Chapter Twenty

Inkling

I called the number Ms. Gordon had given me the day before, and heard her authorative voice after the second ring. "Hello Gabby. Got a question already?"

"I'll always have questions, Ms. Gordon, but I am calling because I have a theory of sorts- guesses really, about something that I just heard, and I wanted to discuss it with you. I cannot do that over the phone because my uncle is in the next room. Would it be okay if we all met somewhere- Helena too?" I asked, not sure what she would say to that.

"Is that Gabby?" I heard my friend say faintly as if she was right there, but faded.

"Am I on speakerphone or something?" I asked.

"No, your voice is being transmitted through the Delphi, which is the number you called," Ms Gordon explained to me.

"The Delphi has its own phone number?"

"It has many, I heard Dinah speak up.

"Seriously?"

"Hey, it does everything else, it might as well be a phone, too." Dinah said.

"Anyway," my teacher said, cutting of anything that I might have had to say to that, "yes, you can come over, but Helena won't be here. She disappeared after we talked to you yesterday, and she didn't go back to her place, so I don't konw where she is."

"Can't you just track her down with your comm signals or whatever?" I heard Dinah laugh in the background, as if I suggested that maybe Helena went shoe shopping all night.

"I would, but I think Helena need some time alone." I don't know why I nodded to that when I knew Ms. Gordon and my friend wouldn't be able to see it.

"I'll come get you in an hour. I just got finished training, and I need a shower," Dinah said.

"Same here, except for the 'just got out of training' part. An hour sounds great," I told her. Dinah laughed again. She seemed to be in a good mood then, which was odd considering what had happened a couple of nights before.

"Alright then, we'll see you in a bit," Ms Gordon said, and after saying our goodbyes, I hung up. 'I will not think about Dinah in the shower, I will not think about Dinah in the shower, I will not think about Dinah in the shower... Damn it.'

Forty-five minutes later, I was sitting next to Uncle Leonard on the couch with my feet on his lap. When I had put them there, he gave me a glare, but didn't push them off. The same western was on, and the main showdown was over, the main character was wounded but vicrtorious, and the prize woman was in his arms as he winced in pain because of the bullet wouind in his side. I waited for the doorbell to ring or a knock on the door as I only halfway payed attention to the woman swooning. Next to me, I sensed a sadness, and I looked over just in time to see my uncle wiping a tear from his eye, and a grief and longing was so strong within him as he watched the couple on the screen share a passionate kiss. An image of Mark, I assumed, popped into my head, and I looked at my uncle. Mark was Uncle Leonard's first and only lover (as far as I knew). He wasn't like anything I had ever imagined when Leonard told me stories of him. In the image I saw of Mark in my uncle's mind, Mark was a bear of a man, with balding brown hair and green eyes, a husky build, but he was still handsome in his own way.

I studied my uncle's face for a second. In what little memories I had, I don't think I had ever seen him like this. He quickly wiped his left eye, the eye the offending tear fell from. "Did he die, Uncle Leonard?" I asked, not meaing to sound so small, as if I was eleven again, sitting on the floor and listening to his stories of coming aout and being with Mark. I didn't remember Uncle Leonard ever telling me what happened to him, and I knew I asked many millions of times, but he wouldn't answer me. He would only say that it didn't end well. After that, he would go into another story I liked, the story of the day he met my dad, which had always made me laugh and forget about Mark.

Uncle Leonard shook his head. "He... chose his work over me," he said. He took the remote control from the coffee table as I slid my legs off of him and let them slowly rest on the floor. He turned the TV off as I looked down at my knees, trying to picture what kind of work Mark had done that would make him leave my uncle, or make my uncle leave him. "Now, I don't want none of that pitying crap. I don't need it." I looked up at him and smiled, but it didn't reach my eyes.

"There's the bitter old man I know and love," I said fondly, scooting close enough to him so I could rest my head on his left shoulder while my right hand went around his back to his right shoulder in a partial hug.

"Damn straight,"

"A straight person? Where?" I asked, pretending to look around. Uncle Leonard smiled. I felt the static. She was there. I sat up and stood.

"Dinah's here," I said.

"How do you know?" Leonard asked, looking startled. I shrugged with a smirk as the doorbell rang.

