CHAPTER EIGHT: RITUAL

He had only been to this place once before.

It had rained that day. The heavens had unleashed a drizzle of rain upon them, covering the landscape with a rising mist of grey. He remembered thinking that the colour had bled out of the world although in retrospect, blaming the rain for that was unfair. The colour had left his world not everyone else's. Over the years, many had accused him of ignoring her funeral but Bruce Wayne had always been there, watching from a distance. He shared his grief with no one, not then and certainly not now.

He remembered staring at Lois, looking tragically beautiful, like Hecuba of Euripides remaining strong in the face of overwhelming grief. Alone. At the time, they didn't know it but Clark had run way to confront the destiny he had always tried to escape. His absence at the funeral was gaping. There were other absences too. Lana Lang Luthor had not shown up for the funeral, deciding to avoid any grief she might cause by her presence since it was her husband accused of Chloe's murder.

Martha Kent had stood by the grieving Gabe Sullivan, the father who had lost a wife and now a daughter. These days, as Bruce knew it, Martha and Gabe were something of a couple, two old friends taking comfort in the bonds forged by the friendship of their children. Bruce had ensured Gabe's security by making him the manager of the Smallville Granary, abandoned by Luthor Corp after Lex's arrest. Gabe didn't know it but Bruce had bought the place for that purpose alone. When Gabe was ready to retire, he would find his gold watch to be the ownership of the business in its entirety.

It was the least Bruce could do for him.

That was five years ago and the destiny he thought he might have avoided when Chloe entered his life was now his existence. Bruce wondered if there was any doubt that it would be anything else. Still for that brief moment, she had shown him another possibility and Bruce would always cherish that. It was the dead of night at the Smallville Cemetery and the only time that Bruce could assured of his privacy. Standing in front of her headstone, Bruce stared at the name carved into the marble, feeling the ache in his gut that only came when she entered his thoughts. Even now, five years after he had lost her.

"I…" he opened his mouth to speak, "miss you."

The words were so hard to say and escaped him as a whisper. Indeed anything emotional was always difficult for Bruce to express but this was different. Closing his eyes, he could still imagine the softness of her lips, the way her smile had the power to chase away his demons and how right she always felt in his arms. When he was with her, he had been able to picture a life as a husband and a father. Since she died, it felt inconceivable.

"I should have been there," Bruce whispered as he placed the rose in his hand upon the bed of grass before the headstone. "I am sorry I wasn't."

Tendrils of cold air escaped his lip with each utterance, curling like smoke into the darkness around him. Bruce felt rooted to the spot, not wanting to be there but not wishing to leave either. Perhaps he should have done this before today and couldn't understand why it felt necessary now. Something had happened in his life, a slight shift he hadn't noticed until now and in realising it, unsettled him. He came here to heal himself, to maintain the status quo and fight back the change.

Suddenly, he heard the rumble of a car in the distance. Headlights travelled through the dark, announcing its presence as it drew closer and came to halt near the road. His night vision was good, enough without the suit so when he saw who emerged, he supposed he shouldn't have been surprised.

"Alfred?" Bruce asked.

Lois smiled faintly and nodded. "Alfred. He was worried about you." She explained. "He said he thought you might need the company coming up here and I'm due for a visit anyway. So I thought I'd drive up."

"What about Clark?" Bruce pointed out.

"What about him?" Lois asked. "He's out saving the world. He'll catch up when he can." She replied with a little smile, coming up along side of Bruce and intertwined her fingers with his. Bruce didn't withdraw, accepting the warmth she provided on this terribly cold night.

"I should have been here before this." He admitted after a few minutes had passed with the two of them saying nothing while they stood there before Chloe's grave.

"You weren't ready," Lois replied, leaning her head against his shoulder.

Bruce smiled faintly, leaning over to plant a soft, chase kiss against her hair. A sign of affection for someone who was almost family by marriage and become so with a death. "I don't know if I still am," he replied. "I remember everything about her but its getting harder to feel her. I don't want that gone."

Without powers of any kind, Bruce Wayne was the strongest man she knew. Stronger even than Clark who needed people in his life to remind him of his humanity, Bruce was a force of nature, unyielding, relentless and all too human, whether he would admit it or not. Over the last five years, Lois had come to enjoy a strange friendship with Bruce. Theirs was a relationship devoid of sentimentality yet intimate nonetheless because on a very basic level, they understood each other. They loved hard and passionately. They even loved eternally. The people who loved them back often had their work cut out for them.

