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Cassie wakes up in the middle of the night with a dead boyfriend and nearly sobs herself sick before she remembers Kon isn't dead.
Or–she thinks he isn't dead. She thinks.
She saw him today, she reminds herself, face buried in her pillow to muffle the sobs, because fuck forbid her mom hears her. She saw him today at the beach, and he'd grinned at her in the bright afternoon sunlight, and then he and Bart had torn off together at super-speed and Bart had spent half an hour trying to teach him how to run fast enough to run on water without breaking surface tension and they’d both gotten soaked, and she and Tim had waited back on the shore and watched their dead friends who weren't dead laugh and yell and splash each other and act like idiots together.
He'd looked happy. She'd been happy. It'd been a good day, and she'd barely thought about them being dead at all.
So why did she just wake up sobbing again?
Cassie nearly smothers herself with her damn pillow and her tears soak all the way through her pillowcase, and she shudders helplessly through the body-wracking sobs. Kon is dead. Bart is dead.
They're not dead.
But they did die.
She tries to stop crying. Tries to tell herself to calm down and go back to sleep. She has class tomorrow morning. She has to not come downstairs for breakfast having sobbed her eyes out again. Mom won't understand. She'll get upset. She won't get it.
Cassie doesn't even get it.
Kon's alive. Bart's alive. She saw them this afternoon, laughing in the sun and acting ridiculous. She'd laughed too. So had Tim. She'd barely thought about the cult or the cloning lab or any of it at all. About any imposters or liars or mistakes that they’d made, or Match's cracked, deteriorating skin and dulled eyes, or Inertia’s vicious smirk, or . . .
They'd all laughed today.
They'd all laughed today, and now she's crying so hard she feels like she's about to puke.
She has class in the morning. She has class in the morning and a meeting with her advisor and a paper to work on and so much to do and has to act normal for her mom and her school friends and–and–
And Kon is dead. And Bart is dead. And Tim is losing his mind and Cissie and Anita and Greta all left them and even Slobo is long, long gone and she's–
Cassie rips her pillow in half.
She needs to see Kon, she thinks, and then she's out the window. She's only wearing flimsy sleep shorts and a Summer Games T-shirt she got for free at some random event of Cissie's and her hair's probably a rat's nest, but she doesn’t care. She needs to see Kon. She needs to see him right now.
She needs to know that he’s okay.
She needs to know that he’s okay.
Please, please let him be okay.
Cassie is halfway to Smallville before it occurs to her that Kon might be crashing at the Tower or hanging out in Gotham with Tim or goofing off on the opposite side of the globe with Bart–before it occurs to her that she could’ve just called him–but by then she’s halfway to Smallville and she can’t bring herself to go back for her phone.
She could say his name. If he’s awake, he might hear her.
But if she says his name and he doesn’t hear her, and doesn’t come . . .
She’s not going to be able to handle that, if he doesn’t come.
So she doesn’t say his name, and she doesn’t go back for her phone, because maybe his is on silent and he wouldn’t answer anyway, because if he doesn’t answer for some reason she’ll lose her mind, because because because–
It’s too far to Smallville, but next door would be too far right now. She just flies as fast as she can, faster than she even thought she could, and doesn’t think. She flies and she flies and she doesn’t think and she doesn’t–she doesn’t–
And then there’s a blur in the air and a moment later, something hits her head-on.
She hears the sonic boom right after she registers the familiar and long-lost arms snapping around her, and then she bursts into tears.
“Cassie!” Kon says, sounding alarmed. “What’s wrong?!”
She could explain the nightmare. Explain the grief, and how it was that year without him. Explain what he missed and what she lost and what she and Tim did to each other, and how Bart vanished from their lives and then vanished from the world, and a thousand other things.
“You’re dead,” she sobs instead, and clings to him with every drop of her enhanced strength. He can take it. Tim or Bart or Cissie couldn’t, Greta or Anita couldn’t, but Kon can. The real Kon. Not an imposter. Not a lie or a trick or anyone else. Not even Match, who could take an embrace like this too.
Just Kon, exactly who he always was and completely unchanged. Like he didn’t die at all. Like nothing ever happened.
Like nothing happened at all.
“Cassie,” Kon repeats, and he buries his face in her hair and squeezes her so tight. Tighter than anyone else ever could; tighter than anyone else would ever want to. Only Kon ever wanted to hold onto her this tight.
It wasn’t enough to let her keep him, wasn’t enough to keep him here at all, but it’s still the truth.
