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Harleen F. Quinzel

anyone who wants to know the human psyche will learn next to nothing from experimental psychology. he would be better advised to ... put away his scholar's gown, bid farewell to his study, and wander with human heart through the world. there, in the horrors of prisons, lunatic asylums and hospitals, in drab suburban pubs, in brothels and gambling-hells, in the salons of the elegant, the stock exchanges, socialist meetings, churches, revivalist gatherings and ecstatic sects, through love and hate, through the experience of passion in every form in his own body, he would reap richer stores of knowledge than text-books a foot thick could give him, and he will know how to doctor the sick with real knowledge of the human soul.

Dedication

It took me some time to finally understand it. Why Bruce doesn’t want me out there. With him, helping him, if only as a medic or even a field surgeon.

It’s not that he doesn’t trust me. I’ve slowly, with the speed of a fool that’s how slow, have come to believe that he trusts me. Maybe more than either of us could have ever expected.

He also knows that I am capable of defending myself, of defending him if need be.

But this isn’t about trust or if I can avoid or deal a blow. It never was.

He’s told me before, but it didn’t truly register until we spent the holidays together at home.

Home.

That’s what it’s always been a matter of. Home. Normal. Safe.

Yes, there are things I can do to help him professionally. Medically. Perhaps psychologically.

It all comes back to home. Not a house. Not the penthouse, not the manor. Home.

I’ve only ever asked him to come home. And he’s always said that he will.

He doesn’t always come home to where I am physically. But he comes home to me.

If I’m out there…if he has to worry about what might happen to me, who I might be, what I might do…home fades away.

So now I understand. Now I know. Bruce can’t come home if I’m not there for him to come home to. That’s the difference from the board room, from a back alley. He can be himself at home. Not Bruce Wayne, prince of Gotham. Not some dark knight.

Just Bruce.

Just Bruce and Harl and Alfred doing regular, normal things. At home.

Together.

I get it now.

I’m sorry it took me so long to understand this, Bruce.

Maybe you’ll never say it, but I know it. You love me. And you know that I love you.