"All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride."- Sophocles, Antigone

•••

After looking through the peephole on her door, Bird opened it with a confused expression, "Harvey?"

"Hey." He greeted back, before he walked right past her without an invitation into the townhouse, that from the outside, looked a hell of a lot like the brownstone they'd bought together the year before.

"What are you doing here?" She questioned her ex, "Wait, how do you even know I live here?"

Turning back around to face her he admitted, "I stopped by Wayne Manor. Alfred told you moved."

"Oh..." Bird breathed as she eyed him.

Good old Harvey Dent, who both her brother and Alfred still thought very highly of.

Her jaw tensed at the thought.

If they only knew how his anger had turned on her and made him violent, she doubted that Alfred would have been so willing to send him to her doorway.

"This is for you." He said holding out a small potted plant, "A housewarming present."

"A plant?" She questioned with a laugh, "Harvey, you know I can't keep these things alive-"

"It's bamboo." He interrupted, "Just keep the base full with water and you should be good to go."

"Uh..." Bird pulled in a breath and looked at him with her cheeks puffed out, before she loudly exhaled and in a questioning tone said, "Thanks..."

Harvey nodded, trying his best to put a smile on his face as he looked around the entryway of her new house.

The truth was, he'd stopped about halfway on way to her place and ended up getting out at a small market to decide if he was doing the right thing or not.

They might not still be together, but that didn't mean he still didn't care about her.

Even so, he'd been keeping his distance from her for good reason.

Not only did they tend to get wrapped up in each other all over again when they crossed paths, but she also had a tendency of letting things slip that his knowledge of would be incriminating -and he couldn't have that.

In the end, he'd left the market with a bamboo plant that one of the overly pushy vendors had talked him into and his mind made up that he was going to try and help her, talk some sense into her, even if she didn't want to hear it.

"Tell me you didn't do it, Starling." He finally revealed his true intentions for showing up on her doorstep.

Still holding the small planter in her hands, she didn't verbally answer but her eyebrows shot halfway up her forehead in confusion.

"That you didn't break Jim out of Blackgate." He clarified, "Tell you didn't do it."

"I didn't do it." She immediately repeated back.

"How could I have even pulled something like that off, Harvey?" She continued.

"I don't know." He admitted, his eyes going over to the sitting room off to the right, "Maybe you called in some favors-"

"That would be one hell of a favor." She was quick to snap.

"Maybe so, but it doesn't feel like it was all that long ago I drove you around this city trying to find your brother when a hit was put out on Selina Kyle." He cleared his throat, "You had more than a few contacts out on the streets."

"That was a very long time ago." Bird argued with him, "Fish is dead. Falcone's retired, probably sitting on a beach somewhere. No one has seen Oswald since Arkham released him. Butch and I didn't exactly terminate our friendship on good terms. I don't have anyone who could have pulled that off. Is this why you showed up? To accuse me of-"

"Drop the act." His voice raised, "You're lying."

"I am not!" She yelled back at him; knowing full well that she was.

"You showed up at my office almost every day since Jim's sentencing, you put calls in to everyone -including the mayor, swearing he'd been framed and then all of a sudden no one's heard anything from you and he escaped from prison. Am I really supposed to be believe that's a coincidence?" He verbally ran through everything that had been weighing on his mind, but it didn't stop there.

He didn't much care for it, but at least he could understand when she'd tell him that she couldn't tell him something.

But lying right to his face was an entirely different situation.

One that left his blood feeling like it had been set to a boil under his skin.

"And you really expect me to believe that you're not still in contact with Cobblepot? Come on!" His voice boomed through the first floor of her house. Bouncing off the walls and echoing back to crash around inside of her skull.

Bird stared back at him, unsure of how to react or what to say to him.

Partly because she couldn't wrap her head around why on earth he was so angry with her.

It wasn't like her aiding in Jim's escape could come back on him; they'd been broken up for quite some time now.

"If you had a hand in what happened at Blackgate, then you understand you probably got Jim out of prison only to send yourself there, right?" His voice was still raised and she didn't miss the sight of his hand balled into a fist at his side.

Yep, still the same old Harvey.

Going from calm to seeing red faster than a bullet.

And even after all this time she apparently could still hit just the right buttons to set him aflame.

