Homecoming (Complete)

Chapter Forty

"So you just ended up standing there naked?" Dinah was chortling.

"Yes, Dinah," Alex reached over and cuffed her on the side of the head. "For the third and final time, Circe put you all in clothes and dropped me in the middle of a hoard of Amazons butt fucking naked, okay? Let it go!"

"Ow!" Dinah complained, still chuckling. "Sorry. I'm just thoroughly enjoying reliving your first meeting with mom. It was kind of awesome," she smirked, "in that whole humiliating, awkward, and worst nightmare kind of way."

"Leave her alone, Dinah," Diana said, frowning distractedly. She had be been pacing back and forth ever since Hippolyta had left them in her private quarters so Alex could put on some borrowed clothes and they all could try to get their bearings after the events in the clearing.

"Sorry," Dinah said sheepishly. "I'm still a little keyed up from...," she spread her hands in confusion, "whatever that was and whatever this is. Do you have any idea what's going on? Why we're here?"

"No," Diana snapped, continuing her pacing.

"Diana," Alex said quietly from the chair she was sitting in. "Love. Stop pacing." Diana ignored her. "Your mother will return when she returns. Wearing a hole in her carpet will not speed up the process." There was still no response. "Diana!"

"What?" Diana whirled on Alex, anger all over her face. Everyone stared at her in surprise. "I'm sorry," she said, blushing a little, "the energy in this room is still a little...what did you call it Dinah? Keyed up." She sighed. "And Alex has been mentally egging me on for the past hour."

"I have?" Alex asked in surprise. Her eyes turned inward with concentration. "Damn. I have. I'm sorry. I still have a little adrenaline from Philippus being threatened, Beth being knocked down, the attack on your mother..."

"Standing naked in a field of women...," Dinah giggled and ducked Alex's swing at her head.

"You should have said something," Alex got up and walked over to put her arms around Diana. "I have to admit I'm a little out of control—on multiple levels—at the moment. I haven't been this on edge in a very long time. Not since long before I came to Gotham." She frowned and looked around the room. Beth and Philippus were sitting together on a couch by the windows—Philippus had her arms around Beth protectively, and Beth still had a stunned, and slightly frightened, look on her face. Babs had pulled her Batgirl mask off and was chewing absently on her bottom lip while her hands continuously fidgeted with the mask. Dinah looked like she was flirting with the edge of...hysteria? "Dammit. I'm affecting all of you." She pulled back to look at Diana's face. "You need to help me rein it in. I can't seem to get a handle on it. Something's...different. There's a kind of...pressure...pushing at the back of my mind and I can't figure out what it is."

"I never even thought...," Diana concentrated for a moment and there was a collective sigh of relief in the room. "You're right. Something is different. I should have done that on instinct. We've practiced it so much..."

"Holy crap," Beth muttered. "All that anxiety and...I don't even know what...was you, Alex?"

"Not completely," Alex shook her head. "I'm sorry. I was taking your own feelings, as minor as they might have been, and amplifying them back at you, on top of feeding you dribs and drabs of mine."

"So you're the reason I was being an ass?" Dinah grinned.

"No," Babs poked her, "that's all on you."

"Damn," Dinah giggled. "Thought I had an out."

"You people astound me," Beth was shaking her head. "How can you joke around at a time like this?"