Notes:
First, thanks to krilemayerbaldesion on tumblr for the beta.
Second, this is an AU in that it takes place in a universe where Kaldur broke rather than bent.
Dedicated, in part, to Shade's Ninde, and to the rest of the Kaldur fans on tumblr and , especially those of you who were there for Season One, screaming and crying and raging for our boy.
When the Ocean Master gasps his last, Kaldur hears a deafening silence. It burns him, burns the air from his lungs. He wants to scream.
Artemis comes pale and trembling to his side and peels his fingers from the dead man's neck.
Kaldur, she doesn't yell, What did you do?
I don't know, he doesn't reply, I don't know. I don't know.
There is silence. He thinks of Tula, her body floating gently in a cloud of red. He thinks of Atlantis, in ruins. He thinks of his mother, of Roy.
He steps back, away from the corpse. He says, barely, forced between lips glued together by blood in his mouth from where he bit his tongue that drains down his throat like molten copper, bitter and tangy. He says, barely "I must leave."
He runs before Artemis has time to follow, past the team that was running running in the direction of his screams. Ocean Master had tried to kill his prince. Ocean Master had tried to kill him. Ocean Master had killed Tula.
Ocean Master is dead.
Kaldur runs by M'gann, who is tending to an Atlantean Purist who was stabbed through the chest by a sword. Beside them is another, a woman whose face is unrecognizable, her head bashed in by a mace.
They had been in the way. Ocean Master had been escaping. They had been in the way.
Kaldur runs from the warehouse to the docks. He passes Gar and Conner and La'gann, who moments ago were working to rescue civilians, a bus load of school children who were driven off the docks and into the ocean. Three small forms, covered by sheets, lay on the docks.
If he had stopped he could have saved them.
If he had stopped Ocean Master would have escaped.
La'gann tries to follow him when he jumps into the water. Kaldur punches him in the diaphragm, once, leaves him floating, stunned in the water.
He swims for hours. He swims until he is blind from the exhaustion, then he swims further. He does not stop until he is alone in the deep, no one and nothing in sight for miles.
He does not know where he is.
The moon is glowing overhead. What has happened to me, he asks. What has happened to me.
The moon has no reply.
Around the world cameras pick up glimpses of Aqualad. By the time a League member makes it to his location, he is gone. He ditched his tracker a week ago. No one has spoken to him, has made any contact with him since.
Everyone is looking.
The Team is in shock. No one saw it coming, not from him. If Dick had ever gone one-on-one with the Joker, yes. They could see that. Batman has standing orders that Dick is not to be allowed into Gotham. They were prepared for this from Dick.
But not from Aqualad. Not from Kaldur.
Conner sits in front of the monitors with the same single minded intensity with which he used to watch No Channel. M'gann is baking. Cookies and pies pile up on the counter, uneaten by everyone except for Bart. Few of them are hungry.
What will happen to him, they do not say when Batman or Black Canary check up on the Team. What will happen to him if we find him.
He will face justice, Batman does not say.
What justice, Black Canary doesn't ask. Ours? Atlantis's?
Yours?
We have to find him, Dinah says, emerging from the zeta tube onto the Watchtower.
Orin faces the monitors, Garth at his side. Their expressions are stone.
I know, Bruce says. I know.
Roy leans against a wall and waits. He's been up for twenty four hours straight. He's been tracking Kaldur like he used to track Speedy. Calling on connections, putting together patterns with Dick.
Every place Kaldur's been spotted in is a place he's gone with the team, or with Roy, or during his time with Manta. He has the same routine in each location. He appears dressed in a turtleneck and sandals, like years ago. He waits, watches the people around him, leaves ten minutes later.
There is one place Roy and Dick know Kaldur has been that the League does not.
There are five minutes of recorded footage of him at Great Mercy Hospital in Greenville, North Carolina. It is five miles away from an Atlantean embassy that was blown up by terrorists four months ago. It is the same hospital where the patients were rushed.
The hospital is the only place besides Atlantis where the autopsy records of the victims are kept. Roy knows for a fact that there were two people who died from stab wounds that day, rather than from the explosion. One was a guard. The other was a twelve year old girl, Mirana of Atlantis. She had been fourth in line for the throne.
The footage had been caught yesterday. If he and Dick were right about Kaldur's pattern, then there were a few places Kaldur could show up today. M'gann and Conner are waiting in the bioship at the sight of the former Malina Island. Dick and Artemis are waiting at Cape Canaveral.
Roy is waiting here, alone in Happy Harbor.
They have to find him first, before the League. They don't know what they'll do when they find him. But they know they have to find him first. It'simportant.
Roy shifts against the remains of the mountain that he leans against. The sea breeze blows in. His whole body is chilled.
