Aftermath

Chapter II

Again, I stress the same information: The characters portrayed herein do not belong to me. What I do with them is not canon (despite the relative liberty that this acknowledgement brings, I have nonetheless nobly refrained from having Captain Jack Harkness wander through and 'say hello' to the entire Batclan. Such restraint. Proud of me?) Semi-seriously, this time my own bunch don't make an appearance and thus all the characters belong to the nice people at DC who are hopefully not going to sue me for playing with them. I'm still paying off my exam fees and will be too broke to be worth the legal costs for some time to come. Sigh.

An uneventful patrol was just what everyone had needed, and the batclan found themselves silently united in their general gratitude for it. Gotham could be a temperamental mistress; not above throwing disaster after disaster towards her dedicated knights, pulling monstrosity and madness from both the grimy corners of her alleys and the sterile illumination of her boardrooms.

Robin, especially, had reason to be grateful. That first patrol, into which he was included so quickly, allowed him to once again demonstrate his competence to his stoic mentor. While the latter was taciturn to a fault, experience allowed him to read satisfaction in his mentor's body-language. //I will be 'flying solo' again in no time,// he thought, checking the ties on the wrists of two would-be burglars. In a way, it reminded him of the first patrol he'd had after his return to the Batclan; damaged in body and soul, warped and hurting. Fiercely suppressing a shiver, he shied away from the thought of the call to police headquarters, and the carnage, that had followed. //Kaze, you should never have died like that, my friend. Nobody should ever be a puppet. Nobody should have to.//

It did not occur to him to wonder where Spoiler was; his automatic assumption was that she was with the latest Green Arrow. Later, he would wonder whether asking, checking, would have made the slightest bit of difference, but at the time he simply lost himself in the joy of the jumplines, the pull and swing of leaps across and between buildings, the gentle kiss of Gotham's night breeze on his brow. Later still, he would bitterly regret not asking sooner.

The next morning, after a very refreshing five hours of deep, trance-like sleep, Tim got up, dressed carefully, and with a shy smile and a belly full of 'Alfred's special breakfast', went to meet his father. He'd noted the breakfast - and his mentor's presence at the table - with a wry smile; they may not have been expecting him to make a bolt for it, but both Bruce and Alfred were obviously anticipating at least a little bit of anxiety on his part. His shrug was purely internal and his behaviour utterly blasé; it didn't hurt to keep them guessing a bit.

Truth be told, Tim was nervous. He was fairly confident that his father still wanted to see him; the man had come to Gotham himself, after all, but whether that was for reunions or recriminations remained to be seen. Tim hoped it was reunions. While they'd been growing distant in the months before Tim's abduction, and the time spent together had been punctuated by fights, there had still been substantial residual affection. Selfishly, Tim hoped Dana had been persuaded to come; she'd always been a very calming influence on his father, and had subtly helped to heal more family rifts that Tim suspected his father had ever given her credit for.

The agreed upon meeting place was a quiet coffee house; discreet and well-appointed, it was also an unlisted subsidiary of Wayne enterprises, making it easy to guarantee a private, but very visible, table. It was also 'neutral ground' for both of them; no matter how many disputes father and son had weathered in the months leading up to the elder's departure from Gotham and the younger's kidnapping, there would be no shouting matches here. Or so Tim fervently hoped. //Dad hates a scene. Or at least, he hates a public scene.// With a little bit of luck, that, at least, would not have changed too drastically in the months since he'd last seen Drake senior.

It was a shock seeing the man who stepped out of the sophisticated black sedan; grey-templed for as long as Tim could remember, his father had never seemed truly old. That, it was apparent, had changed. He was uncertain if it was care that had slowed the man's moves, or grief that carved wrinkled rivulets into his features. But either way, the months since his return from his honeymoon had aged him. Tim shifted on the entry steps uncertainly, suddenly feeling skittish as he eyed the older man.

