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The temple smells like sun-baked stone and something older, something that makes Diana's skin prickle with recognition. Divine space. The kind that bends around itself, where time moves differently and doorways lead somewhere other than where they should. The air tastes thin here, high-altitude crisp despite the fact that they are barely above sea level. When Diana breathes in, she can feel the age of the place settling into her lungs, dust and incense and the particular staleness of rooms that have been sealed for centuries.
Barbara moves ahead of her, low to the ground, claws clicking softly against marble that should have crumbled centuries ago but remains smooth as glass. Her tail flicks once, twice, a tell Diana has learned to read over years of watching, fighting, standing beside and against this woman in all her complicated forms. Irritation, or maybe concentration. Hard to say with Barbara. The muscles in her shoulders shift beneath golden fur as she moves, each step deliberate, testing the ground before committing her full weight. She has always been careful like this, even before Urzkartaga. Even when she was human and walked on two legs instead of four, she moved through the world like it might collapse beneath her at any moment.
"This is it," Barbara says, not looking back. Her voice carries that particular edge it gets when she has proven right about something, when her research has paid off and the world has aligned itself with her predictions for once. "The map was accurate. Apollo's archive."
Diana scans the walls, taking in the inscriptions carved deep into stone that should be weathered but is not. Ancient Greek, some older than that, languages that predate her own people. Scripts that make her think of her mother's voice reading aloud from scrolls in the palace library, of afternoons spent learning to shape her mouth around sounds that had no living speakers left to correct her pronunciation. The script curves and spirals in patterns that suggest music as much as meaning, lines flowing into one another like water, like song made visible. Some of the letters shimmer faintly in the indirect light filtering down from openings in the ceiling far above. Divine script. The kind that changes meaning depending on who reads it, that shows you what you need to see rather than what was written.
"And you are certain the artifact is here?" Diana asks, though she already knows the answer. Barbara would not have led them this deep into divine territory on a guess.
"Nothing's certain, princess." Barbara pauses at a doorway, her ears swiveling back toward Diana with that particular controlled precision that means she is tracking Diana's exact position even while appearing to focus elsewhere. "But if there's anything left that documents divine transformations, enforcements, reversals... it would be here. Apollo loved his records."
She says it with a strange mix of bitterness and admiration, the way she always speaks about gods. As if she cannot decide whether to resent them for their power or covet it for herself. Barbara has always had complicated feelings about the divine, more so since Urzkartaga. Since she learned firsthand what it means to bargain with beings who do not think in human terms, who measure time in centuries and care nothing for the cost extracted from mortal flesh. Diana does not blame her. She has seen what the gods do to those who catch their attention. She was raised by women who knew that divine favor and divine punishment often look identical from the ground.
"And you are certain you want to find it?" Diana asks quietly, carefully. This is dangerous ground between them. The question of whether Barbara wants to be cured, whether she would give up the power that came with the curse, whether she mourns what she was or has grown into what she is now. They do not talk about it directly. They circle around it like wary animals, each afraid of what the other might say if pressed.
Barbara's shoulders tense. Just for a moment, just long enough for Diana to notice. Her claws flex against the marble, points catching in the microscopic gaps between tiles, and then she forces herself to relax. The effort is visible in the way her spine straightens, the way her tail stops its constant motion and hangs still. "I didn't come here for a therapy session, Di. I came here because you'd do something reckless without backup. Someone has to keep you from getting smote."
Diana allows herself a small smile, though Barbara cannot see it. This is how Barbara shows care. Through insults and pragmatism, through showing up when she could just as easily walk away. Through following Diana into spaces that even gods fear to tread carelessly, into ruins that smell like endings. "I appreciate the concern."
"Don't let it go to your head." Barbara steps through the doorway, her form briefly silhouetted against the light beyond. The glow catches in her fur, turns her edges golden, makes her look for a moment like something out of myth herself. Like the kind of creature ancient people would have built temples to, would have left offerings for in the hope of safe passage. "Come on. Daylight's burning."
Diana follows, adjusting her grip on her shield. The metal is warm from the sunlight outside, heated through despite the leather backing. She can feel her sword at her hip, the familiar weight that has accompanied her through more battles than she can count, through choices that still wake her in the dark hours of the morning. The doorway swallows them both, and the temperature drops ten degrees in an instant. The change is so abrupt that Diana's breath mists in the suddenly cold air. The light shifts too, goes from warm gold to something cooler, bluer, like moonlight reflecting off snow. The air tastes different here, on this side of the threshold. Thin. Charged. The kind of atmosphere that precedes lightning, that makes hair stand on end and skin prickle with the certain knowledge that something vast and powerful is paying attention.
Barbara stops so suddenly that Diana nearly walks into her. Diana pulls up short, her hand going automatically to her sword hilt. Her eyes scan the space ahead of them, looking for threats, for movement, for whatever made Barbara freeze.
"Barbara?"
"Something's wrong." Barbara's claws extend fully, sliding out from their sheaths with a sound like knives being drawn. Her stance drops into something defensive, weight distributed low and even, ready to spring in any direction. Predator ready to become violence. Her tail lashes once, a sharp whip-crack motion that Diana has learned means genuine alarm rather than simple irritation. "The space just... shifted."
