trans_9 | Coping at Ke'e Beach

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Coping at Ke'e Beach

So, what do you do when you find out you're going to die? Kon's seen how thrown Kal is from his death--but Kal comes back. Even if he doesn't believe it now, Kon knows this, and he knows that he's not likely to have the same thing happen to him. He's not Kal. The world doesn't need him like it needs Kal, so why would he come back?

Heh. The Good Ship Stacy: two good-as-dead Super-guys enter, one super-guy leaves.

...Okay, that's kinda not funny.

Superboy doesn't know if he can take his mentor's tack of playing it by ear and trying his best to help everyone else. He doesn't know if he can get over the whole feeling lost part of it to get to what he needs to do, and just deal with their situation here.

Even after all his talk to Tim of not avoiding people, Kon deals at first by avoiding the others. But it's just for a bit, just a little while, not like all that time he spent on the farm, hiding, after Luthor made him hurt everyone, and the difference is, he's not hiding from coping, or repressing, this is how he copes. He just doesn't like people to see the initial anger--and it is anger, that he expresses by punching robots in the Sensorium until his knuckles start to bleed.

Heh, and that leads to his other problem. Not enough sunlight. The stuff in the Sensoriums feels like the real deal, but it's obviously not, if he can't process it so that his powers stay at full super-levels, and the light that Will kid's been conjuring up for him is weak. He's going on empty now. He can be hurt.

And it just drives it home even more exactly how...mortal he is.

But if anyone comes looking for him and poke their head in the Sensorium, they'll find him not punching robots or moping and brooding. If they peek in, they'll see him sitting on a rock on a beach bathed in the glow of a Hawaiian sunset. He hasn't availed himself of holographic clothes, but his plantsuit is stripped down to his waist, and he's writing things on one of the media pads from the Media Library, a thoughtful look on his face.

"--Have I ever been sledding? No. Better put that on there..."

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression... is he at acceptance already? Maybe his general attitude of rocketing through his life at warp speed is benefiting him for once.

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"pak'ma'rah'," she repeated. "They're a... Well, they're a race of carrion-eaters. If it's not three-days dead and rotting, they won't go near it. Needless to say, their breath makes is extremely difficult for anyone to want to do business with them."

There's a pause.

"Yeah, that's not exactly the same thing, is it?"

"It's still kinda really gross, though," Kon says, wrinkling his nose, but kinda looking like he thinks it's cool, as a teenage boy might.

Roadkill scarfers! Ha! Gross but cool but gross.

"Yeah..." Lyta nodded. She was quiet for a moment before delving right into it. But, when she did, she got right to the point.

"So, what's wrong?"

Kon squirms.

"That obvious, huh?"

"Ever since you got here I haven't seen you away from your friends or not tearing up and down the ship for more than five minutes," Lyta notes aloud. "Now, here you are sitting all by yourself. And, from the looks of things, you've been here awhile. I don't have to be a telepath to notice that something has obviously changed."

"... you know how people come from different times and stuff? And sometimes they can be from someone else's future?" Kon says. "I found out, I'm supposed to die. Like, saving the world, so I can't even try to wiggle out of it I risk all those lives."

He keeps fiddling with his list.

"I'm a little, shall we say, 'bummed.'"

Lyta opens her mouth but, for a few moments, nothing comes out. What exactly does one say to a teenager who has just found out that he's going to die? What do you say to make him feel better? Her smile disappears and is replaced with a look of empathy. Finally...

"I'm sorry," she offers.

"When did you find out?"

Not even a real teenager, really. In mind and body, sure, but not in years actually lived.

Although he'd done more in these last five years than most people do their whole lives, that's for damn sure. His life has certainly been one that's been well-lived.

"About when I stopped tearing around the place. Before the big meeting. When the new group came in. Paco's Yeerk felt the need to have me informed as it croaked."

He goes on, "I'm...okay with it. As much as I can be, I guess. It's just got me thinking a lot."

He holds up the datapad.

"And doing this. I'm making a list of stuff I wanna do before I croak. I figure, even if it's weird, even if bad things happen here sometimes, I have more time, right? I have some extra time. So in between working on getting back and everything, I'm gonna live it up while I can. Do a few things I never got to do."

"Oh yeah?" Lyta got up from where she was perched on the tree and crossed over to Kon, looking down at his list of things. It was sad, really, all the seemingly mundane things he had written down to do before he died.

"You plan on doing these with someone?" she asked. "Or is this more an 'alone' kind of thing?"

"Maybe a bit of both," he says. "You can't have a snowball fight with yourself, right?"

He smiles a very small, crooked smile.

"I just don't wanna depress my friends, though. Like, I'm just...getting the moping out of my system now, for a week or something, and then I'll get to the living part. I'm already feeling a little better anyway--it helps what I'm probably gonna die for is worth it."

"Does it matter if it's worth it?" Lyta asked.

"Dying sucks. If it was for no reason, it'd suck even more."

He goes on.

"Not even just for me--thought mostly just for me--but I mean, if I just keeled over for some stupid reason, there'd be a lot of good I could do that I wouldn't get to do. If I have to die, I don't mind it so much if it's to save people."

"Ok...," she nodded.

"But what about people who do just 'keel over,' are their deaths really for nothing? Does how they died define who they are? I mean, when we get out of here--if we get out of here--and we have our memories back, is how you die really how you want people to remember you? Is that how you'd remember us? Regardless of anything else we do?"

