September died, and with it died the very last traces of summer. All warmth had gone from the air, and sunshine faded to a distant memory as grey clouds gathered for their six-month tenure over the city. The days were chilly and rainy, and the nights were windy and downright cold. Despite the bleakness that Gotham wore like a sorrowful mantle, however, autumn was still a delightful time in the city. The change in the weather ensured that the smog and pollution were cleared away; too, it had banished the oppressive, cloying heat of midday, and the good people of Gotham began to creep out of their climate-controlled homes, offices, and stores to remember, once more, what pleasant weather felt like.

And Just as the soothing rhythm of the seasons remained the same, Gotham carried on its usual delinquent way, same as always, with a few variations.

At Gotham Memorial, Janey noticed a distinct decrease in the number of "ladies of the night" who came through the emergency room-it seemed that the vicious attacks had abated. At Safe Haven, the stream of clients was as steady as ever, but both Donna and Annabeth noticed less of them were prostitutes. On the streets, the Batman patrolled and could find nothing, no new clues about the Arrows. At the MCU, Commissioner Gordon closed his eyes and uttered a brief prayer of thanks that the killing spree appeared to have come to an end. In her new position as Donzetti's mistress, Trinity found herself well taken care of, if somewhat bored and ignored. At the Manor, Bruce and Alfred began aggressive research to single out businessmen with potential ties to the mob.

All of them worked hard, in their own way, intent on their own agendas and crusades; none of them relaxed their guard or fooled themselves into thinking it was anything other than the calm before the next violent storm. Just because they couldn't see the storm clouds didn't mean they weren't gathering.

Unsurprisingly, Annabeth did not pause to notice or enjoy the change in the seasons. She barely registered the passing of time in its larger sense, only noted the passing of individual days and deadlines and duties, and all of the many things that still needed to be done-in Safe Haven, in the world, in her life. This autumn, she was even busier than usual: in addition to her two jobs and her volunteer work, she had started to teach survival skills to freshmen girls at Gotham University, and as well, there was her newly-found, and not entirely-embraced, social life. She and Bruce had managed to make several appearances about the city, but it was much more difficult to arrange than she had expected. She obligations and duties, had a number of , of course, and Bruce had a lot more commitments than she had assumed he would have. Nevertheless, the Gotham press managed to snag a few choice pictures, mainly of the two of them at a posh restaurant, or a gallery opening, or, on one memorable and unexpected occasion, at Ex Libris, the city's largest used book store.

Annabeth had to admit, she was a little surprised. Since their first memorable "date", Bruce had behaved himself remarkably well. As he had promised, no funny stuff, no passes, nothing that would make her feel uncomfortable—or, at least, more uncomfortable than she already felt about the whole situation. As he had promised, Bruce Wayne was being the perfect gentleman. And a tiny, tiny little piece of Annabeth was disappointed. It was only a matter of time before the press caught on to their little game, and also, only a matter of time before Bruce Wayne moved on to a piece of more willing and interested flesh. When Annabeth contemplated this, she felt a tiny surge of—she wasn't sure what. Ambivalence, perhaps, or a mixture of relief and disappointment.

At the moment, however, she was feeling neither relief nor disappointment towards her new friend, only a deep annoyance.

"You're kidding me." Annabeth said this flatly; she knew he wasn't kidding her. She could tell in his posture, how he stood before her desk and looked guilty, occasionally shifting his apologetic eyes to her before redirecting them away from her incredulous gaze. "You mean to tell me it's the seventeenth of October, your fundraiser is in exactly eight days, and you haven't arranged anything yet?"

Bruce had shown up at Safe Haven at a startlingly early hour that Friday morning, equipped with a briefcase filled with papers and information. He and Donna had closeted themselves away for half an hour, and then she had sent him on to Annabeth's office, looking sheepish and a little bit guilty. Now he was explaining to an already high-strung Annabeth that it had been a busy month, and he simply hadn't had the time to get the ball rolling with the fundraiser. One week to go, and nothing had been arranged.

"I talked it over with Donna," he tried to assure her. "She thinks you and I can knock everything out today. We just have to sit down, make some decisions, look at some lists, make some phone calls. It's going to be very simple."

