AN/ Now I said that this series would be devoted to the best times between John and Shayera, but I've had this stuck on my computer for ages and after re-reading it I've decided to post it. It doesn't quite fit the description but if you look hard enough I think you'll find the underlying positivity. Next one though will be much closer to the original summary description. Promise. This is just a little deviation from me :)

Hope you like it anyway.

Simplest of plans

The Watchtower continued to orbit casually around the Earth, a silent testament to the sworn vow those aboard had taken to ensure its safety and protection. Below on the Earth itself there was a second base, an Earth base designed to bring the guardians of the planet closer to those they protected, a successful departure that left the satellite rather empty for many of the League favoured the closer proximity of the Metro Tower. Even so there were still a select few that favoured the orbiting base and amongst them was Shayera Hol.

There was no set time on the Watchtower, there was no day or night and the various time zones of Earth were kept in constant consideration, but everyone chose to honour the time as it was in Metropolis in order to keep in synchronisation with their Earth base. While the Metro Tower was steeped in the night, so then was the Watchtower leading to the satellite being quieter than normal as the majority of Leaguers slept. It was at this time that Shayera bumped into the Flash, quite literally.

As she turned a corner on her way to her own quarters a red and yellow blur rushed past almost knocking her over from the air turbulence alone. Just as she teetered uncharacteristically on the spot in the process of trying to regain her balance the red blur returned and a pair of arms grabbed her, steadying her and righting her. Shayera frowned as the Speedster she knew as Wally and as one of her closest friends proceeded to zip up to her, a large grin plastered across his boyish face even if she could only really see his chin for the time being.

"I've been looking for you." Were his first words to her as he fiddled with one of the lightning bolts on the side of his head.

"Well you found me." Shayera replied dryly as she began walking again in the hopes that she could soon curl up in her warm bed and try to get some sleep.

"You're not busy are you?"

Somehow she held in the groan that tried to escape her upon hearing those words.

"Why?"

"Well..." He darted in front of her halting her and managing to ignore the brief glimmer of impatience that appeared on her features. "There's a Javelin in the bay that needs maintenance. Terrific asked me to take a look at it but you know me..."

Shayera pursed her lips "Wally, I'm tired and I want to get some sleep." Side-stepping him she continued on her way "Can't someone else take care of it?"

"You would think so." Wally once again blocked her path and automatically took a defensive step back when Shayera glared at him "But there's no one up here, the ones that are...well they're asleep."

"Lucky them." Shayera muttered before she released a defeated sigh "Which Javelin?"

"Shay, you're a life saver. It's twenty-two."

Shayera waved her hand dismissively "Whatever Wally, but you owe me for this. I haven't slept in forty-eight hours."

"I'll make it up to you I promise."

Before she could reply the scarlet speedster was gone. Shaking her head both in annoyance and amusement she changed course and headed towards the Javelin bay, with any luck there wouldn't be much wrong and she could get the job done quickly.

Elsewhere on the satellite John Stewart had just finished making himself a late night coffee in the deserted cafeteria, soon he would be heading down to his apartment in Detroit. Originally he had intended to go straight home as soon as he had finished his monitor duty but he had decided that he very much fancied a decent cup of coffee first. It wasn't a fantastic idea, he knew the caffeine would keep him up but for the time being he didn't much care. Turning around with his freshly brewed cup of coffee in hand, John was suddenly startled as the cup was knocked clumsily out of his hand and onto the floor.

"Wally!"

A gust of air, the very same one that had blasted past him less than a second ago, returned and stopped long enough to reveal the culprit.

"John, I'm so sorry." Flash quickly bent down and grabbed the fallen cup in his gloved hand, thankful that it was a simple paper cup and not a porcelain one.

"What's the rush anyway?" John asked mildly irritated but accustomed to the speedster's antics, in particular the clumsy ones that often left John picking up the pieces. Literally.

Wally shrugged as he set the cup on the side "I was just coming to top up the tanks." He affectionately patted his own stomach "Fuel's getting low."

"Of course." John mumbled as he finished wiping up the spilled beverage.

"Let me make you another one GL, won't take a minute." He zipped off for a moment before returning with an armful of items "Besides I can make a better drink than that, when was the last time you had an iced mocha?"

John raised a suspicious eyebrow "What have you done?"

