Chapter 3:

Red Fish, Blue Fish

I tumble out of bed a little after noon. More like, I was having a nightmare and literally fell out of the bed.

My arm is still sore from where the bullet grazed it. Cass is getting better at sewing me up, too, so the stitches are straighter than they have been before.

I get up and pour myself a bowl of knockoff Cheerios. There was a banana around here somewhere yesterday. I suppose Cass ate it when she was over yesterday morning. She always eats all of my bananas.

My milk has gone sour again. I swear there has to be something wrong with this fridge. I settle for pouring orange juice over the cereal.

The sun is shining and my breath frosts the window glass. The temperature outside is about twenty-eight degrees and it's the middle of the day. Dirty snow lines the roads from where it was shoved aside early this morning. Finally right for Blüdhaven in January.

Good. Maybe the city will be quiet for a change. We could use a rest.

I glance down at my arm again. Cass barely said a word to me last night when she stitched it up, and while that's not entirely unusual, most of the time she pops out with something random. And she left in silence, too. I usually warrant at least a goodbye.

That is, when I'm not making a complete ass out of myself. I really was kind of a jerk last night.

Scratch that. I was a jerk last night and I know it. No getting around that. I'm man enough to admit when I'm wrong and to apologize.

I munch my Cheerios. I really should make it up to Cass. Maybe a movie this afternoon. She wanted to see something that was out. I can't remember what it was, but I'm fairly certain it was a martial arts movie. She loves those—and then she goes home and takes those completely impossible moves, and does them. Blows my mind.

But what do I expect? It's Cass.

I hate eating cereal with orange juice. I dump what's left in my bowl down the sink, and rinse out the dish before I get in the shower and get dressed.

I should go see Dana. I haven't been in a few days, and it's not fair for me to leave her in that clinic alone.

Come on, Boy Wonder. It's just your step-mother. You're not facing down the Joker.

-

I suppose the hard part about going to see Dana is that I'm never sure how she's going to act. Sometimes, she's talkative and I can't get a word in edgewise. Sometimes she rages, and talks about Boomerang, and where the hell the police were. And sometimes she just sits there and doesn't say a word.

It looks like it's going to be one of those days.

There's cookies sitting on the table beside her chair in her suite, and it looks like my apartment wasn't Alfred's only stop yesterday. And I'm reminded once again that there more casualties in this war than those who had died—those that were unfortunate enough to be left behind.

I talk to her. At least, I try, as it's a bit hard to hold a one-sided conversation. I tell her that I'm doing okay, and that my friend Cass comes over a lot and we eat pizza and Alfred's cookies. I tell her I've found a new band I like to listen to, and that Blüdhaven really isn't so bad.

What she doesn't know won't hurt her for now.

I kiss her cheek before I turn around and leave. I feel guilty. It's my life that made this happen. If I hadn't taken on the mantle of Robin, no one would have had a thought about trying to kill my father. He would have been safe. And we might have been happy.

I shake my head as I pull my sunglasses down from the top of my head to protect myself from the sun bouncing off the remnants of clean snow. Dwelling on the past does nothing. You learn from your mistakes and you move on, and I'll be damned if anything happens to Dana because of who I am. I refuse to cause her anymore pain.

I pull my cell phone out of my pocket and call Cass' apartment. No answer. Well, Bruce didn't trick out my phone for nothing. I track her signal against a map of Blüdhaven.

It looks like she's in the library. Part of the reason she came to Blüdhaven was for me to help her learn how to read, but it looks like she's trying to tackle it on her own. I found her the other day asleep on my couch with A Tale of Two Cities spread out in her lap.

I've got to find her something easier to start with, and the library is as good a place as any.

The Blüdhaven library really isn't anything special. It could be a really good library if the Blüdhaven politicians would unline their pockets and put some money into public works and education. Maybe Robin and Batgirl could intervene on the library's behalf.

But the Blüdhaven library has something none of the other libraries in the world has at the moment, and as I step into the fiction stacks that overlook the kid's section, I see it.

Cass is sitting in the kid's section, cross-legged, The Cat in the Hat open in her lap, one of the librarians leaning over her shoulder and monitoring her progress. I hear Cass sound something out and finish her sentence. "Thing One and Thing Two!" And then she laughs, delighted, whether with her own progress or at Things One and Two, I can't tell.

But I can count on one hand the number of times I've heard Cass laugh. The librarian congratulates Cass, and she keeps going.

I think I know how to make it up to her.

-

My bo flies out, and the only mugger willing to brave below zero temperatures drops to the ground. I hand the woman's purse back to her. "Go over to that store and call the police. And take a taxi home, it's too cold for walking tonight."

She nods and takes off for the store, and I pull myself up to the roof where Batgirl is already sitting and waiting for me.

"Evening," I say. "How are you."

