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A/N: The inevitable rewrite that was long coming. Like Alien this did not age all too well but not as badly as Alien did. Though, as per usual with me, there's always room for much needed improvement.
John let out a light, barely audible sigh as he watched the last of the villains being taken into custody by the Star City Police Department. As the police van's back doors closed, John's gaze instead drifted and noted the League members grouping back up. Rocket Red and Hourman proceeded to high five each other while Elongated Man simply yawned as though the fight had bored him. That was when his focus went to the Thanagarian, who was standing off to the side. Being mission leader had not been easy for her. Rocket Red had not taken kindly to having, as he had put it, a damn Thanagarian in charge. Hourman had not been much better and had been very verbal at his disdain to having to listen to the Thanagarian. Elongated Man had been more or less neutral and didn't question Mister Terrific's decision. When John had also been selected for the mission, Shayera had at first objected. Her objections didn't last long as Mister Terrific had held steadfast to his decision.
Rocket Red and Hourman had not listened to Shayera in the slightest. John had at first tried to reprimand the two heroes only to be immediately stopped by Shayera herself. Oddly enough, Shayera did not stop Elongated Man when he had defended her and tried to reason with Rocket Red and Hourman. Even with that the two had made things much more difficult than they needed to be. John was just glad that they all had made it out of the battle in one piece and with only mild injuries.
He saw as Shayera's mouth formed a frown and she crossed her arms over her chest. He could tell that she wasn't comfortable. Her feathers bristled and John knew that was one of her defensive measures. The tactic would make her seem bigger than she was and therefore more intimidating and unapproachable. Part of him wondered if it was because of the less than warm reception she had received from their teammates or if it was entirely due to his presence on the team itself. Considering she was used to the opposition she still faced within the Justice League at times, John assumed it was the latter.
Watching her from a distance made John feel like he was in elementary school again. He remembered when he was eight-years-old and was trying to get the attention of his then crush at the time, Maggie. He would poke her repeatedly on the shoulder, lightly yank on her ponytail, or say stupid things just to get her attention. It had normally worked. She would sigh in annoyance and give him dirty looks. That had only egged him on to do it more because he couldn't tell her to her face that he had a crush on her. Now that John thought about it more he recalled how Maggie used to tease him about his glasses, giving him the nickname Bug-Eyed Stewart, stole his homework for herself, and pushed him around all the time during recess and gym class. That and Maggie had been a redhead. John swallowed and looked away awkwardly as he now realized that perhaps he had a thing for domineering women...or just redheads in general. After all the first girl he had ever dated, Lacie, had been a redhead as well.
John let out a sigh as he glanced back at the Thanagarian. He knew that he couldn't act like a little boy in this situation, trying to get her attention with his boyhood antics. He would have to act like an adult. That and yanking Shayera's hair would most likely end with a black eye for the Green Lantern. Either that or land him in the medbay with a concussion.
Getting her attention had been the problem though. John had been honestly surprised when Shayera had refused to get back together once Mari had broken up with him roughly four months ago. She turned the tables on him claiming that she wasn't going to be destiny's puppet just because John had seen their son. It had only been roughly a year ago when he saw the hope in her eyes when he said he saw their future son. Though that hope had quickly been crushed by him telling her that he was going to stay with Mari, despite still loving her. John then internally winced as he knew that he never should have told her about seeing Warhawk but, as much as he didn't want to admit it, John had felt some satisfaction in getting retribution like that.
John had thought he had made a breakthrough with her when he had saved Shayera from drowning a few weeks ago. When he had seen her, the very next day, she wouldn't even speak to him or acknowledge his presence. Having Shayera ignore him like this annoyed John. There were times when he tried to talk to her but Shayera pretended as though she didn't even notice that he existed. The entire situation was frustrating and John knew that if he had hair than he would have ripped it out by this point. John had always considered himself as a bit of a hopeless romantic. It wasn't something he wanted to publicly advertise though. He could be charming, sweet, and incredibly kind when he wanted to be but there was a problem. He was extremely spiteful and John knew it. That was what had caused his current issues with Shayera to begin with.
John noticed that Shayera was looking over at him now. The Green Lantern took a deep breath as he calmed his nerves and began to move towards the Thanagarian.
