A/N: THIS IS NOT THE END. It kind of is the end, because everything gets resolved, but there will be an Epilogue within the next few days, week at most. (It's mostly already written) So, look for it.

Apologies for taking so long to post this chapter. (Six months...hard to believe...this story's been around for almost a year now.) I focused a lot on finishing up the latest chapter of It Only Takes A Moment which was a doozie and everything else just kinda fell by the wayside.

Not beta'd.

All other A/Ns at the end of the chapter, so I won't give anything away.

Thanks: Thank you to everyone for all of your support during this angsty trip. I really appreciate all your words of encouragement and all your comments letting me know that I was on the right track. As always, to my sounding boards, Absentia and Kysra, who although they haven't taken a look at the final product, have been around in every step of its evolution. Individually to all the reviewers on 'emsscraps' later on tonight.

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Estranged
Part XI
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"Tell me what I'm 'sposed to do / with all these leftover feelings of you / cause I don't know..."
- Roadside, Rise Against

"This time, This place / misused, mistakes / too long, too late / who was I to make you wait/ Just one chance / Just one breath / Just in case there's just one left..."
- Far Away, Nickelback

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Robin
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It wasn't the first time Dick had to change out of his Nightwing uniform on Blüdhaven City Police property and so although he went through the motion absently, almost automatically, it did not escape his notice that this time was different. He had been late coming onto his shift before, too, and despite his griping, his captain was more pissed at Dick's silence as far as the 'costume freak' was concerned than he was about Dick's being late.

But perhaps because he was already aware of the difference in the routine, it was easier for him to notice how apart from it all he felt as he walked into the squad room of his precinct toward his desk. He glanced at the other detectives, the uniformed police, the office personnel, the easy camaraderie and although outwardly he took part in it (shaking hands with a fellow detective, listening as a Sargent told him about a ball game Dick had been right about calling the outcome of, and every other outward show of normalcy) Dick thought once again, as he always thought – however absently – how different he was from these people.

He had always excused it, when it bothered him enough that the need to excuse it at all came up, on his burden as Nightwing.

But that wasn't right.

He had been normal before, normal and a superhero both.

He had laughed and joked with others and meant it. He had felt real accomplishment at the end of the day, too. He had forgotten that for awhile, but Raven's words on her balcony reminded him of that and he couldn't seem to get it out of his head.

He remembered a time he had gone to sleep proud of what they'd accomplished, not just glad to close his eyes to the oblivion of an exhausted rest. He never thought of it until Raven brought it up, but he couldn't really remember the last time he had laughed – really laughed. He had been honest when he told Raven that Nightwing didn't laugh and Richard had nothing to smile about, but he was only now starting to realize how very honest.

He told himself he had to be hard to do his job, but what had he become?

"Grayson!"

Dick jerked out of his thoughts to look at John Belzer, his sometimes partner who was sitting at his desk across from him. "What?" Dick asked, annoyed.

"Where were you man?" Belzer asked.

"Not here," Dick answered, forcing a smile and making it suggestive. Belzer wouldn't be able to tell the difference. "What's up?" he asked.

"I was asking you if you'd heard that Lester Buchinsky(1) was released yesterday, but I think I'd rather hear about what you did last night that put that look on your face."

"Buchinsky was released?" Dick asked, serious.

Belzer sighed. "Yep," he said unhappily. "On a technicality. Isn't that a kick in the ass?"

Dick leaned back. It had taken him weeks to track The Electrocutioner down – both as Dick Grayson and as Nightwing – and the fight that had ensued when Nightwing had finally caught up with him had him bruised and battered for weeks.

And he was out.

On a technicality.

"Sometimes I wonder if its even worth it," Belzer mused.

Dick didn't comment. He was too busy wondering not only what he had become, but for what. He felt very tired suddenly.

"That Nightwing guy must have resolve of steel to do this kind of shit over and over again," Belzer continued, rubbing at the space between his eyebrows. "Why do you think he does it?"

Dick was surprised by Belzer's comment and raised his head in surprise, wondering over Belzer's words. Why did Nightwing do it? How long ago had he realized the truth behind his need for revenge? How long ago had he lost the idealistic impulse that it was his responsibility to fix the whole world? "He's needed," Dick finally answered.

Belzer scoffed, half-heartedly. "Is he?" He caught Dick's look and raised his hands, anticipating the argument. "Hey, I know we owe him a lot, man, I know that, and I know he's saved a lot of people, we all appreciate that, but you've gotta wonder..."