Flash's expression was a combination of innocence and puzzlement "What do you mean?"

"You don't make iced mochas unless you've done something wrong." John paused as he eyed the scarlet clad man before him "Or you want a favour."

"John! How could you think such a thing?" Wally looked appalled "I just want to make my friend a replacement caffeine kick. You have such an untrusting disposition."

John folded his arms continuing to keep his eyebrow raised.

"Okay, fine!" Wally gave in under the Green Lantern's neon gaze "I'm supposed to do maintenance on Javelin twenty-two but I don't know what I'm doing."

The Green Lantern's lips pressed into a line "Nothing new there then."

"Hey, space ships just aren't my thing GL."

"So you want me to do it?"

"Would you? That's so kind of you John." He grabbed a new cup from the nearest cupboard "While you're doing that I'll make that iced mocha."

John shook his head halfway grinning "Whatever Hotshot."

The Javelin bay was as usual quiet and slightly chill, nothing but row upon row of Javelins and large observation windows. Shayera peered at the lines of space shuttles as she made her way through the long room towards the end, her eyes automatically scanning for the numbers on the ships. Of course many of them were missing either currently in use elsewhere or were yet to be replaced; very few Javelins seemed to make it back in one piece. Eventually Shayera's eyes found the numbers twenty-two on a secluded Javelin to one side of the bay but in the process of this her eyes also caught sight of someone already working on the shuttle.

"John?" She called out in question, surprised to see him.

The figure that was stood on a raised platform that the engineers used, bent over with their head under the raised panels of the Javelin, stood up and turned their head to look in the direction of the voice. Indeed it was John Stewart a look of surprise in his eyes too but also apprehension.

"Shayera?" He replied "What are you doing here?"

She looked at him, unconsciously scrutinising him before she replied "Wally said he needed someone to ..." She cut herself off, realisation dawning on her as she put two and two together. It was a set up. Wally had fed her the story on the Javelin so that she would not-so-coincidently bump into John. "I'm going to kill him." She finished darkly, the edge in her voice confirmation enough that although Wally might survive his encounter with her he was at least going to have a number of bruises.

John was equally as puzzled but like her, as soon as she had said the name of the Scarlet Speedster he knew that they had both been set up. In truth he wasn't sure if he was angered by it or not.

The bay became quieter than it had been a few moments ago, the quietness now rife with a tension that hadn't been there before. Shayera shifted her feet and unconsciously twitched her wings before she came to a decision.

"I obviously don't need to be here so I'm going to bed." She turned on the spot and began to march back out of the bay, she hoped for Wally's sake that she didn't see him between now and when she got to her quarters. Things between her and John were complicated, difficult and painful, the last thing she needed was Wally trying, she was sure in his mind, to help.

"Shayera, wait!"

She froze, anyone else and she might have just kept walking but John stopped being just anyone a long time ago.

"I'm tired. I really want to get some sleep." It was the honest truth but also a handy excuse for her to dismiss herself. John seemed to hesitate and it grated on her nerves, already aggravated as it was by the scheming of her adopted Brother. "You are quite capable of maintenance John."

He finally found his voice "There's something wrong with the hyper-drive." He said too quickly, he wasn't lying but he was more than capable of fixing it, he just didn't want Shayera to leave. "You're better with them than I am."

It was a lousy excuse even he knew that, which was why he was more than a little surprised when Shayera appeared to accept it. In a few moments she was walking towards him and the Javelin, a tired and slightly irritated expression on her features as she tilted her head to get a better view of him on the raised platform.

"Have you at least got some tools?" If she knew him as well as she thought she did, he probably didn't.

John shrugged offering her an apologetic but tentatively amused smile before turning fully on the spot to reveal the green construct wrench in his fist. Of course he had just been creating the tools he needed as and when he required them. It was enough at that moment to break the stoic features of the former Hawkgirl and grace them instead with a hesitant smile. On autopilot Shayera crossed the room towards a set of reinforced metal cabinets many of them distributed at even intervals throughout the bay for convenience. Grasping the handle she yanked the drawer open and examined the contents before shoving it closed again and opening a second one. She found what she was looking for, a large metal box filled with an assortment of tools. Once armed with the large case the Thanagarian woman turned back towards Javelin twenty-two and subsequently John Stewart, she hoped he didn't notice the deep trembling breath she took.

