Here comes another Jason Todd tale, with my OC Kristine, while my tale "A Lifetime and Beyond" is still in the making. I'd watched the interactive film Death in the Family (the list of clips on YouTube, actually), and the inspiration was where Batman died saving Robin. No spoiling, so read and find out what happens now that Kristine Crane is involved. This is an alternate from "A Lifetime and Beyond" events.

The only warning there is: underage rape and dubious content. If this triggers you, this story isn't for you. There's also underage sex, but both lovers are fifteen or sixteen, and protection is included. Pretty much it, other than some language and implied other things.

Everything Batman belongs to DC, while Kristine is all mine. This story is named after and inspired by Eurielle's song of the same name, some of the lyrics being chapter titles.

Chapter One

Where the Sunlight Fades

Why didn't the explosion just kill him - no, wait, Bruce saved him.

Everything passed by in what felt like a painful flash, in comparison to the horrendous agony of the nearly thirty broken bones in his body and the numbing burning as his naked body was exposed to the elements, the Bat's cape being his only source of protection after the man burst through those doors and took in his state: his Robin shirt torn all the way in the front to expose his torso, remaining on his arms due to his wrists still being bound, and everything below his waist he tried to hide with one leg. Joker had used that crowbar to literally RIP his tights and underwear off so he could "teach him some manners", and then left him as was just because he deserved it...

...and knowing he wouldn't last out there in the icy wild if he did manage to escape.

"Oh, and hey, please tell the Big Man I said...hello."

He'd been so humiliated and still enduring the dozens of broken bones, struggling to breathe - just as he did when he was taken right then and there, that one last part of his innocence he should have given to someone else - that he couldn't move or think, and was so close to believing Batman wouldn't come on time, only to be proven wrong.

If only the man who took him in didn't have to see him like this. But at least he had the decency to throw his own cape around him and haul him off...

His lungs clenched and struggled to bring in holy air, doing this for a while as he lay on his back and absorbed everything around him: the towering billows of smoke and clogging crispy scent of the flames reaching his nostrils, and the heavy body that had shielded him, which explained -

"Batm - BATMAN!"

Bruce - Bruce was in severely bad shape. The right half of his mask had been blown away, and when Jason removed the thing while keeping the cape around his own shoulders, there was blood and ripped areas of flesh to show the muscles under there. The calves of his suit were torn to shreds while he received scratches and more blood splatters in other areas. But if I can just call Alfred, Dick, or Barbara, then he's gonna be all right! He kept shouting the man's name over and over again - "Bruce!" - until the eyelids opened up, showing pain-filled dark oceans.

"J-Jason?" Bruce croaked out, his vocal cords partially crushed from the impact against his neck.

The teenager shook his head. "No, don't try to talk! You're gonna be fine!" He was so erratic it was a miracle he could still think straight. He searched the utility belt and finally found the tube that was the signal to send. "Look, I can still call for help -"

"...no. No time for that now."

Jason protested. Why?! Why would Bruce delay his own life being saved? "I want you to...not kill the Joker. Whatever you decide. Don't end him as he did to me - and for what he's done to you. I understand the pain and the anger that drives you, but killing him won't end it." He grimaced. "Protecting Gotham, its people...healed me. Do it for your sake, and your family - Barbara, Alfred, Dick -"

"- and Kristine and her family," the young man finished, his own throat tightening. His eyes burned with tears that he had no shame in showing to this man who became the father he'd lost, who had a differing view with him from time to time - and had previously relieved him of his Robin persona until he caught up with him here in Bosnia - but helped him like no one else. Did his best to understand him, though in a different way than the girl waiting for him back home.

Bruce forced a smile on his bloodied, ruined face, reaching up then and putting his gloved hand on the younger one's cheek.

"I want that for you because I...love you...my son."

~o~

Since that day, and even ever since the funeral, he still saw that moment in his sleep and waking hours aside from random moments of the day.

Just as I still feel everything disgusting that is making my body react as it shouldn't. I HATE that bastard more than I ever did now.

As the weeks, months passed by, his bandages covering his face slowly being taken off as his outer scars healed - and his bones felt like they were doing it longer because of the brutality of the crowbar - he wished he could honor the "healing process" that Bruce wanted for him. He wished he could fully accept that...

Maybe the one keeping him as sane as possible was Kristine.

Bruce had been buried beside his parents - the Wayne family reunited at last. Jason was there, as was Barbara in her wheelchair, Dick behind her and with his hand on her left shoulder, Alfred on the other side, and Lucius Fox reading passages. Present were also the Crane family, along with family friend Dr. Pamela Isley. Seeing Dr. Jonathan Crane - leading psychologist and expert on every phobia in the planet - made the bitter taste in his mouth arise, but he swallowed it down because the man's daughter whom he'd known since he was twelve was here. It had been three years, but it felt like he'd known her forever.

