All right, this is not a slash fic, it's a fic in an alternative world, where Barbara could walk. i hope you enjoy it...

Thanks to my editor as always, Nutstalker....

LOOKING BACK

The blonde walked through the streets of New Gotham, admiring the tall, incredible buildings. It was the first time she had been there. It was very different from the place where she'd grown up. People walked by, in a hurry. Some had briefcases, papers bags or coats in their hands. It was a sunny day.

She's taken that bus, jumping into an adventure with no script, no story line and no idea as to where it would end. She stopped on a corner and took out a paper, unfolding it. She saw a man selling newspapers a few steps away from her and she walked toward him. She asked about the address on the paper.

He said she was close, just a few blocks ahead, and the girl kept walking. Soon, she was in front of one of the most elegant and luxurious buildings in the city, the Wayne Building. Only the Clock Tower was bigger.

She had seen her image many times in the social pages and on the financial pages of national newspapers. She knew she would find her here. She smiled, feeling excited. Finally, finally she could meet her in person.

A black, noisy motorcycle stopped in front of the building. Wow, that was a cool bike. A young woman dressed in black jumped down. She removed her helmet and a doorman walked toward her.

"Hey, John," she greeted the man.

"Good day, Mrs. Kyle."

The woman was thin, young and brunette. The teenager recognized her immediately. Yes, it was the same girl she had seen in her dreams. What was she doing there? Was it possible that they were connected?

"Where is Barbara?" the dark haired woman asked.

"In the Diamond room, everything is about to start."

"I hate these events, I don't understand why Barbara loves them," she said brushing her hair with her hands and walking inside the building.

"Have a good day."

"Thanks, keep an eye on my bike."

The blonde noticed the doorman was distracted as he took the helmet to a check room and she took the opportunity to step inside the building. It was huge inside, the lobby was enormous. She tried to find the brunette, where had she gone? She noticed her waving at some other employees and was stepping inside an elevator. Her eyes found an electronic board to her left.

Foundation Event – Diamond room – Floor 25.

She hurried to the next elevator and pressed button for the twenty-fifth floor.

She arrived in an elegant room filled with tables and many people. It seemed that this was a big event. Her eyes found the brunette walking between the tables towards the front of the room.

"Your invitation, madam?" a man asked.

"I came with Mrs. Kyle," she hurried to say, pointing at the woman. Maybe it would work. "She told me I can wait for her until the event is over, you know, the speech and all those things…"

"Oh…" the man said. "Do you want me to take you to her table?"

"No, no… I told her I will wait for her here."

"I can give you a seat at one of the back tables."

"Yes, thanks."

Helena Kyle was a beautiful young woman known for helping Barbara Gordon, the head of the Wayne Foundation, in her charity events to support kids. She was Selina's Kyle daughter. Selina had once been involved romantically with the owner of the foundation, Bruce Wayne.

Many gossip newspapers and magazines still speculated about whether or not she was the daughter of Bruce Wayne. That pissed off the dark haired woman who, to avoid any kind of comments or more gossip, had refused to receive money or accept a job from the foundation or any of Wayne's corporations. She worked as bartender at the Dark Horse Bar.

For the same reason, she hated public events like this one, but she liked to support Barbara in her effort to help children around the world.

She found Barbara standing close to the podium, checking some notes.

"Hi," she greeted.

"Finally," Barbara mumbled, "I was wondering where you were."

"Nice to see you too," Helena said.

The redhead looked at her. "A black leather jacket? Do you think that is proper attire for an important meal?"

"Well," Helena said, waving her hand to some people seated a few tables away from them. "I think it's cool and, by the way, some men were looking at me."

"Well, I hope it looks cool in the pictures when you give the speech."

"I don't give speeches. I'm just the fashion accessory for your main events. You are the business side and you do the speech thing."

"Whatever," Barbara gave her some papers "Remember to be nice, polite and I promise to lend you my red leather jacket."

