Title: Accident. One Year On. Part 1 of 2

Author: Simon

Characters: Bruce/Alfred/ the Bat Family

Rating: PG, I guess. Some language.

Summary: Sequel to Accident. One year after Dick was killed in a car accident

Warnings: none, really, a little language but not much

Disclaimers: These guys aren't mine, they don't belong to me, worst luck, so don't bother me.

Archive: Fine, but if you want it, please ask first.

Feedback: Hell, yes. to Char for the legal stuff—any mistakes are all mine, not hers. And much thanks to Scott for beta—any mistakes are all mine and ones he probably told me to fix.

Accident

One Year On

Alfred walked through the dining room back into the kitchen. The plate he was carrying was essentially untouched, as it often was nowadays, and he was close to despair as what to do about it. The conversation had been the same as it always was now; "Master Bruce, I've prepared the chicken exactly as you always request it."

"Thank you, Alfred, but I'm not really hungry. Maybe I'll have something later, if that's all right."

The master had, well, he had seemed to be coming around the last few months but then, a few weeks ago with the anniversary getting close, had simply retreated back to where he'd been after Dick's death last year. At first they had all been engulfed in grief and the usual everyday things had either stopped, become unimportant or been delegated away. Master Bruce had only gone into the office sporadically, doing only what was essential and even then only through the computer, messengers or by having Lucius Fox come out to the house with whatever was deemed too vital to be handled by anyone other than the CEO himself. All social appearances stopped, of course, as did all pretense of being the playboy of the nation. He had gone to ground, as it were, but people were sympathetic and no one criticized Bruce for months, the young man had died right there in front of him. Now there was a feeling that he was wallowing in his grief too much, that he was enjoying it in some perverse way and it was time—past time—for him to pull himself together.

It was the same at every party and dinner Bruce missed. The ladies would whisper to one another while shaking their heads.

"Yes, it was sad, of course, tragic really, but it wasn't as if the boy was his own flesh and blood, for goodness sake. He wasn't even legally adopted so how much did he really mean, when you came down to it."

"It was so good of Bruce to take the poor thing in after his parents were killed the way they were—you'd do as much for a cat, wouldn't you?—but to carry on like this…"

"Heavens, and that child's room—good lord—Bruce hasn't even allowed the sheets on the bed to be changed and they're positively stiff with blood!" This would usually be followed by a polite shudder.

Under his direct orders, the room had been left exactly as it had been that last night when Dick had been wheeled out on an ambulance gurney, bleeding, in pain, frightened and essentially dead. Bruce hadn't even allowed the strewn clothes or the wrappings from the medical tubes and needles to be picked up. Nothing was to be changed. It would be kept exactly as it was because—because, if the room was cleaned out or turned back into a guest room it would be erasing Dick's imprint, the fact he'd been there, and he wouldn't allow that to happen.

The gossip would then usually move on just a bit, "That place is being turned into some kind of ghoulish shrine and even dear Alfred seems to have no way around it. It's a little sick, if you ask me, and the man really should be getting professional help. He really should."

"You know, any number of the ladies, along with a few of the men from what I hear, would have been more than willing to help if they could. Really, all he has to do was call."

"From what I hear, a few have tried, but Bruce always has Alfred thank them for him—the man won't eve come to the door!—and then just sends them away. It's so rude. I mean, we're just trying to help, after all."

"And that's another thing; Bruce really has changed. Well, yes, of course something like this would affect anyone, but he's simply stopped going out and can you remember the last time you've seen him dancing at one of the clubs?"

"And he's so serious you'd think you were talking to a complete stranger. Well, if you can get him to say two words, that is. The rumor was that he even paid attention at those endless Board meetings at his various companies, for goodness sake. Why, he asked questions Benjy said were 'incisive' and 'probing' and actually listened to the answers. It was almost like he was a different man."

"And he shows up—on time, no less, if you can believe it!—dressed impeccably as always, supposedly makes real decisions regarding this and that then simply goes home—alone. Unless he has something going on locked behind closed doors, that is."

"Yes, well, with any luck, he'd get past this and things will be back to normal where they belong."

"And did you hear that a number of people flowers to the house to mark the anniversary? From what I was told, Alfred simply loaded them into the van and took them over to the local hospital. He said 'the master' wouldn't want to look at them." The ladies rolled their eyes, shook their heads and changed the subject to the upcoming fashion week and which shows they'd be attending. Poor Brucie.

