The Space Between

The Space Between by BillA1

Disclaimer: The characters Batman, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Superman & Flash and their respective secret identities are all owned by DC Comics. This story is intended for my own pleasure and is not for profit. It has been posted to this site for others to read. Places and characters not own by DC Comics are my own creation. This story is based on characters from the animated Justice League series episode: Legends written Andrew Kreiberg. Thanks to Merlin Missy for her beta on this story.

For the Magic One - Thank you for a wonderful year.

The Space Between

Rating: (PG)

Synopsis: What if Tom Turbine was right? What if there are an infinite number of Earths?

A sequel to Changing Focus.

(Five days ago)

The view from the orbiting Watchtower always gave Clark a sense of wonder and awe. As Superman, he'd assembled the most powerful beings in the solar system, shared his vision of justice with them, and watched as these giants among heroes teamed up to fight injustice wherever they found it.

But as Clark Kent from Smallville, Kansas, he'd often stared at the stars, knowing they were other worlds and other planets, but that did not stop the farm boy in him from acknowledging the vastness of the universe and realizing his own insignificance in the grander scheme of things.

He continued to stare out Plexiglas windows on the observation deck as Diana approached.

"A penny for your thoughts," she said.

"Keep the penny," he answered. He flashed a quick smile and continued to look out into space. "Just thinking about J'onn. I hope he'll come back."

Diana put her hand on his shoulder, squeezed gently and then looked out among the stars. "I think he'll be back. He left while you were on a deep space mission. I suspect he needs what we all need - a chance to discover our humanity."

Clark smiled again. "Ever the diplomat, Diana, aren't you?" He paused. "I wish him well. I wish him a safe journey."

Diana nodded in agreement and resumed staring out into space. She suddenly turned and leaned against the deck railing. "You know something, Clark? It was the strangest thing. After he helped me on that last mission, he took a Javelin into space when he got back."

She paused and folded her arms across her chest. "He was gone for two days, then came back and said he was leaving."

Clark shook his head. "Well, maybe that is a little strange, but you know J'onn." He was silent for a moment before adding, "Have we heard from him since then?"

Diana frowned. "No, but I told him to take a communicator with him. It's set so that it only communicates with the seven of us."

Clark nodded. As the planet slowly rotated below, the farm boy from Kansas wondered when he would hear from the Martian again.

(Today - Mari Macabe's apartment - 9:30 PM)

John Stewart had been to her apartment many times since he and Mari had started dating. He liked going over to her place. It was well furnished and exquisitely decorated. Sometimes John wondered if she had the place professionally done.

He knew that Wally called him a neat freak, but Mari's place was spotless. Sometimes, he wondered if the apartment was really a 'home' to her or just a place where she stayed between assignments.

Tonight, they were going to watch movies. He knew she didn't think much of his movie collection, but each movie he had was important to him for personal reasons. He wasn't going to change his assortment of movies based upon whom he was dating.

He sat on her white leather sofa nursing the cup of coffee she'd brought out a few minutes earlier. She'd started the DVD and as the sound of gongs from the movie bellowed from her six speaker stereo system, she sat down next to him.

He leaned back in the soft seat and put his arm around her shoulders. She leaned forward and picked up a remote control unit from her coffee table. She pressed a button on the unit and the lighting in the room dimmed. Mari leaned back and positioned herself under John's arm.

"This was a good idea," Stewart said as he pulled her closer to him. "Although, I'm not too fond of movies with subtitles."

Mari answered softly without looking up, instead burying her head in his chest. "The Seven Samurai is a classic and unless you speak Japanese..." She stopped and looked into his face. "You don't, do you? I mean that ring doesn't enable to you to speak foreign languages, does it?"

Stewart smiled and kissed her forehead. "Subtitles are fine. How long is the movie?"

Mari laid her head on his chest again. "About three and half hours."

Just about long enough. The moment, this wonderful moment, was broken by a voice in his earpiece.

"Lantern"

J'onn?

Stewart sat up and put a finger to his ear.

"J'onn?" Stewart said, "I thought you...what's up?"

Mari sat up, looked at John, tapped her earpiece and then shook her head, indicating she heard nothing.

"I need to see you," J'onn said.

Stewart shook his head and pursed his lips at Mari. "I'm a little busy right now," he answered. "Planning on being in the middle of something later on." He winked at Mari, who pretended surprise and shock. At least, I hope she's pretending. "Can it wait until tomorrow?" he added.

"Flash and Shayera are meeting me at the Metro Tower in thirty minutes," J'onn replied. "This is very important." He paused before adding, "I'm sure Vixen will understand."

You think, huh? He sighed. "I'm on my way. Lantern out."

He stood and looked down at the disappointed Mari. "Sorry, I've got to go."

Mari stood. "What about your plans of getting in the middle of something?" she cooed. "Something that may not always available to you later."

