Disclaimer:
I don't own the show, I do however have a few copies
of the comic based on it, and one or two JLA novels, but no actual show, or I'd
be sitting with some popcorn watching a new episode.
And considering it's 11.34pm, and I don't like popcorn, I don't think it's
going to happen.
Author's notes: Lookie! A new chapter. Yes it's a short chapter, but a
chapter none the less. I _promise_ a bigger one next time, which is when the
real action starts. To anyone who is getting impatient, I'm glad you're
enjoying this, but I'll update a chapter when I think it's good enough to show
^^
Anyway, enjoy this one, more J'onn torture [Yes he is my fav character :p] and
one day I'll try and do an illustration for it, if I ever manage to draw humans
well.
- - - - -
'A true friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future
and accepts you today, just the way you are'.
- Anon
- - - - -
Recovery
Chapter six - Regret
"What happened!"
After re-checking the instruments again, he turned back to the person speaking.
Batman, as ever, had the usual emotionless face, with perhaps a touch of
foreboding.
This did not make Superman feel any better.
He tried again.
"What happened to him?"
The person he was referring to was J'onn. After his escapade a few days before,
he'd been fighting his illness at full force. There would be somebody in the
infirmary every single part of the day, and during most of that, he would lie
restlessly, tossing and turning, with sweat pouring off him. His temperature
had gone up as far as they thought it would be able to, and held for a full
day.
They almost thought they had lost him, so severe was his illness.
And this was when Superman had come in, to find his fellow team-mate placing an
oxygen mask over J'onn's face. He didn't remember seeing one in there before,
but that didn't matter.
"It's necessary" was all Batman said.
"Why...is it that bad..." he probed tentivly, perhaps afraid of the
answer.
Batman nodded.
"He's been struggling to breathe...the fever's coming down, but it's
already taken a lot out of him...he needs help"
"Going down...is he recovering?"
A glimmer of hope perhaps?
"He might be" Batman answered, provoking the other into losing the
small optimism as quickly as it had come. He did not need to hide anything. This
first statement was followed by another, which if possible, was even more
depressing.
"But just because the fever came down, doesn't mean it won't go up
again"
Batman paused, and Superman found himself staring with a gasp caught in his
throat. Batman frowning did not seem to bode well in this case, or had done in any
other for that matter.
"Even if it keeps going down, he's been fighting it for too long...add to
it the fact he's been driving himself too hard, and is obviously not in
high-moral, and it could mean that he just doesn't have the strength to fight
it"
"No!" Superman shouted, unable to stay silent any longer "He's
not an ordinary person..."
"Even superheroes have weaknesses" Batman fixed his gaze.
He was right, and even though he said nothing more, turning back to the
console, he knew what the other was thinking.
Yes...they did.
Superman hung his head, and took another glance at their friend still lying in
the bed, now with the mask on, and left the room. His spirits, like everybody
else's, were not high, and had not been since this whole thing had begun.
- - - - -
It took another two days before there was any change in his condition, bringing
the total period of time since he had succumbed to the illness to almost two
full weeks. Weeks spent, filled, with the emotions of worry, concern and
sadness.
Even the normally cheerful Flash succumbed to this malady, and this made it
more sombre.
They knew he still felt alone, isolated, growing up where they had not.
They would have liked…no, wished, wanted, to make him feel a sense of
belonging.
None of them cared in the slightest where J'onn came from, that he was not a
native of Earth. After all, Superman had not been born on it either, and though
he had grown up there, he still knew his birth planet, Krypton, to be where he
had been born. But he did not count it as his home; the people of Earth had
accepted him, when they could have feared him as not being of their world.
That trust meant everything to him.
Hawkgirl also, was not of Earth, but a faraway planet called Thanagar, and she
also counted Earth to be her home, though she had grown up on her birth planet.
It was by a rift in space-time, that she had ended up here, but she, as
Superman did, took the Earth as her real home.
