The East End was a madhouse. Selina went out, in the beginning, keeping to the shadows – stealth was her stock in trade, after all. She broke up a couple of fights, staying away from the bigger riots. That was for people who wore more body armor than she did. Ten to one odds weren't her idea of fun, even if she could hold her own.

Mostly she was claws in the dark, a whip flashing down to yank some bastard off his feet before he could swing on one of the protesters, but as things heated up she faded back. The women were out for blood, and while she understood their anger very well, she couldn't stand with them. Not least because they were half-crazed themselves, and from what she was hearing – of course she had her own comm that could follow some of Oracle's frequencies, she just didn't want them to be able to track her – the crowds were targeting vigilantes.

This was no night to be a cat in the middle of a dogfight, all baying and brawling. Selina did what she could, stuck to the edges, and watched her back throughout it all. Harvey's men were out there, so were Joker's, and she hadn't forgotten the price on her head.

Elise woke up at the sound of Jason's wordless groan. The pained noise had her sitting up in bed, reaching for his shoulder to wake him from whatever nightmare had him in its ruthless grip.

Except, he wasn't beside her in the bed. The blankets were rumpled, the quilt thrown askew, and when Elise heard him groan again, she was surprised to realize the sound was coming from above her. She looked up, and saw Jason hovering near the ceiling, tossing and turning the way he would have if he'd been in bed.

For a moment, she could only stare, her jaw dropped. Flight had never been one of Jason's powers, and he'd been glad of that. Jason Kent was one of the most solidly grounded people Elise had ever known … and that was saying something for a Kryptonian hybrid studying the stars.

He made a complaining sound, and kicked out, his arms up as if trying to protect his head. Flight or no flight, he was her husband and she couldn't bear to listen to him in pain. So Elise stood up on the bed and reached for his arm. "Jason, wake up," she said, catching hold of his wrist and tugging gently. "Come on, Jason, it's just a nightmare."

He startled away from her touch, swatting at her hand, and Elise promptly let go. Jason tried to sit up, and bonked his head on the ceiling. "What the…?"

She couldn't help laughing a little at the perplexed expression on his face, as Jason continued to hover near the ceiling, limbs spread out like a skydiver. "Guess what, looks like you got flight after all," Elise said gently. "Come down here, hero. You were having a nightmare."

"This is a nightmare," Jason complained, moving his arms as if swimming. It wasn't effective, and he just rotated in place. "A little help?"

Chuckling, Elise caught his hand again and pulled. It wasn't easy – she felt like she was trying to pull his full body-weight, not at all like tugging down a balloon. Jason tried to push off the ceiling too, but it didn't work. The moment she let go of his hand, he bobbed right back up. "Houston, we have a problem," Elise said. "What the heck did you dream?"

"Yeah, we do. This really sucks," Jason said morosely. "I don't even remember now, but it was creepy."

The dream that had caused it wasn't as important as the current problem. He'd been moody and just off for the last day or so, making himself work hard on projects around the farm to dissipate the new-dad nerves. Speaking of dad, that might be their fix. "Let's call your dad," she suggested, glancing at the phone.

"No!" Jason shouted, startling her, and she looked up to see real fear in his gaze. "Dad can't keep a secret to save his life. If you tell him, he'll let it slip to Kala, and if she thinks I can fly, she'll start dropping me from airline height so I learn how to control it."

"Your sister is not that big of an asshole," Elise chided.

"Yes she is," Jason retorted. "She'd never give up until she got me flying with her. And I don't want this!"

"Okay, okay, we won't call your dad," Elise reassured him. Jason sighed, and she turned her practical mind to work on solutions. "What do we do? Tie a rope around your ankle until you fall back asleep or something?"

"I don't know," Jason groaned. "I don't understand why I don't just fall down. I'm not trying to stay up here."

"Maybe it's like an automatic defense system. You got freaked out by the nightmare, and you started to hover, but now you can't stop hovering because you're freaked out by being up there," Elise mused. "Maybe you just need to relax."

"That sounds a lot easier than it is," Jason replied waspishly.

He looked so ridiculous up there, Elise had to bite her lip not to chuckle again. She couldn't help being a little amused. Jason was usually so composed, so reliable, that seeing him so woefully out of his element was both sad and funny. If he'd been in any kind of danger, it would've been very different, but this was harmless. Just annoying.

"Try clicking your heels together and saying 'There's nothing like gravity'?" she suggested.

