Idk wtf happened here but somehow you guys have a 7,000+ words chapter. I'm sorry? Hopefully this isn't too much of an information dump. Anyway, I was talking to Joker's Lover and I mentioned that there would be feels in this chapter… Don't kill me please? I hope you guys enjoy, and hopefully I caught all of the typos. Please REVIEW!
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Rowan generally didn't mind being a girl. She could still do all the same things the opposite sex could, so as far as she was concerned biological gender wasn't really an issue.
Except for about four or five days a month. On those days she couldn't wear light cored pants, and felt as if someone was stabbing her in the lower stomach with a dull knife repeatedly. On those days she hated being female.
And if anyone knew her opinion on that fact better than she did, it was Tim and Damian. Those boys had seen her at both her best and worst, often times being the ones to get her there. Because of this, it only made sense that the first time they encountered her during her period, they took her refusal to leave the house and floor hugging tendencies in a stride.
Somehow, in the months following, they'd worked out a routine for when Mother Nature came to visit her and she wasn't feeling up to much of anything. In all honesty, she'd thought they would be squicked out by it, but they never even mentioned it.
Even though she knew that they knew that she was bleeding from her crotch and that's why all she wanted to do was eat junk food and kick their butts at video games.
But yeah that would have been an awkward conversation. That's why instead of talking about it, they simply came to her house and messed around on her 'off' days.
It just so happened that one of her 'off' days was today, however. That one little fact sucked, as at the moment she was lying in her bed curled around her phone ready to hiss at any sunlight that dared to enter her room. Usually she took a pill to prevent cramps before she saw her friends, but she hadn't felt the beginnings of any yet so she figured she was fine.
She was texting Tim, who had asked if she wanted to go to the movies, and Damian, who was telling her that they were going to the movies. In all honesty she both did and didn't. Yes, she wanted to watch things with her friends, no she didn't want to get out of bed. So she told them so. She was happy with their replies.
'So we'll watch something at your house.' came from Damian.
She got 'I'll come over with snacks' from Tim.
The hour they took to arrive was more than enough, as all she'd needed to do was put on pants and pick up all of her books so they'd have room to spread out on her floor.
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Damian, as was his preferred position, was the first to arrive. He'd found that if she was in the right mood, sometimes Rowan would bake while she had friends over.
She'd banned them from helping her after a fourth incident in the kitchen that involved food coloring, but the small kitchen was open to the living room so it was easy for them to all enjoy a movie while she baked.
Well, it was either that or she watched them play video games until she was done with her task and could join in. Either way, if she felt like making something, she often asked whoever showed up first what they'd like.
It was for that reason that he'd found himself with an abundance of cinnamon rolls or Rowan's special chocolate chip cookies more often than not. When Tim managed to beat him to the girl's house, they usually had some chocolate based treat for the day.
Not that he was truly complaining, of course. He'd found that he had a taste for cinnamon, and since Rowan herself seemed to put it in whatever she could, he was good to go. He still preferred to have the choice, though.
Unfortunately, minutes after he arrived he found that Rowan was more in the mood to lie on the floor than bake him anything.
She was sprawled on her stomach, not even bothering to get anywhere near her bed. One of her arms was thrown straight forward, while the other was sandwiched between her lower stomach and the floor. She had her comforter balled up under her face, and he momentarily wondered if she was even able to breathe.
Seeing that she still hadn't noticed his presence, Damian smirked and squatted down beside her. He pulled off the sunglasses he'd been wearing and used them to poke Rowan directly on the back of her neck.
She immediately squeaked and her entire body jerked. Before he even stopped to think about it, he had his hand on her back to keep her down and a laugh slipped out of his mouth.
"Someone's jumpy."
At the moment the pressure he was using wasn't enough to hurt her, but it still kept her from sitting all the way up. She was still able to lift her head and glare at him, though. She wasn't wearing her glasses, and he could see the wet sheen to her gaze.
Immediately he pulled his hand up and straightened, sitting back on his heels.
"Are you okay?" he intoned, studying her closer now.
He didn't think that he'd done anything to upset her, and she didn't look hurt.
"I'm uh, cramping really badly..." she said quietly, red beginning to tint her cheeks.
