Get this you guys: I was ready to give this to you last night! But then the evil dorm lost all internet connection! D:

Anyway, here it is! The next chapter is going to be my absolute favorite episode to write. I am absolutely stoked. I look forward to seeing you next chapter!

"I'll go scan the area." I flew away before he could say anything to me. I was scared to be with him and the team, and I especially didn't want to be alone with the aquatic male.

He had lied to me. Kaldur, the kindest—and most honest—person I'd ever met had lied to me. I couldn't look him in the eye, not anymore.

Strangely enough, I wasn't angry at him. I was upset and unsure on what to do more than anything else. And I knew that I should have stayed there, tried to talk it out, but I felt so betrayed. I needed to clear my head before I even thought of talking to him about this.

I had been only about a mile away when something suddenly slammed down on my back. I looked up, seeing multiple geese swarming me.

Now, normally this wouldn't be such a big deal. I could swat them away and it would be done with, but here's the catch: each one was about triple the size of a normal goose.

They pulled my hair and weighed me down quickly. I fell down fast, unable to do anything as they had my hair in their mouths, and were weighing down on my wings. I finally managed to grab some feathers off of the closest goose to my hand, and pull myself above it. It flew up instantly, not wanting to fall to the ground, and I held on tight as it rolled around, trying to get me off of its back. I found safety as I gripped onto something on its neck. I looked to see it was some sort of collar. I questioned it, but was happy it was there so that I didn't fall.

The geese began to attack me again. I fell off the back of the goose and brought the collar with me. As it fell off of the goose, it quickly lost interest in me and flew away. I blinked, ripping off the collars of the geese that got near me.

Once the collars were off, the battle was over. They flew away, as if they had nothing to do with the multiple bruises on my back. I sighed as I landed in a tree. As I checked over myself, suddenly Miss Martian's voice rang in my head. "Link established."

"Should he really still be giving us orders?" Artemis chimed in with sarcasm, "And should you be following them?"

"Listen, please." Kaldur pleaded. I felt a tug on my heart strings. I squeezed my arm and sat in silence.

"Oh good Aqualad's voice in my head; I so missed that!" Kid said with just about the same amount of aggression of Artemis.

"Hey Kaldur! KF and I were attacked by giant vultures. But since we're moles, you probably think we attacked ourselves." Robin said. My grip grew stronger until I realized I was bruising myself just as much as the geese had.

"If he did think so, he wouldn't tell you." Artemis insisted with a snarl.

M'gann sighed. "Superboy, are you online or just pouting?"

I wasn't sure exactly what had happened between the two of them, but they were kind of…arguing.

"Busy" He grunted, "Call back later."

The conversation returned to Aqualad, and the aggression continued. I found my tongue, and spoke up. I didn't care if I felt betrayed about his secret. What I did care about was the team being so vicious towards Kaldur. "You guys, don't you think—"

"Enough."

We all became silent as Kaldur spoke.

"ENOUGH!" I jumped as I heard his scream from a mile away. I flew towards his voice as he continued through telepathy. "Captain Marvel has been captured, and we must act as a team to save him."

"Ha." KF laughed, "Under your leadership? I don't think so—"

"This is not up for debate." Aqualad said, shutting KF's mocking mouth up, "You all chose me to lead this team. When the mission is over and you would like to select a new leader, I will happily step down."

I saw him now, and perched on a nearby tree, leaning in silently. He was holding some contraption…what it was I was unsure, but I could tell he had ripped it out of the ground himself. Probably in anger.

"But until that time, I am in command here." He threw the metal to the ground and began to walk away.

Yup. Definitely in anger.

I flew from tree to tree, staying close behind him and out of sight. I didn't know what to say. I could see how upset he was with every stride he took, and I wanted to give him a hug, but was honestly scared too. I had never seen him angry before, and didn't know if I could do anything to change that. And so I continued to watch him from afar until he abruptly stopped. His shoulders shrugged and he sighed.

"Angie, I am not angry anymore. You may come out."

I jumped, staring at him in silence still. I looked at him, shrinking behind the tree trunk even though it was clear he knew I was there. I was frozen.

He turned and looked into my eyes, and I defrosted quickly. His eyebrows were lowered and he held a small smile on his lips. He held his hand up after a moment. "Please, come down here."

I frowned, and silently glided down onto the ground. I held onto my arm as I walked up to him, staring at the ground. He said nothing, and simply stood in front of me, his gaze heavy. I looked up at him, caught his eye, and then dropped my eyes back to the ground again. "…are you mad?"

