(Post-"Dark Victory." Lightning Lad wants the truth told. Rated 'T' again for all the usual reasons. The usual sketchy, somber ramblings with quite a bit of fluff sandwiched in the middle. You have been warned. Comments always welcome. I don't own any DC characters and situations and blah blah blah.)
If You Live
On your last day here, I was still on fire with anger. At the farewell party, I gulped down a cup of Phantom Girl's punch and was surprised when it didn't turn to steam on impact.
You should never have let those bastards get to you-- Cos and the rest. Relief was practically radiating off him when you said you'd be resigning. I gave him a piece of my mind about that later on, in private. Imra looked disappointed but not surprised. I realize now that she knew some things I didn't, but back then...
You should have stood your ground. We needed you.
Bouncy was still trying to talk you out of it when I stalked off in the direction of the lab. My arm needed a final once-over to make sure it was all right. Y'know, after you'd retaken it, rebuilt it out there. Whichever. I'd been avoiding that for a day or so, because I hate that kind of thing. Always have, but now I couldn't get to the lab fast enough. I wanted a clean bill of health so I could go down to sims. I wanted to get some of the fire out of my system before I exploded. You pushed your way past Bouncy and followed me.
"Lightning Lad, Please wait!"
"What do you want, Brainy?"
"Don't say anything to Shrinking Violet. Let me explain this to... to the others in my own way. Please."
I wouldn't slow down for you. Your new form didn't quite keep pace like the old one. Served you right for letting Cos reconfigure your (former) flight ring. Now all it could do was help him keep tabs on you. I should have told him where to put his "tabs."
"Working on a better explanation, Brainy? Give up. There isn't a good one."
We had reached the lab door. I would have left you standing there if I'd had any choice.
"Let me get this straight, Lightning Lad. You aren't angry with me over that business in sims. And not over a few nights ago when I blasted you and Cham unconscious for trying to help me."
I shook my head. "Brainy--"
"You weren't angry with me when I made you attack the rest of the team-- when I blew up your arm and digitized you."
"Brainy--"
"But you're angry now because I want to keep the team safe?" You leaned against the wall, one hand over your closed eyes. "Humans are... deeply unbalanced beings. The conclusions you draw from the events you observe... make no sense at all." A sigh. "I could live a million years and never get used to this."
"Look. First of all, I know that it wasn't really you that attacked us, and by the way Cham knows that, too."
"I--"
"Humans can hold grudges over things we can't change. But we're not required to. Do you understand the difference between 'I can' and 'I must?' "
Silence.
"You weren't yourself, Brainy. Everyone knows it."
"Do they?" You put your hand down and looked at me. "Perhaps we're occupying adjacent spaces in neighboring realities, then. Because not only don't I see that 'everyone knows it,' I'm not even sure that I 'know it.' " You turned to go.
"Oh, no." I grabbed your arm and held on tightly. "I still haven't gotten to Part Two."
Your face was resigned. A little fire of your own would have done you some good.
"Brainy, you're as much the heart a-- and the soul of this team as me or Cos or Saturn. Look around you. How much of what we are and what we have is because of you? Are you really going to let those bastards push... a lie? Rewrite everything you've done, just because of a few days where somebody else was driving?"
"Lightning Lad... You're hurting my arm."
It was only then that I realized it was my metal hand that was gripping you. I pulled it away and saw a couple of small, pale green finger marks. Not bruises, at least.
"Brainy, I'm sorry. I..."
"You weren't yourself." With your left hand, you rubbed at the skin on your right arm. "It's fine. As for the rest of--"
"Brainy, if you'd just--"
"This matter is closed. Can't you--?"
"Guys?" We both jumped a couple of meters. It was Violet, walking towards us from opposite the direction we had come, hair tied back, pad in hand. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," we both said in unison.
She raised an eyebrow. "Brainy, why were you--"
"Lightning Lad and I were just observing that the flexors on the Cyber-4K might need some adjustments."
"Uh-huh. Well, let's go in and check things over, okay?" The door hissed open and she motioned us in.
"I... have some other things I need to do. You're fine with just Violet doing the scan, aren't you, Lightning Lad?"
"Oh, yeah. No problem." I avoided looking at her.
"But, Brainy, I--"
"Violet, if you notice anything beyond your capabilities, you can page me."
"I'd rather you stayed, Brainy." Lucky for you that Violet, unlike Imra, couldn't read your mind. Unlike Dreamy, she couldn't see the future.
"Violet, there's... no need. You've attended to the lab in my absence before, and I know that you can do it again." Then you did something that I would not, in a million years, have expected. You put one arm around her shoulders in a brief hug. "I'll see you both later."
As I walked into the lab behind her and parked myself on the exam chair, I could see the pink creeping over her face. She gently propped my arm up at a 90-degree angle and switched on the null-grav field around it. The rings of light appeared around the shoulder, elbow and wrist, holding it out straight without any effort from me.
