Short story to explore Garrett's life after Erin's death. AU, for obvious reasons. If you dislike Erin, this is the story for you! ^^

~ I ~

Blue. It was both chaos and peace. For Garrett, it was the best color in the world. Everything beautiful seemed to be some hue of the pigment. Too bad blue didn't exist in The City.

Well, it did, but nowhere easily noticed. When he was small, he remembered it as the glinting gem on his mother's wedding ring. It danced and sparkled in the lamplight as she moved about the house. When he was orphaned and alone, he discovered it on the delicate petals of the Poppy flower. Then the poppies wilted and faded away, hiding in only the safest places, away from him. He forgot about blue after that. Out of sight, out of mind proved so true.

And with each day of smog and tyranny, the City grew darker and darker. Blue was scarce.

"That's why thieving is so great," Garrett mused quietly to himself as his fingers deftly moved to lift the door of a hidden safe behind a painting. The caged bird behind him cooed softly, and he paused to look at the picture. It was of a raging ocean, swallowing up tiny, ant-like ships. He hated it. "They didn't even get the color right." Oceans were blue…this was…grey.

With the door open and inviting, he reached his hand in to retrieve the prize: One of the mortal coils. And what good fortune!- The jewels adorning the golden serpent's head were sapphires. Without any intention of selling this delectable piece, Garrett quite contentedly closed the safe to bring an end to his work day.

…

At the same time that the Master Thief began his shadowy trek back to his Tower, a woman in rich fabrics torn to rags limped through the undercrofts of a barren chapel. She was cold and tired, and smelled of soot. Her hands were cracked and covered in dirt and blood. Her approach to the graveyard church did not go unnoticed, and the Queen and her court came to meet the dying being.

Whispers about her wafted and curled around the crowd.

Poor girl…

Why is she here?

The woman crumpled to her scraped knees before the Queen of Beggars. "Please…"

The Queen's age-old eyes fell in pity for her, and she extended a hand. "You must be hungry, my dear." She pointed a bony, jewel-adorned finger to a boy. "Fetch us some water and bread. We have a guest in our Court tonight."

…

Garrett awoke with a start. Though his body wasn't quite fully awake, his mind dusted its gears and began reeling with questions of his surroundings. The air felt thick around him with a sour, sickly smell about it. A light rolling sound stayed constant in his ears. The ground beneath him moved and jerked unnaturally. His body ached.

A wagon? He turned to his stomach and steeled himself against bile that suddenly threatened to escape his throat. His gut lurched within him as the sound of voices close by assaulted his ears. He was attuned to hearing much better than the average citizen, but this was that sensitivity magnified tenfold; and it hurt.

The next 20 minutes were a blur. He was almost thrown from the wagon, then chased down an abnormally wet and grimy alleyway. The roofs extended their shadowy limbs to him, but the resulting difficulty he had in climbing left him angry and exhausted. As he caught his breath, he thanked the moon for the extra pudge on the guards' stomachs.

Somehow he had found time to snatch up a finely made piece from the nearest jewelers before realizing at some point he had made it to the base of the Clock Tower. Garrett sighed in near agony as the ache throughout his body pounded through him with each climbing grab up the tower's side.

He had expected to find his home just as he left it before he somehow blacked out. The subsequent arrow that flew by his face, grazing the dark cloth of his hood left him equally shocked and disappointed. All the man wanted to do was lie down. Is that so much to ask?

Garrett froze in place and scanned the cavernous rafters for the intruder. When his eyes found pale blue ones shining towards him from a far off beam, he mumbled audibly to ask himself if he was dreaming this.

"If you truly did dream your way up and through the window, I'll go meet the Baron himself and proclaim him a true king." A woman's voice slathered the words across the wooden boards from her hiding place with a dangerously roguish undertone. If Garrett didn't feel like he had just woken from a coma, he might find himself a bit intimidated. He scoffed angrily and crossed his arms in impatience. The woman was so obviously toying. Did she have any idea of who she was dealing with? His death should have come quickly by any other hand, but the mere fact that he was still standing in the foyer meant one of two things to him; she was either extremely foolish, or extremely dangerous. Either one made his head hurt.

But waiting games were his specialty, and he could play all day. Garrett ever so slowly lifted a foot to step backwards towards the window. Toes paused against the flooring, but when nothing happened he continued steadily to sit on the window ledge. That was better. Standing still after running across the rooftops proved more difficult as time passed, and he welcomed the break from supporting himself with his weakened legs.

The woman's voice sounded off again, interrupting his quiet anguish and burning holes through his ear drums. "Interesting to meet a thief that doesn't run when he is caught."

He couldn't help the reflexive rolling of his eyes. Damn, if this woman wasn't as dreary as a pauper's widow. This interrogation was the most passive-aggressive he had ever experienced, but something about it bristled the back of his neck. The woman was being serious. Though her remarks had been sarcastic enough, the tone was still honest. She truly must have thought he didn't live here. Was it that unbelievable for her that a furnished clock tower might already have an owner? He tried clearing his throat. A gag almost pushed past his tongue as the feeling of dusting off cobwebs fell down his dry throat. But it felt better after a few swallows.

"I live here, woman." He thought it might have come out a bit less…aggravated than it did. Truthfully, Garrett was aiming to be at least as passive-aggressively sarcastic as she had been. Though it seemed to garner the same response.

"Get. Out."

This time, she made Garrett chuckle. His shoulders shook a bit in amusement. But when the urge to continue laughing at her subsided, he realized just how irked he was about the situation. The Clock Tower was compromised (by a nuisance, no less), any memory of before he awoke on the wagon was completely nonexistent, and to top it all off, the City smelled like a pile of vomit and shit. Naturally, he decided on the most logical solution.

Find that bastard, Basso, and interrogate him. Yes, that was it. If anyone knew what happened to the Master Thief, it would be him. In fact, the likelihood of the situation being his fault was incredibly high. He might even have a file or two on this dense creature inhabiting his home.

Rising to his feet with more difficulty than anticipated, he addressed her with a raspy voice. "I'm leaving. When I get back, you better not be here."