"Barnes isn't going to stop until he has answers, Starling." His tone grew even more domineering, like if he could hit just the right octave then she'd know how much trouble she was putting herself in the path of, "If he's able to trace this back to you, then there is nothing I can do. You will serve time for this. Hard time."

"I'm a big girl, Harvey." Bird's voice lowered back to indoor speaking range, even though she knew it wasn't going to bring his down, "I can take care of myself."

"Not in a place like that. You barely survived Arkham." He harshly reminded her.

"Oh?" She yelled, her expression coming to life, "And how would you know? You couldn't even be bothered to pick up the phone when I'd call!"

"That has nothing to do with this!" He yelled back, stepping closer as his height towered over her and his eyes grew darker, "This is about you going right back to making one stupid choice after another. You say you don't need anyone watching out for you, but the truth is that you do, because left to your own devices you make one wrong decision after another."

Biting down on the side of her tongue so hard she could taste blood, Bird shook her head.

At the moment she could think of more than a few wrong decisions she's made, more than one of them involving the enraged man standing in front of her.

Stepping closer to the door, Bird was about to tell him that he needed to leave, but more than anything she was still confused about why he'd come in there in the first place -other than to apparently yell at her for her life choices he didn't agree with.

"What do you want?" She threw her arms out and let them drop limply at her sides, "Why are you here?"

Walking back up to her, he tried to lower his voice, but the pounding in his head kept him from being able to relax, "To help you!"

"Help me, how?" Her own voice raised to match his level, but grew shrill in tone as she screamed, "All you've done is yell at me!"

"Damn it!" He yelled as his hand landed flat against the wall right next to where her head was, "I don't want to see you throw your life away over this!"

Feeling the painful stinging from where his hand had collided with the wall and the ache from the pressure in his wrist, he blinked his eyes rapidly trying to focus his vision.

When he opened them again, he saw how his hand was positioned right next to her head on the wall beside her and Bird had her eyes closed and face turned away from where his arm still was.

"Oh my god..." He breathed, shaking his head in disbelief at himself, "I'm... I'm sorry."

When she slowly opened her eyes and turned back to face him, she saw the same broken look in his puppy dog eyes that he'd wear every single time he came back from flying off the handle.

"I'm sorry." He repeated, moving his hand from the wall and taking a step back to stop crowding her, "I just..."

He ran his tongue over his lips, knowing no amount of apologies would fix what happened.

"This is really serious." He exhaled with an even more defeated look on face, "If GCPD isn't already looking into you then it's only a matter of time -and I know better than anyone that you don't need the police, especially Barnes, taking an interest in your life all over again.

"I'm just trying to help you." Harvey defended, seeming shorter than he did minutes before, now that his posture was slouched in shame.

"I- I... I didn't mean-" He stumbled through another attempt at an apology, but she cut him off, "I know."

Tucking her hair behind her ears, she quietly said, "I think you should go."

Nodding, he ran a hand over his hair.

Feeling like there was more he should say, but it wouldn't do anyone any good.

"Take care of yourself." He softly said as Bird pulled the door open and stood to the side waiting for him to leave.

Harvey paused for a few extra seconds, waiting to see if she had anything to say, but when she held her silence his eyes dropped to the floor and he left through the open door.

Closing it behind him, Bird let out the breath she hadn't even been aware she was holding and rested her forehead against the door.

"Golden boy's got a temper, huh?"

Straightening her posture, she turned to give a Bullock a look as he walked into view with an open box of cracker chips in his hand.

Popping another one into his mouth, his voice was muffled as he questioned, "He get like that a lot?"

Refusing to give him an answer, she walked past him and down the hallway where she came to a stop outside one of the spare rooms with a set of closed double doors.

Grabbing onto the handles, she pushed the doors open, where Jim was standing just inside with a worried look on his face.

"Are you okay?" He questioned.

"Let's get to work." Bird ignored him and barely so much as glanced at him when she breezed past him, over the wall where where various news paper clipping and copies of pages from the case against Jim was pinned up.

When Jim turned to look at Bullock, his partner gave a small shrug and stated, "About put his fist through the wall."

"Harvey Dent is the least of our concern." Bird spun around to face them both, before she reached over and picked up an open file off the table and dropped into a seat in one of the overstuffed chairs.

