Disclaimer: See previous chapters.
Timeline: Knightfall. For those of you who read my first story, Mayday, this story takes place four years later.A/N: Prior to 2003, Ontario high schools went up to grade thirteen. Callie did skip a year in elementary school.
A/N: Just realized, I've been using this space to acknowledge almost everyone except my most faithful reviewer. So, giveGodtheglory, I just wanted to say, thanks for the encouragement!
Chapter 9
Once Upon a Time in the Yukon
Callie looked around her at the other six people in the library. She was sharing a leather-upholstered couch, with Natalie on her left and Alison on her right. Tim sat in a leather armchair placed at a right angle to the couch. Alfred had moved one of the straight-backed chairs in line with it. Bruce was between them. Jaime lay face down across a footstool with a velvet cushion. He had flopped over it, stomach-first, and used his arms to push his way across the room, coming to rest next to the wheelchair. Bruce's hand brushed his shoulder, and the boy rolled onto his side and grinned up at him.
"Mr. Vallee will be unable to join us at this time," Alfred stated.
Callie nodded her acknowledgement. She drew a deep breath. Now that everyone was there, she was suddenly nervous. "Before I begin," she said hesitantly, "I'll ask your forgiveness in advance if this ends up sounding like 'poor, poor pitiful me.' Some of my—our life experiences have been... well, I'll get to those. I guess the other thing is that a lot happened when I was younger, and memories are not always reliable. I've tried to fill in some of the gaps as best I could, by looking at what was probably the most logical scenario. In some cases, I could be wrong. When I think back, it seems as though I remember events with a level of sophistication that I doubt I had at the time. How much really happened the way I'm telling it, and how much is the older me dabbling in revisionist history..." She sighed, then brightened. "Keeping that in mind," she said briskly, "let's start at the beginning with the bald facts.
"Mother came from Anchorage," she said. "Dad was from Toronto. His father had made a fortune in speculative investments—real estate, stock market, probably some other things, too. At each of our births, Dad opened a trust fund.
"Our parents met in high school at some sort of international student colloquium. Afterwards, they wrote, they called, they talked, and, eventually, they married. Mother was all of nineteen at the time. After that, they moved to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. I don't know why. Considering that Mother's family still lived in Alaska, it may have made things easier in terms of visiting, and in terms of dealing with the temperature."
"But your father?" Alfred ventured.
Callie smiled sadly. "Dad was often away for months on end. I don't know whether he worked for the government, or the military. It might have been the UN peacekeepers. All I know is that he went to a lot of third-world countries. Dad used to say that sometimes countries that were poor in money were richer in other things. I imagine he was referring to things like traditions, culture, values." Her voice went flat. "He never mentioned landmines."
She kept her eyes fixed on a point on the floor in front of her. "I was exactly Jaime's age. It was the end of November—three months before my seventh birthday. I remember I was in the front of the house, playing in the snow. The older ones were away at school. Maybelle also—she was—is gifted musically. We all started piano lessons around three or four. She was the standout. At four she was already on the third grade book. Inquiries were made, and a boarding school willing to bend the rules and take her on early was found. She started first grade a couple of years early..." realizing that she was rambling, Callie checked herself and continued.
"Natalie was about nine months old, and Tabitha a little less than two months away from being born. I remember... two men coming up the walk. They didn't pay attention to me. They just knocked on the door. Mother answered. They spoke for a few minutes, they handed her a clipboard or something, I don't know, and then they just left. They left Mother standing in the doorway, holding the...whatever it was. I think the sun went behind a cloud about then. At least that's how I remember it.
"She didn't let us go to the funeral. Everyone came home, of course. Mother enrolled us in the local school system for the rest of the year, but things didn't play out that way."
Callie sighed. "When I was younger, I thought she was a monster for what she did next. I guess, in a way, she was. Maybe it was a nervous breakdown, or post-natal depression. I can waste time wondering, I suppose, but why bother? She kept going, holding on, until Tabitha was born. And then, six weeks later, she bundled all seven of us kids into the minivan...
"Where are we going, Mommy?" She's sitting in the middle between nine-year-old Brandon and four-year-old Maybelle. The middle seat in the middle bench. Right in the middle of the van, just like she's right in the middle of the seven kids in the family.
Mommy doesn't answer. "You have everything you need for two weeks, baby?"
"She does. I packed her." Bronwen, also nine, is the responsible one. She's sitting up front, next to Mommy.
