Note: Hey, bet you all didn't expect to hear from me so soon huh? Well the thing is that I've decided to make the chapters shorter, because it means more suffering for all of you (Laughs maniacly) So here's the next part.

Disclaimer: Once more from the top, I don't own them, and unless I become a millionaire I never will. Or will I? No I won't.

"Huntress? Huntress! What's going on?" Oracle asked both panicked, and worried.

Helena tried to voice the words, but all she was capable of doing was mouthing syllables through her shock. At this, Dinah couldn't help but smile lightly, she had never seen Helena so flustered before. Slowly Helena raised her hand needing the contact to make sure that it really was Dinah standing in front of her. "How could she be gone so long, and just come back out of the blue?" She thought to herself. Her hand was just about to connect with Dinah's cheek, but Dinah shied away from her touch causing Helena to withdraw her hand confused. "Please don't do that again."

"What? I mean why?"

"Huntress! Tell me what's going on right now!" Oracle ordered.

Swallowing heavily Helena finally answered, "We'll be at the clock tower in a minute. You can see for yourself then." To Dinah she said, "Let's go." She turned away hiding the tears that were forming in her eyes; she didn't know that Dinah could already feel what she could.

As they were leaving the building an ominous, cold, and cruel wind whipped at them, each seeking comfort within their coats. "Huntress," That was Dinah's way of subtly warning Helena to turn back into Huntress, "Something's wrong; I can sense it." For a few moments all was calm, and Dinah was beginning to wonder if she was just being paranoid.

"Dinah, there's nothing here. Now come on." Helena tried to persuade, and just as Dinah was about to follow her senses were telling her to move. She barely managed to dodge a bullet that would have buried itself deep between her two shoulder blades. "Oh fuck. Dinah, you okay?" Helena asked, concern showing in both her voice and eyes.

"Yeah." Turning and scanning the area with their eyes, they both sighed being unable to locate the sniper. "We should get going, and one more thing." Helena turned her attention to Dinah, cocking her head a little, "When we're in the street, call me Canary, not Dinah." With that said she began walking down the street towards the clock tower; Helena stayed in place for a moment, hurt by Dinah's words, but there was no way that she would ever let Dinah know that.

Dinah hadn't meant to be so curt, but right now she had a really bad headache, and just wanted to be able to sit down for a little bit. Unbidden, the memories of her time as part of the birds of prey came back to her. They were all such happy memories, far happier than the rest of her life anyway. Even when Helena hadn't been accepting of her, which was the hardest, no second hardest, part of her time there, she was always so much happier than she had ever been with the Redmond's. With the good memories though, came bad ones; like the man she had killed. Her step faltered, and she had to consciously beat back the memories; she still hadn't spent the time to work towards getting over what she had done.

When Tek had told her to get some help for this, logic told her that Helena, and Barbara were right there for the asking, but another part of her was so afraid. What did they think of her? Did they even remember her? Did they even care to? At first she asked Tek to bring in anyone besides her to do this, but of course Tek convinced her that she had to do this, that it was for the greater good, for herself, for Gothem, and (even though she didn't believe him) for Barbara and Helena. Things had changed though, she was different, and she couldn't force herself to believe that Barbara and Helena hadn't. Who knows what had gone down while she had been away; after all, five years is a long time. (Note: In this I'm saying that Dinah was sixteen when she left, so she is now twenty-one. I'm also going to say that Helena was twenty.) No, there was no way that things were the same.

Helena had seen Dinah falter, and wanted to ask what was wrong, but the tough bad ass in her wouldn't let her, that and the fact that Dinah seemed to be deep in thought. While Dinah continued with her thought process, Helena took a good look at her, when before she had been little miss sunshine, she now seemed so weathered, and an aura of depression seemed to surround her. "And what was up with that whole not letting me touch her thing? I'll ask her later." When Dinah had left, it cut her deep; deeper than she'd like to admit, but it did. She refused to acknowledge it, however, because then it would mean that she cared about Dinah more than she had wanted to. All she wanted from super kid was someone who she could barely stand to work with; that way she wouldn't get attached, and if she didn't get attached, then she couldn't get hurt. The only problem was that she did get hurt, and that pissed her off, which she then reflected onto the crooks and metas she faced day in and day out. For months every bad guy who came to Gothem felt Helena's wrath as no other ever had before, all because Dinah had to leave.

Back in the clock tower, Barbara was also deep in thought, "Did Helena really say what I think she did? Dinah. She's been gone for so long." Barbara glanced over to a picture sitting on her desk; it was a picture of the three birds together. They had been on a picnic, deciding that they were long over due for a bank; it had been Dinah who suggested it, Helena who opposed it, and Barbara who was the peacemaker. In the end though, they all wound up going out with a picnic basket full of all sorts of goodies made by Alfred. The day had started with them chatting as just friends, versus talking as coworkers, then it went on to the actual lunch, followed by some more talk and a game of Frisbee. Helena had accused Dinah of cheating several times, thinking that she had been using her telepathic powers, but at the end they had all been so happy, and relaxed.

Ever since Dinah left things hadn't been the same. She was always their light, whenever they questioned why they were doing their job, she would remind them. Whenever they were down she could bring them up, much like helium; whenever they were angry she could come in bright as sunshine with an air of tranquility to calm their frayed nerves. Now, maybe all of this wasn't exactly true, but she did manage to calm down Helena quite a few times, and it was how everyone in the clock tower viewed her, consciously or not.

