There's a light in your eyes that I used to see,
There's a place in your heart where I used to be.
Was I wrong to assume that you were waiting for me?
There's a light in your eyes,
Did you leave that light burning for me?
Blessid Union of Souls

#.02

And he did call soon. In fact, the next day he called. It was a Sunday, so I was home, working on some storyline or another. We talked for a while, and it went decent, as those things go. I actively steered the discussion away from where I lived. I honestly couldn't tell say why. It wasn't like I lived in a particularly shitty apartment or even one of the worse parts of Gotham (even though just about every part of Gotham is a 'worse' part).

In the end, I had to divulge some information about myself: I told him that for two years I had spent time in Africa, administering care and aid to children and adults in impoverished communities. At relatively brief intervals I taught English and worked in hospitals for children with the AIDS virus. Daniel was impressed with that, sort of awed into silence. I had joked lightly about it back when we were both teenagers, but when he had disappeared I saw no reason not to throw myself into a foreign country with foreign people: I could lose myself that way.

I told him that I got into college easily enough, scholarship and all. I majored in English Literature and Women's Studies. I went far enough in my degree to where I could teach in the spectrum of pre-K to middle school grades. In that time I also became a police officer, and rose decently enough there. He made comments from time to time about my dabbling in everything. I did. I admitted that. But there were also a lot of things I followed through with—it wasn't just touch and go.

What I didn't tell him was that for nine years I had been exercising and practicing martial arts religiously. What I didn't tell him was that when he disappeared, I took it to heart that the only person I could ever, ever count on was myself—so I trained like a madwoman. What I didn't tell him was that at one point I thought I might have been in love again, with another man, and I let myself become lax on the rigorous physical activity.

What I didn't tell him was that when I was gang-raped and the man I thought I might just be able to love wasn't there to protect me, I went even more off the deep-end than when Daniel left. I didn't tell him that I killed a man, and was beaten so badly that I couldn't walk for a couple months. I didn't tell him that I would be dead if it wasn't for the innocent passerby that the two men decided was more important to silence, because they figured I would die before anyone could find me. I didn't tell him that I because some older man happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, I'm still alive.

Before that point I had been considering quitting the force. I had decided to let my wounds heal, and that Daniel leaving me shouldn't make me enjoy putting my life on the line, and that just because I had felt so helpless and alone, it didn't mean I had to spend the rest of my life saving others. The truth was, I didn't do any running around putting-the-bad-guys in jail to help people. I didn't feed starving Ethiopian children for the good of the world. I did it because it made me feel strong, and it made me feel in control.

Before that incident, I had recognized how selfish it all was, decided I was doing these things for the wrong reason, and wanted out. After the incident? I fought with a vengeance that scared people. I became a daughter of Nemesis.

When the two men were brought into custody for multiple accounts of murder, rape, and assault, someone made sure that there were 'accidents' in the cells. The government appointed lawyers didn't make a peep. Maybe money exchanged hands. I don't know—all I know is that the two men 'committed suicide' before the date of their trial. Someone was looking out for me within the force I suppose. I was grateful. I still could barely walk at the time.

When I regained my strength I dove back into martial arts and physical perfection with a fury. Barely weighing 120 pounds, I learned how to take down two or three men at double my weight. Sure, I was called a ball-buster, or people snickered 'Amazon' when they didn't think I could hear. There were nasty jokes about my small stature and how, well, efficient I was. All the cute little titles men assign to women they fear, I received. All the cute little titles women assign to women that men fear, I received. But in the end? In the end, I was the one you wanted on call with you.

I was the one who went first, always.
And then? Then there were the occult studies, pretty much throughout the whole time.
I guess there are quite a few things that I didn't tell Daniel.

I did tell him that right now I was busy doing an odd assortment of things. I made speeches for politicians at large sums of money, I wrote articles for newspapers, or even did a bit of story writing from time to time—though my instinct for that had dried up when he left me. Primarily though, I dealt in real estate—I owned seven houses, five of them on waterfront property. He asked me where I acquired the money. I told him he'd be surprised how much one could make when all you had to worry about was yourself. Daniel didn't push the subject further.

The truth was my father died shortly after Daniel left me, mainly from booze. My mother remarried within two years after that, and then my step-father died from some freak accident—some household product malfunctioning or something—and the company that sold these products didn't want to have to do a recall. Being a big label, they paid our family quite a lot of money. My step-father had also owned three houses aside from the one my mother was living in and a great deal of profitable stock, and left these to my mother in his will (he didn't have any children, and I think it was more from the fact that he really didn't have anyone else to leave it to).