In the back-back of the minivan, a not-quite-eleven-year-old Sophie sits, one hand resting on the infant car-seat holding Natalie. Tabitha's car-seat is on her other side. Even though Sophie is the oldest, she really can't be trusted to handle tasks such as packing, or reading bedtime stories, or putting dishes away. Something is different about Sophie. Sometimes she spends hours looking out into space. Sometimes when she walks, she stumbles over level ground, or she misses inclines and depressions...
"Vision problems?" Bruce asked, jerking her out of her reverie.
Callie smiled. "Just the opposite. I told you her codename was 'Spectrum.' My sister sees the entire EM-band. Everything. That includes radio waves, microwaves, x-rays, gamma rays and cosmic rays. Add in infrared and ultraviolet, and I think you can appreciate the consequences of inadequate filters."
Tim spoke up. "No depth perception."
Callie nodded. "For one thing. And it's relatively hard to read a book when you're looking down through all the pages." She shook her head. "School was a nightmare for her in the early grades. Before she learned how to filter her visual impressions, I think she was misdiagnosed with everything from legal blindness to autism, to absence seizures. We would have loved to know how Superman got a handle on things. Was he born knowing how control his talents?"
She blinked. "Lost my train of thought, sorry. Where was I? Right, Mother had the seven of us kids in the car. It was two days before my seventh birthday...
"You're going to stay with my old friend Tamara Golden. Well, she's Tamara Markovitz, now." Mommy's voice sounds too happy. Like she's holding something back. "Just for a week or two."
"All of us?" Brandon asks, incredulous.
"But it's my birthday, the day after tomorrow," Callie protests. "You said I could have a party this year! You promised!"
"So we'll have your party a few days late." Mommy sounds angry, but then these days she always does.
"But—"
"Honey, so much has been happening since your father... left us..."
"He was never here anyway," Maybelle pipes up.
"Shut up!" A teary Brandon reaches over Callie to punch Maybelle in the arm, hard. His elbow plows into Callie's chest. Both girls start howling. Callie elbows him back in the ribs. He grunts, and pulls her hair. Maybelle tries, ineffectually to punch Brandon. Not quite so ineffectual at that, she's connecting with Callie's upper arm very nicely. As long as she connects with someone, she doesn't seem to care who the target is. Both babies in the back start bawling. Sophie squeezes her eyes shut and clamps her hands over her ears. "I didn't do anything, Mommy!" Her protests mingle with the wailing and the shouting.
"If you kids don't stop it back there, I'll leave you on the side of the road and never come back!"
Callie closed her eyes. "We all say things we don't mean, sometimes. Now, at twenty-six, I can truthfully say that I believe, that whenever she decided to do what she did, it wasn't right at that moment in the car. But whether she had it in mind when we started out, or whether she just felt she needed a few days to get her head together before she came to get us, and somehow time just... ran away from her," Callie opened her eyes again, and looked down at the same fixed point on the carpet. "She dropped us off at the Markovitzes... and we never laid eyes on her again.
"From what I've been able to piece together," Callie continued after a moment's pause, "She had originally planned on leaving us older ones at the Markovitzes for a couple of weeks but she'd asked them to take care of Tabitha and Natalie permanently. If Daddy-Ben and Mummy-Tamara ever complained about going from a household of two to a household of nine, literally overnight, it wasn't when we were in earshot. They lived just east of Beaver Creek. You know where that is?"
Bruce thought for a moment. "Canada's westernmost community. Right on the Alaska border."
Callie smiled. "I'm impressed. Whitehorse has a population of roughly twenty-two thousand. Beaver Creek, at last census, was one-oh-nine. That's smaller than a lot of private schools. And we didn't even live in the... I think it's called a 'settlement' as opposed to a 'town' or 'village'. Memory tells me I spent the next few months, bundled up or not as seasons dictated, sitting on the front doorstep, watching the highway... waiting. Everything seems to blur together, right about then. At some point, the others went back to school. Mummy-Tamara home-schooled me. At first, it was because I was afraid that if I left the house, if Mother came back and didn't see me there, she'd leave. Then, it was because Natalie and Tabitha used to cry if I left. I guess I just... didn't want to be around too many other people.
"After about a year or so, I think things settled down. On some level, I accepted that my Mother... wasn't coming back. The younger kids started calling them 'Mum' and 'Dad'; the older ones called them 'Ben' and 'Tamara.' I compromised. The Markovitzes opened bank accounts in our names and had the interest from our trust funds deposited there each month. Some of the principle paid for our schooling, of course."
"The Markovitzes had access to your trust fund." It was a statement, but Bruce might as well have posed it as a question.
