Ethiopia is hot, sunny, and beautiful.
Steph walks besides Leslie through the streets of the village, carrying the boxes full of medical supplies. All around them are houses and people, and farmland stretches out in all directions, the small collection of farms and animals that make up this community bustling with anticipation.
Leslie, in her white coat and broad hat, radiates a sense of peace and calm that Steph can't help but bask in.
Here, there are no monsters to fight, no Hellmouth to defeat, no responsibilities, no pressure to be the Slayer. Vampires overwhelmingly tend towards cities, where the are more buildings to shelter in during the day and people who go missing are noticed less. And Leslie has explained, without explaining, demons avoid this part of the country.
Here, she can just be Stephanie Brown, a seventeen-year-old girl. With superpowers. But mostly just Stephanie Brown, a seventeen-year-old girl.
This is their third village in as-many weeks, with Leslie taking them through the villages to help distribute medicine and do whatever they can. The nearest clinic is miles away, and years of decreasing farm yields mean that the town can't afford to buy the medicine and vaccines themselves, making them dependent on people like them.
It's awful, seeing this side of the world's darkness—the side of things untouched by demons, magic, and monsters. But Stephanie can't solve this on her own, can't magically bring these people a doctor, can't just send someone to school to get the training they need to do this themselves.
Right now, the only thing she can do is just to help Leslie do whatever she can.
Three young women from the village are helping them today, listening intently as Leslie shows them how to do basic procedures, instructs them about keeping injuries clean and shows them how to set a bone.
"Two of them will be doctors," Leslie says in English to her. They're seated around a table with their host family, with food piled on the table. Leslie had sent Steph to the market earlier that day to buy as much food as she could, and the family's children are practically vibrating with excitement at the huge feast laid out before them. "The third will be a nurse. And all of them might even stay in the country, after they're trained."
Steph startles at the words. All day her ears have been filled with the sound of Oromo and Amharic, languages she's scrambling to learn, while Leslie speaks them with a perfect lilt that the locals are impressed by.
"You can tell that?"
"Sometimes," Leslie says. "They all want it, they want to help and learn." She smiles and reaches into the center of the table to help herself. "My powers are limited. But I could do this for them; I can help them get to school, give them the chances they long for."
Steph looks down at the food in her own hands.
"Is that what you're doing for me?"
"Similar, I suppose," Leslie acknowledges with a smile. "But Stephanie… the difference between you and those young women…"
"Is that I already have a job?" Steph says, bitter.
"No," Leslie says, not unkindly. "It's that you don't know what you want."
Steph swallows her mouthful of food. "It doesn't matter what I want," she parrots.
"Of course it does," Leslie admonishes her. "The Watchers can say otherwise as much as they want, but that does not mean you don't matter."
"I'm the Slayer," Steph says, uncertain. "I have an obligation to help people."
"Yes," Leslie says. "But there are two of you, now. Gotham is guarded while you are here. You have friends and family who love you, and they all wish for you to be happy. You can be the Slayer, and only the Slayer. You would not be the first to make that choice. But you are more than that, Stephanie. And there are many different ways that you can help."
"Like what?"
Leslie gestures around them. "This work is no less important than what you were doing in cemeteries. Even back in the United States, there are plenty of places that can always use another pair of hands and a good heart. There are places that need doctors and nurses, teachers or social workers." Leslie cups Steph's cheek in her hand. "You have been given a gift, Stephanie, for all that it might feel like a curse. Perhaps you will never be able to stop fighting entirely. There will always be monsters to fight, both human and demon. But that does not mean you need to stay in Gotham, wearing yourself to the bone doing nothing but."
Steph stares into her eyes, impossibly kind and deep. "But… my friends. My family." She swallows. "And… Cass. She's not going to just stop."
"Cassandra has different lessons than you to learn," Leslie says. "Her journey is her own, and she's not ready to hear these words yet."
Steph swallows.
"I'm going to die," she says. "Soon, probably."
"Will you?" Leslie says, raising an eyebrow.
"I—all Slayers die young. So why does it matter what I want?"
"Yes, Slayers tend to die young," Leslie says, with a frown on her face that Steph can't understand. "But that does not mean they have to. You already live, when the magic says you've died."
"That—that was a fluke. If it weren't for Harper—"
"You cannot say that all of your strength comes from your friends, Stephanie," Leslie says. "You, and you alone, defeated the Red Hood, sealed the demon's mouth, and saved the world. You had him beaten even before Tim called Jason Todd's soul back to his body."
Steph looks down.
"I killed him," she whispers.
"And he asked you to," Leslie points out.
"What, and that makes it easier?"
"No. But it is what it is," Leslie says. "And you are avoiding the question. Stephanie. What. Do. You. Want?"
Steph clenches her fist, and lets the truth spill out.