Jim stared at her with a knowing and troubled expression.

He knew of Dent hurting her at least one time in the past and had always suspicious that it wasn't an isolated incident.

Bird's words still hung in his mind from the day she'd told him that when she was with Harvey things would either be really good or really bad -yet when prompted, she wouldn't elaborate on just how bad exactly.

"He's right about one thing." Bullock sat the box of snacks down and picked up the half empty bottle of beer he'd been drinking before there had been a knock at the door, "Barnes is on the hunt."

With furrowed brows, Jim questioned, "Did Barnes threaten you?"

"Doesn't matter." Bullock dismissed, neglecting to tell anyone how his boss had threatened to bring the entire force of the GCPD down on him if he found out he was aiding Jim in anyway, even so much as giving him a glass of water, "I busted you out of jail, remember? I made my choice!"

After downing another swallow of beer, he held his other hand out and said, "As your friend, I gotta tell you something. You can still run. Go to an island, buy a banana boat, grow a beard... have a life. Barnes is on the hunt, you don't have much time, brother."

"Okay, let's say I run." Jim humored him, "What then? Spend the rest of my days living as a fugitive?"

"I can call Falcone." Bird chimed in, not looking up from the evidence file she was reading through, "If you're going to run then-"

"No." Jim was quick to intervene in her train of thought, "I have to clear my name. Otherwise, I might as well be in jail."

Bird let the folder fall onto her lap as she reached up and rubbed her eyes. It felt like all she'd done for the last few days was read police reports and stare at evidence photos.

"I know." Jim let out a tired breath and sympathized, "I've been over this all of this a thousand times."

"And did you get anywhere?" She asked, looking up to where he was standing.

"It all has to be connected; the theft at the art museum, the bombing at the train station, the I.A. tip off, Pinkney's murder. It's all a part of an elaborate frame." Jim shrugged.

"I've been working this case since you went away. Now, I'm not saying it's hopeless, but I've gotten nowhere in all that time. Even with her help." Bullock motioned to where Bird was sitting and staring towards the wall seeming very much lost in her own head since Dent's departure.

"So our guy is smart, meticulous, got technical skill and access?" Bullock continued to think out loud, hoping something might click.

"A cop?" Bird guessed.

"Has to be." Jim nodded, "Only way he could have access to a crowbar after it was put into evidence."

Bird stayed quiet and listened as Bullock complained that the revelation didn't exactly narrow down the suspect pool any, not with Jim's knack for making enemies.

Between the two of them they'd came up with a list of about twelve names of fellow officers who'd hate him so much they'd go to the trouble to set him up for a murder.

"Loeb loyalists." Jim exclaimed as he looked down to the list of complied names, "Who knows, maybe Loeb himself is behind this."

"For the record." Bird broke her silence and looked at them as she readjusted in the chair and crossed her legs up underneath her, "I offered to kill Loeb for you over a year ago, remember? We were all holed up in the hospital after Falcone got attacked and Maroni's men showed up to shower us with bullets? I said we should have killed him then-"

"No." Jim sternly said, "We've not killing anyone."

"Well..." Bullock sighed, "Before we jump down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole, I'm gonna need more beer."

Spinning around in the doorway to face them again he asked, "Jim, you want one?" Looking to Bird he questioned, "Crazy eyes?"

When they both declined he left the room, "Suit yourselves."

Turning back to face Bird after watching his partner disappear down the hallway en-route to the kitchen, Jim questioned, "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." She didn't give much time or thought to her answer.

Moving over to sit in the chair next where she was at, he sat down and turned to look at her, "I could hear you screaming at one other from here."

"Yeah." She sighed with a feigned smile, "I really think he believes that in his own way, he's really trying to help me."

"That's doesn't make it okay." He argued.

"I know." Bird nodded, finally looking at him, "But it is what it is. I can handle him, don't worry."

"You shouldn't have to." He said, his eyebrows pushed together, still feeling like there was a lot to their relationship that he didn't know and the glimpses he saw -he didn't like.

Bird's eyes locked with his and the angry expression she'd been wearing from his prying into her life faded into a look of surprise.

Everyone, knowing what they knew about her, seemed to think that she must have been the problem in the relationship between her and Harvey Dent.

