Well, well! Here you are!
Enjoy!
Chapter Thirty-Five
Dusty peered at her computer, trying to blink back the exhaustion that Jet Lag was threatening her mind with. They were in Beijing, in the executive suite at the JW Marriott, no less, and she was trying to make arrangements from where to go from there. It was eight P.M., and Bruce was sitting in the chair, half asleep himself, with the large screen T.V. blaring out a commercial. Normally Dusty would have told him to turn it down or - better yet - off, but at the moment it was the only thing keeping her awake.
"Dusty?" Bruce said, not bothering to lift his head up off his hand.
"Hmm?" She said, sitting up straight and rubbing her eyes. He sighed and turned his head toward her.
"Why don't we leave all of the super-sleuthing until tomorrow? You and I are both tired, and I can tell the T.V. is the only thing keeping you awake." Dusty looked up at him, and nodded, sighing. It was hard to rest, especially now that a rescue mission was underway, but conceding a temporary set back, she closed her laptop and stood. Bruce turned off the T.V. and took an extra blanket and pillow, lying down on the couch. Dusty watched for a moment.
"I thought it was my turn." She said, blinking away a headache. He looked up at her from the couch, cracking one eye open.
"Well, I'm making you skip your turn."
"But-"
"Go to bed, Dusty." He said shortly, turning over, and shifting to make himself comfortable. She opened her mouth to argue, realized what she was about to do, and then turned. She brushed her teeth, and then without doing anything else, collapsed on the bed.
Despite her exhaustion, she laid on the bed for what seemed like ages, thinking about Rick, not only how much she missed him, but the different memories that she shared with him good, bad, old and new. Somewhere in her musings she drifted off to sleep.
Bruce started awake, senses on high alert. What had happened? In the air lingered some sort of electricity, like the quiet after a very loud noise. Then he froze. A small snuffling noise came from the direction of the bed. Bruce stood, ignoring the slight stiffness in his body. Dusty lay on the bed, eyes open, completely awake, tears running down her face. Bruce slid onto the bed beside her.
"What's wrong?" He whispered. She turned her head away from him, the tears on her face reflecting the soft light from the window.
"I had a dream…Rick…" She whispered before breaking off, more tears rolling down her face. "He's dead, Bruce, I just know it." Bruce looked at the clock. It was barely two hours later. He reached down, and pulled the covers over the both of them.
"Dusty, look at me." Bruce said. Opening her eyes, she turned her head to look at Bruce. The pain registered clearly in her face.
"What?" She asked, shivering from the cold outside their warm cocoon of blankets. He leaned over her and kissed her forehead. When he pulled back, he looked into Dusty's eyes with a curious intensity. In the dark, her eyes looked deeper than ever.
"I don't think Rick is dead. Watson needs him, and so do you."
Dusty's arms suddenly wrapped themselves around his neck and pulled him down into a hug.
"Thank you." She whispered into his ear as he rolled onto his side, bringing her with him. Unwinding her arms from around his neck, she was suddenly keenly aware how close they actually were.
"Dusty…" Bruce trailed off. She inched closer.
"Yes?" She whispered. Silently, he leaned forward and kissed her. After what seemed to be an eternity of stars, fireworks, and feelings that suffused every inch of her, he pulled back.
"Never mind." He whispered, smoothing her hair back from her forehead. "Now go to sleep. I promise I won't leave." He said. She sighed contentedly, and nestled herself against his shoulder, safe in his arms, falling asleep almost instantly.
Rick awoke with a start, breathing hard, trying not to break down into tears. Vivid dreams, with Judy dying over and over again were bad enough, but today Judy's face had turned into Dusty's, and her dying gasps had been loud and frightening, not soft and almost inaudible like Judy's had seemed to be.
His gasping had awakened his watcher. He didn't know who it was, there were so many people assigned to look after him, it was a wonder that someone hadn't lost him. He saw the shadow of his minder stand.
"Grayson, you alright?" It was a feminine voice. Somehow that made him calm. He nodded, knowing that she could see him as better than he could see her. Surprisingly, the ninja sat down beside his bed, "Was it a nightmare?" She asked. Rick remembered her voice now. It was the one they called Kyle, but Rick knew (because she was at the wedding) that her first name was Selina.
"Yes." He whispered. She seemed to soften in her posture.
"Do you want to talk about it?" She asked softly. Rick's eyes were becoming more attuned to the darkness, and saw the look of genuine concern on her face. Rick sat up, and folded his arms over his chest.
"Dusty was dying. It…" He trailed off, "Usually it's Judy, just seeing her dying over and over, but today it was Dusty, and…I just can't…" A tear rolled down his cheek. Selina touched his hand softly. He met her eyes, seeing them filled with pain, and not what he would have expected.
"I know how you feel, Richard." She whispered. She paused, seemingly gathering her emotions; much like Dusty did; only Selina seemed less practiced. "Would it help if I sung you to sleep?" She asked softly, carefully.
Rick scrutinized her carefully before asking, "Do you think it will help?" His tone was suspicious. She smiled shortly, her teeth flashing white in the moonlight.
