Song inspiration: "When You're Gone" –Avril Lavigne
I didn't expect things between us to be the same after that night in the Rockies.
They weren't.
He stopped visiting me when I was in America. I stopped dropping by Metropolis just to see him. We saw each other at the Watchtower, we worked together on missions, and that was it.
We didn't talk at all for several days after that night in the Rockies. I didn't try to push it; I gave him time to deal with everything on his own, and I also knew I needed to have my thoughts well in order before I trusted myself to say anything to him.
I finally breached the silence one day during a break at the Tower and casually asked about the mission he'd just returned from. His answer was concise, and at first I thought this meant he was politely refusing to talk to me, but then he returned the question and a conversation began. We moved from a frosty silence to an awkward one.
I didn't mind at first. It was better than nothing.
I wasn't expecting our friendship to be the exactly same as it was, but as the weeks went on, it became evident that he wasn't going to let us go back to anything close to the way we used to be. He wouldn't be alone with me anywhere. He wouldn't just sit and talk with me during downtime at the Tower. He wouldn't train with me. He wouldn't touch me. He wouldn't even smile at me, as though even this small display of affection would be too far for us to go now. And each time we were in the same room, there was an elephant in there too that neither of us was willing to acknowledge…
And, plain and simple, I missed my friend.
I knew he was protecting himself-and maybe he thought he was protecting me too-from any kind of temptation. As much as I wanted our friendship back, I couldn't deny his clear assumption that we were not going to be able to go back to exactly the way we were…not with both of us unable to ignore what had happened. I hoped that this was just a stage of transition, but as weeks turned into months and we still were barely speaking, I began to fear that we had ruined our friendship irreparably. The conversation in the mountains had been to emotionally-charged for me to think clearly. I knew that there was far more that we needed to talk about that we hadn't addressed then.
When is there ever a right time to talk about something like this though?
If the other League members noticed anything different between us, they mercifully said nothing. Perhaps this should have bothered me more, but I was grateful to not have to confess the canyon that had immerged between us. I didn't know if they brought anything up before him, but I doubted it. Everything that happened stayed between him and me alone, just like he had wanted.
I was tired of this charade though. Tired of pretending like nothing had happened, and tired of pretending that it was okay for us to keep up this farce. I worried that I might do something rash out of frustration, but until he and I were alone together, I knew I didn't have the heart to call his bluff in front of the others. In spite of the situation he had put me in, I still cared about protecting him. Sooner or later though, my chance came.
It was one night, maybe two or three months after that night, when he walked into the training simulator right after I had entered from the other side. It was literally the first time we were in a room alone together in months.
"Oh, I'm sorry," he says when he sees me. "You go ahead. I'll come back later."
He turns quickly- a little too quickly- to leave, and something inside me suddenly snaps.
Enough.
"Kal." I let my voice rise a little louder than necessary as I call to him from across the room. He stops mid-step.
"Fight with me." I place the challenge simply in front of him. I want to first see if he'll dare. If he'll let himself.
He turns to look over his shoulder at me, and I see the conflict play quickly across his face. "I really-"
He's backing down. I expected him to. But he's not getting away from me this time.
"Activate Special Program ATS-D15," I say sharply to the voice-activated room controls. The walls seal immediately and the door he was about to exit through vanishes. He spins sharply to face me, but I ignore him and watch the changing room around us.
The machines in the floor whir and the nanotech ground springs to life, reshaping to become an unlevel terrain of rocks, pits, and boulders. The walls transform from bare steel to a hologram of a sweeping scene of disaster- fire, debris, and smoke are all that can be seen across the barren terrain- but through the smoke and clouds glimmer distant stars. Light disappears from the room except for from the holograms of smoldering ruin and the real flames that spring from areas of the ground as the simulation begins.
On the other side of the room, he rotates slowly, taking in his new surroundings. His face of surprise gradually changes to one of complete shock as he recognizes the scene.
"Asgard," he says quietly. "How did you do it?" A reflection of the flames dances in his eyes.
"I had J'onn help me extract some memories and code them into binary for the computer to recreate," I respond quietly. "It wasn't hard."
The ground begins to tremble as the machines beneath it generate the obstacles.
Our eyes meet across the room, and I hold his gaze as I move towards him slowly. "Do you remember what we learned here?"
He looks away and takes one slow step backwards. He knows what I meant by that.
"Don't do this Diana- end training simulation," he says to the machines. Nothing stops- the ground only shakes harder- a roar builds in the distance- the cry of a monster recreated.
"This is my program, Kal," I say calmly. "It ends when I say it ends." I unlace the lasso from my side, preparing for anything that's about to attack.
"I'm not going to do this, D-" he doesn't get to finish his protest, because at that moment a simulated demon breaks through the ground beneath him with a roar, seizing him in coils of its body and slamming him to the ground.
Here we go.
I fly at the monster but am deflected by another demon that appears from the ground beneath me. All other things disappear from my mind as I go into combat mode- my body reacts as the engrained warrior training takes over. Deflect-attack-dodge-strike-immobilize…
At one point I am struck from the air by a demon's errant tail and thrown against the ground, but before it can pin me beneath its foot, he's in front of me, catching its claws in his hands and twisting the beast to the ground. I leap upon it and snap its neck, and it fades away into the simulator.
