AN: Thanks again for your Fb guys, really appreciate it. So, with this little update (no more than 6 pages in word) Barbara's POV is done. Now everything will converges in the present, we still have a long way ahead so be patient. I'm translating as fast as I can, but I have other stories to work on as well. My muse has been pretty busy lately, she is whimsical. My writing is solely dependent on my muse's moods and the translations depends on the time available to do it, my editor and my beta reader. It's all a team effort.
Thanks for continuing with me. V
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The crime in New Gotham didn't stop because of the absence of one of its vigilantes, a Chinese mafia was threatening to take over the city and soon bodies began to appear dead in a strange manner, particularly the bosses and the lieutenants of other gangs in the city. The bodies appeared with their throats slashed and a note written in Japanese begging forgiveness, which was more than odd. I began by cross-referencing all the information that I could find on these strange killings. Everything indicated that it was done with a sword or Katana, but what most caught my attention was the note asking for forgiveness. That didn't seem normal for a paid assassin.
After many hours of research and several days of looking for clues, I finally found the mafia's headquarters and sent Nightwing and Black Canary to investigate. What they found at the hideout was much more than what we anticipated. Aiko's rescue was fortunate, but it was more than that, besides learning her history, she was willing to join us in order to fight against crime. That was something completely unexpected.
At first, I had my doubts, but with the passage of time Aiko aka Lotus, became a great asset. Aiko not only had training as a samurai, she was agile and very intelligent, and able to work well undercover. She was like a phantom; I couldn't help but compare her to Helena, who had the same ability of hiding without being seen.
Once the school year was done, I dedicated myself to nanotech research. Fortunately for me, I worked shoulder to shoulder with Dr. Ashley Brennan, an expert in the nano science, with whom I surprisingly got along really well; so much so that a few months later of working together I found myself confiding in her about the real reason for working on the nanotechnology research. She understood that even though I was working to find a method to regenerate cells for humanities' sake I also had my own agenda.
I showed her my work with the transponder module that permitted me to walk for short periods of time but with a lot of pain. Together we began to work on a design in which it would only send electronic impulses to the nanos and these would in turn work as a bridge between the damaged nerves and the healthy ones. At the same time, we began to do a research to see if it was possible to get the nanos to create their own permanent bridge between the damaged nerves and the healthy ones and thus walk again without the transponder. In other words, get the nanos to create new nerves.
Was it dangerous? Yes, I knew it was, we weren't authorized to test our findings on humans, but after several experiments on rats and rabbits, we realized that the nanos weren't dangerous to a person's health, actually, if they performed the way they should, then the body, without secondary side effects, would assimilate them. Therefore, I made the decision to start injecting small amounts of nanos into my spine to start the progress bit by bit and to see if they would eventually bridge the gap over my damaged nerves.
We had to create the nanos with a specific programming so that when they were injected directly into the spine the encoding would make them attack the problem area directly. That was what took longest, the programming of the nanos. It had to be perfect to accomplish our goals.
Ashley and I spent hours behind the nano generator studying the best way to program them with the DNA package required, so that they could serve as connectors to the damaged nerves and at the same time repair, the damage caused to the nerves. The nanos had to attach to each other to create a string that would connect them to the healthy nerves and by pass the damaged nerves at the same time in order to generate healthy ones.
It was hours of tireless research, to create programs again and again until we achieved the perfect codification for the nanos to do the work for which they were being designed. When I managed to create the perfect encoding according to the experiments in the rabbit, I told Ashley that it was time to inject in me a double quantity that the injected in the rabbit in order to see the outcome. The intention was to regain a phantom sense in my legs, perhaps not a feeling per se, but something close to it.
The injection was painful and dangerous, fortunately Ashley had experience in such a procedure, doing it in animals was further complicated because their spines were tiny, so doing so in mine it would be a little less complicated. That Friday evening we waited for the rest of the researchers to leave so that we could proceed with the delicate operation. The first thing I did was to adjust the security cameras in the lab so that no one would see the experiment that was about to be done on me. It was the main priority to keep this a secret; Ashley could lose her job even her license if anyone found out about what she was about to risk on my behalf.
We talked a lot about the pros and cons of the investigation, and the procedure we would have to carry out in my person. Nevertheless, after many hours of discussion and research, Ashley accepted that the risks couldn't be beyond what I was already suffering. After all, if the nanos were unable to regenerate my nerves or become the connectors, we wouldn't lose anything by trying, they weren't dangerous with the right programming, one that we were working tirelessly to once all ready, Ashley injected me a specific amount of nanos in my spine, just in the area where the nerves had been damaged by the bullet impacts that paralyzed me to the waist down. After a couple of hours lying face down, I went back to home as always, now it was only a matter of waiting.