"Seriously?!" he complained, but when she nodded, he closed his eyes and did it.

Nothing happened, and Jason opened his eyes to scowl down at her. "I don't wanna be up here!" he finally exclaimed, frustration breaking over in his voice.

At that, he moved upward, bumping into the ceiling. It couldn't hurt him, but he put his hand up to check just out of habit, and grumbled angrily. "This is freaking ridiculous. Call Cassie, I guess, tell her to bring the Titans' kryptonite stash. I've got stuff to do, I can't float around like an escapee from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade."

Elise decided to try one more thing, first. "Hey, Jason?" she said, and when he looked at her, she grabbed the hem off her flannel nightshirt and yanked it up to her chin, baring her chest and belly.

Jason's expression changed to surprise and delight, just like always. They'd known each other for eight years, been married for three, had two kids on the way, and the man had x-ray vision for crying out loud – and he still got that same pole-axed look at the sight of her breasts. The frown-line between his brows disappeared, and Jason gave her a beaming smile.

And then he fell straight down onto the bed, almost hard enough to bounce her off of it. "Ow," Jason said, face down in the quilt, and Elise fell over onto her back laughing so hard she could barely breathe.

Jason propped himself up on his elbows, holding tight to the quilt, and glowered at her. Elise subsided into chuckles, and reached out to stroke his cheek. "Hey there, handsome. Thanks for dropping in."

His expression softened, and he turned to kiss her palm. "You're ridiculous. But I'm glad that worked."

"Me too. I guess I have to be ready to whip out the sovereign power of cleavage whenever you have a nightmare, huh? Love conquers all, and boobs defeat superpowers?" Elise smiled warmly at him. They were both awake, after all, and the look he was giving her made her want to ensure whatever had bothered him would stay away for good.

"Not just any boobs. Gorgeous, sexy, mad scientist boobs," Jason replied, and leaned over to kiss her rounded belly. Elise ran her fingers through his hair, then tugged him up to kiss her mouth.

With all the chaos of his unplanned flight, neither of them stopped to wonder why Jason had had a nightmare in the first place. He'd been attributing his megrims to impending parent jitters for the last day, and nothing had overtly changed since.

Dick knew he had to get Kala out of the street, so he simply picked her up. She continued making those lost, choked sobs as he carried her to the closest alley, and he murmured in her ear, "Hold on, I'm gonna grapnel us up to the roof."

She nodded, her eyes behind the makeshift mask tear-stained, and as he zipped upward he felt her grow light in his arms. A little flight to help them get to the roof easier sure did come in handy.

Once there, Kala seemed a little more self-possessed, standing on her own and wiping ineffectively at her eyes. Dick hugged her again, worry nagging at him. "Hey, Kala, it's going to be all right," he told her.

That only made her laugh bitterly. "No, no it's not. God, Dick … I was just tired. I wanted to forget everything for a while and I … I let her loose. Please tell me she kept her promise, please tell me there's no body count."

Hearing her ask that question, Dick's heart wrenched. "No, Kala, it's okay. You didn't kill anyone. But … what happened?"

Tears welled up again, and Kala bit her lip. "I can't… You're sure? As angry as she was, I knew I shouldn't have, but I just couldn't anymore. Are you sure, Dick?"

He touched his domino, activating the comm. "Oracle, you've been watching Blur. She hasn't been out of line, has she?"

"A little excessive, but no permanent harm," Babs replied. "Remind her we didn't know she'd switched over until you spoke to her."

He nodded. "Right. You're fine, K. You heard that, right? We didn't even realize you'd gone over."

Kala let out a long, shuddering breath. "Thank God. I couldn't … I shouldn't have let her loose, I know that, but I just couldn't … take it … anymore…" Her lip trembled, and she crossed her arms, holding herself tightly as sobs tried to shake loose of her delicate frame.

Dick didn't know what else to do except wrap his arms around her as she shivered. "You're okay, Kala, you're safe. You didn't kill anyone. You helped us, actually, when we really needed it."

"I wasn't thinking about helping," she murmured, her voice low and fraught with guilt. "All I wanted was to send a message to Joker. This is his fault somehow. The moment Selina told us there was a target on my back, Jay changed."

Dick rubbed her shoulders gently. "What happened? All we know is from him – he dumped your domino, said you were out, and then dropped off the radar himself."