Batman flew, though. He flew and patrolled and made more arrests and solved more unsolvable crimes that even Alfred would have thought possible if he hadn't been through this once before. Years ago, when the old master and mistress had been killed, Bruce had thrown himself into work like this—though he'd only been a child, he'd begun to devote himself to his self-imposed life sentence. Now, with the death of the young man who was his son in all but blood, he was doing the same thing. He seemed to be doing anything to avoid the empty rooms, especially the empty room down the hall.

Bruce had talked about it with Leslie, once, and then never allowed the subject to be brought up again. "Dick didn't survived the trip to the hospital or even, really out the front door and I knew that but I kept thinking someone could do something. He was pronounced dead on arrival when we got to the ER."

The boy had been killed by a small blood clot caused by the trauma of the car accident, torn loose and finally stopping his heart. A pulmonary embolism, that was what it was called, though the name didn't really matter. What mattered was that the light had gone from the manor; the darkness Bruce had hidden himself in as a child was back and darker, denser than it was twenty years ago. For nearly ten years Dick had laughed and kept what they did in perspective, balancing the good fight with pizza and bad jokes and music played too loud.

Now they had the quiet back and with the quiet they had the dark. Bruce never spoke about the ride in the ambulance and Alfred only knew that he'd held Dick's hand as he died because one of the paramedics had told him that night.

"Sir, please. I must ask you to eat something." He'd brought a tray with sandwiches down to the cave as he did every evening, placing it next to the keyboard where Bruce was working.

"Thank you. Maybe later, just leave it." Later, of course, wouldn't come as far as the food was concerned and it would be thrown to the dogs, as it was every evening.

"So has anyone heard from Garth?" Wally opened his bottle of water.

"Arthur told Diana that he's working in Poseidonis and it could be a while before he'll be back on the surface."

Wally just shook his head; things were falling apart without Dick and, try as they did, it seemed to be slipping away from them. Donna was around, sure and he was too when he could get the time away from his uncle, but Roy was always either somewhere else or in such a crummy mood no one wanted to be around him. Plus, he'd become unreliable and that was a pain. He'd say he'd be somewhere and then he wouldn't show up or he'd wander by hours or even days late, daring anyone to make an issue of it.

Dick—Robin—had been the glue holding the Titans together and without him the seams were coming apart and no one knew how to stop it. Wally was starting to think he was the only one it even mattered to and he was beginning to wonder why he still cared.

He also knew through his uncle Barry there had been conversations over at JLA headquarters after that mess with Brother Blood last month and there were some editorials in a few newspapers as well. Not good. This was not good.

"Y'know, I keep thinking; sure, Dick had been—well, he'd been one of a kind but he'd have been the first to tell us to cut the crap, get it together and do our jobs. Enough was enough, right? Suck it up. Everyone's replaceable, including him—he said it and he believed it."

"Wally, it's more than just that and you know it." Donna hated talking about Dick, but once in a while she'd do it if they really had to, like now when they were falling apart.

"I know that was why he used to step back sometimes and make one of the others lead some mission or other. He wanted us to get used to the idea that he wasn't the one and only—even if he was."

"And another problem we're ignoring is that even though we all know Roy is messed up because he blames himself for the accident and even though they all keep telling him it was just an accident and no one ever says anything different to his face, the truth is that we all blame him and he knows it."

Donna knew he was right. "But his staying away doesn't help, everything just festers."

"Well, he was driving. He was going too fast and he was the one who'd lost control and hit the tree. Dick was just along for the ride and if Roy felt bad, yeah, well, y'know—Dick isn't feeling much of anything, is he?" Wally had this recurring mental picture too often—something would trigger a train of thought about Dick and he'd start thinking about how it had been almost a year now, just short of twelve months since Dick was buried with his parents and he was probably not looking so good about now.

Sure, Dick had been a handsome guy, no one ever denied that, but after they'd cut him up and taken all those organs Bruce insisted be given to someone who could use them and then after being six feet under for almost a year...he probably wasn't looking so good about now.

"Yeah, well, when you came down to it—it was Roy's fault. He was the one behind the wheel right? Sure we all feel badly for him. Of course we do, but you know what? I feel a whole lot worse for Dick."

Donna didn't say anything to that, she just nodded.

