It was another rainy night in Gotham.
Cold rain tapped against the windows, smearing the city's neon lights into hazy halos. The streets were deserted. Only the occasional car passed, trailing two long streaks of light across the wet asphalt.
Link stood beneath the café awning. This was his seventh day watching from there.
He had decided to leave tonight.
He had seen enough. He had seen her calm, her loneliness, and the past she could not escape. He realized that watching her any longer would accomplish nothing but deepen his own pain.
He could not shelter her like a god-king, nor could he free her completely from Gotham's darkness. Perhaps the only thing he could do was disappear from her life like a real ghost and leave her hard-won peace intact.
He took one last look at the warmly lit clinic across the street and turned to vanish into the rain.
But just then, the clinic door opened.
Harley stepped out beneath a black umbrella. She looked tired; the case did not seem to be going well. Instead of heading straight home, she stopped on the clinic steps and stood there, staring into the rain.
Water dripped from the edge of her umbrella, sending little ripples through the puddles at her feet. Against Gotham's night, she looked painfully alone.
Link stopped. He could not take another step.
Every rational thought, every decision not to disturb her, crumbled the moment he saw her lonely figure.
He remembered how resolutely she had taken the Godslayer Spear for him.
He remembered her telling him, in the mental space, to take back their "fun world."
He remembered countless days and nights fighting beside her in Arkham and doing whatever they pleased across the universe.
Fuck peace.
Fuck leaving her alone.
This woman was