Leaving Gothom City had been one of the hardest decisions either one of us had ever made. The city had molded us, torn us to pieces and built us back up again. It held so many terrible memories and so many awful ones - it seemed to hold the pen of our lives and wrote our stories in such different, unique ways. The city that had once held so much life and passion had been destroyed by too many evil men, but somewhere along the way, it found it's place in the world once again and rose despite the odds. But suddenly, three of it's inhabitants had realized that a chapter had finally ended and another begged to be written, blank pages awaiting them full of bright future, heartache, loss, additions and plenty of angst, as always. But in the end, there always seemed to be a happily ever after just waiting, as long as you are willing to keep on keeping on and wait to be rescued from cliffhangers.

Chapter One

It seemed like the days in Florence were always welcomed with bright sunshine and smiling people, walking the streets of town mindlessly. The city was full of so much light and creativity, such a difference from the city we had come from less than a year before. Gone were the days that I woke up with dread, wondering if Bruce was going to make it through another night of being a caped vigilante or if I was going to be kidnapped from a gangster with a knack for holding grudges. As usual, I woke up to my favorite sight - Bruce had woken up earlier in the morning, as per usual. Dick loved waking him up early, claiming he was taking Alfred's job, and Bruce enjoyed helping the little guy start his morning routine that he copied from Bruce, of course. His delighted face when he did his first handstand and managed a push-up was worth waking up at 5am every single morning of my life, but seeing Bruce laughing along with him was even better.

Bruce was buttoning up a navy blue shirt when I finally sat up, back muscles flexing under the tight back brace that he absolutely abhorred wearing. During our year here, he had lost some muscle and weight from the pain and had started pushing himself to be back into shape. Part of me knew it was probably just him being...a male. But the other part of me couldn't help but worry that he was still living in Gothom in his mind, some days. As if he was still preparing to go out and fight criminals every night instead of laying in bed with me, being a simple, average father and husband. He stood in front of the mirror, putting cufflinks on and smiling at my image in the mirror. "Good morning, sweetheart."

"Morning. Where's Dick?" I inquired before finally getting out of bed, running a hand through the rat's nest on top of my head that used to look like smooth, blonde curls. "Eating his body weight in pancakes in the kitchen, I think." He stretched his back slightly, just barely giving me a glimpse of a grimace before hiding it and striding over to me while I looked in the closet (which was probably larger than my whole bedroom in my old apartment building, before Bruce) and kissed my neck, attempting to make his way to my mouth before I pushed his head away playfully.

"Morning breath."

"I don't care." But before he could manage to plant a kiss, Dick was running into the bedroom and interrupting, which was becoming a pretty regular occurrence as of late.

"I meant you had morning breath." I teased. "Gross."

He ran in between us and broke us away with a tongue sticking out, giggling towards us and bouncing onto the messy bed. Bruce had another bad night, which was actually a pretty rare thing nowadays. As soon as we made the move to Florence, his nightmares started gradually improving until he was only having one or two a week, a far cry from one every single night. But his bad nights wreaked havoc on the bed-spread. If only his back and knee pain would've improved like the nightmares did, we would have it made. Dick had quite obviously dressed himself that morning, lean frame clad in a pair of bright red sweatpants and his always-present orange hoodie that I despised so much. No matter how much dirt that boy managed to get on it or how much I tried to dull the color, every time it came out of the wash, it seemed to get brighter and brighter.

"Honey, go change -"

"But Sarah-"

"No buts, go change. Time for school, buddy." Bruce cut in before he argued even more - the kid was a good debater, I'd give him that. I wasn't known for being the stern parent, either, so he knew that as long as Bruce didn't interfere (and he always did, when needed.) he would get his way with me. Even though he lost the battle, he skipped happily out of the room and less than 5 seconds later, Bruce was crossing the large space in big steps and shutting the door, strutting back to me eagerly and wrapping his arms around my shoulders with his firm but gentle grip, kissing me breathless. I laughed when he finally broke away, keeping a hold on him for as long as I had time for. He was expected at a meeting for an overseas Wayne Enterprise thing in less than 2 hours and it was almost an hour and a half drive without traffic, and Italy was no respecter of deadlines. But still, I couldn't refuse a few extra moments with him before we had to work for most of the day. I cherished the time alone more than anything. When it's just the two of us, like this, wrapped up in each other with my head buried into his shoulder and his arms around my own. It was a simple pleasure that we had to go without during our courting period but I was most certainly taking advantage now. Deep down, I knew that we wouldn't have to go back to that life ever again and we'd never have to fear so badly again, but some days, I felt like I had to hug both of my men a little tighter (even though the much younger and smaller one hated it.) and count my blessings. I knew exactly how lucky I had gotten when I had met Bruce..Batman..and I wasn't planning on forgetting that anytime soon.

