DISCLAIMER: The Justice League of America
characters are the property of DC Comics. The story contents are the creation and
property of Djinn and are copyright (c) 2004 by Djinn. This story is Rated PG-13.
Dead and Buried
by Djinn
(Kingdom Come Missing Scenes
and Coda)
Kal closes his eyes when he touches her. He's pretending to
make love to her, but he isn't really. They're just having sex. Diana knows it,
just like she knows he can't lie to her with his eyes open, so he does it with them
closed.
He doesn't lie any other time.
When they fight together, it's the same as ever. Comrades in battle, looking out
for each other—looking at each other. That's never changed. And when they sit sentry
for a world that barely trusts them anymore, she doesn't feel as if something is
missing. As if something is wrong. They talk. They laugh. They argue. It feels good.
It feels great.
Until they start to kiss.
When they were fighting for their
future, when it was she and Kal
leading the other old ones against the metas who were
running amok, she didn't feel this way—as if every breath hurts, every moment that
passes is wrong. But they weren't lovers then. They were close to becoming lovers,
both so angry that it would have been easy to have sex in a rough and heated way.
But they didn't.
Maybe they should have? Maybe
it would have made this feel more real?
He rolls off her and pulls her
with him; she ends up nestled in his arms, her head tucked under his chin. Cozy.
Protected.
And unable to see his face.
It shouldn't hurt this much. She
tells herself that.
He'll get over it. Over her—over
Lois. It's been years since Lois died.
She tells herself that too.
But she wonders if he's seeing
Lois now. Diana can't tell what he sees. She just knows he isn't seeing her.
##
"Is it what you thought?"
Bruce stares up at her.
She's climbed one of the ledges
in the bat cave. She's not sure why she did it, except that he can't, not easily,
not anymore, and she needs to get away from him.
He doesn't seem surprised that
she's fled from him, just waits for her to look down. She does and sees that he
looks even older from this vantage point. Bruce is old. She is too; she just doesn't
look old. But she feels it. Lately, she feels it.
"Diana?" His voice is
the Bruce of the past. The Bruce who pressed and prodded and generally pissed her
off.
"No." She gives him
the truth. Let him make of it what he will, if he has such a need to know.
"Hmmm."
"That's the best you can
do? 'Hmmm'?" She jumps down and sees him flinch as she lands hard. The impact
doesn't hurt her. She's strong. Her body is lithe still, even if it has fleshed
out more than when she was new at this superhero business.
"Clark's more complicated
than he looks." Bruce walks over to some gizmo or other. "It's a mistake
to think he's easy to understand."
She's given up figuring out what
Bruce is working on. It will be wonderful, whatever it is. A shiny new toy for a
not-so-shiny crime fighter. She's about to walk away when he hands it to her, and
she can feel her face freeze.
"We all have defining moments,
Diana. Mine was in an alley, when I was a boy. I'll never leave it."
"And this is his?" She
looks down at the photograph. Clark and Lois's wedding day. They are beautiful and
young, both of them.
"It may be." Bruce takes
it back from her and gently lays it down on the table.
"You knew." She walks
over and picks the picture up again, wanting to fling it out at the bats that hang
so peacefully in this quiet cave. She doesn't. She puts it back down. "Why
else would you have this?"
"I can see you're unhappy."
His eyes search her face. Once, long ago, his frank gaze would have unnerved her.
But they've been through too much lately. Almost died together—almost killed each
other.
"So
what's my defining moment?" she asks.
He shrugs and walks away, back
to the computer program he was working on when she tried to sneak up on him.
"Bruce. What's my moment?"
He turns; his eyes hold no pity.
"The day you leave him."
##
"We need to talk." They
are words she doesn't want to say. They're words she's practiced for days but still
doesn't want to say. They're the words that will make her moment come true. She's
leaving Kal. This has to end.
He looks over at her, over the
dishes of the meal she's barely touched. She's too nervous to eat. She, Wonder Woman,
an Amazon, is nervous enough to have an upset stomach.
"Kal,
we need to—"
She runs for the bathroom. The
words are lost in the need to throw up. She runs faster and makes it before she
starts to vomit. Over and over and over.
Kal follows her, alarmed. The door has shut behind her, but
she knows he can see through it. "Diana? Are you ill?"
She's never ill. Never.
She thinks of the meal he cooked
for them earlier, the one she barely touched. She can smell it, throughout the Fortress.
She vomits again.
She isn't ill. Goddess help her, she isn't ill. She touches her stomach.
Kal's voice is filled with wonder. "Diana?"
"We need to talk," she
whispers.
He hears her, of course. "I
guess we do."
He sounds happy. She touches her
stomach again and feels a strange numbness. She should leave him. He doesn't love
her.
