Disclaimer: The characters Batman, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Superman & Flash and their respective secret identities are all owned by DC Comics. Static is owned by Milestone. 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 or Milestone Comics are my own creation. This story is based on characters from the animated Justice League series episode: Epilogue written Bruce Timm and Dwayne McDuffie and The Once and Future Thing: Time, Warped by Dwayne McDuffie. A huge shout out of thanks to Merlin Missy for her beta on this story.

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BOOKENDS
Rating: (PG-13)
Synopsis: Between birth and death, there is life or something like it. A John /Shayera /Rex futurefic.
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Note: Spoilers up through "Epilogue," with some (okay lots of) speculation on the current JLU arc. Set in the Batman Beyond time period. Not a direct sequel to any previous work, but references material that appeared in "Living with Shadows" and "A Tapestry of Crayons." Draws heavily upon the world created by Merlin Missy in "The Signs of Air and Water," Nancy Brown in "Not Quite Wax," and Terry Winder and Nancy Brown in "Solving For R."

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CHAPTER ONE
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"Why is life at this point in the twentieth century so focused upon the very beginning of life and the very end of life? What about the 80 years we have to live between those two inexorable bookends?" – Paul (Six Degrees of Separation – 1993)

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(The Metro Tower, ten years after Epilogue)

He'd watched his dad punch in the access code to the sub-space communicator a thousand times. Well, maybe not that many, but he knew it was a lot. Arthur Seaborn was seven years old and he was very smart. He knew he was because his teachers had told him so. He'd only have to watch someone do something once or twice and then as his granddad would say, he got it.

He'd been watching for as long as he could remember as his dad or sometimes his mom would push the code buttons --- nine-one-nine-three-nine--- and then scroll until they found his granddad's picture. Then they'd push four-two-seven-three-six-three-seven and "enter" and Poppa or Nana would answer the phone in a few minutes.

Arthur knew both Mom and Dad would be angry if they found out that he was using the special phone in the big radio room right now to call Nana. Not because they didn't want him to talk to his grandparents, who lived in outer space very far away, but because the special phone took a lot of power and was very expensive to use. And Dad would be very angry when Superman gave him the bill for Arthur's calls.

Arthur loved his Dad. His Mom called Dad, Rex. His Mom was sometimes called Aquagirl, but Dad always called her Merina. He wasn't allowed to tell anyone what Mom and Dad did, but Poppa said they made the world a much safer place just for him.

Today was a special day at school and Arthur wanted to tell Nana how good it was. He always liked talking to Nana and she always liked talking to him. He liked talking to Poppa too, but Nana would make funny chirping sounds that made Arthur laugh. She made him happy because she was always happy.

He'd would use the voice only phone this time and give Dad some of the money from his piggy bank to pay for this call.

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(The second moon of Galtos, in the Omega quadrant)

The phone rang. By the second ring, John Stewart realized that he wasn't dreaming and that he should investigate the noise.

"I got it," he called out.

Well, actually he didn't have it, but he was going to get it. He slowly lifted himself out of his recliner, listening to the music of his knees as they popped while he moved. Since he'd retired from the Green Lantern Corps years ago, he was no longer protected from the effects of aging by his power ring. And old age and all of its friends were catching up with a vengeance, painfully so.

He silently cursed to himself for not taking the portable phone with him when he sat down half an hour ago. It was just the two of them now, living quietly on this remote moon. Most of their neighbors would've never guessed that this unassuming couple, an Earthling and a Thanagarian, had decades ago been among the most powerful and respected crime fighters in another quadrant of the galaxy.

These aliens living among aliens just wanted to be left alone and this moon was the perfect place for that. No one asked questions here and no one cared about the answers if given.

She called out from another part of the small cottage they lived in: "John, are you sure you're going to get to that?"

"I got it. Just didn't take the phone with me when I sat down."

