Note: This one takes place shortly after Daniel stopped fighting crime.
Is This The End
Daniel watched the owl lift off from the tree and wanted to follow after her. Maybe that was why he had done this in the first place, the feeling of flight. It gave him an excuse to build Archie anyway.
He imgained the owl searching the street for trouble, like he used to, and perhaps she would spy his partner... former partner. Dan had, after all, hung up his suit. But he still imagined being out there. He thought of flying over the city imagined taking off from the secret tunnel where Archie came out and sailing into the sky.
He was almost tempted to do it, just to see everything from above again. And at some point, he would stop because one of those people down there looked familiar. He walked the right way. And he wore that trenchcoat and suit that Dan could almost smell even from where he was. Or was he just remembering? And he'd think "is this the end of all my care?" and circle around to see the mask. And once he knew it was his partner, he would drop to the ground and they could patrol together, like in the old days, before the Keene Act and before Rorschach had started acting so strange... Daniel still couldn't pinpoint why or even how he had changed, only that he had. And when they were done, he would come home in Archie and... and...
Daniel looked down at his watch. He'd been sitting there daydreaming for an hour. It was typical of these first restless nights since he had stopped fighting. Daniel had dreamed he might be glad about it. Perhaps he would at last get a full night's sleep. If anything, he slept less. That was dreaming for you.