They say that time heals all wounds, and time is what made them strong in the first place. Five years had created a unique bond, intricately knitted together - and although it eventually unraveled into what seemed to be an irreparable mess, it never broke. Not really.

The threads only needed to be reassembled.

All the strands were there. Some were frayed and so ragged they could barely hold on, but there were still a few that hadn't been touched at all. Those were precious - and must be dealt with carefully.

They start out slow, tentative. There is a lot of work to be done, and neither of them wants to be the one to screw it up. They take baby steps. They don't avoid one another in the hallways of their new home, the Watchtower, like they did on Mt. Justice. They smile shyly in passing, hearts pounding like the nervous teenagers they once were, and Garfield rolls his eyes. He makes loud sounds of frustration, and after a few weeks he throws his hands in the air and cries out, "What is wrong with you two? Just kiss and make up already!" They blush a furious shade of crimson.

The two of them suspect Aqualad is in league with Garfield, as he pairs them together for missions on a mysteriously frequent basis. They are usually low-key stakeouts in the dead of night - very quiet, very intimate, just the two of them. Their teammates and friends hide cheshire cat grins when these missions are being dealt out; Robin and Batgirl often pass each other five dollar bills behind their backs.

The first night is a little awkward, the silence deafening and words hard to find, but most nights their targets don't show and eventually conversation becomes easier. At first they talk about work (as they jokingly refer to the Team as such) and their friends. Anything besides themselves, or the two of them, or anything resembling a label or status. After a while, their anxiety calms and they find themselves looking forward to time alone and the chance to reconnect, even if they aren't ready to delve back into the past. The past is painful, still leaves a welt that burns to the touch. Maybe it will never completely heal; they realize things will never be the way they used to be between them. The innocence is gone, but maybe something new can grow from ashes.

When in battle, they always have one eye looking out for the other. A quick save here, a combined attack when needed there, and occasionally jumping into the line of fire for one another. They do not baby each other - they've been on this team long enough to know that neither of them need to be coddled, but there have been a few close calls and they feel safer knowing that they are in each others' thoughts.

Four months pass before, completely out of the blue, Conner brings the past rushing back.

They're at the Watchtower, and it's been a quiet day. They have some down time before the team's debriefing later in the evening, and M'gann finds Conner at the observatory balcony. She knows that he must sense her presence, but he doesn't acknowledge her for a long minute. His arms hang loosely at his sides as he gazes out into space, his expression melancholy but conclusive. She is tempted to ask what he's thinking about, but she's seen that look before, whenever she was with La'gaan; his face that revealed so little, except for the broken heart he couldn't hide. She was afraid to break the silence, and afraid of what might follow it.

"Those first few weeks, I hated you, you know." He says bluntly. His voice is even, but his tone is one of quiet resolve. "I've never hated anyone before. Not even Luthor. But it was easy to hate you, for what you did."

M'gann feels hot tears spring to her eyes so quickly that they're dripping down her cheeks before she realizes she's crying. The guilt hits her all over again like a blow to the stomach, only this time it's so much worse because this is the first time he's admitted what she had so feared - what she'd already known.

"Then I was more hurt than angry for a little while." Conner continued. "I... went to a dark place. I disappeared for a little while - spent some time with the Kents. I don't know if you noticed I was gone. I think it must've been..." He takes a moment to count, his long fingers ticking the days. "-I guess a week or two. I don't really remember anymore." Conner's voice faded, his memories distracting him for a moment.

"And then I felt everything, and I didn't know what to do. I couldn't... I couldn't talk about it. Not even to Clark. The only one I wanted to talk to was you, but... but that was gone." His hands close into fists, but they are loose and non-threatening. "I think that's what really did it - the fact that I couldn't talk to you. Because all of it... It was all you. And I wanted nothing more than to fix it, to make things better and have it be us again, but..." His voice trails off, and M'gann understood.

She swallows hard and opens her mouth to speak, but Conner goes on.

"I want to say that I forgive you, but I don't think I can say those words. Because saying it... It's like saying that it doesn't matter anymore. And it'll always matter to me." He turns towards her, and she hastily wipes her eyes and crosses her arms as if to hold herself together. She is so ashamed, not for the first time.

"But I accept what happened, happened." Conner says. He takes a step forward. "I accept that it's in the past, and that you see your mistakes, and that you regret them." He hesitates, one arm half-reaching for hers, and lightly brushes her elbow before falling back to his side. Her skin tingles and an all-too familiar feeling flutters in her stomach, making it hard to breathe.