It was a few minutes before her skin faded again. The whole time she was studiously looking at the output, while she scanned me and read my results. She kept up a stream of genius-talk for a while and took some notes. Then she carefully unhooked the fasteners that held the exterior of the arm to my shoulder and elbow.
So that's how it was. I hadn't really noticed it sooner, because in my mind you were "still just kids." How soon we forget, and so on. What a mean trick to play on the poor girl, Brainy. Any remaining doubts that you were really human left me for good at that point.
"Okay, nerve pathways temporarily dialed down. I'm going to remove the exo and meso-layers now, Lightning Lad. The air on your circuitry will probably feel a little strange at first. Don't worry. Before I re-attach them, I'll run everything through the 'clave to make sure it's sterile."
"Great. Go ahead."
I remembered waking up with that arm, and the way Kell described it later the same day. We were on our way back to Winath. "Twins under the skin, we call it back home, when people work together that well. Oh, hey," he added, misreading the amused look on my face. We were piloting as Ayla played with Bouncy and Orange Duo behind us. "Didn't mean to offend."
I've never known what's funnier: Kell when he rushes in with no clue or Kell when he rushes in with too many clues. I was really going to miss him.
"What did you say, Garth?" I must have been thinking out loud. Violet was adjusting some wires in my wrist with a small tool that looked like a dozen miniature fangs circled around a matchstick-sized red light. She stopped working and pulled up the safety glasses she wore. "I missed something?"
"No, no. You're fine. Everything feels fine. I was just... thinking about how much I'm going to miss... both the Supermen. Y'know, when they leave."
"Me, too." She nodded as she drew the glasses down again. "But we'll hold it together, right? Like always."
"Yeah." I tried not to sigh audibly as she completed her work and the small light blinked out.
I had heard a couple of days before from Star Boy about how she'd nearly taken out Sun Boy for messing with you in the food hall. Violet would have fought for you, just as hard as she'd fought your ancestor. So many of us would have, because of all we owed you. We deserved a chance, Damn it. So did you.
Right up to the last minute, I was still arguing with Rokk and Imra. I just hated the thought of you wandering off with no protection. No ring.
"He knows his own mind, Garth." Imra was firm. "Enough is enough."
I shook my head in a last gesture of defiance. Maybe it was the punch, maybe it was the cooling air as the sun started to set. I felt the reality of another separation. It was here, it wouldn't wait for me, and that was that. Do I take separations so hard because I'm a twin?
Imra thinks so, but I think it's more that in agriculture a man or woman is tied to seasons; tied to the notion of always returning to the same thing again and again. Minor changes only point out the overwhelming sameness of every year you're alive. Not to mention every year before and after you. Sometimes I chafed at that, but mostly I found it comforting. It was armor, backdrop, jump-off, resting place. The presence that lived inside me at all times, even in a fight. Maybe especially in a fight.
Meanwhile, people had their maddening ability to vanish and reappear, to change without warning and without my permission. Mekt, Ayla... Wasn't Mekt now as much my twin as Ayla, because of our common history that she had missed? Some people do try and quarter human life into seasons, but I think that's stupid. People have more seasons than there could ever be names for, and those seasons come, go and run into one another in their own deranged version of order-- regardless of outside appearances.
We'll have that in common so long as we live. Even if I never see you again.
The courtyard was almost empty. Without waiting for permission, I went over and shook your hand, careful this time to go organic.
"Goodbye. Garth... take care of yourself."
"Yeah, you, too." With the heat dying down, I felt drained and yet no lighter. The long shadow stuck to my heels seemed to pull me backwards and downward as I headed back towards the building. So I concentrated twice as hard on moving up, moving forward.
What I wanted was for the truth to win out, but that wasn't within my power. So I focused on patrol and assignments and the things that were within it. I focused on mending fences even though –-for the longest time-- my heart wasn't really in it, because we were still a team, and because I knew it was expected of me.
Damn. When did it all become about being so... old?
A night or two later, I actually succeeded in getting Cos to go off-duty and go out to the Firecracker with me. It was a little awkward at first, but something must have taken root after all the times we went around on the subject of you. Maybe it was his way of apologizing for the way he'd treated you; of admitting that your absence left a huge gap that we'd be a long time learning to fill. Y'know, without him actually having to apologize or admit anything out loud.
Take your friends and their messed-up seasons as they come, or don't take them at all. I guess.
A couple of months later, I suggested we go again.
The Firecracker is comfortable in that style that went out a few years before I was born. A lot of small, floating white lights everywhere. A lot of brick red metal tubes and recycled wood. It's a round room with the bar at dead center. We met on a weeknight so we could mostly have it to ourselves. Gim had beaten the rest of us there that night and was already a drink or two ahead of us when I showed up with Imra.