"No. It's--"

Now he's getting a little annoyed.

"Lady, I'm five. I'm five years-old. I'm just artificially aged up. If that's what I die for, it means my life...I guess it means it meant something."

He goes on, "If I survive it, and my being willing to die for it, is why I can pull it off, it means my life means something, too."

Shaking his head, he finishes, "What's supposed to happen right beforehand... it means either way, I could die--or live--happy. And knowing I'm gonna do that just makes a lot of questions about myself go away."

Biting his lip a little, he tries very hard to figure out what he means.

"I've only lived five years and... it's not dying, it's what I'll be fighting for that makes it so I can be proud of my life, whether I die or not." He goes on, "What I'm supposedly going to do means people will be alive to remember. That's the part I'm proud of, and I'd be proud of it if I got to survive it."

Lyta offers him a sad frown.

"Your life doesn't mean something now?" she asked. "You have friends, Kon. From what I've seen, you have quite a few of them. And they all seem to care about you, and that's quite something."

Not having friends is something Lyta is familiar with, intimately.

"Why does whether you die saving the world, or just one person, or just tripping and falling down the stairs change any of that?"

"I kinda... well, I guess I wouldn't care if it was a dumb death too badly. I just don't wanna go like a chump, but I guess it wouldn't be too bad--if stuff wasn't the way it was when I left."

Scratching his head, he says, "The main thing is... I just wanna know the world'll go on after me. That all the people I care about will live. It's just comforting knowing even if I croak, I won't flub up and get everybody killed. I just... it's just a relief. I want them to all have a chance, even if I don't live to see it. And they will have a chance. I'm gonna lose my life, but I have have knowing my girlfriend survives, that my friends survive, that the people who take care of me make it. The world goes on, and apparently I'm gonna help it do that."

He can't really explain it adequately.

"It just...it feels like I'm losing less, because they're all going to be okay. All those innocent people will have a chance. It's comforting."

She nodded again. Meanwhile, all the rather disparaging things she'd said to Brainy--about Kon and the other superheroes--replayed in her head. It seemed that, in the midst of all the things she saw as 'screw ups', she'd forgotten that, despite their abilities, they were still people. Even if others had tried to point that out.

"No, I understand what you're saying," Lyta said. "Well, I'm not exactly an authority on it, and I know you didn't ask, but if you want my advice: I wouldn't do any of this alone. I mean, what's the point of experiencing all of this if you're not doing it with someone who'll remember doing it with you?"

"I guess." He snorts. "I guess I'd be a total hypocrite if I told Robin the same thing and did the opposite."

"I suppose that's one way of looking at it," Lyta replied. "For what it's worth, you've already given me a lot to think about."

Kon looks immediately confused.

"I have?"

"Yes, you have," she nodded. Folding her arms, Lyta turned and walked back over to the tree and sat back down on it, sucking in a deep breath as she steeled herself for her confession.

"After what happened with the roaches and the incident in medlab with Kal, I've been a little concerned," she said. "That you and your friends have been behaving recklessly and, given your obvious abilities, that you might be a danger to the rest of us."

"Well, duh. Superpowers plus teenage idiots typically equals Bad Thing."

He goes on, "The thing with Kal was different, though. He was confused--he just came from getting brained literally to death by Doomsday and it was only a freak thing that he survived it back home anyway. That was around when I was cloned from him. And I can tell you every one of us Supers has reacted to Brainy that way, at some point. It's a Brainiac-Super thing. Give the original Brainiac two seconds, and he's already taken you out, and he's got all the doofy clones and probes and stuff... and he just--he'll do whatever he wants to people. En masse. He just sees them as things. But Kal's usually not like that-- he's all calm and cool-headed, and super-responsible. He's a freakin' boy scout compared to the rest of us, most of the time. I've never seen him screw up once, my whole life--he always knows the right thing to do, he always protects everybody, he always makes sure no one gets hurt--the only problem is he can't be everywhere at once, you know?"

Shaking his head, he says, "Don't take my screw up with the Bugs as something we all do. Robin never screws up like that, neither does Cassie, and I think that Danny kid is used to soloing it because he's the only one in his world--you really do have to practice as a team to not trip over each other, just like any other team thing."

He scratches his neck. "I'm just an idiot sometimes--and I know that's bad, with how strong I am. I'm not really the best at being a hero--I'm trying to be a better one, though."

She nodded as he spoke. Maybe it was that he'd just confessed he knew he was going to die and wasn't trying to find a way out of it, maybe it was just his tone--which seemed incredibly genuine and apologetic, maybe it was that he didn't appear confidant that he would be able to change her mind, or maybe it was because, as an impetuous teenage boy with super powers, she expected Kon to be the worst possible offender that made what he had said resonate with her. She didn't know. Whatever it was, it did. Even if Kal and Brainy had tried to tell her the same thing, something about the way Kon had said it--in an almost self-deprecating manner--had made her finally hear it.

"Maybe you're right," Lyta finally admitted. "Maybe I'm being a little harsh."

"If you wanna harsh on somebody, harsh on me, 'cause, um, I totally blew it with the Bug thing."

He rubs his neck.

"Which, honestly, makes the whole 'you're going to die saving the world' thing just a little surprising, with the actual saving the world part, but perhaps the sucking is what explains the dying."

"I doubt it," Lyta replied. She eyed the boy for a few moments before asking: "Do you mind if I tell you a story?"

Coping at Ke'e Beach

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