Diana feels it too. The weight of attention, vast and ancient, settling over them like a held breath. Like standing at the center of a room and suddenly realizing someone has been watching you for far longer than you knew. The air pressure changes. Her ears pop. The light bends strangely at the edges of her vision, curves in ways that should not be possible. She reaches for Barbara instinctively, her hand extending toward her shoulder, toward the solid reality of fur and muscle and heat. Toward confirmation that she is not alone in this suddenly uncertain space.
Her fingers close on empty air.
Barbara is gone.
Not vanished. Not invisible. Just gone, the space where she stood suddenly seamless, as if she had never been there at all. The marble floor shows no trace of her, no claw marks, no disturbed dust. Even the faint heat signature she leaves behind, the warmth of a living body moving through cool space, has disappeared. Diana blinks, tries to make sense of what her eyes are telling her, but there is nothing to make sense of. One moment Barbara was there. The next she was not. As simple and impossible as that.
"Barbara!" Diana spins, searching. Her voice echoes wrong in this space, bounces back at strange angles. The temple around her is different now. Brighter. The walls gleaming white instead of weathered, the floor unmarked by time or use. Fresh flowers bloom in urns that moments ago held only ash, their colors too vivid, too saturated, like someone has turned up the brightness on the world itself. "Barbara Ann!"
Nothing.
The silence is absolute. Not peaceful. Waiting. The kind of quiet that comes before something breaks, before the world inhales and then screams. Diana's heart hammers against her ribs. Her hands shake. She forces herself to breathe, to think, to assess. This is divine magic. A test or a trap or simply the nature of this space asserting itself. She is in Apollo's territory now. She should have known better than to assume the rules would remain consistent.
And then, from behind her, a voice. Familiar. Impossible.
"Diana?"
Diana turns slowly, her hand tightening on her shield until the leather grip creaks under the pressure.
Barbara stands in the center of the room. Human. Blonde hair falling in perfect waves past her shoulders, each strand catching the light like spun gold, like something from a painting of an idealized woman. Blue eyes bright and clear, the exact shade Diana remembers from before, from when Barbara was still just an archaeologist with brilliant eyes and a sharp tongue. She wears an elegant dress, deep burgundy silk that flows like water, and there is something about the cut of it that suggests wealth without effort. Old money. The kind of clothes Barbara used to look at in museum displays, with a mixture of longing and resentment; they belonged to a life she had grown up in but no longer had claim to. Gold bangles circle her wrists, catching the light with every small movement. Her nails are manicured, painted a shade that matches her dress exactly, not a chip or crack visible.
She looks like she has never touched dirt in her life. Like the woman Barbara might have become, if she had allowed herself the luxury of comfort instead of chasing knowledge, if she had never set foot in a jungle or a tomb or anywhere else that demanded she get her hands dirty.
"There you are," the woman says, smiling. Her teeth are very white, perfectly straight. Orthodontia, probably. The kind of dental work that costs more than most people make in a year. "I was beginning to worry."
Diana does not move. Every instinct she has developed over years of navigating divine spaces, of learning to recognize when something is wrong even when every surface detail appears correct, screams at her to be careful. "Who are you?"
The woman's smile falters, perfectly calibrated confusion crossing her features like an actor hitting her mark. "What? Diana, it's me. Barbara."
"No." Diana's voice is flat, certain. This is not negotiable. "You are not."
"Are you alright?" The woman takes a step forward, her heels clicking against marble. The sound is too loud in the silent space, echoes in ways that make Diana's teeth ache. "Did something happen? You look pale."
Diana studies her, catalogs every detail with the same attention she would give to an enemy's weaknesses, to the gaps in armor where a blade might slip through. The voice is close enough. The same timbre, the same slight rasp that comes from years of too much coffee and not enough sleep. The features are exact. The same small nose, the same high cheekbones, the same shape to her jaw. But this woman stands with her weight distributed evenly, shoulders back, chin lifted. Like she has never needed to make herself smaller. Like she has never had to fight for space in a room full of men who assumed she was a secretary rather than the lead researcher. Like she has never walked into a tomb knowing that one wrong step could bring the ceiling down on her head, that her funding might disappear tomorrow, that her entire career balanced on the knife edge of one significant discovery.
Barbara moves like she is always ready to either run or strike. Like the world might demand either at any moment and she refuses to be caught unprepared. This woman moves like she has never had to prepare for anything, like life has simply arranged itself around her desires without requiring her to fight for it.
"Where is she?" Diana asks, because this is the only question that matters now.
"Where is who?" The woman reaches out, her hand extended. Diana sees the softness of her palm, unblemished by work. No calluses from handling tools, no scars from wire brushes or trowels or the thousand small injuries that come from spending your life excavating the past. Barbara's hands were never soft, even before Urzkartaga. They were a scholar's hands, yes, but a scholar who worked in the field rather than just the library. This woman's hands have never held anything heavier than a wine glass. "Diana, you're scaring me."
The words are wrong. The pitch is wrong. Barbara has never been scared of Diana. Angry, yes. Hurt, certainly. Wary on occasion, in the days after Bwunda when they were still learning how to be around each other again, when Barbara was still feral enough that unexpected movements made her bare her teeth. But never scared. Fear is not something Barbara allows herself to show, not to Diana, not to anyone. It would be admitting weakness. It would be giving ground.
