Young Justice -:- Roots

It has happened. It has finally happened. Here we stand at the precipice of a completed fic, this story having finally come to an end. It has been a long journey; full of twists and turns and posting delays – but have no fear, my incredibly loyal followers, for it is over.

(Except for the bonus chapter. But still.)

I have gushings of thank you's and whatnots to rain down upon you at the end of this chapter, but for now, I believe that you have waited long enough. Please, enjoy this final offering of emotional heartache, daddy!bats, and Dick Grayson awesomeness.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

I don't know how I got there.

I don't even remember getting up and leaving the theatre room, let alone stealing Timmy's bike and riding halfway across Gotham. It was as if I had blacked out – a flicker of darkness and suddenly I was standing next to the treehouse and staring up at Zucco's house by Robinson Park, the red hood pulled up like a shield around my face.

The storm was bad; dangerous even – the wind sharp enough and strong enough to literally shred anything left to the mercy of the elements; the rain so heavy that it was as if it were one solid mass falling from the sky rather than droplets. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled like something out of a disaster movie, but I barely noticed any of that.

All I could see was Tony Zucco; face grinning – getting away with murder.

There was a knife in my hand.

(Use it.)

How it got there, I don't remember, but I think that maybe it was the blade that I had confiscated from that mugger months before; buried and forgotten at the bottom of my backpack until the rage had made me reach for it. What I intended to do with it, I didn't really know.

(Well, that's not strictly true now, is it?)

The intent was there; the desire, for sure. (Kill him. Kill him. Kill him.) Every little debate that I had had with myself since realising that Zucco had murdered my family (Could I do it? Should I do it?) played out in my head – the voices arguing back and forth until I felt like I was going crazy. (He took everything.) But the fear was there too. (Bound. Helpless. Would you like to know how I killed your family?) Oddly, though, that just tightened my grip on the weapon, washing everything red. Anger was stronger.

I wasn't really thinking – the voices were too loud to allow something as pesky as logic to get through – as I ran up the garden path. (Accidents happen.) My movements were automatic, falling back on an old plan that I had come up with ages ago in order to break into the house. (Nothing so quick as falling.) Avoiding being seen by the guard more through luck than actual skill, I scaled the back wall and crept along the sloped roof, heading straight for the window that I had scoped out using Selina's training.

In my haste I was being careless, stealth forgotten, (Get him. Kill him. Stop him.) sneakers squeaking on the slick tiles and footsteps far too heavy for the (last) Flying Grayson. If it weren't for the storm drowning out absolutely everything then I would have been discovered already. It couldn't drown out the voices though.

(Does that make it hurt less? Or more?)

The window opened with ease like an invitation, (Meant to. Have to.) and I tumbled through, hitting the carpet with a thud (thud. Thud. THUD.) I was shaking so hard that it was nearly impossible to get back to my feet; the knife held so tightly in my hand that the hilt was being imprinted on my palm.

It was dark, the power knocked out by the storm, but a burst of lightening briefly illuminated the hallway that I had landed in.

Five doors. Five choices. Zucco was behind one of them.

(Kill him.)

Bang. I kicked open the nearest door, the brass handle crashing into the wall. Empty.

(Kill him.)

I turned, staggered, smacked into a little side table and knocked a photo frame to the floor. There was no grace or balance to be had. Everything that I had been taught or learned was forgotten, like I no longer deserved to know it while nothing but (Kill Him.) rage and retribution occupied my head. I had no control; and if I had had the sense of mind right then that would have terrified me – the fear of losing myself so completely coming true, and I hadn't the will nor the want to stop it.

"Robin?"

The door that I had just been about to slam through was now open, Sonia standing there in a pair of Disney princess jammies with her blonde hair tied up in pigtails.

Instantly, everything went silent. Blank. My head that had literally just been full of murderous thoughts was suddenly a dark void; empty and desolate. Shock.

Distantly, I registered the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs; the guards having finally decided that the banging and the crashing wasn't simply the storm and just now coming up to investigate. Sonia glanced in their direction, hearing them too, and then she was dragging me into her room and hiding me behind the door.

"Miss Zucco? Is everything alright?" one of the guards asked as Sonia stepped out into the hall. I listened as she covered for me; telling her father's men that it was her that had knocked the table and caused all of the noise, even sniffling a little as she apologised and asked them not to tell her dad.

