Amaranthine

Epilogue

Amaranthine

"Time goes by as days and nights are turning into years, and I'm lying in your arms. It's the place where I know that I am closest to your heart. Where the darkness falls apart." – Amaranthe

They dreamed the same dream.

Back in the pit. Back in Hell. The sun was glaring down on them like fire, almost pushing them back. Almost pushing them down. They tried to climb, but it was so hard to continue and the exit was so far up. Sweat dripped down their bodies, their skin bubbled under the shining sun, and their limbs were giving out on them. Looking down, they realized that they were too far now to give up. If they fell they would die. If they died, they would die alone.

They knew what it was like to be alone. They had been alone before they met each other. They had been alone when they left the twisted comfort of one another to face the world by themselves once again. And they had become alone, so very alone, when he thought death had taken her from him, and she assumed she had been forgotten in a false end. They knew what it was like to be alone. They knew that loneliness was a disease, one that would eat at their skin if they succumbed to it. They knew that loneliness was like being trapped in a hot desert, and the only thing that could soothe the body would be a drink of an everlasting water. A water that came in the form of a person they were literally dying for. They would die.

I would die without you.

Climbing the wall, they knew it would end just the way it did in their dreams the last time. They would climb. They would try. And they would fall. His weight was too much for both his body and the stones of the wall to hold. And the stitches on her skin were holding her back, breaking and keeping her from victory. They were going to fall. They were going to fall deep, deep down into the darkness. Hurt, injured, disappointed. And… all alone.

She was going to fall. She was sliding even now. She tried digging her nails into the stones but still she was inching down, back into the hole. She couldn't do it. She couldn't do it by herself. She was bleeding and she was burning. Maybe… Maybe this was what she deserved all along.

And then a hand snatched her wrist.

She looked up, saw him with the sun shining behind him. She looked up, and saw her light. Her rope. Her beloved.

I love you.

Trying desperately to hold himself up, as well, he pulled her, stopping the movement of her sliding body. With a deep groan he pulled and pushed her even higher than himself. When she was far enough up he took the back of her thigh and pushed further still. Willing her to climb, to escape. Maybe, once again, he couldn't escape this time either. Maybe, once again, he would have to stay behind as a sacrifice so that his heart could live. He couldn't do this by himself. He took a deep breath against the wall, and wondered if he should just let go.

She called his name. He looked up.

And there was her hand, reaching out to him. She was patient, she was determined. That outstretched hand told him everything. This woman would not leave without him. This woman would make the climb with him, and escape only if he escaped with her.

I love you.

He took her hand.

They climbed and climbed and climbed. He pushed, she pulled. She waited, he helped adjust her footing. Up and up they went, climbing together this time. Climbing, and not falling because there had been no one before to help them. They could make it. Together they could make it out of the pit and straight into life. Out of the darkness and into the light. When she almost slipped he caught her. With the little strength she could spare she tried to take even a pound of his weight. She wouldn't leave without him. And he would make sure she escaped.

Because I love you so much.

She almost gasped when her hand reached the sand above. Frantically now, with a burst of shocking energy, she struggled to get out of the limbo between heaven and hell. She clawed at the sand, kicked at the wall to get to it, and tried with all her might to reach the unreachable. She felt his hand on her foot, then felt a rush of warm air on her face as she was vaulted over.

He panted as he watched the last inch of her disappear. His strength was gone. He could barely hold on. Everything, every last bit of him ached horribly. He willed his limbs to move but they wouldn't. He forced himself, yelled at himself to climb just a few inches and taste the freedom that had evaded him the last two times he'd been trapped her. But he couldn't do it. He couldn't feel himself. She was gone now. She was gone and safe. What could he do now? What was left? He looked up, weakly and slowly, and saw the glaring sun. The blinding light. He would fall watching that sun. He would die in the heat and the light.

And then the light was gone. Then the sun was blocked. He squinted some to adjust his vision, waited for his eyes to see clearly.

There she was.

She smiled at him, and held her arms out to him over the edge. Her offered hands were more precious than gold. More soothing than water or food. She reached for him, and told him she would never leave him.

He believed her. He had always believed her.

He grabbed her hands, found that same surge of energy. She grasped onto him with both her gripping hands, pulled and pulled until he was right at the top with her. She helped pull him over…

And then they were free.

