Kaldur didn't know when his head had gotten this noisy. It was as if his memory had decided to call up all the sounds that had caught his attention in the last several months and replay them at full volume all at once, a cacophony of explosions and gunshots and music and countless voices.

The team performed adequately. The problem was you.

I'm still getting used to this solo act stuff, but if you need me, I'll be there.

He's like a big brother to me.

I cannot shift this burden to him.

Such a waste. You really have no ambition beyond serving Aquaman?

You're not going to get peace of mind until this is resolved.

I know all your secrets.

"Hold him still."

The last voice was different. Closer. Louder.

His eyes snapped open, and to his own surprise, he had apparently been thrashing violently in his sleep – Conner was bent over his bedside, trying to restrain him, and the clone looked concerned, even alarmed. With some effort, Kaldur forced his body to calm itself, the frantic gestures of his limbs fading into trembling, and let Conner push him back down onto the bed. From the doorway, Dinah and M'gann watched. The latter of the two had her hand over her mouth and a shaken look on her face.

"Thank you, Conner," said Dinah. She walked forward, bending to retrieve something from Kaldur's bedside, then straightened out to face Conner and M'gann, who still were still watching their team leader nervously. "A minute, if you don't mind."

The two hurried to obey and shut the door behind them, sharing a worried look as they did. Dinah turned her gaze down to Kaldur.

"How are you feeling?" she asked, resting her hand lightly on his shoulder.

"I am…" he began, then realized he didn't know how to finish that sentence. Mostly, he just felt like he'd slept for an eternity. He frowned. "Tired."

"I would expect so," she nodded. "Hungry at all?"

He thought about it.

"No."

"Then I'm going to need to put your IV back in," she said apologetically. "You knocked it out in your sleep, but we need to keep some food in your system."

"I am sorry," he said, glancing down. "I was…dreaming."

"Looked like one hell of a dream," said Dinah as she moved to fetch a fresh needle for the IV. "I think you scared our resident aliens back there. I've never heard you yell like that before."

"I did not realize I was yelling at all," Kaldur murmured. "How…how long have I been away?"

"Four days," said Dinah. She took a seat on the edge of his bed. "Hold out your hand."

He did, closing his eyes. Suddenly, he understood Roy's aversion to needles. It was impossible to corral his subconscious reaction to the idea of the injection, a strange and eager anticipation of the moment of puncture, combined with a sense of repulsion at his body's traitorous response. He swallowed hard as Canary pressed the point to the top of his hand, but when she squeezed his arm just as it broke skin, he felt a wave of gratitude for the distraction.

"There," said Dinah, taping the line into place and gently setting his arm back down on the bed. "You'll be glad to know we've run your blood through every test we know and you're clean, pathologically speaking."

"Clean?"

"Whatever else can be said about the people who abducted you, they at least used sterile needles."

He nodded, laying back on the pillows and closing his eyes a moment. He knew he should be relieved, yet the hunger lingering in his limbs seemed a disease unto itself, dormant but certainly present, as if it were just waiting for the right moment to consume him.

"You all right there, kiddo?"

"Yes. My apologies. I am…distracted."

"You have a right to be."

Dinah watched him in silence a while, her face soft but not fully readable.

"How long does it take to…recover?" he asked finally.

"That depends on many things," she said, regarding him with a strange, sad look. "Your physiology is only half human, so your recovery in particular will be unpredictable. But for most people, the first few days are the worst. Get through that, and after a week or so, you'll probably be able to start coping on our own. But complete recovery is…complicated. The blunt truth is that it's impossible. I wish I could tell you otherwise, Kaldur, but addiction is something you carry to the end of your days. It will get easier and easier with time, but it will always be there. I'm sorry."

He nodded silently. He had seen Roy in the warehouse. He knew what he was up against.

"I need to take care of a few things," said Dinah after a moment, rising from the bed. "Is there anything I can do for you before I go? Any more questions?"

"Is Roy safe?"

"Yes," she nodded, giving his shoulder an affectionate squeeze. "Aside from being out of his mind with worry about you. I'm going to go put him out of his misery right now and tell him you're awake and fine, if that's not a problem."

"It is not," said Kaldur, shaking his head. "Thank you."

"Try to stay in bed for at least another twenty minutes," Dinah told him as she stepped towards the infirmary door. "After that…your teammates would probably be glad to see you."

He nodded, and she slipped out of the room.