"Yes, I can sing. Now, lay down…" She began to sing Brahms' Lullaby softly, in a sweet soprano. Rick lay down again and closed his eyes. Feeling comforted in an odd way, he slowly slipped off into slumber.
Selina looked down at the sleeping child. She didn't know what possessed her to sing to him, she hadn't sung in years, but the pain and fear in his eyes pulled something deep inside of her, making her feel helpless, but with a pulling need to make him feel better, no matter what it took.
But what really bothered her was she was partially responsible for his nightmares. Not in deed, for fueling the nightmares with horrific events, but because she was part of the company that was directly responsible.
Whether you partake in it, witness it, or are in part of a group who condones it, it warps you just the same. Selina started. Justine's words came back to her. She tried to push them away, trying to flee the confusion that had erupted in her mind. The League was her life, the reason she was still a sane person with a sound mind. She owed everything to them, and was determined to repay them as best she could.
But would it destroy her worse than she had been in danger of? Would the price of her salvation be her soul?
Questions. Questions without answers. Selina crossed the room away from the younger Grayson sibling, and huddled with her questions, feeling utterly lost.
When Bruce woke up, Dusty was gone. He looked at the clock. It was nearly eight a.m. and the sun was streaming through the window in its early morning splendor. He looked around before seeing Dusty standing a short distance away, sipping a cup of hot chocolate and looking out the frost edged window looking sleek and fresh in new, clean clothes, her hair expertly twisted into a bun. She'd obviously been awake for a while.
He sat up and she turned to look at him, "You're awake. How did you sleep?" She asked. He stretched and stood, walking over beside her to look out the window at the incredible view.
"Very well, thank you. And yourself?" He asked. She smiled softly.
"Good. Well, after about ten or so." She said, smiling more fully, and then taking another sip of her hot chocolate. He put her arm around her shoulders.
"So have you had a chance to pull out your computer and make travel arrangements?" Bruce asked after a minute, his voice in an unconsciously lower tone. She nodded once.
"Li Wei, an old friend of mine here in Beijing, has chartered a small plane to fly us to the airport near the bottom of the mountain near the monastery, the one that you used when you came back to Gotham, tomorrow. From there we're on our own." She said, still staring out the window.
"We can deal with that," Bruce said, "We're both in top fighting condition, I doubt walking a few miles will make any difference. The cold might make it miserable, though." Dusty's expression hardened into determination.
"I can handle the cold. I know a few places we can camp as well. We should be fine barring someone coming and pushing us off a cliff." She said, a small smile breaking her hard exterior. Bruce smiled and pulled her into an embrace.
"Don't say that, someone might actually do it." He joked. She smiled softly. Then she looked up at him.
"Do you want me to call you up some breakfast, or do you want to go down to one of the restaurants downstairs?" She asked. He thought for a moment.
"I'm not sure I'm up to a spectacle of any proportion right now. Order up to your hearts content." He said, walking over to his suitcase and pulling some fresh clothes out. He walked into the bathroom, and Dusty turned back to the window, just relaxing and pondering the different travel arrangements, until she realized that she had stood in front of the window for almost ten minutes, and Bruce was going to come out any minute. She walked over to the telephone and ordered a standard breakfast before turning around and switching on the television. There wasn't anything very interesting, mainly news stations, but by the time the food came up, Bruce was out of the bathroom, and playing around with the flowers. Dusty had moved away from him when he had started sticking them in her hair, teasingly, of course, but not quite acquiescent enough to actually sit through it.
The day seemed to draw on forever. Luckily there was a chess set in their luggage (something Dusty didn't remember packing, but Bruce seemed to remember, strangely) and they sat at the table for hours, ribbing each other, as they played game after game of chess.
The next day dawned bright and early. Bruce and Dusty had packed the night before, and were out at the small private airport by eight in the morning. Li Wei was waiting for them with the pilot of the plane. Li Wei greeted Dusty with a kiss on each cheek. They both started conversing in rapid Chinese, before turning to Bruce.
"You got all that, right?" She asked. Bruce shook his head.
"Sorry, I wasn't listening." He said, shifting his bag to his other shoulder, and moving closer to Dusty, listening more carefully as Li Wei outlined the flight plan once again. It wasn't going to be more than a four-hour flight, but the minute Bruce saw the plane, there was a very powerful urge to go back to the hotel.
"Please tell me the color scheme is supposed to be white with rust colored spots." He said in her ear. She smiled painfully.
"I have a pilot's license. I suppose if we start to go down, there's an extra pilot on board who can help..." She said, trying not to grimace. Bruce turned to her.
"You have a pilot's license?" He asked. She nodded. He looked confused for a minute, "Wait, then why were you so bad while learning to use the…" He looked at Li Wei and the pilot for a moment, "wings." He whispered in her ear. She rolled her eyes and pulled her coat closer.
"Because using wings like a bird is a lot harder to do than fly a box that's attached to them." She said, rubbing her arm where a fading bruise still remained. Then she thought of something. "Li Wei," she asked her friend, and then asked him about travel permits. He responded with a few short words in Chinese, and by handing her several sheaves of paper. Bruce's head came up.