And just like that, we are fighting together again, a perfectly coordinated team-just like we used to. The demons fall again and again before us on all sides, fading away into the simulator, reforming, and reappearing to attack again.
As we fight and I find a rhythm in the battle, my mind is able to wander just a little…and process all the other memories brought back by this place. The invariable feelings of uncertainty and exhaustion in the years of constant combat, and the occasional moments of loneliness when I considered the years that were passing without us and the family I had left behind. The many sleepless nights spent in battle and those rare nights spent resting in his arms by the fire. The bond forged between us through both combat and rest, refined with trial and perfected with time. It was here, in this forgotten land devoid of all things good, that something great and powerful grew between us.
Something we still pretend doesn't exist.
I remember that final night-the closest we ever came to admitting what we felt-when I looked into his eyes and saw it all there. The desire, the resistance to it, the internal conflict where his commitment to his other love ran up against his relationship with me. He had denied himself then, but it was in that moment that I knew I wasn't imagining his love for me. And when we came home deeper friends than ever, not ruined but rather refined by the years of trial by fire…I couldn't help but wonder if his feelings would fade or grow now that we were back.
Of course I had tried to distance myself from my desires, now that his commitment to his wife was once again a present reminder of why we could not be more than friends. I kept everything tucked inside and did my best to make it easier on him by pretending I wanted nothing more than friendship between us. But even without having to lie outright to him, I never was able to lie to myself. Not with that golden gift of the gods that I carried with me that daily burned away any delusion I tried to let myself believe. But here, once again surrounded by the fiery, forgotten world that was the site of the worst and best years of my life, I see everything for what it really is.
I look at him for the briefest of moments as he throws another beast to the ground. There is something in his face- something raw and determined- but not because of the conflict before him. It's because of the battle within him. A battle that I've watched him fight for years now, a battle he lost that night a few months ago. And now he's fighting it again with all that he has, but not because he's afraid to lose- it's because he's trying to convince himself he hasn't changed sides.
It's all there- I see it so clearly now through the smoke and flames.
We press back to back as a demon rises up on each side once more, and his hand brushes mine. "Enough, Diana," I hear him mutter as his feet shift to prepare to spring. "Enough now."
Not yet.
This time, instead of helping him as he absorbs force of his demon's strike and I dodge the demon I'm facing, I let mine go after him rather than keeping its attention fixed on me. I let its tail strike him and throw him against the wall, and the two demons go after him together. I slip out of their vision and let them pin him to the ground without my interference. I need to remind him why we need each other .Why he needs me.
"Diana!" he shouts, doing his best to free himself as a third monster rises up to join the mêlée. His heat vision does little to deter them, and with his power neutralized by their magical strength he can't seem to do anything else without killing them. The other line he has sworn never to cross.
He looks around and his eyes find me, and his face is full of both anger and panic as I look coolly back at him without moving to help. One beast raises its head for a crushing blow.
Now it's enough.
I give the command. "End simulation."
The beasts instantly disappear in a shower of pixels. The fire fades and the smoke disappears into the vents. The wall and ceiling holograms fragment and the room fills again with the sterile gleam of fluorescent light on steel.
That last bit was unnecessary. Selfish. But it also might have been the only way to make him listen.
He gets up from the ground. There is something angry in his eyes as he looks at me, but I think he understands what I've just done. We stand on opposite sides of the room and stare each other down as the last of the mythical world fades and the room returns to smooth steel. I could never be afraid of him, and that's not why I feel anxious now. As I take a deep breath, I realize that the reason my heart is pounding is because I'm afraid of all that might be different when we leave this room.
Courage.
"Enough's enough Kal. We're not leaving this room until you hear me out."
He just glares back in silence. I approach him with determination.
"I'm done with this," I say solidly. "I'm done pretending. I'm done pretending like nothing happened in Asgard, and I'm done pretending like nothing happened that night. The charade has to end now."
I'm only a few feet away from him. I wonder if he's noticed that his feet have shifted to defensive stance as though he expects me to attack him. He says nothing in response though, and I go on.
"I'm not blaming you for not knowing how to act around me, and that's why we have to get this all out now, so we can just move on. I'm asking you to stop avoiding me and just be honest with me. I don't want to have to hide what we did-"
"Not hide what we did?" he repeats incredulously. His eyes flash angrily but at least I've finally elicited a response. "We broke vows, Diana. It's not something we can just acknowledge to the world- there are repercussions of something like this-consequences for everyone. Do you have any idea what it's like to carry this around in a marriage, knowing I was unfaithful to her?"
It's the first time I've heard him admit it out loud.
He goes on, "I'm not doing that to Lois-I'm not going to put her through any more pain because of something I did-"
"Kal, I did not mean tell people what happened," I cut him off, "I'm not that foolish. I know what this looks like on our character, I know how much this would change if we admitted it to others. It kills me to not be honest about who I am, but I am doing it for you, not for myself. I could live with the consequences. But you seem to think that you can't. And so we're just acting as if we don't know each other anymore. But that's not helping anything. You know it isn't."
