Updated: 11-15-04

ACT VIII

The well known balm of the Twenty-Third Psalm washed over the small crowd assembled at the graveside of Andrew James Wuornecki, the minister's voice deep and soothing.

"The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want."

If anyone noticed the pretty redhead, it was only because of the odd wheelchair she was using. But mostly even that went unseen by the family of the dead nineteen year-old, killed in a freak accident when an abandoned building collapsed around him. They had bigger problems to worry about.

"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;"

The redhead saw them though. Saw every moment of their pain, the way the dead boy's mother was on the verge of collapse, the younger brother looking lost and hopelessly confused, a father trying so hard to be stoic.

"He leadeth me beside the still waters."

She saw it all and knew their pain was her fault. She'd failed the mission, failed that boy, and failed his two friends who were still recuperating in the hospital.

"He restoreth my soul;"

Except Barbara Gordon sincerely doubted anything could restore her soul. It felt as though it had taken flight sometime back now. Maybe that was why she felt so completely bereft of any remaining ties to the world.

"He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake."

Sitting there under a grey sky that threatened bring rain down on their heads at any moment, she could barely feel anything. Or maybe it was just that she couldn't differentiate feelings anymore. Pain, fear, guilt, anger---they were all bound together in her head until she couldn't tell one from another, so she just ignored them all, shutting down any feeling with the same brutal ferocity with which the Joker’s bullet had shut down the sensations in her lower body.

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death."

The valley of the shadow of death. Barbara had to fight a slightly hysterical laugh. How apropos. Sometimes it felt like she'd spent her entire life in the shadow of death. They were old friends. Her childhood had been spent terrorized by a drunken father and ineffectual mother to the degree that their deaths had been almost a relief, the irony that she’d been the only one to survive that hellacious, drunken drive inescapable. Her uncle and adopted father had been constantly threatened and nearly killed more than once during her teen years, and twice she’d nearly paid with her own life as well. Then she’d moved into her own dance with death, risking life and limb to battle the evils that played in the night only to come so close she’d very nearly succumbed. And yet, somehow each time she’d danced just out of death’s boney grasp. How wrong was it that he'd paid a visit to this innocent boy when she was still there without a partner for the dance?

"thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."

There was nothing there to comfort her. This wasn't about comfort. It was about penance, every word from the minister's mouth and every tear from the dead boy's mother another flagellating body blow that felt as though it should leave bloody trails in flesh. "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; "

Her enemies? Oh yeah, that table was well stocked and prepared. She even had the bastard sniffing around, though she'd yet to get him to sit down. Soon though, very soon. She'd set her trap, reinforcing a basement storage area, making sure it connected to the sewer in a way that could be cut off quickly, installing a knockout gas that could be released by remote, and then releasing rats into the sewers directly under the clocktower. Fresh meat. And she'd picked up heat trails that signaled they were drawing him close. He wasn’t quite where she wanted him yet, maybe suspicious, or maybe just wary, but he was working his way closer to where she wanted him. Soon, very soon he’d be right where she wanted him.

"Thou appoinest my head with oil;"

She barely even heard the minister as the next thought went through her brain.

And then....

"My cup runneth over. "

Then she’d make sure the bastard never killed another child.

"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,"

She looked up, hearing the words again, the wry thought running through her brain that if goodness and mercy started now, it would make for a hell of a change. Partly by accident of birth, partly by choice, her entire life had been driven by chaos and cruelty. Maybe it was one of the reasons she tried so desperately to protect the innocents of the world---and the guilty. She didn’t want anyone to have to see and feel the things she’d experienced.

"and dwell in the house of the Lord forever...."

A tiny twitch of fear clenched her stomach.

Very possibly, very soon.

* * * * * *

Helena danced. She barely knew the tunes and didn’t care anyway. She just wanted the music loud and frenetic, so she could keep her body moving and her mind silenced.

Lonely as hell, working too many hours, but at the same time, not enough, she just wanted a little peace. If she could move fast enough and constantly enough, she could almost find some too.

Almost.

Even as her body moved, drenched in sweat and wild, she couldn’t quite escape the memory of jade eyes and crimson hair, couldn’t quite evade the emotions that still burned in her breast no matter what she did.

God, life sucked.

She never danced with a partner. A few asked, but she deflected them with a kind smile or a cruel laugh depending on their attitude. She strictly danced alone. No one could keep up, and even if they could have, it would have distracted her from her own private race to escape herself.

A partner was the last thing she wanted.

She was better off alone.

And if she danced hard enough and fast enough, she could almost believe that particular lie.

Almost.

Barbara reached out, slapping the switch on the CD player to move to the next song in what she was thinking of as her 'Depression mix.' Soon Jim Morrison's sultry drawl was steaming the air and swirling around her, and she found herself singing along, her own voice a husky contralto that played a surprisingly effective duet with the long dead rock star's.

"People are strange when you're a stranger. Faces look ugly when you're alone. Women seem wicked when you're unwanted. Streets are uneven when you're down." Her head down, she focused on the delicate task of soldering components onto a green custom-etched circuit board. Like the board, most of the components were custom produced by Wayne Labs on just over a twenty-four hour turnaround from her specs. Only the fact that Bruce Wayne had left her with near-total control over his empire---in his daughter’s name, but control nonetheless---had allowed her to exert that kind of pressure and have such custom work done so quickly.

"When you're strange, no one remembers your name. When you're strange...."

Barely noticing as Morisson gave way to Blue Oyster Cult’s ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper,’ she lost all track of the music as she dug deeper into the work, redesigning as she went, not even looking up when Nick Cave took over the airwaves for song after song. Helena would probably have teased her for her hopelessly outdated musical tastes even when it came to death wishes, but she couldn’t let herself think about Helena, because if she let herself go there, she might just consider trying to see the younger woman.

Before.

Barbara didn’t even allow herself a tired sigh when she finally set the soldering iron aside, her hands still quick and graceful despite her exhaustion as she hooked the completed board up to the port line trailing from the nearby Delphi station.

For just a moment, she sat frozen, uncertain what to do next, so tired, it was all getting a little hazy in her head. "Right," she muttered at last as she went back over the necessary steps. "Flash the ROM, then install the program." She blinked stinging sweat out of her eyes, then leaned to bring the new wheelchair around. It lurched and jerked in the direction she wanted, but didn’t stop in time, instead over-rotating and taking her past the keyboard. Cursing under her breath, Barbara reached for the joystick, and brought herself back around to where she wanted to be. So much for the gyroscopes doing exactly what she wanted. The damn thing was nowhere near where she needed it to be if she was going to—

She cut that thought off right there. It just meant she was just going to have to make do. Not like it was a new concept in her life, she reminded herself as she killed the frustration threatening to surge over her. She’d been making do for years now.

One more time wouldn’t kill her.

Or maybe it would, she thought with a giddy, near-hysterical giggle. Now if she could just find it in her to care.

Besides the Claw had to be stopped and she was the only one left to do the job. Selina was dead, Bruce had run away, Dick was in Blüdhaven, Alfred couldn’t, and Helena apparently hated her guts and just wanted out.

That meant she was the only one left.

Also not exactly a new concept in her life.

She’d often found herself the only one left; first when her parents died, then again when Selina had entrusted Helena’s life into her care while Bruce ran along his merry way, and now again. It was getting to be a habit.

Growling softly, Barbara chased that thought away as unproductive. Losing herself in the past wasn’t going to help anything. She had a job to do, and whining about it wasn’t doing anybody any good.

Slender fingers danced over the keyboard in front of her, bringing up the pre-prepared programs. They were ready to load and she’d checked and double-checked everything a dozen times already. Everything was as ready as it was likely to get without considerable time spent testing and debugging. Time she simply didn’t have, and maybe didn’t want. She punched in the proper commands to flash the ROM bios, watching silently as the computer and the board communicated back and forth, her eyelids heavy by the time the procedure had finished. Moving on autopilot, she tested the new setup and found it had worked, then began the more time consuming project of downloading and configuring the program itself. Finally, the whole thing was set to run and load more or less on its own, though she was paranoid enough that she sat right where she was, staring at the rapidly changing numbers on the screen that indicated assorted things happening. She understood them well enough, though as she watched them moving across the screen almost too fast to be seen, even she had a hard time remaining coherent.

There was something oddly peaceful about them. She’d always found a certain elegant appeal to the patterns seemingly random numbers started to generate if you watched them long enough, her brain one that loved the puzzle of finding orders where there was none. The rapidfire pulsing of digits was soothing, hypnotic, lulling her lean her head forward into her hands as her eyelids grew steadily heavier, and the blood seemed to run slower, like half melted lead, in her veins.

The sudden slap to the back of her head brought her back awake almost instantly, her head snapping up, eyes going wide as she spun around, the acrid smell of Jack Daniel’s reaching her nostrils even as she recognized the bleary-eyed figure staring down at her.

A once-handsome wastrel’s mouth turned up in a leering grin that she thought she’d long since forgotten. She’d only seen that look a few times in her life. It had only started to appear at the most drunken intervals a few months before his death.

Her father.

Not Jim Gordon, the man who lived in her heart, and had given her the only decent hearth and home she’d known as a child, but the man who’d sired her. Roger Gordon. James Gordon’s brother and her biological father.

The man who had done her exactly one favor in her life by getting himself killed on a rain-slicked road one night when the whiskey was running fast and furious in his veins. That he had taken her mother along for the ride---both the one in the car, and the later one in a hearse---probably should have mattered more to her, but then again her mother was little more than a shadow in Barbara’s memories, far too pale a figure to register against the terrorizing force of her father.

She just stared until finally he reached out and slapped the side of her head again, the force of the gesture leaving her hair in disarray. "Aren’t you gonna say ‘Hi,’ honey?" he demanded. "After all, it’s not polite to ignore your old man."

Barbara shook her head, refusing to be baited. Green eyes slid closed, teeth clenching as full lips pursed. "It’s not real," she whispered to herself. "Just a goddamned hallucination." She’d been through plenty of hallucinations before, had talked herself down from some very colorful ones. She knew the drill. She clenched her hands into fists, hoping the pain of nails digging into her palms would offer enough pain to break the cycle.

"Nice digs," her father murmured, driving her to clench her hands until the skin had to be on the verge of breaking and bleeding under the pressure from her nails. "But then that Wayne was a rich guy. Guess you did him a lot favors." He put an obscene spin on the words. "Really personal ones."

Barbara continued shaking her head, whispering, "It’s just a hallucination," over and over like it was a mantra that would protect her from her own insanity. She hadn’t been sleeping well---at all really---since Helena had left. It was just exhaustion and stress catching up with her and playing havoc with her senses. None of it was real.

