The name of the social worker was Jenna, her flowery perfume was too strong and Tim couldn't understand a thing she was saying.
"They were in a cab on the outskirts of Paris and the other driver wasn't looking where he was going. The car rolled over into a ditch and...well...they're gone now."
"Gone?" he heard himself echo.
"Yes. I'm very sorry."
The room itself trembled and the universe was rearranged.
There were new facts in place of the old ones.
Facts such as there was no longer a 'Drake family' per say, but just one, sole Timothy Jackson that happened to have the name 'Drake' tacked onto him.
There was no one to wait for at the end of a month and no one who felt some kind of an obligation to get back to him after a certain period of time.
Nobody would spare a smile when he got a good grade and nobody would kiss him, even once, when they came home.
In fact, there was no home anymore - not one where he belonged, anyway.
His drinking, yelling, dancing, hopeless parents were gone off of the face of the planet, out of the atmosphere and away from him.
He wished that he could have asked them if they liked it better there.
The middle-aged woman tentatively placed a gleaming packet of tissues on the dinner table, seeming uncomfortable, and the eight-year-old wanted to tell her to get out of the house.
His eyes stayed dry and he was very still.
"What's supposed to happen to me now?" he asked, almost business-like.
A smarting, cruel part of his insides was happy when he saw that he had caught her off-guard and her thick glasses slipped down the bridge of her nose.
"Are...are you sure you want to talk about that right this moment?"
"Yeah - right now."
She said that there was going to be a funeral on the other side of the country, his relatives were going to be waiting for him and that she was going to escort him there by plane. His Aunt Jillian, the one that smelled like cats and usually looked like she was sucking something sour, had been the first to express interest in taking Tim into her home. No other person, so Jenna said, had offered something similar as of yet.
"How long has it been?"
"Since what, sweetie?"
He couldn't make himself say the 'd' word.
"Since Aunt Jillian and everyone else have known that they were gone."
"Ah...a week and a half."
It wasn't likely that there would be anyone else, he deduced. To Aunt Jillian's house it was, then.
His teachers told his parents that he was too smart, too mature for his age in the letters that he had never showed them and stored in a drawer in his desk. They even suggested skipping a grade or two, but Tim hadn't wanted to do that.
He saw the same message in the social worker's unblinking stare as she waited for him to break down in tears or do something vaguely expected.
"Is that it?" he asked, wanting to move his numb body to his bedroom so that he could sit there for a few hours.
"Um...yes, Timothy, that's it for today."
She left and he was relieved.
Throughout the trip to Washington and during the weekend of the funeral, he pondered over whether it was odd that he didn't feel all that sad over his parents being gone.
Was it because he hadn't loved them enough?
Was his heart cold and unnatural because he had been born weird?
Or was it because it had never felt like they were really his to have and that they had been gone for a long time already?
Tim couldn't say what it was, but when he finally did weep, surrounded by all of the other mourners and seated beside Aunt Jillian while they watched the coffins being lowered into the ground, he felt like a wretched, selfish son because he was only thinking about himself and how miserable he was going to be, living with all of the fat, hissing cats he hated forever in that cramped, stuffy house a million miles away from the street and surroundings that he had once called 'home'.
There was a bright spot to the day when he went back to Uncle Harold and Aunt Sue's, where he was staying temporarily, and he knew that Leopold was there, waiting in the middle of his suitcase. He got through the dreary dinner, thinking about how he would cuddle up with his lion and go to sleep.
The next day was just as horrible as the one before and he spent it listening to his future 'mother' talk about how much trouble his father had gotten into when he had been eight and how much more well-behaved Tim was. Supper was tasteless potatoes and tough, slightly burnt steak, specially prepared by her. She mentioned that she didn't cook much, but she might learn now and he wasn't looking forward to his diet for the next ten years or so.
Around nine, he was sent upstairs, but Tim was restless so he sat secretly at the top of the staircase so that he could make faces at the numerous adults when he knew they couldn't possibly see it and hear the words that were exchanged.
The conversation reached an interesting point after an hour.
"Who does this guy think he is anyway? I'm his father's sister - it's obvious who's going to win this game he's playing."
"What I want know is, how does he know Tim?"