"Wonder what?" Dick asked.

Belzer shrugged. "What came first, the chicken or the egg, ya know?" he asked, tiredly. "Would we have metahumans causing problems if superheroes like Nightwing and Superman and all of them weren't around to deal with them?"

Dick didn't know what to say. He could say what he knew: that the Titans, for example, would not have formed if they hadn't been needed, but was that really true? If Raven hadn't come to Earth...but that wasn't right either. If the Justice League hadn't already existed, Raven wouldn't have come to Earth looking for help in the first place. "I don't know," he finally answered.

"Do you think he ever gets tired of it?" Belzer asked. "Nightwing, I mean," he clarified. "Do you think he ever wonders if it's worth it?"

Dick looked at him and knew the answer without having to think it and answered someone for the first time since he was a child without thinking the answer through, "All the time."

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Raven
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Julie, her medical assistant, was waiting for her at the airport when she came through the gate.

"Welcome home, Doc!" Julie greeted enthusiastically, crushing Rachel in a great big hug, then letting her go before Rachel could do much except blink.

"Hello, Julie," Raven answered, smiling into the younger girl's bright face. She reminded her of Kori. Always had. The same child-like joy, only a lot less naïve. "You didn't have to come all the way out here to pick me up."

Julie pshawed and took her carry-on before Rachel could argue it, swinging it onto her own shoulder. "And let you take a taxi all the way back to Shaver Lake? Are you kidding?" she asked, starting to lead Rachel to the baggage claim area. "Besides, I only had to work for half a day," she winked at her.

"I think I'm too lenient with you," Rachel said, playing into the typical game. Julie liked to pretend, but Rachel had no doubt that Julie would be heading to med school as soon as she was able, so much did she love the profession.

"That's only cause you love me," Julie said easily. "So, how was the convention?"

Rachel felt her face try to form neutral lines, "Good, I went to the round table discussion with..." she trailed off as she caught sight of Julie's disbelief. "Okay, so it was boring," Rachel conceded, stopping in front of Carousel B.

Julie laughed. "How was the city?" she asked.

"I hardly stepped foot in it," Rachel admitted.

"Doc!" Julie exclaimed, lowering her voice at the stares of the other people waiting for the baggage to be sent onto the carousel. "How did you expect to catch a glimpse of Nightwing if you didn't go out into the city?"

Julie missed the expression on Raven's face because the buzzing signaling the commencement of the carousel's movement drew her attention and by the time she looked back at her, Rachel was back to neutrally amused. "I didn't expect to see Nightwing at all," Rachel answered, carefully neutral.

"That's like going to Metropolis and missing out on a glimpse of Superman, New York and not seeing the Statue of Liberty, Paris without at least glancing at the Eiffel Tower, Giza and saying, 'no thanks, I don't need to see the pyramids', Mexico and not --"

"--and not trying the worm?" Raven interjected.

"Fine," Julie scoffed, "Laugh at me if you want."

"Sorry," Rachel said, shrugging. "It's just amusing to me that you compare a man to one alien and three monuments."

"Well," Julie said, "He's Nightwing," as if that should explain it.

She met Julie's eyes seriously, "Under the suit, he's just a man, Julie."

Julie grinned mischievously. "But what a man!" she exclaimed on a mock swoon.

Rachel shook her head, smiling despite herself at her assistant's antics.

"And I'll tell you what, I wouldn't mind verifying that he's just a man for my own self, if it means a glimpse under that suit, you know what I mean?" Julie continued. "I mean, he's hot."

Raven couldn't control the blush from creeping up the sides of her face at Julie's comment as images came unbidden to her mind. She cleared her throat, eyes focused intently on the gap at the end of the conveyor belt from where the bags were emerging. "Oh look, my bag," she said, as her gray and black Samsonite large roller appeared. She started for it, but stopped before she had taken a step, as Julie's hand clamped onto her arm.

"Doc, look at me," Julie demanded.

For some reason, Rachel did.

"Oh my god, you saw him, didn't you?" she pressed.

"If you had to pick between Shaver Lake and living in a city with a man like Nightwing," Raven started suddenly. She had intended to change the subject, but she knew already it hadn't quite worked out that way, "Just living in a city with him, with all the crime and junk that goes on in that city," she looked at Julie. "What would you pick?"

