As History Repeats

by Erin Griffin

Chapter 3

Gabby Andrews walked hurriedly into New Gotham High school, looking around for her favorite teacher and her mentor, even if she wasn't her favorite person at the moment. She waved at Mr. Brixton, the guidance councilor, as he made his way in her direction, presumably to the main office, which was right at her left. "Good morning Gabby," he said to her. She smiled.

"Morning, Mr. Brixton. How are you?"

"Good thanks. Anything big happening with you lately?"

Gabby looked up innocently as if to think about it. "I begged my parents to let me get a pet turtle, but they said no."

"A turtle? What would you have named it?"

"Shelly," Gabby spat off the top of her head. She hadn't actually expected for Mr. Brixton to ask after the turtle. She had expected for him to chuckle at her answer, say something along the lines of 'pets are a big responsibility, but I'm sure your parents know that you can handle the job. Perhaps they had their reasons for saying no', and then continue on his way into the office.

"Shelly?" Mr. Brixton repeated with a laugh. "That's clever. You know, there are some colleges now that allow students to have small pets in the dorms. They say it helps students feel better and gives them a better work ethic. It is kind of the same as having animals in the workplace or nursing homes. Having a turtle would make you one of the more popular girls in the dorm, I think."

"Really? Pets in the dorms? I am so going to one of those colleges," Gabby lied. She hadn't really thought about college ever since learning about her teacher Miss Gordon's secret identity and becoming Oracle. She knew that Barbara would have wanted that of her, as would her parents, but she didn't know how she would feel about leaving her post so soon. She knew that in a couple of years she would just be beginning to understand the lifestyle and she'll know her way around the Delphi and its latest technological updates.

Mr. Brixton looked her over. "Yeah, the one I know about for sure isn't too far away and has a pretty big LGBTQ following if I'm not mistaken." He thought about this. "Hey, come by my office and we can look into some of them, see which one has a good degree program that you might want to consider and do what we can to get you there."

"I will. Thanks Mr. B." Gabby said with a genuine smile. She always liked the councelor. He did his best to get to know the students, and he never appeared to be trying too hard because he genuinley cared about people. She watched as the councelor made a head gesture to the office and excused himself from the conversation. Then she turned to her locker and twisted the combination. She hit the handle with the palm of her hand to get it unstuck, and it opened for her.

"Pretty neat trick. Took the last person almost all year to figure that out," a familiar voice said at her side. Gabby tried not to look affected by the voice, by the fact that she didn't even hear her footsteps as usual.

"Good morning, Miss Gordon," Gabby said politely, though her tone still held the slight frost to it. It was different from the indifference the teen had used with the redhead the night before.

"Miss Gordon, huh? Would it make a difference if I told you that you got an A on your paper on A Cider House Rules?"

Gabby looked up at this. A mention of that book was code for something else in the nightlife. It meant 'we need to talk'. A bad grade on the imaginary paper meant that Gabby was in trouble, a mention of the movie meant something was up with the Delphi, and a C on the paper meant it was unimportant, but it couldn't wait until that night. Gabby had never gotten an A on the imaginary paper before, so she wondered what this meant. "Really? I will come pick it up afterschool today."

"Actually, my classroom is enroute to your homeroom. It would take no time at all to come and get it from my desk," Barbara replied. Her eyes seemed apologetic, and Gabby seemed to consider this. She put her backpack inside her locker, took out a notebook and her math textbook, and then she slammed the locker closed to reset the stick on it, otherwise it wouldn't stay closed. She then put the lock back on, spinning the dial a few times to reset it.

"Alright, since it is on the way," Gabby said with a sigh. She walked next to her favorite teacher, who stayed in silence with her until they got to the classroom. Since Barbara didn't host a homeroom class, they had no one in the room, and she closed the door against the loudness of students making it to class on time.

"So, an A, huh?" Gabby asked once the door was closed and she leaned on Barbara's desk.