Lian is at Paula's house. He dropped her off there as soon as he got the news. He doesn't know when he can go back to his daughter.
Not until he finds Kaldur, he decides. He stubbornly doesn't think of what he'll do when he finds him. Of what will happen to his best friend.
Of what's happened to him already, to cause this.
Kaldur arrives an hour later, at sunset. He rises from the water like a ghost, wearing his old uniform. Roy startles. It's the first time he's seen Kaldur since Wally's funeral. Roy tries not to think about that too hard. About the distance that's grown between them.
The uniform looks wrong on him, stretched too tight across his chest and shoulders. It looks like it was photoshopped onto him from an older photo, a younger Kaldur. It's a sloppy cut and paste job. The differences between the two of them are too recognizable to hide beneath a uniform.
Roy tries not to think too hard.
Kaldur doesn't see him immediately. He stands in the sand, strong arms limp at his sides. Stares at the wreckage.
Roy tries not to think too hard. Doesn't comment to himself how breakable Kaldur looks. Like a stiff wind would pick him up, shatter him against the remains of the mountain.
Roy waits a beat, steps out of the shadows into the fading light.
'We've been looking for you.' He says without preamble.
Kaldur startles, turns to him with wide eyes. For a moment he almost looks right, like this is a little over a year ago.
He sighs and says, So have I, my friend.
He turns, runs back into the sea. Roy doesn't follow him. He's frozen, ears ringing and eyes stinging with unbidden memories.
He knows where Kaldur's going. Where he's been headed.
(It's the first time anyone's called Roy "my friend" since Kaldur went Under.)
The grotto they chose to replace the one destroyed in the explosion is two miles from the blast site. Roy walks there, trying not to dwell on the seven years that lead to this point.
Dick calls him on the com once.
Have you found him, he asks. He is calmer than he should be.
Roy shakes his head. Realizes that Dick can't see him.
No, he says, I'm still waiting.
You?
Nothing, says Dick, It's like he's gone.
Maybe he is, Roy doesn't say, Maybe he's been gone, and we just didn't notice.
Maybe he didn't either.
Roy thinks nothing of it when he finds that no one's entered the grotto through the secret door hidden in the rock. It, like most doors connected to the League, is only accessible by voice recognition from a League registered member, and it constantly updates who's entered and exited to the League computers in the Watchtower.
Kaldur would not take the door. Kaldur wouldn't want anyone else to know he's here.
Roy stops in front of the door. Hesitates.
He thinks, I have to get to Aqualad. He corrects this thought, I have to get to Kaldur. I have to bring him in. He is not a villain. He is a Hero. The greatest Hero we have ever known. The stress just got to him. It's been too much. He's snapped. Since when does Kaldur snap?
He passes through the door and heads down to the grotto. He steps out onto the bare rock that surrounds the small pool of sea water in its middle.
Kaldur is there, his back to Roy, standing in front of Tula, Wally to his side. In the far corner Roy can see the hole Kaldur smashed through the rock, where he climbed though so he could have this moment of peace.
Roy stops at the edge of the water. Waits.
Kaldur hears him, and his dark shoulders tense. He doesn't turn to face him. Not yet.
'I have been saying good-bye. I fear I might be too late. There is little so say farewell to that did not pass me up long ago' Kaldur says, voice too light. It should echo. It doesn't.
The grotto is silent. No one else is coming and Roy knows this will not end happily. Kaldur is a Hero and Heroes don't end well.
He waits. Somewhere in the depths of his chest something constricts and begins to choke him.
Kaldur says, after a while has passed in silence with Kaldur staring at the dead and Roy staring at him, that he hadn't meant for any of it to happen.
Roy murmurs, None of us ever do. Come on, Kaldur, time to come home.
The man he speaks to isn't the one he fell in love with, Roy knows. Years and tragedy have changed him, twisted him just enough that he no longer fits the hole left in the shape of the man Roy remembers.
The League will want justice, Roy knows. He remembers the look in Batman's eyes when he first joined on as a sidekick, remembers the warning he received. Heroes don't kill. No matter what, unless it is a moment of life or death, heroes don't kill.
They will want justice but this isn't Superman frying President Luthor's brain in some alternate dimension. This isn't the beginning of martial law, or the Lords. This isn't some crazed lunatic out for vengeance against the world, this isn't – he stops.
It won't matter to the League why Kaldur had done it. Everyone's been there, they have all been there. Not ending it, no matter how much you want to, was what made you a hero instead the costumed vigilante critics claim you to be.
Somewhere in the past a pair of silver-green eyes like chips of the frozen sea stare back at him. He knows they're probably very green because Kaldur, the one he fell in love with, the one he remembers, would have to be feeling something about all this, about the way things should go from here.
This Kaldur, the one in front of him, finally turns to face him.