Four days. They had taken him for four days, and it would be at least a week before he could return to the team, before he could be trusted to be master of his own impulses. The wasted time ate away at his conscience as he sank down onto the pillows, weary to the bone.

He was supposed to be leader of this team. Yet he had neglected his duties to pursue a personal matter, and had even been so irresponsible as to let himself be captured. Looking back, Kaldur realized that he had been too intent on what was happening on the ground floor of that storeroom, too consumed with worry for Roy's safety to consider his own, and that had put them all in danger. Love had distracted him, and now he was paying for it.

Yet on some level, he could not regret it. The price was his to pay – no one else had been hurt, it seemed – and that was right. He was strong enough to get through this. He would heal, he would tell Roy how he felt, and it would all be over. He could go back to normalcy, to focus, to duty. He would be better for it, in the end. Alone, but better. Somehow.

After some time, when his thoughts began to drift too far afield, Kaldur removed his IV and stood, surprised at the shakiness of his own limbs – he had to grab the footboard of his bed to keep from falling over when his knees abruptly gave way, but he forced himself through the next few steps, and grew steadier with each one.

He found Conner and M'gann in the Cave kitchen, conversing in low voices; they stopped abruptly as he entered, both turning quickly to face him.

"You're up!" M'gann exclaimed, floating up and over the countertop to give him a warm embrace. He wasn't expecting it and at first, the whole thing was rather awkward, but after a moment he came to his senses and returned the gesture.

"Was I asleep so long?" he asked as she pulled away, unused to such attention from his teammates.

"No," said M'gann. "It's just…it's just good to see you."

Something about her tone of voice made him feel there was more to it that she wasn't telling him, but he couldn't be sure.

"You hungry?" asked Conner from across the counter.

"No, thank you," Kaldur declined. "Not yet."

The conversation petered out, and the three stood in awkward silence, but based on the subtle changes in expression on his teammates' faces, Kaldur guessed they were having some kind of telepathic conversation. He moved to lean against the counter, not wishing to interrupt them. After a moment, M'gann turned and offered him an unusually strained smile.

"I think I'm going to go upstairs and meditate for a little bit," she said. "You know, while we have the time."

And she floated off, leaving the two boys alone.

Conner folded his arms across his chest, looking around uncomfortably, before he leaned against the edge of the counter and let out a deep breath.

"Is everything all right?" Kaldur asked after a moment.

"Yeah, sorry," Conner said, shaking his head. "Just…uh, you feeling okay?"

"I have felt better," said Kaldur honestly – his muscles ached and he felt vaguely ill. "But I will mend soon enough. You seem troubled."

Conner grunted noncommittally, rubbing his arm. Kaldur watched him.

"Is there anything you would like to discuss?" he asked at last.

"No," the clone said quickly. "I mean…yes. There…there is. I know you told M'gann it's rude to read people's minds, and we weren't trying to be nosy or anything but you were kind of…yelling, you know? In your sleep. Some pretty weird things."

"I am afraid I do not recall any of them."

"You kept apologizing. Asking people to forgive you."

Kaldur frowned.

"For what?"

"I don't know. You weren't exactly coherent."

"I thought you implied you had Miss Martian read my thoughts."

"They weren't exactly coherent either."

"I see. Is that all?"

"No," said Conner, glancing over at him. "You uh, you dropped a lot of names."

Kaldur frowned slightly.

"Such as?"

"Everyone on the team," Conner said. "And Aquaman and Batman and Canary, a fair amount. And…Red Arrow. Well, you called him by his civilian name, mostly, but…you mentioned him a lot."

"It was on a mission with Red Arrow that I was captured," Kaldur deflected. "It is reasonable that he would be on my mind, however incoherent my thoughts."

"I also heard your conversation with Black Canary, when you came in late to training the other day," said Conner flatly.

Mind racing, Kaldur tried to remember exactly what he had said, but too much had happened since then; he wasn't sure what Conner had overheard, but it was probably incriminating.

"Using super-hearing to listen in on a private conversation is no less invasive than reading someone's private thoughts," he rebuked, albeit gently. He had to remember that Conner was not well-versed in Earth culture. He had no desire to upset his teammate.

"I'm sorry," Conner frowned, looking suddenly self-conscious. "I wasn't trying to."

"I am sure you were not," said Kaldur. "The point is moot, in any case. What were you trying to tell me about it?"

