Wayne Manor had more rooms than Dick could keep track of. No matter how many afternoons he spent wandering the mansion's labyrinthine halls and peeking into its exquisitely furnished chambers, each sojourn uncovered some unknown space. He hadn't had much time to explore since he'd started school, but with winter break here there would be plenty of lonesome hours to fill while Bruce was working and Alfred was occupied with household tasks. Maybe, he'd thought as he set out after lunch, he would even find something that could make him feel like it was Christmas despite his parents' absence.

So far the best thing he'd discovered was a new third-floor guest room, a pale green tableau that looked ready to be moved into at a moment's notice. It had been pretty, but it wasn't enough to put him in the holiday spirit. That was no surprise, since not even Alfred's professional-grade holiday decorating skills had proven capable of banishing his lingering Yuletide ghosts. He searched on, though, and eventually came across a short side hallway at the back of the house's second floor. Three doors opened off of it, which he checked one at a time. The first disclosed a petite bathroom decorated in pink, black, and white; pretty again, but still not enough. The second opened into an empty closet, which did nothing for him at all. Closing them both, he turned to the final portal.

He had saved this one for last on purpose. If any room had a chance of brightening his outlook it had to be the one behind the fairy tale double doors that filled the end of the corridor. Each of the solid cherry frames was inset with a stained glass masterpiece depicting a nearly life-sized trumpeter dressed in medieval style. The pair faced one another, their horns raised high to create a tunnel. The narrow, curving bands of metal that supported each colored chip had been gilded silver. They glowed gently in the hall light, lending the musicians an ethereal air that made Dick almost believe that they might spring to life and announce his arrival with a brassy fanfare.

A silver handle, cool to the touch, let him past the glass guardians. "Wow…" he murmured when the grand space beyond them came into view. Dark hardwood floors led the eye to distant banks of floor-to-ceiling windows, through which the low mid-winter sun was streaming. Creamy yellow walls stretched up to a vaulted ceiling whose open beams matched the material underfoot. A few dustcloth-covered chairs sat in a tight conversational group before a broad flagstone fireplace. Beyond them were an array of stands and hard, odd-shaped instrument cases. The room itself was shaped like a pentagon, and Dick swiftly realized that he was inside one of the corner towers that made Wayne Manor look like a castle.

Gleaming on the far side of the space was a grand piano that ought to have been in a concert hall. It was clearly the centerpiece of the room, and as soon as Dick spotted it everything else faded from view. There was nothing about it save its ability to make music to mark it as kin to the battered old upright owned by Pop Haly, but it took him back to the circus nonetheless. He let his hand hover above the perfectly polished body, wanting to get as close as he could without smudging it. The cover was down over the keys, but there was just enough of a lip for him to avoid leaving prints when he pushed it back. Holding his breath, he stretched one finger towards the nearest pale button.

Then he hesitated. This was a very expensive piano, and probably an old one, too. Pop Haly had told him about old-timey people using ivory to make things like piano keys; what if an elephant had died so that this instrument could play? Pop had assured him that the circus' piano didn't contain any animal parts, but there was every reason to believe that this one might. Frowning, he pulled his hand back. There was enough room between the tapestried bench and the piano itself for him to sit without touching anything that could have once belonged to an elephant, so he slid in to consider his problem. He wanted nothing to do with real ivory unless it was still attached to the creature that had grown it, but the longer he stayed here the louder the keys called out to him.

Pop Haly had no formal training, and both his profession and his personal preferences inclined him towards circus music, but Dick carried many fond memories of evenings spent at his side learning simple little ditties and scores for the show's various acts. He'd been missing so many other things about his old life that those lessons under the big top had slipped his mind until now. Had there been instruments anywhere else in the house it might have been a different story; as things were, though, all of his musical recollections and yearnings were rushing back at once.

His mother had encouraged him to join Pop Haly at the piano as often as he could. Her flute had been one of the few things Mary carried when she ran away from college to marry Dick's father, and she had frequently expressed her joy at the fact that her son had inherited her love of music. So many times he had hopped down from the bench, his fingers aching in a way the trapeze bars couldn't reproduce, only to find her watching him from nearby. Surely she would have wanted him to keep practicing what he'd learned from Pop, especially if he could do so in a room like this one.

