Part Rating: PG, cause Babs has "issues" and a mouth. One or two words.

After Oracle shuts down for the night, Barbara has a brutally honest discussion with her Nightwing figure. These last four years, she has always been "the woman in the wheelchair"...aloof, isolated, and, above all, untouchable.... Or is she?





UNTOUCHABLE


Sometimes when we touch
The honesty's too much
And I have to close my eyes and hide.
I wanna hold you till I die,
Till we both break down and cry;
I wanna hold you till the fear in me subsides.
Sometimes When We Touch
Dan Hill



"Cripples R Us"

It's my private joke, twisted as it is.

You know, my physical therapist had a fit when he saw that scrawled on my apartment walls before it was painted over when the Clocktower was being renovated. Said I should be thinking positive, or some such rot that I didn't bother listening to. After all, what do I have to be positive about, to make me smile again?

I'm stuck in this damn chair, for crying out loud. I can't feel a thing below my waist and I can't walk. I've had bullets and shrapnel taken out of me and I wear the scars on both my body and my soul. I spend my life trapped in a prison The Joker created for me.

Tell me what I'm supposed to find that's "positive" in that mess I call my life, Mr Physical "One More Time" Therapist, and maybe you'll start earning the amount of money you keep charging me.

I've been seeing him for a couple of years now, ever since I got stuck like this, and so far he hasn't done a thing except annoy me. A couple of hours each week, I get to sit on some fancy rubber mats while he takes me through a string of exercises to assess how my atrophy's going, and the entire time he's blabbering on like an idiot about "keeping optimistic" and some such rot that I've always tuned out. I'm just lucky that he doesn't charge like some of the yahoos that've tried to treat me. I happen to object to paying good money for an overrated public service, even if I'm not exactly destitute; criminals can't exactly complain to the police if I take from them a little money that's already been stolen, now can they? Then again, even if he did charge like a wounded bull, I couldn't really care less. I'm lucky to be alive, period — at least, that's what they told me at the time.

Yeah, I'm real lucky.

Not.

And it's all your fault, Grayson. I don't know how I ever let you get so close to me that you'd make me feel like this. I thought I had all my defenses in place, all my shields firmly erected...and now I look around to find that they're lying in tatters on the floor around the Chair. I'm a shadow of my former self...and somehow that suits me just fine.

"My former self" wasn't long for this world, anyway.

Even before The Bullet bit me, Batgirl was never really going to be a part of my path anymore, except for the attachment it had allowed me to form with a certain dashing young Robin. Even when I was just about to commit myself to the lonely and grounded path of retirement, I had never really imagined that Dick Grayson wouldn't be walking it with me...not literally, of course. That boy truly has flying in his blood, and I knew I could never ask him to retire with me. Even if I hadn't already had a crash course in the whole Grief game, I knew that I had no right to take away from him the one thing that he had left of his late parents so I wouldn't be alone.

I'll bet you already knew that I lost my real parents before I ever got to high school, even before my thirteenth birthday. Went to live with my Uncle Jim, and he became my "Daddy" instead — he certainly had the whole protectiveness deal well and truly covered within the first couple of days. I think I still have a photo of my parents, the real ones, around here somewhere...but somehow I don't quite feel like finding it.

But from the moment I first heard about a dashing young man with a bright smile and a brighter costume running at Batman's side, I somehow knew that Robin would never let me fall. Becoming Batgirl just seemed so natural at that point. I knew that he'd always be there to support me and to carry me whenever I needed it...and even when I didn't. He was my angel, my shining light...my everything.

He was the reason I let my newfound wings take me up and away from quiet and shy Barbara Gordon to become the smart and dangerous Batgirl...and he was also the reason I gave it all away. Once Batman found out about us, about our relationship.... I quickly found out that without him, without my Robin, Batgirl was finding it very painful to keep going out at night, to be so close to him and yet so far...and so I made the hard choice to retire.

And then I opened the door one fine morning, and suddenly everything changed.

Now I had no choice, all my options stripped away from me to leave me naked and vulnerable in the harsh light of reality. No longer did I want to retire from my night-life; now I had to leave Batgirl and all it meant behind me. My wings were well and truly clipped for me, and somehow that loss of control just made it all the more worse to endure. I've hated every second I've spent since under this suffocating shroud of almost-death.

Now, I face the world from barely a meter above the floor, and I have to say that there isn't much to see down here. Nothing but peoples' legs and unparalleled vistas of the precious movement now denied me. And it hurts inside, aches like you wouldn't believe...or maybe you would. Maybe you really can put yourself in my shoes, but maybe you're just listening to the cripple rant and rave because you've got nothing better to do. Maybe I've finally driven myself round the bend, which I suppose would certainly explain I'm cowardly saying this to a Nightwing action figure instead of the real thing...