Callie nodded. "Mother had legally appointed Mummy-Ta—oh this is silly. She appointed Tamara Markovitz to act in loco parentis. I think that's what it's called, anyway. Don't ask me if she had power of attorney, or if she was our actual legal guardian. By the time I was old enough to ask the questions, there wasn't anyone around to tell me the answers." She shrugged her shoulders as if shrugging off the memory, and continued.
"Sophie learned how to block out unwanted visual images. The Markovitzes arranged for her to go to a different school. Apparently once they label you... what's the politically correct term, now—intellectually handicapped, or differently abled? Whatever, it's hard to get the label torn off. She started over in a small school in the BC interior. Things got better for her.
"Bran's school, believe it or not, actually had a retired Olympic fencer on the faculty phys. ed. department roster. He'd give lessons after classes were over for the afternoon. Bran was good at it. When he came home for holidays, he'd show me what he'd learned. We used kindling sticks instead of swords. After he'd go back, I'd practice with any long, skinny branch I could find." A faint smile played on her lips. "Always trying to show him up, I guess.
"Bron had her ballet," she continued, sadly. Six years after the accident, remembering the past still hurt. "She and Maybelle were at the same school." Her hands were clammy. She knew she was stalling. She looked over to her younger sister, now leaning in closer. "Natalie..."
"I know what comes next," her sister replied. "It's fine."
Callie nodded. Wiping her hands on her skirt, she paused for a moment. This was the part Bruce wasn't going to want to hear. The part that she had to relate in just the right way. Or, Bruce really was going to kick them out.
"The April after my tenth birthday," she began, "Tamara sat us down at the table one morning. Us being me, Natalie, and Tabitha. For the most part, our psi powers manifested themselves gradually. We learned to control them as they developed. A couple of glaring exceptions to that rule were Sophie's vision, and... Natalie's telepathy.
"It wasn't until Jaime was two that I started wondering about this. Our parents had seven kids, all psionic. Sophie's husband isn't a psi, but Jaime, their son, is. That would seem to support a genetic hypothesis, and, based on our, admittedly small sampling, the psi gene would seem to be dominant. I'm mentioning this because, even though I don't remember walking up to Tamara at eight and saying 'look what I can do' as I levitated a book off of the table, there were a lot of slips that we all must have made, which the Markovitzes ignored. And since Tamara was a close friend of our mother's," she shook her head. "It's speculation, of course, but I suspect Mother may have had some... talent of her own.
"At any rate, that April morning, Tamara sat us down and told us, well, me mostly, that she knew what we could do, and that she was concerned that Natalie didn't seem as discreet about it as the rest of us. She'd been making inquiries, and had found out about somebody living inEastern Alaska... Tok? I think thatwas the place...who might be able to help. She was worried, however that by sending out feelers..."
Bruce nodded, understanding. "Someone else may have been alerted."
"Yes. She told me that she and Ben were going to drive Natalie over the border that afternoon. If anything were to happen, I was to get our bank passbooks, call my siblings at school, and all of us leave as quickly as possible. We had bus schedules, train schedules, and the address of an apartment building Dad owned in Toronto." Her expression turned bleak. "Something happened.
"I was playing with Tabitha in our bedroom when I felt Natalie screaming in my head. And then... I don't know."
She looked up. "I somehow have a memory of grabbing Tabitha's wrist, and running from the house, into the settlement, past the customs house, and outside the settlement limits, with Tabitha flying behind me like a kite. It probably didn't happen exactly that way. Did I fly us telekinetically? Was it the first time I ever teleported? Given what you've been doing for the last decade or so, Bruce, you should have a passing familiarity with the effects of an adrenaline high. However it was," she continued when Bruce nodded, "I found Natalie sitting in the snow by the highway, rocking back and forth, sobbing. I didn't see any tears, but all I could hear were these deep, rasping, sobs. And a few feet over... were six" she gritted her teeth and forced the word out. "Bodies." She swallowed. "Two were Daddy-Ben and Mummy-Tamara. The others, I'd never seen before." Natalie was leaning against her now. Gently she slipped her arm around her younger sister's shoulders.
"To tell you the next part, Bruce, I'm going to have to ask you to think back to a time you probably don't want to. This... isn't going to be easy for either of us—any of us." She inhaled slowly, and looked up at Bruce. His expression was unreadable. "Natalie's singular defining moment, bears a certain resemblance to what, I think, must be yours. I know how you feel about taking a life—now. What I need to ask you to do, is to try to imagine if, right at the moment when you witnessed... what you witnessed, if you had somehow seen a gun at your feet, in that instant, could you have used it?"
