Jim Gordon did not like the feeling that he was currently having. He had to tell Bruce Wayne that his archives that were supposed to be kept safely in the library behind bars were gone. Of which he had no desire to do, first off because someone else could have handled the case, but also who wants to tell one of richest men in Gotham and the world that his keepings had somehow disappeared. Not to mention the Joker was loose again and there wasn't any clues as to where the psychopath was hiding.

A chill went up his spine. The Joker. Images of a couple years back when his son was being held at gunpoint by Harvey Dent flashed through his mind when he had first found out. His wife huddling with their younger daughter, pleading for her son to live, a good friend and ally taken away by the simplest of words but the most traumatic happenings and all caused by a madman with a painted face that he loathed. Surely another man in the city hated him as much or perhaps even more.

Then there was the chaos that had happened at the auction house. Several people dead, including Selina's boss. Although Selina had never been extremely close to the man, he did act as a sort of mentor, bringing her through the art world and letting her adjust to it. He even found the money to give her raises from time to time. Now, she was going to be taking over that job and Jim knew that she was going to be running around even more due to the new and unexpected promotion. However, at the moment, he was going to enjoy the last moments of the weekend with his family and worry about the majority of what was on his mind come Monday morning. Jim allowed himself the subtle separation from his job and settled into his current surroundings as father and husband. Admittedly, he rarely let these moments come about, but as he aged, his family became his solace.

"Dad!" His son, the smaller James came up to him, came up to him. "When are we going to eat?"

"When Selina gets here." He ruffled the kid's light hair.

"Daaaaaadddd!" Whining he moved his head out of way. "Can't I at least have some pizza rolls or something? You know like an appetizer?"

"'fraid not." He fought the urge to smile. He hated to think that two years ago this conversation might have only been a dream and both his of his younger children wouldn't be running around the backyard. "Mom would strangle me if I let you spoil your appetite."

"But like you and Babs said, I'm a growing boy." Jimmy pointed out, trying to appear taller.

"Jimmy!" His daughter, Sarah voice yelled in the house. Jim had to admit that it was nicer to live more outside the city rather than right in it. This gave him a break, the commute was awful, but he knew that his family was a bit safer. Barbara had also been a bit insistence on moving to a safer location. He couldn't deny her, especially after what happened. "Come on!"

"Go on." Jim smirked as his son rolled his eyes, and almost ran into his oldest sister, who was looking a little worse for ware but amused as her brother lost his stride just to quickly pick it up again.

"Hey dad." She glanced over her shoulder. "What' wrong with Jimmy?"

"He's hungry." He sighed and placed his hands in his pockets, leaning against the counter.

"He's always hungry." Barb smiled. "Teenager is just around the corner, you think you can handle another one?"

"I handled you didn't I?"

"You were lucky all we got into fights about was what college I was going to when I was sixteen." She took out some mugs from the cupboards.

"And having Dick spend the night for Christmas." Jim remembered fondly, but searched for any recognizable pain in his daughter. He was happy to find none.

"He was so nervous." Barb put the kettle on the stove, despite the warm weather, she always opted for some hot tea. While her mother thought her strange, her father understood the want for caffeine. She was always remembering the memory well. "But he wanted to impress you so badly."

"He did." Remembering another moment in the young man's short life, he felt a pit in his stomach. Dick had always been a close member of the family and had spent plenty of Christmases with them, but that one had been different due to the fact that he and Barb had finally admitted to going out. But it wasn't that awkward moment he was contemplating but the one that had been years down the road.

This one was a year before the young man had died and two years after they had gotten married. There had been something different about Dick, but he never gotten to asking Barb about it. At dinners and the like they were fine but at work Dick had changed completely. Not to mention he had joined in Jim's secret crusade and was more involved than he was. As far as Jim knew, Barb was too wrapped in her work to know what her husband was doing. It was a moment in his life that he regretted not telling his oldest everything. They had always been a close father and daughter pairing but that would always be something that would hang over Jim's head until Barb figured it out or otherwise. To this he would always feel a sort of guilt.

Ridding himself of a darker time, he asked her aloud, "Have you been at the library lately?"

"Did you forget I work there?" Barb looked at him in suspiciously joking manner. "Jeeze dad, isn't it a bit early for dementia?"

"Not any more." Jim gave a soft smile. Despite the joke, he knew that on some level, it was true. Jim Gordon was getting old. Not only were the grey hairs enough to put him off, but the early morning and nightly aches. The first true sign of his age was when he had walked Barb down the aisle three years ago. She had been born a little over a decade than her other siblings but still, the fact that he had already walked one daughter down the matrimonial path, even at her early age, was enough to age him at least twenty years.

