A/N: The third and final follow up to Aftermath.

The gym was all but deserted, the result of a special request from one of the rooms two current occupants.

The two of them had already been here for almost three quarters of an hour with only another fifteen minutes remaining in their session.

Only one of the occupants was actually there to workout, despite still not having medical clearance to do so, and the other was there merely to supervise and provide moral support throughout the session.

The Thanagarian using the equipment finished up on the bench press; her face clearly showing her dissatisfaction with her performance on the machine. The Amazonian Princess standing next to the machine saw her bleak expression and tried to banish her dour demeanor with words of encouragement.

Unsurprisingly, the words had little effect, and honestly Diana had expected as such. They both knew exactly what she had lost. Shayera knew that she would never regain all that she used to be prior to her fight with Grail. That was just a fact she had to accept after having multiple tendons and ligaments torn throughout her body.

She was supposed to wear compression braces on her left knee, wrist, and shoulder to help support strenuous physical activity. Even if she were to wear the braces like she was supposed to, the affected areas were not without their problems. She had trouble with twisting motions with her left wrist and was still unable to swing her mace. She only could run for less than ten minutes before her left knee felt like it would give out from under her. Her left shoulder was beyond repair; every movement caused pain, even flying, and heavy lifting was proving to be extremely difficult. Thankfully the left side of her pelvis that had been shattered fully recovered and she didn't have any lingering issues from that injury.

Despite this knowledge, and despite all the pain she had already been through in the past eight months, she still wasn't going to give up that easily. Everyday for the past two weeks, she had come to gym. Everyday she would push herself to the limits of her reduced abilities, striving to reach a level beyond what she would ever be able to attain.

Thus it was with an unreduced will and limitless determination that the Thanagarian moved onto venting her frustrations out on the punching bag.

She started off by pummeling it with both fists. She then tried striking with only her left fist. After a few repetitions, she started increasing the force behind her punches, experimenting with just how far she could push her wrist and shoulder before the pain became too unbearable.

It wasn't long before the strain became evident on the redhead's face. Sweat beaded her brow and every line of her face spoke of great exertion. The expression of disgust on her face told anyone watching exactly what she thought of her new limitations.

Shayera did not let it overwhelm her however. She pressed on with the exercise until Diana had to stop her with a warning hand on her shoulder, "I don't think this is a good idea for you to push yourself like this. You're going to hurt yourself."

Shayera paused for a moment before giving the Amazon a cutting glaring as she shrugged her hand off of her shoulder, "I don't want to hear it Diana."

Diana shook her head and sighed, "I understand how you feel. If I was-"

"You understand?" Shayera snapped at her as she scowled. "You don't understand anything! I didn't see you stuck in the medbay for over four months!"

Wonder Woman stayed silent for a few seconds and swallowed, "I know as a warrior how it would feel to lose your ability to fight. I know how damaging it is to one's pride to lose that."

"I can still fight," Shayera growled before she punched the punching bag at full force with her left fist. She sharply inhaled, shook her hand out, and rubbed her wrist after the blow.

"You can but not like how you were able to before. You need to realize your limitations Shayera," Diana quietly said to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. "None of us want to see you get hurt again."

Shayera exhaled as she looked away, "I know that Diana. I'm not stupid. I already wasn't as strong as a typical Thanagarian. While I'm still stronger than a human; I'm even weaker now than I was before."

"Shayera you at least need to consider wearing those braces. J'onn said you should," Diana said to her. "That's the only reason J'onn hasn't cleared you to start working out again. You refuse to wear them."

Shayera frowned as she ignored the Amazon and walked away from the punching bag and towards the treadmill. The treadmill was the exercise that she finished every session off with and today was no different.

Diana simply shook her head as she sighed and left the gym. She knew there was no way of getting through to the Thanagarian when she was in one of her moods. Shayera was stubborn and Diana knew it would take some time for her to finally realize she needed those braces whether she wanted them or not.