"No." He replied simply. "Are you scared?"

"No!" I looked up at him with wide eyes before calming down and looking away, "I…am worried."

"Do you, too, doubt my judgment on hiding this information from the team?" He asked as he began to walk forward again.

I followed him, removing my hand from my arm to my other hand. I crossed my wings over my body so that only my face showed. I felt my feathers brush upon my cheeks and it calmed me down. "I'm not angry, and I'm not scared. I feel…betrayed."

He stopped and looked at me with lowered eyebrows. I kept my distance now, also stopping. "You lied to me. When I asked what you and Red Arrow had been talking about, it was about the mole, wasn't it?"

He looked away and slowly nodded. "I sought to protect you and the team from this information to prevent suspicions arising amongst teammates. I did not mean to hurt you."

I nodded, now a little more understanding, but still upset. "What if I had done this to you?"

"You are not me," He said immediately, "You would have told me."

I, startled, took a step back. "…and how do you know that?"

He smiled that smile of his. "Because I know you."

My face was ablaze and I covered it. My wings followed suit and wrapped my body from head to toe. Kaldur let out a grunt of surprise. "Angie?"

Yes, it was this. It was because of this obvious care for me that I was so upset. He expected people to depend on him, yet he himself was so independent. He didn't lean on anyone, and took all the pain for the sake of the team. It was terrifying as I realized that no matter what I did, he could, and would, always go on his own. I couldn't deal with it; it hurt too much. If he did something like this again, I wouldn't be able to get over it; I'd feel betrayed all over again.

"G-give me a minute please." I muttered from inside my feathery force field. He remained silent and waited until I lowered my wings to gaze at him. I frowned deeply, staring at him. "Maybe…maybe this is why I am so upset."

He raised an eyebrow and I walked forward. He followed. "You know me; you've learned things about me. You know that I'm still slightly spoiled, that I'm easy to anger, and that I'm a little too touchy."

I fluttered my wings before continuing with a sigh, "I've learned some things about you, too. I know that you're responsible, you're calm and collected, and you truly care about the team. I thought I'd gotten to know you pretty well."

I smiled towards the sky and he smiled slightly. "But I don't."

I turned to look at him over my shoulder, my eyebrows lowered as his smile quickly disappeared and was replaced with a frown. "You're always thinking ahead, and you're always looking out for everyone. It shouldn't have been a surprise that you'd do something like this for our sake…but it was."

I folded my arms and turned to him all the way. He could tell I was upset, and he came forward, resting his hand on my shoulder. "It is alright that you did not foresee my actions, Angie. You have had more to focus on than me."

I took his hand off of my shoulder and squeezed it tightly as I shook my head. "We both know that's not true…you've had almost more than you can handle. I'm just a thirteen year old that grew up too spoiled."

I let go of his hand and started to walk again. If he was going to say anything else, he didn't have the chance to. M'gann called out to us, leading the rest of the team towards us.

We faced Kaldur together in silence and he stared at me for another moment before sighing. "…We need to find Captain Marvel. Let us begin the search. Medusa and Miss Martian will search from above while the rest of us cover from the ground. Move out."

I stared at his back, my eyes narrowed in silence for a moment before I took to the sky.

This was the man I had gotten to know. This was the man that I had slowly come to care deeply about. This was Kaldur. This was the man I should have never come to like.

We were all along the top of a hill, looking down to see a force field around a base I'd found while scouting. In order to get in, Artemis had to shoot a button while Kaldur was pulling the electric field apart for a good shot. The plan went flawlessly and we headed in when a monkey suddenly began to screech. A large amount of monkeys came to attack us and everyone spread out, ready to fight.

The monkeys attacked, and my hair easily kept them at a distance. I flew into the air, letting my hair keep at the ground work. My strands quickly removed the collars from the mammals and they ran away. I continued to fight, and Kaldur instructed everyone to follow suit and take the collars off. We'd run through these small fry in no time.

That's when a giant ape came into the picture. It flung Miss Martian out into the open and Kid ran to defend her. When we found that his speedy nudge gave him no damage, we all focused our attacks on him. He began to fire his weapon, at which point I lashed out towards it to take it from his hands.

My locks whipped around the gun and pulled it for a moment before he pulled back, sending me down to the ground harshly. I stood up shaking but ran forward to fight again. Superboy jumped forward and I saw the ape prepare to do the same. I wrapped my hair around his ankles, tying them together and causing him to take the hit full on.