They didn't get many calls, so he knew that whoever it was wouldn't hang up until one of them answered. Got it. He looked at the Caller ID and smiled.

"Hello?" He moved back to his chair and grunted as he sat down again. Getting old sucked, but it beat the alternative.

"Hi, Poppa. Is Nana there?"

"Hi, Arthur. How are you doing, son?"

"Fine," the seven year old answered. There was silence again and John smiled as this ritual exchange played out. Finally, Arthur spoke again with a little more assertiveness in his voice. "Is Nana there?"

"She's here, but don't you want to talk to me?"

There was silence again before the boy said, "Okay. How are you, Poppa?"

"I'm okay. How is school?"

"Okay. Is Nana there?"

John chuckled. Game, set and match. "Sure, Arthur. Just a minute and I'll get her."

He called out without covering the mouthpiece of the phone. "Shayera! It's for you. It's Arthur."

"Okay."

He listened as she picked up the phone in the other room.

"Why, hello Arthur," she said in a voice that still sometimes surprised John by its gentleness. "How are you?"

"Hi, Nana," Arthur said excitedly. "Guess what? I got a star at school today for being good and…"

John hung up the phone. He searched for the right word to describe this feeling he had at this moment. He settled back into his chair and closed his eyes.

Contentment.

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(The Metro Tower – Forty-Two years ago)

John learned early in his adult life that women often unintentionally threw grenades at him. Sometimes, it was on purpose, but most of the time it wasn't. Probably. She wouldn't think it was explosive when she tossed it at him because she didn't pull the pin on the device. But they'd both know if she waited long enough, he'd pull the pin because that's what men did and then he'd stand there stupidly when it went off.

"How do I look?" Shayera asked as she stood in front of the mirror. John sat on the edge of her bed and contemplated what to do with this grenade she'd just tossed him. He'd not been in her new quarters before and he looked around the room, stalling for time, deciding what answer would keep this grenade from going off.

John and Shayera had been thrown forward in time more than thirty years during a battle with the Legion of Doom. Misplaced by time and space, people and friends they'd known yesterday were suddenly gone, dead or retired. They'd unexpectedly found themselves to be strangers in a strange land.

John had the easier task of adapting to this new time. The Guardians didn't immediately reassign him, but instead assigned the current Green Lantern of sector 2814, Galtre-Re, to "retrain" John. He readily accepted the retraining with the stipulation that he would have three years, the standard training time, to complete the task. It was soon apparent to Galtre-Re that John Stewart required nothing from him. Soon Galtre-Re, at John's urging, found that his time was better spent in other parts of the sector since John was adamant that he wasn't leaving Earth anytime soon.

He'd started wearing a mask again. This was something he'd done earlier in his Green Lantern career when he had a secret identity to protect. Once it became known publicly that he was a Lantern, he'd stopped. He resumed wearing his mask because it helped maintain the illusion that John Stewart was still missing, still lost. More importantly, it prevented embarrassing questions about Shayera's whereabouts if Stewart was still alive. There were no questions about the new masked Green Lantern.

The transition for Shayera had been more difficult. There'd been no news from any source on the fate of Thanagar for the past thirty years. She knew the Gordanians had won, but had they crushed any possible rebellion as well? John knew her heart ached at the loss of Thanagarian life because she'd decided to thwart the plans to build the bypass. He also knew she'd sealed her fate when she saved the Earth. For years afterward, until she and John were lost in time, she'd lived with the knowledge and the fear that Thanagarian assassins or their agents might be looking for her. Though he'd never told her, John feared that as well. And now with Justice League records showing that she and John had been listed as missing and presumed dead for more than thirty years, she'd hoped that perhaps the assassins, if there were any left, had stopped looking.

