Welcome Back, Chapter 2:
The Dawn
Note: This started out as
a one shot thing, there wasn't even supposed to be a second chapter, but it's
quickly evolved in my mind as a trilogy. Stay tuned for the rest.
Disclaimer: I don't own
it… I'm only borrowing. I promise to play nice and return it when I'm done.
Thank you, Mr. Kane sir.
Tim Drake entered the
outer room and was surprised to see no one there. Did Bruce piss her off so
much that she left already? He questioned in his mind. But even if he
did, Dick should still be around here somewhere… or was that what made he
leave. Oh, good lord, I should have known better than to let those two even be
in the same state with each other. Tim walked into Bruce's room and
stopped for a moment at the door as he saw the scene inside. Wow… will times
ever change? Huh.
Sitting on one of the
side chairs next to the bed was Dick Grayson. Next to him was Barbara Gordon.
Stranger to Tim than seeing the two of them together was how they were sitting.
Both were asleep and Dick's arms were wrapped around Barbara, whose head was
leaning softly on his shoulder.
It's just like old
times, Tim thought, feeling
twelve years old again. Back the way everything used to be. He
remembered the first time he met Dick and Barbara. It was after Dick had become
Nightwing, but before he had moved away completely, so while he never saw Dick
and Barbara at their closest, he did get to see some of it. In those pre-teen
days, he looked up to Dick as an idol. More than he looked up to Bruce, at some
times. And Barbara… well, he had to admit that he had a crush on Barbara in
those more innocent days. Those days before everything went bad. Before Dick
left for good… before Barbara was shot… before she made the break from Bruce.
In the years, since though, she had been good to him. No matter how much she despised
Bruce, she never shunned Tim because of it. Every Christmas, Birthday, Easter,
and other miscellaneous holidays he could count on seeing a card from her in
the mail. Real mail, too… not one of those e-card things. And every time he
came home on vacation, she made it a point to call him… while Bruce was at
work, of course.
Tim walked to the end of
the bed quietly, and looked at the chart. The scraping of the metal attracted
the ear of Barbara, who woke up and looked around. "Tim," she said quietly, as
she slowly moved out of Dick's arms, trying not to wake him. "When did your
plane get in?"
"Just a little bit ago… I
came straight here," he said, still looking at the chart. "How's he doing? What
happened?"
She stood up, stretched
and walked over to him. "He had another heart attack about 3 hours ago. Less
severe, but still… we were scared."
"But he's ok, now?" Tim
asked, worried.
She nodded assuring.
"Yeah. He's stabilized. But it was pretty close." Tim looked over her shoulder at
Bruce and she could see the hurt in his eyes. Bruce had never hurt Tim in the
ways he had to Dick and herself, so he was taking it twice as hard as they
were. "Tim…" she wrapped her arms around him, giving him a sisterly, reassuring
hug. He squeezed back tightly.
"He's going to be ok,
right, Barbara?" he asked, looking up at her.
She smiled slightly.
"Tim… its Bruce. He's going to be ok. When hasn't he been? He'll come out of
it, but he has to learn that he's not twenty-eight anymore. He can't keep doing
this. Something's got to bring him around."
Tim nodded. "Yeah. Well,
I guess you can go now, Barbara. Thank you so much for coming. I know how much
you didn't want to."
She took a slight look
back at Dick, still sitting in the chair. "No, I think it was worth it. And
I'll stay for a little while. I want to be here when he wakes up."
"Barbara, you've been
here almost 24 hours… you need to go home and get some sleep," Tim insisted.
She laughed shortly. "No,
I'm fine. Just a little while longer."
"Barbara… please… go
home, sleep, take care of yourself."
"No…"
"Yes!" A voice came from
the corner. Barbara and Tim looked over to Dick, who was slowly inching himself
out of his chair.
"What?" Barbara asked.
He stood up and walked
over to them. "Yes… you are going home and you are resting."
Barbara looked at him for
a second, about to protest, but finally sighed. "Fine."
Dick stepped back, almost
shocked for a moment. Now, that is unusual. She must be so burned out lately
that she's not even putting up a fight to that. "Okay… let's go. I'm
driving you home."
Barbara took her purse
from the end table and gave Tim another hug before they left. "I'll see you
tomorrow."
Tim watched the two of
them leave, and shook his head in wonder.
In Dick's rental car, he
and Barbara sat quiet for a mile out of the hospital.
"So…." Dick said,
breaking the awkward silence. "Bruce should be ok, don't you think?"
"Yeah… yeah," she
answered haltingly. "He's Bruce… I'm sure he'll be fine."
"Yeah…" he agreed as the
awkward silence returned. "So… what about us?"
Barbara swallowed hard as
she looked forward. "What do you mean?"
"I mean… What about us?
Are we fine? Ten years of not speaking a civil word to each other, and yet here
we are… in the same confined space… and it looks to me that we're getting along
fine." He paused. "Are we?"
She stared out the
window, not answering, and after a moment pointed out the windshield. "That's
my apartment."
He drove up to her place
and opened the door for her. "Thank you for the ride, Dick. I'll see you
tomorrow." She said professionally and began walking toward the door. Dick
followed and took her arm.
"No…answer the question."
She looked at him, her
lip trembling. "I can't, Dick. I already told you. I can't just forget that it
all happened."
He took both arms and
held her close. "I'm not asking you to forget. I'm not asking you to do
anything. I just want to know if we're ok. If we can sit down and have a dinner
with each other without it breaking down into an out-and-out fight. Can we do
that?"
She shook her head. "No,
Dick… I can't."
"Why… not?"
He eyes glazed over with
tears. "Because, Dick! Beucase you were right. Because I didn't love Jason
half as much as I loved you. And I know that if I let even a tiny part of
myself stop hating you, that I'm going to fall in love with you again,
and I'm am not letting you hurt me again. I am not letting you
leave me waiting for someone who's never going to show up. I've done that
enough and I'm not doing it again. Goodbye, Dick… I'll have Tim drive me over
to get my car later." With that she turned and walked away to her door.
"What if I don't go
away?" He shouted at her from the sidewalk.
"You will…" she said
without even looking back. Barbara unlocked the door and walked inside, never
looking back at him.
Dick stood there, in the
middle of the sidewalk. I'm going to prove it to her… I'll show her that I
can do it. I'm not letting her go this time. This time… I'm not leaving.
Barbara looked at the
clock next to her bed. It was four in the morning. She had been home since ten
that night, and hadn't slept at all. She couldn't stand it anymore, she
decided, and put clothes on to take a walk around the block.
When she exited her
apartment, the first thing she saw was a large figure standing in the shadows
on the sidewalk. She stayed by her door, not knowing who this was.
"I told you I wouldn't
leave." The figure said from the shadows as he began to step forward.
"Dick… what?" she didn't
understand what was going on.
"I waited… I've been
standing here since you went in your apartment. Since ten o'clock. And I stand
here a million more hours if it would prove to you that this time, I'm going to
stay." He had reached her doorstep now, and put out a hand to help her down the
steps. "I'm going to stay."
She stood there, crying
for the upteenth time that night. She took his hand and slowly walked down the
steps. "How can I know for sure?"
"Trust me," he said and
wrapped his arms around her. They stood there like that for a moment before she
broke away.
"You're freezing… why
don't you come in?"
He smiled. "Don't mind if
I do."
He took her hand and
walked into her apartment with her.
For the first time since
Tim had called her earlier that week, Barbara Gordon sleeped peacefully and
deeply. And when she woke in the morning, she walked over to the window and opened
the curtains, basking in the glow of the new day… the new dawn.
THE END.