Talking Birds (BatFamily FanFiction)

Hope's Roses for Georianna Janet Wayne

Georgie (The morning after)

"Do you have everything? Your phone, hair ties, knives?" Dick asked.

"Yeah. Thanks for bringing me a change of clothes," I said.

"Not me. Dami. He dropped them off this morning. He figured you wouldn't want to wear bloody clothing out of here," he corrected.

"Oh, remind me to say thanks."

We went quiet again as Dick lifted my bag off the bed and carried it out for me. I trickled behind, lagging all the way to the car. After we got in, Dick reach over and buckled my seatbelt for me.

"I can do that myself, you know," I deadpanned. He looked at me with the most un-Dick-Grayson look I had ever seen on anyone other than Jason.

"I know," he shot. We pulled out and sped off toward the outer edge of Gotham. Dick was the one to break the silence again.

"Steph's home. She excited to see you," he said.

"Ok."

"Babs was gonna drop by for dinner too if you were feeling up to it. We'd all be together again. The Batkids and our Batdad and Batgrandad," he chuckled. He had let that smile play onto his lips on accident, correcting it quickly.

"I was never a bat kid."

"'Course you were. Honorary heros. You 'n Jason both."

"Not funny."

My eye twitches when he said hero.

"Sorry."

The next thing he said to me was: "We're home." The thing after that was: "Go get some rest."

I trekked up to my bedroom and crawled into bed without a hello to my brothers or anyone else. My father knew I was home now, so he would probably be interested in seeing me eventually but not now. Dick would play keep away for me until I felt up to facing them all. I was mostly concerned about looking Jason in the eyes again. Dick was easy, he didn't push me to reveal what was on behind Harley Quinn's face. Plus there was the added bonus of him being a bit softer than Jason. He also hadn't raised me since I was five, hadn't protected me until I was fifteen and a half. Jason was colder, more callous in his actions and he would demand answers. What happened to you? What is the truth? Tell me the truth!

"Stupid," I sighed, shaking my head and moving slowly through my spaghetti legs to the bathroom. I started to run the water to the shower, staring at it at first before undressing to get in.

It was cold. I had forgotten to turn the handle to "H".

"Stupid," I grunted, swiping the handle so it ticked past "H". Gradually, the water got warmer, then it got hot, then it was blistering. I yelped and jumped, loosing my footing and falling on my butt.

"SON OF A BITCH!" I howled, rubbing my tailbone as I pulled myself back up again.

"G? You good?!" Tim called from the adjoined room.

"Fine, just dropped an elephant," I shot, picking up his shampoo and drizzling it into my palm. I scrubbed at my scalp, not realizing how much time was ticking by until Alfred called for dinner.

Shutting the water off, not rinsing the soap completely out of my hair, I left the bathroom in Tim's robe. In my room a dress is laid out on the bed. It's the loose flowing kind that doesn't hug you, so you can't see the left over bump in my stomach. The pattern looks dull, simple white flowers (consisting of a dot and a few oval-like petals around it) arrayed in zigzagging stripes but really too close to notice the pattern at all. All of it against a sunny yellow background called for a serious contemplation of who the gift was from and what he was trying to pull.

"I didn't get to see you last night, so Dad took me to the mall to get you a coming home present. I figured you might like the stuff that didn't cling to you," a girl said from the doorway. It took me a minute but I arranged my memories to see Stephanie teaching me how to climb a tree and play with dolls and even how to defend myself (Bruce hadn't approved of that one like it's predecessors). The boys seemed to be there more but Steph was there for me.

I stepped forward, but didn't get close enough to hug her. She saw my hesitation and bound forward to do it herself. Her hugs were soft, like Dick's, but they were always happy. She made it a point to never hug when she was feeling sad because she believed in all that bad juju transferring to the other person.

"I wanted to talk to you," she said. "And help accessorize, but mostly talk."

We let each other go. I let my lips curl up as she plopped back on my bed and watched me dig around for undergarments in a duffle.

"Hang on, are you living out of that bag?" Steph yipped, jumping back off the bed.

"Yeah. Jay was gonna take me to get new clothes Saturday but then ..."

"Well that just won't work for me," she declared, grabbed me by the hand and dragging me down the hall to her own room. "Sit anywhere you'd like but don't get too comfy."

She tore through her drawers, throwing out bras and underwear--- some still with the price tags on. Then she moved to her closet where she tossed dresses, pants, band tees, regular tees, and a shit ton of leather jackets to me.

"Alright, back to the Fortress of Solitude," she groaned, lugging half of what she brought out down the hall again and back to my bedroom. "So at school, they made use wear uniforms but every so often we would be allowed to go off campus on weekends. I would go shopping with some of my friends, but a lot of times I would find myself never wearing what I bought. I really couldn't figure out why I kept buying stuff like that, but then it hit me. I wasn't buying for me I was buying for you. This is all yours. To make up for ten years of missed birthdays."

I laughed a little, then got a little louder, then Steph joined in because she can't contain herself if someone starts laughing, and then the sweet noise coming from my mouth turned on me.

"Stupid," I cried. I sunk to my knees and held the robe close to my body so nothing would fall away. Steph looked at me and sat in front of me, just watching me cry.

"While I was away, I wrote letters to you a lot. You know, for two months after the five of you got kidnapped I wrote to you. Then Bruce called and explained to me what had happened. I wanted to come home and be with him because I was sure that he would need help finding you. He told me not to worry too much, not to come back because it wasn't safe, and be on alert until he could tell me honestly that you guys were okay."

"I-I didn't know," I sniffled.

"Not your fault, or the point. I have a little gift for you Georgianna," she said with a smile. She reached under my bed and pulled out a shoe box tied together just barely with a straining rubber band. "I never stopped writing to you. You sort of became my diary, my list of things I would tell you when I saw you again. After I graduated, I stayed away because I thought being home would make me want to open them without you. Now you're here."

I wiped my eyes.

"Ok," I said, pushing my lips to curl into a smile.

We tore into letters together. My fingers fell to a letter from the day of my 13th birthday.

"Will ... will you read it to me, Stephie?" I asked, laying the paper on her lap. She skimmed it and looked to me.

"You're good at picking these things," she laughed. "Alright, here goes."

~Author's Note: A letter chapter to come loves ;)~