Interlude 6.5.5: David Stabler

2001, December 2: Houston, TX

I looked at the cross on my wall and smiled. It was a bittersweet reminder. It had been in the family since my grandfather, the same gnarled old man who used to bounce me on his knee and read me stories of my namesake.

He'd carved the cross himself out of rich mahogany, with grapevines twisting around the wood. At the base was a goblet and plaque that read, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you."

Luke, chapter twenty-two, verse twenty. Of all the Bible verses, this was the one I associated most with gramps. He always told me that love was sacrifice, that as Christ sacrificed for us, we ought to do the same for others.

I wondered what he'd think of me now.

He was my hero, my personal eidolon. When my wheelchair broke and we were too poor to get a new one, he built me a frame from scratch. When I was turned down from the army, he took me skeet shooting until the crippled boy I was felt like a man. When I tried to end it all, he punched me hard enough to knock a tooth loose then called me a fucking coward before hugging me and breaking down crying.

It was that look, the one of sheer, unrestrained fear in his eyes at the thought of losing me that made me swear to never reach for the gun again. It wouldn't be a stretch to say he's why I accepted the doctor's offer in the end.

I still had that wooden wheelchair somewhere, could never bring myself to scrap it.

He wasn't a fan of capes, said they were proof of the coming end times. He thought that most were squandering God's gift.

My phone buzzed, an alarm for therapy with Dr. O'Leary.

God, I hated that word. I'd been in enough of those to last a lifetime. Still, she wasn't terrible, all things considered. I sent off a quick prayer to a God I wasn't sure was listening before calling a Doorway directly to her office.

X

I stepped into the office and gave it a cursory glance. No matter how many times I saw it, it didn't mesh with what I imagined a shrink's office to look like. Oh, sure, there was a comfy armchair and a set of couches surrounding a coffee table, but that was where the similarities ended.

Dr. O'Leary's office was a carefully curated disaster zone. It was one part bachelor pad and one part zen garden. Along one wall was an array of flags from college football teams, most of them bitter rivals. Along another wall was a shelf filled with bonsai trees that I knew she took care of personally. The coffee table was a refurbished foosball table and a minifridge decorated with a random assortment of flower stickers sat at her feet.

Walking into the place was… an experience. At first, I thought it was a bit too in-your-face for a therapist's office, but I came to like the controlled chaos over time. Then again, perhaps that was what she wanted, to create a space that utterly defies expectations.

"Hello, David," the good doctor said. She was sitting on the plush armchair, a binder in hand. She insisted on calling me that, and being called Rachel in turn, a transparent attempt to forge familiarity. Over a year of therapy sessions later, she'd succeeded.

"Hello, Rachel," I obliged her with a polite smile.

Dr. Rachel O'Leary, much like her office, was not what I'd expected when Rebecca convinced me to see a psychologist. She was tall, probably a hair above six feet, with bright red hair and blue eyes. She was slightly chubby but not unfit, with broad shoulders she confessed had made her insecure as a young girl. No one would call her beautiful, but she was striking, the kind of person who'd leave an impression no matter where she went.

To be fair, I wasn't what most thought of when they heard "strongest hero" either. For a time, I tried to get in shape, but it fell to the wayside when I realized just how little difference personal fitness would make compared to the powers I already had.

"Come, sit. Tea?" she asked with a knowing smirk.

"Keep your soggy leaf juice."

She dug around the minifridge by her seat and withdrew a can of Mountain Dew before tossing it to me with a grin. "Fine, here's your sugared piss."

"It's heroic sugared piss," I jabbed back, finishing our months-old ritual. When I first arrived, I couldn't get over the fact that Rebecca arranged a psychologist for me. I was a bitter, uncooperative ass who took out his frustrations on the doctor.

In one of the pettiest acts of revenge I'd ever experienced, when she realized I didn't like tea, she stocked the damn fridge with nothing but Eidolon-brand Mountain Dew. It pissed me off to no end. I still didn't know why I didn't just storm out of there.

'Pride mostly,' I admitted. 'Pride, and maybe I liked having a civilian who wouldn't bend over for me.'

That was what it was in many ways. I kept coming back because… because she didn't get it. She had no fucking clue what it was like to be me, and she didn't pretend otherwise. She was privileged to know the man behind Eidolon, and content to leave it at that. A link between the man and the mask, Rebecca had called it.

