The Last Daughter of Krypton: Saying Goodbye
By Les Bonser
This is a work of non-commercial fan fiction. The characters used in this story remain the trademarked property of their respective owners. No trademark infringement is intended and no profits are made by the author for writing or distribution of this work.
No permission is given to anyone other than the author to archive this on any website. No permission is given to anyone other than the author to repost this on any newsgroup.
The poem, "Rainbow Bridge," is attributed to an unknown author.
Note: The numbered parts of this series cover the time between Linda Leigh's birth and the time she becomes Supergirl. At the time I'm writing this, parts 1, 2, and 5 have been written and posted. Unnumbered parts, like this one, deal with specific stories occurring after Linda Leigh assumes the mantle of the "S." This is one such story from a time far distant from today.
Saying Goodbye
The woman floated in space, waiting. She was helping with the construction of the newest Earth-orbit station. The latest section of the station was being lifted out of the cargo bay of the Mark IV shuttle.
The woman waited. When the robot arm moved the section clear of the cargo bay, she'd take it and move it the 100 meters across space to where the half-finished station orbited.
The tiny speaker embedded in her right ear canal vibrated. She sensed the vibration and her mind translated it into a voice. "We're clear of the cargo bay," the voice said.
The woman took a breath of air from the portable tank she wore strapped to her waist. A tube ran from the tank, around her waist, and up to her face. "I've got it," she said.
The air instantly condensed into microscopic crystals as she spoke. As the section moved toward her, the sun suddenly became visible. The crystals sparkled in the sunlight.
She moved behind the section and begin, very carefully, very slowly, to move it. It didn't take much. Here in the microgravity of high Earth orbit, the massive section didn't require much to get it moving.
"Way to go, Supergirl," she heard through her earpiece. Linda Leigh Kent, known for over forty years as "Supergirl," smiled behind the air mask. All these years, she thought, and I still get a thrill when people appreciate my efforts.
Another voice. "We register Section 15 at 2 meters per second. Nominal path." That was Orbit Control. Actually, it was a woman sitting on Earth Station Delta nearly 20,000 miles away. The crew of Orbit Control was monitoring the transfer.
Supergirl had almost single-handedly constructed four of these stations, and they still insisted in micromanaging. She would have shook her head in disbelief, but even that tiny motion would throw the trajectory of the section off.
She took another breath and said, "Roger Orbit Control."
Supergirl didn't need the air to breathe, but sound required a medium to carry it to the microphone in her facemask. Given her choice, she'd have carried the sections up from Earth herself and done all this work in complete silence.
Less than ten minutes later, Supergirl passed the section off to the small crew manning the construction cranes, robotic arms really, temporarily installed on the station's infrastructure.
"Earth Station Gamma here. We have the section."
"Roger Gamma," Orbit Control said.
"Roger Gamma," Supergirl echoed, after taking another breath. "If you don't need me, I'll be leaving now," she said.
"Roger that, Supergirl. Thanks for the assist."
"You're welcome," Supergirl said. She took one last look at the partially finished station and turned.
She drifted away from the station and the now distant shuttle. She enjoyed the peace and quiet up here. Sure, she could go visit her father and Diana on the farm, but sometimes, she just needed to get away from everyone. The continual chatter of people talking, planes flying, ground cars roaring, the aggregate noise of modern civilization was just too much for even her sometimes.
Supergirl drifted in silence for nearly a half hour before she was interrupted.
"Supergirl, it's time," the voice said in her ear. It had been Diana. Linda Leigh had been expecting the call. Hell, she thought, she'd expected it for nearly her entire life. And now the waiting was over.
She turned in space and began to accelerate toward Earth. Her invulnerable skin and aura would protect her as she plunged deep into the atmosphere. In scarcely two minutes time, she was soaring high above the eastern United States coast. She was headed to Gotham City. She was headed to Wayne Manor.
She was headed to the deathbed of her uncle Bruce.
Bruce Wayne had witnessed his parents' savage death at the hands of a common street thug at an early age. The Wayne family owned the land on which most of Gotham City was built. That fortune enabled him to finance his own private crusade against crime. A lifetime of work was now coming to an end.
Those that knew him had expected Bruce to have died years ago. They expected him to eventually die at the hands of one of his foes.
But he'd outlived them. He'd outlived the Joker, the Riddler, Bane, Ivy, Two-Face, Croc, and the rest. The only one he hadn't outlived was Ra's Al Ghul. And that was only because Ra's had access to the Lazarus Pit and could rise from the dead as he had so many times before.