"I was there today." She shrugged.

"On Sunday?"

"A really boring archives emergency." Barb explained. Oh if only her father knew what kind of emergency it was. Right now, she was testing her lying ability to one of the people she trusted most on the planet. In a strange way, she had to tell him what she was doing behind his back within her own time. And with a better explanation of because I wanted to. "I would tell you, but you probably fall asleep."

"Oh," He thoughtfully nodded. "Did you see anything strange?"

"Not really." Her eyes narrowed. "What's up?"

"Wayne's archives were all stolen." If he had been watching his oldest, he would have noted her passing guilty face, but he had been staring at the floor. "Or destroyed, I'm not sure."

"So some rich guy's archives were ruined?" She took a sip of the tea that she had been making. Knowing that she was in fact a terrible liar, she had to at least pretend to be interested. Or at least to practice for future situations. "What was in there?"

"Business materials." Giving a half hearted shrugged, he took the mug that she offered him. "I didn't really see what was in there, but it looked like business numbers and such."

"Does it really matter then?" Barb questioned.

"What?"

"I mean," Her nose crinkled, "They probably have all that information backed up on their servers, so it's not like it actually matters."

Jim gazed at his daughter. Strange that she of all people would tell him that any material in an archival setting didn't matter. The girl that had horded and cataloged every item in the house one month because she was bored. The girl that almost went on a rampage because he had accidentally stepped between her stuffed animals when she had tried to come up with her own classification scheme. The woman that had spent the past five years on a thesis that had to do with preserving and organizing items by physical and digital means. But he supposed there was always room for change. However, this much was a bit disturbing and unknowingly, his alertness rose.

"I suppose." He shrugged. "Did you see anything?"

"Dad, you already asked me that." Barb eyed the tea in her hands and faked a smile. She knew that he was trying to get something out of her, just in case.

"Old age." His hand pushed up his glasses as he gave a sigh.

"You can't get old yet." Her voice chided. "You have to find Batman a sidekick before you get old."

"Barbara…"

"What?" Barb rolled her eyes. "Don't think I don't know about you working with him because I was the one who…"

"Barb," Jim hesitated, this conversation needed to be turned elsewhere. "How's Selina with…everything?"

"You mean money?" She snorted at her dad's attempt at tactfulness and took the bait. "She seems to be doing fine. I mean since she still gets the pension from her dad, she can pay for Maggie's treatments."

"Pension money?" He repeated. "That program ran out a year ago, right after Holly died. I thought she was getting money from the insurance company?"

"Oh maybe that's what she meant when she was talking about a company. I just assumed the city." Barb easily lied. "When is she coming anyway?"

"Six." Mrs. Gordon walked into the kitchen. "Did you tell that Wayne fellow yet?"

"Not yet." Jim mumbled.

"What's for dinner?" Barb questioned.

"Pork roast." The elder Barbara smiled. "With some sweet potatoes."

"That sounds amazing, honey." He kissed her cheek as he moved past her towards his daughter. "Maggie taking her nap?"

"Yep." She glanced at her husband. "She'll be up and ready for when Selina gets here."

"Baaabbbsss!" A collective call came from the other room.

"Guess that's my exit." Barb inclined her head, leaving the kitchen and going into the other room, her parents watched her go.

"I'm worried." Mrs. Gordon said quietly, after a moment of silence.

"Babs is going to be fine." Jim came closer to his wife and leaned on the counter beside her, as she began to prepare dinner. "Once she…"

"No," She sighed. "I am worried about Babs, but Selina. She hasn't been taking care of herself."

"Well she's been under a lot of stress ever since Maggie was diagnosed." Jim shrugged. "I think she's been handling herself well and Maggie too."

"Oh of course." Barbara quickly reassured her husband. "Just…" She turned to him. "A couple Saturdays ago, she was rushed, tired, and strangely she was limping…"

"Limping?"

"Yes," She nodded slowly, "She was also trying to cover up a bruise on her shoulder, when I saw her take off her jacket. Jim, I'm worried. I don't know what she's doing, but I know it isn't good."

"Hey," He put an arm around his wife. "I'm sure she's fine and she probably just twisted her ankle."

"The bruise?" Barbara questioned. "Jim, it was huge."

" Maggie probably jumped on her back wrong or something." A reassuring smile came to his lips. Although he wasn't sure himself now, but he had to believe that the people that he had promised to protect were all well. If something proved otherwise, he would be the first know, or at least the second. "I think Selina is extremely stressed that Maggie is going through treatments and she's probably going to be more stressed since she's going to take the new mantle of head of her research department."