Damian felt his eyebrows raise, and he didn't try to stop them. At this point he could recognize when it was 'her time of the month', and he knew to adjust his behavior accordingly. Today, for example, he knew that she was on her cycle and he'd accepted the fact that she didn't really want to leave her house because of her symptoms.
He'd never noticed her to be prone to mood swings, yet he knew she suffered from cramps, increased junk food cravings, and general tenderness. He also knew that while those things irritated her, she'd never been reduced to tears by them before.
Out of all the situations he'd found himself in, this was the one that left him at a loss. He could figure out what to do when confronted by a literal horde of zombies, but a hurting girl mid menstrual cycle? None of his training had prepared him for that.
And it irritated him.
"Do you need anything?" he eventually asked after a few moments of awkward silence.
For a second her blush flared brighter, but then she apparently decided that whatever pain she was going through was worth the embarrassment.
"Can just... I don't know help me up?"
She reached out one of her hands towards him, and he stared at it blankly. He'd actually expected her to give him a task, not... Whatever she was doing.
He still did end up grasping the offered appendage and hoisting her up, though. Once she was on her feet, she once again placed her hand on her stomach and winced, shuffling from foot to foot.
Damian crossed his arms as he watched her, not quite sure what he was supposed to be doing. Which as it turned out, was just one more thing that irritated him.
"Just head to the living room I guess," she murmured softly, squinting at him slightly," I think I'm just gonna take a pill and be done with it."
"Tt, why didn't you just take a pill earlier?"
She pulled her black framed glasses out of her hoodie pocket and slipped them on, letting some of the escaped wisps of hair from her ponytail fall into her face. She didn't answer him, and he saw the rosy hue to her cheeks as they walked down the hall and she stopped to go into her bathroom.
He narrowed his eyes, and huffed at her.
"...You were just too lazy to get off of the floor earlier weren't you?"
"Maybe," she said, giving him a sheepish shrug as she riffled through her medicine cabinet.
"You're a lazy cow and I'm surprised your Mother didn't make you get up earlier," he deadpanned.
She ignored his insult, and he was only mildly offended that it had been wasted. Really, though, at this point he should have been used to it.
"My Mama's not home; I think she left when I was taking a nap earlier. Don't judge."
"Then your Grandmother should have done it."
She sighed, and blew a raspberry at him.
"Gran was downstairs making tomorrow's batch of ice cream. She came up like an hour ago and went straight to the shower."
Damian pushed from his position leaning on the doorway once he saw Rowan shake out a tiny pill from a bottle and wash it down with a hand full of tap water.
"That's disgusting," he told her.
There was no reason for her to do that when he knew she had perfectly good bottled water in her kitchen.
"Meh," she replied, shrugging him off.
She was still rubbing at her stomach when they made it into the living room. The pill, he knew, would take a few minutes to kick in. He checked his watch to try and make an estimate, and instead found himself wondering how much time he would have before Tim showed up.
There where some things he wanted to discuss with Rowan, preferably alone. Tim did already know most of what he wanted to tell the girl, but he still felt that the older boy didn't need to be there.
For a while his Father and Dick had been trying to get him to be more social, and in some ways they'd succeeded. He worked well with most members of the family, and he could even work with some of the younger heroes that visited Gotham with their parents every now and again. Not to mention his more covert missions with Colin.
Despite this, Dick felt that he needed more social interaction. His Father had agreed, and even Jason had grudgingly admitted that 'kids' needed social structure to survive. Damian had, of course, argued that his social structure was just fine. Bruce had all but ignored him, however, and had enrolled him in Gotham Academy of all places.
He knew even Rowan's Mother and Grandmother had been trying to get her into the prestigious school for months, yet he couldn't quite muster the respect everyone seemed to have for it. He'd managed a week and a half before he'd realized two things: the first was that he already knew everything that was being taught, the second was that everyone he met was annoying.
He'd simply stopped going after that. Through careful maneuvering, he'd managed to keep Dick and Bruce under the impression that he was actually attending for a solid three months. He'd even taken a page out of Rowan's book and had simply done every possible assignment ahead of time. Jason, surprising as it was, happened to be the only one who realized that he wasn't actually going.
When he'd finally been found out and the whole thing had blown over, he'd thought that his guardians had finally given up on their misguided task.