She heard the sound of paper rattling and risked a look through one, barely slitted eye. Her father had gone straight for the folded newspaper, flicking it open as though he knew exactly what he was looking for. Well, of course he did, she reminded herself. He wasn’t real, just a phantom conjured by a mind that had gone too many hours without sleep. Which in turn meant that he knew all of her weaknesses just like her subconscious did. "Damn, and for his kid too. Never thought that scrawny brat would turn into such a hot piece of ass." A chortling chuckle followed, the vicious sound a cruel reminder of so many times in her childhood when he’d left her confidence shattered with nothing more than that tiny sound.

Barbara shook her head, unable to resist the temptation to buy into the hallucination with the disgusting inference hanging in the air between them. It was just her mind playing with the intrinsic fear she’d long had of her father’s ability to make anything, no matter how pure or innocent, into something ugly. "He was my friend ... and she’s ... she’s family."

He chuckled again, the sound like nails on a blackboard. "Right." He turned, leaned into her space again, hands braced on the arms of her chair, bitter breath burning her face. "Family." He leered openly. "If I known you liked family that way---"

"Shut up!" Barbara growled and shook her head, suddenly out of the chair and in his face, hands digging into his lapels. He grinned just the way he always had when he got a rise out of her. "You just shut up about her!"

He made a kissing face, clearly enjoying her distress. "Oh, come on, Babsy, no need for all the hostility. I can’t blame you for wanting to do a naked tango with her." His eyes ran over her with disdainful intensity. "Even if it’s not like you’d actually feel it or anything."

She closed her eyes tightly, stumbling back into the chair, hands fisting on the arms, words falling from her lips in a desperate litany. "It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not real...."

"No, it’s not." The lighthearted confirmation came even as a gentle hand landed on her shoulder.

Green eyes snapped open and Barbara stared up into a familiar cerulean gaze, relief sweeping through her. "Helena?" she gasped, not quite believing what she was seeing. "You’re here."

"Of course I’m here," Helena confirmed, a smile twisting full lips as she paced around until she was in front of Barbara. She leaned down, hands braced on the arm of the chair. "I heard a rumor there’s trouble...and whenever there’s trouble, I always know where to find it...wherever you are."

"It’s the Claw," Barbara quickly explained, hands fluttering nervously, so grateful that Helena was there she could barely think straight, but also afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing and driving her away again. Given that it seemed to have been battling the Claw that had already sent her away once, Barbara was terrified she’d run again. And if she did.... If she did, Barbara would have to face him on her own. She wasn’t so much scared for herself as that she wouldn’t be able to stop the bastard and the killing wouldn’t end.

"I know," Helena drawled and leaned closer still. "But that’s not important."

"Not...important...." Barbara exhaled in confusion. "But he’s out...killing---"

"Yeah, I got that," Helena assured her, then leaned close enough for her breath to tease Barbara’s ear. "And don’t worry. I’ll kill your little monster for you...the way I always do---"

Barbara shook her head. "No, we don’t kill," she reminded Helena.

Helena shook her head, still smiling at Barbara, while her eyes ran everywhere. "This one deserves to die. You know that as well as I do. As long as he’s alive...other people are going to die." Her lips just barely brushed Barbara’s ear. "And if you’re too much of a coward to do the job, I guess if falls to me...again."

"If I could do it, I would," Barbara insisted defensively. "I was even ready to---"

"To what?" Helena hissed, one hand digging into Barbara’s hair, pulling her head back. And suddenly she pounced, landing in Barbara’s lap, knees on either side of her hips, pinning her in place, one hand still gripping red hair, the other clawed into the back of the chair. "Get out of this chair and face him?" Helena chuckled mockingly and shook her head. "Good one." She leaned down, teeth digging into Barbara’s ear lobe hard enough to draw blood. "But how are you supposed to beat the bad guys when you can’t even feel this?" She dropped her hand from the back of the chair to Barbara’s groin. Barbara heard the sound of a button popping and a zipper sliding and looked down in time to see Helena thrust her hand inside and experience the painful disconnect as she was reminded of the difference between what she could see and what she could feel when it came to her own body.

"Don’t," Barbara pleaded, but Helena laughed at her, thrusting her hand deeper and moving it back and forth, every unfelt caress a punishment laid on Barbara for her failures.

"Can’t fight," Helena whispered near Barbara’s ear, her voice suggestive, her hand still moving and achieving nothing. "Can’t fuck." She straightened, peering down into green eyes with a mocking smile. "Exactly what are you good for again?"

Barbara’s head snapped into the back of her hair, hands clenching on the arms as Helena’s face swam even closer, dominating her vision, her cruel, mocking smile drawing Barbara’s gaze until it seemed as though there was nothing else in the universe. "No," she whispered, her voice broken and pleading. "No, no, no..." She pressed her hands against her ears, desperately trying to block Helena’s laughter out, only it was inside her head, echoing inside her skull, every repetition feeling like a hammer blow. "No, please...stop," she begged, unable to look away from Helena, that beautiful face mocking everything Barbara stood for. And then god apparently decided to take mercy for once in Barbara’s life as Helena seemed to ghost away to be replaced by the darkened interior of the workroom. It took Barbara a moment to realize that it was all nothing but one more nightmare, or maybe more of a hallucination because she wasn’t entirely certain she’d ever truly slept. She had no sensation of snapping awake or opening her eyes, just of one world merging into another.

"Just a dream," Barbara exhaled, staring into the distance, her gaze unfocused. She let her hands fall to her sides, trying to shake it all off as just the tortured imaginings of a mind gone too long without sleep. It didn’t mean anything...nothing. None of it meant anything at all. Just her subconscious playing cruel games.

It meant nothing.

Teeth gritted, she yanked the keyboard over and readjusted the position of the monitor, checking on the program status, relieved to see that it was nearly finished. Just a few more minutes.

Good.

Once that was done....

She didn’t finish the thought, instead focusing on the technical details. That was easier and much safer. Just take it one minute at a time, and you can do whatever you need to, she reminded herself.

Finally, the program was finished loading, and she ran the shutdown routine, then unplugged the connections. Finished, she picked the board up, turning it this way and that, studying the circuit board and the delicate components. She swallowed hard. It all came down to whether or not it worked. If she’d done it right, it should. If not.

If not, she’d failed again, and more people would die.

And it would be her fault.

No! She couldn’t let that happen.

Carrying the board, she rolled over to an adjustable height work table, and reached straight for what she needed. No time for delays. Time to suck it up and just keep moving forward. She had no other choice.

Barbara worked fast, ignoring everything but the need to make this work. Instinct told her that she didn’t have much time left.

Not much time at all.

* * * * * *

Alfred Pennyworth was worried. A call to Miss Barbara had resulted in a conversation so short she’d very nearly hung up on him, which wasn’t her normal way of doing things at all. Or at least it hadn’t been prior to Miss Helena’s angry exit from the clocktower, though in the time since it seemed to have become so. She was drawing steadily farther into herself, the look in her eyes frightening him. It reminded him too much of the expression he’d seen when she’d lain in a hospital bed, her life changed forever.

Then there’d been a child who needed her to pull her out of that dangerous place. Miss Barbara had a deep seated sense of responsibility and a need to be needed. It was a core element of her personality. At one time, he’d seriously doubted Master Bruce’s decision to leave and put so much on Miss Barbara’s shoulders. He’d feared he was asking too much of his young protégé, especially considering her situation, but with time Alfred had come to understand that it was the only thing that could have saved Miss Barbara. She’d needed to be responsible for Miss Helena, and when the time came, for the rest of New Gotham as well.

It had saved her.

Only now, he feared that the loss of one and the inability to see to the other alone would destroy her.

She’d told him to stay away, begging off on a visit because she insisted she needed some rest after a long night working with Miss Karen.

As awful as it was to contemplate, he wasn’t sure he believed her. Not that he knew why he doubted. Miss Barbara had never been one for lies...at least not for lies uninvolved with her work, but something had him uneasy. She’d told him to stay away, and he was undecided that it was the best thing to do.

Maybe if he just checked by...perhaps to bring some food. She wasn’t eating right, never did if he didn’t see to it. Yes, that was the thing. She couldn’t yell too loudly if he just dropped by with food.

He’d just stop by and make sure she was okay.

That was all.

* * * * * *

Barbara Gordon screamed---howled really---a horrifying, wretched, torn-from-the-throat, animal sound that erupted from her lips the instant she activated the spinal coupler, the pain beyond anything she could have possibly imagined. It tore through her, obliterating every other sensation, every conscious thought, everything but the agony ripping at her nerve endings.

Once she’d thought that even constant pain would be better than the awful numbness of a spinal cord injury.

If she could have formed a coherent thought she’d have realized she was wrong.

She lost her grip on the parallel bars she’d been using to support her weight and her knees buckled almost instantly. She went down, no longer screaming because she was long out of air and couldn’t manage to draw a fresh breath. Normally graceful fingers fumbled in raw panic and missed the control switch in their first pass. She rolled onto her back, mindless tears slipping from her eyes, still fighting with the switch.

And the suddenly a soft click heralded the end of the blazing agony. She saw the instant the coupler ceased functioning in the way her legs went limp, collapsing to the floor even as the pain simply stopped. Or at least the pain in her lower body ended that quickly. Unfortunately, the rest of her body continued to throb with the memory of the mind-numbing agony. Not wanting to the evidence of her latest failure in the form of her unmoving legs, she tipped her head back, staring at the ceiling as she fought to catch her breath.

Oh god, no way could she fight like that. It was just too much. She’d known there’d be pain, but never considered just how much. In arcing a signal over the break in the spinal cord and sending it to long unused nerve endings, she was completely overwhelming her body, and clearly sending a thousand different confused signals. The computer translation system was supposed to sort it all into something her brain could comprehend, but apparently the whole thing was simply too complex so it simply read as pain.

Feeling the heat of tears trailing down her temples into her hair, Barbara reached up and rubbed at the clinging moisture even as she went back over the calculations in her head, hunting for a mistake, something that could be easily corrected, and let her finish what she’d started.

God, she just wanted it over.

Soon enough, she supposed, and reached out, pulling her chair over---her old manual since the new one couldn’t be trusted yet---her movements sluggish, the belt that held the coupler in place cutting into her midsection. Ignoring the minor discomfort, Barbara pulled herself up, muscles pulling taut as she hauled herself bodily into the seat. Her breathing still ragged with pain, she leaned forward, elbows braced on knees that never felt their weight. She massaged her temples slowly, struggling to think through the aftershocks of agony still playing havoc with her body. Part of her was wanting to panic and she had to fight that. Stay calm. Think it through.

Maybe if she—

A warning alarm dinged before she could finish the thought and Barbara twisted, eyes going to a nearby computer monitor even as a message flashed onscreen.

No, no, no. Not now. It was too soon.

She worked the controls on the wheelchair, bringing it around even as she reached for the keyboard with her other hand. A few quick commands and the information she needed came up.

