AN: Hey guys, so, after this story, I'm going to be writing a sequel four years into the future. The entire season 2 of YJ will have happened as planned, except for that episode with Intergang messing with those shells from the Hall because of what's happening right now, and in Endgame when Vandall is meeting with Darkseid, Whisper is there too. But before the sequel, I'm going to be publishing a one-shot crossover starring Gieta from Green Lantern: The Animated Series, and Hazelle, my very own OC. Also, if you haven't noticed, my story The Gypsy Twins hasn't been updated in awhile because whenever I try to save what I've been working on for Chapter 3, it refuses to save. It's the most annoying thing. Anyways, I'll try to update it soon.


Chapter 11: Darkness

Sarah

"Sarah!" I hear Garfield's voice calling my name, over and over. He's in pain. I can sense it. I need to help him. But I can't find him. It's so dark. There is no light. I can't see anything. "Garfield?" I call to the darkness. "How could you Sarah?" It's a different voice. Dick's. "I trusted you with all our secrets and you go and get captured just because you can't listen to orders." Then he's replaced by yet another voice. Tim. "Sarah! They found us! Help!"

Throughout all of this, Garfield's pained whimpers echo in the darkness. My name. Always my name. I hear my dad, "Help me Sarah!" And my friends, "Sarah! How could you?" And then the darkness clears, and I see my mother's grave. "You could have prevented it Sarah." A voice I've never heard before. But I know that it's my mother's.

The darkness comes again. "Sarah?" A familiar voice, but different. So different. Jason's voice, but broken, in pain. The darkness lifts, and I see him, lying on the ground, a bleeding hole in his chest. The Joker stands in the background, twirling a gun in his hand. "Sarah." Jason whispers, before his eyes close. Forever.

Then all the voices come, all at once. until they're all speaking together, in a chorus of the ones I love and care for, all asking the same thing, "How could you, Sarah? How could you?"


Meanwhile, in the warehouse,

"Have they broken yet?"

"Not yet, but they are both close, the boy even more so."

"Well hurry it- wait. Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Them!"


Garfield

"Mom!" I cry. She pushes me out of the car. Right before she plunges into the waterfall. "No!" I scream, falling to my knees. I cry for what seems like hours, and then the scene changes. It's my mom's grave. At her funeral.

One of the black-covered heads turns to me. It's Sarah. "You could've saved her." Another head turns. Dad. "You could have prevented it." Then M'gann. "How could you have let this happen?"

How could I have let that happen?


Back in the warehouse.

Bluejay sneaks into the warehouse, on the catwalk where Sarah first met Intergang. But something isn't right. Ugly and his thugs are tied up in the center of the massive room. And screams are heard from under Bluejay's feet. He looks over the side of the catwalk and sucks in his breath. Whisper and another man, a hideous man at that, stand in conversation, while Sarah and Garfield scream, eyes shut. They are chained to the wall.

Red Robin silently drops onto the catwalk beside him. "What's going on?" Red Robin whispers. But at his words, Whisper turns and sees them. Pulling out two whips of flame, she lashes one of the support beams and Bluejay and Red Robin tumble to the ground.


Tim

I stand in a black space as Dick yells at me. "How could you let this happen? So much for being the Boy Genius. You're an idiot!" I can't even see him, but the words sting. Before joining the Bats, Robin was my hero. And he still is. "I never want to see you again in my life!" He screams at me.

Then it's Jason's voice. "I told them. I told them that you were stupid, a rookie. They should've listened! Look at what you did." The darkness fades enough for me to see a computer screen, with long lines of code scrolling. My instincts kicked in and I deciphered the code easily. Whoever owned this computer had somehow tracked my tech signature and found the Batcave.

"I don't see how we can trust you now Tim." Bruce's voice. "You've failed us. Leave. Now." I fall to my knees, unable to believe what's happening to me. How did someone track my tech? It's virtually impossible.

"Why would I want to be friends with a little traitor like you?" Garfield's turn. Gar and I had become really good friends these past two weeks. "Come on Red. You led them straight to us! How could I be friends with you now?" I look around from my position on the floor. What is happening to my life?


Jason

I sit in the waiting room as I wait for news about my mom's condition. A doctor walks out of my mom's room. I leap to my feet. "Is she-?" "I'm sorry." The doctor cuts me off, lowering her head. "No." I whisper. "Excuse me?" The doctor looks up. It's Whisper. "No!" I yell. "She can't be-"

"She is." I look up. Bruce is the doctor now. "You can't do anything to save her." I start to tear up, and look down. "I'm sorry, Mr. Todd. Is there anything I can do for you?" Bruce asks. "No." I tell him. I find myself at our old, hole-in-the-wall of an apartment and lay down on my little bed. Then the scene shifts again.