Lately, however, his Father had brought up his 'social issue' again. The man had made the suggestion that he go with Tim to the Titans for an unspecified amount of time. Nothing was solid, and he still believed he had the chance to talk his Father out of it.
He still felt that he should warn Rowan, though. While she had other friends to occupy her time, he did realize that he took up a relatively large part of it. For such an introverted girl, any time at all was a relatively large amount. When Tim was gone, he did notice that she seemed to miss him. He wondered if she'd feel the same for him.
He also wondered if she'd be able to stay out of trouble.
In Gotham, there was no guarantee. When the bigger villains came out to play, they almost always pulled civilians into their twisted schemes. Gotham seemed to have two types of people: those who found themselves caught in the riptide, and those who have lived with it long enough to know how to stay afloat. The ones who couldn't stay above it where usually the ones who got caught and ended up dead.
Rowan's family, fortunately, where part of those who'd learned how to survive in the volatile city they called home. Rose had a reinforced attic, reinforced basement, a phone in every room, bullet proof glass in every window, and double locks on every possible entrance. To anyone who didn't live in the city, it looked extreme. To anyone who did, it almost wasn't enough.
Rowan herself had been taught how to avoid the more dangerous situations on her walks to and from school, and how to run like hell in the right direction if she found herself in a bad place. By some sheer form of luck, Rowan had stayed out of harm's way in the god forsaken town. Logically, he knew that if she and her family kept living the way they did, she'd stay safe.
Yet lately, something deep within him had been grating at his senses. Some instinctual form of intuition was telling him that something big was coming. Something dangerous was heading for him.
As he sat with his small friend, however, the biggest thing on his mind was the hope that her luck would continue to hold.
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They were half way through 'The City Of Lost Children' when she heard the tell-tale click of the lock on her front door.
Damian was standing up to leave, since it was his turn on patrol that night, but Tim was staying.
Since Gran was watching the slightly odd movie with them, Rowan knew it could only be one person: her Mama. Grinning, she pushed herself up and turned around so that she could peer over the back of the couch.
"Hey Ma- oh."
Immediately she felt the smile slip off of her face, and she didn't even register the fact that her grip had tightened on the licorice in her hand.
It wasn't Tuesday. Tuesday was the day she could handle this. Tuesday was date day. But it wasn't Tuesday.
She immediately brought her hand up to her mouth to gnaw on one of her bracelets as she watched her Mama stumble through the door, giggling.
"Oooooh, Ro, baby guess what?" Miranda asked once she caught sight of her daughter.
Rowan could feel the heat of her friends beside her, and she chose not to answer her. Instead, she turned back around and slipped back into her spot between them.
Both boys were now staring at her Mama, and she wanted to pinch them both and tell them not to do that. It would draw attention to them, and make her Mama come over.
But she didn't, she couldn't. She was afraid of what would come out of her mouth. Instead, she kept her eyes glued to the screen, not comprehending a thing that was happening as she pulled harshly on the now too damp string of her bracelet with her teeth.
'Ignore it,' Rowan thought to herself.
"Is your Mother Drunk?" Damian asked from beside her, blunt as ever.
'Ignore it,'
She heard her Gran snap her book shut loudly, huffing.
'Ignore it,'
"Rowan?" Tim asked, bumping into her shoulder slightly.
She glanced quickly at him, and shrugged.
'Ignore it,'
She could hear the clicking of high heels getting closer.
'Ignore it. Ignore it. Ignore-'
"Rooooo, babyyyy! Guess what, guess what, guess what!"
Sweaty manicured hands found their way onto Rowan's shoulders, and she tried to shrug them off. That, of course, only made her Mama slide them down and forward so that she could lean over and wrap her arms around Rowan's neck from behind.
She knew it was supposed to be a hug, but it felt more like a noose.
She turned her face toward her Mama's; her makeup was smeared, though none the less striking.
"What?" she whispered.
At the moment, she was hoping that if she played along her Mama would just get in bed sooner.
"Mmm," her Mama hummed, nuzzling awkwardly into Rowan's cheek.
She smelled like brandy.
"Ms. Chase?" Tim questioned.
Her Mama's preferred drink was vodka.
