No Stomach For Nostalgia

[Carter Hall]

Something twisted in Carter Hall's stomach as the taxi finally came to a halt. Part of him wished it was hunger - that certainly would have been appropriate, given where he was going - but he knew better. It was the same knot of discomfort he experienced any time someone from the old days showed up, only this time it was worse: the someone was Alan Scott.

Carter and Alan saw each other rarely, and that was just how the Professor liked it. Their encounter at Oliver Queen's university fundraiser had been unpleasant: even in the old days the two had clashed, but now their ideological differences seemed worse than ever. Their discussion at the fundraiser had been cut short by the necessity of keeping their historic exploits secret, but Alan had invited Carter to lunch to reminisce about the good old days. Carter hated nostalgia. The past was full of ghosts and bad memories, and given the choice he would much rather leave them to rest in peace. But Alan knew Carter well: he'd pitched the encounter in such a way that he knew Carter's sense of propriety and manners would not allow him to decline. And so here he was, already regretting it.

The restaurant was one of those places that catered to a wealthy clientèle, and was determined to make that as abundantly obvious as possible. That meant a dress code, a laughable attempt at replicating historic decorative styles that was a hideous abomination to anyone with even a passing understanding of history, and a staff that consisted of about half of the English and French nationals living in Gotham at the time. The maître d' had looked at him with a heavy dose of scepticism when he'd arrived, but had been forced to swallow his arrogance momentarily once Carter's name was found on the list of reservations.

As the Professor was led through the scattered tables to the dulcet tones of a string quartet piece that sounded distinctly Mozart, Carter felt the knot tighten in his stomach. He forced a faint smile onto his features, in the hopes it would disguise his discomfort.

"Alan," he greeted, with a slight nod. "Or are you rich enough now that everyone has to call you 'Mr Scott', regardless of how well they know you?"

[Alan Scott]

It wasn't his favorite place in Gotham, but Alan Scott knew that if he'd asked Carter to come to one of his actual favorite places, the answer would have been a resounding no, even after Alan offered to pay the tab. Besides, this place did have a fairly respectable menu, and it wasn't terribly crowded on a weekday.

He'd been there for nearly an hour now, having shown up early, knowing Carter didn't like to be kept waiting. Business had been done on his phone and tablet as he enjoyed a glass of wine, and Alan spared only a glance at the time when Carter did show. Three minutes early. Carter was never late.

Still Alan smiled, standing as his guest arrived, and only sat down again when Carter did as well. "Oh, come off it, Carter," Alan laughed. "If I cared about that, you'd have been calling me Mr. Scott decades ago."

There was something different about his old friend, something Alan couldn't put his finger on. Carter had never been one for overt socialization, but it wasn't like him to treat a friend so coolly. "Thank you for coming. After the other night, I rather doubted you'd show."

[Carter Hall]

Carter uttered out a grunt. "In all the years you've known me, when have I ever backed down from an argument?"

It always made Carter uncomfortable when Alan Scott was nice. It wasn't that Alan was normally hostile or unsavoury: on the contrary, he'd always been a pleasant enough fellow, and Carter had always respected his bluntness. That he was being deliberately civil, no doubt to set the grizzled old Hawk at ease, raised his hackles more than it settled them.

Still, it was no doubt a well-meaning gesture, and Carter made the effort to muster a slightly more convincing smile.

"You know I'm far too stubborn to let you win."

[Alan Scott]

"Though it has been known to happen, from time to time," Alan came back with a smirk. "Few and far between as those times were."

Leaning back in his seat, the old broadcasting mogul let his right hand hold the tip of his left, his thumb rubbing idly at the heavy gold, jet and diamond ring on the middle finger of his left hand. The topic of conversation he wished to bring up was a difficult one, especially with Carter. In the old days there hadn't been a leader for their team, so to speak, and all interaction hinged on mutual trust and respect. Carter had burned some bridges in the past, while others fell out from beneath him, and Alan Scott hadn't exactly done the best job of mending ones of his own. Some of it had to do with a change in the laws, but mostly it all came down to time, and respect for privacy.

As the silence began to stretch, Alan sighed and simply launched into it. "We we so wrong, back then, Carter? Did what we do pose so great a risk that it warranted what was done to us?"

[Carter Hall]

Carter had always been the one who charged in at things flailing a mace; it seemed that Alan had begun to take cues from his subtlety.

"How can you even ask that?"

There was no anger in his voice: the supernova rage and passion had all burned away, leaving only a glowing white dwarf core of truth behind. What remained might not have been as spectacular as his usual tirade, but it packed just as much gravity.

