#thompkean

Choosing between her daughter and her— her— … something important, is killing her inside. But she knows Jim would never ever let anything happen to their daughter, and just— god, she can’t imagine life with Barbara, either.

This is how they make things work. Jim handles one issue, she handles the other. It’s teamwork by separation, and it’s the only real option in this black hole of a city that’s been trying to destroy her life for 15, 16, however many goddam years.

Over her formerly-dead body.

She barely parks before she’s sprinting up the stairs into the club. There’s paramedics, cops, the usual but they’re trying to staunch bleeding from Barbara Kean so nothing’s usual at all. Namely in the way of patient cooperation.

“Seriously, you need to go to the hospital,” a young man is begging, trying to convince Barbara to stop moving. She’s leaning heavily on one leg, the other covered in drying blood, shoving his hands away. “You need surgery and a blood transfusion—”

“I’ve watched that stupid birdbrain waltz around this city on a busted leg for almost two decades,” she seethes, gritting her teeth. “Who gives a shit about that, my daughter is in danger!”

“Barbara.” Lee hurries over, looping one arm around her Something’s waist and taking on the brunt of her weight. Barbara relaxes into her hold, just a bit, looking her in the eyes while mascara runs down her face and she scowls ferociously.

“Does he have her yet?!”

“I heard on the police scanner that he got there, everything’s going to be okay. This kid is right, you need to get into treatment.”

Barbara sets her jaw, lip quivering. “I can’t just do nothing.”

“You’re right. You can make sure you’re alive when Jim brings her back.”

“... Fine. But I’m not going in one of those shitty ambulances.”

The young paramedic looks a bit hurt. “Ours is clean, I promise.”

“She’s stubborn,” Lee says. “Don’t worry, I’ve got her. I’m a doctor, she’s in good hands.”

By the time they get to the car Lee is practically carrying Barbara. She eases her into the passenger’s seat and reaches for the buckle.

“I’ve got it,” Barbara snaps. She fumbles for a moment, blood loss and shock getting to her coordination, but Lee knows better than to try to intervene. When Lee gets into the driver’s seat Barbara has managed to buckle in, and she stares straight ahead as they drive.

“... I’m going to kill him,” Barbara says about halfway to the hospital.

“Your pardon conditions still only hold if you don’t—”

“Unprovoked!” Barbara whips her head around, glaring at Lee. “If I commit violence unprovoked! I’d call shooting me and kidnapping our daughter pretty damn provoking! And don’t pretend you don’t agree!”

Lee imagines the steering wheel as the gun again. Or maybe Valeska in front of the car, as she presses harder on the gas.

“Jim could cover it up for us,” Barbara says, softer, wearier. “He lets us get away with everything.”

Lee snorts a little, and nods. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Barbara crack a bit of a smile too. “While true, I think we’d be pushing our luck a bit this time. It’s like all the madness that disappeared after Reunification just bubbled back up all at once. We shouldn’t be apart of that.”

“... He has to pay.”

“And he will.”

“With more than an Arkham sentence. Clearly, it wasn’t enough in the first place. How does an asylum not know someone is faking being braindead?!”

“Trust me, it’d be easy to pull off.”

Barbara leans her head against the window, looking pale as she covers the bandage on her leg with her hand. “I should've left this city with her when I had the chance. I could’ve piloted that stupid submarine myself through the labor.”

Lee means to say that it’d have been too dangerous for both of them, and instead what comes out of her mouth is “We wouldn’t have made up if you’d done that.”

“... That’s a selfish reason for being okay with the past.”

“Since when are you opposed to being selfish?”

“Just for her. … And you.”

Lee smiles again, sees the hospital in the near distance. “Not Jim?”

“Only if he gets her back safely tonight.”

They park, and Lee is thankful she’s taken up doing a bit of weightlifting in recent years, because she has to carry Barbara in bridal-style. She’d started it to carry her other Barbara for as long as possible, so in a way their daughter is saving her mother’s life right now.