Diana turns away. The woman calls after her, something about waiting, about not leaving her alone, but Diana does not stop. Cannot afford to stop. If she stops, if she turns back, she might start to doubt herself. Might start to wonder if this could somehow be real, if the Barbara she knows is the aberration and this woman is the truth. She has thought that before, in the dark hours when guilt sits heavy on her chest. That perhaps Barbara was always meant to be this, and Diana failed her by not being there when she needed her most.
The temple shifts. The walls pulse with golden light, and Diana feels the floor tilt beneath her feet even though when she looks down everything appears level. Her inner ear rebels against what her eyes are telling her. The light grows brighter, painful, and Diana closes her eyes against it. When she opens them again, she is standing somewhere else entirely.
A garden. Not the temple. Somewhere green and growing, where the air smells like rain on leaves and fresh-turned earth. Like spring after a long winter, like things pushing up through soil toward sunlight. Trees surround her on all sides, their branches heavy with fruit that Diana does not recognize. The grass beneath her feet is impossibly green, soft enough that she can feel it even through her boots. A stone path winds through the space, leads toward a clearing where Diana can see equipment set up. Research equipment. Tables covered with samples, notebooks, cameras.
"Diana!"
She turns.
Barbara again. Still human, but different now. This one wears field clothes, sturdy canvas pants and a practical jacket, but everything is too new. Too clean. The pants have no mud at the cuffs, no wear at the knees where she would kneel to examine something on the ground. The jacket shows no signs of use, no fraying at the seams, no patches where tears have been mended with whatever thread was available. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail, practical and efficient, and she carries a clipboard tucked under one arm. The clipboard is pristine. No water stains, no bent corners from being shoved into bags too small for it, no coffee rings.
"There you are," this Barbara says, slightly breathless. She moves toward Diana with quick, purposeful steps. Her eyes are bright with excitement, with the particular enthusiasm Barbara gets when she has found something worth documenting. "I've been looking everywhere. We need to document this site before the light changes. The biodiversity here is incredible, and if we can establish a conservation framework—"
"Stop," Diana says. The word comes out harder than she intends, sharp enough that this Barbara actually takes a step back.
This Barbara blinks, confusion crossing her face. "Stop what?"
"You are not her."
"Diana, I don't understand." She adjusts her grip on the clipboard, a nervous gesture that almost works. Almost. Her thumb rubs against the metal clip at the top, back and forth, a repetitive motion that is meant to soothe. "Are you feeling alright? Did you hit your head?"
But Barbara does not fidget with objects when she is nervous. She goes still. Watchful. Her mind working too fast for her body to keep up, calculating angles and outcomes and possibilities. She becomes absolutely motionless except for her eyes, which track everything, catalog everything, miss nothing. This woman moves like nervousness is something to be expressed physically, like anxiety is meant to be visible. Barbara would rather die than show weakness so openly.
Diana walks past her. The woman calls after her, something about staying together, about the dangers of splitting up, but the voice is already fading. The garden dissolves around Diana like watercolor paint in rain, colors bleeding together and then washing away entirely. She does not look back. Looking back would be weakness. Looking back would be admitting that some part of her wants this to be real, wants to believe that somewhere there is a version of Barbara who never made the choices that led her to Bwunda, who never took Urzkartaga's hand, who is still just a scholar documenting the world with careful attention and genuine wonder.
The garden becomes a hallway. The transition is seamless, reality reorganizing itself around her with the casual certainty of divine architecture. This hallway is lined with mirrors, golden frames that curve and spiral like the script on the walls outside. Polished surfaces that reflect her own face back at her from a dozen angles, from perspectives she has never seen herself from. She avoids looking too closely. Vanity has never interested her, and there is something about these mirrors that feels hungry. Like they want something from her. Like they are waiting for her to stop and look, really look, to see herself the way these mirrors want her to be seen.
Movement catches her eye. She turns, hand already moving toward her sword.
Barbara. Human again. This one wears casual clothes, jeans that fit her well and a simple shirt in a deep blue that brings out her eyes. She is leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, weight shifted to one hip in a posture that suggests patience worn thin. When she sees Diana, she straightens, pushes off from the wall with one shoulder.
"Hey," she says. Just that. Simple. Like they have known each other for years and do not need elaborate greetings, like they have fallen into patterns of communication where a single word can convey everything that needs saying.
Diana stops. Studies her. This one is closer. The stance is almost right. The way she holds her shoulders, the slight tilt of her head that means she is waiting for Diana to explain herself. The small crease between her eyebrows that appears when she is trying to solve a puzzle. But something is off. The smile comes too easily. Too open. Too willing to be pleased.
Barbara's smiles are hard-won things. They have to be earned, dragged out of her through persistence or surprise or the kind of dry humor that catches her off-guard. They are small, private things. This woman smiles like it costs her nothing, like pleasure is something freely given rather than carefully rationed.
"I was starting to think you'd gotten lost," the woman continues. Her voice has Barbara's cadence, the same rhythm and pace, but it lacks the edge. The sharpness that cuts through everything Barbara says, even when she is trying to be kind. Especially when she is trying to be kind, because kindness does not come naturally to her and the effort shows. "But you're here now. That's what matters."
Diana watches her push off from the wall, watches the easy confidence in her movements. Watches the way she approaches like she has no doubt about her welcome, like she and Diana exist in a world where their relationship is uncomplicated and clear.
"Where are we?" Diana asks, though she already knows the answer will tell her nothing useful.
