I stare out the window, but not at the snow-flecked street below – at my own transparent reflection staring back at me.

They've left me here in my new room all morning, allowing me to settle in they said, giving me the space I need to "start to deal with my grief on my own" and "adjust to my new situation". I heard them whispering behind the door and words like all alone and dead mother reached my ears, burrowed down into my throat, and cut through my heart like the tip of a blade.

"Better let her cry and be done with it…" they said, but there was no compassion in their voice. Just cold reason. This was the way it was for most of the children that showed up – needy, helpless, alone in the world - on their doorstep.

They don't know that I've shed all the tears I could...Lord knows I've tried, but I think I did as much crying as my body could handle during all the moments that I don't remember since my mother was taken from me. They blend in so seamlessly with the pieces I can call back to memory – gray turning lilac as the sun began to setbehind a sheet of rain and the dark blue uniforms that bleed under the surface of my mind like bruises - so much that I think they might be hiding from me, keeping me safe from fresh sorrows. After so many days of crying and not sleeping and crying more, I think my heart can't take more tears. It feels so heavy with rot behind my aching ribs.

My eyes are dry but I know - somewhere deep down - there's still more tears to shed, maybe in the pit in my stomach or maybe they're closer than I think, intertwining with the knot in my throat and making it grow tighter. Mother said sometimes you have to bury the hurt so you can go on living and forget everything that happened, start fresh….but she always said that with tears in her eyes too.

I reach out and touch the girl's face in the windowpane. Her black hair sticks to her temples and brushes the roundness of her tawny cheeks. Her eyes are huge, black, gleaming with a spirit that cannot be dampened by winter or darkness or fear. She's hurting – I trace the shape of her downcast mouth, trembling slightly with cold and stirring grief – but she is not on her knees.

I let my hand fall back into my lap, to the tattered duckling and the baseball with missing stitches. My fingers graze absently over the bare leather, where the scarlet loops used to disappear into the hide. Barely held together by a few strained threads that can't hold on much longer. They are pieces of comfort from a home I will never go back to, stained now with my mother's innocent blood and father's cowardice and neglect, but they are still token reminders of a once happy childhood. Now, they were ghosts. Shadows of a family broken apart by circumstance.

My mother was gone.

And so was my father.

And now only I remain to carry the burden of what we could have been…

.

.

.

Coffee in hand, keys jingling as they turn and slide the deadbolt into place, I sigh and inwardly brace myself for the day ahead. When I woke this morning, Blake had been gone – the crumpled blanket folded carefully across the spot on the couch where he had slept last night. That was the best news I've had all morning.

After that, things took a turn for the worse until they decided to make a nosedive off a cliff. In the mess Blake had made in showing up unwanted and unnecessarily at my door after midnight, I'd forgotten my original plan to have a quick dinner before washing my clothes. Which meant no clean white dress shirts to wear under my uniform. Swearing under my breath, I plucked a slightly rumpled, not quite dirty shirt out of the hamper, dug through a closet that I hadn't touched in years to find the iron I wasn't even sure worked anymore, used the kitchen table as an ironing board and, though the iron miraculously worked, it also left me with a second degree burn on my left palm and a deep, dark mark in the ancient linoleum.

But that wasn't all of it…

The Captain called just as I was hurriedly shoveling spoonfuls of coffee into my coffeemaker.

"Nina, I need you to take a double shift tonight."

Slamming the percolator shut with enough force to break it in two, I grabbed the phone from under my chin and pressed it against my ear. "Cap, you know I can't-"

The Captain sneered. Rage bubbled in the pit of my stomach like acid as I detected a sliver of a laugh snaking through his voice. "I really don't think you're in a position to refuse, Nina," he replied, slowly, as if choosing each word with care – like a warning. "...as I don't remember asking you if you could take another shift. I'm telling you to take another shift."