"I want to go home. I want to see my friends. I want to hug my mom, and have her understand, instead of just hiding from the truth. I want to fight monsters with Cass and help people, but I—I also want to play piano. I want to go to Homecoming and dance with my friends and eat greasy burgers and wear clothes that are going to age horribly and I want to take dumb selfies that I can look back on in twenty years and say "I was happy," I want to listen to Duke and Tim argue about comic books and listen to Harper talk about her latest project and see Cass smile and—" Steph swallows. "I'm just… I'm just a girl. I want to be that."
Leslie smiles. "There is no just, Stephanie. You are remarkable, and you were so before you were Called." Leslie hands Steph another handful of food. "Now, eat up. We go to the cave tonight."
"Cave?" Steph says warily.
"The Cave of the First Slayer," Leslie says. "It's time you understand where you came from."
Cass is cold.
She wraps herself in yet another blanket and moves towards the kitchen, where she knows Bruce has tea that she can heat up for herself.
She's been cold ever since the hospital, since Tim did… whatever he did, and then when she finally got to leave the next day, only to find out that Steph was gone.
It's stupid. Cass shouldn't need Steph. The other girl is someone who she never should have even met. There have never been two Slayers before. It's an abomination, a rip in the universe, it's probably why she's never been able to go as deep into the darkness as her Father was sure she should be able to. A second Slayer must be holding her connection back.
And yet…
Cass misses her. Misses her jokes and her laughter, her commentary on patrols, the way she keeps losing her stakes and ends up needing to improvise with whatever she can get her hands on—pencils and fence posts and tree branches.
Her company.
It's not like Cass is lonely—Bruce and Dick are here in the house, and Duke has moved in as well. There's Babs, in her apartment across town that Cass is always welcome at, and Tim and Harper are always welcoming.
She has friends.
But…
She still misses Stephanie Brown.
Things have been quiet, since the Red Hood died. The Joker is dead as well, and his minions are scattered to the winds. Harper spotted Harley Quinn leaving town, her face scrubbed clean of makeup, on the next bus to Chicago, but no one's spotted her since, despite Bruce calling all his contacts.
Where she's gone to, Cass isn't sure, but a part of her doubts they'll see her again.
Harper, Tim, Kon, and Duke don't let her patrol alone. They follow her around, trying to help where they can, although none of them are very good at it. Harper focuses too much on trying to quip like Steph, Kon gets distracted any time that Tim looks like he might be in danger, Tim is too self-conscious about his form, and Duke freezes up a lot, particularly when a vampire reveals its true face.
Bad memories.
Cass just does her best to keep them all alive, and reports to Bruce dutifully at sunrise each morning before crawling into bed and sleeping, only to be woken up at some point in the afternoon to join her friends in their search for Steph.
Steph's passport was used to arrive in London, but despite Dick going there several times, he can't find her there. He thinks she took the "Chunnel" to France, but he's not sure where she might have gone from there, or why. They're not sure where she got the money to travel in the first place, for that matter, and it's making Bruce nervous.
"School's starting soon," Harper says, flipping her stake in her hand. "So she's… she's got to come home then, right?"
"She's expelled," Kon points out. "That… I mean, if I was expelled, I'd definitely take an extended summer vacation."
They all give Kon a look. "What? It's true!"
"She'll come back," Cass says calmly, trying not to show how much she misses her. "Soon."
She hopes, anyways.
Tim stuffs his magic book into his backpack and slings it over his shoulder, yawning and rubbing at his eyes as he moves to exit the library.
"Tim," Bruce calls, standing outside his office. "Can we talk?"
There's no good reason for him to refuse, even though Tim is really tired and just wants to go home.
"I wanted to talk to you about the ritual of restoration," Bruce says, as soon as the door to his office closes behind Tim.
Tim freezes. "What? I already told you what happened."
"Tim, the power required to do that ritual is extreme and dangerous," Bruce says quietly.
"And I told you," Tim says, irritated. "I was trying it anyways, and then—I don't know, something took control of me and finished the spell. Nothing happened."
"If some foreign power took control of you, Tim, that means that you're exceptionally vulnerable to magical influences."
"I'm—"
"I'm not going to forbid you from learning magic, Tim. I'm not your father, and you wouldn't obey me even if I had the authority," Bruce says, pinching the bridge of his nose. "But Tim, you need to be honest with me. I've seen what can happen to people who dabble in the dark arts. Who turn to external sources of power."
It's easy to forget how tall Bruce is, most of the time. The man is easily over six feet, but he doesn't lean into it often. Other students talk a lot about how intimidating Mr. Wayne the librarian is, but Tim forgets it most of the time. The way that he can hold himself, the way that his gaze can become the most intense thing in the universe.
"I've seen people grow addicted to the slightest taste of power, until they starve themselves to death because they can't think about anything else. I've seen people get so caught up in magical sensations that they don't care who they hurt in the process. I've seen people indebt themselves to powerful creatures and find themselves bound into lifetimes of servitude. I've seen people massacre their own families to get the ingredients they need for spells." Bruce's gaze is paralyzing. "But I can't help you, Tim, if you're not honest with me."