But they're going to have a child.
And he's happy about that.
She gets up slowly and hears the
door open. He touches her, turning her. Pulling her close.
Her head is, of course, tucked
under his chin.
"Our child," he murmurs.
She wishes her first impulse wasn't
to ask him to define "our."
His hands are gentle on her, his
voice sweet, as he asks, "Are you all right?"
She laughs. She's an Amazon. She's
fought gods. Does he think one baby will undo her?
She pushes her head deeper under
his chin and cries. Tears? She doesn't cry.
She can, fortunately, blame the
tears on hormones.
She can't leave him. Not now.
Her defining moment will have
to wait.
##
Bruce hangs back as they leave
the restaurant. "Are you happy, Diana?"
She looks ahead, to where Kal has stopped. She knows he can hear her. "Of course,
Bruce." She lets serenity shine from her eyes.
He isn't fooled. His eyes narrow,
and he takes her hand. "I'm honored you want me to be the godfather."
"Who else?" She leans
in, kissing his cheek.
"I hope it turns out the
way you want," he says into her ear.
She knows Kal
can hear that too. She decides she doesn't care. "Me too," she whispers.
With a last squeeze, Bruce walks
away from her, to the cab Kal has hailed for him. When
the taxi is little more than a spot of yellow far down the street, Kal turns to her.
She smiles, touching her stomach.
"You're my best friend, Diana."
It isn't enough but it will have
to be enough.
She takes his hand, lets him pull
her gently after him. "You're my best friend, too, Kal."
It's true. They are best friends.
And one of them loves the other. She thinks they both love the baby. That will be
enough.
He looks over at her, and she
realizes she's squeezing too hard.
"Hormones," she says,
smiling in a way designed to throw him off. She uses the hormone excuse often. And
often, it's true. She didn't expect being pregnant to play such havoc with her body.
His eyes are gentle as he pulls
her closer. "A baby. I'm still in shock." He touches her hair. "Bruce
didn't seem to be."
"Well, he guessed before
we could tell him. A master of observation." The man misses nothing; she knows
that from experience.
"You and he still..."
He looks away, as if he's unsure where he was going with his words.
She decides not to help him.
"Diana. I know that I'm not
the easiest man to live with." He sounds sincere. As if he means it. But it's
wrong. It's not true. He's the easiest man to live with. As long as she doesn't
mind sharing him with a dead woman who won't let go. Who might never let go.
"Kal.
Please." She isn't sure she can talk about this without breaking down. Not
sure she wants to.
"I want this child,"
he says. It may be the only truth he can give her that won't hurt. But it's a big
one. They both want this child. They will both love their son or daughter.
It will have to be enough.
##
Lying exhausted, she holds their
daughter and nurses her. Kal watches her, his face gentle,
his eyes so soft. He sighs, and she can't decide if it's a happy or a sad sound.
Her eyes are closing, and he moves so that she can lean back against his chest.
"You've never looked more
beautiful, Diana," he says, surprising her.
He touches Lasandra on the head,
where dark hair is already curling. She has their coloring, their eyes, their strength.
Diana doesn't think Lois could
have managed the child. There are days she isn't sure she'll be able to.
"She'll need to be weaned
soon. I can't protect this planet if I'm worrying about how she'll be fed."
But her breasts ache at the thought. And so does her heart. This sense of connection
with her child—and strangely with Kal—is so intense; she
can't imagine losing it.
"Soon. But not yet."
He strokes her hair, kissing her. He's so affectionate right now.
She closes her eyes again but
forces them open, afraid she'll fall asleep and drop Lasandra.
He eases her back even more, so
the baby won't fall. "I'll watch over you. Go to sleep."
She's too tired to argue. Giving
birth was more exhausting than fighting off Darkseid.
Giving birth hurt more than anything she'd imagined. She isn't sure she wants to
ever do it again, has taken steps to make sure she won't have to unless she chooses.
Not that Kal and she have...but he'll want to eventually.
She was careless before. She doesn't
regret that, would never give up Lasandra, now that she has her. But she should
have taken some precautions, not just been lost in Kal's
passion. A passion that may never have been for her.
She lets go and stops fighting
sleep. Oblivion is better than the dark road her thoughts will go down if she's
not careful.
"Sleep," Kal urges her.
She sleeps.
##
She watches her child move, restless
in slumber. Her child. Kal is gone, on patrol again. He's
been gone more and more lately. The Fortress is lonely without him.
The Fortress is even lonelier
with him. Even when he's home, he sleeps less and less in the bed they used to share.
He says he doesn't want to disturb her, not when he's called away so often. There
are many rooms in the Fortress for him to grab a few hours of sleep.
He chooses to sleep in the only
one that is decorated with furniture from his apartment with Lois. He thinks Diana
doesn't know, but she knows. She remembers it, even after all these years.
