Can't smell a rose

Can't look at the moon

Can't take a breath

Without missing you

- Kaci Brown – Make me love you

Jinx sighed as she sat on the sand, the waves softly lapping at her bare toes. She looked at the sunset, it was beautiful, and if were any other day just looking at it would make her smile. Not today, today she just sighed and stared down at her reflection. A single tear fell, the ripples causing her reflection to falter. Jinx wiped the tears away angrily. She shouldn't be crying, she was Jinx, she didn't cry. At least, not normally, but today, she decided, she would make an exception.

She looked at the flower in her hand. It was dieing, each petal hanging on for dear life. She wasn't sure why she had kept it all these years but it had some sort of meaning to her, probably because he gave it to her. She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her coat tighter around her; no, not her coat his coat. She had bought it for him for their one year anniversary and he had worn it everyday. Now he was gone so she wore it in his place.

Jinx shook her head trying to rid that thought. He wasn't gone, not really. He wasn't dead he was just missing. That was the way Nightwing had put it when they couldn't find him after the fight. There was no evidence that he was dead, but then again, there was no evidence that he was still alive. Everyone just hoped he was the latter.

She didn't try to be negative, but she couldn't help but lose faith. She found it hurt less when you didn't expect anything. She used to sit by the window every day waiting for him to come back for her and every day she was disappointed. After the first year she figured maybe he got hurt and couldn't come home, after the second year she thought maybe he got captured, but after the third year she started to lose hope.

It was five years, today, since he went missing. People say you heal over time, but it hadn't gotten any easier. If anything, it had gotten harder because every day she woke up thinking it was all a bad dream but then she look beside and instead of seeing his red head laying on the pillow and his body taking up more than his side of their bed she saw a empty pillow and empty sheets; every day she relived the moment it hit her, every day her heart broke.

She never realized how much she relied on him or how much the little things he did made a difference. She never realized she needed him so much and she never realized how awful life without him was. Without his red hair and blinding blue eyes, without his smile that, at first, made her want to hex him into the next millennium, but over time made her knees turn to water. Without that familiar red and yellow blur or the humming noise he made when he vibrating through walls. But I guess it's true what they say: you never know how much you need something until it's gone.

"Jinx." She turned to see Nightwing standing there. "You should come inside, it's getting dark," he said in a tone people used quite often around her; it was mixture of sadness and pity. She didn't move but just looked back at the sunset.

"You know it's been five years," she said sorrow clear in her voice. Nightwing sighed.

"I know. But there's still hope, Jinx, he could still be alive. You can't stop hoping, without hope what else do we have?"

"Does it matter? Either way I'm gonna have a broken heart in the end, so I can either believe that maybe he is out there somewhere and get my hopes up or I can accept it. Accept that he's gone and he's not coming back." She looked at the sky, ignoring the tears that rolled down her cheeks.

"You can do what ever want, but sometimes it makes people feel better to have something to believe in. Without that, what's the point in living?"

Jinx didn't answer, she figured it was a rhetorical question anyway. "I know something I hope. I hope that, where ever he is, he knows I miss him and how much I love him." With that Jinx got up and followed Nightwing back inside.

There lying in the sand, was a wilted rose. Attached to it was a card, there was no name, just a single lighting bolt.