video;

[anewlanguage]

Well waddaya know. I've got a shower of my own.

[Actually he's been home (or in his cabin anyway) over an hour. He'd returned from his shift, and bam. Shower.

So of course he had to test it out before announcing anything. Maybe it was a trick, after all--but nope.

He's graduated.]

...Thanks, Dean.

Comments

[bodilesswarrior]

[Oh.

It's hard to sort out her emotions, at first. There's still wariness there, bitterness, anger. But it's been dimmed, muted, along the way. He's more, now, than someone who hurt Cass. More, even, than someone Iris loves.

So she smiles, and it's real.]

Congratulations, David.

[anewlanguage]

Thank you, Barbara.

[This isn't as awkward as he thought it would be (or would have thought, if he'd ever pictured he and Barbara talking about something non-emergency).]

...It's not exactly the end of the road though.

[bodilesswarrior]

No, it's not.

What are your plans now?

[NOT HERE]

[routemistress]

[Iris isn't interrupting, but she's not bothering to pretend not to be watching either.

And there it is: the thing she hasn't mustered the courage to ask, and she's grateful and anguished in equal parts when Babs asks it for her. She's been trying to resign herself, because this is what happens. Everyone leaves.

She's not been very successful, and the hope that she might not have to is sharper than a shock, deeper than a bone bruise.]

[anewlanguage]

Oh...I think I'll take a week off, enjoy being free to leave the prison walls.

Then I think I'll try being a Warden. [He is braced, a little, for her scorn or her doubt.]

[bodilesswarrior]

[She just looks at him, for a moment. Then, slowly, she nods.]

Good.

[For Iris' sake, and - ]

Time to put yourself to good use, instead.

[anewlanguage]

[He considers being offended, or chagrined, but instead he smiles.]

Took me long enough.

[bodilesswarrior]

Damn right it did. [But she's smiling, a little.

It takes her a moment, but then, quietly.] I think she'd be proud of you.

[anewlanguage]

[That helps to hear. A lot.]

...It's okay if she never knows.

[He did this because of Cass, in part, but not for her--the graduation, the changes, those all belong to Cain, however shaped they were by everything.]

[bodilesswarrior]

That's up to you. [She means it, which surprises her a little. It wasn't long ago she was threatening to stay away from her. But now - now, she knows he'll respect it, if Cass doesn't want to see him. She knows he truly cares for her well-being.]

Where are you headed?

[anewlanguage]

Somewhere tropical. Don't even care if it's cliche, I've missed the food. Where would you go, if you'd just had your shackles off?

[bodilesswarrior]

Gotham. [Immediate and honest, chased with a wry smile.] I don't really do vacations.

[anewlanguage]

You and your city. [He says, half rueful, half admiring. Cain has no ties to any city, anywhere, and he's fine with that. Meeting Bruce had been a wake up call, though; someone with a home. Though sometimes...] Doesn't it feel like a prison sometimes?

[bodilesswarrior]

No. [It's the instinctive answer, honest in its way. But then her brow furrows.] The responsibility - it can get heavy, sometimes. Chains of commitment, I suppose. But it's a lot easier when you forge them yourself.

[A sudden, sly smile.] And anyway, I've got the world at my fingertips. [It's one of the things she misses most, on the Barge.]

[anewlanguage]

[He's quiet, really thinking that over. He's had commitments of course--you don't do what he did if you don't commit--but he can recall ever feeling the ties to anything that Barbara and Bruce feel.]

I bet you could find a way to have all this at your fingertips too. I bet you've got a feel for the pulse at least half the time as it is, eh?

[bodilesswarrior]

I do my best. [Her smile may possibly be a bit smug. It falters, though.] I'm still trying to figure out how it all works.

[She's lucky, that Iris can go wherever she pleases. Most people here - they have to choose.]

[anewlanguage]

Yeah? What've you worked out so far?

[bodilesswarrior]

[Her hands clasp in front of her, almost absently.] There are a lot of different theories about the multiverse. Biggest one in our world, right now, is Hypertime - it's a bit like a river system, branching off with each different choice.

If that holds true for every kind of multiverse - and a lot of what I've read is consistent with it, more or less - then I'd say the Barge is travelling between the streams, picking up passengers.

I need to figure out the how, though. What kind of space, exactly, the Barge is accessing. Iris' TARDIS can cross the streams, too, so I figure they have something in common.

[routemistress]

Oh, they do. But she looks at the barge a bit like a ...I reckon pack leader's the nearest equivalent?

She won't let me find out bugger-all, is what I mean. The Barge doesn't want me to.

[anewlanguage]

It'd defeat the magic if we knew about it. People hate anything they can find real weaknesses in...and you get to know anything, you'll find a weakness.