"An A+ if you say you forgive me."

"Bribery? Why Miss Gordon, I thought that would be beneath you," Gabby said with a smirk. Barbara copied the smirk.

"I'm desperate," she said. There was a short silence. "I didn't know that my turning the comms off hurt you so much." When Gabby didn't say anything, she continued, "I think I have found a way for us to compomise." She reached into her jacket pocket and got out what looked to be a small plastic box of tacs, but when they were handed to Gabby, she saw that they were another pair of comms with the bat symbol on them. Since there were many stores out there now selling Batman inspired merchendise, it wouldn't look strange for Gabby to be wearing a pair of Batman earings, since it was practically a style a few years ago. Barbara had told her that they should use a different symbol, but the city was so used to the bat symbol. "I modified the other ones. I can still turn the comms off, but only the speaker. I can still hear you, and you can still get a reading on where I am and how I am doing physically."

"I understand the need for a private conversation. Kitten Britches knows some things about your mentor and your past that maybe I shouldn't know yet. I trust that you have your reasons for keeping things from me. What scared me was that I never knew where you were or what was going on with you. So, yes, I believe we have reached a compromise."

"So you forgive me?" Barbara wondered, unsure if it really was that easy. The initial modification had only taken her around twenty minutes to perform.

"Do I still get an A+?" Gabby asked.

"You'd get an A+ + +," Barbara countered, and Gabby grinned.

"Alright. Forgiven, but only because Alfred gave me the bigger slice of cheesecake this time."

"Hug on it?" Barbara asked. Gabby stepped into her mentor's opened arms and they had a quick hug before Gabby pulled away. "That reminds me, I brought the rest of that cheesecake here, but I had to put it in the refridgerator in the teachers' lounge, so there might be a feeding frenzy and you might not get any."

"Yes well, the teachers would deserve it if they did. They can consider it a thank you from me."

"How kind of you," Barbara said with another smirk.

"What can I say, I'm a giver."

"And modest, too!"

"I know! I should, like, get a medal or something."

The two laughed at this, and when they settled down, Barbara looked at the clock. "You should get to class before you're late and I'm forced to give you detention."

"Yeah right," Gabby said with a scoff, but she opened the door and left, waving behind her as she went. Barbara went to her desk, thinking about the added benefits of the modifications to the comm sets. She could make the same modifications for Gabby, just in case she ever needed to be out there and Alfred had to take over the Delphi. Though Barbara hated that thought, she knew that the possibility was out there. She looked at the stack of graded papers, and then she sat back and relaxed with her cup of coffee.

Gabby sat at a small table by herself at lunch. Usually she sat in Barbara's classroom and ate and studied while Barbara did her own work, but there had been a lunch type meeting called that day, so she was forced to face the part about high school she always hated the most: the student population. She never had been one to make friends easily, and when she did, they weren't around for too long. Parents always were afraid for the safety of their children because of all of the crime in the city. Even with Batman (and later Batgirl and Robin) there to protect them, there was just too many news reports of things gone wrong, so her friends always moved away. As Gabby ate the sandwhich she had prepared that morning, she looked around at the guys throwing french fries at eachother, at the girl who had dropped her tray and got a standing ovation, and the group of girls who were writing love letters to their boyfriends and crushes. Then there was the scattered cliques and unofficial club meetings that took place all around her. She saw Kelly with her new girlfriend Gina, and the both of them were with a couple of senior boys who were trying to go to prom together that year, since they were told they couldn't go to homecoming, or as they dubbed it, Homocoming, together. Had Kelly and Gina gone to Homecoming, the boys might have had a chance, but they had been denied. There was a big thing about it, and Gabby signed the petitions, but in the end they lost their fire for it, and decided to tackle prom instead. Gabby knew that she would sign anything for that, too, and the group would have Barbara's support as well, as Barbara was the club's required faculty member for all clubs. If something happened with this club or its members, Barbara was the one responsible. Gabby was a member of the group, but in meetings only, as well as a couple of events they put out each month. Gabby wasn't sure how she felt about being with the group otherwise. She always got a feeling that they were a small solidified clique before she even got there that year, and Gabby hadn't the heart to pretend she wanted to be around them anyway, especially after last year, when she found out about her English Lit teacher.

