A boy by the name of Jason Todd moved from Gotham City to live in a small town where he attended the high school.

While attending the school, he met a girl by the name of Aili. She was quiet and shy around strangers. He figured out that this was so she wouldn't give anyone the wrong impression of her personality. But around people she knew, she was always laughing and making remarks to make her friends smile.

Jason wasn't usually quiet around people. He was observant and didn't speak as to not interrupt his "studies". But, when he did talk, he spoke his mind, no matter how much it hurt.

How much it hurt them. The people he was talking to. Jason never hurt. Or at least, he never showed it.

Anyways, it seemed that around this Aili, he seemed to shut up. In a quiet sort of way. Not that he didn't observe her. He did. But not up close. It was as if, he couldn't quite bring himself to get close to her, emotionally or physically.

One Wednesday, though, that all changed.

Jason was walking down the hall of the third floor after school had ended in order to get to his locker. He was a freshman after all, so that's where his locker was.

He noticed that Aili was at her locker.

She was packing her blue messenger bag with all of her homework. He watched as she took out two textbooks from her little top row locker. He noted that she was stronger than she appeared.

That was more than most of the freshman girls could even think about, he thought.

She bent down and slid one book into her bag, and put the other carefully on the floor. He noticed a slight change in the look in her eyes.

She straightened and her gaze flickered over to glance at him.

He quickly looked the floor.

Crap!

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her watch him for a split second more, then look back to her locker.

He peeked at her quickly again, then moved to his locker.

Once there, he crouched (his locker was on the bottom row, unlike her's), and opened his locker. He slung his backpack down from his shoulders and opened it. As he switched out his books, he remembered noticing Aili's shoulders a week or so ago. They were both a painful red. He thought that it must have been her bag.

She was definitely stronger than she looked if she didn't constantly talk about the pain that bag must bring her.

He heard footsteps and suspected that they belonged to her. He quickly peeped up and confirmed his suspicions.

Unfortunately, when he looked up, a couple of his books and folders slipped from his grasp and scattered papers all over the floor. He bit his lip to avoid cursing in front of her.

She straightened up when she noticed his predicament and quickly moved to set down her bag and then help to gather up his papers. He looked at her for but a second then began collecting the papers too.

Slowly, they moved closer to each other as they gathered until they reached for the same paper and their hands touched.

Aili quickly drew back her hand and made work straightening her stack of papers.

Jason watched her and did the same after retrieving the last paper.

"Careful," Aili murmured quietly. "That's how you lost your papers last time."

Jason blushed, then silently cursed himself for doing so.

Aili looked up at him from the papers and smiled.

This caused him to freeze completely.

She grinned. "Hey, I'm Aili. Your name's Jason, right?"

He nodded and forced out a, "Yeah."

She laughed lightly. "I heard you were new here, right?"

He nodded again.

"How do you like the school?"

"It's alright," he said. "I came here from New York, so it's definitely less action. Which isn't bad, just… different…"

Aili nodded back. "Yeah, it's a boring town here. Sometimes, I wish I could… get out. But then I think of my family… and I know that I have to stay… at least for now."

"Yeah," Jason said. "I know the feeling."

Aili looked behind him. "Is that your dad?"

Jason looked back to find that she was looking at the picture of himself and Bruce. "In a way." He looked back to her.

She raised an eyebrow.

"I'm adopted," He explained.

Both of her eyebrows went up. "Really? But you two look so alike!"

Jason smirked. "I dyed my hair."

She looked closely at it. "Again, really?"

He nodded. "Yep."

"Wow," She said.

"Have you ever dyed your hair?" He asked. In his head, he cursed himself, thinking it was a stupid question.

But she responded thoughtfully, as if the topic mattered to her. "I've thought about it," she admitted. "I would like to bleach some of my hair in the front–" – she collected a part of her hair to show him – "–but… nah…"

He cocked his head to a side as he slowly started packing up again. 'Why not?"

She slid beside him so her back was against the locker next to his. "My friends love the color of my hair. They might get a bit upset if I just bleached the color away."

"Don't take this the wrong way," he said, for once actually caring how she took what he was saying, "but what's so special about the color of your hair?"

Again, she collected parts of her hair to show him. "I have some red… some black… some blonde… mostly brown… and a grey strand or two."

He looked over at her and raised an eyebrow. "You have grey already?"

She nodded. "I think it's from stress. School is basically my life now so getting good grades mean a lot."

He nodded back. "Bruce would think that I was sick if I started thinking like that."

"Is that Bruce?" Aili pointed at the picture.

Jason nodded.

Aili stared at it for a while. "It looks like he cares a lot about you. Now, I'm only saying this from the look of the picture, but…" she trailed off.

