The Enchanted Florist

[Carter Hall]

Gotham. Even the name was dark and sinister. To hear it conjured up images of dirty, sinister streets, with shadows prime for the illicit to lurk. For once, the pre-conception wasn't far from the truth. Built upon Gotham Island, and tethered to the mainland by only a handful of bridges, the city had expanded and swollen to the point where it was practically bursting at the seams. Tower upon tower had been crammed alongside each other; old structures torn down to make room for newer, taller ones. Save for a few precious open spaces, so much concrete and steel had taken root upon the island that it was becoming increasingly difficult to tell where one structure ended, and another began; and residents often joked that someone should join the buildings together to construct a roof that would keep out the bitter New Jersey weather.

A journalist from Metropolis once said of Gotham that it was like someone had built a nightmare out of metal and stone. After thirty years living in the city's shadow, Carter Hall was inclined to agree.

Though the city itself was quite clearly defined by the limitations of the river, it's urban influence sprawled far beyond, and various suburbs had sprung up on the other shore. Crest Hill was home to Gotham's the rich and famous, where private schools and sprawling estates were set in largely unspoiled countryside - it was almost as if the wealthy had chosen to assert themselves by indulging in the greatest commodity that Gotham lacked: space. Nearby Bristol was less wealthy, but it still managed to maintain the greenery and charm that made it such a welcome venue for those who wanted to escape the city. It was to that leafy suburb that Carter Hall had retired; and where he still lived with his adopted daughter Dinah, in the rooms above Sherwood Florists.

Of course, anyone could tell in an instant that Carter was not the sort of man who would, under normal circumstances, own a florists. He was gruff and rugged, forged in a time when men were men, and flowers were something you only bought to either tick off a courtship requisite, or to make up for some heinous marital faux pas. In fact, he was an archaeologist: he had far more interest in things that had been dead for thousands of years than he did in plants that had been plucked from the ground mere hours before. It was Dinah's mother - who was also, confusingly, called Dinah - who had opened and run the florists; as well as raising her daughter after she died, Carter had dutifully kept the shop afloat as a legacy that Dinah could one day inherit, as per her mother's wishes.

Most of the time, Carter was able to leave the store in the capable hands of his hired staff, and sequester himself in his study with his books and his artefacts. He liked the arrangement, and the modest income - combined with the royalties from his published works - was enough to keep him in reasonable comfort. However, there were times when that comfort - not to mention his peaceful, intellectual isolation - was shattered by necessity. Today was one of those days: Sandra had called in sick, leaving no one to man the till. As a result, Carter had been forced to 'man up': which explained why a slightly too small blue apron was currently tied over his usual ragged professor clothes.

A bell rang, heralding the arrival of a new customer. Carter didn't even bother trying to prevent himself from sighing: he was in far too bad a mood to waste energy on even a token effort. "Can I help you?" he asked, arms with rolled-up shirt sleeves folded across his chest.

[Dinah Hall]

There were days when Bristol was a strong contender for the most beautiful place in the country. Days like today, when the sun burned cheerfully in a clear, blue sky and lured children out to throttle down the tree-lined sidewalks on bicycles, their delighted shrieks cutting through the air and startling those citizens who had ventured into the warm air to tend their landscaped yards. There was an old world charm to the suburb that seemed to sift away the worries of modern living, filtering back to a simpler, more stalwart time; the corner market still closed at five and never opened on Sundays, sixty years after the fact.

Dinah loved it like an old, dear friend. It seemed to her that no matter how old she got, the neighborhood at least stayed as it always had been. That was something, especially when you took into consideration that only a thirty minute drive stood between the idyllic haven she had grown up in and Gotham's seedy streets.

Of course as a teenager, she had longed to live in the city. The lights! The activity! Oh, how she'd begged and thrown up every excuse in the book to try and convince her father that life would be so much more interesting if they moved. Dad had, of course, never once considered it. He'd signed her up for Taekwondoe instead.

... Which ultimately had been a pretty awesome idea.

Dinah smiled at the thought of her father. Carter Hall was an apt reflection of the block they lived on, a throwback to another age that bristled at this 'new-fangled generation' and stubbornly refused to concede to it's standards.

