shatterverse | (no subject)

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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Erin smiles back. "So do I get to meet the other one soon? Or is she taking a nap?"

"She was awake a minute ago," Mel says, turning towards the car. "Guess you;ll want to meet Sokka and Steph as well, huh?"

"They're your family aren't they?" Erin asked with a small smirk. "Besides I probably should get to know my pseudo-brother-law."

Mel stops and stares at Erin.

Then she holds up her tiny little pale baby with the black hair and the yellow eyes.

"Look at her," she says. "Then look at him. You think he's their father?"

Hana laughs and kicks her legs in the air.

"Ooooookay," Erin said rolling her eyes in embarrassment and reaching over to tickle Hana. "So where is the father?"

Mel brings Hana closer to her, smiling for the baby to hide the fact she's not smiling for anything else.

"He's not here," she says.

Erin let that sink in. "Right."

When Mel was ready to talk about it she would.

"So what's the name of my other niece?" she asked trying to find a less awkward topic.

"Louise," Mel says, forcing herself to look up.

Erin did her best not to let her face show any expression at that. "Loo?" she asked quietly.

"Yeah," Mel says. "She was this kid in Versi I was friends with. It's silly, but... what?"

Someone just caught Erin's lack-of-expression.

Erin gives Mel a look and shakes her head. "I'm sorry Mel. I- She was killed. At first you thought it was Harth but it was that Urkonn guy who was trying to get you to fight and-"

Erin stopped. "When I was recovering in the hospital you told me all about it. I know how much she meant to you Mel. I'm sorry."

Mel's frozen, clutching Hana to herself protectively, and staring at Erin.

Killed?

"She was five."

It's all she can think of to say.

"I know," Erin said quietly and reached out to touch her sister on the shoulder. "I'm sorry."

Mel tilted her head towards the hand on her shoulder, squeezing Hana again.

Slowly, she takes a careful breath, and lets it out again slowly.

"OK," she says, impassively. "Nothing can be done now."

There'll be mourning later, but not here.

Besides, down the road there's the slam of a car door and another baby's scream. Loo wants to inform her sister that she may have a pretty new blonde friend to play with but she has their uncle.

SO THERE, Loo screams.

Sokka just bounces her, immune to the screams by now, and approaches slowly, eyes darting between the women before he nods to Erin.

That's what we need to break Mel's mood. She looks over at the scream, and waves Sokka over, suddenly smiling.

"Erin, this is Loo. And Sokka."

"Hi," Erin said with a quiet smile as she got a closer look of the young man and the bundle of joy bouncing there.

Sokka smiles a little and switches Loo to the hip that's closer to Erin. Because he's nice like that.

"Hey. You guys all right?"

"You mean other than being transported to different world and time and finding a sister who was lost but not in my time?" Erin said trying to break the mood. "Yes. We're fine. For the most part and I'm sure that kind of thing is old hat for you."

"Pretty much beside all that, yeah," Sokka replies, and grins a little for her effort. Hey, he's impressed she can joke when she's just come out of a Gotham that looks like that.

As for old hat, he makes a face and shrugs, turning it into another bounce for Loo. "I guess. Doesn't always make it easier, though." He glances between both women, but his gaze is mostly on Mel. "So... what are the odds that going in is going to result in coming back out?"

Erin frowns again but she's already been through the debate with Mel.

"Depends on how fast you guys can get in and out," Erin replied. "Whatever's happening in that city? It's not good. As in bodies on the streets."

No reason to sugarcoat it.

Since they don't seem to be having private discussions any more, James joins them, blanket still over his shoulders but looking much less pathetic now.

"They're still alive," he says, looking from one to the other of the people he doesn't know, boggling only a little at the babies. "The bodies. Some of them, anyway. People just ... stop doing anything. They die eventually. Dehydration. Or stray animals. As far as I know I'm the only one still alive."

His voice is flat, toneless.

Steph and Marie arrive in time to catch the end of that, and Steph looks at the others with obvious anxiety. But they already know her position on this. She stays quiet.

Slight frown.

"Any idea what's causing it?" she asks quietly.

It's tempting to squint citywards and try to see for herself.

"At first we thought it was a disease. Now we're leaning towards a nerve gas or some sort of purposely-released toxin. It seems to follow the thickest mist."

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