The first week, I didn't feel any changes, however, in the second week, I began to notice a phantom feeling in my legs, very vague, but it was there. After discussing this with Ashley and wrote down the relevant observations we waited some more. By the third week, I inject another similar amount to strengthen the work of the pioneers' nanos. After all, these had a specific span of life, and once this concluded, they would dissolve and thus absorbed by the body. In this way, I still had to be injected every two or three weeks more nanos, in order to continue with the experiment. The nanos would work in the regeneration slowly if and when they were reinforced with a fresh batch of nanos.
By the end of the month since my first injection, I could not only feel the phantom sensations, but for the first time in seven years I felt cold in my legs, my skin started to recognize the temperature changes. Completely shocked and overwhelmed by those forgotten sensations I closed up in my bathroom and I cried of joy and sadness, I would have liked so much for Helena to be here, by my side to share the success.
Over the next six months, Ashley injected 12 doses of nanos in my spine. Each injection had a more prolonged effect; the first time it almost took 2 weeks before the first one took effect to create sensation in my limbs. By the eighth, it was just a matter of days and I could already felt pain, cold, heat, even the tension when I exercised my legs. Nevertheless, that I could feel didn't mean that I could walk at all, I could stand and feel, however I needed more time to get my legs to function properly once again.
Eigth months after the first injection I could walk for the first time, we discovered on a hunch, that if I used my belt at a low power level, only providing support to the nerves -without the need to recreate the whole motor system of my legs- I'll could walk without pain even with the belt. It was then when I decided to entrust Dinah and Aiko with the outcome.
When I came out walking of the elevator in front of them, they were very stunned. They couldn't believe that I was walking on my own and with a minimal use of the transponder. Dinah initially showed a little concerned, but once I explained the procedure and the necessity to maintain the secret behind the reason that I could walk they understood and congratulated me with great enthusiasm.
Dinah was looking at me with a hint of nostalgic and some pain at the same time. I understood her completely because it echoed in me; she was like me thinking in Helena and the happiness that she would be feeling if she knew that I could walk again and that I regained the complete use of my legs once more. Several times, I surprised Dinah watching me with a strange look; since after that faithful night, in which she was a silent witness of my deep sorrow for the departure and loss of Helena. I noticed it more often now, it was a gaze mixture of sadness and amazement, and not little nostalgia combined with disappointment, as if she knew something that I didn't. Each time I surprised her looking at me that way she would blush and she would avoid my eyes watching her inquisitive. I couldn't pass up the feeling that she knew something I wouldn't and I was going mad wondering, what could she know? Maybe she was in contact with her and Helena had asked her not to tell me? One day I couldn't stand it anymore and I confronted her.
"Dinah, can I ask you something?" I said with neutral expression, so not to scare her.
"Sure Barbara, what's up?" she looked me in the eyes with curiosity, even since she started going to college we didn't see each other much, besides the briefings after sweep and during them, even then we exchanged a few casual words, everything was around the "work" or her studies. More than ever, I missed Helena's presence, the tower felt so empty and cold without her in it. Helena had the ability to seize a room with its single physical presence, it was so overwhelming and warm at the same time, as Huntress, or just Helena she could be a very sweet person, so tender and vulnerable behind her arrogant and sarcastic façade.
"I know that you're a very loyal person and that you would never betray my trust nor of anyone you love, is that true?"
"You know it is Barbara, you can count on me for everything" she was dead serious, and at the same time wary, wondering why I was asking her that.
"I thought so, which leads me to the next question, I noticed that on several times you look at me with certain expression that makes me wonder what you are thinking. I am sorry, but tell me if I'm wrong. Is Helena the reason why you've been doing it?
Dinah is blushing as if she doesn't know what to say "Well…is…that, I know that you miss her, I do so too and well I don't know if you well, you know. Feel the loss as I do, I mean not the same of course just… you know." She shrugged and put some of her blonde air behind her ear.
Dinah's words did make sense certainly, but something inside of me told me that there was something else. Something I wasn't sure I was ready to know.
"If Helena had contacted you and requested you to keep it a secret, you would do it, right?
Dinah was blushing furiously now, and with a stunned expression and for several seconds she opened and closed her mouth in a perfect imitation of a guppy fish.
"I… I, the truth is I don't know Barbara" she said looking at me in the eyes, with tears in them "if you think that Helena has contacted me you are wrong, but I wouldn't know what to do if she would do so and asked me to keep it from your knowledge. Barbara you are like a mother to me, I love you very much, if you hadn't taken me under your wing, I don't know what would have happened to me. From the day Helena left, I have seen you suffer from her absence. I miss her too but I now it doesn't compare to how you must feel.