"We've been over this a hundred times, Abigail. Apparently, he was the neighbor."
"Isn't it ridiculous? He's so serious that he wants a real court hearing next week. It's starting to make me nervous."
"Shouldn't you tell the boy about it, then?"
"God, no! Wait until the last second, Jill. The man might still change his mind."
"It doesn't look that way, Freddie."
"What was the name again?"
There was coughing and a pause.
"Ah...Watson, Wescott...uh, Wayne! That was it - Wayne."
Tim put his earlobe to the cool, wooden floorboards and tried to stop the world from spinning.
Had he heard it correctly?
Why was Mr. Wayne in contact with his Aunt Jillian and why did he want to go to 'court' with her?
'Court' was where lawyers and judges worked, right?
He tried to make sense of the clues that he had been given, but his head was tired and he ended up nodding off with Leopold instead.
Tim watched all of his relatives go back to their respective homes, one by one, from Monday until Saturday and played boring, lifeless games of chess with the husband of his mother's sister, Harold, who had a tendency to sneeze all over the pieces.
All the while, he kept the mystery of Mr. Wayne in the back of his mind and knew that time was drawing near to the event that had been spoken of.
On Sunday after church, they finally had a talk about it.
"Tomorrow, you're going to a special meeting with someone."
"Why?"
"Because you're going to tell him how you feel about me and you're only supposed to tell the truth so I know you're only going to say nice things. Right, Tim?"
He nodded and she kissed his cheek, but his brain was already clicking together puzzle pieces, rapidly making connections and it was as if a lightbulb turned on.
There were a few things he was certain of.
Firstly, the person he was going to talk to had some sort of authority over whether Aunt Jillian was going to be his mother or not.
Secondly, Mr. Wayne had somehow directly caused this meeting to happen and that was why she was angry at him.
And thirdly, Tim didn't want to say anything nice while he was there if he wanted to say goodbye to bad, cat smells for the rest of his life.
He got up on Monday morning in a very cheery mood and dressed in his favorite maroon 'Pikachu' shirt, humming. Uncle Harold drove him to a large building after a distasteful breakfast that he gobbled up without one grimace and gave some parting words before Tim was ushered in by men in suits.
"Your aunt is a wonderful lady. Don't make her look bad."
Turning his back, Tim grinned until his lips were going to split and shook his head slowly.
There was a man with a pad of paper at a metal table when he reached his destination. They shook hands like grown-ups and the questions started.
"Do you know your aunt well?"
"Not really. I've visited her only two times before and that isn't a lot."
"How do you feel about living with her in the near future?"
"Very unhappy."
"Why is that?"
"She has too many cats and I think she's crazy."
"Why do you think she's crazy?"
"She lives with five cats."
"Is she nice to you?"
"No. She's slapped me five times already."
The slaps were a total lie, but Tim was willing to say anything at this point. Mr. Greene, so he had introduced himself, blinked slowly and frowned.
"Why?"
"I dropped her purse once and I think she just felt like doing it the other days."
"Has she fed you breakfast, lunch and dinner this entire, past week?"
"She forgets a meal sometimes."
"Does she raise her voice at all when she speaks to you?"
"She screams the whole day."
The man squinted and watched him for a while as if trying to read his mind.
"Are you telling the truth, Timothy?"
"Of course, sir."
It went on and on like that.
By the end of his aunt's segment of the interview, Tim was very satisfied and Mr. Greene looked slightly frustrated.
"Do you know the Waynes?" the man questioned after a short break.
"Yes," he replied cautiously.
"Are they nice to you?"
"Very, very nice, sir."
"What do you think about them?"
And so, Tim told the man the truth this time - about how he thought that Mr. Wayne was the kindest, coolest adult on earth and was so wealthy that he slept on mountains of wads of cash every night, how Dick was funny, athletic and charming and he wished he could grow up to be like that and, lastly, how Jason wasn't as scary as he first appeared to be because he had even apologized to Tim after being angry.
The interviewer smiled and he felt that he had done something right.
"What would you say if I told you that they were here today?"
"You're a liar," he blurted out because that was the first thing that came to mind.
Mr. Greene laughed.
"I'm not and they are here. Would you like to see them now?"