"She thinks loudly." I replied, walking quickly to get the door, but held myself down a bit. I felt excited, but knew I shouldn't be. After all, this wasn't a date or anything. I was just going to see the residents of the Clocktower for a buisness meeting of sorts. Why was my heart pounding like it had the night before? Uncle Leonard stood up then as well, and I sensed curiosity. He wondered what kind of girl would make me so crazy for her. I opened the door and saw the shy girl in front of me. "Hey," I said, letting her inside. "I've got to get my shoes, coat and gloves. I'll be right back- Oh! Dinah, this is my uncle, Leonard Cook. Uncle Leonard, this is Dinah Redmond."

"Lance, actually. I took back my mother's name recently," Dinah said, and I nodded as my friend said, "It was nice to see you again, Mr. Cook." 'So they HAD met already once before.' I thought.

"Oh please! Call me Leonard. Mr. Cook is my father, and I am not that far over the hill yet."

"Yeah, I think you've still got an hour or two," I added in. That earned me a glare, and I grinned. Uncle Leonard pointed to my room.

"Go get your stuff or you're grounded until your parents get home. It was an empty threat, but I still laughed and walked away, knowing that my friend and uncle weren't going to start some sort of showdown like in the western. I grabbed the items I said I would and walked back to the others in the walkway.

When I got back, I heard Dinah saying, "I'll be sure to let her know. 'Doubt she'd care at this point, though."

"She better care. It's her job," Uncle Leonard said. Dinah smiled at him, then at me. My chest tightened up again, and I played with the buttons on my coat, taking longer than nessisary to do them up in order keep Dinah from seeing my face. Dinah, too, seemed shy suddenly now that Uncle Leonard wasn't there to distract her from me. She seemed shy as well.

"Hey, are you ready to go?" I nodded. 'I can tell she likes you a lot,' I heard from Uncle Leonard. I turned to him.

"I'll be back by seven at the very latest, and if not, I'll call," I told him, though I doubted I would be gone that long. He nodded, and as the two of us left. I heard, 'If you marry her, I'll kill you. I don't want to be related to Kyle in any way shape or form.' I laughed as I closed the door behind me, and Dinah looked at me with an odd expression. "Sorry" I said, "funny thought." Sensing no lies from me, she gave me her 'you're weird' look, and we continued on towards the Hummer. After we both got in and strapped in, I watched as Dinah started the car and messed with the radio, adjusting the volume, and then she looked at me before making the car leave the curb. At first, the tension in the car was so thick that if you were to try to cut through it with a knife, you'd break the knife.

"Gabby," She said at the same time I started to say her name. We stopped and giggled. "Go ahead." I took in some air.

"Last night, I dreampt of my uncle's memory. He was thinking about me and one night he had tried to convince my parents to tell me the truth about whatever they've been hiding." I thought about the three main adults in my life as they all sat around the picnic tables in New Gotham Park. "I heard them talk about my abilities, and he said, 'I think she has his power.'" I looked at her for a second, then looked at the road in front of us. "I already knew that the metahuman gene was through my father- that wasn't who he was talking about, though, I don't think..."

"Why do you think that?"

"Because my mother said at one point, 'We raised our children together.' Not 'child' as in one, but 'children' as in two..." At this, Dinah looked at me with concern on her face, and I knew that she knew what I was getting at. I stared at the side of my friend's face as she looked back at the road. I was silent for a moment. "I don't know much about this part of me, Dinah, or about the Institute. All I have are the memories of others that I dream of, and the conclusions I can draw drom them." I told her what I did know about the Institute, not caring that I gave everything away. "I didn't want to say anything because-

"You didn't want to explain yourself to us," Dinah said. I smiled.

"That, and I didn't have much to tell, still don't, but from the clues I got, I was able to get this: I have a brother, or I HAD a brother but he died. The only reason why my memory would be blank now is if this brother died when I was five or six, and I saw what had happened and I went into some sort of shock that would have hurt myself or others. I mean, I was very young, and who knows? Maybe I did have them erased at the Institute. My grandfather had in one of the memories said that I had gone to a 'so called doctor', and he could have meant the people there." I looked out the window in front of me, and Dinah thought this over.

"Okay, so if your memory of your brother was erased to help you, then why go back there five years later?"

