Sanded-Down Memories

by windyautistic

Summary:

Today was downright spitefully quiet, Hal had decided. He was glad there was no world-threatening disasters, or even regular-threatening disasters that the League needed help with, but between that, a conspicuous break day at Ferris Air, and the weather itself being glass-clear and hot, it left him uncomfortably alone in the quiet with his own thoughts. Normally, he'd take a plane out and run some mind-numbing tests, but since that option was out, he'd packed a sandwich in a bag and used his ring to fly out from Ferris Air straight into the desert.

Today was downright spitefully quiet, Hal had decided. He was glad there was no world-threatening disasters, or even regular-threatening disasters that the League needed help with, but between that, a conspicuous break day at Ferris Air, and the weather itself being glass-clear and hot, it left him uncomfortably alone in the quiet with his own thoughts. Normally, he'd take a plane out and run some mind-numbing tests, but since that option was out, he'd packed a sandwich in a bag and used his ring to fly out from Ferris Air straight into the desert.

He tried to remember the path the ring had dragged him on that very first time, swerving all over the desert before dropping him in front of Abin Sur's ship. He could have just checked it, sure. But he wanted to use his own memory, not the ring's. (and focusing on which rocks were etched into his memory of that day kept his mind off other things.)

 

The ring, in an uncharacteristically reserved and tactful move, did not tell him how long he'd been searching when he finally found the spot. Nothing was there to mark it besides a small pile of stones. Abin's body had been recovered, and buried on his home planet; his ship had been scooped up by the military and scavenged for parts and engineering ideas. Even the scorched rocks and sand had been worn down and covered over. How long had it even been?

Hal tried to count back the years, but found the sheer volume of memories that poured out completely unmanageable. (when had he locked up everything Before behind a wall of "don't think about it"?) He tried to take it step by step, but found overlapping memories of changed timelines (the Justice League forming, thrice over?) entirely unhelpful.

Against his better instincts, he still followed the wandering trail of memory Before (he knew what it was Before, even if he never said it). The memories ran through better days, adventures with friends (he missed some of them fiercely), until it came to It.

The day he'd come home to a crater. He remembered how Clark had died (It seemed to happen to them a lot more than normal people, huh?), and the funeral, with seemingly everyone who'd ever been a superhero. The look-alikes who'd showed up afterwards, and the tangled threads of confusion. He'd mostly only been party to secondhand reports for that, busy with dismantling a smuggling operation by a mining company out in space. Until he got back.

The moment in the crater was burned into his memory, the feeling of his chest hollowing out as he sat and stared. The ash-choked dust that the desert was already reclaiming and dispersing.

The others had come up to him, told him that Mongul planned to destroy other cities like this, and he couldn't let that happen. He'd shoved every stray thought into the burning fire in his heart, and focused on the job. Fight the bad guy, save the day. That's what they did.

 

The silence afterwards had nearly crushed him. Standing in front of the solemn stone obelisk that was the only remnant of his home. Ollie had offered him comfort, J'onn had just sat next to him, but their kindness had just fallen forever into the gaping hole in his chest.

 

The emotions... afterwards... were tinged by a kind of static, as he remembered them. He could remember every action clearly, like they'd been burned into his soul (he wondered if they maybe had, wishing he could ask the Spectre to leave him with the wisps of calm and perspective he remembered from it). He instinctively wiped his hands on his jacket (when had he dropped the uniform?) and shifted where he'd sat against a rock (when had he sat down?)

But he remembered the tangle of reasoning, as he pried its thorny corpse out of his memories. He was a hero, they saved the day and fixed things, surely he could fix this? His ring could do anything he willed it to! Surely- the whispers of other things, of mourning, of asking for help, were so strangely quiet back then. The Spectre's words to him still felt raw and jagged. Severing the screaming, blinding tunnel vision of that time from himself, recognizing Parallax's influence on his mind.

 

And then, just when he'd been made aware of its claws in his heart, the fear entity had made its move, plunging him into a darkness that felt like bleeding out alone in space, crying out for somebody, anybody and knowing no one could hear.