It was the Claw. He was only a short distance from entering the area she’d set up so carefully to trap him, and moving that direction. If he went where she wanted she could throw the switches and lock him in, but that was only half the problem. Once he was in, then would come the game of keeping him that way, and she was far from certain the system she’d put in place would do the job---he’d already broken out of too many traps and prisons for her to have much faith---and even if it did, she’d still have to find a way to transport him safely into police custody. Unfortunately, she was the only one available and with the failure of the spinal coupler, she was in no condition for a fight. Barbara cursed, uttering every foul word she could think of as she continued entering commands, trying to get a bead on something that might let her track him if he got away. Nothing. Among the rats she’d released to draw him, there were several with transmitters surgically hidden just under the skin in hopes he’d devour one and tag himself, but either the bastard was lucky, or he could smell them because every time he caught a tagged animal, the tag abruptly went offline. Deliberately broken or simply crunched between his teeth? She had no way of knowing, and neither thought was terribly comforting.

She watched his heat signature on the monitors. He was moving rather randomly through the lower part of the facility, still making his way in the direction she wanted, but no longer in a straight line. She punched up the cameras in an effort to get a visual. Unfortunately, he seemed to have an almost preternatural sense of being watched. Either that or he was damn lucky. Either way, he darted from point to point, moving too fast for her to catch more than a brief glimpse, only slowing when he could cling to the shadows. She brought up the tracking system which let her see the pattern of movement in the form of dots on a map. It wasn’t as accurate as she would have liked, but by comparing the two sets of data, she was able to form a fairly good picture of what he was doing.

He was exploring, she realized. Maybe learning a new territory? The lower levels of the clocktower were warmer and drier than the sewers. She’d hoped that would be inviting for something like him. But how long would he stay? And would he come back? He wasn’t where she wanted him yet, but the way he was going, he would be soon. No time to debate or call in someone else. She either took the risk or let him go and hoped he came back.

And lived with still more blood on her soul if he didn’t.

Even knowing she was in no shape to face him if it came down to that, she couldn’t risk his getting away. Hell, she’d been ready for this for days now. The fact that she couldn’t play the way she’d hoped didn’t change the fact that she was in the game.

Barbara punched up another set of commands, gaze narrowing faintly as a new screen came online. Her fingers moved quickly over the keyboard, her touch confident. The computer world was her element now, and she danced and played in it just as she had once moved over the rooftops of Gotham City.

And how would she do once she was out of it?

It looked like they were going to find out. Nobody got to walk away from this fight because one way or another she had to stop the Claw.

She punched a final button, locking the main portion of the clocktower down. The final steps would wait until both she and the Claw were in their respective positions, then a last command would lock that up, ensuring that no one came or went without her approval.

A small mobile command unit sat on next to the main monitor and she grabbed it easily strapping the unit to her left arm. A flip up screen would give her any information she needed, while a tiny keyboard gave her access to the Delphi through a wireless transmitter. She punched it online, entering a few commands to check things out and institute a verbal command protocol. From here on out, the Delphi controlled everything coming and going and it would only respond to her verbal commands or the mobile unit.

Her eyes slid back to the table and the other item waiting there. She’d hoped not to need it, but she couldn’t take a chance that the Claw would escape. The weapon was an unfamiliar weight in her hands. Her father’s .45 calibre automatic backup service weapon. She’d fired it before, always with the feeling that the damn thing was going to grind her wrists to powder with every shot. All but the final two cartridges in the last were high velocity loads with dum-dum bullets designed to shatter on impact and do max damage. The last two were more quite a bit more special. Homemade exploding bullets, drilled out and filled with a special component of her own invention that would make damn certain that the Claw didn’t walk away if it came down to it. Together it was more than enough to kill a normal human several times over, but the Claw wasn’t a normal human and she’d already seen how much punishment he could take. She wasn’t even entirely confident even this much could kill him---at least not before he killed her---but it was the best she could do.

Barbara slid the .45 free of the custom made shoulder holster, checked it with automatic skill and chambered a round, the metallic, double snicket sound enough to make her jump. She hated guns, but she was entirely too familiar with their form and function, and she stared at the thing for a long moment, hoping it wouldn’t come to that. Once before she’d accidentally killed someone. This time, if it happened, it would be entirely by design and that thought appalled her. Finally she reholstered it, then checked the spare clips set under the other arm to counterbalance the weight of the heavy weapon. A small shudder of horror slid over her skin as she slid the shoulder rig on, then adjusted the straps.

A quick glance told her the Claw was still checking out the sub-basement, and she tracked him out of the corner of her eye as she finished preparations for the coming battle. Strange as it might seem to most, she was suddenly ultra-calm, her racing pulse quickly slowing to something approaching normal. It had always been like that for her just before a battle. She’d been able to go into a sort of meditative state, simply focusing on the job she had to do.

It was a relief to find that at least one thing hadn’t changed.

And then she was in the elevator, distantly tracking its downward motion as she watched the tiny image of the claw on the mobile computer strapped to her arm. It wasn’t great resolution, but the tiny plasma screen was better than anything commercially available and it let her track him as he sniffed around.

The elevator was nearly at its destination when the Claw finally crossed the threshold she was watching for. She entered a command even as she switched the display to a floorplan view. As the elevator bumped to a halt, the view changed, indicating doors closing in rapid succession.

Reaching for the wheels of the chair, she waited while the elevator doors split and slid apart. A sharp push took her forward just as a muted roar vibrated the walls, echoing up the elevator shaft.

Somebody wasn’t having a good day.

Not now. She couldn’t afford any of this now. The Claw was nearly in her trap, only she was nowhere near ready for the fight.

"I’m from New Orleans...weird shit is nothing new."

When Alfred finds the Clocktower locked up tight, he goes looking for Helena ... not at her apartment, so he goes to allison's place, thinking they're having an affair. Ally figures she's on duty, but he says no, he was just there. Says Helena mentioned hitting a club sometimes when she couldn't sleep. Not sure which one though.

Helena landed lightly, rain streaming down her face and body, washing away some the blood streaming from the woman in her arms.

"Miss Helena." Alfred hurried forward even as the young woman sank to her knees, coiling over and around the precious burden in her arms.

"She tried to take him on alone, Alfred," Helena said, her voice pure anguish, but she wasn't sure he heard her as he turned away, his voice rising to make himself heard the people gathered some distance away.

"GET AN AMBULANCE!!"

Helena distantly noticed that it was the closest to panicked she'd ever heard her father's butler.

Helena slid trembling fingers into sodden hair, silently willing Barbara to move, say something, even moan, but she was utterly still. "Why didn't she come to me ... did she think I wouldn't have helped?" She looked up, her eyes pools of agony. "I never wanted her hurt ... I just ... I wanted ... anything but this." She leaned across the prone woman again, shielding her from some of the rain with her body. She barely felt the weight of the hand that landed on her shoulder as she checked again for a pulse---terrified Barbara had died during the panicked near-flight to the ground---but it was there, thready and weak. She reached down, trying to stanch the blood running freely from Barbara's side with her hand while she leaned on her other elbow, not feeling the way gritty tarmac pressed into her flesh. Barbara's head hung limp, twisted to the side, the cords in her neck pulled taut by the position, long lashes spiked by rainwater where they rested on her cheek. Her lips were parted slightly, and Helena couldn't take her eyes away from the cut that marred the corner of her mouth, the ugly mark surrounded by a purpling bruise. Helena glanced down, her stomach rolling as she took in the sight of torn leather, and even worse, torn flesh. There were other bruises---dozens of them---and more cuts---too many to count---marring soft flesh. She buried her face in the curve of Barbara's shoulder, a sob bubbling up from her chest. "I'm here," she whispered, unknowingly echoing the words she'd first said so many years before when Barbara had been on the verge of death. "And I need you ... please ... don't go." She was surprised when she felt the faintest flicker of tension in the woman lying beneath her as muscles strained violently just to lift a fine-boned hand. Helena's chin came up as Barbara's hand curved to the back of her head, fingers threading into dark hair, her breathing tortured and ragged as she struggled to drag air in past ribs that were cracked and broken.

"It was really you," Barbara said very softly, a frown marring her brow as though she didn't quite believe the woman kneeling above her wasn't just a hallucination. "You came."

Helena cupped her hand along the side of Barbara's face, supporting her when she didn't appear strong enough to hold her head straight. "Of course I did," she said instantly.

"The Claw?" Barbara groaned, her voice an agonized rasp. Drugs and pain had her mind spinning until it was hard to separate reality from fantasy. She honestly didn't know if the memory of toppling the meta was real or not. She wasn't even completely sure it was really Helena there, or just the imaginings of her fevered brain. She'd wanted to see the other woman so desperately before she died, that she could easily envision her brain coming up with a hallucination to match.

"You stopped him," Helena assured her, her touch impossibly gentle as she stroked Barbara's cheek, desperate to reassure herself that the other woman was still warm, still breathing, still alive. "I found you ... after.... I would have come sooner, but I didn't know you needed me." She shook her head, the tightness in her throat making it painfully hard to speak. "I didn't know...."

Unable to hold her arm aloft any longer, Barbara let her hand slip from its place tangled in Helena's hair, her thumb trailing along the younger woman's cheek before her hand spilled back to earth. "Always ..." she groaned almost inaudibly, her eyelids fluttering, eyes threatening to roll back as the pain washed over her in agonizing waves, "...always ... needed ... you...." And then Barbara's world was spinning away. She distantly felt the rain on her face and heard Helena screaming her name, but she'd sunk into blackness by the time the chest compressions started.

"Coffee, Miss?" Alfred asked, his composure remarkably unflappable.

Allison looked over, noted his total calm with a faintly flummoxed look and nodded a little dazedly. "Thanks." She accepted the foam cup, but her hand was shaking so badly she promptly toppled coffee all over her hand. Luckily it was barely lukewarm.

Alfred quickly took the cup back, offering a cloth handkerchief as he did so.

"Then again, maybe liquids aren't such a great idea right now," Allison exhaled, then paused, lifting her hand and holding it out flat to note the way it was trembling violently.

"Are you all right, Miss?" the butler asked, his tone kindly.

Still staring at her hand, Allison shrugged. "Little shaky," she admitted, then turned her head to peer at him. "What the hell are they?" she asked after a beat, her expression awestruck, the things she’d seen still topmost in her mind.

He offered a kind smile. "Very special."

"Right." Allison ducked her head to one side, Brown eyes refocusing on the slender figure pacing back and forth near the ICU. "Why is it I have a funny feeling that barely begins to describe it?"

Alfred’s mouth turned up in an enigmatic smile. "Because you’re quite intelligent."

She looked at him again, one eyebrow quirking. "Interesting thing," she said at last. "I keep seeing the Wayne logo on everything...and this morning, I picked up my messages, and they included a job offer to work for the ___________ in Italy...courtesy of a grant from Wayne Industries. I don’t suppose you’d know anything about that?"

