Author's Note: Wahoo! Chapter three! (dodges rotten fruit and various other projectiles) Eeek! Don't hurt me! I'm sorry for the delay!
(Hawkgirl and Green Lantern are standing off to the side, laughing at her, while Onyx lounges casually against a doorframe, looking bored)
HG: You should know better than to try to kill me and then disappear for over a year!
S: I'm sorry! Sorry sorry sorry! (pulls a shield out of nowhere to absorb the impacts of the projectiles)
Onyx: Perhaps, my young light, it would be best if you continued with the story now, since that is what these good readers are here for?
S: Right! But one note: Onyx the superhero-character is referred to as Unica from here on. She isn't the same person as my muse, and people were getting confused on that. And who's doing my disclaimer?
(Yami Bakura races by, holding a sign with 'Disclaimer see Chapter One' written on it)
S: Bakura! You're in the wrong fanfiction! (races off after him)
Onyx: Oh, and she doesn't own Buffy, either. (follows her light)
(GL and HG stare at each other for a moment before starting the chapter)
HAWK'S NIGHT, LANTERN'S LIGHT
CHAPTER THREE
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
A shake of his head rattled the echo of the sound away, but the headache lingered. Beep. Beep. Beep. For two months now, the members of the Justice League had been taking turns listening to that infernal beeping. No matter how many times they recalibrated the sound matrix of the beeper, it still managed to bounce up the ear canal and ricochet around the inside of the skull like an angry hornet. A soft sigh escaped weary lips as dark eyes swiveled to look toward the clock on the wall. Three minutes until ten o'clock. Quietly rising from his seat, he straightened his cloak and began to walk around the room, stretching the cramps out of his legs.
'The beeping wouldn't be so bad,' he reflected wearily as he gathered up the book he'd been reading, 'if it would vary at all.'
Yet for two months, the beeping that monitored Shayera's heart rate had remained completely unchanged. Bracing himself, he turned to gaze across the hospital bay to the far bed, where Shayera lay silently under the crisp white sheets. Without her helmet and clad in a white cotton gown, her wings and hair shining in the lights, she looked like a sleeping angel. He stifled a laugh at the thought. Anyone who had seen Shayera fight would know she was anything but an angel. She was at heart a warrior – but now, lying still under those harsh white lights, she was fighting the greatest battle she had ever engaged in. It was a battle for her very life.
The sound of the door opening snapped Superman from his reverie. It was ten o'clock already, and Green Lantern had just strode through the door, silent and expressionless. The day's log was carried in his right hand, a cup of coffee in his left. He acknowledged Superman with a curt nod before walking past him, pulling his chair up by Shayera's bedside, and sitting next to her.
Every night, John Stewart's ritual was the same. He entered the hospital bay at ten precisely carrying a cup of coffee and the day's log. He would acknowledge the person coming off watch and be at Shayera's side before the last watch was halfway out the door – except on nights when the Flash was on watch, of course. Then John had barely come two steps in before the red-clad hero dashed out, made nervous and agitated by the beep-broken silence. John would, regardless, spend every night from ten at night to six in the morning at Shayera's side, with her slender hand clasped in his and the monitor switched to auto.
Knowing all of this, but verbalizing none, Superman quietly slipped out the door. He was entirely ready to return to his own quarters for the night. The day had been far too long for his taste. Passing the recreation room, he found Unica and Flash, both fast asleep in front of a Buffy rerun on the television. He shook both of them awake, gently, and sent them to bed before making his way back to his own quarters and collapsing face first into his pillow, instantly asleep.
Every member of the team was battling extreme exhaustion now. As Diana had pointed out the other day, they had lost not one team member, but two. Green Lantern could hardly be expected to perform his duties with Hawkgirl lying nearly lifeless in the medical bay.
Two mornings later, Unica stifled a wide yawn as Batman shouldered past her, making his way to the overworked coffeepot. He had been on duty for the past sixteen hours, and was returning planet side within the hour to resume his post at Wayne Enterprises, from which he had been conspicuously absent of late. Turning her head to glare at the man, she blinked twice and snorted inelegantly into her tea.
"I wouldn't suggest that to John if I were you."
Batman turned a glare of his own on her. "Haven't you ever heard the expression, 'sanctity of the mind'?"
She shrugged, unapologetic. "You were projecting."
There was a moment of tense silence between them before she spoke again. "She might still recover."
"And she might remain in a coma indefinitely." Neither one voiced the grimmer option that had been lingering on the edge of both minds.
Scowling, Unica pulled herself up a few inches and sat down on the countertop, staring into her tea mug as she spoke. "Face it, Bruce," she began, deliberately using his given name to throw him off, "neither of us know what a Thanagarian's systems are capable of. She could wake up tomorrow, she could wake up never. The point is, we don't know!!! All of my medical training is human and yours barely goes beyond that."
"I know," Batman answered simply, taking a mouthful of his coffee. His next words came directly into her mind from his. 'It was just a thought.'
S: Okay folks, I'm sorry for the shortness of the chapter, but it's better than nothing, right? And for those of you that don't know what Batman's 'thought' is, take a wild guess, or wait until the next chapter. With any luck, that one will be out after a much shorter time span than this one.