He'd focused, he'd fought, as he felt his worst nightmare wear his skin and use his voice all over again, as he called for the Spectre to help him burn it out.

 

And when he was free, he'd wondered if maybe he was done, if that was it, but Ganthet had called him back and Ollie and Kyle were in danger so he'd buried the emotions scraping in his mind and focused on the fight, protecting others, the rush of adrenaline. And he hadn't stopped since.

 

Until now.

 

So he sank back into the memories of that static tinged time, the knowledge as a lens bringing it into focus.

 

The Lanterns he'd fought (killed) (left for dead in the vacuum of space) (betrayed)... They'd been stopping him, the tangle of distorted reasoning had whispered, as it pulled him towards Oa. 

The Guardians... it was easy to hate them, really. They acted so above it all but so rarely were, even when they meant well he'd chafed under their orders. It was easy for the spines and claws to stretch it into them being evil, being opposed to saving all those people (but he hadn't been doing it for them for a while by then). He remembered the light of the central power battery (in his hands) annihilating them.

His friends. He remembered explaining to them, the light of the central power battery humming under his skin, being so sure he was right. The way the horror on their faces had felt like a final knife in his back. "Betrayed again" his (?) mind had whispered, the light of will running quicker through his heart. He remembered falling off that cliff, deep in despair that they'd never understand what he was doing .

 

He remembered the arrow in his chest, and the brief clarity (finally, someone had seen the gaping hole, seen that something was wrong) before he'd fled, running like something was at his back in the night.

 

He remembered watching the years that passed at a distance, until finally finding himself at the Source Wall. The end. He'd fought some of the beings fused into it, seen their madness, their conviction that they were right. Standing there, looking into it, had shattered any will he had left to do anything. Until the kid (Kyle) had shown up, asking for help. He'd clung to that task like a lifeline even as he knew in the pit of his stomach it would only lead to death. But he'd been able to make it his, so no one else had to pay for his mistakes. The gaping hole, the cold it covered him with, the hissing he could've sworn he heard in the dark and the quiet, those he'd made his peace with taking to the grave.

And then it hadn't been his grave.

 

The Spectre had left him few memories of their time fused now, snippets of the things he'd done (especially around his friends, an odd kindness of it). So his thread of memory only became a tapestry... The night it'd all broken open, the truth and Parallax pried out screaming into the light.

 

And that all led... Back here. In the desert.

 

Parallax was sealed in the central power battery again. Sinestro had vanished during the conflict, surely scheming, but hadn't shown up. The Corps had rebuilt, in the good hands of his fellow corpsmen and the Guardians. The Lanterns he'd left for dead had been found, had come back to the Corps. He'd talked with Batman, remembering that they'd been friends once, long ago. He and Ollie had fought a Black Mercy (Clark had paled when they mentioned it to him, apparently he'd fought it before) and Ollie had shared a little bit of his life since coming back... Things were good, right?

 

Hal was fine. Probably.

 

He sat in the too-quiet sand for time he didn't bother to count, until a flash of red snapped him out of it. Barry? Right. Wally. He shook off the ghosts of long-dead friends, and tried to listen.

"So it's your turn on monitor duty and you'd missed two calls on the JLA communicator, and I figured before the wrath of the J'onn comes down on your head for ducking duty, I'd stop by and make sure you were alive. Before you ask, it was on the way." Wally said, words running fast and processing slow as Hal pulled himself out of his thoughts. He brushed the sand out of his hair and put his uniform on.

"Just enjoying a quiet day away from people, apparently I dozed off-" he decided to ignore Wally's remark about "old age", and clicked on the communicator. "Green Lantern here, I'll be right up as soon as I chase off the red menace here..." By the time he'd turned around, Wally was gone with only dust in his wake. Hal punched in the teleportation access code, and braced himself for the monotony of monitor duty.

 

He didn't want to talk about it, anyway.

Notes:

character favouritism? in MY me? it's more likely than you think.