"Does it matter?" The woman moves closer, her steps casual and unhurried. "We're together. That's what counts, right?"
Barbara would never say something like that. Would never reduce a situation to platitudes, to simple emotional truths that ignore the complexity of their circumstances. She would be analyzing, questioning, trying to understand the mechanism behind their separation. Trying to determine if they are still in the temple or have been moved elsewhere, whether this is illusion or transportation, what the purpose of this separation is. Her mind does not allow for simple acceptance. It is always working, always digging, always refusing to take surface appearances at face value.
This woman accepts their circumstances with the kind of easy grace that suggests she has never had to fight for understanding, has never stayed up for three days straight trying to translate a text that might hold the key to her entire thesis, has never felt the particular fury that comes from being dismissed by colleagues who assume her work cannot possibly be as rigorous as theirs.
Diana turns away. Behind her, the woman makes a sound of protest, but Diana is already moving to the next doorway. The hallway extends before her, longer than it was a moment ago. The mirrors multiply, reflect her from angles that should not be possible. She catches glimpses of herself looking tired, looking uncertain, looking like someone who has lost something precious and does not know how to find it again. She does not let herself look long enough to see more.
The doorway leads to another space. This one is smaller, more intimate. A room that might have been a study once. Books line the walls, their spines cracked with use. A desk sits near the window, its surface covered with papers and artifacts and the comfortable clutter of someone who works here regularly. The late afternoon sun streams through the window, turns the dust motes in the air into tiny points of light.
Barbara sits at the desk. Human. Blonde hair loose around her shoulders, catching the light. She wears glasses Diana has never seen on her before, small wire-rimmed things perched on her nose as she bends over a text. Her hand moves across the page, taking notes with the quick efficient script of someone who has spent years learning to write fast enough to keep up with her thoughts. She is so focused on her work that she does not notice Diana enter, or if she does, she assumes Diana will wait. That Diana knows not to interrupt when Barbara is in the middle of something important.
Diana waits in the doorway. Watches. This Barbara looks peaceful. Content. There is no tension in her shoulders, no wariness in the way she sits. Her bare feet are tucked under her chair, and she hums something under her breath as she works. A melody Diana does not recognize, something probably ancient, probably connected to whatever text she is translating.
After a moment, the woman looks up. Sees Diana. Smiles with genuine warmth.
"Oh, hello," she says, pulling off the glasses and setting them aside. "I didn't hear you come in. Give me just a moment to finish this thought."
Her hand moves across the page again, completing whatever notation she was making. Then she sets down her pen and stands, stretching with unselfconscious ease. Her shirt rides up slightly, and Diana sees pale skin unmarked by scars or claws.
"How was your day?" the woman asks, moving toward Diana with the comfortable familiarity of routine.
Diana's throat tightens. This is the cruelest one yet. Not because it is the least accurate, but because it is the most seductive. This Barbara lives in a world where she and Diana have built something domestic, something ordinary. Where they come home to each other at the end of the day. Where Barbara's work is just work, engaging and important but not dangerous, not all-consuming. Where they exist in the kind of gentle peace that Diana has never allowed herself to want because wanting it feels like betrayal of who she is, what she is meant to do.
"Stop," Diana says. Her voice sounds rough, like something scraping against stone.
The woman's expression shifts to concern. "Diana? What's wrong?"
Everything. Nothing. Diana cannot articulate it, cannot explain how this woman's very contentment is the proof of her falseness. Because Barbara is not content. Has never been content. She burns with too much hunger, too much ambition, too much need to know and understand and push further than anyone else has dared. Even in her human life, she was never satisfied. Never willing to accept that some knowledge was beyond reach, that some questions could not be answered, that some doors should remain closed.
This woman looks satisfied. Like she has found enough. Like the work she is doing here is sufficient.
Barbara has never had enough. That is what led her to Urzkartaga in the first place. That is what made her take his hand even knowing the price. She wanted more. Wanted power and knowledge and the kind of certainty that comes from touching the divine directly.
Diana turns away from this woman's concern, from her gentle questions, from the life she offers. Turns away even though it hurts more than the previous rejections, even though some treacherous part of her wants to stay in this sunlit room and pretend this could be real.
The room dissolves.
Another hallway. Another doorway. Another Barbara.
This one is human, wearing workout clothes, her hair pulled back in a practical braid. She is in the middle of a form, moving through martial arts positions with careful attention to technique. When she sees Diana, she stops, wipes sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand.
"Want to spar?" she asks, grinning.
Diana's heart clenches. Barbara used to ask her that, in the early days of their friendship. Used to want to learn how Diana moved, how she fought. Not so she could beat her, though that ambition was there too, lurking beneath the surface. But because she wanted to understand. Wanted to know how a body could move like that, what training produced that kind of skill. It was research for her, even then. Everything was research.
But this Barbara asks like it is just for fun. Like the outcome does not matter. Like she is not keeping score in her head, cataloging Diana's weaknesses for future use.
Diana walks past her.
The hallway stretches. The light changes. Each doorway shows her another possibility, another version of Barbara who is almost right but fundamentally wrong. A Barbara who paints. A Barbara who gardens. A Barbara who looks at Diana with uncomplicated affection, who does not carry years of resentment and hunger and barely suppressed rage.
