Monday/Tuesday, 4:17am: Clocktower
It was the blurred edges that told Barbara what she saw was part of a dream and not reality, was a dream and not necessarily a memory. The dreamscape always had a hyper-real quality to it: the sound was sharper, the colors more vivid than anything she’d seen. What gave it away, though, was the fact that only those things she looked directly at were in focus. She’d long thought this narrowing of focus was some sort of existential joke, her unconscious mind’s comment on the narrowness of human perspective.
Despite knowing it was a dream, despite having lived through the aftermath of the Joker’s one and only visit, Barbara vibrated with terror as she felt herself twist the knob on her apartment’s front door. Her conscious mind, the part of her watching herself move through the dream, barely had time to register the figure on the other side of the door before she awoke with a start. The small gasp seemed loud in the dark bedroom and Barbara jumped slightly as strong arms tightened their embrace around her.
“Nightmare?” Helena asked, voice thick with disturbed sleep.
Barbara consciously relaxed into the pillow and into Helena’s embrace. “Just a bad dream,” she replied. She glanced at the clock. It had only been about twenty minutes since they’d turned out the light, sated for the time being, their senses filled to the brim with each other. Barbara smiled softly in the dark as she felt Helena’s lips graze her shoulder, her question communicated by touch rather than sound. She laced her fingers between Helena’s and pulled the brunette’s arm tighter into her body. “Go back to sleep, love,” Barbara said quietly.
It wasn’t until Helena’s breathing settled into the even rhythm that meant sleep that Barbara allowed herself to return to the dream’s final image. She’d only gotten a slice, a brief glimpse, but it hadn’t been the Joker’s unruly green curls she’d seen through the open door. Instead, her eyes had lighted upon a very familiar, and deliberately mussed, dark head.
She pushed the image away, knowing that if she let it sit long enough she’d come up with the answer. Barbara closed her eyes and concentrated on relaxing, willing her sleep to be dreamless as it finally settled back over her.
Tuesday, 12:17pm: New Gotham High Cafeteria
“Let her go,” Dinah said quietly.
Chad looked her up and down and laughed. “Or what?”
“I’ll make you very, very sorry,” Dinah replied, her voice even. Out of the corner of her eye Dinah noticed the kids at the adjoining tables moving away slightly while simultaneously forming a circle around the brewing conflict.[Continue Reading…]