"I don't know. That does seem weird. I wish I knew. Maybe something happened. I had some sort of relapse or my powers had come to me, and they worked with me then on my powers. My uncle told me last night that I've had my powers before, but I didn't for the last five years at least. That was how my uncle was able to block his own thoughts from me, because he knew about my powers and had learned to keep his thoughts from me when I had them the first time arouns." We were silent and in thought.

"Well, the Institute was a big organization based almost soly on metahuman child developement." I nodded, and Dinah looked at me after the song on the radio ended. I think it was a Heart song aksing if the person they were singing to wanted someone to care about them. "So, you have something you need to discuss with my family and me?" Dinah asked. I nodded.

"I will talk to you all about it at the same time so that I won't have to say it twice. It will be easier." I looked over at her again a few minutes later when I saw that we were driving slowy and carefully on the backroads. It seemed as if Dinah had driven us in a large circle around the city, then was driving us inwards towards the Clocktower. "Hey, speaking of abilities, I've been meaning to ask you some questions about yours." Dinah looked at me then back tro the road, but not before I caught sight of her raised eyebrow.

"Shoot."

"Well, you're a touch telepath, right?"

"Yup, last I checked."

"You've touched me many times over the course of our friendship. We've hugged, thumbwrestled and swatted at eachother when we playfought... Didn't you see anything? At all? I mean, you seemed to not have a clue about my being a metahuman," 'Nor did you know about my feelings for you until yesterday,' I thought.

"Yeah, I saw stuff. When we first touched, all I ever saw was a door. Then later I'd hear whispering, but I could never tell what was said, but always saw the door. It was odd that I saw that from you everytime we touched because I couldn't control my powers. For some reason, it always made me feel safe with you. I guess that was why I ran to you the day my mother came back. I knew you wouldn't know what was going on, but still you'd try to understand, and you did. After the fiasco with Al Hawk- like, that next school day, you'd touched me on accident, and I got images of that night. I mean, it felt like they were bouncing back and forth between us. I wasn't sure if you had gotten them or not or if my powers were evolving or being screwy, but from what you told us yesterday, I know now that you had. Later in that class, I tried to touch you again to see what would happen, but I saw nothing."

"Well-"

"Litterally nothing, Gabby. No childhood memories, no door, nothing. It was as if there was supposed to be something there, but wasn't there anymore, which makes me wonder if your memories were taken from you, not repressed. See, if your memories were repressed, I have a feeling something would have triggered your brain to snap when your powers started to come back. If your powers had reawakened, don't you think your memories of your bother would have as well? So, if they were merely taken from you, then it had to have been a metahuman who had done it. Possibly someone who works- worked for the Institute." I stared at her. 'Works? Does this mean the Institute wasn't destroyed after all?'

"I was hoping somehting a long those lines. Then we could look up this metahuman from that Database to see if they are still in San Diego and I can go to them to get my memories back." Though I was getting excited by the thought that someone most definately had my powers out there, I was also a little scared. Not exactly scared, but worried, really. I didn't know if my parents would want me to get those memories back after they worked so hard to pretend it all didn't happen.

"I don't know, Gabby, I don't have a good feeling about that." Dinah shook her head as she said this. About five minutes after that, which I was silent thinking it all over, we were at the Clocktower, but Dinah didn't slow down or stop until we were about two blocks away from it. There was a garage door that said BLOCKED. It was part of a run down building that looked as if its only visters in the last twenty years were of the long tailed furry kind. Dinah pressed a button I hadn't noticed that was right next to the eject button on the car's radio, and the door opened. We rode along what seemed to be a tunnel, and it dipped sownwards towards the Clocktower. Talk about good parking.

When we came to a stop, we got out and I followed Dinah to an elevator door, where she pressed a button that I hadn't seen until it lit up. The inside looked like a normal everyday elevator, but there were no buttons inside. It was as if there was only one place for the elevator to go, and that was to the top. And a long way it was to the top. When I saw the sight of the inside of the Clocktower though, the long climb seemed worth it. I saw so many monitors, all on, all doing something. Ms. Gordon was typing something at one monitor, then wheeled to the other, not getting lost on which monitor had what information. It was facinating to watch. I wished I could be like that, that organized, that smart, that cool. Ms. Gordon finished typing about eighty words per minutes on the monitor she was at before she wheeled away from it and looked at us. I was still admiring what looked like security monitors over the schools and the large buisnesses. "Man, if you can't do a proper Google search on this baby, then you've paid too much, Ms. Gordon." I said.

