(Post-"Dark Victory." Brainiac 5 is leaving, but first he has a talk with Chameleon Boy. NOT slash. Angst in spades, some ten-dollar words and a few bad jokes, but rated T for language and underage drinking. :p This could work as a stand-alone, but I may add to it later. Comments welcome, though I am very, very rusty on the fanfic thing. I really wanted to sketch in something about Cham. Just because. This depiction owes something to the earlier versions, especially Levitz' version from the mid 1980s. I don't own any DC characters and situations and blah blah blah.)

Bending Like A Willow Tree

On your last day with the team, we didn't spend any time together.

By some kind of mutual, unspoken consent, we avoided one another. I scraped together some small reserve of patience and resisted the urge to snap, "Oh, get a room," when I saw you deep in conversation with Superman-- the original one, right before he left. He had stayed for Kell's swearing-in, but then one after the other, they'd both said their goodbyes. Kell was where he belonged, and so was Clark.

Where did you think that you belonged ?

This was the last time that I would ever see you, wasn't it ? So I bit my tongue. I looked away whenever you looked towards me. Brainy, I swear to you that it seemed like a good idea at the time.

A little later, everyone was standing around in the Legion's courtyard, talking and laughing. It was just like the aftermath of my swearing-in or any other. I could almost forget that barely two days ago, we'd all been obliterated, then resurrected. Because of you.

It was late afternoon, midsummer. The day was sunny and warm. Phantom Girl disappeared inside and came back ten minutes later with a pitcher of Bgtzl wine punch and a stack of paper cups. Cosmic Boy started to object, but Bouncing Boy gave him a look and for once, Cos subsided. The cups went around. I'd gotten bored with chitchat. I was sitting alone on a bench near the pathway, arms folded, thinking absently of a million boarding school parties and various other things that I didn't remember fondly. Because I had no reason to.

I would miss you a thousand times before the leaves could even start to change. Why was it impossible for me to get up, walk over to you and just say so ?

Phantom Girl strode over with that determined look of hers. She thrust a cup towards my hand, the little nul-grav tray she had in tow humming along behind her. Over it, I saw you a few meters away. You had a cup that you weren't drinking from in one hand. With the other, you were holding Shrinking Violet's hand and saying what I assumed was one more goodbye. You glanced in my direction for a moment, with an expression I couldn't read, before turning back to her.

"Drink up, Cham."

I shook my head. "Thanks, but you know better than that. Durlans and alcohol don't mix well."

"Duh. I mixed yours specially with, like, 80 percent water. So relax. We won't be re-enacting that movie night from last winter." She smirked and sat down.

"Thanks." I accepted the cup and we clinked them together, or whatever sound colliding painted paper cylinders make. "Tell me, do you ever plan to let me forget about what happened last winter ?"

"I might, but there's some people who never will." She jerked a thumb over at Timber Wolf and the newly-reunited Triplicate Girl.

I snickered, despite my overall bad mood. The drink was dark red, ice cold and only a little sweet, with a rough texture underneath that appealed to me. My taste sensors are more numerous and enhanced than Tinya's. Maybe more so than those of anyone present that day, with the exception of Timber Wolf. I probably got the full impact even through all that water.

"So what are we drinking to ?"

"Trip's recovery, and Brainy's journey." Her eyes narrowed. "Well, a few people sounded more like they're drinking to Brainy never coming back, but screw them."

My sadness was going to eat me alive if I wasn't careful. Unless my anger got there first. Maybe Tinya had the right idea. I smiled at her.

"Oh, Phantom. That's so beautiful." I knocked my cup against hers again, then raised it toward the group. "Screw them." I drained the rest of my drink in a couple of swallows and set the cup down.

"I have the soul of a poet," she said, grinning and tossing her hair.

"On layaway. How many payments left to go, Tinya ?"

She hit my shoulder, but not hard. "Oh, shut up, Reep."

We sat for a few minutes in friendly silence, until Ultra Boy and some others called her away. Something about card games in the HQ lounge. Jo gave me a welcoming look, but I just shrugged a "No Thanks."

The crowd began to thin out with the approach of twilight, until I was the only person left outside. Almost.