White brows rose, and Alfred looked genuinely surprised. "Actually, I wouldn’t," he admitted.

She looked doubtful, not quite believing his denial. "I’m no threat to them," she said at last.

Barbara braces her baton across the Claw's throat, hooks her arms around it and handcuffs her wrists together so that he can't throw her off.

Barbara comes up against something far worse than she's ever faced. Can't track it down, so she gets it to come after her, and locks it into the clocktower, intending to trap it with herself as bait, but it gets through all the defenses she's got in place. Winds up in a hell of a battle, and she's just getting creamed, even though she's fighting very well. The new wheelchair comes into play here. And everything's blowing up. Helena arrives at the clocktower, finds Alfred, and he briefs her, then she runs to Barbara's side. Barbara is damn near killed, Helena winds up performing CPR to get her heart restarted after she's nearly electrocuted. Ultimately carries her down for an ambulance crew. Later goes to her in the hospital, and insists she's realized she can't walk away, but there is some inference that she's doing it as much because she fears Barbara will get herself killed if she doesn't.

Scene a week later in which Helena agrees to continue their work, but also maintains her apartment. She needs time away from things, can't let it get so intense. Needs time off.

It was hard to tell who she hated more; him for wanting her, or her for wanting him to want her.

Merged with the shadows on the ledge outside of Wade Brixton's livingroom, Helena Kyle gritted her teeth as she controlled the urge to go crashing through the picture window to break up the tryst on the verge of going on in front of her.

"Wade...."

Sharp ears pricked, easily separating Barbara's breathless voice from the surrounding street sounds as the kiss broke. The window muffled the sound ever so slightly, but inhumanly sharp senses had no trouble making out every word, while sharp eyes narrowed faintly as he curved a hand to a gentle cheek.

"Hear me out, Barbara," the teacher murmured, his voice ragged with denied passion, "I like you ... like being with you." He snatched another quick kiss, and Helena could almost see the heat gathering in his groin.

Horny bastard. Didn't he care that....

She growled low in her throat, the thought forgotten as he continued.

"I want you so much." The hand on the redhead's cheek slid lower, fumbling to caress her breast, his movements clumsy to Helena's eyes. Barbara shouldn't have to put up with being touched like that. Graceful as she was, every caress should compliment that perfect beauty---should be calculated for the maximum effect---not mindlessly grabbing or twisting like she had a set of radio dials.

"How can she want him pawing her like that?" Helena muttered under her breath, silently willing Barbara to shove him back, slap him, throw him out, laugh at him. Something ... anything. His hand shifted, thumb moving, stroking the faint protrusion that Helena tracked with sharp eyes, easily marking it as a perfect nipple.

"Wade..." Barbara said again, sounding much too breathless for Helena's comfort.

"I know that there may be some differences ... but I'm willing to learn ... how to please you."

Mighty big of you, Helena though acidly, her stomach churning angrily.

"Wade...."

Helena didn't wait to hear the rest, couldn't afford to allow herself to hear the rest, not when she knew what she wanted to do. She clamped down on that emotional response, just like she'd clamped down on it for years. It was too intense to be safe, and she could never allow herself to endanger Barbara. She'd done that once before and the guilt had almost been more than she could bear. In the end, she just turned and fled, so strong and graceful she almost seemed to fly.

* * * * * *

"Wade," Barbara said more sharply when he didn't take the hint and pushed her would-be lover back, a faint sound drawing her attention toward the window for just a second. Nothing there. Of course there was nothing there, she reminded herself. True, in Gotham, that wasn't quite as certain when one was several stories up as might normally be expected, but still. She turned her attention back to her date. "I'm flattered ... really," she assured him when he threatened to look hurt by the rejection clearly headed his way, "but I'm really not ... not ready." She didn't specify for what exactly, allowing him to make his own assumptions. He flashed a puppy dog look that might have done a better job twisting her heartstrings when she was in college and vulnerable to guilt. "It's just way too soon ... for me ... I mean, I don't--" She had no idea what to say that wouldn't do more to crush his ego than she was capable of. She enjoyed his company, but that was it. He was nice enough, but there was just no spark. She ignored the clench of stomach muscles and the fear that maybe spark simply wasn't an option in her life anymore. Logically, she knew it was stupid, but it had been so long since there'd been anything approaching passion in her life that it frightened her. Other than that brief, post-shooting fling with Dick---which had been more about friendship and comfort than grand passion---there'd been little more than a few dates here and there. Nice enough times, but nothing that went past the mild social demands of dinner and a movie. And she found she was none to eager for things to go past that point in this instance either.

"Sleep around," he finished for her, yanking her attention back to the present. He sighed heavily, then flushed, quickly stammering apologetically. "Of course you don't," he added. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have.... It's just that you're so beautiful ... and it's been a long time since I've connected with anyone this way." He brushed her cheek lightly. "I guess I got a little overeager."

"Yeah," she confirmed, the hand resting on his chest holding him back firmly when he started to lean close again. "And it's getting late. I really should be getting home. We've both got classes tomorrow....."

He stiffened and pulled back, getting the message loud and clear this time. "Right," he sighed, glancing at his watch in an effort to regain a little lost dignity. "Classes."

She nodded, not arguing, then started to lift herself back into her chair. He leaned forward as if to help, but she waved him off. "I can do it."

"Of course you can," he muttered as she efficiently made the shift from couch to chair. Pushing to his feet, embarrassed to feel more clumsy than she appeared, he shoved his hands in his pockets and waited.

Several minutes later, he was watching her drive away into the night with little more than a last kiss on the cheek to reward him for his efforts. Great. That had not been the plan at all, he thought with more than a little disappointment.

After a drive that felt unusually long and slow, Barbara was finally home and locking up. She was still setting the last of the alarms on the million dollar system when she became aware of watching eyes. "Yes?" she asked when she finally turned the chair around and found herself facing a distinctly disapproving look from her newest young ward. "Something wrong?"

A dark blonde brow rose high on Dinah's forehead and she pursed her lips. "Have a good time?" she muttered.

The redhead shrugged, wondering what that look was all about. "It was fine," she answered, her tone noncommital. "You have a good evening?"

"Also fine," the girl answered, still staring at Barbara as though she could see right through her. "So, are you actually interested in this guy?"

Barbara had every reason to say yes. Wade was sweet, thoughtful, good looking. Okay, so his parents loathed her, but that didn't seem to have slowed his pursuit much. When she thought about it, she honestly didn't know. She liked him, but at the same time, there was a side of her that was beginning to suspect she was dating him more because he'd asked. After flying solo for so long, it seemed like she ought to want a man in her life. Maybe she was just saying yes because he fit the bill and flattered her ego. "We've only gone out a few times," she said to avoid actually answering the question.

"Seven times," Dinah corrected, then kept speaking---babbling really---because she would have stopped herself if she'd been thinking more clearly. "And it's nearly one a.m., and--" she added with the prim demeanor of a middle aged mother, only to cut herself off. "Oh no," she decided out loud. "I'm not getting in the middle of this."

Her new guardian stared at her as though she'd grown a second head.

Which might not even be entirely impossible, Dinah mused, what with her being a Meta-Human and all that, though she still wasn't entirely clear what a Meta-Human was. So far, it simply appeared to be a polite way of saying you got to spend a great deal of time either grossed out or hopelessly embarrassed due to the tendency to accidentally go rooting around in people's thoughts. The human mind---Dinah had learned from hard experience---was not a place for the faint-hearted.

"In the middle of what?" Barbara demanded after a beat, offering a mystified shrug as the girl continued to peer at her with a baleful look. Maybe Dinah was just feeling uncertain, thinking that now that she'd finally found a stable home, Wade threatened to upset it in some way. "I had a date. It was no big deal."

"No big..." Dinah repeated. It was her turn to stare as though someone had grown a spare head. She'd met Wade. He was nice, safe, dull, bland, boring, and it was a wonder Barbara managed to stay awake every time he opened his mouth. Excitement Guy he was not. "You can't seriously be interested in him," she said at last, shaking her head, "not when..." she skidded to a quick, verbal halt and shook her head again.

"Not when what?" Barbara shook her head in frustration, suddenly feeling very annoyed with everyone and everything. "First Helena rips my head off for god only knows what, and now I've got you glaring at me for some reason or other ... though I have no idea what it could be." She snorted softly. "Personally, if you have something you want to say, I'd rather you just said it." Why god had insisted on cursing her with teenagers not once, but twice in her life was simply beyond her, particularly since one of them seemed bent on never growing up, and the other one already appeared to consider herself older than Barbara.

Dinah cocked her head to one side, peering at her guardian assessingly. She couldn't help but wonder if she'd always been this thick or if it was a more recent development. Maybe her legs weren't the only thing that had gone numb when she wound up in that chair. "Helena was upset with you earlier?" she said at last.

Barbara resisted the urge to growl and nodded. "She was like a bear with a sore paw," she admitted, feeling vaguely immature as Dinah continued to carefully study her. There was something about the girl that sometimes made her seem wise beyond her years. Not all the time, thankfully, or she'd have been utterly unbearable. Most of the time she was actually a fairly normal teenager, but then there were the other times. The times when she suddenly seemed to turn into someone more on par with Barbara’s father---agewise---than the average teen. Glimpsing people's thoughts would age one she supposed, but some days it left her feeling vaguely defensive, like they'd somehow traded places and Dinah was the adult, while she was back to being a teenager. To say the least, it wasn't a comfortable sensation.

"You do know why, don't you?" Dinah inquired politely.

Barbara threw her hands up again. "Hell, no," she admitted and shook her head. Understand Helena's moods. That would be the day. "She gets moody sometimes ... not surprising considering everything she's seen ... not to mention her basic genetics." The daughter of a perpetually depressed crime fighter, and his manic on-again-off-again, somewhat unstable thief of a girlfriend was not likely to have the most steady moods on the planet. She loved Bruce, had even liked---if that was the right word, which it probably wasn't---Selina Kyle, but she was realistic about their relative stability levels.

Dinah's eyebrow crept a little higher. "Think about it," she said at last. "And then consider why I'd bet serious money that you're the one who gets like a bear with a sore paw every time she has a date."

Barbara pulled up short, her mouth momentarily hanging open. She shook her head again, refusing to consider the entire sentence and instead focusing on, "Helena ... date?" Another sharp head shake dismissed that concept. Helena didn't so much date as venture forth into the wilderness, her idea of a quiet evening leaping out of an airplane with someone and doing god only knew what on the way down. She'd dragged enough of her would-be paramours through Barbara's apartment during the years between moving in and moving out, the only consistent element that tied them together that they were all young, all hard bodied, and all as wild and fast-moving as she could be. Short, tall, male, female, very pale, and very dark. She'd tried a little bit of everything, throwing herself into the scene with a passion that often left Barbara feeling very, very, very old. If she sometimes seemed a bit ... grumpy over the whole thing it was just because....