"Mr. Todd, Bruce Wayne has offered you accommodations. Will you accept them?" One of Bruce's jappy secretaries asks me. "Why would he want me?" I ask her. "Why would he?" The secretary morphs into the Joker, my first villain.

"Why would Batman ever want such an annoying little boy as his sidekick?" The Joker's voice changes into Dickie's. "What?" I ask him. "You're useless, worthless, I don't know why Bruce ever took you in, you idiot. You're a disgrace."

"Jay. Did you ever like me, or were you just pretending?" Tim asks me, but younger Tim, the nine-year-old Tim who first came to the Manor a year ago. Vulnerable Tim. "Timmy-" I start, but the scene changes again.

"You're such a bastard!" Sarah screeches at me. "I can't believe I ever even thought I liked you!" She yells, and storms out the door of my room at the Manor. "Sarah!" I call after her. "No! Don't ever talk to me ever again!" She screams at me. I sink to my knees, my head in my hands.


Tim

"Master Timothy?" Alfred asks me. "What horrible thing happened to you because of me, Alfie?" I ask, glancing up at the butler, waiting for another horrid accusation to add to the heavy weight that's settled on my conscience.

"You didn't do any of this, Master Timothy." Alfred tells me, kneeling down next to me and placing a comforting hand on my back. "What?" I ask him. "This is all a dream. None of it is real. And you need to wake up or else you, Jason, Garfield, Bruce, Dick and Sarah will all die." Alfred tells me.

I stand up and look at the butler. I've never really thought about it, but we really depend on Alfred for so much of support that helps us to be the Bats. Without him, what would we be? I trust Alfie more than anyone in the world. "Well, then I'd better wake up then huh?"


Sarah

But then a voice breaks through the chorus of other voices. "Sarah Beth." A tall, glowing, red-headed woman floats down out of the darkness. "M-mom?" I ask, my voice quivering. The other voices are still there, but they've faded to background noise.

My mother lands on the ground in front of me. "Sarah. My daughter. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I never visited, or wrote. And I know that it's hard. But you have to wake up. Garfield and Jason and Tim are in trouble, and soon Dick and Bruce will be too." She tells me, placing a hand on my shoulder.

I gaze at my mother, at the woman who should've been in my life for the past ten years, but wasn't. Who left me and Dad to fend for ourselves against poverty. Who didn't even care enough to call her own daughter. Who is the piece of me that's always felt like it was missing. And she thinks that she can make up for it with a few words.

"You think I'll forgive you, just like that? Just because you're my mother? After all you've done to us? Dad wrote to you all the time about me! About our situation! He loves you! He still loves you. You were never for any of the he events in my life! Winning gymnastics competitions! Academic awards! You weren't there for my first boyfriend. Or when I broke my leg. Or anything.

"Garfield told me that you had enough money to buy plane tickets here. But you never did. Never even told Garfield that he had a sister! You couldn't even send us a bit of money! Dad used to work twelve hours a day just to have enough money to send me to school! And you never cared. Never even cared about your own daughter." I scream, sobbing by the end of my rant.

Marie looks at me, ghostly tears running down her ghostly face. "You're right." She finally tells me. "I didn't do anything, even after hearing about what was happening to you. But it's not true that I never cared about you Sarah-" When I hear her say that, I cut my mother off, "Well if you never cared than why didn't you send money, or call, or write, or visit, or anything!" I yell.

Whenever I had pictured meeting my mother, it had always been at the Olympics. I had won gold in gymnastics, and she was congratulating me, always with a perfectly good reason why she was never in touch. She was proud of me. Never in any of my fantasies had I pictured meeting her ghost in a hallucination, or that I had a brother, or that I would be so angry.

My mother is upset, but I don't care. "You're surprised. Surprised that I'm this angry with you, or that I didn't forgive you just because of who you are. Well maybe if you had ever bothered to come and see me, you would've found out how stubborn I am." I tell her, my voice flat.

"Listen, Sarah. I'm not asking you to wake up for me. I'm asking you to wake up for Garfield, and your father. Garfield is trapped, just as you are, in a horrible hallucination. And Hannah knows who you are, so she'll try to get to you through Daniel." My mother tells me.

I think of my father, who always worked his ass off for me. To send me to school, to get me clothes, to send me to gymnastics, to feed me. If it weren't for him, I never would've met Dick, which would've meant that I never would've met Timmy, or Jason, or Gar. My dad always cared when no one else did. Even though I never had the latest tech, or the most fashionable clothes, my dad gave me everything. And I can't let him down.

I take a deep breath. "When I die, I am going to seriously tell you off." I tell Marie. "Hopefully that won't happen for a long time." She responds, though I wonder whether she means that she doesn't me to die or she doesn't want me to tell her off. I start to wake up. "Oh, and, Sarah, no matter you think, I love you. I've always loved you."


