CHAPTER TWO

"Are you sure you have to go out tonight Mama?" Hayden whined, squirming as Shayera struggled to wrap a towel around his wet little body, wings and all.

"Yes Hayden. Mama has to help keep the city safe, you know that."

"I wanna go with you. I wanna help people too. I'm going to be a Marine! I need practice!" Hayden insisted, stopping long enough for Shayera to wrap the towel around him and scoop him into her arms.

"I know you do." Shayera assured her son. "And you will. One day."

"Why not today?" Hayden demanded, crossing his arms, his lower lip sticking out as his mother carried him into the large room he shared with his sister. Sara and Nick were so good to put them up in their mansion, and to give the twins such a large room, so large they could each have their own set of bunk beds, something that the twins loved.

"Yeah Mama." Haylynn chimed in as her mother and brother entered the room. "Why can't we help today?"

"Because you two need your sleep. If you went out and fell asleep, who would patrol?" Shayera asked her children. She always avoided telling her children that they were too young or too small to do something. They were both so headstrong that if she told them that they would immediately set out to do it just to prove her wrong. As she talked to them, she began dressing Hayden for bed, putting his pj's on him, then sitting on Haylynn's bottom bunk with him in her lap as she carefully combed his unruly hair.

"Your right Mama." Hayden said, giving her a quick hug before sliding off her lap and padding over to his closet where he pulled out an old wooden guitar that was very familiar to Shayera.

It was John's.

She had found it in the remains of the old Watchtower, miraculously unharmed and intact. She had always meant to send it back to John anonymously, but it had been comforting to her when she was pregnant and couldn't sleep to simply curl up on her bed with the guitar next to her and imagine that John was with her, laying with her, strumming the guitar slowly and deliberately with a kind of detached curiosity, humming or even singing along.

Hayden had found one day when he was only three and immediately started picking at it with a kind of instinct. It was much to big for him, and Hayden wasn't very good at it, but both he and Haylynn were slowly teaching themselves how to play it, learning how it sounded and how it was supposed to sound. He sat on his own bottom bunk, and Haylynn left hers to join her twin. They sat side by side, their dark head bent over the guitar, their green eyes narrowed in concentration as they both began picking at the strings in perfect harmony, allowing a small melody to emerge. Shayera smiled at them, sitting on Haylynn's bed, studying their faces.

Hayden and Haylynn were almost identical to John, except their skin was lighter, seeming only to be lightly tanned. Her children had her eyes, her wings and some of her mannerisms, but every once in a while, she would look up suddenly at Hayden, and he would have his head tilted in such a way, or be laughing at something, or even grinning at his sister and Shayera would see John and her heart would ache. Then Haylynn would look up and wrinkle her nose in a familiar way, or even throw a punch in a way that made Shayera think her heart would stop from the pain of missing him.

Her bracelet beeped and Shayera looked down at the hidden display. Time for her to set out. She couldn't bear to break her children's concentration, so she simply stood up, crossed to them, and kissed the top of their heads.

"Go to sleep soon." She told them. Hayden and Haylynn both tilted their heads back to receive another kiss and smiled at their mother.

"Okay Mama." They chorused before turning back to the guitar.

"I'm serious guys. I'm going to have Aunt Sara come tuck you in."

"Good night Mama." They both said again with their mischievous grins.

"Good night guys. I love you."

"Love you Mama." Shayera left the room, closing the door behind her and making her way down to the first floor from the third where the twin's bedroom was. Nick and Sara were lying together on a couch in the living room watching the news on the big screen TV. Shayera deactivated her bracelet before entering the room, flexing and stretching her wings as she walked. Nick had really outdone himself when he invented the bracelet. It not only made her wings disappear, but functioned as a watch, alarm, communicator, and was such a beautiful and uncomplicated piece of jewelry that she could wear it everywhere.

"Hello Shayera." Nick said as she entered the room. Nick was tall and muscular, a former Olympic swimmer with blonde hair and big grey eyes. He was also the only child of a multi-millionaire, and a genius. Nick was one of the richest men in the world, equal even to Bruce Wayne. His wife Sara, a small lithe beautiful woman with sleek black hair and beautiful hazel eyes, came from a middle class family in California, but they had meet at the Olympics, where Sara was a member of the US gymnastics team and they had clicked from the first time they meet, at the opening ceremonies when they had happened to find themselves standing next to each other when the US marched into the stadium. By the end of the Olympic's, they were timing their events in such a way that they could watch each other compete and cheer each other on. The two were married in less then a year.

They had found Shayera collapsed on their roof, pregnant, injured and dangerously ill. Of course they recognized her from the news, but they took a chance. Nick and Sara had taken Shayera in and nursed her, hiding her from the public eye and opened their hearts and home to her. Shayera had offered to move out when the twins were born, but Sara and Nick would have none of it. They adored the twins, and spoiled them mercilessly. And the twins were just as adoring of their 'aunt' and 'uncle'. Nick had invented the special matter displacement bracelets within months of the twins births, and Shayera couldn't thank him enough for allowing her and her children the chance to experience Earth without being labeled as 'different'.

"Hey guys. I'm heading out now. Sara, could you tuck the twin in in about half and hour? Their messing with the guitar right now and I didn't want to disturb them."

"Sure Shy." Sara said, standing up and stretching.

"Seems to be a slow night." Nick offered, also standing up from the couch.

"I hope so. I don't want to be out to late tonight." Shayera said with a smile as she accepted the hug and the kiss on the cheek that he offered, and the hug from Sara. Then she crossed the room and entered the huge library, where there were huge floor to ceiling bookcase covering every wall. Unlike some mansion's where the libraries were simply for show, like Bruce Wayne's, this one was filled with Sara's mystery, romance and fantasy books, along with numerous electronic manuals and textbooks, along with various history, biology, chemistry, zoology, astronomy and other books on a variety of topics. There were even a bunch of Shayera's spy thrillers, and some of Sara's Japanese manga books, and numerous books of fairy tales and nursery rhymes for Hayden and Haylynn.

The far book case also concealed the hidden room that housed Shayera's numerous computers that she used to monitor the city, the various machines that Nick had designed to conduct her investigations and analyze evidence, and the most important things to her. The mask she had worn as a member of the Justice League and her mace. And under a glass case was something that was the most important thing in the world to Shayera.

It was the band of John's ring, salvaged from the wreckage of the battle as they left, stuffed into her pocket and carried close to her heart the entire time she had waited for the League to vote, and even when she had finally told John that she loved him, and flown away with his silence ringing in her ears, a thousand times more hurtful than anything he could have said. The signal of the lantern corps was around her neck where it had been every since that day, on a tough silver chain that she never took off. Hayden and Haylynn had got glimpses of it occasionally, but had never asked about it, sensing that it was something they shouldn't mention.

Shayera lifted her mask from it's stand and placed it over her head, pulling her long red hair into a ponytail so that it wouldn't be in her way. She had just attached the mace to her belt, it's weight familiar and comfortable when she heard Haylynn scream. The scream was high pitched and terrified and cut off suddenly. Then Sara also screamed and Nick let out a grunt of pain.

Hawkgirl flew from the room, the bookcase sliding back into place behind her and latching. She entered the living room and was instantly dealt a blow that knocked her into a wall where she slid to the floor, her vision black, her breath coming painfully and the screams and cries of her children echoing in her ears. . .