Just ask Clark, Lois thought with a little smile.

"Bruce," Lois blinked and surprised herself with the tear that rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away with one hand while the other squeezed his tighter. "Maybe its time to let her go."

Bruce suspected that this might have been the case but clinging to Chloe's memory was all he had left of her and letting her go seemed unimaginable. "I can't."

"Bruce," Lois turned to face him, her hand touched his cheek so that he would look at her. "Chloe wouldn't want this. You know that. You made her so happy Bruce. That light you saw in her eyes was because of you, no one else. Bruce, I know Chloe and she wouldn't want you to mourn forever, she would want you to let her go."

He couldn't answer so Lois took both his hands in hers and stood there, forehead against his, being there for him because for Lois, he was family too.

An hour later and they were still on the grass, this time, sharing the bottle of wine Lois brought along for the occasion. It was her ritual to come out here and talk to Chloe about all sorts of things in the dead of night. It made Lois feel that Chloe was still a part of her life, even in some small way. Recently, she had company, sometimes Clark came with her and other times Lana. It felt good that she was doing this with Bruce too.

"So Mr. Wayne, tell me about the Princess."

Bruce gave her a look and handed her back the bottle after taking a swig. "Clark has a big mouth."

"Oh I didn't need Smallville to let me in on that scoop. Remember I have the Queen's ear." She teased.

"Really?" Bruce eyed her mischievously. "And what does her highness have to say?"

"Well she doesn't like a man sniffing around her daughter, that's for certain." Lois pointed out.

"I was hardly sniffing," Bruce defended himself immediately. "We danced. That's all."

"Not according to Cat Grant's column," Lois pointed out. "Now I might have issues with what Cat calls journalism but I know for a fact that she is pretty good at what she does and she says you spent most of the night at that ball dancing with Diana." She winked at Bruce in challenge.

"She was out of her depth and I was being nice," Bruce explained, denying nothing.

"Oh you are so transparent," Lois groaned. "She is an Amazon princess. You wouldn't be the first guy to be running after her like a puppy. I mean, look at Smallville for god sake."

"You mean the big dumb alien who so in love with you he couldn't even conceive of being with anyone else, let alone think you might have reason to be jealous?" Bruce pointed out with a smirk. Tit for tat.

"Uh…yeah," Lois blushed, conceding defeat since that was more or less Clark in a nutshell. "But Diana is so beautiful and she's perfect for him really," her eyes dropped away, unable to admit that there was still some insecurity there. "Clark is going to do so many great things, I just wonder if I'm holding him back Bruce. Diana could keep up with him in every way."

"Lois," Bruce stared at her as if he were addressing a small child. "He could have gone anywhere in the world after being away for five years. There's only one reason he came back to Metropolis and that's you." He smiled throwing her own word back at her. "Clark looks at Diana and he sees someone like him, not someone forhim. That person has always been you."

Lois smiled radiantly at Bruce, grateful for the reassurance from the smartest human being she knew and one of the few people who knew Clark as well as her. "What do you see when you look at Diana, Bruce?"

Now it was Bruce's turn to look away but he answered softly, allowing the dark to hide his eyes as he answered. "Light."

After conducting his usual patrol of Smallville, 'Superman' returned to Lois' apartment only to find a note left behind that she was travelling to Smallville. He was aware of her nocturnal visits to Chloe's grave and knew that these were terribly personal outings for Lois, so when he flew to Smallville to give her a ride home, he approached the cemetery cautiously, with consideration to her privacy.

What he did not expect to find was Bruce.

From a distance, he watched them both at Chloe's grave, wanting badly to eavesdrop but restraining himself for violating their privacy. Yet when he saw Lois take Bruce's hand, something inside of him felt uneasy about the intimacy between the two. Not for the first time, Clark wondered about the relationship between Bruce and Lois. After all, he had been gone for five years and the manner of his departure hadn't been kind. She had no reason to wait for him.

Feeling like an intruder, Clark left them alone, trying to ignore the gnawing sensation in his gut that perhaps Bruce could give Lois something he couldn't.

"If this thing has any kind of supernatural properties, I can't see it," Bruce commented within the confines of the cave a day later.

Studying the artefact Diana called Harmonia's talisman, Bruce had spent the last week since their acquisition of the object trying to unravel its secrets. Upon closer examination, the necklace looked like any other artefact of the period. It was constructed from metals that were specific to the era, in terms of smelting techniques and regional availability. If this was a key piece to averting an apocalypse, Bruce couldn't imagine how.

