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It's fairly early in the morning when Mel, Sokka and Steph crest the final hill and find themselves looking down from the Heights towards Gotham City. Mel is keeping the girls happy in the back; Steph's driving. She doesn't ask before slowing gradually to a stop, eyes on the vista before them.

Gotham. Smoky, dark, twisted, gothic. It almost looks organic, lumpy and misshapen as it is, every building sprouting gargoyles and added wings, twisted into fantastic shapes.

It's so familiar it makes Steph's heart lurch; she hasn't been home for almost a year. She knows the skyline inside out, knows exactly how it feels to leap from the casino to the street below and swing up exactly in time to land on the train, knows where the instabilities in the gargoyles are and just how hard to throw a grapple to get from one end to the other of Ninth in under two minutes. It's filthy and ugly and disease-ridden and smoky and it's home.

Except ...

... this isn't the home she left.

It's with a sigh of pure relief that she realises, slowly, that this is Gotham before the quake, missing the light-filled spires of Luthor's redesign, all the old buildings still standing tall. This is Gotham before she had the baby, before the No Mans' Land.

This isn't her world.

The grin she turns to Sokka is enormous and full of relief.

"It's not mine. I won't find th— her here. Oh, thank fuck for that."

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Since first leaving Apocalyptica, Hana and Loo have been held by six people - at least to Mel's knowledge. Their parents and adpoted uncle, Steph, Babs and Angela.

Erin gets a free pass in by being Erin, and Mel gives her up easily.

"Don't get flashed into another world while holding her," she warns, watching the baby carefully.

The rest of it - it's hard to deal with right now. Harth showed up. He attacked Versi. And form the sound of it - because Mel can make assumptions like anyone - this other her brought him down. It makes her proud, kind of.

"He turned up in the world where they were born," she explains slowly, not meeting Erin's eyes. "That's how I found out about him."

"I'll try not to leave the planet without your permission," Erin said a small smirk as she gently took Hana into her arms and said such things as "Hi there! Hello! Aren't you cute?! Yes you are!"

That doesn't stop her from listening to Mel and watching her carefully as she plays with her niece. "It took you a while to convince me that he was a lurk. I think part of me doubted it all until he showed up in Versi."

She paused a bit trying to gauge Mel's responses. "You got him though. Right?"

Hana loves the attention, and laps it up, oblivious to the serious of the conversation happening above her head.

"Took a while for me to figure it out. With everyone coming in from different times, I just assumed - I thought he hadn't died yet."

The question is a hard one, and she hesitates before shaking her head.

"I was out of the action for a long time there. Not excatly going to fight with the girls relying on me."

Erin lets that sink in as she tries to keep her niece amused.

"You did what you had to do," she says finally and gives her sister a meaningful look. "Whatever that was... he really wasn't our brother. You know that. Right?"

"I know."

Mel says it firmly. She had the argument with a lot of people, who seemed to think he should be treated like he was anything other than a walking evil corpse.

"Whatever he did in Haddyn, or Apocalyptica... no way he would have done that when he was alive. I've dealt with that now."

"Good," Erin said with a small grin before adding. "The lurk? The one that turned him?"

She can't help the smug look on her face as she tries to tickle Hana.

"Squashed him like a bug underneath the cruiser."

Hana squeams in delight at the tickling. It makes Mel smile almost as much as the news about the lurk.

"Really? Rocketship!"

Erin flashes Mel with an amused look. That's pretty much the expression Mel had when she slammed the car on top of Icarus.

"So... Apocalyptica? That's where you ended up?"

She also casts a glance toward Sokka.

"That's where you met him?"

Making assumptions already. As a cop Erin should no better.

She really should, especially given as he looks nothing like the pale baby in Erin's hands.

The problem is, that Sokka's actually more complicated than she wants to explain to her sister, so Mel misses the false assumption completely.

"Yeah," she confirms, giving the boy in question a quick glance. "That's Sokka. And the girl is Steph. We met her in Eden, which... well, this is the third world, and we haven't given it a cute name yet."

"Mmm-hmm," Erin says appraising him from afar. "I see. Any idea on how you ended up in Apocalyptica? Or was it like me earlier today when there was just a flash of light and I was here."

"About the size of it," Mel admits. "'Scept I was being thrown off a building at the time. Nose dived into the wrong street."

Erin opens her mouth to make a comment about that before quickly shutting it again.

At this point it didn't matter why or how Mel was thrown off a rooftop. The woman standing in front of her had obviously gone through a lot of changes since then and Erin had to admit to herself she liked what she saw.

"I... I don't think I need to know the details about you on the roof," Erin said as she regretfully offered to hand Hana back. "I'm just sorry that I couldn't have been there for you somehow."

Hana almost immediately puts her hands out for Mama, and Mel takes her back quickly, even with a shrug for Erin's apology.

"There was stuff. Neither of us dealt well. Sounds like it's over for you just as much as me."

Mel's just happy to have Erin back with her.

"You call this over?" Erin said gesturing to the world around her. "Because in the last twelve hours I've dealt with some weird disease in that city over there and something big tried to eat the car. The entire car."

Mel, perhaps unexpectedly, laughs. "Well, not that bit. We just came away from a gang of bikers who tried to kill us for no reason at all. But the part where I hafta deal with how badly I screwed up at home? Dealt."

She turns back to the car again, partly to check they haven't flashed into a different world.

"We have to go on," she tells Erin. "Steph's got family in Gotham that have to be checked on."

Erin frowns at that and shakes her head. "I don't think that's a good idea. Whatever is going on in that city? We barely got out alive. Everyone seems to have gone into a coma. We tried to find anyone who might be alive but no one responded."

"Erin?" Mel says bluntly. "If this was closer to our time; if you landed somewhere where the cars were still flying and guns zapped instead of bullets, and Haddyn was right there, would you go on, or look for me?"

"I understand your friend's concern," Erin said as she crossed her arms and gave her sister a stubborn look. "But you don't appreciate the gravity of the situation. People in there are either dead or comatose."

"So we want to check that her Mom and... that her Mom's not one of them."

Mel's returned look is steady, but a stubborn frown is rising up.

"I'm me. Whatever's in there we can deal. And we have a friend who's keeping tracks to zap us out if we need it."

"I know you're you," Erin said reluctantly, "But it's dangerous in there."

Erin looked back at the cruiser and Jim ~~who she assumed was still sitting there~~.

"Look. There's a cop I rescued from the city. He probably knows the place better than your friend," Erin continued. "And the cruiser can get in and out faster than that antique over there you're driving. If you have to go in there at least use that."

"Makes sense," Mel agrees. "Think that'll take all seven of us, or do you guys want to wait?"

The argument over going she considers settled.

"What makes you think you're going?" Erin asked stubbornly.

She may not be her exact sister but protective streaks are hard to break.

Mel's face turns stubborn again.

"Because he's going with her and I'm going with him. And 'cause I'm the best fighter. We come up against something, it'll be me gets us out."

Not that Sokka and Steph aren't capable on their own, but she's her.

Erin rolled her eyes. Yes. This definitely is her sister. No matter from what timeline or world she came from.

"This isn't a gang of lurks you're going up against, Mel. It's... it's like a disease. It hits you quick and the next thing you know you're not reacting to anything," Erin argued. "What good are you going to be to your kids if you can't move?"

"You've only just met them and already using them against me?"

Mel glares at her sister - because timeline or not, this is definitely her - over Hana's oblivious head.

"I quit giving up a long time ago," she says, an edge working its way in. "I couldn't let them go without me if I wanted to."