Chapter Text
Dark Heart sensed the bear before he saw them. He turned, shuffling his feet over the pine needles on the ground as he turned himself around to face a troubled-looking True Heart.
“Hello,” she said gently, sitting beside him.
“True Heart,” he greeted. “Where’s Noble Heart.”
“Here,” the horse called, joining in on his other side. Dark Heart sat between them, a cruel mockery of the last time he had seen the pair.
“I messed up,” the boy croaked.
True Heart simply nodded. “Nicholas got a hold of Grumpy and told him what happened.”
Idly, Dark Heart wondered how much time he had lost on his walk to the park. Enough for Mr. Nicholas to get in touch with someone who only appeared to children. Or perhaps he had managed to flag down someone visiting the kids. Surely, they had been upset by Dark Heart’s earlier actions. As his thoughts strayed, he pulled his legs up to his chest, readjusting how he sat on the log. “I wanted to hurt her.”
“And you did,” Noble Heart sighed.
“I’m not even real ,” Dark Heart said before he burst into tears.
The memories of before , of when he had terrorized others were hazy. Easily forgotten and overlooked during day-to-day life, aside from the deep-seated knowledge that he did not fit into the rest of his surroundings. It was not that the memories were lost, more that they remained in the back of his mind and hardly ever took the front seat in his daily ponderings. The longer he was human, the further away they felt. Sometimes, he forgot he even had powers. But he could reach for the reminders at any point, and he knew they would be there, waiting like an old friend.
Logically, he knew what had happened. Dark Heart had chased the Care Bears, had done something unspeakable to most of the adults, though he had lost the details on how he had achieved that. He did not know whether he had done it alone or with help. Their names, appearances, and actions were all missing. Had he acted directly, or had he turned them against each other? Most clearly, he recalled the ocean. Rocking in the waves as he pursued a boat, trying out any number of creatures that he could find and mimic and compel his bones to stretch or shrink into. The boat had gotten away, raised far above him, and it had taken him some fuzzy weeks or maybe years to find the Care Bears again. Then he had tricked Christy into helping his kidnapping of creatures that had once had no need or sense for caution.
He wasn’t good.
At some point, True Heart had leaned against his side, and Noble Heart had reached out to touch his arm. Dark Heart took note of this, and sniffed as he reached up to wipe harshly at his face, rubbing and then scratching until it stung, and Noble Heart guided his hands back down to his lap.
“Now,” Dark Heart murmured, voice thick. He laughed despite himself, exhaling with a wet snort. “Now you are going to stop me.”
“We’re going to help you,” the bear claimed.
“I hurt someone. I want to keep hurting people, and she was littler than me.”
“I know,” Noble Heart sounded angry. “Do you feel bad?”
He felt horrible. The boy wanted to reach out and tear the world apart, but the thoughts hurt more than anything, and nothing dulled the razer-sharp emotions like it used to. Nothing erased the thoughts he had once simply acted out. Instead of answering, he blurted a truth that would do nothing to help him. “I don’t know if I can stop .”
“Okay,” True Heart stretched out her arms, and he leaned down so that she could reach him. Paws fixed themselves on either side of his face. “You’re just a boy, Dark Heart. You just need help.”
“How?” He snapped because nothing had helped. Not for long. Not permanently. Mr. Nicholas had sent him to therapy for a short amount of time before the office had moved too far away. Dark Heart could see the telltale signs of progression in it, and he was sure that humans would keep learning ways to help others, but he doubted any of them could help someone like him . “Sending down Care Bears has hardly helped. What else would you have me do?”
“You could come and stay with us for a while.”
“In Care-A-Lot ?”
She hummed her acknowledgement. He glanced at Noble Heart, who stared evenly at him.
It sounded terrible. Living with the creatures that he had tried to destroy. But- no. He was friends with a few of them. Several of them had had repeated conversations with him, and had helped him like he had helped one or two of them, had given advice on differing perspectives and how to talk to the other kids in the home.
“I just want you to stop me,” he declared resolutely.
“Well, we aren’t going to do anything permanent,” Noble Heart snorted. “Nothing of the sort.”
“You could use the Stare,” he blurted.
The two considered him for a long moment. Then, True Heart stood and motioned for him to stand. Dark Heart complied, stepping past a few branches to more of a clearing. He tucked his shoulders in and set his jaw, bracing himself.
“Are you certain?” The horse asked, brushing a paw against Dark Heart’s hand. The boy flinched and nodded frantically, too keyed up to catch the threads of conversation that were going on between the Care Bears.
He was reverting. He was going back. He was terrible and awful and learning to care wouldn’t save him. But maybe a Stare would. It could purge everything he hated until he was back to being Christy’s friend, someone who only just learned how to cook and eat marshmallows and was only odd because of his shock-red hair and lack of knowledge about human intricacies.
Then the Stare was announced, called out by the two standing a few feet away, and Dark Heart forced his eyes open instead of squeezing them shut like he wanted to, watching the beam approach. Then it hit him.
Pain was what he expected. A tearing sensation down to his marrow, scraping away the hatred and fury. He expected to burn, to be rendered subdued by the exorcism. But it just felt warm. Like sunlight. Dark Heart reached up to wipe his face, less rough than before, and noted that he had either begun to cry again, or that he had never stopped.
Then the beams were gone, and he felt- not better, but a bit lighter. It was what he expected a Stare felt like to someone whose make-up didn’t feed off the irritation, anger, and despair of those around him. Then the implications of that hit him, a million times harder than the Stare had.
“That did nothing,” he said, awed, and then horrified.
“I know,” True Heart stepped closer to him. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“Then that’s just me!” Dark Heart said, panicked. He just wanted to hurt others. That was all him.
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Noble Heart assured him, copying True Heart’s motions as she reached up to take one of his hands. “You’re just you. Sometimes… sometimes that’s harder.”
The former demon nodded, and sat once again when he was urged to. They sat with him until he cried himself out, and listened while he gasped out that he hadn’t really wanted to trip Clara. He had been frustrated , and he had thought about it. That he had never acted out those thoughts before, but this time he had blinked , and then-
“But that’s not an excuse,” he recited hoarsely, finding truth in the words that Christy had repeated to him over and over again. “I still hurt her.”
“You did,” the bear at his side agreed. “And we can try to help you work through that.”
“... I can go with you?”
“You can.”
“Would you like to?” Noble Heart asked.
After a moment, Dark Heart worked up the mental fortitude to nod and glance at the darkening sky. After that, he slowly stood, adjusting his footing as he overbalanced. “I have to go apologize to Mr. Nicholas.”
“And Clara?”
Dark Heart hesitated, because she wasn’t going to accept that at all. Then he nodded. “I have to apologize to her too.”
And… he hadn’t been doing a great job recently, at keeping in touch with his friends. There had been dozens of missed calls even when Clara hadn’t been using the phone, and he missed them. Even John and Dawn had been easier to get along with as they all got more used to each other. Dawn cracked jokes that he laughed at, and John went on and on about recipes that the twins tried baking together, and they all asked how he was doing. While he had dodged it before, they deserved to know. “And to my friends.”
Noble Heart stood. “We can send out a bear to you in a week or so.”
“Be ready,” True Heart warned. “Try talking to everybody before that. Now… will you let us get you back?”
Dark Heart took a while to nod, and even longer to follow behind the two as they walked towards some bushes. Still, he clambered into the cloud car when prompted, pressed up against Noble Heart while True Heart drove.
“Yeah,” he murmured to himself as they took off. “I will go with you.”