She'd not left the Tower on any missions since they'd returned, instead choosing to focus her attention on the collected Thanagarian artifacts from the Watchtower storage section. She'd found that her clothing and the items she'd taken from Paran Dul's locker and ship were also stored there as part of a display. She knew that she couldn't wear her yellow and black costume anymore and she certainly couldn't go unmasked; either would be a fatal mistake. If someone was looking for Shayera Hol, she wasn't going to make it easy for them to find her. She decided that she was going change her clothing into something less Thanagarian.

John smiled because without telling her of his adventure with Chronos, she'd made the perfect costume.

She stood in front him, dressed from her neck to her feet in a black body suit. No skin was exposed anywhere on her body except her head. Covering the body suit, she wore the Thanagarian armor and helmet she'd found in Paran's locker years earlier. With Static's help, Shayera had discovered that a thin silver-plating over the gold-hued Thanagarian armor changed the appearance without affecting its protective qualities.

She posed, holding the silvery mask at her hip. She'd cut her hair so short in the back that it barely extended beyond the nape of her neck. When John was younger, they'd called that haircut a pixie cut or a boy cut. He didn't know what they called it now and it didn't matter. Her long red hair was gone and she looked different and that had been her goal.

John nodded his head slowly. "I like it. The silver armor against the black works. How'd it test in the simulations?"

She nodded. "Static and I ran it through a few stress tests. It'll stop a Class C laser at two meters."

Make a note to say something to Virgil about appreciating his help.

John leaned back on the bed, then got up and stood next to her. This was where Rex got the idea for his costume. Amazing. He pretended to be studying her carefully as he looked her up and down. She smiled in amusement. He cleared his throat and stroked his now beardless chin as if he was going to make some great pronouncement.

He suddenly frowned and her smile faded.

"Don't you think that Thanagarian crest on your chest looks like a big inviting black bull's-eye?" he asked.

She took a deep breath and pointed to the crest on her chest. "John," she said softly. "Believe it or not, I'm still proud to be a Thanagarian. That's why the crest. Shayera and Hawkgirl have been dead for thirty years, or at least the world thinks they are. Now I have a chance to start over with a clean slate. With the helmet, I am a Thanagarian again."

She sat on the bed. There was sadness in her eyes and John sat next to her. She handed him the helmet, then lowered her head. "Sometimes, I'm ashamed to be Shayera Hol, but this helmet makes it different. If I reappeared as Shayera, I'd do so on borrowed time. Sooner or later, the word would get back to Thanagar and the hunt would start." She took the helmet from him and stood in front of the mirror.

"I don't want to be hunted," she said as she put the helmet on. "I am the hunter, not the prey."

John stood and joined her in front of the mirror. He placed two fingers under her chin and gently lifted her head so that she looked up into his eyes. "I'm not ashamed of Shayera Hol and I never will be." He smiled as he removed his hand from her face. "She's done a lot of good things with and without a helmet."

She smiled weakly at him. I need to tell her that more often.

"I do miss the hair," he added, "but I like the new name."

She unclipped the mace dangling from her side and held it in her hand as she studied herself in the mirror.

"I like the name too," she said. "Didn't at first when J'onn suggested it years ago, but it does grow on you, doesn't it?"

John grinned and stood behind her, so that she could see him in the mirror. "It sure does, Warhawk."

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(The Metro Tower – Two weeks later)

Stewart lay in bed looking up at the ceiling. The room was dark save the faint light from the digital clock on the night table on his side of the bed and the dim glow of the ring on his finger. He turned his head toward the clock to read the time.

2:37 AM

He looked at the ceiling again. In the darkness, he took comfort in listening to the steady sound of breathing coming from the woman lying next to him, a rhythm broken only by the occasional rustling of her wings. Sometimes she would emit a groan or a moan when her wings moved. John wasn't sure exactly which word described the noise she made, but he knew it wasn't right.

She'd gone out on her first mission as Warhawk.

And she was a success.

She'd watched old footage of Hawkgirl and Shayera in action from years before and carefully analyzed her previous fighting style. Then she went into the training room and practiced changing that style as much as she could.