Freedom was peaceful. Freedom was eye-opening. So many times they had been trapped, but they learned there was always a way out. Always a chance. Redemption was for them both.

There was more for them. They were the same.

You can make the climb, she had once told him. She told him that when he didn't believe it. She told him that when he assumed he would never get another chance. You can make the climb, she'd said.

Perhaps we will pull each other out. He had answered her that way.

And they did.

Months later…

John Blake looked out at the bright, loud, and busy scape of Gotham City. There were no stars in the sky because of that bright busyness and no peaceful sounds of nature and night. All that remained were people walking as they worked or socialized, cars honking at each other as they tapped bumpers, loud roars of machinery as they kept the city going. And within all of that, unseen like the devil, were the ones who would try to destroy it all. He looked, scanning the faces from atop the building where he would meet his unofficial partner, and tried to see them for what they really were. Who were the criminals that would break into someone's apartment tonight? Who was walking by someone and exchanging drugs so they could sell them to small children at school? Who were the murderers out to kill their fellow man?

If John knew those answers, then maybe he wouldn't be doing what he was trying to do.

He gave up his job on the force because he couldn't take the shackles that came with it. He didn't like the gray that would appear when it should strictly be black or white. He had to do what he thought was right. He had to do what he knew was right. And he couldn't let those shackles keep him from it. The only way to get things done was to put on a mask, become something else, and simply do it. It was the only way. It was the only life.

Everything should always be what it seems. Then why was it so hard to accept when it wasn't?

Why was the unknown so hated?

"Your hair's getting too long, son."

The Nightwing turned around, placed his hands on his hips as he watched Commissioner Jim Gordon slowly hobble over to him on his cane. Fortunately for him and his peers, the attack that had resulted in a gunshot wound to the spine had not paralyzed him for good. It had taken a very long time to heal and countless hours of therapy, but finally his legs could move some and hold his weight for an allotted amount of time. Finally he was getting back on track. Finally he could slide right on into the roll he was meant to play. John, with his mask and his armor fitting his body, playfully rolled his eyes at his one-time boss, and present friend.

"And you keep losing yours. But other than the receding hairline I suppose you're looking pretty good."

Jim smiled, came to stand next to him so he could look out at the city, as well. The city he had fought so hard and so long for. No one else knew that he would meet Gotham's hero here. No one else knew he had any kind of contact with him. And because it had failed miserably before, with his other friend, he would keep it a secret. "Won't be too long before I can enjoy a good steak again, and leave this horrible veggie and tofu diet behind. Once the ol' legs get in shape then it's back to the job fulltime."

John Blake crossed his arms over his armored chest. He didn't know how much longer he had in him to burn the midnight oil. On and on and on it would go until… he would die from it. Die like the rest of them. "Aren't you ever going to get… tired?"

"Tired of what?"

Tired of so many things. Tired of seeing people die for something so silly and foreign. Tired of seeing people choose the path that should be wrong, and watching them be sacrificed in the end. Tired of seeing big black eyes as they ran off to their doom. "Tired of the job."

"The job never ends, kid. If I can't fight at my job then where else can I fight? Determination is all I have. Without it, there's nothing."

The Italian Mob was lost in Gotham. The police didn't know for sure, but with the death of the true boss, Alcina Angeli, it seemed that no mobster knew what to do after that. They still had to be out there somewhere, but who led them and where their operations were being held was a complete mystery. Maybe they finally dissolved into nothing, as other illegal organizations had done in the past. But with no one to lead, it seemed that everyone was running amuck. Nine-one-one was called so frequently that someone could be on hold for twenty minutes before shouting their emergency. In a way, it had almost been more peaceful when the lady had been in charge. John had fought the mob. Now he wasn't sure where the enemy was hiding.

"Maybe you could… go home," John answered, watching the rushing cars. The image of a woman running from him entered his mind then. A woman running to something she found most valuable as everything fell around her. "Maybe someone could be waiting for you."

"Nobody's waiting for me. My wife used to tell me that I didn't simply wear a badge, but that I was the badge. And… she was right. I am the badge just as you're all that cute armor you put on. The badge and the armor… they stand for one thing."

