The Comedian got back just before sunrise. Alarm bells went off in his head as he approached his building. Everything looked normal, but something in the air felt distinctly off.

If I were my daughter, and I was still that pissed off, where would I be right now? Let's see...three guesses, and the first two don't count.

He'd survived as long as he had by paying very close attention to his intuition; and he'd been in the assassination business long enough to know that the best way to avoid being snuffed on one's own turf was to get to know that turf like the back of one's own hand. He went up the fire escape instead of going up the elevator and through the front door, and was through the roof access hatch in minutes.

There it was, the goddamn Owlship. The Comedian couldn't help but laugh out loud.

"So you went and dragged poor Nite Owl out of retirement," he remarked aloud, around his cigar. "Probably didn't take very long. Boy's been carrying a torch for you for decades."

His daughter's hatred stung; but if she was willing to play this kind of game, he was all for it. It was better than nothing at all.

Besides, no child of the waterfront - and that was what she was, even if she didn't want to admit it - ever got away with sassing their old man the way she had without paying for it sooner or later. Another lesson he'd have to teach her before the fun was all over and done with.

Reaching into his leather-and-Kevlar chestpiece, he pulled out one of his more formidable weapons; a pen and a small pad of paper.

*************

Five hours had passed, and the Comedian still wasn't back yet. It was well after dawn.

They'd resealed the Comedian's secret hidey-hole in the back of the closet, and crouched down in the darkened apartment to wait. For a moment after they'd found her picture, Laurie thought that Dan looked like he might hug her or something. That would have been okay; she realized that she actually wanted him to.

Instead, they'd sat waiting in silence, except for the time Rorschach got up and made his way somewhat shakily over to the fridge.

After all that had happened, she figured he could be excused for raiding the Comedian's refrigerator. It was only when she saw him pulling the shelves out with the food that she realized what he had in mind.

"You can't be serious," she said, as he awkwardly climbed into the refrigerator.

"Better hiding place," he informed her. She almost smiled.

Dan merely looked worried; Laurie wondered if he thought that Rorschach might be losing his mind -

Losing his mind? Oh wait. This is Rorschach. Been there, done that, bought the blood-stained T-shirt.

"Like he isn't going to see that stuff out on the counter," Laurie remarked.

"Good plan. Should work," Rorschach insisted stubbornly. The corner of her mouth twitched; Laurie couldn't help herself. But her slight smile faded as something suddenly occurred to her:

What if he has been back? What if we've already given ourselves away somehow?

"Dan, where did you leave the ship?" she asked.

"On the roof. It's not visible from the street, I checked -"

"It may not need to be. I'm going to go check something out."

"I'll go with you," Dan said.

"I'll be here," Rorschach's voice echoed from the fridge.

A few minutes later, they were up on the roof. Sure enough, the ship was still there where Dan had left it – along with a small piece of paper that was duct-taped to the hatchway handle. They both stared at it for almost a full minute before Laurie slowly extended a hand and ripped it from the handle.

It read;

"DEAR PUMPKIN.

YOU KNOW ALL THOSE YEARS I HAVEN'T BEEN IN YOUR LIFE? WELL, IT LOOKS LIKE I'M GOING TO HAVE TO BE ABSENT FOR A LITTLE WHILE LONGER. BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME, KIDDO.

LOVE,

YOUR DAD.

PS. IF NITE OWL IS STANDING NEXT TO YOU, I WANT YOU TO REACH OVER AND SMACK HIM UPSIDE THE HEAD FOR ME. HOW ABOUT FINDING A LESS CONSPICUOUS PLACE TO PUT THE OWLSHIP NEXT TIME?"

*************

Rorschach heard her screaming all the way back down in the refrigerator. She was still screaming by the time he got up to the roof. Dan had her by the wrists. From the other sounds he'd been hearing as he'd come up the stairs to the roof, he wondered if she'd been pounding the side of the airship in her rage and frustration.

Sobbing, she collapsed into Dan's arms.

"It's going to be all right. We'll find him. I promise you we'll find him," Dan was saying, over and over again like a mantra.

Rorschach turned away, to gaze out over the sprawling cityscape. His face turned over to the direction of New York's harbor.

Tonight, they'd start hitting waterfront bars. Somewhere in this corrupted, bloated city, a Comedian was hiding. Someone knew where he was. It was only a matter of time before they found out where.

*************

In the end, it's all a joke.

Among other things, the Comedian had become notorious over the years for his ability to reduce things down to their absolute fundamentals with his accustomed brutal bluntness. The fact that he liked to do the same thing with people was all just a part of the gag. To leave them with their illusions shredded, their preconceptions torn to bits.

Like Rorschach, for example. The Comedian felt that it should have been obvious to anyone that his creepy mask, extreme philosophy, and badass demeanor all merely posed as a front for a badly closeted little misanthropic freak. One who'd probably been picked on as a child, and who'd been unable to deal with the horrors he'd found himself exposed to as a crimefighter; effectively cocooning his true, weak self inside the terror that was Rorschach.