"Ooh," her Mama giggled," Ro, your friends are so pretty."
She only drank brandy on Tuesdays.
Rowan closed her eyes.
"Mama?" She questioned softly, placing her own hand over the intoxicated woman's.
"You're pretty toooo," she said, nearly singing towards the end of her sentence.
Rowan was always careful not to invite the boys over on Tuesdays. She was always so, so careful not to invite anyone.
"God, why are you so pretty? No. No, no, no, no! You're cute! You're such a cuties! Chubby cheeks and curly hair, ooooh! Me and your Daddy made such a cutie!"
"Miranda Anne Chase! You better get your intoxicated behind away from these children right now!"
Rowan opened her eyes to see the harsh scowl on her Gran's pale face, and the pout on her Mama's. Gran was fed up, and when Gran was fed up she got serious. Even drunk off her ass, Rowan's Mama knew to listen to her own Mama.
"Aww, night baby giiirl," her Mama breathed, leaning in to give her a sloppy kiss on the cheek.
The lipstick left behind felt sticky and gross on Rowan's cheek. The worst part though? Rowan got a big whiff of brandy as her Mama leaned up shakily.
She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes again.
Her Mama didn't even like brandy. She didn't like brandy, but every Tuesday she came home smelling like a fresh bottle because while she preferred vodka, Mitchel loved brandy.
Every Tuesday she left to go have her 'Spa Day', when in reality she was going to see Rowan's Father. Except Rowan wasn't supposed to know that.
She wasn't supposed to know that her Mama left every Tuesday with her face done up like a goddess wearing 'fuck me pumps'. She wasn't supposed to know that she met a married man for dinner. She wasn't supposed to know that she came home every Tuesday at a different hour smelling like her lover's drink of choice because alcohol was the only way she could live with being her Soul Mate's mistress.
Rowan wasn't supposed to know that, and so every Tuesday, she made sure not to invite her friends over so that they wouldn't ask questions she wasn't supposed to know the answers to.
Except her Mama had broken her cycle, and now it was Wednesday and Damian was staring with disgust at her Mama's retreating back.
But it wasn't him she we worried about. Damian would let it go. He would be angry at her for not telling him, but he would see how little she wanted to talk about it, and let it go.
But Tim? Well, he was staring at her like he didn't know her. And perhaps he didn't, but she had a feeling that by the time the night was through, he would. He'd find a way to get her to talk. He wouldn't give up; he'd get under her skin if that's what it took. She wouldn't make him push that hard, but if he needed to he would. He'd know more about her than she knew about herself.
Always the detective; his blue eyes saw way too much.
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She'd let her hair down, and he couldn't see past the curls that hid her face. All he knew was that at his point, she'd probably chewed through at least three of her bracelets.
Her shoulders weren't shaking, and no sound came from her, yet he wondered if there were tears in her eyes. He didn't think so, but he'd never actually seen her cry before.
He'd witnessed the small girl get into some situations that would've had anyone her age bawling. He'd seen Damian drop her shoulder onto hard pavement. He'd seen her burn her hand on a pan fresh out of a 425 degree oven. He'd even seen her trip halfway down a flight of stairs in an aggressive game of tag. Yet through it all, she'd never let them see her cry.
Through it all, she'd worn a lop sided smile that said 'yeah, I'm in a fair amount of pain,',and at first he thought she was pretty brave for it. Now?
He wondered if she didn't save her tears for other things.
Tim had always known that she was particularly sensitive to those around her. If it wasn't the timid way she presented herself that told him, then it was her penchant for watching people.
Most of the time she could be rather flighty; there was no masking her lack of interest in the shifting world around her. When she found something that caught her attention, however, well, then she grabbed on to it for all it was worth. The multitude of books, video games, movies, sharpies, and sweets was a testimony to that. When she was focused on something, whatever it was took its own special place in her exclusive world.
As someone so young, small, and quiet, Rowan melted mostly into the background. He'd noticed it on their few trips out. Most people over looked her, and maybe they were right to. Yet she didn't do that in response.
Instead, he'd often caught her studying the masses on trips to the park or movie theaters. Once, he'd seen her staring at a smartly dressed business man sitting on a bench in front of a play ground in Gotham park.