She closed her eyes, and Dick saw that those few words hurt her as much as a blow. Then Kala managed a bitter laugh. "Yeah, well. He pretty much did kick me out of Gotham. And his life. We're over. Apparently he's not as into Super-cling as I thought. He said I was making more of it than it was."

The pain and self-loathing in her voice was too much for Dick to bear. "Kala … I don't know what the hell he was thinking, but that's not true. I cornered him on it myself, and scared as he was to admit it, he did own up to what everyone else can see. Jay lo–"

Her hand was over his mouth faster than Dick could see, and in the depths of Kala's eyes he glimpsed a steely flash of anger. "Don't say it. I don't want to hear it. If he can't say it to me, it doesn't matter what anyone else says."

"Okay," Dick said carefully.

"Besides, at this point, it doesn't matter," she continued, her voice defeated. "He's made his choice. I waited where he could find me, if he wanted to, and he didn't come take it back. It's over. I wouldn't let him take it back now if he tried."

"Good for you," Dick replied. Her eyebrows went up, and he continued, "If he screwed up this bad, he doesn't deserve to be forgiven that easily. I wish he wasn't so damn self-defeating!"

"Me too, Dick," Kala said sorrowfully. "Me too."

Babs spoke up in Dick's ear. "This is what I was afraid of. But since I know you can hear me, Blur – Hood doesn't have the authority to bar you from the city. Batman and I still want you here. You're always welcome to fly with the Birds, in Gotham or anywhere else."

"Thanks, Oracle," Kala said tiredly. "But it might be a good thing if I stayed away for a little while. I just … everything here reminds me of him."

Dick sighed, and just hugged her tight again. "I'm gonna kick his ass for that. The rest of us shouldn't have to suffer because he's too damn stupid to hold onto the best thing that ever happened to him." He was trying to lighten things a little bit, and let Kala know that she was still very much loved by the rest of the family, even if Jay had his head jammed so far up his butt that he'd actually tried to run her off. She gave him a wan smile, appreciating the effort, but it was going to take far more than Grayson hugs to brighten her heart again.

"It's not stupidity, it's fear," Babs said sadly. "It's almost always fear. And I hate to mention it, but we do still have some of Dent's men on the loose. Plus the riots aren't over. People are still angry."

"We're on it," Dick said, but Kala shook her head.

"No, I … I'm sorry, I don't have the strength. I just want to sleep for about a year." Kala laughed again, that miserable broken sound he was coming to hate, and her hazel eyes glistened. "I should've known. It's always New Year's."

Dick flinched, remembering that she'd been kidnapped on New Year's Day eight years ago. One more reason to knock some sense into Jay, when he finally found his little brother. "It's okay, you did more than enough," he assured her. "Just be safe, Kala."

"I will," she whispered, and hugged him back. "I'm going home. Give me some time. I'll be in touch." She leaned up to kiss his cheek before she drew back to give him a small sad smile. "Be safe, Dick. And hug Alfred for me."

He stood on the rooftop for a moment, watching her soar upward, then let out a huge sigh. The city was a mess, Jay was a mess, but only one of those things was fixable at the moment. And Dick had been in the game long enough to know how to compartmentalize, put his heartbreak away somewhere and do the job in front of him. "Up, up, and away. I'm gonna kick his ass into next week."

"You're not the only one," Babs murmured.

Dick nodded, and said, "That's for later. Give me coordinates, O."

In the depths of alcohol-assisted sleep, Jay's mind flashed back to that fateful moment, when Kala asked him what was wrong. He opened his mouth to say what he'd planned, and instead heard himself say, "I can't lose you."

She looked stunned, and he continued in a rush. "You scare the hell outta me, K, you're the best damn thing that ever happened to me, and you gave me back part of myself I thought was gone forever. You weren't even trying to change me, but you came in like the sun and melted stuff I thought was frozen forever. Now I can't handle the thought of losing you."

"You won't lose me," she soothed.

Jay shook his head. "You're just too fuckin' ballsy, you're not scared of these assholes and that can get you killed. I know, because it got me killed dealing with Joker. I thought I was bigger and badder and better, and I know you're a damn Super and you can take a lot. I know you dealt with him at the gala and you came out okay. That was luck. If you're not careful you could get hurt, bad, you could even get killed. And if that happens it'll crush the last good part of me. I know it's selfish, K, I'm selfish when it comes to you and I'm sorry, but everything worth having in my life right now is because of you."

