When Jade left Roy knew he had hit rock bottom. He had finally done it; he lost everything. The light of his life was gone, he came home one night to find a note from her saying she had gone out and thinking nothing of it he fell asleep on the couch, as far as he knew she never returned. When it came to three days and he still hadn't seen her, and despite his desperate need to find Speedy he didn't leave the apartment at all in that time, he thought about going to look for her. But he didn't know where to start. Sure he could think of a couple places she might go, but he also knew that if she wanted to avoid him then there was no way he would find her. After about a month he couldn't take it anymore and decided that the best he could do was either confirm or disprove his worst fear. However in order to do that he'd either have to go to The Watchtower or the cave in order to use a computer, or call someone from either the league or the younger team. No matter what he would have to get in touch with someone who would claim to be worried about him, and those were people who he did not want to deal with.

But turns out he didn't have to, because when he returned to his search for Speedy he ran into a familiar face.

A part of Jade knew that her father was right that pulling jobs while pregnant was only going to hurt not only her but also the baby in the long run, but being the stubborn girl she can be she ignored his warning solely because it came from him. Still she was getting closer, the information he gave her had turned out to be surprisingly promising, and tonight she was breaking into Cadmus labs for the location of the temple. If she could find the record of that cargo transfer then she could find the temple and hopefully find Speedy.

"You are starting to make this really difficult," she muttered under her breath, talking to her unborn child. A guard had just passed by so she was forced hide behind a corner. She hated hiding behind corners because it was basically hitting a wall and praying that the person you're hiding from is blind enough not to notice. Normally she could find a way to get herself on the ceiling or into dark spaces, but her child was starting to make that hard.

Actually that wasn't entirely true, yes she was starting to show and yes she had to be careful, but most of her caution was coming from paranoia. Though she was now wearing a sweatshirt over her usual kimono, despite the warm spring weather, she was still paranoid that it wasn't fooling anybody.

She pondered this as she raced to the record room.

"Whatever, hopefully this is my last job" she mused to herself as she hacked the lock and entered the room.

She was waiting for something to go wrong; so far this had all been too easy tonight. She was so close, and for her things always go wrong when she's this close.

Tonight was no exception.

For the most part Roy had stopped responding to distress calls, not that he ever got any to begin with. But he had a police radio, where he got it he'd rather not say, and when a report about a break in at Cadmus came in over the static he knew he had to go. He and Jim had already searched every in of Cadmus more times than either of them could count, but every time Cadmus made the media Roy went running back.

He went in through a second story window and quickly made his way down to the lower levels of Cadmus where an alarm was blaring loudly.

"Stupid Genomorphs" Cheshire cursed under her breath as she ran through the halls, clutching the file that she needed.

At some point one of the small gnome creatures had seen her and called it's friends, as if getting away from them wasn't hard enough now she had to worry about one of her husband's friends, or worse her sister, responding to the alarm, which one of the creatures had pulled.

Of course that was when an arrow flew past her face and she knew that no matter which archer it was, Artemis or Green Arrow, she was dead. However she also noticed that the arrow had red feathers… oh crap.

Looking down the hall Cheshire froze when she saw him, Roy, standing there with an arrow pointed at her, but lowering it.

"Jade?" He questioned, his voice barely a disbelieving whisper.

Roy couldn't believe it. Standing just at the other end of the short hallway was Jade, no, was Cheshire. She was wearing her mask and for whatever reason she was also wearing a baggy green sweatshirt, but he didn't give that much thought. In her hand she clutched a file, a stolen file, oh no. "Chesh what are you? Why?" He pleaded but she only shoved the file into the center pocket of her sweatshirt, had he been closer he would've seen the pain stricken and sorry eyes that hid behind his wife's mask.

"Something came up Red, and you weren't going to change" she said before she threw something at him, a smoke bomb.

Roy started choking before he felt dizzy and hi his knees, it was knock out gas. As she ran past he reached out to her, as if he could pull her back to him and apologize, but he couldn't. He woke up a few hours later in an empty hallway, with the knowledge of what had become of his wife, or so he thought.