His dutiful (yet clearly nettled) greeting as she entered the shop felt like coming home.

"Not with that long face," Dinah replied with a cheerful laugh. She weaved around the bucket displays of Casablanca lilies and freesia, deposited her full-to-bursting messenger bag onto the counter with a heave, and then grinned up at him. Those who had known her mother often remarked how much Dinah herself took after her namesake but now, with her blonde hair swept back in a graceful chignon and a mischievous twinkle illuminating her warm brown eyes, the resemblance was striking.

"Dad," Dinah swung the camera around her neck off to the side, then stood on tiptoe to kiss Carter's cheek. "I have wonderful news."

[Carter Hall]

No matter how miserable his mood, Dinah always managed to soften it. She reminded him of her mother, yes, but any joy that stemmed from that train of thought usually turned bittersweet as he contemplated the loss of Dinah's parents, his dear friends. Her radiant aura of infectious happiness stemmed from something else that Carter couldn't quite define; it was like the eyes of Horus shone out of her, and filled every room she entered with sunlight.

There was more to it as well: more than just happiness lurking in the dusty corners of his mind. Though both he and she knew that he was not her father - she was as misappropriated to him as this shop; this life; this time - there was nothing in five thousand years of endless reincarnation that filled him with greater pride than when the word 'Dad' tumbled from her lips, and there was no one in as long for whom he held greater affection; save for his béloved Chay-Ara, of course.

Folding his arms across his chest, he fought to keep a smile from his face, and preseve his grizzled and miserable mask. "Wonderful news?" he quipped, with a hint of a growl in his voice. "I didn't realise they published anything that wasn't cynical and depressing in the Gazette."

[Dinah Hall]

"Can we help it if Gotham is a hive of scum and villainy?" Though she had once entertained the notion of becoming an archaeologist like Carter, the tug of journalism had been too strong to ignore and Dinah had gone on to graduate top of her class in university.

Of course, out in the real world her visions of becoming a famous reporter had been artlessly dashed. The newspaper business was cutthroat and she could scarcely get her editor to look past her sweetly innocent face and take her seriously. Three years later and she was still struggling for a byline that didn't involve library read-a-thons or the scandalous culinary crimes in Shady Acres Retirement Home.

It did have some perks, though.

Dinah dug through her bag and pulled out an 8x10 portrait of a beaming, tender-faced woman in a purple blouse. She held it up.

"Her name is Ann Calloway. She teaches ancient history at Gotham Central, loves water polo, Irish folk music and old movies. Her house was recently broken into, so she's feeling vulnerable, and," Dinah paused and once more delved into her bag, coming back out with a plastic-wrapped lemon square. "She bakes."

Carter suddenly found his mouth being stalked by the sugar-dusted pastry. "Come on, Dad, try it."

[Carter Hall]

Carter's eyes narrowed, ever so slightly. This was far from the first time that his daughter had tried to set him up with someone new. Lately in fact, it seemed like every time she walked through those doors, she came bearing a new tale of yet another of Gotham's lonely hearts, ripe for plucking by the solitary old man that had raised her.

He appreciated the gesture, but the situation was far more complicated than Dinah knew. As far as she was concerned, he was just a widower whose wife had died before Dinah was born, and who for some reason wouldn't allow himself to find anyone new. He hadn't explained that he was part of a reincarnation Romeo and Juliet story; that he was first born five thousand years ago, and that the wife he'd lost was the same woman he'd loved in at least a dozen past lives. He hadn't explained that the reason he couldn't bring himself to love another woman was because he knew, when he died, he'd be reborn and meet his true love, his soulmate, yet again. After five millennia, you developed a fair bit of patience as far as romance was concerned.

But that wasn't a conversation he'd ever had with his daughter. He didn't know where to begin, and it would raise too many awkward questions: about Dinah's parents, too. And while Dinah may have been old enough to hear about who her parents really were, Carter didn't feel that he was old enough to tell her. Nor would he ever be. Never in a million years.

He battled those thoughts aside, and managed to hide them all with a slight quirk of his eyebrow. "You met a vulnerable, lonely woman," he probed, his hand gently easing Dinah's cake-laiden fingers away from his face, "And you bullied her into giving you cake?"