"You can call me Barbara, Gabby."

"Not while you're still my teacher, I can't." I told her. She smiled.

"I can respect that," she replied. Helena walked in from the loft, and I watched her walk down the ramp and stand by the Delphi. She briefly read what was on the monitor Ms. Gordon had just left, and then she looked away, obviously not sure what she ahd just read.

"Took you two long enough. What did you do, drive to Maine and back?" Helena, ever the patient one, asked.

"No, we took the scenic route around the city liked we used to do before everything... got messed up. We needed to talk." Dinah replied and I nodded. It was the truth. I looked at Helena and smiled a small smile.

"I'm glad you could make it here," I said.

"I wanted to hear what you had to say about that night. Maybe you've some up with something that none of us had thought about."

"I doubt it. You three are great. I just wanted to make sure you could be here because I think it has to do with you in a way, too. Not personally, but... Well..." I trailed off and decided to start from the beginning and go from there. "I wanted to share my theiry about the night before last that may or may not affect the city again. You sure know how to pick your enemies-"

"We don't 'pick' them," Helena said in a curt tone, "They chose to do bad in this city, just as we chose to protect it and to do good." Her stance was a defencive one, and Dinah put a hand on her arm.

"I'm sorry. That didn't come out right. All I meant was that when someone wants to do some damage, they sure know how to go about doing it."

"What do you mean?" Dinah asked, moving her hand from Helena's arm and standing a little closer to me.

"I was telling you in the Hummer about some of the guesses I had about my past. I have a guess or two about that night as well. A couple of friends of mine, and my uncle were all affected by the craziness that happened that night. I had run across them, except for my uncle, but he had called. My parents, too were affected, but they left the city and couldn't go back to normal when you all made things right again. The thing is, I am asuming you all told people to forget about that night, and they all did, happily going back to their lives, not knowing what they may or may not have done. My friend Kelly and I got into... a fight that night, and I ran into another friend of mine, who thought she was a TV show character. My uncle Leonard was screaming about pixies. And parents went off to Las Vegas and got married again. Yesterday, none of them seemed to remember anything until about last night, which may be why my uncle came to me last night and parents had called me and told me where they were. I got a call from both of my friends today who were apologetic about what was said and done." I tried so hard not to look at Helena with my next sentance, but I knew that Helena would also agree. "They all remembered what had happened, what they did and what they said, so here is what I think: I think that since Harley Quinn had stolen the powers from someone, she hadn't had the time to learn to use them to the extent that the person who originally had them had, if that makes any sense. The man who was born with the abilities might have been able to hold the hypnosis for days, years if he really wanted to. Harley Quin wouldn't have had the time to gain that much control over those powers, so she might have been able to keep her hold on the city for only a full day even if you didn't stop her. Even your countering her damage with a hypnosis of your own didn't last more that twenty four hours. It has been more than that time, and now people everywhere are going to start to remember." I said. I looked at Helena then, and I felt the grief, which was so much stronger than the day before. I wanted to tell her that it wasn't something she had control over, but I doubt she wanted to hear my pitying words, since she didn't know me that well. Plus, she wouldn't have believed me anyway. She wouldn't have even believed Ms. Gordon, and they'd been friends/family for years.

"That makes a lot of sense, actually. I hadn't quite thought of that," my teacher admitted, and I knew she was somewhat embarressed to admit that.

"Not to sound stupid, but how will this affect the whole city, like you said?" My friend seemed lost, though I knew she had an inkling about where this was all going. She wanted to make sure she was right in her own guesses.

"Just think about it, Dinah," Helena started off, "people all over the city went crazy, and who know what all they've done. Close to three hundred people were mysteriously murdered without a motive, and I'm sure not all of those poeple had the same murderer. People who were the muderers ('like me') remember everything. In their crazed minds, they may have had a reason for what they did, but that doesn't mean the blood wasn't already shed." I looked at Ms. Gordon, then back to Dinah as she thought about this.