She started out at a slow jogging pace, giving herself a chance to become accustomed to the discomfort from her left knee.

After this initial testing phase, the pace quickly increased, culminating with the occupant of the machine running at the maximum pace her left knee could afford her.

Before her injuries, maintaining this pace would not have even provided a challenge for the Thanagarian. Now, however, her knee was quickly flagging, forcing her to slow the treadmill incrementally, until she was down to a limping walk.

Using this pace as a cooldown, Shayera stayed on the machine for a few more minutes. Eventually, she turned the machine off and stepped off the treadmill.

Shayera turned and walked towards one of the walls of the gym. She momentarily stood in silence before she let out a frustrated yell and punched a hole in the wall with her right fist.

No one would have known it was her that had damaged the wall if it weren't for her unknown audience.

John sighed as he watched as his wife leaned her back against the wall before sliding down and sitting on the floor with her head in her hands. He could tell she was not only upset but also disheartened.

Of course, a more appropriate term would have been spying, considering he hadn't revealed himself to her at any point throughout the entire session, despite being there from the beginning.

This hadn't even been the first session that John had spied on. He had been there every day for over a week, watching with anguish at her lack of progress.

When John had first stumbled onto Shayera during one of her workout sessions, he had briefly entertained the notion of approaching her with the intention of dragging her out of the gym and lecturing her. He had, of course, reasoned his way out of taking said action. Shayera would not want anyone to see her in her weakened state, least of all him of all people. Diana was the only other person who knew of Shayera's workouts and had only been allowed to stay due to her threat of telling J'onn. Reluctantly, Shayera had allowed Diana to remain at the sessions in order to supervise in case something did happen.

Even John knew, however, that this reasoning was only a partial truth.

Shayera took great pride in her combat abilities, her injuries were a devastating blow to her self-esteem. It was a given that she would want as few people as possible to know about her current limitations.

John turned away from the gym he had been spying in and started in the direction of the exit.

Maybe tomorrow would be the day that he rose above his nerves and approached his wife about her workouts.

Shayera sat on the end of the bed in her room on the Watchtower. She inhaled and closed her eyes. She wasn't supposed to be here; it was past midnight.

She had waited for John to fall asleep and made sure he was staying asleep before she had gotten herself teleported up to the Watchtower. The simple lie that she couldn't sleep and needed something to do had seemingly been a good enough of an excuse for Mister Terrific when he questioned why she needed a transport so late at night.

Shayera opened her eyes and exhaled as she looked to her side. Sitting on the bed next to her were the three compression braces she was supposed to be wearing. She lightly glared at the items before grabbing the wrist brace. She then slipped it on and tightened the straps to wear J'onn had showed her previously.

Upon putting it on she clenched and unclenched her fist multiple times before lightly rolling her wrist. She then grabbed the knee brace and put it on. The shoulder brace was the most cumbersome to put on and, after five minutes of attempting to put it on, she gave up on it and threw it back onto the bed.

Admittedly it did feel better to wear the braces. Though she knew the only way to really know if they were going to help her out was to put them to the test.

Shayera's eyes slowly moved to the wall and the object hanging on it. Shayera inhaled deeply as she looked at her mace. It had taken her two months of being out of the medbay to finally be able to look at it and another month to touch it without flinching.

Shayera stood and took her mace off of the mount it was hanging from. She stared at the weapon before closing her eyes. She could vividly remember the feeling of the Nth metal shattering her left wrist before she had managed to get the mace back from Grail's hands. Though it didn't take Grail long to reacquire the mace and use it on the Thanagarian yet again. Which had resulted in her left arm being broken along with having her collarbone cracked and her shoulder dislocated from back-to-back powerful blows.

She frowned as she opened her eyes and tightly gripped her mace. Being beaten with her own weapon had been a severe blow to her pride. No one was ever going to do that to her again; she wasn't going to ever allow it to happen again.

