AN: I got a message or two about how the whole Eddy thing got played out to fast. Just thought I'd say that it's not over at all. There's still some things he needs to do. Just trying to figure out which path I want to go with him. But it's not resolved just yet.

Marie hadn't ditched class in a long time, she was hoping her teacher wouldn't really notice her absence. Knowing she couldn't go home just yet, because her mother may have been there, she decided to go to the park right by the school. She could lay in the grass, go on the swings, just relax and cool off for a while.

"That skank kissed Double D. Pft, what should I care. He can do what he wants. He wants to ignore me. Fine. He wants to kiss little redhead skanks. Fine. Do it. I don't even care". Marie plopped herself on the lush green grass, directly in the sun and pulled out her phone. "Oh god! The new Batmobile looks sick"!

"New Batmobile"? Marie raised an eyebrow and looked past her phone to see who said that. "Can I see"? It was a little boy. Must have just gotten out of school. Not hiding her irritation from the child she slowly raised herself off the ground and showed the boy the pictures on the phone. He proceeded to freak out. As you'd expect a small boy to do when they see something as awesome as the Batmobile. His reaction in turn made Marie laugh. Something she desperately needed to do today. "Do you like the new Bat Suit"?

"I do. Looks much better then the one from the last bunch of movies". Marie couldn't believe she was sitting here having a conversation with this child.

"Did you see the armor he wears too?!", the boy screamed with excitement. "Looks just like the one he wears in the Dark Knight Returns". Marie was impressed this boy knew so much about Batman. She went on to quiz him and test his knowledge, and while they had some major differences in what they preferred, he definitely knew his stuff.

"Dean! What are you doing? Stop bugging the poor girl". A women who Marie could only assume was the boy's mother came running over. "I'm so sorry Ms. Hope he didn't bother you to much". Surprisingly this was the most she'd enjoyed a conversation in a long time. She was usually not very fond of children but this kid, Dean, was alright.

"He wasn't bothering me. It's no big deal".

"Come on Dean, your sisters are all ready, let's get home".

"Wait one second". He turned to Marie. "Nightwing or Red Hood"? Marie smiled and unzipped the small jacket she was wearing to reveal the Red Hood logo on her shirt. The boy did the same, but with the Nightwing symbol. She laughed again and waved to them as they walked away. It was almost two. School was about to let out so she could start making her way home.

She arrived home to an empty house. Her mother works ever changing hours so there's no telling when she had to go in, or when she was coming home. Marie faced a difficult decision now. Eat and then shower, or shower then eat. She felt dirty but was so hungry. Boil water for Ramen while taking a shower! Brilliant, she thought to herself. So a quick shower later Marie threw on some pajamas and ran down to start her food. She also checked her phone to see a missed call from Lee. After her sisters went out to live with their fathers Marie had a chance to sort of mature and grow up. She changed a lot. However it was Lee who had changed the most of all the sisters. For the better too. She was still a hot head at times but was a lot more mellowed out now. She took school very seriously and spent a lot of time volunteering to help clean her community parks and forests. She was all about saving the wildlife and all that. She made sure to call Marie at least once a week to check in on everything. As weird as it was the two of them became a lot closer after they stopped living together. However Marie was hungry and in a bad mood so she would just call her back later. For now she was going to lay in her bed, eat her food, and start watching season two of Arrow on Netflix.

"Yes father the cast is setting as we speak. I'll look into that as soon as I can. Okay, bye". Edd and his father were making progress with their project. This one required a full arm prosthetic. A cast of Edd's arm was to be sure they made it the proper size. And with that being done for the time being Edd could go locate the next thing he needed. He hopped on his computer to find the number of a few stores in town. While doing so he realized how soar his body had become. The climbing really took it's toll on him. Surly the encounter with Eddy didn't help ether.

After making a call to a few places Edd found what he was looking for and headed out to pick it up. It was at a thrift store. Edd loved going to them during his travels with his parents. You'd find the oddest things there. In this case he was looking for a mannequin to keep the costume he and his father were making on. He needed a full body one and most stores only had a head, or body. Really lucked out with this one. Edd had never been inside this store so he had no idea how huge it really was. He couldn't imagine the kinds of things he could find if he took the time to look. He made his way to the front counter to await assistance.

"Hey dude.", he heard from behind the counter. "You called about the mannequin right Double D"? Edd had no idea Nazz worked here. Was she the one he talked to over the phone? No, couldn't be, he would have noticed.

