AngelQueen
10-26-2002, 09:04 PM
Generations
Author: AngelQueen
Email: AngelQueen04@aol.com
Disclaimer: Birds of Prey, it's characters and concepts are the property of Warner Brothers, Tollin-Robbins Productions & DC Comics.
Summary: Dinah remembers and speaks of a painful past to Barbara.
Warning: SPOILERS for the upcoming Episode 'Sins of the Mother.' DO NOT READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED!
Characters: Dinah, Barbara
The sunset cast an ethereal glow over New Gotham. As the fading sun fell below the horizon, it left behind the temporary appearance of everything being made of pure gold. But all too soon, that image faded, leaving behind a shadow-filled city, full of sinister criminals and other various dangers.
Dangers that most would believe to believe impossible. At least, that was what Dinah Lance (or Redmond, when she'd admit it) was beginning to discover. For the past few weeks, she'd seen more things that were considered impossible than she'd seen law enforcement officers. The city of New Gotham seemed to attract the impossible. It had done so for years, according to Barbara.
Ever since the appearance of the Dark Knight that the people had dubbed the Batman.
Dinah shook her head. So she'd seen a ton of weird things in this city. But none of them had phased her as much as meeting the woman that she vaguely remembered as 'Mommy.' When she'd seen the woman who was almost a mirror image of her, her emotions had become a jumbled heap. Happiness, curiosity, fear, and anger all warred for dominance within her heart. A part of her felt like a little kid again and wanted nothing more than to bolt into the woman's arms.
Until she remembered what had happened over a decade ago. The day her mother just disappeared from her life, leaving Dinah in a place that, to her, resembled Hell on Earth.
"Want to talk about it?"
Dinah whirled away from the New Gotham skyline, her hand reflexively clasping the birdarang that she was almost never without. She relaxed her grip almost immediately when the intruder of her thoughts was discovered to be Barbara.
The older redheaded woman sat in her customary chair, her head tilted to the side questioningly as she held out a small checkered blanket. Dinah took it gratefully as she noted that a similar garment was tucked around Barbara's legs. The nights in New Gotham were definitely growing cooler.
Dinah wrapped the blanket around her thin shoulders and sighed in relief. The two sat in a comfortable silence for several minutes. Eventually, though, Barbara felt obliged to break it. There was another blond woman inside, heart-broken, and yet resigned, at her daughter's bitter rejection of her.
"Dinah," Barbara asked quietly, "What happened? Why did you react to your mom like that?"
The only answer was silence. At least, at first. Barbara watched as Dinah stiffened and her face became a mask of steel. Her blue-gray eyes hard as diamonds, she stared at the former Batgirl.
"How would you feel, Barbara," she whispered harshly. "If your mom just up and disappeared one day, leaving you with absolute strangers? People who didn't tell you until well after a year that your mother had given you up to foster care?"
Barbara stared at the girl, surprised at the bitterness that laced Dinah's voice. She'd never seen her like this before. Helena had always bottled everything up inside and settled for giving people dark looks. But here, Dinah was exhibiting her anger and hurt.
She wasn't sure if she knew how to deal with this. Dick had handled things similarly, but Alfred had always acted as a sounding board and had always known what to do. Was she even capable of doing the same?
Before she could even say anything, Dinah continued. "Now, multiply those feelings by a hundred. That's close to what I felt at that time. My own mother had abandoned me to a life of hell, not even telling me why. For a long time, I thought it was my fault. That I was being punished for doing something bad. Until I finally learned that I wasn't an unique case, that a lot of kids have been abandoned by their parents."
Dinah closed her eyes and she slumped, almost all her energy leaving her. Slowly, she plopped down onto the cold cement in front of Barbara, who leaned forward, intent on the girl's words.
"My family had always moved around a lot. Daddy used to say that it was because of their jobs. So, though I didn't really understand, I grew used to spending a few weeks here and there." Dinah paused and looked back out towards the New Gotham skyline. The sunset had almost completely disappeared, leaving behind a navy blue sky and a random pattern of stars.
"Then, one-day, Daddy just... wasn't there anymore. And Mom... she just got scared. She wouldn't enroll me in school anymore. She taught me whenever she could. I kept asking when Daddy was coming home, but she never answered me. She would just start to cry and go into her room, never saying a word in reply."
The girl then shrugged. "After a year or so of things going like this, I guess it just became too much for her. One day she dropped me off at a house and told me to be good. She didn't even hug me or give me a kiss. She just dropped me off, gave the people a duffel bag that had my stuff, and walked out the door. Didn't even bother to look back."
Barbara spoke up quietly. "She didn't even write to you? You didn't hear anything?"
Dinah shook her head. "Not a word. She never wrote, never came back. By the time I was eight, my dreams were growing more and more violent. My foster parents always told me that it was just my imagination, that I wasn't seeing anything. After a while, I think they just kept saying that to convince themselves. And the kids that lived with us, the kids at school, they called me a freak, a sicko, and other things that I do not care to repeat."