She isn't sure when Kal started to pull away. Maybe when she weaned Lasandra? Or
even a bit earlier. He began to wear a sad look that she'd given him no cause for,
stopped watching as she nursed their daughter.
It doesn't matter when he did.
Just that he did. There was so little of him for her anyway. Now there is nothing.
It should make it easier. It doesn't.
It only makes her feel like a
failure. Only how can she be a failure when she has this lovely child?
Lasandra smiles up at her, some
sweet dream making her infant lips curl happily.
Her child has never seen Diana's
island. Her child has never met her aunts. So many aunts.
Diana picks up the recording device.
Kal will find it. She'll leave it on Lois's pillow on
Lois's bed in Lois's room. The museum Kal has made to
his lost love.
Diana sighs. This is her moment.
Finally, it has arrived.
"I'm taking Lasandra to Themyscira,
Kal." She pauses and seeks control. This is harder
than she thought it would be. She thought she was resigned to it. But she isn't.
"I think that you wish Lasandra was Lois's child. I know you wish I was Lois.
I think...I feel that—"
The baby stirs, looking up at
her with eyes that seem to understand. She gurgles. The sound will be on the recording.
"I love you, Kal. But I think that Clark is who I'm with now. And Clark only
wants Lois. And I can't be her. I don't want to be her. I am who I am. I will only
ever be Diana. And Diana must go home. Lasandra must learn what it means to be half
Amazon. You are, of course, welcome to visit at any time. She's your daughter too."
She turns the recorder off and takes it out to his room. The room that smells like
a tomb to her now.
When she goes back into her bedroom,
the baby is smiling, her arms reaching up as if she knows they're leaving for a
warmer place.
Diana picks her child up and,
taking nothing with her except a bag of Lasandra's things, flies away from the home
she thought she was making with Kal-El. Back to her real
home.
She manages not to cry until she's
far away from the Fortress.
##
"Princess, watch," Mara
calls to her, holding up Lasandra, who is laughing as Mara sets her in front of
her on the horse.
Diana dozes on the grass. With
so many aunts to look after her daughter, she can finally rest.
She's been on Themyscira a month.
Kal hasn't come for her. She expected him to. For a few days.
Then she gave up. She can be pragmatic.
And she supposes it would not
be a defining moment if Superman rushed in and swept her off her feet and back to
the Fortress.
Bria rushes out of the villa Diana
and Lasandra are staying in. "Princess. There is a crisis."
"Where?" Diana is already
moving.
"Kansas." Bria hands
her some coordinates.
Diana frowns—an old enemy of Kal's, perhaps? Who else would go there? The last time she was
in Kansas was when Kal was trying to make the fields grow
again through all the radiation. The time she kissed him and flew away.
No, that was the second-to-last
time. The last time was the next day. When she went back. And their passion finally
escaped. Their first time together was in a blighted field.
Fitting somehow.
She looks back at Mara, who smiles
and says, "Go on. Lasandra is fine with me."
Diana knows she's right. She takes
off, flying quickly.
When she gets to the coordinates,
no one else is there. There is wheat growing though. Long strands waving high.
Kal did it. He made the desert bloom. Or restored the breadbox
anyway. She runs her hands over the wheat fronds.
"I wasn't sure it would work,"
Kal says softly, giving Bruce a run for his money on stealthy
entrances.
"You always were a farmer."
She doesn't turn around. "I had no doubt you'd bring Kansas back."
He moves to stand in front of
her. "I don't mean the wheat."
"What then?"
"Getting you out here."
He's staring at her. Intensely. She can't remember the last time he looked at her
this way.
Which isn't true. It was when
she was nursing Lasandra. Before he turned away and went back to his dead wife.
"There's no crisis?"
"Well, there is. We're the
crisis." He smiles.
She doesn't.
His smile dies. "I got lost,
Diana."
"No. That implies an accident.
You chose to be lost."
He looks down. "You're right.
I did." Then he looks up, and she's startled to see there are tears in his
eyes—tears he blinks away. "I drove you away."
She wonders if leaving him can
be her defining moment if it was what he wanted her to do the whole time. "I
can't be Lois."
"I know." He moves closer
to her.
She steps back. "I won't
be."
"I know." He doesn't
move toward her this time. "I didn't fall in love with you because you were
Lois."
She laughs. The sound rips through
the air, much louder than she intended. It's sharp, and bitter, and angry—she's
angry. "You never fell in love with me at all."
"You're wrong." He sighs
and turns away. Pointing out to the middle of the field, he says, "That's the
place. Right there. Where we first made love."
She starts to say something and
he holds up a hand.
"I know. Diana, I know."