"Man, this is brutal," Dinah said, and we were still for a while. Helena and Ms. Gordon were thinking about eacher, wondering when they'll ever get to sit down and talk about the last few nights, but neither of them wanted to approach the subject. 'Now, the time to talk is now.' I thought about them both in my line of view and pretended that I had said this to them instead of thought it. I felt my knees give out and I fell; my hands barely caught me in time and kept my face from slamming against the floor. "Gabby! Are you okay?" Dinah knealt beside me and attempted to help me up, but my legs refused to carry my weight. 'Note to self," I thought, "never do that again.' She grabbed my arm and wrapped it around her neck, and to my surprise, Helena was on my other side.

"I'm sorry," I said shakily, not sure what else to say, 'that's never happened to me before." I was a little scared.

"It's happened to me once," Dinah told me in a calm voice that helped me calm myself. I took some deep breaths and listened to her voice in my ear. "I had used my telekinesis to pick up something heavier than what I was used to. You must have done something to over-excert your powers. You'll be fine in a few minutes." My head moved to look at Helena and I let my gaze shift from her to Ms. Gordon. They both looked at me, then at eachother. They got the hint that I had sent the messege to the both of them. I had hoped that since Dinah was touching me she had gotten in on the silent conversation as well. My friend looked at her adopted sister and I felt the static on my right side, and it felt almost like another hand holding me up. "I've got her, Helena."

"Sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. Come on, Sweetie."

As we walked up the ramp, or rather, as Dinah halfway dragged me up the ramp, I heard, "If what Gabby says is true, then you must remember... everything. I can't begin to imagine what that must be doing to you..." We entered what I assumed was Dinah's bedroom. There was a twin sized bed with light blue sheets and a stars/moon comforter and pillowcases that matched the sheets. There was a small bed-side table that had a lamp, a small notebook, an alarm clock, three pens, and a black scrunchy. She had a desk, small, but it looked as it it served its purpose, as there were two large text books out, one open to about the halfway mark. There was a framed picture of a blonde woman in her late twenties, early thirties at the oldest, with her arm around the neck of a gorilla statue at the zoo as if she was wrestling it, and standing on the other side of the gorilla was a girl about five years old, laughing. I knew this was Dinah and her mother, but to be honest, I couldn't see too much of a resemblance other than the blonde hair. Like me, she must take more after her father, who/wherever he may be. I noticed that the glass on the frame was shattered. What happened to it? Did she drop it? Did she throw somehting at it with her telekinesis? Did someone come into her room when the Clocktower was invaded and destroy it? I wondered who had taken the photo. Was it her father? Ms. Gordon? Some stranger at the zoo?

Dinah sat me on her bed and pulled her chair over so that when she sat in it we were face to face. I looked briefly at the picture again, noting that the girl in the picture was so much different from the girl in front of me. "Gabby," I looked up at her, seeing concern in her eyes. "I want to tell you something that not even Barbara or Helena know. I'd wait for another time since you're in this state and you've already got a lot to digest, but I think it'll help you control your powers. You see... I don't think my powers started when I was nine. That was just when the dream of Helena and Barbara came to me, and so that is just when I told them it had. Before that, the dreams I had were fuzzy, blurry, but I could still feel the presense of who was there. It was like my version of the whispers and humming you experienced when your powers started to show." I nodded.

"I have dreams like that sometimes," I said, and Dinah smiled before continuing.

"I taught myself to picture my my powers as something else and use that item to determine whether or not I want to have those dreams. I did this not long after I had dreams of Helena and Barbara. I kept dreaming of them, night after night. I saw Helena in the hospital, waiting for Barbara to wake up, her hands loosly folded on her knees and her head down, hoping and pleading for Barbara to regain consiousness. I dreampt of Barbara going in for a surgery and telling Helena that she will wake up and be okay... I didn't like the dreams because I didn't know who these women were or where I could find them. Everytime I would dream of them, I longed to be with them. So much, sometimes, that I cried for hours. They don't even know about that first dream that brought me to New Gotham. They don't know that I went looking for them. They were the family I told you I was looking for after the fight with my foster parents." I watched her, and she stared at me. "I was hoping that I could help you control your powers enough to strengthen them so that this," she motioned my legs, "won't happen again. And you won't having people's thoughts chattering constantly in your head."

