Ice Skating

"Daddy, when will we get to the ice rink?" Helena Wayne asked, her coffee-hazel eyes sparkling with a childlike delight that made his heart dance.

"We'll be there in ten minutes, sweetheart," he said. He turned around to smile at her, then blinked twice, almost as if to make sure she was real. Sometimes he had to do that, for Helena seemed too good to be true during those times.

He turned to look at his sleeping wife. With her long, dark brown hair, matching eyes, and curvy figure, Selina Kyle-Wayne was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. He'd memorized every single one of her features – even the Cross-shaped tattoo on the left side of her right ring finger, which she'd gotten shortly after moving to Florence.

Suddenly, his eyes fell to her golden wedding band on her left ring finger, inscribed with the words plue que ma propre vie, which just so happened to mean more than my own life in French.

He turned his eyes back to road, enjoying the soft pitter-patter of the London rain against the windshield, which always relaxed and soothed him.

Nine months after her wedding and a year after Helena was born, Selina had decided that she wanted to move and live all over Europe, instead of being stuck in one place for the rest of her life.

Surprisingly, Bruce had agreed, and they'd lived all over Europe, from Paris to Athens to Berlin, eventually settling in London when Helena was four.

Now, at age six, Helena had been taking ice skating lessons since age three, and was eager to get to the rink to show off what she'd learned that week due to being the best in her class, thanks to her father's brains and mother's determination.

"We're here!" Helena announced cheerfully ten minutes later when they'd arrived at The Frozen Oval, one of London's premier rinks, causing her mother to wake up.

"Come on, Helena, couldn't you be a little quieter?" Selina asked groggily, yawning and stretching her sleepy limbs.

"Sorry, Mommy!" Helena apologized as she opened the car door and stepped out.

Once they'd gotten out of the car and Bruce had gotten their skates, Helena ran up to her parents and held both their hands as they walked to the rink.

Once they'd gotten inside, they went over to the changing area to change out of their winter boots to their skates.

As Bruce was putting his skates on, he couldn't help but chuckle when Helena started singing "Dark Horse," one of her favorite songs, at the top of her lungs, since it was being played at the moment as she wiggled out of boots and Selina helped her lace up the white figure skates she'd insisted on buying since they were like the kind the young women at the Winter Olympics used, having finished putting on her own skates.

After they were done changing, they ran off, with Helena holding tightly to her mother's hand and eagerly showing off all her most complicated tricks.

As he watched her skate, he marveled at how special she was. It seemed as if just yesterday the doctors had pulled a red, screaming baby out of Selina's womb in Florence that had blossomed into a smart, strong little fighter that he was proud to call his daughter.

Until about seven or eight years ago, a family was once a virtual impossibility for Bruce, yet here they were – his family.

"Dark Horse" finished playing as Helena and Selina were completing their lap and he was stepping out onto the ice. Then, since the rink tended to mix classical music with pop music and it was almost Christmas, "Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy" started to play.

"Daddy, skate with me!" Helena exclaimed, taking his hands and practically dragging out onto the ice.

"Fine, fine, I'll skate with you! Just don't make me fall flat on my face!" Bruce yelled good-naturedly, skating smoothly across the ice before picking Helena up and spinning her around.

Meanwhile, Selina decided to sit down on a bench and rest a bit until the song was over. Just watching her husband and daughter play made her heart dance. Up until she'd kicked Bruce's cane out from under him or glimpsed his beautiful hazel eyes, she'd never believed in true love, but the second she had, she knew where she belonged: with him. And as fate would have it, she was granted a husband and a daughter, things that she never thought would exist in her world.

When the song finished, Helena walked over to her and sat down. "Hi, Mommy," she said a little sleepily, covering her mouth with her wrist to conceal a little yawn.

"Hello, angel," Selina said, kissing the top of her head. "Where's Daddy?"

"He said he wants to do one more lap and then we're heading home since it's dark," Helena explained, pointing to a window. Selina followed her finger and saw that it was indeed dark out, and a faint but beautiful and silvery moon and a few stars were shining.

Just then, Bruce finished his lap. "Are you ready to go home?" he asked quietly, noticing that Helena was sound asleep with her head on Selina's shoulder.

"Yeah," she responded with a small yawn. "I just want to take a hot bath and crawl into bed."

"Well, then, let's go," Bruce said, gently shaking Helena awake. She bolted upright and looked around, a wild expression in her eyes.

"Where are we?" she asked bewilderedly.

"At the ice rink," he explained. "Let's go home."

As they walked to the changing area, Helena could barely keep her eyes open and by the time she was done changing, Bruce decided it would be better to just carry her to the car.

As they walked out of the rink and to the car Bruce instinctively clutched Helena tighter, enjoying her warm breath on his neck, since it was freezing.

When he got to the car, he gently sat her down and kissed the top of her head after buckling her seat belt.

Selina gracefully sat down next to him in her seat, then fell asleep almost immediately as he turned the ignition on and started to drive toward home.

As he looked at his sleeping wife and daughter, he knew that the demons of his past wouldn't ever truly leave.

But now he had angels to keep them at bay.