This is a little something I came up with a few nights ago when I couldn't sleep at two in the morning. (So beware, it might be a bit rocky in parts) This is the first time I've tried to do Batman fanfiction, and I hope I got everything right.

I'm a bit surprised no one else has done something like this yet, but oh well. Maybe someone has and I just haven't seen it... This might turn into a drabble series about Gordon's death from different perspectives if I get enough positive feedback.

I saw The Dark Knight and I absolutely LOVE IT!! Just PM me if you want to talk about it, because I could talk about that movie 24/7 and never get tired of discussing it!!

I don't own Batman OR The Dark Knight. Though I wish I did. :o)

The Pain of Loss

I remembered when the cops told my mom the news; that my father –Commissioner Gordon- was dead. I didn't have to try to feel mom's world crash around her. The man she loved, the man she married, one of the bravest, greatest, inspiring men in Gotham City was gone. Dead. Never coming back. Ever.

Dad was a cop –an idealist. So in a way, I guess we should feel lucky he lived THIS long without being killed. It was so hard to believe, so shocking, I couldn't even begin to wrap my mind around it. Couldn't imagine not waiting up for dad to come home –exhausted- late at night (and sometimes early morning), only to see him leave early the next morning. It was too hard of an idea to even think about, to just understand at the bare minimum.

All of a sudden, a wave of uncontrollable pity and sorrow for Bruce Wayne coursed through me. How could someone even bear to watch your parents be shot, right before your own eyes? Especially when you're only a kid. It was sickening, how cruel the world could be to some people.

I guess I always knew the world could be cruel, but it only fully sunk in now; and even then it was hard to believe.

I couldn't bring myself to listen to the tale the cops told of how dad died. Something about saving Harvey Dent, I think. That's not fair; Harvey Dent doesn't have a family to come back to; doesn't have a son and daughter to come home to. To love with all his heart, like mine did. I knew it was selfish, but I didn't really care.

Because even if dad wasn't around as much as mom would like him to be, I know he loves me. But maybe that's why dad saved Harvey Dent's life. Not because he was a good man, but so he could have an opportunity to have a wife and kids of his own. More time to save Gotham. The White Knight, as many of our neighbors called him.

I've just now managed to re-focus my eyes again, and the first thing I saw was him. The masked hero the police were after; the Batman. It was hard to read his expression, as half of it was covered in a mask. I noticed vaguely that he had brown eyes.

Dad had called Batman the Dark Knight once. It made sense; Gotham's White Knight –Harvey Dent- the one who the public trusted without a doubt. Gotham's people would jump off the edge of a high cliff if Harvey Dent said Heaven was at the bottom. Gotham's Dark Knight –Batman- was unpredictable It didn't help that the media and more than half of the cops were after him. He wasn't nearly as trusted as Harvey Dent was, unintentionally making him the Dark Knight of Gotham City.

The next thing I saw was mom, sobbing hysterically as the pair of cops vainly attempted to comfort her. It didn't help at all- if only, it made it worse.

I knew I wasn't supposed to be up this late, but I almost always stayed up and waited for dad to come home. Even if he comes home at three or four in the morning some nights. Sometimes mom catches me awake in my bed, and usually she lets me stay up with her, even on a school night. We wait together for dad to come home- back home to us.

Once my teacher made us write a paragraph or two about what I want to be when I grow up, I told her I wanted to be a cop- just like my dad. He's a good man, and wanted to make a difference in the world, just like me. And he did. Dad saved the life of one of the most important people in Gotham City's today. He helped make the police department uncorrupt –at least the ones under his control.

I blinked, and Batman was gone. I looked around me, hoping he was somewhere else around here. He wasn't. It was strange –up until now, I had only felt fully protected, safe, whenever dad was with me. Now I felt safe whenever Batman was around me too.

Now the man I looked up to in so many ways, the kind of man I wanted to be, the father that I love without a doubt, was gone forever, and wasn't coming back. I shook my head, hoping I'd wake up and this would all be a bad dream, and mom and dad would come in and tell me it'd be ok. But deep down in my heart, I knew that would never be able to happen.

--

I couldn't sleep that night. Not just because of the normal creakiness of the cold house (I was used to that), but because of the hysterical, grieving sobs of mom- which were still loud even with my door and her door shut. Taking a deep breath to (hopefully) control myself, I climbed out of my bed and tiptoed into mom and dad's bedroom.

Cracking open the door, I saw mom lying at the foot of her bed, sobbing and weeping over a picture frame that shook in her pale hands. I was still unable to feel anything- the cold numbness surrounded me, and I shivered, crossing my arms in hopes of warming them up. Deep down, I knew they wouldn't. Not anytime soon.

The floorboards creaked as I moved towards her, and somehow she heard me through her laments over her husband. My father. Mom looked at me through her tear-streaked face, and the picture fell from her grasp, falling to the floor with a crash. I moved towards it, and I saw it was a picture of mom and dad on their wedding day.

Something inside me broke when I saw that picture, and silent tears fell down my face in waves as I stared, unmoving, unthinking, at it. Mom saw this, and pulled me into a fierce hug. After a pause, I hugged her back tightly, not wanted to ever let go, to let the moment end. Never, ever, ever.

Mom pulled me onto her lap, where we just sat on the bed together, silently thinking about the same person we both loved and needed. We needed each other, and I knew we needed to be a family now more than ever. The word 'family' brought my thoughts to my sister, and I wondered vaguely where she was, before I remembered she was still asleep when they told us. Let her have one more night of sleep knowing dad was still alive.

In this hug, embrace, I realized that mom really believed dad was really, truly, utterly, dead. That's when it finally sunk in; the cold feeling of numbness went away, to allow the horrid, strong pain to come into my body, to envelop my mind with the unbelieveable pain of loss.

I began to shake uncontrollably in mom's warm arms as more tears ran down my face. Mom only gripped me tighter, which I was grateful for. I'd never get to see my dad again. I buried my face where her neck and shoulders connected as seizure after seizure of pain struck me. I cried until mom's nightgown was soaked through, and some more as the relentless pain of dad's death went through my body; from the hair on my head to the very edges of my ragged toenails, not missing a beat, no matter how much I wanted it to.

Mom and I stayed like this for countless hours as I tried to accept the fact dad was dead, and I'd never get to see him walk through our front door again, no matter how long I waited.

--

"That impossible anger strangling the grief, until the memory of your loved one is just... poison in your veins. And one day, you catch yourself wishing the person you loved had never existed, so you'd be spared your pain."