Hello all. It's been a little over a month, and I apologize for that. I had a few very rough weeks of exams, and on top of that I got into a little bit of a rut with this chapter. There was one point in which I wasn't sure how I wanted to continue, and then, mid-chapter, I came up with an extremely interesting idea that I wanted to pursue, which kind of took over this chapter in a way I hadn't anticipated. If this chapter seems a little chaotic and all over the place, that is why.
While I was writing this chapter I also had a very dangerous, and intriguing, thought. There are other stories that I can write for this site. So in mid-chapter I also experienced a period of declining interest in this story as I began to contemplate other stories that I could write. Don't worry, my main focus is still most definitely this story, but the other ideas aren't going away, so I may explore them in the future as well. As you can see, I have now changed my pen name, and if you go to my profile you will also see that I added a bio. Check it out if you're interested, and also note that short descriptions of my future projects are also on there.
And that's it. Next week is going to suck for me, and possibly the next few weeks after it as well, so I have no idea when I'll be able to update next. And again, I just want to reiterate that this chapter begins a new character arc for Min that I had not previously anticipated. It's very interesting (to me), but it's also quite complicated and difficult to keep straight in my mind, let alone write, so it might come out a bit messy. If anything's confusing, let me know, I'd be happy to clear up any ambiguities.
Kaldur did not visit me the next day.
Or the next.
Or the next.
Four days total I spent in that infirmary bed, until I was so restless that I very nearly began to light things on fire just so that something would happen. Other members of the Team visited me, first Wally only a couple hours after Kaldur left me, his first words of incredulity and sympathy for my suspension. "I can't believe Kaldur," he said. "In your situation I don't think anyone else would have done anything differently. Except maybe get their asses kicked a little more." He chuckled at his own admission. His words echoed my own, but that didn't bring any comfort.
Robin also had words of sympathy to give, but he refused to question or speculate on Kaldur's decision. "The Team together made him leader," he said solemnly, "now everyone on the Team has to follow his directives, even if you weren't part of the initial decision."
Other visits were more lighthearted. M'gann made me cookies and insisted that I eat them in bed even though there was a table and chairs only a few feet away that I was permitted to use with assistance. Only with assistance though. I was permitted to use a table! Soon after M'gann left, Conner walked in and sat down beside my bed without a word. I looked up from a book I was reading—Earth literature was very… creative—but almost immediately averted my eyes. He was not looking at me but instead staring at the far wall with blank scrutiny. What followed next was the most awkward game of gaze aversion I had ever played. I tried to go back to my book, but his silent presence was so unnerving that I couldn't concentrate. My gaze began to wander around the room, looking everywhere except to my side where Conner sat. In the next fifteen minutes my mind went back to the underground facility and I remembered for the first time the words that Conner had spoken to me. Why are you so concerned with the attention of others when you go to so much trouble to ignore everyone? I wanted to respond to that question, to tell him he was wrong, that I didn't ignore all the people who were closest to me… no, I wanted to tell him he was right, that I had been ignoring everyone, but… but then I went back to denying it again. I couldn't decide on any specific response before he abruptly interrupted my thoughts by finally speaking. He uttered one word, without ever looking in my direction or otherwise acknowledging my presence, and then stood up and walked out of the infirmary. So sudden was this interaction that he was already gone from the room before my brain even registered what he had said, and then I had a whole other episode of shock while I processed the meaning of this single word.
"Thanks," he had said.
And finally came Raquel. Hers alone was the visit in which I actually managed to relax and just… talk. She sat down next to me and smiled and just asked me about myself, which initially came as a shock but soon grew to be a welcome change of pace. We talked for a few hours, and I told her about my world and my training as the Avatar. She didn't ask about any of my mentors and I didn't tell her about any of my Bending masters—such as Jakko—but instead focused on the small number of close friends I had had in my world. In particular I told her about my best friend in my whole world, an Airbender girl my age named Yinwa, but whom I had always called Yini from the time I had met her while we were both novice Airbenders-in-training. I told her several stories of our youthful exploits and joyful mischief, and she in return told me stories of her youth growing up in a metropolis called Dakota City. The careful way she spoke of her childhood gave me the impression that there were some things she was holding back, but I hardly cared. After all, there were still things about my life that I wasn't quite willing to share yet.