Jason shrugged and looked back to his back. "I guess…"

Aili turned her body to completely face him. "Are you okay?"

He shrugged again.

"You don't have to tell me anything, but I'm here if you need someone to listen," she said.

"We just met," Jason pointed out.

"I know, but I'm used to people just… pouring out everything onto me…" She whispered and turned so her back was against the locker again.

He looked back at her. "Even after you just met someone?"

"It's happened twice so far…" she said quietly. "We started talking and… they just told me… everything."

"Hm," Jason mumbled.

Aili shrugged. "It's nothing special."

"But it is," Jason said.

The corner of her mouth twitched. "Not really. They just needed to vent. And I was there. It would have happened to anyone else."

"I don't think it would," he said. "I get this feeling when I'm near you… so right now… that I can just… I don't know… I feel like I can trust you with everything. Like I could tell you anything and you would just sit there and listen and not judge me or jump to conclusions or anything."

She snickered bitterly. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," he said. "Honestly."

She looked over at him. "I feel the same about you."

He gave her a look that called her crazy. "What?"

"Well, I've already told you a lot, haven't I?" She asked.

"Not that much," he said.

"You didn't tell me that much either," she pointed out. "But you told me enough."

"Enough for what?" he asked.

"I know more about you than you think," she said quietly.

"Tell me," he said.

"Please don't get mad," she said worriedly.

"I won't,"

"Promise?"

"I promise."

"Well… as you told me, Bruce adopted you. But, from the way you talk about him, you seem to doubt his love for you. You must miss your real parents or one parent in particular. You could tell for sure that they loved you. But you can't always tell the same with Bruce, so you don't feel accepted as much. Something else that could add to that nagging feeling of neglect might have been something that happened with your real parents or if Bruce had another child. If he did, you probably feel like you don't live up to them. From the background of the picture, the fact that he has no wedding band, and that it's merely the two of you, I believe that he is unmarried and wealthy so, he could afford to have housed another child." Aili said.

Jason stared at her.

"Was I really that off?" She asked self-consciously.

"No…" he said as if he'd just come out of a trance. "Spot on."

Her eyes widened. "Are you mad?"

He felt a slight pang of anger in his heart, but quickly identified it as anger at himself for making it obvious.

"It wasn't obvious to me, if you're wondering that," she said quickly. "You really didn't tell me that much. I just… have had a lot of practice, I guess you could say."

His anger was quickly replaced by admiration. He'd never known anyone to deduce anything like that that fast. Sure, Bruce could figure out most problems pretty fast, but those were impersonal riddles. This was… someone starting to figure him out.

"I'm not mad," he said.

"Really?"

He smiled gently. "Really, really."

She smiled back softly. "Can you figure me out?"

"Hmmm…" he looked at her, remembering what she'd told him previously. "Well, first of all, you get stressed out by school, as you told me. So, in order to get grey hair this fast, you must get stressed pretty easy. You deduced all that about me pretty fast and you said that you had practice and that people found you trusting. So, you must be the listener in your friend group, which must add to the stress. Being the listener, you probably have all of your problems figured out, or – the more likely option – you are trying to avoid something."

She bit her lip and stared at him, unblinking.

"Trust me, I'm the same as you, you didn't make it obvious, I've just had a lot of practice with figuring out things."

She brought her arm to her mouth and bit down on her wrist.

"Hey, hey, what's up?" he asked, gently placing a hand on her arm.

"Sorry," she said, bringing her arm down for a second. "I tend to do that when I'm upset to avoid showing too much emotion…"

His eyebrows pulled together in worry. "What's wrong? What did I say?"

"Everything right," she said with a slight smile.

"I'm sorry," he said.

She shook her head. "Don't worry, I'm fine."

He raised an eyebrow.

She lowered her arm. "Really. I'm okay."

"I've said that too much with that expression to believe you when you say it," Jason said.

Aili snickered bitterly and bit her lip.

"Come here," he said gently and pulled her closer to give her a hug.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and held her against him. She tentatively hugged him back, slinging her arms around his shoulders and resting her chin on his shoulder. He felt his heart beat faster the second her arms went around his neck. The fact that her cheek was now ever so slightly touching the side of his head made him have to focus on trying to seem normal. What was going on with him lately? Why was his body doing this?

"I'm really okay," she said.

"I really don't believe you," he said back, knowing in his heart that something was really very wrong in her heart and promising himself that he would help her in any way he could.

He pulled back from her reluctantly. "Do you have a phone?"

She nodded.

"Here, put your number into mine," he handed her his phone.

She nodded and did as he said.

After a second, she handed back his phone.

They both stood.

"Aili Sorge…" he said, staring at her for a second. "I just met you. I trust you with my life."

"And I, you," she said.

They both nodded and walked out of the school together.