Natalie squeezed her sister's hand in silent gratitude. Bruce was silent. At least he seemed to be considering the scenario.
"It's no accident," Callie continued, "that I often refer to our abilities as, 'one more weapon in our arsenals'. They are weapons. And in the hands of a four-year-old with only tenuous control—"
"You're telling me that," Bruce looked at Natalie. Again, his face was carefully closed. "You've killed."
Natalie straightened. "They wanted me." She said. "They shot Mum and Dad so they could get their hands on me. I lashed out with a power I didn't know I had, projecting my thoughts into their heads. And my thoughts weren't making a lot of sense right then. I was... shrieking... inside and out. And when I shrieked in their heads, it hurt them. I know because I was in their heads feeling what I was doing to them, and they were in agony." She paused. "And so was I. The only thing worse than hearing the screaming was when the screaming... stopped. Most kids the age I was then have a pretty shaky idea about what death is." She smiled bitterly. "Sometimes being advanced for your years isn't a good thing." She looked up, directly at Bruce. "So. Now, you know."
"If you're looking for absolution..."
"Sorry, wrong religion, no. But that's why, a few years ago, Tabitha clammed up about the 'three-year-gap.' She didn't want to get into what happened to the Markovitzes, because that would have led, inevitably, into what happened next. It's something I wouldn't have wanted you to know, back then."
"And now?"
Natalie shrugged. "You're the world's greatest detective, and you've got time on your hands. Psion Force has been more visible these last few nights. Sooner or later, you were going to do your own checking into our backgrounds. If you had found out that way, tell me it wouldn't have been worse than our spilling it to you now."
"One question," Bruce asked flatly.
Natalie inclined her head.
"Was there any time that you could have stopped your attack before those people died?"
Callie started forward angrily. Natalie held her arm horizontally to block her. "'S'okay, Cal," she murmured. "I knew he'd ask something like that." She twirled a stray lock of hair about her forefinger. "I'd like to know, myself, come to think of it." She closed her eyes. "You don't know how much I'd like to know for sure, one way or the other." She opened them again. "Given that I was four years old, didn't really understand what I was doing, and was completely hysterical at the time, probably not. But, Mr. Wayne, if you're asking for some sort of oath," she shook her head, "I don't know that I could swear to it in a court of law."
Bruce shook his head. Cal and Natalie had just described what amounted to a tragic accident. Cal had compared it to his finding a gun in the alley that night. It was a close enough analogy. At eight, though, he had already had a fair idea of what pulling the trigger would do. Natalie, clearly, could not have said the same about her talent. And, he could admit, even if only to himself, that in the scenario Callie had described, he wasn't able to state with certainty that he wouldn't have fired the weapon. "I understand," he said finally. "If you're looking for me to tell you that they had it coming..."
"They did," Natalie said simply. "But that doesn't mean I had to be the one who gave it to them. To put it a different way, if someone else had popped up on the landscape and knocked them off, I might have cheered. But, things didn't work out that way. And I didn't cheer. The snow takes a long time melting that far north. There was still plenty of it on the ground in April. Callie lifted it, moved it over the bodies. Nobody passed by who could have seen.
"I didn't talk anymore, after that. Not for almost two years. That doesn't mean I didn't wake up screaming most nights. I don't remember very much else, not even what the nightmares were all about. Callie started training us, and I went through the motions. First night out, I'll admit freely that I wasn't ready. They brought me along because they were afraid that if a babysitter spent time with me, she'd notice that I had a bigger problem than, what was it you told Mrs. Berger, Cal? I was shy around strangers?"
Callie nodded. "It wasn't that unusual a problem in a small child." She sighed. "Here I thought I'd be able to keep our history linear instead of jumping ahead and back. Oh, well. I think it was on the train from Edmonton to Toronto that I got the idea to start the team. Like I told you before, it was that or the psychic friends network. Over time, I've learned that people in general rarely do things for only one reason. Let's just say I've given you the least embarrassing one and let it go at that."
"Our first night out was almost uneventful. Fighting crime in Toronto a few years ago was... kind of like patrolling Bristol during daylight hours. We went into one of the areas where we'd been told it wasn't safe to walk alone, found a park and told Sophie to stay there with Natalie." Her nose crinkled in disgust. "Ever have one of those nights where you go looking for trouble and just can't find it?"
Tim laughed. "It's happened."
