Days Like These

Posted: 04.26.2006

Author: Batman_Wolverine (a.k.a. Bruce Logan)
Genre: Romance, Angst
Pairing/Characters: Not my usual
Rating: PG
Summary: He remembers her and how they were.
Series: Oneshot (1/1)
Spoilers: War Games, War Crimes and OYL (Batman, Detective Comics)
Notes: Takes place in current DC Comics Universe i.e. OYL/post-Crisis

Disclaimer: Don't own Batman or any other related character. All owned and copy righted by DC. There are no OCs in this story.

Three days.

That’s the longest he has gone without thinking about her.

Even now, even after all that has happened between and around them. Even now after all that has changed, maybe forever. He still thinks about her. Not that he hasn’t tried to stop himself from doing so. He knows that there might not ever be a time for them…for him to get back what they shared, and what more they could have had. Yet, he does not fret over what could have been, but fondly remembers what was, and although he cannot forget what she did, he nevertheless tries his best to ignore it…specially on a day like today.

--

Eight months and three days.

Was when he last laid his eyes on her.

He doesn’t know if the others know the specifics of his trip. Maybe one, maybe HE knows about it, but as with many other things between them, this too has been relegated to the annals of non-discussion. They are more family than family itself, yet, as with any other family, the members of their family too have their own independent identity…their own independent life.

It had been a three day long trip round trip for him. Blood and sweat he shed in reaching her. Months of pain he earned in that short time for not being able to go to her, draw her close, wipe away her own sweat and tears. Yet those few minutes made it all worthwhile. Even if he did not go to her, talk to her, he had at least seen her. If nothing else, she was alive and well…as well as someone in her state could be.

---

Fifteen months, two weeks and four days.

That’s how long it has been since he last held her close in his embrace.

One mistake and a lifetime of work was lost. No, not a mistake, he corrects himself. As much as his heart would like to convince him, his mind…his beliefs, ideals and principles won’t allow him to believe otherwise. It wasn’t a mistake, it was deliberate doing on her part….and that is something he cannot bring himself to comprehend and forget, not even for her.

He still cannot understand how the woman he thought he knew to the deepest of her core, how the woman who had spent years helping others…even at the cost of her own happiness, health and sometimes even her safety. How that woman, that angel, how could she act so callously? How could she take a life? How could she forget her oath?

He does not know what her reasons were, as he does not what she said to HIM and what HE said in return. On HIS return, even though HIS hard words revealed nothing, the eyes said it all. Of the few times he had seen that lost haunted look in those eyes, that time was one of them. For HIM and for everyone around them, they, he and she had not only been their elders, their father and mother figures, but also something else….something more important. They had been their morals, their ethics…their conscience. And in one sweep half of that conscience was lost…maybe forever.

How could she? He has asked himself and wanted to ask HIM many a time. Yet he hasn’t, because just as he knows that HE won’t talk about it, so he knows that neither of them has the answer for how a person who her whole life walked the path of peace, of forgiveness, of help, how the most peace loving, most caring person either of them knew…how could she do such a thing? How could she take a life of another? Of an innocent whose only fault was trying to help others.

True SHE had made a mistake herself, her endeavor to prove herself to the one person all of them looked up to, getting out of hand. Yet, SHE was trying to help, trying to make up of it. If anyone deserved what she did, it was definitely not HER.

---

Nineteen Years, one month and five days.

Was when he first kissed her.

It had been sudden and yet not. Over the years they had drawn closer and closer, going from acquaintances to friend to close, maybe even best friends. And on that night, in that one moment, they crossed the line giving each other a part of their hearts and taking a part of the other’s in return.

She was leaving a few hours later, her sudden departure an unwelcome surprise to him. Standing there in the near empty room, he held her close, his spoken words reminding there that Gotham would always miss her, his gentle yet firm embrace saying that so would he.

Over the years, they kissed again, and every time it was as if was the first.

---

Twenty seven years, three months and seventeen days.

That was the day when he first met her.

They were both much younger then, though she was just as beautiful, just as regal….if a bit less than what she had become over the years. As per his duty, he opened the door to welcome her, their eyes capturing each others, the spark between them instant. He had seen others more physically pleasing than her, but never one so beautiful, never one so utterly complete.

Everything he ever wanted in a woman, she was all that and more. Had life not taken the turn it did, if they hadn’t suffered a loss so great, the loss that paled in comparison to the loss that the sweetest, most innocent boy they knew suffered, maybe they could have….

Maybe. That is what all he has left with him now. Yet, today he does not allow himself to remember any of that, neither the ‘maybe’ nor her ‘betrayal of her ideals and his…their trust’, nothing. Today, it is just the years they spent as friends and the few stolen moments when they were something more.

Walking to the window, he sets down the tray, lights the lone candle adorning the cake that he baked himself and lifts his gaze towards the east, his aging eyes twinkling with the memories of the gone but not forgotten past. His lips part in a barely audible whisper.

“Happy Birthday Leslie.”

Note: Although I had been thinking about this for quite sometime, I just got to writing it down now. Was going to make it a bit longer, but somehow it didn’t quite fit in the current scenario.

Although the characters are pretty clear, the ‘HIM/He’ and ‘SHE/HER’ (capitals) are for Bruce Wayne/Batman and Stephanie Brown/Spoiler, respectively.

Don’t know what Leslie Thompkins’ situation is OYL. Would like to see more of her. Seeing that she has been a mainstay and an important part of the Bat-world, it would be a shame to just let her slip into anonymity.