And while she didn't claim innocence in any of the rifts; it was often tiring to hear how everyone talked about what a great guy Dent was, while looking at her like she was on another level.

"You need a mini fridge back here." Bullock dumbly commented upon entering the room with a newly opened bottle of beer in his hand.

Abruptly coming to a stop to look at them sitting by one another and both wearing near matching expressions, he guessed, "I interrupt something?"

"Nope." Bird answered as Jim shook his head.

"Good." Bullock replied, "Cause we need to get down to business here. Clear your name-" He pointed to Jim, "Before me and Bird end up in cuffs."

Bird looked at him with her expression twisted up, thinking to herself that if Bullock ended up getting arrested for this, that he better as hell not rat on her involvement in it.

"What?" He scoffed, seeming to read her mind, "You think I'm going to go down for this alone?"

"If I'm arrested too, who the hell do you think is going to save your sorry ass from Blackgate?" She retorted.

With a laugh, Bullock pointed at her and said, "Yeah, yeah. Now you're just teasing me."

Looking to Jim, he added, "She'd leave me to rot in there. Probably wouldn't even show up on visiting days."

With a half-smile, Jim stopped them before they got too sidetracked, "We need to focus."

"Yeah?" Bullock drank down a good portion of the bottle, "Where are gonna start?"

As if a light bulb had illuminated in his head, Jim looked to Bird and asked, "Didn't you say something earlier about I.A. recording incoming calls? Do they keep records of that?"

"Yeah." She nodded, thinking back to when she and Harvey were dating and the DA's office was bringing charges down on an officer who's partner had turned them into internal affairs, "Harvey told me that I.A. records and archives all they calls they get."

"Which means..." Bird led as a smile started to angle her lips up at the corners.

Nodding, Jim finished, "Which means the witness, the one that called into I.A. -the one they assumed was Pinkney, there should be a tape with his voice on it."

"Whew..." Bullock breathed, "That's a hell of a long shot, brother."

"It's all we've got." Bird reasoned.

Pulling his phone from his pocket and setting the newly empty bottle of beer down on an end table, Bullock crossed the room, "If that tape exists, it's going to be locked up tighter than a duck's ass in evidence."

Glancing over to Jim, he smiled, "Lucky for you, Uncle Harvey has connections."

Jim and Bird both watched as Bullock dialed a number on his phone and then got a big, cheesy grin on his face while he waited for the call to be answered.

"Hey!" He called out into the speaker of the phone, "Ginny! How's my favorite I.A. sugar plum, huh?"

Jim's eyebrows raised and Bird had to cup a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing when Bullock nodded and kept the kept the smile on his face, "Well, why do you think I'm calling, baby?"

•••

"I thought you were getting married?"

"She changed her mind."

"Smart girl."

Jim and Bird stood out of sight, leaned up against up the wall outside of the apartment that Bullock had went into only moments before.

"Mhm... you're an animal, Bullock!"

The female I.A. detective's words were followed the sound of her slapping his face.

"Oh my god..." Bird whispered with a laugh and shake of the head.

Jim lowered his head and let out a laugh of his own.

"Come on, Bullock."

"Yeah, baby. I'll be right there, just hold on for a second."

Hearing the sounds of keys jingling right inside of the door, both Bird and Jim moved away from the wall. Not sure if it was Bullock with the keys to the internal affairs evidence lock up, or if Ginny was coming out.

As the door opened, they looked up to see Bullock, now wearing just his boxers and undershirt.

Spotting them in the shadows, he called out, "Hey. You got an hour, slip them under the door."

Jim effortlessly caught the set of keys his partner hurled at him.

"Come on, Bullock! I ain't got all night!"

"Hey, not a word!" He quickly said when he saw the look on Bird's face as she held back another laugh, before reminding them both, "An hour."

Once he was back in the apartment and the door was shut, Jim turned to face Bird as he reminded her, "You don't have to do this."

"Yes, I do." She was fast to correct, "Every minute you're still a fugitive is another minute that I'm at risk for being an accessory."

"Uh huh." Jim nodded following her down the hall when she turned and started to walk away from him, "That's the only reason?"

With a small laugh, Bird shook her head but didn't answer him as she reached the doors to the building and pushed them open.

The frigid night air nearly stole her breath and she quickly eyed the cars and passersbys on the streets to make sure no one was watching the place -or them.