That day, she'd wanted to teach Damian how to play baseball. They'd spent nearly an hour playing catch and taking turns with a bat before Rowan decided she needed a breather. They'd settled at a table just beyond the playground to enjoy some of the snacks they'd brought. Damian had taken one bench, Tim took the other, and Rowan had seated herself on the table, with her feet resting on the bench facing the play ground.
He'd watched her eat three pieces of bread and multiple strawberries before finally asking her why she was staring at the man.
She'd turned towards him with the slightly hooded eyes he'd come to recognize as her neutrally relaxed expression, and simply blinked, head tilted towards the side in question.
"You've been staring at him for nearly 15 minutes Ro," he'd laughed.
After she spoke though, well, he hadn't been much in the laughing mood then.
"He watches them like he loves them," she'd murmured around a half eaten strawberry.
"Well, some father's do actually love their children," Damian had piped in from his place lying on the opposite bench seat.
Rowan had hummed her approval before picking up another strawberry and returning her gaze to the man. After she finished the red fruit, she'd wiped her hands on her worn jeans and hopped off the table.
He'd watched her clean up her mess, and had nearly forgotten about the entire situation when she spoke again.
"That's just it," she said in her usual soft way," I don't think any of those kids are his."
At that point, both he and Damian had stopped with whatever they'd been doing. Damian, for all of his harsh nature, had a soft spot when it came to children.
"What makes you say that?" he'd asked her.
She'd taken one look at Damian, stiff with his arms crossed, and had straightened up herself. With one hand full of unused napkins, and the other wrapped protectively around her body, she'd tried to explain something Tim had never bothered to imagine her being able to comprehend.
"Well, he's uh, he's been here since we got here, you know? But none of the kids have gone up to him," she started fidgeting, and Tim didn't quite know what to think.
"He doesn't look tired like someone with a little kid would, you know? And he never checks the time like business-y guys always do. If you gotta be that dressed up for your job, and you don't have time to get out of your clothes to take your kid to the park, don't you think it's a bit weird that he, uh, doesn't have to worry about how long he stays?"
He'd stood there, surprised and quite frankly a little unsettled. He'd become even more unsettled when he'd looked into the man's life later on.
That night, however, Robin and Red Robin took some time off from their usual duties to find a pedophile. And if Robin had blood on his gloves and the smartly dressed man was just a little worse for wear when they dropped him off at the police station? Well that was just a mystery.
He'd always thought Rowan too sweet for things like that. He'd thought her too naive, fragile, and timid. Now, though?
Well he wasn't quite so sure anymore.
He had known there were some things that she didn't quite tell him about her family; things that she didn't tell Damian. He'd known, and yet he'd never really stopped to look at what that meant.
At the moment, as he watched Rowan obsessively twist her hand into the bottom of her hoodie, he wondered if he should have.
"Rowan?" Damian asked from his spot standing above them.
The younger boy should have been gone already, yet Tim didn't see any fear of the time. Instead, he saw a hand twitching as if wanting to reach out in comfort, and a mind struggling to find proper words.
Tim found his first.
"You should go Damian, I'll stay and help her clean up."
He wouldn't offer to finish the movie, since their mood had been effectively ruined. He wouldn't just leave her there either. He'd help her clean up, and finally find out what was going on while he was at it.
"Tim's right," Rowan said, surprising him.
He hadn't expected her to speak, let alone back him up. Yet with her approval, Damian gave her one last guarded look, and then was gone.
"I'll bring over some Wing Stop and Call of Duty tomorrow," where his parting words.
Between him and Rowan, they might as well have been words of apology and reassurance.
Instead of dwelling on that little fact, Tim focused all of his attention back on Rowan. The girl was looking at him, knees pulled to her chest cheek resting softly on them. Her eyes were wide open, and her glasses were tilted askew and digging into the pliant flesh on her face.
"Hey Rowan-" he started, but she cut him off.
"You put the games and stuff away, I'll take the dishes to the kitchen."
Before he could stop her, she was pushing herself up and heading towards the kitchen with an armful of plates.
Seeing the diversion tactic for what it was, Tim set to his task with a slight head shake. He finished quickly, and efficiently.