"Travel Permits? What travel permits? I didn't have a travel permit last time," He said. Dusty's eyebrows rose.
"And you weren't arrested? Well, that probably shouldn't surprise me, considering who you were with. At any rate, we plan to stay off of the roads as much as possible, so unless the police follow us through the tundra, we shouldn't have many problems with it anyway." She said, putting the papers in her small bag that she had hanging from her shoulder. Li Wei asked if they were ready to leave. She nodded, and grabbed two of her huge duffle bags to fit into the airplane. Bruce followed her lead, and in time they fit the four large duffle bags full of everything they would need for a week and a half in the winter Tibetan tundra into the back of the very old Cessna.
"Good luck." Li Wei said in broken-sounding English. Dusty smiled, and gave him a hug, telling him goodbye. Bruce, like Dusty, also felt compelled to hug Li Wei goodbye. Not for any sentimental purposes, but to tell the truth, he felt rather attached to the last person in the outside world they would ever see before the crash-landed between here and the Himalayas. He resisted the urge. Then he climbed in the plane, with Dusty scooting the seat back toward his legs, climbing in herself, and then adjusting the plane's seat to her own height and leg length.
Together, she and the pilot checked the plane. Bruce couldn't help but see the rather pale look on Dusty's face as she did the pre-flight checks on the plane. This was going to be interesting, to be sure.
To be fair, the flight went perfectly fine. There were a few patches of turbulence that they went through that made Bruce want to bump his fear of bats to number two on his 'must be feared' list, but beyond that it seemed to be a sound little airplane. Dusty thought the same, though perhaps slightly more critical, having felt out the plane, and still not trusting it past what she'd paid for. And to tell the exact truth, she hadn't paid that much.
They landed in the small, isolated airstrip in the looming shadow of the Himalayas, about fifteen miles away from the monastery, with almost all of it being harsh terrain, almost impossible to cross with four heavy bags with nothing to help. It was obvious that they were going to have to do something about that. Maybe a donkey. Or a yak. It was definitely going to be fun to convince Bruce of this. Turning to the pilot, she handed him his promised payment, and a small tip. Then she asked him about a village nearby. He pointed in the opposite direction of the mountain, and told her about eight kilometers in that direction there was a large settlement, and a few smaller ones on the way. She nodded and bid him goodbye. He nodded and turned to fill up his plane with gas he brought along.
Dusty walked over to Bruce, who was checking that everything in their luggage was present, and pulling out various pieces of armor. Wordlessly she started pulling on her old League armor, already having the regular robe underneath her coat. The dragon etching over the shoulders of her armor glinted off the light that came through the clouds as she pulled the heavy breastplate over her head, and then strapped a ninjato onto her back, as well as securing different specialty weapons on her person. Or at least on the outside. The pilot hadn't known it, but she had been carrying over five different weapons secreted away on her person. Even now, she took the lacquered needles out of her bag, stuck them in her mouth, twisted her braid into a bun, and after taking a silver dragon bun cage and secured them all over and in her hair. Bruce stared at it for a moment.
"What?" She asked, after she'd turned around and found him staring at her.
"I've…seen those before." He said. He couldn't quite place where. She touched the silver in her hair and thought for a moment.
"I don't know, Bruce, I just can't remember whether I actually met you in full regalia at the monastery. They might have tried to keep us apart for all I know. And they were handed down to me." She said, shrugging.
"That must have been it." He said, shaking it off. She shrugged, and being finished with putting on her armor, she grabbed one of the bags, threw it over her shoulder, and turned to the direction of the nearest town.
Bruce started, "Where are you going?" He asked. She turned around.
"I'm not carrying all of this stuff up the mountain on my own." She said, her face in a halfway humorous and halfway sarcastic expression. Then she turned and continued on, not waiting for Bruce to catch up.
Montague looked through the binoculars. He could see Wayne and his wife walking away from the mountains, probably to the villages for something or other that they needed. He paused, looking at Kyle through the corner of his eye. She'd been quiet for the past two days, and quite jumpy when anyone would talk to her. Watson would soon have a talk with her. He'd told Montague to send Kyle into his office as soon as they were back from the reconnaissance trip.
Snow swirled about their heads, blowing Kyle's hair away from her face, and revealing a troubled and faraway expression. "Kyle?" He asked. She jumped and turned to him, her dark eyes wide.
"Yes?" She asked. His eyebrows furrowed, trying to figure her out.
"Is something wrong?" He asked. All of a sudden, it was as if a wall had dropped over her. Her expression turned to normal, even a little bit pleasant. It reminded him eerily of Grayson – both of them.
"No." She responded, starting to pack up her reconnaissance gear, the wind teasing her hair more, causing her to catch it all, and knot it into a bun at the back of her head. She turned to look at him again when his look did not falter, "Why, did you feel there was something wrong?" Slowly he shook his head, and then put his binoculars back in his pack, all the while being silent. Still wary, she nodded in return, and went back to her business.
Curious, Montague thought. Very curious.
Well! Thanks to motherduckatschool, suchicken, and Siriusly-a-princess for reviewing!
Also, thanks to Bryt for beta-ing!
Until next week!
~Sabre