"I'm not going to dwell on it anymore. I'm done being angry. After today, we won't talk about what happened ever again. It's in the past, and I don't want to let it keep us apart anymore." He lowers his voice to almost a whisper, and, tenderly, he says -

"I don't hate you."

M'gann's heart skips a beat, and his words mean more to her than anything she's ever heard. Her lower lip quivers and her throat aches with emotion. She wants to say so much to him, but she knows that if she opens her mouth, even just to breathe, the floodgates will burst.

So she bravely meets his eyes, holds his gaze for an infinite moment, and nods quickly before turning on her heel and taking to the air like a bullet. Her vision is blurry, shapes and colors bleed into one another and lose their coherency. She isn't sure if she's happy or sad, or a combination of both. She smiles as she cries, and his words echo in her mind as the burden of their separation finally lifts off her aching shoulders.

They still have a long way to go, but for now, this is enough to keep her going.

They begin to seek one another out more often, and the tendrils of their relationship begin to mend quickly. It's not long before one is hardly ever seen without the other; they become "Conner and M'gann" again, and everyone smiles to themselves, muttering, "Just like old times..."

They are more than best friends, more than significant others, and yet not. The history is there, but it remains untouched and distant, put up on the highest shelf just barely out of reach. It's tempting and they want it badly, but neither are ready to reach that last inch and grab it. The pieces are like glass, fragile and already being delicately reassembled - one slip and everything might shatter. These things can rarely be mended twice.

But God, it's hard. Every day that passes feels like weeks. M'gann's heart aches with loneliness, and she misses him now eve more than when they were apart. To keep this remaining barrier between them filled with empty space where hands and hearts and touches should be is almost worse to endure, now that he is so often within her reach. Now, there is a chance when before there was nothing. The chance to regain what was lost fills her with hope, but she cannot act on it. After everything she's done, she knows she must let him come to her. She can't afford a single wrong move. Not now.

Conner did not lie - he has let go of his anger and his pain. But fear has taken its place, and he doesn't know how to conquer it. They have something good going now - something that has taken months to rehabilitate. He knows she is waiting for him, waiting for his move, but taking the plunge scares him more than anything else has in a long time. These waters are familiar; he knows them intimately, but they are different - and maybe that is what it ultimately comes down to. They are the same people, yet different from before. Five years of familiarity and security had unraveled, and their relationship has formed into something new made from the same pieces. Familiar, yet different.

He can destroy things, he can scream to the heavens, but he cannot openly express fear and fear is what keeps him from what he wants most. All he can do is wait for tomorrow - wait, and hope that he will no longer be afraid.

Eight months have passed when an anomaly is spotted in the Arctic, a whirlwind that appears out of nowhere. Everyone freezes when they hear the news, hearts in their throats, hardly daring to hope. Artemis is the first to sprint to the zeta tubes, Nightwing close behind. As the two of them are transported, the rest of the team follows, ignoring Batman's order to stay put and assess the situation. In one large group, they disappear in a brilliant flash of light.

When they make it to the frozen wasteland, everyone gasps and eyes widen. The wind howls and thick snowflakes attack from the heavens like bullets. Zatanna's soft voice utters a shielding spell that encompasses the entire team, plus one.

His uniform is in ribbons, his goggles shattered, he is skin and bones with a mop of long red hair covering his weathered face, but he is grinning as he sinks to his knees, panting hard for cold breath. Everyone sheds tears when Artemis falls to the snow and into his arms, crying and yelling and kissing him all at once.

As the rest of the team gathers around their friend who has somehow cheated death, Conner and M'gann hang back, still in shock. Conner takes her hand and squeezes gently, his breathing tight but a smile on his face. She returns a watery grin and leans her head against his shoulder. There are no words, and no words are needed. For the first time in more than half a year, sorrow leaves the hearts of each and every member of the Team.

It is almost two in the morning when Conner throws the covers off his bed in one careless sweep. He gets up and hastily pulls on a shirt, heart pounding and blood pumping. Pressing his thumb to a keypad opens the door, and his hands shake with adrenaline that surges through his veins and propels him down the long hallway of the Watchtower's living quarters. His bare feet pad softly on the cold floor, but he doesn't register the temperature nor the sound as he makes his way.

Wally is alive. He has come back from the dead; back to his family, his friends - back to Artemis. It should be impossible, what has happened to Wally, and yet here he few people get the chance to see their loved ones come back to them after tragedy strikes, and fewer get them back from the dead, even those with superpowers that defy the limits of life and death. Doing what they do, fighting the battles no one else can, there are too many opportunities for death to claim any one of them; too many chances that tomorrow may not come. Words may forever go unspoken, moments lost to regret ,and eternal heartache for things that could have been.