Once they were gone, she came back into the room and shut the door, and then proceeded to stare at me.

"Did you comes here to kill my dad?" she asked, her tone hard to decipher through the complete nothingness that was my mind. It didn't sound overly like an accusation; which made no sense. She could see the knife in my hand. I wasn't trying to hide it. But the cadence of her voice was light, tinged with something darker, but still... sweet, like maybe she was trying to make a joke. Trying to make this easier. "Because he's not here right now. Try again later."

That jolted my brain; jump-starting my thoughts. I stared back at Sonia for a moment, her sad eyes sympathetic despite my obvious intentions. I slid down the wall and curled up on the floor as the reality of what I had come there to do hit me like a super-punch to the gut. I felt physically sick, disgusted, terrified, confused, lost, frightened and... still so damn angry.

"Robin?" Sonia prodded, making me jump, though her words were whispered only loud enough to be heard over the wind and the rain that bullied the house. She was sitting cross-legged right in front of me, her hand reaching out to rest on my arm.

I flinched back, undeserving. "W-why-?" I stammered, my voice hoarse from crying. Tears that I hadn't known that I had shed dried on my cheeks even as fresh ones fell; my emotions running rampant as I struggled to find control. "Why are you being so... You know why I'm here."

"I do," Sonia nodded, which didn't help to alleviate the guilt or the confusion in the slightest.

"Then how can you be so-?" I gestured at her, trying to indicate her eerie calm, but failing to find the words.

"Because I knows you won't," she answered confidently, and then shrugged, a sad half-smile on her lips. "And not just because he's not here."

I shook my head, trying to understand. "But I didn't know that," I said, referring to Zucco's absence. I held up the knife pointedly, assuming that she just didn't see how serious this was. How serious I was. "Look at this, Son. I was going to use this. Zucco – your dad – you don't how much I – you don't know what he's done-"

"I knows what he's done to you. Richard Grayson."

My brain shuddered to a halt once again as my real name passed her lips.

"I recognised you when I first mets you that day at the treehouse," Sonia explained, sounding guilty and apologetic. Like it was her that had been deceiving me. "It was on the news, what happened to your family, and Daddy... he, he said some nasty things. Tolds me what he had done... I think he thought he was talking to Mom," she said sadly, eyes distant. "But when I asked you who you were, you lied and I... I didn't want to scare you away."

"You knew about..." I tugged at the red hoodie that had been darkened to near-black by the rain. Sonia nodded. She had known all this time? Every lie that I had told, every act that I had put on... she had just been playing along? Why?

She had let me 'kidnap' her, I realised belatedly; things slowly beginning to click into place. That day at Amusement Mile – even with the memories of her mom haunting her – she had gone along with the ruse. Accepting every weird excuse that I had given her, confiding in me as though she trusted me; the whole time knowing that I was essentially using her. That at the end of the day, I wanted to hurt her dad. And yet there she was, sitting there and reassuring me as I broke down in front of her as if none of it mattered.

Like we were truly friends despite it all.

"Why didn't you ever say anything?" I asked brokenly.

Sonia forced me to meet her brown eyes, and this time as she reached out to touch my arm, I let her.

"I was waiting for you to trust me, as much as I trust you."

Silence fell as her words sunk in; the only sound my ragged breathing and the subdued racket of the storm still raging in the background. I shivered in the cold, Sonia's hand on my arm the only warmth that I could feel as I tried to process everything. I just couldn't believe that she had stuck by me this whole time knowing, patiently waiting for me to realise that maybe it wasn't all an act.

Everything was a mess. I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do with this revelation, and how that was supposed to effect what I did next. Did I feel lighter knowing that Sonia had lied to me too? Sure, the guilt had lifted a little. Did I feel slightly calmer now than I had when I had first broken into the house? Maybe.

Did I feel safer knowing that Zucco was walking free – had the fear gone away? No. Did I feel as if justice had been done – was there any closure for the loss of my family? No. When I looked down at the knife in my hand, did I still want to use it? Yes. The betrayal, the rage, the terror, was still very much there. And as much as I knew that it would hurt Sonia; the desire to hurt Tony Zucco hadn't ebbed in the slightest.

"Would it make you feel better?" Sonia asked after a while. "Killing my dad?"