Then the lines crinkled up as below them the man's lips stretched into a broad grin, transforming worry wrinkles into smile lines. "It is you! Oh, my son, my boy, it's really you!" He could have evaded the bear hug that descended on him, but Tim found he didn't want to. //Dad.// Held close, warm and safe, Tim luxuriated in the feeling that maybe, just possibly, everything would be alright.

Then the hard part came.

"Oh Timmy, Timmy, I thought . . . I was so scared I'd lost you!" The arms around him tightened, "so scared!" Forcibly reminding himself to be hesitant, that as far as his father knew, Tim was an amnesiac by the name of Van, he returned the embrace. //'Timmy'. He hasn't called me that since Mom died.// Swallowing a lump in his own throat, Tim's arms tightened of their own accord.

Carefully, he composed his features into a pleased, but slightly confused, expression, as he mentally ran through the speech he'd prepared for this moment. It would require timing, good acting, and a great deal of luck. //I pull this off right, and I win something even better than an Oscar for best actor. I win a life – my life!// Thinking of his mother, of Kaze and Yuki, his determination hardened. He owed it to all of them. He owed it to himself.

"Um. . .H-hello." His father pulled back from the embrace as Tim started to speak. Tired eyes, brown to the sky-blue of Tim's own, roved over his face searchingly. Looking, it seemed, for a son, a child, in this thin, long-haired stranger. Tim kept his expression confused, adding a hint of fear and a dash of hope. Neither was forged, but it had been a long time since Tim had worn his emotions openly. It was remarkably difficult. Then Jack spoke, and suddenly it became easy.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Timmy. You needed me and I wasn't there for you. But why did you run away? What was so bad that you couldn't stay at Brentwood? If they hurt you. . . they didn't did they?" Concern splashed across his father's features, concern and something else. It took Tim a moment to identify it. Guilt. //Why? What does this man possibly have to feel guilty about? The secrets that were forcing us apart were my own, never his. It wasn't his fault that, even protected by ignorance, he couldn't cope with them.// Rallying internally, Tim kept to his script. Allaying his father's concerns was important, but the Batclan's confidentiality was paramount. Once again, the Secret won. Oddly, Tim noticed that he himself felt no regret about that. A faint hint of sadness perhaps, but that was all. //Not knowing keeps you safe, Dad.// Ignorance both of how Tim, as Robin, chose to spend his nights, and also of what had happened in the last few months could only be a blessing to the middle-aged businessman. //Did 'They' hurt me? Dad, you have no idea. And never, ever will, if I have any say in it.//

"I . . .uh, I don't know. I'm sorry sir, but I don't remember."

He hadn't meant to wound his father so deeply. But as he watched the older man's face crumple into misery, Tim realized that his fiction would be harder to perpetrate than he'd ever thought.

"'Sir'. . ." Drake echoed his son's words. Then, visibly pulling himself together, he slung an arm around the thin shoulders in front of him; apparently to reassure himself as much as the other. "We have a lot to talk about, Timmy, and I'm sorry, I forgot about your . . . memory issues. But you only ever called me 'sir' when you were in trouble, so let's not start with that, hey?"

"Uh. Okay." He paused, hating himself but seeing no way around it. //This will hurt him. Hurt both of us.// "But then what would you like me to call you?"

A brief stillness was all the answer he got for a moment, then his father gave a hearty laugh. Perhaps a little too hearty, but none the less an attempt. //Looks like I'm not the only actor here.//

"You used to call me 'Dad'." He said. "Do you think you can still . . .? Or is that what you're calling these wretched 'foster people' of yours?" Tim tensed slightly at the subtle flavor of possessiveness creeping into his father's voice. //I didn't take well to being 'owned' by the Doctor, and I'm not going to put up with it now!// Matching the false pleasantness of his father's tone to his own response, he framed his answer carefully.

"No, sir. I address my foster family quite differently." //And I wonder how you'd like it if you found out I call one of them 'Master'. Oh, not the English word for it, but that's still what I call him.//

Grant him credit where it was due, the senior Drake took the hint. Either voice or body language warned him he was venturing onto emotional quicksand and he backpedaled rapidly.

"Dana's looking forward to seeing you, too, you know." He said, moving from one minefield of a topic to another.