The soft thud and the gentle shake of the platform informed John that Shayera had landed beside him but he was currently forcing his attention on the innards of the shuttle, his mind was in overdrive. A loud metallic smacking sound indicated that Shayera had very loudly set the box of tools on the ship with further rustling reaching his ears as she opened it up and rummaged inside for the various items she wanted. She was an old hand at fixing and working on shuttles, a fact he was acutely aware of as he felt her eyes bore into his back. Removing himself from under the hood of the shuttle, John gingerly cast a glance in Shayera's direction. She didn't make eye contact nor did she look at him, only moving past him to examine the engineering of Javelin twenty-two and John found himself obligingly stepping to one side to give her adequate space.

There was something wrong with the hyper-drive so he hadn't lied, but she wasn't impressed either. The fault with it hardly demanded her attention and it annoyed her no end that he had used it to keep her there although an inner voice murmured in the back of her mind.

'But he wanted you to stay here, he made an excuse to keep you here...that means something, right?'

She quickly squashed the voice and continued to examine the inner workings of the shuttle, her quiet frustration and continued lack of sleep made her rather snappy.

"What the hell have you been doing?"

John blanched for a moment at her harsh tone he hadn't spent much time around her or even near her so was for the moment unused to her sometimes abrasive attitude. He replied just as she yanked something out of the ship.

"What do you mean?"

She continued to keep her gaze away from him as she pulled more cables from their places.

"Hooking the Javelin up like this isn't practical you can't just plug them in where you want."

"I wasn't, that's where they go." Even he was starting to feel a tickle of annoyance growing in the pit of his stomach.

"Well, there are more efficient ways."

"Of course you would know that." He shot back forgetting all semblance of trying to keep their interactions as civil as possible.

"Seeing as I fly them more often than you do, I should think so." Shayera still had her head under the bonnet, still refusing to look at him, to acknowledge his close proximity or even to the extreme of his existence. It was too painful and Shayera didn't like pain...especially not this kind of pain.

John forcibly bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from retorting, they hadn't been in the room for longer than ten minutes and they were fighting, it was frustrating but in another respect gave him a large dose of nostalgia. He remembered in a split second all of the bickering, all of the little arguments and fights over stupid things that didn't really matter, the memories did nothing now but trigger a hard throbbing in his chest. At the same moment as he put the brakes on their back and forth bickering, John noticed as Shayera took a deep breath, he saw her hand pause still holding the tool she had selected before the moment disappeared and she returned to her work.

"When did you get so familiar with these shuttles?" John asked, careful to keep his voice neutral so that she couldn't misunderstand him and go off into another rant.

When her voice came back it was slightly muffled, she was pulling more cables out from somewhere and redirecting them elsewhere.

"Sometimes I tinker on them when I've got time," She paused for a couple of beats "Or if I can't sleep...it gives me something to do."

"Looks to me like you've done more than just tinker with them." John replied, her hands were skilfully rearranging and adjusting various things within the shuttle.

"I like to be acquainted with any ship I might have to use. Never know when you might need to redirect power to the shields or the hyper drive."

John nodded, another memory itching at the back of his mind, it was a fond one, one he decided he wanted to share with her.

"Do you remember when you used to work on Javelin Seven?"

The effect on her was instantaneous and she finally retreated from the innards of the Javelin and steadied her gaze on him for the first time since she arrived. A small nod was confirmation that she remembered.

"You used to help me if you weren't on duty," Her voice was suddenly softer and less harsh, at some point in the last few moments she had brought her guard down. She laughed wistfully "Sometimes you would tell me stories about the Marines."

He nodded, smiling a tiny amount as Shayera tossed the socket wrench she was holding into the box.

"Of course," She went on suddenly, her voice picking up again "Javelin Seven was mostly bodged together. I don't think there was much really holding it together."

John laughed "True, how many times did we have to repair it?"

"Too many times." She focused on him again "It took us days of work after it was trashed by us while under the influence of that rock Wally was trying to save us from."

They both stood there for a rare moment of ease and comfort before John filled the silence with sound.

"We've got some good memories haven't we, Shayera?"

Her almost bright smile started to fade at his words, soon her eyes were away from his again and looking at nothing in particular as she struggled with the connotations of his simple sentence. Was everything they once had just a memory? Was it all it could ever be now? Shayera wanted more than just memories, she wanted life, she wanted love, most of all she wanted to give it in return. To distract herself she returned to the Javelin picking up a different tool and going back to work on the ship.

