Year 26: Naming of Names
(after Chicago's "Obligations," posting soon)



"I never...thanked you."

"For what?" Harvey asks, his voice unusually gentle. An 
aftereffect of their argument, perhaps, or simply their 
present circumstances: a rare night alone together, lacking 
either Bat--a concession to Bruce's latest injuries--or the 
need for Harvey to run home to his newly expanded family.

Bruce has to swallow hard before he can say what he needs 
to. "Your son. His name. I--"

Harvey shifts on the bed, propping himself up on one elbow 
to look into Bruce's face. "Gilda wanted to name Steven 
after her father, and there was no way I was gonna name the 
other kid after *mine,* so--"

"Thomas," Bruce says, rolling it on his tongue and across 
his mind. "Thomas Dent."

"It's all right, I hope?" Harvey asks, but he's smiling 
with all the confidence of a man who already knows the 
answer. And of course, he does. 

Bruce means only to agree. What comes out is altogether 
different. "My father...was a tall man."

Harvey nods, as if this were a logical response. "Thomas 
has blue eyes."

"All babies have blue eyes. Or so I've read," Bruce 
answers, and Harvey's grin acknowledges everything Bruce 
has been unable to say.


{200 words}

Thanks to Chi for some helpful chat. :)