Arkham Asylum was still up and running, even with the death of its head doctor and owner. Fortunately for Mrs. Arkham, she had taken an interest. At first she was simply going to take the asylum when she divorced Jeremiah for his infidelity. She had the power to do so. But with the death of her husband, the deed to the building fell into her hands without a fight. Now she ran the place, and had happily welcomed the asylum's newest inmate at the time. The popular local painter of Gotham, Jackson Lane, had suffered from horrible post-traumatic stress after an attack by the mercenary Bane. Now he was confined to a cell with padded walls, something that would keep him safe when he pounded his body against them screaming at the top of his lungs that Bane was right outside the asylum waiting for him. Usually, when he got too hysterical, they would have to give him injections to calm him down.

John looked further into the city, at the giant mass of rubble that was still being cleaned to this day in the center of Gotham. Wayne Tower had fallen, had left a huge mess to clean and millions of dollars to pay in damage, but finally it was getting to the point of being somewhat tolerable.

Jim caught his gaze, leaned further on the railing to ease his weight off his legs. "We found another body the other day. GPD cleaning crew came across some teeth. We aren't positive, because we have no dental records to pick up, but we think it's the Joker. We have tons and tons of photos and film footage to compare them to."

"Did you identify the others?"

"Yeah. Just some more goons in the system he snatched from the street. They died before the explosion. And of course we have some DNA of Harleen Quinzel. She was sure a mess to clean up."

John waited. He waited, and he didn't know why he was waiting. Because he had been there, Jim liked to keep him up to date on the progress of the cleanup of Wayne Tower. But what he wanted to know more than the other information never came to him. Even now, as he waited for it, Jim had nothing to add.

You'll die trying to save him.

Then I will.

"Did you find any other bodies? From the parking level?"

Jim sniffed, and confirmed his thoughts. "So Bane was there, wasn't he?"

"I think he killed the Joker and Harley Quinn."

"Was Camille Lane with him?"

John had seen a lot of sacrifice in his day. Usually, the one that stood out the most for him was watching the Batman fly off with the bomb that would have killed them all. And even though Bruce had not actually died in the fire, it was still a sacrifice. But now another was stuck in his mind. Camille Lane had run from safety because she wouldn't leave her kidnapper behind. A kidnapper who had been accused of crimes not committed. John had spent a long time fighting to save her, had spent a long time thinking about her because she was the one person he had not been able to rescue. And because of all that, he had waited for closure. He had wanted closure so badly so that he could leave her behind, both of them, and move on. But he'd never been informed of certain bodies. Maybe now, he would be.

"She was. She wouldn't leave without him."

Jim shook his head. "Shoulda got her more help when we had the chance." He took his cane, grunted some as he pushed off the railing and back onto his weak legs. He patted John's shoulder. "Don't forget what the armor stands for. It stands for justice. Just like the badge." He began to hobble off, coughing some against the cold. "Oh, one more thing."

John turned around, his dark wispy hair dancing in the wind.

"We never found any other bodies," Jim told him.

Closure. Now, he had closure. The Nightwing smiled, gave him a mock salute. "Enjoy your badge, Commish."

Jim nodded, and walked off. Back into the fight that would forever continue. And oddly enough, he was okay with it.

Maybe the job would never end, John thought. Maybe one day he would have to make a big decision, just as the Batman had. But the armor did stand for something. The armor, he concluded, was everything.

He intended to keep wearing it.

Does anyone really know what freedom feels like? Is everyone truly trapped in a pit? Does the darkness consume someone, and send back a monster? Does the blood of the suffering forever run from cuts that never quite heal?

Death is a funny thing, but it seems life is even funnier. Trickier. Shackles keep a man from true freedom, yet the binds that tie the hardest are the invisible ones. Fear keeps someone from greatness, yet even pretending to ignore it can bring great rewards, as well. Lies are told to us, and we believe them, even knowing what they truly are. And sometimes relief is found in injury, a relief that is so much greater than inner decay. This is life. These are the days, the months, the years that consume every person until the last breath is taken. Life is funny. Life is tricky. This is life.

This is our life.

With death comes peace. A peace that lasts for all eternity. No more shackles, no more darkness, no more cuts. Everything is perfect, as it should have been from the very beginning. When you truly die you let go, you release yourself. You no longer matter because you've died.

