A/N: Thank you for all the reviews! My internet's been a bit dodgy today, so I apologise for not replying to them. Hopefully I'll be able to for this chapter. Also thank you a million times to Angel Queen.

Chapter Five - Selfish, Brooding, Smug

The clock finally swung open like a door, and Alfred appeared. Sarah watched him push it back into place and fiddle with the clock hands. He then left the room, having not noticed her watching him. Sarah's mouth dropped when she looked back at the clock. She tiptoed to the doorway and made sure Alfred was gone before she went over to it. It sure looked like a normal clock, and she'd always thought it was, but it was obviously a doorway to somewhere... but where? As far as she knew there was only the games room on the other side of that wall... Unless it was thicker than it looked?

She put her milk on the desk and left the room, walked into the games room and tried to judge how thick the wall was. It was difficult to tell, since the pinball machine was in the way, but maybe it was a little thicker than it should have been. Of course, thinking about it, if Daddy was hiding something then putting the passage way next to the games room was quite a clever idea – she and Nicky were really the only ones who used it, and if Daddy went through the clock at night, then the other room would be empty. She went back into the study, opening the glass pane of the grandfather clock to get a proper look at its workings. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but then she didn't know much about clocks.

Deciding on a trial and error system, Sarah began fiddling, pulling on bits she thought might move. Nothing happened, and her patience ran out quickly. If she was going to figure it out, then she'd have to know what she was doing. If she accidentally pressed the wrong bit then she might trip some kind of security system Daddy had built in, and then she'd get in trouble with both him and Alfred.

No, the best idea was to head back to bed and then research clocks tomorrow, find out what wasn't supposed to be there. She should also probably monitor how often Alfred and Daddy went down there too, so that when she found out how to get through, she wouldn't get caught.

Whatever it was Daddy was hiding down there, he obviously didn't want anyone to find it. Exactly how she'd break it to him that she'd found out... Never mind, she thought, shaking her head. She'd cross that bridge when she came to it. Still, as she made her way back to bed – checking furtively for Alfred on the way – she couldn't help speculating. Why would Daddy have something hidden behind the clock. A room, it had to be, since Alfred was in it, so it couldn't just be a hidden safe. A vault, maybe? She knew there was the one down in the wine cellar that contained all the most valuable things, like Grandma Martha's jewellery and things... unless it didn't? Yes, Sarah thought, warming to that idea, that makes sense. The one in the cellar was a fake, and it was the one behind the clock that was real. It was all a big ruse – clever, too. That definitely made sense; Daddy was clever, after all.

Unless she was wrong – not about the clever, thing, she knew he was that, but was she–

Nicky snored softly, breaking Sarah from her circular thoughts. She huffed, snuggling down into bed. She couldn't think straight while she was tired. Daddy was hiding something, she didn't know what, and thinking about it all night wasn't going to help her any.

Though the kids were at Bruce's this week, Diana had offered to pick them up from school, since Alfred was busy trying to mend the acid burn on Bruce's latest batsuit, which was apparently proving rather resistant. Ordinarily it wouldn't have mattered, but since it was a model of the suit loaded with new technology - and Bruce only had one prototype - it was apparently important that it be ready for tonight's patrol.

Of course, that wasn't what she could tell Nick, when he asked. "Your father has a cocktail party in a few days and Alfred is preparing for it, little sun," she explained.

"Oh."

Sarah - who ordinarily would have rolled her eyes or asked why her father was having a cocktail party, or why he hadn't invited Diana - simply got into the car without saying anything. And then sat there.

"Seatbelt, Sarah," Diana said gently.

Nothing. Her daughter was staring out of the window, her bottom lip between her teeth. "Sarah?"

Still being ignored. Sarah being deep in thought wasn't an uncommon occurrence, but she'd never... brooded before. Diana hid a smile. Her father's daughter. Not that that was any surprise.

Diana shook her arm slightly. "Earth to little star..."

Sarah blinked. "Huh?"

"Seatbelt, Sarah," her mother said, looking pointedly at the buckle.

"Oh. Right. Sorry, Mommy."

Once Sarah was strapped in, Diana started the car and set off toward the manor. The car was uncharacteristically silent as they drove - Sarah had lapsed back into her brooding while Nick wasn't looking at anything in particular, but was grinning almost smugly at it.

