Jay's heartbroken meandering had led him to a familiar location: the kids' old building. The roof damage alone would've condemned the place, but Joker had set fire to it, too, and now Jay stood in the snow staring at the burned-out walls. Strange to believe that only a few short months ago he'd been living here, and his biggest worry was not letting a pack of runaway teens figure out that their token adult was really the Red Hood.

It would've been nice to stay there, again. A certain kind of symmetry. Back then, he'd only been pretending to have no other choices, to be one of the people so broken down by life and circumstance that any four walls was a palace. Now, his own home hurt too much to look at, and the rootless life of a vagrant seemed oddly attractive. No ties meant nothing to lose, after all.

There were other buildings around that were still fairly livable, if your standards were low. And Jay's definitely were. He picked one nearby, checked the entrances for any signs of recent occupation, and broke in.

He had brought only the necessities: weapons, ammo, and booze. No comms, no phone, no means by which uber-hacker Babs could track him down. The domino he wore and the helmet beside him had both never been linked into her systems, and weren't wired for communications. Peace and quiet – well, quiet. At the moment he was trying to drown the obnoxious thirteen-year-old Robin in his head, at least long enough to stop the screaming. The only problem was, as the level of scotch in the bottle fell, his younger self started to seem more solid and real.

Jay could almost see himself, at thirteen years old all knees and elbows and fierce scowl, hunkered down beside him. "So this is how it goes, huh?" the kid would ask, his tone full of bitter recrimination. "You blow up the best thing that ever happened to you, then crawl in a hole and drink yourself to sleep? That's fucking pathetic, man. I had more balls, and I wasn't even old enough to have hair on 'em."

"Shut up," Jay growled aloud to the phantom in his mind. "You had no fucking clue. You thought Bruce was gonna make everything better 'cause he was the Bat and he was a grownup and he looked like he had his life together. That's how you got killed."

"You think I was clueless? You thought Talia was gonna make everything better," Robin snapped. "Turns out she was just stringing you along."

"Or she's as fucked up as me. Dunno which is worse," Jay grumbled, taking another long pull of the scotch. Who else did he know who drank expensive scotch like it was water, and never talked about what was going on in her mind if she could conceivably help it? Yeah, some of his habits were his own, but Talia had reinforced them.

Robin bared his teeth and jeered. "Kala was right to be pissed about her. She knows what you won't admit – your dumb ass isn't even over all that with Talia. You know she's trouble, you know that at best the two of you make each other worse, and yet you're still so afraid of getting slammed into the concrete again that you can't say you love the woman who makes you and herself better when you're together. Coward."

Jay didn't have a retort for that. He just snarled under his breath and drank again. Sooner or later the voice would stop.

Leaving Talia hadn't hurt like this. He'd been so numb with rage and betrayal that he'd walked out of her London flat feeling nothing at all. Cold and clear, just planning what to do next. Killing her had been on the table for a few minutes, at most, but even if he was her science project – even if he was in her bed mostly to distract him from killing Bruce – she'd still risked her life to bring him back. Letting her live made them square, and he wasn't like her. He didn't make those same kinds of brutal calculations with people he cared about.

Until now. Until he used everything he knew about Kala to hurt her badly enough that she'd let him go.

Jay tilted the bottle up again, feeling scotch burn down his throat and praying for blissful oblivion to descend on him soon. When things fell apart with Donna, it had hurt – hearing Dick's name on her tongue in the middle of lovemaking couldn't do anything but hurt – but he'd pretended it didn't. He couldn't pretend anymore. This burned to the bottom of his soul.

"Because you hurt someone like you, stupid," Robin piped up helpfully. "Kala's like you. She's been hurt, she's been used, she's broken inside like you are. She knows the worst of you and she accepted you the way you were. She loved you the way you are. And you fucked it up on purpose 'cause you're a big dumb chickenshit."

