Chapter 2: Like a Thief in the Night
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The sun had set by the time the meeting finished up. Hera, how much more tiring it is to sit in a meeting than to fight for your life! Phillipus had asked that I take a part of this time at home to bring them up to date on my mission in Patriarch's World. At the end of my report, I felt obliged to admit how discouraged I felt that I had not been able to make more of a difference. I was very surprised when Phillipus had laughed and told how much it seemed to them. The other Amazons, who remembered their enslavement by Heracles, had never expected Patriarch's World to change quickly or easily. They were still surprised that it changed at all. Menalippe told me that I would see things differently once I had lived a bit longer, say a few hundred years. In that time, who knew what changes might be possible?
I know they meant to encourage me, but the thought that I might have to wait several hundred years to see real change depressed me instead. I hurriedly collected the offering to burn at Donna's grave and headed down the path leading to it. I felt once more the terrible guilt overcome me. Guilt that I was alive and Donna dead. Guilt that in the last weeks I had not shared with her what was most important to me, had in fact hardly spoken more than a few words at a time to her, lest I let slip what Bruce wanted kept secret. Guilt that I had not known what was happening with her. Dick and several of the other long-time Titans had stayed on Themyscira after the ceremony and we had shared memories and stories of Donna. It was only then that I had learned of the terrible nightmares that had beset Donna in her last months. If I had shared my news with her, instead of avoiding her, would she have shared hers?
I turned the corner and stopped. There was something there, in front of Donna's grave, something dark and shapeless. Then he stood up and I saw the roses he had lain in front of her statue and, even before he turned around, I knew who it was.
"You!"
Batman blinked and averted his gaze. "Diana," he said in a neutral voice.
"What are you doing here?"
For a long moment, I thought he wouldn't answer. Then he said, "You aren't the only one who mourns her passing."
"You?" I said scornfully. "You hardly knew her."
"You're right. I never bothered to get to know her. Isn't that a reason to mourn? She was one of my son's closest friends and he blames himself for her death. Isn't that a reason to mourn? She was your sister and you miss her bitterly. Isn't that a reason to mourn? She was a great hero in her own right. Isn't that a reason to mourn?"
He turned back to gaze on Donna's grave and, in a whisper, added, "And she is yet another I failed to save." He turned back, still refusing to look at me. "I mourn them all, each and everyone of them."
"Do you put flowers on all their graves?" I asked skeptically.
"At least once. I try to return on anniversaries, but there are too many to do that regularly."
He moved to pass me on the path, but I put out my arm to stop him.
"And do you have to come like a thief in the night?" I asked with a bitterness I had not realized I felt. "Sneaking in and out without a word to anyone?"
"You made it clear you didn't want to see me. I was trying to conform to your wishes."
I laughed; a bitter old woman's laugh. "I said 'go away' and you assume it's forever? Is that it? Can you not even bring yourself to look at me anymore? Bruce, if you are trying to make me angry, you are going about it the right way."
He looked at me then, with an intensity and longing that took my breath away. "Diana..."
He stopped and held a hand to his ear. "Go ahead, Oracle.... You're breaking up, switch to another channel.... Oracle, are you there? Oracle?"
He frowned and closed his eyes. Then he stiffened; a shudder passed through him and a groan of the purest agony escaped from between his gritted teeth. I caught him before he hit the ground.
"J'onn," he sighed.
J'onn? Automatically, I reached mentally for that link with J'onn which we all had shared for so long.
'J'onn? Are you there?'
Suddenly, I was inundated with pain; burning, wracking pain. The very air seemed to sear my lungs.
'I burn, I burn! H'ronmeer, the pain! Help me! Help me!' Then nothing.
I cringed, not daring to breathe until my body screamed for air. I pulled in a wracking, sobbing breath and the air was cool and clean again.
'J'onn?'
Nothing.
Batman was climbing to his feet. "Do you have your invisible plane here?"
"Yes." I gestured towards the field where I had landed it days ago.
"Get us there fast," he commanded. I grabbed him under the arms and flew towards the plane. "Wouldn't the teleporters be quicker?"
He shook his head. "No, the teleporters..."
Suddenly, the night was as bright as day. Startled, I looked up to see the moon brilliantly illuminated by a rapidly expanding fireball where the Watchtower had been.
Batman continued, as if nothing had happened, "...are no longer secure."