"Hello Nazz. Yes, I was the one who called about the mannequin". Nazz grabbed a rather large box and placed it on the counter.

"I hate these things. I always feel like the second I turn away from one it's going to come to life and attack me. I was so happy to put it in a box and get it out of here. Now if only I could get rid of the room full of them we still have".

"Well I'm sure I'll be needing more in the coming months.", Edd smiled to his friend.

"Sooner the better. Oh! You've been spending a lot of time with Marie lately haven't you? Do you know what happened to her today"? It was only now that Edd was realizing that he hadn't really spoken to Marie as of late. So he had no idea what Nazz was talking about. "I have English with her second period and she was there, but in fourth period Art she wasn't. On my way to class I thought I heard some kid crying about Marie hurting him. You don't know anything about it"?

"I'm afraid not. Hopefully it's nothing serious, and she just had some sort of appointment or something of that nature. Well, I must be going now. Thank you for the mannequin".

"No problem. I'll give you a discount on the rest if you buy them all"!

Edd couldn't help himself from thinking about Marie now. Was the last time he talked to her that night at her house? Being with her all day everyday had become such a normal thing it was hard for him to believe he had gone so long without seeing or talking to her. Ring ring. Edd stopped and answered his phone. It was Kevin, asking if Edd wanted to go climbing again. He did, but he was soar and wouldn't be able to for long. None the less he said yes and Kevin said he'd come pick him up.

Kevin immediately tackled the hard stuff while Edd just barely made it up the beginner course. His body just was not used to this kind of activity anymore. He foresaw an ice bath in his future. Taking a break, Edd found a table to catch his breath at. Looking around it seemed like there were a lot more people then last time.

"Hello Eddward". Edd heard the familiar voice of Anna greeting him. So he greeted her back and she sat at the table with him. She told him how the whole incident with him and Eddy had gotten a brief mention on the local news and they mentioned this place. Apparently a lot of people didn't know about it and a lot of them signed up. Her uncle decided to make a new course that would change every single day. It would be a little while before it was finished being set up though. He thought that would be a good way to keep the people coming.

Edd and Anna talked for what they thought was merely a few minutes, but when Kevin showed up at the table letting them know it had been over an hour they couldn't believe it. Edd decided it was time to get back and try to climb again, so he said goodbye to Anna and joined Kevin once more. What he didn't realize was that the whole time he was talking with Anna he started drawing a design for a new climbing course. It wasn't anything more then a doodle really, but it still looked great. Anna decided to take it, she doubted Edd would care.

Edd only climbed for another thirty minutes and had to stop. He didn't want to overdue it and kill his still frail body by pushing to hard. After coming off the wall Edd was approached by Anna's uncle John. He showed him the doodle he drew and talked about how Anna talked him up like he was some sort of genius. As another way to make amends for what happened he offered Edd a chance to design a real course to be built. And if the design was good and customers enjoyed it, he could do it again, and be paid for it. Designing something like this would be no trouble for him and the possibility of getting paid if he did a good enough job was very appealing to him. So he gladly accepted. Kevin insisted on giving advice on how to make it. Edd sort of tuned him out and thought of how he wanted to do it. He couldn't wait to get started.

"Yeah, so everything is just kind of messy right now Lee. I'd love to come down and visit you soon, but the first long break isn't until November for Thanksgiving. I'm not sure I'll last that long here. If you ever want to come up and rescue me, please, by all means".

"Marie, you home"?

"Moms home, I got to go. Talk to you later". Marie threw her phone and got off her bed to go see her mother. She gave her daughter a kiss and dumped a lot of papers, files, and binders on the dinning room table. She asked how Marie's day was. No matter how busy she was with work the first thing she did when she got home was always talk to her daughter. She asked how her day was, and Marie lied about it. Trying to convince her mother school was going great and she wasn't going out of her mind. Marie's mother knew Marie was clearly lying to her but didn't bring it up. Marie had no way to know, but the school called her mom about her missing last period. Her mother knew Marie wouldn't just walk out of school unprovoked and didn't want to just come home and yell at her and make her even more upset. She wanted to play it out slow and see what Marie did in the coming days before getting to serious about anything. She wasn't exactly a model student herself back when she was in school and Marie's grades were always great. If that stopped being the case there would be a problem. As for now, she would just let her daughter do what she needed to.