200 something

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn." - Ernest Hemingway

Lashina

The damage is done without a blow thrown, simply by asking questions.

"Will you give up who you are for her?"

"What happens when the two weeks are over, Princess?"

"Can you be Superman all the time?"

"If you love him, can you really ask him to give up his private life?"

"Does Clark Kent really fit in her world?"

"This is fun for a month, but can you see yourself living like this from now on, Princess?"

"If you do make the sacrifice, Clark, don't you run the risk of overshadowing her? You are Superman, after all."

"What happens to you mission, Princess, when all anyone wants to talk about is Superman and Wonder Woman?"

"If you really love her, can you watch her message get lost in the feeding frenzy?'

"Have your priorities changed completely in just over two weeks, Princess? Isn't you first loyalty always your people and Gods?"

"She's having fun now, Clark, but would you ask her to play the loving housewife in the suburbs when this is over? Could you ask her to waste her talents like that if you really love her?"

"If he gives up being Clark Kent for you, Princess, wouldn't that mean he would be cut off from his family and friends forever? Well, humans live such short lives anyway, it probably wouldn't matter in a few years."

Bruce

He sits in front of his computer. On the screen are the images of five women and at the center was the bat symbol. Diana, Zatanna, Dinah, Selina and Talia's faces stared back at him. His eyes are always drawn to the bat symbol. Everyone, even him, talk about his mission, but that's really the wrong word. Obsession is the right word. The true driving force of his life is being Batman. It is his first love. Batman is his temptress, his burden, his passion and his curse.

He has lost other loves, but the day he loses being Batman will be the end of him. He might linger on afterwards, but the spark that makes him who he is will be gone. Others might pick up the mantle of the Batman, but he has never been one to live vicariously through others.

Glancing at the women's faces, he feels a pull towards each of them, some stronger than others, but none as strong as the symbol. Lately the woman's face on his mind hasn't been Diana's. This bet has brought him two surprises. There is the real possibility that he's already lost her. The second surprise is he's not sure how he feels about it. He wonders if her interest was just infatuation. Has he lost his chance because real love has finally come along for her?

The other faces on the screen bring mixed emotions, some from the past, some from the present and some from the future. His eyes drift back to the symbol. Batman is the constant and he's not sure there is room for any other love. His heart though, is being pulled in another direction that his head hasn't realized.

Jenny

Another ceremony is over and the others are upstairs enjoying a potluck. Jenny lingers in the sanctuary. She's a little high, as is the norm lately. Many say that drugs alter your view of the world, make you see it in new and different ways. What they don't say is not all those ways are pleasant or worthwhile. Jenny has started to question her life. Being an amateur Satan worshipper is the most daring thing she's done. It's the only thing daring she's done in her whole life.

She's twenty-eight and thirty seems just around the corner. She's always played by the rules and did the sensible thing. In high school she thought she would love to study French literature and poetry of the ninetieth century, but her guidance counselor and parents had talked her into taking accounting as a much more sensible field. In college when all her friends went to spring break, she didn't. After graduation she thought of traveling around Europe for a year, but didn't because everyone told her it wasn't practical.

She'd gotten married to Carl, a good man that ran a dry cleaner. They moved to a lovely house in the suburbs because everyone told them how dangerous the city was. Safe, sensible, practical, these were the words that seemed to define her life. She thought she was happy. It only took one side step in life to make her realize she wasn't. She'd never taken a risk at anything. Even her marriage was to a nice, safe man, a responsible man and good provider.

The problem with having this new perspective is that once you do, you can't go back. Every time you do the safe thing, you feel your life slipping away from you. You see your future as one of those people that always say things like 'if only I had it to do over again, I'd… fill in the blank'.

Someone called her name from upstairs. Jenny turned to go, but stopped and looked at the altar once again. The doors of perception had been opened in her mind and she wasn't sure if she could close them again.

Dinah

There was a cool breeze blowing through Gotham tonight. As she moved through the streets and alleyways, she felt alive. She knew others were worried about her, but they didn't understand. This wasn't a job anymore it was a calling. How do you explain to someone when you find that spot, that place where you fit? How did she explain that despite the break up with Ollie, she was as happy as she could remember being? It wasn't that she didn't care for him, because she still did. She just couldn't be that person anymore.

It was as if she had been a cheerleader when they met her and they expected her to be a cheerleader forever. There's nothing sadder than someone still reliving his or her glory days of high school, long after they are over. We all go through phases in our life. We grow and change, becoming different people. Hopefully, we're lucky enough to find something we're good at and want to do. A job is something you do for a paycheck. A career is something you like and get paid for. A calling is finding something you have to do. The money or benefits no longer matter, as once your realize your calling you don't want to do anything else.

Van Gogh never sold a painting in his life. Spinoza extraordinary work in philosophy got him shunned by his own Jewish community, censored by the Catholic Church and his books burned by Dutch Protestants. Both men never altered their course once they found their calling. Today Van Gogh is considered a master, while Spinoza's work is considered some of the most revolutionary thinking of the modern age. They couldn't tell you why they did what they did only they had to.