[Dinah Hall]

"Look at this face," Dinah pointed at her face with her free hand, an ebullient glow overtaking her delicate features. "This is a face that naturally procures baked goods. Besides," she shrugged. "Once I told her about you, it was all I could do to escape with just the one lemon bar."

He was trying to avoid the subject. He always did. For reasons that Dinah didn't understand, her father seemed stubbornly determined to live out the rest of his days as a solo party. Oh, he had friends and colleagues of course but it wasn't the same thing as the love of a good woman. For a while she had hoped that her getting a job at the Gotham Gazette - which demanded a daily commute into the heart of the city - would prompt him to explore his options. And yet, he remained loyal to his old ways. It was such a pity; underneath his gruff exterior, Carter Hall was a softie and a gentleman. He was an excellent catch for any woman.

"I wish you'd just test the waters," Dinah sighed and hopped up to sit on the counter. "It's not like anyone's expecting you to make a commitment or anything; just go for a meal or a see a movie. You've still got a heartbeat, Dad, and, you know," she waved a hand in the air. "... needs."

[Carter Hall]

A hand darted out and snatched the waving cake from Dinah's fingers, to stop it flailing around and shedding crumbs and sugar across his meticulously cleaned floor. A grunt escaped him as he lifted it carefully towards his lips. "You know I hate movies," he muttered, focussing on her suggestion rather than the potentially awkward innuendo that he had no desire to discuss with his daughter. "Too many historical inaccuracies."

Finally surrendering to Dinah's insistance - in the vain hope that this small concession in his part would compel her to give him a break and quit being so godsdamn pushy - he took an experimental bite of the pastry. He had to admit, as misappropriated confectionary went, it wasn't half bad. He allowed himself a brief moment to muse Dinah's insistance; wondered if perhaps she was right. Her mother had never bought the whole reincarnation story, and had even been successful in arm-twisting him into several dates back in their crime fighting days. It was thanks to her persuasion that he'd even managed to meet this reincarnation's version of Chay-Ara.

The moment passed. Back then he'd surrendered to it because Dinah had convinced him it would increase his chances of finding her. But in this life, his béloved had been and gone. While he didn't doubt that there was somewhere out there who he could bring himself to love, such affection would be fleeting; his love for Chay-Ara was eternal.

"I am happy, you know," he protested gently. "You don't need to try and find a replacement for yourself: I can cope on my own."

[Dinah Hall]

Her face softened, guilt at being caught out seeping into the corners of her eyes.

"I know you can," Dinah said softly, reaching out to fix his fastidiously pressed collar. "But that doesn't mean that you have to."

A moment of tender silence fell between them, cut with the scent of mock orange and the soft sound of shortbread crust and lemon custard being enjoyed. She wondered, sometimes, if Carter's reluctance to delve into the world of dating didn't have something to do with her mother. After all, he'd been under no obligation to have anything to do with the orphaned Dinah and yet he'd taken it upon himself to raise her, provide her with a sense of home and family. It was a spectacular gesture of friendship; had there perhaps been more there? Did he feel that he owed some sort of loyalty to the memory of Dinah Drake?

The quiet was interrupted by the rapid click of a shutter. Dinah lowered her camera, pleased with the unstaged shot of Carter with a powdered-sugar mustache that had been captured. Sometimes it was easier to see things through a lens.

"I'm always going to worry about you," Dinah said, adjusting the setting on the digital and snapping another photo. "It's my job."

[Carter Hall]

Carter froze, his eyebrow climbing slightly as his gaze settled on the camera in Dinah's hands. He'd witnessed the advent of irrigation, engineering, metalworking - the wheel, even - over his many lifetimes, but in these last few he'd come face to face with so much technology that it left him absolutely baffled. In the Old West he'd barely come to grips with the premise behind proper photographs - a painting made in seconds? madness! - and now he found himself captured by tiny metal gizmos and what-nots filled with lightning.

Everything nowadays was digital, or computerised, or did things automatically when you didn't necessarily want them to or tell them to. The only technology that Carter liked was the kind where you could see and understand what it was doing; where you could fix it with a hammer if you knew the right place to hit.