Each one is harder than the last. Each one tugs at something in her chest, some place that wants to believe. That wants to reach out and hold on and pretend this is real. That wants to choose rest over truth, comfort over the complicated reality of who Barbara actually is.
She does not allow herself to pretend. Cannot allow it. Because if she accepts any of these, she is choosing a lie. She is choosing the Barbara she wishes existed over the Barbara who does. And that would be the ultimate betrayal. That would be saying that Barbara, as she actually is, is not enough. Is not worth choosing.
The hallway stretches before her, longer now. The light has shifted again, golden and warm, like late afternoon sun filtering through olive trees. Like the light in Greece during summer, when everything is saturated with heat and color and the air itself seems to glow. Diana's footsteps echo against marble that feels suddenly more solid, more real than anything she has encountered in this place. The echoes layer over each other, create a rhythm that sounds almost like music.
She rounds a corner and stops.
Barbara stands at the end of the hall.
Human. Blonde hair pulled up in a loose bun, slightly messy in the way that suggests she put it up without a mirror, without particular care for how it looked. Strands have escaped to frame her face, catching the light in shades of wheat and honey and gold. Blue eyes sharp and assessing, the exact shade Diana remembers. Not quite sky blue. Something deeper, more complex. Like the ocean where it meets the horizon, where you cannot quite tell where water ends and sky begins.
She wears clothes Diana recognizes. A faded blue button-down over dark canvas pants, practical and worn soft from years of use. The shirt has a small tear near the hem that Barbara never bothered to mend, claiming it gave the fabric character. The pants are stained at the knees, faded to nearly white in spots from too many washings. And there, on her feet, the leather boots that have accompanied Barbara through countless excavations, through deserts and jungles and archaeological sites on four continents. Scuffed and scarred, the left sole slightly more worn than the right because Barbara has always favored that leg slightly, an old injury from before Diana knew her that never quite healed correctly.
In her right hand, she holds a cane. Wooden, with a curved handle that has been worn smooth from years of use. The wood itself is dark, polished to a subtle sheen by the constant contact with her palm. Diana can see the exact places where Barbara's fingers have left their mark, where the oils from her skin have darkened the wood further.
Diana cannot breathe. The air has left her lungs and she cannot remember how to pull it back in. Her chest feels tight, constricted, like someone has wrapped bands around her ribs and is slowly drawing them tighter.
Barbara does not smile. She simply stands there, weight shifted slightly to favor her left side. The way she always stood when her hip was bothering her, when the old injury made itself known through the damp or through too many hours on her feet or through the simple fact of aging in a body that had never been particularly kind to her. The way she stood before Urzkartaga, before everything changed, when she was just an archaeologist with bad joints and brilliant eyes who looked at Diana like she was something worth cataloguing. Like Diana was a puzzle Barbara could spend a lifetime solving and never grow tired of the work.
"Diana," Barbara says quietly. Not a question. Just acknowledgement. Just her name, spoken in a voice Diana knows better than her own. Every inflection is correct. Every subtle variation in tone. The slight roughness that comes from too many years of breathing in dust at dig sites. The way she drops the last syllable just slightly, makes it sound almost intimate.
Diana should move. Should speak. Should do something other than stand here staring like she has forgotten how to function. But her body will not obey her. Her feet have rooted themselves to the marble floor. Her hands hang uselessly at her sides.
"You found me," Barbara continues. There is relief in her voice, but also something else. Weariness. The kind that comes from waiting too long in a space that does not feel safe, from holding herself ready for danger that never quite arrives but never quite dissipates either. "I wasn't sure you would."
Diana forces herself to take a step forward. Then another. Her shield feels heavy on her arm, heavier than it has ever been. Her sword sits too tight at her hip. Every piece of armor she wears suddenly feels like too much, like she is carrying the weight of everything she has ever failed to say, every moment she has chosen duty over honesty, every time she has walked away when she should have stayed.
"I have been looking," Diana says. Her voice comes out rougher than she intends, scraped raw by something she cannot name.
"I know." Barbara shifts her weight, her cane tapping softly against the marble. The sound is familiar. Right. Diana has heard that sound a thousand times, walking beside Barbara through museum halls and university corridors and once, memorably, through a bar in Cairo where Barbara had gotten spectacularly drunk and insisted on teaching Diana how to curse in seven languages. The tap of the cane had been steady even then, reliable even when Barbara herself was not. "I've been here the whole time. Waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
"For you to find me." Barbara's expression softens just slightly, a minute change in the set of her mouth. The corners soften, the tightness eases. Not quite a smile but something adjacent to it. Something that speaks of relief and resignation in equal measure. "For this to be over."
Diana stops three feet away. Close enough to reach out. Close enough to see the fine details. The small scar above Barbara's left eyebrow from a climbing accident in Peru, a story Barbara had told her once while they were inspecting artifacts in a museum basement, both of them covered in dust and giddy with exhaustion. The slight asymmetry of her face, how her left eyebrow sits just a fraction higher than her right, a detail so small that Diana has never mentioned it but has catalogued it anyway, filed it away in the vast collection of Barbara-related observations she keeps like some people keep photographs. The small constellation of freckles across her nose that only appear after time in the sun, that fade during winter but never quite disappear entirely.
Close enough to see the exact way Barbara's eyes crinkle at the corners when she is thinking hard about something, the way they are crinkling now as she watches Diana watch her. The small line between her brows that appears when she is concentrating, that Diana has seen deepen over the years, settling into a permanent crease. The way her lips press together when she is holding back words, when she has something to say but is weighing whether saying it will help or harm.
