With Artemis away from home on a mission for her Team, he has time to finish wrapping up Christmas Gifts. She had warned him that she might not make it home in time, but he's willing to wager that The Bat's Little Bird will try to wrap things up in time- especially since Red Arrow is working with the Team on this mission.

Red Arrow, but not Jade.

His little girl had promised that she would be home for Christmas, but she had a case of her own to take care of, and he wasn't entirely happy about that. Deathstroke had popped up a few months back working with some new female martial artist- Jade had been working with Harper on it on the case and she'd been pretty shocked to see that the new girl had taken Paula's name and gimmick. He wasn't thrilled with it himself, but he didn't want Jade going off half-cocked. Anyone the League of Shadows let use the name of the Huntress would have to be dangerous indeed.

Possibly too dangerous for Jade to face on her own.

Still, Jade was a Crock, and telling her not to do something was the surest way to make sure that she did it.

So he held his tongue- and asked Canary to keep an especially close eye on his oldest.

Canary- Dinah - had promised to do so, so he felt a little better.

Not much, but a little better.

Still, the fact that he owed Dinah another one- over and above all the other favors she had done for his family since she had first agreed to look out for his girls- had made him decide that this year he was going to get her something other than the cards they'd been exchanging for the last few years. He didn't have a lot of money- though the Blue Beetle insisted on paying him for refresher courses in sparring- but he had never been the kind of guy to pick out fancy things anyway.

So he had made her some escrima sticks. She wasn't big on using anything other than bare hands in combat, but they were light enough she could carry them with her in case she ever needed them … or use them to train her students.

Except for the girls, he hadn't made a weapon for a woman since Paula.

Just remember she's taken, Crock, he told himself. And even if she wasn't, there's no way she'd want half a man …

He forces the thought away and goes back to his wrapping.

He'd made Jade a new set of fighting claws- the girl went through at least two or three pair a year, but he'd talked the Tornado into getting some alien metal from the Hawks and Beetle had made him the tools to work with it. Maybe this set would last longer.

He'd made Artemis some new arrows- the Archer supplied her with tech that he couldn't hope to match these days- but he still had had a few tricks up his sleeve. The toxins and chemicals he'd treated these arrows with weren't fatal, but they were probably a bit more hard core than Arrow normally used. His baby girl would use them if she had to- he hope'd she'd never need them, but her Team was facing greater and greater threats all the time, and he wanted to protect her as much as possible.

Red Tornado he had gotten a Blu Ray of Pinocchio. Given Reddy's latest "secret" project, it had seemed appropriate.

Aqualad he'd gotten a copy of Plato's Atlantis in the original Greek.

Superboy he'd gotten a pair of jeans and a collar for that big pet wolf of his with a tracking device in it to find him when the big mutt went off roaming on his own … and some poker chips.

Kid Flash had been easy. He'd just picked up some gift certificates from a few of the fast food joints that he knew the speedster liked … having been informed by Artemis that the boy pretty much liked all fast food joints he didn't have to spend a lot of effort in it.

Miss Martian had been a challenge, but he had managed to find a complete bootleg set of "Hello, Megan!" on Ebay. (He knew that she had looked familiar, but it had been a combination of insomnia and cable television that had finally filled in the pieces of where her Earth-form came from.)

Red Arrow he had made a bow for … a bow made in the Navajo tradition. He'd heard the kid curse a few times, and had an old Navajo Code Talker as a mentor in his youth. It had taken some time to make, but he'd started on it as soon as Jade had moved in with him.

Robin had ultimately been the toughest one. The Bat was obviously filthy rich, and would give the boy everything. Finally, he had given him The Art of War. More than likely, the Little Bird already owned a copy- perhaps even an original copy- but if it was the thought that counted then he had at least tried to give the boy something both he and his guardian would appreciate.

He's nearly done when he becomes aware that the house alarms are off line.

"Damn. Getting soft in my old age." He's never liked guns. He can use them, but he doesn't care for them. A sword, a javelin, a bow- those are the weapons he was born to raise. Guns … guns are brutal and there's no poetry in them.

But he's not the man he was … and he's had to face that fact.

So he has a gun that he carries with him at all times.

And now there is a stranger in his house. A stranger who was able not to just bypass his security measures, but those that the League had forced on him. A stranger who had to be very, very dangerous …

"You don't need the gun, Lawrence. I'm not here to hurt you. If I had been, you would have been dead already."

He knows that voice.

He has never forgotten it. He still hears it in his nightmares. "No ..."

"Yes, Lawrence. It's me."

She steps out of the shadows then.

She's wearing the outfit of the Huntress, with a stylized cat-mask. There's a smile on her face.

He knows that smile.

He knows the way she moves. He knows the way she talks. He knows the way she breathes.

"No. It can't be. You're dead."

"Am I, Lawrence?" She laughs- a low, throaty laugh. As deep and as sensual as the sounds she would make when they lay together late at night …

"Paula ..."

She takes the mask off and lets it drop to the table. "Yes, Lawrence. It's me. It's Paula. I'm back, my love. I came back for you.

"I came back for my girls."