Stewart lowered his head, then abruptly but gently kissed her and headed for the door. "Sorry, I've got to go. I'll call you."

(The Metro Tower conference room)

Wally knew it must be something important if J'onn was calling for a meeting of the founding members. But as he entered the conference room, he was surprised to see only GL, J'onn and Shayera.

They were seated at the table. J'onn sat across from Shayera, who sat next to GL.

"Hey GL. Hi Shayera," Wally said. John nodded a greeting as Wally sat down on the other side of Shayera.

"Hi Wally," Shayera smiled. "So as I was asking, John, how's Vixen?"

GL exhaled sharply. "Fine. She's fine. How's Carter?"

Shayera suddenly frowned and looked at J'onn. "J'onn, what's up?"

Wally frowned. "Hey, no one asked about my love life?"

The three silently glared at him for a moment. Then GL and Shayera looked at J'onn.

"Okay," Wally said sheepishly. "Thanks for caring." He looked at J'onn. "Big guy, I'm glad to see you again, but like Shayera said, what's up?"

J'onn stood and leaned forward on the table. "I think we're on the wrong planet."

J'onn's announcement was met with momentary silence. Wally's jaw dropped in astonishment. Great, just great! He leaves the Tower to find humanity and the ones he finds are fruit loops.

Finally, Shayera broke the silence with a rather loud, "What?"

"What are you saying?" GL asked. He paused very briefly and pointed to the floor. "This is Earth."

"Yes, it is," J'onn softly answered. "But I don't think it's our Earth."

Wally shook his head. Houston, we have confirmation. "They were right. You were in the Tower too long."

J'onn sat down. "I know how this sounds, but I am convinced now we're not on the right planet."

GL stood. "You got some proof?"

Shayera scowled at GL. "J'onn, I trust you and I want to believe you, but why'd you call just us? Why didn't you call everyone?"

"Because we four are the only ones who are on the wrong Earth."

GL's jaw gaped as he plopped down in his seat. "I want to believe you, too," he said, casting a quick glance at Shayera. "But you've got to tell me something I can believe. What makes you think this is not Earth?"

J'onn leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. There was more sadness in his voice than normal when he spoke. "I didn't say this wasn't Earth. I said it wasn't our Earth."

He paused. "Before I left the Watchtower last week, I took a Javelin to Mars. I'd not been back there since I left to inform Earth authorities about the threat of the Imperium. I visited the grave site of my family. But they weren't where I buried them. The burial site was moved."

Shayera leaned forward on the table. "J'onn, I'm so sorry someone disturbed their graves. How can we help?"

"No," the Martian replied. "You don't understand. The graves were not disturbed. The graves were in a different location. It had all the markers I left, but they are not where I buried them."

Wally had a deer in the headlights look, he knew it. "Okay," he said. "Something is wrong on Mars. But again why call just us four?"

J'onn shook his head. "Do you remember when we met the Justice Guild?"

"Sure," Shayera said. "They were in another dimension living on an Earth controlled by a mutant child named Ray, but that was almost five years ago. You're not suggesting that..." Shayera fell silent and slumped in her seat. "Oh my stars, you are."

GL's face was expressionless as he leaned back in his seat. He cupped his hands on the table, as if he were praying. Shayera folded her arms across her chest and frowned.

Wally rapidly scanned the three Leaguers in front of him. Glad they understand, but I don't understand this at all. He looked at J'onn. "Suggesting what? Somebody talk to the man in the red suit. Please!"

John spoke. "He's suggesting that Tom Turbine's trans-dimensional gateway put us on the wrong Earth."

Wally slapped his forehead with an open palm. "What? We've been on the wrong planet for five years? Geeez! Can't anything be easy with this group?"

Shayera shifted uneasily in her seat. "Tom Turbine said that he thought there were an infinite number of parallel dimensions containing a planet Earth. Maybe J'onn is right. How do we know that his gateway sent us to the right Earth? Maybe this Earth was close enough to our planet that we didn't see any differences. But maybe the J'onn of this dimension buried his family in a different location than our J'onn did."

GL arched an eyebrow as he asked, "So where is that J'onn? Or for that matter, where are the rest of us from this planet?"

Wally shook his head. "You know I just had a bad thought. Maybe they...we ...us became the Justice Lords. What if I'm dead on our Earth? Then what?"

John frowned and glared at Wally. "Stop it. Just stop it. Don't even go there. I have enough problems dealing with time travel. I'm not prepared to handle a ton of alternate reality scenarios."

GL looked at J'onn. "If what you're saying is true, and to me that's a big 'if,' how do we get to our Earth?"

J'onn stood. "I don't know that we can or that we should," he said. "Suppose the Hawkgirl that was on our Earth at that time failed to prevent the bypass from being built. That Earth may not exist now."