Shayera tried to keep her gaze forward. She knew John was staring intently at her, trying to garner her attention as usual. Instead she just tried to focus on the conversation between Rocket Red, Hourman, and Elongated Man. To her it was irrelevant if she was involved in it or not. The conversation served as a distraction and excuse to ignore John at the current moment. A familiar pain spread throughout her chest; she dismissed the memories flashing in her mind. It was not like she was thinking about him every single day despite how much she tried to avoid him on a daily basis. It was hard to act as though she was indifferent while she was filled with this amount of both love and resentment for the Green Lantern. On the outside, she pretended like she didn't care about him and determinedly ignored his actions. She did realize how childish the ways she was ignoring him were or, as Wally had said, she was worse than a little girl who thought boys had cooties...whatever those were.
Shayera idly wondered if John even remotely understood how deeply he had hurt her. Her eyes narrowed as she figured that he didn't; not with the way he was acting at least. John never had his heart's deepest desire just dangling in front of him only for it to be snatched away in the same instant like she had. As petty as Shayera knew she could be she never would have resorted to that. Shayera was also angry at how John had strung Mari along through all of this. Shayera found it odd that she never could make herself dislike Mari even when they had first been introduced. Despite wanting John for herself, Shayera had struck up a very unlikely and close friendship with the supermodel. John had not only broken her heart but Mari's as well. Shayera knew that Mari never deserved to be thrown in the middle of the mess that was her and John's relationship.
The Thanagarian wanted to punch herself when her gaze involuntarily moved and her eyes locked with John's. This seemed to spur some type of invitation as John began to walk towards her. Every fiber in Shayera's being told her to take off and fly away. Instead she deeply sighed and moved towards him. Shayera didn't know why she was doing this. Perhaps she was worried that if they did talk and things got heated that she didn't necessarily want the other League members to overhear them. Perhaps it was that small amount of lingering hope that she had held onto that they could possibly reconcile everything and try again.
Shayera stopped in front of John and saw the small smile on his face. She in turn let her frown deepen as she cleared her throat. She tried to keep her tone as uninterested sounding as possible as she spoke, "What do you want?" Shayera felt a small amount of satisfaction that her façade had worked and noticed as John's expression turned into a light frown instead.
"We need to talk," John stated as he lightly grabbed her left wrist. He was somewhat relieved when she didn't try to wrest away from his grasp. "Why are you ignoring me?"
Shayera was a bit surprised at how blunt and straight to the point he was. She instead lightly rolled her eyes, "I am not ignoring you."
"Yes, you are," John noticed as her hands balled into tight fists. She was getting ready to punch him and he wasn't ready for this conversation to end before it could start. He let go of her wrist and saw her hands relax back down to her sides. "You've been avoiding me for weeks. Whenever I even try to talk to you it's like I don't even exist. You act like you don't even hear or see me."
"Maybe because I don't want to," Shayera harshly asserted as she narrowed her eyes slightly.
John's hardened stare seemed to bore right into her and Shayera averted her gaze. She didn't know why it had become so hard to lie to him suddenly. John raised an eyebrow as he noticed that she was now biting her bottom lip as well. She was nervous.
"Really?" John rhetorically asked as he crossed his arms over his chest.
"Look, I know where you're going to go with this and I just..." Shayera took a deep breath as she looked back up at the Green Lantern, "I don't know if we can ever go back to that John. So much happened between us. It's not like back then when things were much more simple."
"Simple?" John asked with humor laced into his tone. "Says the one who initially stated things were not that simple."
Shayera lightly growled through her teeth and rolled her eyes, "You know what I meant you jackass. Back then we hadn't broken each other hearts. I didn't destroy the trust you had in me. We didn't have a supposed destiny looming over our heads that practically dictates that we're supposed to be together. Back then it was just you and me and nothing else." She then released a heavy sigh, "So much bullshit happened over these past three years."
John couldn't necessarily argue with her on that. It had been enough of a roller coaster ride just dealing with the Thanagarian Invasion, her return to the Justice League, meeting their future son, and wrapping his mind around them being potentially reincarnated from a time long forgotten.