Tim swallows, and looks down.
"Tim. What. Happened."
Tim meets Bruce's eyes steadily and lies through his teeth.
"Like I said. I don't know."
Bruce gives him a quiet, exhausted look that says he wants to believe him, but he's not sure he does.
Tim leaves the library, the exhaustion settling into his bones as he forces himself home.
Bruce was right; magic had a cost.
Right now, the cost was just his energy. Everything he did exhausted him more quickly than ever, and it took him forever to rest up and manage to do anything.
Ra's had been perfectly understanding. The end of the world was at stake, after all.
It was a small price to pay, if it had made Steph's fight against Jason just that much easier.
His dad is downstairs, watching television. "Hey Tim!" His father calls. Dad's been in a better mood all summer, since he started physical therapy. Tim tells himself it's not because Steph's gone, because that's looking too much into things.
"Hi Dad," he parrots back. He's got an excuse all prepared, if his dad ever notices that he's tired all the time, that he's not going out with his friends—Mono is his plan, he's pretty sure he can fake the diagnosis if his dad makes him go to the doctor for it.
But Dad hasn't noticed, which is nice. He can tell Kon and Harper and Duke and Cass that his dad wants him home more, since the monsters and mayhem and magic are on summer vacation too, and he can just go to bed and sleep, like his dad thinks he's always doing, rather than fighting back against the forces of darkness.
He collapses into his bed and goes to sleep immediately, not even bothering to take off his shoes.
His dreams are filled with pits of liquid fire and a burning in his wrist.
Crystal Brown has never wanted to not be sober more in her life than these past few weeks.
Her daughter was right.
She has been hiding from things, from the truth about it all. She ignored the warning signs, ignored the fact that the man that she had married hadn't been a conspiracy theorist who had taken far too much pleasure in hitting her and controlling every aspect of her life, but had been actively involved in the supernatural community while taking too much pleasure in hitting her and controlling every aspect of her life.
She had buried her head in the sand, had tried to pretend that everything was fine, here in Gotham, and because of that, her daughter had been all alone, when she should have been able to trust and depend on her.
Bruce tells her that Stephanie probably just needed a break after what happened—a fight with a vampire who was her friend, a would-be-apocalypse, a rescue mission. He assures her that it probably has nothing to do with her.
But Crystal isn't sure she believes that.
Perhaps Stephanie had finally just realized that she deserves so much better than Crystal and has rightfully tried to reclaim her life. Or perhaps she's out there, alone, and needing help, and Crystal just can't find her.
Either way, Crystal needs to stay sober. She needs her head to be clear, needs her hands to be steady, so that she can be a better mother this time, can be the mother that her daughter deserves.
She dreams of a boy with bright green eyes.
"Steph?" He's young, he's oh, so young and it's not fair, he never asked for this, he should be a child, he shouldn't be afraid and clinging to her like she's the only stable thing in the entire world.
"It's going to be okay," she tells him. She swings the dark-haired boy onto her back, and he clings to her as she wades into the dangerous, rolling waters. His grip is like steel, but the water batters at them, soaking them to the bone, and she grips his legs with one arm that she really needs to maintain her balance, because she can't risk the current ripping him off her back.
"I'm scared," he says, and she knows how much it hurts him to admit it.
"I'll protect you," she promises. "No matter what."
Above them, the shadow of the Earth slowly begins to cover the moon, and her heart races in her throat.
"Nothing again," Dick says, shrugging off his jacket as he enters Babs's apartment.
"Damn it," Babs says, looking up from her set up.
She has a laptop, of course, and she can do just about anything with a USB drive, a phone, and an internet connection, but at the end of the day, she prefers her full set up, with all of its power, the proper keyboard, and high definition monitors.
"I did get another description of the woman she's travelling with," Dick says. "Elderly, white hair, "looks like your favorite aunt," about five-five."
"And still no images," Babs says, folding her hands over her keyboard.
"No pictures," he says. He sits down to unlace his boots. "I thought London had cameras everywhere."
"They do. It's how I keep an eye on what the Council does," Babs says, chewing on her lip absently. "But—Dick, we still don't know who it is that Steph is travelling with, and with Cass here, we can't even—we might not be able to tell if Steph is dead."
"Don't say that," Dick says. "She left a note, remember? She's fine. She just needs some time to herself." Dick's eyes travel to the wall, where there's a picture of himself, Babs, and Jason, before they had even heard of the Joker. "I can't exactly blame her."
"And I was willing to give her some space," Babs says. "But it's been weeks, Dick, and we haven't heard from her at all."
"She just—she killed the Red Hood," Dick says. "If it had been me—" He stops, unable to even think of something appropriate.
He misses Jason something awful; the pain of it is something he'd learned to live with, after losing him the first time. But now, it's fresh again, doubled by everything that he had done when he'd been soulless.
And this time, they're not going to get him back. Steph's note was clear on that.