It didn't take them long to reach the I.A. building, not with Bird knowing the city like the back of her hand and leading them through alley ways and short cuts he didn't even know existed.

Once they reached the building, Jim opened his mouth to tell Bird that he should go first, but before he could she'd already slid open the window and had a leg inside.

By the time he'd gotten himself climbed through the window, she was already waiting at the locked gate for him to unlock it.

"You seem like you've done this before." He spoke in a hushed tone as he jogged over to her and got to work on unlocking the gate.

"Not the internal affairs evidence room." Bird honestly answered, "But it should be cataloged the same as the regular evidence room, right?"

Stopping in the middle of what he was doing, Jim looked at her with his forehead lined, "Why were you in the GCPD evidence room?"

The answer he got from her was a coy smile and her reminding him that he was currently the one living life on the lam.

They had only made it steps inside, just past the computer where electronic copies of reports were kept when they heard a door open, following the sound of nearing voices.

Grabbing onto her hand, Jim pulled Bird over past the table and down next to some file cabinets that would keep them hidden from view of the hallway.

They stayed crouched down as they waited for the passing officers to make it down to the elevator at the other end of the hallway.

This was exactly why he'd told her multiple times that she should sit this out.

She'd already risked so much for him and the last thing he wanted was for them both to get caught breaking into an evidence locker.

That -and the fact that he wasn't sure how she'd handle the situation if they were caught and he didn't want to see any fellow officer who was just doing their job to be injured or even worse.

Slowly, he raised up and watched as the male and female officers got into the elevator and the doors closed behind them.

"They're gone." Jim announced.

"Gordon, James." Bird spoke under her breath as she located the correct file in the cabinet and stood up to the place the full file on the table.

"How did you..." His voice trailed off.

He hadn't even heard her cross the small room, let alone open and root through a file cabinet.

"What?" Bird asked, looking up as he walked over to join her.

Shaking his head and thinking to himself that if she really had been in the GCPD evidence room, that no one would be the wiser of it.

He knew how to be quiet; how to move around as undetected as possible.

But Bird could move fast and without making a single sound.

Just a shame, he thought, that she chose to use that mostly for nefarious means.

"This must be it." He said as he picked up a small padded manila envelope and opened it to reveal the small round tape containing the recording they were in search of.

"Good. Let's get out of here." Bird said, closing the folder and starting to walk away.

Quickly, with a hand on her arm, he brought her to a stop, "What are you doing? We have to put the file back."

"What if there is something else in here that we can use?" Bird protested.

"A missing tape is one thing-" He started to reason.

"This thing is the twice the size of the file Bullock copied from the station." She was at the ready with an argument of her own.

"Entire case files don't just get up and walk away, okay?" His voice rose slightly, "A picture or tape, a page of a report can be blamed on human error. They can't know I was here."

"You're putting an awful lot of faith into one little tape, Jim." Bird sighed, her eyes narrowing at him while she pulled her arm out of his grip.

"This is too risky." He shook his head back and forth and reached for the folder, letting out a pained noise when Bird slapped his hand away from it.

"It's too risky to not take this." She countered, "You-"

"This isn't just about me." He was quick to remind her.

Pulling in a deep breath he was gearing up to tell her that this could fall back on Bullock too, but before he got the chance she cupped a hand over his mouth to physically shut him up.

Taking hold of her wrist he started to pull her hand away until he heard the approaching footsteps and understood why'd resorted to covering his mouth.

Bird flatted her back against the wall int he small little alcove next to the computer table and pulled him in there with her, it was their best chance of staying hidden.

Someone passing by might not notice them tucked into there, but they sure as hell would have seen two people standing in the middle of the room.

Letting out a small sigh at how he hadn't heard the steps before, or even at the same time she had; he looked at her face and became all to aware of just how close they were.

His body was pressed against hers, both of them trying to be as silent and still as humanly possible.

Even so, he didn't become aware of the sounds from his own breathing until her eyes darted up and locked with his.

Quickly breaking eye contact, Bird closed her eyes for a second, trying her best to not think about how he was close to her that she could smell the mint gum on his breath with his every exhale.

She didn't need a distraction.

No, for the moment she had to remain focused on their surroundings, listing for the slightest hint of movement around them and trying gauge if the footsteps were still getting closer, or if the threat had passed.

