Author's Notes:
Any story begins at the beginning. This one is no different.
But a beginning is really just an illusion...a fiction, if you will. There are things that have already happened, and the story risks losing its shape without that knowledge.
So to clarify: this story is set approximately a year after the events of Revenge Of The Joker, a month or so into the first semester of Terry's senior year of high school, with all the events presented in the cartoon in the immediate past.
I should also point out that I have tried as much as possible to stay true to what was presented in the show; but this story was conceived almost five years ago, which means that certain events we have since learned about Terry McGinnis' future weren't known as it took its basic shape. I chose to keep it as it is--what we see in the Justice League Unlimited episode "Epilogue" doesn't really change anything for my own little imagining. Still, if you find that this story doesn't quite fit what you know about Terry's world, feel free to just consider this an alternate future (and isn't that what any story is, in the end?)
This story involves a considerable amount of angst on the part of its characters. I hope this won't turn you away, but I figured I should tell you up front what you're in for.
And finally, I wouldn't feel right if I didn't point out that this story would not exist without the hard work of the people who created this imagined world we fans all share (and, to be fair, have a more legitimate legal claim on that world than any of us): Kane, Finger, Dini, Timm, Burnett, and so many others. I can only hope I've written something worthy of their labors and their love. But most of all, I hope I do well for you, the people who love this show as I do.
Alright. Enough stuff that isn't a story. Let us begin at the beginning...
There's a great text in Galatians,
Once you trip on it, entails
Twenty-nine distinct damnations,
One sure, if another fails.
--Robert Browning, "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister"
Damnation
A Batman Beyond Fanfiction
by Waveform Delta
She walked through the graveyard.
It was cold. It was dark. It was like any number of graveyards anywhere else in Gotham, anywhere else in the world, but this is the one she was in, tonight.
As graveyards go, this was a big one, massive in fact. There were people buried here from the last century, not so very far away, and from the century before that, which was much further. And the century before that, further away still. And the one before even that.
She knew none of this. Or perhaps she knew, realized in some objective part of her mind that it must be true, but did not care. There was one person buried here that she cared about, and one person only. All the others did not matter.
And so she walked by them, the markers of lives now slipped away. Abrahamson, Selkirk, Fredrickson, James. Some were ornate and some were simple. Some were small and some were large. Cook, Kirby, Addams, Sumlin, Lagny. Some were well tended, their plots showing the tender ministrations of loved ones. Some were neglected, bereft of any care, almost forlorn in their poverty of attention. Franklin, Marcus, Rateliff, Johannson, Czetcglaw, Bricklin.
She continued her silent journey into another part of the cemetery, where there were mausoleums and massive stones, markers of people who had apparently been among the privileged in life. Dijkestra, Arnold, Gonzalez, Martin, Townshend, Bruckner, Wayne, Conlan, Burke, Cane, Killian, Fox, Gregory. She walked on by. She would not find the marker she was looking for here.
Her journey continued. Now the headstones grew smaller again, but fresher. Not from tender care, but because they were new. Ardent, Williamson, Joyce, Draken, Theodore.
Finally she was before the headstone for which she had been searching. It was night, but the moon was large on the horizon, and the sky cloudless, and she could easily read the plain stone, bearing a only a name.
Delia Dennis
For a long while, she simply gazed at the marker. It was night, and there was no one to disturb her. Finally, she set the bouquet of roses she cradled against her chest at the foot of the stone. Her eyes were wet, but there were no tears in her fierce whisper.
"I know why you're here, sister. It's his fault. It's because of him you're dead. I should have been there. I should have protected you. Now it's too late."
At this, her voice cracked, and she paused to rub her eye with the heel of her hand, and recovered herself. "But he won't get away with it," she continued. "You were right. You had it all figured out. Now I know who he really is, and I won't let him forget us."
Deidre's voice hardened ever so slightly. "No. Batman is never going to forget about us."