Not knowing anything about real estate, my mother passed the houses on to me, and they were all in pretty great shape—each one would bring in half a million dollars, easily. I sold one, and used the money from that to buy two more houses, which I sold three years later for almost triple what I bought them for.

So, in all? I held a small fortune in my bank account, and a much, much larger fortune in real estate. I didn't tell him that though. I didn't even think about the money much. Sitting in a not-so-big apartment, making decent earnings in odds and ends jobs, I don't even touch the growing digits of my bank account, except to add more from time to time, when I thought the time was right to sell another house.

My mother was subsisting off of the money left to her by my step-father, and my sister was too. Even they weren't aware of how rich I was. I didn't tell them. It just wasn't ever something I would think to, much less want to, bring up. They were well off, could buy just about anything they wanted, within reason, so I never saw a reason.

I lived pretty cheap, and saved everything. I don't even know what to do with any of the money I have. It's good to know it's there of course, but I pretty much don't care either way. I was always the natural hoarder, and didn't have much of a taste for lavish things—or possibly I kept myself in some kind of minimal environment because my subconscious saw it as personal punishment for 'losing' Daniel.

The phone call ended with Daniel asking me if I'd like to come over Wednesday evening. He had off Thursday he said; he wanted to know if that would be all right. Since I didn't necessarily work regular hours, and didn't have an office job, I accepted. Daniel told me where he lived, and I wrote it down.

After I hung up, I turned on the television. I didn't watch it much, and I never really had. Still, I tried to at least follow the news.

"In our latest story tonight, the Batman has once again apprehended a wanted criminal,
where Gotham's police department has failed. While a few officers find this outraging,
Jim Gordon as usual has defended this city's vigilante…"

I stood frozen for a second, feeling that I had just witnessed something very, very important. There was something here right in front of my face and I wasn't seeing it. I felt like this every time I heard something about the Batman. My brain clicked and cranked away, trying to figure out what was wrong with the picture, what didn't belong, or what was missing. Long after the reporter had switched stories, I kept standing there, brow furrowed, wishing I could make this all connect, wishing I could just step back from the situation and see. I remembered what Daniel had said the night before, about the city being so in-your-face that you couldn't stand back and look at the big picture.

A chill ran down my spine, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood. Then, deciding that I was a big girl now, and that I knew enough about the bizarre that this shouldn't phase me, I went back to my computer, and made some phone calls to possible clients.

- - -

It was Wednesday, around six forty-five, when I realized there was a rather large accident up ahead, and the cab wasn't going to be getting anywhere anytime soon. The driver was cursing profusely, and I decided that I didn't need the aggravation, paid for the distance he had taken me, and stepped out onto the sidewalk. From where I was, I figured I could get to Daniel's apartment within thirty minutes, if I walked fast enough.

And I did walk fast. I walked fast and pretended not to see the ugliness of the city. I acted like I didn't see the starving man on the corner, or the group of thugs that weren't doing anything illegal for the time being, but were suspicious enough. Stuff like a child crying and its mother ignoring it. I didn't look, because I knew what that would mean.

Acknowledging it meant having the choice to fight it.
And having the choice, always, always, always meant choosing to fight.

I had sworn to myself to never get involved in the force again. Not after what happened.

I got to the apartment around five minutes after, and prided myself in making good time. Daniel smiled widely as I opened the door, and took my coat. Before I knew it, his hands were pressed lightly to my cheeks. "You look flushed—is it that cold outside?" And then checking his impulses (and clearly kicking himself inwardly) he pulled his hands away.

Well, shit. If I wasn't flushing before, then I certainly was now.

"No, it's not too bad. I just had to walk about fifteen or so blocks. There was a real bad car accident."

"Oh." His eyes lit with concern. "You didn't get hassled or anything, did you?" I smiled, despite myself.

"No." I let my eyes wander around the room, and felt my breath slip away. This was definitely one of the more spacious apartments, and it really was well put-together. It was obvious that Daniel took a lot of pride in having such a pleasant, open home. The furniture was all simple, elegant. I don't use that term much, but I couldn't think of much of another way to put it. I always worried just about whether something did its job—functionality concerned me, whereas the furniture in this room (and I assumed the rest of the house) was functional and aesthetic. "Leave it to a Libra," I whispered under my breath, barely aware that I had spoken.