Babs wheels back in her chair and wraps her fingers through his own. "It's okay to miss him," she whispers.
"I should be glad," he says. Her face is starting to grow watery, the clear crisp lines of her blurring. "He—the Red Hood was a monster. He was going to destroy the world."
"You're not missing the Red Hood," Babs says, cupping Dick's face in her hand. "You're missing Jason. Our Jason, who smuggled me chocolate when I was in the hospital and who designed a watch that never wound down for Bruce and who—" She breaks off in a sob, and that's all that it takes for the dam to break.
Neither of them had let themselves grieve, not really. There had been Babs's recovery, there had been the search for Stephanie, there had been Cass and Duke's adoption process, there had been properly taking care of the statue. There had been excuse after excuse, task after task, and they had both just kept going, because there was no one to blame, no one to hurt.
But now, it was six weeks later, and the grief would not be kept back any longer.
It flows out of both of them, tears streaming down there faces as Dick falls to his knees, resting his cheek against Babs's leg, her head bent over his, her hands in his hair as the two of them cry for Jason Todd. Both the boy who the Joker had killed and the vampire with a soul; their friend, their family, their brother.
They cry for him, together in Babs's apartment, in a way they wouldn't let themselves cry anywhere else.
Duke's room in Bruce's house is kind of bland, if he's being honest. Cass is right next door, and his new sister isn't particularly inclined to decorate with anything but weapons.
The stuff from his house is all boxed up and waiting for him, but he… he doesn't necessarily want to recreate his old room in this new house. His old posters and books feel… hollow now, as if they don't have anything to do with him. Too many of them have memories attached to them; reading the books with his parents, his mom buying him a poster at a museum store, even though it was far too expensive. His academic certificates and medals, the pictures of him and his parents… he just can't deal with any of those. Not right now.
But the blank, beige walls of his room are going to drive him crazy too.
It's his senior year, and he officially has no idea what he's going to do with himself. All of his plans feel… shallow, somehow, when he knows that there are monsters out there. Being a professor or an engineer or a lawyer or any of his other thoughts, so easily picked up and tossed aside, because they were never real, never present… what good do any of them do, really?
Bruce's house is large, and Duke knows there are plenty of rooms that he's never been in. Dick had given up his own room, painted a deep shade of blue, those first few nights after Duke's entire world had changed, faded circus posters on the walls and a series of photobooth strips tucked into the corner of the mirror, featuring a group of teenagers, Dick among them, laughing and embracing and making faces in turn.
He's seen Bruce's room, with its heavy black-out curtains and charcoal walls, the furniture sleek and minimalist, the only hint of the man who lived there a series of photographs on the bed stand, showing Dick, Barbara, Jason, a man that Duke has never met but knows is called Alfred.
There are other photos too, newer ones. One of Steph, her head bent over sharpening a sword, smiling at something secret. One of Cass, her hands wrapped as she punches a training dummy. Duke himself, with an ancient text about demons in one hand and a soda can in the other. Tim and Harper making a house of cards while Kon dozes in the background.
Duke found Jason's room by accident. The painted green like springtime, the shelves positively overflowing with books, a workbench covered in tools, a thick Watcher journal on the bedside.
As if he was going to come home any day now and pick up where he left off.
Duke avoided that room, after that.
"Hey Cass?" Duke says, leaning against the door jam. "Do you like. Have any hobbies?"
"Hobbies?" She asks. She's got an axe in each hand, which explains a lot about the noises he's been hearing through the walls.
"Like. Things you do. Besides killing monsters."
She opens her mouth.
"And training to kill monsters."
She opens her mouth again.
"Or researching how to kill monsters."
She closes her mouth sulkily.
Duke sighs. "Yeah, that's what I thought."
"Do I need one?" She asks. "A… hobby?" The word is clearly strange in her mouth, and Duke has to laugh at the expression on her face.
"Well, no. But it's nice. It helps you relax."
"I don't need to relax," she says. "I need to train."
"Not how anything works, sis," Duke says. "Science says that relaxation is good for you. It's like sleep. No one can be on all the time; it tires you out. Slows you down."
Cass's eyes widen—yeah, he thought that would be the part that got her. "Really?"
"Really."
Cass stiffens her shoulders. "What is the best hobby?"
"That's—that's also not how it works. It needs to be something you enjoy."
"Slayers don't enjoy things," Cass says, frowning.
"That's a lie, I've seen your face after you kicked Steph's ass in training."
Cass looks thoughtful.
"Beating up Steph can't be your hobby." He pauses, considering how short Steph's note was. "Or at least, not your only hobby."
"What's… your hobby?" Cass asks.
"Well—I like reading for fun. I like puzzles."
"Puzzles?" Cass looks interested. "I—I remember puzzles. From when I was little."
Cass doesn't talk about her childhood much—it's all a series of horror stories that Bruce doesn't react to much at all, which makes Duke think that the Watchers seriously screw their Slayers up, or Bruce has the world's best poker face. It could be both, honestly.