"You sure?" Clark asked, feigning interest although the exchange between Bruce and Lois in the cemetery still bothered him.

Neither were in their costume even though Clark's visit today was very much business. Diana had trusted Clark's advice that the Batman was the best person to uncover the secrets of the artefact. The Princess was making yet another appearance with her mother on the historic Amazon tour that was gaining more and more popularity throughout the country. Clark still found it hard to believe that they were living in a world where they were real live Amazons walking amongst them. It was almost as hard to be as a real live alien named Superman, he supposed.

"As much as I can be about any of this," Bruce frowned, disliking it when he couldn't unravel a puzzle. "I can definitely see where the piece was separated into two parts. It was carefully done with tools, not by accidental impact. If we're to believe the significance of the object to Diana's mission here, then I'm going to speculate that it will only work if the two pieces are brought together. Call it a mythological safety feature."

"So until we find the second piece, it's a dead end." Clark declared, shifting uncomfortably in the chair he was seated.

"Not necessarily," Bruce replied, "I think the November 17 group is our best bet at finding the second piece. From what I understand about this organisation, the reason they've been successful as terrorists is because their members are all related, they never break rank. Cults begin that way and as far fetched as it is, I think November 17 is a cult. You have to admit, we've seen strange things in the last few weeks, so this isn't that much of a stretch. Whatever we think of Diana's beliefs, the Decay monster was real and I believe this Apocalypse she's talking about is also real."

"No kidding," Clark nodded in agreement. "I was wiped out after what that thing did to me. I mean I was okay the next day but until the morning, I felt like I had to flu and trust me, Florence Nightingale Lois isn't."

"I hear you," Bruce chuckled and continued. "I'm certain that November 17 is the link to this War God of Diana's. I would bet they have been followers for generations."

"So you think they were responsible for the theft of the first piece in Athens."

"More than likely," Bruce replied. "I think we need to find out everything we can about the assassin who tried to kill Hippolyta and find out about any existing cults dedicated to Ares. I'm convinced one of these is masquerading as November 17."

"The police didn't have any information on him" Clark pointed out. "But I think this cult angle is definitely the way to go and for that we need to be absorbing a little local flavour to get our answers. We'll need Diana with us on this one."

"You read my mind," the Batman grinned. "You can catch the Princess up when you see her next."

"Since as Bruce Wayne, you can't tell her when you see her this evening?" Clark pointed out with a smug look.

Diana was making another appearance at a charity event in Gotham City and had asked Bruce Wayne to join her, citing that he was good company the last time they had been at one of these events together. The invitation came through the Amazon Tour Secretary, Miss Plum and it did aided Bruce Wayne's public image to be seen with such a beautiful celebrity. Of course, he had personal reasons for accepting as well, wondering if Batman's conversation with Wonder Woman would have any effect on her view of Bruce.

"I'm playing her escort, nothing else." Bruce returned, giving Clark an equally withering glare. "Batman will not be present this evening."

"Yeah," Clark nodded and decided that Bruce had given him something of an opening. "You do get around for a guy who doesn't fly. I mean tonight its you and Diana, a few days ago it was you and Lois in Smallville." He commented, feigning nonchalance.

Bruce stiffened, "you were there?" It had been a rather emotional night for Bruce and he wasn't comfortable for anyone other than Lois to see that side of him.

"Only long enough to see that Lois had company," Clark returned, trying to sound perfectly at ease. "Then I left. I didn't want to intrude."

And yet Bruce could feel his burning curiosity without Clark having to say a word. The man of steel could be terribly transparent at times.

"Yeah I tried to convince Lois to run away with me to a deserted island for the weekend but she turned me down," he said sarcastically. "You know how picky she is."

"Very funny," Clark bit back at Bruce's obvious derision, suddenly feeling stupid for ever doubting Lois. Still, he was curious as to what they were talking about. "So you and Lois were just talking?" He probed further much to Bruce's increasing annoyance.

Bruce didn't like the idea that Clark might have overheard his confessions to Lois, even if Clark's action indicated the opposite. And he liked it even less that Clark was thinking there was more to his relationship with Lois than just friendship.

"Of course not," he declared using his best idle playboy tone. "We were going to do the wild thing behind Chloe's gravestone but that would seem a little crass. Why do you ask?"