I thought it over, carefully, trying to see beyond the anger and the hurt that I had allowed to dictate my actions. But it was hard, it was so hard to see anything past the weapon I held and the memories of everything that Zucco had done. All the pain that he had caused – and would continue to inflict. "It would stop him from hurting anyone else," I reasoned out loud. I looked at Sonia. "It would stop him from hurting you."

"But would it make you feel better?" she repeated, as if I had missed the point.

Maybe it would, I thought to myself. I mean, I wasn't an idiot, I knew that it wouldn't magically fix everything. It wouldn't bring my family back. But maybe I could get that closure, knowing that the monster that had haunted me would never be able to hurt me again. Maybe then I could move on like I had when I had believed that Zucco was in jail... and this time he would never come back.

"I tried it my way, Son," I said eventually. "I tried to make it hurt less by taking things from him, making him feel it too. The things I did – the car, the house... you..." I hesitated, glancing at Sonia who nodded, confirming for sure that she had known about the 'kidnapping'. "It wasn't enough. I've tried it the law-way as well. Justice and Revenge and he's still... I'm still..."

"Do you trust me now, Robin?" Sonia asked, cutting me off. Without a seconds hesitation, I nodded. "Then listen to me. You are my best friend, whatever happens."

She paused, trying to find the right way to word what she wanted to say. I watched as she briefly imitated a goldfish, and then her face settled, totally resolved. "If you still want to kill my Dad then..." she said, and then took a deep, readying breath. I ducked my head, expecting a threat of some kind. But no. "Then... then we'll go to Uncle Falcone's right now and I'll... I'll... I'll help."

Sonia stumbled over the words, but her conviction was true. I didn't doubt for a moment that if I asked her to, she would be willingly complicit in her own father's murder. I floundered for words, trying to find something that would tell her just how much I did not want that. How much I never wanted that.

But Sonia wasn't finished.

"But I know you, Robin," she continued, once again using the name that I had given her, like the deception behind it didn't make it any less real. "I saw you that day at the cinema. You saved those people from Penguin with no thought for yourself and... and..."

She trailed off, her hand squeezing tighter on my arm. "Do you remembers what I said? After? That maybe anyone can be a good guy? You taught me that and..." she smiled at me warmly. "And I want to be a good guy like you."

My cheeks flushed from the praise, Sonia once again the only person to confirm that my junior-vigilantism, my attempts to help people, my want to maybe become a hero, was the right thing to do.

"I don't want that to change," Sonia murmured quietly. "And killing my dad? That would change you."

All of a sudden she was pulling me into a hug, arms flung around my shoulders and her face pressed against my neck; completely fearless of the knife that I still held loosely in my hand. We were both crying by then, clinging on to each other tight. Best friends. She would do anything for me, and I realised then, that I would do anything she asked of me too.

"So please, Robin," she begged against my shoulder. "Please don't become a bad guy like him."

The knife thudded against the carpet

The bike was gone.

Two hours after having tumbled in through Zucco's window and I was back out in the rain; standing near the overpass on the other side of Robinson Park, and staring at the empty space that had once housed Tim's borrowed bike. I shouldn't have been surprised – this was Gotham, after all – but after everything that had happened that night, the thought of tiny Timmy's disappointed face just felt like another nail in my coffin.

I was riding the low of the adrenaline rush that had long since abandoned me; the aftermath of blind rage and deep confessions leaving me with nothing left. I was strung out and exhausted, shaking from both the cold and my abused emotions and I...

And I just wanted to go home.

But that was yet another question that I didn't have the energy to face.

Apparently, I had had more of a plan than I remembered being coherent enough to formulate, because as I had left Sonia's I had found my backpack waiting for me at the treehouse. It was packed and ready (it had never been unpacked), the go-bag prepped with clothes and food and a few first aid supplies. I was ready to run. On some unconscious level, I had known that if I had gone through with killing Zucco, there was no way that I could have ever returned to Wayne Manor.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened to me if it had been Zucco and not Sonia that I had met that night – how different would my life have been? How different would I have been?

All I know for certain is that I would have ended up totally alone.

Ending his life would have ended my own.