'Just come back with me, okay fishsticks?' Roy reaches out a hand, brings it back to his side, and aborted gesture, as half-hearted as the nickname. I am not the one who should be here, he thinks. I have no right to judge him. I do not have it in me to drag him up like some criminal before the bench. 'Come with me.'
Kaldur takes a hesitant step forward. Stops, shakes his head slowly. Flanking him, Tula and Wally are red-headed gods, boxing him in like over-large guardians to a child. Roy thinks it's ridiculous to think of Kaldur as comparable to a child. But then he has never looked so young as he does now, standing between them.
Tula and Wally stand with straight posture, shoulders thrown out proudly. Kaldur had rarely been proud, but he had always stood straight. Now Kaldur seems to curl in on himself, legs trembling slightly. He wraps his arms around him own waist, clenches his own sides. Looks up at Roy.
His expression is open, in the way it's only ever been when he's truly hurt, or he and Roy are alone.
Some things don't change.
'C'mon, Kaldur,' Roy is still standing on the edge, legs braced, bow at his side. The need to go before Batman notices Roy has entered the grotto and draws the obvious conclusion but Kaldur is mutely shaking his head.
'Roy, aïléros' he says, 'I have need of you.'
Roy is flying, he is elated. He has not heard that word in a year. He had almost forgotten what it sounded like. He wants to give Kaldur everything. Anything. Almost anything
Whatever you want, Roy wants to say. We can run away, to anywhere, to space, I don't care. We can leave everything behind, you and me, we can go here and now. I won't take you in if you want go. I owe you that, at least.
But he can't. Because this is not two years ago. He and Kaldur have not been those people, the people who only needed each other to be happy, each other and someone to save, in a while. He has Lian now, his daughter who he loves more than anything. He has Artemis to look after, to comfort in her grief.
So he braces himself to give what he can. He can let Kaldur escape. He can bring a message to his mother for him. There are many things he is ready and willing to do for this broken man in the water.
Even if it means Roy will never see him again. If that is what it takes. If that is what Kaldur decides he owes.
'Roy, aïléros , fulfill your oath to me,' Kaldur says like a sword dropping, and Roy's heart stops.
Because that. No, he won't do that.
He won't .
He won't.
What oath, he says, and Kaldur looks at him. And he shouldn't have said anything, because this is a Kaldur look, an I-am-sick-of-your-shit-Roylook, one he hasn't seen in years, one he didn't realize he missed so much-
You swore to me, says Kaldur, his voice stronger, demanding. Beneath the moon and the stars, on the life of the world we protect- Kaldur's voice breaks a bit, on protect, and Roy's heart burns- You swore to me that you would do it, he finishes.
That you would end it, Kaldur doesn't say.
That you would kill me, if I ever went rogue, Kaldur doesn't say. Like I swore I would do for you.
'You-,' Roy growls. 'No. We were drunk. We were in the middle of, in the middle of sex. I hadn't seen you for weeks. I would have sworn anything that night. Don't you dare. Don't you dare.'
Roy want to refuse to remember that night. Can't help it. He was drunk yes, but his head was as clear as Kaldur's eyes in the starlight when he swore. When, wrapped in dark limbs and tight heat, the straining, sweating body of the man he loved above him, he swore he would kill him.
If he went rogue. If he went evil.
'You aren't evil, Kal. You made a mistake.' It wasn't a mistake, and something in Kaldur has changed since that night, something Roy desperately doesn't want to see. 'Just,' Roy breaks, 'Just come home. Please.'
'I can't,' Kaldur isn't moving. His hand stretches out to Roy, a supplication, his knees hit the stone floor of the grotto. He kneels, hip-deep in water.
And Roy sees it, in that moment. How broken Kaldur is. The man he knew would not have asked this of him. The man he loved had not yet learned to be this selfish.
Roy is grasping for straws, watching Kaldur slip through his fingers.
Okay, Roy says, Okay. You've changed. You, you aren't you anymore. Not the person you started as. But- his voice breaks, there's a whine to it, like a child's- you still don't deserve to die.
Kaldur shakes his head, sinks further down on his knees, into the water. It is at his waist.
'Not deserve, no' Kaldur whispers sadly. 'I deserve to live as this- as this shell, this remnant of what I was, of Kaldur'ahm- for the things I have done. Those children-' he breaks off, hugs himself closely.
'Please, Roy, aïléros. Do your duty' Its said quietly. Roy is frozen. His bow is resting heavy at his side. In the shape of this broken man his can see Kaldur. He can see how dead this man is inside, that Kaldur as he loved and knew him was lost long ago.
'Do your duty.'
You manipulative bastard, Roy does not say. You son of a bitch. How dare you. You knew, you were preparing for this. You fucker. You took advantage of me, made me promise. You know I have to keep my promises. How dare you.