Clark winced at the imagery and realised he should have just kept his mouth shut. "Okay, I'm an insecure jerk. Forget I said anything."

"You sure?" Bruce continued as he stood up from his chair, to go have the lunch that Alfred was preparing them both. "You don't want to hear about the time Lois and I sailed to Barbados in one of my yachts wit nothing but sin on our minds and a do not disturb sign on the door...?"

"Alright, alright already," Clark growled following him out. "I get the point."

Major Andrei Nikolaevich woke up in a cold sweat yet again.

Beyond the walls of his assigned quarters, the wind was blowing a gale and he remembered vaguely hearing a weather report that cited the temperature being somewhere near –25 degrees Celsius. He hardly noticed it as he sat there on his mattress, body moist with sweat, trembling in silence as he waited for the dream to pass out of his memory. Accompanied by the slow ticking of the old clock his father had given him years before, Andrei waited for the uneasiness to pass from his body and was further unsettled when it didn't.

It was little after three o'clock and he could not sleep. Unfortunately, this was not an unusual state of affairs for him of late. For almost a month, his sleep had been uncomfortable to say the least. Every morning, he woke up with the ache inside his stomach that something, somewhere was stalking him like a great Siberian wolf, waiting to take him kicking and screaming when he least expected it.

The officers under his command had noticed the change, unable to ignore the dark circles under his eyes or the irritability he never found difficult to conceal until now. A man in his position, with his responsibilities, couldn't have mental problems of any kind and Andrei was on a razor's edge, waiting for someone to take action, aware that his career would be over if such a thing happened. A military man most of his life, he had nothing else other than the job. The loss of it would be unimaginable.

He stood up from his bed and went to the bathroom. Washing his face, he hoped the stench of sweat against his skin and the rush of cold would shake the sensation in his stomach. If not, at least he would be awake to do something else. Staring at the mirror, he saw what everyone saw, a man in his middle age, the relic of an era that was quickly being forgotten, exhausted and expendable.

"You've looked better Andrei," he said to himself.

It not your fault Andrei, it's the times, his reflection answered back.

Startled by the voice that came from his lips in the mirror, Andrei stumbled back.

You heard me, Andrei. It's not your fault. The voice spoke again.

He had gone crazy, Andrei thought frantically as he heard the face in the mirror continuing to speak. It was his face but unlike him, it was calm and collected, looking in better shape than he did.

"What is this?" He uttered a strangled demand.

Think of me as your subconscious Andrei, the reflection smiled. I'm giving you a wake up call. I know what you're thinking and you're right. You have every reason to worry about Russia. She has lost her way. The west and its ideas are not ideas for Russia, not the great Soviet state. You have everything you need to show them what real order is, you've seen it.

"I don't understand…" He stammered, still trapped between what was real and unreal.

You are all that is left of the old Soviet State, Andrei. The others are weak and they won't do what must be done but you can. You can bring Russia back to its greatness, not this pale shadow of itself. They thought putting you here would make you powerless to affect their decadence from this forgotten edge of the world. They are fools. Thanks to their foolishness, you have a great deal of power.

This was not happening,

Andrei told himself as he stared mesmerized at the stronger image of himself, speaking words that struck more of a cord with him than he dared to admit.

You can show them what real power is. In one bold stroke, you can show them how great Russia can truly be. All the motherland needs is someone strong enough to make the sacrifice. Someone unafraid to spill blood, the way Stalin had spilled blood to make Russia great. The people call him a mass-murderer but his bloodied hands took Russia from the wooden yoke to the atomic bomb in twenty-five years.

It was true, Andrei thought, most Russians called Stalin a butcher and yet they could not deny the results of his ruthless leadership. Russia had become strong, a superpower under his guidance. All it had taken was 20 million dead.

You are a man strong and brave enough to take the final step, the step so many others like viewed with great dread. Andrei, you know the truth. To save the land, one has to make her people weep for it, to lament for all it had and could be. Tears must come from seeing it in utter ruin to love it as they had never loved it before.

To save Russia, you must see it burn.

With a scream of horror, Major Andrei Nikolaevich found himself sitting up in his own bed, drenched in sweat, trembling in the dark.

After spending a number of weeks in the Patriarch's World, Diana found that the business of spreading the Amazon message of peace to be rather taxing. Still, if she had to endure another of these charity events that Ms Plum considered important for her to attend, she supposed she would try to enjoy herself for the evening at least.