"So, you like it?" He was eager, pleased with himself. Then again, he had every right to be. The walls were adorned with bookshelves, and glass cabinets with certain art pieces displayed, along with signed sports pictures, and other appropriate things. There were also a few framed pictures, black and white photography, of different places in Gotham.

The furniture was mostly an off-white, cream color that matched the walls, and the wood legs of chairs, or all the wood that I could see for that matter, was a rich, dark color. The one standing wooden cabinet was tall, made out of that same (or similar to where I couldn't notice a difference) dark wood, with glass panels. Inside there glass shelves, holding pictures of his family, and other photos. The backing of the cabinet was stained glass.

"Yeah, how could I not?" I bee-lined towards the standing cabinet. Daniel was happy to follow. I was peering in at the pictures, wondering how anybody could get such impossible angles (it looked to me like you'd have to be hanging upside down over very large buildings for some of these) when he flicked a light switch that turned off the main lights, and then another that illuminated the cabinet. I caught my breath: the lighting came from behind the stained glass, and the effect was really magnificent. "Wow."

Then my eyes traveled, and I saw some pictures that made me feel awkward because I didn't know how I should feel: pictures from our proms, from our homecomings. There were pictures of fancy events, and then there were a few pictures (the ones that made me really unsure how to feel) of us just goofing around.

"You kept all these pictures?" Daniel turned the main lights back on, and then turned the cabinet lights off.

"Yeah, I did. And I didn't just like put them up before you came or something-"

"I didn't think you did."

"Oh. Yeah, I kept them. I kept them." He paused for a moment, and then smoothed down his shirt, which didn't need smoothing down. Thunder rumbled outside, and then there was a flash of lightning. Both our eyes turned towards the balcony window, and saw the rain start pummeling down. The sound of it was comforting, and I was glad not to have been caught out in the downpour. My attention drawn to the floor-to-ceiling window drifted down, to the table in front of it. It was set for two, and I don't know how I missed it at first. There were candles and flowers and wine glasses.

"I was hoping you wanted to eat here. I, um, I'm not a great cook or anything. If you want to go somewhere after dinner, that's fine." His eyes turned back to the rain. "But if you'd rather not have to swim, we can stay here and watch a movie or something." It was hard not to smile. A flicker of curiosity that I had long since tried to suppress emerged again, for the millionth time in the past week. If he really does care, then why did he leave? If Daniel hadn't seriously dated since he left, what was the reason?

"Staying here for a movie doesn't sound so bad."

"Cool. Here, have a seat." Daniel guided me over to the table, pulling a chair for me. "I'll be back in a second." He walked in the kitchen, through an open archway. When he came back he had two plates of pasta, which smelled particularly wonderful. He set them down, and then went back to the kitchen again. When he came back he had a bottle of white wine. I just sat in amazement. The pasta was in a creamy white sauce, with shrimps and what I assumed were pieces of crabmeat.

"You did all of this?" I had to actively keep my jaw from hanging open. The smell of it was going straight to my stomach, and I realized how long it had been since I had eaten any really good Italian food.

"Yeah. I wanted it to be special." Daniel smiled, poured some wine into my glass, then his. Seating himself, he took the moment to admire is work. We ate with pleasant conversation, and the food was absolutely delicious. It made me think—how much about Daniel didn't I know? After all, nine years was a long time. When we were finished, Daniel refilled our glasses, and we relocated to the couch.

"I have a lot of movies—what kind of genre would you prefer?" Daniel stood, and walked over to two rotating DVD holders. I was taking off my heels; the sandals were uncomfortable and hurting my feet.

"I don't care, your choice." His brow furrowed lightly, but then he smiled. We used to argue about who had to choose what to watch.

"All right. Does a B-horror flick sound good?"

"Of course." We settled in, after a brief period of 'how-close-should-we-sit'. In the end, I guess we sat pretty close considering the circumstances. The sides of our bodies were touching. I recognized the movie early on—we had seen it with each other over a decade ago. It had been a good film, better than a lot we had seen in the theaters. We laughed at the same parts we had the first time around (more or less). Towards the end we just ended up turning off the movie and talking.

"So, why did you quit the force? Or were you just interested in fighting crime here in Gotham? You'd never be out of a job, that's for sure." I blinked, collected myself, and answered.