"Deal." Helena grinned. "Where is our table?"

"There." Barbara pointed to a table with the pen in her hand.

Helena winced. Many boring people there, and that guy that flirted with her every time he could, but was an asshole.

"How could you invite that guy to our table? Just because he is a gazillionaire?" she asked.

"Your detective instinct is working well." Barbara smiled.

"Come on," the brunette whined.

"To get good things in life, sometimes you have to make sacrifices." The redhead looked at her. "My jacket is worth your sacrifice."

"All right, all right," Helena said, rolling her eyes. Well, it seemed it was going to be one of those days.

"Just finish all this quickly."

The brunette sighed and turned toward her table where the man waved at her. She gave him a forced smile.

"Come on, it's not so bad. He is cute," Barbara said, amused.

"Sleeping or unconscious, maybe."

"Go. I must start the event."

"How much did you charge per plate this time?"

"Five thousand dollars," Barbara patted her shoulder, "and he paid fifteen to have a seat close to you. So be nice, please."

"Wow." Helena opened her eyes wide. "My ass is worth a lot of money."

"It's not your ass, it's just a meal. Now go and sit."

After a few hours, Helena felt totally, completely, and incredibly bored. And more so with that man insisting on flirting with her. She thought she had earned enough points now so that Barbara would lend her the red jacket. She leaned toward the redhead.

"Time to go."

"Yes, I must go too, it's late," Barbara said, looking at her watch.

"Cool, I need to work and this guy flirting with me has tested my patience enough.." Helena stood up, followed by Barbara. She didn't like the popularity thing. That was better left to Barbara.

They said goodbye to the people at the table and walked toward the exit. Many people stood up to shake their hands.

"I did a great job," Helena said to Barbara as she smiled to an old man. "I convinced him to give you a ton of money to those orphanages in Africa. Now you have to lend me your jacket and your Armani shoes."

"The black ones?" Barbara smiled at a woman and kissed her on her cheek. "Thanks for coming."

"Yep." Helena wondered where all these people had come from. She thought it would be a fast exit and now it seemed it would take a bit longer.

"No way." Barbara waved her hand to a familiar person a few tables away.

"Two million…" Helena sang.

Green eyes turned to look at the brunette in surprise. "You're kidding."

"Nope." The girl smiled at the woman shaking her hand.

"All right," the redhead smiled, "but just one night."

"Two…"

"Okay, okay."

"Cool." The brunette grinned.

Barbara extended her hand to a blonde teenager and smiled at her. The blonde girl held her hand for long seconds smiling at her.

"I need to talk to you," the kid said. "13220217."

Barbara froze, feeling a chill run down her spine. That was the secret code to access the Clock Tower. She tried to speak, but people called to her and a man stood between her and the girl. She tried to step back, but there were just too many people around her. When she looked again, the kid was gone.

How did that girl know about the code?

Who was she?

The redhead arrived at ClockTower late. That meal had been long, but she had raised a significant amount money. She really needed it. But what the girl had said had left her restless all day. She needed to do some research. She threw her keys on the table and checked the mail she had picked up downstairs.

Nothing interesting. She removed her coat and dropped her bag on the table. She walked toward an elevator hidden at the bottom of her penthouse. It connected to the Clock floor where she'd built a hideout with sophisticated computers and advanced electronic systems.

When she stepped outside the elevator, she was in a huge place. She had adapted the Clock Tower into a comfortable work area with two levels that included a living room and kitchen, where she and Helena could work comfortably on their crimefighting nights.

She was greeted by her loyal and always gentle friend, Alfred, the butler of Bruce Wayne. He helped with the cleaning and cooking. The cooking was something that she definitely hadn't been born for, and Helena even less so.

"How was the event, Miss Barbara?" he asked.

"Fantastic, I raised a lot more than I expected," she said walking toward the platform, "I think we can do some good work in Africa now."

