I have to give extra love to Anissa this week because, even with the two of us planning this chapter in advance, she's had to do the vast majority of the final work because I'm just worn out. This week always takes a lot out of me every year and I want her to know how much I love and appreciate her for putting up with me and all the irritation, frustration, and cold symptoms I've been running around with. So yeah. And enjoy, all. :D

Kala and the band—plus Dustin—were still house-hunting. The first fifteen places they'd seen all had major issues. Terrible acoustics in one case, a completely stripped interior in another, structural problems in a third, the one incident where the place was clearly being lived in by squatters, and in one memorable house, Kala had opened a closet door to the consternation of five baby raccoons living inside. Yeah, no, not interested in anything that comes with furry roommates, adorable as hell or not, she thought with a chuckle.

This was the sixteenth house, and from the outside it looked like a dump. Peeling paint and an overgrown yard, but it did have a two-car garage. "Oh man, I bet there's rats," Robb groaned.

"Can I just wait outside?" Sebast pleaded. "I'm allergic to dirt."

"Then I'm surprised you're still alive. You have the dirtiest mind in the whole band," Morgan shot back, and Sebast glowered.

"Quit bitching," Kala said, standing on tiptoe. The realtor had said the spare key was on top of the front door frame … there. She unlocked the door and pushed it open. A very loud, very drawn-out screech accompanied the action. "Haunted as shit," Ned muttered, but they all stepped inside.

And stopped.

Vaulted ceilings, for one. A damn chandelier—older than crap, but it was still a chandelier. And yeah, the place needed a cleaning, Kala could see that already. Dust kittens in the corners, faded paint on the walls, but … it had promise.

"How many bedrooms is this?" Dustin asked.

"Three, and two full baths," Kala replied absently. They'd looked at one two-bedroom with the idea of converting the living room to an extra bedroom, but that only had one bathroom. She moved deeper into the house, finding the kitchen appliances were all avocado—but they were there. And looked like they'd been maintained.

The band spread out, exploring. The house was short on closet space, and it had a wonky hallway that was dark as hell by virtue of having no windows, but it could work. And the price for this one was right, landing in the middle of what they projected they could afford. Income-wise, they looked to be all right for the near future, what with pooled savings and the money Kala was able to use from her trust fund. Robb and Ned were already putting in applications at the mall, just in time for the seasonal ramp-up, and Dustin had done an interview.

"And now for the kicker," Kala said, going back to the kitchen and opening the side door that led into the garage. It was dimmer in there, and she fumbled for the light switch for a moment, giving the guys time to catch up.

"Holy crap," Sebast said, when the overhead fluorescents came on.

Kala blinked in surprise. There were lots of electrical outlets, handy for plugging in amps and microphones and other equipment. And the area was definitely spacious enough for their needs. Walking forward, Kala clapped her hands briskly, hearing an echo but none of the awful reverb the one place had had. "I think we found our practice space," she said. "Can you guys live with the rest?"

"I dunno, it's kinda … run down," Robb said.

"So we paint it," Dustin said. "This is a rent-to-own deal, right? Keep it for two years and we get equity. I bet they'll let us paint it as long as we do a decent job. We can patch those holes in the one bedroom, too. I know how to do that."

"Are you really just the handiest guy on the planet?" Ned asked.

Dustin laughed. "Guys. I've never lived in an apartment. My family's been in the same house for three generations. Kala's family has had the Kent farmhouse forever, practically. People like us learn how to fix things. It's cheaper than paying someone else to do it, and the skills come in handy."

"For the record, I know how to hang an interior door," Kala said loftily, and when they all looked at her, she grinned. "I threw Jason through one once. And that's why Mom stopped sending us to karate class."

"Yeah, 'cause you're already a violent bitch. You don't need extra training," Sebast quipped.

Dustin's head snapped around at that. He was still adjusting. 'Bitch' and 'diva' were among the affectionate nicknames Kala and Sebast called each other. Only she was 'blanquita', and only he got called a slut, but most of the other trash talk was equally applied. Dustin normally wouldn't have let anyone use any of those terms about Kala without answering to him. Sebast was a special case, though.

"All right, decision time," Kala said, smoothing over the moment. "Do we go to the realtor on this one and start the paperwork?"

"I'm down," Ned said.

"Me too," Dustin said.

"Why not?" Robb shrugged.

Morgan and Sebast both paused. Ned had moved away toward something on the wall; a sticker carelessly plastered by the door. "Hey guys? You ever hear of a band called the Flying Foxes?"

"Holy crap," Kala said. "My very first non-school-sponsored public singing was to open for them! And I got to sing with them later on. We covered My Chemical Romance. Is that really a Flying Foxes bumper sticker?"