He fell through the wall behind him and we walked into the room, seeing a brain in some contraption and Captain Marvel trapped on a table. Kid Flash pointed to the brain machine. "It's the brain!"

"Uh," Artemis said with rolling eyes, "I can see that it's a brain."

"Not a brain, THE brain!"

"In the flesh," The brain announced in a heavy French accent before turning to the ape, "Monsieur Mallah, if you will."

The giant monkey pressed something in his hand and suddenly poles (similar to the one that Aqualad had pulled out of the ground earlier) stood up around us. We all fell, suddenly unable to move, until Kaldur called for M'gann and Superboy. "Now!"

Her eyes glowed and the switch flew from the ape's hand to her head. She pressed a button and it set us free from whatever was keeping us down. Superboy crashed through the wall behind Mallah and attacked him. We all spread apart and began to fight. The brain sent multiple lasers towards Aqualad, and I took the moment to tear the collar off of Marvel. He jumped up, thanking me with his grin wide, and proceeded to tear the collar off of his tiger friend.

We cornered the two villains and Brain stopped Mallah from attacking us. The hair on the back of my neck stood as Brain began to reveal weapon after weapon. As we all prepared to fight the fight, the lights shut off, only to turn back on. We looked around in confusion; the Brain and Mallah were gone.

We relaxed, and looked around for them a little longer before returning to the ship. As we did, I stared at Kaldur's back. He had done it again. He'd done something without telling the whole team. He'd planned that with M'gann and Conner; why hadn't he informed the rest of us?

It was those kind of things that I couldn't deal with. There'd come a day when he'd so something more than simply not telling us when M'gann would press a button.

I sighed lightly and he turned his head towards me. I looked away, saying nothing. Nothing I said would change him; this was just the way he was. So I decided to simply save my breath.

"That was the last of the collars." Marvel announced before taking his time to say goodbye to his tiger friend.

I stood to the side, looking up at the dark sky with a sigh. I was just ready to get back to my room, so that I could lay in bed and think about everything…especially Kaldur.

"I need to know. Why didn't you tell us about the mole?"

Everyone was staring at Kaldur now, and I joined in silence. He looked around, making eye contact with all of us before answering. "The tip was from Sportsmaster."

Everyone gasped and Artemis stepped forward with wide eyes. "What? You can't trust him!"

"I did not," He assured, "It seemed possible, even likely, that he was using this information to tear the team apart."

"And by how this mission went…he almost succeeded." Robin concurred, "But you had to consider the possibility."

"Yes, as leader, I did."

I looked away, realizing that this was the role Kaldur was meant to play. He had to make the hard decisions, despite what his friends believed."

"I did not wish to alert the mole, if there really was one." He further explained.

"I hate to say it, but it makes sense." Robin said with a sigh. Kaldur stared at him with the same serious gaze.

"I am still prepared to step down."

"Oh please." He looked at me as I stepped up with a sigh, "If anyone still wanted you to step down, I'd kick their butt myself."

I turned to the team, who grinned in response. "All in favor of keeping Aqualad as team leader?" KF asked, resulting in the team's hands reaching up.

He nodded, and everyone stepped inside the ship. He turned back to see me walking up to him. Before he could say anything, I took his hand in mine. "You're the leader…but you don't have to put all of the weight on your shoulders, you know. We're a team; we help each other."

I gave his hand a squeeze before heading in to the ship and sitting down. I closed my eyes, sighing for a moment.

I tried to at least let him know how I felt about his secrets; it was the best I could do. But I knew the truth. He wouldn't share that burden; not for my sake, or anyone else's.

I sat in front of the TV, late at night. I stared at the fuzzy screen, the white noise flooding the air. I held my head, unable to think straight. Everyone was happy again…so why was I still such a mess?

I liked Kaldur. I'd come to terms with it, but after this mission I realized that even though I did, I couldn't deal with his rash decisions. Our priorities were opposite. He was all about the future possibilities, and I was all about the present. I knew that keeping the mole secret wasn't personal, but that's how I saw it. It was hard to get over, even now.

I lay down on the couch and hugged the pillow to my torso closely as I closed my eyes tightly. Sleep was coming quickly to my mind, although I was sure I'd have nightmares tonight.

"I can't face that feeling again…that pain…I've decided."

I was going to stop liking Kaldur, for both his sake and mine.