Author's Note:

Before we get to the absolutely last arc where Raven is about to give birth, I wanted to take the time to thank those of you without an account who gave this story such wonderful reviews. I always reply to these reviews, but when they are left as a 'guest' the site does not allow me to do so.

So to Oscar Encore, noaccount, and Gary… thank you so much! And thanks also to everyone else who ever reviewed and followed or favored "Elsewhere".

This is for you wonderful people!

Bonus Chapter, Part One:

The Ghosts of Maternity

A very pregnant Raven Wayne sat quietly alone in Wayne Manor, reflectively rubbing her round belly. Her thoughts had been cast back to dwelling upon the past for the entire day, invoking a hundred old emotions within her. She had so much to be thankful for.

She drew a sudden breath, feeling the baby inside her push - while her lower back continued to ache. She was only four days away from her due date and the new life inside her was restless, growing stronger each day, preparing to enter into the world.

"…Soon, my son."

As Raven sighed and glanced around, surveying the expansive room that was basked in the glow of the August sun, it still seemed strange to think of this large Estate as 'hers'. It had been easier to think of it as her husband's, but she was growing accustomed to her life as the Mistress of Wayne Manor, as well as to her life on Earth.

It had almost been two years since the night she had first appeared before Bruce.

She contemplated on how different Gotham was from her native Azarath.

And how different life for her son would be compared to her own tragic beginnings.

Raven shuddered to imagine the horrors that her own conception had wrecked upon her poor mother. How a vengeful Trigon had desecrated a young Angela Roth – the abandoned girl left as the sacrificial lamb upon the altar of destruction by the evil Ra's al Ghul…

That terrible night had driven her own mother into absolute despair, to the point where she would have taken her own life to prevent Raven from ever being born.

Had it not been for the intervention of Azar.

Years later, Ra's al Ghul had inadvertently secured his final revenge against Azarath by her Father's hand. It had been the mad designs of the thousand-year-old spirit which had enabled Trigon to destroy Azarath by unintentionally offering the crimson New God to sire a daughter...

A daughter who had been born in doomed Azarath.

And yet, those thousand murdered spirits of Azarath had been the savior of her sister, the Goddess of the Unseen, Abraxas. With those souls of love to guide her, Raven had discovered that her divine half-sister had conspired with Skuld in tricking Darkseid, effectively blindsiding the Great Tyrant into accepting the final wish and sealing his doom.

Ra's al Ghul may have had his revenge upon Azarath, but it was the hope of Azarath that had prevailed in the end.

The approach of familiar emotions brought her back to the present.

Raven turned and watched as Alfred Pennyworth entered the room, steadily carrying a pitcher of iced tea upon a silver platter, complete with two frosted glasses. Dearest Alfred, who still insisted on serving her when he was the majority share holder of Wayne Industries… one of the richest men in America.

"Ah… Mrs. Wayne, I hope it's not overly presumptuous of me to offer iced tea on this rather hot afternoon."

"Not at all, Alfred. I was just about to get up and see you actually…"

"Perish the thought. You need your rest. Should you require anything, you need only call upon me and I shall attend to you immediately, Mrs. Wayne."

Alfred quietly set the serving tray on the table in front of Raven without so much as a ripple, and then carefully poured two glasses of iced tea, presenting her with the first.

"Thank you. Please, have a seat my friend."

The old butler glanced at the vacant chair yards away from his Mistress - as Raven smiled and shook her head, patting the spot on the couch beside her.

It was rare for Raven to sense anxiety from the stoic Alfred, but she sensed it now. The old butler was actually embarrassed to be sitting so close to the young Lady of the Estate, even though she felt more like a beach ball than anything attractive.

Alfred took a deep breath for courage and obediently obliged Raven's request, sitting bolt upright beside her.

Raven pulled Alfred's hand off his lap and held it in her own.

"Alfred… I've discussed this with Bruce and we both think it's a wonderful idea. You don't need to answer right away, but Bruce and I would very much like you to be our son's Godfather."

As an empath, Raven was surprised to feel the heartfelt emotions which Alfred tightly concealed beneath his staunch British veneer beginning to overflow. The old man generally repressed his emotions incredibly well. He was genuinely moved by their request to become their child's Godfather.

"Mrs. Wayne… I would be deeply honored."

And then Raven noticed another rare event in the Wayne household.

"Alfred, are you crying?"

"I'm afraid I am… This is truly the greatest gift I have ever received."

"Alfred, you've been like a father to the both of us. Why is it so surprising that we would think of you as our son's grandfather? This was simply the best way to do it."

