These are just coming out like crazy...

Correction to last chapter's timeline: I forgot (really. How?) that Roy spend several years looking for his original, though in my head, it isn't quite as many as the time skip in the show. Do with that what you will.

It's not a cry that you hear at night

It's not somebody who's seen the light

It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

"Roy? Roy, honey, it's Dynah. It's been months since we heard from you, and Oliver and I are worried. We're all worried. Call me when you get this. Love you."

Ah. Love.

She was getting him confused with the real Roy Harper again; Dynah did that a lot. She couldn't possibly love him. I twas the original Roy she was thinking of, the original Roy she'd called, the original Roy she loved. He supposed that the similarities between them might make the confusion understandable - he did have the real Roy's face, for fuck's sake - but years had passed. It was time for her to wrap her head around the fact that the Roy on her speed dial was the wrong Roy.

Maybe if everyone realized that, they would start looking again. Dynah, Oliver, Kid, Robin - even Batman had given up, despite the man's legendary obsessive perseverance. It had to have been because they'd forgotten; if they could just remember, they wouldn't keep calling him and leaving 'I love you' messages.

The most ridiculous response he'd heard to it all was that it didn't seem important.

Cheshire had told him, that night on the roof, that it wasn't important where he came from. Not that she was any standard to base solid judgments off of, but he remembered that night as if it had happened every night since.

"It doesn't matter," she'd murmured against his skin as the warm water of the hot tub skated over and between them, and he remembered closing his eyes against the feeling, light as air, of her lips on his throat.

"You're insane." She had to be. There was no other explanation. She should be disgusted, repulsed, afraid. He could barely be called human, and she was licking happily at the corner of his jaw.

"I might be. But that's not important, either." Weightless in the water, she moved even closer and perched herself on top of his bare thigh with a small trickling sound of displaced water. Warm wet fingers found their way to the back of his neck and stroked at the short hair there. "You're here, and I'm here. Why not make the best of it, Red?"

In spite of the heat of the water and her naked body touching his, chills shot up his spine.

With a swift motion, he reached up and removed her hands from around his neck. It felt too good for a fake meat suit like him to enjoy.

"There's nothing positive that can be made of any of this," he ground out against her upturned lips. It was probably unethical for him not to do more to discourage the attentions of somebody as clearly mentally ill as she was.

"You're such a grouch," she replied and, completely ignoring his protests, slipped her arms back around his shoulders and pulled him deeper into the water with her.

He should have been able to resist her. He'd had all his training and at least eighty pounds on her. Everything had been in his favor that night, but somehow she'd quieted his self-deprecating anguish and convinced him to stay. In hindsight, it hadn't taken much - a few watery embraces, deep-throated kisses, and forceful whispers of exactly what he'd needed to hear.

Cheshire was different. She'd had no delusions anywhere along the line about what he was - his discovered that she'd witnessed a good portion of his growth and deployment by the Shadows - and never forgot who she was talking to or arguing with or fucking. It's doesn't matter.

It mattered everything in the world.

Almost everything, anyway.

He used to look forward to the nighttime. First because it meant a chance to give his tired body a rest, back when he was training as Speedy and then protecting the streets on his own as Red Arrow. When Cheshire came along to infiltrate the darkness, he would wait out the daylight hours until she would appear, and they would fill the room with the loudest fuck cries he had ever sworn he didn't make.

Now his nights were silent: either silently stalking through locked doors and dark halls in pursuit of him, or silently pressing callused palms to his weary eyes in pathetic attempts to blind himself to thoughts of her.

Both were always fruitless.

They found him once.

It was a waste of his time, talking with them on that roof. He had the bribe money he needed to take the next step in his search, but the window was only open for so long before Roy would be moved again. They didn't understand, and listening to the lecture shit they had to say was only a waste of his energy. Accidentally passing a wedding party on the street the week before had kept him up for days with memories of the honeymoon in his apartment - he had precious little energy left. Seeing their sad and concerned faces was a waste of the fleeting patience he had to draw on those days. If they weren't going to help, then he didn't want their pity.

"Come back to the light, Roy," Oliver had implored, and the pleading in his face and voice had pushed him over the edge.

"It's not me you're missing," he'd growled before leaping off the roof and away from all those pitying eyes. "The only light left for me is the one all of you have given up on."

He tried not to remember the way Dynah's face had crumpled - subtlely, because she was above everything a toughened fighter, but he'd caught it anyway - as he'd turned his back.

He hadn't bothered clearing out his old apartment when he'd picked up the search again; there wasn't anything there he'd wanted to keep. Everything had probably been tossed onto the street, to be broken or carried away. He made sure his next residence was even shittier than the last - he neither wanted nor could afford anything close to resembling a home, or even a livable space. Where he slept was a reflection of the shell that slept there - he never felt guilty about returning to this place for a nap or a rare protein shake.

The place was still dark when he reached it that night - just as he'd left it. He crashed onto the ratty couch just after getting in, still in his suit. Extraneous clothing was another unnecessary luxury that he couldn't afford anymore.

The last thing he'd been expecting was a visitor in this hole.

"You're looking as bright and chipper as ever, sweetie."

The taunting lilt of the voice was unmistakable.

"Really, Red? You're going to shoot me now?"

Right. The bow. He tossed it aside, arrow and all, as she stepped into the pool of light coming from the uncovered window, grinning as widely and teasingly as ever.

She was back.