"And she wasn't there?" Luke asked, out of breath.

"Nope," Kate replied, struggling under the weight of the couch. It was nearly two in the morning, and they were in the middle of negotiating a sofa up the egress stair of the heavy-timber property they'd just taken possession of. It was the last item in the truck, and Kate had run out of stamina an armchair, table, and three chairs ago.

Luke had returned to Wayne Tower from his unplanned engagement with their latest property purchase just as Kate had changed out of her batsuit. After surveying the damage and filing a police report, he had returned to inform her that the break in had resulted in a series of copper pipes being looted from the exposed MEP zones, setting their timeline back at least an extra week. They weren't scheduled to begin renovations on the building for another two weeks, and the risk of leaving it vacant that long didn't sit well with either of them. Fortunately the other two structures were in less precarious neighborhoods which meant hiring a reliable security team for them had been a breeze.

To remedy this third location, Kate proposed a temporary move, thus their late-night workout. For the next few weeks, Kate planned on babysitting the building until adequate security could be established through alarms and cameras. Fortunately for them there was a line of electricity available for use that had been turned on a few days earlier. Unfortunately for them, that didn't tie into the elevator, which meant unpacking was through the stairwell.

"Is that weird?" Luke continued between gasps.

"What?" Kate asked, distracted by the sharp corner they were translating around.

"It was like… midnight and…she wasn't home?" Luke pondered aloud, heaving out of breath. "Isn't that weir-ooph!"

Kate had halted abruptly, causing Luke to run right into the now stationary edge of the couch. She was staring at him in annoyance. "How about this: let's get this oversized lump of wood and fabric up to the loft, then we can debrief, ok?"

Luke nodded, shelving his curiosity as he rubbed his side.

"You ok?" Kate asked half apologetically, half out of worry that he'd be out of commission and she'd be stuck moving the couch the rest of the way.

"I think so, but if I get a bruise I'm pressing charges," Luke joked.

"For what?" Kate gaped, lifting her end of the couch again.

"Domestic violence," Luke reasoned. "We're practically living together now."


Sophie sat in the dark, her face lit by the glowing laptop screen she was furiously clicking through. She'd been thrown by Batwoman's appearance on her terrace earlier that night and worried she'd missed something important by sending her away. Instead of waiting, she had taken it upon herself to scan through the different files related to Duela Dent trying to find an update that might help clarify what Batwoman was up to.

It took nearly an hour for the pieces to come together: she realized an additional batch of patients had been released from Arkham in the last week, and, as expected, they were all Dr. Randolph Butler's patients. She was searching the GCPD database to confirm their records and gather information about their current whereabouts. A requirement of all recently-released patients is to submit, among other things, an address where they'd be taking up residence. Sophie figured if she could coordinate this information, she might be able to get a team together the next day to begin initial rounds of questioning. She was still in the dark about a lot to do with Duela, and her lack of activity was making her hard to track. She'd received no updates from Batwoman's progress over the last few weeks, but Sophie was beginning to think their earlier theory about a larger plan at play was starting to gain traction.

"Babe, what are you still doing up?"

Sophie jolted at Renee's voice coming from the bedroom door.

"Just some light case work," Sophie offered. "I'm almost done."

"Pssh, no you aren't," Renee countered, trudging sleepily over to the table where Sophie was set up. Although it had only been a short time, Renee was already conditioned to expect Sophie in bed after her. For Renee it wasn't necessarily a problem in the short term; her and Sophie had agreed to take things slow and, contrary to practically sleeping together every night, they weren't actually sleeping together. At least, not yet, and that's what had Renee hesitate about Sophie: she was already in a committed relationship with her work. Renee didn't doubt Sophie meant well, but part of her wondered how that would play out with their relationship. "You've got your 'I'm not sleeping until I solve this' tone. So, just tell me what you've got so far."

Renee pulled out the chair next to Sophie and plopped down waiting for Sophie to fill her in.

"Are you sure we've only been dating for two weeks?" Sophie asked, noting the strange accuracy with which Renee observed things about her, "Or am I just that easy to read?"

"So that's what we're doing? Dating?" Renee gushed. The room was still in darkness, but Renee could easily make out the discomfort on Sophie's face. "Oh, calm down. I'm only teasing. Mostly it's the latter. It also helps that you're so obviously obsessed with your work that it's easy enough to infer you'd put this over things like food, sleep, sex… you know, normal stuff."

Sophie shook her head dismissively as she opened another set of files on the computer.

"What's that?" Renee asked, reaching for the glass next to Sophie. It was on its third refill, and Sophie noted the portions were slowly getting bigger and bigger with each pour.

"Oh, it's just something from the cart," Sophie said casually.

"It smells… it smells weird," she said, bringing the glass to her nose. "May I?"

Sophie had to consciously keep her hand on the table from snatching the glass back and stop herself from saying no. It would be strangely hostile to tell Renee she couldn't have any, and it would be even harder to explain why. Instead, she forced herself to shrug indifferently.

"You should start with a-"

"Oh! This… this is terrible!"

"-small sip." Sophie had watched as Renee shoot back the rest of the glass like a well drink at the corner bar. A small wave of annoyance crashed through her, and she suddenly felt defensive. It was such a trivial thing, but something about how it was so dismissively tossed back felt disrespectful.

"You drink this? For fun?" Renee continued, moving her tongue around inside her mouth as though it would rid her taste buds of the memory.

"You could say it's an acquired taste," Sophie said slowly, not wanting to let her annoyance carry into her tone.

"Well I say it's awful. I never want that again."