Artemis never visited me, which was no surprise, and neither did Zatanna, but I hadn't had any real interaction with her so that didn't bother me too much either. What bothered me day and night was Kaldur. The rest of the Team still seemed willing to accept me, a realization that lifted a weight off my chest that I had not known was there, but Kaldur's continued absence suggested to my increasingly paranoid imagination a whole host of worrisome possibilities. He was disappointed by me, that I hadn't lived up to some expectation of greatness. No, he still had reservations about how far I could be trusted, and recent events had increased those reservations. Or, worst of all, he had simply decided I was too much trouble to be worth it. He was just done with me.
But as the days rolled on, a small, much more rational voice began to grow in strength, to propose a notion that seemed mundane in comparison to the wild conspiracies that my more imaginative side was coming up with. Perhaps he just thinks I'm mad at him. The possibility made me evaluate my emotional state in regards to Kaldur: my eagerness, in fact my near desperation, to see him again and to receive once more his approval. In doing so, I came to a startling conclusion: I wasn't mad. I still didn't—couldn't—understand his decision, and to some extent I would never be able to forgive him for the emotional hell he had put me through, but despite all that, I just wasn't angry at him. I didn't want to be angry at him. I wanted to be with him, in as much capacity as I could. While I still could. I tried not to think of what was going to happen when I did get back to my world.
When one of the Team wasn't visiting me, which was most of the time, and I was able to take my mind off Kaldur, which was rarely, I spent my time watching the TV that hung on the wall across from my bed. It was from that TV that I got my first real look at this utterly alien world.
In my brief time in this new world I hadn't really experienced anything that existed outside the Cave, my sole exposure to the outside world being a few missions to some remote locale and then straight back again. As such my perception of the Team's world was more or less limited to the Team and their mentors' role in it. It was a genuine shock, then, to discover that there was in fact much more to this world than heroes and villains – although to be fair, heroes and villains did seem to occupy quite a large part of it. I couldn't fathom half of what I saw, but what I could understand painted a picture of an extraordinarily complex and diverse world.
One of the first things that caught my attention was a news story about some piece of legislation in the midst of being passed by a governmental body called Congress. Actually it wasn't the proposed law that caught my attention so much as this Congress itself. I couldn't figure out what it was. At first I thought it might be some sort of advisor committee to this President I kept hearing about, but as I continued to watch it became more and more apparent that Congress was acting with complete autonomy from the supposed leader of this country. They were as much in charge of the country as the President was. I could not comprehend this. Nothing like it existed in my world, nor could I imagine it ever working. I found the entire concept of sharing power… disturbing.
From the news broadcasts I also learned quite a bit about the educational system of the country I was in. It seemed quite extensive, much more so than even the top quality education I had received in my world. My academic education had been significantly more comprehensive than that of the vast majority of the people in my world, but even so it had always been secondary to my training in Bending and in political intrigue. Here, people seemed to spend half their lives learning… well, just learning. It made me wonder what they could possibly be studying.
After my four days in the infirmary, I found myself in an uncomfortable position. I was back on my feet, strong enough to endure light exercise without exhausting myself, and in a few more days I was back nearly a hundred percent. Well enough to participate in missions. The first time that a mission was announced, the Team plus I were eating a "Team dinner" – a ritual bonding exercise we underwent at least once a week. As everyone else got up from the table, not a single person looked at me. I would have almost thought that I had ceased to exist, had their avoidance of eye contact not been so obviously forced. After they left, I turned off the light and finished the meal in darkness so that I wouldn't have to look at the empty chairs.
The Team tried to make me feel included, but every time they invited me to play volleyball with them, or Wally asked if I wanted to game, there was a hint of strain in their invitations that began to wear on me. I wasn't on the Team anymore, thus I was an outsider. In response, I did what I had always done: I withdrew. I began sneaking out more frequently, spending more time on the summit of Mount Justice, but I didn't resume my exercises. I sat there, staring at the water and the nearby town, often for hours at a time. Every second I was up there, all I wanted to do was to go back in the Cave and rejoin the Team, my friends, but I didn't. I couldn't. Outsider. Intruder. I called myself in my head, and they seemed to me the worst possible curses because they were true. Even were I allowed to rejoin the Team, I would always be an intruder in this world, and thus on the Team. I could never belong.
