It's funny how you can have a map in mind of what is supposed to happen in a chapter, and by the time you are finished with it, it bears no resemblance to the original copy in your head. You start typing, and the next thing you know, your characters come to life and take over without your permission! I hadn't planned for one of Elle's secrets to come out just yet, but she and Dick convinced me to allow it to happen this way. I guess it was time to take their relationship to the next level . . .

Elle hesitated before packing the box inside her suitcase. It was not at all what she had hoped it would be. Okay, that was the biggest understatement of her life, but what choice did she have? She had searched and searched everywhere that costumes were sold in Bludhaven, and then in desperation had even taken a cab into Gotham City to search there. Had she time, she would have went back to Chicago to search, but alas, it was not to be.

Seriously, was everyone going to the party this year as the same person? She could only find one costume that could possibly fit a man the size of Dick Grayson. He wasn't exceptionally tall, but he was built – Man, was he built! Yesterday, she had even been desperate enough to consider a different costume altogether, but pretty much everything in his size had been sold out. So, she had taken the one she could find, and prayed it looked better on him than it did when she held it up for inspection.

Of course, it would look better on him. The man was incredible! He could make a paper bag look good . . . And that thought got her all distracted for several long minutes, imagining him walking around in the rain in naught but a paper bag, and how the bag was slowly disintegrating under the torrential onslaught. She sighed, shaking the stupid smile off of her face, and tucking the box firmly in the midst of her clothing.

Closing the lid, Elle looked at herself in the mirror, trying to stave off another panic attack. Was she really going to Gotham City to meet Dick's family? Sure, she had already met his adopted father, and Bruce had seemed very nice and laid back for such a successful businessman. He didn't seem much like her father at all. Cedric Hamilton was driven. He never seemed to take off the power suit, no matter where he was or what he was doing. Her father's entire life was the boardroom.

Her hands smoothed over the extra long, cream-colored sweater she wore over dark brown, knit leggings and her favorite brown boots. She wore a long pendant as an accessory, but Elle thought she looked too drab. Glancing at the clock, she didn't have time for an entire wardrobe change, so she looked at the hanger she tied all her scarves to, and picked out one the color of bright raspberry. She wrapped it around her neck, and liked the pop of color. And just in time, she thought, as her buzzer sounded.

Grabbing her small suitcase and overnight bag, she met Dick at her door. The kiss in greeting was long, and when her knees weakened, she leaned back into the door frame. It was almost enough to make her forget the queasiness in her stomach – almost. She loved Dick's kisses, and they only got better each time, but . . . What if his family didn't like her? What if, once Bruce got to know her, he changed his mind, and didn't want her dating his son? What if . . .

Dick pulled back, a little breathless, and looked at her. "Stop it. They're going to love you. How could they not when I do . . ."

That implication hung there between them for a long silent minute. The flips her stomach had been doing took a new roll. Surely, he didn't mean that. But he didn't bother to correct what he knew she must be thinking. He just smiled at her, and leaned in for another kiss.

Her suitcase had been set on the floor beside them, but her overnight bag slipped from her limp fingers to thump on the carpeted hallway; its existence abruptly forgotten. She wrapped her arms around his neck; her fingers slid through his hair. Neither noticed when the neighbor's door opened, or the couple that walked by them snickering in amusement, or when the elevator had closed behind them a short time later.

When the kiss ended, Elle was in a relaxed, near liquid state of bliss. Dick leaned his forehead against her. "What were we supposed to be doing again?"

Elle smiled and pulled him down for another kiss. When he pulled back a third time several minutes later, he laughed. "We better go, or we aren't going to go anywhere except back into your apartment."

A few minutes later, he was tucking her luggage into the back of a sporty, gray import.

"Is this an Aston Martin," she asked, already knowing what it was.

"Bruce let me borrow it to pick you up in," he explained. "He must like you for him to hand me the keys to one of his classic imports."

She ran an appreciative hand along its side. "The feeling is mutual . . . and I like his car, too."

Dick snorted, as he moved to open her door. Elle hummed in delight as she slid onto the buttery leather seat. She moved to grab the seat belt, but Dick beat her to it. Taking his time, he leaned across her to fasten it. She blew into his ear, making him jump and bump his head on the car's roof. Elle slapped a hand over her mouth attempting to cover her laughter.

