Author's Notes: Hai. So this chapter is basically the last one before the graphic novel chapters! This means we are nearing the goddamned end of the goddamned fanfic. :O This is very odd to me, but I guess it's nothing to shriek about yet, seeing as we have 13 more chapters. Lol.

Warnings: This one's short (why is it all of the transistor chapters are short?) and Dan gets to angst some more. Kinda.

37. How the Ghost of You Clings

It was the clatter of what very well have been another little owl figurine that littered his kitchen (and well, let's face it, his whole house) that jerked him out of his sleep. Dan's eyes flew open and he shot up from his bed. Shifting nervously, he crouched in his darkened bedroom, his head tilted to the door. He waited for another sound, any sort of disturbance to signal that what he hadn't just dreamt the first time. A horrible, thrilling sense of déjà vu hit him and the breath caught in his throat. It couldn't—but it could—and why not—

The noises persisted and whoever was downstairs didn't think he was home (after all, his home doesn't exactly have that lived in feel). Or maybe… maybe they knew he was home and wanted to see him.

Feeling stupid and worn out over how excited he was, Dan leapt out of bed and crept down the stairs. He winced at how unstealthy he felt, forgetting after so many years how to minimize his noise and footsteps, but it didn't really matter, did it? Because if it was who he thought it was, then the worst that could happen was a sharp rebuke and a kitchen smelling like garbage and dead things, but it had been ages since he'd seen the bastard and he worried about him despite all his better judgment. And he always, always forgot how tired and sick and angry their meetings made him, because he hadn't seen anything in the newspaper about him for weeks and it was driving him mad—

Wait.

The silhouette in the darkened kitchen was tall, almost his height and didn't have the trench coat and the fedora and smelled more like sweat and drugs than anything else. Just as Dan's brain began screaming wrong, the man whipped around, letting out a startled cry. He whipped up a gun and raised it at Daniel's face, trembling.

"Don't move!" His voice was rough and croaking and made Daniel feel more enraged than he had in years.

Muscle memory flooded back to him as he feinted, moving fluidly around the table with more speed than the robber probably expected from a middle-aged man. Dan's fist smashed into the man's face and his elbow caught the man in the gut. As the robber doubled over, Daniel smashed his elbow once into the back of his neck, and the man fell over, unconscious.

Fingers tingling with adrenaline, Daniel felt a flood of disappointment that the robber hadn't lasted longer than that, hadn't put up that good of a fight. After ensuring that he was indeed unconscious, Daniel pulled the man upright and dragged him out of the house. He knew he ought to call the police, but he was too angry and full of adrenaline and bitter to want to deal with that right now. Besides, he told himself as he dropped the man on the sidewalk opposite the house (like so much garbage), it'd be really awkward to have to explain how an overweight forty-year-old ornithologist got the better of a robber.

So Daniel went back to the house, put the coffee table against the door, walked up to bed, and eased himself into a restless sleep.

Out on the pavement, a part of the shadows detached itself to hover over the semi-conscious man. Radiating menace and a sudden rage, the shadow seized the man and dragged him back with it into the dark recesses of the night.

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A/N: Aaand we have Dan delivering a smack-down and Rorschach showing he cares by committing some gruesome murder in a back alley. Aw, true love. XP lol. Anyways… So these next chapters should actually go really fast because they are GN-verse and I will have the GN next to me, telling me what to do. So yeah! Thanks so much for your continuing support! 3