Julie blinked at her boss and friend for a moment before realizing she was serious. "Shaver Lake, of course," Julie answered without question. She chuckled and shook her head, wondering at the absurdity of her normally logical boss' question. "Nightwing's fine, and I'd love to get a glimpse of him and I might just chance the shady side of the street if I went visiting Blüdhaven for the chance that he'd come along swooping in and save me, you know, but he's a fantasy, isn't he?" she asked. "I mean, he's real, but guys like him don't really exist all the time, and besides, no guy is worth moving away to a place where you can't be happy."

"And you can't be happy in Blüdhaven," Rachel said, not asked, staring as her bag made it's slow, laborious circuit to their side of the carousel.

Julie laughed. "'Course not," she admitted. "City's nice, but I'm not a city girl, and I couldn't stand to live in a place like Blüdhaven all the time." She looked at Rachel, "Could you?" she asked.

Rachel turned and glanced at Julie, but didn't want the younger girl to see all the emotion she knew must be going through her expression, so she turned back to watch her bag, "No, I couldn't," she answered, starting forward to be able to reach her bag as it passed by them.

"So, did you see him or not?" Julie asked as Raven reached for her bag.

Raven, executing a complicated imitation of a pulley, dropped the bag right on the floor in surprise.

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Robin
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Richard turned from his inspection of the bookcase as the door opened, smiling at the ever-familiar stance of his old mentor. The man stood as if he weren't a day over twenty: head held high, eyes focused and clear as their gazes met across the room.

"About time you showed up, old man," Richard greeted him, the smile in his voice belying the seeming words of annoyance. "I was actually starting to be tempted by A Tale of Two Cities."

Bruce walked across the room in his careful, graceful steps. "Sorry I didn't have any comic books to keep you entertained instead," he said in his deep, measured voice.

Richard smirked, "I would've been content with something written in the last fifty years."

"Modern Fiction is in the library," Bruce stopped directly before him and looked at him. "Sorry."

Richard's smile didn't fade, but he had the distinct feeling, as he always did, that Bruce was reading him, and for a moment, until Bruce extended his hand, Richard was afraid of what he'd see this time.

They shook hands and the moment passed.

"Come," Bruce said, motioning to the chairs before the fireplace, "Join me for a brandy and you can tell me what's happened while we wait for dinner."

Richard contemplated denying that anything had happened at all, but by the time he settled into the plush leather wingback chair next to Bruce, he had realized it would be pointless to try to do so.

"I met an old friend," he answered as he took the glass Bruce handed him.

"Oh?" Bruce asked, swirling the aged liqueur in the glass. "How old?"

Richard took a careful sip of the aperitif and shrugged, like it didn't really matter, "My Titan days."

"I thought you regularly kept in touch with them?"

"I watch over them," he confirmed.

"A fine distinction."

Richard agreed wordlessly.

"So, how did you encounter this old friend?" Bruce asked.

"They came to my city," he answered. He looked intently at the flash of the fire in the brownish liquid. "A coincidence," he amended. "They had to come." If he would've glanced at Bruce, he might have recognized the look of consideration on his mentor's face. "A business conference," he said, scoffing.

Bruce sipped at his drink for a moment and watched Richard as he did the same. "So, how did you see her then?" Richard lowered the glass and looked at Bruce in obvious curiosity. "You did speak to her," Bruce insisted. "You wouldn't be this restless if you hadn't."

Richard had caught how easily Bruce had realized it was a 'she' he was talking about, but he knew it hadn't really been that hard to figure it out. "I talked to her." He shrugged. "I probably would've seen her before I did," he met Bruce's questioning eyes. "Detective Richard Grayson was assigned to assure the security of the convention center."

Bruce scoffed, "Ah, irony."

Richard nodded and sipped at his drink.

"So?" Bruce prodded. "Was she not pleased to see you?"

Richard lowered his head to look into his glass, hiding his expression momentarily from his all-seeing mentor by the fall of his hair. "We fought," he answered. "I didn't realize how angry I was at her until..." he trailed off and sighed.

"Why?" Bruce asked.

"She's a doctor now," Richard answered. "In a small town in upstate California."

"Incredibly appropriate for Raven, I think," Bruce answered.

Richard looked up in surprise, "Who said it was --?"

"Come, Richard, give me some credit," he raised a brow. "So, she's a doctor..." he took his time about taking another drink, "A good one if I know anything about Raven."

Richard nodded, but not like he was happy about it.

"So?" Bruce prodded.