"No, it's not," she told him staunchly. "It's because of you. Believe in yourself for once, Jay. You have your family because they love you, they always did. I was just the kick in the ass you needed to start you talking to them again. If not for me, you would've found your way home eventually. I'm not as special as you think."

"Yeah, you are," he told her, his voice almost breaking. "God, K, you don't even see how amazing you really are. You deserve better than this shitty town and a pack of psychos measuring your head for a wall mount."

"And you deserve better than you think, too. I don't care what I deserve, I want you. And your fucked-up smoggy-ass city. I can always fly above it and reach the sun." Kala faced him stubbornly, her chin up, and his heart broke.

He couldn't do this to her. He just couldn't. She was too damn good for him to hurt her the way he needed to, badly enough to make her leave. So the only other option was to pull her closer, keep her safe at all costs, teach her everything he knew and hone her powers until all of Gotham went in fear of her. Kala was a fierce badass already, he'd keep her safe the only way he knew how.

And he'd keep her. Jay put his hand in his pocket and felt a small box there, thought about the jewelry store, and smiled at her. "Kala, I love you," he said, and saw the look of surprise and dawning joy on her face.

"Took you long enough. I love you, too, Jay," she laughed, clearly amazed, that sunshine smile of hers absolutely radiant.

But…

When he pulled out the box, he saw green glinting around the edges, and she startled back, her expression turning to horrified betrayal. Jay gasped, trying to throw it away, panicking at the thought that someone had been so close to him to switch out a ring for kryptonite. The box felt welded to his hand, he couldn't let it go, and despite him trying to hold it closed with both hands the lid sprang open and Kala screamed.

Jay sat bolt upright, a scream echoing in the empty building, but it was his voice, not hers. The kryptonite he'd been carrying around ever since her last run as the Empress was blue, not green, anyway. He'd been ready to knock out the powers to keep Kala safe, if he had to, but he couldn't hurt her.

Except he had.

That cozy little dream of what might've been hurt worse than any of his nightmares about Joker beating him to death. Jay dropped his face into his hands, shuddering from heartbreak and the cold.

He couldn't complain. He'd cast out his sunlight. The dark and cold were his lot.

Jay knew why he'd done it, he still believed protecting Kala was more important than his own happiness, but he couldn't help the wretched sobs pulled from deep in his chest at that thought.

Steph drew in a sharp breath, her eyes widening. She and Cass were finally inside the stronghold Lady Shiva's men had just invaded … and now she understood why everyone was being so damn secretive. The compound was huge, but the two girls had tracked Shiva to its heart.

After an hour of climbing down ventilation shafts and sneaking through corridors, they were in a room so huge that the word 'cavernous' applied. Actually, the longer she looked at the rough walls and crackled ceiling, it might be a cavern. Steph leaned close to Cass' ear and whispered, "If this is a natural cave, there might be another exit."

Cass nodded. "Guarded. Must be."

True, if there was another way in, Shiva surely knew about it and planned for it. Too late, they were here now, and it'd take too long to back out and find another entrance, anyway. It was just really dangerous to have followed the same route that Shiva and her entourage had used.

Now they were here, in this massive room, and ahead of them was the reason Shiva had come here. The floor sloped downward toward the back of the cavern, and there were stairs carved out of the stone leading down into a pit.

A Pit, actually – a Lazarus Pit. Steph had run across that term in Batman's computer once, and heard Cass whisper the words now. It looked creepy as hell, full of some roiling bright green viscous liquid, and the entire cavern stank of corruption – and weirdly, jasmine. It smelled like dollar-store jasmine perfume sprayed liberally all over a week-old corpse; as soon as Steph thought that, she had to swallow hard to keep from puking up her guts. The smell was invasive, coating her sinuses and creeping down her throat. She tried not to think about the fact that she was tasting that smell.

The two of them hid behind some shipping crates and watched Shiva stalk forward. There was a metal catwalk above the Pit, with a chain hoist mounted to the ceiling above. She circled the whole thing warily, and nodded to her guards, who mounted the catwalk. Two of them checked it for traps, and nodded to her.

Only then did she walk up the ladder and stride across the catwalk, staring down into the foul liquid below. Even at this distance, Shiva looked entranced.

Steph whispered, "What's a Lazarus Pit?"

Cass turned, her breath ghosting over Steph's ear, and murmured, "Life. Youth. Regeneration. And evil."

The way she said that last chilled Steph to the core. Cass wasn't given to hyperbole. "Evil?" she asked.