Bruce had even outlived most of his allies. He'd outlived Alfred, his faithful butler and surrogate father. He'd outlived Dick Grayson, his first partner. He'd taken Dick under his wing after the young acrobat had lost his own parents. The first of many young protégés, Dick had been the first Robin and later Nightwing, and even later, Redbird.
Bruce had outlived his dear friend James Gordon, for so many years commissioner of Gotham City's police department. He'd outlived Barbara Gordon, another of his protégés. He'd outlived Jason and Tim and Cassandra, the other protégés that had come after Dick. He'd outlived his other allies, like Dinah Lance, the Black Canary, and Helena Bertinelli, the first Huntress.
His wife, Selina Kyle Wayne, had proceeded him to the grave by nearly twenty years.
About the only people he hadn't outlived had been Clark and Diana. But then, he was a super-charged solar-powered alien and she was an immortal Amazon.
Now, surrounded by his daughter, Helena, "granddaughter" Mari, and his friends Clark and Diana, Bruce Wayne was breathing his last.
Linda Leigh tried to remember the first time she'd come to Wayne Manor. She found that after nearly 60 years, she couldn't. Her parents had no doubt brought her here to "Uncle" Bruce's sometime in her first year of life.
As she touched down lightly in the garden behind the mansion, she did remember the summer she spent here. She'd been 16 at the time. Uncle Bruce had taught her a lot that summer.
Linda Leigh could still hear his voice, as if it had been just yesterday. In her first lesson with Bruce, he'd rushed her unexpectedly, pulled her hair and tossed her on her butt. As she sat crying on the floor of the gymnasium, she had heard him tell her, "Your father can teach you how to use your Kryptonian powers. Diana can teach you about weapons and about honor. But I'm here to teach you how to survive. First lesson: expect the unexpected. Second lesson: your opponents won't always fight honorably."
Those lessons were hard won that summer. And they'd served her well in the years since.
Supergirl took off the air mask and tank. She steeled herself for the task at hand. She'd witnessed so much death over her long years. She was still smarting from her mother's death nearly a decade before. She didn't know how she'd deal with the death of the one man that she respected and loved more than anyone. More than anyone expect for her own father, of course.
The mansion was quiet as she opened the French doors and walked into the vast living room. She assumed the rest were upstairs, in Bruce's room.
She floated up the stairs, her toes dangling scant inches above the edges of the stairs.
At the doorway to Bruce's bedroom, she paused and took a deep breath. She glanced in the mirror on the other side of the hallway. It showed a tall, strong woman. Broad shoulders, short blonde hair. A sky blue skinsuit with a large "S" symbol on the chest. A red "S" bordered by a red pentagon with yellow highlights--the same symbol her father wore on his costume. The mirror also showed a woman that looked barely thirty--although she was much older.
Long life ran in the family. Her father was nearly ninety and only had the tinest bit of grey at his temples.
The mirror also showed that she'd been crying and hadn't realized it. She wiped her eyes and put on a stern face. Another deep breath and then Linda Leigh knocked quietly on the door.
The door opened a moment later. It was her father, Clark Kent. He looked tired, she thought. It wasn't easy watching your dearest friend die.
Clark motioned for her to enter. He didn't say anything.
As she walked into the room, she saw Diana. In an earlier time, Diana had been known as Wonder Woman. Now, she was simply Linda Leigh's "aunt" and her father's girlfriend.
It had taken her father nearly seven years to learn to deal with his wife's death. With all his other friends now gone, he'd eventually turned to Diana for the comfort and understanding she could provide. Being virtually immortal, Diana had lots of experience dealing with friends and loved ones dying.
Linda Leigh just hoped that she could handle it as well as Diana did.
Helena Wayne, Bruce's daughter, was there. She sat beside her father's bed. She was clutching the pendant her mother had given her right before Selina's death so many years ago.
Mari Grayson was standing at the window. As she turned to look at the new arrival, her bright eyes gave away her mixed heritage. She was the daughter of Dick Grayson and Princess Koriand'r of the planet Tamaran. Like her mother, Mari had a mass of thick auburn hair.
"Is that Linda Leigh?" a weak voice said. It came from the frail figure in the bed.
"Yes, Uncle Bruce, it's me," Linda Leigh said softly, choking back the tears that stung her eyes. She moved to the side of the bed opposite Helena.
A hand reached up for her. Even at his advanced age, Bruce's hand felt strong as she took it into her own hands. His hand tightened around hers. He was facing death as fearlessly as he'd faced his foes.