Conner will not let that happen with M'gann. He doesn't want to waste any more time. Too much of it has already passed in bitterness and grief.

He turns the corner, his skin tingling and burning all at once. He has almost reached her hall. Only one room is occupied tonight; a couple of yards and a door are all that stand between them now. He feels he may combust if he has to wait another second.

Another twenty yards, one last turn, and then he sees her. Her door has just slid closed and she is ten or so steps in his direction, her eyes wild with concern. She takes one look at him and is even more startled by the intensity burning in his eyes.

She walks quickly to him, morphing into her suit to prepare for battle. "I could feel you coming - what happened? Are we under attack? Who-" He hears her quick, sharp intake of breath and she stops dead in her tracks. Her eyes widen when they connect with his. He has just opened his mind to her, wholly and completely, and he lets his emotions run rampant through their link. Her eyes fall shut as she lets them fill her, and she has to support herself against the wall with one outstretched arm. His thoughts are so strong, so terribly fervent that she has trouble separating one from another, but she understands. After a few moments, she has to sever the link herself - the force coming from him is too overwhelming, and she breathes shuddering, uneven breaths.

After a moment, she slowly lifts her head and meets his gaze. His eyes blaze, and she feels she might melt from that one look alone. Heat pools in the pit of her stomach, a delicious heat that only he can keep from dying out, and her heart pounds with the tension that lingers in the air around them.

She waits for his move. She is so tired, and so ready, but she wants it to come from him.

Time seems to stand still. She knows his thoughts, knows what is going to come next, but she won't move an inch and Conner knows why. She's waited eight months for him, for this moment. She knows how she's hurt him and how he's needed time to come to terms with it, to move on from anger and hatred and remember how to love her again, to see if he ever could love her again. For six months he was haunted by pain. Eight more taught him how to heal. More than a year combined - and now, he doesn't want to be another second without her.

His face hardens with resolve and he takes three long strides in her direction. He can hear her heart thrumming in her chest, her breath catching in her throat, and the soft sound of desperation from deep within as he closes the space between them and crashes against her lips, a tidal wave finally breaking upon the shore.

They've barely made it into her room when Conner grabs her by the waist, both hands covering nearly the entire width, and pins her against the door that has just barely closed. The metal is shockingly cold against her burning skin and she gasps; his lips trail down her neck, and his hands are everywhere at once. Fingers slide roughly down the sleeves of her uniform, bunching it in fistfuls. M'gann takes his hands and positions him so that his palms are flat against the door, his body looming overtop of her. She bites her lip timidly, but this only makes him want her more. Then he sees her uniform begin to shrink. He follows the disappearing fabric as more and more of her emerald skin reveals itself to him until the bio-suit is nothing more than a loose-fitting black tshirt. His eyes widen like saucers as she slowly lifts her arms, limply resting them above her head against the door, waiting.

Conner doesn't hesitate. His fingers are quick but gentle as they slide under the hem of the shirt. He sinks to his knees and pushes the fabric up, his lips following each and every inch of the journey. Her navel quivers as he drags the tip of his tongue up her ribs in a fiery line, and she helps him remove her shirt the rest of the way, carelessly letting it fall to the floor.

M'gann buries her fingers in his hair as he busies himself with the curve of her hip; the jet-black tendrils are just as soft as she remembers. She shivers as he comes up, his cheek brushing the underside of her breast, and he wraps his arms around her bare back, cupping her shoulder blades in each large palm. M'gann yanks at the back of his shirt with both hands, struggling to pull it off without removing his lips from her neck, where he sucks her erratic pulse. She hisses when his tongue flicks the tender skin behind her ear and he easily shrugs out of the fabric in her distraction, clad only in his light gray sweatpants and her in absolutely nothing.

His chest is now fully exposed and she wastes no time reacquainting herself with every taut line, every inch of rock-hard impenetrable skin. Her fingers run lightly at first; feathery, intimate touches - then more urgently, leaning forward to leave her own trail along his body with open-mouthed kisses that leave her lips tinging with warmth. His skin is so hot - his Kryptonian physiology keeps his temperature well above his human half's limit, and she wants to feel his heat everywhere, all at once, the only source of fire her body can handle - the only kind she wants to burn in.

She rises to meet a searing kiss, and Conner hooks one leg around his waist, then the other. Her chest is flush against his, and she groans with pleasure.