"I'm sorry," she said, but it was kind of hard to believe her while she was giggling. "Kiss it and make it better," she offered.

"You're forgiven," he told her, darting in for another quick kiss.

Minutes later, they pulled out into traffic. Maybe now that they were on the road, they would actually make good time. It was too dangerous to kiss the driver while the car was moving, after all.

"So, what's your father like," Dick asked, after they had crossed the bridge into Gotham City. They still had another half an hour to go to reach the manor, and he decided to indulge his curiosity a bit.

Normally, he tended to steer the topic of conversation clear of family because of the secrets his held, but Bruce created a kind of conversational sabbatical when he invited Elle over for a weekend. Oddly enough, he noticed, Elle had appeared to be just as tight-lipped about her family as well.

"I told you about him," she murmured, sleepily.

"You told me he planned to kidnap you and force you into marriage if you couldn't prove your success," Dick reminded her.

"He's a businessman," she offered. "He loves wheeling and dealing; schmoozing clients; negotiating a better deal."

"I meant as a father," he clarified.

Elle turned in her seat as far as the seat belt allowed, rolling her head on the headrest, until she faced him. She studied him for several, long moments before speaking. "Doting. Involved. Generous. Overprotective. Confining . . ."

"Confining?"

"It relates to his over-protectiveness."

He glanced over at her. She looked adorable. "How so?"

She rolled her head to stare out the front window. Just when Dick thought she wouldn't tell him, she spoke. "It's a long story. It stems from my mother's death."

Ouch! Dick winced. "I'm sorry."

She looked at him, a puzzled expression on her face. "Why? You didn't kill her."

Dick's brain stuttered on that statement. What did she mean by that? She had told him that her mother had died in a car accident. Her odd phrasing, however, made him wonder. Maybe he shouldn't delve into what must be a painful memory, but he had discovered that Elle was an expert at deflecting questions she didn't want to answer. If she didn't want to talk about it, he was positive they would be discussing the impact of foreign policies on the sale of dandruff shampoo in a few minutes . . . And he would be surprisingly fascinated by the topic, he was certain.

"How did you say your mother died? You said something about a car accident," he asked carefully, testing the waters.

Minutes ticked by. Okay, he thought. She wasn't going to deflect the question; she was simply going to refuse to answer it. His heart clenched in silent sympathy for the pain she must still be experiencing after such a devastating loss.

"That isn't entirely accurate," Elle finally answered, her voice so soft, it was only just heard over the car's engine.

"Which part," he asked. He was suddenly desperate to know more about this woman, even the sad parts.

"The accident part."

He looked at her. She was staring at the buildings moving past the passenger side of the window. "It wasn't an accident," he said.

A sigh. "No."

He didn't say anything. For a long moment, she didn't either.

Her hand moved over his on the gear shift. "I never told anyone that before. No one knows . . . th-that it was anything other than an accident."

A horrible suspicion made its presence known inside Dick's head. "Elle. How do you know it wasn't an accident?" He glanced over at her again. The sunlight sparkled like diamonds against the tears on her cheek.

God, he was such an asshole! He looked and found a place to pull off. He turned into a parking garage, pausing only to get the ticket, and driving straight to the top. Only five cars were parked there. Dick parked in the corner farthest from the small cluster of vehicles.

He turned in his seat to face her. She was even beautiful when she cried. His heart thumped painfully in his chest, hurting for her; with her. He took her hand in both of his, just holding it between his; keeping it warm.

"You were there, weren't you?"

She nodded, but still refused to look at him.

"You said you were . . ."

"Seven," she answered. "I was seven."

She was a year younger than he had been when he watched his own parents die. Sixteen years ago . . . Dick's breath caught, as a thought flashed across his mind. Her mother was killed the same year that his parents had died! He had been eight at the time; she had been seven! She had never told anyone what she had just told him seconds ago. For sixteen years, Elle had kept a terrible secret bottled up inside her.

"Will you tell me about it?"

"It wasn't an accident," she repeated woodenly.