At St. Patrick's Academy, there had been plans to make some kind of memorial for Dick Grayson. He'd been a good guy, even if he didn't really sign up for anything like sports or clubs like almost everyone else did. Right after the accident there had been a bunch of flowers and a cross left at the tree they'd hit and someone else left a candle that burned for a while. There had been some front-page articles in the papers because there always was when a kid gets killed; especially when his almost father is someone like Bruce Wayne. Jeez, there'd even been mentions in People and the crummy tabloids and all those scuzzy rumors came up again but no one really believed them. Almost no one, anyway. There were always a few kids and their parents who seemed to get off on that kind of stuff.

The kids talked about it for a while at one of the student government meetings a few weeks after Dick had died. A few even gave some thought to what they could do for him; maybe dedicate a bench to him or an annual award or something. Jeez, his sort of father was like one of the richest people on the planet, maybe he'd want to do something for the school in Dick's name or something. Someone else suggested that maybe they could write a letter. After all, hadn't he financed the whole new science wing a few years ago? Sure he had—maybe he'd be good for an annual scholarship or something.

That was as far as it got, though. Dealing with Bruce Wayne was intimidating enough to kill the thought, no pun intended. Besides, one of the kids had seen him driving by and he looked like he was really mad about something so maybe they should just wait until he was feeling better.

The letter never got written. In the spring Dick's class graduated and scattered to college or jobs. Memories of Dick Grayson were relegated to a memorial page in the yearbook about 'the kid who got killed'.

No one was surprised. People forget.

The JLA meeting was being held, despite the fact that Batman was MIA yet again. The meeting was over and a few of the members were still hanging around, trying to decide what to do about the current internal problem.

"Did he call in?" Arthur was probably the most annoyed, but then he'd never really gotten along with the Bat.

Hal tried to calm things down, yet again—they'd had this same conversation three or four times over the last few months and everyone was getting tired of rehashing the same things. "No, nothing, not directly. Alfred called for him and said he was working on a case."

"We're all working on a case. Look, we know what's going on with him, but the fact is that he's not reliable and you all know he hasn't been for months now. Does anyone have any thoughts about Batman being put on reserve status for now?"

"C'mon, Ollie, cut him some slack, will you? He's still dealing…"

"I know what he's still dealing with, Hal, okay? So am I, but I manage to get my butt here when I'm supposed to."

"Maybe you'd do better to take a leaf out of his book and take care of your own problems instead of ragging on him."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean, Your Majesty? And you and Garth are so friggin close?"

"At least I'd know if he was…ah, forget it. "

"Well?" But Aquaman just walked out; his usual answer when he didn't want to deal. Hal tried again.

"Just—when was the last time you sat down and talked to Speedy about anything other than what he wanted for dinner?"

"The kid is still getting over the fact he was driving the car, okay? He's upset, blames himself. For God's sake, that's not hard to understand, is it?"

"As easy to understand as how he's dealing with it, Arrow."

"Leave it to you to not give a straight answer, Jordon—you have something to say, just friggin say it."

"Hal, Ollie, c'mon, please. Calm down, we can't accomplish anything like this."

"Butt out J'onn. What aren't you telling me, Jordon?"

"Fine. Roy is buying heroin down at the docks at least four times a week—he's a regular and he's probably buying over in the park, too."

"It's for a case."

"Like hell it is. The kid is using and if you'd take a night off from patrolling or your social life you might have noticed." Green Lantern was fed up with Ollie's oblivious attitude about Roy. The ked deserved and needed better than this.

Diana spoke from the other side of the table, almost hesitantly. She knew he'd be hard on the boy. "It's true, Ollie—I confronted him about it last week and he swore he'd tell you; I didn't believe him, but thought I'd at least give him a chance. After he left I found my wallet had been emptied. He took over two hundred dollars from me."

"If you don't deal with it, we'll have to, Arrow, and you know you could still be in for some kind of wrongful death lawsuit. The statute of limitations has a ways to run on that."

"I wasn't even there, Lantern, and idle threats piss me off."

"Nothing idle about it, Ollie—You're Roy's guardian, he's a minor. Bruce Wayne has one of the best legal teams on the planet and your son killed his in a car accident. If I were you, I'd find out what his plans are."

"Roy didn't purposely kill anyone and Dick was one of his best friends. Hell, even the Bat wouldn't put the kid through that, for Christ's sake."

"You willing to bet the ranch?" Ollie stomped out, ignoring J'onn's attempts to calm him down.

The awkward silence was broken by Barry, "Y'know something? I miss Robin hanging around here. He made me laugh—and he made the Bat almost human. He should have gotten a medal just for that."