Conner's eyes are dark with desire. Seeing her this way has always driven him crazy, but this time is different. There is an emotion in the way she moves; the way she sounds, the way she breathes; something terribly sad but wonderfully elated at the same time. And then he sees it: Her heart overflows with happiness, where before, she had hardly dared to believe this could be her reality once more - that he would ever let her in his arms again. And he wonders how he could've gone so long without this. Without her.

Conner carries her to the bed and gently places her beneath him, and through her intoxication, M'gann sees more than just desire in him. He hasn't looked at her this way in over a year, but she knows its meaning as clearly as she knows her own name.

He pins her arms above her head and kisses the inside of her wrist with a tenderness that makes her shiver all over. Everyone else on the team sees Conner as a powerhouse - one of their strongest hitters, able to take out an enemy with a single punch. None of them know this side of him - the intimate lover beneath his hard exterior. Only her. She'll never give him cause to leave again. She is his and he is hers. It's what has always been meant to be.

He kisses her deeply, wiping away a tear from her cheek with his thumb. His hand slides down her neck and runs curled knuckles down her breast. Her soft breaths are the only sounds he hears, whisper-like and beautiful. Her skin glows with a slight sheen and he can feel her body heat rising under his touch.

He dips his head suddenly and takes her in his mouth, swirling his tongue in small circles, faster as she moans her approval. She pulls his head flush against her, needing more, and then cries aloud with shock when she feels him slip one finger down between her legs. He begins to work the small bundle of nerves and her breath catches, her hand flies to cover her mouth, and when Conner curls his index finger inside, she loses it.

Her hands fly to the waistband of his sweatpants, pulling him forward as arms and legs and fingers blur together in a desperate effort to remove whatever remaining barriers are between them. Conner shucks the pants off and M'gann is breathless when his boxers are gone as well. She goes to lean backwards on the mattress, but Conner wraps his arms around her back and pulls her onto his lap. He's so hard, and she wants him.

Conner kisses her, his huge hands surprisingly fragile on her body - he has always been afraid of hurting her. She responds in kind, touching his face with gentleness and smiling as he groans. But their lust is strong, and they both want more.

M'gann lets him lift her from his lap, her hands coming to rest on his shoulders. She positions her knees so that they hover over each of his hips in anticipation. She takes a deep breath, and so does he. He slides into her slowly, and she exhales in one quick outtake, her body screaming with pleasure. She wraps her arms around his neck, pressing herself against him, and she feels him shudder once he has fully sheathed himself. They are still for a minute, regaining their breath and acclimating to one another after so long. His breath is hot on her neck, and she leans in to kiss him once, pulling his bottom lip softly. When he begins to move, the world disappears and there is nothing and no-one but them.

M'gann's moans intensify with each thrust, and when she matches him with her own hips he squeezes his eyes shut and lets out his own gutteral sound. She bites his shoulder, digging her fingernails into his back as a wave begins to build.

"Conner-" She moans; a strained sound deep in her throat. She pushes his hips deeper and increases their speed, urging him on. He pushes her down into the mattress and the angle increases his drive. He fingers her clitoris, hooking one digit in and out in rapid succession until M'gann's moans turn to little more than whimpers and pleas. She grips the sheets tightly with both hands, her face screwing up as she approaches her peak, and Conner adds one final burst of speed.

Her body jolts and she seems to freeze for a few seconds, time standing still, and then she crumples. She is limp and spent, half-gasping for air as her eyes open to half-lidded slits that grow hazy with the aftermath of their lovemaking. Conner bends his head from above and kisses her forehead, the bridge of her nose, her cheek, her lips - cupping her chin in his hand while the other keeps him steady. She takes his hand from her face and lazily kisses each fingertip, smiling shyly. She feels absolutely on high, and desperately hopes she isn't dreaming this moment - it would be too cruel to have to wake up and leave this behind.

Conner covers her damp body with his, gathering her in his arms before setting her back down into the pillows. He embraces her, breathing deeply and placing a soft kiss on her collar every so often. When he lifts his head again, he brushes sweaty bangs from her forehead with the lightest of touches, his eyes shimmering.

"I love you." He whispers. And it is all M'gann can do not to cry.

She smiles through watery eyes and her lips quiver as she nods her head. "I love you." She replies, and then she pulls him down to lay beside her. She shivers as sweat turns cool and she curls into his chest, his arms wrapping around her back as she begins to drift into an exhausted slumber. She doesn't want to sleep; not after this, now that she can hold him and be held by him once more. She feels a soft kiss press against her head and she sighs with blissful contentment.

Let the night come, she thinks. Time is on their side.