He had to grit his teeth when he stood next to her; damned timing that it had to come along in front of her father and the others. But aside from the warm, fuzzy feeling she gave him as always, certain areas of himself sizzled when they shouldn't have. Sometimes he hated being young and not in control, especially when this was one of his closest friends - the first real friend he'd ever made in his life. He didn't even know what to do, but he couldn't keep it quiet forever, and it would risk their friendship which was too precious for him to destroy like this - and what Joker did to me makes me feel undeserving of her. She doesn't deserve to be soiled like this, by someone like me.

Looking at those flowers she and her aunt picked out distracted him just a little bit; the assortment was bright and beautiful in these dreary surroundings, symbolizing the rainbow which meant hope for all. White lilies to be expected at funerals, along with blue delphinium, red gladioli, yellow daisies, burnt-orange roses, ferns, and glossy green leaves. A contrast to the life Bruce lived, but this act was done out of love. Exactly what he deserved to be honored with.

But no one in Gotham would ever know he was the Batman, and it would stay that way.

Speaking of Batman, that meant one other person who would take up that mantle, and he was right here in Jason's presence.

He listened to Fox drone about everything Bruce Wayne had done for Gotham City - and also being one of the few people to know Batman's true identity - and then culminate in his reunion with his parents after a lifetime of suffering, though he would be missed not only by the people who didn't know him personally but thanked him for everything, but by all the people here.

Although, Jason zoned out at several points because his mind was filled with thoughts of finding the Joker. To make him pay for what he did to both him and Bruce, to everyone else who didn't deserve to be the butt of his "jokes".

The one who came to help was none other than Nightwing, and how much worse was it for him to see HIM wearing nothing but what was left of his uniform and Batman's cape - and in the snow, nonetheless? He'd snapped at the older guy to not ask until they got Bruce's body away from this place and got himself some clothes. Oh, and that also meant looking at every broken bone in his body, examining every inch of him...

Dr. Thompkins did just that, with Alfred being the one to stay in the room with him as emotional support, and she found not only the slight tearing of his insides, but the traces of dried up white stuff mingled with his own blood down his legs, forming some areas of grotesque pink, a little of that integrated within his pubic hair. He had been so broken down internally that it made the rest of his bodily injuries seem distant, but fate was cruel to let him be aware of the clown's parting words as he left him there: "Okay, I gotta go, kid. It's been fun, though, right? Oh, well, maybe a smidge more fun for me than you. I'm just guessing since you're being awful quiet..."

His throat had been too tight to reply back, even when the "Big Man" was spoken of. He'd been too frozen to even move; he hated being a victim so much. He knew exactly who and what he was, but it was like an out-of-body experience.

Dick pretty much pieced it together himself as soon as he saw the boy's half-nude state and visibly shook with quiet rage and disgust, but pulled himself together to help. Two things had been lost that day: Bruce - make that a two in one, since Gotham lost Batman - and Jason's virginity. One way or another, Joker would pay in some fashion.

The war in Jason's mind and heart waged: between his thirst for revenge and the promise to spill no blood. But what was he going to do so that everyone was happy?

By the time the service was over, the sky rumbled overhead, saying it was gonna storm soon. Everyone had to get indoors now, but Bruce's coffin had to be lowered into the ground and then covered with the earth for eternity.

Even when he continued watching as his beloved adoptive father was buried beside his parents, the final words once more reemerged to the front of his subconscious: "I love you...my son."

Jason finally turned into the nearest person he could, and that was the girl who'd taken his hand into hers. He buried his face into where her neck and shoulder met, his body trembling as he lost control of his inner turmoil.

"I'm so sorry, Jason," she whispered in his ear, one arm wrapped around his torso in the back, the other behind his shoulder and rubbing him in that place, relaxing him just a little. She then leaned up and lowered her voice further so that only HE would catch it.

"I'll try to come by later."

~o~

There really was something bothering Jason aside from losing Bruce. The billionaire's death was truly hard on all of them, but with her best friend...

Her dad definitely noticed and told both her and Aunt Pam his suspicions when they were driving home after the post-funeral service was over. "Bruce Wayne died during an 'accidental explosion' while in Bosnia, and Jason happened to be there with him. I have a feeling more happened than that, but it's Jason's choice to tell someone," Jonathan said, lips pursed but his tone soft, and when he clutched the steering wheel, his bony knuckles turned white as a skeleton.

