Disclaimer: I do not own the Dark Knight Trilogy. Just my OC. Writing for fun.

A/n: So, as I mentioned. I'm rewriting my last two chapters for Dark Knight Rises. Hope you all don't mind and that you guys enjoy. I still have ideas for Melanie. :)

Chapter 38: Harvey Dent Day

8 Years Later….

I remembered it like it was yesterday. Both of us tired from the foes Batman fought for the city. Both of us sad that we'd lost friends in the act. It wasn't until I went back to my old restaurant trying to find Liz to learn that she'd died from the psychopath clown while he tried to rob her bank. She was just there to make a deposit. I missed her. I missed the nights helping Batman clean up the streets alongside Gordon. He once told Bruce that it was okay when his parents died. He was going to be okay. Most importantly he made him feel like the world hadn't ended when his parents died out on the streets. I remembered those headlines in the newspaper. Everyone did. But eight years ago today, I remembered what it was like to be held. We held each other that night after Rachel and Harvey died, after he ran from the cops that were chasing Batman throughout the city limits, and running away. Batman would be no more. He was an official outlaw vigilante.

And Bruce was just one man. A taken man by me. That night we held each other in a long embrace. And just like tonight, we were in another embrace, sleeping. Neither of us had seen light or day. Neither of us went out to see the public. The clown did us good. And today was another day of laying in bed, old, cripple…well, Bruce had a bad knee after taking a horrible hit by the Joker and I was still scared stiff from going out, despite the Harvey Dent Act. I had nightmares every night. I screamed at the top of my lungs whenever I was in a dark space and the clown showed his ugly face at me again. Bruce held me close.

I needed to get stronger somehow, but the days were just like fallen leaves in autumn, and I was just lying in bed day after day, too scared to move on.

It made us hermits. And it gave us bad reputation throughout Gotham in the Gotham Daily. Nine-inch nails. She slept with a night-light. Poor Melanie Blake still single after all this time, when in fact, they didn't know that Bruce and I had grown more intimate in the last few years together. We shared a commodity. It's true that I've thought a million ways to go about this. I could have very easily gotten up again and lived my life, and just be Melanie Blake out and about, a working class citizen of Gotham, but that sounded so boring. Or, I could've been out prowling the streets by the name of The Dark Empress in a new suit designed by Lucius Fox himself…but there were no criminals to find. The Harvey Dent Act cleaned up the streets pretty good. Unless the police wanted me to find mystery-missing books from the library, there wasn't much more for me to do except just be there by Bruce's side. I promised I'd stay. I did. It made us grow closer on a platonic level. I understood him and where he came from. He wasn't complicated as everyone made him out to be. He was just trying to help save a dying city that he grew up in. And I was too. But now, all of that seemed to disappear. It was just Bruce, Alfred, and I.

What about family? I had pondered before. And yes, I could have gone to find my family. I could have very well tried to track down at least a person that might be alive today and I had no idea. Even Alfred asked me about it a couple times. There was nothing at my orphanage. I read about a John Blake in my family history files but he never grew up in the same orphanage as me. He grew up in some boy's club, but I was too scared to introduce myself to him. The Joker was locked up at Arkham. Even though I knew he was in a padded cell, somewhere in the back of my mind taunted me that he could be anywhere and still try to torture me like he did on that very night.

Birds out my window chirped and sang out the window, waking me up, and interrupting my thoughts of the past eight years. I thought maybe we could move on from this. I thought we could work it out together. But the two of us really grew to like our company in bed all day. It was comforting and safe.

It appeared to be in the afternoon, according to Alfred when I got up to use the restroom and caught him putting our breakfast on the table by the east wing, where we stayed in most of the time.

"Good afternoon, Miss Blake," Alfred said.

"Morning, Alfred," I said. He gave me a bewildered look. "Yep. Afternoon is now morning time. Thank you for breakfast."

"You're quite welcome. And I thought I'd let you know our friend Commissioner Gordon will be on the telly today."

"Oh, right, thank you. I'll be sure to put that on," I said, and grabbed the silver tray of food to bring to us and eat it in bed.

"So…?"

I blushed. "Not today, Alfred, not today."

"I see," he chuckled lightly. "Well, there's still time."

My blush deepened. I knew what he was insinuating. Was I pregnant yet? He'd hoped for so long I would be that innocent bystander, but so far nothing.

Not so much as a mere kiss. It was a slow burn feeling the two of us felt and shared. We'd grown over the last few years yes, but I liked where our friendship had deepened because of our losses due to the stupid clown in the box. I hoped he never came out of that wretched place.

I brought the breakfast to us in our room and closed the door. Bruce had slid up in bed, covers falling off slightly, showing his bare torso. I could still see all the bruises that crawled all over him. He really took a mad hit.

I turned the TV on and handed Bruce the paper. I took the tray table and set it on a prop table so that we could eat it together and listen to the news. The commissioner looked very snazzy in his outfit, he had a nice calm look about him whenever he was on the TV. I wish I could meet him in person. The event was tonight, hosted by the Wayne Foundation. Part of me wondered if I should turn up and introduce myself, but another part of me was scared that I was going to get called out for being a shut in.

"I knew Harvey Dent, I was his friend. And it will be a very long time before someone inspires us the way he did. I believed in Harvey Dent."

Bruce tossed the paper on the end of the bed and then reached for my hand. He gave me a light kiss on top of it before we started to eat our breakfast in a comfortable silence.

~*TDKR*~