The idea of strengthening that old connection with his mother was just powerful enough to override his dismay at the potential origin of the keys before him. "Sorry, elephants," he whispered as he stroked the off-white array, "but this is really important."

He shivered at the clear, perfect note that rang out when he pressed down with one finger. It was a far purer sound than any that the circus instrument had ever produced in his hearing, and it seemed to carry on forever in the otherwise silent room. A tiny smile spread across Dick's face as he pushed a second key, then a third. Soon he was playing the short, easy pieces that he'd learned long ago. Some were recognizable as scraps of lullabies and children's melodies, while others were bits of old Romani caravan airs that Pop Haly had converted for the piano through trial and error. All of them were beautiful to the boy's ears, even when he hit the occasional wrong note.

So absorbed was he in his melodic reveries that he didn't notice when the trumpeters at the door swung aside to let someone else enter. He didn't hear the soft footsteps that carried the new arrival across the floor and up behind him, either. It was only when a voice spoke above his head at the end of a song that he finally realized he wasn't alone. "How did you get in here, chum?"

"Bruce!" Tearing his hands off of the piano, he whipped around with a guilty expression. "I'm sorry. Should I not be in here? What time is it, anyway?" There was still light in the sky outside, which meant it was well before when Bruce usually arrived home from work. "Are you home early?"

"Whoa, kiddo, relax. One question at a time. But first," Bruce added, "scoot over so I can sit down."

Dick did as he'd been told. As soon as the billionaire was seated beside him a torrent of explanation poured forth from his lips. "I didn't mean to snoop or anything, honest. It's just that I like to wander around and look at all the places I've never seen before. There's so many of them, you know, because your house is so huge. I don't normally go inside and play with stuff, but…" He turned his eyes back to the piano. "But I'd never seen a piano like this one before," he said, leaving his mother and Pop Haly out of things for now.

For a moment Bruce didn't reply. When his words came they were reflective, and underlined with a sadness that Dick understood all too well. "It was my mother's."

"Oh…" Dick bowed his head. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"It was your mom's. I shouldn't have touched it."

"Hey." Fingers pushed Dick's chin gently upward, forcing him to look Bruce in the face. "I don't mind. In fact, I'm glad you did."

"Really?"

"Really. I hadn't been in here in a long time. Alfred clearly has been, judging from how clean the piano is, but…not me. If I hadn't been looking for you and heard you playing from out in the hallway I don't think I'd have checked in here at all."

"Is it...does it hurt too much for you to come in here?" Dick recalled the femininely hued powder room just beyond the double doors. It was unlike any of the other baths he'd come across in the house, and he had a hunch as to why that was. "She liked this room, didn't she? Your mom? She liked it a lot."

Bruce looked slowly around. "...Yeah, chum. She did. It was her wedding present from my father. His grandmother had kept her instruments in here once, too, but nobody had used the room since she'd died. Musical aptitude isn't a trait that runs in the Wayne family. We keep bringing it into the fold," he said with a mysterious smile, "but it never seems to stick.

"Anyway, my mother overhauled this space and the bathroom just outside in the way she wanted them. She loved it in here. If Father wasn't home and I wasn't occupying her attention, this was where you could find her. She put the chairs in for when her friends came to visit. She had three or four close ones who were here a lot when I was young. All very musical ladies, just like her." A beat passed as he caressed the keys in the same way Dick had earlier. "This piano came with her from her childhood home. It was her sixteenth birthday present, she told me once." Suddenly, a chuckle escaped him. "I think I told her that when I turned sixteen I wanted a Ferrari."

Dick smiled, glad to see that Bruce wasn't depressed by being in his mother's favored part of the house. "What did she say then?"

"...I wish I could remember."

"...Oh." So much not being depressed.

But the billionaire didn't seem bothered by his ill-timed question. "What I do remember, though," he went on, "is how it sounded when she played, and the expression she wore when she was deep into the music. She studied the piano all through school, and in college, too. Mostly classical, although sometimes she'd play popular stuff to amuse my father. No matter what it was, though, it was always beautiful when she played. She was beautiful." The thousand-yard stare Bruce had been wearing lifted, and he turned to Dick. "You're the first person to make music in here since she died. I didn't even know you could play an instrument. Who taught you those songs?"