She didn't---or perhaps couldn't---finish the thought. She allowed a moment for the minor, mental hiccup to pass, then tried again. It was just that....

No, that didn't work either. She just felt that....

No, definitely not that.

She suddenly realized the Dinah was still staring expectantly. "I fail to see what one thing has to do with the other," she said at last. Better just to avoid some subjects altogether.

Dinah rolled her eyes, finally, blessedly, turning back into a teenager. It was a genuine relief for Barbara because she didn't like feeling like the junior partner in all this. "Of course you do," the girl murmured, her tone disapproving. "And I don't even want to know what she'd say if I asked her." She snorted derisively. "God, you are both so dense," she muttered with the air of superiority the world allows only the very young and the very old to enjoy. Without giving Barbara a chance to respond, she flounced back into her new bedroom, pushing the door shut in her wake.

The redhead stared after the teenager for a long moment, shaking her head slowly. "That's it," she muttered at last. "In my next life, I'm just going to have a hamster. Hamsters never play head games ... okay, so they're not the greatest crime fighters ever born, but they never make you feel like you're a few bricks shy of a full load." She made an annoyed sound in the back of her throat, consciously shaking off whatever it was she was feeling, and heading toward her bedroom. She was much too tired to deal with it all. Maybe tomorrow. Or with more luck, she'd be too distracted to deal with it then, and it would just float into the past and be quickly forgotten. Quickly forgotten was a good system. It worked for her. It was simple, cheap, easy to maintain, and allowed things best left alone to remain right where they belonged ... in tight lock boxes buried deep in mental closets. Despite her best efforts, her sleep was restless and uneasy, her normal easy slumber disturbed by sensual dreams she didn't remember but which left her sweaty and aching in ways she'd almost forgotten were even possible.

* * * * * *

Barbara was grateful to find that the next day brought work and copious amounts of it. A seventh death at a local nightspot in just over a week had her full attention when she cranked up the Delphi system---long since discontinued by Wayne Corp, which had moved on to an all new designation and design approach. Which was fine by her, since the current computer bore almost no resemblance to the original. This one was all hers, and beyond a few hardware and software design basics, there was little of the original left anymore. Released publicly, the current Delphi would have smoked everything on the market, and she knew it, and took more than a little pride in it. Aside from building a few components to her specifications, Wayne Corp was out of it. Delphi was the Oracle's baby.

She ran through the night's events, frowning as she came up with new data on a situation she'd been following for several days now. The police were attributing the violent fistfight that had resulted in a young man's death to a new designer drug that was suddenly flooding the Gotham market. Snorted like Cocaine, the finely ground, brackish powder the street dealers called Black Snow caused the instant high of OxyContin, the emotional lightheartedness of heroin, and sadly enough, the frequent violent psychosis of crystal methanphetamine. It was also absolutely legal, just far enough off its parent drugs at a molecular level that the current drug laws didn't cover it. Doubtless, that was an oversight that would be dealt with at some point, but in the meantime, it was killing people. They'd already stopped two shipments of stuff, but it was obviously still getting through, and she was desperate to trace it back to the source.

Using the kind of computer skills that most script kiddies couldn't even begin to dream of, she raided every information source she could think of, slowly building an image of the prey she was stalking, tracking them through computer files the same way she'd once stalked criminals through the streets of Gotham.

She was distantly aware of Helena's presence when the other woman entered, but paid her only scant attention, far more focused on the chase at hand. Besides, she wasn't all that eager to get her head torn off the way she had the day before. Normal Helena was rude. Rude Helena was utterly impossible.

Helena, however, had never been a woman who handled being ignored well at all. She ambled over, all loose limbed, sensual grace as Barbara tracked her out of the corner of one eye. "You have a nice date last night?" she asked, the question too casual by half.

Peering over the top edge of her glasses, Barbara glanced up at the younger woman. "Fine," she answered without thinking about it. She had no intention of telling Helena about the makeout session on the couch or the fact that she'd made a run for cover the moment Wade wanted more and she'd realized that she wasn't in the slightest bit interested.

"Just 'fine?'" the younger woman mused out loud, then leaned down into Barbara's space, forcing the redhead to acknowledge her presence in more than just a vague way. Her gaze slid over the woman in the chair. "Doesn't sound very promising," she taunted.

Barbara shrugged, leaning back into the thick padding at her back, taking back a measure of personal space, which Helena promptly pressed into. "It was fine. We saw a movie and had dinner--"

"And did you have breakfast too?"

Silently cursing her fair skin that showed every faint blush, Barbara narrowed her eyes as she felt her cheeks flame. "Excuse me?" she clipped, trying desperately to cut this off at the pass, whatever this was.

"Breakfast," Helena specified, her attitude lazily taunting, "morning meal, typically--"

"I know what it is," Barbara snapped, annoyed to realize that Rude Helena had decided to make another appearance today, "and I don't see what that has to do with anything." For some reason the notion of denying the inference made her almost as uncomfortable as confirming it would have.

Helena tensed for the briefest second, the reaction appearing and disappearing so fast Barbara wasn't sure she'd actually seen it. "Nothing I guess," she drawled, straightening and releasing her tight hold on Barbara's personal space. "Just curious." Her eyes slid over the sitting woman with the power of an actual touch. "I mean, it's not like you've been a dating fiend since...."

Green eyes rose, a flicker of hurt shining in them. The last thing Barbara needed was to have Helena remind her of all the things she'd lost and all the things she wasn't anymore.

The possibility of inflicting pain on that front pulled Helena up short, forcing her to rein in her jealous anger. They had fought more than a few times over the years, but only once had she struck at that very vulnerable nerve and the memory was still enough to make her flinch with shame. "...since I've known you," she muttered clumsily. Barbara might be remarkably skilled at projecting the image that what had happened to her didn't matter, but the younger woman was smart enough to notice the hints of pain that still slipped through when she wasn't careful. It was easy to forget. She was so damned, determinedly independent, but the hurt was there, and while she could deny it to the world, the younger woman had seen what she'd gone through; the months of surgery and therapy, the agonies of a body nearly destroyed, and the fight to regain some measure of what she'd had.

Barbara turned away, skin flushed, deeply aware of her own inadequacies in a way she would have preferred to ignore despite Helena's last minute bit of kindness. As much as she tried to pretend she was just as capable of taking care of herself as she'd ever been, it was hard to maintain that illusion when she had the perfect specimen of femininity running around; sultry, sexy as hell, and able to kick your ass for sport. Yeah, that was just great for her ego.

Suddenly desperate to change the subject before she made an even bigger ass of herself, Helena stepped around Barbara's wheelchair, peering at the computer screen to distract herself from all the things she wanted to say. She was already in a foul mood and the words hanging on the tip of her tongue were all anger-tinged accusations rife with demands she had no right to make. Let go of that and Barbara would probably think she'd finally lost her mind. Or better yet, she could sweep the other woman up and take possession of her lips the way that hungry, predatory part of her wanted. She tensed, the hunting instinct threatening to kick in, though she tamped it down through hard won experience, quite certain that response would be even less welcome than any words she might unleash. The moment she let go of that it would be all too obvious this wasn't some sudden development, and she couldn't imagine Barbara would welcome the knowledge that her former ward had been in love with her for years, and was rotting with jealousy at the thought that maybe this guy, Wade, might be someone Barbara could really care for. No, she couldn't imagine that would be good news at all. "Looks like somebody's looking to make a real killing ... financially and literally."

Clearing her throat, Barbara turned the chair around, accepting Helena's change of topic with a certain degree of relief. When Helena got into one of her moods, it was usually easier to just keep things to the strictly professional. "Yeah, I can't believe they've already got another shipment--"

"And it looks like you've got the date and time." A predatory smile curved full lips. "Definitely something I should handle." She was going to enjoy cracking a few heads. Maybe that would help work off some stress. Her head came up sharply as a hand landed lightly on her forearm in a gently restraining gesture. Instincts triggered almost instantly, the softest of growls rattling in the back of her throat as she focused on the slender fingers resting lightly on her bare forearm, their flesh pale against her slightly darker complexion. Cat's eye pupils expanded and contracted sharply, her breathing slowing, that strange ultra-calm that came with combat mode swallowing her up. As she stared at Barbara, she saw the delicate pulse hammering at her throat, noted the way her eyes grew black with tension. Her gaze slid up, taking in loose red hair that absolutely begged to have fingers sliding through it, then down to touch on lips that were glossy and faintly parted.

Momentarily caught like a rabbit in the headlights, Barbara froze for the longest second, and when she did finally find the wherewithal to speak, her voice came out breathless and uneven. "No," she said, continuing in a rush when Helena only raised one eyebrow in polite disbelief. "There's something going on here ... and I want to know what it is before we make any more moves."

Helena's second eyebrow joined the first on its journey toward her hairline. "And meanwhile, that garbage will be getting into people's hands," she pointed out, not quite believing what she was hearing.

"But it doesn't do any good if every time we stop one supply line, ten more pop up," Barbara muttered, easily guiding the chair around the other woman. "If you want to kill a hydra, you have to do more than just cut off a few heads. If I can find a way to trace it back to the source, we can stop it altogether."

"Fine," Helena growled, "and while you're doing that, I'll just--"

"No," Barbara said again, her tone even firmer this time.

Full lips pursed defiantly as Helena folded her arms across her chest.

"There's something wrong here," Barbara continued, well aware of the baleful glare focused her way, and hoping she could simply keep her partner from doing something impulsive---not always the easiest of tasks. "I'm not sure what it is, but...." She shook her head, swinging her gaze back to the computer screen. "I found this too easily...."

"Druggies aren't known for being the smartest crooks in the world," Helena pointed out. They were probably as stoned as most of their customers. "All I have to do is--"

"No," Barbara said again, her tone even firmer.

A soft, almost subliminal, growl vibrated up from Helena's throat and she pivoted sharply, stalking away with long strides.

Barbara turned, staring after the younger woman, her eyes following every graceful, loose limbed step. "Have I done something to piss you off?" she asked after a beat.

The question pulled Helena up short as though she'd hit the end of an invisible leash, but she didn't turn back. "Why would you think that?" she asked at last, her voice softening.

"Oh, I dunno," Barbara responded, unable to quite restrain her own sarcastic impulses, "maybe the fact that you just about tore my head off yesterday, and I get the feeling you'd rather be almost anyplace but here today."

Despite her strength and speed, Helena was an almost delicately built woman, and slender shoulders sagged noticeably as a soft sigh echoed through the room. "I'm just ... having ... a bad day," she said haltingly when she finally spoke.