It wasn't as if he could say 'no' and he floated, rather than walked, with the man to a room on the bottom level, his palms sweating madly. His guide opened the door and there they were - all three of them in the flesh.
Dick hopped up immediately from sitting cross-legged on the carpet and shouted his name excitedly. Jason, standing in the corner, had a shy and not at all displeased expression on his face. Mr. Wayne - well - he couldn't look at Mr. Wayne because it was just too embarrassing.
Dick enveloped Tim in a fierce hug that made him feel like he was being smothered in a good way.
"Timmy! I can't believe you're here - we thought we'd never see you again."
Tim opened his mouth, accidentally got a taste of the brand of detergent on his shirt, and managed a muffled 'why'.
"Because you disappeared all of a sudden, dummy! We were worried at first."
"Let go of him, idiot. He can't breathe."
Dick released him and he saw that Jason had placed a hand on his brother's shoulder.
"It's nice to see you, Tim," Jason said and actually flashed his sharp, white canines in a smile.
"What-what's going on? Why are you here?"
"Boys," Bruce Wayne's voice reverberated against the four walls. "Could you leave us alone for a second?"
There was no discussion or hesitation as they filed out, like soldiers commanded by their general.
"Do you want to sit down?"
He gaped at the patriarch, in jeans and a polo shirt, and didn't move.
"Come here," the man beckoned and Tim was compelled to go to the large, outstretched hand, calling him.
His legs trembled as he landed on the hard, plastic two-seater, so close to Mr. Wayne's warm form that he knew he wasn't dreaming.
"Did you talk to Mr. Greene for a long time?"
"Yes," he squeaked.
"Was that hard or unpleasant?"
He couldn't look away from the man's gaze - it held him in a fixed position.
"I don't know."
"I'm sorry about your parents. The same thing happened to me when I was your age."
His back straightened at this tidbit.
"They got into a car accident too?"
Mr. Wayne's fingers were gentle as they brushed momentarily through the strands of his hair and Tim almost sighed from contentment.
"Something like that."
The clock ticked by loudly and he still didn't understand although something in his gut told him he already did.
"Why are you here, sir?"
"Oh, Tim," the man murmured and it almost sounded fond to the boy's ears. "You don't ever have to call me 'sir'."
He didn't say anything, waiting for the answer to his question.
"I'm here because you're special."
Tim was confused and didn't think that was true.
"You're so special that two, different people want you so badly they're willing to fight each other for it. Your aunt wants you -"
He paused, gauging Tim's reaction.
"- and I want you."
Logic deteriorated and his mental capabilities halted completely. There wasn't a single thought that ran through his mind - only a blank, white space.
"I want to bring you home as my son."
A grey, blurry question mark formed, but nothing more. He wasn't sure if he was still breathing.
"Hey..."
Careful hands touched his cheeks, tilted his neck and patted his pale face, assessing his condition.
"Stay with me, now," the low order came. "Don't pass out."
Tim couldn't obey though and he fainted right in the middle of the visitor's room into Bruce Wayne's chest.
"Geez, Pops! What did you do - knock him out?" Jason demanded when he saw his father carrying the limp boy.
"He's just a little shocked, that's all," Bruce assured, feeling a headache coming on.
"Poor baby bird! My poor baby bird," Dick lamented, touching every part of Tim that he could reach. "Let's just give the government the slip and take him to Gotham already."
"You know we can't do that, Richard," Bruce growled, having lost his patience. "Could you do me a favor and be serious for two seconds?"
Dick dropped the act and frowned.
"In all honesty though, I wish we could tell that stupid aunt to back off because he's ours now."
Bruce sighed and hoisted up his light load.
"Me too, Dick. Me too."
They searched for the social workers who were in charge of Tim and reluctantly handed him away. There was a split-second where Jason reached out to touch the boy's hand before they were told to leave and it moved Bruce.
When he had initially informed his son of the plans that involved Tim, a few days after he had talked to Dick in May, Jason had been rattled and perplexed.
He remembered the then twelve-year-old's half-shouted words.
"Why do you like the dumb kid so much, huh?! What's so great about him that he has to change everything around here? Aren't Dickie and I enough? What has he got that we don't?"
Bruce had explained that he didn't want to adopt Tim because Jason was lacking in any way, but the outrage was still there.