"I have a son who will never meet his mother," he said quietly. "I raised a girl who will never know her parents. No amount of memories or nostalgia can make up for that: they're just gone. Shiera, Ted, Terry, Al, Larry, Dinah -"

He shook his head, and sighed. "Yes, Alan. We were wrong. We were so wrong. Wrong to think that we were so invulnerable. Wrong to be so arrogant. And as for what was done to us?"

A grunt escaped him, and the old hawk fell silent. He eyed the wine glass on the table between them, the powerful need for something stronger growing in his chest. His gaze returned to the man opposite.

"All they did was save us from ourselves."

[Alan Scott]

"And what of what we did for others?" Alan said, not leaning forward. "For the world, for the safety of those we never knew. We did it willingly, Carter. We didn't ask to be thanked, or for glory. Would you seriously take back all you did, and let the evils we stopped have run free?"

The moment of passion passed, Alan letting his eyes close for a moment as the breath left him, and in that moment he looked old. So very old. When his eyes did open, they still held the same sense of righteousness as they did those many decades ago, but behind that there was sadness and fear.

"You used to believe in what we did. I had to hold you back, at times. Yes, there was loss. There is always loss. There will always be loss. But for a short while, there was hope," Alan said. It didn't sound like a practiced speech, but from the heart, and honest as he had always been.

Lifting his wine to his lips, he took a drink, then set the glass down with a weary hand. "This world needs hope."

[Carter Hall]

"Maybe that world needed hope," Carter countered, though there was doubt in his voice. "But this one?"

He shook his head again. Alan was right. There had been times where he'd needed holding back: where he'd been so convinced about the necessity and validity of their righteous quest that not even the Green Lantern had been powerful enough to stand between Carter and his cause. But that version of himself was long gone; and in truth, Carter hadn't mourned his passing for a second.

"You forget, Alan, that I am far older than I appear. I fought at Troy, at Actium, at Camlann, at Waterloo, at Ypres, and more. I watched the fall of Constantinople, and the rise of Hitler. I saw this continent first colonised, and I saw every misstep that it, and every other civilization since Ozymandias, has taken."

"The story is the same, Alan." There was a hint of sadness in his eyes, wrapping itself around the tiredness that normally held dominion. "It doesn't matter whether you're the Knights of Round Table or the Justice Society of America: when people raise themselves up above others on some carpet of morals, eventually someone is going to stumble, and everything comes crashing down."

"If you ask me, the world doesn't need hope. What the world needs to do is wake up and stop kidding itself: stop giving heroes chances that they so repeatedly fail to deserve."

[Alan Scott]

"Did I fail to deserve it, Carter?" Alan asked.

The question came in a calm voice, yet carried the impact of a double-barreled shotgun from point blank range.

"In all your lifetimes, you never saw a power like the one I was given. You told me that, yourself. So, tell me, knowing what I used it for, did I fail to deserve that power?"

[Carter Hall]

It was at times like this when Carter wished the addles of time had attacked Alan's memory more than they clearly had. He had a talent for this: for storing people's words away so they could be twisted against them later.

"This isn't about power," Carter fired back. The tone in his voice was less about impact; more about the razor sharp edge concealed just below the surface. "This is about people."

It had been meant simply as a deflection, but the time it allowed let Alan's words truly sink in. All things considered, did the man before him deserve the terrific power that fate had handed him?

"Maybe you deserved that power, once," Carter replied, more fully. "Maybe your deeds in the old days were enough to earn as powerful a weapon as that ring became in your hands. But what about since, Alan?" He gestured around them. "Of all of us, you still retain the most power. With all your wealth, you could do great things: and yet here we are, surrounded by all of this sickening waste and pretence. I may not agree with what Sly is using his money for, but at least he's found a way to make a difference inside the law. But you?"

Carter didn't mean for his words to become so harsh; but harsh they had become, and there was no stopping him now. "You've taken more from this world than you've given back to it. You make your charitable donations, and sponsor your good causes when you have to, but at the end of it all you're just a dragon: all that power unused so that you can curl up atop your mound of gold."

[Alan Scott]

Alan Scott didn't move. He didn't flinch, blink or sneer as Carter demonized his actions and character. There, in his pocket, rested something that could make his point known through the brutest of force Carter had ever seen, but his hands remained where they were.

Instead of acting, he waited. Waited for Carter to spew his venom, to argue himself the better man, despite his bitterness and apathy for the world. Perhaps even a thousand lifetimes would not be enough for Carter to understand the truth that Alan knew, but it wasn't Alan's job to try and teach it to him. No, that truth would come at the right time, as it had come to Alan two weeks before.