But either way, it's depressing.
"I know where we can get some puzzles," Duke says, rather than touching on Cass's trauma, because he's seventeen years old and is dealing with his own shit. "C'mon."
They do a five-hundred-piece puzzle of a rose in one sitting.
That night, Duke goes online and orders a kit that will allow him to frame a puzzle.
Cass can use some wall decorations.
Harper pushes open the door to Jason's old crypt, sighing as she looks around.
Everything looks in awful shape; a thin layer of dust has covered all of Jason's things, and there's a horrible smell coming from the mini fridge.
Harper knows, of all people, how easy it is to let things just… be, after losing someone.
But at some point, you've got to clean the dirty laundry. You need to empty the trash bin. You need to scrub the shower walls. Mold and bad smells doesn't do anything for anyone; not the dead, not those left behind.
She hasn't told anyone what she's doing; she knows some of them would want to help her, but she doesn't want the help.
She gets out the giant trash bag she brought with her and starts with the fridge.
All the blood in there is expired—she's not sure if it's pig's blood from the butcher or bags of stuff from the Red Cross, but she's not sure she wants to know, either.
It all goes in the bag, as does the ash tray full of cigarette butts. There's some dirty laundry in a basket, but he must have done a load right before he lost his soul, because there's not a lot of it.
At some point or another, some other vampire or demon will want to move into this space. They'll wreck Jason's couch and steal his cigarettes and fill his fridge with their own blood. So, as much as she might like to just leave things where they are, with the exception of the basic maintenance, she also wants to makes sure she's saved everything of Jason's that Bruce or Dick or even Steph might want.
She finds his spare leather jacket in the closet and sets it in the laundry basket she found. She finds a few impressive looking tomes on vampire and demon lore, including at least one she's pretty sure is from the library, and she puts those in the basket too.
Harper sighs and puts away his unlit pack of cigarettes as she moves to remove the sheets from the bed. None of them smoke, or she'd probably feel obligated to give them away, but as it is… they'll serve as a decent enough reminder of whose space this was.
She moves his pillow, and then pauses, as she finds a well-worn, many-times folded, photograph beneath the pillow.
She peaks at it, and sees that it's unmistakably Bruce, with Jason, Dick, and an old man. Swallowing, she puts it between the pages of one of the books she's bringing back, and keeps looking.
Jason's cell phone was thrown into a drawer, completely dead. Frowning, she plugs it in to look at later, while she finishes the rest of the cleanup.
She takes the trash out, and then, after locating Jason's car keys, she goes back to the phone.
It's pretty easy for her to get into the phone, even though she's sure that Jason thinks he's smart, doing one of those pattern-locks, and she scrolls through it, looking at all of the missed calls—mostly from Steph, the night everything went to shit.
But—oh.
There are photos. Some are normal, ordinary things. There are a few fuzzy distance shots of dogs, a few accidental screenshots, some saved memes.
But there are also selfies. Selfies with Steph.
The two of them leaning against each other, giving each other bunny ears, laughing. The two of them, back to back, trying to look serious. One of Jason grinning widely while Steph snoozes in the background.
She'd known they were friends.
But this, somehow… it's so, intensely, private. Personal. A side to both of them that she'd never really seen before.
She pauses, unsure of what to do, before she sends herself all of his photos.
She'll give them to Steph when she comes back.
The stars are so, so bright out here.
Steph isn't an astronomer; she doesn't know the stars all that well. She can pick out the Little Dipper, and she can pretty reliably point at the moon and tell you that it's the moon, but really, that's about it.
Her love affair with the stars is purely aesthetic. She loves staring up at them.
When she was really young, before everything started going bad, they'd lived out in the suburbs, and on clear nights… she had been able to see the stars. She would climb out onto the roof, even though it was against all the rules her parents laid out for her, and just gazed up at them, making up names and stories for them.
The air is cold here, and Steph clumsily pauses to fasten the metal buttons of her denim jacket.
She never wears it Slaying, but here, it brings her a touch of comfort, of familiarity. It has patches on it, ones that she'd carefully ironed on herself, and others that her mom had done for her. Patches for her martial arts classes, back in Los Angeles, before the money ran out and she had to stop. Patches for a summer camp she went to, one summer. One of a piano that Mom bought her, years ago, and one of Gotham's skyline that Duke had given her as a birthday present last year.
"Come," Leslie says. In her soft grey woolen skirt, white, pearl-buttoned blouse, and chunky-knit green cardigan, she seems completely foreign here, under the stars, with the mountains rising up behind her, their peaks reaching for the stars. "We've got a long way to go tonight."
Steph stares up at the stars, one last time, and then nods, looking back at Leslie.
"Okay."
Leslie leads her up a small, winding path that apparently shepherds use. She can see them in the distance, the orange glow of their fires revealing the shadows of them, clustered towards the warmth, occasionally broken by the bluish glow of their phone screens.