"Shut up. I didn't do it because I was afraid of her. I did it because I was afraid for her, pipsqueak," Jay snarled. For a moment he reflected that anyone who stumbled upon him would think he'd lost his marbles, raving in the dark interior of the abandoned building to an empty room, clutching a half-empty bottle of scotch. He didn't care anymore. Anyone who saw him would probably regret it painfully soon after.

Robin just glared at him, and Jay continued, "I'm cursed, don't you get that? Everything I touch dies or gets ruined. Everyone who cares about me gets their heart broken. Look at everything in my life, and the trail of wreckage behind me. K doesn't deserve that."

"She's a Super, moron, you think they can't handle your bullshit? Have you seen what her dad can do? C'mon!" Robin groused.

"I know she's a Super. She still thinks people are basically good most of the time. The last thing she needs is my kind of bullshit. She deserves better," Jay argued, and every word was a knife in his chest.

His younger self just looked disgusted. "She really did love you. You know that, right? Quit bullshitting yourself."

"Fuck off," Jay spat, not being able to argue it.

"You're gonna wind up a lonely bitter old man, dying by yourself and probably not found before you're a black stain on the floorboards," Robin informed him. "All because you won't let anybody in."

"Yeah? Bruce doesn't let anybody in either. Works for him," Jay shot back.

Robin snorted. "Right. Selina won't let him keep her out, but he's softened up with time. He might even admit he cares about more than Gotham before he finally croaks. You coulda had that, and you're not even an old man yet. But no, you had to go and fuck it up. It wasn't enough to burn that bridge, you had to nuke the damn thing."

At least Kala was safe. That was the thing Jay had to hold onto. He drank deeply, and the bottle came up empty, but he had another. This was shaping up to be the start of an epic drunk like the time when Kala left over the summer. Only no one was going to want to haul him out of it.

Robin wouldn't let up, reminding him, "She promised she'd stay, when everyone else didn't, and she would have. We both know that. Just as much as we both know that the feelings couldn't have been more mutual. It wasn't just to scare her out of town; you were too scared to find out who you could have been if she stayed. You were too scared to lose your edge. Maybe if we're lucky, she'll come back once she figures out your bullshit, because you know she will. Kala knows all your secrets; you think she's not smart enough to figure out what you did there once she has time to think about it? And I hope she kicks your ass for being an idiot before she kicks you back into shape."

Jay just laughed darkly. No, he'd hit Kala hard enough to make her stay gone. His younger self just hadn't quite had the optimism beaten out of him yet, but Jay knew a crowbar and some heartbreak would fix that. He was the living proof, after all.

One more long pull on the second bottle, and his vision finally got blurry enough that he couldn't see the bright primary colors of the Robin uniform in his mind's eye any longer. Sleep was near, the hard sleep of flirting with alcohol poisoning, and Jay welcomed it.

Eyes closed against the world surrounding her, lids swollen and gritty, Kala leaned against the well-worn wall. No urge to move, trying harder than she wanted just to think of nothing, tune out from all of her senses and disappear inside herself. Because whenever she let herself lose that controlled mindlessness, it was like a swift uppercut, a brutal blow to the stomach. That prompted a bitter laugh from a throat that still hurt from her breakdown earlier, screaming into the thinness of the air so close to space. Her tears had frozen on her cheeks as she'd broken down utterly. Once away from the broken-down tenement, the Empress had let her go to be alone with her sorrow, quiet almost as quickly as she had risen. Kala had no memory of how long she had been up there, nor any idea of when she'd come down. When she had truly come back to herself, somehow her fraught mind had brought her back here, to the Monarch Theater. It was fitting in a way; the building was as much a shambles as Kala herself felt.

Worse, as hard as she fought to close her mind off from the chaos, using every currently useful tip Dr. Marrin ever taught her, memories of their time together were making a sinister sneak-attack on her brain. She mentally twisted away, slamming the door in her head quickly, but not quite quickly enough.