"So..." she said after a while, "did you two have a good day?"

"Yup!"

"Fine..."

The sullen tone in her daughter's voice caught Diana's attention. "Sarah? Did something happen today?"

"No," she said - but too quickly. Diana had been around Batman long enough to know when someone was lying.

"Not buying it, Sarah," she said lightly, but firmly.

"Nothing happened, Mommy," she emphasised. "I'm fine, okay?"

"Sarah, I know when I'm being lied to," Diana warned, glancing at Sarah's face in the rearview mirror.

Nick spoke up from the other backseat. "Just tell her, Sarah."

There was a muffled thump, followed by an, "Ow!" from her son. And then another from Sarah when Nick, naturally, retaliated.

"Hey, you didn't have to hit me so hard!"

"You hit me first!"

"Because you wouldn't shut up!"

"You were being stupid - why won't you just tell Mommy-"

Diana pulled over, the turned in her seat to glare at the twins. "Children, stop this right now! Stop it!"

They both looked at her guiltily for a moment before saying in unison - both in timing and insincerity - "Sorry."

The apology was forced, and she hated that, but six years as a mother had taught Diana to compromise. With children that combined the willpower of both she and Bruce, it was difficult to win in even a small way, so she took what she could get.

The heavy silence lasted until Diana pulled up at the manor. "Now you two be good," she emphasised.

They both nodded. Sarah stood on her tiptoes outside Diana's window to kiss her cheek. "Sorry, Mommy. I'm okay, though."

Diana frowned, hugged her daughter through the window. "You would tell me if there was something bothering you, wouldn't you, little star?"

She nodded. "Of course. But there's nothing... wrong."

On that unhelpful and slightly worrying note, Sarah turned and followed her brother into the manor, shutting the door behind her. Diana frowned harder as she drove back down to the gatehouse. Something was wrong, whatever Sarah said. And if she wouldn't talk to Diana, maybe she'd talk to Bruce. Making a mental note to call him, Diana parked next to the house, then opened the front door.

It was empty, cold and very, very quiet inside. This morning she'd hoped it would be - she needed a bit of peace to look over the edited copy of her new manuscript before she sent it to the publisher. Now, though, it was only depressing. It didn't help that she'd been in a rush and hadn't opened the curtains in her study this morning. She opened them and let cold grey light flood the room.

Sitting down, she picked up the phone and pressed three on the speed-dial. It rang once before she slammed it down again.

Then she stared at it for a good five minutes. Was she ready to talk to him? It was unsettling. She'd spent so long trying to further her attraction to Bruce, and then burying it, that unearthing again it was difficult. She didn't know how to go about telling him how she felt... especially since she knew he loved her, and she felt ashamed that she'd disregarded that for so long. Did she love him too? Hera, that was a messy vat of feelings she had to delve into.

Truthfully she didn't know. She had... but if that was true, then when had she stopped? Had falling out of love with him been a gradual process? Falling in love with him certainly had been - but did that mean she had to do it all over again? Was she being selfish? The jealousy she'd felt at seeing him with another woman was extremely territorial. Perhaps it was just because she liked the idea of him waiting for her forever-

"No!" she whispered aloud. "No, that's not true."

She sighed, and finally decided on taking the cowards way out - she dialled the manor, and waited it to be picked up. She'd tell Alfred. He could tell Bruce.

"Hey," Nick nudged his sister. "Are you okay, Sarah?"

She spat her mouthful of toothpaste into the sink, and then wiped her mouth. "Yeah."

"Liar," he accused. She'd been really distant for more than a week now, and moody too. He could cope with her being bossy, but when she went all quiet and broody... he hated it. "Is it just because Miss Maurier told you off?"

"No!" she snapped, turning to glare at him. "And anyway, it wasn't my fault Amy Turnbull can't throw a ball to save her life."

"You weren't even looking, Sarah," he said.

"I was too!"

"Then you would have dodged."

Rather than arguing more, as she would ordinarily have done, Sarah simply turned her back and stuck her nose in the air, reaching for the mouthwash. Nick grabbed it before she could. "Mommy is the princess, Sarah, so stop it."

She sighed, and then looked down at the bathmat. "My math teacher told me off," she said quietly.