"Okay," she says, her head cocking to the side to study me. "You—" she pauses for a second. "You popped your stitches."

I glance down at my arm. With the cold, I'd barely even realized that they'd popped open, but the warm blood trickling down my arm makes me reconsider. "Do you mind coming over and fixing them later?"

She shook her head no. "We can go now. Nothing's happening."

I almost argued with her. But she's right, as usual. And I'm going to listen to her. I have to promise myself that I'm going to listen when it's important.

"Okay," I say. Besides, I've got a surprise waiting for her, and I want to see her face when she opens it.

We get back to my apartment and I pull my mask off my face. So much warmer in here.

She pulls her cowl off, and sets it aside, rummaging around in my medical stash. "Hey, Cass, I'm going to go change out of this real quick, okay?"

She nods, and I run back to my room, not just to dig out a T-shirt and pajama pants that aren't green, but to grab her present as well. I try to nonchalantly drop it on the couch as I sit down for her to stitch up my arm.

She's quiet for a moment, and I try to concentrate on breathing rather than the stitches she's putting back into my arm. "Tim," she says.

"Yeah?"

"I was…remembered about something."

"Reminded," I correct her.

"Reminded," she repeats. "Right. I was reminded. What is the difference between a journal and a diary?"

I raise my eyebrow to think for a second. "A journal holds, I guess, thoughts and stuff. More like a day to day occurrences. I guess a diary holds more personal stuff. Why do you ask?"

"Batman keeps a journal," she says, tying off one of the stitches. "But Black Canary said today that she'll give me a diary when I learn to write."

"Oh," I say. "Well, you know, you could divide it up. Use your journal for Batgirl stuff, and write in your diary about things that affect you as Cassandra instead."

She rethreads the needle she was using. "But I am Batgirl."

I sigh. "Well, I guess I mean it this way. Batman doesn't record feelings in his logs, right?"

Cass considers this for a moment. "I guess not."

"But Black Canary, if she makes a report for Oracle, has feelings in it all the time?"

She nods emphatically. "Black Canary lets Oracle know what she thinks."

I try not to snicker. "So, Batman's entries would be journal entries, and Black Canary's logs would be more like diary entries, see?"

"Yes!" Cass says, and I see a small smile of satisfaction cross her face at having separated the two words in her mind. "There. Done."

I examine my arm once again. "I'll try not to mess up your handiwork this time. Least I can do is feed you. You up for pizza?"

"Always," she says, and I make for the freezer.

"Why don't you go change clothes while I put this in?" I say. After the laundry fiasco yesterday, I figure that the less laundry Cass has to do, the better. All I did was forget to tell her not to put red things in with her whites. "There's some stuff in the other room."

I preheat the oven and rip open the plastic around the pizza before shoving it into the oven. Cass comes back out of the bedroom dressed in a pair of my old pajama pants and one of Dick's Blüdhaven PD sweatshirts.

"Hey," I say. "That bag over there on the couch is for you."

She practically skipped over to the couch. She's been waiting to see what was in there since I brought it into the living room, I know she has.

Cass pulls out the chocolate bar I'd stashed on top out, and hurries to look deeper into the bag. "Tim—"

I shrug. "I went by the library this afternoon and I thought you might like your own Dr. Seuss books. I just wanted to tell you that I was sorry about the way I acted last night."

"You didn't have to do this," she says.

"I did," I say. "I'm sorry and you needed to know that."

She looks at me. "I know." Her hand falls on my shoulder. "I see it."

Sometimes, I wonder what else she sees.

"I still had to say it," I say. "An apology isn't worth anything without an effort behind it."

She practically tackles me with a hug. "Thank you."

I hug her back. "You're welcome."

The stove alerts us that it's preheated, and I slid the pizza into the oven. We sit down, and Cass starts Green Eggs and Ham.

It's been a long time since I've read a Dr. Seuss book. We sit and demolish a pizza and a 2-liter of Zesti between us. It takes nearly an hour and a half, but Cass finishes her book.

She has a huge smile on her face as she slams the cover to the book closed. "I read it!"

"You did," I say, gathering up the paper plates and tossing them and the empty Zesti bottle into the trash. Cass makes for the chocolate bar that I'd included in the bag of books.

She breaks off a piece and generously hands it to me, and I sit down on the couch beside her, and take a bite. "Your turn to read," she says, pulling one of her books from her bag.

"Hop on Pop?" I say. I dig further into the bag. "How about this one?"

She squints at the title, and I wonder if she's just concentrating, or if she's having trouble seeing. I'm guessing the former. "T-The Low—Lowracks?"

"The Lorax," I say, sitting back on the couch. "This was my favorite Dr. Seuss book as a kid."

She settles back, and I open the book and begin to read, and for once, Robin and Batgirl are gone, and Tim and Cass can just sit and enjoy a good book.