Callie sighed. "Not enough of the time, most likely. But that night, we were caught up in the thrill of anticipation—and there wasn't anything at all exciting going on. So, after walking and floating up and down a six-block radius, getting some very peculiar looks, we were just about to call it a night when I got a frantic communiqué from Sophie.
"Cal?"
"Code names in costume, Spectrum"
"Silver Dragon, fine! Seeker's bolted."
"What! Why weren't you watching her?"
"I was. I just took my eyes off her for a minute and—Silver Dragon, I just spotted her, now. She's across the street and halfway up the side of the building." She paused. "Hold on. I think I know where she's going. On the fourth floor, there's a kid crying. Someone broke into her apartment, carrying a firearm."
"Pistol?"
(Another pause, longer this time) "No, the muzzle's longer. Some kind of rifle." (Hesitation). "Silver Dragon, it doesn't look loaded to me."
"It was an AK-47," Natalie said quietly. "Same type of weapon that was used to murder my foster parents. The child's mother had run away from an abusive husband, at least that's what the next day's papers reported. That night, he'd tracked them down. Used the gun like a club to break the lock on the door. Then he used it to... communicate with his wife. She was unconscious on the kitchen floor.
"Seeker?" Bruce asked.
Natalie flushed. "That wasn't a codename I selected. Not that she even knew I existed, but it's been a small comfort to me that JK Rowling didn't introduce Quidditch to the world until a year or so after I changed my name to 'Kensai'.
"Anyhow, the child, a girl, incidentally, was terrified. The best shield in the world can be broken through if you hit it in the right spot. Her... anguish... broke through mine. I don't know what I was thinking, if I was thinking, beyond shutting out her pain. And if I couldn't block it off with my psi-shields, I had to do it some other way. So, off I ran, Sophie a few minutes behind me. I was heading for the window. She took the front door and the elevator."
"No security?" Tim asked.
Callie smiled. "Let's state for the record that we weren't as observant from a religious standpoint then as we are now. Still and all, you've probably heard the expression 'coincidences are miracles in which G-d prefers to remain anonymous?'" Without waiting for a response, she continued. "Someone had coincidentally wedged a magazine between the door and doorjamb to hold it open. Spectrum just breezed on up."
"I was already in through the window. I remember cutting in front of the little girl and trying to look menacing." Natalie smiled sheepishly. "But then, I was about three foot-one, under forty pounds in my costume, and, Bronwen couldn't sew that well at the time. Creep took one look at me and started laughing his head off." Natalie shrugged nonchalantly. "So I made a fist, swung as hard as I could—and connected with the one area I could reach that would cause the most pain."
Alfred chuckled. Tim burst out laughing. Even Bruce smiled.
"It was an accident!" Natalie protested. "I was aiming for the abdomen! Callie, tell them."
Callie squeezed her arm sympathetically. "I wasn't in the room, Sis, but I'll take your word for it." She continued.
"Before the perp recovered, Spectrum was on the scene. She found the girl's mother in the kitchen, starting to come to, called 9-1-1 and then, she and Seeker waited until she saw the cops coming up the block before making themselves scarce." She smiled wryly. "Sometimes, I wish I had x-ray vision, too." The smile faded. "And, for the first time in over two years, my little sister spoke."
"The girl was pretty shook up. I had to do something. I don't even remember what I said."
"She wasn't the only person shaken up," Callie countered. "I almost benched you for a while." She looked directly at Bruce. "It's not just you who has scruples about inducting six-year-olds. The next afternoon, I remember I went into the kitchen to set the table for supper. Natalie was already sitting there, in full costume, and she was smiling. A real, happy, smile. That was another thing I hadn't seen in two years. Then, I tried to tell her that she was going to sit the next few innings out... and she froze me with a look I've witnessed you, she gestured to Bruce, employ on more than a few occasions. I've perfected it in front of a mirror—it took weeks of practice. When you see that expression on the face of a first-grader, it is either one of the most hilarious or one of the most terrifying things you can imagine." She exhaled noisily. "Let's just say, I wasn't laughing. That was the last time anyone suggested that she didn't have a right to be out there."
"Anyone on the team," Natalie corrected gently, remembering an encounter on a Gotham rooftop six years earlier.
"I stand corrected. In any event, at night, in costume, she started talking again. Not a lot, and not so often at first, but it was a beginning. By the time summer was over, and she was ready to start school, she was starting to verbalize in other arenas as well. Don't misunderstand; she was still very quiet in school. I remember her report cards always commented that she needed to participate in class more, but if the teacher actually called on her, she'd give the answer, and invariably, it was the right answer. Where she shone, though, was, oddly enough, on the basketball court."
