Christmas in Blüdhaven: The Four Stages
by Smitty
Tim Drake knows the four stages of grief.
He doesn't remember the denial. Bruce has told him that the cuts on his hand came from trying to pull the boomerang out of his father's chest, but the memory just isn't there. Some nights he wakes up and expects to be late for school, thinks he hears his father's voice calling for him to get up. Sometimes he pretends the nightmares are just like they used to be. Just nightmares.
He doesn't think he bargained at all, although he does wonder. He wonders if he had given up Robin permanently, if he had given up Robin before his father found out, if things would have been different. He wonders if he had stayed home that night, if he could have saved his father or if he would be the one with the halved organs.
He has been angry and there's no denying that. It's always there, simmering under his skin, directionless, cold anger burning him. He rarely loses his temper. He rarely takes it out on the others. But he feels it day in and day out.
That leaves him only acceptance. And Tim's not quite ready to accept just yet.
Author's Note: Christmas in Blüdhaven is written in the same general style as Jingle Bells, my attempt to write 24 200-word ficlets--one per day until Christmas, sort of like an Advent calendar--with characters from around the DCU. Christmas in Blüdhaven differs, however, by each of the ficlets being loosely linked and progressing toward a greater conclusion. The title was derived from the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's "Christmas in Sarajevo" because everything and everyone in Blüdhaven is currently something of a wreck.