It was the first time she had seen the old man openly weep.

Raven gently took Alfred into her arms and held him close. She let her own love from this emotional day wash over him, to this amazing man who had allowed them to live their lives so perfectly together. There was a rock that Wayne Manor had been built upon… and she was holding him now.

She suspected that her own emotions were running away from her as Raven suddenly felt flushed and her stomach was beginning to tighten, as though unseen hands were tying it into a knot…

"UGGHHH!"

With his Mistress's sudden gasp of pain, Alfred sat bolt upright, placing two firm hands on Raven's shoulders with deep concern fixed in his eyes.

"Mrs. Wayne, are you alright?!"

It took Raven a full ten seconds before she could effectively answer after some deep breathing.

"Phew… I'm alright now, Alfred… So that's what an actual contraction feels like…"

"I shall call Master Bruce immediately! Shall I call 911 as well?"

Raven clasped his hand once more.

"It's alright, Alfred. I think it was just a warm up. Just caught me off guard... It didn't last more than ten seconds. Would you mind helping me walk around the floor though? I would like to walk."

As she stepped around the floor with Alfred's assistance, she began to feel more like herself. Her lower back had been aching all morning, so it was nice to move around and stretch. One good contraction wasn't a reason to worry… yet.

"Alfred, would you mind helping me up the stairs?"

Raven had decided that a nice hot bath might help her relax and even ease her back. Normally she would never have asked Alfred for his help, but that last contraction had hit her unexpectedly, and it may ease his anxieties regarding her condition...

"UUGGGHHHH!"

As they crested the top of the stairs, the second contraction stopped Raven in her tracks. It was as intense as the first but twice as long. She attempted to calculate how long it had been from the first… Ten minutes?

As Alfred guided a grimacing Raven to the hallway's floor, he spoke in a voice that left no room for discussion.

"I am calling Master Wayne immediately. We shall be leaving for the hospital as soon as he arrives."

She didn't have the words to argue.

On their way to the Hospital, Raven did her best to keep both Bruce and Alfred calm. Having three more contractions in the limousine had not helped matters, but she was excited at the possibility that this may finally be it…

The birth of their son.

The moment they had waited nine months for.

As evening slowly arrived and she finished her examination, Raven was relieved to learn that she was being admitted to her own room. She was already three centimeters dilated and entering into active labor. The strength and increased frequency of her mind-numbing contractions made her realize that it was going to be a long night.

And wearing a hospital gown was no fun.

Barbara and Clark arrived later with flowers and stuffed animals. Bruce had been placed under a blood oath by Barbara Gordon to call her as soon as anything happened… or else. While Raven was happy to have her friends and family present, she was having a difficult time from not broadcasting her emotions as an empath.

She had to focus on herself and her child.

With each gut-wrenching contraction, she grew deathly serious, totally absorbed in the effort required to endure the cascading, burning pain at the base of her abdomen. She had waived any medication, preferring a natural childbirth as she was unsure how it would react with her divine physiology.

But now Raven wondered if perhaps she should have opted for pain medication… at least for the sake of her husband.

During each contraction, Bruce looked as though he was passing a kidney stone. Somehow, it was a strange consolation that her husband felt her pain… literally. There were no silly questions like 'Are you OK?'.

Because their mortal Fates were tied, Raven and Bruce would always feel one another's pain, and poor Bruce had been doubled over on the chair in agony for the past two hours. Her poor husband was about to go through what no other man had ever felt before.

The agony of childbirth.

Her own nurse and doctor were attentive, dropping by every so often to check on her progress. They even brought Bruce some water to go with his pain tablets. Raven had progressed to six agonizing centimeters when their strange visitor appeared.

After her last intense contraction, a quivering Raven had opened her eyes to find a ghostly woman staring back at her. It had surprised her for a second - having been some time since she had beheld a ghost while in her human form.

It was obviously the ghost of a pregnant woman who had died in childbirth. It seemed logical that this spirit would haunt the room where she died when a strong emotional projector like Raven was going through a similar experience…

But there was something dark and malevolent about this spirit that Raven didn't like at all.

"What the Hell is that?!"

Barbara Gordon was pointing directly at the spectral figure which stood at the foot of Raven's bed – having instantly transformed into her Blue Lantern uniform. Clark and Bruce also both stood at the ready, staring at the spiteful ghost.

Raven motioned for her sister to remain calm.

