'The greatest strength is gentleness'
~ Iroquois Proverb

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A month had passed since Rorschach's departure from the tiny basement apartment. But Alice soon put the memories of the masked vigilante behind her and went back to her usual routine at work and at home.

Winter was approaching and the city was putting its worries on hold for the upcoming Thanksgiving festivities. Soon Macy's would be putting on its annual Thanksgiving Day parade and the shops and department stores would be mad houses the day after the holiday.

Alice loathed the holidays, but kept a smile when she listened to the other ladies at her station talking about their son or daughter in the annual school production of the First Thanksgiving or their husbands coming home with fat bonuses so that their wives could spend it on Black Friday. Alice, on the other hand, was alone and had no family to speak of. She was an only child and both parents died some years ago.

She had to admit, she was envious of her coworkers, going on and on about a warm home full of laughing children and loving husbands, caring grandparents, who brought armloads of gifts for their beloved grandchildren.

But this Thanksgiving was going to be different; a new, female intern invited Alice over for dinner. Alice didn't want to seem too desperate, but grinned and nodded. "Yes, I'd love to go!"

"Great! Here's the address and dinner will be served at six." The bright intern handed over the slip of paper and hurried down the hall to her patients.

Alice held the paper and folded it neatly into her wallet.

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Pork and beans were Walter Kovacs' meal. He sat on a rickety chair and was hogging down the cold beans and muttering about his heat being out again. He listened to his neighbors that were in the apartment complex around him.

The upstairs couple were arguing again. Sounded like it was getting physical too when he hard something shatter and the woman scream, but it was cut off by the sound of a slamming door. Then he turned his attention to the sound of his downstairs neighbor. An elderly woman with too many cats to count. She was normally the quiet one and kept to herself mostly. Walter thought she had some form of dementia.

Then came his next door neighbors. The drug addict that used to be a wealthy kid from Manhattan. The man was quieter than usual, Walter assumed that he was out looking for another hit up. Then came the landlady, Dolores Shairp, who sounded like she was yelling about something that possibly had something to do with him. She came pounding on his door, demanding he should open it, but Walter ignored her and picked up one of his magazines and began reading.

Once the pounding ceased and the large woman made her way back to her own apartment, he got up and began making his way out of the apartment towards the alley that was just a step or two away from the rear door of the building. He wandered over to a dumpster and opened the lid slowly, eyeing his clothing, folded neatly amongst the garbage.

He removed his costume and found a private place to change and headed out on patrol.

A day or two before Thanksgiving was always a good time to catch criminals in the act, due to the high amount of people rushing about with money in their pockets, groceries and gifts in their arms as they hurried to their homes.

Walter never recalled a decent holiday, in fact, he never felt a good reason to celebrate when he was young. Reflecting back on his childhood, the Lillian Charlton school always had nice holiday get-togethers. He remembered fondly one gift he ever received. It was from a teacher at the school, who gave him a very nice, five and dime journal with faux leather for the cover. But he didn't care, it was the first real gift he'd ever received and he wrote in it until he used up all the pages and the binding began to crumple and break.

As he walked through the streets on his patrol, he came into an alleyway, where he heard someone struggling with something. That's when he caught sight of a large man with a burlap sack and a large bat. He was whacking it hard and the sounds of gargles and squeaks caught Rorschach's ears. The vigilante approached in dead silence, but cleared his throat as he was in close proximity of the assailant.

The man nearly dropped the bat and let out a guttural gasp. "Oh god…" He took a few steps, but dropped the bag.

Rorschach had a faint idea what he was doing, but the vigilante began cracking his knuckles and approached the man and shoved him into a wall. Within a second of the man hitting the wall, Rorschach began beating the daylights out of him and breaking several bones in the man's ribcage and arm in the process.

After the brief scuffle and the man on the ground and groaning in pain, Rorschach picked up the burlap sack and he growled in anger. A sack of kittens, barely able to hold their heads up were dead, but he noticed movement and slowly scooped up a shivering kitten, screaming at the top of its lungs, begging for nourishment and love.

Rorschach gently put the kitten into his coat and slowly began wrapping up the remaining dead kittens, he would have to bury them somewhere safe. He then turned and glared at the man, who was looking up at him with large eyes. Very slowly, the vigilante bent down and picked up the bat and held it over his head. "Dogs get put down…" And the bat swung down and he struck the man with several large blows.

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As Thanksgiving approached, Alice was inquired by her coworker to make a dish to bring to the dinner. The kitchen was strewn with various pots as pans as Alice worked on a traditional lentil stew her mother had taught her, from where her mother learned from her grandmother.

Alice had put a lid on the pot to allow it to simmer for a bit and she turned to her mountain of dishes, rolled up her sleeves and dove in, but groaned when someone knocked at her door.

The young woman was wiping at her hands with a rag as she went to the door and peered out the peephole. She saw nothing, but slowly opened it a crack and called out. "Hello?" She replied nervously, feeling a bit anxious.

As she peered out, there sat a small kitten, half blind and sniffing about on the ground.

Alice shut the door, undid the locks and re-opened the door. She quickly knelt down slowly, scooping up the small black and white kitten, shushing it and rocking it gently. Beneath the small kitten was a scrap of paper and had a strange symbol written on it with black, felt-tip marker. She turned it around several times, trying to figure out who it was from, but the symbol's meaning evaded her mind. Alice folded the paper in her hand and held the kitten close to her chest and brought the crying thing inside, shutting and locking the door behind her.

Just on the other side of the alleyway, stood Rorschach, watching from the shadows and quite pleased that she had taken in the kitten.

He felt like he had done something for her. They were even.

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A/N: Aho for all the awesome reviews and faves too! They really make my day. I also re-written this chapter about three times. I know this one's a bit short, but I do have the entire thing set out. I had finally overcome my bout of writer's block too.

Also, I'm working on a soundtrack for this fan fiction. Once I compile every song I plan to use, I'll upload it for people to download.

As always, thanks for reading and look forward to the next chapter.