J'onn however, did not seem to be able to accept it. Superman had lost his home
when only an infant, and Hawkgirl through circumstance, and it had been a world
full of war and turmoil, perhaps more so than Earth, so neither felt their
separation badly.
But for J'onn, he had grown up on Mars; it had been peaceful and happy. When he
did speak of his family, though this was very rarely, and only in short
sentences, because of the pain it carried to mention them, his voice held such
emotion, that they had been the most joyful times of his life, and it had been
cruelly ripped away by the Invaders, who had destroyed all those who inhabited
the planet, including those he had held so dear.
Then to spend so long guarding the doorway behind which the Invaders had been
sealed into, and to rest for a slight time, and they to escape and head to
Earth.
Leaving the place you were born out of fear, did not bring with it, the same
emotional ties that would come with being forced to leave, out of desperation,
or because you are alone, and the places you once stood in, with friends, or
with family, still hold the memories, both happy and sad. But when you step in
there, knowing you are alone, these memories become something like acid, to eat
away at you until there is nothing more for them to consume.
J'onn could have just not cared, let them destroy him, and perhaps be reunited
with his family again.
But he had tried to escape, and failing that, managed to contact Superman, then
the rest of the now formed Justice League, so that Earth would have a chance of
not ending up as Mars had done.
He had helped them win, and in doing this, became, to the league, a true
friend, and as Flash had once said, and the rest agreed, more human than ever.
But he still felt isolated from them, he was the quietest member, and spent
most of his time up at the Watchtower, it was rare to see him doing anything
that was not related to the team.
They all hoped he recovered, and vowed to try and make him feel that he didn't
need to be alone.
Not any more.
- - - - -
But then something happened to change everything.
It began slowly, and Green Lantern was the first to notice the strange readings
on the monitor in the medbay during his watch. He alerted Batman, who said
nothing, but just watched the readings, and if it could be termed for him, with
a tension of fear in the air.
"No...." he growled deeply, making Flash, who had taken over from the
watch an hour before, jump up from the magazine he had been leafing through,
fixing him with a worried gaze.
"Bats.... what's wrong?"
Normally Batman would have given Flash a look for that remark...but this time
it didn't provoke him in the slightest.
This was slightly unnerving.
"Get the others together," he said simply, without questioning him, since
Flash knew this was serious, he sped from the room, delivering the message to
all the members in turn, who were, being a rare occurrence, all in the
Watchtower.
- - - - -
A few minutes later, all, with the exception of J'onn, were gathered in what
you might term a 'discussion' room. Basically this was where if needed, they
could all gather to discuss anything of vital importance. And from Batman's
expression, though slightly hard to tell under the mask, this defiantly classed
as 'vital'.
"What's wrong?" Diana asked, after a long period of silence.
"Did something happen to J'onn?" Hawkgirl prompted.
Slowly he nodded.
"Is it good?"
A shake of his head this time.
All exchanged worried looks, this sort of behaviour from Batman was strange to
say the least, and it put them all on edge.
"He's not..."
Superman's sentence was left unfinished as he trailed off, unable to even think
of the prospect.
"No..." Batman finally spoke "He's not dead"
Obviously it wasn't as hard for him to say, but considering him, it wasn't hard
to believe.
"What happened then?"
"Earlier this evening, Green Lantern alerted me to a change in the
readings coming from the monitoring system set up in the medbay which is
continually scanning J'onn's condition" He made sure that this explanation
was clear and coherent, and telling it like this seemed easier, and even Flash
understood.
"When he alerted me" Batman continued after a pause "I noticed
that the brainwave readings were fluctuating, and every so often they would
decline, and then rise again" he paused again, making the silence more
uncomfortable, then carried on, "This continued for several hours, until
they dropped to the lowest that any physical being, whether it human or
otherwise, can survive upon"
He stopped once more, and the others looked at each other with confusion, and
worry, then turned back to Batman, looking for an answer.
They were given one, and it wasn't good.
"He's in a coma"