"I…" Conner began, frowning as he seemed to consider his words carefully. "Look, I don't know what the deal is with you and Red, but I just want you to know that you're entitled to a personal life, apart from the team. I know I'm not really one to talk, but you…I don't know. You don't have to take care of other people all the time. You can look after yourself once in a while. Yeah, we need you, but…we need you at your best. So just, do what you need to do, all right?"

Kaldur blinked. That wasn't exactly what he'd been expecting Conner to say. Surprised, he could say nothing for a moment, just considering what it was his teammate – no, his friend – had said, before he finally gave a slow nod.

"Thank you," he said with a faint smile. "I will…keep that in mind."

"Right," Conner mumbled, clearly unused to this kind of conversation. "And uh, if…if you need any heads bashed in, you know who to call."

Kaldur chuckled softly.

"Of course."

Just as he finished speaking, Conner's head jerked up, eyes alert, as if some sound had startled him. Kaldur stepped forward, giving the clone an inquisitive look.

"Tubes," Conner explained, still focused on the sound. "Argument. Two…no, three people."

"If they have come through the zeta-tubes, they are allies," Kaldur said. "There is no need to worry."

"I'm not worried for us, I'm worried for them," Conner remarked. "They sound like they're going to kill each other."

"Ah. Allow me to make an educated guess."

"Don't bother, I'm sure you've got it," said Conner, rolling his eyes. "Let's go."

The two of them left the kitchen, making their way through the Cave's central hallway towards the training room; as they approached, Kaldur began to hear the voices as well.

"…completely irresponsible in your current condition. You could have been killed, you could have been kidnapped, you could have – "

" – what the hell were you expecting me to do, just sit there and wait for a written invitation?"

"Yes, Roy, that's exactly what I was expecting you to do, because I thought I'd taught you a little more sense than to – "

" – You heard what she did, Ollie, how could I…"

But Roy trailed off as Kaldur met his eyes from across the room, having just stepped out of the hallway and into the cavernous training room, barefoot and steady-gazed, Conner at his back.

"As I said, there is a time and place for this conversation, and this is not it," said Dinah, pushing past both Roy and Ollie impatiently. Her fingers closed around the older archer's wrist as she passed, dragging him towards one of the lower hallways; the two vanished into it and were gone, and a sudden movement at Kaldur's back told him that Conner, too, had decided it was a good time to disappear.

The training room had never seemed so wide than it did then as Kaldur made his way across it, fighting a multitude of reactions, desperately trying to figure out what to say to Roy. But when he was finally close enough to address him, close enough to see the tension in the archer's posture, close enough to see the conflict in those blue eyes, close enough to see the way he had stuffed both hands deep into his jacket pockets, all he could do was offer him half a smile and say,

"You have been taking your medication."

Without a word, Roy stepped forward and pulled him into a stiff embrace, warm and rough and everything Roy always was. Kaldur let his eyes slip shut and returned it cautiously, realizing that Roy's injured shoulder was pressed up against his, that he was probably causing his friend all sorts of pain, but he couldn't bring himself to pull away. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Roy let him go, stepping back, his jaw even tighter than usual, hands slipping back into his pockets as if he just didn't know what else to do with them.

"Kal…you…you have no idea how sorry I am," he croaked, his voice cracking, as if he could barely get the words out.

It was uncharacteristic enough for Roy to apologize, much less to be emotional about it, and to Kaldur, it was almost scarier than seeing him shot.

"It was not your fault," he said softly. "There is no need to apologize."

"It was," Roy pressed, shaking his head. "You have no idea. It is/i my fault. On so many levels, this is completely – "

"Stop," said Kaldur, cutting him off. "I am too tired to argue with you, but you are mistaken. It was my own inattention that left me vulnerable, and I will not let you take responsibility for it."

"I…" Roy said, then stopped, rubbing his right hand against his temple in frustration. "We can have this conversation some other time, but…just…let me be sorry, okay? Even if you don't believe me yet. Let me be sorry."

"Fine," Kaldur conceded. He watched Roy drop his hand back to his side, paused, and changed the subject. "Your arm seems to be healing well."

"Yeah," Roy muttered, lifting it and turning over his palm to look at it critically. "Yeah, it…been taking those shots, like you told me. Still hurts like a bitch, but I can get around now. Wash my own dishes and whatnot."

