The months settled into a kind of pleasant routine for Conner and M'gann; he would pick her up in the morning and take her to work, then pick her up later and they'd have lunch together, making polite conversation about their family, their friends, their jobs. Later he'd pick her up after work and have dinner with her, and Garfield if he was home, leaving almost immediately after. The other had their number on speed dial.

Neither would admit to what they felt for each other being anything more than friendship. Not out loud anyway.

Today was the day things would change. And it all started with a phone call.

Katy Perry's Firework blasting from her phone is what woke M'gann at six a.m. on Friday morning. She blindly groped for it on her bedside table, knocking over a lamp and breaking its bulb in the process. It forced to shove her sleep mask up on her head to properly grab for it. She didn't check the caller id, she just knew that whoever was on the other end of the line would have Hell to pay.

"Hello?" Sleep was thick in her voice

"M'gann? Is Artemis there?" It was Paula Crock, Artemis' mother. And she sounded like she was on the verge of a breakdown. M'gann knew the sound. "Mrs. Crock?"

"Is Artemis there?" No formality. No attempt at politeness. She just cut straight to the point. Definitely worried. "No, ma'am, she isn't. Is something wrong?"

"It doesn't look like she's been home at all since yesterday. I called the other girls before you. They all say she's not with them either." Paula definitely had M'gann's attention, who propped herself up on her elbows in bed. However wild Artemis might be, she loved her mother, and would sooner cut her own throat than do anything to make her worry.

"Do you know what she was doing yesterday?"

"She had coffee with Jackson Hyde."

"Did you call him? Maybe she stayed over with him." She heard Paula sigh over the phone. "I didn't even think about him. Thank you M'gann." She hung up. M'gann did the same, pulling her mask back down over her eyes before she rolled back over in bed to catch the last few precious moments of sleep before her alarm clock rang.

Don't worry, she never went back to sleep. Worry was too busy taking up shop in the pit of her stomach. She just layed awake in bed until the clock sounded its shrill buzzer signifying another day.


Four hours later when M'gann hadn't heard from Artemis saying her mother chewed her out to Hell and back for her little disappearing act, she took a minute duck outside the back of Bibbo's, the diner she worked at, braving the chance of developing lung cancer from her more cigarette happy coworkers to call the first person she thought of.

Conner Kent.

"M'gann? Everything okay?"

"Yes? No. I'm not sure."

"Okay..." She took a breath. "The mother of one of my friend's called me this morning. She told me that it looks like she never came home yesterday. Her name is Artemis. Artemis Crock."

Conner felt his stomach drop. Kaldur, Roy's wife and his mother-in-law just came in, saying the same thing. Roy found Artemis' car abandoned, and prints on it that came back to a dangerous felon. "Sorry M'gann I haven't heard anything."

There was a pause on M'gann's end. "You know I know your lying right?" Conner sighed. The first thing he noticed about M'gann was that she easily seemed to know what a person was thinking despite what their mouths were saying. It didn't matter if it was face to face or over the phone

"I know. Look, M'gann, I can't tell you anything now. Mostly because there's not much to tell. I promise you when there is you'll be the first person I call. Okay?" M'gann sensed dishonesty, but didn't think she could get a better deal. "Okay."


Conner felt nauseated. He was looking at Artemis on a computer screen, handcuffed and bound to a bed, wearing clothes that didn't match the ones Kaldur had seen her in yesterday and in a room that closely resembled her own bedroom according to her mother.

He'd promised M'gann he'd tell her if anything came up. But he couldn't stand looking at this. He didn't want M'gann to have to think about it.

His hand twitched to the phone on his desk. Just for a minute, before being pulled in the opposite direction. Dick was trying to triangulate the computer feed but they couldn't even be sure where she was. M'gann would understand. Right?


M'gann stood outside the back of Bibbo's again, on break, cellphone to her ear. She'd been distracted all day, screwing up orders and the like, her hand twitching to her cellphone in her apron pocket. If she could have helped it she would have. Conner had yet to call. Whether that was a good or bad thing was what drove her fear.

"Hello?" Conner's voice was apprehensive. He obviously knew something that he didn't want to tell her.

"Have you heard anything about Artemis?" M'gann hoped the fear evident in her voice would compel him to tell her the truth. "Sorry M'gann there's nothing." Dishonesty shone through.

"I promise you I can take it."

"I'm sure you could M'gann, if there was anything to tell." Now his words were colored patronizing. She heard someone speaking in the background, hearing " We've got a location on..." before it became muffled, and she figured Conner must have covered the phone with his hand. "M'gann I have to go."

"Is it Artemis?" She knew her tone was laced with the anger she felt, but she was too worried and angry to do anything about it. Conner must have heard it too, because it was a minute before he answered "Yes."

"What?"

"I have to go M'gann, I'll see you later. Bye." M'gann stood out in the back alley, frozen in place until Bibbo went looking for her.


Now all the funs over. Garfield's in his room, playing his latest video game, perfectly unaware of the troubles that had taken place that day. M'gann is standing in her kitchen, mindlessly scrubbing already perfectly clean dishes.

What she really wants is to rush straight over to the hospital Artemis has been taken to, to fuss over her, to cry with her if that's what she wanted, which she would have done had Zatanna not called and told her that the police and doctors weren't letting anyone who wasn't Artemis' blood family see her.

Her still boiling blood worried her.

Now M'gann was not by nature an angry kind of person. That was usually Artemis' domain in her circle of friends. But the idea that Conner didn't think she could handle any news about her oldest of friends, her sister, made her see red. He'd called her twice in the past thirty minutes, perfectly happy to talk now.

Knock knock knock. "M'gann? I know your here. Please?" Now he's at her front door. And M'gann has no intentions of letting him in.


I have mixed feelings about this chapter, but I feel bad for not updating in so long.