Picking up on the sound of a couple of voices, she listened as she heard at least three guys discussing which all night food chain they were going to pick up their lunch from.

Bird let out a small sigh, wishing they'd just make up their minds as they were heading out the door or even out in a car.

"Hey." Jim whispered just loud enough for her to hear him, "We can't take the whole file. It would end up coming back on Bullock and he's already on thin ice with Barnes because of me."

Finally looking back to his face, she ran her tongue over her bottom lip, "There is no way of knowing if the person on that tape is even the one framed you. They could have disguised their voice or gotten someone else to call. It's too big of a risk to bet everything on it."

"It's too big of a risk to take it." His eyes traveled back up her face until they met hers, "If the tape is dead end, then we'll find another way."

When he saw the corners of her mouth angle down, Jim pulled in a breath and prepared for another argument; to further justify why they couldn't take anything more than the the tape.

Bird shook her head. She understood where he was coming from, but voices were easy to disguise with the right equipment.

Not to mention there was also a chance that someone had been paid or hired to call in the tip.

What if the one who framed him wasn't on the tape at all.

"We broke you out of Blackgate." Bird was quick to remind him, "Do you understand how big of a deal that is? Like a one in a million chance of it going off without a hitch. If you end up back inside..." Her voice trailed off and he saw her forehead line.

"I know-" He started to say, but was cut off when she slapped the folder against the center of his chest hard enough to force the air from his lungs.

"Thanks." Jim managed to croak out as he reached up and grabbed onto the folder.

Rolling her eyes, Bird muttered something under her breath that he couldn't quite make out as she slipped out from between his body and the wall.

With the officers that had been nearby gone, they needed to take the opportunity to get out of the evidence room before anyone came back.

An opportunity she seized while he was still trying to get the folder back into the file cabinet she'd found it in.

By the time he'd climbed back out of the window, he'd just barely caught sight of her back as she disappeared around the far corner of the building.

Shaking his head, he stuck his hand in his coat pocket to make sure the I.A. tape was going to stay safe before he jogged after her.

After he caught up to her, it took a few minutes of them trekking through melting snow and sludge on the sidewalks in complete silence before he stated,"You're mad at me."

Looking at him for the first time since they were in the evidence locker, Bird gathered he seemed rather confused at the realization.

As if he hadn't done anything deserving of that anger.

Blowing out a heavy breath, Jim reached up and tugged on the sides of his knit hat.

"It's not supposed to be like this." Bird finally spoke, "You on the run, right now. The plan was that you were supposed to leave Blackgate with everyone thinking you were dead. That was going to buy a lot of time to clear your name because who'd be looking for a dead man?"

"I couldn't leave Puck there." Jim explained, "He'd have been dead within days."

"He is dead, Jim." Bird harshly spoke, turning on the sidewalk to face him as he slowed to a stop.

"He was just a kid." Jim stepped forward with his voice low.

"He was a little older than a kid." Bird stated, "I'm sorry he's dead, but he was old enough to make his own decisions and he made a decision to help you on the inside -knowing the price. Just as I made the decision to help you, fully aware of the risks."

Pulling in a deep breath, she shook her head, "But the clock is ticking now. Barnes is probably a few figurative steps behind us and -and all we've got is a recording of a voice. Maybe not even the voice of the person we're looking for."

"Wow..." Jim breathed, his breath turning to white fog in the frigid air, "Are you?" He couldn't help but question, "Are you sorry that he's dead."

Bird's eyes narrowed and she started to turn to keep walking.

The clock was also ticking on the hour time frame that Bullock had given them to slip the keys back under Ginny's door, but Jim stopped her.

"I helped Puck, because it was the right thing to do." He spoke with sincerity in his voice.

As if there had been no other option but to return to the prison to get him out.

The anger on his face faded into one more of genuine concern with a touch of curiosity when he questioned, "Do you really not see that?"

Bird's anger had since ran its course as well.

Suddenly feeling self-conscious of what her answer would be, her eyes diverted their gaze to the ground and she started to tun away again, but he wouldn't let her.

"You really don't, do you?" Jim pushed.

Looking down to where his hand was still on her arm, Bird gave a shrug.

