AN: This follows the Comfort timeline. It'll be a series of one-shots of Cam adjusting to life as a hero.

Disclaimer: All the characters belong to those who created them. Fun fact, I didn't create them.

Therapy

"I'm here to talk about Artemis?" The words are out of his mouth as soon as he steps into the room. He wants this over quickly, and the best way for this to happen is if he simply accepts the situation.

Dinah watches him as he takes a seat across from her. "We can talk about whatever you want."

"But the reason these sessions are going on is because of what happened to her." Setting the boundaries. He'll talk about the rape, but nothing more. That needs to be clear.

She nods, holding her hands in her lap. "Whenever you're ready."

He's rehearsed what he was going to say, a simple chronological chain of emotions throughout the course of the previous month. Now, though, the words won't come because there is an audience. His mentor. Maybe that's what really freaks him out. If he told her this, she wouldn't make him talk to her, he's sure of that. He's also sure she'd make him talk to a real psychiatrist, and that alternative is far worse than the one he is facing right now.

"When I first walked into that warehouse, I had no idea what was going on," he explains, studying the floor. "I couldn't tell, at first, but then I realized what Terror was doing. And it disgusted me, that someone could do that. And then he offered her to me, like she was some thing he didn't want any more, and I flipped."

"You flipped?"

"Not like the second time," he murmurs. "Enough to knock him out."

"Did you know the girl was Artemis?"

"Not then. I asked if she wanted me to help her, or to get help, and then she said my name and I knew it was her."

"Just from her saying your name?"

"Yes."

Of course he knew it was her. It was the voice from his childhood, the one with gentle words and soothing promises, the only one who called him by his real name.

"What happened then?"

"I undid the chains, held her while she cried." He shifts uncomfortably, refusing to mention that he saw her, for the briefest moment, naked, because the memory of her being so vulnerable and exposed still terrifies him. "Then she asked me to join up with the heroes, and I said yes."

"Just like that?"

"I've never been good at being a villain. I don't like hurting people. And I figured, this would probably be my only chance out, and I couldn't abandon her, either."

"Even though she was a hero and tricked you into giving information about the jailbreak?"

"Well, that hurt, for sure, but that was the last thing on my mind at the moment. Besides, she was doing her job. She'd gotten out and was doing what she had to do."

"So you had no grudges?"

His mind wanders back to Belle Reve, sitting in the empty cell, tenderly touching the fresh bruises that encased his body, wishing Artemis had been sentenced there. At least he would have had one person on his side, even if separated by that glass wall. It was only a few days later when he saw her on the news, a brief snippet about some fight in his home city, and it left him numb and aching and betrayed, staring at his best friend, his only friend, on the opposing side.

This, of course, is not related to the rape.

"No. She was just doing what she had to do."

"Were you surprised she didn't want to tell anyone what happened?"

"Yeah. I mean, kinda. I'd figured she'd at least tell her mom, but I knew she'd handle it on her own time." He allows himself a smirk. "No one can make her do anything she doesn't want."

There is silence, as though Dinah is waiting for him to elaborate. He doesn't, having said all that was necessary on the matter, and she prompts him again: "Was it difficult, being the only one who knew? Carrying that burden by yourself?"

"She was the one who was raped. She was the only one carrying any burden."

"It didn't affect you?"

"Well, sure it affected me, but nothing major." He keeps it to himself all the nights he went without sleep, thoughts consumed with worry over how Artemis was. The overwhelming fits of rage that would find him, or the all-consuming sorrow that would engulf him, go unmentioned as well. The guilt, the one that gnawed him for getting backtracked, for being too late, remains buried, deep inside. He's not much of a talker. It was how he was raised, and breaking the habit is not on his list of Things to Do.

"What happened that night?" Dinah's catching on. She's trying to make this as painless as possible by jumping to a major event, bypassing the feelings he's locked away.

"When she told us on the mind link that Terror had her, I was scared and pissed and panicking all at once. And when I found them and he was straddling her, I just…I just lost control." Before he has time to contemplate the repercussions, he continues, "I shouldn't feel guilty, doing what I did to him. After what he put Artemis through, he deserved it. But I can't help it. I don't want to be like my dad. I don't want to be able to do that to people. I don't want to be a monster."

"Monster," Dinah repeats softly. "That's an interesting choice of words."

"No it's not," he says, too quickly as he remembers that Dinah was still in the arena the day he told the Team about his mom.

"Cam—"

"I'm not talking about her," he states stubbornly.

"You need to."

"No, I don't," he insists, bringing his knees up to his chest. "She's nothing to me."

"What she put you through has affected you, whether you want to admit it or not. And that's okay. But trying to shove the pain away…that's not healthy. Please, Cameron."

Her voice fades as he sinks beneath the waves of his unconscious. He's not Cameron, not Cam, just boy. She's mad again, yelling at him, calling him those mean words that echo over and over when he tries to sleep at night. He wants to beg her to stop and promise he'll never use his powers again, not even by accident, but that will only make things worse. He doesn't understand why she doesn't love him, why she won't let him call her Mommy or Mom, why she thinks he's a mistake. All he understands is that he still loves her and wants to make her happy, so he lets her scream, nodding in agreement because if she says it so often, all those things must be true…

"Cam? Cam?" He resurfaces, blinking away the past. He's still in that room but Dinah's in front of him now, hands on his shoulder, eyes sad. "It's okay. We don't have to talk about her. You can go."

He owes her an explanation, something, anything, but he just nods weakly and leaves, heading for his room. Curling up on his bed, he falls asleep and dreams of the ocean, of a strong undercurrent trying to drag him down, an undercurrent he always knew was there but had come to believe he was stronger than.