She knew that everyone, regardless of who they were, had a distinctive combat technique and that it was as unique as a fingerprint. She wanted to make sure that Warhawk and Hawkgirl did not fight exactly the same way. Only when she was satisfied that there was sufficient variation in her combat manner did she go out on this first mission. John was relieved that she was successful and that her change in fighting technique didn't get her injured or killed.

As he would often do, he gently propped himself up and watched her sleep. She didn't seem to have the nightmares as often as she once did, but she still had them. And apparently she'd had them since she'd left Fate's tower. She never said anything to anyone, but instead chose to suffer in silence.

John thought it unlikely she'd taken advantage of any counseling from the Martian thirty years ago. It was clear to him now, in hindsight, she'd been afraid of J'onn and the possibility that he might do to her what he'd done to that other Thanagarian during the invasion.

Groundless. Absolutely groundless.

He remembered that it was the second night they'd slept together, in this new time, that she'd had the first nightmare he'd witnessed. She sat up in the middle of the night swinging her fists wildly in the air as if she was trying to fight someone off and crying out, over and over, that she was sorry. He'd gently roused her and tried to comfort her, telling her it was just a dream, that it wasn't real. She'd answered that first night the way she would respond to every episode afterwards: "Sooner or later, it will be real and I'm going to be punished for what I did. Paran Dul was simply the first of many messengers to come."

John looked at the clock again.

3:02 AM.

He slid down under the bed covers and looked up at the ceiling. Shayera groaned and turned so that she lay on her stomach. Suddenly, both of her wings spread out fully as if she were gliding. One wing hit John in the face before returning to its rest position. She moaned again and John turned over so that his back was toward her and he tried to go back to sleep.

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(Watchtower Medlab (Two years later))

In a delivery room, all a father-to-be can do is observe, be supportive and stay out of the way. The Watchtower medical team clearly preferred the 'stay out of the way' option, but John was having no part of that. He was not leaving because he'd told her he wouldn't. The medical staff had converted a small surgical bay into a secure delivery room for this first of its kind event: a Thanagarian giving birth in this solar system. And while there'd been many technological advances over the last thirty odd years, when it got down to basics, it was still a woman struggling to bring forth new life. No technology could change that.

There were small cameras mounted in the ceiling and a monitor over Shayera's head. There would be no video recording of this event because John said so. The cameras were intended to show Shayera what was going on, if the doctors determined they needed information from her on the Thanagarian birthing process. She'd already told them all she knew regarding the subject; John secretly hoped that she'd told them enough.

John was true to his word and never left her side. He never sat down, instead standing near the head of the table the entire time. She didn't wear her helmet, but did wear a mask similar to John's that covered most, but not all, of her face. They still needed to protect their identities from the civilians on the delivery team.

When she panted, he panted with her.

When she cursed, he cursed with her.

He held her hand. She crushed it in her pain or at least he was sure she did.

Finally, when it was time, when she was more than ready, with a scream and a push, she gave him an egg… a six-pound egg. Static was right.

John could see from the monitor that it was actually a sac. Inside the pliable, transparent membrane they could see the newborn infant moving. This was expected. What was not expected was the umbilical cord going through the membrane. The other end of the cord was still attached to Shayera and this was a complication.

The doctor at the foot of the delivery table gently turned the infant over so that the child was on his stomach and made an incision down the middle of sac. Shayera groaned loudly when the doctor made the cut and John didn't know what to think. Should she have felt that?

John took a deep breath and smiled at Shayera as he said, "You're going to be fine." He shivered as he took another deep breath and focused his attention on her. The doctor lifted the infant out of the birth pouch and set the sac aside. "It's a boy," he announced.

There was a short period of silence in the room that seemed like years before Shayera asked breathlessly, "Is he breathing?" And almost as if answering his mother, the newborn screamed to the world that he existed and she smiled. It was a smile that John would remember to his dying day. He kissed her gently on the forehead. It seemed like such a meager gesture in return for this great gift she'd given him.