"And go chasing after drug lords," Kaldur commented quietly.

"I wasn't…" Roy began, cursing in frustration. "It was just…never mind, you're clearly already on Ollie's side. I'm not talking to you about this."

"I was only joking, my friend," said Kaldur.

"Sassy," Roy muttered disapprovingly.

They fell into companionable silence, and for a moment, Kaldur forgot all the unpleasantness of the last few days, as if he had just had a very long sleep, the darkness and the forced injections just some bad dream he would never face again.

"Where are all your obedient little followers?" Roy asked at last, looking around the Cave.

"Superboy and Miss Martian are around somewhere," said Kaldur. "I presume the rest are assisting their mentors or at home."

"And you?" Roy asked. "You going home, now that they'll let you?"

"I had not given it much thought," said Kaldur. Truth be told, he wasn't sure he wanted his mother seeing him like this. He wanted to be able to tell her the story with enough distance between him and it that she would not worry on his account.

Just as Roy opened his mouth to respond, the door to the bottom hallway opened and Black Canary and Green Arrow appeared, the latter looking considerably less grumpy than he had when he'd left.

"Boys," Dinah greeted, nodding to them both. "We should talk logistics."

"Logistics?"

"The team's on leave for a little while," she explained. "And don't give me that look, Kaldur, it's not your fault, and it's not a problem. Bats and Flash have already been bitching about losing time with their precious little protégés lately, and there's no guarantee you all would have had a mission in this time anyway. The team is on leave. Its members are not. Except you, for obvious reasons."

Kaldur nodded. It didn't stop him feeling responsible for the whole thing, but he at least appreciated that his teammates' skills were not going to waste. M'gann and Conner would probably be glad to have some time to themselves for a few days, in any case.

"You have a few options," Dinah continued. "You can continue to stay here at the Cave, where Red Tornado, Miss Martian and Superboy will be available to provide care as you need it. You can return to Shayeris, where I'm sure your mother would be glad to do the same, or if you have another solution, now's the time to propose it."

Kaldur thought for a moment, back to the previous sleep. He did not want to stay in the Cave, not when Conner would surely wake to his cries again – his teammates did not need to see his subconscious spilling through the cracks of his drug-addled dreams; they already knew too much, it seemed. But home was out of the question. He could not bring stress like that to his mother.

"If it is possible," he began, "I would prefer to stay on my own. I would keep my communicator active."

"I'm sorry, but that's out of the question," said Dinah flatly. "You might feel fine now, but soon enough, you won't. And you'll want someone there when that happens. Trust me."

"Trust her," Roy echoed quietly. Kaldur cast a glance at his friend, acknowledging the hollow recollection in those words.

With a deep breath, Kaldur considered the options once more, when Roy's voice broke in once more:

"Come stay with me."

"Roy, don't be ridiculous, that's – " Ollie began, but Dinah elbowed him sharply in the side and he fell silent.

"I'm not going to relapse watching someone else go through what I went through," Roy said, casting an irate look at his former mentor. "If anything, it'll remind me why I quit in the first place. Come stay with me, Kal. I owe you."

Of all the people Kaldur wanted seeing him in whatever state was impending, Roy ranked last, but he couldn't deny that it made sense. Roy would understand. He would not judge. He would know what to do. And with his injury, he would not be sacrificing patrol or missions to do so. He was the logical choice.

(And on some level, Kaldur still could not resist the thought of getting to spend just a little more time with him. After all, if he held himself accountable, there was but a short while left until he drove them apart with his own untimely confession.)

"If you are sure it is not an inconvenience," he said finally.

Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw Dinah and Ollie exchange a look, but he couldn't be sure.

"Done," Roy nodded. "Pack your bags, fishsticks. I'll show you my new flat."

Kaldur gave the archer a questioning look as he turned towards the stairs, intending to gather his things.

"New flat?"

"Old one was compromised, obviously," Roy explained. "So I upgraded. Need to lie low for a while until we solve the one little security problem, but it's a step up. Go get your stuff."

Kaldur nodded and headed up the stairs.


The first wave of nausea hit him about ten feet out of the zeta-station; his knees suddenly buckled and he dropped to the ground, a cold sweat breaking out across his whole body in seconds. It was dark in the transit tunnel, and they were off the beaten path; he knew that if they were caught there, somebody would have questions, but he couldn't fight off the feeling – he jerked himself sideways and vomited off the platform and onto the tracks beneath, holding himself up on trembling arms.