For anyone else it was silly, actually laughable, but for Sarah... as far as Nick knew, she'd never been told off by any teacher, for anything. Now twice in one day, and in math? Bad. Really bad. "Why?" he asked.

She shrugged, then opened her mouth, shut it again and shrugged once more. Nick frowned – what was going on? It wasn't like Sarah to keep things from him, they told each other everything. A horrible thought struck him. He hadn't thought she was jealous of him getting Mommy's powers, but what if she was? What if she was gonna hate him for –

His unpleasant thoughts skidded to a halt when Sarah hugged him. "You're my best friend, Nicky," she said in a small voice. "You know that."

He blinked – maybe she was getting powers. He looked at her with a little suspicion. "Did you just read my mind?"

"No," she smiled. "I just always know what you're thinking."

Well, he couldn't argue with that. Before he could continue and ask her what was wrong, she changed the subject. "So how's it going..." she tiptoed over to the door to check for Alfred or Daddy, and then carried on, "...powers-wise?"

"Well I've kinda given up on the flying thing – I know I shouldn't totally," he added hurriedly, seeing her beginning to argue, "but I figured I'm gonna have to do the super-strong thing too, right?"

She nodded. "So what did you do?"

"Well you know how Robby Lindstrom picks on everybody at school?" he asked wickedly.

Sarah gasped. "Nicky, you didn't! What were you thinking?"

"No, Sarah, I didn't –"

"Heroes don't go round beating people up just because they feel like it, Nicky! And you could've totally given yourself away – and Mommy too –"

She cut off as he put a hand over her mouth. "I didn't beat up Robby."

"Oh. Well what did you do?"

He shrugged with a careless grin. "I crumpled up his bike into a teeny-tiny little ball."

Sarah looked very much like she didn't want to giggle, but gave in after a second, little hissing sounds coming from her mouth. Robby was the worst kind of bully – even though he never picked on Nick or Sarah generally - his M.O. was to pick on anyone with less money than him, and then bizarrely demand more money off them. He knew, of course, that there was no point in lording it over the Wayne twins, but that didn't protect their friends from his attentions. The idea of his very expensive BMX being crushed like a tin can was very satisfying.

Inevitably, though, Nick saw caution return to Sarah's gaze. "Don't worry," he soothed, "I made sure no one saw me. And there's no way the principal can accuse me either."

She nodded. "Okay." The smile returned to her face. "At least we know you really are that strong."

"Pfft. I could be stronger," he told her. "I bet I could lift a car if I really wanted to!"

She giggled. "Maybe Mommy's car first – Daddy's are pretty expensive if you drop one."

She raised a good point, but Nick wasn't planning on doing it to either parent's car – Dad's because of the price, and Mom's because she could probably lift the house if she wanted to.

The bathroom door creaked open, and Dad poked his head around the door. "Not that I'm complaining about your sudden interest in dental hygiene, but you're only supposed to brush your teeth for two minutes."

"Just coming, Dad."

"Okay," he nodded, then looked at Sarah. "Sweetie, why don't you go pick out a book from the study?"

They'd finished Nick's choice of bedtime story last night, and needed a new one to start. He watched his sister leave the room, hoping that she wasn't going to be pick something too girly.

Okay, this was it. She'd been waiting for an opportunity to be legitimately alone in the study for days; Alfred or Daddy always seemed to be around whenever she wanted to poke around the clock. As she'd planned, she had researched grandfather clocks on the internet carefully, and now knew almost exactly what one was supposed to look like both inside and out. In fact, clocks were all she'd been thinking about for days – and why she'd been told off twice in the same day by her teachers. Her lessons – even math - were falling by the wayside. She sighed. I need to watch that... If she carried on, then the school would contact Mommy and Daddy, and then she'd have a lot of explaining to do.

She made sure no one else was around, and then opened the glass pane of the clock, inspecting its working closely. There was nothing out of the ordinary she could see there... Okay, so what about the outside? She'd asked Alfred innocent questions about the clock a couple of days ago – it had been custom made for her great-great-grandparents in the nineteenth century, so it wasn't like she had a model to compare it to. Still, though there were some intricate inlays and decorations – most of them containing little golden 'W's' everywhere – that might be something. She twiddled and pushed and pulled and prodded for a few moments, but nothing happened. It was very annoying.