Tim blinked. "You?" he asked Natalie in disbelief.
Natalie sighed. "Yes. Short people can play basketball. We just have to be really, really good at it. I was on the team from grades one through six."
Alison interrupted. "See, Natalie didn't really try to score points that often. She just made darned sure that she was always in position to take the ball and pass it to someone else who could score the points."
"At the end of the day," Natalie continued, "I never felt I was out there to get the ball in the basket. I was out there to make the team win. Usually, we did."
She grimaced. "In something which I like to refer to as 'one of life's little ironies,' when I was about eight, I had a week which went something like this. Sunday night: home studying for math test. Injuries: self-esteem took major hit when realized that I still hadn't mastered my seven times-table. Monday night: interrupted gang turf war as team action. Apprehended: ten. My injuries: nil. Their injuries: nothing that couldn't be treated by anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of first aid. Tuesday night: interrupted skinheads in act of spray-painting swastikas at Jewish cemetery. Also team action. Apprehended: five. My injuries: nil." Her eyes darkened from their normal green-grey. "Their injuries: none permanent. Wednesday night: lost footing on window ledge fourteen stories up while scouting. Fired grapnel and recovered at four stories but aborted surveillance for that night. Injuries: only to pride. Thursday night: found missing toddler in rubble of collapsed building. Managed to get child and self off-site before more debris cut off possible escape. Injuries: nil." Her expression brightened. "Friday morning: somehow contrived to slip on spilled tapioca pudding," she made a disgusted face, "on way downstairs to gym class, ending in humiliated heap at bottom of stairwell. Injuries: hairline fracture of ankle and torn ligaments in same." She grinned at Bruce. "And I thought my nights were supposed to be the dangerous part of my workday!"
That actually earned her a second smile from Bruce. It wasn't a broad one, and it vanished almost as soon as she noted it, but she had seen it.
"They replaced me on the team, temporarily, with someone a bit taller than I was, and maybe even a better player. But, this person played as if she expected the NBA to have talent scouts scoping out elementary school intramural games. Bottom line, my team suddenly started scoring a lot fewer baskets because Little Miss Watch-Me-Wow-You kept hogging the ball." She grinned. "Some of the skills you pick up in team sports are applicable to other kinds of teams, as well. And I think a welcome side effect of my being on those teams was that I didn't become the 'kid everyone picks on.'"
Tim frowned. "How did you react to the classmate who was?"
Natalie's shrugged. "If I saw any kids picking on her, I'd just walk up to them, nice and friendly, and tell them what was going through my head. Like this." Natalie's eyes went reptile-cold. "I... hate... bullies," she snarled. Tim flinched. And instant later, the warmth was back in her eyes. "And that was usually enough to get them to back off."
Callie continued. "Things went on swimmingly for about a year. Then, Bran told me that he wanted to quit school. He was, is, bright, but, at that time, he was not particularly motivated. He wanted to travel, learn a few skills he couldn't pick up, where we were. He was fifteen. I was thirteen, and very much against it." She smiled ruefully. "As you can probably guess, I've glossed over a few things. We weren't perfect, back then. We aren't perfect, now either. Maybe, I could have talked my brother around if I'd actually tried listening to what he was saying. Unfortunately, there was this little voice in my head saying 'why is trying to walk out on me?' I think you'll agree a different frame of mind could have led to a different outcome. As it was, Bran and I had a real shouting match. I got in the last word, so according to the 'rules' I suppose that makes me the winner. Of course he ducked out that night when he was supposed to be on patrol, left a note saying he couldn't stay anymore, and he'd be in touch." She sighed. "We didn't speak again for over four years. Some victory. Yay me."
That sounded a bit too familiar, Bruce thought. He realized something. "You haven't mentioned Phasma."
Callie brightened. "No, that's right. I was going to, but we skipped over a couple of years, before. She and Maybelle were friends from day one. They were in the same classes in school, and both took advanced music lessons in the same after school program. And, due to a need to practice certain psionic maneuvers out-of-doors, and insufficient security precautions—"
"They both found the same area to practice and neither realized the other was there until it was too late," Bruce supplied.
Cal nodded. "After that, Maybelle just had to bring Jill round for more intensive training. Phasma started about three months after we did. I'll save the 'fun-with-evading-parents-night-after-night' vignettes for another time."