"What's this?" he asked, carefully. "This woman of yours asked for photographic evidence that I actually ate and enjoyed the thing? Or are you just doing a feature on food consumption in Gotham's suburbs?"

[Dinah Hall]

Dinah used his distraction to capture another still, Carter's face frozen in gruff acquiesence. "Photo story, actually. A day in the life of a celibate, misanthropic florist."

Trying to get her father to pose for a photo was like trying to convince a child to trade lollipops for broccoli salad. He wasn't one for such sentimentalities (although he certainly kept more than a few snapshots of the people he loved) and the few occasions he'd been connived into it had resulted in what Dinah fondly thought of as his Geeky Third Grader smile; stiff, uncertain, and bearing little resemblance to the man himself.

No, the only way to get an accurate picture was to steal it. She preferred them anyway, the unstaged portrayals that resulted. Half-formed smiles and loose limbs and closed eyes; each was beautiful in it's technical imperfection, real.

"I think you ought to take me out to lunch," Dinah declared suddenly, setting her camera aside. "We haven't been in ages and it's so gorgeous - we'll get something to go and eat outside, make an occasion of it."

[Carter Hall]

Despite Dinah's shift in topic, and the charming smile she threw in his direction, Carter wouldn't permit himself to be so easily swayed. "That's Professor misanthropic florist, thank you very much," he muttered back. The mock insult wasn't hard to fake: though he liked to cling on to the concept that he was still an archaeologist, he barely got to practice his craft anymore. At one time, he'd been a leading Professor in Archaeology and Egyptology, lecturing at Gotham University to hundreds of students each year. Budget cuts had swept through the establishment however, and with a greater emphasis on the future than the past in modern education, his role had been downsized so drastically that he barely managed to teach more than a few basic classes to history majors anymore; something he was extremely bitter about.

He cast his eyes around the florists, searching for some excuse to avoid leaving his sanctum. He wasn't averse to his daughter's company by any means, and he usually avoided working in the shop with extreme resourcefulness, but the cake assault had left him slightly wary, and printed a faint question mark in his usually unlimited trust in Dinah. His eyes narrowed, probing into hers in search of some clue that she had some untoward scheme in mind; he wouldn't put it past her to have this Ann Calloway woman lying in wait a few blocks away, ready to ambush him for some sort of twisted blind date.

Perhaps his vision was clouded by the belief that the sweet nad innocent little girl he still saw whenever he looked at Dinah could never, ever lie to him, but no matter how hard he looked, he saw no trace of secrecy in her eyes.

He heaved out a sigh. "Fine," he grunted, taking a few short steps to a coat-stand that looked decidedly out of place tucked away in the florist's corner, and swapping his apron for a battered brown fedora. "But no trying to set me up with the waitress," he added, holding up a warning finger. "No matter how 'cute' a couple you think we'd make."

[Dinah Hall]

Dinah pulled an exaggerated face as she spryly hopped down from the table. "You're no fun in your old age."

His reluctance to venture away from routine for anything that wasn't related to his passion for the ancient worlds of peoples past was something that Dinah had learned to count on from an early age. Otherwise implacably set in his ways, Carter Hall had one weakness that never failed to wrench him away from the norm and that weakness came in the shape of a petite, firecracker blonde reporter. He could no more deny her requests now than he could when she'd been five and sported a pair of doe-eyes that softened even the hardest of hearts.

In return, Dinah thought it only fair that she use this power for good, not evil. She only pulled the maneuver in order to make Dad think he was doing something for her sake, instead of his own. It was a well-honed system.

"Let me just run up and make sure Sekhmet has food in her dish," Dinah said in a lilting tone of cheerfulness. The cat was a pretty little thing but she demanded the proper respect and didn't tolerate being neglected by her human counterparts in the slightest. "I'll meet you outside - oh, and the dahlias in the window planters are wilting again."

[Carter Hall]

The dahlias in the window -

One of the reasons that Carter so loathed pulling shifts in the store was the fact that he didn't have a damned clue what a dahlia, or a pointsettia, or a lisianthus, or any of the other stupidly-named plants was called. To him, most of them sounded like minor characters right out of the pages of Greek Mythology, and while he could make a few educated guesses when it came to roses, lillies, and tulips, he was about as far as you could get from botanical expertise.