Annabeth was trying very hard to keep her temper in check. "I was supposed to take the kids on a field trip today, to a hayride in Robinson Park. I can't do both."

"You won't have to. Donna's taking care of the field trip." Bruce thought he was giving her good news, but inexplicably, her face fell. "You'd rather pick hay out of your hair and clean up after kids? You know they're going to eat too many candied apples and throw up."

She gave him a filthy look. "Fine. What do we have to do?"

Having won, Bruce got right down to business and snapped open his briefcase. "Choose a menu. Choose a song line-up for the band. Decide on the flowers we want." He glanced up from the pile of papers that he had been sorting through. "What?"

Just as if Annabeth had come to the edge of the universe and simply stepped into the unknown space beyond, so her profound annoyance slipped into the space beyond, where she discovered weary resignation. "Three college degrees, and I'm babysitting a billionaire and planning his parties."

"How is babysitting me different than babysitting the clients' children?" Bruce demanded playfully.

"Today was supposed to be fun." Incredibly, Annabeth was almost sulking. "A hayride in a horse-drawn wagon, cavorting through a pumpkin patch, drinking apple cider, listening to cheesy ghost stories. You know, normal stuff that normal people do." She eyed the stack of papers and information that Bruce had piled on her desk. "Well, never mind. Let's get to work."

It was tedious, time-consuming work, and after an hour of debating whether or not to instruct the band to play only the Top 40 hits, Annabeth was willing to see why Bruce had been so eager to recruit her assistance. Trying to take all of this on by one's lonely self was not a delightful prospect; even now, with two people plowing through a month of work that had to be done in a day, it threatened to overwhelm them.

As the hours crept on, at one point Bruce looked up from the guest list and sighed dramatically. "Is it too late to scrap the whole thing and beg for pennies on the street corner?"

"I think I have a tin can in here, somewhere." Annabeth has begun to employ a grim humor and was doing her best to make a good show of it. But then, ""Why do I have to decide on the song list for the band? I haven't listened to pop music in years. Last time I listened to the Top Forty, Chubawumba was the thing."

"Would you rather decide on the menu?" Bruce offered. "We have a theme choice of Epicurean Western, Asian Fusion, Nouveau French...I've been staring at these menus for the past half hour."

"I've noticed. And I have no idea what to tell you. Can't Alfred do all of this?"

He didn't answer her right away. Although he was meant to be helping her, Bruce wasn't being very useful. He was perched in the seat that he had come to regard as his own, across from Annabeth, and was watching her work. She had swept her hair back into a messy half-ponytail, and had donned reading glasses; also, she had taken off her suit jacket, revealing those entrancing tattoos again. What was it about those tattoos that he found so appealing? Perhaps that they were so unexpected, so not in line with the image he had of Annabeth. There was a rough edge to her, something jagged and dangerous and all the more bewitching for its incongruity; it didn't fit in with the initial conservative image that Annabeth projected. No, this gritty, tattooed side of her was the real Annabeth, and the Batman in him responded to that. As for how Bruce Wayne responded—well, this hard-as-nails woman was not his normal fare; she was far more flavorful and textured and nuanced than the usual bland and unremarkable females of his acquaintance.

"Bruce." Annabeth was trying to get his attention; he had spaced out again. "Seriously. I have no idea what kind of food you should have at this thing. Why can't Alfred do it? I bet he's an old hat at this."

"Alfred is..." Bruce paused, trying to find a valid excuse. Feverishly conducting research on any Gotham businessman who might have ties to the criminal underworld? Trying to provide some useful information to an overly-exacting and neurotic employer who has a thing for black kevlar? "He's a little...under the weather this week. That's why he's not helping."

"Oh, that's too bad. Poor Alfred!" Annabeth was becoming increasingly fond of the English butler who followed Bruce like a shadow. "What's wrong with him?"

"Uuuuh..." He hadn't been prepared for that. "The vapors? Dropsy?"

The look that Annabeth gave him was withering. "Bruce, no one's had dropsy, since, like, the middle of the nineteenth century."

Bruce shrugged. "I guess I didn't ask him what was wrong." Sometimes, he really hated making himself look like such an asshole. "Look, don't worry about the food. The caterers gave me six different menus, and we just have to choose the one we want. As for the carnival food, that's all taken care of." He passed Annabeth the menus, and watched as she struggled to comprehend the words. "Foie gras? Carpaccio?"

