Title: The Other Side of the River Styx
Author: Yami no Kaiba
Fandom: DC Comics
Rating: PG
Character: Stephanie

Summary: She may be dead, but that doesn’t stop her.
Disclaimers: DC Comics owns the original characters.
Note: Inspired by katarik, who said, "I think Steph is in Heaven throwing things at people going 'NO! DIDN'T I TEACH YOU BETTER THAN THAT?!?' or she's in Gotham doing her ghostly best to protect everyone."

*---*---*---*---*

When Steph first regained consciousness, she'd been disoriented for quite a few days... Of course, that was merely because she'd thought she was still alive.

But she's *better* now. She's not surprised when she says things and people above the age of four don't hear her, or when she goes to pick things up or turn things over and her hands pass right through those objects. She's not surprised anymore in the least, merely frustrated that she can't *do* things as simply as she could before.

When she thinks about it, it's most likely a fair tradeoff for the ability to fly and pass through walls in some big, cosmic balance thing she's a part off but doesn't really see.

Though it's not like she's *completely* useless. There are the kids, after all. While she was never good with kids when she was alive -- babysitting experiences gone wrong more often then not -- she's gotten better at helping the kids. Like that one boy that was lost and being trailed by that guy Steph had latter learned was a convicted pedophile out on parole. She'd told the boy to run, but more importantly *where* to run in the jumble that was Gotham's downtown streets.

She talks to the kids in the playgrounds, and she coaxes them to tell the adults about the drug-dealers that are sitting without a care in the world right on the park benches among them.

But her favorite self-appointed task of all is when she helps the kids that remind her of Tim -- in the way that they're completely ignored by their parents -- by being there for them, to listen to their problems and give them advice.

And when the kids she helps get curious enough to actually ask her what who she is, she smiles at them knowingly. Radiating pride and joy, she just waves to her uniform and asks, "Who do you think?"

--Fin.