Green Lantern smiled. Yes he had made people laugh, usually with some incredibly bad joke or series of rapid fire puns, equally bad. I always figured he'd end up a JLA member one of these days." Lantern picked up his stuff, ready to leave. "He sure was a lot more fun than Batman to hang out with."

J'onn had been the one who'd help cover Robin's disappearance last year, impersonating the boy on and off for a few months before Bruce had decided enough time had gone by and organized a press conference with J'onn/Robin and announced that the young man had decided to leave the business to pursue other interests, hinting he'd be going to college and would be too busy with his studies from now on.

Alfred was starting the Christmas cards for the year, knowing Bruce wouldn't do it but wanting to keep up the standards. Naturally, he knew people would understand a lapse this small, but he wanted to do what he could to maintain life as it should be. Instead of the usual family photo the master had told him to just pick some card and so they had a reproduction of one of Fra Angelica's works with a standard printed message inside. He sat at the kitchen table; teacup filled with Earl Grey and tipped the sherry in to top off the cup as he wrote short messages inside to the various recipients. He'd found lately that it allowed him to sleep more easily and relaxed him. Surprised a little at the level of the liquid in the bottle, he made note that he needed to pick up more in the morning when he was doing his errands.

For a year now, almost a year, he hadn't had a single conversation of consequence with Bruce. He'd tried, Lord knew he'd tried, but the Master would walk away or raise his newspaper or not come home for dinner, anything to avoid talking about what was happening to them. All of Alfred's pleadings that this wasn't what Dick would have wanted, or that he would be upset if he could see this were ignored or cut off time and time again. Alfred, simply out of thoughts as to where to turn next, didn't know what to do—a position he'd rarely ever found himself.

Without Dick, the house was quiet now, as it had been before he'd come to live with them. The music was gone along with the slamming doors. There was, of course, something unnatural about a parent outliving a child, just as it was unnatural for Dick to bury his own parents when he was too young to understand death. And while none of them had ever really learned how to deal with that, Dick probably came closest because he'd figured out how to grieve and then move on. Bruce had never been able to do that, though Dick had helped a lot for a long time.

Now they were back where they'd started twenty years ago and Alfred was terrified that they were losing the ground that wouldn't be recovered this time.

All of the usual Christmas parties, dinners and invitations had been politely refused, all offers to visit over the holidays rejected, all thoughts of merriment shunned. The only function the Master had attended was the annual employees Christmas party and even then he'd merely made a fifteen-minute appearance, wished everyone a happy holiday and safe New Year then left as early as possible.

Alfred started thinking about Christmas' past, Dick pounding on their doors then running down the stairs or sliding down the banister at dawn, the other two following as quickly as they could throw on their robes and catch up to him. As soon as the presents were torn opened the young master would follow Alfred into the kitchen, insisting on helping with stirring the pancake batter while spilling it onto every surface until he was at least twelve. Then he would move on to pouring the hand squeezed juice and making Bruce sit at the kitchen table instead of in the dining room where his early upbringing would show itself. "C'mon, Bruce—put your own plate in the dishwasher, Alf isn't the maid!"

The look on the Master's face had been priceless.

Leslie was working late, as she tended to do almost every evening at the clinic. She been deeply saddened by Dick's death, arriving at the ER as quickly as she could, but too late to do anything other than lend some minor comfort, knowing it wouldn't help.

She blamed herself, even though she knew she'd done nothing wrong and hadn't been at all neglectful or negligent in any way. It was the sort of injury that could lay dormant for days or even weeks with no symptoms and then, with no warning…

Dick had been one of her special favorites and not just for himself—he'd pulled Bruce out of his funk and turned him into a human being instead of the automaton he was well on his way to becoming. With Dick around Bruce could joke, laugh and interact with people the way she'd wished he would for years. Dick was—as her grandfather would have said—just the tonic Bruce needed. He forced Bruce out of himself and forced the man to care about someone else on a personal level, not just as an anonymous avenger. He'd made Bruce responsible for a child, self sufficient though Dick might have been. Leslie had recognized early that someone like Dick was the only kind of child Bruce could handle, one who was smart, self directed and talented but one who still needed guidance.

And he worshiped Bruce. That was the other thing Bruce needed; to have someone look up to him unconditionally. With Dick's death, Bruce had lost a son, a student and a best friend and now Leslie was terrified that she would lose Bruce as well.