"I know that we're supposed to pity him and everything, but this is too much! Brother? I've only got one of those and his name is Richard. Do whatever you want - I don't care."
The hostile attitude softened over the weeks and, when Tim's parents died, Jason was just as frantic as Dick over where the little boy had gone.
"He isn't there, Dad! He isn't in his house, no one is - god, what happened?"
He hadn't complained once when they celebrated his thirteenth birthday in Seattle and it was safe to say that he had warmed up to his prospective sibling.
Dick had been insanely joyful from the start, picking out nicknames and thinking up ways to play with someone several years younger than himself.
Alfred had taken the news easily and, while they were in Washington, was prepping the manor like a mother hen waiting for the arrival of a new chick.
All in all, they were more than ready to accept Tim into their lives and Bruce hoped that the process of winning him went by fast.
When Aunt Jillian drove Tim back to the house, he was in a daze. He didn't answer the thousand of nervous, high-pitched questions that she shot at him and stared out the window.
They went out to a restaurant to eat because she thought that he deserved a reward and he was only the tiniest bit guilty that he had told Mr. Greene about made-up slaps. There was a sense of awkwardness that loomed over them for the next couple of days and no number of attempted bonding activities could make it go away.
There was a new mantra that he repeated to himself over and over again.
'Mr. Wayne wants me, Mr. Wayne wants me, Mr. Wayne wants me...'
The phrase never failed to cause a warm, tingling sensation in his stomach. He believed that the man had meant what he had said, even if he didn't know why.
Why Mr. Wayne wanted him was unclear.
Was it because he had looked like fantastic 'son material', whatever that was?
Had Mr. Wayne had the sudden urge to add someone exactly four feet, three inches tall to his family and Tim, just next-door, was convenient?
He didn't know and he almost didn't care. Tim was wanted and that was such a marvelous revelation that he gave up the 'why'.
Tim watched his aunt carefully and, every time she made a call or received one, he made sure to be in the near vicinity so that he could eavesdrop. She also began to snap at him in those days so Tim retreated when he saw that he needed to. He could tell that she wasn't happy and he took that as a sign that his 'Escape from Cat-ville' was going very well.
From all of the difficult spying and sneaking Tim had been performing, he finally gleaned a golden nugget one night. He was crouching behind a massive, potted plant when Aunt Jillian, Aunt Sue and Uncle Harold were all gathered together.
"...you know, I'm so grateful to you for letting us stay here."
"No problem, Jill. We're family, aren't we?"
"I really hope this whole mess can wrap itself up soon. Mr. Tiddlebum always gets sick when I'm gone for too long."
Tim wrinkled his nose, thinking that Mr. Tiddlebum deserved it because the evil, overweight creature had scratched him the last time they had met.
"Isn't the final court hearing in two days?"
"Don't remind me - I detest public speaking. The last one almost killed me."
"Tim didn't notice when you left last time, did he?"
His lips formed a perfect circle as he remembered the mysterious absence of her and Uncle Harold on Thursday.
"No, I don't think he did."
"Mr. Wayne is a very charismatic fellow. He almost won me over with his speech about adopting those orphans."
"Yes - well - that's what's working against me, isn't it? The damned experience in child-rearing and the siblings for Tim and -"
There was a bitter, ugly laugh.
"- the wads and wads of cash in his wallet! I'm sure that he pays his lawyer well."
"I was shocked when the child psychologist said that Tim disliked you."
"He said that there was an obvious, preference problem or something, right?"
"That's what you get in this world for being generous to ungrateful orphans."
He felt that he had heard all he needed to at that point, but he couldn't move for two more hours. When he was free and climbed onto his bedspread, the glassy, black beads that served as his lion's eyes asked him many questions.
"We're getting out of here soon, Leopold! You just wait - Mr. Wayne is going to come get us."
The stuffed animal seemed doubtful and Tim bopped him on the nose.
"What do you know? You're just a lion."
He turned over on his side and then, a few minutes later, kissed Leopold as an apology for being so mean.
When Aunt Jillian and Uncle Harold left for the courthouse, Aunt Sue refused to admit to where they were going.
"How long is it going to take?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, Timothy."
"I mean, when will it be over?"