Barbara winced in sympathy. She knew that it was a common occurrence for kids to have rough childhoods due to powers that they could not control or understand.
"In the end, I gave up on the hope that my mother would ever come back for me. I just began to think of her as dead. It seemed easier that way. So with foster parents who were determined to ignore what has happening under their noses, kids who shunned me because I of what I dreamed, I clung to the only two semi-friendly faces I had in my life."
Barbara blinked in confusion. "Who were they?"
Dinah looked up at her, her face growing all the more desolate. "Two women, one barely more than a teenager. I always saw the younger one kneeling over a blond woman, who had been brutally stabbed. The young woman would always cry and scream for her mother to hear her, to be okay."
The former Batgirl closed her eyes. That sounded familiar. Dinah took no notice of this and continued.
"The other was a woman who opened a door, her eyes growing wide with shock mere moments later. Then-"
"A shot rang out," Barbara cut in, her voice barely audible. "The woman just moaned in pain and fell to the floor, not even screaming-"
"The last sound heard was of someone laughing horribly..." Dinah finished softly, her eyes filled with long suppressed tears. She quickly scooted closer to Barbara and lay her head in her lap, sobbing as she clung to her. Barbara didn't stop her. She just lay her hand on the younger girl's blond head and stroked her hair, all the while crying her own silent tears. Reliving what had happened that night seven years ago was never easy, no matter how much time had passed.
Neither of them knew how long they sat there. They just held fast to one another, riding out the waves of pain and misery that they both had kept within them for so long.
Abruptly, Barbara stiffened imperceptibly. Someone was watching them. All her instincts were screaming it. Warily, she glanced around, trying not to disturb Dinah. Her watery orbs landed on the clock face and froze. There, using the mechanisms to hold her up, was Carolyn Lance. She sat watching them, resignation still evident in her features, but there was still sorrow within them.
Barbara lowered her eyes. She'd gotten Dinah to open up to her, but she had no way of curing her of the bitterness that had built up over the course of her life.
Carolyn had made the choice to abandon her daughter in order to protect her from the life of being a superhero. But Dinah had found her way here despite this. Perhaps things would have been better if Carolyn had kept her daughter with her. That of becoming what they were was becoming a generation thing. Bruce Wayne had begun it, along with a select group of people. They'd trained those who were like their children, and no doubt those children would do the same as well. Carolyn had tried to escape that growing tradition by hiding her daughter away, but instead, had alienated the one she loved most in this world.
Barbara looked down at the young girl and silently hoped that the gap between mother and daughter could still be mended.
Author: AngelQueen
Email: AngelQueen04@aol.com
Disclaimer: Birds of Prey, it's characters and concepts are the property of Warner Brothers, Tollin-Robbins Productions & DC Comics.
Summary: Dinah remembers and speaks of a painful past to Barbara.
Warning: SPOILERS for the upcoming Episode 'Sins of the Mother.' DO NOT READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED!
Characters: Dinah, Barbara
The sunset cast an ethereal glow over New Gotham. As the fading sun fell below the horizon, it left behind the temporary appearance of everything being made of pure gold. But all too soon, that image faded, leaving behind a shadow-filled city, full of sinister criminals and other various dangers.
Dangers that most would believe to believe impossible. At least, that was what Dinah Lance (or Redmond, when she'd admit it) was beginning to discover. For the past few weeks, she'd seen more things that were considered impossible than she'd seen law enforcement officers. The city of New Gotham seemed to attract the impossible. It had done so for years, according to Barbara.
Ever since the appearance of the Dark Knight that the people had dubbed the Batman.
Dinah shook her head. So she'd seen a ton of weird things in this city. But none of them had phased her as much as meeting the woman that she vaguely remembered as 'Mommy.' When she'd seen the woman who was almost a mirror image of her, her emotions had become a jumbled heap. Happiness, curiosity, fear, and anger all warred for dominance within her heart. A part of her felt like a little kid again and wanted nothing more than to bolt into the woman's arms.
Until she remembered what had happened over a decade ago. The day her mother just disappeared from her life, leaving Dinah in a place that, to her, resembled Hell on Earth.
"Want to talk about it?"
Dinah whirled away from the New Gotham skyline, her hand reflexively clasping the birdarang that she was almost never without. She relaxed her grip almost immediately when the intruder of her thoughts was discovered to be Barbara.
The older redheaded woman sat in her customary chair, her head tilted to the side questioningly as she held out a small checkered blanket. Dinah took it gratefully as she noted that a similar garment was tucked around Barbara's legs. The nights in New Gotham were definitely growing cooler.
Dinah wrapped the blanket around her thin shoulders and sighed in relief. The two sat in a comfortable silence for several minutes. Eventually, though, Barbara felt obliged to break it. There was another blond woman inside, heart-broken, and yet resigned, at her daughter's bitter rejection of her.
"Dinah," Barbara asked quietly, "What happened? Why did you react to your mom like that?"
