Chapter Seventeen

Fighting

"Stay still Dinah," Barbara says as I fidget with the cables and wait for our que. Why couldn't we just get this over with, save Helena, and go home- Oh yeah, our home isn't there anymore, and certainly not left the way we had it only hours ago. Barbara insists it's all about timing, that we have to get Helena's therapist off guard. She was the one who had engineered Guy, my somewhat nephew, I just know it. 'I hope for Helena's sake you're standing next to Selina, watching over her now, guiding her.' I feel anger, and Barbara senses it. She puts a hand upon one of mine. "Be strong Dinah. I need you to help me get Helena out of there safely. Don't get lost in anger, Dinah. Think of something else. Something that you know is worth fighting for." She's raising my hopes to fight like I had at the school for her.

"Something worth fighting for..." My best friend's face comes to mind easily, and I hold on to it. 'I'll protect you from this madness like you protect me from the Zipper Girl title. I'll fight for you because I know you're worth fighting for.' I feel my heart swell as it had when I'd seen Gabby sitting alone on the bench by the flagpole, her head on her knuckles and a long curtain of curly blonde hair shielding her face from the world. 'She's so beautiful,' I thought then, and I couldn't stop myself from hoping that she was thinking of me, that I occupied her mind half as much as she's been occupying mine as of late. I have come to an easy conclusion in the last week that I love her. 'I love Gabby Andrews. She's worth fighting for, and so is love. Barbara loved Wade, and that love was taken away from her. I won't let that happen to me,' I think as I stares at Barbara. 'I will help take back the Clocktower. This is the only place I can ever call home. We'll fight. We'll defeat Harley Quinn and her hypnotized police goons. We'll get Helena and Alfred and Gibson, and then I must go to her, see if she's okay. I must... I can't have her fall to the hands of someone like Harley Quinn, I can't. I'll have to leave our friendship behind. I don't want to. Mom, was this right here why you had to give me up? If I die tonight, will you be there? No, I won't die tonight. I have to fight and win. I have to go to her. Being in your boots now, Mom, I forgive you. Truly, I forgive you.' My face goes slack, and my eyes burn into one of determination, and the scared girl I was seconds ago disappears.

"Ready?" She has been watching me this whole time, and when she sees that, she knows I have made up my mind. I have to go to her.

"Yes." I say. 'As ready as I will ever be.' She takes a deep breath.

"Good, because I think it's our que to make our surprise entrance." I nod. It's time to fight-

I opened my eyes to find that I was on the couch, not at the table where I had fallen asleep. A blanket that I had on my bed was spread over me, and I was using a couple of sheets from the linen closet as a pillow. Slowly, I sat up. Uncle Leonard was sitting at the table reading the paper. He stared at me for a second, then smiled. "How do you feel?"

"Better," I told him, and that must have been the first time I believed my own words in a long time.

"Good. You hungry?" I nodded, almost eagerly. The sandwhich the night before felt as if it was consumed centuries ago. I started to get up, but Uncle Leonard motioned for me not to move. He got up and went to the kitchen, and he clanked and banged for a moment, then I heard water running, which reminded me of my thirst. Seconds later, I saw him emerge with a tray loaded with a thick sandwhich, a bowl of chunky chicken noodle soup, a glass of water with only one ice cube in it the way I like it, and two white asprine tablets. How did he know that my head slightly hurt? Another thing I noticed: I could tell he was thinking very hard about something, but I didn't get a flash of anything. It was silent in his head. Not quite silent, really. It was like... well if you were in your own room but could still hear the TV faintly on the other side of the house. I could hear it was on, but not what show was playing... or something like that. I knew he was thinking, but it was indistinct "When you were about seven, you used to have dreams. Weird assed dreams. Your mother told me you would talk in your sleep, say the weirdest things... Things you wouldn't say unless you knew the secrets of those around at the moments you were dreaming. Sometimes- not always- you would wake up with a headache." I watched him as he spoke. He'd set the tray on the coffe table, and as he was telling me this, he was pushing the table closer to me.