"Thank my ass for that two million!" Helena shouted from upstairs.

The redhead lifted her head as she sat on a chair in front of her main computer. "Thank your own ass and bring it here, we have work to do. Something weird happened to me today."

"Tonight? Hello? Fashion Week in NY is on television." In an instant, Helena was at Barbara's side.

"Good. I don't want you going to buy new clothes. Your credit card needs a break." Barbara typed her password on the computer screen.

"Hey, I can't use the same outfit every time I fight against bad guys."

"Well, I don't think the 'bad guys' notice it," Alfred chuckled, stepping inside the platform with a tray of tea. "Every night you fight against different ones."

Helena rested her hip on a desk close to Barbara. "Some of them have a kind of membership with me. I have sent them to jail two or three times. It would be rude to always wear the same outfit."

"Your sense of fashion overwhelms me." Barbara opened the main window on the Delphi. "Now, when I was exiting the event, something happened. A girl took my hand and she told me she needed to talk to me and told me the access code to the Clock Tower."

"What?" Helena frowned. "How could she know it?"

"No idea, I looked for her, but she got lost in the multitude of people that were still there." The cyber genius scratched her head. "I need to find her and find out what she wants."

"Could be a serial killer."

"A serial killer is not a teen that says she wants to talk with you."

"You must watch Chucky."

Barbara ignored the comment and leaned back in her chair, playing with a pen between her fingers. "She will try to contact me, I'm sure of it."

"Well, maybe she is standing out in front of the Clock Tower waiting for you right now."

Barbara glared at her. But something made her turn to her computer and press some keys on her keyboard.

"What are you doing?" Helena asked, intrigued.

"Doing what you suggested."

"Barbara, I was joking."

The image of a teenager standing on the sidewalk in front of the Clock Tower appeared. She hadn't seen her because she had parked her car near the back entrance of the building.

"She's there." The redhead stood up. "Come on."

Helena leaned over the monitor. "Is she 'Chucky'?"

Barbara walked toward the elevator. "Stay here."

"Why can't I go with you?" Helena followed her.

"You scare people."

"That is the 'point' of being a crime fighter."

"She is just a teen." The elevator doors closed. And the elevator moved down.

"Do you remember 'Black in Men II'?" the brunette asked her mentor, ignoring the instruction to stay put. "The innocent flower on the grill? When the guy pulled it, it was not a flower, it was a hair on the head of a giant worm that was almost a half mile long."

"I don't think she will transform into a half mile long giant worm." Barbara crossed her arms and lifted an eyebrow.

"You never know. Maybe she is a cannibal."

"Maybe she eats cats, too."

"Hey, don't go there."

Dinah rubbed her arms, it was getting cold. She looked around, maybe the woman hadn't understood her message. She had known when she touched the brunette that this was their place. She had seen her pressing that number to a hidden elevator. She was sure the woman would look for her. She really needed talk with her about her dreams, about her visions.

Suddenly, the main door of the building opened and she appeared. The teenager couldn't avoid a big smile. The brunette from her dreams that she had also seen that afternoon was with her, but she stayed on the other side of the sidewalk while the older woman walked toward her.

"Hi," the girl greeted, smiling.

"Hi. Do you want talk with me?" Barbara asked, stopping in front of her. The girl didn't seem dangerous or threatening.

"Yes. Thanks." The young girl felt excited. It was not a vision, she was real. "I'm Dinah, Dinah Collins."

"Would you agree that your invitation to talk was unusual?" the redhead asked, crossing her arms.

"Yes…" the girl said shyly, "I'm sorry, but it was the only way, it's difficult to with a person like you and you would never believe me." She looked up at the redhead again and her face lit up.

"You are like in my dream."

Barbara narrowed her eyes. "What dream?"

"I saw you in my dream, and her…" she moved her hand toward Helena, who was ready to pounce on her if she tried to touch a hair on Barbara's head.