And now he’s back. Like he just went away for a weekend; like he just had some random adventure running around saving Hypertime or had a never-ending party in outer space to make or got a little lost on an island full of forgotten genetic experiments, and then came back. Like he was always that close, always would’ve dropped it all to come home if she’d just thought to call, just remembered to bring her phone, just said his name, and was always going to.
Like he didn’t even want to leave at all.
Cassie sobs harder and digs her fingers into Kon’s back. She thinks she hears his shirt rip a little, but she can’t make herself care about that even though she knows she should. He’s wearing pajama pants and one of his million S-shield T-shirts and the moon-lit high-altitude air is cold but he feels as warm as if he’s been laying out in the sun; like she interrupted him in the middle of a beach day and not the middle of the night.
He must’ve heard her heartbeat, she’s distantly aware. Must’ve heard whatever it did when she’d woken up to him being dead/alive and then torn off towards Kansas. Must’ve heard how fast it was moving.
Heard her coming for him.
She doesn’t know how to explain to him that she always will.
Except she didn’t always.
She let him go. He was dead, and she let herself move on. It hurt, and it took too long, but . . . but she let herself do it. She let herself grieve him, or at least start to. Accepted that he was gone, and that she wouldn’t ever see him again.
She let herself grieve him, and then he came back with the same bright grin and sweet smile and cocky smirk as before, like he hadn’t even been gone. Like no time had even passed at all.
I know, Cass. Isn’t it cool?
He feels so warm. Yellow-sun warm, here and solid and real, not a trick or a trap, not a mistake or a misassumption. Not a lie.
She loves him so much, and she thought she’d never see him again. She gave up on ever seeing him again.
And then he finally, finally came back.
Cassie doesn’t know what to think about that. She and Tim both tried so hard to get Kon back, to hold onto what little they could of him, but he came back on his own time and in his own way and only after they’d both long since given up. Only after.
She doesn’t even know what she would’ve done, if one of them had managed it. If the cult had brought him back. If Tim had made someone. If . . .
What would she have done? What would any of them have done?
And what would Kon have done, when he’d found out what they had?
She can’t imagine it. She can’t . . .
Kon keeps hugging her. Doesn’t let up at all; doesn’t stop even for a moment. Just holds her tight in his arms and lets her cry all over him and rip his shirt, and stays sun-warm and present and alive.
He was dead, and now he’s not.
Except he is, because his body is in the Fortress, waiting the thousand years it’s going to take him to come back to them. But he’s also already here in her arms, real and alive and real and alive.
He’s waiting to come back, and he’s already here.
And Cassie stopped waiting for him.
She doesn’t know if that’s something she needs to ask forgiven for or something he’d even want an apology for. She doesn’t know what he thinks about that at all.
She doesn’t even know if he really understands, because she hasn’t told him. Hasn’t been able to find the words. After everything they’ve been through, how is she supposed to admit she gave up on him?
How can she look him in the eye and tell him that? How can . . . ?
Kon squeezes her tighter, and Cassie sobs harder.
“I missed you so much,” she chokes helplessly, but that’s not the part she needs to be sorry for. That’s not what she needs to tell him. That’s not–“I–I–Kon, I–”
“Cassie,” Kon repeats again, and presses a kiss against her temple. He still hasn’t apologized to her for dying. Not really.
She hasn’t apologized to him for giving up on him either, but it’s . . . different.
Kon’s not sorry for dying, after all. Sorry for hurting them, sorry for leaving them, sorry for missing that year when they needed him, but not sorry for what he did. Not sorry at all for that. He did what he thought he had to do. He did what he did have to do.
But Cassie is so, so sorry for giving up on him. Even though she needed to, even though she should’ve done it so much sooner, even though–even though–
She shouldn’t have given up on him. She shouldn’t have done it at all.
But she’d needed to. She hadn’t–she hadn’t just been able to wait for him. Hadn’t been able to be patient, or . . . or . . .
If she’d just been patient, he would’ve come back to them just the same, and she wouldn’t have hurt anyone in the process. Wouldn’t have hurt herself in the process.
Wouldn’t have to be here in his arms right now, knowing she’d given up on him.
“Kon,” she chokes, and Kon squeezes her all the tighter. “Kon, I’m sorry, I–I thought you weren’t coming back! I thought–I thought I’d never see you again!”
“I know,” he says, and she feels the all-over pressure of his TTK wrapping her up just as tight as his arms. Like he doesn’t want to let go of her. Like he never would, or will, or . . .
He didn’t want to leave them. He didn’t want to die.