She sighed. "Let's flash forward about four years. I'm now seventeen and in grade thirteen in high school. I'm starting to look at universities for next year. Meanwhile, I'm de facto mother, den mother, team leader... when I'm not in class, I'm in costume. When I'm not in costume, I'm studying or practicing, and somehow it feels like I'm roller-skating on thin ice, on which someone has thoughtfully dumped a bag of ball bearings. I've got the weight of the world on my shoulders, the same shoulders that somebody went and stapled to my neck, and I keep getting this sense that I didn't take my shirt off the hanger before I put it on."
Bruce shifted position, looking away. Callie blinked, solemnly. "That bad, huh?"
He didn't answer. He noted to himself, however, that her saying 'been there, done that' earlier, had clearly not been facetious.
Callie paused. When Bruce didn't say anything after a moment, she continued. "Things could have come to a less-enjoyable conclusion if Tabitha hadn't had it out with me. Don't ask me to relay that conversation. While I've been fairly open, to this point, some things are still a little... too personal for me to go into. Suffice to say that she told me that she was worried about me. That, I shrugged off. Then, she told me that I was the only mother she had left, and the way things were going she was terrified that she was going to lose me, too."
Alfred lowered his eyes. "Oh, my."
"Indeed," she agreed, unconsciously echoing his formality. "So, I went looking for Bronwen, because, of course, no self-respecting high school senior would deign to unburden herself to a ten-year-old pest of a kid sister. I found Bron in the aerobics studio of the building's gym facilities, practicing her ballet.
"Got a minute?"
Bronwen extends her left leg, ankle resting on the barre, as she practices a turnout. Giselle plays in the background. Bronwen does not turn around. "What's up?"
"Tabitha's worried about me." Now that the words are out of her mouth, it hits her how stupid they sound.
"We all are," Bronwen states in a matter-of-fact tone. "She's just the only one who's up and told you is all."
"She said I'm trying to do too much on my own." And still, Callie sounds like she's whining.
"Mmm. Well, she's right."
"Is that all you're going to say?"
"Depends." She switches position, returning her left leg to the floor and extending her right. "Are you actually looking to change things, or are you just trying to confirm whether she's the only one of us who's noticing problems?"
"Of course, if there's something wrong I want to fix it! What do you take me for?"
"I take you for someone who's been pushing herself for so long that she doesn't know how to relax anymore. I saw you the last time we went to the amusement park—everyone else was screaming and having a good time. You spent ten minutes trying to figure out the minimum velocity at which the roller coaster had to be traveling in order for the passengers not to fall out when it did the triple loop!"
"And the maximum velocity at which it could travel in order to decelerate to a safe stop at the end of the ride."
Bronwen sighs. "The truly scary thing is, you seem to think that's a normal, healthy thing to do. Anyway, if it were only that, I'd just shrug it off as some personality quirk. Can I ask you something?"
Callie shrugs, then realizes that her sister has her back to her. Evidently, though, her gesture was spotted in the mirror.
"Why don't you trust us in the field?"
"Who says I don't?"
"You do. Every time you revamp our attack strategies so that they all turn out to be endless variations of 'stay back—I'll deal with this.' Brilliant. Six of us hiding in the shadows, half of us hoping some flunky might panic and bolt in our direction so we might get to finally do something, and the other half wishing they'd brought magazines. And if G-d forbid, you really do holler for backup, I want to dial 9-1-1 because any time you actually admit you need us, it's got to be five minutes to World War III!"
"I'm not that bad."
"No. You're worse. I don't know if you noticed this, Callie, but you are not Captain Kirk, and we are not the unnamed red-shirted security guards who get offed before the first commercial break. Here's how it works. When we go in as a team, we actually watch out for each other, and for ourselves. Like we used to. Before Naiad met Haywire. Before Bran left—"
"Don't bring him up!"
"Why not? Because it gets you angry? It gets me angry that you barely acknowledge that he exists. Anyway, that's neither here nor now. Simple question, Callie. Are we a team? Or aren't we?" Bronwen turns to face her. "Callie?"
Callie feels her face grow hot. Her hands are ice-cold. "We're a team," she says, knowing what the rejoinder will be. It isn't long in coming.
"Then for pity's sake treat us like we are. As it is, you have more respect for your chess pieces. At least you actually let your rooks and knights see some action instead of throwing everything onto your queen."
"I also know that when the game's over, I'll have back all the pieces I started with. And you are not a rook."
Bronwen smiles. "No. I always saw myself more as a knight, leaping into the fray. I probably wouldn't make a bad bishop, either. Thing is, you do know what would happen if you did keep all your other pieces back and tried to win the game just by moving your queen around: that blasted all-but-useless-yet-so-essential king keeps himself one square ahead of you, while you're gulping down assorted other pieces. Maybe you even knock both opposing rooks off the board. And then, just when you think you can't possibly lose, you get swallowed. By a pawn! As important a piece as the queen is, it can't win the game by itself.
