I just want to say thanks to all of you who've read this, and an extra special thank you to those who have given me such a positive response. It's great to hear what you think, as well as helpful. I'm really grateful! Now before I get all mushy, have Artemis's chapter!

Artemis awoke slowly.

She took her time scrubbing the sleep out of her eye and yawning as she sat up. For a very brief moment she wasn't sure why the sleeping bodies of her teammates surrounded her.

Then she remembered.

She turned her head to the door, finding herself quite sore and aching. Without trying the handle she knew it was locked, the entrance monitor blinking for a password. Sighing with resignation she turned back to the sleeping team. M'gann was by her side with her back against the wall, curled in a tight ball. Kaldur, who must have joined them later that night, was to M'gann's right, stretched along his side with his arms folded beneath his head and the length of each leg along the ground. To his right was Superboy, who slept on his back, legs perfectly straight. He must have begun to break his pod-sleeping habit, though, as one arm lay across his chest and the other bent back at the elbow, resting just above his head. Wally was on his left—Artemis's right—sleeping just as was to be expected, sprawled and bent like a pretzel, taking up more room than his lanky limbs actually needed.

A mixture of affection and patronization, she ruffled his bed head to wake him. He groaned as his eyelids pried open. He got to his knees, settling his haunches on his heels, eyes blinking rapidly. "Dizzy," he said.

"I knew you would be, you need food. C'mon," she whispered. She held out her hand to pull him to his feet. They tiptoed towards the kitchen, holding their breath in tight lungs.

She released the air with a sigh as they rounded the corner to a long corridor. Wally's stomach rumbled fiercely and he gave a sheepish grin. He looked weak. She shook her head. "You should have eaten last night."

"Usually I notice after three hours at the most," he said. "But I wasn't hungry. Anything I ate probably would have come right back up."

She set her jaw, understanding. "Still should have eaten."

Turning the corner, they were bombarded with the smell of sweet maple bacon and the warmth of the stovetop and the sliding of a spatula over a frying pan.

"'Morning," Black Canary said, sliding a plate of still-steaming eggs and bacon and toast along the counter top, which Wally claimed for himself with a cry of pleasure.

"'Morning," Artemis tried, sitting down slowly onto one of the bar stools, accepting her own plate of breakfast and a glass of orange juice along with it. "Thanks?"

"I figured none of you were—"

"Seconds please!" Wally grinned like a four-year-old, toast crumbs meshing with freckles at the corners of his mouth.

She dumped more food on his plate before returning to Artemis. "As I was saying, I had a feeling you guys weren't going to put food very high up on your priorities list."

Artemis chewed slowly on her toast, peeling away the crust with her teeth, contemplating how to approach the subject. "The door was locked this morning," she noted.

Black Canary nodded, taking a sip of her coffee. "Batman took Robin home late last night."

"When will they be back?" she asked immediately, her voice pinching with anxiety.

"I don't know. Batman left mission assignments to me for the day. I imagine I'll get an update at the end of the day, but I can't say for sure." Black Canary's watchful blue gaze struck Artemis with a great self-consciousness. "He didn't look good, to say the least, but he must have been stable enough to move," she answered Artemis's silent question.

Artemis bit her lip and pushed away her food, hardly half-eaten.

Black Canary dropped her forearms to the countertop, leaning in to speak at eye level. "It comes with the territory, Artemis," her voice was quiet, firm but understanding. "We do this inspite of the danger that constantly surrounds us, we do it so often we get used to it. But the danger is still very real. Tragedy tends to be close at hand for all of us. We have to stay strong."

Artemis's hands clenched tightly around her glass of orange juice. "If . . . if you get an update, will you tell us?"

Black Canary nodded.

"Artemis," Wally said, spinning to face her. "Should we wake the others up?"

She glanced down at herself, noticing she was covered in grime and sweat and her costume was torn up rather generously, and made a face. "I think we should shower, maybe change, first, let them sleep a little longer," she said, noticing the clear line where the dirt ended and where his cowl had began, though it hung loose around his neck now.

"Hmm," he agreed, trying to rub away the dust, only managing to spread it around his face.

The stood up from the table and bid Black Canary a good bye, headed off for their rooms.

"Better?" she asked Wally.

He paused. "I'm not hungry any more."

"Yeah, me neither," she folded her arms over her chest. Despite the full feeling in her stomach she still felt quite sick. They walked the rest of the way in silence.

Upon entering her room, Artemis made a beeline for the bathroom, tossing her destroyed uniform in the corner and twisting on the hot water. The liquid that pooled around her feet was black with dirt and explosive residue. She gritted her teeth as the water began to sting the shallow scratches that raked across her back.

But what hurt most was the terrible aching in her chest, like each breath fought against a thousand pounds weighing on her chest. Artemis didn't cry much, she was tough and hard to crack. She had forgotten what a miserable feeling it produced the next day.

When she was finally clean, scrubbed bright red, she shut off the water and wrapped herself in a towel. The frigid mirror kissed her fingertips as she absently doodled away the fog. Her heart sank upon noticing her tracings; they held an uncomfortable similarity to Robin's mask. She wiped it away furiously before deciding she needed to dress quickly.

The tears were welling up, creeping higher and higher in her throat, as though she were drowning. It made her angry, which in turn only made the water rise faster, but she absolutely refused to cry. She threw on her uniform as quickly as she could; being alone was dangerous.