The doctor clamped and cut the cord and told an attendant to get two units of blood ready. He looked up at John. "Frankly I don't know what we have here," he said. "According to her, there shouldn't be an umbilical cord and we didn't see it in the ultrasound images. But we now have the possibility of hemorrhaging. We're fortunate that she stored blood throughout the pregnancy, otherwise we'd have a real problem here." He shook his head, pausing for a moment before continuing. "We'll wait and see if she expels the placenta naturally. Otherwise, I'm going to ask you to leave while we get ready for surgery."

John nodded, but he hurt in the pit of his stomach. He'd felt helpless many times before when it involved Shayera over the course of the years, but this, by far, was the worst. He suddenly realized that he didn't see her in the glimpse of the future that Chronos provided and he wondered if he was going to lose her now in this room…now that he had a family.

He felt lost.

He had this powerful weapon… this ring and he couldn't a damn thing to save her if …if things went sour.

An attendant had taken the child away from the doctor, wrapped the infant in a blanket, then gently placed the child on Shayera's chest.

"He's beautiful," she said. John wanted so desperately wanted to burn this moment in his memory forever as he leaned over to say 'hello' to his son. He gazed in awe at the exchange of first looks between his son and Shayera. Then John shifted his attention to her and realized that she was looking at him with a little apprehension in her eyes. He lightly touched the head of the baby as he bent over her.

He wiped her brow and moved her wet hair off her face. Then he kissed her forehead gently and whispered, "I don't care what they say, I'm not leaving you and you're not leaving us. Understand?"

She smiled weakly, but before she could answer, she inhaled sharply and suddenly groaned again. She squeezed his hand hard and it was all he could do to keep from yanking his hand out of her vice-like grip. The attendant removed the child from her chest and stood off to the side.

"Excellent. Here we go," the doctor said. John looked up into the monitor for a few moments, then turned his head and concentrated his attention on Shayera. He heard the doctor say: "Looks to be complete and unremarkable. Prepare it for further examination." John turned in time to watch the doctor hand a tray to another attendant and then ask Shayera: "You hanging in there?"

John got the feeling that the doctor was being polite, but wasn't really concerned with her answer because he'd finally seen something that was familiar to him.

"Yeah," Shayera mumbled breathlessly. The attendant placed the child back on Shayera's chest, turned to John and said, "He's a beautiful boy, dad." John wondered for a moment if the attendant would ever tell anyone who delivered a child in the Watchtower that their baby was ugly. He nodded in acknowledgement.

The attendant turned to Shayera and smiled, "And he has wings like you, mom."

Shayera suddenly frowned. "Show me."

The attendant gently turned the baby over and held him so Shayera could see his back. Small tears formed in her eyes and ran down her cheeks. She pushed her head back into her pillow and sniffled as she said softly, "He's never going to fly."

John cleared his throat. He would grant that she would most certainly know what Thanagarian wings should look like…wings capable of flight. The Rex he'd met in the future did not have feathers or fly with natural wings, but John was not going to allow her to get depressed over this. Not now.

"I'm sure he will. He'll be fine," he offered as the attendant took the baby away for his weighing and first bath.

She glared at him, sniffled again, but didn't say anything else.

He kissed her on her forehead again. "You did good. You did damn good." He paused and whispered, "I love you."

"I love you, too."

One of the Watchtower regular staff medical attendants stood next to John and whispered, "And what's the baby's name? We'll need to register the birth."

"Rex Stewart," Shayera answered softly. They'd agreed to name the baby after Rex Mason, who'd saved their lives at the cost of his own during the battle with the Legion of Doom that propelled them into the future.

"Rex Hol Stewart," John amended. He held her hand and patted it. "Remember? We talked."

She frowned. "I know," she said quietly. "But I don't think I did enough…" She broke off and looked at the attendant. "Rex Hol Stewart."

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