Chapter Twelve: Imitation
Helena was jolted from the engrossing homework of her kindergarten class by the sound of her doorbell. It was late on Tuesday evening and she most definitely was not expecting anyone. Standing and stretching the kinks out of her back, she moved quickly for the door. As she opened it, her mouth already open to greet whoever was on the other side, she recieved the shock of her life. "Dinah?"

Black Canary looked like hell, the kind of hell that was run over, thrown in the river, fished out, and ran over again. Helena had known that Dinah was taking recent events hard, but even this surprised her. She'd never seen the blonde so beaten down.

"Hello, Helena," Dinah said quietly, not at all her usual boisterous self. Her hair hung limply around her sallow face, and the way she shifted in place told Helena that her left leg was still damaged from the big fight.

"Come on in," Helena invited, stepping back to let the limping metahuman through. Dinah immediately walked to the one chair in the living room and sat. Helena almost heard her sigh of relief when she did so. "What can I help you with?"

"Nothing. I...I wanted to apologize," Dinah gritted out, though out of irritation or pain, Helena couldn't tell. For a second, though, it was the old adversarial bitch Helena had loved to fight with.

"What for?"

Dinah sighed. "I could have killed you." Unspoken were the words, like I killed Ollie.

"It wasn't your fault." None of it, Helena didn't say.

"I should have been more careful." Should have been stronger. Dinah responded.

"The kind of mind games they were playing with us, we'd never have seen it coming." Not even the Justice League.

"Still, it's the sort of situation we should have prepared for. The fact that I had been manipulated doesn't change what I did." And nothing ever will.

Helena was tired of the truth remaining unspoken, and perhaps unheard. For weeks, people had been tiptoeing around Black Canary and she was getting a little tired of watching the small blonde take it. "You didn't really kill him, Dinah."

She didn't look at Helena, in fact hadn't looked at her since she'd walked in. Her hands shook as she raised them a bit into the air, as if blood were even now dripping from her hands. "My hands did. My voice. Me."

"It wasn't you. You don't even remember it."

"But they told me! They showed me footage!" Black Canary yelled, her metahuman ability breaking through in her distress and cracking the wine glass that sat on the table. Helena watching the dark burgundy stain the white tableclothe and was uncomfortable with how much it resembled blood.

"And whoever did that is an ass. Mentally, and in your soul, it wasn't you. It was your body, but you weren't in it. I knew that when I looked into your eyes. And I'm betting Green Arrow knew. Hell, he liked you more than I did, he had to know!" Helena stressed, sitting on the coffee table in front of Dinah, wanting to reach for her hands where they were clenched in her lap but restraining the urge.

"He loved me," Dinah whispered, and Helena knew that for some reason Dinah was confiding in her. It was Helena's duty to do all she could. She may be violent, and slightly crazy, but let it never be said that Helena was uncaring.

"You could tell. You loved...You love him too."

"I never told him. I was afraid. I was so afraid of what could happen, that I kept it to myself, even after he said it. I just laughed and patted his cheek like he was a child."

"He knew. How could he not know? You two were always holding hands and kissing, and making the rest of the League sick!"

Dinah smiled, and it was like a crack in a foundation, unexpected and unstable. Then she was crying, and it was like that foundation had been a dam, and now there was no stopping it. Dinah threw herself into Helena's arms, sobbing, and Helena held her, and didn't know what else to do. How do you comfort someone who knows a pain that she herself would never know? Helena had two loves, and Dinah now had none. Green Arrow was gone, but both Captain Atom and Question were still here, hovering on the edges of her life, waiting to be called on.

Helena was just afraid to pick up the phone.

Slowly, Dinah came back to herself, realizing whose arms she was crying into, and where she was. She wiped her cheeks and stood stiffly. "I'm sorry. That was inappropriate."

"Not really. Ruined my slacks when I sat in the wine, but I can deal."

"I should go, I've done what I came here to do."

"You're in no condition to drive," Helena said as she stood, trying to peruse the stain of wine across her rear.

"I have no choice."

"Sure you do, stay here."

Dinah looked doubtful, even through her puffy eyes and red face.

"Hey, I'm a bitch, but I do have a couch."

"And a guest room," Dinah volunteered weakly.

"I don't like you enough to clean that damn room out."

Dinah laughed. It was the kind of laugh that draws the eye in the street, the kind that makes the air clearer, the kind that let Helena know that despite the pain, Dinah would be okay. "Okay," she said when she finally stopped laughing," that sounds great."


The next morning, bright and early and loaded with coffee, Helena stood in her kitchen and stared at the phone. Dinah was asleep in the guest room, because last night she'd convinced Helena to clean out all her clothes from the room, where'd they had been thrown at various times of the year when she decided she hated that piece of cloth. She'd actually found a jacket she'd been looking for two months for under the bed, so it hadn't entirely been a fruitless venture.

Helena wasn't sure what to do. When she was with Nathaniel, he made her a better person, made her think. When she was with Vic, she wasn't thinking, she was just in the moment. Both were beneficial, both were handsome, funny, and just plain lovable. Vic broke her heart, she broke Nate's. Where does a girl turn? The rock? Or the hard place?

A sound at the doorframe drew her attention from the phone in time to see Dinah enter with a large yawn. She looked more rested than she had last night.

"Want some coffee?"

"You don't have any soda?" Dinah asked, hesitating at the table.

Helena gestured to the fridge, then made a face when Dinah began to chug Coca Cola. "Eww, how can you have that so early?"

Dinah shrugged. "It's the same as coffee, just a different taste."

"If you say so."

Dinah smiled a bit, then fished out some ham from the fridge, munching on it as she made her way back to the table. "Why are you staring at the phone like that?"

"I'm trying to decide something."

"Deciding on Question or Atom?"

Helena viewed Dinah with suspicion. "What do you know about it?"

Dinah shrugged, and sadness briefly colored her big blue eyes. "Not many of the Leaguers are talking to me right now, but I've got great hearing. Gossip is that you've quit the league, and pushed them both to the side while you make your decision."

"That's about it," Helena nodded. "Why aren't the Leaguers talking to you?"

"I killed one of them."

"I thought we talked about that last night?"

"We did. Some of the fault is with me, but not all of it. It was still my hands," Dinah paused to sip some more soda before continuing, "So who are you going to choose?" She kept her voice light, trying to retain some sense of normal. For some reason, it was easier to pretend with Helena than it was with anyone else.

"I don't know."

"Why don't you know?"

"I just don't."

"Did you make a list?"

Helena looked at Dinah like she was daft. "A list?"

"You know? Like on Friends?"

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that."

"It's a good idea."

"So says the woman who watchs Friends."

Dinah hesitated, then put on her serious face. "Don't wait too long to make your decision. Love doesn't wait, Helena." Then, with a small smile, Dinah moved to take her leave. When Helena heard the front door shut, she turned back to the phone.

Dinah, for once, was right. It's time to stop waiting. Helena picked up the receiver and dialed a familiar number, then waited for him to answer.

"Nate? It's Helena...um...you wanna have dinner tomorrow?"