A truth so obvious that none could deny it.

But while this was not the right time for that truth, it was high time for another. For decades, Alan had let himself be the butt of many a joke, and the darling of socialite circles. He was wealthy, there was no doubt about that, and he enjoyed the finer things. But he was also shrewd, as all businessmen must be. He learned well from his time as the Green Lantern how to put on the face of one role while secretly doing the work of another, so that the two may never be confused for each other. The weariness in his eyes cleared long enough for him to stare straight back through Carter's glasses and speak, for once, in a manner he had never used against one of his friends.

"You call me a dragon, but you're the one who has let bitterness and selfishness consume him," he stated. "You have no idea what I've done, what I've given up and what I've suffered for all these years. Charitable donations when I have to? I should show you my books, Carter. Over half my company's profits go to charity; to law enforcement, to building homes, to feeding the hungry, to education, to hospitals and clinics, so on and so forth, and I had to fight my board to make sure that the money went to where it needed to go! The other half of my profits, you wonder? They go to a staff of over ten thousand hard-working men and women, so that they can grow and become better people and live good, honest lives, never fearing about their security. I hound my editors to report the news as it is, not sensationalize it. I make sure that corruption is exposed, and that good deeds do not go unnoticed. I stepped in when my executives wanted to cancel our educational programming on GBS because the ratings weren't up to par with the sleaze and garbage other stations were airing. I was the one to foot the bill for the GCPD's transition to cellular technology from radio, and I was the one to help fund their new digital infrastructure! So don't you dare tell me that I've taken more from this world than I've put in! You're the one who can't get his head out of the past and look to the future!"

[Carter Hall]

"Oh, and you must be so proud of yourself for it, too," he shot back, not entirely sure whether the words were spoken or snarled.

"Don't pretend like you know sacrifice, Mister Scott." The forced pleasantries were gone, Carter's disdain for them finally getting the better of him. "You speak of all this philanthropy, but it's not a sacrifice. Your comfort is very much preserved, and your ego is very much fed. You used to commit good deeds because it was the right thing to do. You used to place your life in the hands of fate night after night, risking yourself for the good of others. But now? Now you're just a rich man spouting his good deeds for the sake of his ego, trying to salve his conscience so that he can sleep at night."

"And me?" Carter choked out a laugh. "You're damned right I've let bitterness consume me. Don't you think I've sacrificed enough? Don't you think I've watched fate rip my Shiera away from me enough times? Do you have any idea the guilt I have carried around all these years, knowing that the woman I raised will never know her parents because of what we did?"

His hands tightened into fists. "Call me selfish all you want. I know better. In every life until now, I have followed my love into death: given my life for some noble cause because without her, my life has no meaning. That is my curse: to suffer the loss of a love that transcends lifetimes, over and over again. All these years I have endured hell, battling through each and every day because I promised Larry and Dinah that I would keep their daughter safe."

"I have even lingered in this life for so long that my Shiera has been reborn, but not as my Shiera: as some child pretender, more Hawkgirl than Hawkwoman. When this body fails and I am reborn yet again, I will have to endure a lifetime without her; and if by some fluke my new self does find her again, it will only be to watch her waste away with age, the way that she is forced to watch me waste away. So don't talk to me about selfishness and sacrifice."

The rage fell away and silence fell; and all the guilt and sorrow that Carter carried with him settled on his shoulders like a leaden cloak. He found his feet, and slowly rose. "Fuck you, Alan. And fuck the world. I have given more than enough to both of you already."

[Alan Scott]

"Sit down, you selfish son of a bitch," Alan growled. "Or, in this instance, I will make you sit down."

The words were very out of place from Alan Scott. He'd never threatened Carter, or anyone from the Justice Society, before. Of all of them, his power had been the most incredible, but he had never used it for his own gain, which made the threat all the more important. Carter paused, then slowly found his seat once more.

Alan took another drink, more to wet his dry throat than anything, but his eyes never left those of his friend's. "You speak of lifetimes spent with love, knowing who you are meant to be with, and the pain of loss. But you'll be with her, again, and again, and again, until the end of time, so you've told me. Yes, you're suffering now because you can't get your way, like some spoiled child, but what of us who have no second chances?"

Alan could see Carter was ready with a reply, but the old media mogul cut him off with a wave of his hand. "I lost a wife, too, or did you forget? And a son, my line now ending with me. I won't be re-born, I won't have lifetimes without end, and I never had the luxury of knowing who my soulmate was from the day I was born. You confuse my efforts and my suffering, for they are two very different things.