Turning the chair, Barbara rolled forward, reaching out to rest her palm on Helena's arm. The other woman's skin was warm and impossibly soft and she could feel the ripple of tightly corded muscles as they flexed just beneath the surface. Momentarily distracted, it took her a second to restart her thought processes. "Anything you want to talk about?" Time had done a lot to heal Helena's wounds, but the scars were still there, and they sometimes made themselves known at the most unexpected times.

The younger woman looked back, the anger that had hardened her expression softening enough to leave her looking very young. She offered a weak smile. "No," she sighed and did a slow turn, purposely reaching out to catch Barbara's hand as it broke contact with her upper arm. She rubbed her thumb lightly over the rise of her knuckles. "I'm just ... having a ... difficult time with some things."

"If there's anything I can do to help, all you have to do is tell me what it is."

Resisting the temptation to suggest long nights of slow lovemaking, Helena shook her head with a soft sigh. "I know," she admitted, her earlier temper a thing of the past, though depression still had a firm hold. Staring down into worried green eyes, she fought the urge to confess everything. Oh yeah, there was a good idea. She pushed the thought back, straightening her shoulders fractionally. "But, really, it's nothing you need to worry about." She glanced at her watch, noting the time. "In fact, if we're not chasing the bad guys today, there's something I should really get done."

"Helena...."

But the Huntress pulled back, breaking physical contact and drawing into herself, her expression a cool mask. "I'll see you later," she said crisply, and disappeared before Barbara could say another word.

The redhead hit a button on her console, bringing up the feeds from the security cameras that covered the entire building, a frown furrowing her brow as she electronically tracked Helena's progress back down to the street. Something was going on there. She didn't know what, though instinct told her that Dinah had a pretty good idea---the advantages of reading minds---not that she was sharing the information. "Oh Hel," she whispered and reached out to brush her finger against the woman's image where it glowed on her screen, "what's going on in your head?" Finally the brunette disappeared off her monitors, leaving Barbara to stew in her own thoughts.

Finally, with a tired sigh, she returned to her work.

* * * * * *A hint of a smile curving crimson lips, Dr. Harleen Quinzel silently watched her young patient, Helena Kyle pace back and forth, her expression troubled and distant. For the hundredth time, she found herself wondering about the thoughts going on behind those striking eyes. There was something about Helena Kyle, something dark and dangerous that teased her love of chaos with the promise of more fun and strife than she'd ever thought possible. One couldn't tell to look at her, but Harley Quinn was quite certain there was something very special about Helena Kyle, something very special indeed. Oh, it wasn't the tragic story. At work and at play, she'd seen and heard plenty of those from patients and victims both, usually while smothering a giggle. At times she found it incredibly trying to have to offer false comforts when they went on and on and on about their oh so dreary problems as though she could possibly care less.

Still, it gave her a chance to sow a little havoc during the down times when running a criminal empire just wasn't practical, so she supposed she really shouldn't complain. Tipping her head to one side, she offered a practiced sympathetic smile. Helena had shown up asking if she could see the doctor despite the lack of an appointment and in the twenty minutes since hadn't said more than two words. This definitely had some promise. "Perhaps it would help if you talked about whatever's obviously bothering you."

The young woman did a slow pivot, the lanky body moving with an eerie kind of grace, her lips twisting in an expression that was more a grimace than a smile. "I doubt it," she sighed with fatalistic acceptance, then shook her head disgustedly. "I shouldn't have come here."

She turned as if to leave, and the doctor had to fight the urge to screech at her to stop. There was such a delightful darkness in the younger woman, and she wanted to probe it and nurse it along, see just how far it could go. Could it overcome that rather distressing softness she often witnessed in the younger woman's eyes, or would she prove to be weak? Instead of screaming, she managed to calmly respond, "If you think that's best, though I was under the impression you wanted help dealing with ... things."

Helena paused, her hand not quite touching the doorknob, then turned back. "It's just that I don't think there's any help for this," she sighed and stuffed her hands in her front pockets.

"Seems a rather hopeless attitude," Quinzel drawled. "If nothing else, perhaps you can come to some peace with whatever's bothering you if you share the..." she paused to consider the appropriate term before finally continuing, "...burden."

That earned an ironic snort of disbelief. "If I haven't managed the trick by now, somehow I doubt I ever will."

"Won't know if you don't try ... or perhaps you're not up to it," Quinzel said, her expression purposely challenging. She'd spent enough time in the young woman's company to know that the way to control her was to trigger her more defiant impulses. She was phenomenally competitive and hated being told what to do. "But perhaps you're not up to it."

Dark emotion flared in the younger woman's eyes. "It just seems kind of pointless," she ground out, "since it won't change anything."

The blonde's head tipped to one side as she considered the other woman, noting the tension and resentment coupled with an undercurrent of sensual heat. Oh, this was delicious. Mind you, Helena constantly broadcast waves at an intensely sexual level, so it was hard to be certain, but then again, she always got a certain look whenever one specific topic came up. Not just sexual, but fraught with the kind of hunger that only came from extended denial. "How's your business partner, Ms. Gordon, doing?"

Corded muscles tensed, and hooded eyes turned flinty. "She's fine," Helena responded too sharply to be believable. "Great, in fact," she added. "Even dating some great," her teeth ground together until they threatened to turn her molars to powder, "new guy."

The resentment and anger were impossible to miss and Quinzel had to force down a laugh. She was so obvious. "That's wonderful," she said sincerely, though her reasons for sounding so happy were far different from what most people's would have been. "I'm sure you must be very happy for her."

"Yeah," Helena growled, "really happy."

So happy she could cheerfully kill something by the look of it. "Still, I'm sensing some stress about your partner," the doctor said smoothly, not acknowledging Helena's obvious upset, allowing the young woman to think she was actually hiding it. "Are things going smoothly on the business front?"

Helena glanced away, eyes narrowing ever so slightly, the gesture a telling giveaway about her emotions. There was trouble on more than one front where Barbara Gordon was concerned. "Not exactly," the brunette muttered. She gnawed on her lower lip while Harley watched carefully, reading the conflict of emotion in the other woman's expression and body language, giving her time, certain that sooner or later she'd have to admit to what was bothering her so much. She was so close to the edge, it didn't take much to tip her over. "We just don't agree on some things," she said at last.

"Really?" Harley drawled, but didn't press. Right now that was only likely to push Helena farther into her shell.

"A ... uh ... uh contract," Helena said uncomfortably, "I wanted to go ahead with it ... pursue it more aggressively ... and Barbara didn't agree." Full lips pursed tightly. "So we're backing off."

"But I thought you were equal partners." Harley purposely tweaked that competitive, independent streak again, and saw Helena's eyes narrow right on schedule.

"We are," the younger woman growled. "It's just that...." She trailed off and shook her head, turning away again. "Some partners are more equal than others."

"Well, of course, having been your guardian, there is a certain parent-child relationship--"

"Barbara is not my mother," Helena snapped, then continued more uncertainly, "She's my ... my business partner."

Quinzel barely kept her glee under control as she saw the anger descend on narrow shoulders like a black cloud. "In which case, it seems as though your opinion should carry as much weight as hers. From what you've said, you're every bit as responsible for the success of things as she is--"

"Yeah, but she's taught me a lot ... has more experience."

"Perhaps," Harleen allowed, "but perhaps you need to prove to her that your judgment deserves respect just as much as hers."

"Maybe," Helena said, turning back again, "but it's not that simple."

Slim shoulders dipped in a diffident shrug. "I don't know all the details, of course, but it sounds to me like it's time for you to establish the fact that you're an equal in this partnership. Go after that contract and prove to her that you were right."

Dark brows drew together into a frown. "I don't know...."

"Of course, if you're not sure about your judgment...."

"It's not that," Helena said quickly.

"Perhaps you're afraid you can't handle it alone."

That got her back up ... exactly as intended. "Oh, I can handle it." The soft hiss escaped full lips. "It's not like it's a huge deal. Just a little tricky ... negotiating."

"There you go. I think you should do what you feel is right, then you can prove it to her ... make her see your point of view." That should cause quite a fight. In her experience, proving someone was wrong was absolutely the worst way to make a point. It pushed people to defend their opinion, often to the point of irrationality. Add the simmering sexual component and she was comfortably certain it would make for quite a dust up. She noted the tension in Helena's muscles, the way her hands fisted tightly at her sides. Drive that passion to anger and it might erupt in all sorts of glorious ways.

Helena considered the suggestion for a moment, suddenly uncertain. "You really think that's a good idea?" she questioned, doubting the suggestion the more she thought about it.

"Definitely," Harleen quickly assured her patient. "You're an equal partner, Helena. Don't you think you deserve to be treated as such?"

"Yeah, but--"

"Then it seems to me that it's time for you to stand up for yourself."

Looking mildly uncomfortable, Helena shrugged. "Maybe," she allowed.

"You sound as though you're doubting your judgment. Perhaps Ms. Gordon is right about not moving on this deal--"

"No," Helena ground out, and her eyes flashed with quiet fury. "No, this is important--"

"Then I think you have your answer." A slow smile drew its way across the doctor's full lips.

Helena's expression shuttered down as she drew into herself. "Yeah. She's always telling me the most important thing is to do what's right." She wasn't looking at the psychiatrist as she spoke, and seemed to be talking to herself more than the other woman.

Quinzel's silky smile only spread wider. How wonderful to be able to use the other woman's own words to turn her ... friend ... against her, and cause a little trouble. It wasn't quite international crime, but having a day job had its rewards too. She drew breath to toss a few more monkey wrenches into the works, only to come up short as the phone on her desk rang. "I hope you don't mind if I get that. It might be important."

Helena nodded her understanding. "Go ahead."

"Quinzel, here," Harley said as she picked up, and turned away from her patient, shielding the speaker from sensitive ears.

"Boss," the voice was heavy and uncultured, just like the man behind it. He was dumb as a sack of hammers, but there were advantages to men who were big and dumb in her experience. "Just wanted to let you know that everything's in place. The chick that's been interfering with our shipments is gonna have a really bad night tonight."

"Good, good, thank you for letting me know about that. I--" The soft snick of her door clicking shut in the wake of her patient pulled her up short faster than a gunshot would have. Blue eyes narrowed and momentarily flashed fire. Now, that was unfortunate. She'd had so many plans for pushing Helena on other fronts. Ah well, some things just weren't meant to be. With luck, she'd planted enough seeds to make a good bit of trouble.

"Boss?" the man on the phone questioned when she still hadn't spoken after a beat.

"Sorry about that. Slight interruption," she responded smoothly, her attention returning to more important matters. Helena was entertaining, but she was hardly important, just a hobby to keep Harley Quinn busy when she wasn't causing havoc in revenge for the destruction of her beloved Mister J---the Joker as others called him. "So you've got the party ready for tonight?" she drawled, smiling at the thought of what awaited the troublemaker who'd dared interfere with the Black Snow deliveries.

"S'right, Boss," came the Marlboro rough confirmation. "The bitch is due for a really nasty surprise if she shows up tonight."