As Dinah weaved in and out of traffic, she knew she couldn't explain what she was doing to the others, only that she had to. There was a smile on her face as she thought about the rest of the night.

Diana

Living in Gotham Heights was turning out to be a wonderful experience for her. It was also a complete surprise. She had started this with one set of goals and half way through found she had a completely different set. She felt like she was learning so much, so fast. Many thought she was innocent, but she believed it wasn't innocence as much as a lack of experience. Emotions she hadn't dealt with seemed to pop up at every turn. Jealous, desire, lust, to name just a few had her reeling at times, yet she didn't shy away from them. It seemed a whole new world was just opening up for her and Diana welcomed it and wanted it to continue.

It was going to end, though.

Less then two weeks were left in the bet. As much as she wanted to live in the moment, Diana couldn't help but think about the future. Questions seemed to plague her. She knew now that her feelings were real. She was in love with Kal. Diana thought she understood what love was before, but this was a different kind. It was romantic, passionate, stormy and emotional.

Diana was learning things about herself. She found it intoxicating how much she could affect Kal. To feel the first full burst of her sexuality was heady stuff. The way she seemed to affect him, he did to her as well. Diana wasn't used to wanting someone. It seemed to throw her emotional state completely off. She found herself thinking about sex, specifically with him all the time. The thoughts seemed to get more intense and graphic the longer she was around him. She was having a hard time keeping her hands off of him. While she knew about his promise to her mother and respected him for keeping it, she didn't want to wait.

Diana felt like she had the flirting down and was eager to move to the next level. Lashina's questions were like a bucket of cold water on this line of thinking. Diana knew what Lashina was trying to do, but that didn't make some of the questions any less valid. This was a unique situation for both of them. As much as Diana didn't want it to end, she knew it had to.

How would Kal fit into her world?

Her first responsibility was to her sisters and her Gods. It was the reason she'd been selected and sent out to the Man's World. Her role as Ambassador was important and vital. She couldn't just give that up and play house in the suburbs forever.

Diana also understood that Clark Kent was a huge part of who he was. If she needed any reminder of this, she only had to think about their day at the farm in Smallville. She would never ask him to give that up for her.

The other question was how could she fit into his world?

The thought of wearing some disguise as he did had occurred to her. That wasn't very appealing, but it might be functional for a while. The idea of the two of them always pretending to be the meek wallflower couple so they could be together seemed wrong to her. Part of her hated watching him at the theater, bumbling and stumbling while the crowd laughed. She wanted to be able to claim him as her man and have the entire world see them together. He seemed to be telling her that it wasn't possible as long as he was Clark Kent and she was Princess Diana of Themyscira.

This love was such a new emotion to her; it shouldn't be this hard, she thought. Diana realized until she found a solution, she couldn't really be with him. Part of her was actually afraid if they made love she would never want to let him go, damn the consequences. That sort of passion and desire was frightening, yet she felt it growing every day.

Clark

He was beginning to understand Lashina better. Her completely selfish desires seemed to echo inside him. He wanted Diana. It was almost an ache deep inside of him that had always been there. Loneliness was no stranger to him. Finding Kara had been a miracle, as it eased part of the loneliness, but not all of it. She was family and he loved her with all his heart, but his soul cried out for another kind of love.

He thought he might have finally found it in Diana.

Lashina's questions mirrored his own. She was a clever woman, he had to give her that. To hear someone else voice the questions made them all too real. He didn't have any answers for her or himself. If anything he had more questions Lashina hadn't even thought of. Bruce was his friend and even if Diana wasn't interested in him now, Clark felt the honorable thing would be to talk to Bruce before he did anything. He wasn't looking forward to that conversation. To everyone else, Bruce seemed like a man in complete control, yet Clark had always thought of him as fragile. Not in the physical sense, but the emotional.

If Bruce was in love with Diana and Clark thought he might be, he might never recover from losing her. He hid his scars well, but they were still there. Bruce had submerged himself so far into Batman that he kept closing off any avenue for someone to get in. Clark knew it was that basic fear of losing someone else he loved that was behind it for Bruce. Since the beginning of this bet, Clark had been wondering if Bruce and Diana really knew everything they were putting on the line. This could end so badly for all of them.

There was also the issue of Lashina. Clark's feelings towards her were different than the ones he had for Diana. She was selfish, greedy and manipulative, yet he wanted to believe she could change. The time they had spent together on Apokolips had been all the things she said it was, passionate, intense and tumultuous. He had seen another side of her though; one she probably didn't even realize she'd shown him. Lashina could be sweet, loving, loyal and caring when she let her guard down. He thought perhaps that was why they seemed connected, because he was the only man she had ever let see her that way.

As he sat on the front porch watching the neighborhood children play, Clark wondering if any of those living around him dealt with these kind of issues. All those pretty houses in a row, all alike, yet there were probably problems unique to each of them. Sitting there, Clark realized he had to make some decisions.

Clark liked to think of himself as the calm, cool one that could see the whole picture, but this situation was different. If this went wrong, Bruce Wayne might disappear forever. That would always taint any chance at happiness for Clark with Diana.