Words: 2,569
Characters: orig!team, mentions of Wally/Artemis, Dick/Barbara, Dick/Zatanna, Conner/M'gann
Notes: This sounded better in my head than it did out loud.

photographs, #96

There is a place where people can go to recall the best of times, the finest of moments.

This is a place where secrets are no longer secrets, but stories waiting to be told, because they will be told, one way or another. This is a place where judgement is no longer important because no one will ever be judged and everyone is understood and loved. This is a place for an orchestra of instrumentalists who have played with each other for so long that they are fine-tuned to the other five players in the band. They were lucky enough to have met at such a young age so that they all had the chance to learn how to make music together. They learned from each other, took a few pages from each other's books, and wrote their own music that way.

Isn't that a little like what life's about? You get to come up with your own symphony, or maybe an opera, or a duet, or something simple. You get to make your own music, have your own adventures, learn to melodise those broken chords, stack those harmonies, and build your repertoire. And if someone's lucky enough, they get to play a part in making that music.

This is a place for music, and for late-night meals, for ice cream breaks and truth-and-dares. This is a place where memories don't shatter but are glued back together.

This place is called home.

x-x-x-x

They don't have an address for the Cave – or the mountain, come to think of it. They never really needed it, then and now, because each and every single one of them knew how to get to the cave and the mountain wasn't really going anywhere, was it?

Of course, they had to choose a new Cave after the Reach invasion episode had blown over (literally blown over – there were so many explosions in those last two weeks). The Team's headquarters are no longer in Happy Harbor now but in an underground centre in Gotham deep enough in the earth so that not even the strongest satellite could find them. No one quite likes the new Cave, even if Dinah has done everything in her decorative power to make the place feel like home, much less Beast Boy, who still has to live there for one more year until he turns eighteen. But he's there for now, and it's not so bad when he gets to hang out with Tim, Cassie, and Jaime every single day.

x-x-x-x

Sometimes people will learn to remember, sometimes they'll learn to forget. But the hardest of hearts may just succeed in holding on to the very things that have made them so hard and so strong, no matter how much it hurts.

And when they look at the book of photographs that held all they ever were when they were all teenagers in the early 2010's (almost a decade ago) it still hurts a little.

They miss it. They all miss it.

But then over time, they notice that though the photographs fade and don't appear as saturated as when M'gann or Dick had originally taken them, they're still there. They can still make out each and every distinct feature of one redheaded speedster piggybacking an irate blonde archer who doesn't seem to want to be on his back in the first place. They can still distinguish which head is which under those perched yellow, blue and pink cone-shaped party hats for someone's birthday – it might have been Wally's again, or maybe it was Conner's.

They miss it, but these people have learnt not to forget.

They remember.

x-x-x-x

M'gann, of course, is always the one who arranges the get-togethers. Normally she starts off her mornings just like any other morning, but team days are special. She follows her routine and begins by rolling onto her side to glance at the calendar on her bedside table. If it's highlighted, marked in red, dashed with sparkles, or decorated in any way whatsoever, it's either a birthday, an anniversary, or a team day. When she sees that it's a team day, the soft features with which the martian has learned to mask all her inner turmoil ceases and fades away. She is no longer Megan Morse, wedding planner at Something Blue, Inc., she is M'gann again. M'gann M'orzz.

My name's no secret. It's M'gann M'orzz!

And for days like today, she allows herself a small smile and rolls back to face La'gann on the other side of the bed. She plants a soft kiss on his bare arms before shaking him awake slowly and making her way to the kitchen to start breakfast.

He always calls after her.

x-x-x-x

For each and every one of these reunions, M'gann makes sure that the first person she contacts is Kaldur. Not only so that his doctors in Atlantis know when to prep him for surfacing, but also because he is the only one who really matters in these get-togethers. For M'gann, if he doesn't show up, there's no point in having the reunions in the first place.

There is no way she will ever be able to make up for all she did to him. She can try to apologise, and she can try to make amends, but she cannot atone for her sins.

