Chapter 9

AN while I was trying to write this I sat back in my seat for a minute to rest my fingers, and my cat jumped on my lap, AND THEN FELL ASLEEP. For thirty minutes, my cat lay across my chest and I was just staring at my screen, wanting so bad to sit up and finish this chapter, but I didn't have the heart to wake the little guy up. He looked too cute.

Peter dropped me off at home after work today, with nothing but a concerned look, and a promise that I would show up to dinner tonight. With that finally over with, I trudged up the stairs to my apartment, intent on a hot shower, and a glass of wine before I subjected myself to interrogation later tonight.

If nothing else I would be comfortable before my inevitable demise at the hands of Elizabeth Burke, best interrogation officer the Burke household has to offer. I choose not to lie to Peter, it wasn't so much of a choice with El, she was so nice and she honestly cared about what I was saying, that it made it next to impossible to lie to her.

It would be like lying to Alfred and getting away with it, it just wasn't going to happen.

I finally reached my destination, my apartment, but when I went to unlock the door I realised that it was already unlocked.

It's probably just Moz, I reasoned with myself, this has happened plenty of times before. It wasn't Mozzie, I entered my apartment to find Damian looking through the books on my bookshelf, he was probably trying to figure out where I hid my stuff, he wouldn't, probably. "Where is everything… sentimental?" he asked "I know you must have something, you're, well, you're you."

"No i'm not" I said

"No you're not what?"

"No, i'm not me, i'm not the person you used to know, you don't know me, you don't know anything about me." I snapped, did he actually think that I was the same person as I was eight years ago? I know he isn't, I wouldn't expect him to be, it's been eight years. He was only 13 the last time I saw him.

"Do you really hate us that much? That you don't want anything to remind you of the people you abandoned? The family you left behind? Me?" the last part was said so softly I don't think I was meant to hear it, I don't even think he meant to say it. The anger that had been flowing hot through my body drained away.

I'm suddenly overcome with the urge to run over and wrap him up in my arms like I used to. He would always fight me when I tried to hug him, except sometimes, when he thought no one was paying attention, and he would snuggle just a little closer, hold on just a little tighter. That's how I knew, that deep down, he was still just a child who craved attention, and love, something he was never given when growing up. I am, and always have been a very tactile person and I miss being able to hug my family.

"Grayson!" he snapped me out of my memories.

"What?" I asked, confused, I hope he hadn't been talking to me while I was off in lala land.

"Nevermind, it doesn't matter." he said right before he turned around and flipped off of my balcony.

"But it does." I whisper into the darkness.

Blinking away the tears that had formed during our meeting, I turned around to go take a shower, but my eyes slid to where I knew my best memories lay. I made my way to my bookcase, where Damian had been standing moments before.

Then I went around to the side of the bookshelf, and using my weight I pushed it a couple of inches from the wall and reached behind it to where I knew the little cupboard was, when I opened the small door I reached my hand inside and slid out an old faded envelope.

When I had my prize clutched in my now shaking hand, I went and sat on my bed. Psyching myself up to look at these had always taken me a bit, the emotions that flooded through my mind when I saw those images, was overwhelming to say the least.

When I had the small stack of pictures clutched gently in my hand I put the envelope down beside me and looked down.

The first picture was of me and Bruce inside his study one night, I think Alfred took the picture, I was sitting in B's lap with his arms wrapped around me holding a book that he had been reading. We were both asleep, it had been a trying few days in the manor, the Joker had escaped the night before and we were both injured, I remember asking him to read to me, because I was afraid to go to bed, and I was afraid to tell him I was afraid. Thinking back on that night, I think he knew that I was scared to go to bed, he had conceded so quickly to reading me a bedtime story.

The next picture is of Bruce, Jason and me, it was before Jason had died, and we were all outside, I think I had been trying to teach Jason how to do a backhandspring. We looked so happy.

The next one is all of us, me, Bruce, Jason, Tim, Damian, and Alfred. We were getting ready to go to some charity event that B was hosting, Jason was sulking with a foot propped against the wall he was leaning against, Timmy was trying to get his tie on properly, and for the most part failing, I was hanging upside down from some unseen object with a look of pure boredom across my face, Damian was just sitting aggressively on the couch, B was looking at all of us with exasperated affection, and Alfred looked ready to kill us all.

I remember that night, we were already an hour late for Bruce's charity event that he was supposed to be hosting, I don't even remember why Jay was there, everyone thought he was dead, so it's not like he could attend. Damian had been pissed because B had him grounded from patrol for a week because he had punched a teacher in the face. Timmy had been trying to get his tie straight for quite a while, and I didn't even think tell him that he had it right the first time. B had just finished getting dressed and came in to see how we were doing, we were failing. And Alfred was not happy that we had decided to hide down in the shadows of the batcave until 40 minutes after the guests had arrived. 20 minutes later that picture was taken. I have no idea who took the picture, but I found it one day in the study, I had a copy made and put the original back in its place on his desk.

The last picture is of me and Damian. I had been lounging on the couch when Damian had come in muttering about not being allowed to kill civilians, me being me, I had shot up and grabbed him into a bone-crushing hug and then promptly fell back down on the couch with him trapped in between me and the side of the couch, in the picture i'm very obviously laughing at Dami who looked even more ready to kill someone than when he had walked in. Tim had taken the picture, he gave it to me the next day with a smirk, and told me to use it for leverage against the demon when he told people he didn't love us. It was proof, irrefutable proof, that Damian loved me. Because while yes, he looked ready to kill someone, the love is in the fact that he didn't actually try to kill me.

With a sad smile, I slid the pictures back into the envelope, put them back in their hidey hole, pushed the cabinet back against the wall and went to take my shower.

The reason I could only ever stand taking the pictures out occasionally, was the fact that they stopped caring, they stopped being there for me. They didn't call.

And I didn't know where I went wrong, what I ever did to make that happen. We had been a relatively happy family, though somewhat broken and battered. We loved each other.

Those pictures made me think of exactly that, the fact that we had been a family, and I don't know what happened to make that change. But I knew it must have been me, because if it wasn't me, then what was it?

AN well alrighty then, this took a little sadder of a turn than I was expecting. Thoughts? Good? Bad? Meh?

Also a shout out to LunaSolenna for the idea to do more on the pictures, thank you for prompting one of my favorite chapters. :)