I popped the can and winced as the soda filled my mouth. It tasted vaguely of artificial melon-flavored sweet tea, if the whole thing was carbonated to hell and back. I still had no idea what PR was thinking, slapping my image on this piss.

She shot me a triumphant smirk at the look on my face before taking a sip of her tea. "So, how've you been?"

"Not too bad, doc. Grabbed a drink with Legend and Hero the other night. You?"

"Went holiday shopping with my husband and his extended family. Mother-in-law's still a raging cunt. I have no idea how she's allowed in the mall anymore."

"A fat wallet."

"Point. Now, do you remember what we talked about last week?"

"We were all over the place."

"Yes, but what sticks out to you?"

I shrugged ambivalently. "I dunno, you said something about how cuckoo birds have their own egg-laying mafia."

"Really? That's what you remember?" she snorted. "Guess mighty Eidolon is as human as the rest of us."

Stolen novel; please report.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Humans have this irritating habit of remembering all the meaningless bullshit."

I couldn't suppress a laugh at that. "True that."

"Self-worth, David. We talked about self-worth."

"Right. You asked me if a cuckoo bird would have any sense of self-worth knowing it murdered other eggs to lay its own and I said no because it's a fucking bird and you can stop trying to improv an Aesop's fable out of your ass."

"Yes, and I said you had no appreciation for the classics. I also asked you to think about it. Did you?"

I sighed. "What do you want from me, Rachel? What am I supposed to say? Should a bird have self-worth because it's a criminal? If we're humanizing birds, can't it take pride in something even if it's a crime since it's for the sake of survival?"

"I suppose it can. What people take pride in varies from person to person. Me? I love my bonsai collection and Hank still collects baseball cards like the lovable dweeb he is."

"Wonderful. I'm glad you get along with your husband."

"My point," she stressed, "is that you should figure out what you take pride in. That's generally what determines your self-worth."

"I know what gives me worth. I'm Eidolon, what more is there to say?"

"Plenty. For starters, why? Why Eidolon? You could just as easily have become anything at all. With the kind of power you have, everything from a movie star with your own built-in special effects to a villainous warlord with his own country was possible. But you chose to be a hero."

"Who wouldn't want to be a hero?" I asked rhetorically. I stared at her like she'd grown a second head. "If you have the power to help, shouldn't you? That's just common sense."

"Most capes seem to eschew common sense then. And that's with the stellar examples you four have set for the rest of us. Back then? When you first came onto the scene? There was no Protectorate. There was no PRT. No national oversight. No obligations. No glitz and glamor of the hero's life. You could have chosen any other path, but you chose this one. You had every reason to be selfish, plenty of people with far less power certainly make excuses for themselves. It's even in the name: Eidolon. A paragon. An example. What I want to know, is why? Why become that example for the rest of us?"

"I…" She was right. And for all my self-reflection, it shamed me to say this was the first time I really thought about the answer. Back then, when the doctor told me about Scion, her only request was that I help her kill him. I didn't need to be a hero. Hell, you could even argue that until us four founded the Protectorate, the profession of "hero" simply didn't exist, certainly no one who could do it for a living. I… I chose this. I could have just as easily hidden out in some luxurious estate, waiting for the final battle.

I thought about the cross my grandfather carved, the old wheelchair in a storage shed back in Houston. I thought about the look in his eyes as he read me the story of David's ascension to king of Israel. "I did it because of my grandfather."

"Oh?"

"I was a cripple, you know. I was wheelchair-bound for most of my life. I was such a burden that even my own mother couldn't find it in herself to give a damn about me. I'm not saying she didn't care, I think she did, it's just… It's hard. Love." I remembered the way mom held me, how her hugs became less frequent. A little colder each time. A little more distant. I couldn't even recall the last time I heard her tell me she loved me. Letting out a shuddering breath, I continued. "I think… I think she just… ran out. Ran out of love. Squeezed empty like a tube of toothpaste. Does that make sense?"

Rachel's normally cavalier eyes softened. "Yes, yes it does."

"Yeah, well, gramps took me in when she got tired of it all. He took me to school. Introduced me to his church. Showed me how to skeet shoot and carve wood. Taught me to appreciate good barbeque and football. He showed me how to treat a lady right and slapped some manners into me when I said something stupid. He taught me everything that makes me who I am."

"He sounds like a good man."

"The best. That's why, why I'm Eidolon. I wanted to be someone he could be proud of."

"I think he'd be proud."