Garfield

As I stare at M'gann, and Sarah, and my father, I feel tears welling up in my eyes. Why couldn't I save my mom? As I turn to her grave, the answer is waiting for me. My mom's ghost sits atop her grave, waiting for me, tears in her ghostly eyes. "Garfield!" She cries, and tries to get up, but she can't.

I rush over to her, and wrap my arms around her. She becomes solid long enough to hold me too. "Garfield, you couldn't have saved me. Don't let him get to you. You have to wake up. Sarah's in trouble." She whispers to me. "No. If I stay, you'll be here." I tell her, tears flowing freely down my face. "Oh, Garfield." My mom whispers, burying me in her embrace again.

I look around, and see that the scene has shifted. I'm in a warehouse, and Sarah, Tim and Jason are chained to a wall, unconscious. And next to Sarah, I hang as well. "Garfield please. Wake up. For me." I turn to my mom. She's looking at me with tears in her eyes. "Anything for you mom." I whisper.


Jason

"Jason?" My eyes snap open as soon as I hear Leslie's voice. "What did I do to you Doc?" I ask, surprised at how emotionless my voice is. "Jason. Get up." She tells me, the familiar stern tone comforting. I obey.

"You've done nothing wrong." She tells me. I remember her saying those exact words to me the first day I came to live with her at the clinic. "I've gotten all the people that I care about to hate me." I tell her bitterly. "You care about me. And I don't hate you." She tells me, placing a hand on my shoulder. "Jason, this isn't real. It's a dream, designed to break you. You have to fight it. You have to stay strong big guy."

I look at Dr. Leslie. She invited me to her clinic after my mom died, and I stayed there for awhile, until Bruce adopted me. I remember my excited surprise the first time I saw the doctor at the Batcave. Leslie is my closest friend and a formidable ally. I have to trust her.


I open my eyes to see Whisper fighting Batman, whilst the ugly man clothed in red is engaged in combat with Robin. I glance to the side and suck in a breath. Jason and Tim are chained up too. Tim is awake, but Jason's still out cold. I look to my other side to see Garfield suspended unconscious as well.

I look around, trying to figure out what I can do to help. I debate screaming "Hey Whisper!" But that would alert them to the fact that I'm awake and they'll do whatever it was they did to me before.

I try to decide what just happened to me. I'm guessing that that red guy put me in a hallucination, and that my mind built a defense against it. I'm hoping that my dead mother isn't the strongest defense my mind's got.

Suddenly, I see that Garfield is waking up, though slowly. "Mom." I read his lips more than I hear him. He turns to me. "I saw her too." I mouth to him. I see that tears are welling up in his eyes, and his head lowers. "She'd want you to get out." I mouth to him, hoping he didn't notice that I said you and not us. He nods, but asks me "How?"

"Can you transform?" I ask him. He closes his eyes in concentration, and I wince as I see tears streak down his cheeks. But then, he's gone, a small green mouse sitting on the floor just below his manacles. He shifts into a tiny bird and flies over to a little table I hadn't even noticed. There were several odd devices on the table, but Garfield was going for the keys to our chains.

He grabs them, flutters over to me, and drops the keys into my outstretched palm. I turn them until I'm able to push one of them into the keyhole. I nearly curse out loud when it doesn't work, but the third key I try works and my right hand is freed. I free my other limbs and drop to the ground.

Jason is still out, but I free Timmy, hand him the keys and whisper in his ear, "Gar and I have to go save our dad. If Jason gets up, free him. Try to find a way to take them down without them noticing that we're free." Tim nods and I grab Garfield's hand (he's back in human form) and drag him out to the Batplane.

"Sarah! We have to help them!" Garfield tells me urgently. "They can manage on their own Gar. Besides, we have to save Dad." I tell him. He stares at me. "Dad?" He asks, bewildered. "Hannah's going to try and capture or-or kill Dad." I tell him, struggling to say it aloud. I had known it, but saying it makes it so much more real.

Garfield doesn't even answer me. He just gets in the Batplane. I climb into the driver's seat and scan my palm, which starts up the plane. Because Batman is too good for a simple ignition key. "Have you ever flown this thing before?" Garfield asks from behind me. "Once, in a simulation. I crashed the plane and we would've almost died had it been real." I tell him.

"Only almost?" Garfield asks. In any other situation I would've though it a joke, but not now. I know that he's dead serious. "Only almost." I tell him. Then what are you waiting for? We have to save Dad!" He yells. And for the first time in a long time, I obey my orders.


AN: Tada! Here's Chapter 11. It's my lonest chapter so far! For any of you out there who are reading this and like X-Men: Evolution, check out my new story, Metas and Mutants!