"It's raw beef," he explained helpfully.

"I know what carpaccio is!" she snapped. "You tried to get me to try it at that restaurant last week, what was it called, oh, yes, Vulva's." Even now, her mouth pursed in distaste at the memory. "I'm just saying this: you're throwing a party and a fundraiser in honor of the Gotham City Police Department. You really think these men and women are going to be all over the foie gras?" She was getting edgy. "Where's my coffee?"

Bruce had secreted away her mug half an hour ago, and didn't feel the need to disclose its location to her. The last thing Annabeth needed was more caffeine. "It's in their honor, sure. But don't forget, the people that we're inviting to this fundraiser are people withfunds. We need to cater to them, too."

"We'd better compromise, then, hadn't we? Call the caterers and tell them they'd damn well better come up with a menu that's blue blood meets blue collar, or we're going to have a socialist revolution on our hands come Saturday." Annabeth glared at him fiercely.

"Why do I have to do it?" Now Bruce was whining.

"Because I'm delegating. Either that, or you go through the Top Forty lists of the last twenty years and decide which Hanson and Spice Girls songs you want."

He needed no other incentive to follow her orders. "Where's the phone?"

Through the afternoon and well into the evening they worked, growing ever closer to completing the plans. At one point, Annabeth looked up from the current task of deciding on floral arrangements. "Isn't this a little last minute for some of these vendors?"

"Not really." Bruce was taking a break from the guest lists. The invitations had gone out weeks ago, but he wanted to make last minute additions. "They're used to dealing with annoying rich people. Believe it or not, this is a fairly easy job. Some of the parties and dinners and soirées are absolute nightmares."

"Why's that?"

"The women who arrange them are a bunch of ultra-competitive divas. If Mrs. Stepford has an ice-sculpture at her party, then Mrs. Trump has to have an ice sculpture garden at hers. That type thing." Bruce made a face. "It's completely disgusting. The people we're inviting are so rich, they buy new yachts every time one gets wet."

"Says the man who burnt down his house for kicks and giggles." Annabeth paused to rub her shoulder gingerly. The bruising had faded, but the soreness remained. "How did that happen, anyway?"

"A misunderstanding," Bruce said shortly. He felt rather than saw Annabeth's look of surprise. Wisely, she did not press the issue; she had learned to recognize his moods and reticence.

By seven that evening, everything was accomplished. The caterers, the waitstaff, the floral arrangements, the musicians, the final additions to the guest lists—they had made all the arrangements. Simultaneously, both Bruce and Annabeth leaned back in their seats, emitting exhausted sighs of satisfaction.

Annabeth allowed him one small smile. "I can't believe we managed to get this all done."

"Me neither." In all truth, Bruce had never planned a single party; Alfred always took care of everything. More and more, he was beginning to realize the immense amount of work Alfred shouldered to maintain the Wayne image, manor, and lifestyle, to say nothing of the Batman's unceasing demands.

"So what's going to happen at this fundraiser?" Annabeth wanted to know. "I know the ultimate aim is to secure permission for the Take Back the Night rally, but how, exactly, will that work?"

Bruce's plan was simple and had at least a fifty percent chance of failure. "Easy," he grinned. "We get Mayor Garcia and Commissioner Gordon liquored up, and then we blindside them. Butter them up with the fundraiser and the carnival for the kids, and leave them with no leg left to stand on."

"You are a master strategist," Annabeth said dryly. "You really think that's going to work?"

"I really do." Bruce seemed unconcerned. "When it comes to throwing money at a problem, my aim is true. Money sweetly oils the wheels of bureaucracy, and I'm fairly certain Garcia and Gordon will be on board once they realize that the Wayne Foundation will be sponsoring everything, including the police officers' overtime. So, I get them liquored up, Donna starts sweet-talking them, you maintain a diplomatic silence—difficult though I know that will be for you—and voilà! Soon we'll be arranging a city-wide rally that promotes awareness of all the bad things men do."

Once again, his flippant side had made an appearance. "Do you have to be so cavalier about this?" Annabeth demanded. "This is serious."

"Seriously, we're ready." Bruce glanced at his watch. "And with plenty of time to spare. I was going to check out that new martini bar, the one right by Wayne Towers. Want to join me?"

