.Tears.

Chapter 1: A Beginning Always Follows an End

All of Gotham City had felt it. In fact, most of Gotham had seen it. The explosion. The giant mushroom cloud that was supposed to mean freedom and safety, but all she felt, since she had let herself feel something, was a crippling sadness. Her chest felt tight and her stomach knotted as the cheer erupted from the city around her. She wanted to vomit and they all wanted to celebrate. Didn't they understand what just happened?

But she didn't have time to curse the idiot Gothamites or contemplate it any further. She had done what she owed him and she needed to get the hell out of Gotham before she got elected the next hero.

She allowed herself to laugh at that notion. She could never be a hero. There was nothing in it for her. After all, what did he get? He got to go die for the city that only a few weeks ago was still calling him a murderer and a criminal. Only a couple days ago, they were still hunting him down.

She shook herself and climbed onto the only thing she had to remember him by. She started up the Batpod, smiling to herself at the machine's name. Batpod. It wasn't just a motorcycle. Just like Batman wasn't just a random person in a mask. She knew he was so much more than a crazy man running around in a costume. It took a special kind of person to sacrifice so much for a city that simultaneously hated your presence and absence all in one breath. A special person to defend the city that took everything from him, including his family.

She'd been disgusted with Gotham City for most of her life anyway, so what she was feeling currently was terribly familiar. She made a turn down an alley on the motorcycle; she didn't want to be seen. Life was difficult as it was for cat burglar, and now it was daylight and cops were everywhere. She needed to get to a computer. There was the business of the Clean Slate that she needed to get to.

Her apartment felt like a thousand miles from where she was as she sped through the back alleyways and dark corners of Gotham. She didn't live in the best of neighborhoods, but Gotham wasn't the best of cities anyway.

She pulled up behind her building, or rather, what was left of her building. People had been looting and pillaging since the prison had been opened up and she silently hoped what she needed was still safely tucked away in her room.

Despite the fact that the Gotham police had been freed from the tunnels, she didn't want to leave the Batpod out for everyone to look at. But where could she hide it? It was too massive to just throw a blanket over. She decided to pull it into the lobby of her walk-up. This building would be scheduled for demolition in a couple of months anyway.

Her heels clicked and echoed as she walked on the razor sharp heels of her boots. Climbing the four flights effortlessly she reached her apartment door and realizing that she had no key to enter. Good thing she was used to breaking and entering. Seconds later she was standing in the small apartment's kitchen, searching for something, anything to quench the ferocious thirst that she immediately felt.

Holly was gone as she pulled off her mask. She probably would never see her blond friend again. That idea saddened her, but it wasn't anything compared to the other loss. She couldn't wallow though. She had things to get to.

She made her way to the back corner of her room and didn't seem to notice that something was off. She found the hidden computer from under a trapdoor and began to boot it up as she walked back to the sitting room.

She screamed when she walked back in.

"Selina," a gruff voice breathed. He was holding his ribcage and he was as bruised and broken-looking as she could ever imagine. She wanted to reach out and kiss him. Hold him. Comfort him. And punch him, just to make sure he was real. But she didn't get the chance, he fell out of his seated position. Exhaustion had won over.

A/N: okay, this is my first Dark Knight fic, so please let me know what you think. I don't generally write chapters this short, so expect more next time. I just wanted to get a taste of this out before work.

Thanks!