"If it is, I'm sold," Sebast said, peering around Ned. "It is!"

"I'm in," Kala said.

"I'll take it as a sign," Morgan said.

"Then come on, let's get the ball rolling," Kala said. At long last, it actually looked like things were coming together.

…

Donna was right, the photos she'd taken did worry him. Dick worried about her a lot more than she even realized. When she'd first started dating Terry Long—practically the moment she stopped being his student—he'd worried. Not because Terry was older, or because he'd been her college professor, or because Donna had met him during the tumultuous time after her powers vanished and she'd quit the Titans. No, what bothered Dick about the man was that Terry knew Donna had been Wonder Girl, and he seemed to … well, to pretty much not care.

That was different than the way Dick felt about her. He knew perfectly well who she was, and her superhero identity wasn't the most important thing about her. The most important thing about her, in his book, was the little grin she gave only to him, the one that said, 'We just get each other'. All the shared troubles and triumphs behind that small smile, all the late-night talks and the mid-afternoon chats. All the secrets shared and promises kept, all the times they'd been there for each other. All of that, in one little grin. That was the most important thing about Donna: she was his best friend. Even without her powers, even when she wasn't a Titan anymore, he still called her more often than he called his girlfriends—about whom Donna teased him relentlessly.

Still, Terry obviously did care about Donna, and she was happy with him, that expansive kind of happy that made Dick's worries seem trivial. Donna had always been the sweetheart of the team, the girl all the guys stared after. Some girls might've liked that, but Donna confided to Dick that it exasperated her. "I feel like they're all looking through a soft-focus filter and none of them really see me," she'd complained. "It's ridiculous. I mean, a form-fitting uniform drives them all speechless. Except you."

He'd laughed. "Where I come from, Don, spandex and spangles are basically the work uniform. It's no big deal."

"Sometimes I forget you're the circus boy who ran off to the city," Donna had replied with that grin, and Dick had hugged her. His friendship with her had always been comfortable, not like the rest of the guys. Roy and Garth had practically tripped over themselves around Donna, unless they were all involved in a serious fight that took precedence over adolescent infatuation.

Dick had asked her once, in the early stages of the relationship, why she'd chosen Terry Long. Donna had actually blushed. "Well … I spend enough time with boys. I, um, wanted to know what it'd be like, you know, dating a man. An actual pays-his-own-bills, knows-what-he-wants-and-knows-how-to-get-it man. And, well, um … yeah. I like being with someone who's got it together. Terry's just so sophisticated. Plus he can talk to me when I'm wearing a low-cut blouse without giving himself neck strain trying not to stare."

The last had made Dick laugh, and by the time the wedding was announced, he was glad to walk her down the aisle. Donna had been radiant in white, and she'd given him that smile as he handed her to Terry. The older man had obviously been delighted, and their kiss at the altar made older women sigh and kids roll their eyes.

Within the first year of the marriage had come Robert, and Donna's life seemed complete. She finally had the normal life she'd wanted. No more capes and code names, no more super-villains, no more saving the world before she could even drive a car, no more worrying about how she was going to survive a fight when her biggest worry should've been what to wear to prom. Donna had had a husband, a son, a career doing something she loved, a house, and a life that was safe and sane.

Dick had stayed in touch throughout that era. He actually liked hearing about Robert's adventures in teething, and listening to Donna debating the relative merits of oatmeal flakes versus bread crumbs in meatloaf. Through her, he had a measure of normalcy in his own life, at least for a while.

Then had come the time when he'd gone off on assignment with Koriand'r, and he'd been out of contact with almost everyone for months. When he got back, things had changed. There were new faces among the Titans, and Donna was acting distant—a first in their friendship. Dick was a little distracted by his planned wedding to Kori, and the fact that he managed to royally screw things up with Babs. Again.

By the time he'd gotten things right with Donna again, it had been too late.

Dick sighed and brought his attention back from the past, pushing a stray lock of hair out of Donna's face. "So are you gonna show me the second set, or not?" he asked.

She looked away, and he tilted her head back to face him. At that, Donna rolled her eyes. "All right, but no lectures, okay?"

"When have I ever lectured you?" Dick teased, making a wounded face, and Donna swatted his shoulder lightly. He had been the Titans' team leader; lecturing his teammates was part of his job description.

She led him, without further word, to the darkroom and turned on the light as soon as she opened the door. Dick wrinkled his nose at the chemical smell of developer and stop bath and fixer, a pungent reek he'd never thought he would miss until Donna set photography aside. He stepped into the room, moving past the equipment to get to the photos hung up to dry.