Normally he made sure to make some sort of noise since Rowan startled so easily, but at the moment he wasn't looking to ease her fears.
He was learning that when she was calm and comfortable, when he coddled her too much, she got things past him with a slyness he'd never known she possessed. He valued his friends, and because of that, he was willing to do whatever it took to help them out.
Even if it meant pushing a soft spoken girl to say the things he'd noticed in private out loud, and maybe even explain them to him. Conner, out of all people, was the one who'd taught him that it was better to talk about your problems than hold them in.
"Ro," he called softly as he settled a hand on her should.
He felt her jump, automatically shifting forward to get away from his touch. When she realized what he was doing, she tensed and then dropped the fork she'd been rinsing into the dish drainer.
"Hm?" she hummed in question, not quite looking him in the eye.
He backed up a little to give her breathing room. He watched her like that, studying her as she went through the motions of cleaning dishes.
"What's going on, Ro?" he eventually asked, deciding that the direct approach was the best way to go.
Instead of tensing again, she seemed to visibly shrink within herself, and he realized that she'd been expecting his question. This was her defense.
She shifted from foot to foot, nearly sighing out her words.
"Nothing."
He raised a brow, setting his stance to mimic her defensive visage. She responded based on the actions of those around her; if he came off as hard her own facade would soften. She got nervous when people came at her too harshly, and he'd use that to his advantage.
"If nothing's wrong, then why did you freak out when your mom came home?"
He watched her jaw clench and he could practically feel her heart beating faster as she scrambled for words.
"I just- I uh, I don't like you seeing her... Like that."
"Like what? Drunk?"
She shifted on her feet, small fingers twisting themselves into the woven bracelets she wore up to her elbow.
"Yeah?"
In that moment, Tim saw his chance and took it.
"Was that a statement or a question, Ro?"
Her brown eyes narrowed, but he was satisfied with the way she continued her fidgeting. She was getting nervous; cornered.
"Does it matter?"
For a moment, he wondered if he really was just being an ass.
Then he saw Rowan flinch as a crash rang out from the direction of the bedrooms, and he decided that he didn't care.
"At the moment? Yes, but if you prefer we could talk about why you hate your Mom going on dates so much. Is the drinking why? Does she usually get flat out drunk?"
He'd thrown it all out there; everything he'd never thought to ask about.
Over the past few years, he'd noticed just how wound up his small friend got when her Mom dressed up and went out on dates. He'd also noticed how always seemed to come home sans some of her pristine makeup with a few extra dark purple spots on her neck.
He'd never judged of course. The woman was single, in her prime, and gorgeous; even he could see that. Who she slept with was her business.
But if whatever she had going on in her free time was affecting Rowan, he wanted to know.
He heard the harsh breath Rowan had forced out, and it brought his attention back to the task at hand.
She had some of her hair fisted in her hand, and she was clenching it so tight he worried that she'd pull it out.
"I-" she started, eyes searching the ground in front of her frantically,"I just, I don't know."
He watched her scramble for words, and felt himself sighing. He moved beside her and grabbed her hand gently to pull it out of her hair. She looked at him with wide eyes, but let him pull her down when he slid to the floor.
He let go of her hand and stretched his legs out in front of him, bumping Rowan's shoulder with his own as she settled.
"Rowan, what's going on?" he asked once he was sure she'd calmed.
He was staring straight ahead, but he could still feel when she pushed herself farther into his side and leaned her head onto his arm.
"She's not a bad person," she whispered.
He fought not to look at her, because he knew he did she might not continue.
"I never said she was."
"I know Tim, I just-"
She stopped to take a breath.
"I just want you to know that- that it's just the way things turned out for her."
"What turned out for her?" he asked, prompting her as gently as he could.
She needed to encouragement.
"My Mama, her mark, her Soul Mark I mean, they're my Father's. And uh, I'm almost sure he has her's. They're a matching pair, ya know?"
At first he wasn't sure what her Mom's marks had to do with anything, but he was beginning to see where she was going.
"Generally they do come in pairs, Ro."
'Or more,' he thought to himself.
She let out a sound that could have passed for a laugh, had she not choked on it. Startled, he looked at her out of the corner of his eye.