"It's just a ghost, Barbara. Probably a mother who died giving birth…"

The piercing shriek from the room next to Raven cut her off, which was suddenly followed by outcries from staff and patients all over the ward. Panic had seized the Maternity Ward. Through her window, Raven could hear the sudden squeal of tires and sense an overwhelming fear emanating from all around her.

Clark quickly gazed all around the room, using his X-Ray vision to examine the entire hospital. His findings were not encouraging.

"There's ghosts manifesting throughout the entire hospital..."

Bruce quickly opened a WI-Screen while Raven glanced over at her husband, noticing the beads of perspiration still dampening his forehead. Bruce grasped his wife's hand as he explained the reason for the call.

"The Flash and Wonder Woman are on duty tonight at the Watchtower. I want to see what our sensors are picking up... Whether this is a localized phenomenon or something… bigger."

It was Barry Allen who instantly answered Bruce's call, which was expected as he was the fastest man alive.

"Hey Bruce… Whoa, are you alright?"

"I'm fine, Flash... Raven's gone into labor. We're currently at Gotham General Hospital and there's been an outbreak of…. Ghosts. Could you check for any strange readings near our location."

In the blink of an eye, Barry was at the Watchtower's extensive monitoring station, his fingers a blur as he ran a battery of analyses on their current location. It was helpful having a man like Barry Allen in the Justice League who could actually input data as fast as a computer could calculate it.

"Bruce, there's some sort of massive energy pattern about ten blocks away from you… it's hard to decipher exactly what it is. It seems to be centralized in Gotham Cemetery and growing."

There was a sudden wind as Clark simply disappeared when Barry finished speaking. Bruce realized that there was no point in telling the Kryptonian to be careful… only a handful of things in existence could even hurt him. Thankfully, Barbara was still in the room, which made Bruce believe that Superman would likely report back to them before trying anything reckless…

Such as confronting whatever it was causing these ghosts to appear on his own.

Bruce heard another woman's scream down the hallway before replying to Barry. He was always careful to use their code names when speaking over WI-Screens.

"I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this, Flash. Better send Wonder Woman here and then alert the authorities. Superman's already gone off to investigate."

"You got it, chief."

As he closed the WI-Screen, Bruce looked over at his anxious wife and then over at Barbara Gordon.

"Don't worry, we're in good hands. Between Clark and Diana, they'll get to the bottom of this."

In the span of a second, Clark had dashed through the hospital's emergency exit and was flying into the night skies above, leaving his civilian clothes behind. He didn't need super senses to realize that something wasn't right in Gotham…

There were spectral figures appearing all over the streets, dressed in fashions from different eras, as though all the ghosts of the City's past had returned. People were either fleeing the scene, watching quietly, or attempting to take videos of these apparitions. There was an eerie chill to the air which Clark didn't like at all.

In the blink of an eye, Clark had flown directly over Gotham Cemetery where the situation was… pardon the pun… grave. If there had been a score of shades haunting the streets of Gotham, there were thousands of disembodied spirits now floating above graves.

And then it got worse.

Clark saw rotting corpses clawing their way to the surface, abandoning the quiet graves that bore their names. The dead were alive once more, forsaking the fetid earth that had held them. There would be no peace for the dearly departed on this summer's night.

In the middle of the graveyard, Clark saw a black figure standing confidently atop a tomb, like a dark General commanding his army of shadows and corpses. The skeleton-like thing held a large scythe just like the Grim Reaper of old.

Clark understood immediately that this strange creature was behind the sudden resurrection of the dead. Halloween had come early this year. Like a ray of light, Clark was suddenly hovering in front of the corpse-like being, staring directly into its blackened eyes, demanding an answer from it.

"Why are you doing this?"

Being so close, Clark couldn't help but feel the creature's evil aura permeating through him, corrupting his very soul. He comprehended that whatever it was, this skeletal terror was immensely powerful, invoking in him something he hadn't felt since his battle with Darkseid…

Fear.

The King of the Dead smiled with fleshless lips as it tilted its head up towards Clark, hissing a reply that rattled among the bones of old flesh…

"I have come a long way… for what is rightfully mine, Kryptonian… A child of Trigon."

"You may not have heard, but Trigon's dead."

"Yes… And he has become a favored toy… But his contract still stands..."

"What contract? Who are you?"

The thing laughed wickedly.

"Do you not remember me, last son of Krypton?... Remember when you stood at the edge of the Abyss… Without the flicker of Hope in your lifeless heart… And stared down into these same darkened eyes?..."

"No."

"I am the God of that Dark Sea… Oblivion incarnate… The Keeper of the Dead… I am Nekron, Lord of the Unliving, ignorant mortal… And I have come for what is mine!"