Author's Note: this interregnum references events taking place in the Jeph Loeb graphic novels The Long Halloween and Dark Victory and was also inspired in part by Brian Azzarello's 2004 Batman story, Broken City; particularly the paraphrased last lines herein. Enjoy.

Batman.

Bruce Wayne.

En route to Maximum Security…Bruce Wayne's mind fires on all cylinders.

I'd hoped to tell you this to your face, Harvey.

I miss you. Not in the way of the Ancient Greeks, not even in the way of fatheer and son.

But in the way of…brothers.

I suppose we were. Once upon a time. A great team that brought about the seeds of the Roman's destruction. But I only started the night shift. You took it upon yourself to sack the Roman and his empire.

"That's Jim Gordon talking," you once said.

You believed in justice. Once. And there have been times since your…transformation when I wonder if you still do. And now Harvey Dent is back from outer space.

I wonder…why?

Was there some hole yearning to be filled? What does Two-Face gain by Harvey Dent's re-emergence, if anything? Why is Harvey Dent even doing this?

I have to confess, there's a small part of me that still held on to you after you…split…and did this city a debatable good.

Killing Falcone.

Maybe you have a sense of humor no one gets.

Maybe you and I share personal demons, And try desperately to atone for a past that could have been.

Though I can't imagine what life for either of us could have been like without our tragedies. I did once, though. But it was a momentary high. Passed over quickly and painfully. A mental band-aid that hasn't stopped hurting since I was eight years old.

Since all sense left my life.

I was thinking about telling you everything, Harvey. This was before Sofia Falcone decided to start killing good cops in your name. I trusted you that much—even when you became as two. I still do trust you, otherwise I wouldn't be here.

It's what friends do.

And I hope—tonight—that you do what needs to be done. That we all do.

I miss you, Harvey.

Gilda, and the rest of Gotham, thought enough of you to give you the epithet of the sun god, and maybe they were right. Maybe Jim Gordon's still talking. Maybe you really are Apollo—vindictive like a god, compassionate all at once.

Maybe you really can do no wrong.

I wanted to tell you everything, Harvey, and now because of Jonathan Crane it's a moot point. You know anyway, even and especially if you don't believe it. I'd wanted to tell you the truth—as I've done with Dick Grayson and Jason Todd and Tim Drake—in the province of trust. Friendship.

Because we fought together to rid Gotham of the evil that was killing it. Then, you became part of that evil when you put a bullet through the Roman's temporal lobe.

You became part of that evil, and I kept fighting when I should have by rights given up. The war had been won but Harvey Dent's battle lost.

And so I keep fighting, in the hope—and I do hope, every now and then—that you would come back from two faces. When I heard you were beating the Joker to pulp I smiled. Not out of jealousy or even bloodlust, but because I realized that one day I wouldn't have to do this anymore. Not alone. Not just me yelling into the wind anymore.

One day, I could stop. Or hand the reins to another driver, and there'd be no more evil to kill Gotham. No reason for me to exist. No reason to keep up the war when the war ends. And I think it will one day.

I will win--when there's no more crime, no crime, no suffering.

Because I fight. For you, Harvey, and for my parents, too late robbed of a life they deserved.

I will win.

I hope for your sake that day is tomorrow.

Continued...