Once she reached a roof far enough away from Cadmus Jade broke down. She began sobbing uncontrollably and gasping for breath. A part of her wanted to blame this breakdown on the hormones; the rest of her knew that was a complete lie. She felt guilty enough for leaving Roy before, but after seeing she felt awful. His hair was growing out and he looked like he hadn't shaved much recently, he truly was losing it. She had planned that if she ever encountered Roy during her search, especially if she was this close to a lead, then she would tell him what she found and if possible avoid the subject of their child. But seeing him tonight she knew she couldn't do that, not when she hadn't read the file yet. Even if she had and it turned out to be what she thought getting away from Roy was too easy tonight, that arrow had gone to far from her face to be even a warning shot and normally he lasted much longer with the weak knock out gas she had on her.

"I need a plan," she finally admitted to herself. This was getting way to dangerous, much as she hated to admit it her father was right, if she kept this up history was bound to repeat itself, and she had barely survived the first time.

What she needed was a place to go, a safe place, a place Roy would never look for her if he ever bothered looking.

Only one place came to mind.

"I'll get it mom," Artemis said as she stood up from the couch. She had just finished her junior year of college and was now home for the summer.

Walking over to the door of the apartment Artemis had to admit that she was a little fearful about who had come knocking at almost eleven o'clock at night, especially in Gotham and especially with her dad's track record, though his friends never used to knock. Anyway for these reasons she considered it perfectly acceptable when she grabbed an umbrella and held up ever so slightly so that it could be used as a weapon, had it not been for the puffy and red eyes of the visitors she just might have used it.

"Jade?" Artemis questioned in shock

"Hey sis" Jade sniffled in a scratchy voice.

Artemis took a moment to study her sister, she was standing with her shoulders slumped and her head as down as it could go without breaking eye contact. Her eyes were red and ever few seconds she sniffled, had she been crying? Her legs and face looked like they usually did, apart from her eyes, so she probably wasn't coming from a bad fight. In her right hand was gripping her Cheshire mask and a folder while her left hand hung at her side. What really threw Artemis was that she was wearing a baggy sweatshirt, Jade HATES sweatshirts. Both of them used to be forced to wear one every day in order to hide the bruises from their father, until one day Jade had enough and left for school with a belly shirt on underneath her sweatshirt and once she was on the bus she discarded the baggy garment. It took awhile but when she kept doing it Sportsmaster eventually eased up on his treatment.

"Artemis, who is at the door?" Their mother's voice called, Artemis instantly looked nervous while Jade looked desperate.

"Can I please come in?" She asked, more like begged, in a soft voice.

Artemis, unable to think of what to say, stepped aside and opened the door for Jade just as their mother wheeled herself into the living room.

"Jade" Paula gasped, unsure if this were a happy occasion or not.

"Hi mom" Jade said solemnly as Artemis closed the door.

"Jade what's happened?" Paula questioned, noticing that her tough as nails daughter was visibly upset "is it your father?" She questioned.

I wish Jade thought as she set her mask and the file down on the coffee table. "No" she answered as the tears began to resurface. "I'm sorry I, I didn't want to come and be your problem but I didn't know where else to go" she sobbed.

"Oh Jade" Paula said gently as she reached a hand towards her daughter and took her hand inside of her own. "You are always welcome here, no matter what" she assured her.

This was starting to scare Artemis. She had seen Jade beaten senseless without a single tear, she had seen Jade risk her life by revealing her bruises to her sixth grade teacher, she had even seen Jade kill. So what could possibly be enough to break her?

"Mom's right, now just tell us what happened" The blond instructed, it wasn't normally like her to be so trusting. But then again, it wasn't normal for Jade to show up at the doorstep in tears.

"It's a long story, just please don't be too mad over it" Jade asked and with that said she removed her sweatshirt, revealing her reason for wearing it.

She felt a little mean for doing it, considering Jade seemed to be pretty terrified right now, but Artemis face palmed. A part of her saw this coming, maybe not today but she knew enough about her sister's "style" to know that this had been far from impossible for a few years now.

"Jade" their mother's accusing voice finally broke the silence.

"Do I even want to know?" Artemis asked, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Actually I think you might" Jade answered, her typical and foreshadowing voice back in place.

