Chapter 7
"Hawkgirl? . . . Shayera?"
The sound of her real name, rarely spoken even by her teammates, got her attention in a way her commonly-used name did not, and Hawkgirl looked up from what she was involved in. "Hello, Diana," she said. She paused. "You look well."
"I am well," Diana replied calmly, but there was a bright glow in her chest, and she felt it was diffusing through her entire body. Obviously it was written on her face as well. "I wanted to ask you a couple things, if you're not busy."
"No," Hawkgirl said, putting the papers aside. "STAR Labs gave me these schematics for plans to make improvements to my weapon, and I think they'll work. But it can wait. What is it?"
"Well, I need a favor," Diana told her. She brought her hands, which had been behind her back, in front of her. In one of them was something rolled-up. "I need someone to bring this to Queen Hippolyta of Themiscyra."
"A letter?" Hawkgirl asked, holding her hand out. Diana offered it to her, and the Thanagarian found it was made of linen, rather than paper.
"It's important, or I wouldn't waste my mother's time on it. For obvious reasons I can't go, nor can the League men. You're the only other person who can go." Diana sighed. "It's not for me, if that's what you're wondering. It's for someone else."
"If it's important, then of course I'll do it," Hawkgirl assured her. "It's not much of a chore. What was the other thing?"
"What?"
"You said you wanted to ask a couple things. What's the second question?"
Diana hesitated. "Right. Have you done anything about - that thing you and I talked about the last time?"
"You mean John?" Hawkgirl asked, surprised Diana had brought it up. "No, I haven't. Why?"
"As I said before, this is about you, not me," Diana explained, "and no one can decide this but you. But if I were in your shoes, I would tell him, absolutely."
Hawkgirl straightened in her seat. "You think so?" She looked down. "What if he's not interested?"
"The feeling you'll get if he says yes is worth the risk," Diana said quietly.
Hawkgirl stared. "Diana? This is a real change from the other day. What brought this . . . you met someone, didn't you?" she slowly realized. "No, it's more than that. You've _found_ someone, haven't you?"
Diana blushed and smiled. "I didn't think it was that obvious."
"Who?!"
"It's a secret."
"Oh, Diana, come on! After I poured my heart out to you?!" Hawkgirl entreated her.
Diana shook her head. "I want to tell everyone together. I'm going to call a meeting in two days' time."
"Isn't that a little formal?" Hawkgirl asked doubtfully.
"Well, these are not ordinary circumstances," Diana admitted, "so I feel it would be best if everyone were given the chance to speak their mind at once."
Hawkgirl looked quizzical. "It's not - a bad guy, is it?"
"No, definitely not bad," Diana told her. Then she grinned. "It's not a guy, either."
"A woman?" Hawkgirl asked. Then she nodded. "I suppose that's not exactly unusual back home?"
"No, it's not," Diana replied. "And now you know more than everyone else, so for now, you'll have to be happy with that." She stopped. "Was this something that happened back on your planet?"
"It happened," Hawkgirl said. "No one really paid it any mind. Earth's a little different, I suppose."
"You just noticed?"
_____________________________
"Queen Hippolyta?"
Hippolyta looked up from her reports. "Yes, Pomona?"
"There's an airship approaching. We believe it's the one used by . . . the Justice League."
"Really?" Hippolyta said. She frowned and stood up. "Try to contact the ship. If it's Diana, you know we cannot allow her to set foot on Themiscyra, so be ready to repel our visitors if necessary."
It had been many months since she banished her daughter, but the notion of having to physically prevent Diana from setting her foot on her place of birth revived her feelings from that day, and she fervently hoped it was not her daughter. Even if she'd only seen her once since Diana was expelled.
Pomona returned a minute later. "It is the Justice Leaguer known as Hawkgirl. She claims to be the only one on board. She says she has something for you."
"Bring her here, then," Hippolyta replied, both relieved and disappointed. "The Amazons will always owe her a debt for her deeds."
Rather than waiting for Hawkgirl, Hippolyta decided to go meet her, and they encountered her on the steps. "Greetings, Queen Hippolyta," Hawkgirl said deferentially. "Thank you for allowing me to come."
"It was my pleasure, Hawkgirl," Hippolyta replied. "I have not seen you since Aresia . . ." She stopped and sighed. "Let us not speak of her, however. What is it you have for me?"
Hawkgirl handed her the message. "It's from Diana, your highness," she said neutrally. "She says it's important."
