I still don't own any characters… shocking, I know… I'm sure y'all expected me to buy them before I updated (which might have explained the delay)… but the WB and DC Comics still owns 'em. I'm just borrowing them and will return them in more or less the same condition I found them.
Oh, and still thanks to SamIAm4 for the help.
And thanks to Tigerkid14 and rain1657 for the kind reviews.
For the first time in days, Dinah heard a school bell without a sense of dread or impending disaster. Before she even got to the cafeteria, she saw a familiar head of curly blond hair.
"Gabby!"
"Hi," she said cheerfully, leaning against the wall next to Dinah's locker. "I thought that you might wanna eat outside today."
Dinah raised an eyebrow, and started putting her combination into the lock. "What gave you that idea?" she asked sarcastically. "I've totally got a cheering section every time I walk by the football team."
"Exactly," Gabby said, laughing.
Soon they were walking to the doors, and Dinah asked half suspiciously and half playfully, "So what exactly did you tell Barbara? And why does she think we're going shopping today?"
"That, my friend," Gabby said, dramatically swinging open the doors, "was a masterpiece. Shakespeare could not have thought better on his feet."
"And just how did this supposed masterpiece end up taking one of my Friday nights?" Dinah asked teasingly, stepping through the doors and out into the open.
"First, I covered for not being able to find you after school-" As Gabby trailed off, she stopped walking and turned to her friend. "Where were you?"
"Mr. Goodwin was mad at me," Dinah said truthfully. She just didn't add the part about her teacher being angry with her because she wouldn't leave.
"Well, anyway, I wasn't sure if you'd ditched," Gabby said, guiding them both to the shade of a tree. "So I said that I had to meet my mom so I couldn't talk to you after school. Then I asked her to tell you that I couldn't go shopping with you after your detention and we could go today. And then, for the sympathy factor, I told her that you had just told me about your mom passing away… you know, in case you were in trouble or something for the fight."
"That is a masterpiece," Dinah admitted grudgingly, "but you should've just told me. When Barbara told me that you stopped by her class, I was afraid that you'd told her everything."
"Me?" Gabby asked indignantly, putting her hands on her hips.
Dinah sighed sadly and sat down under the tree. "I'm sorry. Things haven't been making much sense lately."
"I can imagine," Gabby commented, sitting down next to her. Then she shook her head. "Actually, no, I can't. I have no idea what you must be going through."
Dinah shrugged and leaned her back against the tree trunk. "You know what it's like?" she asked, staring straight ahead.
"No, what's it like?" Gabby asked softly.
"I keep having this dream where my mom comes and takes me away from Barbara and Helena and Alfred. My mom just kind of drags me into this darkness and I feel like I'm spinning away… and then, when I wake up, I still feel it."
"The darkness?"
"No," Dinah said, making eye contact with her friend for a moment. "The spinning."
"Oh," was all Gabby could think of to say.
Dinah laughed at the obvious confusion in her friend's voice. "You know that saying about that Irish drunk guy? You know, that an Irishman isn't drunk as long as he can hold on to a single blade of grass and not fall off the face of the Earth?"
Gabby laughed. "Yeah, I know that one."
"That's what I feel like," Dinah explained. "Like, no one can see what's wrong because they're all walking. But, to me, the ground's spinning, so I'm holding on as tight as I can…"
"To your mom?"
"No!" Dinah said, adamantly shaking her head. "Barbara and Helena and Alfred. It's like they were the blades of grass keeping me stable, and my mom came and tried to cut me away."
"She kinda did, huh?"
Dinah nodded. "Barbara and Helena keep thinking that I'm messed up because my mom died… but, honestly…"
"It's that your mom came," Gabby finished, finally understanding.
"Does that make me a bad person?" Dinah asked, looking at her friend pleadingly.
"To want to stay with a family that loves you?" Gabby asked skeptically. "That just makes you human."
Dinah shrugged and looked away. Then she asked softly, "What if Barbara and Helena don't see it that way?"
"Is that why you were afraid I'd told Ms. Gordon?" Gabby asked.
Dinah nodded, looking down and absentmindedly playing with a piece of grass.
"Ms. Gordon was really worried about you when I talked to her," Gabby finally commented, choosing her words carefully. "She wants you to be okay. I don't think she'd judge you for not wanting to be with your mom. And, maybe, the way you've been acting has them afraid that you don't trust them enough to talk to them. It might make them think that you don't think of them as family anymore."
Dinah's gaze jerked towards her. "I never thought of it that way…"
"Have you tried talking with them?"
Dinah's back stiffened against the tree trunk and she pulled her legs to her chest. She shook her head and looked at the school in front of her, her eyes subconsciously straying to the windows of Barbara's classroom. "It's too hard. And it doesn't make a difference when I talk to them. When I told them that I didn't want to go with my mom, they were going to make me go, anyway."
"They thought that she was your family. Maybe you need to tell them different."
Dinah shrugged and began to squirm, so Gabby let it go.
As soon as the bell rang signaling the end of the school day, Rusty raced outside.