"So how could she just give it all up, Bruce?" he asked before he had a chance to think of an adequately non-committal response. He pressed his lips closed and looked at the fire, but the words were still in his head and wouldn't be erased so easily. "How could she just go on like none of it meant anything?" he asked, his tone almost a whisper. "Live as if the world didn't need her?"

Bruce shifted, leaning back in the chair and holding the crystal glass with both hands. When he looked at Richard over the rim of the glass, Richard wasn't quite prepared for his declaration: "Because it doesn't."

Richard stopped moving. "How could you say that?" he asked quietly, almost dangerously. "After all she's done--"

"She did what she had to do," Bruce answered stoically. "More even, probably out of a sense of guilt, maybe some sense of responsibility..." he lowered the glass so that it rested on the arm of the chair and leaned forward, "But that life was never what she was meant to do." Richard looked taken aback and like he wanted to argue at the same time. "Have you forgotten how she was raised, Richard?" Bruce asked. He waited a moment for the question to sink into his consciousness, for him to really think about it. "You taught her how to fight."

"Someone teaches everyone," Richard said, looking at Bruce meaningfully, "Even you."

"I'm different," Bruce shrugged one shoulder, "I went looking for this life to fill a void, I wanted revenge and then I kept going because it was all I knew that defined me." He sighed, barely audibly, "Raven's not like me," he looked at Richard. "She never really was."

Richard remained silent, sipping at the drink but not really tasting it.

"Neither were you."

Richard met his eyes, unable to keep the surprise from his expression.

Bruce's voice, when it came, was soft and almost sad, nearly apologetic, "You're not like me, Richard, not really."

"Aren't I?" Richard asked, looking at the fire, absently rolling the glass in his hand. "I feel more like you every day, Bruce." Richard scoffed, "No, not like you," he shook his head and looked up to meet Bruce's eyes. "Like the Batman."

"I never chose to be with others," Bruce said in a somewhat nostalgic voice. "I always wanted to be alone, it wasn't anybody else's choice but my own and it wasn't because I didn't think anyone else was worthy or at my level or because anyone else annoyed me..." he paused, thinking how to best explain, "Barbara, Tim, even the Justice League," he shook his head, "I paired up with all of them because I had to, or because I thought it was the right thing to do in the moment, not because I wanted to." He waited until Richard met his eyes.

"What about me?" he asked.

"I allowed you to join me because it was the only way I knew how to be a father," he admitted. "I didn't do a very good job of it anyway, as it turns out, but I thought it was what you needed at that point, and in retrospect, my life has been better for it," he sighed and leaned back in the chair again, looking almost tired for the first time Richard could remember. "But in the end, I've always been a loner, even when I tried to be a father," he continued. "That wasn't the case with you." There was something like amazement on his features when Richard looked at him. "You always craved the company of others, you befriended Alfred, Barbara," he shook his head. "And in the end, you even befriended the friendless, the one who didn't know how to be a friend. You more than paired up with the Titans, you made a team."

"That was then," Richard said after a few moments of silence let Bruce's statements sink in. "I'm different now."

"You might think you have to be, but you don't really want to be," Bruce said in his no-nonsense way.

Richard seemed to think about it for a few moments and finally laughed, but there was no real mirth to the sound. "There's no purpose in even considering it," he said bitterly. He met Bruce's eyes again, "I asked her to stay, Bruce," he confessed. "I asked her to stay with me. She said it was too late." He shook his head and looked at the fire again, "She left knowing that I --" he cut himself off and took a sudden drink from the glass, draining it.

Bruce was shaking his head, disappointment clear in the press of his lips. "I thought I'd taught you how to problem solve better than that, Dick," he said, slipping into the old nickname unconsciously.

Richard didn't need for Bruce to spell out what he meant. "I've got responsibilities," he excused. "Blüdhaven needs me."

Bruce sighed heavily and looked around him at the lavish yet classic appointments of his study, "The world is always going to need someone," he said thoughtfully, his eye catching on a particular vase he didn't remember putting in the room. "Which is why there will always be someone to fill that void," he shook his head, dismissing the mystery of the vase as something Alfred must have decided would add something to the dreary place. Bruce leveled his heavy, pregnant gaze on Richard's. "There will always even be people like me who choose to live this life until they die and there will be those who serve a particular purpose and move on." He cocked his head to the side and started to stand, "The world is selfish. It's not wrong to be selfish in return." The quick wrap on the door signaled Alfred's presence on the other side. "Raven has figured that out, I'd wager," he said as Alfred entered the room.

"Dinner," Alfred announced, watching Bruce make his way to the door.