The only answer was silence. At least, at first. Barbara watched as Dinah stiffened and her face became a mask of steel. Her blue-gray eyes hard as diamonds, she stared at the former Batgirl.
"How would you feel, Barbara," she whispered harshly. "If your mom just up and disappeared one day, leaving you with absolute strangers? People who didn't tell you until well after a year that your mother had given you up to foster care?"
Barbara stared at the girl, surprised at the bitterness that laced Dinah's voice. She'd never seen her like this before. Helena had always bottled everything up inside and settled for giving people dark looks. But here, Dinah was exhibiting her anger and hurt.
She wasn't sure if she knew how to deal with this. Dick had handled things similarly, but Alfred had always acted as a sounding board and had always known what to do. Was she even capable of doing the same?
Before she could even say anything, Dinah continued. "Now, multiply those feelings by a hundred. That's close to what I felt at that time. My own mother had abandoned me to a life of hell, not even telling me why. For a long time, I thought it was my fault. That I was being punished for doing something bad. Until I finally learned that I wasn't an unique case, that a lot of kids have been abandoned by their parents."
Dinah closed her eyes and she slumped, almost all her energy leaving her. Slowly, she plopped down onto the cold cement in front of Barbara, who leaned forward, intent on the girl's words.
"My family had always moved around a lot. Daddy used to say that it was because of their jobs. So, though I didn't really understand, I grew used to spending a few weeks here and there." Dinah paused and looked back out towards the New Gotham skyline. The sunset had almost completely disappeared, leaving behind a navy blue sky and a random pattern of stars.
"Then, one-day, Daddy just... wasn't there anymore. And Mom... she just got scared. She wouldn't enroll me in school anymore. She taught me whenever she could. I kept asking when Daddy was coming home, but she never answered me. She would just start to cry and go into her room, never saying a word in reply."
The girl then shrugged. "After a year or so of things going like this, I guess it just became too much for her. One day she dropped me off at a house and told me to be good. She didn't even hug me or give me a kiss. She just dropped me off, gave the people a duffel bag that had my stuff, and walked out the door. Didn't even bother to look back."
Barbara spoke up quietly. "She didn't even write to you? You didn't hear anything?"
Dinah shook her head. "Not a word. She never wrote, never came back. By the time I was eight, my dreams were growing more and more violent. My foster parents always told me that it was just my imagination, that I wasn't seeing anything. After a while, I think they just kept saying that to convince themselves. And the kids that lived with us, the kids at school, they called me a freak, a sicko, and other things that I do not care to repeat."
Barbara winced in sympathy. She knew that it was a common occurrence for kids to have rough childhoods due to powers that they could not control or understand.
"In the end, I gave up on the hope that my mother would ever come back for me. I just began to think of her as dead. It seemed easier that way. So with foster parents who were determined to ignore what has happening under their noses, kids who shunned me because I of what I dreamed, I clung to the only two semi-friendly faces I had in my life."
Barbara blinked in confusion. "Who were they?"
Dinah looked up at her, her face growing all the more desolate. "Two women, one barely more than a teenager. I always saw the younger one kneeling over a blond woman, who had been brutally stabbed. The young woman would always cry and scream for her mother to hear her, to be okay."
The former Batgirl closed her eyes. That sounded familiar. Dinah took no notice of this and continued.
"The other was a woman who opened a door, her eyes growing wide with shock mere moments later. Then-"
"A shot rang out," Barbara cut in, her voice barely audible. "The woman just moaned in pain and fell to the floor, not even screaming-"
"The last sound heard was of someone laughing horribly..." Dinah finished softly, her eyes filled with long suppressed tears. She quickly scooted closer to Barbara and lay her head in her lap, sobbing as she clung to her. Barbara didn't stop her. She just lay her hand on the younger girl's blond head and stroked her hair, all the while crying her own silent tears. Reliving what had happened that night seven years ago was never easy, no matter how much time had passed.
Neither of them knew how long they sat there. They just held fast to one another, riding out the waves of pain and misery that they both had kept within them for so long.
Abruptly, Barbara stiffened imperceptibly. Someone was watching them. All her instincts were screaming it. Warily, she glanced around, trying not to disturb Dinah. Her watery orbs landed on the clock face and froze. There, using the mechanisms to hold her up, was Carolyn Lance. She sat watching them, resignation still evident in her features, but there was still sorrow within them.
Barbara lowered her eyes. She'd gotten Dinah to open up to her, but she had no way of curing her of the bitterness that had built up over the course of her life.
Carolyn had made the choice to abandon her daughter in order to protect her from the life of being a superhero. But Dinah had found her way here despite this. Perhaps things would have been better if Carolyn had kept her daughter with her. That of becoming what they were was becoming a generation thing. Bruce Wayne had begun it, along with a select group of people. They'd trained those who were like their children, and no doubt those children would do the same as well. Carolyn had tried to escape that growing tradition by hiding her daughter away, but instead, had alienated the one she loved most in this world.
Barbara looked down at the young girl and silently hoped that the gap between mother and daughter could still be mended.