The emergency room is in a state of utter chaos, filled with people who got trampled during the Wayne Tower evacuations. Thankfully a woman carrying another grown woman who’s quite pale and bloodied draws attention even in the emergency room these days, despite such a sight being another drop in the bucket a mere few years ago.

Things were just starting to level out in this city…

“Relation to the patient?” the nurse asks quickly as she and Lee both push Barbara’s gurney through the halls. 

“I’m her— we’re—”

“Wife,” Barbara says.

“Okay, we’ll call you as soon as she’s out of surgery.”

Lee sits in the waiting area with a dozen other worried families. Her thoughts bounce between her daughter, her husband, and her… Something.

Wife felt odd, to hear out of Barbara’s mouth. But not unpleasant. Things have gotten so… complicated, over the years of raising a child together. And Jim’s noticed it too, told Lee he understands, that Barbara has this pull he still feels too. They’ve never really talked about it beyond that, but there’s a sort of unspoken understanding between them now. If a kiss with Barbara were to happen, it’d be okay. 

Lee is wondering if they should talk about the possibility of more than that when Jim calls and tells her Barbara Lee is safe, and he’s taking her to Montoya’s before he comes to check on her and Barbara.

“Thank god,” Lee sobs. “Jim, this— I thought were done with all this, and now—”

“Don’t focus on that. Just focus on our family, we’ll get through this.”

“If we’d lost either one of them today, I don’t know what I’d have done.”

“Me either. And hey, if they let you see Barbara before I get there, let her know that Jeremiah got more than a few bruises from this. I’ll explain in person but, it looks like we’ve got some help with these things going forward.”

“What? Jim—”

“We’re pulling in, I have to go. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

She’s thinking the same thing when they let her into Barbara’s room, looking down at her while she sleeps off the last of the anesthesia.

‘I love you too.’

God, she hopes the three of them can work out a better arrangement than Barbara had with Tabitha and Butch. Preferably absent of shooting and/or electrocuting each other, as the bare minimum.

She ends up sitting in the provided chair, flipping through a medical magazine a nurse brought in.

She hears a small laugh. She looks up to see Barbara, awake but still groggy, watching her.

“How’re you feeling?” Lee asks.

“Compared to how I’ve almost died in the past, this is the easiest wake-up,” she says.

“That’s probably the morphine.”

“Mmm. … If you’re just sitting here reading, I’m guessing she’s okay?”

Lee stands up, putting the magazine aside. She moves to sit on the edge of Barbara’s hospital bed, holding her hand. “She’s safe now. … Listen, I think it’d be good if you move in for a while. Barbara Lee is bound to have nightmares about all of this, and I’d like to monitor your recovery myself.”

Barbara smiles at her, eyes sparking with mischief as she bats her eyelashes. “Is that all?”

… Why not just admit it? …

“No, but we should talk to Jim about how things will work from now on before we do anything about that.”

Barbara blinks, surprised for a moment. “I… aren’t you two into plain, boring monogamy and all that?”

“It’s been more complicated than that for quite a while now, Babs, let’s admit it.”

“I thought I was the only one picking up on that.” Barbara grins again, soft and sharp at the same time. “Barbara Lee has been asking why we live so far apart. I think she’d be happy not to go back-and-forth anymore. But there is no way we’re staying in those suburbs forever if we do this.”

“A bigger place closer to the city—”

“Would be my treat, obviously.”

They laugh a little together, moving closer…

“Barbara!” Jim jogs in, sweating and red-faced. He pauses a moment, taking in the scene. “... Oh. … I’m not surprised, actually, but we can figure the ground rules out later. Right now I need to ask you if you saw anyone else at or around the club when Jeremiah was there.”

“Way to ruin a moment,” Barbara says, rolling her eyes a bit as Jim comes closer to brush some of her hair out of her face. “No, I didn’t. Just him and his lapdog. Why?”

“Let’s just say I had some unexpected help getting our daughter out of there.” Jim grabs Lee’s free hand with his own, creating a bit of a tangled mess of reassuring touch. “We’re all okay?”