His teacher stood up hastily to tell him to slow down, but just sank back down into her chair. 'The hell with it,' she thought to herself. 'It's Friday; let them all run if they want to.'
He started to walk home and was all the way at the school gate before he remembered that he was supposed to wait for Christina. He really wanted to go play at the park, but last time his sister got really mad at him and told Dad, and then Dad had been really mad at him, too. So he walked back to the school buildings and sat down by the sign, pulling out a Looney Tunes comic book from his back pocket.
Christina was always late because the High School teachers didn't let her go as early as his teachers did. Rusty had told her to tell them that he had to wait for her so that maybe they would let her go earlier, but Christina just said that it didn't work that way. He figured that maybe they all got into trouble, and that was why the teachers kept them so long after school was out. But he was a good brother; he didn't want to get Christina in trouble with Mom or Dad, so he didn't say anything.
Most of the kids were gone, except for a few waiting by the school sign, when a man Rusty didn't recognize walked up to them.
"Will?" the man asked to a kid next to Rusty from a different class.
The blond haired boy looked up. "Yeah?"
"Your mom told me to come and take you home because she's running late at the doctor."
Will's eyes widened. "The doctor?"
"Yeah," the man said soberly. "She's sick so she told me to take you home."
"Oh," Will said, standing up. "Is she okay?"
"I don't know," the man said. "Why don't you come with me and we'll go see her together."
Will nodded, so the man took his hand and they started walking away.
Something about this was sounding awfully familiar to Rusty for some reason. "Wait!" he suddenly cried out, remembering what his sister had told him.
Both the man and Will stopped.
"Do you have the password?" Rusty asked anxiously.
"Password?" the man asked, looking down at the little boy who was holding his hand.
"My dad says that if anyone's mom or dad gets hurt, they'll send someone with the password."
Will looked at both of them skeptically, but then his eyes gleamed with the fun of it. "Yeah! What's the password?"
Rusty nodded emphatically and looked up at the man expectantly.
The strange man looked annoyed and angry. "Did your mom give you a password?" he asked, looking down at Will. It reminded Rusty of the grown-up voice his mom used when she talked to his dad before she said "I'm NOT yelling!"
Will shook his head.
"Well, then, why would she give me a password that you don't know?"
Rusty scratched his head. He had to admit, he didn't know that one.
"We'd better get going," the man said.
Will nodded, and the two of them walked away together, leaving Rusty with the feeling that something hadn't been quite right. He watched them get into a car and drive away, still trying to put his finger on it. Right as the car faded from sight, he caught a look at the license plate and burst out laughing.
"He named his car after a putty tat," he said out loud, settling back down near the school sign. He cocked his head and gave it another few seconds of thought, and then shrugged and opened his comic book back up.
Maybe Christina would take him to play at the park.
"So, then the kid growls, 'I am the Batman! Half man, half bat! I fly through the night to stop bad guys and suck their blood!'"
Gabby laughed as they waited at the red light. "It's so cute when little kids believe in stuff like Batman or the tooth fairy."
Dinah laughed out loud and made a mental note to tell Helena that Gabby had just compared her father to the tooth fairy… and wondered how long it would take for the picture of a pink batman with delicate white wings to get out her head. Now there was an image to strike fear into the hearts of evil doers.
"You know how long it's been since you've laughed at anything?" Gabby asked.
Dinah shrugged and looked away. The light turned green and the car began to move forward, but she could still feel her friend's gaze.
Sighing loudly, she said, "Okay, you win. I really needed to get out."
Gabby didn't say a word but smiled in self appreciation.
Dinah scowled playfully. "But you didn't need to trick me into it," she insisted. "I would've gone."
Gabby raised an eyebrow and risked a glance at her friend.
Dinah laughed. "Okay, maybe not-" she stopped and looked out the window. "Hey, drop me off here."
"Why?" Gabby asked, slowing down. "We're still a few blocks away."
"I want to say hi to Christina and Rusty," Dinah said.
"Who?" Gabby wondered, pulling over.
"Christina's a freshman in one of Barbara's classes. Her little brother was the kid I was telling you about," Dinah explained, pointing to a curly haired blond girl arguing with a blond little boy. "I'll call you later, okay?"
"Sure," Gabby said. "See you later."
Dinah got out and shut the door behind her, waving through the window as Gabby drove away. She quickly crossed the street to the small playground, where Christina and Rusty were arguing.
"You said I could play at the park!" Rusty insisted, almost in tears.
"You did play at the park," Christina replied exasperatedly.
"Only five minutes!"
"We've been here for half an hour!"
"Hey, you guys," Dinah said, walking up to them. "What's wrong?"
"Hi, Dinah," Christina said, shrugging. "Rusty wants to keep playing, but I've got things to do. No big deal. How's that stuff going with Ms. Gordon?"
"Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that," Dinah said, looking away. "Um... thanks for listening the other day. I wasn't very nice to you when we were talking or yesterday in the cafeteria-"
"No problem," Christina said, cutting her off. "It's personal stuff so I shouldn't have asked. I was just already in big sister mode and remembered that you're supposed to comfort others with the comfort you've received... and kind of didn't think about the fact that we don't know each other too well."