"Come on, or it'll get cold," Bruce called without turning back to him as he crossed the threshold.

"Dinner is ceviche tonight," Alfred announced. "It's already cold."

"Then it'll be warm by the time I get there," Bruce groused as they started walking toward the dining room. "Takes me so long to get anywhere these days," he said underneath his breath.

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Raven
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"Oh, thank God!"

Raven raised a brow at Amos and his theatrics as she entered her own office. "You don't believe in God," she pointed out.

"I do now," he answered adamantly. "He saved me from committing suicide if I had to attend to one more sprained ankle or snot nosed kid."

Raven rolled her eyes and Amos gladly relinquished the seat behind the desk, taking off his white coat as he went. "How do you keep your sanity treating these boring cases day in and day out?" he asked sincerely.

"I appreciate boring," Raven answered, settling back into her space. "And plus, it's not about the diseases for me, Amos, it's about the people."

He made a face. "You'd get to treat really interesting people if you came back to the city with me."

Raven glanced sideways at him. "Amos, we've been through this."

"Yeah, but I thought after a weekend in Blüdhaven you might change your mind."

She shook her head and turned away from him, uncertain what her face might reveal. She didn't speak until she was certain her voice would be normal. "Sorry, it didn't."

"I don't understand how a born city girl like you could be happy in a place that has no excitement."

"Excitement is overrated," she said honestly. "There's much to be said for a predictable, stable environment." She shrugged. "Besides, I had enough excitement as a kid to last me a lifetime."

"Jeez," Amos laughed. "Anyone who heard you talk might think you grew up in a war zone somewhere instead of a boarding school in Jump City."

Raven raised a brow, "Have you ever lived in a boarding school?"

It was Amos' turn to roll his eyes and he did so with a flourish, much more at ease being in the guest chair now that he didn't have to be there. "It can't be enough excitement to last you a lifetime," he argued.

"Says you," she finished, sitting in her chair and looking around her for the next thing she needed to organize.

"I still think if you gave Fresno a chance..."

Raven leaned forward in her chair and gave Amos the look he had come to recognize as her no-argument-will-move-her-and-she-was-tired-of-saying-so look. "Amos, I've tried living and working in a city, remember?" She asked meaningfully. "For a whole year I did it. Every night I left work frustrated and near to quitting, nearly every night I argued with the hospital's staff when they told me they'd transferred out a patient I was working on because he was stable and had no insurance," she shook her head. "I don't want to do that anymore."

"Can you really look me in the eye and tell me you're happy here?" Amos asked seriously.

She leaned back and sighed. "I like my life here," she answered.

"That isn't exactly an answer."

She was quiet for a moment, considering, before smiling. "You see why I never accept Kim's invitation to dinner?" Raven asked in an attempt to change the subject. "Whenever I do, all you do the whole time is harp on me about moving to Fresno and leaving my good life here."

"I want you to be happy, Rache," Amos said. "Kim does too." He shook his head. "Sometimes I look at you and I don't see happiness in you."

"And you think I'll get that happiness in the city?" she asked. She shook her head, smiling a little. "No, Amos, I won't. It isn't as simple as moving."

Amos thought about pursuing the line, but he knew better. He knew, from the getgo, that there were aspects of Rachel's life that she wouldn't talk about. It didn't mean he'd give up on her. Maybe she was lonely? 'Doesn't Kim have that nephew from Toledo coming in next month?' he wondered. 'He's about Rachel's age...' He made a mental note to ask Kim to invite Rachel over for dinner next month and decided to drop the topic for now. "Okay, fine, so why don't you tell me what new innovations the medical field was going ga-ga over at this convention?"

Raven was too worried about what she would tell Amos about a convention she had hardly paid attention to to notice the look on his face or how easily he had dropped the subject this time.

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Robin
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Nightwing looked out at his city and wondered why he had picked it. It seemed so long ago that he settled in Blüdhaven, long enough he couldn't remember what had made him pick it above any other city. If he was completely honest with himself – and alone at three am he could be nothing but – he would have to admit that his only real criteria for a place to live had been danger.

Live.

Nightwing scoffed, and it echoed off cold concrete as he walked through a barren alley. He wouldn't call what he was doing living. He hadn't been searching for a place to live. He had been looking for a place to exist – to fight – to protect, but not live.

He had called it need – a place that needed him, but Bruce was right. No place really needed him, did it? He looked down at dirty streets and up at skyscrapers as he perched on the ledge of a dwarf of a building in comparison with the others. What would Blüdhaven be like without him? How had Blüdhaven really changed since he'd been there?