"Anyway," he continued, "I had this strange dream that woke me up, and instead of the images I usually get, all I could see was darkness, then I heard an urgent cry from you for help. I got up and hitch-hiked from the bar to here. When I got here, it was almost four in the afternoon. I don't know what time you'd fallen asleep, so I left you alone after I moved you to the couch. Laying at the table like that couldn't have been comfortable." He made a face, and I smiled. "At about nine forty-five or so, you started to talk in your sleep. You kept saying things like 'We must fight', or- Once you said, 'I'll fight for you'." I thought about the wonderful things Dinah had thought before going in to fight for her home, and blushed. "Who were you dreaming about?" I wanted to give him two replies, but neither one of them fit Dinah's title in my life. 'Best friend' didn't quite cut it anymore, as our love for eachother transended friendship, and we weren't in a relationship, nor would we be anytime soon from the sounds of it, so the term 'girlfriend' couldn't be used, either.

"Someone special in my life, why?" Uncle Leonard looked away for a second, and then back at me.

"Gabby, when you did that- and I shouldn't even be telling you this much, so listen up 'cause I won't repeat this- When you did that, have the dreams and all, you were just getting used to your powers. Yes, Gabby. You were a mind reader. You would dream someone's memory by night and by day you'd hear thoughts as clearly as if they'd been spoken to you instead." He wanted to ask me something, but didn't seem to know where to start. "Are they back, Gabby?" I stared at him, surprised at what he was telling me. I had my powers as a kid? I took the glass of water off of the tray set on the coffee table and looked at it, then took a drink. I drank it all down in a few gulps, not stopping long enough to take the asprine like I had originally wanted to. Uncle Leonard knew I was trying to busy myself so that I didn't have to say anything right away, and knew that he could take this action as a yes. He took the glass from me and went to refill it.

When I'd drank all off that glass too, my uncle said, "Jesus Gabby, you want me to just get you a pitcher?" He was exasperated, almost angry, but when I looked at him, he seemed amused. Before I could set the glass down, he took it from me and went to refill it yet again. He brought back the promised pitcher this time and a second glass for himself. He filled them both up and it was silent as I ate, thinking about what he'd just said. Did I have my powers before they brought me to the Institute? Did they take them away? In about ten minutes, both the sandwhich and the bowl of soup was nothing more than a pleasent memory. We were quiet still as we waited. After a while, my uncle said, "I lied."

"About the Institute?" He seemed surprised, but he nodded. I looked down at my hands, which I had rested in my lap.

"Yes. I lied about not knowing anything."

"I know. I think everyone in this family knew something about it but me. It wasn't until my abilities showed up that I knew such a place exsisted." 'Unfortunately, it is destroyed now, but maybe if I could get a name or two of someone who worked there I could get a hold of someone who had dealt with me, the person who took my memory from me.'

"What do you know about it?" he asked me, fixing me with a stare that said it was important for me to tell him what I knew.

"If I told you, would you fill in the rest?"

"I made a promise to your parents-"

"Then what difference does it make, what I know?" I almost snapped. Uncle Leonard seemed taken aback by this. "I'm tired of all the secrets. I keep hearing snippets of this mystery over the Institute, but I just want to konw what happened when I was five or six that resulted in my going there and getting my memory erased." Uncle Leonard probably didn't think I knew that much about the Institute, just the fact that I knew I went there, and that it was the reson for blank spots in my memory. No, not just blank spots, almost all of my childhood before the age of nine. I wasn't going to let him know that because of Ms. Gordon's Metahuman Database I knew going to the Institue heavily had something to do with my abilities. What I didn't know was why they started taking me there. An event happened then I was five or six Why would I still be going there to that doctor five years later when I was ten or and I went to the 'doctors' in the Institute. That didn't make sense though. eleven? 'I hate this. Just when I think it's almost over, I have to go and think. When will this mystery end?' I thought to myself. More silence after that. Why was it so hard to talk to him?