FIC: Fallen Angels and Broken Hearts 2/? (BoP, MA15+, sequel Darker Shades)
Title: Fallen Angels and Broken Hearts
Author: Barbd
Author's Notes: No Beta, no editing of any sort yet, this is like the version before the version, although chapters that I post will be considered as final chapters - all actual final chapters are posted to the Birds of Prey Slash Group on Yahoo! Groups.
This is a sequel to Darker Shades of Grey - which was a sequel to Shadows of a Past Life, links are available in my fic index (right hand side of the page, under the link section).
SUMMARY: Four months after the events of Darker Shades of Grey, the aftermath begins.
GABBY
“You’re going to miss out on date night, you know that right?”
I don’t mean to be pissed, she has a serious concussion, minor burns, gun shot wound to the shoulder and a nice throbbing headache to top off her list. I can see her pout forming a mile away.
“I was planning on wearing the leather again too … guess I won’t be wearing that now since we’ll be staying in and I can’t really think of an excuse to wear a whole lot of leather around home, can you?” I blink innocently. I really am angry at her.
“Helena manages, maybe you could tell Barbara that we’re experimenting with sub play or something …? She didn’t freak out when she caught us half naked on the roof last week, she might not freak out about this,” she suggest lazily, her eyes are half closed to sleep, probably the painkiller.
I shake my head happily, “She had nightmares about that.”
She yawns mightily and I can see she is slipping fast. I slide up onto the bed next to her and wrap my arms around her as much as I can without putting any pressure on her wounds.
“The guys made it. A few burns that will need some extra help healing, but other than that they’re fine. Personally, I don’t think they deserve it, but I’m glad for you that you saved them,” I tell her softly as I begin to stroke the top of her soft blonde head.
“And you managed to not fall or hit yourself with the weapon, Barbara is looking it over now. She’s not sure what it is yet, but she’s madly typing and muttering and I swear I heard her use the ‘u’ word on the Delphi a little while ago.”
Dinah blinks slowly, she looks up at me. Her eyes are dark, the bags under her eyes are darker. “U word?”
“Unplug.”
She giggles as she snuggles back into the warm nest of my arms.
Minutes later I sense her breathing start to even out into long, deep breaths. It doesn’t take a dream walker to realise she’s fast asleep and won’t be waking up anytime soon.
“Sometimes you scare me so much baby,” I whisper into her hair, letting my lips brush across the silky strands. I gently lower her to the pillows and quietly sneak from the room.
Barbara is still sitting in the exact same position I left her in to settle Dinah. Helena is still half passed out on the living room couch with bugs bunny on the giant TV screen.
This time I know I hear the ‘u word‘.
“How are you doing over there?” I ask as I make my way to the mini kitchen and put the kettle on the stove. I prepare tea as Barbara slowly starts to close monitor after monitor after monitor … I have enough trouble keeping up with the stuff I can put on one screen, I don’t know how she keeps up with ten or eleven.
“Useless, I’m totally useless,” she mutters as she throws her glasses onto the monitor, they hit a tape dispenser where one lens cracks and falls from the frame.
She groans, “See.”
I pet her shoulder and hand her my mug of tea, “here, relax for a minute and tell me what you haven’t figured out yet.”
Taking a sip from her mug she glares at the weapon in question, “it’d be easier to tell you what I have figured out.”
“Ok,” I agree slowly.
“It’s not a shotgun.”
I wince, “that’s it?”
“Yes.”
I look to the monitors and decide that tonight isn’t the night to try and help with anything. I smile and try to look cheerful.
“Fresh eyes in the morning, take your girl to bed and get a good nights rest. Everything will seem better in the morning, you’ll see,” I tell her seriously.
She glares at me for a second but a slight smile appears at the corner of her mouth, “stop being so positive, its contagious.”
I wave a hand at her as I return my cup to the kitchen and head back towards Dinah’s bedroom. “I’m going to see to the patient, make sure she’s sleeping well. You know she’ll want to go to school tomorrow no matter how much her arm is hurting her. A good nights sleep with either knock sense into her to stay home or make her feel like she can take on the world … I never can tell.”
Barbara snorts as she gently shakes her dark partners arm to wake her.
“Maybe we should just tie her down and tell her she can’t leave the Clocktower until she can make a fist,” Barbara suggests and she gives up on Helena and pulls the sleeping brunette into her lap.
I stop on the stairs and look her over for a second, “funny you should mention that. We were discussing a similar topic fifteen minutes ago.”BARBARA
Blinding light wakes me far to early and a heavy body holding me to the bed starts to snuffle at my neck, tickling me with a cold nose and sharp points of hair.
“Ugh, quit that,” I swat at the chilly nose pressing into my ear. My hand connects solidly with soft flesh with a loud ‘smack’. Helena immediately rolls over groaning and laughing as she grabs onto her nose.
I’m awake instantly, rolling my legs and gently caressing her cheeks and nose. “I’m sorry. Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”
“That’ll teach me,” Helena says nasally as she pets her nose to see if anything is broken, she snorts a few times and winces as a small trickle of blood starts to flow over her top lip. I blanch at the thought of causing damage.
“Goddamn it, here,” I reach for the tissues on her bedside table. Clumsily I knock my hand into her arm. My soft knock to her arm causes her to twist her nose slightly to the right.
She starts to laugh again but this time she stops for a few seconds to groan and reach for the tissues herself.
“I’m sorry,” I grump as I roll to a sitting position and reach for my chair. “I can feel a bad day coming on.”
I transfer to my chair and arrange my legs comfortably.
“Its Monday Honey, that’s a bad day for everyone,” she wipes away the blood from her nose and sniffs experimentally a few times.
I sigh.
Helena falls back into bed and snuffles into my pillow contently. Sometimes I’m really jealous that she works nights.
I roll through the Clocktower, considering my morning so far coffee sounds like a good thing.
There is a hot pot waiting for me and Dinah is sitting at the kitchen table, looking pale and drawn. She’s eating a bowl of … sugar chunks that don’t look terribly nutritious and reading the Gotham Times. There is no sign of Gabby.
“Good morning,” I mumble to her. She looks up for a few seconds and smiles around her chunky sugar.
“Morning,” she says cheerfully as she folds the paper and holds her arm out for my inspection. At least she isn’t making my day worse by fighting me.
I peel her bandages away and assess the angry red line of stitches on her arm. It does look marginally better than it did last night. Grumpily I realise that I won’t be able to keep her home from school today - no matter how worried I am.
“Ok, you’re clear for school, clean bandage, no bumping, no PE and most of all … no swinging any punches with that arm,” I point to the arm and give her my best ‘unimpressed English teacher stare’ … it doesn’t effect her, but I have to show her who’s boss every now and then.
“Yes Ma’am,” she says with a little salute - happily I notice she uses her uninjured arm.
“And …” I can’t help myself, “you’ll be stopping by my classroom at lunchtime so I can shoot you full of antibiotics. Right?”
She sighs, “can’t I just take a tablet or something.”
I frown. “I’d rather I monitored what was going in at the moment, the last thing you need is to get an infection on top of your burns and lack of sleep.”
She tries to raise her eyebrow.
“I noticed. God, when are you people gonna get this - all seeing, all knowing.”