"Like I said, they went to have a cup of coffee with a friend so I'm not sure."
Tim huffed in annoyance and stalked off to Leopold, who was watching television.
"I don't know how you can look at 'Power Rangers'," he muttered under his breath so that Aunt Sue wouldn't hear him. "Our lives are at stake here."
Leopold didn't respond and, once again, Tim wished that the inanimate object could have been a real, talking lion. He knew that they didn't exist, but still.
"We're going to be okay," he mumbled to himself, putting an arm around Leopold's mane. "Even if Aunt Jillian takes us, I won't let the cats scratch you."
An hour passed, then another and one more. He fidgeted, bit his cheek and flicked through channels.
As hard to understand as it was, there was a part of him that didn't want to be adopted by the man that he idolized.
His previous fears and insecurities were still very much a part of his core and he filtered through a thousand different scenarios where the whole family decided that he wasn't cut out to be a 'Wayne' after all. He had been rejected before and he had survived, but Tim wouldn't be able to take it if it happened again.
Aunt Jillian was safer in many ways. He knew that she didn't love him and he didn't need her to either. Her motives and actions were clearly understood and that was what made her tolerably unpleasant.
However, Tim needed Mr. Wayne to love him - like he would just die if he truly discovered it was otherwise. And, he didn't understand Mr. Wayne in the least and that was dangerous.
He was tortured in both directions so when his relatives returned, he wasn't sure if he really wanted to hear the answer.
Stock-still, he observed Uncle Harold as he took off his shoes. The man cast Tim a disbelieving once-over.
"Hmmph! Look at you...in those dirty socks with that old lion."
"We're back," his aunt announced dully, shuffling in.
"The son of a billionaire - ha! - I don't believe it. I hope you have a nice life with your new daddy, Timbo. By god, you've got some luck..."
Aunt Jillian gave his uncle an agitated look and Tim's heartbeat went into overdrive. He jumped up to stand, his blood pumping.
"You - you lost? I'm...his now?"
Aunt Jillian was silent and Uncle Harold cackled.
"You betcha, kiddo. You've got 'Wayne' stamped all over you - as of the last hour. Your auntie didn't stand a chance."
"Shut up, Harry," Aunt Jillian hissed and went upstairs.
"What does that mean?" his wife whispered, helping him out of his blazer. "Is he going to pick up the child tomorrow or...?"
"No," he grunted then began to talk directly to the boy, ogling the two of them. "Your 'Papa' is pretty eager and he wants to get you today. In an hour or two, he said. So, my advice is to pack your things because you aren't coming back here again."
He raced upstairs, taking three steps at a time, his mind everywhere and nowhere all at once. Joy and terror mixed together in a potent concoction.
Shirts, pants and underwear flew into the suitcase haphazardly. He tossed his blanket onto the bed and dragged his luggage out.
Uncle Harold looked at him in amusement when he darted down and sat on the sofa with his carry-on - ready.
"You might want to put your shoes on. You don't want to make your daddy carry you to his car, do you?"
Every single word that came out of his uncle's mouth was said in a mocking, slightly unkind tone, but, deep inside, he felt that the man was glad for him somehow and didn't wish him any ill. His father's sister made her way down the steps, towards him, and Tim didn't know what to do.
"I won't be here when Mr. Hotshot arrives," she addressed the adults in the room. "I'm going out."
Her car keys jingled as she took them out of her pocket.
"Goodbye, Timothy," she said, nodding her head at him once.
Just like that, she was out of the front door and Tim didn't understand why she had wanted him so much in the first place.
His uncle pushed a breath out between his lips and then walked to the fridge to get a chilled, beer bottle.
"It's been a long, damn month," he heard him say. "I'm glad that it's over."
Tim patted Leopold on the head. He was proud of the both of them for sticking through the ordeal.
'I told you,' he said in his mind. 'We're going to be just fine.'
Author's Note: Well, that's finished. I had a hard time deciding how mature Tim was going to be for an emotionally neglected, child genius and I'm happy with the balance I've found. Just to clarify, in case any of you didn't get it, Tim doesn't actually believe that Leopold can hear him - it just comforts him. The next chapter is going to come sooner or later. I don't know when. Toodles! :)