Cass paused, and licked her lips nervously. Anything that made her nervous frankly scared the hell out of Steph. "Evil," she said decisively. "To cheat death … a price. Sanity. Humanity." She nodded at the Pit. "Ra's al Ghul, life eternal – worth the cost."

Holy shit. This was why Ra's was so dangerous and so bent on mass destruction. The guy was like seven hundred years old or something – and the Lazarus Pit had warped his mind every time he used it. Only, when Steph read about them in Bruce's files, the term had been plural. There were more of these things, somewhere.

Shiva seemed satisfied with her inspection. She went back down the ladder, while one of her men scooped out a ladle full of the noisome liquid. Shiva gave an order, and two of her guys came out holding a third man, bound and gagged. That one glared at Shiva, struggling against his bonds.

"I've heard about the Lazarus Pit's power," Shiva said to the captive. "You are so devoted to your guardianship, you can be the one to prove its worth." She drew a knife, and caught the man's cuffed hands. He growled behind the gag, and tried to jerk away, but he couldn't stop her from cutting into his forearm. The man gave a muffled cry of pain, and blood poured down from the wound.

At Shiva's beckoning, the guy with the ladle full of Lazarus goop had come up, and when she nodded, he poured it over the wound. Steph held her breath; it was one thing to hear Cass say this stuff worked miracles, another to watch it tested.

When the green liquid touched his skin, the captive man screamed, and no gag could've muffled that. He convulsed so hard his guards dropped him, and to Steph's eye it looked like he was trying to get away from his own arm. She clutched her shoulder reflexively, remembering the sound of the drill, and pain so bad it made her crazy, made her want to run away from herself. She remembered being nothing more than a hurt animal shrieking in a trap, the pain taking over her world.

The injured man stopped struggling, and lay panting. Shiva bent and pushed back his torn sleeve; the arm beneath was whole again, not even a scar. "Remarkable," Shiva murmured.

And then she slit his throat. Steph flinched, Cass tensed beside her, but there was nothing they could do. At least it was quick.

"Triple the guard," Shiva said. "Ra's al Ghul will act, once he realized I've found this Pit. Kill any outsider you see."

"And the Demon's Head?" one of her men asked.

"He's lived too long already," Shiva said. "If he dares to come himself, you must kill him before he reaches the Pit. You know once rejuvenated, he'll fight like twenty men."

"He won't come," another man said, and Shiva turned to him. "I followed the Demon for fifteen years. I tell you, he won't give you the fight you're looking for. This isn't his only Lazarus Pit; he'll wall it off and drop nerve gas down the vent shafts. Or just bring the cavern down on top of us. He can afford to wait ten years to dig it back out again, after we're dead."

"Where do you put your faith?" Shiva asked softly. "In a demon? Or a goddess?"

The man chuckled. "I chose you because you're saner than he is. Don't make me regret it. Shiva's the Hindu god of death. You should've called yourself Kali, if you want to play at being a goddess."

She looked at him a long moment, and Cass thrummed with tension. Only Steph's hand on hers kept her from springing up. At last, Shiva said with withering scorn, "Do you really think, in all the years I've done this, that I never once opened a mythology book? Don't be a fool."

He looked chastened, and she took a step closer. "There are no gods, and no demons either. Ra's al Ghul is only a man who has outlived his time. And I am only woman – but there is no warrior on this planet, no matter how gifted or trained, who does not pause at the sound of my name."

Steph had asked Cass once if she knew why her mother had chosen Lady Shiva as an alias. As it turned out, she did – one of Shiva's early martial arts teachers had been a devotee of the Hindu god, and a master of the kai varase style of unarmed combat. Apparently that master had made the comparison between his god of destruction and his talented pupil, and Sandra Wu-San was honored enough by the praise to adopt it as an alias.

Meanwhile, Shiva said, "I want an extended perimeter. If the Demon's Head comes, or if he merely sends his lapdogs, let us be ready. And you." She fixed the dissenter with a serious gaze. "Come with me. We have much to discuss."

Steph thought she might kill him, then thought otherwise. Killing him privately served no purpose. If she wanted to punish the doubt, she'd kill him now. More likely, she wanted to know everything he knew about how Ra's might respond to this affront.

She leaned close again and whispered to Cass, "Good thing we're already inside."

Cass only nodded, seeming distracted. "Follow her," she whispered.