The very first one he saw stopped him in his tracks. The same child's tricycle he'd seen in the last series, framed within one of the fallen leaves. Dick remembered how to create this effect; Donna had made a photo for him once using the same technique. Back then, she had first exposed the paper with the image of the two of them, and then she'd had him put his hand down over the most important part: their laughing faces. Turning the overhead light on had essentially burned everything not under his hand to perfect blackness, leaving the image framed by the shape of his hand.

In that first photo, a few areas of the leaf were missing, leaving black spots in the middle of the image, and the fragile fringes of the leaf left the edges blurred. An eerie effect, for sure, that fit with the melancholic theme of everything Dick had seen so far.

He moved on down the line, inspecting each. Richard Grayson was no art critic, so he judged art on whether it spoke to him—and what it said. These photos seemed to whisper to his soul of the beauty and fragility of life, and the profound loneliness of loss. Another image: an abandoned house superimposed over the photo of the sky, seeming to hover in a sea of clouds. And next, the same two images as the last, but this one with the sky superimposed over the house. In that version, the house looked ghostly, and the two birds from the sky shot seemed to soar right through it as if it were no more substantial than a mirage or vision.

Dick looked over his shoulder, and Donna said simply, "The first one's too surreal. The second one is more of where I was aiming." That didn't surprise him, considering the events of the last year.

Walking slowly among the hanging photographs, some still damp, Dick encountered more of the shots he'd seen before, combined in novel and interesting ways. He remembered the process well enough, Donna gathering raw material in the form of negatives, and then combining them in different ways, using different techniques, to say what she wanted to say. Rarely did a single image perfectly express what was in her heart, although a few did. Dick bit his lip, thinking of the tricycle.

Behind him, glancing over her own work, Donna said, "I was playing with this idea of juxtaposing natural and unnatural images. Something about the timeless cyclic nature of, well, nature, and the impermanence of things built. You know?"

"I get you," Dick murmured. Here was an ordinary street scene, cars parked in front of a row of shops, made surreal by the fact that the sky above had been replaced by ranks of trees growing closely together. The forced-perspective of the scene made the trees seem gargantuan, monstrous. "This wasn't what you were after, either," Dick said, nodding to the image.

"I'm glad you get it," Donna said softly. "I can't really explain it in words. If I could, I'd be a writer instead of a photographer."

To that he had no reply. Dick had found a stark image—the lichens from the first series, with a shadowy form rising from within the dark stone. He could almost make it out, and the glimpses he got made his stomach churn. Donna didn't elaborate about that one, but he could hear her shifting her weight from one foot to the other anxiously.

He'd almost reached the end of the line. After a few more misfires that wandered into surrealism or simply hadn't been defined enough to see, he came to the final photo, the one Donna had been working on when he'd arrived.

Dick sucked in a breath as the impact of the photo struck him. Now he understood why Donna was so nervous. What she'd been trying to say through the others was shouted here.

…

"A … job." The girl was practically shaking with rage as she stared at them both. Dinah had had her misgivings about this from the beginning, and now they were multiplying. "This was, what? An interview?!"

"No, it was your pre-employment test," Babs said calmly. Dinah hated it when the redhead was like this: completely committed to a course of action and unwilling to even consider backing down. It was what made her so formidable as Batgirl and Oracle, her stubborn resolve that was so much like Bruce's.

It also made her a complete pain in the ass to deal with at times. If Babs was certain she was right, it took an act of God to sway her. Dinah put a hand on her shoulder to plead for silence and said, "What Oracle means is, the position we have in mind comes with a high security clearance, and we need someone who can be absolutely trusted."

"A high security clearance, huh?" the brunette spat, her eyes flashing fire. "Higher than knowing Superman's home address?"

"Higher than that, yes," Babs agreed.

"On the order of knowing the real identities, full power sets, and potential weaknesses of a lot of other heroes, too," Dinah put in.

"Not interested," Elise snapped, and turned on her heel. Dinah tried hard not to grin; the girl wanted to make a dramatic exit, but she had no idea just how far from Berkeley she was.

"Afraid of the commitment?" Babs asked sweetly, and Elise spun around like she was on a pivot.

"What?!"

At that point Dinah just leaned against the wall and watched the show. Obviously Babs had touched a nerve there, and if she was on to something it was best to just let her pursue it. Looking at Elise over her green-tinted lenses, she replied, "We're not talking about a summer job, here. This would be a career, and it would be integral to the future of the superhero community."

Elise stalked back toward them. "Look, I don't know what you heard from J—Superboy, but I am not afraid of commitment. I am afraid of people who kidnap me and threaten to electrocute me. At least, I'm afraid they're not quite right in the head. No matter who you say you're working with or for, the only thing I'm interested in right now is getting the hell out of here."