So he got a few criminals off the streets for a few years – months – hell, hours. He was a band aid, temporary relief, when what Blüdhaven needed was something much more potent.

And there were others out there doing what he did. With better reasons, too.

What were his reasons?

Justice. Protection.

It was a night for truths – and the truth was that he had been steadily losing himself.

He said he still stood for justice and protection, that those were the reasons he still fought, still went out every night, but were they really? Or were they merely side effects of his need to do something? He would never do anything to hurt an innocent, but what had happened to his moral compass?

Before, he never really enjoyed fighting in an actual battle. No one ever really knew that except for Raven. She had told him once, early on in their friendship, that she was raised as a pacifist, but only after he had called her on the weaknesses of her fighting style. He had pointed out that she only blocked and shielded, herself and others, during a fight, that she never attacked and she had explained why.

The only reason she had allowed him to teach her how to fight offensively at all had been because he had confessed to not liking the fight against their enemies. He had always liked the thrill of the sparing match, the game of who can outsmart who, he had always been competitive, but being in a brawl just to show superior strength had never been his choice.

He remembered the conversation as if it had just happened. He remembered the time, not too long afterward when the Titans had gone to the local Orphanage and the look she gave him as he helped some of the kids.

He had never enjoyed fighting their enemies.

Before.

Now?

Did he fight to help those in need or was the fact that he helped those in need a by product of his need to fight?

When he was a Titan...when he had her to talk to and keep him grounded...

Raven.

She had said he looked the way he had before the Titans.

He wasn't sure she knew how right she was. How much sense it made that he looked the same now as when he first met her.

She gave him purpose. He didn't have any before her.

Or after her either.

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The prostitute ran to her fallen pimp as soon as Nightwing stepped away from the crumpled man.

"What are you doing?!" she screamed at him. "You've almost killed him!" Nightwing stood by in silence, waiting for the woman's hysterics to calm enough for him to take the man whom he had just stopped from beating her to the jail.

"You bastard!" the woman screamed, trying to wake up her abuser.

He started forward to take the man from her grasp and she pulled the pimp to her chest, as if she would protect him from Nightwing.

"Leave us alone! Don't you get it!? You shouldn't be stickin' your nose where it don't belong! You think you're helping, but you're not!" Her adamant words stopped his step. "Don't you get it? No one 'cept B-no messes with B-no's girls, and one day, you're not going to be strollin' by and someone's gonna kill me instead of just beat me – you get it?" she was crying. "You can't be everywhere, and you can't save everyone, so just leave us alone! You're only making things worse by stickin' your nose where it don't belong!" She shook her head of bad fake curly blond hair at him. "Why dontcha go catch that freak what broke outta jail yesterday with his hot shot lawyer, huh?" she asked. "Go play your cat and mouse games with other freaks like you and leave us regular folk the hell outta it!"

"I make a difference there...and I can see that difference around me everyday."(2)

Raven's words from that night in the hotel room echoed in his ears as he walked away from the corner where the prostitute was still hugging her pimp to her. He wouldn't try to get the man to a jail, what would be the point? What would it solve?

A town like Blüdhaven needed something he could never do as a vigilante. Something he couldn't do even as a detective on the beat.

He was just a band aid.

He couldn't save everyone...

But did that mean he had to die along with them?

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Raven
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It hit her at odd, unguarded moments. She might be in the middle of her third stitch, thinking how little Jesse would need at least two more as he told her all the details of his spectacular fall, and the thought would just suddenly appear.

'He asked me to stay.'

It was just for the briefest of moments – she never held on to it for long or followed it down the path of what ifs and maybes.

It would be gone just as soon as it appeared, leaving her reeling only a little from the shock of it.

Undoubtedly, however, at some other random point, while she picked oranges from the fruit seller's cart or when she stirred sauce on the stove or wrote up her progress notes for the patients she'd seen that day, whatever she was doing, whether her mind was actually occupied or blank, it didn't matter, it would come again. Even though the words sometimes were different.

'He loves me.'

'He wants me.'

'He didn't forget me.'

Underneath it all though, the thought that would follow if she let it was always the same.

'He asked me to stay. And I said no.'

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Throughout most of her early life, Robin had been her rock. He had always been there, always supported her without words, sometimes literally. He was stable and constant. He was her earth: changeable, yes, but always there.

