All of the excitement Diana had felt just minutes ago had been drained from her, as she feared now how her meeting with her mother might go. This was not at all how she had pictured things. She hesitated at the gate watching her mother from behind, noting every graceful movement and how every word and action was an outward sign of the true goodness within her. She remembered growing up wanting so much to be just like her Queen and mother. She still did...

It seemed that no one took notice of her as she approached, but when she came within feet of where Queen Hippolyte sat, her mother spoke:

"I knew you were here, daughter. I felt your presence the moment you set foot on the island." She turned to face Diana. "And of course, when you summoned the flying device..." She smiled serenely and motioned for her eldest child to sit at her side.

"Mother..." The princess fell to her knees before her mother, burying her face in the folds of her lap and began to sob.

The Queen, overcome with emotion herself, bent forward and laid her head upon Diana's. She whispered:

"It's good to have you home."

*****

Nothing more was said over the next couple of days as Diana readjusted herself to the slower pace of life on the island and resumed some of the duties she had performed before going away. By the end of the week it was almost as if she had never gone. But there was an underlying current of tension that Diana had never experienced before when dealing with her family. The little contact she had with Dru was very strained and awkward and the fear that things would never again be the same tore Diana up inside. Her mother acted as usual toward her, obviously very happy that she was home, but Diana knew there was something in every conversation that was purposely left unsaid.

Were they perhaps waiting for her to speak first? What did they want her to say... that she was going to leave behind her life in Los Angeles forever and give up her destiny? Until they had experienced what she had, they would never understand the moral obligation she felt to eventually return. This was just a short visit and could be nothing else...

But even as the words rolled through her head, she knew it would be hard to speak them. The hurt she had seen in Drusilla's eyes and the feeling she had that something was being held from her, made it almost impossible. But yet it had to be said at some point.

Diana thought back to the time when the Nazi soldiers had discovered Paradise Island and they all had once again been stripped of their dignity and submitted to the cruelty of man. Queen Hippolyte had been willing to sacrifice herself as she stood at gunpoint, for the rest of her people. It had been at that moment that Diana had felt the bond between her and her mother grow even stronger. She had thought that her mother finally understood that what she had been doing involved so much more than was originally assumed. Wonder Woman was protecting her people as well as the outside world from savages such as the Nazis. Just because they were defeated and the war ended did not mean that there would be an end to suffering and violence, violence that could at any time reach again the borders of this other world no one knew existed. It had happened before and it could happen again.

Diana shuddered at her own thoughts. The thought of something destroying this beauty, harming her family...

The Queen had always called her stubborn and once said that her strength of will would one day become her greatest asset. At the time of her uttering those words, it was never imagined how true they would be. Who had known that she, of all the Amazonians, or any other race for that matter, would be entrusted with such a responsibility? The secret she held was such a burden to her sometimes, especially when dealing with those she felt close to in the other world. The end result, though, so far outweighed the cross she bore.

Diana walked along the marbled corridor that led to her chamber. For maybe the first time in her life, she was faced with a problem she had no easy way out of...