You should sleep in tomorrow, tell the family to kiss your sweet Kryptonian ass. And—

No warning, like the whisper of his kris through the air, and she was doubled-over again, fighting tears of pain and rage. By now, Kala had thought she was growing numb to it. Even now, her recall was too perfect, remembering their tired amusement on that night. The irony; now that he no longer wanted her, with himself or here within Gotham, his ghost wouldn't let her go.

How clear his voice still was in her head, despite hours of trying to fade it, banish it. She pressed her face into her up-drawn knees, pointedly ignoring any moisture that dampened her skin. Damn him for doing this to her; after all that they had been through, after all she thought that they had meant to one another. And damn herself for being a fool in love, believing that she could trust Red Hood with something as fragile as her heart when they had apparently been nothing more than a way to scratch one another's itches. And damn herself also for hiding in the dark, broken, over a boy. A boy who didn't even know how to deal with his feelings. A boy who she had thought she'd known. Hiding in the very building where the boy had once lived. He was right; she truly was a fool.

C'mon, Supergirl, you have to close in eventually.

And God help her, she had. Kala had let him in closer than she had ever planned, close enough for wounds to be fatal if the weapon was sharp enough. It had been her own fault, start to finish, she had been the one who let him in in the first place. She'd been the fool to fall for Jay when she knew that the Bats could be as changeable as the weather.

I'm thinkin' we need to team up a lot more often. Give 'World's Finest' a whole new meaning. Red and Black, the new face of the Supers and Bats. Whaddaya think?

She hadn't known just how hard she had fallen until she had driven off Sebast in defense of a relationship they had never put a name to, only to have him shatter this glass house they had never totally acknowledged that they were sharing.

You're not gettin' rid of me, K. And you'd better not disappear on me like before.

Only to have him turn around and do it to her. Everything, everything they had said to each other, all she had thought she understood between them. The Jay she had thought she knew. Gone in an instant of vicious, cruel words that she didn't understand as the last four months were turned entirely on their head. It sounded so dramatic this way, but she was quite literally warming herself on the ashes of what she had thought life would be.

Dammit, I don't want anything from you, Kala. I just … I want you, for fuck's sake.

When had that changed? He'd spoken the words and she'd thought he meant so much more than mere sex. Kala laughed bitterly, a broken sound; Dru-Zod had tried to warn her. Her nightmare had turned prophetic. All Jay wanted was a reliable working partner and a damn good lay. She shuddered, her body tensing, the Empress growling at the base of her brain. Kala did not tend to give herself so lightly, for lust alone. In all but one relationship, there had been more than desire and compatibility. Respect, trust, affection, love. She needed love, craved it, and everyone around them seemed to think she'd found it with Jay.

Fuck what other people think, this is you and me.

Kala managed another jagged laugh, at that. Jay had said it after that disastrous call from Sebast. As one relationship burned on the pyre of secrets she'd kept, Jay had all but vowed not to do the same. He'd been contemptuous of Sebast for walking away. And then a few short months later, he'd done so much worse. Now she'd lost them both, the two men who completed both halves of her strange dual life.

I know what you really are. The ultimate badass wrapped up in a pretty package. Guts and brains and one hell of a super-speed spin-kick.

Such sweet words, and she'd heard them in the Fortress. Not even that would be a refuge now. Kala couldn't go there without remembering taking Jay to see it. The wonder in his gaze. Watching her people's history through his eyes. The way he'd practically salivated over the armory. And she'd shown him the darkest part of herself, shown him the recording of General Zod's trial so that he truly understood who the Empress was.

Yeah, you have the power to be a weapon, but you're more than that. Given that I've been armed and aimed by someone else, I'd know the difference between being someone and being something. Know what you are, K, but don't ever think that's all you are.

He'd taught her new ways to deal with her demons – and he'd never been afraid of them. Jay had never shied back from the Empress. Kala sobbed to remember that, how much she'd trusted him even with the most broken parts of herself. All so he could shatter her heart, her whole world, in the end.

