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millirific42: prompt #16, FUTURE
She doesn't keep track of time much any more; it's been too long. But every so often she'll notice that the Bar children are older, or that Dick's hair's a little whiter, or his limp a little more pronounced.
It still hurts like a physical thing to see him with a cane. She doesn't come down from the rafters much, any more when he's around.
She doesn't come down much any more at all. She wonders, sometimes, if one day she'll stop going down at all - if she'll just be a face in the shadows up high for ever, a voice half-heard over conversations, a whisper of pale movement in the corner of their eyes.
When things get like that she tries to step down, to remember to be ... well, human. She talks to Carrie's son, sometimes. He doesn't know she's his grandmother. He's twenty-four, and he has the same eyes as Steph does. He's fun to talk to but he keeps hitting on her, and she can't explain to him why that's so wrong.
Sometimes she'll just lie her head on Bar and dream. Bar understands. She's been linked to a lot of different 'tenders, over the years. Even to Steph, once. There are scratches and scorch marks in her, and she's a little more worn, a little less polished than she used to be.
She'd say they've grown old together, but Steph hasn't.
What feels strangest is the places people used to be. Mel was only here for a short time - a few years, back at the beginning - but even now Steph can't swim in the mornings without thinking of her.
Not everyone comes back here, after they die.
In the grand scheme of things, very few do. She'd held Kon when they realised Tim wasn't coming back, watched him scream and weep, and in the end, she'd held his hand up until he stepped out the front door as well - stepped into his own clearing, and he'd looked back at her, just for a second, and smiled the happiest smile she'd ever seen -
Even gods die here, sometimes. And too many of her friends.
Billy comes by, sometimes. Milliways isn't closed to him, although the door to the Rock's been closed to Steph for decades. Things were tough, back when that boy was around - the fiery one, she doesn't remember - and Billy's never trusted her the same way since - but time heals a lot. They sit, sometimes, out by the lake, for hours, just silent, each thinking their own thoughts.
"It's good for her to have a friend her own age," she'd heard once, when the speakers thought her out of earshot. "She should spend more time with kids."
Billy had laughed, when she'd told him. Not a happy laugh. Neither of them remembered how to laugh very happily, after all these years. Two kids, who'd never be anything else.
It had been easier when Kon was here. He made them both smile. She doesn't smile very often any more. Dick tries to make her; he counts points, in his wheezy, old-man's voice, and gives her a grin as charming and dare-devil as ever, and rubs at his arthritic elbows. They both know it isn't funny, but they both know there's nothing else to do but pretend.
It makes sense he's the only one to survive, really. He was the first. Now he's going to be the last.
Angela stopped coming here, after the thing with Ramon. Steph couldn't blame her. After all, if even Security couldn't keep her safe, who could? She missed her fiercely, and then she found other friends.
They all moved on, in the end. It stopped being worth the trouble of making new. Now she drifts.
Her skate-rug's worn and threadbare, but the magic on it's as sturdy as ever. The magician - she can't remember his name - he'd woven well. The spares he'd left behind are often used by the other teens; she watches them, sometimes, as they race and loop and whirl around outside, and she could still beat any of them - none of them were Robins, none of them acrobats - but it isn't worth the effort. She just sits, and watches, and when they ask her to join in she smiles and shakes her head.
They don't ask often, any more. They're used to her. Strange Steph, with her battered cape and the odd split-toed boots she wears. She's an eccentric old lady and she's not even seventeen.
That's the worst of it, really.
But every day the Door calls a little louder. She pads through the Bar and opens it, sometimes - looks out at the dreamscape Gotham that waits there, listens to the way the ghostly traffic tugs at her.
She always closes it, though. She always closes it and goes back upstairs to wrap herself in her blankets and wait for morning. And in the morning, she'll look again, but ... Maybe one day. Not yet.
Yeah, I couldn't resist, after digging back through this community and finding the link. Table here, fic and drabbly things to come, etc, etc.