"You have grown used to your lives, Carter. I have but one, and must sort out every moment of it, the good and the bad, with no past experience to guide me. When I lost Rose, nothing could prepare me for that, and then to lose Todd when he was just becoming a man? It was all I could do not to break down, myself. You live, you love, you die and you return, but Rose and Todd won't come back to me. That is what I suffer, Carter. Suffer wondering if there was anything I could have done to prevent it, and the blame I put on myself for not finding some way to have kept them safe.

"But I didn't invite you here to talk about old times, or to argue with you, or to hear you prattle on like the self-centered, spoiled brat you've become," Alan stated. "I asked you here because I have something very important I wanted to tell you in person."

He paused, making sure there was no way Carter could misinterpret his next words.

"I'm dying."

[Carter Hall]

Just as before, Alan's naive and condescending words twisted inside Carter like a coiled viper, ready to lend it's venom to his words the next time there was a pause in conversation. When that moment finally came, he found himself unwilling to speak. An arsenal of retorts had readied themselves, but they remained firmly shelved.

A familiar frown settled on Carter's features. "Cancer?" It was a guess, but an educated one; for men their age, in this day and age, it usually was.

[Alan Scott]

Alan nodded, his movement slow. A deep breath, followed by a sigh of defeat confirmed it.

"Pancreatic," he specified. "Even with today's miracles of science, the doctors say I have eight months to a year at most."

[Carter Hall]

In that moment, thirty years fell away. Alan was no longer the antithesis of every opinion about superheroism that Carter had ever held. He was no longer the embodiment of everything what Carter had tried to turn his back on. He was simply another man; a fellow mourning widower; someone else reaching the end of their life and staring death in the face.

Sorry was the default response, but this was one of the myriad situations when it simply didn't cut it. Carter couldn't even offer empathy or understanding; his past incarnations had never lived long enough to experience such things, and his resurrections prevented him from being able to offer any insights on the afterlife.

"Why tell me?" The question tumbled out unbidden, and propriety suggested that Carter should want to reel it back in, but in truth he wanted an answer. "You could have relied upon the obituaries to do that for you. Why tell me in person?"

[Alan Scott]

At that, Alan cracked a smile, even chuckling for a moment before he leaned forward, resting his arms on the table almost to the point of his elbows.

"I'm telling you, Carter, because you're the only friend I have left," he replied.

[Carter Hall]

A lopsided smile managed to sneak it's way past Carter's mask of stern. "If that's true, then you must be really desperate."

The expression didn't last long; Carter was too much of a pessimist to allow expressions like that to linger. His frown returned with a vengeance, and he found himself wishing he'd not passed up so many of those opportunities to settle down and watch movies with Dinah. Perhaps that would have prepared him a little better for how society expected him to act in situations like this.

"Were this a few thousand years ago, I'd offer to help finish building your pyramid," he muttered. "As for today, is there -"

He hesitated. "Is there anything I can do to help you," he stumbled for the right choice of words, "Prepare?"

[Alan Scott]

Alan shook his head. "No, at least not in the modern sense of it. I've had plans in place for decades, now, just in case someone found out who I really was and wanted revenge, or to make a name for themselves. All the legal business is well taken care of," he replied.

"But, there is something else I had hoped you might be able to help me with. Though our conversation thus far doesn't exactly fill me with hope, to be honest," Alan continued. "I'm on borrowed time, and I possess something which mustn't be left without a master. You know what I'm talking about, don't you?"

[Carter Hall]

Of course Carter knew. The mystical ring that Alan possessed was hardly something that slipped one's mind. It was one of the reasons that the government had been so afraid of superheroes in the end: it had a power that potentially dwarfed America's nuclear arsenal, and yet it rested in the hands of only one man. They'd probably tried to wrest it from him, but there was no way Alan would have let it go; for better or worse, a world where the United States government didn't possess that power was a safer one.

Even so, what Carter presumed that Alan was proposing was an equally daunting prospect.

"You want to find a new ring-bearer," he assumed aloud.

[Alan Scott]

"In so many words, yes," Alan nodded.

"I always thought that, just as the ring found me when it needed me, it would one day leave me again through some effort of its own, going into hiding until it was needed again," he explained. "But it's never left me, and... events have now transpired that have left me with the unshakable knowledge that I must find its next guardian before I pass on."

A smirk worked up his face as he added, "A destiny which must be fulfilled, as Kent would put it."