"Pop Haly. It's mostly circus music, though. I don't know anything classical. But...I bet my mom would have. She used to play really pretty things on her flute. It must have been some of the same stuff that...that your mom played." Suddenly Dick regretted never asking his mother to teach him her instrument of choice. Did Pop still have her flute somewhere perhaps, he wondered, locked up safely in its velvet-lined case, waiting for the day when someone would put their lips to it again?

"Mm. It might have been, kiddo. It might have been." Bruce shook himself then, and the thin lines of grief that had creased the corners of his eyes disappeared. "Listen to me, Dick," he said seriously. "You can come in here and play any time you want to. Okay?"

Now that Dick knew the sort of music that Martha Wayne had made in this space his pecked-out campfire airs felt like an insult to her memory. "But I can't play anything classical."

"That doesn't matter. I don't care what you play; it's just nice to know that someone's enjoying her special room again."

"...You really don't mind?"

"I really don't. She wouldn't mind, either. If you don't believe me about that, then ask Alfred. I'm sure he'll agree. And as for classical music – or any other kind of music, for that matter – if you decide you want to learn more, just let me know. I'm sure we can find someone who will come to the house and teach you, and Alfred's good enough at juggling schedules to keep lessons from interfering with your school or Robin work. Okay?"

It would be wonderful to be able to play, to feel connected to his mother and Pop Haly and the circus again, whenever he wanted. If his playing brought back good memories for Bruce, too, then that was all the better. As for lessons...well, he could think about those. As nice as it would be to someday play the classical music that his guardian remembered from his childhood, Dick didn't want to risk getting a teacher who might take the fun out of the piano for him. "Okay," Dick nodded. Leaning over, he embraced his guardian. "Thank you."

"No, chum. Thank you for giving me a reason to come in here again. I'd almost let myself forget something important, but that won't happen again so long as you're around to remind me."

Dick craned his neck to look up at the man whose arm was wrapped around his shoulders. "To remind you of what?"

Bruce squeezed him tightly for a second. "That amazing things can come out of nowhere and seemingly from nothing, but still touch you forever. Now," he continued, pulling away, "I think we have time for a couple more songs before Alfred starts wondering why we aren't in the kitchen asking for cookies. What do you think?"

Dick was game, but he'd run through most of his repertoire. "What should I play?"

"Well..." Bruce nodded at the windows. The sky beyond them had turned a half-dozen shades of twilight, but it wasn't yet dark enough to hide the fat white flakes that were drifting down onto the frosty lawn. "It's almost Christmas, and it's starting to snow. How about 'Jingle Bells'? Do you know that one?"

"Yeah!" 'Jingle Bells' happened to be one of the few carols Pop Haly had shown him, as a matter of fact. Excited, Dick prepared to play. Then he remembered his earlier dilemma, and turned back to the billionaire. "...But Bruce?"

"Hmm?"

"Um...your mom didn't ask for a piano with elephant keys for her birthday, did she?"

"What?" Bruce blinked at him for a moment, then seemed to gather what he was talking about. "Oh. Do you mean did she ask for a piano with real ivory?"

"Yeah. She didn't, did she?" As much as he wanted to play, he wouldn't be able to if he knew that there really were elephant parts under his fingers.

"No, Dicky. It's too modern for that, and my mother was almost as much of an animal lover as you besides. No elephants were harmed in the making of this piano, I promise."

That settled that. "Great! But will you sing? I can't sing and play at the same time, I lose my place."

"You...want me to sing?"

"Yeah! Please?"

"I'm a pretty awful singer, chum."

"That's okay. I only remember like half of the song anyway. We can be terrible together!"

Bruce snorted with amusement. "...All right, but you were warned. Ready?"

"Ready! One...two...three!" His fingers picked out the opening notes, and in a minute an off-key tenor joined in. The result was far from perfect, but Dick didn't care. It was finally starting to feel like Christmas, he was with Bruce, and somewhere, he was certain, both their mothers were smiling; all in all, that was enough for him.

Author's Note: Sad, but sweet. What I've been finding particularly sweet these last few days are all of the reviews you lovely readers have been leaving me. Thank you!

Tomorrow we'll dive into another two-parter, this time featuring Dick, Tim, and a nasty Christmas mystery. Happy reading!