The Comedian had enjoyed stripping the layers of that cocoon away, watching the feared vigilante's attempts to retreat behind the walls as he continued to rip each one of them down.

(And if he could drag someone else into his own private Hell, even for one night – well, what wouldn't misery give for a little company every now and then?)

Then his daughter had gotten involved, and things had gotten complicated - an unpleasant reminder that such brutal honesty could cut both ways. The moment he'd finished with Rorschach, he'd gotten the full force of Laurie's fury and loathing shoved straight down his throat. The daughter who hated him, whom he'd never gotten to know, born of the woman whom he would never be with because of a stupid mistake made over forty years ago. In the space of a single moment, he'd managed to reaffirm everything she despised about him.

Well, again, that mistake could cut both ways. It was obvious she had daddy issues out the wazoo; and as usual, he'd known just what to say to knock her off her goddamned moral high horse.

(...Shit.)

(........Shit.)

Besides, if there'd been anything he could've said to light a fire under her to come find him, it was that. The game was afoot. It would be interesting to see how well she played, and who would be left standing once it was all over with. And if she showed him up for everything that he was – well, he knew he could handle it.

After all, the best joke is always the simplest statement of the truth.

*************

By the time they regrouped back in Dan's basement, the drugs had completely worn off. Rorshach could barely walk, though he was trying very hard to conceal that fact.

Though physically unscathed, Laurie seemed almost as bad.

There was nothing Dan wanted more than to resume the search for the Comedian, but frankly he doubted that his comrades were up to it - either physically or emotionally. Yet he was certain he knew what their responses would be if he attempted to leave either one of them behind.

Laurie hadn't spoken a single word since accepting the coffee from him, sitting slumped against one curving wall of the ship and staring blankly ahead. She'd refused to go back into the Comedian's penthouse once they'd found the note.

Rorschach had taken a seat almost directly opposite from hers.

There had been a moment during the flight back to his lair that Dan thought he could actually feel the two of them communing their mutual need to find the man who'd left them in this condition, and to extract vengeance for their suffering.

A tiny part of Dan worried about what would happen when they did manage to track the Comedian down. Not that he wanted the Comedian to be spared any of what was coming to him; not at all. He did pity anyone or anything that might potentially come between themselves and the man they hunted; and wondered if he'd have to take care of damage control as well when the moment of reckoning finally came.

*************

Laurie snapped out of her trance the moment Rorschach stumbled on Archie's makeshift stepladder in front of her, as they were coming back out into the basement.

"I told you so!" she proclaimed defiantly, grabbing his arm. Dan rushed back and caught him from the front.

"Not dead yet," Rorschach said. "Daniel, why are we here? Comedian still at large."

"You need to rest. We could all do with some rest, actually," he said, darting a careful glance at Laurie. She actually looked gray at this point, and he remembered that it had probably been several hours – the previous day, in fact - since she'd even eaten, save for one of the granola bars he'd kept onboard for long missions that he'd stored there since the mid -1970s - and probably tasted like it, too.

They helped Rorschach back over to the cot where they'd treated him the night before last.

"No more painkillers, Daniel," Rorschach told him, after he handed Rorschach two pills and a glass of water from the kitchen upstairs.

"This is Tylenol. Don't worry, I promise not to dope you up this time."

Rorschach stared at the two pills as if he strongly suspected them of harboring communist sympathies, before finally swallowing them with most of the water.

He was asleep almost before his masked head hit the pillow.

Daniel glanced up to where Laurie was standing in the doorway up to the kitchen. Illuminated as she was by the light behind her with her face in darkness, she almost resembled her namesake – a spectre.

"How are you holding up?" Dan asked softly. "Do you want anything? I could make you breakfast."

"Breakfast? It's almost midnight," she said. "Shit...I probably have to get back. Dan...Jon and I had a fight before I left. He teleported off in a huff - he seemed really freaked out. I need to see if he's gotten back yet."

"Are you sure?" He asked, mounting the stairs and following her into the kitchen. "I mean...we've all been through the mill today. I could put you up for the night. You could call Jon from here."

"I don't know if that would really be a good idea," Laurie said, sounding to Dan as if there was something she was trying to decide whether or not to mention to him. "When are you planning on setting out again?" she asked, after a moment's consideration.

"Well, uh, tomorrow night , actually. I need to check some things on the ship. I kind of warmed it up in a hurry," Dan said. "And Rorschach...well, frankly I don't like the idea of him exerting himself this much, this soon, after what the Comedian did to him. I guess we'll see."

"Yeah. Take care, okay? I'll try to be back here by the time it gets dark." Laurie said.

"Laurie...look, are you okay, really?" Dan asked her, as he followed her out of the front door.

Her expression told him everything he feared.

"No. But hey, things are tough all over," she answered, reaching into her coat pocket for her cigarettes. "Thank you, Dan. I mean it. For everything." She flashed him a pained, exhausted half-smile and disappeared into the night.