"And 'Dana' would be?"

"My wife." Rattled, he turned to the car, waving out the person behind the wheel. Tim had initially thought his father had come in a chauffeured car. That, it seemed, was not the case. //Good. Dana always was better at keeping him on an even keel.//

The door swung open, and the petite brunette bounced out. Tim couldn't help but grin. //Way to go Dana. You're so perfect for him; give him enough space to meet his son, but be ready to step in and save the day when it all goes pie-shaped.//

Again he was enveloped in strong, warm arms, again he was held. Again, he had to remind himself of both the fiction he was creating, and its necessity. //It would have been so much easier if this meeting had been arranged after I got my 'self' back.// But there was no point crying about it; it was water under the bridge. The reunion had been planned while Tim had still been the shattered half-person Van, with no inkling that his semi-miraculous healing was even possible. Now it was just a matter of salvaging the pieces. //And at least this way I don't need to explain where I was for a year. The blanket of 'amnesia' covers all.//

Still, it had to be played right.

"So, you're my mother? You sure look young." He murmured, hating himself again, knowing the answer but at the same time wondering how they would reply.

"No. No, Honey, I'm not your Mom." Dana said gently, still hugging him.

"But I thought Mr. Drake said you were his wife." Tim carefully manufactured a spattering of confusion into his voice.

"I am. I'm your stepmom." Pulling away from him to search his face, Dana none the less held on to his shoulders. Apparently convinced by what she saw, she continued. "I married your father over a year ago now," she said carefully. "You were his Best Man."

"I don't remember."

Her face somber, she nodded. "Yes, we were told that. So it's true." Behind her Jack stirred, not believing – or not wanting to believe – that his presence could be erased so utterly from his own son's life. Tim tensed slightly, sensing the impending explosion from his father, the fight that was brewing. //Just like old times.// Carefully, he kept the thought from showing in his face and body.

Once again, Dana came to the rescue.

"Great! So I can make you sit through the wedding video and all the photo albums without a single complaint!" She chortled, hugging him again, "Oh, this'll be so much fun!" Behind her, Jack groaned slightly, muttering "not again."

And just like that, the tension eased.

"Come on," she said, steering them into the coffee house. "I really need some tea."

They were seated, and had ordered, before the difficult questions arose again. With a glance at her husband, Dana took the lead.

"I know you don't remember me, either of us, really. And I know you've carved out a life for yourself now after something that must have been truly horrible happened to you," She paused, obviously taking the time to choose her words carefully. Mentally Tim congratulated her insight //Something 'truly horrible' indeed. You've been reading up, Dana. I can tell. You always get that little furrow-line in your brow when you're working with new concepts. Given where this conversation is going, I'm betting you found yourself a psychology text book and discovered that non-organic amnesia is most often a psychological defense against some truly hideous emotional trauma. And since the Supercycle cleaned off all my visible scars when it healed me, you're making an educated guess that it's not an organic injury.// Her conclusions couldn't, in this case, have been more wrong, but Tim gave her points for trying. It wasn't exactly like kidnapping and Apokalyps and New Genesis-derived brainwashing was particularly run-of-the-mill, even in superhero-circles. Tim shifted his attention back onto what Dana was saying.

"So I wanted to say a few things: The first is that I am so very, truly sorry. We should have been there. We should have been contactable. We weren't and with that we failed you. I am so sorry." She stopped to draw a breath to continue, obviously not really expecting an answer. Tim decided to give her one anyway. Her, and his father. Maybe he couldn't appease their guilt entirely, but he could ease it. Though they'd been absent, it hadn't been anything they'd done that had gotten him kidnapped. That fault, he felt, lay with the Doctor, and maybe with himself; he'd set it in train when as a preadolescent detective, he'd first deduced Batman's identity. When he'd become Robin, and drawn the Doctor's fateful attention. But Tim knew that being Robin was worth it.