In theory the whole right versus wrong and good versus evil might have held up and even looked good on paper or screen; but not in real life.

In real life it wasn't always so easy to tell the difference and even when it was clear to spot, being able to do the so called right thing, was hardly ever as simple as he was making it sound.

"You see good and bad..." Bird started to answer, "You just run headfirst at what you think is the right thing to do. I weigh the risks and if the price is too high, then what's the point?"

"The point is that it's right." Jim's eyebrows furrowed.

He was always so quick to anger with her when she made the wrong decisions.

So quick to judge when she made a decision he didn't agree with.

Only now, the more he was around her, the more he was starting to see that it wasn't always a conscious decision on her part.

And that even in the times it was, she followed what she thought was the right thing to do.

It was something he hadn't realized until the night he thought she'd been killed.

Sitting there in the hospital waiting to hear if she made it off the operating table with his mind tormenting him in the many ways he let her down, he realized that even though he didn't agree with her methods -she'd stayed true to herself and what she believed in up to the very end.

"Yeah." Bird scoffed, "But where do you draw the line?"

Her arms dropped to her sides and shoulders slouched, "How can it be the right thing to do if it comes at such a great personal cost?"

She knew they didn't have time to be arguing over this.

Not to mention they were still close to the police station, but she was starting to feel like a science project on display, waiting to be judged.

"Great personal cost?" He repeated back, pausing to think of how he could get her to understand, "You almost died for Oswald. You were willing to die for him, that's a pretty great personal cost, Bird."

"He's important to me." She defended, "His life matters to me."

"More than your own?" He questioned.

"Yes." She answered without hesitation.

"Everyone has to matter." Jim repeated something he'd said to her well over a year ago.

A sentiment that still seemed to elude her reasoning.

"But on different levels." Bird argued.

When Bird saw his expression twist into confusion and she gathered he already had an argument ready to go and she defended, "I really am sorry about Puck -and I'm not saying that his life didn't have meaning, of course it did. But; your life holds more value to me than his."

"It's like..." She sighed, "If someone was holding a gun to the head of someone you care about and one to the head of a stranger and you can only save one... it's not that you want the stranger to die, but given the choice you're going to choose life for the person you care about."

It didn't feel like too long ago that she'd given a similar analogy to her little brother, to try and get him to understand her way of viewing the world.

Bruce had argued that there had to be a third solution; one in which nobody had to die.

But Jim had lived a lot longer and seen a lot more than her brother had and he knew that sometimes the outcome of problems were caked in blood and coated in the stench of death.

"See." Bird's head cocked to the side at his refusal to speak now, "You know I'm right."

"I didn't say you were right." He called out once she'd made it several steps away from him.

They walked for a while in silence.

He felt like he could argue till he was blue in the face about right and wrong and it wouldn't make a difference to her; she'd never fully see his side.

He also thought that while Bird's answer might not have been the most socially acceptable one, she did have a point. Even if he didn't like to admit it.

Just that most people wouldn't be so open and have no qualms about voicing it

Though, her at least admitting that human life in general holds value was a step up from the Bird he'd first met.

No matter how much time had passed since then and how close they'd gotten, he didn't think he'd ever get over the day she looked him in the eyes and told him that his life didn't mean much to her.

Only now that felt like several lifetimes ago.

Now, it felt as though they'd went from one versus the other -to them against the world.

"Give me that!"

"Ooh, what's up sweetheart, how you doing?"

"Where you going?"

A woman's terrified screams rang out in between then voices of the three men taunting her and trying to steal her purse.

Jim looked over his shoulder and slowed to a stop when he saw one of the muggers pull a knife on the woman.

"We have to get back to Bullock." Bird spoke low, as she grabbed onto Jim's arm and tried to pull him along with her, but he shrugged out of her grip.

"Seriously?" She complained when she saw the look of determination fill his eyes.

He always had to play the hero.

"Somebody help!"

Bird spun around and watched as Jim darted across the street to answer the woman's cry for help, while she desperately clutched onto her purse that one of the men was trying to take from her.

Cursing under her breath, Bird pulled the scarf around her neck up over her nose and mouth to try and help shield her identity before she raced to Jim's aid as he fought against the three muggers.

She got there right as the one brandishing a switchblade raised his arm in the air to try and take a swipe at Jim.