In truth, if Diana had her way, she would be continuing her search for Ares and the missing half of Harmonia's talisman. However, after her encounter with Decay, it seemed prudent to take the next step carefully since it appeared that Ares was unconcerned with how many died in his efforts to hinder her progress. Kal was meeting her later this evening to give her news on Batman's investigation of the talisman. Perhaps they had some idea where to search next.

For now however, she had to attend to ceremonial duties of being a Princess. The Queen was making her own visits across the country and after Diana's stunning debut in Gotham, the rest of the city were eager to have the Princess make an appearance at their social events. As these were often in the guise of aiding some charity, Diana agreed to participate. Of course, she hadn't anticipated how proactive Etta Candy as going to be when she mentioned that she would like to see Bruce Wayne again.

Despite her annoyance at the Batman's caustic words, Diana had to concede the arrogant prig did have something of a point. Her experience with men was limited and for her to survive in the Patriarch's World, she needed to distinguish the good ones from the bad. Bruce was very charming and Diana was drawn to him but Batman had planted the suspicion that perhaps all Bruce wanted was a physical relationship. Men can use pretty words to trick a woman into his bed, her mother had said earlier when the spoke on the telephone. Be vigilant. While Diana suspected her mother's opinion to contain some bias, the same could not be said of the Batman.

Great Gaea, that man was annoying.

"I was surprised by the invitation Princess," Bruce commented when he and Diana left her suite at Gotham's luxurious Grand View Hotel and headed to the limousine waiting for them below.

Even though he was accustomed to being around beautiful women, Bruce had to admit that Diana was in a class of her own. Dressed stunningly in red, in a one-shouldered gown with a cinched waist and flowing skirt, Diana was undoubtedly the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She wore her dark hair up and her slender neck was adorned with a simple chain of gold. Everything about her spoke elegance and Bruce who was seldom awed by anything, found his breath quite taken away.

Diana's blue eyes touched his and her cheeks flushed with colour as they stepped into the elevator. "I enjoyed your company at our last encounter," she confessed. "I also felt that if I am to live in the Patriarch's World, then I should become more familiar with men. My sisters' experiences in the past make it impossible for them to give me an unbiased opinion. I am certain that the Patriarch's World has changed in the course of two thousand years and that all men are not brutes with lustful intentions."

Bruce had to laugh at that description. "Well most of us aren't," he answered. "But I'm hardly the first man you've encountered. What about Superman?"

Diana shot him a look at the mention of Kal's public persona. The way he said Superman, sounded oddly familiar and for a moment, she wrestled with trying to identify when it was she had heard it spoken that way. "Superman is rather unique I think," she answered after a moment. "You can hardly base an accurate picture of all men on him, do you not agree?"

"I suppose," Bruce nodded, though Clark whether he was Kryptonian or not, was a tough act to follow. "So I'm just an experiment to you then?" He teased.

"Of course not," she said hastily, thinking she might have offended him by her comment. "I did enjoy your company from last evening and the dancing was nice…" Diana admitted shyly.

"I'm just teasing Princess," Bruce allayed her concerns. "I enjoyed it too although I don't know if I'm the best example of my gender. I'm sure Miss Candy would have filled you in on all the details."

"That you enjoy sex with many women?" She asked just as the elevator doors slid open, allowing the hotel patrons waiting to get inside to hear the question, their eyes widening in surprise and shock.

"Good timing," Bruce retorted before taking Diana's gently by the elbow and leading her past them. "That's not a question you ask on a first date Diana."

"Is this is a date?" She looked at him, with that doe eyed innocence.

"I'd like to think so," he smiled at her as they walked out of the hotel into the night air.

In the dark, Bruce felt more comfortable and under the blue light of the moon, Diana seemed more radiant if such a thing was possible. A limousine was waiting for them at the sidewalk and upon seeing them, the driver was quick to step out and open the door for them.

"What are the required rituals for a first date?" Diana asked once they were settled inside the vehicle and moving.

Bruce was about to answer when suddenly, something very big landed on the front of the car, crushing everything beneath it into the tar. The car halted abruptly, jostling them unmercifully in the carriage as the limousine ripped apart spectacularly, leaving Diana and Bruce behind in the back seat.

In front of them, standing on the crushed half of the limousine was a creature that didn't look unlike one of the trolls in the Lord of the Rings films, with leathery skin, wielding a large, hammer and possessing one eye.

"Well," Bruce replied still staring at the thing. "I imagine not being killed by a giant Cyclops would be one."