Steph left her phone in her room back in Gotham.
It had felt obvious at the time, an easy choice to make, because her heart felt like it was going to cleave in two, her ribcage bursting, and every broken thing about her was just going to unravel and come undone, and she didn't want any of them to see that.
Jason was dead, and it had been him, not the impersonal and monstrous Red Hood, who she had drive a sword through. It was him who she had sent through that portal, into the hell dimension, possibly under the direct control of the demon who had been about to bring about Armageddon.
None of them could understand—or worse, they could, and they would hate her as much as she hated herself.
She couldn't get it out of her mind—the feeling of Jason's ribs giving way to the sword, the expression on his face, even though he had known it was coming, even though he had told her to do it, the gasp of pain, the way his eyes had flickered open, wide with the pain, the absolute last thing of him that she had seen.
She forces herself to stop in her tracks, and stares at the stars again.
One of them is moving too fast, racing across the heavens, and Steph watches it, mesmerized.
"The International Space Station," Leslie says, from her elbow. "The stars remained utterly predictable for millenia, until you humans, in all of your cleverness and desire for adventure, decided that you wanted to reach out, to see more, to know everything you can."
Leslie's eyes trace the horizon with affection. "So many of my peers fear you humans. They're worried what will happen, if you keep growing. If you keep learning. If you can pull yourself out of these messes that a few have built for you."
"And you?"
Leslie meets her gaze. "I worry only that, one day, there will be war. A war so great, so horrible, that all sides lose everything, and no one remembers any other way, afterwards." She closes her eyes, and for a moment, the wrinkles on her face seem deeper than anything that Steph has ever seen.
How old is Leslie, really? Steph knows she's a Power, but what a Power is, Steph is no closer to understanding.
Something ancient. Something powerful. Something… more.
Leslie takes her hand and leads her up to the mouth of the cave.
"Your answers are here," Leslie says, smiling at her.
Steph looks into the cave. All she can see are stalactites—or are they stalagmites? She can never remember the difference. Everything else is darkness; a darkness so deep and thick that it could go on forever.
"You do not have to go," Leslie whispers, when Steph hesitates.
"I do," Steph says, and steps into the cave.
She was named Sineya, after a flower that grows in the shadow of trees, because her mother had craved them the entire time she carried her, and the joke was always that it was, in fact, her who craved them, through her mother's mouth.
It was a dark and dangerous time, and she had a weapon in her hand before she was twelve years old. She killed her first demon when she was fourteen, a task which the entire village whispered about, because normally it took three grown warriors to take down such a creature.
When she was seventeen, five villages came together and held a competition to identify the greatest warrior in the region, because the demons were rising, were seeking to destroy all of humanity, and the world needed a champion.
Sineya won all of the competitions, even though her parents begged her not to compete, fearing what would happen next. She ignored their warnings. She was a woman grown, and she had lost too many friends to the demons.
The magicians of the five villages took her to the cave.
To fight the demons, she must become like them.
There is an ancient, dangerous demon who slumbers in the cave, one of the Old Gods, who's footsteps shaped mountains and whose tears bring immortality.
The magicians wrap her in spells and place a sword of star metal in her hands. With their magic at her back, she fights the creature, and slays it.
She rips open the ribcage, and rivers of black blood flow out, staining everything it touches.
The magicians flee, afraid of the darkness, afraid of touching it, but she is not.
She takes the darkness into herself, imbues herself in the power of the monster. She will be as strong, as fast, as clever as any demon.
Sineya emerges from the cave, covered in the blood, and the magicians bind the magic to her and then cast a spell, so that the power will not vanish when she dies.
They go with her to the river, after that, and they bathe together, to clean off the darkness.
Slayer, they name her.
She names them her friends. And they will fight together for the rest of her days.
Steph steps out of the darkness, into the cave.
Here, there is a gap in the ceiling, exposing the moonlight and bringing light.
And she stops and stares.
The enormous skeleton has been stripped clean by time, but it would easily be three times the size of a house. She can't make out the shape of it, although she can identify at least three hands, and spots a skull, cracked right down the middle.
It was still here, after… what, six thousand years? She had no date for what she had seen, in the darkness.
Only the name.
Sineya.
There's a sword in the center of the beast's… ribcage? It's been driven into the ground, and something about it sings to her.
She pauses, as she realizes that it's not ground.
It's black and thick, like ooze…
"Come," a voice calls.
Steph looks up, shocked, and then she stops still in her tracks again.
"Sineya?" She says.
The woman looks so much older than what she had seen in the vision. Her dreadlocks are silver, her face covered in scars and wrinkles, her hands spotted.
"Come," Sineya repeats, her hand outstretched.
Steph swallows, and then steps forward, into the demon's blood.
It clings to her jeans and her shoes like a thousand tiny fingers. Each step is an enormous effort, but it's not… wet. It's not soaking through.
