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MIND-WIPED (A Hournite Fic)

Summary:

Chuck: Hello, Beth. It's been a while.
Beth: (awkwardly) So I hear.
Chuck: May I reintroduce myself?
Beth: (taking a moment to think) Maybe you should, Chuck. (surprised at how naturally the name rolls out of her tongue) Wait, it's all right if I call you that, right?
Chuck: It was your preference on our last session. Is there anything you would like to know?
Beth: (bristling for a second) Actually...yes. Could you...run me back to the accident I had? What happened to me?

Notes:

I fell in love with Stargirl, but even harder with its characters Beth Chapel and Rick Tyler. This short novel is set after the events of the season 1 finale. Stick around to see how far it takes the team but mostly Beth and Rick :)

NOTE: Beth has an accident and goes through amnesia. The team must fight to get her to embrace Doctor Midnite again, so that they fight off the new ISA.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter Text

PROLOGUE

Rick’s heart was still thundering in his ears as strangers in scrubs, a blur of blue and green, rushed past him, their shoes against the white tiles squeaking irritably.
The emergency ward of Blue Valley Hospital was packed and Rick could barely breathe---even though Yolanda’s side, pressed against his arm, offered a semblance of consolation.
He didn’t want to remember why they were there but the scarlet smears of blood on his shirt made the memories rush back.
It could’ve been anybody else. Just not her. Why her?
Rick clenched his jaw as he glimpsed the face clock across the hall, its arms ticking away, one second closer to reprieve or disaster.
Damn time! Damn the Pit Stop! Damn school and his Chemistry equations!
If only his dad had invented a way to turn back time, to alter the order of events just a bit, if only…
“Finally!” Yolanda let out a cry of relief, jumping up from her seat.
Rick looked up to see Pat and Courtney jostle their way in.
Took them long enough. But Rick knew they weren’t to blame.
“There’s a traffic gridlock out there!” Pat explained. He sounded tired and frustrated. “People want to leave town.”
“Guys, how’s Beth?” Courtney’s question hit Rick like a blow of her Staff to the belly.
“What happened?” Pat sighed, a cloud of worry coming over his face.
Yolanda began answering but Rick couldn’t hold it in any more.
“It was all my fault,” he heard his voice tremble.
And instead of watching the confusion and shock on Pat and Courtney’s faces, Rick rose up to dash for the exit.

 

CHAPTER 1

(Earlier that day)

