Title: All Bets Are Final (epilogue)
Chapter Completed: April7, 2005
It couldn't be avoided, and at least it wasn't the dark, dangerous ward in the basement. But Sara Adams was now an inmate being held behind the walls of Arkham Asylum.
Once Batman and Robin had awakened from the fog of their own minds, a new set of questions presented themselves. In front of them stood the wanted criminal being comforted by an unmasked vigilante. What was more puzzling to the men was the familiarity between the two women. So much had gone on here, but no explanation was offered, just a pointed look and the offer of two captured rogues. Things had changed, or maybe the changes were just finally being noticed by the other two.
The handing over of The Joker and The Penguin had aided Sara in being given one of the nicer accommodations in the prison asylum. It also didn't hurt that she had made influential friends. And it all seemed to spell the end of Star. An existence that would become a myth in the memory of Gotham, but a loose end to its underworld.
Barbara Gordon waited on the other side of the cell. "How are you?" she offered the careful question.
"I've seen nicer places, but it's good to have some time alone," Sara smiled at her bad joke, assuring the other woman that there was no need to tiptoe around that subject.
She returned the secret smile, "Are you alright?" Three simple words asking more than their individual meaning.
"I will be," she nodded. She believed it. She would be, with time and healing – and understanding. What she didn't believe was that THIS place was going to cure her, it wasn't their cure that she needed…if it was a cure that she needed at all. "How about you Babs? How are you doing?" she locked eyes with the other woman.
A blush tinted her cheeks as she turned away quickly.
"I'm not a villain," she added in a quick, sharp breath.
"I never thought you were," Barbara confessed, a part of her felt a sort of hero-worship for the younger woman in her ability to just be, and another was almost ashamed of it. It was a strange, new chapter of her life that was restarting. "With everything I could never really think of you as a villain, nothing like them," she had a thought of the relationship between Bruce and Selena. But was she really a villain either – or was everything shades of grey?
"I'd better get going," Barbara excused herself, offering a shy, sad smile, "I'm late, but I will be back."
Sara nodded; the other woman always left once the conversation turned to her. And without using her gift it was impossible to know exactly what was going on in her head. So a simple smile and wave was how they said goodbye.
Sara watched her pass through the locked doors and by the armed nurses. She put her hand over her chest, a thin layer of coloured cotton separated her from the white scar that lay under it, "But I'll never be a victim again."
x x x
"Daddy," Barbara jogged up to her father, Police Commissioner James Gordon, "Sorry I'm late." She stretched up to plant a kiss on his cheek.
"It's alright, gives me an excuse to spend some more time outside," he smiled, happy to see his daughter at all, "So, were you off on some date, and couldn't pull yourself away?"
She blushed, "Um…sort of, something like that." She cleared her throat; "So, where do you want to take me for lunch?"
"Ah…I'm paying am I?" he chuckled, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, he took comfort in these moments where nothing seemed different. The moments where he could pretend that there was nothing outside of them, where there were no Bats or crazed villains running around in the shadows.
"You'd love me no matter what, right Dad?" the question jumped out between them.
"Of course," he gave her a puzzled looked, "There's nothing you could do, or be that would make me not love you." He watched her closely: There was always something else that was bubbling just under the surface and it couldn't be ignored forever, "Is there something you want…or need to tell me?"
Yes! Millions of things. But no idea where to start. "Not yet," she choose her response carefully, flashing him that warm smile again, "But I will."
END
A/N: My friend will be happy to note that I finally finished this one…not that he was reading it, just that I finished it at all. A year later, but still.