Everything is perfect. Every detail is exactly as it should be. The way Barbara's throat moves when she swallows. The slight tremor in her hands that she hides by gripping the cane tighter. The way she holds herself very still, like she is afraid that moving too quickly will break whatever fragile truce they have established in this moment.
"You look tired," Barbara says gently. Her eyes move over Diana's face, cataloging her exhaustion with the same attention she gives to ancient texts and archaeological finds. "How long have you been searching?"
Diana does not know. Time moves strangely here. It could have been minutes. Hours. An eternity compressed into moments. The sun has not moved outside but Diana feels like she has been walking through these hallways for days. "Long enough."
"Then rest." Barbara gestures to the side, where a bench has appeared, carved from the same white marble as everything else. Simple. Elegant. The kind of thing Barbara would appreciate for its clean lines and lack of unnecessary ornament. Greek in its restraint. Classical in its proportions. "We can wait here together."
Diana looks at the bench. Looks back at Barbara. The bench is wide enough for two. There are even cushions on it now, deep blue velvet that matches Barbara's shirt. Comfortable. Inviting. The kind of place where you could sit for a long time without discomfort.
This is what she wanted, is it not? Barbara whole and human and safe. Barbara as she was before Diana failed to answer her signal in Bwunda. Before Urzkartaga. Before Veronica Cale and Godwatch and everything that Diana could not prevent. Before Barbara became something that scared children and made grown men reach for weapons. Before the hunger took root in her and never left.
This is the Barbara she knew. The one who would stay up until three in the morning arguing about the proper translation of a single word in an ancient text, insisting that context mattered, that you could not separate language from the culture that produced it. The one who had made Diana laugh with dry observations about academic politics, about the petty feuds between departments and the way senior professors guarded their territories like dragons guarding gold. The one who had looked at her like she was not a goddess or a weapon but simply a person worth knowing. Worth spending time with. Worth the effort it took to bridge the gap between their worlds.
This is the Barbara she has mourned. The one who existed before everything fell apart. Before Diana learned that friendship is not enough to save someone who does not want to be saved. Before she understood that there are some prices that, once paid, cannot be refunded.
"Come on," Barbara says, and her voice carries that particular warmth it used to have, back when things were simpler. When they were colleagues rather than something too complicated to name. When the space between them was full of potential rather than regret. "Sit with me. Just for a moment."
Diana takes a step toward the bench. Her body moves without consulting her mind, drawn forward by longing and exhaustion in equal measure. She is so tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of watching Barbara destroy herself over and over again. Tired of being the person who has to stay strong while everything falls apart around her.
Barbara smiles. Small, genuine. The kind of smile that reaches her eyes and makes the corners crinkle in exactly the right way. In ways Diana has memorized over years of watching, of cataloging, of trying to understand what makes this woman who she is.
And that is when Diana sees it.
So small she almost misses it. So subtle that if she had not spent years cataloging every detail of Barbara's face, she would have let it pass. Would have sat on that bench and surrendered to the comfort of this moment, this possibility.
Barbara's eyes crinkle when she smiles. Always have. The left side more than the right, a small asymmetry that comes from years of squinting against the sun while reading field notes. Years of favoring her left eye when looking through a microscope, when examining artifacts up close, when reading by inadequate light because she could not afford to stop working just because the sun had set. Years of small, human habits that accumulated into visible patterns, into the particular architecture of her face.
But this Barbara's eyes crinkle evenly. Perfectly. Symmetrically.
Diana stops moving. Her foot hovers above the ground, caught mid-step, and she forces herself to set it down carefully. Forces herself to breathe. To look again, to make sure she is not imagining this.
She is not imagining it.
She looks at the cane. At the boots. At the exact recreation of the woman she knew before everything fell apart. And she realizes what is missing.
This Barbara has not changed.
Has not been scarred by her choices. Has not struggled with the weight of divine power and human hunger. Has not made the decision to take Urzkartaga's hand, to pay the price he demanded, to become something that defies easy categorization. Has not killed. Has not raged. Has not spent years oscillating between predator and person, monster and woman, trying to find some balance that would let her survive in skin that no longer feels like her own.
This Barbara is preserved. Static. A memory given form but not life. She is amber, not flesh. Beautiful and perfect and utterly, completely dead.
The real Barbara would never simply wait. She would be searching, planning, analyzing the space around her. She would be angry at being trapped. She would be making cutting observations about Apollo's architectural choices, about the pretentiousness of divine spaces, about how gods always have to make everything about themselves. She would be testing the walls, looking for weaknesses, refusing to accept confinement. She would be cataloging every detail of this place so that when she escaped, when she got out, she would understand it well enough to never be trapped like this again.
She would be Barbara, in all her complicated, difficult, brilliant reality.
Not this. Not a version of herself frozen at the moment before she made the choice that defined her. Not a possibility that was never allowed to unfold, to grow, to become something new and strange and terrible.
"You are not her," Diana says quietly. The words taste like grief in her mouth.
Barbara's expression shifts. Confusion, perfectly rendered. The small furrow between her brows, the slight tilt of her head, the way her mouth opens just slightly. "Diana, I don't understand. It's me. I'm right here."