Rick barely heard her come in until her mustard yellow vans were staring him in the face. He glanced up from the jacked tire at Beth, the tension in his temples growing.
“What is it this time?”
Beth flashed her pearly white smile, but Rick knew from how it lingered that she wanted something badly. A glossy magazine popped out from behind her back in a flash. “Something to peak your interest, nothing much,” she chirped, shrugging her woolen shoulders.
Rick stifled a grumble as he accepted the magazine, briefly eyeing Yolanda over at the small study table in the corner of the Pit Stop. Courtney and Pat were out (family business, they’d said) and wouldn’t be back till around five in the evening to close down.
“You won’t believe how hard finding one of these is in Blue Valley,” Beth chattered on, nervous laughter in her voice. “Three libraries—three, can you believe it? Mr. Hodge the librarian said this magazine is the last one in Blue Valley with monumental groundbreaking research—the formulas in it are timeless, basically better than modern science. Disputed but accurate…”
“Okay, okay! Fine, I’ll look at it later.” Rick conceded, dropping the spanner from his other hand to hold Beth’s magazine with both hands. He leaned on the truck behind him to lazily peruse through the pages.
It had been a long week and that was minus the last three months of Beth’s incessant obsessing over bringing Chuck back. Although Charles McNider’s goggles were technically gone, his spirit seemed to weirdly live on through the mouthpiece that was Beth. If Rick hadn’t known her so well he would’ve been seriously worried for her.
“I was thinking we could go through the formulas together?” Beth was biting her lip in uncertainty, watching Rick’s face for a reaction she knew he’d give.
“Beth--”
“I just think it’s kinda easier to understand complicated stuff when we’re teaming up than when we’re alone. Besides, it’s going to be a lot of fun.”
Fun was hardly it, and barely a concept Rick was to fully understand no matter everyone’s insistence. Besides, what time did he have for pleasantries and picnics when all he could think about…dream about…was Grundy returning to Blue Valley in his monstrous glory? Clawing at whatever little semblance of happiness and achievements Rick had gathered in his time spent with the JSA and the Whitmore family?
What if the only reason Rick had released Grundy wasn’t because he had forgiven him, but because he had glimpsed in the former scientist's eyes that night in the ISA tunnels a reflection of the monster within himself, clawing and thrashing its way out to devour everyone else eventually?
“Beth, you need a real life,” the words slipped out.
There’d been no malice in them, but now Beth was looking like a person who’d been punched in the face.
“Chuck means a lot to you—I get that,” Rick sighed, “But by the end of the day life can’t always be about the JSA or artificial intelligence---”
“Chuck is my best friend,” Beth yelped, like a hurt animal.
It gave Rick pause. He’d not expected an extreme reaction at all. Beth and he argued on topics a lot but never like this; with tears and emotions.
Even Yolanda stopped what she was doing to watch what was happening.
“Beth, Chuck’s a program. He does his thing and can be fixed, but what about you?”
“Doctor Midnite can’t be Doctor Midnite without Chuck, Rick,” Beth snapped, her eyes gleaming with conviction.
“She has a point,” Yolanda called out from her desk.
“Yeah,” Rick huffed indignantly. “Except that you, Yolanda, have a boxing tournament to prepare for. Court has an internship at her mom’s office and I have auto-repair gigs outside of life as a superhero, ‘kay?”
The backlash was a mouthful, but Rick couldn’t state it any more differently for Beth to understand his point.
She was still starting at him with those pitiful, wide eyes, but Rick was determined not to fall for them this time.
“It’s been three months since the ISA went under, Beth. Life is moving on and maybe you should try it too. Apart from the JSA work and fixing Chuck. That’s all I’m saying.”
He crossed the room for Pat's red tool box, the magazine rolled in his hand now slippery with sweat. “I’ll see what I can do with the formulas. If what the librarian told you is true we can fix Chuck in three months tops.” He pretended to rummage through the screws and spanners in the toolbox just so he’d keep his back to Beth. Rick was good at fights with his Uncle Matt, just not when it came to handling girls.
“It’s all right!” Beth surprised him.
Rick turned round to face her but she was already by the exit of the garage door, her flowery bad dangling over her shoulder. It was impossible to clearly see her face against the bright afternoon sun.
“You have a point, Rick. Sorry for taking up your time.”
Then she was off across the street before Rick could whisper a goodbye. The girl walked so fast for someone her height.
“So that’s your idea of a pep talk, huh?” Yolanda exclaimed, rising from her chair. “Couldn’t you have been less,” she drew quotes in the air, “I don’t know—confrontational? You saw Beth. She was crushed!”
“I’m doing her a favor,” Rick argued. He really was.
Rick grew up alone, dependent on no one, and he’d survived. Individuality wouldn’t kill Beth the way Yolanda was suggesting.
He reached for a towel beside the toolbox and wiped the grease and sweat off his hands and Beth’s science magazine. “Look, I’m not antagonizing Beth.”
“Fine, you’re not,” Yolanda agreed. She piled up her sports books and fetched them into her strong arms with one haul. “But I’m not sure Beth knows that, Rick. She’s…different. Maybe you should understand that for a change.”

 

(Present day)