That made me laugh a little. Would he? It was easy for Rachel to say that, she was my shrink. Hell, clearance or not, she didn't know half the crap I had to do for Cauldron. "I don't know about that," I whispered.

"Why do you say that?"

"He was… He was a simple man. The kind that stood up for the little guy, you know? He'd sit you down and hear out your problems. He used to tell me that no one's problem is small to them so the least he could do is lend an ear."

"And you don't? Didn't you douse a fire yesterday? And stop a bank robbery the day before that? Not exactly world-ending threats, but they damn sure mattered to the people involved."

"I don't do enough."

"Then do more," she said simply. I blinked. That wasn't the response I expected and I told her so. "What? Were you expecting me to give you some platitude about how you're already doing so much? Maybe tell you that you're only one man and shouldn't have to shoulder the world's burdens?"

"I… yeah."

"Well, that's all true, but you don't need to hear it from me. No, instead, let me ask you a question: When's the last time you enjoyed being a hero?"

"Excuse me?"

"Look, David, we've gotten to know each other for a year now and I've come to realize something: You don't like being Eidolon."

"What? That's not-"

"You don't," she spoke over me. "And it's no surprise. Being Eidolon is everything to you, but it's everything because it's your duty, not because you enjoy the limelight or the money or the authority. It's noble. You're noble. In a way that few men truly are. But just because you fight for a noble cause doesn't mean it's your passion. It might define you, but that doesn't mean you can't burn out like the rest of us."

"I'm not burning out," I snapped crossly.

"Are you certain? Have you ever wondered what it'd be like to hang up the mantle? To retire?"

"I'm not going to retire."

"Of course not. And frankly, I think I'd lose my job if I somehow convinced you to. No, I'm saying you're tired and you have every reason to be. Under all your power, you're still a man."

I thought about it, truly thought about what she was saying. The last time I was happy being Eidolon was before I knew I was getting weaker. A cape planned to make a name for herself by turning the Astrodome into a glass crater. She succeeded, only for me to reverse time in a localized area, rebuilding the iconic building brick by brick. I'd even slowed it down so people could take videos of the building seemingly magically regenerating from the ground up. That was a good day.

Rachel was wrong. I did delight in the fame. There was a time when I loved the adulations of the crowd, until it all turned to ash in my mouth. I'd set an impossible standard for myself, only to realize I'd never each my peak again. How I wished I could revisit those days.

"I… It's been a long time since I enjoyed being Eidolon," I admitted quietly.

"You told me you became a hero for your grandfather. Have you considered passing the torch? I don't mean retiring. I mean taking an apprentice."

"I have Exalt-"

"Oh, please. We both know you don't mentor so much as drive them into the ground with your workaholic ways," she laughed. "I mean take a bit of time off being Eidolon the savior and try out being Eidolon the teacher."

"No one can do what I do."

"Arrogant… And I hate that you might be the one person in the world who merits that arrogance. I don't know much about the Protectorate roster, but are you telling me that there is no one? If I asked you to name an heir right now, who comes to mind?"

Chevalier. Rime. Myrrdin. Royalle. My mind switched through names like flipping pages in a book, but they all fell short. None of them could do more than scratch an endbringer, never mind Scion. "No," I said finally. "I can't mentor anyone."

"If you say so. But David, I want you to think about what I said for next week. Find out something about Eidolon that you enjoy. And maybe, a small vacation to indulge in a forgotten hobby isn't a bad idea, hmm? You deserve happiness too."

"Me? Vacation?"

"The world won't burn down just because you're away from the wheel for a few days," Rachel smiled sardonically. "You have capable peers and subordinates. Trust them."

"I… Maybe… Thank you, Rachel."

"Until Next week, David."

Author's Note

Obligatory disclaimer: I've never attended a therapy session. I don't actually know what a session is like beyond entry-level psychology textbooks from undergrad. It's why I decided to include this interlude so late into David's therapy. That initial trust-building phase? I wouldn't have a damn clue where to start.

I did have a teacher who liked to teach me life lessons through convoluted analogies though.

David's progress so far seems largely that he's willing to hear the doctor out. He's still very much stuck on the idea that he's the only hope against Scion. It's… not an unreasonable expectation… so he has a hard time deviating from matters.

Thank you for reading. To reach a wider audience, and because I enjoy a more forum-like setup to facilitate discussion, I like to crosspost to a wide variety of websites. You can find them all on my Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/fabled.webs.