But I hadn't crossed that line. I hadn't killed Zucco. And weirdly, that screwed everything up. It was obvious before; running away would have been the only option, but now I could go back. Gradually, over those past few months, I had grown comfortable at Wayne Manor; and Bruce, Alfred... they really seemed to care. Could I go back to them? Admit what I had almost done?

Could I face their disappointment in me?

I didn't hear the deep rumble of the engine, the rain thundering down on the concrete overpass was far too loud for that, but I did feel his presence. Headlamps flooded the small incline, casting my shadow long as I turned around slowly and looked up.

Batman stood beside the batmobile, expression unreadable through the cowl.

"Get in the car."

I obeyed the order, automatically, more than anything, trudging up the muddy hill and ducking under Batman's arm as he held the passenger door open for me. It was my first ride in the batmobile – I should have been excited or thrilled or something, but I was too out of it to really care. I had figured that this was it – that it didn't matter what I wanted, Batman must know what I had done; that I was a potential killer. My stay at Wayne Manor was over. He was just taking me home to maintain cover or whatever, and in the morning, Bruce would be handing me over to social services.

Maybe he'd drive me back to Bristol himself.

The journey passed in total silence. When the car eventually stopped in the cave, I didn't react; I just waited for the inevitable. Batman climbed out of the car and vanished – probably to prepare a lecture, or maybe just to confirm arrangements for my departure with Alfred. I couldn't muster the energy to care; simply slouching further in my seat and letting the exhaustion numb my mind and body.

And then the door on my side opened, and Bruce was crouched down next to me in a pair of sweats and a tee; the man behind the mask studying me with concern and understanding.

I blinked in confusion at his expression, but didn't try to fight or argue when Bruce simply picked me up without a word. I just curled into the safety and warmth that he offered; surprised and relieved and tensed, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"My word!" Alfred exclaimed when he saw us, immediately coming over to check on me. "Is he hurt, sir?"

Bruce shook his head and held me tighter. "It's okay. I got him, Alfred."

The butler nodded and backed away slightly, his expression an odd mix of worry for me and delight toward Bruce; as if maybe he was glad to finally see this side of his eldest charge, but hated the situation that had brought it about.

Bruce carried me all the way up the stairs and to my room, and then gently sat me down on the huge bed, ignoring the mud that instantly covered the comforter. I shivered in my rain-soaked clothes, prompting him to grab the blanket from the end of the bed and wrap it around my shoulders. And then he grabbed a towel from the bathroom and pulled down my hood so that we could dry my hair.

Everything was done in complete silence. I still couldn't figure out if this meant that he was mad at me but just didn't want me to catch a cold, or if maybe he didn't know about Zucco yet and he had just caught me playing vigilante without permission. Or maybe he wasn't angry with me at all... because the way that he looked at me... it just didn't really seem irate. In fact, he actually looked kinda... proud...

And I just couldn't understand that at all.

"I never found the man who killed my parents," Bruce said finally, his eyes distant as he stared at somewhere over my left shoulder. I winced somewhat warily, knowing for certain now that he knew about Zucco. This was the beginning of the lecture, I was sure of it. And it was going to end the way that I feared. "The police never found out who did it, and I didn't have the ability to find out myself."

And there was the anger – but it wasn't directed at me, I realised. He was mad at himself, believing that he had somehow betrayed his parents by not prowling the night in search of their killer. "Sometimes, I wonder, what would I do if I ever found him?" Bruce told me, "And then I feel the anger and the pain. And I realise then that I don't like the honest answer to that question."

Finally, he met my gaze, the pride that I had thought I saw earlier shining through. "I can't imagine the strength that it would take to walk away."

I buried myself deeper into the blanket, trying to hide the shame that I felt. As far as I was concerned, there hadn't been any strength on my part; just coincidence and happenstance. If Zucco had been home – if Sonia hadn't of intercepted me – I highly doubted that I would have had the so-called 'strength' to walk away. I felt like a coward; scared, confused, weak...

Bruce pulled me into a hug.

It was so unexpected that I froze up for a moment; Bruce sensing my hesitation and tensing as well, but thankfully not releasing the hold. He had never willingly offered that kind of support before – he wasn't the hugging type. He had presented himself as more of a distant benefactor than anything. But the comfort felt good and I was so tired and drained and in desperate need of such a simple gesture, that in moments I had relaxed into the hug.

