Anadyomene
a Batman Beyond story
by June Whitfield
Copyright 2006
PG

Summary: He loves her so much that it hurts. Written for mtgat's birthday. A missing scene from The Signs of Air and Water. Aquagirl/Warhawk.

Disclaimer: So very not mine.

Notes: Happy birthday, mtgat.


"You know," he says to her, one late night, "I don't think I've ever seen you in jeans."

She's sprawled over his waist. He's playing with her hair; it's silky, and falls over his fingers. She's reading one of the sports magazines that he brought from home in a package filled with Styrofoam. "I don't see why you would need to."

"I don't," he says automatically, and then stops. "I mean. It's just a thing. That human girls do." He feels immensely stupid as soon as the words exit his mouth.

"I'm not human." She takes a deep breath and he can feel it against his stomach and ribcage.

He tries to picture it –- her in jeans, but in the water -- and comes up with an Aphrodite-like picture: a goddess rising out of the foam. It takes him a minute that she's walking into of the water instead of out of it and he winces visibly.

"What?" she asks, turning to look up at him, her eyes soft and hazy. He shakes his head, and she goes back to reading. It's almost midnight on a Friday, and his shift will start in three horus.

Rex needs a change, and he knows it.

"You should go," he says.

She gives him a dry look and continues to read. He knows she won't leave for another twenty minutes, despite time constraints. They're pretending that this is still secret' they still don't talk, and they still don't hint at anything at all, but it's not like the others don't know. Sometimes Rex is frustrated with himself over that; why hide something that everyone already knows about? But it pleases her and it eases the tension from her shoulders and he can't refuse that.

"What is this?" She asks, lightly tapping a picture in the magazine. "They are racing, but what are the creatures they are riding on?"

"Horses," he says, after a closer look. "They're horse racing."

She makes an approving sound. "It was on the tip of my tongue," she says, enjoying the human phrase, and goes back to reading silently. He likes to watch her read. She devours everything he can bring her. He's brought her books for years: novels, magazines, short stories. She was required to read the literature of humans before for reference, she explained to him once, but most of what she'd been required to read had either confused or bored her. She loves the novels he brings her -- which are mostly, he admits, romance novels -- because of their frivolous happy endings.

Their lives are not romance novels. They are heroes but he will not get the girl. "Are you going home this week?"

She nods. "Wednesday."

"Say hello for me." She smiles fondly. They both know that she won't. "How long?"

"About five days." A school week. He makes the calculations in his head, and figures he can get the senior's term papers graded by Thursday. "Why?"

"I've got term papers to grade." She makes a sympathetic noise and shifts, stretching her back muscles out as she arches up, and moves to get her dress from the floor. He likes the way the strong yet tender muscles in her legs move. His own are sore.

"Cassie wants to go clubbing," she says quietly and runs a hand through her hair. "Or did before. What time is it?"

"Midnight."

"Okay." She kisses him quickly, a goodbye kiss. "You look slagged."

"I am."

"So sleep." Her smile is glorious, and she slips out of his room quietly with a swish of her hips and silver hair. She comes back in a minute later to grab her black heels from underneath his bed (she goes barefoot so often now that he wonders whether she's forgotten how to wear shoes), and rests a hand on his knee as she searches.

He loves her so much, sometimes.

"Bye," she murmurs against his lips, and then she's gone; and Rex is left alone again in his bed that smells like her and his sea green lamp shade.

He makes a note to tell her about the horses he rode when he was a boy and falls asleep for the two hours that he has left in the night.