She'd tuned out her hearing, forcing herself not to listen to the city, knowing she'd be half-listening for Jay's heartbeat, his voice, and hoping to hear him take it all back. Instead, she heard a thread of music in her memory, something classic in three-quarter time. The banner flashed across her mind's eye: The Art of the Waltz. Jay had bought her a dress – a stunning, gorgeous dress – and had danced the night away with her. He'd even carried her across the threshold back at his apartment. How could he be so incredibly thoughtful and tender and romantic, and then tell her to her face that it meant nothing? Kala couldn't make sense of any of it, couldn't reconcile this morning's cold words with everything she'd been so certain of. And the contradiction tore at her until she thought she might go mad.

All she could do was weep, hoping to cry herself out, hating herself for the weakness of it. Her own mother would never have carried on so, especially over something like this, but she was her father's daughter as well. And even wild hearts could be broken.

Kala wasn't aware of it, but a few miles away Jay was drowning his pain in liquor, even as she drowned hers in tears.

Steph and Cass had spent the last several months in surveillance, living like ghosts in the arid mountains. They stayed on the move and undercover, circling the area where the Tibesti compound was located. Babs kept them well supplied with intel, tech, and basic necessities; the girls didn't like stealing food from the regular people here, and stealing from Shiva's people could get them noticed. Luckily Babs had the resources and connections to make sure the right crates fell off the right trucks in the right places, without a whisper reaching Lady Shiva or the League of Shadows.

Some of that tech included tiny, unobtrusive tracking devices, and Cass had managed to place a dozen of them onto the shoes of people working for Shiva. Steph had stuck another ten onto vehicles, so they had a map of where Shiva's personnel were. So far none of the trackers had been noticed. They were thin and light, dust-colored, and irregularly shaped, easy to mistake for a pebble. They transmitted in infrequent bursts on little-used frequencies, with heavy encryption. So far no one had discovered them, but then, Shiva didn't know Batman had people in the region.

The League of Shadows did, and Steph had had another hair-raising encounter with the Daughter of the Demon herself. Literally – a sudden dust storm blew in, and she'd been caught in the street for a moment before diving into the closest shop to get away. The sharp, gritty wind had blown sand in into her eyes and disarranged her niqab slightly, despite her attempts to hold the fabric close.

She'd had a wardrobe emergency, her first couple months in South Sudan, when the leg of her pants got caught as she jumped into a truck. To Steph, the tear was an annoyance to be stitched up later, but the other passengers had taken it more seriously. At the time she hadn't spoken more than a dozen words in Arabic, and the two women who produced safety pins to fix her pant leg hadn't spoken any English, but they got it pinned up with almost surgical efficiency. Steph had been grateful that one of the first words she learned was 'Thank you'.

Standing in the meager protection of the shop while the sand rattled against the door, Steph hadn't been surprised when another woman stepped close to tuck a lock of her blonde hair back under the dark fabric. "Shukraan," Steph said, the word as familiar on her tongue as 'Thanks' had once been.

And then she'd looked up, and seen those same light green eyes, and known she was standing well inside the range of one of the deadliest people on the continent. Steph had frozen, but all Talia did was murmur under her breath, "You should go home." In English, so it was obvious that she knew who she was talking to.

For that, Cass had hunted Talia for three days, finally locating the abandoned farmhouse where Talia had been staying. Cass had left a Batarang on her pillow, and Steph had chided her, "Babs said she would help us if she could." Cass had just shaken her head. She didn't trust Talia's motives.