"Yes, we do." She muttered softly while trying not to wonder if John held those memories as close to his heart as she did. "Could you pass me the next size up?" She stretched her arm behind her and waited for John to take the wrench and replace it with a slightly larger one.

Taking the wrench from her hand John picked up another and handed it to her, speaking as he did so.

"Leave Wally to me, okay?" He asked her quietly but firmly, she couldn't quite tell if he regretted what he had said, she felt as though she couldn't read him quite as well as she used to.

"Why?"

"I don't want you doing any permanent damage." He kept his voice light in the hopes that it would break the uncomfortable tension that he had previously managed to create. It felt alien to him to call what they'd had a memory, it was more than that and he knew it deep inside but he couldn't confess that to her no matter how much he wanted to. "I'll just give him a talk about interfering with other people's relationships."

Shayera took the new wrench from him and poked a cable out of her line of sight with it. John took her silence as an invitation to continue, either that or the increasing silence was making him uncomfortable, she supposed that it was the latter.

"The last thing we need," He said softly "Is people trying to...make things better."

In the moment it took John to swallow the lump that had nestled in his throat, Shayera had stood and fixed her eyes on him again, the look there unnerved him slightly. For a flicker of a second he saw hurt, rage and hurt again before she awkwardly shrugged and tried to smile. Tried.

"It's not like it would work anyway, is it?"

Her words echoed in the empty room and they both stared at each other for what felt like an eternity, almost as if they had entered their own pocket dimension that consisted of only them and nothing else.

John's gaze intensified, his eyes carrying a depth of emotion his voice could never hope to convey "Is that what you really think?"

Shayera's eyes likewise bore a turbulence of emotion, there were unshed tears there glazing her eyes and brightening the emerald colour of her irises. "Isn't that what you really feel?"

She watched his reaction, watched him as he skipped a breath and probably a heartbeat, watched all the tell tale gestures that were so wonderfully familiar to her but yet so unfamiliar at the same time. A leap, she wanted to take a leap and tell him again how deeply she truly felt for him, but like always her guilt and her shame weighed down on her like heavy iron anvils bound to her wings. All she managed was to slightly outstretch her hand towards him before retracting it back to the safety of her own personal space followed by the quiet but now raspy sound of her voice.

"Isn't it the truth John? What we had..." She swallowed and felt the burn down the back of her throat, a sure sign that the tears she had been holding in for so long, the ones she refused to accept were close to forcing their way through her emotional fortress which was quickly beginning to crumble. "It's gone isn't it?"

John opened his mouth but closed it again, his frown deepened for an instant before it softened along with his expression, he wanted to tell her the truth, explain that what they had was so precious to him that sometimes he grieved it, cried for it, let all of the inky sea of sorrow consume him in his darkest moments. She meant everything to him, he knew it, but for the sake of his broken heart he kept his distance from her as much as physically possible, he tried to convince himself that it was for her sake as well as his. His silence stretched and he was sure the thickness in the air had become tangible. Shayera seemed to retract away from him, her body turning away from his silence as she bent down into the open maw of the Javelin.

A shudder ran through her body as she bent further inside into the darkness of the ship's innards, all he could give her was silence and as an unruly tear slowly made tracks down her cheek Shayera realised that she had to try and let it go. It was gone. She had blown everything that they had once had and everything they could have, she had to accept that it was done and the damage irreparable...she had only herself to blame. All of those chances to confess to him her mission, to tell him about the promised one she had back home, in some part of her mind she had felt as if she was protecting him, his naivety of her situation ultimately going to prevent the taking of his life. Of course that hadn't stopped Hro once he added two and two together.

Her heart feeling as if it trembled inside her chest cavity and her voice struggling to come out as more than a croak, Shayera quietly spoke over her shoulder careful not to show him her face.

"I could use some light."

In an instant she and the engine of the ship were bathed in the warm glow of John's ring, emerald light touching and caressing every surface leaving nothing in darkness, it reminded her cruelly of his touch, the way he used to hold her and she would feel the safest she'd ever felt in her whole life.

