interment - alli snow

He brought her coffee - black, but decaffeinated - from the kitchen to where she sat at the living room window, watching the streets of Metropolis awaken to new interest, new aftermath, new news. She thanked him absently, wrapping grateful hands around the warm ceramic mug. "And thank you," she said again after taking a sip, "for letting me stay here tonight."

'Tonight' was a misnomer. They had fought through the night; now the sun was rising over the city, over the crater she'd forged in the street. Nevertheless it was night, and she would sleep and leave when it was dark again.

He sat down in an armchair a few feet away, his white shirt and blue suit hued pink and purple in the post-dawn light. He held a drink of his own, in a matching mug emblazoned with the Daily Planet logo. "I already told you - you can stay here as long as you need."

Shayera shook her head minutely. She wouldn't make that mistake again. She's already worn out her welcome at Fate's; neither he nor his wife had told her as much, but it wasn't in their characters to say such a thing. Apt as she was at reading the signs, she knew that as soon as she had made the decision to try and save Grundy, she had given up what refuge they could offer her.

She had done all that she could in their presence, and it was time to move on.

One drawback of being an unemployable, traitorous exile, however, was that she had very few options to move on to. She'd almost been too proud - and too afraid - to accept Superman's offer, but she'd also been in no position to refuse.

Besides, she'd rather enjoyed the discomforted look on John's face when she'd said yes.

She took another drink. The coffee was hot, bitter - perfect. "Won't Lois be jealous?" she tried to tease.

He smiled around his mug. "Not if you give her the exclusive story."

Shayera shuddered involuntarily. Months of solitude with only Fate and Inza as company (and later AMAZO and the surly Aquaman) had done nothing to improve her social skills. "I... I don't know if I could do that."

The media was a shark tank of the highest order, and that was if they were ambivalent towards you. She'd seen it an hour ago - they hated her. Even if Lois was fair, others who analyzed and editorialized would not be so kind. There had been a time when she wouldn't have cared what they said, what they thought. They were, after all, strangers, and their opinions had no bearing on her existence.

And they haven't changed, she thought. But I have.

"It was just a joke," said Superman hastily, setting down his coffee and picking up his glasses. He put them on and underwent the final transformation; the Man of Steel became the Man of Print. "She won't mind. And I don't want you to feel that I'm pushing you out. Really - you need to come to these things in your own time."

She snorted into her beverage. "I've spent the last year trying to figure things out 'in my own time'. It didn't work. I don't need to find myself, because I'm not going to find anyone except the same old me. What I need to do is... something. Something useful. And the first thing I'm going to do is find a place of my own and..."

Her voice trailed off, determination weighed down by practicality.

Money. When she'd first come to Earth, she'd brought with her items - trinkets, really, from her homeworld, various metals and precious stones that they'd thought might fetch a good price without raising many questions. She'd pawned them off in New York for an exorbitant amount, which just went to show that something was worth what someone was willing to pay for it.

It had given her enough money to live on her own for some time, acting the part of the hero now and then. After all, if you were visibly different from the average human you were immediately noticed and noted, and everybody wanted instantaneous proof that you were either good or evil.

And of course she'd been so sure that she was good.

She'd done her job; she'd fulfilled her mission requirements by learning about this new world, and saved a few innocent lives when the opportunities presented themselves. And then one day she was summoned by a call from a Martian mind. She'd been invited to join a new league, a Justice League, and she would have considered it a gift from the heavens if she had believed in such things. Being in the League gave her star power - which she could have cared less about - but it also gave her credibility. If she had the trust of the Last Son of Krypton, if she could work in harmony with Gotham's mysterious Batman, if she knew the beautiful, the charming, the virtuous Princess of Themiscyra... how could she be anything but benevolent to the people of Earth?

How indeed.

She'd learned to love Earth and its people through the League, through Flash and Diana and of course John, through Superman although he wasn't exactly human, and even through Batman, although she had questions about his origins as well. J'onn had made her feel welcome like nobody else could, embracing her as a fellow expatriate, allowing her to spin out her lies until she almost believed them.

She had loved being Hawkgirl. Loved being a friend to people like these. Loved being a lover to a man like John.

And with her first glimpse of a Thanagarian ship in five years, she had forgotten about all of it.

This was her punishment, then. Reviled by the world, a cause for pity, a charity case, homeless if not for the grace of those to whom she had once been a friend.

Superman's voice was gentle. "If you're serious about rejoining the League, you'll have quarters on the Watchtower. And if you prefer to live on Earth... I'm sure Wayne Enterprises will take care of that aspect."

She suppressed another shudder, but only barely. "I suppose that would require telling him that I'm back."

He smiled faintly. "You've been all over the news for the last hour. He already knows. And," he added in a strangely wooden tone, "I'm sure he's already told Diana as well."

Her gaze drifted back towards the window. "They were the ones who voted me out."

Hesitant, reluctant, but unwilling to lie, he paused and then admitted, "Yes. I think for Bruce, it wasn't personal... and for Diana it was. Very much so."

Bruce and Diana. So casual, so normal. The thought of them hating her had left an empty ache in her heart for the last year. It throbbed now like an open wound. "I don't know if I can face them again."

Superman shifted uneasily in his seat. "You've faced a lot worse in the past," was his surprised answer.

She glanced back at him, at the morning sun reflecting off his glasses, and thought of the adversity she had faced before her betrayal, in the name of Thanagar and later in the name of the League. They had been horrible, yes, painful and rife with hardships, but nothing compared to seeing the hard look of condemnation in the eyes of someone whose opinion mattered. "You think I'm being a coward?"

He'd been leaning towards her, hands clasped on his knees almost plaintively; now he sat back, sighing. "What you did tonight was anything but cowardly."

Closing her eyes, screwing up her will, she forced it out. It needed to be said, because the old her would never have said it, and the old her was an abomination. "Superman... I was afraid."

"And you still did what you had to do. That's real heroism, Hawkgirl."

She winced at the name, the name that encompassed the lie. "Please... it's Shayera."

He leaned forward again. "And it's Clark."

He held out his hand to her, and for a long moment she stared at it warily, as though it were a snake that might bite. And then, slowly, she reached out her own hand, and clasped his in hers, and he shook it once.

She felt as though she were meeting a stranger for a first time. She didn't feel like herself, either, sitting in someone else's living room, wearing someone else's nightshirt, surrounded by the detritus of someone else's life. Yet this was still the man she had worked side-by-side with for two years, and deep down she was still the woman she was trying so hard not to be.

The End.