"Since when?" Her eyes narrowed. "What happened?"

"Well," He hesitated, "Her boss died when that explosion happened at the auction house."

"She's not having the best year is she?" A long sigh escaped her. "Thank god it's almost over."

"It's only June, Bee. We have a couple months to go." He chuckled. "Besides this promotion, despite how she got it, is going to be good for her."

"Can you believe it's only been a month since Maggie got sick?" Barbara's distant voice caught his attention. "And a year since..."

"Hello?" Selina's voice called throughout the house and the sound of a door shutting, then rushed footsteps, along with cries of hello from their children.

"Where have you been?" Jimmy's voice traveled through the house. "I'm starving!"

Jim and Barbara looked at each other and gave each smiles. Family, it was something Jim would not give up for anything in the world.

"Everything is in place for next week?" Her grey eyes rested on Harley, as the younger woman contemplated the plans for the upcoming week. In the years of training Harley had acquired, this woman and the Joker had been exceptions to many of her own rules and the regulations of the hospital, but none of that mattered now, all hope was lost. Not only had they twisted her mind and dug into her desires, but each had their own way of handling her. Harley Quinn knew when a patient was playing her and in the past she had done exactly as she had been taught, but between the two patients currently, her training, body, and mind had flown out the window. Now she only had the very few wits she had left. Even now she doubted them.

"Yes." Harley replied.

"Do each of the men understand what to do?" She had once been a powerful woman in Gotham, and although she had lost it, she was going to gain it back one way or another. The blonde with silver hair sitting in her chair, knew exactly who to do to and how to deal with them.

"From… from my understanding." Harley hated that her voice paused.

"Does anyone suspect who it is?"

"Not from what I hear." Regardless of her starting to feel comfortable in this woman's presence, there was still a certain unease that she felt. There was something off about this woman, more than any drugs, or therapy could fix. Perhaps that was why this woman had chosen the Joker to do her bidding because they were so much alike.

"Good." Placing her folded hands on the table, the colorless eyes moved away from the girl. "We need to make them fear him and place all of the focus on the fool. It will serve as a better distraction."

"He wants to know how much time he has before they get here.'" Harley blurted the statement out. She did not know how the woman would react to questions or if she had the mentality of kill the messenger.

"So," A brow quirked. "He is curious. Tell him that is none of his concern, I'll take care of them and leave it at that. He has no business beyond me."

"And dat?" Maggie pointed at one of pictures from the album that Selina had been looking at. She sat contently on Selina's lap, lazily looking at the pictures, pointing out people she did know.

"That's Uncle Jim, when he was younger." Selina felt a small smile tug at her lips, as she looked over the picture. It was indeed a younger Jim Gordon in a baseball uniform, in the police league. He was posing with an arm around his pregnant wife and both appeared to be in a blissful state.

"And dat?" The girl could have never understood what the question meant to Selina but the guardian of the small dark haired girl could not let her down. She had to answer the question towards the man that had an arm around the woman she and many others hated. It was a group shot with Jim and Barbara in it as well. Jim and the other made were goofing around while Barbara laughed and the woman on the other side only smiled.

"Your grandpa." Selina attempted to keep a happy exterior for the girl, but she was afraid of what her niece might say next.

"Grandpa." Her brown eyes that had once matched Holly's so well intently studied the picture. A grandfather was a foreign concept to Maggie and so the word wasn't truly in her vocabulary.

"Yep." Suddenly, Selina's voice had grown quieter, putting Maggie in a trance as she scanned the photograph. "His name was Brian and he is your mother and mine's father."

"Oh." Father, she understood, even though she did not have one. "Where is Gran'pa?"

"With your mom." Long ago, Selina had decided against lying to Maggie, even if it killed the grown woman. She had had enough of the lying within her own family that she could no longer take it. When Maggie had asked about her absent mother, it was one of the most heart wrenching conversations that Selina had ever had in her life. Explaining to a two year old that her mother was never coming back was devastating.

"That's gran'ma." Maggie pointed on her own to the woman that Selina grew to hate over the years. For some reason, Holly once thought that their mother could be apart of their lives. It turned out that their mother's need for controlling her family was more desired than her actual children.

"Do you know who that is, little one?" Selina flipped the page and found one with the younger generation. She pointed to the teenager with light brown flowing hair and light brown eyes.

"Mommy!" Maggie smiled and turned back towards Selina.