He'd needed the boy more than the boy needed him, if you wanted to know the truth. Dick probably would have thrived in any decent home. Bruce needed someone as unique as Dick to make him human

After the funeral she had pulled Dick's medical records to lock them in the safe. They were too distinctive to be left around and it would be too easy for someone to make the association between the boy and a character like Robin if they were looking.

Flipping idly through the pages she'd stopped at an ultrasound from a different patient, about three months pregnant that Dick had slipped into his file one night after hours when he'd been brought in for some minor problem. Without batting an eye, she'd told him it was twins and to make sure he remembered his prenatal vitamins every morning, handing him a prescription.

The running joke about his morning sickness lasted for years.

"Batman, stop." It was an imperative command but gently spoken almost into his ear. He knew who it was, but ignored the order, his fist continuing to pound again into the stomach of the thief he'd run down.

His hand was stopped in mid-air and he turned to see Superman holding it as gently as you'd hold a full-blown dandelion to prevent it from blowing away.

"That's enough. Stop."

The Bat looked like the next punch would be at Superman himself, but relented and relaxed his arm enough to have it released, and then lowered it. The robber, a minor offender at best, was too frightened to run but momentarily semi-ignored as the two heroes took one another's measure with neither seeming to give an inch. Coming to a private decision, Batman cuffed the man and spoke into some kind of com link, requesting back up to apprehend a subdued suspect. A short time later, with the man taken away, the two men talked.

"If I needed your help I would have asked for it."

"Br—Batman, we've been friends' Batman raised his eyebrow at that but Kal went on. "Friends for a long time and this has to stop now."

"As we're so close, you should know that what I would like from you is for you to let me do my work without interference."

Superman had expected as much. With little fanfare and not about to argue in front of the local rubber neckers, he picked up Batman and flew them both to the Batcave, faster than the human eye could follow.

Two minutes later, back in the cave, Kal stood to the side as Batman—furious—changed his clothes, turning himself into Bruce Wayne; the real one, not the idiot society barfly.

"You know you can't keep doing this, Bruce. The JLA is worried about you. I'm worried about you." Kal expected to be told to mind his own business, go away, leave him alone, fuck off. Instead he got an honest answer.

Bruce turned around and looked Kal in the eyes, his anger shoved aside and replaced by defeat; something Kal never thought he'd see in his old friend. "All the training, everything I taught him, it didn't matter how good he was or how smart—none of it mattered."

"It was an accident. It was just an accident, Bruce."

"He was my son."

"And what happened was tragic, but it happened. It was a mistake and even Dick didn't blame Roy. If he didn't, you have no right to, either."

"You have no right to say anything to me. You haven't lost…" That was unfair and Bruce knew it. Dick and Clark had been close friends.

"No, I haven't but I know this isn't what Dick would want and so do you."

"Dick is dead. He was seventeen—do you remember being that age? The dreams, all the things you wanted to do? The certainty you had forever ahead of you?" His voice wasn't angry, which surprised Kal. It was just sad; incredibly sad, thinking about everything Dick would miss and, by extension, the things Bruce would miss through him. "Roy took that away."

"He didn't…"

"Yes, he did."

"And Roy has lost almost as much—and you know that, too."

Yes, Bruce knew and didn't care, but Kal would keep at him until he'd finished the conversation. "The drugs? That's his choice."

"At first, yes it was, but now he's an addict."

"And Dick is a corpse."

Kal wasn't going to accept that sort of lazy and easy answer. "It was an accident and Roy was one of Dick's best and oldest friends. You could help—for Dick's sake, if not Roy's. You know as well as I do that Ollie won't be any use in this and the boy will listen to you, Bruce. You could probably save his life, like you know Dick would have wanted. If he was here he'd probably ask you—if he didn't do it himself."

Bruce turned to walk up the stone stairs to the house. "And if he did ask me I'd help in a heartbeat. But that's the point, Kal; he isn't here to ask."

A month or so before Christmas Barbara pulled the things off what she called her 'present shelf', though it really grown to fill a whole closet. She'd gotten into the habit of starting her Christmas shopping right after the previous Christmas was over. She'd hit the January sales, hit the end of season sales, the President Day sales, the Labor Day sales and any other sale she'd stumble across so she'd be done with her shopping just when everyone else was starting theirs—which was why the present shelf was now the present closet. It was a beautiful thing and she was unbearably smug about it being done and the money she saved that way.