Perhaps he and his parents would still be estranged now anyway; given that the two of them had been uncontactable for the better part of a year - and entirely by their own doing - it didn't seem implausible. But perhaps not. The doctor had taken that possibility away from them as a family, and it was more than Tim could stand to watch the two of them shoulder the misplaced responsibility.

"That's okay. No, really it is," he said earnestly, looking at the doubt flickering in both their faces. "You asked me earlier, sir, if they'd hurt me." He directed the comment to Jack. "The answer is, I don't know. I don't remember." //Not entirely true, but at least it wasn't the Brentwood people who were doing the hurting. And I don't think you could – or should – cope with what really happened. Another little secret. I'm collecting them, it seems.//

"You tell me that I ran away. Not from you, I take it, as you've both said you weren't there, but from some school you put me in. I don't remember that, either. So I don't know why I left. Until today, I didn't even realize that I had run away." He paused then, deciding how to take the next part of the conversation.

//I want to have contact with you, I want to spend time together. But I won't leave Gotham to live with you in Metropolis. And the sooner I establish that, hurt feelings or not, the better.// And it would hurt. He could tell. His father would be ruffled, but it would be Dana who would truly bear the pain. She'd always been so careful about not getting between Tim and his Dad. How now would she cope with the feeling that it was her, or more specifically her honeymoon that had created the final split. //Better to be ruthless now, than live building more lies than I have to.// Steeling himself, Tim continued. It was hard, harder than fighting any number of Gotham crooks, and it hurt him as much as some of the earlier sessions with the Doctor.

"I don't know where I ended up for the first few months, either, but I do know that if it hadn't happened, and I hadn't been on that street, then my family wouldn't have found me." He smiled at them, then, and it wasn't a forgery. Just thinking of the Shishou, of Kaguya and of Yuki and Kaze, the hotch-potch kin he would never have had, and of Bruce and Dick, Barbara and Cassandra, the motley family he was proud to belong to. //No, the cost in pain for me was never too high. To have that, the cost was bearable.//

"So I guess what I'm trying to say is 'Thanks'." He continued, "True, I don't remember what came before, but maybe that's for the best if it was as bad as you seem to think it might have been. And besides, what I have now is so very precious. My family, my life." His smile deepened. "If you'd not put me in the school you say I ran away from, I would have missed out on the lot of it. So there's nothing to apologize about, but lots of things to accept my gratitude for."

Across the table from him, Jack had been going alternate shades of anger-red, and then a sallow, grim white. His mouth opened, but no words issued forth. A quick glance at him, and Dana leapt in to commandeer the conversation.

"We. . . We'd both. . . That is, we're glad you're happy. And I realize we have no right to force ourselves on you," she started, gently.

"The Hell we don't! You're my son!" Jack snarled, "I'll find this Casey family and I'll-" He was quieted by Dana's had on his arm. Or his own apoplexy. Either way, Tim was glad to see it was his stepmother who continued.

"We left you alone, even if that's not how we saw it at the time. You were in trouble, and we left, but you fended for yourself admirably. You say now that there's no apology needed, but I feel there is, so please accept it. I'm also going to be very selfish and ask if there's any way you'd be willing to have us back in your life." She took a tremulous breath, the hope and fear naked on her face, and just as present on Jack's though he hid it beneath bluster.

"You don't have to ask him that, Dana," Jack started, "Of course Tim's going to come back with us! He'll just say the word to the custody judge, and we'll get him enrolled in Metropolis Prep, pay off these fosterers if they make a fuss, and then Tim can . . ."

"That isn't my name, sir." Tim said in a quiet, steely voice. Jack Drake flinched. Tim had been prepared for this development, had played it out multiple ways in his head. Had even been ready to 'suddenly remember everything' if things had gone right and he could have done so without losing his autonomy. But that, it was abundantly apparent, was not possible. So he played it to his worst-case scenario. He played it to total amnesia.

Silence greeted his pronouncement. His father looked ready to explode. Tim met his father's glare with his own suddenly-glacial eyes. The elder was the first to look away.