You die to yourself.

Sacrifice brings that. Sacrifice brings that kind of death, a death far greater than a true death. The greatest thing anyone could ever do is to give their life for another. To save someone. To love someone. To look at that someone and see the life you'd never lived, to take the relieving breath you'd never felt. That is love. That is dying to yourself.

That is sacrifice.

Leaving the world behind for your true home is sacrifice. Fighting with an army of men to save your love's life is, too. And staying to die… Staying to die is the greatest sacrifice of all.

He saved her life. And she gave him a new one.

They surrendered. They sacrificed. They died to themselves for the sake of the other.

And they lived.

There were no other bodies to be found. There were no other remains to clean up. The mercenary Bane and his former doctor Camille Lane were gone from the destruction of Wayne Tower. The building had fallen, but not on them. Bodies had toppled with it, but not their own. The destruction had taken lives, but they were still breathing.

They had survived. They were survivors. They had always been survivors.

Months after the destruction of Wayne Tower, Bane and Camille were finally able to breathe. And simply survive.

Camille cleaned the kitchen of her home as the crickets chirped outside in the night and the firefly's sparkled. All the windows were open, letting in the soothing cool Indian air from the mountains outside. Opening the trash bin, she threw away bloody tissues and cotton, then re-rolled the medical gauze to put away for the next time she would clean Bane's wounds and change his bandages. His gunshot wounds were taking a while to heal, much longer then if he'd had his mask during the worst of it. It had taken so long for him to show improving signs, signs she'd waited and prayed for as she slept at his bedside. But once they were able to get a new mask from unknown sources, his agony was eased, and he could finally begin to heal. After she cleaned the mess that came with tending to him, even after all this time, she walked to the open front door, glanced out and found him where she knew he'd be. The same spot he was practically every night. There was a hammock not too far from the house, swinging gently in the evening wind and allowing a vast view of the sparkling night sky and the dark mountains surrounding them. She saw him there now, watching the sky that would relax him.

Months ago they had faced death. Months ago, lying bloody, burned, and injured, she had decided to stay with him because living without him had never been an option. And as Bane suffered in great pain, as she held him and waited to die… they'd been saved. She remembered hearing a noise. That noise had been a wall coming down so that someone else could come through. Someone who had been threatened to stay away. Someone who had come back for redemption.

Barsad had returned, and together, with her burned shoulder, broken rib, and wearing nothing but a tattered skirt and a bra, they helped each other hold Bane up and carry him out of a crumbling building and straight to safety.

Barsad had found them shelter when they needed shelter. He got them to India to recover, he helped her care for Bane, and he found a man to create a new mask. He had done everything when Camille had been too weak and injured and distracted with Bane to do it herself. And he had come through greatly.

Redemption.

During the worst of his recovery, Bane suffered on a bed and tried to heal. And once he was awake and coherent enough to see Barsad at his bedside, he had simply stared at him. Barsad didn't move away, even remembering Bane's threat. And not seeming to care about it because there were more important things.

"You will truly have to kill me yourself if you wish to be rid of me," Barsad told him softly.

Bane had stared at him some more, unable to speak because the pain was too severe. Within minutes he was back asleep, and Barsad knew his fate.

He was forgiven.

In a dark sweater and a short flowing dress, Camille padded across the lawn. The house behind her was large, large enough to house the army in a separate living area from Bane and Camille's main quarters when the space was needed. Bane didn't work as much as of late, because he was still healing, but the army was still in motion. Shortly after he made some big decisions, Bane also decided that the League of Shadows was to be terminated. No longer would he have ties to either Ra's al Ghul or his daughter Talia. The League would die with them, and Bane would no longer have any part of it. He would spend his days directing his army of mercenaries, and leave the life of bondage behind. Now, Camille finally got to have her own home, to take care of it the way she wanted to take care of it, and to simply live.

Along with Bane, she hadn't fared well when it came to a body unscathed. The cut on her lip had scarred on her face, and could have been seen as a blemish on her pretty complexion. But in the world that she and Bane lived in, it was just a normality. Her broken ribs, two of them after she'd been examined, had healed and allowed her to move about more freely. But the worst of her injuries had been her shoulder. Flames from Wayne Tower had burned her, and scarred her flesh there. She knew it could have been worse. She knew that she had been lucky with the type of burn she'd had. But it had still deformed her skin on her shoulder.