"So what happens when I'm checking out a potential hideout, spot one or two hostiles, and call for backup assuming there must be more? Team shows up with weapons blazing, and I discover I've called out the cavalry for a couple of scared kids who would've surrendered if I'd frowned at them. What's that going to look like?"
Bronwen gives her a smile of exasperation. "It's going to look like you weren't sure if you could handle it alone. But since you weren't sure if you could handle it alone, I really don't see a problem, here. Keep going the way you're going, Cal, and if you don't get yourself killed, we're going to leave our conventional weapons at home at start packing seltzer."
"Seltzer," Callie repeats, blankly.
Bronwen gives her a knowing smile. "If you're going to treat us like stooges, don't be so surprised if we end up acting like 'em." She closes one eye, thrusts her index finger at Callie, and says with a straight face, "nyuk-nyuk-nyuk."
Callie turns away. Bronwen moves from the barre and puts her hand on Callie's shoulder. "It seems like the better we get, the less you trust us."
"More like, the better you get, the more scared I get that we're due for a run of bad luck."
"I see. You're bent on creating a self-fulfilling prophecy."
"What?"
"Well, you're doing everything you can to sabotage yourself in order to keep us from getting hurt. Meanwhile, you can't seem to figure out that maybe we'd like to keep you from same. You seem to be saying that you're the only one entitled to risk her life. Well, where does that leave us? And what makes you so blasted special?"
Callie paused for a moment, seeing Tim studiously jotting something in a pocket notebook. Bruce, looking decidedly uncomfortable, was ignoring him. Callie continued.
"I won't recreate the rest of the conversation. You can probably get the picture from here. It would be great if I could say that from that day forward, everything changed, and I became a new person. Unfortunately life is not a fifties sit-com, and most issues do not get resolved in thirty to sixty minutes including credits and commercials. I'd been sweeping a lot of things under the rug, and somehow I was ignoring the fact that the ceiling seemed a lot lower. Certain paths I'd chosen weren't... leading where they had seemed to," her tone turned thoughtful.
"That was a real problem—backtracking, revising tactics. It helped when Bronwen continued with the chess imagery and pointed out that the only piece which can't seem to admit that it made a mistake, and steadfastly refuses to retreat from a position, no matter how wrongheaded it might be, is the weakest, most expendable one of all. It helped when I started exploring my heritage as something other than lists of 'thou shalt' this and 'thou shalt not' that. And it definitely helped when I started breaking us up into smaller teams more often. Much as it hurts to admit it, a lot of the time they did better without me to second-guess them. And I realized I could depend on them more. So, that aspect, at least, has a happy... continuation." She flushed, then focused directly on Bruce. "Anyway, that's what worked for me. What's sauce for the goose may not necessarily be sauce for the gander, but at least give it some thought. Please, Bruce."
Bruce lowered his eyes. For a few moments he said nothing. When he finally spoke, his voice was weary, resigned, even—but not defeated. "When Dick comes here," he said finally, "what will he have been told?"
Callie thought. "Unless Umbra has access to information other than what's been reported, the only thing she would have been able to tell him is," she tried to find a diplomatic way to phrase it, "what was reported on the radio by a news reporter who was onsite at Robinson Square, that evening."
Bruce absorbed that. "You'd better tell him, then. Before he sees."
Callie nodded. "Anything you want kept back?"
He thought. "Don't tell him that... this is..." he forced the word out "permanent. He's had other things he's been dealing with."
And you're not ready to deal with it, yourself, are you? Callie thought to herself. She had been reluctant to mention her idea earlier; it seemed cruel to build up false hopes—Just wait one minute! Who says they're false? False would be telling him that Bane hypnotized him and this paralysis is all in his head!" She flinched, almost imperceptibly. It seemed that she was in touch with her inner Bronwen. She drew a deep breath.
"Don't worry," she smiled. "I wouldn't want to lie to him."
Bruce frowned. "I'm not asking you to lie, I'm asking you to omit—"he broke off. "Don't... worry?"
Callie hesitated. "I'm not saying definite. This is only a theory. But Ali and I have been examining the angles and it looks like it could work—on paper. So, once Tabitha gets back, she, Sophia, Maybelle, Natalie, you, and I are going to sit down and see whether it can be put into practice. Let me tell you how I've been thinking, and you can tell me if anything's been overlooked."