A/N: Wow. So, this relaxing weekend has certainly helped get the creative juices flowing. I've been digging through my old stuff and trying to see if there's anything I can finish, and lo and behold, I saw this theme was still pending in the Echoes story and I actually drafted my first completely new bit of fanfic writing in quite a while.

Color me amazed!

I hope you enjoy. (I may be a bit rusty).

Remember Me
(24: Rosemary; remembrance)
by Em

"Are you going to Scarborough Faire? / Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme / remember me to one who lives there / she once was a true love of mine…"
- Scarborough Faire, Traditional

It was the smell that woke him, but he didn't realize that at first. It took him a few moments to get his bearings, where he was, why he was there, what he'd done, and finally, the understanding that it was still too early for him to be awake. It was at that point that it occurred to him that he'd been woken up, but he couldn't quite figure out why. There was no persistent sound, and although he took a few moments to be completely aware of his surroundings, there was nothing particularly out of place that should've woken him.

Then, he smelled it again.

It came to him like the scent on a breeze, and he was hit suddenly with a memory – random and meaningless, but nonetheless present and complete.

She had walked passed him one day while he was working at the kitchen table and the smell had been woodsy and like a crisp winter day, like pine and lemons and wood. He'd looked up and sniffed at the air. "Why do you smell like a pine tree?" he'd asked her, highly amused. She didn't usually carry scents, except maybe the faint aroma of lavender from when she'd left her bath in the evenings.

"Pine tree?" she'd asked, pausing and raising a signature brow in confusion. She'd sniffed at the air, then raised her arm to her nose. She'd almost smiled at him when she figured out the scent he meant and she walked up to him and raised her palm for him to smell. "Is this what you mean?" she asked.

Slowly, so as not to disturb the woman at his side, he lifted himself from the bed and stood, finding his t-shirt and jeans and putting them on. He'd never get back to sleep now, he knew. But as he dressed, he smelled it again, as if it were brought to him on an errant breeze, but they were indoors. His bed partner that night hadn't smelled this way – her scent had been like musk and jasmine.

He lifted his nose and tried to identify it, but the scent was gone. He shook his head, feeling the beginnings of a headache – the type he got whenever he didn't sleep enough for too long, and there it was again. He tried to follow it, like following a sound, quietly stepping across the wood floor in the bedroom and into the living room beyond, a hand raised to his temple in an effort to stave off the impending headache and he was assailed by another memory.

Her hands were warm and soft, the pressure firm and even as her fingers massaged his temples, the pine and lemon and fresh outdoorsy scent all around him. "You're pretty good at this, you know?" he asked.

"I'll deny it if you tell anyone," she warned, something like a smile in her voice. "I refuse to be the Tower's resident masseuse."

He chuckled, already feeling the tension leaving his body and the pressure in his temples receding. "I appreciate you making an exception for me," he said.

"You're our illustrious leader," she replied in a jokingly pompous tone. "Can't have our leader suffering a headache before he faces the Mayor, can we?"

He exhaled a laugh. "I hear the mocking in your tone, Raven," he had told her. "I'm only ignoring it since whatever you're doing is getting rid of the headache."

"It's mostly the oil, you know," she said. "It's good for headaches."

"Mmm," he agreed.

"You need more sleep," she said after a moment.

He chuckled again, this time without any real mirth in it. "I'm not the only one with the late nights."

"But you're the only one that's human," she had countered.

In the distance, a siren brought him out of his reverie and he found he was standing at the glass door to the back garden, looking out into the moonlit plants. Even if it were one of those plants that he was smelling, how could he be smelling it inside an air conditioned house with all the doors and windows closed? It didn't make any sense.

He looked around, seeing a row of small potted herbs growing on the ledge under the window above the sink. He padded over to four or five small terracotta pots and tried to identify the herbs growing there. Basil he could recognize, and cilantro and sage with its almost fuzzy leaves, and…

"It's rosemary," she had explained, plucking a few of the almost needle like leaves, crushing them a little in her fingers. She brought it up to his nose so he could inhale the fragrance. "It is a strong scent."

He had brought his hand up to hold her hand steady while he inhaled, and for a moment the sharp scent was overpowered by the warmth of her spreading through him from the point of contact with her skin. "I've had this on lamb," he managed after a few moments.

She nodded. "It's used, pretty sparingly, in cooking, because it's so strong a flavor, but yes, lamb is one of the places where it's used."

"And you're saying it's used for more than just cooking?" he asked.

"Absolutely," she affirmed. "It's an ancient herb, Robin," she'd told him. "It was said to have been around Aphrodite's neck when she was born from the sea on Cyprus," she explained. "Or, if you're more inclined to the western god, it is said to obtain its blue flours because Mary, mother of God, laid out her blue cloak to dry when she was flying to Egypt over a bed of blooming rosemary."

"So, it's a magical herb?" he enquired.

"One of them, yes," she confirmed.

"What's it used for?" he asked, following her around their little rooftop garden while she pruned some plants and bent to take clippings from others.

"It's always been highly valued for its healing properties," she told him. "It has antibacterial uses, and as far back as the medieval age was used to smudge against airborne bacteria, its scent can be used to ease tension headaches, a bath in water steeped with rosemary can aid with fatigue and exhaustion, rosemary tea will help with aching joints…"

He hadn't been particularly interested in the herbology lesson, but it was something to do – something to do that would keep him close to her, anyway. "And magically?" he prompted, to keep her speaking.

"In spellwork, it is used to encourage devotion and faithfulness," she looked up at him, "And to aid in remembrance."

Remembrance.

He reached out to the pot on the windowsill and plucked a few sprig of rosemary into his palm, inhaling the scent as he walked out the door, propping it in his cup holder where it would scent the inside of his car the whole drive to Gotham. It would be early still when he got there, but it didn't really matter.

Raven had always been an early riser.