Dan's POV

The black satin slides over his skin, makes it crawl. Reminds him of that first day, when-

He doesn't know where it came from. A left over from one of many fights between Laurie and Jon. He doesn't honestly care as he stands before the mirror.

It's too small. His chest makes it impossible to fasten, and the seams stretch around his hips. But there she is. All over again. Staring back at him.

["Do you know what it's like to look in a mirror and not recognise who you see? To see a body, a face, a person looking back out at you and not know who it is or how they ended up this way? Just, some alien, that happens to move at exactly the same time as you?"]

Her hair's short and messy, unkempt; he hasn't bothered to wash in days. Her eyes are dark, swollen; he hasn't slept in over a week, barely stops crying for hours. Her skins covered in scratches, bruises; he keeps falling over, bumping into things, trying to get it off. She looks shell-shocked and un-fed. She looks like a victim of war. Daniel finds it ironic, because he feels like one.

xxx

The first week passes in a haze of screams and bruises. Half conscious, or mostly asleep. Covered in oversized shirts and surrounded by silence. Blood seeping through gaps, like it had been searching for the seams. Every waking moment is spent in disbelief

And he's too angry to care where his partner is. He's too angry to give a damn about upsetting him. This is not about him. And he is so incensed that he has been left behind to deal with this, to stand this foul horror taking place in his body, that he barely cares about that look of absolute terror in Walter's eyes. Of complete grief and childlike pain.

For the first week all he wants is to tear himself apart, peel back the skin and find himself inside this mess. For the first week all he wants is an explanation.

xxx

For four weeks Daniel holds onto the hope that this is just a dream. That at any moment he will wake up and this body that isn't his, that never was and never will be, is gone. But now he stares at her, in a black dress and a mirror, and he feels it tear away from him, burning emptiness in his chest.

["Do you know what it's like to look everywhere but at your own face, just to avoid the truth riding in your eyes?"]

Because for weeks he had seen nothing. Nothing of himself. Not in this. Not in this body with all the wrong sizes and all the wrong shapes. But as he stares at her face, as broken as he feels, he sees in her eyes that piece of himself he'd not noticed. That piece of himself he had ignored, had not identified with, because it meant that this was true. That this had happened. Had happened to him.

He sees it now though, tearing through his last bit of hope, his last sense of belief that something this unfair could not happen to him. And as he sees himself in her eyes, he starts to see everything else. The scars from fights long past, the calluses and hardened skin over his fingers, toes, knees and knuckles. From years of walking, from years of working. He sees it all now.

He sees everything that's there, that makes this body his. He sees everything that is, and now he sees everything that's missing as his fingers drift down to where that piece that made him – made him who he was, made him a man - was absent.

["I never realised how much of myself was tied up in what hung between my legs."]

xxx

The second week passes with mounting tension, the days muddling together in a mess of worry, inward repulsion and rising irritation, of staring out of a window, ignoring his own reflection, and waiting for Walter to come home.

He doesn't.

By the end of the third week, Daniel's trust that his partner would never forsake him begins to waver. And for once he wished that Rorschach was normal. That Walter could piece together 'leave me alone' in fact meant 'don't you dare'.

But it's only fleeting, as his eyes find himself on the glass and he retreats from the light of the world.

xxx

Finally he sees. He sees it all. Sees what he is, what she is. He is her. She is him. He is a woman. And as the pieces slide into place, forced in and smashed down and made to fit against their will, she makes sense in the mirror. She's no longer a disjointed image he can't comprehend. She is what is left of him.

What is left of a hero? What is left of a man? What is left of Daniel? She doesn't know.

["Imagine what it's like, to be a man one day and a woman the next. I mean, really imagine it. Imagine if you're a woman, waking up with a penis between your legs, and if you're a man, imagine how it would feel to wake up with it gone.

Don't just think about how fun it would be to have this or that. Think about how everything you ever thought you knew of yourself, all those bits and pieces that make up who you are, then imagine them gone. Stolen from you without your permission or warning, and you can't get them back."]

What is left finds its fist mingling with glass and stumbling through the shards, falling to the floor. Begrudged acceptance leaks through her veins and she wishes, still, that this weren't true. She knows it is, though. She knows it is. There is nothing left but a woman lying on the tiles, wishing gloved fingers would pull her up onto her feet and save her from it all.

["Now imagine facing this alone."]

xxx

The fourth week brings complete insanity. Skin red raw under a wire scouring brush and scalding heat. Trying to wash it off, tear it off, scrape it off. Make it go away. Make it all go away. So Walter will come home.

He knows these breasts, and these thighs and these cheeks are keeping the one thing he needed in the dark out of reach. And all he wants is to see those blue eyes, even if they are filled with hate and disgust. Even if they are frightened and weak. All he wants is to see those eyes, and know they're with him.

But they don't come home. They'll never come home, and he screams into his bloody knees. He's never coming home.

xxx

Bits. Littering a blood speckled floor. Bits. Parts of a mirror, pieces of a person pressed against the tile. Glass healing into the soles of feet, she hasn't moved in days. There are no tears left; they ran out a week ago. She won't sleep. She can't. Eyes are black, showing the truth of the thing. She can't close her eyes without seeing his face, seeing him run.

["Like a goddamn spooked deer."]

She can't close her eyes without seeing the woman in the mirror. Because that's what she is now, a woman. Lying here barely conscious, never asleep, that's what she is now. And if she had anything left, any capacity for emotion beyond numb acceptance, she'd be angry. Furious. Seething. Because she had done all of this alone.

["Don't know what I expected. 'It's okay'? 'Fine like this'? Stupid."]

A month of being completely alone. Abandoned.

["I needed you there. I needed to know we could deal with this."]

She missed him.