Wally noticed Shayera lowering her head. Man, can't you see she's still bothered by any talk about the invasion? He put his arm around her and gently squeezed her shoulder. "Our Shayera did stop the bypass and that was a good thing."

Shayera smiled weakly at him for a moment, then glanced at John.

John shook his head, stood and looked the standing J'onn in the eyes. "Let me make sure I got this right. You think we came back to the wrong planet five years ago based on your visit to Mars. So we can either accept our lives and the world we've built on this Earth over the last five years or we can look for a way to get back to the Earth we left five years ago, assuming it still exists."

"You want to say that again," Wally asked.

"NO!" both GL and Shayera chorused at the same time.

J'onn said, "We have some decisions to make. And we shouldn't rush into them. We should tell the others only when we have decided on a course of action. Our decision should be unanimous. All of us must stay or all of us must commit to leaving. We should meet here tomorrow."

Suddenly, Wally's stomach ached and it wasn't from hunger.

(John's apartment)

Mari finally answered the phone. The hour was late, but he'd said he'd call when he finished his meeting. He'd awaken her, he knew he would, but she sounded happy to hear from him.

"Sorry for calling so late. My meeting with J'onn took longer than I expected."

"It's okay. I didn't hear any of your conversation with J'onn, is everything okay?" she said sleepily. He could hear her yawn. He struggled not to yawn with her.

"Everything is fine." Yeah, just perfect! "I'll call you sometime tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay. Goodnight. I love you, Boo."

"Goodnight," he answered.

He went to the window and stared out at the stars above. He couldn't bring himself to accept what J'onn had said. This planet was his home. People and things were where they were supposed to be. This planet felt right.

No, the Martian was wrong. They were on the right planet. He couldn't explain the graves on Mars, but this was home.

Yet.

Tom Turbine could have been right about the infinite number of Earths. That said, what were the chances that Turbine's gateway took them to the right Earth, to his Earth, when Turbine himself hypothesized that the number of dimensions was infinite? Maybe, this wasn't the right one.

He didn't want to hurt Mari, but he'd seen his future on this Earth and Mari apparently wasn't part of it. Maybe on his Earth, he and Shayera were already married and raising a family. Maybe he and Shayera were always destined to be together.

Or.

Maybe they were destined to be together only on this Earth, only in this timeline.

His head hurt. He walked over to his bed and lay down. He stared at the ceiling.

Yes, what if it were only in this timeline, only on this planet that he and Shayera were supposed to be together. Maybe only on this planet, she saved his life in Las Vegas; they became lovers; they saved the planet against the Thanagarian invasion.

Maybe now was finally the time for him to tell her what he knew about their future on this world. At least then, she could make a fully informed decision.

He owed her that.

No, wait a minute. Telling her would be selfish. Then she might feel that she had no choice, but to stay... or she might view it as reason to leave.

He closed his eyes.

(Shayera's quarters)

She was supposed to have gone out with Carter this evening. However, when J'onn had called and said that John would be at the meeting, she begged off her date with Carter.

It was late now. She sat at her dressing table and looked at the small box on her dresser, not opening it.

The first pair of earrings she'd ever worn had been given to her by Hro. Those earrings helped her heart hold on to her culture and to her Promised one while she was separated from them, both by time and distance. Those earrings meant home, love and commitment to her. After the invasion, she knew that earrings would never mean those things to her again.

They could not.

She didn't need to open the little box. She knew inside the box were the earrings Zatanna had given her earlier. She remembered Zatanna's words. "They will look nice with that dress," she'd said.

Shayera remembered answering in a way she knew the human would understand, "Thanks. They're very pretty."

She'd found it easier to believe J'onn's theory that they were on the wrong planet than John or Wally did. When they'd originally stepped through Tom Turbine's trans-dimensional gateway years ago, she'd passed out and was unconscious for twenty-five minutes.

What she did not tell the others - - what she could not tell the others - - was that during that twenty-five minutes, in a dream or maybe in another dimension, or even as a glimpse into this world's future, she and John were married and raised a daughter. She'd spent thirty-three years with him in another world, in another lifetime, during those twenty-five minutes. In that world, she began her relationship with John by asking him to teach her to play chess; even through she was already a skilled chess player.

In that world, she was as happy as she'd ever been.

She'd never viewed John as a potential lifelong mate until that experience. Afterwards, things were different. She did love John. She could think of him as a mate. And often did.

Yet, maybe in another dimension, Hro was still alive. Maybe that Hro found a way to win the war and spare the Earth. Maybe that Hro found happiness with that Shayera Hol.

Maybe that Hro could understand that earrings didn't mean the same to her anymore.

(Wally's Apartment)

He sat at his kitchen table staring at three unopened boxes of pizza in front of him. The only sounds in the apartment came from his radio. It was tuned to the local all news station. All news. All the time. He wasn't listening to the radio as much as it was 'talking' to him, keeping his mind occupied.