"Okay, okay. What's with the long face, Gim?" I sat across from him, next to Imra. She was wearing civs in her uniform colors, as usual. Her dress jacket flung over her shoulders and her hair in the shoulder-length cut she'd gotten the previous month. I never got tired of looking at her. "And where the hell is your date? I thought we agreed that it wasn't gonna' be stag this time."
"Hi, Garth. Imra." He shook my hand and leaned over to kiss her cheek. Being Gim, he didn't have to stretch very far. He had on jeans and an old SciPol sweatshirt.
"Oh, I asked somebody," he mumbled, "But she couldn't make it."
Imra shook her head and watched him down what looked like at least his second shot of the night. "The 'somebody' being Violet. Am I right?" She was punching our drink orders into the circular console that hovered like a small cake in the middle of the table.
Gim shrugged. "She said thanks, but she had work to do."
"Oh, C'mon, Gim." I pulled a few coasters from under the console and dealt them around the table. "You've gotta' let this go. She's always gonna' 'have work.' "
"I think he's right, Gim." Imra was still playing with the console. "A little neo-swing all right with you guys?" She popped her card into the con, which let out an instant mini-light show of dancing blue notes on shiny pink ribbon measures. I had been surprised, once, that Imra would like something so brassy and built on weird lurches in tempo. Something so mock-old-fashioned. Now I'd gotten used to being surprised by her. If that makes any sense.
Over the music, I could hear the door chimes as somebody else walked in. Gim waved to Trip and Night Girl as they slipped into the circular booth on either side of us.
"Hey, where's Bouncy?" I held out my real hand. "And Cos better not have weaseled out."
"Bouncy got summoned to Takron-Galtos." Luornu was in a three-colored sweater and short skirt. "Just some last-minute conference about some prisoners they're moving tomorrow. He took a team. It's fine."
"Cos is outside. He had a call to make," added Lydda. She gave me a "hello" peck on the cheek.
"Which prisoners? Any big names," Gim wanted to know. Trip shook her head.
The nul-grav tray showed up with our first round. I snagged my bottle of White Duck. It was pricey drinking home brew so far from home, but that was all right. I could switch to something cheaper later on. "Don't change the subject, Gim."
"What's the subject?" said Lydda.
Gim rolled his eyes. "Garth, please don't..."
"The subject is all of us taking up a collection and buying poor Gim a clue."
"About what?" Lydda was busy punching in her order.
"Violet." Imra was sipping her drink, which had about six different-colored layers in it.
Luornu gave him a pitying look. "Here." She passed him a bowl of the red pepper twists that were named for the bar, or was it vice versa? "You need something to help soak up all those shots."
"Thanks. But I can hold my liquor."
"Pass those here," I said. "Yeah, Big Guy. It's just reality that you have a tough time getting a hold of. C'mon, Imra. Put Gim out of his misery. Give him the telepath-certified 'you-have-no-chance' speech."
Lydda raised an eyebrow as her drink-- something hot in a tall mug, next to Cos' usual cup of coffee-- glided over. We all looked at Imra, who naturally shook her head.
"I can't do that, and even if I could..."
"Right. Titanian mores, etc." Luornu shook her head. "That's why it's so hard going to parties with you, Imra. No conversation starters. You could at least follow sports or something."
Imra put down her drink and shrugged. "I'm a good dancer, though." She smiled.
"Hi, Everyone." It was Cos. He sat down next to Lydda and kissed her cheek.
"Cheater." I pointed at him. "Dress uniform is cheating."
"Sorry. I told you I was just coming here right off the shuttle from Weber's World. What did I miss?"
"Forget it, CB1," said Gim. "I've been here the whole time and I think I'll need about three more shots before I've got this group sussed."
"Good thing you've got a running start then." Another tray had shown up with another shot.
"Hey, I didn't order that one." Gim shook his head.
Cos smiled. "I think one of the actresses sent it over." He pointed a thumb over to the bar, where seven or eight girls had wandered in at some point and were talking rapidly over a pitcher of something lime green with gold stars floating in it. They all had black tights, along with black short dresses bearing some kind of theater logo on the back.
"Awww..." Luornu reached over and mock-punched his shoulder. "You big heartbreaker. At least go over there and find out which one sent it."
"All of them sent it." I winked at him. "Actors don't make a lot of money."
"Gevalt." Gim looked at the gift like it was poisoned. "Too bad Sun Boy's off-planet. He's the one who loves actresses."
"As often as possible," Luornu snickered. She tapped the console to get her empty stout bottle removed and replaced.
"Oh, Please." Imra giggled as she helped herself to a handful of twists. "That's such an old joke even Bouncy wouldn't tell it!"