Jade spent the next hour filling in her mother and sister on where exactly she had been and what she had been up to, specifically during the past four and a half years. Although a little hurt that she wasn't told sooner Paula was happy to hear that Jade had gotten married before she became pregnant, Artemis on the other hand nearly strangled her when she told them who it was she was married to. In the end her mother had no reservations about her staying and she was surprised to find that her side of the bedroom she and Artemis grew up in looked as though it hadn't been touched since she ran away ten years ago.

"I thought you would've moved my bed out by now" she commented.

"For a while I was hoping you would come back, guess maybe I shouldn't have given that up" Artemis commented as she sat down on her own bed, a scowl still evident on her face.

"You're still mad aren't you?" Jade asked.

Artemis didn't know what to say to her sister, this wasn't like the Jade she knew. The Jade she knew was selfish and confident, not timid and concerned with the feelings of others. But she supposed that Roy, however broken he may be, had somehow done a thing or two to fix her. Finally the blond archer sighed

"I'm not mad Jade" she admitted "I'm just trying to process the fact that you temporarily walked out on your husband six months ago because you were pregnant and you're just coming here now, have you even been to a doctor?" She questioned but Jade shrugged as she sat down beside her sister.

"Only to get the pregnancy test confirmed, there isn't a doctor I go to regularly and I figured mom never went to a doctor with me so..." she trailed off.

"Yeah and you were two months premature and almost died, you can't seriously be willing to take that chance on your kid?" She asked but she almost regretted it when Jade's face turned from concern to fear and she gripped the edge of the mattress. "You know what we'll figure this out later, for now let's just get to bed, it's late" she said, deciding that some problems could be dealt with in the morning.

Sure enough Jade was dragged by her sister to a doctor the morning after she showed up at the apartment, and Artemis breathed a huge sigh of relief when the doctor told them that everything looked fine. At first Jade had been very smug about this, because really it gave her something to tease Artemis about. But a few nights later she found herself glad for Artemis's concern, because when the sudden pain woke her up she immediately panicked.

It was nearly two in the morning when Artemis was quickly woken by the sound of her sister jolting up in bed with a gasp.

"What's wrong?" She demanded as she sat up herself, Jade sat in bed breathing cautiously, as if waiting for something to happen.

"I don't know, something hurt. Maybe, maybe I dreamt it" Jade suggested before she suddenly hunched of clutching her stomach.

In an instant Artemis was up and halfway to her side before she held out a hand "I'm fine" Jade insisted as her breathing became normal "I'm fine" she said again.

"Are you sure?" Artemis asked and Jade nodded

"Yeah, I'm sure." She told her and Artemis may have still not believed her if Jade didn't start blushing with embarrassment.

"What?" The blond asked, not seeing what her sister had to be embarrassed about.

"First time the baby kicks and we're both ready to pull the fire alarm" Jade chuckled.

Upon hearing that Artemis relaxed and started to laugh herself "Just like you, up all night" she joked and Jade began laughing but it was nothing more than a failed attempt at hiding what she was really feeling, and knowing it Artemis sat down on the edge of her bed. "Jade I know things are a mess right now, but they're looking up" she tried to assure her but the raven-haired girl only rolled her eyes.

"Really? You take me showing up in tears at my mother's doorstep knocked up as a sign of things getting better?" She questioned, taking her little sister's words as nothing but false hope.

"Look around you Jade. Sure right now things are a mess but look at the big picture. Ten years ago you walked out of this room and made it clear that you weren't coming back for me" she began and Jade frowned "but now your husband is in trouble and although you left, you left to help him. You told me that once you can you're going back for him, and I believe you. I can see it in your eyes, you've changed Jade." She continued and this time Jade looked up. "You've hit a rough patch but over all your life's been alright since you met Roy, and you're going get it back on track" She finished.

Jade smiled "You know for two kids who didn't stand a chance, we turned out alright" she said, she hoped Artemis was right about her future but the young blond hadn't done so bad herself. In the fall she would be a senior at Stanford University and she was planning to move in with her boyfriend of the past four years, who although Jade was yet to admit it she found to be a great guy for her sister.

"Yeah, I guess we did" Artemis smiled.