Kate sat in her chair, facing away from her desk and out to the skyline of Detroit. She had battled many enemies, but her toughest fights were always with herself. One of the benefits of the fast paced nature of her life was that it kept her distracted. Lately, she'd invested nearly all of her time and energy in trying to get Detroit back on track. And now things were... okay. Not perfect. But okay. She was starting to feel a steadiness in the city that had been missing for quite a while. If the rebuilding was finished, then she'd reached the quiet moment before the next phase began: the efforts to try to harvest new ideas to elevate Detroit into something greater. 

But Kate Logan hated quiet moments, because that was when she could hear the whispers. 

Normally she could drown them in alcohol- or if there was no business immediately before her, then lust served equally as well to distract, if not better. Occasionally love for her city, her new family, or a special person would burst from her like a sun and scatter the clouds for days. But the shadows always reformed, reaching out for her with ghost-like ashy tendrils dragging along her throat and wrapping around her limbs. An icy cold numbness would descend on the back of her neck or the ends of her hair- and then the color would drain from the world. No matter how fast she moved, she always got caught eventually. Sometimes she made it days, sometimes weeks... but the darkness was relentless.

She slowly exhaled, removing her gun from its special holster inside her jacket and reaching for some supplies in her desk. Breaking the gun into pieces, she cleaned it meticulously and tried to keep her hands occupied, if not her mind. 

"Depression" was a word that most people didn't think about, when they used it. It sounded too small, too polite. It wasn't a slight dip in the road- it was a relentless, crushing downward pressure. Her shoulders had become accustomed to it,  but- like Atlas- she craved for the momentarily relief that life sometimes offered her. And she dreaded nights like tonight, when the city was quiet and still- and she was left alone with her thoughts. 

It was tempting to blame her father for this. What kind of asshole turns his child into a weapon? Set her onto this course in life? She'd killed him with this gun, over a decade ago. But Kate had the sinking suspicion that it wasn't that act- or any act- that had made her like this. External things could prompt these feelings to emerge- but they always came out from inside her, they were never forced on her from the outside. The fault, in other words, was not in her stars- but in herself. Perhaps she'd even feel the same way in another life- as a loving wife with children. But that was a life that she would never know.

Kate loaded the gun carefully with five rounds and looked at it for a long while, thinking, before glancing up at the Detroit skyline once again. Her mouth didn't move, but something in her eyes changed as she stood and slid the gun into her jacket. 

How do you win against depression? You don't. At least Kate couldn't. She'd tried so many different things to finally vanquish the enemy, slay the dragon, and nothing worked- because it always came back. She couldn't beat it. But she could make it go one more round with her. Again and again and again until her journey was finished, grinding out the right for a rematch, getting her ass kicked, and battling to another draw and making it to the next fight- and trying to remain as open as she could to the vast, wonderful world that could still surprise her, regardless of how rare the blue skies seemed to appear. 

One more round, then. It was time to get to work.