But I really I don't know what I would do, Helena is like the older sister I've never had, it is an important part of my life, I miss her and need her, but seriously Barbara, I don't know what I'll do. I wouldn't know 'cause although if she would ask me that, eventually my conscience would make me tell you 'cause I know that you would need to know her whereabouts. Even if we didn't knew for sure where she is, you still would like to know that she is fine. Then I would feel caught between the two people that mean everything to me, you guys are my family and I know that Helena knows it too, and she would never ever put me in that kind of situation. Since it would be as if I was betraying you and hence her. That would be something that I wouldn't be able to forgive myself for."
I stared her in the eyes for several seconds until I was satisfied with the meaning of her words. She was telling me the truth, she had no idea where Helena was, although I felt a little bit more calm, I still got that feeling that Dinah knew something that I didn't, but apparently any serious attempt to convince Dinah to trust in me, it would be futile. After all, if she knew something surely it was something that Helena had entrusted only her with, and in that case, she couldn't tell me without betraying Helena's confidence. A no win situation for me.
"Thanks Dinah, I just wanted, I don't know…" I pinched the bridge of my nose "Hold onto something. It will be soon two years since she left and…" my eyes filled with tears, there had been no trace of her, nothing, in the broadcast news never had appeared a single word of a vigilant doing justice in any city around the world "It was as if Helena had disappeared from the face of the planet"
She looked at me with great sorrow, but she had nothing to say. There was nothing left to say, not to me at least.
Soon it was time to make the sweeps and I forget everything for the moment, after all, the crime doesn't rest and somebody had to deal with it. My heart never ceased to cry out for Helena, but somehow I had learned to survive with that emptiness in my heart. It could not be in any other way.
Shortly after the two years anniversary of Helena's departure, Dinah asked me if she could take a few days off to go to San Francisco with Gabby, she was attending a symposium of photography that coincided with her break between semesters; I didn't see a reason why she shouldn't so she went with Gaby to San Francisco. She deserved a vacation after all the hard work we've been done lately.
When she returned a week later, Dinah was in an exceptionally happy mood, beyond its normal effervescence. She told me in complete detail everything that she had seen, eaten, almost every hour of her visit, she made me laugh with funny anecdotes, I was glad to see her so happy, she had never been so relaxed and cheerful since Helena's departure. Perhaps this trip to San Francisco was what she needed, a change of pace. I asked myself if maybe that's what I needed too, a good vacation.
On my birthday, Dick, Dinah, Gabby, Aiko, Ashley and her partner Lizzy took me to dinner at an exclusive French restaurant, La Maison Bleu. I had a great time until the point where we had to cut the cake, when they asked me to make a wish. The only thing I could think of was Helena; I wanted her to be here with me.
When we returned to the tower, Aiko said that she would go to do sweeps and Dick offered to go with her, Dinah apologized saying she had much homework to do and I went to sit in front of Delphi to monitor the criminal activity. It was my birthday but at matter of fact, I didn't feel like celebrating at all. This day in particular I missed Helena even more, the year before my engagement to Wade, Helena took me to celebrate at our favorite Italian restaurant, and then to No Man's land to a surprise party with all our friends. The following year, Wade had abducted me all night and Helena was in a bad mood the following days just talking if necessary by the comm. set. She had given me my gift during the morning as if it was nothing special and I didn't see her again until three days later. I felt bad because I knew how much Helena cherished to celebrate my birthday with me, always putting particular interest in them and spoiling me for the sake of it; with the appearance of Wade that changed. How stupid could I be I told myself as my eyes filled with tears. Since Helena had left, I had cried more than I had ever done when I found out I was paralyzed.
Dinah approached me some time later, she was carrying a kind of package in her hands, it was wide and large, it appeared to be a painting or something like that, it was still wrapped in its protective cover, I looked her intrigued.
"What is that Dinah?" I asked curious, trying to inject a little joy to my voice, Dinah could see my tears clearly, I didn't make any effort to try to hide them it was futile to do so.
"A late birthday present" she offered nervously.
"Oh, thank you", I said, smiling warmly.
"I hope you like it", Dinah said with a tremor in her voice that I didn't understand. She looked almost frightened.
"Anything coming from you it will be really appreciated Dinah" I smiled in gratitude.
Dinah gave me the package, and waited nervously for me to open it; I took my time removing the wrappings. The gasp of surprise almost made me fall back; the painting fell from my shaking hands. Dinah hurried up to catch me. But… but, my mind screamed confused trying to understand what I had in front of me. I stared Dinah aghast; shaking my head, I closed my eyes trying frantically to regain my composure.
"This gift isn't mine, it was sent to you by somebody else" Dinah said, "I know where Helena is, Barbara" she confessed in a terrified whisper, my legs were trembling and I fell on the chair without strength.
"Helena!" I whispered painfuly.
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