All he could really see was the frizzy mess of the ponytail that she'd created from pulling so harshly at her strands. Besides that, he couldn't see past the hand that she had covering her face.
"Not everybody gets a happy ending, Tim."
She didn't exactly sound cynical, yet there was something bitter there's.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
She pulled herself far enough way that she could tuck her knees to her chest, but she still kept her arm aligned with his side.
"My Father's wife, Margo? Her Soul Mate has someone else's mark. That's part of the reason why she even married him."
Tim didn't know what he wanted to question first; the fact that her Dad was married, or the fact that he'd married someone other than his Soul Mate. In the end, he somehow ended up asking the dumber of the two questions.
"You're Dad's married?"
"Yeah, you didn't know? I mean you've seen my sisters before; he had them like a year after he got married. And he always wears his ring.." she said, smiling softly.
He had met her sisters once. The girls were blonde, blue eyed twins, yet they couldn't be more different. One looked like the prep school poster child, while the other one wore neon tube tops and had mint green hair. He'd only stayed for about fifteen minutes before he felt like he was intruding, and he'd left. Rowan seemed to adore them though, so he supposed they were okay in the long run.
The one time he'd met her Dad had been what he had come to recall as the Christmas disaster. He hadn't bothered to take in any more than he normally would have, but now that he thought about the man had been wearing a gold wedding band.
"Yeah, I remember," he said offhandedly.
And then suddenly, as he thought about it, everything clicked. Rowan's sisters where three years older than her, and if they were born a year after he'd married...
"You think they're having an affair?"
She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, and he hopped that she had he sense not to bite through it.
"I know they are," she whispered.
"Is that where she was-"
"Yeah," she interrupted," usually she goes on Tuesday, but... Yeah."
He didn't quite know what to say to that, but soon she was talking again and he didn't need to.
"Mama never told me, but I've seen her mark. It's on her thigh. It's... It looks like a mirror. Looked, I guess. The words, they're shattered."
She was staring at her lap now. Her fingers, as they always seemed to do, had found themselves caught in her bracelets. He wondered if beneath them all, her skin was rubbed raw yet.
"It didn't used to be like that, I've seen pictures."
"Of what, her mark?"
Rowan hummed her approval.
"It used to be whole, I guess you could say. Before she met him, I think you could have looked at her mark and seen yourself clear as any actual mirror," she paused there before continuing," It's cool how the marks can do that. I don't think the greatest artist in the world could make the marks that some people get look so real."
Tim hadn't seen many in person, but he had to agree. What he wanted to know, however, was how such a beautiful sounding mark had changed so violently.
"Ro, what happened?"
She shrugged, and then flicked a piece of hair out of her face, only for it to spring stubbornly back into place.
"My Father, for all of his faults, really does compliment Mama. I think... I think he really is what she needed in a Soul Mate. Mama never told me, but I think the moment she actually really met him, she knew wasn't going to get that picture perfect love story like in the movies.. It was like everything she'd thought she'd have, her dreams just..."
Tim knew what she was trying to say, so he finished for her.
"They shattered."
Rowan nodded.
"The words reflect the person they belong to, and my Father... My Dad? He always does what other people want him to do. I don't even think he knows who he is anymore. Mama would probably never have told me, but Gran said that when I was born, Mitchel was going to leave his wife for Mama."
She stopped there, so he pushed a little harder.
"Why didn't he do it?"
She let out another half laugh again, and Tim was beginning to realize that it was her version being down right bitter. She wasn't the type to openly despise someone, and he realized that this was probably the closest she'd get.
"His Daddy didn't approve. He's an over privileged white boy who grew up in money. When he found out he wouldn't get anything when his Dad died if he married my Mama, he couldn't do it. He becomes what he needs to in order to get what he wants, no matter what it costs him. He has no morals, no conscience. He's weak."
At this point, he could tell Rowan was starting to get heated, and he tried to lighten the mood.
"So he's spoiled like Damian?"
She turned and slapped his arm so hard he was sure her palm would be stinging for a while afterwards. There was fire in her eyes and he knew he'd miss stepped.
"I didn't mean it, Ro."
With his apology, she deflated fairly quickly and scrubbed at her face.
"Damian may be spoiled, but he's not a bad person. He hasn't let everything he's got go to his head yet; he hasn't let it ruin him."
