AN: I don't like this chapter! /shakes fist... can't seem to get it right /sadface.

The latex swirls between her hands, like satin and cotton rubbed together. Her fingers are stiff but she still manages to pad out the stretches where his nose usually sat, where his brow stood. He hadn't come back for it. He probably has the spare. Kept hidden in a box at the other side of the city, just in case. Just in case of what? Had he ever planned for something like this?

She laughs at herself, but it sounds more like a nasal whine. They could never have planned for something like this. With all its impossibilities and catastrophic implications.

["It could never happen to me."]

xxx

It starts as a dull ache, low in her stomach. She manages to ignore it for hours. Curling her legs up in a futile bid to relieve the tension, Daniel lets out a moan. Half her bones crick, and every joint complains. The movement breaking the 3 day seal of inactivity.

It only gets worse, though. Tightening her muscles and ripping through her stomach. It feels like she's about to explode, and with everything that's happened, she is very aware that it might. That her gut could splatter out over the walls, acid and blood. Spread it everywhere else. Clutching her knees to her chest, whining pathetically, she can't help but think she has suffered enough.

xxx

She tries to think of what Rorschach is as his face lies in her hands. He was never about justice, or self-satisfaction. He wasn't about money or praise. He wasn't about being a hero. He was not about bringing people to the law.

He was about pay back for those hurt, and an end to those who had wasted their choices. He was vengeance. Volatile and righteous. Bitter in his indignation; that there was right and wrong with no in-between.

Nite Owl was so different, she thinks, as she stares at the window, black with the night, reflecting back a disgusting unwanted face. He believed in fair chances. He believed in the integrity of the law when it was a viable option. He believed that there was hope for this dying city. He believed in justice and exceptional circumstances.

Daniel didn't anymore.

xxx

The time passes in a haze of hissed moans, and half-hearted jerks. A few failed attempts at getting her face off of the floor long enough to work on the rest, but she does finally manage to roll herself over. The acute sensation of water trickling over her legs brings her up onto her elbows. Then an exasperated moan mixed with a loud broken yell rips through her as she sees blood leak over the floor.

It seeps from between her legs, over the inside of her thighs. Leaving fresh spots on the tiles, mixing with the blood from her feet and fists, from her eyes and knees. She stares at it until it begins to dry, leaving trails over her flesh like the veins in her eyes. It's not like before, crawling with dots, or escaping from a wound, and until her stomach gives another gut-wrenching twinge she can't quite figure out what's going on.

xxx

Rorschach knows that nothing is fair. Knows that this city is a lost cause, and that nothing can save people who do not wish to be saved. That everything they do is futile. Had known it always, but never gave up trying. He would not just sit back and watch as the world crumbled, he couldn't. It was an impossibility. Rorschach had to fight. He could not compromise who he was and just sit back and watch it happen. No matter how many times he told himself, he would always fight the future.

Nite Owl was relentlessly optimistic. Was convinced that in the end everything would be okay. It was his mantra, he couldn't say it if he didn't believe it. He believed, or perhaps fooled himself into believing that what they did made a difference. That they were saving this place, slowly but surely, dragging it into the light kicking and screaming, but saving it nonetheless.

Daniel didn't know what she believed. She didn't even know if she cared.

xxx

She laughs. Hysterically. Gripping the edge of the bathtub with shaking fingers. Laughs until she almost vomits. Because this is ridiculous. Unthinkable. Downright unbelievable. Staring at the congealing blood disgusted, but inexplicably amused, Daniel knows what this is, and she feels disgusting as she stuffs a wad of toilet paper between her legs.

It's beyond a joke. Four weeks of agony, and now she gets her goddamn period.

xxx

Rorschach is the anger that is left of a broken man. He is not a hero. He does what he does because no one else will.

He is faceless because pain needs no face. He is featureless because fear needs no shape. He is a monster because what they fight are no longer men.

Nite Owl is a man, strong and proud. A hero. Does what he does because he wants to help. Tries to do good, and tries to help Rorschach stay human.

Daniel is not a man. She doesn't want to help. She doesn't want Rorschach to listen to her lies. She doesn't want to save the city the way Nite Owl does. She doesn't want to cry into the night for justice the way he does. She does not want to bring them to the law.

She wants to run into the black kicking and screaming, scratching and burning. She wants to cry for revenge and violence. She wants to tear people apart. Because she sees now that it's all she can ever do. Like this she can't save the world. Doesn't want to, it doesn't deserve it.

["But I won't give up. I won't sit back and watch it drown. We're all that's left to fight for this world."]

So she can't be Nite Owl, doesn't want to be. Not like this. She believes in nothing he does anymore.

The latex sifts through her fingers, and she doesn't stop to think, doesn't stop to consider the insanity. Or the way he'd react if he saw this.

Because she can't look at her, now that she knows who she is, what's left, she can't look.

The world vanishes behind a veil of black and white. Becomes the monochrome truth of what Rorschach says he sees. The muddling grey of her own doubts and fears fall away. She becomes the monster she feels she is. Looking in the glass, she can finally see the power she couldn't pervert in Nite Owl. Sees something worth living as.

There may not be a Walter behind the mask, but she finally has Rorschach with her. It's not him. But it's good enough for tonight as she crawls out of the finger muddied window.