"Definitely not." Annabeth had had all she could take of Bruce for one day. "I'm going home, taking a bubble bath, and sleeping. Guess you'll have to find someone else."

"Kind of hard, seeing as how, according to the press, I've committed to one girl." Bruce feigned disappointment. "Geez, Annabeth, you're really cramping my style here."

Annabeth was gathering her things. "Yes, I know. This was all my idea, and it sent your social life flying into the toilet, ass over teakettle. I'm such a wretch. Let's just never mind the fact that you ruined my hayride today." She smiled a little to take the sting out of her words. "I'm going home. Good night, Bruce."

For any normal person, the next day, Saturday, would have been a day to spend away from the office, a day to spend in play, or at least in half-hearted chores. Not so for Annabeth, who headed back to Safe Haven first thing in the morning, intending to put in a long day of uninterrupted productivity. In point of fact, there was very little that was incredibly pressing; sometimes, Saturdays were just plain lonely, and a day at Safe Haven was always preferable to a day spent rattling about her own condo, or else playing third wheel to whatever plans Janey and Jason had cooked up.

Her day of uninterrupted productivity encountered its first and only interruption just past noon, when Annabeth pulled her attention away from the medical journal she was reading to see Bruce, peering past her open door.

"Why did I have a feeling you'd be here?" he asked.

"Why did I have a feeling you'd be here, tormenting me?" Annabeth's retort was quick—too quick, in fact. She had been half-expecting him to show up and ruin her peace; it was the Bruce Wayne way. "What's up?"

He eased his way into the office; she had begun to recognize his body language by now, and knew that he was about to spring an invitation on her, or wheedle her into something. Whenever he suggested they do something, his body movements became slower, more languid; his voice dropped its flippant tone but still remained cheerful. "Come out with me." He phrased it as an urging, not a demand.

"Come out with you?" Annabeth's lips quirked into a slightly exasperated smile. "Come out where? If I agree, I could somehow end up in Aspen, or on a yacht in some subtropical place that's still in the throes of hurricane season."

"It's a surprise. But in the city limits...a 'thank you' for yesterday. Please?"

Annabeth glanced at the stack of journals on her desk, and then over at Bruce, who stood in the doorway, his expression eager. "Well..." she sighed. "I don't have anything hugely important. I suppose I can play along..."

And play along she did, which was how, forty-five minutes later, she found herself staring at a fleet of horse-drawn hay wagons. Every October, the city offered hayrides at Robinson Park, along with a hastily-erected "pumpkin patch"–really, just pumpkins and gourds imported from the countryside—as well as various other autumnal delights, and that was what she had missed out on yesterday. It was everything one could expect of a normal, perfect autumn tableau, and it seemed Bruce was determined it should be hers.

"This was your surprise?" Annabeth asked Bruce, who stood beside her, eagerly awaiting her reaction.

"What do you think?"

"Bruce...I'm overwhelmed. You've given me an enormous pile of hay." Annabeth paused and gazed up at the haywagons again. "You sure do know how to woo a girl. Really...I'm utterly love-struck."

"Come on." Bruce tugged her hand and led her to one of the wagons. "I rented one for the afernoon…no one gets on this one but us." He clambered up onto the slippery hay and extended a hand down to Annabeth. "Are you going to stand down there and pretend cool disinterest all day, or are you going to come up here and engage in cheesy fun?" The truth was, this was pushing the limits of his own tolerance, but he had seen Annabeth's disappointment yesterday, and was determined to make amends, even if it meant this...foray into normalcy. It had been worth it, however, when he told Alfred of his intentions; the look on his butler's face had been priceless.

With surprising ease, Bruce took Annabeth's arm and half-hauled, half-helped her onto the hay wagon; as she reached the top of the haystack, she temporarily disappeared into the pile, only to surface a moment later with several straws of hay sticking askew from her hair.

"I find you much less intimidating now," Bruce smirked, without telling her why.

Ten feet below them, the haywagon began to slowly move.

"This has to be the oddest not-date I've ever been on," Annabeth sighed. She settled back into the hay, however, prepared to play along.

Bruce began digging through the hay. "I also brought us..."

