Gifts - Part Two, Chapter Two

by Marla F. Fair

            “Mom!  Mom, come quick!”

            Koriand’r wiped a tear away and laid down the holographic photo-cube she had been viewing.  After another night of fruitlessly searching the streets of Gotham and the cities and towns surrounding it, she had ended in the chair by the window, somehow hoping to make a connection with her missing husband.  She had been looking at the photos he kept close to hand when she had fallen asleep. 

John had been gone a week now.  His father, two whole days. 

            She was not certain she would survive.

            The sound of her daughter’s voice roused her and she stood, deliberately placing the cube on the stand by the chair.  Then she shook her head and straightened her back and remembered who she was.  She glanced out the tall window and saw Mar’i winging through the dawn sky towards her. 

Another day.  Another choice.  She would survive.  But whoever had done this horrible thing, would not.

            As she opened the window and watched her beautiful child fly in, she started to ask her what the matter was.  Then she knew.  Before Nightstar had a chance to tell her, she knew.

            They had been found.

            Her hand was trembling as it found the wall and she braced herself for the worst.   “Are they...?”

            “Alive.  Mom.”  Mar’i’s smile was wistful.  “They’re both alive.”

            Koriand’r felt curiously numb.  “Who found them?  Where?”

            Her daughter eyed her curiously.  “Clark and Diana.  Grandpa sent us all different directions.  He took the old warehouse since Dad had mentioned hearing water the one place he was held.  He sent them to an old house down in one of the slums.”  Nightstar  cocked her head.  “Mom, are you all right?”

            The princess laid her hand on her breast and suddenly fell to her knees.

            “Mom?”  Her child was beside her in a second.

            “X’Hal,” the older woman breathed, her tanned skin pale.  “Thank God.”  Tears flooded her great green eyes.  “Where are they now?”

            The young woman rose.  She bit her lip.  “At Grandpa’s.  In the infirmary.”

            Koriand’r’s head snapped up.  She found her feet.  “The infirmary?  Mar’i, why?  What....?”

            “Dad was in pretty bad shape.  He’d been....  Well, he’s pretty torn up.”  She watched as the familiar fire returned to her mother’s eyes and was strangely comforted.  “John had some cuts.” Nightstar tossed her long black hair and nodded towards the window.  “Grandpa’s with them.  And Barda.”

            Koriand’r nodded and without another word, lifted off the ground and flew through the window, heading for the opposite wing of the great house.  She couldn’t shake the feeling of foreboding that gripped her.  Something was wrong.  Though the others would have laughed at her, reminding her to be grateful for what she had—it was too easy. 

            And somehow she knew, not over yet.

            Bruce was sitting by the bed when she entered, his hands wrapped about his son’s.  He acknowledged her presence without looking at her and then rose so she could see her husband.  He averted his eyes, knowing her grief should be private, but knowing as well the rage that boiled in her—as it did in him—for what they had done.  Dick’s smooth white skin resembled a battle-field, one laced with landmines that had been indiscriminately set off. 

Her heard her gasp and then looked at her when she spoke his name.

“Yes?”

She was trembling.  “John?”

            He smiled and laid his hand on her shoulder.  “He’s fine.  He’s with Barda.”

            Kory nodded.  She understood.  The other woman needed healing to.  Still she was torn. 

“I told him you would there in a few minutes.  I thought— ”  His blue eyes returned to Dick’s battered and bruised frame,

            “Yes,” she whispered. She needed to be with her husband.  Sitting on the bed beside him, she gingerly touched his hand.  “Where were they?  How did you know where to find them?”

            Bruce drew in a breath of air and let it out slowly, suddenly aware that he was exhausted.  He shifted and leaned his back against the wall.  “After you and the others left, I got to thinking.  This seems somehow to be about familial connections.  Dick and John.  Dick and me.  I checked the records and made certain I was remembering correctly.   Harvey’s family owned several buildings in the town, both commercial and private.  I assumed,” he winced at the word, “that he had taken him to one of the warehouses where it would have been easier to mask whatever he was up to.  Also Dick was shot in a warehouse.”  He glanced at the young man who moaned in his sleep. “But I was wrong.  I sent Diana and Clark to his parent’s old home.  Where he had grown up as a boy.  It turned out to be a duplex.”  He sighed and pressed off the wall.  “They were on the floor of an upstairs bedroom.  Diana heard the baby crying....”

            Her eyes narrowed in anger as her finger traced one of Dick’s deeper wounds.  “John saw him like this?”

            Bruce nodded.  “Yes,” he said softly.

            “X’Hal!  The bastard.”  She paused  and lifted her blazing eyes to his.  “And Two-face?”

            He shook his head.  “Gone. Nowhere to be found.”  He watched as the familiar crimson glow began to spread between her fingers.  His hand returned to her shoulder.  “Princess, there will be time for vengeance.  I have the others out hunting for him now.”  He nodded towards his son.  “He’s back.  John’s back.  They are both safe.  Let that be enough for now.”