"Oh, she'll show up," Harley murmured confidently, then allowed herself a small smile, "And when she does, unless I miss my guess, we'll have two problems dealt with."

"Boss?" her flunky sounded confused---not exactly a new state of affairs.

Blue eyes rolled in irritation. Big and dumb had its advantages, but it could be very trying some days to have to keep explaining everything. "The little computer hacker who's been nosing around. I'm quite certain he's working with whoever trashed the last couple of shipments. With any luck, after tonight's little surprise, they'll both be out of our hair." She laughed very softly as she contemplated the likelihood that a nasty bit of murder---or at the very least a good, solid beating---would put a stop to the annoying interference with her plans for total chaos.

"Oh," the dimwit responded, though he proved he didn't get the concept at all when he asked, "So, you really want us to let her go tonight?"

"Yes," she repeated with forced patience, pronouncing each word slowly and carefully as though he might have a hard time comprehending---which he probably did. "I want you to let her go after her little surprise, so that---with any luck at all---she will murder her partner in crime-fighting." She was quite certain it was the same woman who'd interfered with several of her other plans in recent months; quite a remarkable fighter by all accounts. She had no doubt the witch could deal with some anemic little computer hacker; probably scrawny, pale from lack of sunlight, and still nursing a healthy case of acne. Given a good healthy dose of Black Snow, she'd break his neck just for being so damned ugly. That thought made Harley smile, and she almost lost track of her lackey.

"Oh..." he muttered, sounding uncomfortable with the idea.

He paused and she could almost hear him turning the hand crank on the space filler between his ears that was laughingly known as his brain as he struggled to come up with another completely redundant question. "Just follow my instructions," she snapped before he had a chance to speak and annoy her even further. She was intensely relieved to be able to hang up only moments later. Harley massaged her temple slowly. The problem with criminal types was that by and large, a large percentage were just not very bright, and those that were very bright could be very difficult to work with---as in trying-to-kill-their-partners difficult to work with. That sort of thing never fostered close relations, and she supposed she really ought to stop doing it, but it was soooo much fun killing those who were as dark and twisted as she was. It was fun killing the lighthearted and innocent too. Actually, it was just fun killing.

She found herself wondering if Helena could appreciate the joy of snapping some unsuspecting fool's neck. Now, wouldn't that be a wicked sport to teach the beautiful bartender.

She turned a speculative eye toward the door through which her young patient had disappeared. Now there was an interesting thought; turn that lovely underlying darkness to her service. That could be worth looking into. But for now, she had other worries; people to poison, cities to destroy. "A psychopath's work is just never done," she sighed dramatically.

* * * * * *

Moving easily, every footsteps light and perfectly silent, Helena slipped through the dappled shadows on the rooftop of the Someplace Else Bar and Disco. Not that she needed to be particularly silent. The place was busy enough and the music loud enough to have the tarpaper roof beneath her feet vibrating with rhythmic shudders. The Someplace Else dominated one of the piers overhanging Gotham Bay, and the entry area was bright with the glitter of glittered lights where they flashed through the glass brick that fronted the building. Despite the excitement at the entrance to the bar, her interest lay in the back, where the loading dock was accessible to both land and water carried traffic. A narrow driveway allowed just enough room for small trucks to get in, while a small dock floated on the water at sea level, where it could be easily accessed by a steep, switchback ramp.

It was the dock that really held her interest.

The evidence she'd seen on Barbara's computer screen indicated the next shipment of Black Snow was due at the Someplace Else, and since the previous interrupted shipments had come in by water, it only made sense that this one would as well.

As she stalked through the night, just one more silent shadow amid a forest of them, she reached up, idly scratching her ear. A hint of a frown touched her expression as it occurred to her to miss Barbara's voice in her ear. Even though the other woman was rarely with her in person on any kind of mission, her soft comments and efficient guidance were a steadying force that made her feel less alone. Despite the façade she managed to project, it was scary as hell wandering through the dark, looking for fights, and seeking out situations likely to kill a normal human. A little company would have been a welcome distraction, especially since she was starting to have some serious doubts about what she was doing.

It felt wrong somehow, like she was cheating on the other woman. Ironic, considering that she'd never once had that sense during all the mating and dating she'd done during the years she'd known Barbara. Contrary to what some might have expected---that the other lovers were some attempt at purging unrequited love from her soul---in reality every mouth she'd kissed and body she'd touched had done more to confirm the intensity of emotion she felt for the redhead than anything else could have. She'd found plenty of physical pleasure, and, despite what some might have expected, more than a little intellectual spark. She'd even found emotional succor. What she'd never found in the company of anyone but the redhead was the unique connection or the constant desire for more. Other lovers could come and go. She was capable of caring for them when they were around and forgetting them when they weren't. They never got past the outer wall she used to keep the world out.

Only Barbara did that.

She sighed softly, then mentally chastised herself for momentarily losing track of her surroundings. That sort of thing was dangerous enough when she had backup, but on her own it could easily lead to disaster. She might be a Meta-Human, but the word human was still in there, and she wasn't invulnerable. She could bleed and die just like everyone else, it just took a little more force to make it happen than it did for the average person.

And, boy, wasn't she in a cheerful mood tonight?

She supposed it was her own damn fault. Desperate to hide her own feelings, she'd encouraged Barbara on the whole dating front, and look where that was leading. She'd actually gone out with Captain Bland again ... and again ... and again. And now, maybe she'd even--

She was saved from having to contemplate that particularly distasteful line of thought by the soft purr of a motorboat, just barely audible above the pumping music playing below. Sharp eyes narrowed, superhuman senses ramping up, cat's eye pupils contracting and expanding again as she focused on a fleck of black cutting a sleek wake in the gently shifting waves.

A cigar boat, coming in fast, probably from a heavier transport of some kind either in the bay, or on out to sea. Almost time for the fun to begin, she thought as she pushed down a moment's hesitation. Half a dozen men exited the rear of the bar, their voices a barely discernible murmur underlying the thundering music, far too soft for her to make out any words. Meanwhile, the pilot of the small boat slowed the engine as it drew close to the dock, then killed it and floated in the final distance.

A slow smile curved full lips as Helena contemplated her next move. She was going to enjoy this. Whoever was spreading this poison had created something so tempting to users, and so damned deadly and addictive that it had to be stopped before even more people died. She'd seen the third victim, a young woman whose boyfriend had beaten her death in a parking lot outside another disco, and the image was enough to haunt her nightmares for a long time. She knew just how hard a person had to hit a body to do that much damage, and how much getting hit like that hurt. Anything or anyone that could cause that kind f destruction deserved to be utterly annihilated as far as she was concerned. There were plenty of drugs out there that she didn't much care about, but this one had to be stopped and quickly. Whatever Barbara's fears, she was wrong about delaying any interdiction efforts, and she'd just have to understand that when Helena explained it to her after things were dealt with. Doctor Quinzel was right. It was time she followed her own instincts.

She started forward, bounding easily over the side of the building, body elongating in a graceful stretch as she plummeted straight down. She took the rear man out quickly and silently, lowering him, unconscious, to the ground without alerting the others.

Number two went down just as quickly, but not quite as silently while they were still a few yards from the ramp down to the dock, his soft groan just enough to alert number three, who made more than a little noise as she sent him flying over the side of the pier into the water far below. Huntress was already dealing with four and five when the soft splash made by a body hitting the water reached her ears.

Quick and easy, she thought as the final man hit the cement just above the ramp to the dock. A sensual smile made its way across full lips. She just had enough time to enjoy her moment before the two men with the boat came charging up the ramp. Great fighters they weren't. The first one threw a wild punch that she easily ducked, then left himself open for the hard right jaw that dropped him cold. His partner was a step behind him, which gave the second man just enough time to get a look at the number of bodies laying sprawled on the pavement, then at the slender, almost delicate woman grinning lazily at him. It also gave him an extra second to consider his actions. He needed the time---thought not being his strong suit---though several more seconds might have been better. Still, it was enough to make him reconsider.

He backpedaled fast, scrambling and trying to flee back the way he'd come.

She didn't give him a chance to get more than a few feet. Bounding after him, she took him down with feral ease, a quick clip to the back of the neck all it took to spill him, unmoving, to the ramp. "Night, night, sweet prince," she drawled, then glanced down, head cocking thoughtfully to one side. "Well, you're a frog anyway." She shook her head, grinning at the imagery that popped into her brain. "But don't plan on any kisses. You're really not my type." She vaulted the railing on the ramp and landed lightly on the floating dock, easily maintaining her balance on the gently shifting surface.

There were several heavy, black duffel bags stacked in the rear of the long, slender boat and she reached for the top one. Thankfully the stuff broke down when it hit water, so it would be easy enough to destroy. Yanking a zipper open, she stared at the neatly packed plastic bags of black powder. A quick slash with the sharp edge of a batarang slashed through several layers of plastic in one fell swoop, exposing the powder to the elements, and she flung the first duffel over the side. The second went down just as quickly. She flicked a gaze up toward the top of the pier where the men she'd dispatched were still unmoving. Barbara had been wrong to be so worried. This was one of the easier times she'd had on a mission. She grabbed for the third duffel, sliding the zipper and slashing the plastic bags inside. Maybe too easy, she thought as she remembered her partner's edginess. As the thought occurred to her, a frisson of tension worked its way down her spine.

Unfortunately, the sudden caution came a beat too late as the tiny charge buried in the third duffel bag abruptly exploded, the pressure sensitive points that activated the detonator setting it off with just enough power to send black powder swirling.

Suddenly caught in a charcoal sandstorm, Helena had the presence of mind to try and hold her breath, instinctively knowing that getting the drug into her system was the point of the trap. They didn't want to catch her, or kill her---at least not immediately---they wanted to send her away as a goddamned engine of destruction. Unfortunately, the powder was impossibly fine ground, clinging to her skin and lashes, filling her nose and dusting her hair. Momentarily disoriented, she spun unsteadily on the gently rocking dock. The water. It would wash the dust away. She dove, hitting the water in a far clumsier than normal arc, the sea water rinsing black powder from her hair and skin.

But not from her nasal passages where just enough flakes to cause madness still clung.

She went deep, momentarily disoriented before righting herself and swimming for the surface. As her head broke the surface of the water, she gasped in air, and within a second felt the first rush sweep over her.

* * * * * *

So exhausted her vision was starting to blur, Barbara slipped her glasses off and pinched the bridge of her nose, massaging slowly as she wondered if there was enough Advil in the world to cut the headache that was starting to develop just behind her frontal lobe. She worked her neck slowly, then peered past her massaging fingers at the faint blur of the computer screen, still able to read the rows of neat text, if not as clearly without her glasses. Unfortunately, her glasses didn't seem to help much. None of it made any sense. She'd skipped her way through at least a two dozen different systems in tracking the data stream and every time she thought maybe she was getting a handle on it, it just took her back someplace she'd already been. The damn trail was a nightmare study in circumnavigation, like the twisted ramblings of a total lunatic. The twisted part was that by making absolutely no sense whatsoever, it was remarkably successful at making it impossible to follow the circuitous cyber route back to its originating point. One of the basics of computers is that they generally have a distinct logic pattern. Ignore or destroy that pattern and it became nearly impossible to find anything among the terrabytes of information available with just a few mouse clicks.

