*Ten years ago*
A thirteen year old girl didn't usually come to Gotham's precinct unless they'd been arrested, but Alyssa was there more than some of the employees.
After her parents arrest, she had come back to see detective Bullock. If it wasn't for the danishes she always picked up from his favorite bakery he'd tell her to get lost. He usually avoided children on principal; his vulgar language and drinking problem didn't exactly make him the best influence.
But, though he'd never say it out loud, he had to admit that Alyssa was growing on him. She had a counter for every sarcastic remark he had – she had taken to calling him Detective Douche – and she wasn't afraid to tell off the other officers when they tried to scold her for being there.
She knew how harsh this city was, Harvey had seen that first hand. But...she was a good kid.
Then one day, a few months before she was gonna turn fourteen, he got a letter from New York.
'Dear Detective Bullock,
Congratulations, the committee has awarded you the Officer of the Year award. Your nomination letter was by far the best and we look forward to seeing you and Ms. Connors at the awards ceremony in New York on March 17th.'
"Connors!"
Alyssa jumped and fell out of his desk chair where she had been taking a nap while waiting for him to come in. "What happened? Who's dead?"
"You are! Explain this!" he threw the letter on his desk.
"...Congratulations?"
The 15th finally came and Alyssa was standing in the middle of the room with a glass of wine in her hand that had been refilled twice and was closed to needing a third.
Only three of the pictures on the walls were her's. One was of a picnic table sitting on a hill under the stars, one was of her charm bracelet hanging off her wrist, and the last one was the splatter painting she'd made after she kissed Edward.
They were getting quite a lot of attention, and everyone she invited had shown up, even Harvey kept glaring at Oswald.
"Wow." Bruce smiled, blushing slightly from Selina's grip on his arm. "You're very talented, Ms. Connors."
"Thank you." she nodded.
"What did your sister think?" Harvey asked.
Alyssa only blinked at him with an innocent look.
"She, never showed up." he realized.
She shook her head. "Its just you guys."
"Are you telling me that your sister never showed up?!"
"No." Alyssa said. She wasn't all that surprised, but if she was honest, she was a little disappointed. She felt Edward squeeze her hand. "But of course you all did."
Before Harvey could get even angrier, a blonde woman walked up to the group.
"Hi, my name's Barbara Kean, I run the gallery." she held out her hand for Alyssa to shake.
"Alyssa Connors." she shook it.
"The woman behind the mystery. I met all the other artists ahead of time, but I never got to meet you."
"I wasn't exactly informed I'd be participating." she informed. "You're Jim Gordon's girlfriend, aren't you?"
"Yeah, yeah I am. How'd you know that?"
Alyssa nodded towards Harvey. "That's his partner, I'm good friends with him."
"Harvey Bullock, nice to meet you." he shook her hand.
"Wow, its good to finally put a face to the name." Barbara smiled. "Jim's told me a lot about you."
"Yeah, I'm sure he has, the putz."
"Harvey." Alyssa shot him a look. "Be nice."
Harvey rolled his eyes but kept his mouth shut for Alyssa's sake. He was still peeved that Jamie hadn't shown up, and meeting Jim's girl wasn't exactly lifting his mood; especially when she walked up to her paintings.
Barbara looked at all three images, but her eyes lingered on the splatter painting. She frowned and looked over her shoulder at the artist in question. "That is not who you are."
Alyssa blinked. "...Huh?"
"I mean, what is that? What is it supposed to be?"
"I-I just painted what I was feeling. What's wrong with that?" she asked, her anxiety quickly returning.
But there was no judgement in the woman's voice – though Alyssa wasn't sure what there was. "What's wrong is I don't know what you're trying to say. What are you trying to say?"
"I dunno..." she suddenly felt rather small. Behind her, her friends were staring in shock; most of them had expected to need to hold Alyssa back. Why was she stuttering and shrinking in on herself?
"Why'd you pick that scene?" Barbara asked, pointing to the painting of the picnic table – there were colorful fireworks weaved through the stars that drew one's eye.
Alyssa smiled slightly, looking lost in thought. "I dunno, I just did."
"Well clearly it influenced you. What are your influences Ms. Connors? Why do you paint the things you do?"
She shrugged. "I'm not good with emotions, so sometimes they boil over inside me and I run a brush over a canvas. Any shapes or images that come out are purely coincidental. I'm sorry if you don't like it."
"Alyssa since when are you sorry about anything?" Selina exclaimed. "Lady, Alyssa is the best artist there is and –"
"Selina." Alyssa cut her off.
*three years ago*
The brat had a brat of her own now, well she had taken in a street kid, which Harvey thought was nuts. He was making bets with himself on when Alyssa would come running into the precinct saying she'd been robbed.
Then he'd met the girl. Alyssa had dragged her over to his apartment to introduce them – of course she did this without telling him before hand.
The kid – Selina – pissed him off to no end. She kept getting into things and interrupting him, and he couldn't wait to get her out of there.
She was currently studying a plaque hanging in his living room. She scoffed. "How'd you win cop a the year?"
"For your information, Alyssa nominated me."
"Your welcome." the woman in question came in from the kitchen with drinks.
When the event ended and the group had disperses, Edward walked Alyssa home. Selina, wanting to give them some time alone had chosen to go over to Wayne manor.
"What happened back there?" Edward asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that Ms. Kean put down your work and you didn't say anything."
