So I wrote a sequel to this thing...

Look, when I've finished That damn photo, I've already got an idea for a sequel/partnerfic that would showcase Ralph's thought process when he was looking at the pictures of Sue on his crime board, especially after the events of Girl Named Sue. These are all product of my reflections on Ralph's perception of Sue during that episode.

I may make it a three-parter because I have one more idea for a fanfic with these two involving photos.

Anyway, please, review.

These damn photos

Ralph told Barry and Iris that he was going to tear down his crime board… and at first he really was going to do it, however, when he looked at the board, covered with all the hard work he has done throughout these nine months, he decided that no, he wasn't going to just give up. If Sue Dearbon thought he will just let her run away, she was going to be sorely mistaken. And so Ralph Dibny found himself with a new determination.

Yes she tricked him. Yes, she made him feel all those feelings for her and then she betrayed him. Yes, she broke his heart. But it didn't mean it was going to be over, oh no, he was going to find Sue and bring her back to her parents, or die trying. He also wanted to know what was she up to. Somehow he was convinced that there was something more to her than meets the eye.

It were these damn photos that made him that way. First they were making him angry – at Sue and at himself. He got played like a fiddle, but he was partially to blame too – after all, he created this whole image of a lost damsel in distress; a high class dame tangled in trouble and in need of saving. Sue just filled in the rest with her sob story about Loring going after her. He believed her lies, because in his mind she was a princess in need of a rescue.

He got this idea about her from those photos.

First, a bit on the right from the left corner was a picture of her in an evening dress, glass of Champaign in the right hand, the left hand on the hip. She had those earrings that consisted of tiny chains and were ending with little balls. She was stunning, really; everything about her was emanating confidence. She was a socialite; she belonged to a different world – a world filled with riches, high class and luxury. She knew which cutlery goes with which dish. She was attending galas and balls. If one wanted to be somebody in higher places, one had to associate with her and her family. In some ways, Dearbons were modern day aristocracy.

When Ralph was looking for her around the world, he got a chance to meet with the wealthy elite, and as much as it was fun to go on luxury parties, drink expensive booze, being surrounded with rich and famous, he didn't feel quite well around them. It was like stumbling into The Great Gatsby – everything was shining, everything was gold, but there wasn't much else into it. In fact, more often than not, he found some of those people quite shallow.

But two newspapers clippings away from socialite Sue, there was another photo that proved she wasn't just a pretty face. Standing in her graduation toga was Sue Dearbon, probably depicted in the middle of delivering her graduation speech. The more Ralph was learning about the girl he was looking for, the more he was convinced that a lot of effort was put into her education. She studied on MIT, she knew six languages, she was horse riding and she was travelling the world to better understand it. The MIT alone was no small feat so Ralph suspected that she had to be quite bright.

One row under the MIT grad Sue there was a horse rider Sue standing next to a beautiful brown horse, the kind of horse little girls would dream of riding. She was smiling widely, probably after a triumphal win in a horse race. Horse riding was such a cliché entertainment of the upper class. Gotta show those peasants that the wealthy had much better things to do than playing basketball or going to cinema. Once again Ralph felt that he and Sue lived in two different worlds.

For some guys, a girl like that would be enough to feel somewhat inadequate. Ralph, who grew up without father; who spent most of his life in one city; who was hanging around in some shady places and got fired from police for planting the evidence, knew a girl like that, a girl from a "good house" would never look at him twice. And maybe it was 2020 and not 19th century, but in some circles old money was everything. Besides, some believed that a man should always prove himself worthy of the woman he loved.

And on the left from the horse riding Sue, in the center of the crime board there was a photo of… Sue.

Just… Sue. An ordinary girl with dark hair, dark eyes and red blouse. She was looking at him with a light smile, the kind of a smile one gives for a School Yearbook – not exactly happy, but not exactly forced either.

This damn photo was Ralph's favorite. Because it was reminding him that as much as Sue Dearbon seemed to have almost everything, deep down she was just an ordinary girl, who went missing. And when he was looking at this photo, Ralph got the impression that this Sue was far more sympathetic, far more interesting and far more real than Sue socialite. For all those months, while looking for her in various places, Ralph was often gazing at this photo and wondering what kind of person Sue Dearbon really was. Was she snobbish? Was she nice? What kind of movies she liked? Maybe if he and she met each other and talked a bit, they would get along just fine.

But then he finally met her. She proved to be hella smart (but then again – he should already know it from what he's gathered about her), and knew how to punch a bad guy. There was even a moment when they were even getting along. Ralph thought that he finally met the real Sue Dearbon – snarky, brave and clever. And when they were talking, when they were planning to get Loring's ledger, when they were sneaking around together, doing detective work, Ralph felt like he just found his soulmate.

Alas, he forgot that in a noir movies and novels there was always a Femme Fatale – a beautiful woman with ulterior motives who gets the hard-boiled detective into trouble. The real Sue Dearbon first left him in a vault, and then left him again – on the ground, injured and lonely. Real Sue Dearbon didn't want to take down Loring, she just wanted to rob him. Real Sue Dearbon didn't care about justice.

Sue, was anything you've told me real?

Yes. And no.

Ralph was thinking about this exchange a lot, while looking at these damn photos. He was wondering what she meant by "yes" and what she meant by "no". Because it implied that there were times when she was honest with him; there were times when she didn't lie. He reminisced about this short time they've spent with each other and tried to decipher when she was telling the truth and when she was lying. Cecile said that they were "surfing on the same waves" and her empathic powers were quite accurate, so maybe that time in the Jitters Sue wasn't deceiving him. Sue also seemed to be honest when she was telling him about being lost… then again she could be just acting that way to manipulate him. Finally she helped him when he got indisposed due to Ultraviolet's beams. She still left him on the ground, but she also gave Flash and the police enough time to come to his rescue.

In the end, all of these damn photos of Sue Dearbon turned out to not showcase the real her. Even the photo on the center of the board was a lie. But it was an important wake up call; Ralph needed to see that she was neither a spoiled socialite, nor a damsel in distress; to see what was really underneath her. Still, somewhere, in the back of his head, Ralph knew that there was more to Sue Dearbon; far, far more than it seemed originally.

And he was going to get to the bottom of this.