She moves forward, until she arrives at the sword, where Sineya is.
"You're the First Slayer," Steph whispers, staring at her. She's short but stocky, her spine curved slightly with age. She's missing three fingers, and there's a chunk missing out of her ear.
But she's…
"You survived," Steph says. "But… how? You look…"
The oldest Slayer on record was twenty-two years old.
But… Sineya was before recorded history, wasn't she? No Watcher, no random destiny. She had chosen this for herself, gone into the cave, bathed in the darkness.
"I was ninety-seven when I died," Sineya says. Her voice has layers to it—when she listens, Steph can hear other languages. Every single word she says is being said a hundred times over, in every language this First Slayer knows.
Which, Steph knows, instinctively, is every language every Slayer has ever known.
"Wow," Steph whispers. "That's amazing."
Sineya smiles, proud, then reaches out and presses withered, ancient fingers against Steph's cheek. She must have been beautiful in her youth, but even now, well into her nineties, there's a solemnity and grace to her that demands attention.
"You did not choose this."
Steph looks away. "No."
"I am sorry," Sineya says. "We… we did not realize, that consequence, when we bound this power. Destiny was not a word we had taken into account. All we wished for was survival, for power."
"I saved the world," Steph says, forcing a smile. "I guess… I guess it's not so bad."
"I cannot take this from you," Sineya whispers. Her eyes are faded—she's almost blind, if not completely. "But I can offer you this. A warning, and a gift."
"Can I just—ask?" Steph asks, desperately. "Why me? Why did the Watchers miss me?"
"I don't know your Watchers," Sineya says, with a shrug. "But the magic goes where it is needed. To whom is needed. You, Stephanie Brown, from Los Angeles, to Gotham, were the one who was needed to solve these particular problems, in your particular way."
She takes Steph's hand in hers. "Here is your warning—the Demon's Head has his eye upon you. He is an old, and powerful demon, but he is more than that. I cannot see everything he is, and that is… rare."
"The Demon's Head," Steph repeats, nodding. "Okay. And?"
"Your gift," Sineya says, and she gestures at the pool of darkness at their feet.
Steph stares at it, not comprehending. "What?"
"You made it here. You survived your tests, and the Powers have judged you worthy. If you wish, you can bathe here, and become stronger."
Steph stares at the inky, terrifying darkness spread out all around her. "I—will it help? Will it… will it help me protect my friends? Will it mean I survive longer? Will it—will it change me?"
"It will change you," Sineya acknowledges. "Power always changes things. And it might help with those other things, depending on how you use it."
Steph stares at it, a darkness so complete that she can't even see the reflection of the moon in it. She reaches out and, cautiously, touches it with a finger.
The darkness clutches at her, greedily, and she feels… something rush through her, a heady, giddy desire to fight, to destroy. With this, she can do anything. She can protect her friends, she'll never need to ask for help again. She can rip apart any monster with her bare hands, no one will be able to stop her, not even Cass or Bruce or—
She jerks her hand back, and the goo lets her go, breathing heavily.
There had been… it had been nothing but that feeling. It had so thoroughly eclipsed anything else. There was no concern, no love, no softness. There was strength, and power, and… the rest had been gone.
"I think I'm good," she says, feeling sick and dizzy.
Sineya smiles at her, ancient and sad. "I'm glad."
"What?"
"It is a gift. But gifts are not always a good thing." Sineya rests her hands against the ancient sword, still glistening silver, even after all this time. "The Powers have led several Slayers here over the years. None have refused, before you."
Steph looks over her shoulder.
"They needed to be strong, because there was no one for them to be soft for," Sineya says, sadly. "They didn't know the value of kindness. Of listening, of waiting. But you have learned it."
Steph swallows, her mouth dry. "Did it—did it do that to you?"
Sineya looks thoughtful. "Yes and no. I did not already have a connection to it to draw me in. I was harder, after, of that I have no doubt. But I was not as effected as the later ones."
Steph clenches her hands into fists, and stares across the pool of darkness. Then she forces herself to relax, and looks back at the First Slayer.
"Is there anything I can do for you? You must get lonely, here."
Sineya laughs, the sound echoing through the cave, and filling Steph with a strange warmth that she doesn't quite understand.
"I am always with you, Stephanie Brown. With you, and Cassandra Cain, and six thousand years of Slayers, I am never lonely." She presses an ancient, dry kiss against Steph's cheek. "But thank you, for asking."
Steph turns and starts walking, back across the ancient blood of a long-dead demon.
This time, the blood moves away from her, and each step she makes is dry.
Right before she hits the wall of darkness, she glances over her shoulder, and Sineya is nowhere to be seen. All that's left in the cave is a skeleton, and a sword made of stars.
Crystal Brown sits at her kitchen table, poking listlessly at her plate of waffles.
It's yet another Saturday morning, stretching out in front of her without any end in sight.
