It wasn't her fault
It wasn't her fault
Just try-
Try to remember it wasn't her fault.
(You really, really should have told her. Whose idea was it, you try to remember, to keep this kind of thing secret from the alien mind reader who'd already put more than one person into a fucking coma?)
[How could any of you have ever guessed she'd do it to Kaldur]
{How many of you even know who the others are anymore}
It wasn't her fault, you tell yourself as you sit at his bedside.
And its true- it wasn't. Well, it wasn't all hers.
But- its hard, to remember that, to not be a little bit angry under all the heartbroken guilt and sick worry. Because he's just- lying there. Eyes open, face slack, almost like he could be-
Not dead. His chest is rising, the beeping monitor hooked up to his wrist is keeping you informed that his pulse is just fine for an Atlantean, thank-you. It's not even the closest you've seen him to dead. You're reminded, sickeningly, of Bialya, of the desert, of him heat-mad and delusional, muttering to himself in desperate Atlantean until his body had been too tired and dried out to even allow him that.
You're reminded of all the other times you've almost lost him to the dark, and you're punched in the gut with how much worse this is.
Because even at his worst moments, clinging to life by a thread or by nothing but that insane willpower he seems to get from somewhere, he was still, well, Kaldur. Determination in the arch of his brow, strength in his jaw, in the grit of his teeth against the latest painful cost of being a hero.
But lying in this bed- It's like looking at doll of your friend, like the creepy dolls your sister once kept around because she knew they freaked you out (the ones you threw away, part in triumph and part in anger but mostly in the desperate stupid hope that maybe wrecking her stuff would bring her back, if only to yell at you, which wasn't important because at least she'd be back).
His face is slack and somehow pallid, the deep brown of it tinged green and washed of its color. Manta hasn't left his hair to grow, but as much as you know you should- to strengthen your cover, his belief that you and Kaldur are something much closer than mere partners or even friends- you can't bring yourself to offer to wield the razor. You can hardly bring yourself to look at him most of the time and, not for the first time, you're grateful for curtain of your hair. You can angle you head towards him, just enough that to an observer it'll seem like you're looking at him-brooding over his fate and the revenge you want on the witch who did such a thing to your lover- when really all you're staring at is the wall beyond his head.
That his eyes stayed open may be the worst part. The lid that is capable of dropping down to shield them stays up, thankfully. You love your Atlantean friends, but certain features of their anatomy have always freaked you out.
But even without the cloudy lens, his eyes haunt you. He doesn't even look angry- he rarely does outside of a fight, even when he should- just… Pained.
Guilty.
(It's almost absurd, how guilty he can feel over things he has no control over, over things that aren't his fault [things like M'gann destroying his mind, like how terrible she must feel over all of this]. You'd deride him for playing the martyr if you didn't know that he honestly believed himself responsible for so many of the ridiculous things he flagellates himself over)
It wasn't her fault, you remind yourself again. But under that, there's- the echo, of you and her and words you never thought you'd hear from her in a situation you somehow (stupidly, foolishly, because honestly who couldn't have seen this coming, when you'd taken her little brother and her boyfriend and arranged for them to be rescued from the same ship where the man who she blamed for their torture and your death was just walking around-) never thought you'd be in.
I thought he deserved-
Deserved
DESERVED
M'gann, what have you done- and you hadn't just meant Kaldur, though a lot of you, admittedly, meant just Kaldur. But you haven't been around, and you've heard stories, and you were admittedly, yeah, a little worried sometimes by the things that you heard, but this was M'gann, and she was so nice, such a good person, and she loved Kaldur, he was an older brother to her for chrissakes, and she'd never-
And then she did, and now he's lying here in front of you like an abandoned shell. His eyes are empty except for that stupid guilty looking sadness the drives you insane, and he's been still and quiet for so long, and you love her and you know it wasn't her fault but-
You can't help but be angry, for the things she's done, for Kaldur.
For the person she became when you were gone. Because you love M'gann and you know M'gann and M'gann would never-
Except she did. She did, and you don't know how you can ever face her if Kaldur doesn't come back.
So, yeah. You're angry, furious, but you're also heartbroken because Kaldur might be gone and M'gann-
M'gann maybe has been, for a while, and you never noticed it until you found her kneeling across from his corpse body him with horror dawning in her eyes.
Kaldur may be the one lying comatose in front of you, but you're past beginning to suspect he's not the only one who needs to be brought back to himself.