Tonight, with the new year still newly minted, Steph woke up to a weird noise outside their shelter. She threw back the camouflaged tarp covering the entrance, and saw by moonlight two medium-sized striped doglike forms sniffing the ground. Steph had gotten used to the wildlife over the past couple years, and she wasn't particularly afraid, even if striped hyenas were the largest carnivores in Libya. It was strange for them to come so close … but then she remembered spilling a bit of her protein bar last night. Normally they didn't eat close to the tent, and buried their trash far away to avoid the attention of scavengers. But even a small amount of food got the attention of the locals.

At the sight of her, the two hyenas scampered off, and Steph groaned. "What is my life coming to, that this is normal?" she asked aloud. "If you told me back in the day that I'd see hyenas right after I woke up, I'd think I'd been kidnapped by Harley Quinn."

"Striped. Not spotted," Cass murmured. She'd been on watch just outside, not moving, and the hyenas hadn't bothered her. Then again, Cass wasn't afraid of animals in general.

"Yeah, I know. Harley's are bigger and scarier." Steph ducked back inside the tent and pulled out their netbook, letting it boot up and sync to the satellite connection. She took her escrima sticks with her as she stepped out of the tent, just in case the hyenas felt like going after something bigger for dinner.

After months of camping and traveling and living in some pretty rough circumstances, Steph still managed to miss indoor plumbing. A lot. She went back to the tent, only to find Cass hunched over the map display of all the tracking devices, playing a loop of their movements over the last few hours.

Normally it was a swirl of randomness, people and trucks moving back and forth along varying routes, but today even Steph saw the pattern instantly, and she gasped. "Holy shit, they're moving."

"Toward this point," Cass said, touching the screen.

"We have to call it in," Steph said.

Cass, infuriatingly, shook her head. "Could be false. If trackers discovered. Must see, first."

"We need to call it in first, then head out to check it," Steph argued. Cass grumbled, but passed over the laptop to let her send the message.

Of course, the minute Steph pulled up the secure email, she saw a message from Babs. Rioting in the streets here, she read. The whole East End is a powder keg. I may be offline. If you don't hear from me, hold position and maintain surveillance. "Ah, shit," Steph sighed, and sent a quick message describing this evening's discoveries.

Cass was up and dressed already, standing in the opening of the tent, and Steph felt her regard pointedly. "Oracle's offline. She left a message saying things in Gotham are heating up, and told us to hold position," Steph said, looking over her shoulder.

For a long moment, Cass just looked at her, and then looked out over the valley below them. Steph followed her gaze, and saw orangey light flickering from one of the little farms in the area. That looked like a fire, but bigger than the sort of outdoor cookfire they were used to seeing…

Cass adjusted her lenses, and frowned. "Not right." Even to Steph's gaze, the light was growing.

Steph cursed under her breath. A fire at one of the homesteads didn't bode well, combined with Shiva's men on the move. There could be innocents in trouble. "Let me dash off a message to Babs, and we'll go check it out."

"Meet me," Cass said, and was gone.

"Fuck!" Steph snapped, and typed as fast as she could. Shiva's on the move. Farm on fire. Have to check it. And then she yanked on her uniform, grabbing weapons and comms, and went pelting after Cass. Steph knew one thing for certain: she couldn't let Cass run up against Shiva alone.

Babs had shunted aside everything except the growing riot in the Bowery. Emergency services had been pushed back by the battling gangs, the police station was on fire, and there were casualties. Half a dozen women had been carted to the nearest ambulance, while that was still feasible. Numerous others had fled with some degree of injury. As for the dead, there were three of Dent's men and two of Joker's, so far. Two of the five killed had been shot by police when the fight rolled over into the station. Two more had been killed by opposing gang forces. The fifth, one of Joker's, had been slain by a handful of the women protesters. Babs had seen it happening, just a little too far away for any of her people to prevent, and had watched in horror as woman who looked like an ordinary single mom struggling to make ends meet had driven the splintered stake of her protest sign through the man's chest, while other women continued to beat on him. Most of the original protesters were long gone, but more women had arrived to replace them, and the ones left in the street now were out for blood.

