The tide was coming in, nearly five feet away from Superboy's shoeless feet. Over the shushing water, the sun hung reluctantly, burning hot, afraid to let go of the world.
Superboy watched the horizon from his spot on the small sand cliff that marked the farthest the tide came in and he contemplated if he should stay to feel the water run over his sandy toes (if the sun didn't leave first.)
Somewhere off in the distance, someone was lighting a bonfire. Island music was playing, dancing feet shuffling in the sand, happy voices murmuring.
"H'talla chak'n mall'nah…"
Superboy turned his head slightly to look at a slumbering M'gann who was not only hogging the beach towel she had brought with them, but had curled around the large twine basked filled with green coconuts they had collected earlier that afternoon.
"Hirm… Nral…"
He could hear drunken tourists singing "Stand by me."
Water.
Trees.
Footsteps…
"Superboy?"
The clone looked up to see Kaldur blocking the view, dripping from the sea, a perplexed look on his face.
"…M'gann needed coconuts," he explained after he realized that he was supposed to say something.
Kaldur looked between the two, then the coconuts, then to Superboy.
"She needed that many? Could she have just gone to the store."
"She just said that she needed the green ones. They taste better."
Kaldur nodded absently, shifting his weight to see the sun over his shoulder. "It's late. We should get her back to base."
A few weeks ago, Superboy would have said no. The trip back might have woken her, and she seemed to be having a nice dream. Superboy could watch the sunset on this island of Oahu.
But saying no would give Kaldur the wrong impression.
He knows this now.
He grunts, standing up for the first time in hours, and he realizes just how tired he feels.
So Kaldur puts the weight of the basket on his shoulder and Superboy wraps a murmuring M'gann in her towel and pulls her to his chest, arms behind her back and neck.
They both walked to an inconspicuous hut in the shade of some trees. (Property in the name of a JL member who installed a zeta-beam transport for easy access to Hawaii.)
"So you tow only came for these?" Kaldur asked, breaking the amiable silence to refer to the basket.
"I only came because she asked me too." It was true. It never occurred to Superboy that he had the choice and permission to leave the mountain. That he didn't have to stay in the silence. That he didn't have to continuously wait for someone to notice him or remembered that he existed.
His team remembered him more than anyone.
M'gann always remembered him.
"You should come here to Hawaii more often. There's a cove on the next island that you should see. It has a path that leads up to this cliff with a wonderful view to the sky. You would enjoy it."
M'gann muttered something that sounded vaguely English and twisted in his arms.
"Hmm. Yeah."