Without another word, the line went dead, and it took all the strength I had in me to steel my nerves and talk myself out of throwing the phone against the wall just to watch it shatter. My hands clenched and relaxed at my sides like a heartbeat, the fingers blanching white from the pressure. This would be my second double shift of the week, a fate worse than death to most cops that had a wife and kids to go home to or at least wanted to see the sun again. It wasn't often that we'd get calls like this, and usually we had some fair warning so we could save up on sleep and mentally prepare ourselves for the strain of 22 hours or more on a beat. But not this time.

I shoulder the tattered khaki backpack that held some essentials which would get me through the night – an unopened box of ninety-nine cent instant coffee, a deck of playing cards, a small portable radio loaded up with fresh batteries, The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler with its dog-eared, coffee-stained pages, and a notebook and pen for writing down observations on my beat. The department warned against writing down notes while out in the field where any Tom, Dick, or Harry could happen upon them if a squad car was broken into or God forbid something happened to you on the clock – but I've developed my own shorthand that, if found, might've landed me in Arkham if not for the fact that I've aced my psychological exams for the last three years in a row. It's the one thing I'll let myself stray from the beaten path for in terms of following rules...I've always been a note taker, even back in school. Helps me process, think things through, to see my thoughts scrawled out in front of me where I could make sense of them, where I could touch them and make them real.

Landing at the base of the stairs, I look up from my feet and wince at the glare of sunlight that ricochets off the car parked out front like a bullet. I shield my eyes and walk quickly past a girl with a sleeping baby slung over her shoulder coming in from the street. Once out on the sidewalk under the late afternoon sky, the light doesn't seem so blinding anymore, where everything is bright.

That's when I see it.

The car parked out front is a beat up, piece of crap black sedan, its paint peeling and flaking off in some places and rust around the hubcaps. The windshield and windows are cracked and dusty, but the sun filters through the glass and glitters like its refracting off the heads of diamonds. It's the most rundown hunk of garbage on wheels I've seen in a long time and I live in a neighborhood full of aspiring drug dealers and underpaid club bouncers.

And there he is.

Blake is standing there smirking at me, a cup of steaming coffee in his hand as his arm rests on the open door frame. Waiting.

I tighten my grip on the strap of my bag, pulling it a little closer to me, and fix him with a dark glower. "What are you doing here?"

"Isn't it obvious?" He asks, and I notice he's beginning to shoulder my sarcasm with a bit more confidence than when he was the fresh-faced rookie I'd been saddled with a month prior. "I'm here with a peace offering. Coffee and a ride to work."

"And why would I willingly trap myself in a car with you longer than I have to?" I retort. "I'm already stuck with you for the next twenty two hours at least."

He seems to sidestep that remark, heavy with expectation for at least some sort of acknowledgment of the fact that he's stuck with me for a double shift. But there's none, and instead he beckons me into the car with him with a nod. I need to save my strength for the long beat ahead and yield easily, ducking inside and buckling myself into the passenger's seat without another word. The untouched coffee in the cup holder next to me catches my eye and causes me to wrap both hands around the traveler's mug I've brought with me to keep them from wandering into temptation. Black with a trace of cinnamon, the way I like it. Still, I knew it was there, an insult to my own carefully constructed walls of self-sufficiency.

The car pulls away from the curb and slides easily into oncoming traffic.

"Look, I just wanted to...make amends." He says finally, his gaze fixed on the road ahead of him. "I can tell that I've crossed a line."

"To say the least," I reply, taking a rebellious sip from my own tumbler and looking out the window at the stretch of gray buildings made vibrant with gang signs and technicolor graffiti. "I'd expect that level of stalking expertise from a serial killer on a bender perhaps, but not a cop trying to worm his way into his partner's good graces."

From what little I've learned of Blake during the last month of our reluctant partnership, it's that he's not easily affected by the opinions of others. It's like he doesn't care, or maybe he does and he's become so accustomed to hiding it behind a stony exterior that it's second nature. It just slips into place without him having to even think twice about it.