So maybe it was the hands. Maybe they had to be turned to a certain time? But that was a lot of positions she could put them in. She looked carefully, doing the math in her head. That was… That was seven hundred twenty possibilities! That could take her days – weeks if she had to be sneaky about it!

At the footsteps outside the door, she slammed the clock door shut quickly and grabbed for the first book she could find just as Daddy came in. "Thought you'd gotten lost in here," he smiled.

"No," she said, returning the smile. "Just couldn't decide which book I wanted."

He walked in, picked her up. "What did you decide in the end?"

She handed the book over having no idea, only just now seeing the title. "Moby Dick," she read. "Hey, is this about Uncle Dick?"

Daddy laughed and began walking up the stairs to the twins' bedroom. "No, Sarah, it's not about him."

"Oh," she pouted, disappointed. Much as she loved Uncle Dick, she also loved teasing him – and being teased back in equal measure of course. Hence why, to his face, she called him Richard, and then ran away giggling when he chased her, demanding that she take it back. "Then what is it about?"

"It's about a whale," he said. "And about a man."

"Do you like it?"

He nodded, and then smiled. It had a sad edge to it though. "My dad used to read it to me when I was your age."

"Granddad Thomas, really?"

"Mmhmm."

"Wow."

The talk of her grandfather had driven the clock temporarily from her mind, and when they got to the bedroom, she settled down and listened as Nicky did, wide-eyed.

She also failed to picture Daddy as a little boy.

"Hey, Diana."

She smiled. "Hello, Dinah. How are you?"

Black Canary nodded. "Good. You? You're not on monitor duty tonight are you?"

"No," she admitted, "but the twins are with Bruce tonight, and the house was too quiet."

Dinah chuckled. "I'd kill for a quiet house. I swear Ollie gives Mike sugar when I'm not around, just to make him hyper when I am."

The princess chuckled. Michael Queen was a couple years younger than her own children, and all kids that age had boundless amounts of energy. Though knowing Ollie, sugar-sabotage couldn't be ruled out. "Nick and Sarah were the same," she said. "Though thankfully my cookies aren't on par with Alfred's, so they rarely got so exuberant around me."

Dinah smiled. "Well we're trying to stop the bedwetting as well, so that's another thing to add into the mix."

"You must be tired," Diana said, noting the dark shadows under her friend's eyes. "I can take over here if you want. Go home and get some sleep."

Canary smiled. "Doubtful I'd get much more rest there, to be honest." She checked the time. "Only nine-fifteen. I bet Mike's still climbing the walls – actually make that Ollie's probably climbing the walls."

"For Michael's entertainment," Diana added with a grin.

Both women laughed for a moment at the image, before an alert flashed up on a side-screen. Diana checked; the Batwing landing. The twins would be in bed, and it was a little early for Batman to be starting his patrol.

Diana swallowed, trying hard to contain her nervousness. It was extremely unlikely that he'd be coming up here to talk to her, but the last time they had spoken it had been disastrous. Added to which, her personal revelation of a few nights' past had been weighing heavily on her mind.

"You could just tell him, you know."

She blinked, frowning at Dinah, who wasn't looking at her. "What?"

"Batman. You could just tell him."

"How do you know…?"

"You just stared at the empty screen that he was on for a solid minute."

The princess chuckled. "Am I that transparent?"

"Pretty much," Canary smiled. "But, Diana, before you do say anything... make sure that you love him in the right way."

Diana frowned. "What do you mean?"

"He's the father of your children," Dinah explained. "And because of that, it's easy to love him. Just make sure you love him as a man too."

Diana's frown deepened. Did she? Love him as a man too...

Suddenly an alarm sounded, drawing the attention of both women. There was an area of eastern Europe flashing red. A country that Diana recognised – she'd been dreading something setting the pile of tinder that was Kasnia alight for weeks now. It looked like something finally had.

On top of that, Audrey – Diana's friend, Sarah's godmother – was probably in danger as well.

"I'll go," she said quickly. "Tell Hawk, Dove, Captain Atom and Stargirl to get to a Javelin and down there as soon as possible – I'll get Batman."

A/N: Review please!