"I can't help it, and I don't like it. It feels like an invasion of privacy. I feel guilty everytime I hear something I am not supposed to." I looked down. I couldn't help but think about the thoughts of the people at the high school as I cleaned up. I didn't like seeing that so many people were afraid and I could feel it just as much as they could. Suddenly Dinah's hand touched my cheek, then the hand moved down under my chin, gently forcing me to look at her. Without saying a word, I heard, 'Would you like me to help you change that?' "More than ever," I said, too afraid to answer with my mind. I wasn't sure if that would make things worse or not.

Dinah's mind started to race- not as quickly as Ms. Gordon's, but fast enough. She touched my hand, and I felt her presense in my head. I am not sure what she would see, since the last time she saw into my head and I wasn't thinking about a door, she saw her own thoughts bounced back at her. Dinah never did learn how to control when she saw into people's minds when she touched them, which was why she had reacted to me that first day the way she had. As for the dreams, she knew to control them, so she rarely had them anymore. She admitted in her mind that the dreams scared her. I didn't blame her. Sometimes the dreams/memories worried me too. When she wanted to go into someone's mind on purpose, however, she would imagine her mind as her hand, and someone else's mind as a box, a pretty box her mother once owned when Dinah lived with her, and Dinah had always loved it. The box had a latch on it, and if she wanted to see within someone, she would open the latch, but sometimes, I guess, that latch was always open on some people and she could always see inside them. If she is used to being around someone, say Helena, Ms. Gordon or myself, she forces the latch to shut, but it doesn't always stay shut. "Yours is a box, mine is a door." I said. Dinah nodded, relieved I understood. I saw Dinah's white box close and I no longer felt her presense in my head.

She smiled affectionately at me, her eyes glittering as they had in my fantasy the night before. How I wanted to take possession of her lips then, grab her body and force it on top of me as our tounges danced together in an erotic tango. I realized then that I'd been reading too many lesbian romance novels. "Close your eyes," she said then, "and concentrate on my voice." In her mind, I heard my favorite song, 'A Song For A Winter's Night' by Sarah McLaughlin. How approproate it was, considering how I felt for Dinah and the fact that the snow was actually falling slightly when we were out on the road. The song was thought so loud that anything else in her mind was drowned out. "You hear the song, don't you?" I nodded.

"I'm surprised you know as much of the song as you do," I said to her.

"I have the CD it's on," She replied. "Now shush and concentrate on the song for a minute, then imagine your door." It had a nice ring to it, 'my door' did, and I felt almost possessive as if it were a toy I didn't want to share with the other kids. Not that it was something anyone could take from me, but it gave me something I could take control of. This door, my door, my abilities. I may not have my memories, but I have this ability, and I wanted to appretiate what I had. I nodded with my eyes still closed, and heard the song clearly before I saw my door come into view behind my eyelids. Before she said anything, I knew what she wanted of me, and I imagined myself reaching out for the my door, pulling the door handle it towards me as it closed, but not latching. I was afraid that if I latched it shut, the door would lock again from the inside and the my abilities would fade back into whispers and murmurs. Though I hated imposing on other people's thoughts, I like sending thoughts out to people. Maybe that part of my abilities could someday save someone, another- a real jumper. "Close the door, Gabby," Dinah said softly, though it still made me jump. I didn't know what to do. I kept my hand on the door, not wanting to do anything else with it. It was safe, closed only this much. Closing the door this far proved I had control of my abilities, and I won't lose them. I was willing to compromise. "Close it all the way, Gabby." Dinah urged as in my mind the song faded, but I could still hear some of the harmonies of the song. "I promise it is okay. Close the door." I concentrated on the image of my hand and closed the door completely, hearing it click shut. The song was gone.

My mind felt somewhat fuzzy, almost as it felt whenever I was passing a lou sound and then going into silence. My ears felt as if they were ringing. I did it. I can control this. The people at the Insitute may have my memories, but they don't have my abilities. I do, and I have control now. It felt so great. Of course, I knew that was only the beginning of it, but blocking out thoughts whenever made me feel incredible. I could let people think what they wanted. I didn't need to know all of their dirty little secrets. I sighed in relief.