"No." Diana takes a step back. The word feels like it is being pulled from somewhere deep in her chest, somewhere that still bleeds from old wounds. "You are what I remember. But you are not who she is."
"I can be." The words come quickly now, slightly desperate. Barbara's hand reaches out, the one not holding the cane, fingers extended toward Diana. "I can be whoever you need me to be. We can stay here. Together. Safe. You would not have to worry about losing me again. You would not have to watch me become something you cannot recognize. We could go back. To before. To when things were simple."
There it is. The final proof.
Because Barbara has never wanted to go back. Has never suggested that before was better. She has raged against what she has become, yes. Has hated the curse, the hunger, the way her body no longer feels like her own. But she has never wanted to erase it. To pretend it never happened. To unmake the choice that unmade her.
Because the curse did not make her someone else. It revealed parts of her that were always there. The hunger for power. The willingness to pay any price for knowledge. The rage at a world that had always demanded she make herself smaller, quieter, more acceptable. The refusal to apologize for wanting more than she was supposed to want.
The real Barbara owns that. Lives with it. Refuses to pretend she is innocent. She looks at what she has done and does not flinch from it. Does not ask for absolution or understanding. She simply is, in all her monstrous complexity, and dares the world to condemn her for it.
And Diana loves her for it. For the honesty of her monstrosity. For the way she does not flinch from the truth of what she has done. For the way she makes Diana examine her own certainties, her own assumptions about good and evil and the lines between them.
"I do not want you safe," Diana says, and her voice cracks on the words. Breaks open on the truth of them. "I want you real."
The illusion wavers. Barbara's form flickers like a candle in wind, edges blurring. The cane becomes translucent. The boots lose their solidity. The careful imperfection of her bun begins to smooth itself out, to become too perfect, too arranged.
"Please," she says, and now she sounds like she is begging. Her voice has lost its careful modulation, has become desperate in a way Barbara never allows herself to be. "Don't leave me here. Don't leave me alone again. I can be better. I can be what you want. I can be—"
"You cannot be her," Diana interrupts. Her own voice is steady now, certain. This is the easiest choice she has ever made. "Because she would never ask me to choose comfort over truth."
The woman who looks like Barbara opens her mouth. Closes it. Her form flickers again, more pronounced now. Diana can see through her in places, can see the marble wall behind her where her torso should be solid and opaque.
Diana thinks of Barbara as she is now. Cheetah. Predator. Brilliant and bitter and so very alive. Barbara who challenges Diana at every turn. Who makes her argue for her positions, justify her choices, explain why she believes what she believes. Who looks at Diana and sees not the champion of truth but the woman who fails at it constantly, who lies to herself more than anyone else, who wraps herself in righteousness and calls it virtue.
Barbara who knows Diana's secrets. Who knows the ways Diana lies to herself. Who will not let her pretend to be better than she is. Who sees through every noble justification to the fear and pride and wounded vanity underneath.
Barbara who is difficult and dangerous and will never be easy to love. Who will never ask Diana to save her because she is too proud. Who will probably try to steal something from Diana tomorrow and then act offended when Diana tries to stop her. Who will make cutting remarks about Diana's methods and her allies and her stubborn refusal to see that the world is not as simple as she wants it to be.
That Barbara. The real one. Complicated and contradictory and utterly, devastatingly herself.
"I am sorry," Diana says, and she means it more deeply than she has meant anything in a long time. "But you are not her."
The illusion shatters.
The woman who looks like Barbara fragments like glass, pieces dissolving into golden light that hangs in the air for a moment before fading. The bench disappears with her, and the cushions, and the warm afternoon glow. The hallway returns to its previous state, ancient and worn and cold. The marble under Diana's feet is cracked again, marked by centuries of weather and use.
Diana stands alone, her hand still extended toward where Barbara was not. Where Barbara has never been.
The silence presses down on her. Heavy and absolute. She can hear her own breathing, too loud in this empty space. Can hear her heart beating, steady despite everything. Can hear the small creak of her armor as she lowers her hand, as she lets it fall back to her side.
Her chest aches. Her eyes burn. She has just rejected every version of Barbara that would have been easy. Safe. Uncomplicated. She has chosen difficulty. Chosen monstrosity. Chosen the version of Barbara that will never stop challenging her, will never be simple, will always be on the edge of becoming something Diana cannot reach.
And she does not regret it.
Cannot regret it.
Because loving Barbara means loving all of her. The scholar and the predator. The woman who recited Sappho from memory and the monster who kills without hesitation. The brilliant mind and the cursed body. The choices that led her here and the choices she will continue to make.
Diana cannot have the easy version. Cannot have the preserved memory. Cannot have the possibility that never was.
She can only have the truth.
And the truth is Barbara Ann Minerva as she is now. Cheetah. Complicated. Real.
Diana takes a breath. Lets it out slowly. The air is cold in her lungs, tastes of stone and age and divine attention finally beginning to lift.
Then, from somewhere far away, she hears it.
A roar. Feline and furious and so familiar Diana's heart lurches in her chest. The sound echoes through the hallways, bounces off marble walls, distorts and multiplies until it seems to come from everywhere at once.
Barbara.
Diana runs.
The temple unfolds before her, hallways branching and reconnecting in patterns that should be impossible. Escher architecture, divine geometry that makes her eyes ache if she looks too closely at the angles. She does not care. She follows the sound, follows the pull in her chest that says this way, this is right, this is her.