"But your Dad did?"
She leaned her head back on his shoulder and sighed.
"Yeah, he did. I guess in the end, he caught my Mama along the way."
"This doesn't make her a bad person," he told her as he carefully worked the hair band from her ponytail. He knew that by now her scalp had to be aching.
"I know Tim..."
She yawned, and he figured that the night had worn her out. He had the passing thought that she might actually be able to sleep through the night without her medicine.
"I told you earlier, not everyone gets a happy ending."
He knew she was more than right, and as they sat there in the silence of her kitchen, he wondered about his own.
Between him, his third, and Damian, he wondered how their ending would play out.
.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
The following week, she found herself standing in front of her Mama's door at 2 am.
It was Tuesday.
She didn't know why she did it. Why she stood in the hall at 2 am, staring at her Mama's door.
She didn't know why she raised her fist to pound on wood that resounded with an echo as empty as she felt.
She didn't know why she knocked, when she knew her Mama wouldn't answer. She wouldn't, because she couldn't.
It's impossible to answer the door when you're not there.
"Rowan?" her Gran's voice eventually rung down the hall.
"I don't feel so good," she replied, not knowing what else to tell the woman.
What could she say? That she wanted to see once and for all of her Mama really was having an affair with a married man? That she wanted to prove something to herself that she already knew?
No, she couldn't look her Gran in the eye and tell her that. The woman already had enough on her plate knowing all on her own.
Some secrets, Rowan knew, where better kept when you thought you were the only one keeping them. It was easier to bear the pain of you knew it wasn't being spread to someone else.
So instead of giving her Gran one more thing to bear, Rowan told her the closest thing to the truth as she could.
"What's wrong, love?" her Gran asked, shuffling down the hall to wrap her arms around her granddaughter.
"My stomach hurts," Rowan whispered, taking in the calming scent of lilacs that her Gran seemed to wear like a second skin.
"You eat too much junk food?" her Gran asked, laughing softly.
Rowan shook her head no.
"I think I just need to go to bed," she whispered into the woman's warm shoulder.
She felt her Gran nod, and then run her fingers through her hair before letting go.
"Get some sleep okay?"
Rowan nodded, and then walked quietly into her room. She closed her eyes and leaned her back against her door as she listened to silence around her. She heard the click of her Gran's door, and she let out a sigh.
Her Gran would never admit it, but on Tuesdays she knew exactly where her daughter was just as well as Rowan did. She was the one who made sure she got in bed safely after all. Rose Chase wouldn't sleep until Miranda was sound asleep in her bed, no matter what time she got home.
Rowan felt a soft breeze on her face, and she slid carefully down to her floor, door still sturdy behind her. She could hear crickets, yet she still didn't open her eyes.
She couldn't stop the small, grateful smile that graced her face.
"Damian," she whispered, "what are you doing here?"
Tim had already gone back to Star City, so it could only be the current boy wonder. When he'd first started coming, she'd made it clear that Tuesday was her night. Or at least, that's what she'd led him to believe.
She felt him settle beside her.
"Last Wednesday, when your Mother came home like that?"
She opened her eyes to look at him, and noticed that he still had his mask on.
"What about it?"
"That's why you never wanted me to come on Tuesdays right? She usually does that on Tuesdays?"
Rowan absentmindedly began to tap lightly on her floor. She was almost sure that Tim hadn't told Damian. She'd asked him not to.
"Maybe."
Damian simply nodded, and pulled out an honest to god shuriken from one of his pouches.
"You want to learn how to clean and sharpen it?"
She tried to search his face for an answer as to why he was doing… Whatever he was doing, but she found none.
"Well?" he questioned.
"Are you going to be here ever Tuesday?" she found herself asking back.
He gave her a short nod, and began twisting the sharp weapon around in his fingers.
She reached out carefully and set one of her fingers lightly on the edge of it. She felt her finger begin to split at the feather light touch and immediately pulled back. The thing was beyond razor sharp.
Damian was trying to distract her; comfort her. She looked up at his face, and wished that he wasn't wearing his stupid mask. She wanted to figure out exactly what he was thinking.
"Why not," she told him.
.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
*whispers* where these the feelings you guys where expecting?