"Did you see us in your dreams?"

"Yes." The teen nodded. "When I was a child, I saw you. I saw a man with his face painted in white, he shot you and… she, she was younger, and she was crying over a woman lying on the ground. I had the same dream over and over for years.

Something pushed me to come here and look for you."

Barbara bit her lips, analyzing the girl's story. It seemed the girl had developed special skills. She surely was a meta. "And how did you know about the code?"

"When I touched your hand," Dinah said quietly, looking at her shoes.

Barbara's eyebrows shot up. That was an interesting confession. The teenager didn't seem to know she was metahuman "Can you read minds when you touch people?"

The teen looked up. "Yes… When I touched your hand, I saw this place, I knew I would find you here."

"Your parents know about this?"

"I don't have parents." The girl lowered her head again. She took a deep breath. "I don't have anywhere to go. I traveled all night by bus just to find you."

"Why do you want talk with me?" Barbara asked her.

"I think you can help me." The teenager nervously moved a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Help you? Help you how?"

"My dreams sent me to you. There must be a reason. I thought maybe you could figure it out… I know you are a very important person and that you are busy, but I thought…"

Barbara touched her chin thoughtfully, as she observed the girl. "When did the dream start?"

"When I was a child, maybe five or six years old." The blonde lowered her head "I don't want scare you, people always look at me as if I'm weird and think I'm freak…"

"Avoid that word…" Barbara gazed at Helena. "It's not exactly her favorite word. Have you eaten anything today?"

The girl shook her head.

"Wait here a moment," Barbara said, turning to walk toward the building.

Dinah nodded.

The brunette felt impatient. She was tapping her foot. She noticed the redhead coming towards her.

"What did Chucky say?" she asked.

"I think she is meta," Barbara said with her arms crossed, looking at the ground for a few seconds before facing her partner, "and she doesn't know it."

"What does she want?" Helena asked.

"I don't think she knows exactly, she just knew she needed to find us."

"Us? As in you and me?"

"I told you she might eat cats." Barbara chewed at her lower lip.

"Why did she need to find us?" The brunette glared in the girl's direction.

"She may be telepathic, and she has visions. In some of her visions, she saw you and me. She doesn't have any family, her friends think she is weird, and she traveled all night to find us. It's late, it's cold, she hasn't eaten…"

"What are you going to do?" Helena asked suspiciously, having a pretty good idea of what Barbara had in mind.

"First, invite her to dinner, then run some tests on her to check her skills."

"Barbara…tell me you are kidding."

"No," Barbara said seriously.

"What if Chucky takes a knife and stabs you?" Helena growled.

"Helena, don't be silly. She could get inside the Tower without us. She knew how to get inside! She is just a kid!"

"No, no, definitely no." the brunette shook her head.

Barbara waved her hand to the girl, who smiled and ran toward them.

"Perhaps I didn't express myself well," Helena said.

"Be polite, please," Barbara said.

"I don't usually welcome possible murderers."

The blonde stood close to them.

Barbara put her hand over the kid's shoulder. "Helena, this is Dinah…"

"Hi, nice to meet you." The blonde shook the brunette's hand effusively. Many images flowed inside Dinah's mind: Helena jumping between rooftops, fighting in the street.

Helena jerked her hand away at the same time as Dinah.

"Hey!" she shouted.

"I'm sorry…" the teenager mumbled.

"What happened?" Barbara asked.

"She was inside my head!" the brunette accused.

"I'm sorry," Dinah apologized. "I didn't mean to, it's just that I can't control it..."

"Do you lurk inside everybody's heads?"

"All right, all right." Barbara waved her hands, stopping the verbal war that seemed to be erupting. "Come with us, I'd like run some tests on you."

Helena stared at the redhead.

Barbara ignored her and pushed the girl inside gently.

The brunette rolled her eyes and followed her.

TO BE CONTINUED...