But Kaldur had always given her the benefit of the doubt, and he had always had such strong faith in her. And though it took time to even get him to look at her again, perhaps it was after about a year that crystal eyes didn't feel so cold anymore. And perhaps it was about fifteen or sixteen months after the invasion that he started to answer to Kaldur again and not Aqualad.

It gets better, it really does. It takes time, and it takes so much patience, but good things come to those who wait.

And as much as M'gann believes that, she believes in Kaldur more.

x-x-x-x

Dick is always next because if she doesn't call him, he'd never be able to find a sub to take over his sparring lessons with the new recruits. Ever the chatter box, he always ends up brightening her day, teasing her about either La'gann or La'gann's parents, but he's always sidetracked when she brings up either Zatanna or Barbara. Note: not two topics he's fond of discussing at once.

"I trust you'll have new ones to bring?" she asks him every time.

"Remember who you're talking to, M'gann," Dick always retaliates, shuffling the newly developed copies in his hands. She smiles contentedly.

"Of course. I'm sorry, I just don't want anyone to forget."

"No, I understand. Just make sure Mister and Missus West don't forget either. You know they can get… rowdy… when left alone," Dick jokes flippantly.

"Ew, Dick," M'gann scolds him lightly, and the now-24-year-old man cackles.

At least some things never change.

x-x-x-x

Wally never picks up the phone.

It's not his fault really, he just can't pick up the phone. Or he tries to, and he just never gets there in time before Artemis answers after the second or third ring.

"It's M'gann," she whispers over the mouthpiece, and Wally forms an O with his mouth in understanding. He limps over to the den's table, the one placed right between the sofa and the television. He takes the time to sit on the sofa carefully, sinking into the pillows first before heaving himself forward and reaching onto the underside of the table. Feeling for the taped envelope, he finally gets his fingers on one of the corners and pries it from its sticky traps.

"Got it," he tells his wife of five years (popped the question right after the Invasion!). She nods at him to show she's heard and continues to talk to M'gann on the phone. Wally settles back into the sofa and fingers the corners of the envelope. They'd finished making the collection just two days ago. He hadn't thought the next reunion would be so soon, but M'gann was always spontaneous like that whenever it came to the team.

With one hand, he rubs his knee – always sore, forever damaged – and looks back up at Artemis. She hasn't aged in the five years they'd been married and if anything, she's about seventeen times as beautiful as she is now, at twenty-five years old, than when she was twenty and fighting with the wrong side. Wally's eyes never stray from her figure, even when she catches him and gives him a bashful smile before turning away. She's a little red.

He'll never understand how he was able to catch someone so magnificent and still manage to hold onto her after all these years.

She crawls onto the spot in the sofa next to him and kisses his cheek.

"God, I can't wait to see everyone again," she says in the raspy voice that captured his senses at a tender age of fifteen.

"Yeah," he agrees quietly, and his eyes flicker back to the envelope in his hand and he hopes they're good enough.

x-x-x-x

The five of them are at the gates of Harbor Park, originally Happy Harbor Park, which was totally unoriginal, in both Wally's and Dick's opinions, but the new mayor had legally shortened the name last month. To the rest of Happy Harbor, Harbor Park is like Central Park but in Happy Harbor. It's just another recreation site; one of the city's finest landscapes and central attractions. To the rest of the world, Harbor Park is just a park, but to these five – M'gann, Kaldur, Dick, Wally, Artemis – Harbor Park is where Mount Justice used to stand.

x-x-x-x

There's a small clearing at the very back of the park, so far back into the woods that not even the rangers or the police officers go back to check. This is where the graves of the REACH invasion heroes are buried. Five years ago, Batman and Nightwing had it all arranged under the government's nose because the only way a funeral service for heroes was going to be done right was if other heroes did it.

There are many tombstones.

Of course they're all important to each member of the team, but obviously only a few really stand out. The first one that does is Allen's.

Bart Allen.