"Excuse me. May I sit here?"

Gabby looked up at the new voice. It was nervous, but she seemed a little edgy, as if she would rather eat her own liver than to ask. If the school allowed for the students to eat outside, both her and Gabby would most likely be there at that moment, and their exchange would never happen. As it were, Gabby had to hurry just to get the seat she had. She didn't want to be the one in the situation the new girl was in now. Gabby looked into the eyes of the new girl, Dana or something. Gabby didn't have any classes with her, but she has heard the whispering in the halls about how creepy she was, or how she took Freddy Killier down a notch when he tried to hit on her. The new girl stood above her in her black leather jacket done mostly up, showing very little of the white shirt underneath, and jeans. She had a chain wallet, a slightly matching chain as a necklace, and she wore dark eye makeup. Her look definately said for people to stay away, but there was something else so haunting about this girl that Gabby almost could identify in her time of working with Barbara as Oracle. She had her secrets, and Gabby had no intention of digging into them. "Yeah," Gabby finally said when she noticed that the girl shifted from one foot to the other as she waited for Gabby's approval. She then set her tray down, and took a seat across from her.

"Thanks. I would sit alone, but there isn't anywhere else," the new girl felt the need to explain. Gabby nodded. She knew the feeling. "My name is Dinah."

Dinah. That's right. "I'm Gabby," she offered. She opened her bag a little more to grab at the bag of chips she hastily stashed in there. She realized that she had forgotten to put the banana in there, as well as the Nuitrigrain bar for later. She had been in a hurry, since the power had gone out in her area for a couple of seconds in the night, and her alarm clock was flashing 4:22 AM. She had checked her cellphone and saw that she had twenty minutes to be dressed and ready before her bus got to her house. She remembered the five one dollar bills tucked away in her backpack for such emergencies, and she felt a little better. If she was hungry later, as she knew she would be, she would just buy something from the student store right before the end of lunch and eat it in between classes.

"Are you new, too?" Dinah asked. The question startled Gabby out of her thoughts and she looked up. "I mean, I haven't seen you around before today."

"No, I am not new. I just don't like... people... here," Gabby said, trailing off.

"I hear that. There are maybe eight different groups here, most of which had been formed in the womb, and if you're new to it or if you're not really any of them, then you're out. They don't even have a clue how many types of people are out there." Dinah also trailed off a little bit, and Gabby's eyes flickered to her before going down to her food. "You're different though. You're not like me, but you sure aren't anything like them." This got Gabby's attention.

"Not like you? How so?" The teen Oracle almost knew how, but she wondered if she might be right.

Dinah shrugged and fell silent. Gabby didn't push it, and this suprised Dinah. "Yeah, you're definately different," the new girl seemed to decide.

"I guess so. But I've learned that its not a bad thing unless you make it that way." Gabby said. There was something about the way Dinah talked and acted that made Gabby wonder if she might be metahuman or just someone with a bad past. Possibly a combination of the two.

"You're right, of course," Dinah said, "but people sure do make it hard to overcome your own differences."

"Yeah, people suck like that." Gabby agreed. She was surprised when Dinah laughed. They said nothing after that, and when Gabby was done eating her chips, she crumpled up the evidence that a tasty, yet meager lunch was had and she stood to go.

"Hey, uh, Gabby... If one of us finds a seat in this shark tank, we should, uh... We should sit together again."

"I'll save you a seat," Gabby said, unsure if this meant she would start eating in the cafeteria on a daily basis. Dinah nodded, and Gabby walked out of the cafeteria wondering vaguely if she had just made a friend.