We stayed like that for a while, until I was practically falling asleep in his arms. It was just as my eyes were slipping closed that Bruce chose to speak again.

"I've given this a lot of thought," he began confidently; and instantly I was on edge again, believing that despite the affection, Bruce was still going to send me back. But then I could hear the hesitation in his voice as he continued. "I... I could never replace your parents..."

I looked up at him from where I was still bundled against his chest, trying to work out if that meant what I thought it might mean. "I wouldn't want you to," I whispered, the words slipping out without me intending them to.

Bruce looked away for a moment, and I internally cringed, thinking that I had screwed up my chances.

But then he nodded to himself, and glanced back down at me again. He found the edge of my hood that was poking out of the blanket and tugged at it pointedly. "This would have to stop," he warned.

I nodded. I wasn't 100% sure as to what end it was that I was agreeing to, but something that felt a little bit like hope was warming in my chest.

"But we will still bring Tony Zucco to justice," Bruce promised. He pulled back out of the hug a little so that he could properly look me in the eye. "I swear that he will pay for all that he's done to you, Dick. Until then, I'll keep you safe. Wayne Manor can be your home for as long as you want it."

Not need. Want. Only a slight difference to what he had said when he had last offered the manor as a home, but I think that maybe that was more important to me right then than even the oath of bringing Zucco to justice. It proved that I wasn't a burden. That I wasn't a responsibility that Bruce hadn't expected or needed and maybe, just maybe, I was wanted as well.

"Would you like to become my ward?" Bruce asked.

I didn't even have to think about it.

"Yes."

When I woke up the next morning I was alone, but that was okay.

The big bed in the huge room oddly didn't seem so scary anymore; and as I lay there, staring up at the ceiling, I realised that I actually felt safe and warm and comfortable. I figured that maybe the tension and fear that had kept me awake at night wasn't really the space and the shadows. Maybe it was because yesterday... yesterday the manor wasn't my home. But now...

I pushed myself upright, feeling better rested than I had in ages – since probably before the Fall – and just sat there for a moment. Someone had stuck me in my Superman pyjamas, my muddy clothes from the night before freshly laundered and folded on top of the dresser. My backpack, still packed and ready, rested by the door as if left there on purpose. As if the option was still there for me to leave if I so wanted.

As if Bruce was just as afraid of me changing my mind as I was of him changing his.

Slowly, I climbed out of the bed and stood, stretching out the kinks from sleeping so heavily before tiptoeing over to the dresser. I have to admit, the thought did cross my mind to leave. I was so scared of screwing this up; terrified of having a new home and maybe a new family and then losing it all over again. I didn't think that I could survive that a second time.

But I had been alone for so long now and I was tired of that. And I thought that maybe my parents wouldn't want that for me either. They probably would have liked Bruce, I figured, and staying there at Wayne Manor, I could have a good life like most parents want for their children. And maybe that would make them proud.

My fingers wrapped around the red fabric of the hoodie that I had practically lived in for nearly a year. I recalled all of the reasons behind it, all that it meant and represented. Every fight lost and won, and every achievement earned, was woven into each tear and stain. Alfred had repaired it, of course, and the blood had been thoroughly washed out, but I could still feel it there. You might think that it was just a jumper, but for me it had been an escape, a mask; a whole new identity that I had created to help me figure out how to cope.

But Bruce was right. It would have to end now.

It was time to start over. A new life and all that. And the Red Hood just didn't fit anymore.

I didn't need it anymore.

Picking up the hoodie, I walked over to the closet that I had been nesting in and pulled open the door. Half of the rack was occupied by clothes that Alfred had bought for me, but nothing there was actually mine. I grabbed an empty hanger and carefully hooked the jumper on it, hesitating a moment before slotting it in the vacant space.

And then I stepped back and paused; my eyes sliding over to the backpack by the door.

Maybe it was time to unpack.

When the training started, it was never explicitly called 'training'.

I think that maybe Bruce understood that the urge to go out in the middle of the night and play hero never really went away once you had had a taste; and so in an excellent display of parenting skills, Bruce had had a gym fitted in the cave especially suited for my skill set. The idea was to bleed off the extra energy and wear me out during the day, so that come the night I was too tired to try and sneak out on my own, Red Hood or no. But over time it gradually developed from me simply having fun on the parallel bars to actual set training regimes.