He reaches back, his hand opening, waiting for her to take it. "I never made
love to you. Not really. I never let myself." He doesn't drop his hand, and
she knows he's strong enough to hold it there forever. "I felt guilty. Do you
understand that? I felt guilty even touching you."
"Then why did you keep doing
it?" She takes a step back, too distracted by his outstretched hand. Too tempted
by it. "I mean even before you knew I was pregnant."
"Because I wanted to touch
you." He looks back at her, his hand moving closer as he turns. "I've
wanted to for so long. Even when I was with Lois, I wanted you." He reaches
her, pulling her fingers into communion with his own.
She sighs as their skin touches.
"It's odd, Diana. Wanting
you when Lois was alive, that was easy, and it was okay somehow. I always knew I
couldn't have you. But having you once she was gone? That was so damn hard. I felt...I
felt as if I was forgetting her. Betraying her." He pulls her closer.
She doesn't resist.
"Watching you with Lasandra.
It was perfect. Our life was perfect. After everything, all the darkness, all the
death. We had her. I forgot Lois. I forgot her for whole chunks of an hour, a day.
Even a week. And I forgot what I was responsible for."
He looks out over the wheat field,
and she knows he's seeing the blasted ground. That somehow
he sees his dead wife lying in that blasted ground. He outlived her, and he outlived
so many others. He survived the blast. For a while, he thought he was the only meta
left who did.
And that's when he finally snapped.
She remembers going after him, talking him down. He was ready to destroy, ready
to finally kill.
"Kal,
you weren't responsible for all of this." She goes to wave at the blighted
earth, but the wheat has covered it up. There is nothing to be sorry for anymore.
Except the tombstones that lay
beyond the wheat field. The metas who died during that
terrible battle. The wheat can't cover that up. Nothing can ever cover that up.
She suddenly understands that
Bruce was wrong. The wedding might have been Clark's defining moment. But this place,
this war, this terrible devastation is Kal's.
"I love you," she says
softly.
"Despite it all?"
"Maybe because of it."
She walks through the wheat and pulls him with her. "We have a daughter you
haven't seen in a month, Kal."
"I've seen her. I've seen
her every day. And you. I've watched over you. You just didn't see me."
She smiles. "How high up
were you flying?"
"High enough not to set off
your sensors."
He watched them. Somehow, that's
comforting. He didn't forget them.
"Come home, Diana."
"The Fortress isn't home,
Kal. It's cold. You've made it a prison."
"I know." He smiles,
the brightness of the expression unexpected. "I turned that room into a nursery."
She looks over at him.
"It's completely different.
Everything's gone." He sighs. "I listened to that recording over and over
as I fixed it up."
"Never let it be said you
don't know how to wallow." She shakes her head. "I'm not sure. I was unhappy
there, Kal. Truly unhappy."
"We can have two homes. There.
And the island. We'll be able to come and go as we please. But together. Can we
try again, Diana?" He pushes her down; they are hidden by the wheat. "Can
we start here? On new ground? On ground that isn't ruined and stark?"
She isn't sure. He must be able
to see the uncertainty in her face because he kisses her. It's a good kiss.
When he pulls away, his eyes are
open. "Diana," he says. "Our family—we can be together. If you want
it?"
"I want it." She supposes
she should make him wait, or make him work for it. But the answer is truth, and
she was the goddess of that once. "Yes, Kal. I want
it."
They make love then. His eyes
are open and when they finally lie still, she ends up curled against him in a way
that lets her see his face.
He's smiling. And he looks over
at her, and kisses her, and murmurs, "My Diana." Then he falls asleep
in her arms.
She lies there for a long time,
dozing, holding the man she loves. It's a tentative peace she feels, but it is peace.
She's...content.
She hears a whisper on the wind.
Realizes the wheat is moving strangely.
"I was wrong." Bruce's
voice is everywhere and nowhere. She isn't even sure he's there. It might be some
toy of his, delivering his wisdom to her from far away.
"Wrong how?" she asks
as Kal snuggles closer to her.
"Your defining moment isn't
leaving him, it's forgiving him."
"Do you believe that?"
She hears him sigh, the sound
is closer. "I do. And I'm sure my goddaughter will agree when she's old enough
to talk."
"Thank you, Bruce."
"Thank me by being happy."
The last word swells and echoes.
Kal stirs. "Did I hear Bruce?" He's too sleepy to
worry about being naked with her in the middle of a wheat field with Batman creeping
around somewhere.
"Mmmm,"
she says, pulling him closer. "Sleep, Kal. I love
you."
"I love you, Diana."
He cuddles against her, is out again almost instantly.
She smiles. Happy. It has been
a long time since any of them were that. Maybe this time they can find their way
together?
At least she knows this time they'll
try.
FIN