John deeply exhaled, "Well, how about this? You and I can grab a cup of coffee up at the Watchtower and just talk about things. I mean, I still consider us to be friends at the very least so just a little friendly chat to clear the air a bit. What do you say?"
Shayera was silent for well over a minute before she lightly sighed, "Alright fine, we can talk but we're skipping the coffee. I'll meet you up there in like fifteen...twenty minutes."
John nodded with a light smile, "Deal."
Shayera drummed her fingers against the table as she waited in the cafeteria. Shayera never had a problem saying no before and she didn't understand why she suddenly had a problem saying it to John earlier. Everything seemed to be harder to do around him. Even thinking straight was hard to do around him. Shayera noticed how irrational she still acted around him.
Shayera was now regretting that she agreed to this. She hesitantly looked towards the doors of the cafeteria and sighed. John was late. Perhaps she could just leave before he got there. She figured that she could easily make up some type of excuse afterwards. Bank robbery, nuclear bomb, or mutant frog-people trying to take over the world. Shayera rolled her eyes to herself at her last idea. She clearly was spending too much time with Wally lately.
Breathing in deeply one last time, Shayera shook her head to clear her thoughts. She was going to give him one more minute. If he wasn't in the cafeteria by then she'd just hightail it out of there. She could just use the excuse that he was late and that she simply didn't want to wait around for him. After all, she was notorious for being highly impatient.
Shayera's breath caught in her throat when John walked into the cafeteria not even ten seconds later. She swallowed and considered the notion of hiding underneath the table for a mere moment. She saw as he looked around until he noticed her in the corner of the room and lightly smiled as he began to briskly walk towards her.
"Fuck," Shayera mumbled under her breath. She then lightly narrowed her eyes as she carefully watched John sit across from her, "You're late."
In the silence that followed her statement, John took in her appearance. He noted that she looked a little tired but that wasn't unusual for the Thanagarian as she normally ran herself ragged. She had looked just as tired as before they had been sent out on that mission. He then noticed how her eyes were trained on him. Shayera just watched and dissected him with those keen and observant eyes of hers. He focused once again on her eyes. He saw the guardedness and hesitation that filled them and that frustrated him. John tried not to notice his own awareness of her. The way his body had both tensed and relaxed upon seeing her. The way his stomach had clenched when he sat across from her or how his heart had fluttered slightly. No, he tried not to notice all of that. They were only here to talk.
Yet, he still couldn't stop himself from staring. Apart from her earlier statement, she said nothing else. She hadn't moved even a centimeter. She then averted her gaze and bit her bottom lip. He could tell that she was becoming unnerved.
John rubbed the back of his neck as he looked down at the table and cleared his throat, "Yeah um...sorry about that. I got stopped by Wally in the hallway and you know how that goes Shay."
The resulting silence was palpable. Neither of them had missed what he had just called her. As John berated himself for it, Shayera tried to calm the quickening beat of her heart. She knew that nothing had changed. It was nothing to be excited about. He always used to call her that.
Shayera lightly cleared her throat before she quietly murmured, "It's fine."
John curtly nodded and gave her a small smile. She wasn't being antagonistic, despite still not looking at him, so John relaxed a bit. Perhaps this talk wouldn't be as bad as he thought after all.
Shayera felt John looking at her and she became more unnerved by the second. She needed to get out of there. She couldn't stand to be in the same room as John without thinking back to everything that had happened over the past three years. It was killing her and she needed to get away from it all. She'd seen enough of John for one day. She still couldn't face him. He had hurt her too much and she had hurt him too much. Shayera then frowned. She couldn't avoid this; no matter how much she wanted to runaway. She couldn't do that this time. This was one of those issues that Shayera knew she needed to face head on.
Shayera slowly looked back up at John before she raised an eyebrow, "You gonna stare at me all day or what?"
John lightly snorted back a chuckle at her usual snarky tone. She was at least trying, in her own way, to lighten the mood. "I was thinking of maybe going with that option at first. Though I don't think us just staring at each other will do either of us any good. Seems a bit counterproductive. I mean unless you want us to awkwardly stare at each other."
"You drive a hard bargain," the Thanagarian sarcastically retorted. "You have a valid point though."
"So," John slowly started. "Which one of us is going to start this?"