Roy's hand descended on his shoulder, holding him steady as he retched a few more times, the heaving gradually easing.

"Let it out," the archer muttered, crouching beside him. "It'll pass. Just let it out."

Nodding mutely, Kaldur closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, trying to force his body to cooperate. Finally, the boiling, twisting sensation in his stomach began to fade, and he slowly sat back, doing his best not to lean too heavily against Roy's side – he could hold himself up, dammit.

"You all right there?" Roy's voice sounded gently in his ear.

"Yes," Kaldur replied, after a moment. He let out one more breath to steady himself.

"Good, because the train should be here any second," said Roy. "Let's move."

They slipped into the maintenance staircase just as the next subway train came charging through the tunnel, the lights missing them by only a few feet. Still distracted by the unfamiliar and unpleasant sensations wracking his body, Kaldur followed Roy up the ladder to street level without a word, frustrated by his lack of control, and furthermore by the strange warmness spreading through his body. He tugged at the neck of his jacket as they emerged into the alleyway, wishing he could take it off, but the gills were a giveaway. It was out of the question.

"This way," Roy directed, catching his arm as he began to turn east out of habit. "New flat, remember?"

"Right," Kaldur muttered distractedly. Was it warm out? Star City was usually fairly cold, and on the main street, most people were dressed in coats and hats, but Kaldur wasn't feeling the chill. He skipped a step to catch up with Roy, who was leading the way down a side street.

About half a mile out, they ducked into another alley, where Roy stepped into a run-down phone booth, pulled the phone off the hook, and began to enter a series of numbers. Kaldur stopped paying attention after a moment, lifting a hand to wipe a beat of sweat off of his brow.

It will pass, he told himself, repeating Roy's earlier words. Just wait, and it will pass.

But by the time Roy had showed him the tunnel that opened at the back of the alleyway, it had not. If anything, he felt hotter even than before. They made their way through the darkness for what felt like forever, until at last, Roy pulled a lever in the ceiling, and a narrow staircase folded out towards them, light spilling down from the apartment above.

They climbed up. As Roy knelt to pull the trapdoor shut, Kaldur set his bag down on the kitchen table and unzipped his jacket , seeking to escape the stifling heat that had come upon him. The shoes followed a moment later, but the relief was short-lived on both counts. Still, he kept his face guardedly neutral, trying not to betray his discomfort lest he worry Roy, who at some point had started to talk about the new apartment's security measures; Kaldur hadn't been listening.

"…and a voice-encoded password," Roy was saying. "Some guy at work said he just happened to have a bunch of the tech lying around, old models and stuff, although it all looked pretty cutting-edge to me. The place is a huge improvement over that last piece of shit, though. You want to take a look around, so you know where to put my stuff once I inevitably trash it?"

Kaldur forced a smile at the joke, and consented to a tour of the apartment, which was indeed nicer than the previous one. It had a distant but serviceable view of the harbor from the living room, which also featured a fireplace, a kitchen with plumbing that didn't leak, and a bedroom actually large enough to contain both a full bed and a dresser.

"And when this whole thing is over and I can actually walk out the front door, there's room on the porch to – Kal, are you okay?" Roy asked, cutting himself off as he caught sight of his friend's face.

Kaldur heard the words as if from very far away. Before he had a chance to respond, Roy frowned in concern and reached out to press a hand to his forehead, and the touch burned. With a sharp intake of breath, Kaldur knocked Roy's hand away, stumbling backwards as white spots flashed through his vision.

"Sorry," he gasped out, feeling for the wall, to hold himself up – he was whiting out, losing sight of the room around him. It was as if he were back in that little black cell, reduced to sounds and sensations beyond his control.

"You're burning up," said Roy's voice, sounding alarmed. "Talk me through this. What's going on?"

"H-hot," Kaldur said, wishing that Roy would leave, so as not to see him losing his cool like this, and simultaneously afraid he would leave him to face it alone. "I cannot see."

Roy's hands gripped his upper arms, and as he tried to pull away from the white-blaze heat of his friend's touch, he felt the archer lower him to the carpeted hallway, saying things that got lost somewhere in the hazy distance between them. Then closer, clearer:

"Stay here."

Kaldur nodded, as if he had a choice in the matter, and gasped for breath, still sightless and panicked although he was trying his best to stay calm. Somewhere to his right, a sudden, dull roar sounded, then footsteps – Roy's – compressed the floor near his hands.