That was easier said than done, but eventually they managed to get to a storeroom that shared a wall with the room in which Shiva was talking to her henchman. Steph pressed her ear against the wall, and heard them discussing the numbers of men Ra's could be expected to field, the kinds of weaponry, the lengths to which he'd go to protect his secrets. It all sounded very dire, and Steph privately thought that if she'd been Shiva, she'd never have tried this. Shiva didn't need the Lazarus Pit for herself, so why was she here?

The man in the next room asked much the same question, and Shiva laughed softly. Steph was looking into Cass' eyes, both of them listening at the same wall, and she saw the instant when Cass understood. Steph herself had to wait for Shiva to say it.

"I don't want the Lazarus Pit. I want Ra's al Ghul – dead, burned, his ashes mixed with salt and scattered into a dozen different rivers around the globe. I want him to stay dead. And then, perhaps I'll have a use for his League of Shadows."

She'd worked for and against the League before, Steph knew. Even before Cass knew Shiva was her mother, she'd fought her during the time when Ra's had supposedly been dead, and the League was under the command of his other daughter, for whom Shiva was functioning as sensei to all the recruits. Most of that was before Steph's time, a bit, and way out of her purview. She did Gotham crime, not international intrigue.

Cass nodded, having heard that plan. "Must stop her."

Steph, though, frowned. "Is Ra's all that better than her? I dunno, I can't say it's a good idea to let her kill him … but realistically, what're our chances of stopping her?"

Cass leaned away from the wall, frowning. Steph said, "We need to get out of here, and get word to Babs. Our communicators won't work this far under ground. Let Batman handle it, Cass. That's why he's the big guy. He gets to make these calls."

The look that got her was haunted. "My mother."

Reaching out for her shoulder, Steph insisted, "That only matters if you want it to. My dad's the Cluemaster, Cass. Should I take responsibility for everything he does? Or worse, try to follow in his footsteps?" She kept her voice low, but tried to put every ounce of persuasion and sincerity into her tone that she could.

Cass shook her head. "My mother. My fate."

Steph scooted over the little distance between them, pressing her forehead against Cass'. "Fuck fate. We make our own destiny. You don't have to do this, Cass. And you damn sure don't have to do it alone."

She started to speak, some other objection, and Steph kissed her to silence it. She was pretty darn good at that, and had the added advantage of being one of two people Cass had ever kissed. The other was Tim, and Steph knew they'd never done more than kiss. Funny thing was, the person they'd both done more with was her.

That didn't matter. Reminding Cass that she had a life and choices and people who loved her was the important part. That she had something to look forward to beside some sweeping operatic tragedy bullshit with her mother. They could walk away from this.

Cass kissed her back, infinitely sweet, tender in the way that only someone as exquisitely aware of body language – and as thoroughly dangerous – as she was could be. Her hand cupped Steph's cheek, and they leaned against one another, sharing breath. Steph felt her body relax, and let out the breath she'd been holding. The release of tension felt like surrender, like Cass had seen sense and they could get out of here and let the big-name heroes handle it.

"I love you," Cass said, softly, and alarm sizzled up every nerve. Cass almost always left off the subject of sentences, and when they snuggled together at night, the last thing she whispered in Steph's ear was Love you. Or sometimes just Love, both a statement and a pet name. For her to say the whole sentence meant –

She never finished the thought. Cass moved too fast for her to see, and Steph's head exploded with bright white light … followed immediately by darkness.

"Momma?"

Lois woke to her daughter's voice, tear-choked and broken, and her daughter's hand on her shoulder, gently shaking to rouse her. At first, in the darkness of the bedroom, Lois couldn't tell what time it was. Or what year it was. Kala sounded lost and sad, the way she hadn't for years, not since she was about seventeen or so and last came creeping into her parents' bedroom, needing them to chase her nightmares away. Most kids were past that phase by their teens, but most kids hadn't been kidnapped twice by a megalomaniac asshole, or forced to kill a supervillain the second time.

Blinking fiercely, Lois sat up, feeling Kal-El stir beside her. The alarm clock said one in the morning, and Kala stood up, her shoulders hunched. Still in her Blur uniform, and it clicked for Lois then: her daughter was twenty-four, the last nightmare had been six or seven years ago. "What's wrong, honey?" Lois asked, reaching out for her instinctively. Kala could be thirty, or forty, or fifty if Lois lived to see that, and she'd still be her mother's baby girl.

A stifled sob, a hitching breath. "Jay. He … oh, Momma. He broke it off." With that the tears came in earnest.