"Big sister mode?" Dinah asked, raising an eyebrow. "I'm older than you."
Christina shrugged, unperturbed. "Big sister mode is hardly ever for Rusty," she explained. "Something bugs him, everyone knows it. Nah, mostly it's just for listening to our parents unload some stuff."
Dinah didn't know what to say to that. But she still felt bad, so she said, "Why don't you go home and I can watch Rusty while he plays. In another half hour, I'll walk him home."
Christina frowned, but Dinah could tell she was already sold on the idea. "I don't know… are you sure?"
"Yeah," Dinah assured her, shrugging and rearranging the strap of her purse on her shoulder. "I don't feel like going home quite yet, and I bet Rusty knows the way home from here."
"I sure do!" the little boy chirped, recognizing a situation that would let him keep playing at the park.
"Well… okay," Christina finally said. "But, Rusty, you don't give Dinah any trouble, okay? When she says it's time to go home, you go right home!"
"Okay," he readily assented, running off.
"Rusty!" Christina called after him. "Promise?"
The little boy stopped just long enough to turn around and give a hurried, "Promise!" before he started playing on the monkey bars.
"Thanks a ton!" Christina said.
"No problem," Dinah answered. "I'll walk him home in half an hour."
As Rusty played, Dinah sat herself at one of the wooden picnic tables and looked through her bags and then her purse.
She was thoroughly bored in less than a minute.
"Hey, Dinah?" Rusty called, making her look up.
"Yeah?"
"Do you know how to play Batman?" he asked solemnly, hanging upside down from the monkey bars.
Dinah shook her head. She had a feeling she was going to regret it (especially if it involved hanging upside down to sleep), but she asked, "How do you play?"
Rusty reached up and grabbed the monkey bars with his hands and quickly unhooked his knees from the bars and dropped to the ground. "It's easy. We've just got to beat the bad guys."
To demonstrate, he gave a mighty kick and a punch to fell invisible opponents. "See?"
Dinah nodded and abandoned her shopping bag and purse, walking closer. "What do you know about Batman?"
"He's a good guy," Rusty answered confidently. "He helped people."
At least the kid had the essentials down. "That's true. But Batman was just a regular guy. He had help from lots of people… and I think that they could even beat him."
Rusty cocked his head. "Beat Batman?" he asked incredulously.
Dinah nodded soberly. "Yeah. See, Batman left a while ago, so now other people protect the city."
"Why'd he leave?"
"Some people that he loved got hurt."
"Were they hurt bad?"
Dinah nodded solemnly.
Rusty considered this, cocking his head. Finally, frowning, he commented slowly, "Christina says that you need to be extra nice to people when they're hurt. She says that's when they need help."
"That's true," Dinah told him, sitting down on one of the swings. "I think he thought that staying wouldn't help them... That staying would only hurt them worse."
"That's what Dad said," Rusty said sadly. "He said that staying wouldn't help things. So he left."
For a moment, Dinah was stunned into silence. This was most definitely not what she had intended to do by telling the little boy about Batman and heroes. Horrified, she thought to herself, 'Great! I'm with the kid five minutes and I've made him cry! Geez, Dinah, no wonder people don't like having you around for very long!'
"I wish he had stayed," he said quietly. "I'm mad at him for going. I miss him." He looked away and wiped at his eyes absently, adding as if defending himself, "Christina says that's okay."
"Oh, it is, sweetie," Dinah was quick to assure him, enveloping the little boy in a hug. "It's okay to be mad at someone and still want to get to know them."
As Rusty sobbed into her shoulder, Dinah wondered if it really was. Surely nothing else could be expected of this poor little kid. But if it was all right for him to feel that way… was it all right for her, too? Her first instinct was to say that it wasn't. That she shouldn't have thought such things about her mother and Barbara and Helena would be angry with her if they knew. But…
What was the difference?
As the sobbing slowly eased into hiccups, Dinah asked softly, "Do you want to go home?"
Rusty nodded into her shoulder.
Dinah eased the little boy away from her and went to pick up her shopping bag and purse. When she returned, Rusty seemed embarrassed about his display of emotion and refused to make eye contact with her. She didn't really know what to say, anyway, so she let it go and started walking in the direction she'd seen Christina take.
At the street, she remembered what the little boy's older sister had done and said, "Hold hands crossing the street."
Rusty gave her his hand without looking up. He felt her take his hand and then she stopped walking. He thought that she was only looking both ways before she crossed the street, like Mom and Dad were always reminding him, but it seemed to take an awfully long time. When he looked up, he saw Christina's friend just staring straight ahead. He tugged at her hand, but she didn't move or say anything.
He thought that saying her name would help, but all of a sudden he couldn't remember it. He finally settled on a hesitant, "Uh, lady? Are you okay?"
Then she finally let go of his hand, but instead of answering him, she took a cell phone out of her purse. He didn't see her dial, but she started talking into it, so maybe the phone number was already kept inside of it.
"Barbara… I think I've found the murderer."