The trek to the clock tower had been filled with an awkward silence, which neither Helena nor Dinah knew how to break. Ridding up in the elevator was even worse, both were in close proximity to each other, and Dinah was fidgeting due to her worry over Barbara's reaction. Helena kept sneaking small glances at Dinah, trying to gauge her mood; it was written all over her face how nervous she was. Attempting to comfort her, Helena laid a hand on her shoulder frowning slightly when she felt Dinah flinch, but since she didn't move away, Helena kept her hand where it was. At last they had reached the topmost floor, Dinah sucked in a deep breath just before the doors opened, and blew it out while they were opening. Both stepped out of the elevator, Over by the couch was Barbara; the person Dinah had been dreading seeing. She hurt them both, after five years she finally realized that, but where as Helena would bitch her out later, Barbara would hold it all in, leaving Dinah unsure of where she stood with her.

They strolled over at a leisurely pace seeing as Dinah was in no hurry to get there, but as soon as they did, Helena took a seat on the arm of the couch closest to Barbara, while Dinah took a seat near the two, but far enough away so that she was comfortable. "Hey" She greeted quietly.

"Dinah, is it really you?" Barbara breathed.

"It's her alright, and I think that she has some questions to answer. Number one being where the fuck have you been?"

Dinah's gaze lowered to the floor quickly, "Around, all sorts of different places. The longest I ever stayed in one place was a little over a year in Boston. That's where I met Tek."

"And Tek is your information source." Stated Barbara, "He's like me then."

"He's not just my info guy, he took care of me when I needed help; he's like a father to me." Dinah explained, a fond smile on her face.

"What? We weren't good enough to help you? You had to go find somebody else? Couldn't hack it as a super hero in Gothem so you had to go somewhere else, and make someone else care. You'll probably just ditch them to with your track record." Helena accused, but there was an underlying tone of hurt in her voice, which Dinah was able to pick up on.

"Helena, stop it! What help Dinah? Couldn't we have helped you? Helena and I still aren't entirely sure why you left in the first place." Once again Barbara was playing mediator, and now was trying to convey her, and Helena's side of things.

"I had to leave. There was just no way I felt I could've stayed here." She let out a heavy sigh, "I felt like I had betrayed you, and the fact that I killed a man, it . . . it just, I felt so guilty. You always told me Barbara, that we never kill, and I broke that rule. To see either the contempt or pity on your faces everyday would've just broken that thread that I was hanging on by. There, um, there was another problem to, but I didn't realize it until a few months later; it's why I have to take those injections." Admitted Dinah, it hurt so much to get all this out in the open, and she was afraid to look either of them in the eye for fear of what she would see there.

"Damn it Dinah! I- we could've helped you. You should know that you can trust us. Barbara once killed a person, well not really, but thought that she had for years, she could've related. And me, I live with that blood lust all the time. Who could've possibly helped you better?"

"Nobody! Okay, nobody. And I know that now, but back then I was scared as hell, I had finally gotten away from the Redmonds, and I thought that my life would be great. I come here, and at first you hated me; I dealt with that though, and then you finally accepted me for me, but things can never stay happy for long, so my mom came along and then she died. Later you two were kidnapped, and I completely snapped, there was no mercy in my mind, all that mattered was that I got you two back; no matter how many I people I hurt or killed in the process! And I couldn't take the chance of that happening again, because you see Helena, you weren't the only one who cared." While she had started out yelling, the end wound up being quiet, and sounded dejected.

"I- I'm sorry. I, I shouldn't have yelled like that." Helena quickly apologized, not having realized the depth of Dinah's feelings about the subject.

"It's alright Helena, I don't blame you." After a moment of silence Dinah spoke up once more, "Aren't you going to say anything Barbara? It worries me, you sitting there quietly."

"I know the guilt Dinah, I know what it does to your thought process, so I won't get mad at you for running away. What I want to know is what medicine?"

"There was a problem that, uh, you didn't pick up when, uh, Alec injected me with that stuff."

"What did it do?" Asked Barbara worried.

"It messed with my abilities, and as they grew, the effects got worse. I used to be just a hand touch telepath, and a telekinetic, but it's different now. I can sense emotions, and almost every touch makes me see something, I still have the dreams, and I can sometimes sense emotions or bad things that might happen, which is how I dodged that bullet, plus my telekinesis is stronger."

"Well, isn't that a good thing. It sounds to me like that drug helped you." Helena shrugged.

"It's not good, all of those changes were natural, but with the drug, it made it painful to use them; I take the medicine to lessen the effects. If I didn't then I would probably wind up collapsing in the street from the pain. But the medicine isn't entirely helpful, I can still get hurt badly while using my powers, so I have to cover up, and not let people touch me. It's also why I'm more proficient at hand to hand, weapon to weapon combat because otherwise I'd be killed." Dinah spoke nonchalantly, as though it were absolutely nothing important, and meeting Helena and Barbara's eyes for the first time.

"When did this start? Wait, hold on, I want to get a sample of your blood." Dinah nodded and the conversation moved over to the technical section of the tower. Barbara was about to wrap the elastic around Dinah's arm when she stopped her.

"Gloves, remember, pain, most likely unbearable." Barbara nodded, and after she put the gloves on managed to draw the blood she had requested, a small off-handed wave signaled Dinah to continue. "I suppose it started about two or so months after I left."

"So that's why you talk all casual about it; you're used to it." Helena pointed out; Dinah gave a small nod of agreement.

"I can't believe I didn't see it before. I'm sorry Dinah, I should've seen this earlier, then I."

Dinah cut her off before she could say anymore, "Nobody could've seen this Barbara. It's Alec's fault, not yours, not Helena's, and not mine. For now let's just move one, we haven't solved our problems, but we don't have time to dwell on them right now. There are more pressing matters, like the Kaze here in Gothem."

Note: Okay I figure it's time to explain things a little. The thing is that I was planning on a little bit of writers block about this time since that's what usually happens, and with writers block for this story, comes the unwriters block for my other story. Now maybe, just maybe the next chapter will take longer, but I don't know. Thanks to all who reviewed, really do appreciate it.