Which would also mean that The Joker has finally won and sent one member of the Gordon clan completely and utterly nuts.

Yeah, and maybe pigs really can fly. I'd go to hell first before I let The Joker win the battle he started when he stole my legs from me — which is, by the way, completely okay with me because I'm already there.

Do you know what hurts the most, what really gets at me? Despite what you may think, it's not the fact that my legs might as well be lumps of meat at the market for all the good they do me, although I'd certainly welcome a chance to change that like. It's not even the fact that I can't fly through the night with my Robin anymore except in my dreams, even though that fact does hold for me its own world of pain.

It's the Pity. It's all the times I've wheeled this broken body down the street, and all I see is that damned emotion in people's eyes. I hate it, I really do. I hate the looks I get, the way people glance at the damn chair before they see me, as if I'm secondary to that damn contraption, as if I don't matter as long as I'm trapped like this. I don't care what Mr. Physical "I'm so good" Therapist says, I hate it and I always will for every second I spend in this cage.

I also hate stairs, by the way. Do you know how many buildings in all of Gotham have ramps for the disabled? Have you ever counted them? I have. Yesterday it was fifty, a miserable fifty buildings in the city of a thousand skyscrapers. Forty-two of them are all the WayneTech buildings (even the outbuildings, for crying out loud) and the various hospitals, two more are post offices on the other side of the city, one belongs to Lexcorp, another is the IRS branch, then you have the library and the two local Social Securities offices...and of course, the morgue. But who wants to go to the morgue? Even the shopping centers these days seem to have stairs all over the place.

That's the real barriers in my way, the mountains stopping me from living that vaunted "normal" life.

So now they tell me it's "not healthy" to stay inside all the time, to barricade myself from the world behind my walls with my security system and my work as Oracle. And in return, I'd dare them to spend a day in my shoes, to spend a day in this chair, and then we'll see exactly how well they'd be doing if this was all they had to face every damn day of their lives.

Yeah, I'd like to see them all use the fancy metal-and-steel monstrosities I'm forced to rely on to get around and even to perform the most basic bodily functions. Let's see them wheel their way down the crowded streets where everyone pushes ahead of you as if you've got less right to be there just because you can't use your legs like they can. Let them do battle with stairs and struggle with this miserable chair to get it up something I'd once mounted without a thought. Let them fight the battles I fight every single second of every single hour of every single day, and then we'll see who has problems thinking those positive thoughts. Then they'll see which one of us really has those "anger issues."

Can you tell how bitter I am yet? I've been carrying this burden for a long time, much longer than I generally care to remember. It is something I take with me wherever I go, whatever I do. And with every day that passes, I'd swear that a little bit more of me shrivels up inside.

It's so hard sometimes, to do what I do, to interact as closely as Oracle must with the very same things I long for so badly. Night after night, I sit at my computer and talk to the heroes I once used to be a part of...and I'd be lying if I said that some part of me didn't hate them for having the freedom I lack. Night after night, I have to face what I've lost, and it hurts.

It hurts a lot...a lot more than I'm normally willing to admit.

Heck, the only reason I'm saying this at all right now is literally because...because, well, sometimes things need to be said. Even if it's just to a dumb action figure when no one else can hear me. It's better that way. Personally I think it helps me cope, helps me get a handle on the mess I call Life...until someone says something or does something that throws me for a loop and puts me right back where I started four years ago.

I hate having to rebuild my defenses all over again, but I've never once shirked away from it. I wouldn't be a Gordon if I let a little heartbreak and nostalgia get me down, now would I? I'm a survivor; always have and always will be. More than one person has told me over the years that I've got a stubborn streak big enough to rival the proverbial bad penny that keeps popping up...and maybe even ol' Batty's massive streak. I'm certainly stubborn enough not to let a "little thing" like paralysis drag me down. I don't care what it takes, but I am going to survive this confinement.

Even if it means going it alone.

Especially if it means that.

That's why I know I'd be better off if everyone would just leave me alone, outside of the Oracle stuff. I can cope quite well with a nice, detached, working relationship, but I don't need the attachments of friendships, nor do I really want them. Friends need time, attention, kind words, and companionship...all of which, quite frankly, I don't have left in me to give or the capacity to deal with.

Goodness knows that my work as Oracle takes up almost all of my time and attention. It has gotten the point where a full eight hours sleep is more the rarity than the reality. Besides, all of the BatClan can testify to my fiery temper and the "richness" of my vocabulary. I think even Dinah's been on the receiving end of my tongue when I've gotten going. Kind words are definitely not an option for me. Now companionship? What a laugh. Even Dick has been avoiding me lately. Not that I blame him. Who in their right mind would want to spend time with a bitter and twisted female like myself with more issues than she care to count, huh?