"We've gotta get going, Sarah." He propped his chin on my head with a sigh, moving an arm behind me, checking his watch I knew. One of his only things left from his father - the cufflinks had been his, as well. The watch was almost always on his wrist, taken such good care of you would've sworn it was priceless and not just an average, half-way decent watch. But I knew it was worth millions in Bruce's eyes and one day, it would be passed down to the next generation of Wayne's. Dick had already made joking claims for it. On days that he had earlier meetings, during Dick's school time, I typically went with him. He claimed it was helpful, having an extra eye there to look over paperwork and contracts, but I suspected that it was more along the line of him being bored to death without me, just in the company of his ever-so-rude employers here in Italy. All of them were either such workaholics to be friends with or so rude that you didn't want to be in their company for a second longer than necessary, and I knew it annoyed the life out of all of them when Mr. Wayne toted his wife into the meetings.

I dressed quickly, slipping on a black dress, flats and a jacket. Fall mornings in Italy were almost always an enjoyable temperature, but they kept the inside of Wayne Enterprises freezing cold. Before long, we sent Dick off to school and headed to work ourselves.

One of the only cars Bruce brought to Italy was his black Lamborghini, along with my Honda Accord (which he despised, but a Lambo isn't exactly a family friendly car.) sooner rather than later, I expected a mini van would be joining the family. Change like that was inevitable, especially when a certain billionaire had decided that he wanted more children. Whether we had our own or adopted again, we wouldn't always be able to fit our brood into my car. The only time we drove the Lambo was for trips like these, and I always enjoyed the time spent driving in it, even if was just to and from work. It was just small enough where I could reach him easily and twine our arms together while he drove.

"This meeting is about a new pay cut - Fox called me earlier this morning to get me posted on what to expect." He said, pulling out of the driveway. The small neighborhood had been friendly enough, the young boys falling in love with Bruce and his exotic cars and the teenaged girls falling in love with his tailored suits and interesting accent. (A Gothomite accent wasn't exactly a familiar one in Florence, making him seem so rich and debonair, according to the girls.) I spied one of the girls just then as we left the flat, peeking out of her white lacy window with her face cupped in her palm, a dreamy expression in her eyes. "Oh, Mrs. Wayne, how lucky you are to have such a...fine husband!" She had giggled to me when we were moving in, Bruce moving in boxes behind us. Of course, I couldn't help but agree. Fine indeed.

"Mm, being the bearer of bad news. Your favorite thing." I winked at him as he cringed, playful grin on his face. "Most definitely, I just love hearing my employee's complain about their pay getting slashed...again. I've got to do something to fix this. We can't afford the research we need to be doing with so many employee's being paid so much. The only option is to cut some of their checks but that may end up making us lose employee's, which we obviously don't want, either. I'm afraid I may have to start firing some people. Well, Fox gets to do that now." He corrected himself. Years of being the boss over all things Wayne Enterprises was hard to walk away from, I knew. It was strange for him, relying on someone else to run the business completely. Now, he was just the co-CEO of sorts, with more responsibility here and there, and less responsibility in other places. It was a weird situation, but it worked for him and Lucius, so I didn't fuss over the logistics of it. It was difficult for him to remember that he wasn't the boss over everything anymore. My only concern was that he and Lucius will have a falling out eventually, harming what they had going.

"I know you don't want to fire people, but sometimes, that's what has to happen. Wayne Enterprises is helping people, but they need to do more research on this new project of yours in order to go a step further. You just have to decide if it's worth it or not."

"But is harming people by firing them worth it? I can't help but feel like I'm being a bit of a hypocrite, here. I'm hurting people all for the sake of helping people. How does that make sense?" He sighed, running a hand through his carefully gelled hair and ruining it before locking his hands back on the steering wheel, turning sharply onto the road towards the Italian Wayne Enterprises building. It wasn't much different than Gothom in this part of the city, just without the overwhelming crime. Every time I walked into the building, built so much like the original, it felt like we were coming home again.

But Gothom, I suppose, wasn't really home...not anymore. If home is where the heart is, I knew precisely where home was.

My heart was in Florence Italy, torn into two pieces - one residing currently at a small school in the city, not far from here, and one sitting right next to me in a Lamborghini. And as long as they were near me, I knew I would never have any regrets leaving Gothom City.