You materialized from nowhere. Or maybe you'd been artfully camouflaged against a tasteful dark pink and green shrub, somewhere. I jumped about three meters, rattling the ice left in my cup and nearly dropping it.

"Don't do that," I snapped, which wasn't exactly a big hug and kiss goodbye, but-- Hell, Brainy ! Just who was supposed to be the shape shifter around here, anyway ?

"Sorry. I have a shuttle to catch, but it doesn't depart for another hour. I needed to speak with you alone, Reep. This seemed like the right time and place." You put down your bags and sat down next to me, pointing across the street to a small willow sapling in its protective bell. As you motioned, the timer in the dome switched on its light, followed in sequence by the other street lights and those in the courtyard..

"Nice trick, Brainy. Did that come with the new outfit ?"

"I'm afraid not." You actually rolled your eyes. Not something you could have done a few days ago.

We killed an afternoon the day we met talking about etymology. You said that my name was archaic Durlan for an arch in a medium sized, graceful tree that doesn't grow anywhere else. Later I mentioned this on a visit to my Dad and he showed me a picture, one of the few he had from his own childhood home. It did vaguely resemble a willow tree in the same way that I vaguely resembled Lightning Lad. The trunk was a sort of mottled brown-gray;The flowers grew only from the bends and arches. Your hands danced over the keys almost too quickly for my eyes to follow. You looked puzzled when I mentioned that other kids used to laugh at my name and tease me about it.

"I don't quite comprehend your former schoolmates' sense of humor, Chameleon Boy. Experts speculate that at one time rapid and extreme climate changes on Durla demanded this type of structure. Such flora could alter and contort to a remarkable degree at these junctures, as necessary." You peered up at me from your chair, considering. "If my sources are accurate, the blooms appear on a quintennial basis, and are identical in hue to Durlan skin in its earliest known humanoid form. Opinions vary as to the evolutionary importance of these factors, however. Contemporary Durlan science is sadly deficient in quantity."

I liked you from that first day, before I liked anyone else. I trusted you in everything. No matter what you had done on that terrible day of your transformation, I hadn't changed my mind. I've gone back from time to time and weighed the possible reasons for this: Your kindness. Our closeness in standard age. Some mysterious connection we had, borne from the histories of our respective closed worlds. Or maybe I'm just unnaturally stubborn, even for a Durlan.

Even now, I'm not sure of the correct answer.

"Did you stick around so we could discuss etymology some more ?" I wanted to build further on this theme, culminating with a tirade in which I'd call you every rotten name available in my native tongue for running out on the Legion like this. Or else I'd get on my knees and beg you not to go. I hadn't actually made up my mind. Phantom Girl's party drink had left me sort of light in the head.

I never got the chance to decide, because you took my hand. Your long, dark fingers weren't graceful now, crossing awkwardly over my smaller, brighter fingers. In fact, your hand shook a little and you'd bitten or torn a couple of your nails nearly down to the quick.

"Cham, be serious. I... I feel like you're the only one I can trust."

Just a few standard days ago, you had knit that hand back together. You had recreated yourself from the wreckage of a despised and unwanted past. You and both Supermen had saved us all. It occurred to me suddenly that you were brave and grown up, that you were going on ahead, somehow. But I was still a kid being left behind, and I was jealous. Maybe that was why I'd been avoiding you.

"Trust ? What are you talking about ?"

"I--"

"Querl, have you at least told somebody where you're going ? What if--"

"Shhhh..." A whisper in my ear, "Reep, please listen to me. Don't be angry. Just listen."

"What ?"

"Promise me that you'll take care of Shrinking Violet."

I looked into your brand new humanoid eyes, shining below the trio of scars. A vestige of the monster you had shaken off and destroyed.

I answered before I had time to think.

"I promise, Brainy."

A nod, a whispered "Thank You," a hurried embrace, and then you were gone.

I sat for a long time with a warming paper cup in my chilled hands and looked at the darkening sky over New Metropolis.

("Bending Like A Willow Tree" is a wonderful Blues tune by Lowell Fulson-- covered by many, many artists. Lyrics available on line, and also posted to my LJ. Thanks for reading.)