"I guess I will," Shayera quietly said as she folded her hands on top of the table. "I don't even know where to start honestly. I guess I'm sorry about...everything. I never meant to hurt you like that. I wanted to tell you about Hro and why I was really on Earth." She then looked down at her hands before sighing, "I just never knew how to tell you. It wasn't something that I could just bring up in a normal conversation. That and I thought I could just ignore it for a bit longer. Before I knew it there was the Thanagarian Empire sitting at Earth's doorstep. At that point it was too late for me to explain anything."
John was silent for a moment before he exhaled deeply through his nose and nodded, "I understand Shayera and you don't need to apologize. I forgave you a long time ago for what happened. It took me a while to get through the emotions and the pain but eventually I got myself to the point that I could forgive you. I mean you were lied to as well. You didn't know the scale of what was happening. In the end you were the one who got screwed over the worst. The people of Earth don't know what you sacrificed to save them and this planet."
"One life for another I suppose," Shayera stated with a humorless chuckle. "Not that it matters. I doubt those humans would care one way or another if they knew the whole story. All they know is that I'm the traitor. All the Thanagarians know is the same as well."
"That's not fair to you though," John said.
Shayera shrugged, "Honestly that's the least I deserve but we're not here to take pity on me for my own stupidity."
"Right," John slowly agreed. "So I'll ask you this then. Why were you avoiding me?"
Shayera's eyes narrowed at the question as she finally looked up at him. "Why?" She repeated incredulously. "You damn well know why, John. You're a goddamn idiot if you don't know." She shook her head in disbelief. She wasn't about to let him play innocent in all of this. In her point of view, he was the main problem.
John crossed his arms expectantly, waiting for her to explain. He knew he was being unfair. He did know exactly why, but in an odd way, he needed to have her say it.
"I was avoiding you because of how much you hurt me," she stated.
"Shayera..." John began.
"No, let me finish. You wanted to know why and you will," Shayera said with a light scowl. "I still loved you. When I came back here, to the Justice League, you wouldn't even talk to me after I ki...put down Grundy. You never acknowledged me; it was like I didn't exist and you didn't even miss me. You didn't even have the decency to tell me that you were dating someone else. Wally had to tell me. After everything we went through over the years...you ignored my feelings for you and your own for me and that hurt the most. I understand that you needed to move on after what I did to you and I honestly wished that you would have been able to. I understand that more than anyone else in the world. But in the end you even dragged Mari through all of this. She never deserved that John," Shayera quietly said with a sigh. She was beginning to wish this was a bar and not the Watchtower's cafeteria. "Not that it matters, I continued to love you anyway. And not once, not ever, have you had the decency to admit what you did was wrong. Not once have you offered me an explanation or an apology. How was I supposed to feel? How was I supposed to sit next to you at those bullshit founder meetings and pretend that it didn't hurt? Pretend that I didn't love you? Pretend that I knew I didn't mean anything to you? It's not like you weren't around and I could just push my feelings to the back of my mind. No instead I had to walk around the Watchtower and Metro Tower every damn day and see your damn face and be reminded of what I couldn't have."
"Shayera...I didn't..." John attempted to interrupt. He didn't want to hear the pain in her voice anymore. He could feel the pain she was expressing and his heart hurt because he didn't want her to feel this way. He cared too much about her and she needed to know that. She had to understand that.
"I said let me finish. What I don't..." the Thanagarian swallowed before shakingly exhaling. "What I don't understand John is why I didn't matter to you. Why my feelings didn't matter. Why you don't feel like you at least owe me an apology as well. All I wanted was for us to be together again but not like this. We're more apart than ever. There's this divide between us and I don't know how to fix it. I don't think we can fix it but I can't stop loving you and I just can't..." Shayera then paused before she continued, "I just want to know one thing. Was it all just out of spite John?"