"I'm sorry," Dana said again, relentlessly crashing the conversation back on track. Once more, Tim had to admire her for it. //No wonder things improved so much when she started living in.// "That was thoughtless of me. I should have considered that, what with the amnesia and all. Let's try again. I'm your stepmother. You used to call me 'Dana', and I'd really like it if you feel you could do so again."

Taking the hand she proffered over the table, Tim shook it, a grin cracking his features at the sudden over-played formality. An answering twinkle sparkled in her own eyes; relief and hope. They'd gotten through Jack's social-shattering bluster phase intact.

"My name is Van, Dana. And it's a pleasure to meet you. Perhaps you can help me with how to address your husband. He seems uncomfortable with 'sir' and I'm uncomfortable with 'Dad'. Can you suggest a compromise?"

"I usually call him 'Jack'. Would that be okay?" She looked to both of them. Suddenly deflating, Jack matched Tim's nod with his own.

"Despite how it was phrased, Jack's offer is real: We'd love to have you come to Metropolis with us."

"Thank you for the offer," Tim said formally, his tone giving them ample warning of what was coming. "But I won't leave Gotham." Unspoken, the other half of the sentence was not unfelt; I won't leave Gotham, and I won't leave my family. He broke the atmosphere with a sunny smile, "I'm happy here. I'm with people who care about me, and I can promise you, whatever Brentwood was like for me, I'm doing well in my current school."

Across from him, Dana was doing her best to hide her upset and smile back at him. //Sorry, Dana. I know you wanted a happy ending; the prodigal son come home and all that, but I can't deliver. Not in Metropolis, and maybe not even in Gotham.//

"Can we still see you? We'll come here, or will you visit us? You could stay on weekends," she said hesitantly, "if you wanted. . .?"

He grinned at her, "I'd like that." Something in the grin seemed to spark her confidence, for suddenly the chatty, caring confidante Tim remembered was back.

"Great! Your room's ready for you, whenever you want to come." She squeezed his hand. "And there's a great running trail in the park behind the house. We can jog together again." She looked at him mock-severely, "But I won't go easy on you just because you've had a break from running. I am a physiotherapist, you know." Tim grinned back. She'd never twigged that, in all their jogs, it had been him going easy with her. He'd always done their runs after his own rigorous workout, to ensure that he was truly sweaty by the time she 'caught up to him' after his head start, but this was his first indication that she'd had as much fun running together as he had.

//And a very subtle way of giving the amnesiac some information about your job, without sitting down and running through every detail of life. Nicely done.//

"We'll go fishing," Jack chimed in unexpectedly. "Like when you were a kid. It'll be good fun." Tim smiled, touched to see his father truly making an effort. "Have a man's weekend, and leave both the girls at home."

"Both the girls?" Tim asked, innocently. The pause that followed was slightly awkward.

"Yes," Jack said. "Dana and your baby sister." Both watched him carefully. Internally, Tim shrugged. If they'd expected him to get upset about a sibling who'd serve a nice double duty as a distraction if and when he chose to go roof-hopping in Big Blue's territory, then they had another think coming.

"I look forward to meeting your baby girl." Neither Jack nor Dana missed his phrasing. They noted the sentiment, a subtle reinforcement that he didn't remember them, didn't really consider them parents or hence the baby his sister. The foundations of this new relationship were set; Tim needed now to merely continue refining them.

They talked on, well into the afternoon and pausing only for a sandwich-dinner from the coffeehouse menu. Catching up, learning about each other, trying to reform the fragments of the family bond that had once held them. It was only much later, when Jack and Dana had returned the rental car, clambered on board the train to Metropolis for the return journey, and settled into their first-class seats that they realized how little about himself and his current life Tim – Van – had actually told them.

They didn't even know the name of his school. And of his foster-family, they were no better informed than they had been when the day had started; the Caseys. Whom Van apparently cherished unreservedly, and whom the Mireba Corporation valued enough to protect from any custody court battle.

A family that Robin, taking to the rooftops that night, was determined to track down.

Although he made a start, it would be some time before he got the chance to complete his self-designated mission.

Gotham, as always a tempermental mistress, intervened.