The two teenagers have just 'landed', and Supergirl's just left. Last time
I checked, you were kinda wondering where the hell your breath had gone,
and were looking for it somewhere in the grass. I was sort of assuring
Supergirl that we'd live. Honest. Y'know? So, there it is. Gina has yet to
explain why she said all the horrible things she said to Superboy, and
Superboy has yet to hear it. Yeah.

Superboy is laying spread out on the grass in a relatively pained
position, looking quite shocked and somewhat worse for wear.

Leaning back against a tree, Gina closes her eyes, trying to breathe
normally. She tries not to think about what she'd said, but...it'd have to
be explained. For the moment, though, recovery is at the forefront. Idly,
pointlessly, she takes off her gloves and unbraids her hair, as though
moving deck chairs on the Titanic...it's something to /do/.

Superboy blinks again. Aware that you're next to him, he seems unsure of
what to say or how to react. Instead he stares at the clouds, connects
dots with his mind and pretends the last twenty-four hours was some
hellish after-school special.

Seemingly unprovoked, just out of the blue, out of nowhere, Gina starts
speaking. Quickly and quietly, and interrupted by bouts of silence as she
continues to let her breath catch up to the rest of her.. "I'm so sorry,"
she begins, whispered. "Please forgive me, please believe I didn't mean
any of it, and if I could have avoided saying any of it and still kept us
alive, I would have. But I had to. I had to make you hate me. Or at least,
if not hate me, no longer have the kind of attachment that Brainiac was
talking about." She looks down, not letting you see her face, if you were
even looking - and continues, voice just as soft. "It killed me to hurt
you like that, you, who I understand better than I understand anyone else;
you, who would save my life even after I'd said all those horrible,
nasty-disgusting things to you..." The girl pauses, looking up at you
finally, and saying in a much slower voice, but still quietly, "You,
Superboy...who, try as I might to resist it, I fell /so/ hard for...but he
would have killed you because of it."

Superboy doesn't say anything to that, at first. Instead his hands clench
and summarily unclench the grass around him, as if reacting as some cog in
the greater machinery of mankind. Soon he vents this inner, calculated
energy and moves on to verbal communication. "Why'd you say that?" he
asks, softly.

Running her hands through her hair quickly, in a fit of nervous energy,
and then resting her forehead on her palms, Gina hopes to hell he forgives
her. "It had to be done. Do you remember," she asks suddenly, "When he
said something to the effect of, 'Your pathetic attachment to the girl
will be the greatest weapon'? He was using us as the focus, as the lens,
of his projector...the only reason he used /us/ was because we understand
each other; we were already focused, in a way. I had to stop him. There
was no other way! I had to break the focus! And if I told you about it
beforehand, it wouldn't have worked, because you'd have known..."

"Sounds like campy old tv shows," Superboy mutters softly, "sounds like I
can't quite process all this. Sounds like .. god, I don't know. I mean, I
do," he says to you, slowly. "I do know. Logically I understand. But ..
irrationally, emotionally, I'm still hurt. Illogically I don't trust you.
Logically I know. Emotionally I'm fucked beyond all recognition."

Dropping her hands into her lap and sinking down against her tree, Gina's
face falls. She almost seems to retreat within herself, shrinking away
from the soul she'd wounded so badly. "I knew it," she mutters to herself,
almost too low to hear. "I knew it. To save your life, I had to make you
hate me. I ended it. I...oh, god..." she whispers, not even rubbing at her
eyes to get rid of the tears. Sometimes there's nothing to do but cry. "I
can't even apologize. I can't even tell you how I feel about you, because
after that, you'd never believe me. I ruined it, didn't I? I damaged it
beyond repair.."

"Just gimme time," Superboy says, rubbing his eyes. "I can't put emotions
.. it's like when you have a dream that you find love, right? And then you
wake up? And that emotion is with you the rest of the day, that elation of
finding love. I can't put this behind me any more than I can a false
emotion .. it .. will just take time. More than a day."

"I lo-" starts Gina, then hesitates, and then stops utterly. She shakes
her head, releasing a choked sob. Then, slowly, "I'm sorry, Superboy. I'm
more sorry I had to do that then you'll ever know. Maybe you shouldn't
have come after me. I ripped your heart out and twisted it...and even
though mine went with it, I know I can't even hope to fix it. I only hope
you can trust me again. I...I wish you'd trusted me this time...but if you
had, we'd both be dead, so I can't..." She sounds mostly confused, and
hurting very, very much.

"Please .. just, stop .. understand me .." Superboy pauses as he speaks,
unable to find the right words. "You didn't do a damn thing. It's not you
at all. It's not because of you that I can't .. that I don't trus .. that
... it's not because of you. It's what happened, the situation, what
neither of us could have stopped. You didn't do a damn thing, it was just
the way the cards fell and it's not you it's what happened. Do you .. do
you understand?"

Gina looks back at you, face twisted. "But I knew what was going on. I
knew what it was he was doing. I couldn't do anything about it, any of it,
because he held my mind so tightly...but I knew. Thank God I knew what to
do. But I'm damned cuz I couldn't see anything else to do. And whosever
fault it is, and whyever it happened, the fact remains that you don't
trust me, and what was between us - whatever it was - will never me the
same. And I /love/ you." She says all this quickly, without stopping or
pausing or even, seemingly, taking a breath. Gina doesn't even realize
she'd said it out loud, but it'll probably screw up your emotions even
more.

Superboy lets his head hit the grass with a slight *thnk* and a visible
wince. "Not now," he whispers, softly. "It's not ... this isn't forever. I
just need time to work it out of me, to .. not to forgive you, but to
forgive the situation. To move past it. It was very .. it was emotional.
The whole thing. It takes time to get past those emotions. Time."

Gina hugs her knees, not speaking for a moment. She rests her chin on her
knees and looksat the nightscape, holding her feelings in as best she can.
"Time," she echoes distantly. "Time and space."

Superboy acknowledges this, almost painfully. "And space," he says, not
quite looking at you. "And when I .. when I'm past this, when I feel that
I can truly .. process what happened, time and space won't matter any
more."

Gina doesn't look either, then. "Ask your friend," she says softly, "To
find me. It won't be hard, but he can do it faster. I hope...I hope you
have someone to talk to who understands everything you say, everything you
do, as well as I do."

Superboy wrinkles his nose, nodding slowly. "I d .. I hope I do, too," he
says, finally, and cloes his eyes. "Take care of yourself."

"I will," comes her voice, a last time. When you open your eyes, she's
gone.