The night was alight with red and blue lights from incoming ambulances when Rick stumbled out of the hospital building. Casualty were still being wheeled in over the low ramp connecting the entrance of Blue Valley hospital to the ample parking lot as relatives and families hovered every new arrival to spot loved ones.
Rick couldn’t believe he was back here. He hated hospitals for the single reason that it was where he first saw his parents after Grundy murdered them. Uncle Matt hadn’t been keen then on shielding him from seeing the gore of it all, and henceforth Rick had known hospitals for nothing else but death and hopelessness.
Now Beth was somewhere in there fighting for her life. The only child to a doctor could end up dying in the same place her mother worked…all because of Rick.
“Hey, watch it!” a jerk with a cigarette in his mouth mumbled as Rick bumped shoulders with him.
If only he knew how Rick was rife with desperation for a real fight. “Watch yourself!” the threat ripped from his mouth, a lump still jammed in his throat. “You’ll burn down the place with that thing stuck in your dirty mouth.”
“Kid,” the smoker held up a forbidding finger as if that were enough to scare Rick off. “Anyone ever taught you--”
“My parents are dead, you ass-hat!” Rick thundered, surging forward so that the smoker stumbled back. “Try someone else.”
“Hey, kid—I’m sorry. My condolences.”
Rick turned to keep walking. He hated it when people felt sorry for him. Even more so when he let small glimpses of his pain be seen by others just as he’d done.
Who could he attack next? What else could he do to keep the storm churning in his chest from exploding and breaking his well kept walls? What could he do to stop feeling this way? What could bring Beth back?
BUMP!
“Aaargh!” Rick rubbed his shoulder as the stranger he’d run into pulled back to frown at him.
He was a wiry guy, tawny and with sleek black hair pushed to one side of his face.
Rick immediately recognized him. “You’re the loser that was with her!” he growled.
The boy furrowed his thick brows. “Do I know you?”
“Beth was with you tonight and you did shit to protect her!” At that point, Rick didn’t care whether the stranger understood anything or not.
His fist flew out in front of him as if driven by an invisible force, crashing into tough bone as it smashed into the stranger’s face.
Rick’s victim landed on the wet ground with a gasp. “You crazy or what?”
“It’s your fault Beth’s here!” This time Rick pulled out his phone to show the stranger the picture.
He hadn’t liked it when Yolanda showed it to him, and he certainly liked the boy with Beth in the picture less in life size.
“You left her there! Lying there,” Rick blinked away tears as he relived the moment with Beth in the rubble, her limp body pressed against his chest. “You never went back for her—I did. Because you never cared.”
“RICK!” It was Pat.
The distraction gave the boy on the ground enough time to get up, but Rick was not letting him go anywhere just yet.
“Buddy, let it go. This isn’t the way.” Pat squeezed a firm hand on Rick’s shoulder as a warning, one that Rick was willing to respect for Beth’s sake.
“Young man, are you okay?”
“I didn’t leave Beth tonight. She left me.” The boy seemed just as tense and pumped up for a fight like Rick was, class aside.
But to Pat he nodded respectfully. “I’m okay, sir. Will Beth be fine?”
Rick didn’t like the way Beth’s name rolled fondly off the boy’s mouth.
“Is that why you’re here?” Pat sounded just as confused as Rick was. “How’d you know she was here?”
“I didn’t know. It’s just my dad, he’ll be taking questions from the press.”
“The press?” Rick scoffed.
The boy leveled him with a stare before swiping the sleeve of his leather jacket against his busted lip. “Yes. Tonight’s gala was at my dad’s place. He needs to offer condolences to the people of Blue Valley.”
“Wait, you’re the son of Keith Diaz?” Pat was gasping like God had just dropped from the sky.
Rick bristled. It’s not like the class of this dude could outweigh the graveness of what had happened to Beth, who’d gone on some sort of date with that rascal.
“Yes, I’m Robert Diaz.” The Robert boy glanced at Rick uncertainly, probably remembering the fist he took to the face. “Look, man. I’m sorry about Beth. You have my word she’ll get all the help she needs.”
“Thank you,” Pat interjected, filling in the silence on Rick’s end.
Seeing there was no more to be said, and that a sizeable crowd had gathered about to watch the drama, the Robert boy walked away.
“What the hell is a Diaz anyway?” Rick blurted out, his heart still thundering with anger. “I’ve never seen you like that Pat. Literally like a dog with its tail between its legs!”
“Stop, Rick!”
“For what?”
Pat pursed his lips before letting out a sigh. “You just punched a millionaire’s son in the face. Keith Diaz is thee top investor settled into Blue Valley, Rick. You better pray to God he doesn’t sue you before he gets this town out of the rubble! ”
*End of chapter.*