Hippolyta took the paper and unrolled it. She hadn't even considered the possibility that Diana could still send others to relay messages. She saw nothing in the law that prevented her from doing so, and she carefully read the message.
"Persephone," she said to the nearest Amazon.
"Yes, Queen Hippolyta?" Persephone asked.
"I will be leaving for a short while," Hippolyta informed her. "I should be back tomorrow."
"Queen Hippolyta?" the Amazon said, surprised.
Hippolyta stared at her, and Persephone stiffened. "The others will be informed, your highness."
"Queen Hippolyta, what does the message say?" Hawkgirl asked, not expecting Diana's mother to announce that she would be coming back with her. "Diana told me very little, and I did not realize she needed to speak with you in person."
"Will my returning with you be a problem?" Hippolyta asked.
"No, of course not. I just - "
"Diana's message says something about a lost Amazon," Hippolyta told her. "Do you have any idea what that's about?"
Hawkgirl instantly suspected that the Amazon in question was the woman Diana was involved with, but Diana had expressly asked her not to tell Hippolyta about that. "I don't think so," she said.
"Whoever it is," Hippolyta observed, "it is obviously a matter of great import. She has asked me to return with you, and I shall."
As Hawkgirl was preparing to leave, she glanced over at Hippolyta, safely ensconced in the co-pilot's seat. "Are you happy to be seeing your daughter?" she asked.
"I'm not going to see my daughter. Diana would not have wasted my time for something so trivial, and I would not have come if she had."
"Uh-huh," Hawkgirl murmured. She didn't point out that it wasn't a denial.
_____________________________
"Hippolyta," Diana said as the Amazon queen got off the ship. She'd been waiting for them in the hangar bay.
"Diana," Hippolyta replied.
Hawkgirl looked at them. "These mother-daughter reunions are always such Kodak moments," she said.
"When the Flash is away, I think we should try to enjoy the silence, not fill the gap, Shayera," Diana told her.
Her coldness shocked Hawkgirl. "Maybe I'll just leave you two alone," she muttered as she walked off, disgruntled.
"I can see you want this to be as official as possible, but that was a little harsh, Diana," Hippolyta observed.
"Hawkgirl seems to expect us to fall into each other's arms," Diana replied. "Like I've been pining away without you and Themiscyra."
"Then you don't miss your home?" her mother asked.
"No," Diana said. "I have a new home."
"This orbiting upside-down goblet?"
"Actually, I was thinking of the real world, Queen Hippolyta."
The queen's demeanor grew frostier. "I'm glad exile suits you."
"Speaking of exile," Diana said, turning to lead Hippolyta toward their destination, "I believe you saw my line about a 'lost Amazon'."
"Yes, I did," Hippolyta answered. "You can't have meant yourself. You're perfectly happy not being an Amazon any longer, I see."
Diana ignored her. "I wasn't referring to myself, you're right. And you're wrong."
Hippolyta raised an eyebrow at this apparent paradox, but Diana did not enlighten her until they stopped.
"The woman inside," Diana said quietly, "is me."
"Excuse me?"
"Recently we crossed paths with a Justice League from another dimension," Diana explained as she punched the passcode in. "As far as we've determined, they were just like us until certain events caused our paths to diverge. They began to employ killing and other equally extreme methods in their pursuit of justice."
"You're saying there's another world's version of you in there?" Hippolyta asked.
"Yes," Diana said. "I brought you here because I want you to bring her back to Themiscyra."
Hippolyta looked startled for the first time as the door slid open and Diana led her down the corridor.
"Hello, Diana."
Her cell was well lit, but Wonder Woman was sitting in the closest thing she had to a dark corner. "Hello . . ." she began to say before stopping as her head came up. "Mother?"
Hippolyta could only stare. "She looks just like you," she murmured, amazed. "Except for the hairstyle, she could fool anyone."
"She is me. Or at least she was," Diana said.
"I'm greater than you," Wonder Woman replied.
"Why is she here, and not in her world?" Hippolyta asked. "And why is she behind bars?"
Wonder Woman opened her mouth to answer, but Diana beat her to it. "We had a difference in philosophy," Diana said vaguely. "We were forced to deprive them of their powers after they tried to imprison us first. We felt we could not allow them to remain free, for fear of divulging important secrets."
"Like the location of Themiscyra," Wonder Woman said.
"You would do such a thing?" Hippolyta asked, appalled.