"That's right." A reassuring smile, the girl went back to the album, naming off a few more people. It was a year ago that Holly had walked through the door and a squeal of laughter was heard from Maggie upon her mother's return. Maggie had grown steadily in that year, contracted Leukemia, obtained a larger vocabulary and understood more concepts. Holly had missed all of that.

"…and den Englan'." Maggie had continued on with recounting the story of the picture, that showed a very different looking Selina with a younger looking Barb and an eternally youthful Holly. "More stories, Cece."

"How about I tell a few?" Jim walked up behind them from their sitting spot on the shared lounge chair and took a set across from them on another chair.

"Cece better story teller." Maggie insisted.

"Oh I don't know about that." Jim smirked. "I have a couple."

"About Batman!" Jimmy hurried into the room, with Sarah trailing behind him.

"Batman?" Maggie's interests were quirked. It was a very rare occasion that she heard a glimpse of a story from Jim while he told Jimmy tales of the Dark Knight and his encounters. Although Jimmy was getting older and became more concerned with different aspects than before, there was always time for a good story.

"I'm sick of hearing about Batman." Sarah rolled her eyes as she took a seat on the floor.

"Sick of hearing about Batman?" Barb joined the growing group and promptly sat next to her brother, who had occupied the entire couch, but she was able to move his legs to gain a seat of her own. "Since when?"

"Why can't we talk about a girl protecting Gotham?" Sarah asked

"Because there aren't any girls protecting Gotham." Jimmy told her.

"What about Catwoman?" She had said this without any hesitation. While Barb and Jim glanced at each other, Selina avoided any looks coming her way and decided to readjust Maggie.

"Catwoman?" Jim was a bit taken aback by this.

"Yeah," Sarah nodded. "We always talk about Batman and sure he's cool, but Catwoman is cooler."

"She's a thief Sarah." Jim looked at his daughter in surprise. Selina just sat back, holding Maggie, equally amused and distraught at the conversation happening before her. "That's not exactly cool."

"She saved Babs." Sarah shrugged and her older sister gave her a look. That little talk that the family had was another interesting exchange within the family. "What? She did."

"That doesn't make her a hero." Jimmy rolled his eyes.

"Batman isn't a hero." Sarah shot back. "He beats people up all the time and cops. Catwoman just steals stuff that's too expensive and hasn't hurt anyone."

"He saved more people than Catwoman." Jimmy stood up for his hero.

"Catwoman is new."

"You only like her cause she's a girl."

"You only like Batman because he's a boy."

Selina bit her lip, to prevent herself from saying that Batman was anything but a boy and Catwoman was nothing but woman. Although she wasn't sure how she should take to Sarah's liking towards Catwoman. On one hand it was flattering, on another, she was a thief. A good thief, but a thief. Hearing her adoptive family argue about who was better was intriguing to say the least.

"Whatever," Jimmy waved Sarah away. "I just want to hear about Batman."

"Batman!" Maggie giggled, snuggling into Selina wanting a good story, especially with all the fast pace back and forth between sibling, it had to be a good one. Selina held back a sigh.

"I do not want to hear that name in my house!" Mrs. Gordon's voice rang through the house from the basement. The group stopped for a moment, dumbfounded.

"How does she do that?" Barb shook her head.

"The vents." Selina answered.

"Maybe mom's Catwoman." Jimmy perked up.

"Why?" Jim questioned.

"She has really good hearing like a cat." He explained, then turned to Selina. "Can you tell us a story about when you were in Brazil?"

"No!" Sarah spoke over her brother. "How about the India one, when you met that strange couple?"

"What about the story from when you were in Egypt?" Barb joined in on the fun of badgering Selina.

"Cece!" Maggie's small proclamation of her aunt's name forced all to look at her. "Stranger!"

And that was the end of the Batman versus Catwoman debate for the night, as the smallest person in the room brought up the biggest story. Even though Selina had only told Barb and Holly the story, it had somehow gotten around and so was retold many times. It was a very infrequent story, but when they heard it, silence went through them. Although Selina told an edited version, for some reason it still captured people's attention.

As Selina glanced at the eyes on her, she smiled softly and began her story. All the while thinking that when you finally had a family to count on, life was a very good thing.

Hey guys!

So I have missed writing Maggie as well it seems :P And thought it would be a bit fun to look into more of the private life of Jim Gordon. But yes, the italic little bit last chapter, we'll see where that leads to. And next chapter... which is planned, almost done as well... is the date. Please let me know what you guys think and I'm even enjoying the private messages! :)

-EV