It was a chaotic melee, and anyone who lost their footing was in danger of being killed. Babs was doing her best to direct her people and monitor incoming forces, but it looked like Joker and Dent were going to do battle by proxy tonight. The GCPD was pulling out all the stops, and she wasn't sure it would be enough.

Time passed, but Kala didn't pay any attention to it. She was lost in reverie. Jay's panic attack, and calming him down from it, the way he'd trusted her implicitly to guide him. Then his nightmare after the gala, his voice raw and shaken. You can't let him hurt you.… I can't handle that.

A spark of anger woke in her chest. Joker had done this, somehow. The one thing Jay feared most of all now wasn't Joker himself – it was Joker changing targets and hurting her. Whatever had changed in Jay, it all harked back to Joker targeting Kala. Jay had warned her not to reveal her powers because it would enable Joker to realize what she was … and what her weaknesses were.

The Empress had been seething from the moment Jay raised his voice at her. Now, she breathed on that spark, making it burn hotter. This is the fault of the Clown. That murderous vermin, that black hole which walks like a man. The Joker is our true foe.

In that much, Kala and her shadow-self were united. Hatred for the Joker burned bright and hot within her. She had hated him for what he'd done to Jay, and to Babs, and to hundreds or thousands of others. She'd even hated him for what he'd done to Harley. So far, she had held back from acting on that hatred due to several factors: too many potential witnesses, disapproval from Bruce or her own father, and not wanting to steal Jay's prerogative. Now, though, the Joker had managed to poison her relationship with Jay somehow. And while Kala could find restraint regarding damage done years ago, this loss was new and fresh and awful.

Let me take care of him, the Empress murmured in her mind. I will end this for you. We know where the Joker is. I can make it stop.

Kala shuddered in soul-deep negation. If she flew to Arkham and murdered Joker in his cell, everyone would know it was her. And everyone would know she'd lost control to her dark side. Joker's death would not be seen as righteous vengeance, it would make him a victim – and Kala could not bear that. He did not deserve compassion or pity.

Thwarted, she felt the Empress turn her regard on Jay. And while Kala herself was still too hurt to feel any other emotion, the Empress was furious. She had loved Jay, too. She had been fiercely protective of Jay. She had let down her guard, let Jay kiss her and touch her in ways that were utterly scandalous to Kryptonian norms. As far as the Empress was concerned, Jay was the first to have touched her so.

And he had betrayed her. Kala realized, feeling the seething wrath in the back of her mind, that she'd been right; she and the Empress were closer than ever before. Someday that split might really be healed, and if Jay hadn't just broken up with her, he might've been the one to fuse them.

Kala could only cry out Why?! She still didn't understand why he'd done it. How could she have been so wrong about what he felt?

I was not wrong, the Empress insisted. He loved us. He chose to do this.

Her anger toward Jay was more complicated than her rage at Joker. It was love and hurt and betrayal all twisted up together, an ugly clotted mess of emotion. Kala tried to stamp down on it. The Empress had thrown Jay through a wall; she could do so much worse. I will not hurt Jay. Not even if he hurt me. Everyone else in his life has failed him, used him, hurt him. I won't. I don't care whether or not he deserves to be hurt. I won't hurt him.

Of course, she felt that way because she did love him, and that provoked a fresh round of sobbing, though her eyes stayed dry. Kala had no tears left to shed. She was so weary of the waves of pain that kept swamping her from every angle. It was like being battered by the storm-tossed sea, barely able to keep her head above water long enough to breathe, flung in all directions by waves and wind. She shuddered as the metaphor occurred to her; in reality, Kala would never allowed herself to be caught without powers near the ocean. Her drowning nightmares were too real. The thought of trying to survive something like that was horrifying – and the emotional equivalent grew weightier with the comparison.

You should rest, child. Allow me to settle this for you, the Empress murmured.