"Can you move?"

Kaldur nodded.

"Good," said Roy. "Follow my voice. You're gonna be fine, all right? Deep breaths."

Kaldur rose shakily to his feet, feeling the texture beneath them change from carpet to tile as Roy led him into what he thought must be the bathroom – the roaring sound seemed to be that of the bath filling. A grating sound and a beautifully chilly breeze ghosting across his face told him that Roy had also just opened the window.

"I'm going to touch you for just a second, okay?" said Roy's voice, just above his left ear. "Just to get you into the tub."

Nodding his consent, Kaldur tried not to flinch away as Roy placed a guiding hand on his back – it felt like a hot iron, even through his shirt. But a moment later, the archer was lowering him into ice-cold water, and the roaring in his ears was quieting, the shadows returning to his whitewashed vision, the world gradually coming back into focus. The faucet continued to gush as Roy's face sharpened out of the haze, worried but calm, and finally, Kaldur's breathing began to slow.

"Is this…normal?" he asked meekly, sinking lower to let the water lap at his gills. The effect was instantly cooling.

"Hot flashes," Roy nodded. "Yeah, had plenty of those. Canary used to joke I was going through menopause, when she thought I might be in a mood to take a joke. Mine were never that bad, though. You okay?"

"Yes," said Kaldur, closing his eyes. "I am sorry."

"I'm declaring a moratorium on apologies while you're here," said Roy, taking a seat on the edge of the tub. "You took care of me, I'll take care of you. Don't say you're sorry for things you can't help. How's the water?"

"Cold," Kaldur replied, then hurriedly finished as Roy frowned and reached for the temperature control: "Perfect."

"Right, half-fish and all that," said Roy, dropping his hand back to his side. He leaned against the wall. "Could by why it's this bad. Heat's not your thing in the first place."

Kaldur nodded, and they fell into silence. He closed his eyes to avoid the awkwardness of watching Roy watch him, and after some time, felt the archer reach over to turn off the water, as the tub was in danger of overflowing.

"Has your enemy been apprehended?" Kaldur asked finally, when too much time had passed not to say something. "The woman from the hospital?"

"Not yet," said Roy. "She had cleared out by the time Arrow, Canary and Aquaman found you."

"She seemed to know you," Kaldur said carefully, opening his eyes as he remembered the brief conversation that had taken place, when he'd first woken up in his cell. "She was…surprised that you did not recognize her."

"Yeah," Roy muttered, his expression twisting sourly. "Yeah. I…this is part of why – and I'm not trying to start this argument again – but this is part of why you should, on all accounts, beat the living daylights out of me and leave me in a dumpster in an alley somewhere. She's right. I should have recognized her in the hospital that night, and taken her out while I had the chance."

"Who is she?"

Roy took a deep breath.

"She is – was – my dealer."

Kaldur watched his friend's face carefully. He wasn't sure what to say to that.

"That's half the reason I'm to blame for this," said Roy. "I'll tell you the other half some other time. Maybe when you're not in my bathtub."

He cracked a half-hearted smile, which Kaldur returned, reminded of the absurdity of the whole situation. Here he was, fully clothed in Roy's tub, inches away from confessing why he'd come over in the first place, paralyzed by fear of his own body and confusion at the strangeness of Roy's expression, the way the unusual sadness of those blue eyes betrayed the typical smirk below.

"You look cold," Kaldur said at last, noticing the gooseflesh on Roy's arms. The window was still open, and the proximity of the freezing bathwater couldn't be helping either.

"Maybe a bit," the archer admitted.

"I will be fine in a moment," said Kaldur. "You should relocate to someplace warmer. Perhaps put your fireplace to good use."

"You sure?"

"I will call if I need help."

"Deal."


The rest of the day passed with surprisingly little ado. Gradually, Kaldur's appetite returned, and he let Roy make him a late-afternoon meal, which to his relief, his body did not reject. When the sun set and the street lamps outside flickered to life, he inquired after his friend's injury, and had to hide his surprised appreciation as Roy responded by simply taking his shirt off to reveal the undressed wound. It looked good, as though it were weeks old, not mere days; the accelerant was clearly working, though the look on Roy's face as he lifted his right arm to pull his shirt back over his head betrayed the pain that still plagued him.