“I gave up on you,” Cassie sobs into his shoulder, clinging to him all the tighter. “I gave up on you! I didn’t–I thought–!”
“I’m not mad about that,” Kon says, his TTK gripping her even tighter. “You think I’m mad about that?”
“I’m mad about that!” Cassie shouts, then bursts into helpless sobs all over again. She gave up on him. She gave up on him. What if he’d needed her? What if he’d been waiting all that time, some part of him? What if that part of him is waiting right now, locked up in the Fortress? What if–what if–
She doesn’t even know. She doesn’t know. She loves him so much, and she gave up on him.
How can she say she ever loved him at all, if she did that?
How can she?
“You’re mad?” Kon says, and then he leans back and wipes the tears off her face and meets her eyes. His are so, so blue. So impossibly, incredibly blue.
And so pained, too.
She loves him. She loves him so much.
But she didn’t love him enough.
But he’s back, and he came running when he heard her coming. He ran across the water with Bart under the sun this afternoon, and he laughed, and they all laughed, and he’s holding her in his arms now.
He’s here now, and all she can feel is guilt and grief and pain.
She fought so hard to get him back, and he only came back once she’d finally given up on him. Once she’d hurt herself, and so many other people. Once she’d just about ruined her life over not giving up on him.
Once she’d finally started to get it back.
“I’m furious,” Cassie chokes, fresh tears spilling down her face. Kon wipes them away again; keeps wiping them away like more aren’t already coming, already making it pointless, already wasting all his effort.
He came back to them. He made it back to them.
And she couldn’t even wait for him.
“Why?” Kon says.
“I gave up on you,” Cassie says. “I gave up. I moved on. I . . . I stopped missing you as much. Didn’t think about you as much. Didn’t . . .”
“I wanted you to do that,” Kon says, and wipes her tears away again. His expression is tight, and his eyes are even more pained. “I’d always have wanted you to do that. You know that, right? I want what’s best for you, Cassie.”
“It was so selfish,” Cassie says, swallowing roughly and squeezing her own eyes shut. “I gave up on you because it was–because I thought it was best for me. I thought it was . . . was best.”
“It was,” Kon says. She chokes on another sob.
“You being out of my life?” she asks helplessly. “Accepting you being out of my life? That’s best?!”
“Well, not the first part,” Kon says, and lets out a weak, wry little laugh. He rubs his thumbs underneath her eyes very, very gently. He doesn’t have calluses. He never has. She forces her eyes back open to look at him, and tears spill out again. His own are still pained. Still sad. His hands are still on her face, and his TTK is still wrapped around her, and he’s still here. He’s not dead.
But he is dead, all the same. His body is in the Fortress. He isn’t going to come back to life for another thousand years.
Even though he’s alive right now, sunlight-warm and holding her and telling her everything she doesn’t deserve to hear. Saying all the right things. All the things she doesn’t deserve.
It doesn’t matter if he says the right things, when she doesn’t deserve to hear them. It doesn’t matter if he says it’s okay.
She knows she did something awful to him, and that’s all that she can think about.
That, and his limp and lifeless body underneath her hands, no warmth in it at all.
“I let you go,” she says.
“You should’ve,” he says.
“I gave up on you,” she says.
“I don’t care,” he says.
Cassie doesn’t understand how he couldn’t, but she still doesn’t deserve it. Couldn’t ever. Can’t ever. Not anymore, if she ever did at all.
She doesn’t deserve anything from Kon. She didn’t even deserve to see him laughing in the sun this afternoon, much less to have his hands on her face and his TTK embracing her right now. She doesn’t–
“Cassie,” he says, tight and pained, and then he throws his arms around her again and presses his sunlight-warm body in against hers and kisses her like she doesn’t deserve. She sobs into it, once, and then grabs onto him twice as hard as before and kisses him back.
She’s so selfish. She gave up on him. She moved on from him. She’s so, so selfish.
And he doesn’t care.
And if he doesn’t care . . .
She doesn’t deserve it, for him not to care. Doesn’t deserve his smile or his laughter or his arms reaching out for her, or to see him on the beach in the sunlight, or to hear all the right things from him. Doesn’t deserve for him to want the best for her.
But he’s here, and he wants to be here, and she wants him to have everything he wants.
Even if she doesn’t deserve to be something that he still wants.
If he dies again, if she dies . . . she’ll wait, the next time. She’ll wait, whether it’s for him to come back to her or for him to catch up to her. She won’t go without him. Won’t accept the loss of him as anything more than temporary.
If she didn’t love him enough the last time . . .
Well, this time she’ll just love him more.