It was just another scar to add to the collection.

Camille could have been burned a thousand times. She still would have gone back for Bane.

She reached the hammock then, looking down at Bane as he watched the stars. He was shirtless, wearing only a pair of baggy pants that would be comfortable around the healing bullet wound to his thigh. The others were healing as well; the wounds on his collar, his shoulder, his forearm, and his hip. He looked up at her, carelessly rocking the hammock from side to side with his good leg on the ground over the edge of it. So much had changed for them. They now lived in India, Bane was running an organization without having to go away as much as he used to do, Barsad was second in command again, and Camille was hardly as much a part of the army as she used to be. She had a different role to play now. And it was one she played above any other.

Shortly after Bane had healed enough to move comfortably, he had taken her to a church.

And he married her.

With only the pastor there, a pastor who would never have any trouble caused in a House of God, he agreed to marry Bane and Camille without much of a fight. And with only Barsad as a witness, visions once thought only fantasies became reality. Stories once told to Bane by older men in the pit about their wives were ones he could tell, as well. Because now… he had one.

Camille was now the wife he could never even dream of, because dreams were for those not trapped in prison. But sometimes dreams became something other than dreams.

Bane patted the net of the hammock. "Come."

She shook her head, noticing how confined the space was. "I don't want to hurt you."

"Hush," he said, reaching up and pulling on a strand of her curls. "Let me hold you."

And because she wanted him to, she very carefully climbed in with him, lying on top of him between his legs so that he could continue to rock them. His legs were long enough so it was comfortable, comfortable enough for her to rest on his chest and listen to his heart. She didn't like to think about the long months of caring for him day and night so that he would live. The long nights of wishing and wishing that he would stay alive and not leave her. She knew she would die if anything happened to him. She knew that he was it, and nothing came after him.

"Do you love me?" she asked.

Bane rubbed her hair back, made her smile when he teasingly answered in a serious tone through the mask, "No."

They didn't say the words often. Neither of them thought it a phrase that could or should be said so carelessly. But there were times when they did tell each other. Whenever she would clean his wounds, she would remember him practically dying in her arms in Gotham and say, "I love you." When they would be intimate in bed late at night and he would feel strong enough for it, he would look up at her as she straddled him and mutter, "I love you." They weren't words said often, but when they were they were absolutely true.

She was his wife. He was her husband. And the words were so true, and easy to say.

Bane rocked Camille in the hammock, placed his hand on her forehead before he would slide his palm on her curls. "Always, darling Camille," he corrected softly.

She smiled. Maybe it wasn't the way of normal couples. Maybe it wasn't socially acceptable. But the way they were was good enough for her. "I love you, too."

This is our life.

It wasn't a perfect one. Her husband was the leader of an army of mercenaries who was handicapped by drugs and in constant chronic pain. His wife was a former self-mutilator with a long history of family abuse and depression. But their life came with sacrifice. And with sacrifice came devotion. It may not be perfect, but for them it was. She once told him that one day the suffering would end. And it had.

Bane and Camille were the same, everyone knew that. They had lived the same life, had been abused by the same kind of people, and had been left to live in that same killing loneliness. The pit and the hole were the same place, and from them came someone who would change the world of someone else. Someone who could live in the dark where it would always be warm and safe.

Most people live and never know true freedom. Most people don't know life without suffering in a pit. The pit is cold, the roads are long, and the suffering seems never-ending. Bane once thought himself a monster because he'd been born and raised in Hell on earth. Camille had cut her skin in hopes of finding purpose and love that had always evaded her. But one thing they stood on was the one thing that had gotten them through the days. One thing that had ended up becoming so very true.

There was a purpose for the pit.

Bane had left Gotham City behind. Now, he only wanted to watch the night sky and hold his wife. Prison was far behind and the fire still burned. Balance was here to stay.

There is always a purpose. Always a chance for redemption. Always a rope to the sky.

Always.

The End

A/N: If you don't already, follow me formy next story Sleeping Sun coming soon, and future one-shots. Hugs and kisses to you, my reader.