See that, Mr P.T.? I can admit I've got "issues" — most of them relating to anger.

Anger, I have come to believe, is a nice and comfortable emotion. It's something I'm quite familiar with, one of the few friends left to me. Not that an emotion could ever really be as close and trusting as physical friend, but hey, I take what I can get. Besides, I always have anger when I need it the most and the least, which is pretty much the definition of a friend anyway — in my book, anyways.

Anger, I don't have to worry about what it means. It just is, and that's all there is to it. Nothing to worry about, like what it reveals about this battered psyche of mine, or what hidden wound the emotion is revealing. I can just let it wash over me and forget about the world for a while. Nothing worries me, not even what effect the bitter and angry words I fling out are having on everyone around me. It's my ticket to freedom, my 'out' of this dismal prison I'm trapped in. Anger lets me take flight on these clipped wings and releases me, letting me feel more than myself for a few glorious moments...

Then I come crashing down to earth, and the life I have to face seems all the more unbearable for those few too fleeting moments.

So yeah, Anger is good. When I'm angry, I don't have to think about what's making me feel this way. Anger, I can deal with. We understand each other. Fear, on the other hand, is completely unpredictable and uncontrollable...and there's a lot of things I'm afraid of.

I'm afraid that the sentence the doctors' have given me is for Life, till eternity and beyond. I don't want it to be true...I'm not sure I can face it if it's real, and I don't really want to find out. If I keep a firm hold of the hope that this is only temporary, that one day they can rebuild what The Joker destroyed, then I can get through the day with my sanity mainly intact. I can survive. And every day I survive is that one day closer to my ticket out of this chair.

I'm scared that one day...one day The Joker is going to come back to finish what he started. One day I'm going to open that door once more and let him into my life again, and I'm convinced that next time there'll be nothing of me left.

Though I suppose it would be too much to think that that monster would finally put me out of this misery.

I'm also afraid of being alone...actually, it's more like I'm terrified of being lonely than of being alone. I honestly don't mind not having anyone around me — no offense, but then no one would see me talking to a Nightwing doll like this — but that doesn't mean I don't want to completely empty and alone. I'd like to have that kind of friend that stays completely out of the way until you really need it and then goes away when your moment of weakness is over, forgetting all about it until you need them again.

If you happen to know of someone like that, let me know.

But as much as I hate to admit it, Grayson, I'm also scared of you. You terrify me. You represent something that I've tasted but can no longer have, the forbidden fruit to my heart, body, and mind. I haven't forgotten what it was like when we were younger...more foolish and less encumbered by Life... I remember the way you made me feel, the way you made me complete and whole... But it's only a memory, isn't it? It's the past, and that's all I see when I see your face and hear your oh-so-sweet voice. You remind me of what I cannot have...and everything I've lost. Besides, how could you really want me, a woman without her womanhood?

I guess, most of all, I'm terrified of letting myself be touched again. I just want to forget what is like to be loved and to return that love...to feel that I was loved for myself and in spite of myself. See, Grayson, you represent a degree of commitment that at one time I would've given in an instant, but now it's one of which I don't dare let myself dream. What you want is exactly the kind of relationship that this chair denies me. So if I could just forget these persistant feelings that I can't fulfill anymore, the dreams that are beyond me now, then I can be content with this life that I must live.

Don't you see? It's not you that that's the problem — I know you'd catch me, if only I had the courage to let myself go... I know that you'll always be there for me when I call, I really do. And you'll never know how much that means to me...because the problem is me. I can't return your offerings, nor can I reimburse you for the sacrifices you've made for me...for us. I can't keep you hanging on, waiting for something I can no longer give.

It's because I feel like I'm a walking illusion, a shell with nothing underneath. I'm all numb inside, but it's a brittle kind of emptiness, the kind that shatters into a million shards the moment its bumped...and I can't risk losing it. Its all that I have to protect me from Fear, to help me draw on the Anger inside me, to be my refuge throughout the lonely nights when the nightmares and memories come. Without it...I'd be vulnerable, defenseless against anything and everything. I've come too far and fought too hard for my own survival to throw it all away, to surrender my control and my heart that easily.

That is why I do what I do, why I keep pushing you away whenever you come too close. I can't give you what's not mine to give. No matter how much I might wish otherwise or feel differently, I can't be anyone other than a woman in the wheelchair if I want to survive this prison. All I can be is the Oracle, a woman who cannot be touched nor her defenses breached.

I'm sorry Dick, I really am... but this is the way it has to be. It's just better this way. For you; for me.

For all of us.


Dammit, Grayson, you shouldn't make me cry.



Fin.