"Linda, honey," he said, his voice weak. "I have something for you."
"Uncle Bruce, you don't have to..."
"I want to return this to you," he said, holding a raggedy teddy bear in his other hand. It had been hidden under the covers beside him. "This is your's, you know."
Linda Leigh couldn't remember the teddy bear from her childhood. She had faint memories of seeing the bear around the mansion during her summer here. She took the bear from Bruce's hand as the tears finally broke free.
"You brought me out of my self-imposed exile," Bruce said, his voice labored. "I don't remember if I ever thanked you for that."
All Linda Leigh could do was fall to her knees and cry. She knelt there for several long minutes, crying and holding her Uncle Bruce's hand. She was scarely aware that Helena was crying also and Mari was attempting to comfort her. Clark and Diana stood vigilante, but helpless, at the foot of the bed.
Between her own sobs, only Linda Leigh's sensitive Kryptonian hearing caught Bruce's last words. His voice was so weak, not even Clark or Diana heard them.
"Mom, Dad, it's me, Bruce."
And Bruce Wayne, the Batman, breathed his last.
Linda Leigh's next conscious memory was of her father placing his hands on her shoulders and helping her stand.
She leaned on her father's shoulder as he lead her from the room. As they left the house, Linda Leigh heard Diana on the phone in the living room, calling the funeral home.
The funeral was four days later. Bruce Wayne had been a strong influence on Gotham City for many years. The city officials wanted to do a public service, as did the management team at Wayne Enterprises. But Helena held firm. Her father's wishes were for a private service.
The small group, Linda Leigh, Diana, Clark, Mari and Helena, stood at the gravesite as the non-denominational minister spoke the appropriate words.
Linda Leigh looked around. She'd since cried herself out. She looked at the monument before them. It was on the Wayne family plot, not far from Bruce's parents. The towering stone already had Selina's name engraved on it. Soon, Bruce's would be.
The Wayne family plot was one of the largest private plots in the Gotham City cemetary. Besides Bruce and Selina, and Bruce's parents, Martha and Thomas, some of Bruce's dearest friends were buried here. Mari's father, Dick Grayson, rested a short distance away. Alfred and Jason also shared the plot. The Gordons, Jim, his wife, Sarah, and his adopted daughter, Barbara, while not in the Wayne plot, were a short distance away.
The day was bright and sunny. Linda Leigh thought it appropriate. Bruce spent so much time in the shadows, it seemed right that it was clear and bright on the day he was laid to rest.
A childhood memory sprang unbidden into Linda Leigh's mind. She remembered a time when she was only nine or ten. She'd just found out that Streaky, her favorite of the cats her grandparents kept around the farm, had died.
She remembered her mother giving her a poem about the Rainbow Bridge. Although it had been many years, Linda Leigh could still remember the poem:
"Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge.
"When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge. There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together. There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable.
"All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor. Those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by. The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing; they each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind.
"They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent. His eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster.
"You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart.
"Then you cross Rainbow Bridge together...."
In the years since, Linda Leigh had developed a bit more pragmatic attitude to life and death. But at the time, the poem and the thoughts behind it helped her deal with her pet's passing.
Linda Leigh felt a tear run down her cheek. I guess I'm not all cried out after all, she thought to herself.
Remembering the childhood poem caused her to picture her Uncle Bruce. She knew that he'd never owned a pet, but in her mind's eye, she saw him walking across the field headed to the Rainbow Bridge. He was strong and confident, as he'd been in her earliest memories. He was wearing slacks and a blazer, not the dark costume he had worn so much.
At the bridge stood Selina and his parents, and all of his friends--Linda Leigh pictured them all in their prime. Even Barbara was walking; although Linda Leigh was too young to have known Barbara Gordon before her spinal injury.
Arriving at the bridge, Bruce kissed his mother and his wife and hugged his father, Alfred, and Dick.
And then all of his family and friends embraced Bruce and the entire group walked across the bridge.
Comforted by this thought, Linda Leigh decided she could deal with Bruce's passing better than she'd have thought.
A couple months later, Helena called Linda Leigh and asked her to visit at the mansion.
When Linda Leigh arrived, there was a moving van outside.
"What's going on?" she asked Helena.
"There are too many memories here," her friend said.
Linda Leigh nodded. She understood. She'd felt the same way about the farm when her grandparents had passed away and the townhouse in Metropolis when her mom had passed away.
Momentarily, she wondered if she'd feel the same way about flying when, some far distant day, her father died. She enjoyed so many fond memories of the two of them soaring through the air, high above the clouds.