Bird caught his arm and bent it twisted it, turning the the blade away from Jim and forcing the man to stab himself in the side.

Falling to the ground with a cry of pain, he jerked the knife out of his side in a panic and dropped it to the cement.

Jim quickly picked up the knife before anyone else got the chance to.

Pointing it at the robbers, he ordered, "Get out of here!"

The first two took off running, while the third struggled to get to his feet after being injured and scrambled after them, leaving a trail of blood behind him.

Jim eyed Bird to make sure she hadn't been injured before he looked over to the woman and questioned, "Ma'am, are you okay?"

Seeing the knife still clutched in his hand, the woman let out a shriek of terror and took off running in the opposite direction.

"You're welcome." Jim sighed, as he watched her run away in fear after he'd saved her life.

"It's the middle of the night." Bird reminded him, "And you're a man, holding a knife. Of course she ran away screaming."

"Hands up or I'll blow your heads off!"

Bird stared at Jim with a look of fire in her eyes, before she held her hands up and slowly stepped to the side and then around to face the officer who was pointing a gun at them.

"GCPD!" The cop yelled at them, "Drop the weapon."

Letting the knife fall from his hands, Jim took a step closer and once his face was illuminated in the streetlights, the cop gasped, "You're Jim Gordon..."

"Listen to me-" Jim started to say, hoping he might be able to reason with the uniformed officer, but instead he reached for his shoulder radio and immediately radioed in his location and saying he had Jim Gordon.

While the man had his gun lowered and was more focused on calling for back up, Jim seized the opportunity to dart forward and grab his gun before pushing him to the ground.

"Don't kill me!" The officer pleaded, reduced to a shaking blob where he'd landed on the ground.

"I'm innocent." Jim defended, emptying the gun of it's ammunition before dropping it to the ground and repeating, "I'm innocent, you hear me."

With that, both Jim and Bird took off running down an ally and didn't slow down until they'd reached Ginny's building.

Once the keys were slid back under the door with a little less than ten minutes to go before their hour was up, they both leaned against the wall in the stairwell to catch their breath.

"Hey." Bird huffed, pulling in a breath of air, "We made a pretty good team back there, right?"

"Yeah." Jim nodded, but she could see by the look in his eyes that something was bothering him.

And she didn't have to wait long to find out what it was.

"You didn't have to hurt him that bad." Jim said, thinking of the trail of blood the third assailant had left behind him.

"He got stabbed with his own knife, Jim. The very knife he pulled on that woman and then tried to slice and dice you with." She defended.

"I could have disarmed him without..." His voice trailed off and he pulled his hat off before running a hand through his hair and adding, "You could have disarmed him without taking it that far."

"I don't see what the big deal is! So he got hurt? So what! He was out there to hurt someone himself. Now he'll probably have to go the hospital and they'll be on the lookout for someone injured who fled a crime scene. He'll be arrested and one less lowlife criminal on the streets, right?" She argued.

Growing angrier by the minute, that after all she'd done for him, he was apparently still going to complain and judge the way she handled situations, Bird's already red cheeks darkened.

"I'm never going to see the world, let alone this city through the same eyes that you do, Jim." Bird's voice strained from the amount of self-control she was exerting to keep her anger from spiraling out of control.

"I don't expect-" He started to say, but she was past done listening to him to talk.

"You do." Bird interrupted, "I have risked my well being yet again to help you and..."

Her voice trailed off before the look changed in her eyes and her posture straightened as she asserted, "And I deserve better than that."

It was then that her phone started ringing from her pocket and she pulled it out to see Oswald was calling her again, it was probably the third call he'd made that day -but this was the first chance she'd gotten to answer.

Flipping the phone open to answer the call, she said, "Hey, hang on a minute, okay?"

With that she held her thumb over the microphone and shot Jim a disappointed look as she said, "Text me later and let me know what time we're meeting Bullock tomorrow."

She walked past him, purposelessly bumping her shoulder into him with enough force he stumbled before regaining his balance.

"Bird!" Jim called after her, but she didn't answer.

She didn't even look back at him.

With an exasperated sigh he leaned against the wall again and dropped his head back against it with a thud.

She was apparently more angry with him over his failure to understand that she did what she felt was necessary, than she had been with the way Harvey Dent had treated her earlier that day.

•••