When suddenly he wasn't, a part of her had panicked and for awhile, she fooled herself that her desire to see him again, the catch in her breath every time she turned a corner or opened a door expecting him on the other side was because of that dependence, a result of that fear.

When Vic and Karen asked her move in with them and transfer to a university close to them so she wouldn't be alone, she had been forced to admit she wasn't afraid of being alone. She didn't look for him because she wanted her rock, she looked for him because she missed his voice...because it hurt that she still thought of him when a movie they had watched together played on the television or a book she had recommended crossed her path, but he seemed to have forgotten about her completely.

And now...

He asked her to stay and she had said no. How much had she wanted him to ask her that nine years ago?

Was she punishing him? Because she had been hurt when she thought he had forgotten her, was she punishing him now for that?

'He loved me.'

She paused as she put a quart of milk in her grocery cart and let the thought sink in for a moment.

'He asked me to stay.'

She lowered the milk the rest of the way into the cart and pushed passed the display of ice cream, going absently for the eggs.

'I can love you, but I can't be happy...' (3)

She had meant it at the time, but now?

She tried to picture what her life might be like if she had stayed and couldn't think beyond being with him. How much of his life was he willing to change when he hadn't even been able to talk to her? He was Nightwing, there was no changing that. And although she loved her Robin, loved the tenderness and the caring she saw in Richard's eyes in Blüdhaven, could she love Nightwing?

What was more, would she be content to work in Blüdhaven Municipal Hospital, filing out HMO forms and dealing with hospital administrators? How long before she started to dread going to work and watching as another person without insurance or assistance was sent away before she could save them to an overcrowded, understaffed hospital without the resources to do it?

She had been there and done that. She couldn't be happy there. She had tried.

How long before she preferred to go out on patrol with him than stay at home waiting for him to come back, wounded or worse?

She couldn't do that anymore.

She wasn't punishing him, how could she be when there was a part of her that was already dead after walking away from him?

She couldn't be completely happy in Shaver Lake without him there, but she could be content.

She'd have to be.

She'd learn to forget him again, eventually.

At first, the moments when she'd remember the choice she made would surprise her with their consistency, annoy her and sadden her, tire her in her attempts to go on as if nothing were wrong. But eventually, days or weeks, maybe months later, she'd see a picture of him in the paper and be shocked to realize she hadn't thought of him in a long time. It would hurt when she did, all over again as if the wound were still fresh, but eventually, that would fade too. She could live with that. The dull ache, every so often. She might even eventually find someone else she could share her life with. And someday, she might even love that person. Never the way she loved him, she could never fool herself to ever expect that, but there were many different kinds of love. She knew that already. She deserved some form of love, comfort, companionship.

Someday.

When the elevator doors slid open on her floor and her breath caught in expectation as she looked at the empty, well lit hallway, she berated herself for the half second she had entertained the possibility that the sight that greeted her might be other than it was.

She had been doing that since she got on the plane at Blüdhaven Airport and she hated that she couldn't stop.

'He isn't coming,' she told herself and resolutely stepped out of the elevator. 'And the sooner you get that through your head, Rachel, the sooner you can get on with your life,' she decided, starting down the hallway toward her apartment. 'There's even less reason to believe he'll come now than there was before,' she reminded herself, shifting the two paper bags filled with groceries in her arms absently in order to free her hand holding her keyring. 'He's not coming,' she told herself, turning the corner and looking down at her keys, doing her best to search for the gold house key and not her silver office key, balance her bags, and walk at the same time. There was never anyone up on her floor at the time she got in, so she didn't worry about bumping into anyone. She was used to this routine. She even knew when to stop so she'd be in front of her door without having to bother to so much as look up.

'Stop looking for him,' she thought and, two feet from her door, gold key in hand and grocery bags perched precariously along her left hip, looked up.

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Omniscient
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The first thing to go were the bags.

The grocery bags slipped out of her numb fingers and hit the worn in carpet of the hallway, spilling it's contents across the space between them. She might have winced at the sound of the eggs cracking in their case as they hit the floor, or followed the oranges that scattered out of the toppled bag every which way with a resigned eye, but she couldn't seem to take her eyes off the figure standing in front of her door long enough.

For awhile, they stared at each other in utter stillness. Then he moved, tilted his head, his eyes flickering to the orange that rolled by his booted foot and it was as if the loss of his gaze freed her from the utter shock and she was free to frown, to close her mouth and start to think.

She started to take a step toward him, then stopped, half afraid that if she moved, the man in front of her door at the end of the hall in the casual jeans and black jacket would move or shift and the light would show he was someone else entirely and not who she thought at all.

