speak to her on the phone. But when his mom tells him, in the strangest tone of voice, to put down the dishes and go into the living room, and he goes in and sees the TV on and sees Dawn - it's like reopening a wound.

She hadn't been wearing that floppy white hat he used to tease her about then, or the pink coat she'd gotten for her birthday from Lucas before she entered the Gym circuit. The man they'd met in Jubilife City had been there, along with a group of men and women in black uniforms. ACE trainers. His dad used to have a friend who was ex-ACE, retired from the organization for ten years; he was only seven when they were introduced, and his dad's friend had smiled and offered him a butterscotch. Dawn was wearing black with the rest of them, and she hadn't smiled as she led three people forward. He didn't recognize the first man but knew the second two women once he saw them on the screen: Mars and Jupiter, blinking against the cameras and the sun, a steady stream of vitriol from the press and regular civilians greeting their first live appearance. Someone threw a bottle at their feet, and he remembers the pavement bursting into flame, screams, the feed cutting off.

He hasn't slept well since that night.

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The first time he meets with Dawn after the trial, she's cut her hair. "What's with the new look?" he asks. They're at his house, sitting on his bed. Dawn cups an unopened can of soda in her hands and stares at him as though he's just dropped out of the sky.

"I needed a change," she finally answers, the words coming out with a certain reluctance. "I was sick of my old hair."

"I thought you hated getting your hair cut."

She shrugs. "Guess I outgrew that habit." It's mid-July, but her eyes - her eyes are chips of ice set into a too-narrow face and he wonders when she stopped looking at him as a person and started looking through him instead.

They don't talk much after that. Johanna sends him a pie and a note inviting him to come over for supper, but he declines the invitation. Things are different now and he wonders if Johanna knows that as well, if she has taken this all in stride or if there's a part of her, underneath that ever-present smile, that's gone as cold as her daughter has. He doesn't have the nerve to press the issue any further.

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By the time December is coming to a close, he's managed to mostly put her out of his mind until she calls him one morning.

"On New Year's Eve," Dawn says, "if you're free at around 9 PM, there's this banquet they invited me to. Said I could bring one guest of my choice. Maybe we could go together." He hears her swallow on the other end of the line. "I know we've been kind of distant lately, and I'm really sorry about that, it's just that I've been so busy this year..." She sighs. "Barry, please? For me?"

His heart is hammering away inside his chest. "Don't you want to invite your mom? I mean, it's important for her too. You're her only daughter."

"Yeah, I should, but it's been rough between us and I'm terrified, Barry. God, I'm scared out of my mind to talk to my own mother about this stupid banquet-"

"Do you want me to talk to her?" Nervously, he wipes sweat from his hands onto his jeans, pacing the kitchen. "She's really worried about you, you know."

"Just-" His fist clenches as she chokes back something - a sob or a laugh, or both. "Just go with me, Barry. I'll make it up to you, I promise."

His phone hums as she hangs up.

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The evening of, he goes out and buys a bouquet from the flower shop down by the pier. The shopkeeper asks if he's going to a party and he manages a weak grin, saying yes, he is.

"Got a date?"

"Yeah. She's been a close friend of mine since we were kids."

Winking, the shopkeeper says, "Good luck, sonny."

Outside Dawn's house, he raps on the door three times before Johanna opens it. "Come in, come in!" she exclaims. "Let's get you out of that cold. My goodness, don't you look handsome tonight! Dawn will be down in just a sec. Want something to drink? I've got some coffee brewing."

"I'm fine, ma'am," he answers. "Thanks."

Johanna smiles at him - tiredly, he thinks - and calls, "Dawn? Honey? Your friend's here!"

"Coming, mom."

She walks down the staircase uncertainly, beautifully, in a slim black dress. Her skin is winter-pale, lips scarlet, eyes dark and heavy. It hurts him to see her like this.

"Thank you," she tells him when he gives her the flowers he bought, taking a brief whiff before handing them off to her mother. She shrugs on a heavy overcoat, slips out the door into the snow while Barry lingers to say goodbye to Johanna and wish her a happy New Year. Johanna waves from the window, hair loose, lips curved weakly into the semblance of something happy. She can pretend, if nothing else, that this is normal. She can still lie.

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A limousine is waiting for them in the driveway, windows tinted an inscrutable shade. He clambers in awkwardly after Dawn, folds his hands, not knowing whether to put his arm around her shoulder or to leave her be.