She might as well not have spoken, for all the effect her words had on the redhead. Babs continued, "We have a variety of aliens, meta-humans, and hybrids, as you know, and there are some very brilliant and very twisted people working at ways to harm them. Going after their specific vulnerabilities, based on their unique physiologies. We have researchers and chemists on our side, too, but most of them are working on small pieces of the puzzle because we can't trust them to see the big picture. What we need is someone who can oversee the whole operation, someone with the skills and the training whom we can trust absolutely."

Elise just blinked, and Dinah stepped in. "On behalf of the Justice League of America, I was kinda hoping you would be that someone."

For a moment, just a moment, she could see in the girl's eyes that Elise understood the scope of the opportunity being offered her. And then her lip curled. "Yeah, well, I'm still not interested."

"All right then," Babs said. "I'll call a cab. Canary, walk her out, please?"

"Sure, O," Dinah sighed.

The next fifteen minutes were filled with awkward silence. Clearly Elise hadn't expected them to be so calm about her refusal. Then again, she was a civilian, no matter who she'd dated, and she just wasn't used to a world where people got kidnapped and threatened and scared spitless on a regular basis. Her outrage was almost tangible, and to have it met with casual acceptance threw her off.

As the cab pulled up, the girl turned a venomous look on Dinah. "You know, I might've gone for it if not for the whole electroshock therapy thing your friend has going on up there."

Dinah managed not to sigh. "Oracle can be pretty intense. She knows how steep the cost can be for what we do—and what the price is for not doing it. Sometimes she gets a little too wrapped up in it all."

"Yeah," Elise half-laughed, and headed outside. They were in San Francisco, not far from her college; it wouldn't have been smart to fly her all the way to Gotham. And besides, here they were close enough to Star City for Dinah to drop in and see Roy and Cissie and all the rest.

Dinah watched the cab leave before headed back in to the control room. Babs was never far from a half-dozen monitors set to survey her kingdom. "So that didn't go as planned," Dinah said, deciding that 'I told you she'd be furious' was too confrontational.

"Don't worry," the redhead told her. "I have contingencies in place already."

Bats and their backup plans. "Oh yeah? Because she seems pretty set on staying out of the game."

"Very few people can walk away once they've had a taste of the vigilante life," Babs said with an ironic arch to her brows. "We'll get her back in the fold. Just wait."

Dinah chuckled. Babs had confidence to match her determination. "Yeah, well, while I'm waiting, I'm going to go over to Star City and make sure the kids have eaten something other than pizza since I was here last."

"Of course they have," Babs said with a smirk. "There are hot dog stands and taco trucks in the city, too, you know."

…

Three images layered together. That fallen leaf with its flecks of darkness and its tattered edges, framing a composite. The tricycle again, in achingly sharp detail, but now it was superimposed above a ghostly shot of a car. Not one of the neatly lined-up vehicles in the one he'd seen earlier, oh no. This was a slightly blurred image of a car in a junkyard, its front and rear ends crumpled, the roof mashed flat, sleek door panels dented and dull, with spangles of shattered glass splayed across the hood.

Not the car, though, Dick saw instantly. Not the same car Terry had been driving a year ago, with Robert in his car seat up front. It had rained that evening, not a huge storm, just enough water to lift the oil on the roads. It was dark, the road was slick, and Terry liked to drive fast. A dangerous situation, but not an unusual one. All it had taken was one more variable to make it a fatal one. Perhaps a deer had darted out, forcing Terry to swerve. Perhaps an oncoming motorist had left their high beams on, briefly blinding Terry for a few, crucial seconds. Perhaps he had simply fallen asleep at the wheel. Regardless, he'd lost control of the car, crashed through a guardrail, and hit a tree head-on.

Both deaths were later ruled accidental. At the time, all Donna had known was that she'd been a wife and mother in the afternoon, and that night she was a childless widow. She had called Dick, of course, while the highway patrolman who'd brought the news was still at the front door. Donna had been so incoherent with grief that Dick had 'borrowed' the Bat-Wing to get to her side faster. She'd wept on his shoulder, bitter tears of guilt, mumbling that it was her fault.

That photograph brought the memory back with painful clarity. Dick looked at the dripping print and saw the death of Donna's hopes and dreams, the thing she'd refused to talk about for almost a year, and all the pain she'd kept bottled up like some rare wine that had turned to vinegar over the years.

"It's still not your fault, you know," he said, his voice rough.

Donna took a shaky breath. "Yeah, but … what if it is? I mean really, Dick. What if it was my fault?"