"Of course not!" Wonder Woman told her. "But it was one of their reasons for keeping us here."
"I never accused her of such a thing," Diana added. "But there are other things they might tell the wrong people in exchange for regaining their powers, or being sent back to their dimension."
"But you can't keep them locked up forever," Hippolyta said. "Which is why you want me to bring her back to Themiscyra," she realized.
Wonder Woman's mouth fell open. "Go home?" she whispered.
"On the one hand," Diana said, "in her world she did many great things, and she deserves the same credit for that as I do. On the other, she needs to be kept somewhere where she can be monitored, someplace she can't leave. I thought it would give her plenty of space, familiar faces, that sort of thing." And Diana wouldn't have to go on sharing the Watchtower with her "evil twin", she didn't say.
Hippolyta nodded slowly. "It could be done," she said. "I know I didn't raise my daughter to be an executioner, so I assume my parallel self did the same."
Her mother's words appeared to induce more remorse than anything Diana had ever said, and Wonder Woman's cheeks became red. "She didn't," she mumbled.
"But wait, Diana," Hippolyta said. "You said your paths marched largely the same road. Does that mean she was banished from her home as well?"
"No," Diana lied with a straight face, again before Wonder Woman could speak. "She was not."
"Wait a minute," Wonder Woman interjected. "I may have made certain choices that you were afraid to, but you and I are still the same person, and you know I'm not going to let you do this. I'm not so pathetically needy for open spaces that I'll let you lie for me. Mother, I brought the League to Themiscyra, and when Hades was gone, I was exiled forever."
Diana sighed, but Hippolyta smiled. "You must be another Diana," she said, "because only you would lie to protect someone else, but never yourself." Her smile disappeared. "Still, if she broke the law - "
"Technically not," Diana told her, playing her backup argument. "Since you yourself never banished her," she said, pointing at Wonder Woman, "from our island."
Hippolyta regarded her carefully. "Explain that better."
"I was banished for allowing men to set foot on Themiscyra A," Diana continued, having gone over this exercise in logic in her head many times. "She did the same on Themiscyra B. However, she never allowed men onto Themiscyra A, and consequently she was never banished from there. Therefore, there's no legal reason why she can't be permitted to go there. And she shouldn't be punished for something I did."
"That's - a very tenuous argument you've made, Diana," Hippolyta said. She looked at Wonder Woman, who didn't appear to have much hope. "But," she continued, "some legal arguments are designed to prove facts, and some to persuade the listener. I think that I can overlook the weaknesses in your reasoning, Diana."
"There will have to be some conditions, Hippolyta," Diana informed her while Wonder Woman looked stunned.
"Oh, there will be," Hippolyta replied. "She abandoned her teachings. You both know the things an Amazon must do if she needs 'rehabilitation'."
Diana did, and she thought it appropriate.
"But," Hippolyta added, "the word rehabilitation implies that the Amazon can return to favor one day. I think both you and Themiscyra would benefit from it, Diana," she said to the woman behind bars.
Wonder Woman nodded. "I have a few arguments of my own, you know."
"I'm sure you do. Just don't expect to win any with your mother."
"There's one other thing," Diana said. "I haven't told Kal-el about this yet. We'll need his approval."
"Is he here now?" Hippolyta asked.
"Yes. We can speak with him right away."
"I get it now," Wonder Woman muttered. "Get my hopes up, and then smash them down. You know him. Once he's set his mind on something, he'll never change it. He won't let me go."
"You're wrong about him," Diana said. "And that's what started the whole mess in your world. You shouldn't have decided it was easier to go along with his way, than to make him understand what was right."
"We _were_ right," Wonder Woman replied stubbornly.
"I can see I have my hands full," Hippolyta murmured.
_________________________
"I told her," Diana said as they walked back to the containment unit by a different route. "If there's anyone who's too stubborn to listen sometimes, it's Batman."
"You must remember that she is from another world, and that there may be other small differences between the two. Perhaps in her world, Superman is much harder to deal with," Hippolyta told her.
"Perhaps," Diana replied. Superman had been surprised more by the suddenness of the request than anything else. In fact the merits of the argument won him over relatively quickly, once Hippolyta assured him that Diana wouldn't be able to leave Themiscyra, and that her powers would remain dormant. "I think he was most intrigued by the possibility that we could do this with other alternates. The Lantern Corps might be able to do something with John. And if we ever made some kind of contact with Thanagar, maybe we could send the other Hawkgirl home."