"You didn't have to get the flowers for me."

"I wanted to." He scratches the back of his head. "Where did you get a limo, anyway? Did you pay for it yourself? Did the banquet provide it for you?"

"Cynthia did," Dawn responds, voice flat. "Perks of the job, I guess."

They ride in silence for several miles. Dawn clutches a purse so tightly her knuckles whiten. Barry says nothing, not trusting himself to say something that will mend the rift that's grown between them rather than widen it.

She's thinner, it seems. Taller, too. He can still recall the days when he was the tall one, ruffling her hair and her screaming at him, her loyal piplup sharing its master's anger and turning them both into a hilariously comic duo. He wishes he could go back to their childhood, when it felt like they were still joined at the hip, before rivalries and all the crap that's happened in the past year did. Dawn doesn't look at him, arms crossed, agitated.

"I just want you to tell me one thing."

Dawn doesn't reply.

"You owe me this much."

"What?" she snaps.

"What's with you lately? You don't talk to me. You don't talk to your mom. You don't talk to anyone anymore, really."

"Give it a rest. I told you, I've been busy."

"I know you aren't so busy that you can't return a few of my calls!"

"You have no idea how busy I am," she mutters. "I'm spending time with you now, aren't I? Doesn't that count for anything?" Turning to face him, she's gotten a hard look in her eyes, jaw set firmly. "Or are you going to fine me, what, a million dollars?"

"Don't be like this, Dawn."

"Why don't you calm down first. And lower your voice."

"Just tell me what's the matter, please."

"There's nothing to tell," she hisses. "Leave it."

"Yes there is! I've known you since we were kids. This isn't you. If it's about Spear Pillar-"

"Don't talk to me about that place!" Dawn snarls. "Don't ever bring that place up again."

"I'm right, aren't I?"

"It has nothing to do with Galactic, dammit!"

"Then what? You can't keep this to yourself forever!" He clasps her hands in his own, pleading, "I know you might be scared. I know it might be difficult. But you have to tell me what's wrong. I'm worried, Dawn. If you're still my friend - please tell me."

For a while she seems stunned. Gradually, the tension goes out of her body and she slumps, defeated. "Barry. There's something else happening tonight, after dinner is over."

Dread pools in his gut, a snake waiting to strike. "What is it?"

"Barry..." Shuddering, Dawn takes a long breath, composing herself before she can speak. "Cynthia's been forced to resign."

Her news hits him like a punch. He gapes, shocked, at a loss for what else to say. "When? How?"

"After Team Galactic, the Board of Review got together and decided that there were too many oversights during her tenure as Champion. That it was her fault for not stopping them until it was too late. They said it was time for her to go."

"Shit-"

"So... so they decided there needed to be a replacement. They voted a week ago. Do you know who they chose to be the new Champion?"

Oh God. "Dawn..."

"Me. They chose me." Her chin quivers. "I didn't even get a battle, they just decided all of a sudden, and, and-"

So that's it, he marvels before she's crying, fucking finally, after months and months of trying to get through to her she's broken down in this car and he's there with her, headed God knows where, she's making these sounds like she can't get enough air, like she's choking. He feels unclean, filthy all over. He doesn't want any part of what she's signed up for. None of it.

"I'll be just like Cynthia one day!" she used to tell him as a child, playing in her backyard, pretending to have battles with action figures. "I'm gonna be Champion and no one's gonna stop me!" Beaming, in a t-shirt and tattered dungarees, grime on her cheeks. People tossed the word prodigy around when she was in the room, testing it out, weighing it, tasting it. She's going to be famous one day. Got a talent for it, she does. What fucking talents? he wants to scream. What would you use them for? What did you do to her?

He doesn't want this.

He doesn't want what this has become.

It's not fair.

"They're swearing me in tonight," she chokes out. "At midnight. They said they won't let anyone into the room while it's taking place, but until then-"

"Dawn," he croaks, hoarse, taking her into his arms. She sobs into his tuxedo, her skin feverishly warm, and Barry thinks that this wasn't supposed to be how it would turn out, this wasn't what they were promised, what they promised each other before, this is wrong. He says her name, Dawn, forces it out his throat like a twisted, ruined thing, and his lips find hers and her eyes are wide and glassy as they kiss.

notes: title comes from /a song of despair/ by pablo neruda