Another roar, closer now. And beneath it, the sound of claws on stone. The particular rhythm of Barbara's gait when she is angry, when she is hunting, when she is ready to tear apart whatever stands between her and her goal.
Diana rounds a corner and the hallway ends abruptly in a large chamber. Circular, with a domed ceiling that shows a rendering of the sky. Stars shine in constellations Diana recognizes, though they are arranged differently than they should be. Older patterns. The sky as it was millennia ago, before the stars shifted in their courses.
And there, in the center of the chamber, is Barbara.
Cheetah form. Fur matted in places, dust streaking her shoulders and flanks. Her ears are pinned back flat against her skull, her tail lashing in that particular pattern that means she is seconds away from violence. She is crouched low, examining something on the floor, and she does not look up when Diana enters.
Diana stops in the doorway.
For a moment, she simply looks.
Barbara is beautiful like this. Not in the way the world defines beauty. In the way truth is beautiful. Undeniable. Unapologetic. Every line of her speaks to what she is. Predator. Survivor. Something that refuses to be anything other than itself.
Her fur catches the light from above, patterns of gold and shadow shifting as she moves. The rosettes that mark her coat are irregular, organic, nothing like the perfect symmetry of the illusions. Her claws are extended, ready, showing signs of recent use. Scratches on the marble around her where she has been testing the walls, looking for weaknesses. Her tail moves with purpose, not the idle swishing of contentment but the focused lashing of a hunter assessing her environment.
This is Barbara. This is real.
"Barbara Ann," Diana says, and her voice comes out steadier than she expected.
Barbara's head snaps up. Her eyes lock on Diana, pupils contracting to slits in the bright light. For a moment she is perfectly still, every line of her body tense. Diana can see the muscles coiled beneath her fur, can see the way her breathing has changed, faster now, shallower.
Then she straightens slowly, her posture easing by degrees. Recognition settles into her features, and something else. Something that looks almost like relief, though Barbara would never admit to such a thing.
"There you are," Barbara says, and her voice is rough. Worn. Like she has been calling for too long, like her throat hurts from roaring into empty hallways. "I've been looking for you."
Diana cannot help it. She laughs. It comes out shaky, slightly broken, but it is genuine. "As have I."
Barbara's ears swivel forward. She tilts her head, studying Diana's face with an intensity that feels like being catalogued. Her tail stills, then starts moving again in a different pattern. Uncertain. Questioning.
"You look like you fought a god," Barbara says.
"I did."
"Did you win?"
"Yes."
Barbara huffs, a sound that might be amusement or disbelief. She straightens fully, rolls one shoulder like she is working out tension. "Well. Don't expect me to be impressed, princess. I've been stuck in this gods-forsaken maze doing the actual work of finding a way out."
Diana takes a step forward. Then another. Close enough now that she could reach out and touch her, could confirm that this is real, that Barbara is solid and present and here.
Barbara watches her approach, tail still moving in that uncertain pattern. "What?" she asks, and there is something almost wary in her voice now. "Did Apollo scramble your brain? You're looking at me weird."
"Am I?"
"Yes. You're doing that thing where you—" Barbara stops. Her eyes narrow, pupils dilating slightly as she reads Diana's face. "What happened in there?"
"Nothing," Diana says, which is not quite a lie but not quite the truth either.
Barbara's ears flatten slightly. Not aggression. Assessment. She is quiet for a long moment, just looking. Then her tail flicks once, decisive. "Liar."
Diana does not deny it. Cannot deny it, not when Barbara is looking at her like this, cataloguing every detail, every microexpression Diana is failing to hide.
"Whatever," Barbara says after a moment, but her voice has gentled fractionally. She turns, starts moving toward the doorway Diana came through. "Come on. I found what might be an exit three hallways back. Let's get out of here before Apollo decides round two sounds fun."
She pauses after a few steps, glances back over her shoulder. "You coming, Di? Or do I have to drag you?"
Diana moves to follow. As she falls into step beside Barbara, she reaches out, lets her hand brush against Barbara's shoulder. Just for a moment. Just long enough to feel the warmth of her, the realness of fur and muscle and the particular way Barbara holds tension in her body even when she is trying to appear relaxed.
Barbara's ear flicks toward her, a small acknowledgment. She does not pull away. Does not comment. Just keeps walking, her gait steady and familiar and exactly what Diana needs.
"For the record," Barbara says after a moment, voice carefully casual, "if you're about to get emotional about something, save it. I'm not in the mood."
"I was not planning to be emotional."
"Good. Because we're probably going to fight about something tomorrow anyway." Barbara's tail swishes, catches against Diana's leg briefly. "Might as well enjoy the truce while it lasts."
Diana watches the way Barbara moves ahead of her, confident now that she has a destination. Watches the particular tilt of her ears that means she is paying attention to Diana's position even while pretending not to. Watches the way her shoulders settle, the way she holds herself differently now that they are together again.
This is Barbara. Real and difficult and utterly herself.
Tomorrow they will fight. Tomorrow Barbara will probably steal something or make some choice Diana cannot condone. Tomorrow they will be on opposite sides of whatever line the world draws between hero and villain, between acceptable and monstrous.
But today, Diana chose her. Chose this complicated, impossible woman over every easier version. And she would make the same choice tomorrow, and the day after that, for as long as Barbara will let her.