His faint outline that I can see in the windowpane shrugs a bit. "Harsh, but fair I guess. I've learned my lesson."

Good. The word flashes through my head but doesn't make it out of my mouth. Instead, I allow the quiet to seep back in and haunt him.

.

.

.

As soon as Blake pulls into an available spot and it's safe for me to get out, I throw the door open and am crossing the length of the parking lot before he can even get his seat belt unbuckled. His olive branch so cleverly disguised in a cup of seemingly innocent coffee I leave behind and I know he's smart enough to read that message loud and clear. Apology not accepted.

He needs to learn boundaries. Partners aren't friends. We're co-workers, forced to share a squad care and a desk and most of the time the same claustrophobic breathing space.

But that's the extent of our relationship.

Besides, I don't want anyone getting any wrong ideas about me or him or, worse still, us together. If the whole precinct saw us walking in side by side, it could prove disastrous to the image I've built for myself over the years, the image that I hide all traces of femininity and emotion behind. In this uniform, behind this false bravado with which I carry myself and the swagger of confidence I've clumsily fashioned for myself out of long nights and sore swollen feet and bruised eyes, I am not Nina...I'm Chase. Bold, determined, unflappable Chase. No identity outside of a common last name and a indigo uniform. I've earned this indifference from them. Not respect, not equality. Indifference. And only so often, when I rise above them in some way and show them that they're as indifferent about fighting for Gotham's soul as they are toward the trespasser in their ranks – they realize that I'm not one of them, that I'm a woman, and my place is below them, inferior in every way. That's when they push back and I fight harder.

I can't have them see Blake and me in any situation that could be taken as compromising.

It would tear down everything I've worked so hard to build for myself, every tower of victory over injustice I've erected in the long hard battle of years I've spent here. This is a war. I can't let my guard down.

"Chase!"

I turn to find the Captain standing in front of his office with his hands on his hips. His mouth is a firm line that is slowly disappearing into his face. "You're late."

"Yes, sir..."I leave my desk and take my place in front of him, ready for a verbal lashing. "It won't happen again."

"Make sure that it doesn't," he replies, and I can tell that the usual early morning bustle has gone completely still behind me as they listen in on our confrontation. Watching, snickering together behind my back, sipping their coffee and thanking God it's not them being shamed for five minutes worth of tardiness in front of the entire precinct. "You know full well how the Commissioner looks on punctuality. I wouldn't want to report one of our few female officers who need to set a better example if they want to be taken seriously in their line of work."

I felt the blunt edges of my teeth digging hard into my bottom lip, biting back the words that longed to pour out in response to such blatant threats against my character. This is the first time I've been late in six months. I would understand a quiet warning in the privacy of his office behind a closed door but this...this is just so unmistakably intentional, doing it out in front of my peers. He knows I'm fighting a losing battle for their respect and does not want me to win.

My cheeks flush with boiling hot anger and drives the humiliation even closer to home. I blink back tears that sting my eyes and cling to sticky lashes and I suddenly realize I'm not crying – I never ever cry – but I've torn my lip and blood is seeping warm and metallic through my mouth. My eyes are watering from the pain. "Sir-"

"It's my fault sir!" I hear a voice speak up behind me and I instantly know it's him. "I'm the reason she's late. I took a wrong turn and she was with me."

No...no, anything but that!

This is all just too much and I turn on my heel, escaping the eyes gouging holes into the back of my neck, through the uniform I hide behind, and into the heart of the sad, lonely, vulnerable little girl that lost her parents so long ago...

I shove Blake as hard as I can out of my way and, as soon as I'm out of sight, I sprint toward the bathroom in a blur of rage and pain and memory.

Better let her cry and be done with it…

.

.

.