There was that cashmere scarf for her Dad, the matching gloves—butter soft leather lined with the same cashmere so his hands would stay warm this year. She had the electric train set she knew Annie's son wanted, the twenty dollar gift for the JLA grab bag (which she always thought was a weird thing, but there you go). She had that silk blouse for Dinah, the complete works of Shakespeare for Alfred; hand bound leather with vellum pages. Sure, she knew he already had a set, but this one was particularly beautiful and she knew he'd love it. There were more things—stuff for her neighbors, her co-workers over at the library, for her professors—lots of stuff.

Then she pulled out the small bag shoved way in the back from Victoria's Secret containing…damn. What was this one? She usually marked every box and bag but sometimes she'd forget and then she'd forget she'd even bought something for somebody and end up with two gifts for the same person. Damnit. Maybe it was something she could save for a birthday or something.

She opened the bag and felt the hairs prickling on the back of her neck, determined that she wouldn't cry, not again. She wouldn't.

It was the black bikini, the one you could hide in one hand, the one she was going to surprise Dick with along with plane tickets to that Caribbean resort she'd found out about. She'd thought they could go together either over Christmas break or maybe for spring vacation. They would have their own bungalow on a private beach; he'd be eighteen and they'd go away together as proof that they were old enough to do this and the hell with what anyone said. They could all get used to it, accept it or not as they chose and—frankly, my dear, she didn't give a damn. They were in love with one another.

She'd been out shopping with Dinah last January and seen it in the window, both of them giggling about who would wear something like that and then playfully arguing about who would look better in the thing. They'd ended up each daring the other to buy one, Dinah opting to get the thing in white, laughing that it was less obvious. The next week Dinah had told her all the dirty details when she'd gotten back from a pool date with Ollie—promising her it had worked wonders and Dick would have to be deaf, dumb, blind and a eunuch to not respond…and the word was he wasn't any of the above.

Yes, he'd been young, but then again—not really. He'd been just short of his sixteenth birthday when they first, shyly and slowly, connected, taking it step by slow step. They had dated secretly, seen a few movies or had dinner. Usually they'd just stay in at her apartment so no one would find out—he'd tell Bruce he had Titan's business or something so they could order in with rented movies and then, one evening they became lovers and no one knew. They would meet whenever they could without raising suspicion, knowing he was still technically jailbait and even if he wasn't, neither of them wanted to embarrass their families or cause problems. Batgirl and Robin being an item was one thing—and one that would be hashed out and dragged through the tabloids until it became impossible to cope with, but Commissioner Gordon's daughter and Bruce Wayne's 'son' were another matter entirely. Her father could be forced out of his job because of the political fallout plus she and Dick both knew his wardship with Bruce would be affected, too. The child services would have a field day with it and he could well end up being removed from the manor with Bruce facing repercussions for being a negligent parent. And that didn't even begin to address the reactions they'd face over the dinner table. No one would be happy about this and while she might be willing to deal with it herself, she wasn't willing to put Dick through it, so they had agreed to keep everything quiet until he was legal. Not even Bruce—or even harder to fool—Alfred knew, just thinking he still had that childhood crush and she indulged him a little.

She'd imagined a hundred times the look on his face when he opened the envelope with the tickets, the way he'd smile and just how happy he'd be with the trip and the idea she'd thought of it—just the two of them.

That was her plan. That was the idea. And he was so gentle with her; he was so sweet and so clearly adored her. She loved him and he flattered her by his open feelings. Sometimes she thought that since he was forced to stoicism so much of the time, he kept a private part of himself when he was with her to be the way he might have been if Bruce hadn't taught him to deny and hide his feelings. He'd do anything it took to get her laughing so hard her stomach would hurt, no matter what they were doing; at dinner or taking a walk or even when they were in bed together. Sometimes she wished he'd been allowed to live the life he'd been originally slated for in the circus, but then would selfishly be glad he was hers. She came to accept his being so unguarded and open with her as a secret gift he reserved just for her and she did whatever she could to make sure it was returned and that he remained unhurt.

She had tried so hard to never hurt him but he'd been the one who gotten hurt.

Tearless, she stuffed the bikini back in the bag. Her first impulse was to throw it out, get rid of it and never see it again but then she stopped herself and instead deliberately put it in the smallish cedar chest she kept on the floor of her walk-in. It was the place she put things she didn't want anything bad to happen to but didn't want left out where she'd see them; things like her mother's handmade sweaters and her old love letters, things she took out when she was in a nostalgic or maudlin mood. That was where she put things she'd consigned to the past.

TBC