Shayera swallowed as she stood in the middle of the simulation room. This was absolutely the last place she was allowed to be in. It was one thing that she was doing unauthorized workouts that could have been overlooked. An actual combat simulation was something that even Shayera knew was extremely ill-advised at this point.

Shayera put a finger to the commlink in her ear and sighed before she spoke, "User code 007."

"User identity Shayera Stewart confirmed," her commlink chirped back.

"Release zeta-bots and turn on simulation 803," she curtly ordered.

Three circular spaces on the pure white floor opened as three zeta-bots were raised into the room on platforms. Each bot stepped off of the platforms as the room around them was transformed into the landscape of Metropolis.

Shayera took a deep breath as two of the zeta-bots were transformed into Parademons and the last one into Grail. She swallowed as she gripped her mace and glared at the zeta-bot that had transformed into the Apokoliptian.

Grail then smirked and thrust her hand out. The Parademons went on the offensive and charged at Shayera.

Shayera froze as she saw the Parademons flying towards her. Her mind had suddenly went blank and she found that she didn't know what to do for some odd reason. The decades of combat training she had escaped her at that very moment. She couldn't find within herself the urge to fight. Shayera could feel her heart pounding in her chest and her breaths become rapid as she panicked. Shayera found that she wasn't scared; she was petrified.

As the two Parademons lunged at her, Shayera closed her eyes and held her arms in front of her face in a poor attempt to defend herself.

Realizing she hadn't been hit, Shayera slowly lowered her arms and opened her eyes. A feeling of dread engulfed her as she saw the green wall standing in between her and the now still and untransformed zeta-bots.

Shayera inhaled and then deeply exhaled as she looked over to see John. She had expected to see an aggravated expression on his face. She was slightly offended when she saw one of pity instead.

"User code 005," she heard him quietly say into his commlink. "Turn off simulation and deactivate zeta-bots."

The Metropolis landscape dissipated and the zeta-bots were lowered back under the floor the way they came.

"What were you thinking?" John asked her with a slight frown as he walked over to her.

Shayera bit her lower lip and looked away. She didn't have an immediate answer and she couldn't think up of a half-assed one either. She hadn't been thinking when she had decided to do this. She had acted on pure impulse alone.

Shayera was surprised when she felt John's arms wrap around her and pulled her into a tight hug. "Don't you ever do that again," he whispered to her.

She hugged him back, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be, I should have expected you to eventually do something like this," he replied. "Just make sure someone is here with you if you try to do that again."

"I won't-" Shayera then cut herself off when she registered what he had just said. She blinked a few times in shock. "What do you mean have someone here?"

John let go of her and smirked, "Exactly what I meant. We need to get you back to kicking ass but you have to do it one step at a time. You can't just throw yourself into a full-blown combat simulation. Especially not the type you tried to put yourself in."

Shayera softly smiled, "Baby steps I suppose." She then sighed and lowered her head, "But you saw what happened. I've never froze in battle before. I couldn't move or make myself move."

"Then we give you an opponent you can face," he put a hand on her shoulder. "You can't fight Grail or actual opponents, at least not yet."

Shayera tilted her head as she looked up at him, "What you're going to have me face a punching bag? Though that seems to be all I can handle at this point."

John shook his head as he turned away from her and walked a few paces away before turning to face her again, "Someone you know you're not afraid of and you've fought plenty of times before."

Shayera's eyes slightly widened when she realized where he was going with this, "John I don't think this is a good idea."

John raised an eyebrow at that, "But you fighting zeta-bots was?"

She lightly frowned and rolled her eyes, "Point taken but still, I don't even remember the last time we sparred together. Even as banged up as I am, I can still hurt you."

"We're not doing just hand-to-hand sparring Shay. It's going to be my ring versus your mace."

Shayera looked down at the weapon in her hands before looking back at the Green Lantern. "Are you sure about this?"

