Interlude: Kaldur'ahm
AN:
Sorry this is short, but Kal wouldn't leave me alone. At least this gives me more time to get a regular-length chapter ready for next week.
XxXxX
He is worried.
He shouldn't be. Artemis is more than capable of taking care of herself. He knows this, perhaps better than anyone else on the team. Even so…
Fourteen days.
They've been out of contact for longer, but never without prior notice. That's how he knows she isn't just on some extended op; she would have warned them. He can think of little else good that would keep her silent for two weeks. The others are worried, in an abstract sense, but only he feels like something has to have happened.
He likes to think he has a better connection to her that the others. That they fell into sync in those months under the sea when their fates were twined so closely together, when their lives depended on each other and a lie. He even understands, vaguely, that this is at least half-true.
He has always worried for the other 'sidekicks.' Before Roy came along, he was the oldest of the three (and even after Speedy débuted, he was still the most mature), and felt it his duty to care for the younger heroes. When the Team formed, he became their leader, and their well being rested directly in his hands. Even after they enacted The Plan and he – for all intents and purposes – stood against them, he did only what he had to for their sakes.
Things seemed to change, when he killed Artemis. They felt closer to him than the fate of the world. More personal. Her life was again directly in his hands. He had failed those he cared about most once already (Oh Garth, oh Tula, forgive him). He would not do the same to Wally and Artemis.
Except that he did.
He and Artemis completed their mission. They got the intel, and they got out alive. It broke his heart, and his Father's, but his Team was safe. But because he failed at the summit, their enemies escaped. Wally paid the price.
He couldn't save Wally and Artemis after all. (And it was Garth and Tula all over again.)
He watched Artemis fall apart.
Dick was the one who shared in her grief, in her loss of the person she was closest to. Conner was the one who acted as her rock, her emotional support. M'gann was the one who cheered her up, who understood girls and love and loss.
But he himself was her comfort.
He knew what it was like to lose the person you loved. It felt natural for her to come to him. For them to continue the façade they had maintained for his Fa- for Black Manta's sake. He stopped locking his door, so on any given night she could crawl into his bed, and he would hold her while she cried. Often, they would fall asleep in each other's arms, reminding each other that they weren't alone.
It never went further than that, and everyone believed them when they said so. Neither of them felt that sort of attraction to each other, and even if they did, their emotions were too raw to tarnish their lovers' memories like that. They were simply two people who could help hold the others' pieces together, though that is a strong connection in its own right.
So he could admit to himself that they were connected, more than any of the others. Life and Death. Love and Loss. They were the ones who had dealt most closely with these things. Together.
Symbiosi.
Out of the whole team, he worried about her the most, but he also believed in her the most. He would give her the benefit of the doubt and wait through the weekend for her to make contact.
If a small piece of himself whispered, you can't abandon Wally, you owe it to him, well. A larger piece of him whispered, Artemis is what he would care about more. Besides, he was tired of watching the people he loved die.
So.
Two days.
Then he would go after her.