Cursing softly, she threw off her exhaustion and slipped her glasses back on. Time to get back to work. Unfortunately, several more attempts to find what she was looking for produced exactly the same result.

Namely, zip, zero, nada, bupkiss.

She cursed again in a futile effort to let off tension and because she suddenly felt the need for the comfort of a human voice, even if it was only her own. Dinah had gone to bed, and Helena had disappeared, either working, partying, or just in one of her leave-me-the-hell-alone moods. She sighed softly, missing the other woman's company, even if it usually meant that any given task took at least twice as long as it would have otherwise. Helena had a knack for teasing her out of her serious moods and lessening the sense of failure when she couldn't work any virtual miracles. Or maybe it was just that she never let her concentrate long enough for the headache, neckache, or depression to successfully take hold.

She was still tightly focused on the computer monitor when a muted swirl of sound, like a bird in the moving through the gears of the huge clock, reached her ears. A frisson of unease worked its way down her upper spine as she searched the darkness for some sign of what had made the small sound. Several long, silent moments passed, their impact feeling more like hours than a small collection of seconds. Nothing. No sound or movement greeted her searching gaze.

"You're finally losing it, Gordon," she muttered disgustedly after she'd waited long enough to conclude she was imagining things. Forcing down the sudden bout of nervousness, she returned her attention to the data on the computer screen, only to look up again and turn the chair as a soft whoosh swirled the air around her. Again nothing. Shaking her head, she turned back, and nearly did something very out of character and squealed as a graceful shadow moved a few feet away, the lanky frame taking a moment to resolve itself into a familiar figure. "Helena ... Jesus, you scared the hell out of me," Barbara gasped as she recognized the younger woman.

"Sorry," the low drawl reached Barbara's ears even as the younger woman slid back a pace, her dark hair and clothes allowing her to merge with the shadows that dominated the room. The computer specialist preferred to keep things dark when she was working. It made it easier to read the many monitors spaced around her command console. "I wasn't sure you'd still be working."

Russet brows drew together in a worried frown, something about the younger woman's tone making Barbara edgy. "I'm still trying to track down the origin of that drug shipment."

"Any luck?" the younger woman asked almost too casually.

Barbara shook her head, unhappy with the lack of results. "I keep thinking I'm making progress ... only to wind up right back where I started." She snorted softly. "It's like trying to do a system's analysis on something designed by a madman."

"Ah." The single, softly uttered syllable was little more than a soft gust of air, then Helena continued, her voice still soft and silky, but with a hidden kind of power it was impossible to ignore. "A madman ... I'd think you know all about those."

Her frown deepening, Barbara shook her head. "Not really," she said cautiously, uncertain how to read the younger woman's mood.

"You fought the Joker," Helena pointed out, the automatic bitterness present, just as it always was when she mentioned her mother's killer, but alongside something else more subtle and just a little unnerving. "I'd think that would train a person to deal with madness."

Caught by surprise, the words momentarily dried up, and Barbara could only stare at the other woman. "Not really," she said at last, more emotionally shaken than she cared to admit by the mention of the man who'd ordered the murder of Helena's mother and laughed while putting her in the wheelchair, "considering I didn't do it very successfully."

"No," Helena murmured, her eyes trailing over the chair in a deliberately casual glance, "I guess you didn't."

Even though she shouldn't have, Barbara felt a mixture of hurt and shame at the younger woman's dismissive tone. That failure to stop Joker had cost them all, and it still weighed heavily on her soul. She saw a faint hint of movement and realized Helena had turned away and was moving idly among the shadowed edges of the room.

"Do you remember that first night?" Soft and silky, the question caught Barbara by surprise.

"First night?" the redhead questioned, uncertain exactly what Helena was referring to. They'd had a lot of firsts in the last few years. Then gold eyes swung her way, silently challenging her to see the truth.

"That night," Helena drawled, "the night we both found out the truth ... alter egos and all those good things."

Barbara's throat bobbed gently as she swallowed hard. "You mean about my being Batgirl and--"

"And," Helena interrupted without raising her voice, then sharpened her gaze until it gleamed in the faint light. "We ... fought."

Slim shoulders ducked in the faintest of shrugs. They'd never really talked about it ... not the fight, and not the heated way Helena had touched and wanted to touch, the subject too far too uncomfortable for either of them once they'd become guardian and ward. Besides, it wasn't like it had been anything more than a teenage crush, and doubtless if there'd been anything left after that, the realities of a woman in a wheelchair had long since killed it off. The way Helena had gone through lovers---like most people went through potato chips---in the intervening years proved that much. "Of course I remember it," she said softly without adding that she usually did her best not to think about it. During the years when she'd been in a position of authority over the younger woman, that night had been the last thing she wanted to consider for too many reasons to contemplate.

A beat, then Helena's voice came back, soft and just a little bitter sounding. "Of course you do," she said as if to remind herself. "Eidetic memory ... you never forget a thing, do you?"

No, Barbara didn't. At least not without considerable effort. She could put things back, avoid them, pretend to forget, deny, and obfuscate, but genuine lack of memory. No, that was the sort of peace she was denied. Though ironically enough, photographic memory had little if anything to do with her reasons for remembering this particular event. "No," she murmured at last. More than once she'd wished she could forget, just live in the present, and have no past.

Helena made a loose gesture to the Delphi system, pacing away from Barbara with long, loose limbed strides. "Of course not ... that's what makes all this possible ... your brain ... my brawn--"

"You're not just brawn," Barbara denied the inference, not liking the notion that Helena might think of herself as nothing but the muscle in their partnership.

Helena's head whipped around. "No," she agreed, "I'm not ... just like you're not just brain."

There was an accusation in those eyes, one Barbara didn't understand at all. "No," she allowed a little hesitantly. True enough she could fight when she had to, but the limitations were real enough. "But I'm not likely to be out looking for trouble anytime soon."

"Looking for trouble," Helena exhaled on a soft laugh as though she got a joke that no one else could see. "I do that, don't I?"

"Sometimes," Barbara murmured, relieved to hear the soft laughter, and hoping the odd mood was lightening up.

"That's what I was doing that night ... looking for trouble." She peered at Barbara again. "Finding it."

It was Barbara who looked away this time, suddenly self-conscious and uneasy. Then again, maybe she'd been too hasty in thinking the strange mood was letting go. "We did kind of beat on each other a bit."

"That too," Helena drawled, something in her voice reminding Barbara of things she was better off forgetting.

Assuming she could just learn how. Maybe there was some kind of self-help program. Forgetfulness for Eidetics. She reached up, massaging her temple. Definitely getting too tired. She was still struggling not to think about the undertone in Helena's voice when the younger woman continued.

"I stayed that night, you know ... and snuck out most of that week ... hiding on the rooftops to watch for you." She shook her head, something rich and longing in her voice. "You were so incredible like that."

Another shiver made its way down Barbara's spine, starting between her shoulderblades, then fading into nothingness as it worked its way past the damaged point in her back. "I didn't...." She remembered the sense of being followed or watched a few times, but.... "I didn't know."

"No, of course not," Helena murmured, and turned back, a flash of light glittering momentarily in her eyes. "That was part of the game ... that you didn't know." Barbara could just make out the twisted smile that curved the other woman's lips. "That's always been part of the game ... never letting you see the truth." Her head cocked to one side and she folded her arms across her chest, leaving the redhead with the oddest sensation that she was being assessed ... hunted. Was this what the criminals felt like when that sharp, feline gaze turned their way, she wondered.

"The game?" Barbara questioned, not understanding at all.

"The one I've played for years," Helena answered, her tone quickly sliding from taunting to bitter. "The one where I pretend not to want all the things I want ... not to be what I am. The one where I pretend I'm the perfect little superhero ... not my mother's daughter."

The hurt and resentment in her voice were enough to make Barbara flinch. There'd been a time when she'd had to virtually lock Helena up to keep her off the streets in an effort to hunt down anything left of the Joker's organization, but later, she had to admit, she'd pressed the younger woman to this path. It was a decision she often doubted, but the younger woman had shown no inclination toward college or any other more serious pursuits, too wild and undisciplined to handle that sort of commitment. Not that she was stupid---realistically, she probably had the equivalent of several degrees in connection with the training she got as a matter of course working with Barbara, but staying quiet for classes and studying were simply beyond her self-control. Aside from the brief time they'd spent totally apart, Barbara had pushed so hard because she'd been terrified that with nothing else to fill her time, Helena might just follow her mother's path just to have something to do. She'd always known she couldn't allow that to happen. Being on opposite sides of the law was an idea she simply could not accept.

"What, nothing to say?" Helena demanded, acid leaking into her tone.

Uncertain how to respond, Barbara only shrugged helplessly. "What do you want me to say?" she sighed, not wanting to argue about decisions she'd made that she still considered to be for the best.

Her response earned a soft snort of dark laughter. "Nothing that's likely come from your lips."

"You're not your mother," Barbara pointed out after a beat, feeling it was important to make that point. Selina Kyle might have left her mark on her daughter, but despite that, Helena didn't have her basic amorality. She'd seen it time and time again. The daughter cared in ways her mother hadn't been capable of doing. Not that Selina had been cruel or brutal ... simply greedy. For those she loved nothing was too good. The rest of the world was on its own.

"Not my father either," Helena snapped almost before Barbara had finished speaking.

The redhead flinched as though struck, the reminder of just how much her partner resented the man who'd been her mentor hurting more than she liked. "No," she allowed after a beat. "Not him either." She looked down at her tightly twined hands where they rested in her lap, noting the tension in the cords stretched across her knuckles. A moment's silence and she looked up again, her tone hesitant. "It's just that...." She trailed off as she realized that Helena wasn't where she had been any longer.

"Was he your lover?" the question came just off her left shoulder, so close Helena's breath ruffled her hair and teased her ear, but by the time Barbara turned, she was alone again.

"Never," she answered the surrounding shadows, uncertain why it was no important she deny the notion with so much force. She turned her chair, searching for some sign of the other woman, only to gasp when she found her standing less than a foot away. She instinctively pressed back into the thick padding at her back as Helena casually leaned forward, bracing her hands on the armrests as she searched emerald green eyes.

"And what about my mother?" the brunette demanded, her gaze intense and demanding.

Barbara somehow managed to flush and pale at the same time, caught so totally off guard that her stiff head shake and muttered, "No," weren't the most believa