Shadows stretch their long, cool fingers across the length of the city as dusk begins to fall. I watch the streets start to empty – a group of friends that had been playing basketball in the parking lot of an abandoned school, swapping trendy handshakes and glistening with beads of sweat that trickled down gullies of temples and backs. Here and there, a suit and tie rushes down the walks with cell phones glued to their ears and their worn faces looking gray in the fading light. Clusters of schoolkids separate and file, one by one, into apartment buildings and group homes, hidden away from the flickering street lamps which signal that night had fallen on Gotham city.

They have all been wisely taught and never to forget their healthy fear of what comes after dark.

The sidewalks and alleyways are all but vacant as the sun dips behind the low, squat buildings which line our usual beat, but I know they will soon fill again with the real kings who rule this city – drug-dealers hiding their secret packages, deadbeats with guns in their back pockets and gold in their teeth, pimps who parade bony prostitutes in heels barely held together with masking tape and super glue. The night comes alive with them. I snap my gum loudly, checking my phone for the time – 8:05 pm.

Blake is quiet, for which I'm grateful. The wounds he'd inflicted earlier with his clumsy attempts at making friends are still too fresh and raw; I wouldn't want to punch him in his teeth for opening his mouth before I'm ready to acknowledge him again. After I'd come out of the bathroom with flecks of blood streaking my fingers and crawling through the cracks in my chapped lips, there had been a look on his face. A look that indicated he knew how bad he'd messed up.

Not a word had been spoken between us since then.

With no game on tonight, I take my book out of my knapsack and flip to the last page I remember reading. I'm still resolutely ignoring Blake, though I can feel him tensing up next to me, the air shifting as he sits up in his seat to focus more clearly on his surroundings. He doesn't like being ignored but he's smart enough to not speak up, taking his punishment with the dignity and long-suffering grace of a martyr.

The silence feels...alive. It seethes and makes the air hot and heavy and suffocating, reminding me of how it feels when there's a storm coming, the sky all black and coiled like a snake prepared to strike. It's an angry, turbulent quiet that, as the hours pass, makes it harder to breathe, makes it harder to focus on the book in my grasp, makes it hard to ignore the bitterness spreading and growing like strangling vines between us so that, by the time he does open his mouth around ten o' clock, I don't feel like punching him anymore. I almost welcome the sound of his voice.

"You gonna ignore me all night?"

I turn a page and sigh heavily. "That was the plan."

"You're a child," He spits venomously. "All I was trying to do was bail you out of trouble and you're giving me the silent treatment."

I slam the book shut and turn to look him in the eye, but find only black holes where his eyes used to be. "Bail me out of trouble? You're the reason I got chewed out in the first place."

"What?!" He hisses through clenched teeth. "How?"

I don't feel like I have to explain myself to him – would he understand even if I did? - and so I stop talking altogether. Instead, I look out the window and watch the light across the street flicker in unison with the sharp, staccato pulse of my heartbeat. This city, it's not much, but it's home...it's the only home I've ever known. I want to save it...I want to help...is there anything I can do to stop the cancer eating Gotham alive?

Blake heaves a huge, frustrated sigh, but then seems to go still, like something clicked for him, the truth finally blooming stark with clarity before his eyes. He doesn't reply...and nor does he have the chance to. The scanner blares suddenly with a loud, emotionless voice echoing in the static just as the moment of realization seems to sweep over John Blake like a wave.

"...gotta 10-52A in progress...715 A Street, Apartment 502..shots have been fired…"

Without another word, the squad car roars to life. My hand instinctively reaches for the gun holstered at my side as the sirens begin to scream overhead and we take off into the night.

author's notes: i know it's been like ALMOST TEN YEARS but i happened to log back in after getting so bored with quarantine and realized how much i liked where this fic was going. obviously, i'm 8 years older. my writing style has probably changed. but i think it's pretty close to the original feel for nina's character and also the atmosphere of the fic itself. i hope you guys enjoy!...if there's anyone out there still reading nolanverse batfic o.O

disclaimer - john blake belongs to christopher nolan. oc belongs to me.