"So?"
"So, Alyssa Connors wouldn't do that. Alyssa Connors wouldn't take nothing from nobody." she was silent, which only worried her date more. "She went after your art. Alyssa, your art is who you are, the woman went after who you are!"
"Look, I didn't want any part of this in the first place, okay?" she shook her head. "I didn't want my art to be in that gallery, I didn't want to wear this stupid dress, and I didn't want to see my sister again! I just went because apparently, I'm not allowed to run my own life anymore."
"That's not it and you know it." he sighed. "We just want what's best for you."
"Putting other people first is my job."
"Which is exactly why you have so many people who care for you." Edward countered. "Alyssa, I'm very smart, but I've never been able to figure out anything about you without you telling me. Please tell me."
Alyssa sighed and stopped walking, looking down. "Okay...A lot of the time, I let people believe things because its better than the truth. I let you believe I was a run-off trouble maker so you wouldn't have to worry about the sword hanging over your head. You're adjusting well to the truth, but I don't think Jamie would." she shook her head. "The lie was all she ever knew; she left Gotham thinking I had put our sainted parents in jail, and given the fact that she didn't show up tonight, that's probably still what she believes."
"So you were afraid of her coming to question you?"
"Yeah...I can't imagine its good for a person's mental health to have the cloth pulled off their eyes like that. A girl should be able to think well of her parents. If she doesn't, what's she got to look up to?"
*ten years ago*
One would think that if you told someone they won a national award, they'd be happy about it but Harvey Bullock was anything but.
He had zero interest in the award. It was supposed to go to heroes, people who nearly died in service, not some crooked cop in the most crooked city on the planet.
He and Alyssa had been avoiding each other for a little over a week – which was a record time he had gone without the kid annoying him. It wasn't long before Dicks brought her up though.
"How come your girl hasn't been by lately?" he asked one day as they were muddling through the paper work of their latest bust.
"She ain't my girl. She's just some brat who likes to be a pain in my ass."
"Heard she won you an award."
He scoffed. "She wrote a letter. So what?"
"Harv..." Dicks sighed. "That kid adores you. You do know that don't ya?"
He gave his partner a look. "What are you talkin' about?"
"She's in here nearly everyday to talk to you. She wrote a letter that apparently made you look good enough to win cop of the year, and she also came in yesterday and made a speech to get me to convince you to talk to her."
"Did she now?" he raised an eyebrow.
"Mmhm. She called you an asshat."
*Upstate New Jersey*
Knock knock knock!
The front door to the town home with faded yellow walls opened to reveal a girl a good ten years younger than the person standing on the front porch.
"Can I help you?" she asked.
"I'm lookin' for Jamie?"
"She's my roommate, I'll call her down." she stepped back to yell up the steps. "Jamie! You've got a visitor!"
"Coming!" a young brunette came down the stairs. Up close, one could see the resemblance between her and her sister.
"Ms. Connors." Jamie filched at the name but didn't get the chance to protest then. "My name is Harvey Bullock; I'm a good friend of your sister's."
"You must be a terrible person then." Jamie said bitterly. "And its Ms. Philips now."
"Well its nice to meet you Ms. Phillips. I'm here to ask why you didn't bother showing up to your sister's art gallery last week."
She scoffed. "Why would I go? I haven't heard from her in over ten years."
Harvey gritted his teeth. It wasn't his place to tell this girl the truth about her family, so he wouldn't.
But that didn't mean he couldn't do other things.
*ten years ago*
Carly's bakery was by far the best place in town, at least in Harvey's opinion. The kid usually picked up his order when she came in, so he hadn't been down in a while. But it seemed like a quiet place to meet with her without nosy cops interrupting.
"Alright Connors, you have my attention." he nodded, surrendering. "You clearly have something to say – Dicks said you made a speech."
"I wouldn't call it a speech." she shrugged.
"Said you called me an asshat."
"I did call you an asshat." she nodded. "You are an asshat. But...you're also a damn good cop." she sighed and pulled a folded piece of paper from her pocket. "I know you've been feeling really down about this city lately, and hating this place is my job, not yours. So, I'm gonna read this out loud, but just know that if you interrupt me in any way I will scream, and you'll probably get arrested."
Harvey rolled his eyes and motioned for her to go ahead.
Alyssa cleared her throat. "Dear award committee members, Where I live, it is not easy to be a cop. The people here all seem to only care about themselves, so they aren't very likely to help in a case. The city of Gotham is filled with a lot of apathetic people, but despite what he would have you believe, Harvey Bullock is not one of those people. He cares about justice and protecting the city, even though the city doesn't deserve it. He even cares about me, and my case closed over a year ago. Someone told me once that Gotham's golden rule is 'no heroes.' Maybe that's true, but Harvey Bullock is as close as we're ever going to get. That's what I love about him, and that's why he deserves this award."
She set the paper down. "Sincerely, Alyssa Connors."
The hotel was always busy with kids flowing in and out. It was also where Alyssa had built her makeshift school to teach the younger kids who weren't old enough to work.
But today, the lesson was interrupted.
"Connors." Harvey came into the room without knocking. "Brought someone to see you."
Alyssa's face paled when she saw the woman walk in behind him. "K-kids, go play for a while. We'll pick up the lesson later."
Several children groaned, but they all filed out the door obediently.
"...Hi Jamie..."