Night fell. At some point, Roy unlatched the injection case and pulled out one of the last two syringes, uncapping it with his teeth as he leaned up against the wall, clearly intent on delivering the dose himself. But he hesitated when Kaldur closed his book and stood up from the armchair he'd been occupying. Their eyes met from across the room, then without a word, Kaldur walked over and plucked the syringe from Roy's hands, holding out his other hand expectantly.

It was different this time. Before, Kaldur had not understood. He had sought only to ease Roy's mind as he slid the needle home. But this time, as Roy laid his wrist in Kaldur's palm and closed his eyes, Kaldur had no words with which to distract his friend – instead, he felt the quickening of Roy's pulse echoed by his own, felt his own mouth grow inexplicably dry, felt a nauseating desire sweep through him, curling his stomach into knots, and it was Roy who suddenly spoke to pull them both out of it, voice low but steady.

It was a story of his childhood, out on the reservation. Kaldur had never once heard him talk about that life before, despite their years of friendship, had never even considered that at some point Roy must have been a child, not the headstrong, independent person he was now. But somewhere between Roy's accounts of making his first bow and the time he'd been thrown twelve feet off a horse into a ravine, he forced his thumb to the plunger and delivered the injection, and they stepped apart, both breathing a little too quickly.

Neither pointed the difference out.


Roy had insisted he take the bed, but Kaldur couldn't sleep. The darkness moved about him endlessly; his eyes simply wouldn't stay shut. The clock on the opposite wall counted off the wasted minutes whenever he bothered to look over.

1:03.

1:17.

1:41.

2:20.

2:24.

2:38.

2:47.

3:05.

And then the nightmare swallowed him.

Everything was burning. The trees, the fields, the rocks, the ocean itself – everything was burning, and there was nothing Kaldur could do to stop it. He watched as his teammates fell to the flames one by one, their cries echoing through Mount Justice, watched as the palace crumbled around the whole royal court, crushing his king and queen and their newborn heir, watched as Shayeris blazed into nothingness and took his mother away for good. Each time, he tried to help, and each time, just before he could reach his loved ones, he would freeze, paralyzed by an unseen force, made helpless by something out of his control, beyond his understanding.

The fire turned to Star City, and the hospital storeroom blazed. From below, Roy called out for his help, his right arm a bloodied stump below the bullet mark, but Kaldur could not jump over the railing to come to his aid; in fact, he couldn't move at all. He could only watch as the flames roared higher, as the heat became deadly, as Roy's cries grew increasingly desperate, and he could do nothing.

And suddenly he became aware that one sensation wasn't as dreamlike as the others – Roy was calling for him, from close by, and there were hands on his chest, holding him to the bed as he twisted and turned and tangled himself up in the sheets; his eyes snapped open to see Roy staring down at him, but somehow, even after he had woken, the dream didn't stop. The panic lingered, the heat seemed to burn his skin, the images flashed through his head again and again and again, displacing the sight of his friend's worried face, hovering close above his own…

Caught between the safety of reality and the torment of his imagination, Kaldur did the first thing he could think of to anchor himself in the real world, which was to crush his mouth to Roy's in a desperate, jarring kiss.

It worked, at a price. The nightmare fell away, replaced by the waking hell of what he had just done. Roy didn't throw him off or hit him, as he'd thought he might, but he didn't kiss back either, and when at last Kaldur pulled away, panting and fearful, the archer's eyes were wide with shock and other emotions too fleeting to name.

Silence next, thick and tense.

"I…" Kaldur gasped out at last, releasing Roy's arm as he noticed his own death grip on it. "I am sorry, I…"

"Don't," Roy cut him off.

Kaldur's stomach plummeted.

Another moment passed, the two just staring at each other through the darkness, then abruptly, Roy rose. Kaldur closed his eyes as he felt the archer move away, his own thoughts a tangled mess of regret and confusion and indulgent self-hatred, when suddenly, the bed dipped at his back.

He stiffened. But before his questions had a chance to get off the ground, warm arms wrapped around his chest, Roy's breath ghosted against the back of his ear, and his own body relaxed of its own accord, sending his tired mind spiraling back towards sleep. Any frantic line of thought he had been pursuing before that moment vanished in an instant, leaving him with only the soothing rhythm of Roy's heartbeat as his friend held him close enough to feel it against his back.

Roy never said a word.

Kaldur did not dream again that night.