"Apple cider!" Annabeth exclaimed, sitting up again and looking, delighted, at the enormous jug of amber liquid Bruce had produced. "Seriously, Bruce, what's all this about?" Her voice sharpened with anxiety. "Did you do something stupid? You didn't mistakenly proposition the Mayor's wife, did you? Or donate a fleet of Humvees to the EPA?"

"Nothing like that," he assured her. "I just...felt bad. You looked really disappointed to be missing out on that field trip yesterday."

"Half of the appeal is watching the kids enjoy themselves." Annabeth pointed out. She glanced around down at the hay, and then over at Bruce, who was as sweetly patient as ever, and she relented. "This is incredibly…kind of you, Bruce. Thank you."

Bruce ignored her gratitude and focused on one of her previous statements. "Is it that important to you? Seeing the kids have a good time?"

"It is." Annabeth's response was immediate. "There's so little good in this damned world…everything's a struggle, and our kids are already dealing with so much awful stuff, it's nice to be able to give them something that's simple and normal, something that makes them smile." She didn't look at Bruce as she said this; her eyes were staring off into the distance, at an unseen point, and her mind was wandering down a road that she walked alone.

As the wagon began to lumber its way through the heart of Robinson Park, Bruce and Annabeth ceased their conversation and sat in companionable silence, gazing outwards at the various scenes of the autumn afternoon: couples picnicking, parents chasing their children around, mothers talking to each other as they blocked the jogging path with their enormous, tank-like strollers. Overhead, low grey clouds scuttled across the sky, pushed along by a stiff breeze which also rattled through the leaves of tall, dignified maple and sycamore trees. Annabeth tilted her face upwards to gaze at these trees, and watched as several of the reddish-brown leaves were torn from their branches and driven into a lonely exile by the wind. "Bruce?"

"Hmmm?" Bruce was watching the leaves too. He couldn't remember the last time he had spent an afternoon in enforced idleness, with no specific agenda demanding constant vigilance and calculated moves.

"You ever wish your life turned out differently?"

It was a very odd question coming from her "I can't imagine why you would think something like that." Bruce told her, genuinely a little taken aback.

"Just, I don't know, maybe a little intellectual exercise." The studied indifference in Annabeth's voice indicated that the question was anything but an intellectual adventure. "I just wonder, sometimes, if your life turns out differently, if different events and circumstances dictate a completely different direction, you'd still turn out the same."

It was an interesting question, and one that was more relevant than Annabeth realized. Bruce considered the question for a moment; thought about his mother and father and a frightened eight-year-old boy and pearls and blood and loneliness and loss and decisions which inevitably led to more loneliness and loss. "I don't know. Maybe we would turn out differently...but then, I think the seeds of who we're supposed to become are planted early on, and we grow into those people at an early age."

"But deprive any plant of light and water, or plant it in a harsh environment, and it grows stunted, thwarted, warped." Clearly, Annabeth had abandoned hypotheticals. "I guess it just goes back to nature versus nurture."

"Do you wish your life had turned out differently?" Bruce sat up straighter—not an easy task when supported by hay—and looked over at her.

Annabeth smiled a sad little smile, heartbreaking in its feebleness. "I think it would be hard not to wish that."

"But then, would you have become you—this Annabeth, this person who's here now?" Bruce tried to coax more cheer out of her.

"If I didn't become this Annabeth, the Annabeth that would be here would probably be a lot nicer to you." Annabeth's attempt at a joke was weak, but at least she was present in the moment, not reliving some past secret pain. She settled back into the hay, crossed her arms behind her head, and closed her eyes. "But this Annabeth, she let her life circumstances define her and her choices. Take away my work, my life, and I'll have nothing left. There'd be no Annabeth, no identity, no life. Nothing."

They fell silent again, but this time, it was much a much shorter silence.

"Annabeth?"

She opened her eyes and looked over at him, looming overhead at a funny angle from her vantage point. "What?"

"How did Safe Haven become your work?"

Surprisingly, her defenses didn't go up; she didn't get sharp, or cagey. But neither was she particularly forthcoming. "It's a long story."

"I'm stuck on top of a hay wagon for an afternoon," Bruce said wryly. "I've got time. It's either this or trying to find a way to get down without getting straw stuck in my orifices."

"How old were you when your parents died?"

