I won't say I stopped living after Tim was gone, because that would be a lie.

I became colder, maybe, or more distant. Some would argue that I was more about function than caring. I don't deny it, but I don't agree with it, either. Probably because I think that's a lie, too. I don't really know what I was after he was gone. There aren't really any words to accurately describe it. I just…was.

I do know this, though. Every time I thought about him, I could never see the great times we shared together. I could never see those countless days we spent hanging out with Bart and Conner. I could never see the camping trips, the phone calls, the texts. I could never see all the pictures he'd taken, all the videos he'd made. I could never see those sweet, blue-gray eyes. I could never relive the feel of his tears on my hands, his lips around my own, warm and gentle and sincere. All of that, all of the good things, I never saw any of it. No, every time I thought about Tim Drake, I could only see the last ten minutes that I spent with him.

He had his mask off, but his eyes weren't the same. I'd only seen them when they looked happy, or when they were grieving. These were the angry eyes of a stranger. And mine, mine stared hard into them with a fury I'd never known I possessed until that moment.

We'd been slinging accusations at each other for the past nine minutes. I can't really say what sparked it. Maybe it was me calling him a mad scientist, or maybe it was his response.

"At least madmen are still passionate about stories that deserve a better ending."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You know full well, Cassie. You know full well what that's supposed to mean."

I listened to the irritation gradually go up a notch in his voice with every second that passed, and in my own, as well, until we were both absolutely livid. I doubt that we couldn't be heard from the top floor of the tower. The heated debate eventually turned into a full-blown argument. Before I knew it, obscenities were hurled in both directions, along with other things that weren't so much vulgar as just emotionally devastating. By the time we were starting to run out of words, things slipped out that didn't do anything to help the situation.

"Just because you're the leader doesn't mean you get to boss me around."

"And you have no right to go around here milking your heritage for all it's worth."

And then, I said something I never thought I'd say, not to his face, at least.

"Why do you always have to act so emotionless all the time? I swear it's like you don't have a soul anymore. Nothing bothers you! It doesn't matter what anybody does to you, because it's always 'just fine' or 'okay'. You always wonder why nobody can stand being around you. It's because nobody wants to see just how numb you really are!"

"Maybe I should just leave and spare you all the trouble, since you feel that way about it."

"Fine, Tim, you can leave! I doubt anybody would even care!"

The worst part of it all, though, was not seeing the hurt expression on his face. It wasn't watching him storm out, the quiet knowledge that came to me in that moment that kept me from being surprised when I woke up the next morning to find his room empty. It wasn't even that I was pretty sure that I'd meant everything I said to him.

The worst part of it all was that I'd chastised him, judged him, because of the armor he'd set up around himself. His shield was to be as unfeeling as possible, to protect himself from the heartbreak, and I'd made it into the eighth Deadly Sin. And now, after I'd done that, after he was gone, it was the same armor I'd constructed around myself.

And I hated myself because I knew his suffering and had lost my chance to tell him that.

That's why I said that "I stopped living after Tim was gone" was a lie. Even after everything he'd lost, Tim had never stopped living. He still went on, but he did it while practically preventing himself from really being fully alive. He hid the most sensitive parts of his heart and soul behind an impenetrable barrier of intelligence, calculating logic, and brooding. Now, I understood, and I knew the words to describe my identical condition. He and I were both unreachable.