Steph dreamed sometimes, she dreamed of a house – not too big, but not too small either- with a garden. And if the garden was mostly overgrown grass because no-one had the time to mow it, then it didn't matter because the long grass was comfy to lie in and smelled beautifully after it rained. She had a job which varied from dream to dream; sometimes she was a doctor – following in her Mom's footsteps-, other times a teacher and on one occasion she recalls she played piano in small local bars. Most of the details were continuously changing in that here there flow that dreams often have.
There were constants however, and one of them was Tim. Sometimes he had the messy mop of hair from when they first met, others he had his recent longer perfectly styled hair, sometimes he dressed in his old band t-shirts, while others he wore a shirt and cardigan. She remembers a particular night where he was older; he had a bit of sandpaper rough stubble across his cheeks and chin, a few sparse streaks of silver in his hair, and laugh lines around his eyes which upon waking she worried she'd never see in real life. Despite these fluctuations in appearance though, he was always there.
The other constant was the baby. The baby never had a name or gender, her dream-self didn't want to pick one and shatter the illusion. So it constantly remained as 'The Baby'. Sometimes The Baby was older and no longer really a baby, they went to school or to college, but most of the times it was still a baby. Still her baby.
In these dreams her baby was sometimes joined by other children, purely fictitious boys or girls that her sub-conscious was allowed to label because they weren't real and unknown, they were its own creations. Sometimes there was Jack who looked exactly like his father, and sometimes there was Cass, small and blonde. But there was always The Baby and Tim.
Sometimes Tim would hold The Baby leaning in a doorway and raising an amused eyebrow at Steph's blatant failures at domesticity. Sometimes Tim was really awkward with The Baby, and then it would be Steph laughing at him instead. Sometimes Dick would come over and babysit The Baby so that she and Tim could go out, and Tim would give Dick a look that said 'No Dick The Baby is far too young for acrobatics, and if I learn you've turned them upside down even once…' and he leaves the threat hanging, while Dick mock salutes him, and then winks conspiratorially at Steph when Tim's back is turned.
And when Stephanie wakes up, she has this deep and aching longing in her chest for the unattainable. And she'll burrow into her blankets, and ignore the empty space in the bed that wasn't so empty in her dreams. She'll wonder about what happened to The Baby, to her baby as she finally slithers from bed picking up her batgirl uniform that was carelessly strewn across the floor in her haste to get at least three hours sleep the night before. She decides she's better off not knowing, and that they are definitely safer away from her dangerous lifestyle. But the ache is still there deep and slicing and burrowing.
She wonders if Tim thinks about the 'what ifs' too sometimes. And she knows he does, if only because Tim thinks too much, has probably run too many scenarios through his head. And she can never decide what's worse upon waking: the nightmares or these bittersweet dreams of things that can never be.