The change in subject was unexpected and abrupt, yet deeply personal, all the more coming from Annabeth. "I was eight when my parents were murdered."

If she noted his correction, she didn't indicate it, other than a small nod. "You were eight. Which means you had eight years with them."

"Yes." He didn't see where this was going, but he marveled at her ability to turn a personal question back on the person who asked it.

"Were you happy? Did they take care of you? Do you have good memories of them?"

Annabeth was probling a very raw wound, long ago stitched up, but never fully healed. "I have memories of them," Bruce told her. "Not a lot. But I remember being happy. Being loved. And then, I remember watching it all torn away from me. I remember the loss of reality...to live in a world where my parents, my good parents were killed, it completely obliterated my concept of the world as a place of justice and beauty. Because they had taken good care of me, I was able to fully comprehend what the loss of them meant."

For a moment, she looked at him with something akin to tenderness. "I honestly don't know what's worse—to lose the parents who love you, to see them die…or to live to see your own parents fail and reject you. You had eight years with parents who loved you…I had two years with my mother before she left me."

"Left you?" Bruce repeated, even though he already knew at least the basic facts. "Not died, not killed...left?"

Annabeth smiled. "Left me. She was my mother for two years, and then she disappeared. I never saw her again."

"How do you know she left?" Bruce hated to ask, but he wanted to solve the mystery that was Annabeth. "Terrible things happen all the time. How do you know she wasn't hurt, or kidnapped?"

"No one kidnaps a white-trash woman like that." Annabeth seemed grimly amused at the mere thought. "She left my father, and she chose to leave me behind, with him...I have no memories of her, good or bad. No pictures, no cards, no physical proof, other than this body," she gestured herself, "that I had a mother."

"Why did she leave?" Even though he knew what Alfred had told him, there had been no emotion attached to the original story. Now Bruce was hearing the story from Annabeth, and it sounded entirely different. Emotionally damaged as he was, he wasn't accustomed to truly grasping the devastation of others.

"My mother had a very good reason for leaving, I'll give her that." Annabeth's mouth twisted into a tiny grimace. "She left because my father was a bastard, a nasty piece of work, and because she was tired of being scared and hurt. So she left. The kicker was that she left me with him." Annabeth stared straight at Bruce. "She chose to leave me behind. Our mothers are supposed to have this freakish, intuitive, over-powering love that conquers everything...and yet, my mother didn't. What does it mean when your own mother can't love you enough to try to save you from a terrible life?"

At that moment, Bruce wanted nothing more than to pull her to him and shelter her from the sorrows of the world. "What happened to your father?"

"Hmph." Annabeth looked vaguely disgusted. "At least with him, there's closure. After my mother left, he raised me, more or less. Or, really, his various girlfriends did. Drug-addicts, most of them, but they were surprisingly kind when they were sober. I got really good at looking out for myself." A distant look crept into Annabeth's eyes. "I was a neighborhood hellion. And then, when I turned six, my dad was arrested. A drug raid, I think—I never really got the details. Social Services came in right away, swept me off to a foster home. And I never saw my dad again."

"You didn't see him in jail?"

"He never requested to see me. I was...just an inconvenience to him. A minor detail. And he died a few years later. I was nine, with no parents. Do you know how that feels, Bruce?" She answered herself. "I guess you do know that, at least a little. But to be rejected and abandoned by your mother, and then neglected and ignored by your father? When parents fail you like that, that's the most primal wound of all. It's a wound that never stops bleeding." Annabeth chuckled, but there was no mirth. "I told you, Bruce. If Gotham had trailer parks, that's where I would have been born." She turned away from his silent, probing stare, not wanting to see the disgust, or worse, the compassion, or the pity, in his eyes.

After a moment, she felt his hand on her shoulder, resting gently. After a moment, he lightly touched her chin and guided her face back towards him; when their gaze met, Bruce smiled, comfortingly. "You're Annabeth," he told her. "A child of Gotham. And that's what I care about. All of the rest that happened to you was what made you who you are, and you shouldn't be ashamed of you." He stroked her cheek with a calloused thumb. "I know I'm not."

