Oswald said nothing as he followed Murphy over to the park bench. Even though the day seemed nice Oswald could already see clouds in the distance coming their way. It would only last maybe an hour before rain came again. The amount it rained in Gotham reminded him much of London ... Brief snippets of sunshine followed by rain ... Lots and lots of rain.

"I wonder who decided," Murphy said, contemplating the approaching clouds about an hour out. "That this was a good place to build a town. Did the very first settlers arrive from England, look around at the shitty weather, and say 'Yep, just like home'? Or maybe, if we look far back enough, we'll find that one of the city founders ran an umbrella manufacturing business on the side."

Oswald chuckled slightly. "Well, London is still quite a bit nicer than this place." Oswald said as he started eating his sandwich.

"You've been to London?" Murphy asked, surprised. He'd never been out of the country himself. "When was that?"

"When I was a kid. My parents sent me to a boarding school when I was three. Was taken there by an escort. I was there until I was twelve and my parents went bankrupt and couldn't afford the school anymore. I was the first of my brothers to be pulled out." He said picking at his sandwich. His brothers educations had always been more important than his. Come to think of it ... He couldn't recall a single time his father asked him about his grades.

"Wow," Murphy said, his eyes a little wide. "I didn't even know there were boarding schools that took kids that young." Then again, knowing what he did about Oswald's family, it wasn't that surprising that his dad would have wanted to send him away as soon as possible. And Gertrud had probably rationalized it as the best thing for him. It made even more sense, now, that she was so overprotective of him, if he'd spent so much of his early childhood away from her. "What was it like?" he asked.

"Boring ..." He said. "Hard ... Not the school work, that was easy but ... The kids there didn't like me. And it's hard to get away from them when they know where you sleep."

Murphy winced. "I take it none of the teachers really did anything about it?" Adults could be incredibly oblivious to just how evil kids were capable of being.

"Worse, they encouraged it." He said. "They said it built character for adulthood or something like that."

"Lovely," Murphy said sarcastically. "Because I'm sure 'character' was definitely in the curriculum." He shook his head. "I think 'it builds character' is just the standard excuse adults give kids when they're too lazy to actually do their job protecting them." He looked over at Oswald. "Did you have any friends, anyone on your side at all?"

Oswald shook his head. "No, I've ... I've never had a friend before." He said quietly, taking another bite of his sandwich.

Murphy sighed. He just didn't get it. Yes, people were generally terrible. But how was it that not even one other person saw Oswald the way he did? He personally thought Oswald was amazing; why didn't anybody else seem to notice?

"That's their loss, then," he said. He took a bite of his sandwich, then added: "I guess that's another first in this relationship, then." That realization had just hit him. No wonder trust was still so hard for Oswald.

Oswald looked up at Murphy and didn't say anything as he finished off the last of his sandwich. He crumpled up the wrapper, and tossed it at a garbage bin that was way too full, garbage spilled out around it. The wrapper wad hit the bin and landed on the ground with the other garbage.

Murphy frowned slightly at Oswald's silence, thinking over the conversation as he finished his own sandwich. He glanced over at the growing pile of garbage around the trash can where Oswald's sandwich wrapper had landed, and decided that it probably didn't count as littering if the city wasn't overly concerned with regular garbage collection in this park. The weather wasn't usually decent enough for the park to see very many visitors… though he might have spent a couple of nights on this bench during his brief stint of homelessness.

"Did I say something that upset you?" he asked, looking back at Oswald.

"No ... It's just ... My past isn't really something I like to talk about." He said watching Murphy eat.

Murphy nodded. He couldn't blame him for that in the slightest. "Let's talk about something else, then," he said. "You've told me a lot… Is there anything that you want to know?" It was only fair, really. And their whole falling out had been because he'd kept things from Oswald. He didn't want that to come between them again.

There was something he wanted to know ... Something that had been bothering him.

"Who ..." Oswald hesitated ... Should he bring it up now? Should he wait? But he'd wanted to know since Murphy had told him, and It's not exactly something you could bring up in casual conversation. Oswald looked around, making sure no one was around them. "You said you killed someone ... Who was it?" Oswald asked. "Why did you kill him?"

Murphy stiffened. Why did he have to ask about that now? But then, it was only reasonable that he'd want to know. After a moment, he said: "I… guess I owe you an explanation for that." He sighed. "His name was Kurt. He… well, everyone in that crappy little town knew who he was. He was the mayor's son, in some fraternity or other, I think he may have played football back in high school, but I never really paid much attention to sports … Anyway, as far as everyone was concerned, he could do no wrong. I'm sure you know the type." His voice and expression were bitter.

He looked down at the ground. "He … about a year and a half ago, he …" Murphy swallowed, trying to stop his voice from shaking. It didn't matter. His hands were visibly trembling anyway. He finally managed to say it, though in barely more than a whisper. "He murdered my younger brother."

Oswald suddenly wished he hadn't asked. Just because he didn't care about his brothers, in fact had killed one of them himself, didn't mean that Murphy didn't.

"I'm sorry for your loss." Oswald said quietly.

Murphy shook his head. "I don't expect you to completely understand," he said quietly. "It's just … I was five years older than him, and our dad walked out pretty early on, so I'd always helped look out for him. I was thirteen when our mom died, and we went to live with our grandmother, who … she cared a lot, but she was in pretty frail health already, and she just wasn't up to keeping up with two active kids on her own. So from that point on, I basically raised him. I was the one who stayed up all night just to prove that there really was no monster under the bed, and made him do his homework, and worked after school jobs to help out… When Grandma got sick during my senior year, I almost dropped out of high school to help out more, but she talked me out of it by convincing me I'd be setting a bad example for him… and then… well... when I was eighteen I became his legal guardian."

In hindsight, he suspected his grandmother might have only lived that long because she was fighting to at least hold out until Murphy was old enough to get custody. She'd known how terrified he'd been that they might be separated. "It's just… My whole life revolved around making sure he turned out alright, and that he had a future. Then his first damn year of college some ignorant drunk frat boy and his friends come along and…"

Murphy realized now that he was shaking uncontrollably. He went quiet, not trusting himself to say any more right now. He hadn't really talked to anyone about this, and hadn't realized just how hard it was going to hit him all over again when he did. He was still staring at the ground as he tried to pull himself together. He absolutely refused to break down on a public bench in the middle of the park.

"Hey ..." Oswald said, wanting to take Murphy's mind off the subject he'd brought up. He felt bad for bringing it up. "I thought we had a skate park to get to." Oswald said as he stood up from the bench. "You got me all gussied up, and we're sitting here in the rain." He said as the first few drops started falling.

"You're right," Murphy said, forcing a smile as he made himself look up again at Oswald. He stood up and threw away the sandwich wrapper, along with what was left of his sandwich, then picked up the skateboards. "Sorry for being such a downer. Let's go; it's an indoor skate park, so we'll be out of the rain soon." He started leading the way.

He kept his manner light for now; he'd intended for today to be about him and Oswald doing something fun together-whether Oswald initially appreciated that or not- and he wasn't about to ruin it now. That was probably why Oswald had changed the subject, and he was grateful to him for that… but at the same time, part of him was anxious about it, and he kept glancing over at Oswald, wondering if he'd upset him by telling him all this. Oswald had enough problems of his own already; he might not be able to handle Murphy's too. It was possible that Oswald just didn't want to deal with his baggage. It had happened to Murphy before. Just because he listened to somebody when they needed him didn't mean they were willing to do the same for him. And Murphy didn't want to lose Oswald just because he couldn't keep his issues to himself.