"You said that . . . Elle, how do you know it wasn't an accident? You were only seven years old at the time. Things might not have been the same as they would have appeared to a child."

Elle looked him in the eye. "Because I saw him. I saw him as he ran us off the road." Her voice was rising with each word she spoke. "I saw his face as he pushed our car off the damned cliff!"

Dick sucked in his breath. "Your car went off of a cliff? Oh, my God . . . Elle, how in the hell did you survive that?"

"We missed the rocks," she was crying openly now. "Th-the car hit the water, which might as well have been rocks. My mother . . . She didn't die instantly. I don't know how she could have possibly survived the impact, but she lived long enough to tell me to swim.

"The back window across from me had shattered when the truck hit us. W-water was pouring into the car, and we sank so fast. My mother yelled at me to swim before she died. It took forever to get the seat belt unfastened. By the time I managed it, the car had sank completely beneath the waves. It was instinct that told me that the surface was up, and up meant light. I swam toward the light.

"The waves tossed me about as I hit the surface. I think I was slammed into the rocks at the base of the cliff because when we went off the cliff, there was sunlight, but when I swam around the coast to a local beach, it was dark. I don't remember much after that. When I woke up again, I was in the hospital, and my grandparents and father were sitting next to me."

Dick gaped at her. "You should have drowned. How the hell does a seven year old swim out of a submerged vehicle, get knocked unconscious by being pounded against the rocks, and then wake up hours later to swim to shore? That you survived without serious injury is a miracle in and of itself!"

Elle gave him a curious look. "Who said I survived without serious injury?"

Dick started. "I- I guess I just assumed. I mean you swam to shore. You . . . ah, don't have a limp?" He finished lamely.

Elle laughed, despite the cold that still is inside her whenever she allowed herself to dwell on memories of that time. "A limp . . . Oh, my gosh, Dick! That is so funny! Why is that so funny?" Her laughter coalesced into sobs.

Dick released her seat belt and pulled her over into his lap. He held her while she soaked his shirt. He still sometimes cried like this. Every so often, when the memory of their deaths become suddenly poignant; becomes sharp, like a razor, and the pain is a fresh as the night it happened.

While he felt a little bad at bringing such a painful memory up, he had a feeling that she had never truly grieved; not in the way she should have. A moment like this could be cathartic, however, and he hoped it would allow the poisonous secret to seep out of the reopened wound in her psyche. He wondered why she hadn't told anyone that her mother's accident was actually murder. What would spur a child so young to keep such a devastating secret such as this? It wasn't something he was going to get out of her today, he was sure. As her tears slowed to a stop, he knew instinctively that so did her revelations.

Later, he decided. Later he would speak with her about it again.

Right now, he just needed get them to the manor. They should be able to arrive in time for lunch, and then they could meet and greet the rest of the family. Damian wouldn't be home from school until two, but she could still meet Tim and Alfred right away. He was certain that once the introductions had been made, that Elle's bad memories would fade into the background again . . . until they could talk about it in safety and privacy.

Someone had hurt her; a murderer never caught. Dick couldn't help but be determined that he would somehow find her mother's killer for her. As she calmed enough to slip back into her own seat, he put the car in gear and returned to his previous route.

By the time, they rolled to a stop in front of the manor, Elle was completely back to normal. Dick had brought up his theory on how foreign policy dictated the price of dandruff shampoo, and it was as he expected: Elle had taken the oddball topic with exaggerated relief and ran with it. It was just as fascinating a conversation as he predicted it would be.

Elle was smiling again. She felt lighter than she had earlier, thanks to her crying jag; no tension was left. She also felt intense relief to have shared a portion of her burden with someone who cared, and yet who was also removed from the situation. She was amazed that the truth had come out at all since her throat always seemed to close up every time she was asked to recall that incident. Still, she wasn't ready to admit all there was to the story. That was a topic for another day.

"Thank you," she told him, most sincerely.

"For what," he asked.

"For being you." Elle leaned over the gear shift and kissed him.

Passion mixed with relief was apparently quite the stimulating thing. Her hand slipped up to cup his face, even as his hands pulled her closer. They didn't even notice the door to the manor opening, or the eyes of its occupants watching . . .