"I really can't tell you what drew me to Gotham, or at least, I can't put it into words. I had quit law enforcement before I knew I was coming here, I wanted to spend more time writing and I was interested in pursuing a teaching career." A decent amount of that was lies; pretty much everything except for not knowing why I was here.

"Ah, cool. Teaching though? You came to Gotham to teach?" Daniel stopped for a second, thought that over, and then shrugged slightly. "Well, I guess that goes the same way as crime-fighting: you'll never be out of a job. What were you planning on teaching?"

"English for junior high kids, or elementary school grades."

"Wow. I never though you'd be on to work with children," Daniel said: good-natured.

"Yeah. I suppose not. I don't really know what I'm doing at any given moment anymore, so it doesn't matter much."

"Ah." He didn't like what I had said. Probably because it basically shot down to 'you left me and I don't know what the fuck to do with myself anymore'. It let him know that I was relatively unstable, and was most probably a complete basket case. "Do you have a degree for teaching? I mean, you probably wouldn't even need on to teach elementary kids or junior high kids, not in this city."

"Yeah. I can pretty much teach anywhere from first grade to eighth, no questions asked. I need maybe two more years of college to be able to teach high-school level." I looked back, out the large sliding glass door behind the table we had eaten at. My eyes unfixed, staring at nothing but the rain. I was so comfortable in there, probably too much so for my own good. "Man, it's still raining like crazy. It's getting late, too. I should be going." I stood up and stretched, and Daniel stood beside me. But, instead of reaching for my sandals, I turned and walked over to the glass door, looking out at the rain. The city's crying, I thought. She's crying and she's trying to wash away all the hurt.

Trying to drown all this insects, all these parasites that pick at her and suck her blood, and get fat off of her. Understandable. I could picture it too. All the swollen tick mob bosses and the gangs of everyday murderers and rapists (and here in Gotham, I guess it was more every-minute than everyday) that multiplied like fleas. But, She was still beautiful. With all the scabs and scars and pocket-marks—Gotham was unerringly gorgeous.

That was my preliminary glance at just how alive this city was. More alive than any other city I'd ever been in. Daniel's voice startled me, right behind me.

"Hey, there's a party I'm going to this Saturday. There won't be very many people or anything. It's at the Wayne Manor, actually. If you want to go with me…" Another tiny chill on my part, but I couldn't tell why. Wayne Manor? Oh. That was right, the multimillionaire (or was it billionaire now?), Bruce Wayne's place. The guy you either loved, hated, or paid no attention to whatsoever (I happened to be in the third category).

"Do you know Bruce Wayne?" I shivered slightly again, and put my hands on my arms, peering around for a source of a draft. Daniel put his palms against my upper arms, rubbing up and down to warm me up. Maybe it was the wine or the rain, or the movie like we were teenagers again, but suddenly I wasn't so sure that I wanted to leave. I leaned into him, and was met with a pleasant, light scent of cologne. He hadn't grown much in the past nine years, at least not in height. My temple lay against his clavicle.

"I guess you could say that." There was a hint of a smile in his voice, and my curiosity was stirred. Brawny arms pulled me tight to a broad, heavily muscled chest. There are secrets here, I thought to myself. It's just like I thought—I'm not the only one with a past. His heartbeat was strong and slow, and I was losing myself. It wasn't exactly an unwelcome feeling either.

"There's a lot you aren't telling me, isn't there?" My voice was muffled against his chest, but he heard me. His hold on me loosened, letting me go far enough that he could see my eyes. Cobalt eyes were searching mine, trying to find their way in, trying to figure me out.

"I could say the same about you, couldn't I?"

"Fair enough." Daniel leaned in for a kiss, not breaking eye contact, prepared to stop if I gave him any reason to. I didn't stop him.

In the course of things, I don't suppose it mattered that we kissed. It was a nice, clean moment though, a sweet instant in spite of the hell that was to come. For a second I imagined (or maybe it wasn't my imagination) that Gotham opened her eyes to m for the first time. Then, why shouldn't She? I was kissing one for her (adopted) sons. His lips were flush against mine, and his fingers entwined in my hair, holding the back of my neck. And then Daniel pulled back, restrained himself, a gentleman.

"You can keep kissing me," I breathed, holding at his hip.

"Would you want that?"

"Yeah. If you do, that is."

"Yes. I do." So we kissed again, and this time he barely hesitated to kiss me again, and after that there was no hesitation at all.