"But there is no more Krypton," Hippolyta said.
Diana sighed. "I don't think there's much hope for the other Kal-el anyway. He's crossed too many boundaries." Then she stopped. "I hope you can do something for my double," she said, her tone formal like it was when Hippolyta first arrived.
Hippolyta stopped in her tracks. "Diana, why have you treated me so coldly today? You didn't behave this way when I came looking for Aresia. What changed since then?"
"I changed," Diana said after a moment. "Or rather, I saw how I might have changed. Have you considered the idea that perhaps my twin's actions were at least partially motivated by her expulsion from home?"
"That is a complete abdication of responsibility," Hippolyta said angrily. "Considering you didn't make the mistakes she made."
"But how many other worlds are out there? An infinite number?" Diana wondered. "How many other Dianas found it was easier to abandon their principles when their homes and families abandoned them? If she'd still had your advice to rely on, would she have crossed the line? Even I sometimes question the laws of Themiscyra, Mother."
"You would," Hippolyta said, "considering you broke one."
"It's a stupidly written law, Hippolyta. It should be changed," Diana retorted. "I'd say the same if it had been any other Amazon who did it. It's too rigid, and rigid things are meant to be broken. If I hadn't broken that law, what would have happened?"
"I know perfectly well what would have happened," her mother said coldly. "But there is no loophole for - "
"There should be," Diana told her, pointing a finger at her. "Just because we hold ourselves separate from the world of man doesn't mean we can't learn from man's laws. Murder is against the law - unless in self-defense of one's self or others. Loopholes aren't an accident of nature, mother. They're put there to prevent a law from being unjust. And that's what I'm sworn to uphold - justice. When law and justice cannot be reconciled, I choose the latter. That is a lesson my twin carried to an extreme conclusion - and again, because of her own personal experiences."
"So you're saying I should just change the law?" Hippolyta asked incredulously. "I don't have that much power, and the Amazons would say I was just doing it to bring you back."
"Then make it so the new law can't be applied retroactively," Diana said. "State that prior offenders must serve their original sentence, because the law was different then. And if you propose altering the law so that men can be brought to Themiscyra only in situations that threaten the entire Amazon race, where there's no other way, I think they'd accept it. If Hades had destroyed our people, there would be no one left to defend the oh-so-sacred laws of the Amazons." She paused. "To make an unjust law just shows wisdom that even Athena would commend."
Hippolyta folded her arms. "I would have to stipulate that your banishment remained permanent," she said quietly.
"And I accept it," Diana said. "This is not about me. It's about what could happen to others like me."
" . . . I'll see what I can do," Hippolyta finally told her. "I'll convene a council, and we'll see what the people think. Is that all right?"
"It's fine, mother," Diana assured her. "Thanks."
Her mother nodded. "You're welcome - daughter."
As they continued walking, Diana became nervous. "I don't think I could return home anyway. There's something keeping me in this world, mother."
"The League, you mean."
"No, something more personal."
"Oh?"
Diana looked away. "I shouldn't tell you. I don't want you to think I had any ulterior motive for bringing you here."
"I think you had ample reason to bring me here, Diana. What is it?"
"I think - I'm in love, Mother."
Hippolyta gasped. "You are? Is it anyone I've met? Is it someone in the League?"
"No," Diana said quickly. "Her name is Audrey. She's the princess of a European kingdom named Kasnia."
"Did her status have anything to do with your decision?" Hippolyta asked. "I never knew you to put much stock in class."
"I would love her if she were a teacher barely getting by," Diana told her. "True, if she wasn't a princess, we might never have met. But only because I met her when I saved her." She hesitated. "Maybe she saved me too."
Hippolyta smiled. "Well, I would like to meet her some day. Maybe I could be absent from Themiscyra a time or two in the future."
"Wait," Diana said, arresting her progress. "Wait here." She disappeared into another room, but quickly returned. "This is her picture. I guess subconsciously I may have taken us in the direction of my room."
The Amazon queen studied the photograph. "She's lovely, Diana. But so petite! You must be several inches taller than her."
"That doesn't matter, mother."
"I suppose not. She makes you smile, Diana, and I'm happy for you. Although I reserve my blessing until I meet her."
Diana sighed. "Yes, mother."
"In the meantime, tell me more about her."
"Anything you want to know," Diana said sincerely. Finally she had someone she could talk with about Audrey.
"Have you become lovers yet?"
"Mother!"
To be continued . . .
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