They were close enough already, so close that she could see the light from the window behind him at the end of the hall gleam off his dark hair which he'd picked up at the nape of his neck and away from his face. Close enough that she could see the breath rise and fall under his chest.

He took a step toward her and she reacted instinctively by taking a step back.

He lowered the hand he had started to lift to reach for her and stopped moving, as if she'd hit him.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, finally finding her voice.

"I let you go once," he said, his voice sounding deeper than she remembered it in the echoing hallway. "I couldn't do it again."

She felt the tears she had been holding back sting her eyes and shook her head, "Nothing's changed," she said through the thickening of her throat. She felt the bite of her keys against her palms and knew she was clenching her fist, but she couldn't stop. It was all she could do not to reach out to him. "I can't live in Blüdhaven."

"I suppose I'll have to settle in Shaver Lake, then."

She gasped and swallowed, trying to still the rapid beating of her heart. "You don't--"

He cut her off by taking a step toward her, bridging the distance between them so that she almost had to look up to look at his face. "You said you wouldn't ask me to leave my life in Blüdhaven, but you never said I couldn't choose to." He raised his hand and held it a few inches from her cheek, "You said I wouldn't be happy if I had to leave my life in Blüdhaven, but there's something you didn't consider."

She barely resisted leaning that minimal inch into his warmth. "What?" she asked.

He let his hand touch her cheek, caressed her skin for a moment and when she didn't pull away, sighed, like some muted pain he'd learned to live with just suddenly disappeared. "I was never happy in Blüdhaven," he answered on a whisper. "I've never been happy anywhere you aren't," he confessed.

"What about Nightwing?" she asked, also on a whisper. "What about Blüdhaven?"

"Blüdhaven needs more than what Nightwing can give it," he answered surely. "I lost my purpose, slowly but surely, Raven, and it all started when I lost you." His other arm had found purchase around her waist. "I am not Nightwing," he said. "I don't need Nightwing anymore and the world can make do without him. I think I held onto him for so long because I didn't know who I'd be without him, but I know who I want to be now. "

She sighed and closed her eyes. "Who?"

"Richard," he said, smiling tenderly at her when she opened her eyes and he saw the love in them. "Just Richard."

"And what does Richard want?" she asked slowly, carefully.

"I want to be happy, Raven," he answered. "And since I love you, that means that I need to be where you are," he paused, "If you'll have me."

She didn't have to answer, she just leaned into his body and wrapped her arms around him, holding him close. "Are you certain?" she asked, against his chest.

He held her tighter. "I've never been more certain of anything in my life."

She pulled back and she was smiling. "Then you owe me twenty-five dollars and seventy-one cents for my groceries."

He smiled and kissed her.

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NOTE:

(1) I found this character on a forum somewhere that listed all of Nightwing's nemesis. I looked him up on Wikipidia and it confirmed that this guy had worked for Blockbuster in Blüdhaven at one point, so I figured why not? I really know nothing about him, so if there any of his fans out there, you'll have to forgive me. I just needed a name.

(2) From Part X of Estranged.

(3) From Part X of Estranged.

A/N: So...what'd you guys think of the ending? Expected? Unexpected? Was it contrived? Did it seem like a believable result? Give it to me, I can take it! I swear.

My biggest worry when writing this chapter was that I needed to give him a valid reason to come find her and her a valid believable excuse not to stay with him. I'm telling you, if it wasn't because I 'saw' that scene in the hallway at the end so clear in my head almost from the beginning, I would've been seriously tempted to leave it without their getting together.

My second biggest worry when writing this chapter was the part with Bruce. I talked to my two biggest Bruce Points of Reference, Absentia and Kysra. They helped keep his age and state of mind in perspective for me, because although I knew Dick probably couldn't make the decision he made without at least talking to Bruce (doesn't mean he would do as Bruce suggested at all) I couldn't figure out what Bruce was going to say to him or how. I'd never really written Bruce at all. So...how do you guys think I did about that?

Playlist:

Mostly

Far Away, by Nickelback (The Estranged Anthem) and
Roadside, by Rise Against.

But also

Pero Te Extrano, Andrea Bocelli
Always On Your Side, Sheryl Crow & Sting
Ella Ya Me Olvido, Leonardo Favio
Gravity, John Mayer
Better Than Me, Hinder
Forget to Remember, Mudvayne

REMINDER: There is an Epilogue coming, folks.