We are so sorry that this has taken so damn long. But with school, not being able to get together to write, family issues, and personal issues, this hasn't been at the forefront of our minds.

We are so SORRY! We promise future repentance! UPDATES! BETTER UPDATES!

Again, sorry!

Disclaimer: We don't own batman. If we did we wouldn't be here.

It had been one month, a month of frantic job searching, and constantly faking amnesia, and Emily was still living with Jerry and Amanda. Having had no job experience, "Kate Walker", coupled with her apparent lack of any information before her sudden appearance a month previously, was considered a semi-pretty girl, that was likely too much of a liability for any respectable place to actually hire.

Jerry had suggested, at one point, that Emily should join the force, given its knowledge of her history, and the fact some officers were fond of her. Emily attributed this fondness mostly to pity, having met them only once, but had also given the idea some serious thought. However, after remembering that she hadn't become super fit all of a sudden in her dream, and in fact remained slightly 'squishy' as her mother liked to say, realised that there was no way she could pass the physical requirements. Not to say she considered herself fat, or skinny, save for the few times all women experience, but she was highly aware that after only ten minutes on an Exercycle she was prone to giving up, covered in sweat, and going to get an ice-cream instead. So that idea had fizzled out quite quickly.

Amanda, whom Emily liked very much despite the feeling she got that she was being used as a substitute child sometimes, had also attempted to find work for her at her school. She had come home the day, after asking, a rather uncharacteristically angry, and informed Emily that she wouldn't want to work there anyway.

She had, however, managed to pick up a few shifts a week at a 24 liquor store close to their apartment. Jerry, and Amanda, had been against the idea at first, given the location of the store, and the fact that they had hired her on the spot without references and a virtually blank CV. Once, having worked her first week, she had contributed her paycheck to the households finances, the protests had slowed, and then died quite quickly.

Emily slowly sipped her coffee, knowing her caffeine dependency had only grown since picking up extra graveyard shifts, and flipped through the newspaper at the breakfast counter, listening to Amanda humming to herself while making her lunch to take to work. She smiled to herself as she flipped through, pausing to read how a seventy year old woman had beaten off a mugger with a cane the week before, and stopped at a picture of Bruce Wayne eating, what she assumed, was sushi.

Jerry walked into the kitchen area, and leaned on the breakfast counter to see what she was reading, and attempted to steal some of her toast.

"They still on about Wayne?"

She frowned, while swatting Jerry's hand away.

"He only turned up three month ago, after everybody thought he was dead. Plus he's super rich and does whatever he wants." Amanda said while turning around and handing Jerry, and Emily, lunches she had packed for them as well.

Emily nodded in agreement, "Dude sells newspapers."

"Besides, can he help it if he is gorg-photogenic?"

Jerry frowned at this and puffed his chest out a little, while mumbling to himself, and Emily began snickering and tried to cover it up by hiding behind her mug.

Jerry gave her a look, before deciding to switch the subject, and stealing the paper in the process.

"So what time do you start work?"

She looked up and thought for a moment, "Ten I think. And before you ask, yes, I am on the night shift again. And yes, I did just get in from work. And yes, I am going to bed, so I will be taking my delicious lunch, prepared with love and care, and hiding it so I can eat it later tonight at work."

He threw a piece of toast at her playfully in response, and she left the room for bed, hearing the beginning of Amanda lightly scolding him for wasting food, amusement evident in her voice.

Waking up at nine later that evening, Emily put on some makeup, got dressed into her work shirt and jeans, grabbed her lunch bag and left the apartment.

Normally, as they did live in the narrows, Emily would have been walked to work by Jerry, but he was 'manning the station' that night. A bottle of mace, the size of he head, was however considered an acceptable substitute as her escort given the situation.

While Emily didn't like to judge people based on what they looked like, virtually everyone on her way to and from work each day was enough to make her skin crawl. While there were actually decent people who lived in the narrows, Jerry and Amanda standing testament to that, she was also aware of the decidedly indecent people who also happened to share the living area.

She eyed a young group of teenagers across the street she was walking down, and couldn't help but pull her bag, the felt one in which Amanda had given her clothes in the hospital, that was really quite ugly but she had fallen in love with, closer to her body. She reasoned with the stereotypical fear she felt, reminding herself that she was technically in Gotham. On the other hand all she was carrying was a really big bottle of mace, an unmarked house key, a lunch bag, and the bag itself. If she were being realistic, she would probably have realised they wouldn't even want any of it, with maybe the exception of the lunch bag. Or alternatively mace her in the eyes 'for fun'.

With only two blocks left before reaching the, relative, safety of the liquor store Emily allowed herself to relax a little more, almost letting out a sigh of relief before being grabbed and dragged into a side alley.

With a knife pushed up against her ribs, a whiskey smelling breath breathed into her face, she took in a face covered with a balaclava.

"Give me your wallet lady."

Resisting the urge to burst into tears, or laugh at the whole pure Gothamness of her current predicament, Emily reached into her bag for her mace, pretending to look for the wallet he wanted, but she didn't have.

As her hand grasped the bottle, and she began to pull it out, ready to act thanks to the role playing Jerry had made her do weeks before for moments just like this, the mugger grabbed her wrist tight and twisted it, causing the bottle to fall to the ground and leave a deafening silence as they both realised the implications of what she had been just about to try to do.

"Mace? When I have a knife up against your ribs, you're going to try to mace me?"

"Seems silly huh?" Emily let out a small nervous giggle.

Before she realised what was happening, the man drew his fist back and punched her in the face. Letting her slump to the floor, he picked up her bag and began rummaging through it in order to find something of value.

Emily watched in stunned silence, and extreme pain from a probably broken nose, as a figure dropped from a fire escape on to the man who had grabbed her. With tears filling her eyes, Emily couldn't exactly see what was happening, but she felt safe, given the slightly ninja-esque moves of her saviour, in assuming that she was watching an early stage batman kicking the crap out of someone, albeit from an extremely blurry view at a terrible angle.

After three mintues of grunting, and one figure standing over the other and then punching him in the face two or three times, the winner, who she again felt safe in assuming was batman, came over to see if she was alright. Or at least she hoped that was what he was doing, otherwise boy would that suck.

The gravely batman/John Connor voice confirmed her suspicions, and despite the pain, Emily tried not to grin.

"You shouldn't walk alone at night." He paused to help her sit up, "especially in this kind of neighbourhood."

"Ow."

He slowly helped her to her feet, before she fell almost fell over again and he leant her against the wall of the alley.

Emily hadn't quite imagined this when she thought about being swept off her feet by Bruce Wayne.

After giving Emily the once over to check that she wasn't hurt anywhere else, he stood, nodded at her and ran off. Leaving her with a broken nose, a passed out mugger, and an interesting first impression.

We put Bruce in because we are nice, and we felt bad about not updating for ages.

Sorry for waiting so long. And for being so loyal...

XOXO