The only silver lining came from an equally knowledgeless guy wandered in, and he was able to connect with the customer on the intellectual level of "Yeah, those look nice."

Grabbing a half-empty - Dinah would have called it half-full, probably - watering can from behind the counter, he bustled towards the window boxes, hoping to deduce the flowers in question by a simple process of elimination. He proded a slightly droopy-looking purple explosion (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/cf/AURORASKISS.jpg/664px-AURORASKISS.jpg) of petals aplenty, but second-guessed himself and just watered the whole container. He had no idea whether that would actually work or not; but come tomorrow one of the proper employees would be back, and they could sort the damned thing out.

He turned, just in time to see a streak of lion-coloured fur racing across the shop floor towards the half-open door. He leapt forward, leg shooting out in a surprisingly high and spry kick that slammed the portal home before Sekhmet had a chance to escape. The cat came to a halt, and glared up at him with angry eyes. Carter had proposed they name the feline Bastet, after the reverent and revered goddess of protection, but Dinah had instead insisted they name it after the Egyptian spirit of vengeance: and Sekhmet had certainly learned to live up to her name.

Carter folded his arms defiantly across his chest, and glared back at the infuriating creature. "Not likely," he scolded, his foot offering a helpful push to direct the cat back towards their appartment upstairs. "Away with you."

[Dinah Hall]

Within seconds a muffled exclamation and thumping sounded from upstairs. Dinah appeared at the landing of the shop's back stairs that led to the apartment above, a look of grim panic splashed across her face. She'd changed into a canary yellow floral shift dress and the expression clashed violently with the easy sweetness of the attire.

"Oh thank goodness, you caught her," Dinah's shoulders slumped in relief as she hopped down the last few steps and scooped Sekhmet into her arms. The cat was quite a hefty beast and seemed to only just tolerate the containment, eyes radiating an ancient hostility and tail twitching in short, sharp waves. "Silly old girl, what did you think you were doing, hmm? I must have left the door ajar and she slipped out. Good reflexes, Dad, Ms. Jordan would have a fit if her Marjorie got attacked again."

The rivalry between the Hall's cat and the neighbor poodle was old Ms. Jordan's favourite excuse to shuffle out of her dusty duplex and rant endlessly about the unapologetically malicious intentions that Carter and Dinah held toward her 'dear, sweet Marjie'. The fact that Marjorie was a dishevelled, nasty little creature who had bitten several children and treated the world as her personal enemy upon which to inflict as much pain as possible never seemed to register with the old lady. Her flower shop tirades were infamous and lately she had begun to demand that "that carnivorous beast" be sent away.

"Come on, sweet thing," Dinah cooed, dodging a well-aimed strike from Sekhmet's clawed paw as she guided her toward the stairs. "Does Thai sound okay to you? There's a new little place just opened up, Marty Anders reviewed it this week. He said it's fantastic."

[Carter Hall]

Carter had no idea who Marty Anders was, though given Dinah's mentioning of him, he was probably some employee or other at the Gazette. Carter had tried time and again to soldier through the paper - he bought every issue, and had kept every single article that Dinah had ever written - but in truth he couldn't stand the predominant style of sensationalist reporting. Or worse, speculative reporting. You'd turn on the radio nowadays, and there'd be some breaking story that "The Mayor of Gotham is expected to announce -" or "Wayne Enterprises will hold a press conference tomorrow, revealing their latest -" and it frustrated Carter no end.

He did know what Thai was however, and he wrinked his nose slightly at the prospect. Thankfully, the orient wasn't one of the regions that Carter could remember having been reincarnated in the past. Perhaps he had been, but had starved to death before achieving anything memorable in his life, out of utter distain for the local cuisine.

Of course, if he said as much, Dinah would only chastise him for being unadventurous, and it would only strengthen her resolve to the point where he'd be force-fed noodles until they started leaking out of his pores. Instead, he played the eccentric old man card. "Cooked food for lunch?" he said, warily. "I don't think so, Dinah. It isn't even Sunday."