No one ever said out loud what the end game would be, but Alfred's disapproval grew monumentally when one day the Aikido and Tae Kwon Do training began.

"He needs to learn how to defend himself," Bruce had said.

He hasn't had a properly cooked steak since.

But Bruce had changed since I had come along; and even Alfred was beginning to admit that, if only to himself. He was developing these scary things called 'social skills', and though Bruce would never say it out loud; as he helped to form the Justice League, he was also making friends.

It was gradual, not overly noticeable (breaking through years of stunted emotional growth doesn't happen overnight) but it was happening.

And Batman was changing with him.

It was nearly March by the time that it was finally considered a possibility that I could be a vigilante again. One night, an Arkham breakout had left Batman stretched thin, forcing him to call for back-up. I was at the cave, listening and watching the city's security feeds, begging Alfred to let me go and help. I was ten, I had argued (because being ten-years-old had seemed so grown-up back then) but the butler had refused. Ultimately, Batman had called the Flash for help, though he clearly wasn't happy about it.

I think that's when Bruce first really considered the idea of having a 'sidekick'.

But still I was kept home, another month passing and the first anniversary of the death of my family survived, barely, before anything more came of it.

Batman had finally built an airtight case against Tony Zucco. No lawyer in the 'verse could find a loophole or technicality to dismiss it. This time, officially, the man who murdered my family was going to pay.

And I was invited along to make the arrest.

"I suppose that if you must insist on going through with this, Master Richard" Alfred had said that day as we stood in the cave. It was clear that he wasn't happy about this, but he understood how important it was for me. How much I needed to be there. Even if nothing more ever came of it – even if the cape was hung up beside the hoodie the next day, it didn't matter. "Then I should ensure that you are well-protected. And looking stylish, of course."

He presented the uniform to me then, the red, black and yellow reminiscent of the Flying Graysons and reminding me of why I was doing this. The first version had thicker armour than I would eventually develop, Alfred being a little overzealous with the kevlar in his concern for my well-being, but I loved it anyway.

Alfred smiled at my excitement, though worry still tinged his eyes. "I assume that you will be needing a name as well, young sir?"

Well, that was easy. My mother had given it to me years ago. I had been using it with Sonia since we had met. She was the one that had validated me and my grand attempts at being a hero, saying the moniker like it was my true name all along.

I guess that little Annie Trudeau had been right that day at Haly's.

'You'll never stop flying, Robin.'

And that is how Dick Grayson became Robin in a 100-odd thousand words or less. Now Bruce just needs to give us his two-cents on the subject in the bonus chapter and then I can mark this little ficlet as *complete* YAY!

Now, to the endless reams of ramblings and replies:

To the couple of people who wanted to see more of this story in a sequel or whatever, I am afraid that nope, I have no plans for that. I love Dickie to pieces but I am absolutely done with 1st person POV; and as this fic has already ended up a lot longer and more involved than I had originally expected, I don't particularly want to get buried in another epic again (for a while at least). Besides; I have other projects planned (Loyalty – coming soon!)

I might potentially do little one-shot tag type things though (to any of my fics) – so if you have any ideas for particular scenes that you'd like to see; send me a PM and I'll see if the inspiration strikes :-)

Speaking of future projects; a Guest asked if I was gonna continue within this universe, to which the answer is: I already have! Hooked is the next story in the continuity, so if you wanted more Daddy!bats, that's where you should look :)

Along that same line (I'm so sorry, I will stop rambling in a minute, I promise!) I have updated this series as a whole; reducing the number of titles down to 10 instead of 12, and knocking Circus Blood out of continuity, purely because I have huge finale ideas that contradict. Check out my profile for the complete listing and posting schedule!

And I'm done, now. Thanks for listening :)

THANK YOU SO, SO MUCH TO EVERYONE WHO HAS MADE IT ALL THE WAY HERE! YOUR AMAZINGNESS AND PATIENCE AND GENERAL AWESOMENESS KNOWS NO BOUNDS! PLEASE KNOW THAT I TRULY LOVE YOU ALL AND LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU FOR THE VERY LAST BONUS CHAPTER!

UPDATE 30/09/2015: Bonus Chapter is now posting as separate story as it turns out that Bruce has a lot more to say than I thought! ROOTS is now being marked as COMPLETE!