Title: The Writing's on the Wall pt.7

Rating: Pg

Pairing: Helena/Dinah

Disclaimer: I don't own them; I'm only causing them pain

Author's notes: Hmmm. I'm just an Angel with a dirty halo.

Lena's the best and I'm sorry for insinuating that she should know more about prostitution than I do – it's just that I could think of a thousand names to call a john but none, other than punter, seemed appropriate. Thanks Lena for beta'ing grovel, grovel

I am so gonna disappoint a few people with this one.

Part.7

"I hate you Helena Kyle." Dinah screamed as the brunette backed away from her bed. "I don't want to ever see you again … let alone touch me." Venom coursed through her every word. "You disgust me. I hate you."

"Dinah!" Barbara pushed herself forward. She was as shocked as everyone else at the blonde's furious rant. "Helena doesn't deserve this … and you need to calm yourself down."

Barbara's attempt to pacify Dinah only served to infuriate further. "Shut up Barbara. Just shut up." Her anger was now focused on her redheaded guardian. "Don't you even speak to me. Your holier than thou attitude has … Jesus Christ Barbara, you stopped her didn't you?" Adrenaline pumped through her veins like fuel to the flames. "You stopped me … from killing my mother's murderer … and now … you stopped her from killing … him." She was panting heavily as she yelled and shouted her fury. She ignored the rattling of drawers and sloshing of water as the jug on the bedside cabinet shook. "Get out of here."

Barbara dodged to the side as the water jug flew towards her. Whipping her head around she watched in dismay as the glass shattered against the wall near Helena's head. Shards of glass had pierced her skin and rivulets of crimson ran down the brunette's face but she didn't move.

"Get out." Dinah screamed.

The older woman grabbed hold of the irate blonde's face, pressing sharply into bruised flesh. "Stop. This. Right. Now." She glared into molten azure pools.

Dinah returned the glare. Sky blue eyes melted as the other woman kept up with the intense eye contact. She wanted Barbara to turn away first but she wasn't going to. Dinah's chin quaked as they continued to stare. Glassy tears ran along swollen cheeks and dripped onto the bedclothes. "I don't want her here, Barbara." The blonde's voice broke as she struggled to stifle the sobs fighting for release. "Please … ask her to leave."

Barbara didn't need to ask Helena to leave. As the teenager had spoken her last words before breaking down, she had heard a dull thud as the door to the room closed. The redhead didn't know what to do anymore. The two people she loved most in the world were in so much pain and she didn't know how to make it better. She held Dinah tight and murmured comforting nonsense into her ear as her mind tried to figure out a way to help the brunette too.

……….

The redhead sighed heavily as the teenager's breathing evened out to a steady rhythm. She stroked matted strands of golden hair and eased Dinah backwards so that her head was lying against the pillow. Barbara was surprised and relieved to find the blonde had fallen asleep.

"Dick." She breathed, hoping not to wake her ward. Barbara turned so that she could see her friend. "Can you stay here? I need to go and find Helena."

Dick Grayson nodded his reply. He would've gone to his sister himself if he hadn't feared that the angry youth might hurt Barbara. He had kept an eye on the window to the hallway and watched as the tall brunette had talked with a doctor and then sat on a bench outside of the room. "She's just outside, Barbara."

Barbara nodded. She squeezed Dinah's hand gently. "I'll be right back." She whispered.

…………………………………………………………………………………………..

Helena rested her elbows on leather-clad knees and rubbed at her face. She ached all over. The physical exertion of beating the living daylights out of Todd made her muscles throb and all of her crying had made her head pound. She felt sick to her stomach and totally exhausted.

"I'm going back to New Gotham, Barbara." She had heard the motorised wheelchair exit the small hospital room. "I've spoken to the doctor and made sure that Dinah will receive the best possible care." Helena sighed heavily as she raised her cobalt eyes to meet saddened emerald. "I'm taking the helicopter … I'll send it right back … but I won't be at the Tower when you bring Dinah home."

"Helena." Barbara could feel her own heart breaking.

"All my things will be gone when you get back." The brunette pushed herself up onto her feet and looked down at her best friend and partner of seven years. "If you need Huntress's help then call, but I won't come to the Clock Tower … and I won't be forced into working with Dinah."

"Dinah didn't mean what she said, Helena." The redhead didn't want this. Even when she was angry with the other woman for betraying her and lying to her she never wanted this. The three of them were a team – the best team Gotham New and Old had ever seen and now they were breaking apart.

"She means it Barbara. I won't abandon you … you need my help and I'll help. I just can't … It hurts so much." Helena Kyle would not allow herself to cry again. She had done too much crying. She was going to go home and she was going to eat and sleep and then she was going to … she didn't know what she was going to do after that.