"Positive," John curtly nodded. "I know you can do this Shayera. You need to get out of your own head. You need to see that you can do this."

Shayera silently looked at her mace for a moment before lightly nodding and taking a fighting stance with it. She then energized the mace and scowled at him, "Bring it Lantern!"

John smirked as his ring began to glow, "That's the Shayera I know."

Though John's smirk quickly faded into a serious expression as he had to erect a shield around himself as Shayera lunged at him and swung her mace. He lightly frowned to himself. Her swing was slow and he could tell she was doing it on purpose. She was avoiding having to snap her wrists during the swing and had forced herself to use her entire body instead. John found that, before, Shayera's swing was very similar to that of a batter in baseball. She relied on her wrists and shoulders to provide power to the swing.

Though the force behind the swing was still incredible, as her entire body weight was behind it, and it broke through his barrier. She then went for another swing and John easily docked under it. He then created a clamp with his ring and easily caught Shayera in the construct.

For a few seconds Shayera tried to wriggle herself out of the construct but then gave up when she realized that she wasn't going to be able to free herself.

John sighed as he released her, "Try swinging the old way. Swinging with your entire body is slowing you down too much. If you miss your target then you're wide open for a counter attack. Isn't that why you're wearing those braces?"

Shayera didn't response. Instead she lunged at him again. John quickly made a bubble around himself as the Thanagarian began to strike the construct repeatedly with her mace. John slightly smirked when he saw the bubble begin to crack under her swings. Nth metal was and always would be effective against power rings. Though a considerable amount of force was still required by the actual combatant in order to be able to break through constructs.

Only a few hits later the bubble shattered and John quickly took to the air to avoid having her mace smash into the side of his head. Predictably, Shayera followed after him. John considered fighting back with constructs but then rationalized that he needed to break her back in slowly. So he instead began to fire energy beams at her.

John felt himself begin to smile as he watched her dodge each and every beam. Nothing could ever dull her gracefulness in the sky. If nothing else, Shayera still had her superior flying skills to rely on.

John unfortunately had gotten too caught up in his admiration and realized at the last second that Shayera was in the middle of swinging her mace at him. He quickly created a simple, circular shield with his ring.

Shayera easily shattered the construct with a left-handed swing before she brought her right fist up and nailed John under his chin with an uppercut. Though the Green Lantern could tell that she had pulled her punch and he was admittedly grateful for that. The last thing he wanted or needed was a broken jaw.

John was sent a few feet back by the blow. He rubbed his chin as he looked over at her. He was about to compliment her hit but he then saw her grimacing.

"Shay what's wrong?"

Shayera frowned as she answered, "My shoulder hurts."

"Well you're not wearing your shoulder brace," he pointed out.

Shayera rolled her eyes, "I know that. I tried but I couldn't get it on," she sighed. "At least my knee and wrist feel fine for the most part. I think the braces actual helped."

John lightly smiled as they both descended to the floor, "That's a good sign though but that means you need to consistently wear them."

Shayera rubbed her left shoulder and nodded, "I know and I will. Maybe J'onn can get me another shoulder one that's easier to put on. I need something I can put on myself and without help."

John shrugged, "I'm sure he can find something. I think we can wrap this up, don't you?"

Shayera smirked as she nodded, "Yeah I think I'm done for the night. I don't want to overdo it at all."

"Considering how late it is," John pointed out. "Plus you need to take it easy. This is just baby steps to get you back into the swing of things."

"True I did wait until after midnight to come up here," she replied. "We should go home and try to get some sleep."

"Or, and hear me out," he began. "Considering the west coast is three hours behind us, we could go grab some Chinese food and then go home."

"Emma and Rex won't be up for a while after all," Shayera smirked once again. "Is this a date?"

John likewise smirked back and kissed her cheek, "It might be."

She lightly chuckled as she leaned her body against his, "Do I at least get extra eel heads?"

John let out a defeated sigh, "Fine."