John looked down at the table and frowned, "You thought that I didn't miss you after you left? I'll always regret that I had let you fly away that day. I agonized every day over where you were. I was scared to death that you had died somewhere without any of us knowing where to even find your body. Then you came back out of nowhere and...and I had to realize that things couldn't go back to how they were. I was with Mari and you...you weren't the same Shayera that I knew before. So I did what I thought was best for everyone involved. I avoided you as much as possible at first. Then I found out about Warhawk and that made everything even more complicated. I did love Mari but not like how I loved...still love you. Me avoiding you wasn't about what I didn't feel for you. It was about what I couldn't allow myself to feel for you. No matter how much it hurt me to hurt you, I couldn't return your feelings then. Instead I made you hate me in the end."
"You could never do that," Shayera softly replied. When the Thanagarian saw the Green Lantern's perplexed look she continued, "Make me hate you. Sure I'm mad as all hell at you but I could never hate you John. That's the craziest part of all of this. I just can't stop myself from loving you, no matter what you do to me. You could runaway from me to the other end of the universe and I would still love you."
"I do still love you too Shayera. No matter how much I had avoided you back then, I still loved you even then. I just didn't know how to say any of this to you while I was with Mari. I never wanted for you to feel like you didn't matter to me at all." John deeply sighed as he looked up at the ceiling for a moment before looking back down at her, "I didn't think it would have been fair to Mari for me to just dump her like that and immediately go back to you. That and I...I was enjoying being with Mari at the time honestly. That and I thought that you needed your space. You were still figuring things out and where you belonged within the Justice League and on Earth. I wanted so badly to be with you and seeing Warhawk only reminded me of that. I know I went about it the wrong way Shayera and I'm...I'm sorry what I did to you. It wasn't fair or right."
Shayera was silent before she lightly smirked, "I still can't believe that you would have talked me into that."
John raised an eyebrow, "Talked you into what?"
"Naming our kid Rex," she lightly snorted. "I get it that it's because of Metamorpho but still. Isn't that what you name a dog?"
John rolled his eyes, "There's plenty of people with that name Shayera." He then paused, "I never told you Warhawk's name. How did you?"
"Bruce told me," Shayera stated with a light frown as she leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms over her chest. "That's all he would tell me. Rex Stewart, future member of the Justice League. He also told me that it would be better that I didn't know too much about the future so he wouldn't divulge into anything else."
"Well, with Bruce, guess that couldn't be helped," John muttered with an eyeroll.
"So," Shayera tentatively began. "Where do we go from here? I mean besides not avoiding each other anymore obviously."
"Well I mean," John scratched the back of his head and looked away. "I love you and you love me. All we could try to do is try to learn and move on."
Shayera lightly frowned, "And there you go again. You didn't even wait a week after Mari had left you to try to get back together with me. Is that all I am to you now? Your plan to defy destiny didn't work so now you have to go with Plan B?"
John as well frowned, "That's not true Shayera. I asked myself multiple times over these past three years what would I do if I hadn't known the future. If I never knew that Rex existed would I still have questioned being with Mari. Every time I ask myself that I come up with the same answer. I would have questioned it and honestly...I knew I was never going to be able to stay with Mari in the long run and Mari had been right. She had been the rebound girl. I used Mari to get over the pain that you had caused me. I did stay with Mari to spite you. I'm not proud of it but that's the truth. I know you did the same with Carter."
Shayera let out an exasperated sigh, "Carter wasn't my boyfriend. We went on one date and we...the rest doesn't matter."
John raised an eyebrow, "The rest of what exactly?"
"I...um..." Shayera swallowed as she looked away. "I might have slept with Carter after that date to spite you as well."
"You slept with him?" John incredulously asked. "He was your stalker Shayera and you didn't even know him. How can you have sex with someone that you don't even know?"
Shayera lightly scowled, "Oh of course you have a problem with the fact that I slept with Carter. You don't think it bothers me at all that you slept with Mari?"
"Don't try to turn this around because that's completely different," John insisted. "I was dating Mari. You weren't dating Carter by your own admission."
"Still you slept with her too," Shayera rolled her eyes. "Besides we were hardly dating for three weeks before we slept together for the first time John."
"At least we were dating Shayera," John crossed his arms over his chest with an unamused look. "I can't believe you did something like that. What even made you think it was an okay idea to sleep with your stalker to begin with?"
"Well it's not like I could have slept with you," Shayera pointed out as she rolled her eyes once more. "Plus all of that sexual frustration I had going on at the time had to go somewhere. Besides, Carter didn't seem to mind."