I dare to challenge him.
"I just need us to be honest with each other," I say, softening my tone. "What happened changed things. It changed us. And if we aren't willing to even acknowledge that it happened, I don't know how to deal with this. I don't know how to deal with you. At the very least Kal, can we stop pretending like we don't know what happened?"
He doesn't respond to that- I can tell that I'm getting through in some way. I press forward.
"I can tell you've tried to bury that night's memory ever since then, but there's something deeper that we're dancing around and never acknowledging. Something that's making you avoid me like a plague-"
"You're trying to turn this into more than it is, Diana. It was one night- one momentary lapse in judgment…" I see that he knows where I'm going with this-but I also notice he's not denying intentionally avoiding me. I press forward bravely.
"Kal, the fact that it happened has to mean something…"
"We've been over this Diana…nothing would have happened if we had been thinking clearly…" his voice is rising.
"That's not the point." My voice is louder. "Drunken actions are sober wishes. I think that should be a bit of a clue for both of us."
As soon as the words are out of my mouth and I see his eyes flash, I know I've done it. Crossed an understood line. Up til now, there have been no accusations of fault. Well, it's time to stop pretending.
We are only an arm's length away from each other. I can practically feel the emotion radiating off of him as he opens his mouth.
"You think I wanted this to happen?" he asks slowly but forcefully. His hands tighten into fists, and my feet instinctively slide into a defensive stance. "Is that what you're saying? You think I planned this when I showed up at your house?"
"No, Kal," I say with all the earnestness I can put into my voice. "That's not what I meant. I'm giving you more credit than you might deserve, but I am not accusing you of knowingly setting this situation up. All I'm saying is that you're closing your eyes to the most crucial point in this whole situation."
"And what might that be?" he asks through gritted teeth, still not relaxing his fists.
I take a deep breath, knowing there's no turning back once I say this.
"The fact is Kal, if your marriage was what you think it is-what you're pretending like it is-and your relationship with me was as innocent as we keep acting like it is…then you wouldn't have been at my house that night in the first place. You wouldn't have left your wife and your certainly wouldn't have gone to me."
His eyes narrow, and I see I've made hit him where it hurts.
It's out there. I said it. My thudding heart betrays the boldness I put into my voice.
There's two directions we can go from here, and it all hinges on what he says in reply.
"Maybe," he says slowly, "but nothing would have happened if there wasn't something on the other side of it too."
I narrow my eyes at him. I think I know what he's getting at. How dare he…
"Just admit it, Diana…did you want it?"
I'm not falling for that.
"We've been over this," I say with an edge in my voice. "I would never have asked you to choose between your wife and me-"
"That's not what I asked," he says solidly, and I see the firmness in his eyes-he's not going to let me out of this one. Not this time. "I'm asking if inside…deep inside…do you want…us?"
He can't even make himself ask the question sensibly…
I hold his gaze silently for a long moment, processing the gravity of what he's asking.
He's asking me to lay bare the one thing I've worked so hard to keep hidden from him for so many years. An honest answer to this small question has the potential to change everything.
I don't know if I can do that to him. To our friendship. To myself.
I try to communicate all this with my eyes as I answer in the most careful way I can, my voice barely more than a whisper.
"Don't make me say it, Kal. You know I don't get to lie…"
I see a change in his face, and I know he understands. Though I'm shaking on the inside, I hold his gaze bravely and go on.
"I'm still not asking you to choose," I continue, my voice soft. "Because I care about you, and because I want you to be happy, I want you to do what's right for you. And if being with her is what makes you happy, then that's what I want for you more than anything."
He holds my gaze unflinchingly, his expression inscrutable. I dare to step out on a limb one more time.
"I can't read your mind, or your heart, Kal. I know you have a capacity for love greater than I can understand. But I also think you might be trying to convince your mind to contradict your heart."
There's the slightest change in the air around us, and I know inside that once again I have just crossed an invisible line out of neutral territory. I have asked him to face himself.
"I love her, Diana," he responds quietly, looking me solidly in the eye.
"I know you do," I say, averting my gaze. "All I'm saying, is...whether it's a thousand years or one night, you can bury anything you don't want to face and try to forget about it. I don't get to do that."
Unconsciously, my hand touches the lasso at my side, running the silken fibers through my fingers. The fire burns through me, clarity in the face of this confusion. His eyes glance to the lasso's light, and I see that he understands what I mean.
I look up and meet his gaze with all the strength I have. "I don't get to pretend, because I don't get to lie to myself. So each day you go on pretending, Kal…each day you go on lying…I am still suffering. Alone."
In his eyes, I see the pain, and I know he understands at last. Summoning the remains of my resolve, I lay the last challenge before him before my voice has a chance to break.
"If you care about me- if you love me in any way…please Kal, just face yourself. Face the truth. And don't make me go on carrying this alone."
I don't let him answer. I just turn around, walk away, and leave the room first. He doesn't come after me, but it doesn't matter because I don't intend to slow down.
I'm not going to let him leave me twice.
Fade out: "I Just Can't Live A Lie"- Carrie Underwood
