Episode CXXXVII - A Mother's Love

Sarah stared.  This was not how she had been led to believe things would play out.  Doctor Barkham was a monster, devoid of love, who had locked her daughter away in a frozen laboratory after using her in her experiments.  She was harsh, cold, callous, with not a shred of compassion.  And most of all, whatever happened, the Countess of Skullbridge did not cry.

And yet there she was, tears dampening her cheeks, eyes shimmering, her mouth an 'o' of shock frame by lips which quivered gently like forest leaves on a still day, barely noticable and yet devastating.

"Diana," she said, her voice even more choked than before, "Oh, Diana, my daughter."

Diana seemed frozen to the spot and as Sarah stood behind her she could not see what expression this scene was bringing to her face, but her fists remained clenched and drops of blood spilled between her twisted fingers.

No one moved.

"I didn't expect this," Rosetta continued, "I expected someone, but I never thought it could be you..."

Sarah felt her heart going out to this woman she did not know and she foudn herself re-evaluating everything she had learned about her.  Could she had mis-understood?  Were there perhaps good reasons for all that Doctor Barkham had been doing?  It was difficult to reconcile and yet, how much did she really know about the situation?  She was only going by the words of others and thought she had trusted Dimsun, had she ever really been sure of Frostfire?  And what of Diana?  Had her mind been clouded by bitterness?  Did her mother deserve another chance.

Rosetta's tears continued, but neither mother nor daughter moved towards the other and the silence was stretching out.  Suddenly Sarah felt there was something wrong about it, like she had misjudged the situation even more badly than she had feared.  Rosetta closed her eyes, clenched her own hands tight at her sides and then, when she next spoke, her voice had grown hard and sharp.

"You're supposed to be dead," she said, "I locked you away so that you would never be able to do this to me again."

Her eyes flicked open and there was a fire there now, a rage so strong it almost seemed to steam away the tears, leaving behind all that Sarah had been warned about.  She took an involuntary step back, but the door to the caivty had closed behind her and she found herself walking into the wall.

"You're a monster," Doctor Barkham continued, "an aberration which I should never have let live.  I was too compassionate, too weak..."

"You made me this way," Diana said through what sounded like gritted teeth, "you turned me into this!"

"My experiments only revealed the true monstrosity that was always inside, child.” She seemed to spit the word out.  “You were never like me, never destined for greatness.  You were always weak-hearted, pathetic, like your father.  But I suppose he got the last laugh, didn't he?  He left me to look upon you every day of my life and remember it all.  You're a daemon, a wretched fragment of a dream-turned-nightmare.  I should have named you Incubus, hell-child, fiend!"

Diana moved faster than Sarah could have  believed possible.  One second she was standing, almost statue-like in her frozen personification of angst; the next: she was a lightning-strike, a blur of lines and vicious angles, an arrow in human form shot straight toward the living target of her mother.

This is it, Sarah just had time to think, Rosetta's going to die and I had nothing to do with-

Something changed.  There was a noise like glass shattering and then Diana went flying backwards, screaming with rage, to hit the wall behind them.  There was a sickening crunch and Dian landed in an awkward heap by the hidden door.

"Foolish girl!" Rosetta laughed, though her voice was still rough from crying, "Did you really think I would be undefended here, in my own fortress?"

Diana groaned.  "Hypo...statick witch...craft."

"Call it whatever you like, you won't get past it.  No, your little show has achieved nothing, save only to alert my guards that you’re up here.  They should arrive in the next few minutes and then I'll have them put you out the nearest airlock without a diving suit.  I'm not taking any chances this time.  No mercy.  No mercy any longer."

"I can't believe I'm hearing this," Sarah said, suddenly unable to take any more, "she's your daughter, your flesh and blood.  Haven't you got even the tiniest shred of compassion for her?"

Doctor Barkham's cold eyes flicked away from the crumped form of Diana and locked onto Sarah's.

"Oh, you have no idea what I have suffered to get me here, child.  No idea!  Do you think it's easy being a woman in a world governed by men?  Men who think that Philosophy is their toy, one that no one lese can play with?  Do you have any idea how difficult it is to be taken seriously?  And then, when you think you have been, when you think you've been accepted..."  She cut off, looking away for just a second, as if ashamed her eyes would betray her, but then she flicked them back and they seemed harder than ever.  Sarah could feel them burning into her, reading her like some sort of science experiment.  "No," she continued, "I can see you haven't, so don't you dare judge me."

"I don't have to had your life to see that you're a monster,” Sarah replied, “that you've made the wrong choices, however you felt you were forced into them at the time.  Diana is your daughter, look at her!  You made her like this and now you leave her to suffer worse than you could ever have experienced.  You say she’s nothing like you, but I disagree.  She's just like you: determined, strong, and now overlooked, forgotten, vengeful - and that was all your doing.  You're putting your daughter through hell, and why?  Because you can't stand a few memories?  You can't cope with your own emotions?  Perhaps you're not as strong as you think you are!"

Rosetta Barkham seemed to be boiling with rage now and in doing so the similarity to her daughter seemed only more obvious.  She took a step forwards, raising her hands aggressively as she did so and was about to say something else when the windows imploded and the whole building was rocked by what sounded like an explosion.

Sarah staggered backwards and Doctor Barkham tumbled to the side, steadying herself at the last minute with her desk.  Her expression had changed completely.  The rage seemed to have vanished and in its place was something else, a calculating look, eyes filled with the cogs and wheels of plans, and behind them all, a touch of fear.

“It’s happening already,” she said and turned to stare out the window at the plume of smoke rising from the direction of the barricade, “he’s attacking and we’re not ready.”

Sarah came a little closer so that she too could see through the now glassless windows.  She made it just in time to see a second explosion rip through the barricade, and through the smoke and chaos she could see a gap forming, guards rushing to defend it, hypostatick energy in many forms fizzing to and fro and leaving many dead on the ground before they had been able to do anything.

“I do believe we’re going to lose,” Rosetta said, turning away from the carnage , to face Sarah once more, “which makes things suddenly much more interesting for both of us.”

“And why would that be?”

“You’re going to help me get out of here alive.”

Sarah very nearly had to do a double-take.  Was this woman mad?  Why would she think that Sarah, of all people, would be willing to risk her life to save someone like Doctor Barkham?

“I… I’m sorry?” she asked, trying not to laugh, bitter though it was.

“You heard me.  You’re going to use your Slayer powers – don’t deny you have them – to get us to my submersible and out of this city before it burns to ash.”

“And why, on Earth would I do that?”

“So you are Earth,” Rosetta replied with a wry smile, “I guessed that bit right, which makes it all the more certain.  You’re going to get me out of here for two reasons.  The first is that I’m the only person who can banish Lakhma from Shadow and the second,” she smiled again and suddenly it made Sarah feel sick just to look at her, perhaps because she had some idea what was about to be said, “the second is because I can help you find Ellis and send you both home.”

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