Kala shivered. All she wanted was to let go, fall asleep, pray that somehow she'd wake up and all this would've been a bad dream. She could wake up in Jay's arms again on New Year's morning…

Again, that bitter, painful laughter escaped her. Of course it was New Year's. She should've known. From now on she was going to spend the New Year in some country where no one knew her, far from anything and anyone she loved. New Year's Day had brought this kind of destruction to her life once before. The worst argument ever with her mom, the worst disapproval from her dad, the betrayal from Sebast, Kala running away only to be captured by Lex Fucking Luthor, waking up in an underground lab being manhandled by thugs, meeting General Zod – all of those had happened on New Year's. The day was cursed for Kala. She'd been fool enough to think Jay could lift it, with fireworks and lovemaking, but no. Now she had new reasons to hate the holiday.

Always fucking New Year's.

Let go, the Empress whispered.

Everything had gone wrong, she'd nearly ruined things with Sebast, her band was in danger of breaching their contract, the Gotham rogues were hunting her, Kala was exhausted and stressed by all of it, and through it all Jay had held her together. She'd been so happy, despite knowing how much work she had to do to get things right after the break, despite knowing she and Sebast might have to sell their house because she couldn't look at it without seeing Sebast, that everything the two of them had shared would now be divided between them, despite everything she'd been able to be happy … and Jay had just let go. Of her, of them. With no warning, no sign of what he planned to do. Now she had nothing of her own, nothing to hold to, her life was strewn around her in pieces. Kala felt as though she were sitting atop a pile of rubble, remembering all the times Jay had said he wasn't going anywhere, and still he'd ripped it all apart like a tornado.

Go to sleep, my own heart, the Empress said again. Gently, as if to an over-tired child. I will fix this. I will keep you safe.

It was tempting. Oh so tempting. I can't let go, Kala thought grimly. If I do, you'll hurt Jay. I won't hurt him. And she discovered she did have a few tears left, after all.

I will not harm him, the Empress promised. He is not the target. The Joker is. Let one who deserves this suffering feel it.

The Joker is in Arkham surrounded by witnesses and cameras, Kala told herself. And if I let you loose to kill him, they'll see me. The little bit that's left of my life will shatter.

Silence, and Kala was so bone-deep weary. She rested her head on her knees, every muscle aching. It would be so nice to let go for a little while, to be protected … but the Empress was not to be trusted. She would do the things Kala wouldn't let herself do, and it was Kala who would answer for it in the end. As she should – the Empress was her, after all.

No killing; I promise you on all that we are, child. I will cause no death in your name, the Empress agreed. But I will make them see that they should not set their sights upon us. And I will show Jason Todd that we are not some weak fragile thing he must wound to protect. Let me help you. For love of you, let me make this right.

As much as she knew that her alter ego was mercurial at the best of times, Kala could feel reality slowly slipping away. Her eyelids fluttered, feeling so heavy. A few minutes of peaceful oblivion would be a balm, not to feel for just a little while. "God, I need help," she whispered, her voice a rusty croak. "But how can I trust you to keep that promise?"

She was just so tired, the end of the sentence trailing off. It was all just too much.

Because a promise meant everything to you as a child. Because I know better than all the rest what that one means to you. Sleep, sweet child. I will always protect you, even when others cannot. Even when you cannot.

Even as she tried to fight the urge, her eyes blinked twice more before they closed, and an exhausted Kala surrendered at last to silence and solace.

A moment later, the Empress rose with salt still drying on her cheeks, and the fury in her hazel eyes would have chilled Jay to the bone if he'd been there to see it.


~I can feel you falling away

No longer the lost,
No longer the same.
And I can see you starting to break.
I'll keep you alive
If you show me the way.
Forever, and ever,
The scars will remain.
I'm falling apart;
Leave me here forever in the dark

God help me, I've come undone.
Out of the light of the sun.
God help me, I've come undone.
Out of the light of the sun...~

~Breaking Benjamin, Give Me a Sign