There's a lightning bolt at the top and centre of his grave stone and Wally's old pair of Kid Flash goggles hangs off a nail on the top-right corner of the stone. He hobbles awkwardly ahead of the team with Artemis following close behind him before making a stop in front of Bart's grave.

"There are no words, kid," is all he mutters before leaning down, grunting in pain, and placing a bag of chicken whizees off to the side of the stone. He stands back up and Artemis places her hand on his shoulder. He looks at her meaningfully and she gives him a tender smile.

They move on.

x-x-x-x

There are others. There's Raquel's, a fine stone, gorgeous and bold, just as she was. It's made of marble and has her name – Raquel Ervin – carved into it. To the side, there's a smaller stone, also made of marble. It reads: Amistad Augustus Ervin.

It is not fair that he got to have a gravestone before he even got to see the light of day.

x-x-x-x

Conner Kent.

x-x-x-x

They stand in front of their last teammate's gravestone, and they're all thinking of different things. Artemis thinks about how she should have saved that last arrow for him, she should have done something. Kaldur thinks about how he had failed his brother in arms. He had gotten caught up in the worst of debacles and he lost a brother in the process. Wally thinks about how he wasn't fast enough, he just wasn't fast enough, and in the end, he'd broken his legs anyway, and now he'll never be fast again. Dick thinks that he'll never know another hero braver than Conner. No one could compare, not even Bruce. And all M'gann can see in her mind's eye is sunshine, and a lazy glimmer in cobalt eyes.

She will never be able to describe the remorse, the agony, and the sheer regret that maybe she had in her arms the best thing she could ask for, and all she did was throw it away.

She has so much to repent for. So many things that deserve apologies.

She can start here.

"Hey, Conner," she whispers to the grave. It's granite; strong and sturdy, just like him.

"We - we've got a new batch of photos," M'gann continues, reaching over to take Dick's thick stack, Wally's and Artemis's heavy envelope, and Kaldur's slightly thinner pile. She reaches into her purse and pulls out a few photos of her own.

"We thought – since you loved the album idea we used to have back when we were all still kids – we'd keep the tradition going, but especially for you," Wally says, leaning on Artemis.

"But I guess we didn't really have to remind you, did we?" Artemis pitches in, wrapping her arm around Wally's waist.

"We hope you like them, my friend," Kaldur says quietly and everyone turns to him, their gazes angled downwards as their ex-team leader sits back in customised wheelchair, hands resting comfortably on each arm.

Dick sighs and opens his mouth to form the words everyone's been trying to express, "We miss you, Conner."

x-x-x-x

The grass is blessedly dry as the five of them sit next to Conner's grave for the next few hours, and tell stories. They reminisce about old training sessions when Black Canary used to wipe the floor with their faces, they bring back memories of old pies Wally's mother always had him bring to the cave, they make fun of the new recruits at the new headquarters who Dick, Tim, Jaime, and Cassie are having a bit of a hard time training. They even gossip a little and tell as many scandalous stories about Barbara, Zatanna and Dick as they know, along with who heard what along the grapevine about Jaime and Cassie and if the two had hooked up yet or not (spoilers: they have).

And to the average person, this motley crew of misfits might seem either crazy or disturbed, talking to a tall, granite grave stone planted into the soil of the earth. But every time M'gann flips to the next photograph and Artemis recalls that oh, I remember that! That's when Wally did so-and-so and made himself look like a complete idiot, all five of them can't help but feel more and more at home in the shelter of these hidden woods as the sun sets along the expanse of the horizon.

x-x-x-x

There's a shelf built into Conner's gravestone, made especially for the photographs. It's like a little cove, or an insertion where the printed copies can lie protected for as long as they like. The newest photograph on top is one of all six of them, when they were all in their prime. They're not in their uniforms in the photograph, they're actually in the harbor along what used to be Mount Justice's beach.

There is sand, and sun. There is the sea, and the sky. There are six bright faces grinning at the camera, gleaming and glowing.

They shine.