I began waking up later. I had always been an early riser—in my opinion, time spent sleeping was time when you weren't being productive, and thus sleeping more than was physically necessary was time wasted—but now the philosophy which had shaped my work ethic for my entire life was slowly ceasing to matter to me. Even after I awoke, I would lie in bed, saying the words to myself, Get up. Get moving. Do something, and increasingly, a corrupting whisper in my mind would answer, Why? And then one day, as I lay in bed at 1 PM and asked myself these questions, I realized that I didn't have anything to do that day. Nothing that needed doing, nothing that I could help with, nothing that I wanted to do. And that terrified me.
Immediately after the thought occurred to me, I leaped out of bed and nearly ran out of the room, not bothering to change out of my pajama pants and tank top or brush my hair. I didn't even think of any of these things; all I knew was that I had to find something to do. If I couldn't do something I knew I would be overwhelmed by the helplessness that even now threatened to engulf me. I entered the kitchen and ran towards the mission room, but skidded to a halt before the entrance to the main hall. Beyond the doorway I could hear the sounds of training in progress, many individuals hitting and dodging and grunting, perhaps the whole Team. I stood there, petrified, as I listened to the Team train without me. Panic's icy clutches held my heart. I didn't know what to do, or rather, there were a million different internal voices screaming at me to act, every one of them telling me something different from the others. I needed to rejoin them, to beg them to let me back on the Team. No, I didn't belong with them. The best thing for me to do was to leave. I needed to be with Kaldur while I still could. Kaldur didn't want me with him. I wasn't mad at him! He was. My mind was in chaos, so much so that at first I didn't even notice the tears streaming down my face. When I did feel the wetness on my fingers as I brought them from my face, at last my mind snapped into focus. For a moment, I attained clarity. I wasn't mad, but I was a mess, and that was unacceptable. I needed to do something about that.
Drying my eyes and smoothing down my hair, I put on a calmly cheery demeanor and stepped through the door. The Team was indeed in the middle of combat training, and from an initial survey of the mission room it looked as though all eight members might be in attendance, but my attention immediately focused on Kaldur standing in the center of the room surveying a sparring match between Zatanna and Raquel. At a carefully measured pace, neither rushing nor ambling, I made my way over to him. He didn't seem to notice me as I sidled up next to him, even giving a small start when I spoke.
"Well, that looks like fun," I said.
"Min," he said, looking down at me without fully turning towards me. "How are you feeling?"
"Feel great," I responded nonchalantly. "Can I have a turn?"
He didn't respond immediately. "I do not know that that would be wise, Min," he said finally.
"Oh, come on," I said amiably, "Just because you suspended me? That's no reason I can't spar with you, is it?" I said the words in a cheery tone, and smiled at Kaldur as I did it, but still they wrenched my heart as I said them. I didn't let a hint of it show. I couldn't show any weakness. "How about we spar?" I asked him, and gave him a sly smile, "I mean, it's about time we got… physical."
He started to respond, but whatever words he was going to say died in his throat and he abruptly shut his mouth. He didn't look at me or otherwise respond to my advance, but instead stared straight ahead for the remainder of Zatanna and Raquel's sparring match. When they finished, he called attention to himself and announced, "The next round of sparring matches will be M'gann and Raquel, Wally and Zatanna, Conner and Robin, and Artemis and Min." The last pairing produced no few murmurs of surprise, the loudest being from Artemis and myself. Nearly in unison we turned to Kaldur and exclaimed, "What?!" He turned to me then, wearing a mask of sternness to put any of mine to shame. "You wanted to spar, and Artemis is closest to your height and weight. She is a good starting point after your recovery."
"You mean you don't want to face me yourself," I said, and smiled at him warmly, uncaring of the seven pairs of eyes now watching us, "Very well, then. I will fight for your amusement."
I turned away, but not before I saw his eyebrows shoot up in surprise. I walked towards my position, and Artemis took the opposite position, but she was staring at me in consternation as well. They all were, in fact. No one else moved to their positions as Artemis and I squared off. I smiled at her cockily, which put a little bit of her old glower back in her expression, but inside I felt exactly the opposite of my cheerfully cocky outward demeanor. I didn't know what I was doing or why I was doing it, but I couldn't stop myself. I didn't feel like me any more than I had in the kitchen, but still I gave Artemis a presumptuous hand-beckon, a silent "Come an' get me, I can take you," that didn't in the slightest represent my internal thoughts.
