Epilogue: Maternal Confinement

When she was a cub reporter, Lois Lane had visited a mental ward. It had been clean, well-lit, and the attendants had been burly and polite. She had watched them practice putting the straitjackets on. Watched them **** a biting, kicking woman onto a bed, strap her down, get the shot into her. Held her down long past the point where she had ceased to fight and begun to drool, because they had the scars for when the violent ones had tricked them.

That had been her occasional nightmare for a few years. Waking up tied to a bed. Able to thrash about, but unable to escape. The reporter could well understand how those places were a last resort, for those truly too dangerous to be out on their own. A danger to themselves and others.

She never thought she would be there herself.

Lois could see them, when they came to visit. The caped and cowled figures of the heroes. Checking on Lois and her roommate. There were times at night Lois would talk to Raven, even though the young woman couldn't hear her. Hadn't waken up since that night out. Which was a blessing, when Lois thought about it.

The attendants might as well have been deaf. They changed her catheter and took out her bedpan. At least once a day a woman would come with a sponge and wipe Lois Lane down, careful to keep her hand away from the reporter's mouth and fingers. Lois had tried begging, had avoided threats or ranting, only asked to see her friends...her family...her lawyer, her doctor, anyone...but the woman said nothing, not even when she ran a wet **** swab in between the reporter's legs, or fixed the tape that tied the catheter in place. When she was done, she would rise and go over to where Raven lay, unmoving, unspeaking, and do the same thing to her.

In eight hours, as far as Lois could judge, food would arrive. Baby food. Spooned into her mouth one dollop at a time. They had to feed Raven with a hose. Flipped her over twice a day to keep her from getting bedsores. Lois watched, hungry for any stimulation, any interaction.

Without anything to read, to watch, to listen to, in her head Lois imagined about what she would do to that woman when she was free. Sometimes they were bloody dreams, but more often than not they were sexual. Her cunny ached, **** for stimulation, but there was nothing except the catheter in her urethra, the pan underneath to catch her shit...and Lois had begun to hold on, not wanting to smell that all day long as she waited for the nurse.

She lost track of days quickly. It had to be days passing, because the feeding and changing continued. Because...because Raven's stomach was growing.

Just like Lois Lane's own.

The reporter wasn't sure when it had started. Just that one day, she had a suspicion, and the more she looked at it the more certain she had become that their flat little tummies weren't so flat anymore, and it didn't look like fat, although Lois knew it would be easy to get fat, if they just kept getting fed and no exercise at all...

It was in the night, when it happened. At least Lois assumed it was night. The light never stopped burning, but Lois would close her eyes and turn her head and try to sleep, and once when she slept she opened her eyes and there she was. A familiar face. Red hair spilling out of the cowl. Moving a little stiffly, because her ribs had to still be mending. Standing over Raven, watching her sleep.

"Batgirl," Lois croaked, her voice thick.

The caped crusader turned...and the look of pity on her face shook Lois Lane to the core.

"What..." Lois paused. She half-imagined that she was dreaming. A part of her dared hope that this was a rescue, but a more cynical part of her knew it wasn't. One look at the face said that. There was no hope in the young woman's drawn features at all.

"Maternal confinement," Batgirl said. "Dr. Fate said it's for the best."

Lois tugged ineffectually at her bonds, tried to twist her body to look at Batgirl, not caring about the catheter.

"Why?" the reporter managed.

Batgirl fished something out of her utility belt. Light flashed from the surface, and Lois recognized it was a small hand-mirror, circular, no more than two inches in diameter. She leaned forward and angled it...

...and for the first time in six weeks, Lois Lane saw the horns jutting from her brow, the dark red color of her skin like fresh blood on parchment, and her eyes were solid violet with no pupil or iris...

"But...after I...we...give birth...?" Lois asked.

"Dr. Fate," she said. "Doesn't think that's...a good idea."

Lois sagged in her bonds. Like a pronouncement of ****...or worse, life.

"You can't...abort?" She asked.

"We tried," Batgirl said sadly, and turned her head, revealing the ugly half-healed scars on her neck. They looked like teeth marks.

The cape swished as Batgirl left...and Lois Lane found she couldn't cry anymore.