Dribbler, W4, picks up dribble and starts to pass.
Ball slips from her hands when she tries to hold up and bounces 4' away from her.
She's the first one to the ball and bats the ball to the floor with one hand and recovers the ball.
Now what?
Can she do anything else other than watch the ball right in front of her?

mick

Sounds like a fumble to me. No reason she can't go get it
but her dribble is done. If she started a passing motion
(undefined but you know it when you see it) then we have
a different story.

Yeah, she can pass (for real), shoot or even hold the ball until the end of the quarter or a five second closely guarded call, whichever comes first.

I had a game last year where a player held the ball in the frontcourt out near the division line with over 4 minutes to go in the half (why - is a long story). The other coach kept yelling at me about how long he could stay out there and do that. I really couldn't answer him until after the quarter was over.

When I told him the rule as the halftime began - that if he wanted to stop the guy he'd have to send a player out of his zone to guard him, his reply was, "That's a horsesh** rule."

I T'd him just for fun partly because he said it loud enough for fans to hear him, and partly because my foot hurt and I was in a cranky mood.

He was a sad camper.

Fine so far...dribble has ended.
She <em>may</em> have just violated with an illegal (double) dribble. I say <em>may</em> because the bat could be an attempt to gain control or it may be a controlled bat and thus a new dribble. The would be a judgement that could only be made if I were the official on the floor.
Any player can always pick up a loose ball. Even if she had started the passing motion, as someone else said, she could still get the ball. A fumble is a fumble...the ball was accidently dropped/released from her grasp. The rule doesn't make any distinction on what was being attempted at the time of the fumble.