"Of course he didn't," John muttered as his frown deepened.
"Look," Shayera started. "It was a one-time fling between us, that's all. At least I got him to stop obsessing over me."
"Yeah Wally said he saw you dragging a half beaten to death Carter to J'onn," John stated.
"I did not," she let out a frustrated groan. "I swear Wally exaggerates too much. I ended up giving him a split lip. He was actually a lot harder to persuade than I thought he would have been. So I took the easier approach. I knocked him out and forced him to meet J'onn. Even with how I forced him to go, he and J'onn hit it right off. Plus it saved me the headache of having to deal with Carter anymore. Let me tell you that the whole Hawkman thing he had going on was annoying as all hell. At least he stopped that as well."
"You did always act like he was the plague whenever he was around," John humorously said. "And here I thought you tried to stay clear of me. I've got nothing on Carter apparently."
Shayera lightly smirked and rolled her eyes, "Trust me you've got plenty on him."
The two then fell silent for a few minutes. Neither of them knew what to say or do next. They awkwardly sat and refused to even make eye contact with each other.
The silence was broken as John sighed, "Look Shayera I want to have another go at this...with us. I don't want to do it because of some destiny bullshit. I want to be with you because I love you."
"And how are we supposed to get past everything that happened?" Shayera asked, her tone full with doubt. "You saw the future. You saw Rex. We both know how this is going to go."
"Like I said earlier we just try to learn and move on. Besides it could have been a parallel universe for all we knew," John stated with a shrug. "Just because I saw Rex doesn't mean he'll exist. Hell for all we know we might date for a few months and call it quits. What I'm trying to say is that I don't want what I saw in the future to dictate what I try to do or want with my life anymore. I'll make those decisions myself. I want to be with you regardless of whatever the future might hold Shayera. I just want to know if you feel the same."
Shayera swallowed as she looked down. As much as she wanted to be with John, she also wanted Rex as well. Though she considered John's point. There was nothing set in stone that Rex Stewart would exist. There was also the possibility that John was also right that they wouldn't be able to rekindle their relationship and that it ultimately wouldn't work out. Though the other consideration was perhaps Rex wouldn't exist but another child would or they would remain together and not have any children in the end. Shayera had already contemplated the possibility that John could have damaged the timeline by staying with Mari. Perhaps they were already supposed to be together and they had missed their opportunity to have Rex.
"Shayera?" John's voice cut into her train of thought and forced her to shake her head.
"I..." Shayera found herself wavering. She momentarily looked away and bit her bottom lip. Shayera also knew that this could also be the road that eventually lead to her having Rex as well. She had to take her chances. Even if she didn't have Rex at least she would still have John potentially. That in itself gave her some peace of mind. She lightly nodded before sighing and looking back at him, "You're right. I don't want some dumbass destiny bullshit being the reason we're together. We both love each other and we want to be together again. That's all the reason we should need."
John found himself lightly smiling, "That's what I was hoping to hear."
Shayera smirked, "I don't know what else you would have expected for me to say."
"I shouldn't have expected anything else." The Green Lantern then went silent as he contemplated his next idea. He now felt like he was a freshman in high school, asking a girl out for the first time. "So I was thinking."
"Careful with that Lantern."
John's heart skipped a beat. He couldn't remember the last time he had heard her call him that. Shayera had never been one to use pet names. The closest thing to a pet name she had used for him was whenever she had called him Lantern. John didn't know how to describe it but the tone she would use whilst saying it was different to anything else she had ever said.
"Anyway," John began. "Last time I checked the schedule neither of us had monitor duty tonight or tomorrow morning."
Shayera lightly chuckled, "We're hardly back together for a minute and you're already asking me out on a date."
John shrugged, "Well I mean, what else are we supposed to do with a fully charged power ring?"
"Are you going with this where I think you are?" Shayera asked with a raised eyebrow. She was hoping that was where John was planning on taking her. She desperately needed a heavy drink after all of this.
"Shayera, you should know where I'm going with this by now. You're a smart woman; I think you already figured it out."
"Yeah, I think I did. Third Moon of Goltos?"
John nodded with a smirk, "Third Moon of Goltos."