"She just needs time." The older woman grabbed for the brunette's hand, afraid to let go in case she never got the opportunity to do it again. "Wait for her, Hel. She loves you; she just needs time to get over everything that's happened to her."

Helena ran a shaky hand through thick brown hair and sighed. "I'll wait for her … I'll wait forever. She knows where I'll be." The brunette slid her hand from her friends grasp. "We hurt each other too much to be around each other at the moment. I can't be near her when she looks at me like she did in that room. She's killing me inside … and I'll let her."

"She loves you."

"And I love her."

"Stay."

"I can't." Helena turned to walk away. "If she ever stops hating me …" She glanced over her shoulder at Barbara as she moved down the corridor. "I'll be waiting." Steel blue eyes glistened as she continued to walk away.

It was Barbara's turn to cry as she watched her friend leave.

…………………………………………………………………………………………..

New Gotham Clock Tower (five days later)

Helena had been true to her word. She hadn't lived at the Clock Tower for almost a year but her things had still been lying around. Her CD's had been in the CD rack, her magazines littered the table, her clothes still hung in the wardrobe of her old bedroom, her gloves were on a shelf in the training room. Everything was gone. There was no longer any trace that Helena Kyle had ever even been there.

Barbara could feel the lump form in her throat and she manoeuvred herself around what used to be their home. Helena had even taken her favourite coffee mug, the one that she had bought her when Dinah had chipped the old one.

"Would you like some tea, Dinah?" She eased her chair backwards so that she could see out of the kitchen door and into the living area. The tall blonde teenager was staring intently at something that Barbara couldn't see until she turned to say please.

Barbara could see a bunch of brightly coloured roses, red and yellow, and wondered why she hadn't noticed them as they had come home. She shook her head and remembered the daze she had been in only a few minutes earlier.

"Yellow for friendship and red for love." The cool British accent resounded from the elevator as the doors slid open to reveal the butler. Alfred came into the living room carrying a bag of groceries. "They arrived this morning." He took the white envelope nestled between leafy stems and handed it to the teenager. It took all the will power he possessed not to gasp at the yellowing bruises all over the young woman's face. "I'll guess that someone knew you were coming home today."

Dinah waited for Alfred to leave her alone before she opened the card. The blonde shook her head as three little words stared back at her. Glad you're home, was scrawled black ink on white and it wasn't even Helena's own handwriting. "Incredible." She breathed as she wrapped her hand around the card and scrunched it into a ball. "Glad you're home?" She dropped the ball into the waste bin in the kitchen and sat at the table.

Barbara sighed at Helena's words. She almost wanted to laugh.

"She's incredible, you know that?" Dinah was still shaking her head as the redhead placed a cup of tea in front of her and then joined her at the table with a cup of coffee.

"Who?" Green eyes looked across the table.

Dinah chuckled. "Don't play dumb with me, Barbara. I know you called and told her we were coming back."

Barbara shrugged her shoulders and sipped at her drink.

"You did, didn't you?"

Barbara nodded her head. "Of course I did. She wanted to know that you were getting better and she wanted to know when you were coming home."

Dinah rolled her eyes. "I don't want her to know anything else about me, you hear me?"

"Don't tell me what to do, young lady." The redhead had just about had enough. Barbara had almost lost Dinah to her abusive boyfriend and she had lost her best friend because of the same abusive boyfriend. She was almost at the end of her tether. If the teenager hadn't been so stupid in the first place none of this would've happened. If only, if only. "You and I need to have a serious talk about Helena before you open your mouth and say something else as stupid as what you've just said."

Neither of the two women saw the grin that encompassed the butler's face as Barbara chided Dinah. Sure, the teenager had been through a lot and Miss Helena had made mistakes but she did not deserve the grief she was being put through because of it.

"I've finished putting the groceries away, Ms. Barbara. I'll be returning to the Manor shortly, if there is anything else?"

Barbara smiled warmly at the aging gentleman who was always there for them. "Thank you Alfred, but that will be all for tonight."

He nodded curtly at the two women and then left.

………..

"I hate Helena and you can't say anything that will change my mind." Dinah's blue eyes flashed with the beginnings of anger. She was surprised by how much anger she felt lately. Anger towards Todd, anger towards Helena, anger towards herself.

"She's in love with you."

Dinah guffawed. "It sure didn't look like it to me."

Barbara chewed on her lip as she thought. This conversation had been coming all week and she had gone over and over what she had wanted to say, but now it all seemed so trite. "She was going to kill Todd for what he did to you but Dick pulled her off."

"She should've killed him." The blonde spat. "If she had wanted to kill him, Dick wouldn't have been able to stop Huntress."

"Huntress wasn't there, Dinah."

Golden eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "I don't get it."