He opened one of the three boxes and removed two slices of pizza. He folded the slices on top of each other and hungrily shoved them in his mouth.

This. This was his fault.

They wouldn't say it, but he knew it. If they were stranded; if J'onn was right; if they had lived the last five years of their lives on the wrong planet, then he was to blame.

It was his fault that the four of them ended up in the world of the Justice Guild. The energy blast he'd absorbed caused him to vibrate at the rate of Tom Turbine's Earth, transporting GL, J'onn, Hawkgirl and himself to that world.

He grabbed another two slices of pizza. Beatriz was in Brazil tonight, but they had a date tomorrow night. She liked him and she took him seriously.

Fire.

She was a reason to stay.

She was his reason to call this world - 'home.'

(John Jones's apartment)

J'onn looked out the window of his newly rented one bedroom apartment. He'd left the Watchtower, left the League, because he thought he needed to live among the humans to understand them.

It was a quest.

It was a search for humanity.

It was a journey without a destination, but he would know when it was over because the human element of humanity would tell him.

As he gazed at the stars, he could find Mars in the night sky easily. But the Mars he saw, he now knew wasn't his home. His My'ria'h wasn't there. There was a woman in that grave on that distant planet, and the grave markers indicated that the man who'd buried her loved that woman and thought no less of her than he thought of his long dead wife.

This wasn't the Earth he came to save all those years ago. He was convinced of that, even if the Flash and Lantern weren't. And that wasn't his Mars in the sky above.

But home isn't a place. Home is people who surround you and love you. There were people on this planet who cared for him. He knew that.

He was alone.

But he was alone with friends.

(The Metro Tower conference room)

The silence in the room was awkward. The four of them had saved the world more times and in more ways than any group of people should be expected to. In the past, they'd laughed and cried together; they'd fought the villains and each other; they knew what it was to live a violent life and yet, Wally thought, they each were scared of this moment.

It was as if they were sentencing each other to an uncertain fate. And they were. There was no getting around it. Each one was deciding the destiny of the other three. That's what it boiled down to and Wally was unhappy because he still had doubts. What if he decided to stay? What if they all decided stay and something happened to one of them? Could he live with himself knowing that person might still be alive if they had decided to leave this planet - a planet that might not be their home?

They'd exchanged pleasantries when they first entered the small room, but had said nothing in the last few minutes. It was clear that no one wanted to be the spoiler who kept the others from doing what the majority wanted to do.

The continued silence added to his doubts. He took a deep breath. This is so stupid.

He was about to say something when GL spoke.

"Look, bad news doesn't get better with time," John said. "Let's do a secret ballot and see where we are." Shayera sat up, her expression brightened. J'onn nodded, flashing a quick grin.

"Good idea," Wally added. This way, no one has to be the bad guy. Of course since there are only four of us voting, it won't be hard to tell who voted for what.

J'onn passed out paper and pens. GL looked around the table. "Let's make this simple. Assuming we are on the wrong planet, which I don't believe, the question is: Do we stay? Yes or No?"

Everyone nodded in understanding. Within seconds, all of the sheets were marked, folded and passed back to J'onn.

J'onn smiled at Shayera and picked up only her vote. He glanced at it. "It's unanimous," he announced. "We stay."

Wally shook his head at J'onn. "I hate it when you do that. Are we going to say anything to the others?"

J'onn was silent for a moment before answering. "It is probably best that we not say anything. Some would become suspicious of us."

Bats.

"But as far as I'm concerned...as far as we all are concerned," J'onn continued. "We are home and need not mention this again."

Wally nodded. Home. Beatriz. Yeah!

J'onn and Wally had left the conference room. J'onn went to find Diana to say hello and Wally said something about having business in Brazil.

Shayera had started to leave, but noticed John remaining at the table. He seemed lost in thought. "Are you okay?" she asked.

He looked up and motioned for her to sit down next to him. She did after a brief hesitation. He flashed a quick smile as she watched him curiously. "I'm glad you wanted to stay," he said.

Her eyes widened in surprise, then she smiled. "Thought you didn't believe J'onn?"

He shook his head. "I don't. I don't know if he's right or not. But I have a future here. That I do know."

Shayera frowned briefly, then flattened her facial expression. "I'm sure you do. You and Vixen make a nice couple."

John frowned. "Stop it. You do too. I mean...you have a future here too. You are just where you need to be."

She smiled secretively. He's staying because of me, not her.

"Really?" she grinned. "And where is that?"

There was a softness, a gentleness, in his eyes that the green eye color couldn't hide.

"Right here," he said softly. "Right now."

"Feel up to a game of chess?"

He grinned and nodded. "You're asking if I'd like to have my tail whipped again. Sure. Why not? Your place or mine?"

What's not to love about this man?

END