Pamela audibly exhaled. "Such as -? Oh, no, wait, Kristine, do you want to take a guess? Since Jason came back so horribly beaten...?"

She hardly saw Jason ever since he and his father's corpse came home from overseas. But as soon as she saw the way Bruce looked, just before the coffin was closed...it was like a nightmare, and it made her stomach roll, but it was a miracle she didn't vomit. She'd seen a lot of stuff like this on TV, and Dad talked about it when he'd seen his share of the dead on occasion, but for herself to actually experience it was something else. Oh, God, this man who helped my dad see reason when he refused to accept me and Jason as friends when we first met...this man who did so much for Gotham. And this is what he gets in return. He was so good and pure - as far as she was aware - that it was such shit his end had to be like this.

Really, a freaking warehouse explosion of all things?!

And because she had the intuition of both her parents, including her mom who'd been killed by the Joker when Kristine was just five years old, she suspected there was more that she hadn't been told, and that included her dad and her aunt who had helped him raise her; Pamela Isley had been Harleen Crane née Quinzelle's best friend since college days.

When she was young, Jonathan Crane didn't want to talk much about the death of the wife he loved with all his heart and was miraculously patient when his little daughter would just cry and press for more, until Kristine was old enough to understand that this affected him just as much as her. And Pam, too. But they still had each other, and that was all that mattered.

Although...this time tugged her curiosity nerves more than then. For some reason, Kristine suspected that there was something everyone else wasn't telling her. And from the way her father explained Jason's brutally broken state, it sounded deliberate because he trusted her enough. And always told her to trust her instincts as long as she was careful about where to tread.

Jason needed someone more than ever since that was the case, and she was going to be there until he was ready to open up.

And so she went right back to Wayne Manor that same evening, as she promised Jason. Dick, Barbara, and Mr. Fox had gone home earlier, and her dad did say it was okay to take the car - as long as she had the pepper gel he'd given her, and that she didn't stay out too late. Before leaving the house in the 'burbs, she'd changed out of the dress she wore at the service. Now she was in a bright yellow, long-sleeved top with a ruffled collar trimmed with a gleaming chain of plastic that looked so real, joined with skinny jeans embroidered with pastel flowers up the sides. By this time, the rain all day had stopped, evening fell, and according to the weather forecast on her phone before she left the house, there wouldn't be any more for a while, but you could never trust forecasts to be set in stone. Good thing she brought her rainjacket.

In a plastic bag she'd saved from the grocery store last week, she had a few films in mind for her and Jason, since it would be wrong to take him out soon after his father's funeral - on the same day, no less - but she just wanted him to take his mind off things for a little while.

After dodging night traffic, crossing the Memorial Bridge, she finally entered the countryside which was normally a bad time and place for the night. All those trees and the very few signs except for directing her right to the source: Wayne Manor.

As far as she knew, Jason would still be living there as he had nowhere else to go, and Alfred would remain. She held her breath as she pulled into the driveway, got out with everything in her arm, and then locked the vehicle. Hardly anyone would ever endanger this part, as Wayne Manor was on the other side of the river from the city land.

When she arrived at the front door of the six-generations-old estate, Alfred was there, and through his melancholy, he managed to smile at her. "Thank you for keeping your promise to him, Miss Crane. He does need it more than ever." But then his expression fell. "Though I'm afraid that it's gonna be more than a cakewalk. But you must have figured that out." He stepped aside for her to walk in. Mutely, she nodded.

"Alfred...do you know what really happened to him in Bosnia?"

Crap, she opened her mouth again without thinking. But thank God for the understanding old butler. "Your father didn't say much of anything, my dear," he stated, though it sounded like a question. "Well, that's something Master Jason will have to tell you on his own time, so I doubt it's wise to ask him that question tonight. Give him a little bit of time and he will confide in you. But I must warn you...it's graver than you would have imagined. There's no question he will feel alone, as very few can understand what he's endured. I'm not referring to the loss of Master Bruce." He lowered his eyes to the ground then. Kristine felt her throat tighten; this man had served Thomas and Martha Wayne, then took the responsibility of raising their son as his own - and now that he was gone, he was left to deal with a heavily grieving Jason who was just like his own grandson. Both of them needed each other, and Kristine knew she had to step in, like Dick and Barbara.

That was what families did: they helped each other get through the hardest of times.

This chapter was so emotional for me to write, and sickened me to my stomach with what poor Jason suffered. I mean, it will do the same thing to anyone. Be tuned for the next chapter, as we WILL see more of his torture.

Reviews appreciated in loving details. No flames, please.