"I love you, John. I never lied about that." Those words had been the last ones he would hear from her for a very long time. Their hearts had been broken, the bond they shared shattered. Betrayal had come between them, lies drove them apart. But deep down, deep down he never forgot about the fiery tempered redhead who had become such an important part of his life. John never stopped loving Shayera, deep down wanted to believe that she had no true part in the actions of her kind. But was that the truth? He couldn't be sure. It didn't matter. The other founding members of the League didn't vote her out, but Shayera had made her own choice. And so she left and no one knew where she went. Everyone needed to recover from what had happened during the Thanagarian Invasion. But for John and Shayera it was even harder as they had lost the one person they loved more than anything else. Would there be a chance for them to finally find together again after enough time to heal?

Time passed by and Shayera had been taken in by Doctor Fate to regain her own strength, to get ready for her rise when it was time. But her heart was broken, her faith shattered and it took more than just a few weeks for her to get back to everything. And when the time was right, she would rise again. Things for John didn't go much better after she had left. He missed her more than just a bit, wondering if she missed him as well. Did she miss him? Maybe she did...deep down. But other things had become more important. Shayera knew she had screwed up and most likely had no second chance with him to prove that her love for him was all that mattered to her. John had thought about going to look for her after a while, but things soon changed when he grew closer to Mari. He started seeing her more often and soon their friendship had grown into love. But this love was nothing special. At least not to him. Even though he did enjoy being with her, deep down he knew that his heart would always belong to Shayera, that Shayera was his true love.

However, when Shayera and John encountered each other again during a fight against Solomon Grundy, it was a little awkward on both sides. Shayera knew he had moved on and she tried to do the same but it only took one moment where their eyes met to make her realize how much she still loved him. Yet, the knowledge he would most likely never trust her that much again and that he had found someone else...it stung. Of course she didn't show how she felt. Personal feelings had to be pushed aside to work as a team. After all she needed to focus on the missions and couldn't be lost in thought. She tried hard to figure out how to deal with John having someone else and how to somehow get along with Mari.

At some point where they still didn't get along too well, Shayera and Mari were sent on a mission together and they tried to somehow work out their issues. But that had to be held back until the mission was over. Because right when they had shown up at the mine where apparently someone needed help, they were ambushed by a group of Thanagarians who demanded that Shayera would turn herself in to be punished for her betrayal. Learning of the fate of her home planet and the death of Hro, who had still meant a lot to her, Shayera had to make a choice. Would she give herself up and try to save Vigilante and Vixen? Or should the three of them try to get out of there and die? Her choice was to give herself up, but was caught by surprise when Mari was the one to stop her from doing it. They had to fight hard and it pained Shayera to have to go against her own kind again. But they managed to get away and safely returned, even though Vigilante had gotten hurt. In the end the mission had gone good and Mari and Shayera even took some time after it to talk and get to know each other better.

While they still weren´t really good friends, they at least managed to get along without arguing too much. And even John thought and hoped that things would be easier now. But things changed again when he ended up seeing the future, meeting the son he would have with Shayera. Unsure how to behave around her now, he grew more distant. A part of him wanted to just forget what he knew, but the bigger part of him wanted to just get back to Shayera to make that future happen, to be with her again. But he knew it all wouldn´t be that easy. And when Carter appeared in Shayera's life, John found himself quickly growing annoyed by the man, jealous even and even Batman began to question him on why he was still with Mari if he still loved Shayera that much. It took a while but John realized that Batman really did have a point.

But when he wanted to talk to Shayera about a lot of things, it was too late and she was gone.