"I'm moving into a condo in the city. It'll be closer to the office...you know..." Helena now had the sole responsibility of running the vast Wayne Enterprises.
"I know," Linda Leigh said.
The two women chatted and drank a cup of tea on the terrace overlooking the garden.
"The tea's not the same without Alfred, is it?" Helena said.
Linda Leigh could tell by the tone of her voice that Helena was feeling melancholy and nostalgic.
"I've never cared much for tea," Linda Leigh admitted. "But I loved Alfred's chocolate chip cookies."
"Yeah," Helena agreed. "I'd surprised I ever fit into the costume with his cooking." She patted her now middle-aged thighs. "But, then, you never had that problem, did you?" she laughed.
It was probably the first time she's laughed in months, Linda Leigh thought.
The supervisor of the moving crew tentatively stepped on to the terrace. "We're all done, Ms Wayne."
"Thank you, Carl. I'll be downtown later."
"Yes, Ms Wayne," he said and left.
Linda Leigh waited a few minutes. She eventually heard the moving van pull out of the driveway. She turned to Helena. "So, what did you need?"
"Come on," Helena said, getting up and heading into the mansion.
Once inside, Helena lead Linda Leigh into the den. There, she opened the face of the grandfather clock and set the hands to 11:10. The hidden latch behind the clock clicked open.
With practiced grace, Helena swung the clock aside to reveal a hidden passage.
The two women stepped lightly down the stairs. At various points along the way, Helena stopped to punch codes into innocent looking numeric pads. Linda Leigh could see the mechanisms behind the walls. Failure to put in the right codes would result in three-inch steel doors at both ends of the passage slamming shut and knockout gas flooding the passage.
At the bottom of the stairway, they walked out into a massive cave.
"I've decided to seal this off. It's a part of the past. It needs to be buried...just like..." Helena started to choke up.
Linda Leigh held her friend tight and waited patiently.
After a couple minutes, Helena reasserted her self-control and wiped her eyes.
She pointed at a large steel door. "The mechanism is apparently jammed," she explained. "There's no way to close it."
Using her x-ray vision, Linda Leigh studied the door. It was thirty feet tall and nearly as wide. It sat off to one side of the cave. When slid into place, it would effectively block the entire cave from the mansion above.
"If I close it, how do we get out of here?"
"There are still the passages to the external entrances. They're rigged with explosives. After you leave the cave, I can trigger them remotely," Helena explained.
"After *I* leave? What about you?" Surely Helena didn't want to be left here..., Linda Leigh thought.
Helena laughed again, nervously, "Oh, don't worry about me. I'll go back up the stairs first. And I'll trigger the steel doors up there too."
"Okay," Linda said. She took off her jacket and flexed her arms to make sure her blouse allowed enough room to move.
"I'll see you upstairs," Helena said, heading back up the stairs.
"Okay. I'll be up in a minute or two."
After Helena left, Linda waited until she heard no footsteps on the stairs. Deciding that Helena was safely in the mansion, she approached the door.
Digging her fingers into the frame of the door, she tugged at it. Nothing. She braced her feet on the floor and pushed harder. The door slowly began to move. The immovable object eventually yielded to the solar-powered Kryptonian muscles of the strongest woman on Earth.
It took Linda Leigh a full minute to move the door into it's closed position. The grating of metal against metal had been tremendous and left her ears ringing. She was comforted that no one else on the planet had the strength to open it.
She looked around. The cave was dark; only a few lights were on. She could hear bats far away in some distant chamber. All of the trophies and equipment sat still. The cave was as dead as its former master.
Linda started to leave. She was going to simply fly up the main entrance; the one Batman had used for the car.
As she hovered over the polished stone floor of the cave, she realized that closing the cave permanently was a fitting tribute to the work Bruce had accomplished. Gotham City was now one of the safest cities in the world. It had been years since crime had ran rampant as it had in those early years.
The cave and Batman were no longer needed.
Linda Leigh wiped a final tear from her eye and unleashed her heat vision.
In the stone floor, she burned away the single word "Goodbye" and then turned and left the cave.
Within seconds of Linda Leigh having exited the hidden entrance of the cave, Helena had triggered the explosives and a dull THUMP was heard as the main and auxiliary entrances were closed by tons of collapsing limestone.
Linda Leigh turned in the sky and headed back to the mansion. She tried, unsuccessfully, to tell herself that it was the wind in her face that was causing her eyes to sting.
End