Disclaimer: Nothing is mine.

Remembrance

"There's no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were." ~Dwight D. Eisenhower

None of them are aware of the snowflakes crystallizing to their eyelashes or the bitter wind sweeping through their jackets or the ice crunching like shattering hearts beneath their feet. All they can think about are the twenty-six gravestones they have come to see, the twenty-six people they failed to save.

The tragic event which had taken place a year ago hadn't been the first time they faced casualties, and it hadn't been the last. Its impact, however, has been the most profound. There were so many taken in so few minutes, so many futures destroyed at the hands of one sick, lost human being. Perhaps they would have been doctors, or lawyers, or police officers. Maybe they would have married and settled down and had children of their own. Now, they were nothing but porcelain dolls dressed in their Sunday best, still and perfect and too fragile to touch, buried deep away for safe keeping. No more birthdays or holidays. No first kisses or school dances. Just slabs of cold grey to mark where there had once been life.

So senseless. So unbelievable. So unstoppable.

That's what has made this the worst of all their failures-they hadn't even known. There was no warning, no one with a maniacal laugh, no signal that they were needed. It was just a normal day in a normal town, and they couldn't have possibly known that such a tragedy would occur.

This doesn't stop the guilt, for they are heroes and that means helping everyone, saving everyone, no matter the obstacle. And this, they had failed.

Following the massacre, each had struggled with the burden. Wally refused to eat, to the point that he'd been rushed to the hospital when his body had turned to devouring itself for nutrients; Raquel spent every afternoon for two months with her young neighbors, protectively shielding them every time a car backfired or a truck came by a little too quickly down the street; Artemis trained for hours on end, to become stronger, faster, better because she clearly wasn't good enough; Kaldur spent his time either in Atlantis or the salt-water pool of the Cave, trying to ease his mind while wondering what it felt like to drown; Megan baked and cried, cried and baked, still overwhelmed by the pulsating emotional outpour; Connor destroyed all the training equipment, and all the replacements that followed for three weeks, because there was so much rage and hatred and pain threatening to tear him apart from the inside out; Zatanna poured over every ancient magic book that she could find, searching for a spell powerful enough to wake the dead, and even contemplated turning to Klarion for help; Dick read and re-read article after article about the shooting, about the victims, because he wanted to know who they were and who they would have been.

Time came, and the pain lessened, but it never went away. Because there were twenty baby angels in Heaven, and six adult angels to keep watch.

That's what brought them here, on the one-year anniversary.

No one speaks at first. No one knows what to say.

Finally, Robin whispers, "Hey, guys. It's been a while. Just, just dropping by to say hello."

"A lot's changed," Megan adds quietly.

"Whole lot," Wally agrees. "Figured, you might want to hear about it."

And so they speak for hours, telling tales of three hundred and sixty-five days, their words carried by the twirling currents above this world and to the next.

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It's been one year since the massacre at Sandy Hook elementary. Those children and adults murdered deserve to be remembered. To all who mourn and live with that pain every day, you are in my thoughts and prayers always.