John could hardly breathe and his voice had disappeared, retreating to the inner confines of his mind as he watched Shayera forcibly turn away from him. Obliging to her request he had supplied light so that she may continue her work but the small space she had decided to work on was further inside the Javelin forcing John to sidle closer to her to provide light where she needed it. As close as he was to her he could feel her wing against his shoulder and back, could smell the fresh smell of her hair and the earthy scent of her skin. He felt himself slipping against his desires and it was the thought of Mari that spurred his thoughts back into a neutral gear.

"Pass me another power socket."

Her voice was cold, detached, everything she wasn't and John shuddered at the unnaturalness of it, but none the less he extended a construct hand to grasp a replacement socket so that he could give it to her. One of her hands grabbed the item and their fingers briefly brushed against one another but Shayera appeared to be unfazed, concerned only with the shuttle and nothing else. The slight crunching sound that emanated from her confirmed that the new socket had been put into place, without so much as a warning Shayera forced her way out of the Javelin and away from John, slamming the hoods down on the shuttle before she tilted her head in the direction of the cockpit.

"You better turn it on and see how it runs."

Nodding, John floated from his position next to her and towards the cockpit, once inside he started the engine which seemed to purr softly after Shayera's unauthorised modifications. To his disappointment however, as soon as Shayera was satisfied with the functionality of the Javelin, she leaped from the platform and landed neatly on the ground already stowing the tool box away by the time he had exited the ship. By the time he had shut down the space vehicle she was halfway to the exit, a spiteful inner voice thought that walking away was her answer to everything, how often had she done it before? But he stamped on the voice and the thoughts that went with it as he called out to her.

"Shayera, wait." It seemed like he was constantly trying to keep her in one place, constantly trying to keep her still long enough to communicate with her despite his defensive need to keep her at a distance.

"John." Her voice was hard but tired "I'm really tired and I just want to go to sleep."

"Just, stay here with me for a little while." He was sat on the roof of the Javelin "Please."

"Why John? What else can I possibly give you?"

"More than you think Shayera...please, just come and sit with me."

The pleading in his voice kept her anchored and eventually the softness of his expression forced her to reluctantly step forward, to keep walking until she took off with a beat of her wings and landed nimbly on the roof beside where he was sat.

"Happy now?" She questioned sarcastically.

"Not yet." He gestured to the space next to him and watched as she reluctantly sat, tucking her wings in close and turning her head to look out of the observation window beside them. "Those times when we worked on Javelin seven...they used to end like this too."

Shayera snorted "What, barely speaking to one another?" she was tired, hurt, wanted to kill Wally and wanted to curl up in a tight ball where no one could hope to find her.

John despite himself chuckled "Sometimes." He looked towards her "But most of the time we used to lie down on the roof and watch the stars through the observation window in the ceiling. We used to talk about everything and anything."

"John, those times are gone. I'm not...I'm not her anymore."

"Who?" John was puzzled by her choice of words but thankful enough that they were finally talking, he couldn't remember the last time they talked properly...no he could but the memory hurt too much.

She let out a heavy sigh before she looked at him long and hard "Hawkgirl." She frowned almost scowling at even the thought of her former alias "She was a lie."

"Then what we had was a lie?" He knew it wasn't but he had to make her see what he saw, just this once before they went back to the way they were and this brief interval of rare openness disappeared, Shayera didn't like talking about herself.

Her head snapped around and this time the glare was fastened on him and him alone, her eyes shone with a fire that almost made him move away but he didn't.

"I told you, I never lied about that. Why do you-"

She stopped as John pressed a gloved finger against her mouth to gently silence her "If you never lied about that, then you are still the Shayera I've always known."

Statement made John slowly leant back until he was lying on his back looking up at the ceiling, the observation window was open, on a rare moment of spontaneous decision he had switched the heavy metal reinforced panels to open revealing the Plexi-glass that existed behind it and the stars that lit the dark space outside. He expected Shayera to leave, their somewhat planned meeting had been difficult and hard and painful and many other things, but John hoped that some of the tension between them was at least alleviated. To his surprise Shayera continued to sit quietly beside him and eventually in time slowly leant back as well until she lay next to him.

"Maybe we should go easy on the kid?" John asked not bothering to hide the light-heartedness in his voice.

"Not yet, should at least make him sweat first."

John laughed and Shayera laughed, the sound sent a warmth through him right down into his heart.

Somehow the future didn't seem quite as frightening as before.