"Who do you think I heard it from in the first place? Besides, you're dating a guy who still tells lightbulb jokes."
"Oh, no. Do not get him started." Cos looked ready to throw himself into his mug of coffee and drown. Lydda patted his shoulder.
"Hey, that's--" I began, but Luornu motioned everyone to be quiet. "Okay, Everyone! I'm sorry Bouncy couldn't be here for this, but he already knows anyway so no big deal." She raised up the full bottle of stout that had just drifted over, before handing me a new bottle of White Duck. "Everyone, this round and the next are on me." She stood and we all followed.
"To my pre-med apps being accepted." We all looked at her. "As in doctor, You Guys. I'm gonna' be the Legion's doctor!"
"Wow." Was all I could think of to say, then everyone cheered. Even Cos. We all knocked our drinks together and sat down again. Everyone who could reach Luornu gave her a hug or a handshake.
"Imra, how come you're the only one who doesn't look surprised," Cos wanted to know as we all sat down again.
"Who do you think she talked to about it first?" Imra grinned and finished off her drink.
A shadow fell across the table. It was one of the actresses. She was a Durlan, older than Cham and with different face-marks. She grinned at Gim and waved one pretty hand.
"H'lo, Sci Pol. Sorry to interrupt. Just wondering. Do you have a name?" Behind her, I could make out her buddies all watching and whispering, waiting to see what would happen.
Gim just stared at her, mouth open as she barreled on.
"Mine's Yera."
"His name is Gim Allon," I said. "He just made Captain yesterday, and he's Titan's most powerful Sci Pol officer. That's why he's mute. Super-telepathy, you know? It withers the vocal cords."
Imra just buried her head in her hands and tried to drown her snickers.
"Gim," Cos was shaking his head. "This is the part where you say 'Thank You for the drink.' "
"Uh, Hi." Gim finally got up and walked over to her, holding out one hand. I swear, he actually blushed as he shook her hand. "Gim Allon. Ms..."
"Yera Traorre." Her dark eyes were fixed on him as behind them, the other girls started clapping and whistling. "Do you want to go dancing?"
At least he'd paid for his drinks in advance. A nice night, overall, though it broke up sooner than I would have liked. I spent a few hours back at HQ with Imra, then left her asleep in her own quarters.
I woke up earlier than the alarm, restless and dry-mouthed. Too much to drink, probably. I wandered outside in stocking feet, with a jacket thrown over my sleepwear and a tumbler of cool water. Luornu was already there, in a tunic and pants the same color as her usual uniform
"G'morning, Trip. Love the scrubs."
She grinned. "Morning, Smart-ass. It's just my pajamas. I'll change in time for morning monitor duty. Why are you up so early?"
I shrugged. The buildings above us had a faint outline of yellow-white, seeping into the deep blue and washing away a thin line of it. There was a faint, early Fall breeze. I thought about the air that ran through the pines behind my parents' house. Nothing on Terra ever smelled as good, somehow. It would be the first harvest since Ayla's return. I wouldn't get to be there.
"I had this dream about home. About my sister. I guess it woke me up." It was only while saying this out loud that I remembered it happening.
"A good dream?"
I smiled. "Yeah, it was." Ayla had been driving a little combine through the triticale, waving a beat-up old cap of my father's at Mekt, who was watching her from behind the protective fence. She was my age, in the dream. The age she will be, all too soon. She let go of the cap and it floated over the field to land on Mekt's head, as if propelled there by something other than the breeze. It landed askew, over one eye. He grinned at her and straightened it out. Mekt was the age he'll be when they let him out of jail, which won't be soon enough.
"By the way," I went on. "Did I remember to congratulate you last night? My memory's a little hazy."
"Of course," she chuckled, then got somber again for a minute. "I wish I could tell Brainy-- say thanks." White suddenly slipped loose of the other two and walked a little ahead. "I tended to all those people in the future, Imperiex's victims. They needed me. I could do these amazing things even as... a fragment, but then I got to come home-- be whole again." She stepped back to rejoin her "sisters."
"Weird, huh?"
I shook my head. "No. I feel exactly the same. Y'know, because of Ayla, and the rest."
She nodded and gave my real hand a small squeeze before heading back inside.
It's not the truth, not human, to only remember the bad. You understand that by now, don't you?
The sun moved over more of the skyline and melted the night away, but gently, as if a man could stare straight into it forever and never burn his eyes.
("If You Live" is a smart little jazz tune by the amazing Mose Allison. Lyrics at my LJ, as ever. Yera was Gim's/Colossial Boy's partner/wife in more than one Legion continuity, but so far as I know, she never had any surname until she got married. This annoys me, since it's already been established through Cham's presence that Durlans do have surnames. So I borrowed one from a wonderful Malian musician, Rokia Traore, and gave it to Yera. Thanks again for reading.)