Chapter X

AKA The Epilogue

Nine Little Shadows

*Slides pages over* Soooo about that Epilogue? Here ya go guys. We finally made it!

Wayne Manor

In a great big house on the outskirts of Gotham City lays a hallway. Its got wooden floors and wallpapered walls and oak ten oak doors line the hall. There's a railing that leads to the stairs down one side and a chandelier is seen over the side.

Its walls hang pictures proudly. Frames large and small, wide and narrow. Seven different faces are displayed in all matter of poses and expressions. Wallpaper and paint try to hide the small dents and dings. Large patches of walls have been replastered and repainted from the everyday roughhousing and the excitement of holding growing children.

Seven oak doors are once more opened and closed. Done gently soft at night as the Owner of the House checks on his offspring. It is a pale comparison to the day's natural sounds of slamming wooden doors on equally wooden frames.

All is as it should be in this house once more.

For in these seven rooms lay seven children. No. They weren't children, not young ones physically anymore. But to the Owner; they would always be his children.

The eldest is asleep, holding no more cares beyond that of entrance exams and a possible date with the Commissioner's daughter.

The youngest is curled around a tiny black and white kitten, a majestic Great Dane holding guard at the foot of his bed, only half asleep.

The sun-warmed haired girl has limbs askew and jaw opened. A repetitive rhythmic snore comes out as she is tangled up in a purple blanket.

In the Fifth room, the boy is not in his room, but outside on the roof, laying under the stars, wrapped in a red blanket.

Within room six, a slight teenager is hunched over a laptop, several piles of wires and parts within reach as his blue eyes concentrating on his latest project.

Room Seven sits silently. Not because the young girl is missing but because she is silent in her steps. Black chopped hair and warm eyes are curled up with the boy wrapped in a red blanket. Sometimes there are no words for when you are finished with nightmares. But she knew that the presence of a sibling was something she could do. She could keep her brother warm and remind him, that they were still there.

Two rooms lay empty in the end of this hallway. Not because their owner's are never coming back, but because they haven't arrived yet. They sit empty for the boys from the future. One is done is reds and blacks, a shelf already set waiting for figurines to be placed.

The last one sits empty except for a black and red bedspread and a lone leather jacket hanging in the closet awaiting it's owner to come back for it.

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Unknown

Pandora smiled, a sharp sad little thing that twisted her lips.

Most people would consider the myth of Pandora and the box as a warning. But in reality it was a story of misguided curiosity and pushmisment. How the gods curses Pandora to give evils where she went. But most people forgot about the tiniest of Pandora's things from her dowry. That of hope. Pandora was cursed, there was no doubt. But she was also blessed. And this city of Gotham needed her.

Gotham needed that hope. Hope that took shape of a giant Bat and seven little shadows that trailed after. Hope that every sunset, came a sunrise.

That was Pandora's gift.

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The Gates; Diner in the Narrows

Abby was a waitress and after years of people watching, she wasn't a betting woman. She has spent years pulling the grave shift in the small dingy diner on the edge of the Narrows. A diner known for their greasy food and their equally cheap prices. She knew Gotham. She saw it in a way that many didn't almost every night. And the thing about Gotham, she decided, was that the City was as jealous of her protectors as any Lady would their Knight.

Gotham loved Batman. She gave birth to the Dark creature in her alleyways. She taught him in blood and grit and the sweat of her citizens. She gave her Knight his followers as rewards for his years of selfless service. Gotham mourned her Knight when he fell months ago, waiting with bated breath for him to return.

Abby worked a shift where her constant customers may be Riddler's henchmen exhausted or Harley and Ivy coming in for coffee on a girl's night out. She knew Scarecrow's orders by what time of year it was and when Finals were happening. She knew Penguin's nightly special of tuna sardine sandwiches. She knew that the group of teenagers and young adults sitting by the plate window night after night were something special to the Bat, so she watched over them.

When a foreign woman richly dressed dropped in, Abby didn't blink her eyes, she got out her pen and paper and started to jot down her order of a hamburger with fries.

So when she was walking back to place a new order and take out food ready for customers and Abby happened to glance outside the window and see a black bat winged shape, she stopped.

The Bat was back.

Abby smiled, already writing down an order of hamburgers and fries for a family of ten that would come later in the evening.

Just like it was supposed to be every night.

"Grazie al cielo!" The woman stuck her pencil in her white haired bun, moving with a renewed energy in her step. "Salvo! We're gonna have the big group tonight!"

"Buon Dio!" A thick Italian voice holllered back over the clanging of pots and pans. "You serious?"

"Of course I am! The Bat's back, you vecchio pazzo!"