Kaldur had left that morning, with one last kiss good-bye. It would be the last time Roy ever saw his eyes while they were silver-green, moonlight on sea glass.
Kaldur hunches further into himself. 'I half-hoped', Kaldur whispers, 'Every day I half-hoped that you would come for me, that my hell would end with an arrow buried in my back.'
Roy shakes his head again, eyes wide. Doesn't know how to respond. His arm starts to raise on its own volition. He halts it.
The remains of the greatest man he has ever known kneels in front of him, flanked by the dead, calling on him to fulfill an oath made over a year ago.
An oath already once denied.
Roy always keeps his promises, in the end.
I did my duty, says Kaldur. He is on his knees, his back to Tula. She stands over him like a guard. Like an executioner. Wet drips from his eyes, over sharp, beautiful cheekbones, down an angled chin to join the murky, tepid water he kneels in.
Roy wets his dry lips, standing on the stone outcrop. He raises his bow, his arm doesn't tremble. It should. They've been here before. Their places have been switched.
This is wrong, Roy thinks. This is all so wrong.
I did my duty, Kaldur repeats louder, a command. He looks up from the water, forces Roy to meet his eyes. They are moss covered grey and broken, shattered ancient swords.
I did my duty, he says. Let me go.
Roy nods once, finally. Tries to breath in deep to aim, chokes. Something hot and orange crawls up his throats, wraps its hands around his jaw, clenches his mouth shut. He wants to beg. Can't.
His arm draws back.
A cloud of red spreads from the body. But for the arrow protruding from his back, Kaldur could be sleeping in the reddened water.
The official story is that Kaldur tried to attack Roy, that Roy had been forced to kill him in self-defense.
No one comments on how much of a lie it is. They do not want to think about the truth.
Batman gives him a look, when he and Dick arrive at the scene, but says nothing. There are some things that Bruce Wayne understands.
There is a funeral held for the hero Aqualad at the Hall of Justice. Leaders from around the world, as well as most of the League, come to mourn The Hero of the Invasion. There are camera crews and speeches. It is grand but respectful. The whole world watches from their televisions.
Roy doesn't go.
Kaldur's funeral is a quite affair, like it had been for Artemis. Smaller.
What really happened, Artemis asks him, pulling him to a corner. Her eyes are wet and red. They've been that way for a while. What happened to Kaldur.
You know what happened, Roy says. He wants to put a hand on her shoulder. Doesn't.
How could you, she asks.
I'm sorry, Roy says, to her, to Superboy and M'gann listening from the corner, to Dick and Zatanna and Rocket. I'm sorry.
They place Kaldur's image in the grotto where he died, standing between Tula and Wally.
They have no good photos of him in his Atlantean uniform post-Invasion, so they use one from the week before Tula died
Roy is glad. The Kaldur in the hologram is the one he lost. The eyes are bright.
The body would be buried in Shayeris, according the Atlantean tradition. Sha'lain'a slaps him when he meets her on the coastline of Star City.
There would be no zeta tube. Kaldur's mother would bear him through the sea to his grave, just as she had borne him to his birth. She disappears into the sea like a ghost, her son's shroud wrapped body in her arms.
Roy stands in front of a headstone that guards an empty grave. He doesn't weep.
A man, regal as a king in blue jeans and a black jacket, approaches the grave. He stands beside Roy silently, staring at the stone with dry eyes.
There are no flowers at its base. There are photos, arranged by Martian hands and protected against the weather by Earth magic. They all picture the same man, who had his father's cheekbones and his mother's hair, but his own eyes. In some he is laughing with friends. In some he is mid-action, rescuing the people he swore to protect, the people he lived for. Some were taken when he was unaware.
There is one that shows him naked, waist deep in the sea, staring dreamily out to the horizon.
In all of them he was beautiful.
I should kill you, says David. I should kill you, because you killed my son.
No I didn't, Roy doesn't say. Not alone. You did. Dick did. The Reach did.
He killed himself when he joined you, he does say, turning to face this king-like man.
David's hands clench. It occurs to Roy that David is Black Manta. That it would be a simple thing for him to kill Roy.
He was soft, David says, trying to be scornful. Failing. Like, David pauses, stiffens. Like his mother, he finishes, his voice sad and proud. Fond.
No, says Roy. He wasn't. He was the cruelest man I'd ever met, if only to himself. That's why he died. He gave up everything, because he thought he should. Because he hated himself. He was the best man I've ever met, and he hated himself.
You loved him, David says. It is not a question. You loved him and you killed him.
Yes, says the hero, the former lover, the former friend.
Thank-you, says the villain, the former father, For doing your duty.
David leaves Roy standing at Kaldur's graveside.
He pretends not hear when Roy finally starts to cry.