Tweetie

43

"Absolutely nothing. I'm just chillin', killin'."

He sighed again, watching her push herself up to look at him.

Frustratingly, this wasn't the first time they had been in this situation. The last time, it was when she had a little more care, when she had died for just a minute and she was actually bothered by her poor health... Things had changed.

"Hazel, please. I'm worried."

"I know," she sunk again. She thought she would be able to look him in the eyes when she spoke, she thought she would be able to handle everything. But she was wrong, just like she was wrong about a lot of things.

"One of these days," Roderick lowered his head and hushed his words slightly, "you're going to get yourself into a bad situation you can't get out of."

"...It wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen..."

"Do you know what you're saying, Hazel? Do you even realise?"

He paused and looked her over before sinking, his eyes boring into her as the thought struck him down like lightning.

"Of course you do..." He said in a breath of realisation. "Of course you do," he repeated, "...How long have you been thinking this way?"

"...A long time," she admitted, seeing no point in hiding the truth now that he knew more than anyone else had ever figured, "after granddad died..."

"Before-" he stopped, blinked, then leaned in with a hushed voice, "before you were even a detective?"

She nodded and suddenly, things began to click. He had known her longer than anyone. He knew her before she was The Hazel White, he knew her when she still cared, when she had barely a grasp of what she was doing in the world. She had come a long way, but for what? For this?

He felt partly to blame. If he had kept her away from crime scenes, if he had been there a little more, maybe she would never have become a detective. He knew her for years, he knew her life before all of this. But there they were, struggling to get through it because he didn't think to stop things from going too far. It wasn't his fault but, he couldn't convince himself of that.

"Your stupid, badly thought out schemes, the carelessness, getting hurt over and over... that wasn't just idiocy, was it?"

She didn't answer. Yet, the silence said more than she ever could.

"Talk to me, Hazel. Please."

"I don't want to be Hazel anymore."

She shook her head, unable to look anywhere but the blue blanket that seemed to be getting wetter and wetter as tears fell from her eyes with nowhere to go but down. She would have wiped them from her cheeks, but her hands were numb and wrapped too tightly. They hurt too much.

She didn't remember when she last cried. She didn't even feel like she was crying, but the tears were there, she felt them rolling down her cheeks and over her trembling lips, around her nose and just about everywhere. But she didn't feel it, not really. She just felt helpless.

"Then, should I call you Robin?" He asked.

She nodded. She didn't want to have to keep hearing the reminder of who she had become every time somebody called her out.

"We'll figure this out, Robin." He said, "if you need to talk about anything. The crime, life, life before all of this. Call me. I know I'm busier than I used to be, but I'll always make time for you. You know that, right?"

She smiled up at him sadly, her smile shaking and quivering as her nose turned red from sniffing and crying.

"I miss living with you," she admitted in a shaky voice. "I think that's the closest I felt to family in a long time."