Suddenly there was a warmth upon my lips, warmth form her sweet lips. My eyes shot open in surprise as my mind registered the fact that Dinah was kissing me. Then I shut my eyes again, concentrating instead on the feel of her lips. I felt nothing from her, but I wanted to. Was she, too, surprised by this bold move? Had she been waiting long to make it, or was it a spur of the moment thing for her? As my left hand palmed the side of her neck and my fingers curled around to the back of it, I felt Dinah shiver, and I felt victorious knowing I made her feel that way. Our kiss, though nice, was a little sloppy and a lot of guess work, but it wasn't like I had anything to comapre it to, my last and only kiss before her being a peck on the lips that had lasted only a fraction of a second before Miranda backed away and slapped me. I am not sure if Dinah ever kissed anyone before me, but it seemed as if the answer to that was no. There was no way I was going to embaress myself by attempting to use my tounge, so I stuck to the basics of kissing, and Dinah wasn't in a hurry to change that. It was still enjoyable in its own way. I wanted to know what she was thinking. She had an unfair advantage as I felt her in my head for a brief moment. She was touching me, so she knew that I was almost melting under her tounch. Was I doing something wrong? Was I doing something right? Is she okay with this, even though she had initiated the kiss? Did this mean she was saying yes? To us? I pictured myself opening the door again only a crack, hoping that whatever I heard would be faint. '...DOING? This is wrong.'

To her, it wasn't wrong as in 'I'm kissing a girl, it's a sin and I'm going to Hell now'. No, to her it was wrong as in 'I just told her no and now I'm kissing her and confusing her'. It was enough to make me loosen my grip on the back of her neck and force myself to end the kiss, as much as my whole body didn't want to. Dinah stood up and walked to the other side of her room as if she'd been burned. "I'm sorry Gabby-"

"Are you?" I asked looked at her, trying in vain to reign in the hurt in my voice.

"No- Yes- I mean-" Dinah took a deep breath. "I don't regrett that I kissed you. I regret that I kissed you and still say we can't. I don't want to mislead you." I didn't know what I wanted to say. I couldn't seem to open my mouth to speak. Finally, when I could open my mouth, I felt as if there was no air leaving my throat.

After a minute of silence I said, "I would gladly stand by your side- I would anyway no matter what- I just can't seem to walk away from you- I would gladly stand by your side and wait for the day you'd turn to me and say 'yes Gabby'... But if you're so sure that the answer would always be no..." My voice lowered at the painful thought, and I swallowed, "then I wouldn't be able to handle it if you were to kiss me again."

"I'm sorry, Gabby. I really am," Dinah said again. Slowly I test my legs to see if they would hold my body as I shood. 'So far so good,' I thought as I stood and felt sturdy.

"You know, I think you should take me home."

"No, please don't go Gabby," Dinah said as she turned to me, a plea was evident there. "I wish you could understand-"

"I do understand. That's the thing. We have so much in common now, and the attraction between us is so strong it could only make sense to be together. I understand that you're trying to protect me by not being with me. I get it. I do, but this hurts," I said, empasizing the last two words.

"Yes, I know," Dinah said quietly, "but it has to be this way. Yes, we have a lot on common. You're right about that. We're both telepathic metahumans, we've got shady if not dark pasts, hell we're both blonde haired, blue eyes beauties who are smart enough to rise above the stereotype, but we have one difference that is the most important to me: you don't risk your life for the city like I do, Gabby. You don't make dangerous enemies. Your life, compared to mine, is peaceful, and I'd like to keep it that way."

"I guess you and my parents both," I muttered, knowing that she'd hear me. "Now look at it. I think, if possible, it has gotten worse because they tried so hard to make it all go away. This, too, will backfire on us. Look, I don't want to argue with you about it. I know I can't win this, anyway. I understand why you're doing this. I think every hero in history has done the whole 'I love you but can't be with you to protect us both' routine."

"The fact that we can't be together doesn't change how I feel about you," Dinah said, her voice low and almost in a whisper. I knew how she felt about me. I knew because even without my abilities, I could see it in her eyes just then. I didn't say anything, but my mind was screaming at her, telling her that our feelings for eachother were useless if nothing can be done about them. That they would just be a waste of time and space within us. I didn't want to be with anyone else, but I didn't want to feel this loneliness, either. Dinah didn't want our relationship to be strained like this, but she didn't want to watch me die, as she knew she eventually would. We were stuck.