"Hmm," was all Sophie responded with, returning her attention to the laptop, silently disagreeing with Renee's opinion but also happy to know the rest of the bottle was safe.


"What are you doing?" Kate asked from the armchair.

"I think the couch would look better in front of the fireplace," Luke replied as the scraping of the legs against the wood floor rang through the empty space.

Kate rolled her eyes. "How about we feng shui tomorrow? It's nearly three, and with our luck, tomorrow will be the day some imminent disaster is set in motion, and Batwoman won't be up to snuff because she was too busy moving an armchair the night before to get any rest."

"That's some first season-level foreshadowing, Kate. We're better than that. Besides, it was your decision to take all the furniture."

Luke wasn't wrong. He continued sliding the couch across the space while muttering under his breath about her abusing his cheap labor. Kate chuckled lightly at his discontent. They had effectively gutted her current rental of all big items and set them up in the penthouse unit. To Kate, it was the perfect safe house: limited activity around the area, and no current tenants. She was growing sick of the shadowy batcave and thought the all-glass walls would be the perfect contrast for a short while. After some arm-twisting, she got Luke to agree.

The space was definitely sparse with furnishes. The penthouse construction had barely begun when the site was shut down years ago, and there were no finishings. The blank canvas made it the perfect space for Kate. Over the course of the move, Kate slowly found herself liking it more and more, imagining different fit-outs for it. Fortunately basic plumbing had been established, but the full partition fit-out was incomplete, and Kate had ideas for how to redesign the layout. It helped that it was the top unit and not beholden to loading walls. The heavy timber columns penetrated the space at a constant module and created a slow rhythm to the space.

"Who knows, I might just stay," Kate observed. "Which means your redecorating is scratching up my floor."


"So you think Butler is involved in something sinister, and that's why he's releasing these patients? They're his little army?"

"Maybe. A contact of mine was meant to follow up about some side research, but we haven't been able to connect in weeks."

"A Crow?" Renee asked.

"No, not exactly. This is an outside source," Sophie replied, treading lightly to not give up too much information.

"Hmm," Renee pondered, suddenly intrigued by this mystery contact. Was he an employee at Arkham? An old friend? She shelved her wandering thoughts for later. "I mean, it seems like a fine theory, but without any evidence it doesn't hold much water."

Sophie knew Renee was right, which was why she had been up late in the first place. She had grown frustrated that she let Batwoman leave without talking about the case first. Sophie realized working with Batwoman was going to be that much harder now that Renee was in her life, and negotiating meetings meant her place might be out of bounds.

"Also, it's three-thirty in the morning. I can practically see the sunrise," Renee continued, gesturing to the window.

"I didn't realize the sun rose from the North," Sophie noted with a smirk.

"And that's exactly how delusional you'll become if you don't get to bed," Renee chastised, not letting Sophie get the better of her.

Sophie sighed. "Fine, you win. You go ahead - I want to save a few things."

Sophie watched Renee shuffle back into the room before closing out of the files. She folded her screen shut and made to leave the table when she eyed the empty glass. She paused, lifting it to her nose and inhaling all the memories that came with it.


Kate sat in the dark studio. Dark was a loose term; the full-height glass without blinds meant street light came pouring into the space. Luke had left nearly an hour earlier much to Kate's dismay. Her hope was that he'd spend the night, but he was insistent on returning home for a few hours of "restful, comfortable" sleep which meant she was now left alone with her thoughts.

The last few hours had been a welcome delay of what she knew would eventually take over her attention. She had half-expected to pass out from the physical exertion, but her wandering thoughts had other ideas. Instead, she found herself replaying the scene on Sophie's terrace over and over and over...

Sophie was seeing someone.

There were moments she could remain numb to the thought of Sophie with someone else, but more often she was overwhelmed with a feeling of loss. There was the part of her that tried reasoning Sophie had chosen someone before in her marrying Tyler, and this should be no different. But that was an out-of-sight out-of-mind situation: Kate hadn't known about that relationship until after she returned to Gotham. Had Kate physically been in the city when Sophie chose Tyler, she would have reacted differently. But how? Would she have fought for Sophie? Would she have been supportive? Or would she have sat herself in a dark, unfinished, unconditioned apartment building and dwelled in silence?

The answer didn't matter, because when Sophie chose Tyler, Kate wasn't in her life. When Sophie chose this new person, it was after Kate had rejected her. The truth was that Kate's anger was at herself: she had the chance at a relationship, and she threw it away because of Batwoman. A small resentment against Batwoman lingered for that, and Kate wasn't naive enough not to worry it would simmer into a hatred.

Another part of her was torn about the fact Sophie wouldn't choose someone who didn't make her happy. Tyler aside, she was out and had a freedom that three, four, even five years earlier she didn't have. This almost made it worse: Sophie wasn't choosing someone else out of obligation or because she was going through the motions of life; she'd have chosen someone because they made her happy. They would bring out the spark in her Kate had once been able to, and Kate had no right to object to that.

All of this reasoning didn't stop the empty feeling in her chest though.

Worse was that she would have to remain ignorant in front of Sophie. Kate Kane didn't know anything about this new relationship, and she knew an entirely different obstacle lay ahead in trying to stay neutral toward Sophie. One silver lining was that she didn't know who Sophie was with. It meant Kate would only need to remain stoic to one person's face.

Kate wiped away another tear from her cheek, angry at the uncontrollable reaction she was having. She stared out the window from her unmade bed and saw the first light of day edge over the horizon. It was only then that her physical and emotional exhaustion took hold and she felt the weight of sleep hit her eyelids. She looked across the mattress at the empty half, imagining for a moment what it would be like to have Sophie there before drifting finally off.