A sudden wind gust broke into the moment as Annabeth shivered, wrapping her jacket tighter around herself. "Anyway, the rest you know, at least a little. I was shunted about from home to home. Some were okay, one or two were absolutely awful." She saw Bruce's look of curiosity and elaborated. "Some foster families take in children so that they can get money from the government, and are absolutely horrible to the children. Every now and then, you'll read some horror stories. And then, some foster families have sexual predators." A sudden memory made her frown. "I had a friend in the foster system, Lucy. The oldest son in her foster family raped her almost every night when she was fourteen."

Bruce looked at her, startled. "...you weren't...?" he didn't want to finish the sentence. "That didn't happen to you, did it?"

"None of my foster families sexually abused me. But there were a couple of foster parents that were a little too generous in their discipline, and then I just made it worse by acting out, asshole child that I was." Annabeth shook her head. "It's an shitty world sometimes. These kids are sent to foster homes, already broken, and a lot of the times, they just don't get fixed. They have all sorts of traumas and issues, and sometimes they're sent to homes that make it worse. And even if they get a good home, what happens when they hit seventeen? They're on their own, ill-equipped, no support system. It's a horrible cycle."

"It's not what happened to you," Bruce reminded her.

"No, it's not. I avoided that fate by sheer, dumb luck." Annabeth always reminded herself of that, there but for the grace of god..."I ended up with a good foster family, and a good social worker, and somehow, we managed to forge some sort of future. I guess I just got fed up with being a hellraiser. I started to behave, get good grades...I got a Wayne scholarship-thank you, Bruce-for economically disadvantaged kids...and I decided I should be a social worker, too."

Bruce remembered Annabeth's words from before "...this Annabeth, she let her life circumstances define her and her choices. Take away my work, my life, and I'll have nothing left. There'd be no Annabeth, no identity, no life. Nothing..." Gently, he stroked her face again, relishing the feel of her skin. "Could you ever be anything else?"

"It's all I am. It's all I know." Annabeth said this with a certain defiant pride; she had made her decision, and all she knew to do was follow it through to its bitter, futile, lonely end.

In the distance, a father and mother were playing with their children, romping through a pile of dead leaves. Their shrieks of laughter echoed in the crisp air. Bruce and Annabeth watched them for a moment, and then Bruce tried to jolly her. "Look on the bright side. You can always have a kid of your own, try to do better than your own parents did. I bet you'd be a great mom."

She turned and looked at him once more. "No luck there, I'm afraid. No babies for me. Couldn't have them if I wanted to."

Bruce looked at her in surprise. "What do you mean?"

Annabeth averted her gaze. "I was pregnant...a long time ago. It turned out to be an ectopic pregnancy, and a lot of things went wrong. We didn't catch it right away, and I ended up getting pretty sick...and there was some damage. I was so young—I had just eighteen. Anyway, a while back, right after I started working at Safe Haven and got insurance, I decided to find out for certain. I went to a specialist, they poked and prodded and did some tests...and they said it wasn't likely I could get pregnant. Not impossible, but not likely. So..." she shrugged. "No family for me. Now or ever."

There was nothing Bruce could say, no gesture of comfort he could make. Annabeth's life, it seemed, was over in many ways before it had ever really begun.

Annabeth smiled understandingly. "You don't have to say anything. I can see your compassion, and that's enough. Besides," she added, "of all the shit that's gone down in my life, this, I've made my peace with most easily. You can't easily mourn what you never had...even if you do want it."

"Do you?" he asked, his voice low.

Slowly Annabeth nodded. "I do. But I don't think that's what's in the cards for me. It's not likely that I'm ever going to have a family. And that's okay with me...it has to be. I came to terms with it...Safe Haven is my family. The women and children that I'm trying to help, they're my family."

Bruce understood the sentiment all too well; he also knew that it was cold comfort in the dark night. This was not something he could share with Annabeth, however; and so he did the only thing he could think of in lieu of useless words. He slipped an arm around her shoulder; with surprise, he noted that she didn't stiffen up. Her body was warm and yielding, and so slowly, he pulled her to him until she was nestled in the crook of his shoulder, each of them drawing warmth and comfort from the other.

Overhead, the clouds darkened to a stormy lavender-grey, but even as they did, a weak ray of golden sunlight filtered through and briefly basked the forlorn couple in a thin ray of cold light.

There was nothing more to say.

The wagon trundled on.