Suprise? Yeah I'm alive and this isn't finished! It WILL be, just give Terry a chance. Works never done for a Prince of Gotham.

Second Born, Heir Presumptive

If someone asked her, causally, what her name was, Helena's reply would have been 'Helena Kyle' – short and simple. But every time she did, her heart would clench and miss a beat and the shadow of guilt would pass over her. Because Helena Kyle wasn't her name; not her full real name at least.

Her name was Helena Martha-Ann Kyle Wayne.

Once, a long time ago, she had a brief stint as the so coveted Wayne Heir. It was after Damian had chosen to walk out of her father's life, possibly for the final time. It was after her and her mother's strained relationship had come to the point where her mother had left her on her father's door step and disappeared. She wasn't sure what had been running through her father's head, the day he opened his front door to find his estranged scowling daughter glaring up at him through black sodden hair. Maybe it was the frustration of finally having gotten rid of one child only to turn around and find another waiting to be taken care of. Maybe it was relief, that chance to have a normal sort of relationship with a rather normal child.

Either way, years later the idea of the words normal and Helena Wayne being put in the same sentence would send those who knew her into hysteria laughter and Helena into a bone-shattering ill-tempered fit.

As a child, Helena's two main problems had – and would always remain – her ill-controlled vicious temper and her normality – or perhaps her echoing lack of it. As a child she hated the idea being normal, wished feverishly that she was a little more strange, a little more like her numerous 'brothers' because maybe then her parents might actually understand her a bit better. As an adult, the concept of her being normal would almost make her bare bitter fangs and crack her heart a little more.

Oh the foolishness of children.

Helena had known Damian – not very well, but she had known him and their relationship, while uneasy, was better than most of their relationships with other people, respective parents included. Maybe that was why he was the only one she had ever told and the only one who'd ever understand what had really happened to her and its impact on her life.

Helena had been spliced, once, when she was slap bang in the middle of her self-centred teenage years. It was long before the process of spicing had been refined and the medical aspects approved. It had been...crude, and brutal. She hadn't wanted it. Her kidnappers, street level experimenters, hadn't cared.

She still couldn't look herself in the mirror sometimes. Before – oh the irony – before she'd always thought Bruce Wayne had looked down on her, his average plain daughter, but now...now... Now she was sure that when he looked at her, all he saw was a monster.

Her life as Bat had ended before it had even begun. Her relationship with her father hadn't become frosty; it was the arctic tundra. And she was left alone to try and deal with the consequence of a decision that wasn't hers.

She couldn't have blood transfusions.

She couldn't donate or receive organs.

She could never become a mother.

Like with her older brother, her side of the Wayne line was undoubtedly going to end with her. Motherhood, in her teenage years, wasn't something she thoughts much about – those thoughts were for her older twenties. To have that ripped away at such a young age had been agonizing. She had never considered children and now the option had been taken from her.

Bitter was one word to describe her relationship with her father. She was angry at him because when he looked at her, she felt (rationally or otherwise) like he was looking at her as a monster. He only saw a complete disappointment. When she was with him, she could never forget what had happened and it left her in bitter pain. Bruce never seemed to have words for her when they did talk, always projecting the presence of disappointment at her. Of her. Or himself.

Most parents would be proud that their child opened their own successful business; Bruce would never forgive her from walking away from the now Wayne-Powers Enterprise.

She didn't care. She told herself every day that she didn't care. And for a few years it seemed to work. She lived in the same city, but it may as well have been Mars as far as she and her father were concerned.

Until that damned blue eyed brat came wondering into her bar, with his charming innocent smile. Then Helena knew she couldn't keep running away.

Barbara had fought her father over Batman dozens of times, Helena wasn't stupid enough to think she could ever stop Terry – god only knows that her father had failed to stop her or Damian from doing whatever took their fancy when they wanted at that age. Which had lead to their resentful states. That didn't mean she didn't wake up in the middle of the night, from brutal nightmares of what Batman would bring to Terry, of how Gotham would scar this child too. She knew how dark Gotham could be, how ruthless she was to her children. When, in a damp bed, she'd rub the scars on her arms and brush the tears away, she knew that – heir apparent or otherwise – she wasn't going to let Terry stand on his own.

She wasn't going to let this child cry himself to sleep if her life depended on it. Besides, she had always made a terrible heir presumptive anyway; she hated pretending to be someone she wasn't. Terry seemed to be all too good at it.

What do you think?