            She gripped her husband’s hand.  “You know it isn’t enough, Bruce.  You know that!”  She turned to look at him, her mouth a thin line.  “And you, of everyone, know this isn’t over.”

            The Batman sighed and ran his hand over his stubbled cheeks.  He nodded.

“So long as I live.  It will never be over.”

            Later that night Dick awoke to one of the worst headaches he had ever known as well as the touch of a cool cloth on his forehead.  He murmured something and shifted.  Then he tried to sit bolt-upright in the bed.

            A pair of strong hands held him down.  “You will not get up, young man.”

            He blinked several times, trying to focus on the person who was leaning over him.  He had thought it was Kory, but the hair was wrong.  It was black as midnight.  He squinted and then whispered weakly, “Donna?”

            The fingers that touched his flesh stiffened.  There was a sigh.  “Dick, Donna is dead.  She has been for several years now.  It’s Diana.”  She brushed the sweat-soaked hair from his forehead as she spoke softly to someone behind her, “Go get Koriand’r.  Tell her he is awake.”

            “Dead?”  He fell back against the pillows as her face came into focus.  Then he saw the gray streak that ran the length of her ebon mane and it all came flooding back—the war, the bomb, his beautiful wife dead and returned, his daughter, his son....  He drew a breath like a swimmer emerging from the depths after diving for pearls.  “Oh God, Diana, I’m sorry....  I forgot....”

            She smiled gently and kissed her scarred forehead. “Would that we all could.”

            Clark appeared behind her and laid a hands on her shoulders.  “How are you Dick?”

            The younger man blinked again and gripped the side of the bed with his fingers.  “A little disoriented.  Am I....?”

            Diana nodded.  “Pain-killers.  You were unable to lie still for all the cuts....”

            He glanced at his hands, turning them over and over in disbelief and then he started again.  “John!  Where is John?  Is he—?”

            “Here.”

            Dick looked up.  His wife had entered the room.  John was on her hip.  She watched as her husband’s blue eyes searched the boy and then smiled wistfully as he seemed to relax.  Diana rose and moved out of the way, allowing her to take her place.  Koriand’r sat on the bed beside him and turned John towards his father, opening her arms.  She frowned when the little boy refused to go.

            “Johnny?”

            The little boy buried his copper-head against her shoulder and sniffed.  A moment later he peeked from beneath his thick bangs at his father, staring at him like he was a stranger.

            “What is this?”

            “He is afraid.”

            Kory turned to face Diana.  “Of his father?  Don’t be ridiculous.”

            Clark took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose.  “Not of him.  That he will die.”  He whispered the last word.

            The Tamaranean princess sighed and placed her hands on her son’s chubby cheeks.   “John, Daddy is fine.  He’s home.  So are you.”  She glanced at her husband’s mentor as he re-entered the room, followed by Nightstar.  “Everything is fine now.”  Her green eyes sought her husband’s for assurance, but he was looking away and an ineffable sadness colored his handsome features.  “Dick?”

            He jumped and turned to face her. “Kory?”

“You are all right, aren’t you?”

            His pale blue eyes sought his former guardian’s face and he sighed.  “Sure.  Yeah, I’m all right.”

            Later that night Koriand’r crept into the infirmary and slipped between the sheets to lie beside her husband.  In his drugged state, it took him a minute or two to realize she was there.  Then he smiled sadly as he felt her arms encircle his waist and she kissed the back of his neck.  He laid his hand on hers and pressed them tight.

            “I have still not forgive you for leaving.  Neither has your daughter.”

            Dick’s eyes closed and he moaned.  “Kory, I....”
            “...had to be stubborn and noble and self-sacrificing...”  The tall woman gripped his fingers.  “All the things I love you for.  Dick, I was so afraid....”

            “How’s John?” he whispered hoarsely.

            “Fine.  Sleeping with Mar’i.”  Koriand’r waited and then she said softly, “Will you not say you are sorry?”

            Her husband drew a deep breath.  His head barely shifted from side to side.  “I’m sorry I put you through Hell.  God, I’m sorry I lied to Mar’i...but I am not sorry I left.”  A little of the fire that marked him as a man returned to his voice, “I would do it again”

            Silence fell between them, lasting a brief moment, then she brushed his hair with her fingers and whispered, “Dick?”

“Mm-hmm...”

“Can you  tell me what happened?”

            He didn’t answer at first.  Then in a quiet voice, he said, “I don’t know really know.  There was a strange creature there....it called itself the Pretender.  It was insane.”

            Kory frowned. “Was that who took you?”

            He nodded his head.  “You sound surprised.”

            She cuddled closer, wrapping her knees about his thighs, relishing the feel of him.  “I am.  Bruce thought... Well, we both thought it was Two-face.”
            “Two-face is dead.”

            She laid her chin on his shoulder.  “Bruce doesn’t seem to think so.  He said no one knows for sure....”

            “I know.”

            His words surprised her.  “How?  Was he with this ‘Pretender’?  Dick?”  She lifted her head to look into his face, but he had fallen asleep.  With a sigh she buried her face against his neck and laid there until the morning sun began to filter through the skylight above his bed.

Continued in Chapter Three