There's a knock on her door, and Crystal sighs and gets to her feet. It's probably Bruce, or maybe Barbara or Richard, who stop in to check on her regularly and give her updates about their search for Steph.
But it's not them.
Tanned and freckled, her hair bleached pale by the sun, her smile tentative and scared, is Steph.
"Hi Mom," she says, before being cut off by Crystal's immediate embrace.
"You're home," Crystal sobs. "You're home."
Steph reaches back and hugs her, her grip impossibly strong—how had she ever thought that this grip could be anything but magical?—and the two Brown women just stand there, in the doorway to their home, locked in a tight embrace for a long, long time.
It's horrible.
She keeps breaking the story.
She keeps ruining everything.
She's supposed to have died, way back in the first chapter, before that stupid blue-haired girl brought her back, and now there's two Slayers, and that's not how things are supposed to work.
It all went wrong when the Red Hood got his soul back, that's it. If he hadn't had a soul, he'd have just let the Slayer die, maybe he'd have killed her himself, and that would have been a much better story. Better than all of the crying and speeches, better than extended fight scenes and friendship arcs.
She's not even a good protagonist; now that Warlock Boy, he'd be a great one. Or even her Watcher, he's got a backstory worth exploring. What's she got, besides Daddy Issues and a pathetic crush?
None of the other Powers care, they're all too busy whispering about humanity, paying attention to other things. Leslie is helping her, shepherding her to the First Slayer's site, where she's going to bathe in the darkness and become the strongest Slayer in three hundred years.
That won't stand. Not at all.
He forces himself to examine the situation.
It's easy call in old debts, to ensure that this horrible little town is wiped off the face of the world. Not yet, maybe, but soon enough.
But that won't take care of the Slayer.
Hmm.
The Red Hood has been in hell for what on Earth has been seven weeks, but is, in the dimension where he is, has actually been seven hundred years. He's been tortured and has seen the full extent and damnations of hell.
Any soul would crack under the weight of it.
Yes, the Red Hood will do nicely, even if his pesky soul is still there. Plenty of humans have souls, and they still go about doing their own thing, killing and hurting and torturing and all of the rest. What does a soul mean? Not a damn thing.
Of course, it's not going to be easy to pull him out of hell.
He goes to the place where the statue was—the Watcher moved it and hid it, because he's sensible, unlike that pathetic Slayer, who just ran, like the scared little girl that she is.
But even with moving, to his eyes, he can see the fissure in reality, where the portal opened, and then was closed. The skin between the worlds is thin, a gaping wound, ready to be exploited.
Grinning, he pulls back his fist, and smashes it against the walls of reality, once, twice, three times.
Jason Todd stumbles forward, out of the portal, wearing the clothes he'd worn when he had gone through, gasping for air, clutching his chest, where a sword is still imbedded, a twin to the sword in the statue, which his father has hidden away.
He yanks it out of his chest and lets it fall to the ground, falling over on his hands and knees, each breath that he doesn't even need to take causing his entire body to shudder.
"Get up," he orders. "I have a mission for you."
Jason looks up, confused. "Who—"
"My name is Prime," he says. "I am one of the Powers That Be. I am the one who pulled you out of hell, back into the world. And I have a job for you."
Jason pushes himself back up onto his knees. "One of—one of the Powers?"
"Yes," Prime says, crossing his arms. "Now listen, this tortured soul, vampire on the path to redemption thing was fun for about fifty years, but we're all over it now. It's too… YA. So I want you to get over yourself, stop your whining and brooding, and go back to the badass, Slayer-killing vampire you really are."
"I—what?" Jason says, shaking his head.
"Ugh, you have no grasp of narrative," Prime says. "Listen. You're wasted as a sidekick. You're a proper antagonist, so you need to get up, and go find that Brown girl, and eat her."
Jason blinks slowly. "Steph?"
"Yes! Stephanie Brown, the Vampire Slayer, the annoying bitch who keeps ruining the story!" Prime says, throwing up his arms. "I need you to kill her, so we can move onto the interesting stuff."
"You—want me to kill Steph?"
"What, are you stupid? That's what I said!" Prime says.
Jason Todd stares at him.
Then he looks down at the ground, where the sword is lying, and he picks it up and gets to his feet. "Where—where is she?"
"She should be back at her mother's house by now," Prime says, turning slightly to point in the direction. "Leslie was protecting her from my sight, but now that she's back in Gotham, she's fair game, so you—"
He's cut off by the sword going through his throat.
"Fuck you, and fuck your narrative," Jason snaps, leaning against the wall for support as Prime falls to the ground, dead.
He then forces himself to stand upright, each movement agony, and starts to hobble out of the mansion.
A few seconds after he's gone, Prime gets to his feet, the sword still through his throat. He waves his hand, impatiently, and the sword falls to the ground, covered in gleaming golden blood.
"Unfortunate," he says, his lip curling. "I had such hopes for that arc." He puts his hands in his pockets. "Oh well. I have other stories to work on."
He vanishes into thin air.