Bewilderment replaced completely by cold rage, Artemis charged at me. I raised my arm to block her first blow, only to be caught by her feint and receive a right hook to the jaw. Stumbling back, I regained my footing and tried to strike at her arm, a normally disabling blow, but she dodged under my punch and hit me under my ribcage. Disengaging with a quick kick to the shins, I once again tried to land a blow, this time not even aiming for a specific target, and once again she avoided my attack and gave me another bruise. My movements were sluggish, sloppy, but not because of the minor injuries I was accumulating, nor because of any lingering physical weakness. I was at full strength, just not at full capacity. Whenever I tried to attack, it was almost halfhearted, and whenever I defended, it was with resignation to the next bruise.
Finally, Artemis landed a hard blow directly into my chest, and I landed flat on my back, dazed and hurting from a dozen fresh bruises. From the side I heard Kaldur bellow "ENOUGH!" but I was already getting back on my feet. Leering at Artemis through a mouthful of bloody teeth, I taunted her, "What, that's it? I'm not done with you, pretty girl!"
Artemis looked at me as if I were insane and volatile. "What's wrong with you?" she asked incredulously. Kaldur appeared at my side, and when I looked up at him he too was staring down at me as if he didn't know who I was. I looked at each member of the Team in turn, then back to Artemis, then to Kaldur, and every single one of them mirrored Kaldur's stunned, unrecognizing stare. My blustering façade evaporated, and tears welled up in my eyes. With a broken sob wrenched myself away from them and fled towards the Cave's exit. I heard Kaldur shouting behind me, and I recognized that he was shouting at Artemis, furiously berating her for her abuse of me. I heard my name called too, but I didn't stop. I raced out of the Cave's back entrance and into the trees behind Mount Justice, throwing myself onto the roots of one such tree. Almost immediately after, a huge thump and a large, wide snout pressed into my back announced the arrival of Nuwei. The steady stream of tears never ceasing, I sat upright and hugged her snout, sobbing into her scales. I don't know how long we stayed like that, but it was long enough for my sobs to subside into hiccups, and then for those too to disappear. Still I stayed as I was, with my arms wrapped around Nuwei's head and my head on her snout, my eyes closed. She rumbled softly the whole time, reassuring me with her gentle murmuring. I might have stayed like that forever, had we not been interrupted.
Abruptly, Nuwei's head left my touch and I heard her growl in truth, a low, dangerous warning. I opened my eyes and saw Kaldur standing a few yards from me, ignoring Nuwei and staring at me with concern. Nuwei moved to place herself between me and him, but I put a gentle hand on her flank, shaking my head slightly when she looked at me quizzically. Kaldur spoke first.
"This is my fault," he said.
I surprised myself by laughing softly. "Go on," I responded.
"I did not see that you were hurting. I should have. I should have kept you from hurting more. But I did not."
"I'm fine," I said, and I could feel my previous mask of nonchalance settling back over my wretched self. I welcomed it like an old friend.
"No, Min, you are not. You are not well. I want you to see Black Canary. She can help you."
"I'm fully recovered," I said defensively. "I don't need more rest."
"Black Canary will not help you physically, she will help you mentally. She acts as the Team's therapist."
"I don't need a shrink," I said sharply.
"You need help," Kaldur replied calmly. "Black Canary can help you work past what you are going through."
"I'm fine," I said flatly, and Nuwei growled besides me to emphasize the point.
Kaldur looked from me to Nuwei then back to me. He opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off. "I want to go to school," I said abruptly.
Kaldur blinked several times before replying. "You… want to go to high school?" he asked incredulously. "Why?"
I shrugged. "I like academia, and I didn't get as much as I wanted from my schooling."
Still Kaldur stared at me, speechless.
"Please," I said, a note of begging entering my voice. "I need this."
"I will think on it," he said slowly.
Something very like a large weight lifted from my shoulders. I had something to do.
"Great!" I said cheerily. "See you inside."
There I left him, staring after me as I headed back toward the Cave. In my stride there was a certain amount of liveliness, and even I couldn't tell whether or not I was faking it.