Sighing, Dick turned and cupped her face in his hands, making Donna look him in the eyes steadily. "Donna. It was not your fault. The worst part about it is that it was an accident. It could've happened to anyone at any time." If only he could get her to believe that, she might be able to start healing.

"Yes, but … what if…?" She bit her lip, brows furrowed. "What if … sometimes, you know, things weren't … so easy, and maybe sometimes I wished I could go back to the way things were before. Before I lost my powers. Before I got married. Before … before I had Robert…."

"Palone, that just means you're as human as the rest of us," Dick told her gently. "A lot changed in your life in a short time—just two years or so. Having regrets, maybe wishing you could've gone back and done it over, that's normal."

"No, Dick, that's not what I mean," Donna insisted. She wavered, and Dick thought for a moment she was going to shut down, lock all of this away again.

Then her eyes flicked to the photograph, and the story came tumbling out of her like the image had broken down a piece of the dam holding back a flood. "I … look, I did have regrets. Terry … I loved Terry, but I think we rushed into it. And by all the gods, you know how I loved Robert, but sometimes … sometimes I wished I would've waited to have him. There were times, when I thought about … about maybe looking into a trial separation, and … it would've been easier if I didn't have Robert to think about, too."

This was the first Dick had heard about Donna questioning her marriage. She'd always claimed to be happy, and amused him with a dozen little anecdotes about her day if asked how she was. On the one hand, it hurt not to have known about these doubts. Why hadn't she told him? They told each other absolutely everything, even the worst mistakes they'd made and the most foolish things they'd done.

This wasn't about him, though. Donna looked at him with eyes that were still heartbroken and looking for permission to heal. "Don, that still doesn't make it your fault. Even if you wished you didn't have either of them…"

She gasped, blue eyes going wide, and Dick leaned into her space to make his point, practically nose-to-nose with her. If she took nothing else to heart, she had to understand this. "…even if you wished you were free of both of them, Don, you never wished for this to happen. Never. And if you had a choice it wouldn't have. Maybe someday you would've gone through with the separation, but you wouldn't have wished this on your worst enemy, and especially not on the people you loved. It was an accident, Donna Troy. The truth of it is, accidents happen all the time. Not everything is a plot or a curse or revenge by some villain we forgot about the moment we locked them up. Sometimes it's just life, and sometimes bad things happen. It isn't your fault. It never was."

Donna blinked twice, her expression almost blank, and then her lip trembled. Dick gathered her close just before the first sobs started, whispering to her that it was going to be all right, she would get through this, she wasn't alone, and all the other things he could think of to say, when they both knew what meant the most was that he was there.

As his best friend cried on his shoulder, Dick looked at the photograph again. It was a haunting image, to be sure, but in a way it gave him hope. Leaves fell every autumn and the trees turned bare and black in winter, but each spring new buds came forth from what had seemed dead. Maybe, even if Donna herself didn't know it yet, she'd begun to acknowledge the process of healing in the cycle of nature.

…

"You keep your little poacher off my stories, Kent, or I swear…!"

"Lois, you know perfectly well that story fell into International's domain…"

Jimmy Olsen watched the argument, feeling like a spectator at a particularly vengeful tennis match, and then looked across the desk at Perry White, who just grinned in apparent bliss. The more things change, the more they stay the same, the news photographer thought.

He and Perry just watched the argument blossom to the point where Lois was poking Clark in the chest at every fifth word or so, and then the Chief cut in. "You kids better get this out of your systems before I decide to send you both on another assignment together. Hell, last time I got a set of twins to spoil rotten."

Lois instantly turned her fury on him. "I still owe you for that damn lizard, Chief. You know that frikkin' thing is still alive?"

"Hell, Lane, I never thought either critter would mean this much to you," Perry laughed, and Lois narrowed her eyes to a steely glare.

Clark, at least, recognized when he'd been given a break, and sat back down, adjusting his tie. Lois was left standing, and eschewed her seat to prop her hip against Perry's desk—the better to glare at all three of them.

It was all Jimmy could do not to laugh.

She and Clark always fought at work. The one time they'd managed to get locked in the elevator together for two hours, Lois' frustrated wrath had been audible two floors away. Some reporters speculated that more than arguing went on in the elevator—and the supply closet, and certain conference rooms—but that wasn't Lois' style, or Clark's. Both of them had more class, and more respect for the workplace.

Wanting nothing more than to continue cajoling Lois out of her mood, Jimmy said, "Chief, now that they work in separate departments, what kind of assignment would you be able to send both of them on?"

He realized his error the moment Perry grinned and Clark started looking nervous. "Funny you should ask that, Olsen," the Editor-in-Chief began.