Fine boned fingers raked back through crimson hair and pulled it away from her face as Barbara suddenly realised her in. She knew now how to get to the blonde. She knew now what would make her stop feeling so much anger towards the brunette. "It wasn't Huntress that was murdering Todd … it was Helena. Helena had regained control of herself and it was she who slammed her fist into that boy's face over and over again."

Azure eyes looked disbelieving.

"Do you honestly believe that Helena wouldn't be the one who hurt Todd after what he had done to you?" Barbara continued. "And do you know the only thing that stopped her from killing him?"

"Dick?"

The older woman shook her head. "It's like you said, Dinah, there's no way that Dick could've stopped Huntress or Helena. She had beaten him to a bloody pulp. He was barely alive when the ambulance got there … and the only thing that stopped her was Dick telling her that you were awake."

Dinah couldn't suppress the shudder that wracked her body.

"She stopped pounding on him so that she could come and see you … as quickly as possible." Barbara was on a roll and she wasn't about to stop there. "When you disappeared … she never gave up looking for you. She was killing herself. She wasn't eating and she wasn't even sleeping at first. Then she found a way to be with you."

"What?" The blonde's voice was little more than a squeak. She was almost afraid to ask. "What did she do?"

The redhead took a deep breath and an equally deep swig of strong black coffee. "The only way to be with you was to … sleep, if that's what you could call it. She certainly wasn't getting any rest." Her voice was no longer lecturing and angry, it was calm but pitying. "The memories you gave her … the memories of what happened that night you … slept together, she was reliving them every time she fell asleep. I heard her cry as she slept. They changed. The memories you gave her back became nightmares … but it was the only way she could be with you."

"Oh God." Dinah gasped.

"She loves you so much, Dinah." Barbara moved golden bangs out of azure orbs. "And she's hurting right now because you can't even look at her without hate in your pretty eyes."

"Oh God."

"She would do anything for you."

Dinah closed her eyes and tried to flee from the truth behind the verdant gaze. Helena had hurt her but she had hurt Helena so much more. "I don't know what to do."

Barbara heaved a sigh of relief at finally being able to break through. "Do you still love her?"

"Yes."

"Then tell her."

"Oh God Barbara. I wanted her to kill for me." The tears began to trickle from her eyes.

"She loves you." The redhead swiped at one of the blonde's tears with her thumb before kissing her forehead. "Go and tell her that you love her too." Barbara didn't know when the turn around had happened. She didn't know the exact point when she was no longer mad about the two of them sleeping together. The two young women loved each other. They had been through so much, they deserved some happiness and she was no longer going to stand in their way. "Go on, she's waiting for you."

…………………………………………………………………………………………..

Helena was lying on her bed staring up at the ceiling when she heard the knock on her front door. Surprise rendered her a mute statue when she saw the blonde standing in the doorway.

"Are you going to let me in?" Dinah looked at the brunette through overlong bangs. "I mean … I understand if you don't want me here."

"Come in." Helena swallowed hard and moved to the side. "I … I wasn't expecting you."

Dinah chewed on her lower lip nervously; her eye flittered around the room. "I wanted to thank you for the flowers."

"You wouldn't believe how happy I was that you were well enough to be able to come home." She couldn't help the gush of words as they spilled from her mouth. "I called your doctor everyday and he told me that you were recovering but I didn't expect it to be so fast. The last time I saw you … you were so … I … I … was …"

"Helena, calm down." The young blonde woman stepped towards the rambling woman. She cupped her face in her hands. "Breathe, okay."

The brunette nodded. Her face felt on fire where it was in contact with strong hands.

Dinah smiled as she gazed into familiar cobalt eyes. She could remember now how Helena had held her the night she had found out about Todd. She remembered how Helena had wanted to protect her from him. Dinah remembered the way they had made love in her bed. She remembered the way that Helena had gazed into her eyes as she said that she loved her. "I'm sorry that I hurt you."

"No … it was me." The older woman tried to pull away.

"I hurt you too, Helena, and I'm so sorry."

Helena's breath hitched in her throat as sweet lips touched hers.

"I'm so … so sorry." Dinah sighed as she grazed her lips across the other woman's a second time.

"I love you Dinah." Helena brought their lips together again with a little more passion. Tongues begged for the other's attention as they massaged and licked. The kiss grew in intensity until they were both gasping for air.

"I love you too Hel." Dinah wrapped her arms around the slightly shorter woman's neck. "I don't ever want to be without you again."

"We were meant to be together." Helena beamed as she slid her arms around the blonde's waist and lifted her off of her feet. This was where she had wanted to be for so long, in Dinah's arms, whispering words of love. "Nothings gonna get between us …"

"… Ever again." Dinah finished with a tender smile as her girlfriend and lover carried her to the bedroom. They were going to be together and she had never felt happier.

The end.