Chapter 9

Barb didn't know what day it was. She didn't know what story Bruce had concocted for her dad. Mostly, she didn't care. Her body was healed, but she doubted her mind would ever recover. She lay in the same bed at Wayne Manor she'd occupied after Bruce saved her and Tim. It seemed like a lifetime ago. She barely moved, and never talked. Except when Bruce had tried to enter her room. Then she'd screamed bloody murder until he left, and Alfred now came in only long enough to make sure she ate some soup. She couldn't scream at Alfred; it wasn't his fault she was here.

The blinds were drawn and the room stayed in a perpetual state of dusk. She figured she had to smell. She hadn't showered or brushed her teeth since she woke up here some time ago. With a brief humorless laugh she mocked herself for her depression. First her legs, now her mind. Better she had thrown herself off the balcony before Bruce ever visited. It was Bruce's fault, of that she felt sure. The Joker, the failed surgery, her shattered heart and mind. She soundly placed the blame for it all on his doorstep. The lamp next to her bed cast a yellow pall across the cream colored silk sheets and she dozed as the shadows on the wall shifted with the sun. Soon Alfred would be here with more soup. Maybe today she would stop eating altogether.

When the door opened she didn't bother to turn over. Alfred would scoot across the carpet quietly, as was his way, set the tray down on the bedside table and begin his inane conversation. She didn't hear footsteps, though, or Alfred's quiet breath. She didn't smell soup, but something vaguely like the ocean and jasmine.

"May I enter Barbara?" a melodious voice spoke into the gloom.

Rolling over Barbara's eyes opened slightly at Diana standing casually in her doorway dressed in jeans and a blouse. Somehow the typical clothing only made her seem that much more spectacular. And then, just as the burst of energy filled her, it fled leaving apathy and lethargy behind. Diana took Barb's silence for acquiescence and entered the room, smoothly dropping into the chair in the corner. She didn't approach Barb or start blabbering. Diana just sat there comfortably, as if they were in her own drawing room, and watched Barb. Mustering what felt like the last of her energy, Barb rolled back over and faced the wall.

"Did you know I run a women's shelter?" Diana asked her. Barb showed no signs of listening, but after a slight pause Diana continued as if it were the most natural conversation in the world. "I can't be there as often as I like, but I work as a volunteer whenever I'm available. For all my power when women stumble in beaten or raped-often both-I find myself almost overwhelmed by powerlessness and guilt."

Diana stopped for a moment before continuing, her voice never changing in pitch or volume as she spoke again.

"The worst, though, the ones that really break my heart, are the women that go back. I think about beating their husbands and boyfriends and pimps senseless. Maybe of taking Circe's route. That would insight real change. And then I become so furious with Clark and Bruce. Can you guess why?" Diana asked her.

Barb didn't even bother to shrug.

"Because sometimes, only very rarely and I will deny I ever said this should you bring it up, they are the most ridiculous, self-important, spoiled, self-righteous babies I have ever had the misfortune to know." Diana paused again and sighed as if it were her cross to bear. "They are not warriors. They don't understand that some things are final and that sometimes, as awful as a truth it might be, finality is called for in a battle. Sometimes, in order to save your own life and the lives of those you love and protect, others must die."

At that Barb did move. Her body, as if it no longer answered to her brain, but to the voice of Diana, rolled over until her eyes locked onto the bright cerulean blue of the Amazon's. Diana spoke again, her gaze never wavering from Barb's.

"I know why Bruce has never killed the Joker, and in the past I have respected both his decision and his ideas of heroism and morality. But, if you ask it of me, I will make sure he never harms anyone ever again."

Barb could only stare as her mouth started working, but no sound came out. Her body was trying to answer, begging for the solution Diana offered, but another part of her-the part she thought she had lost in the Lazarus pit-had woken up and was stopping her voice. Diana said nothing more; she held Barbara's gaze unwaveringly as Barb struggled with herself fighting a war she knew she had already lost.

"No," Barb finally whispered. "No."

Diana nodded once as if she expected that. "Perhaps you would like to tell me why?"

"I-" Barb's mouth fumbled, "I want him…I want him…"

"What do you want?" Diana pushed when she trailed off.

"I want him dead," Barb hissed. "It's all I dream about. Knowing he's gone. Knowing he can never come back. Seeing…seeing him bleed out in front of me, and burning the body." She stared defiantly at Diana, daring her to react.

"I know that feeling well," Diana told her simply. "Why do you stop yourself?"

"I couldn't ask you to do that," Barb whispered.

"I am a warrior, Barbara," Diana told her simply. "This would not be the first I killed, and it, unfortunately, would not be the last. When I kill the monsters of my gods no one questions me. If anything it solidifies my reputation as a hero. But I know monsters, and they are rarely so different from humans. Many are sentient; many are evil. Some fall somewhere in between. The Joker, however he was born, now resides firmly in the land of the monster. This would bother me no more and no less than my destruction of Ares or Medusa."

"I can't…" Barb whispered unable to get the words out.

"You can't? You certainly could," Diana told her. "If it is asking me to do it that you object to, you are more than capable of taking care of it yourself."

"That's-" Barb paused, a rush of rage choking her voice, "god I want to. Do you really understand how much I want to? But if I do…Bruce would never forgive me."

"And why does that matter?" Diana pushed.

"I don't know," Barb sighed. "I don't-I'll never forgive him. So what does it matter if he never forgives me, but it would-it would break him in a way that I can't be responsible for. I can't do that to him."

"And what of yourself?"

"I would be-" Barb stopped, and finally shifted her gaze away from Diana's to the wall, unable to bear the Amazon's pointed stare. "I wouldn't be me then. I don't know how to explain it better than that."

"Then you are not so far gone as you think," Diana said more gently, rising and coming over to the bed. "What you have been through is not something you should have to bear alone. There are people you could talk to, that you should talk to, that are qualified and able to hear the whole story unedited."

Barb returned her gaze, looking up as Diana sat down next to her.

"You think you are beyond redemption, beyond life, but if that were truly so you would have agreed to my offer, and you would not let Alfred feed you," Diana told her, gently brushing Barb's hair away from her face. "But some part of you, however small, has survived this ordeal and it wants to live Barbara. You must stop fighting yourself and let it."

Barb turned her face back into the pillow, but didn't push Diana's hand away. It seemed-it simply seemed unbearable.

"I am going to go get you some food," Diana told her rising. "And if you would like, after you eat, I will help you bathe. You needn't do anymore than that today."

Barb was silent until Diana opened the door, but then called out, stopping her.

"Diana?"

"Yes?" she answered, looking back at Barb.

"Were you serious? About your offer?"

"My goal was to help you rediscover the vitality and passion within you. I thought I might have a perspective that Bruce and Alfred would not. "

"Is that a yes then?"

"I am a warrior Barbara. That has been my training, my life, and the code I live by," Diana told her. With an enigmatic smile Diana quietly closed the door behind her.