The sky was grey and mist filled the cold air as thin raindrops veiled the cityscape, tall buildings disappearing into clouds and a mirage of something like the sun turning out to be no more than a departing aircraft's blinking lights.

Harvey was waiting by his car with his hands in his pockets by the arrivals hall of the airport, eyes wide and alert as he scanned the endless stream of people pouring through the doors and jumping into the backseats of taxis or into the arms of lovers with flowers waiting for them.

He was empty handed but there was nothing on earth he could've offered Carla that would've made an ounce of difference anyway, and so he didn't feel bad about not having a bouquet of roses or a sign with her name written on it, the bleakness of the dull sky being a fitting enough welcome all on its own.

He stood with a frown on his lips and a shiver in his bones, brows lifting with intrigue whenever he saw a flash of ebony hair in the crowd. The smile that graced his face when he finally saw Carla pulling her suitcase behind her wasn't forced, it reached his eyes and lit them up electric blue for a brief moment, only to fade just as fast.

Carla smiled too, or at least what could've been considered a smile from her stone features. It was enough for Harvey and he felt some happiness fill him at the sight of his friend before him, though grief washed it away with unforgiving ease.

He didn't say anything when she reached his car, simply opening his arms to her and squeezing her tightly against his chest when she too chose the comfort of an embrace over meaningless words. They held each other for a long moment and Carla pulled her eyes closed, arms tight around Harvey's torso, letting someone else take the weight from her feet that had felt like lead for as long as she could remember.

"I'm glad to see you," he said, hands on her shoulders as he looked down at her, "But I wish it was for a different reason."

Carla just swallowed, eyes dry and empty and cheeks hollow, "Me too."

Harvey lifted her suitcase into the car and drove them into Gotham. His friendship with Carla had still been solid after she'd moved back to Sicily and while he hadn't had chance to visit her overseas because of the troubles in Gotham, it was something he reminded her he would do as soon as he could at the end of every phone call.

Carla talked vividly to him over FaceTime about her life away from the darkness of Gotham and Harvey loved listening to her recall days at the beach or nights in village squares drinking local wine. There was a shine to her face and a radiance about her that she never had in Gotham, the closest look Harvey could remember seeing in her was whenever she was holding the arm of Bruce Wayne.

It was never a mystery that Carla missed Bruce, Harvey could hear it in her voice whenever they'd spoken and seen a sadness cool her eyes through the screen of his phone. She never admitted it and Harvey would never had expected her to, but they both knew it all the same and so even after he uncovered the truth, Harvey did everything he could to bring them back together.

"Is Rachel not around?" Carla said as she walked into Harvey's apartment, shrugging off her coat and lying it over the back of a barstool in the kitchen.

"No," he shook his head and pulled her case behind him, "She's with Alfred. I'll put your case in the spare room."

Carla nodded and walked over to the window. Rain continued to fall and mist settled lower as time ticked on, the darker hours of the evening bringing with it a full moon hidden by thick clouds and an oasis of sparkling stars that nobody in that city would be able to see.

There was suppose to be light, but it seemed like Gotham had never been darker than it was that night.

She stared out at the bright lights of apartments flicking on in small windows and huge towers hoarding the grey with their fluorescent signs while headlights met taillights on every street. Gotham hadn't changed at all, at least it didn't feel like it had and that offered no glimpse of solace, only pouring salt into an already gaping wound.

"You hungry? American Airlines food is notoriously bad."

Carla blinked and turned on her heels when Harvey's voice cut through the quiet. He flicked on lamps in the corners of the open plan space and switched out his sneakers for a pair of ugly slippers. Seeing him in those coaxed something as close to laughter that Carla had come in days.

"Not really," she said after her faint smirk vanished.

"Well I am, so I'll get a pizza we both like in case you change your mind."

"I think I need to take a shower after that flight, is that okay?"

"Sure," Harvey cocked his head to the side and started walking towards the en-suite of the spare room, grabbing a clean towel and turning on the shower for her, "Take your time."

Carla took the towel from him and thanked him with a nod before he closed the bedroom door on his way out. She unzipped her case and pulled out a fresh pair of leggings and a sweater and hung them over the radiator to keep warm before discarding her clothes and stepping into the shower.

She stood there beneath the water in a daze, her mind completely empty and her body numb to the scalding temperature of the droplets dousing her skin. It wasn't being back in Gotham that had made her feel like that though. Carla had felt her soul strip from her bones the second she heard Harvey's voice choke out the unutterable truth down the phone to her a week prior and it hadn't returned to her since, but she knew deep down that it never actually would.

After forty-five minutes, she turned off the shower and pulled on her clean clothes, finding a hairdryer in the bathroom cabinet and tousling the water from her dark hair until she was dry from head to toe.

Carla padded back out into the lounge where Harvey was sat on the couch, a pizza box untouched on the coffee table and two cold beers with the caps popped off were resting on black coasters. She trudged over to him and slumped down onto the couch, tugging a blanket from beneath his back and draping it over her folded legs, taking a quick gulp of the beer to wash away the bad taste in her mouth, though it didn't go.

"You should eat," Harvey said as he opened the pizza box, not adverse to noticing how dull his friend's skin looked but not wanting to point it out directly.

"Probably," Carla mumbled in response, setting the beer back down on the coaster and pulling her legs up to her chest, arms secured around them over top of the blanket.

She stared mindlessly ahead of her and watched the raindrops trickle down the huge windows that covered the corners of Harvey's apartment. It was almost impossible to see anything now the fog had dropped so low and besides the low volume of whatever show he'd been watching on TV, the world outside might as well have not existed for all Carla could tell, silence all around her.

Harvey was used to silence from Carla and he'd never minded being the one to make conversation, to dig deep enough to find a laugh inside of her or to coax an opinion from her caged heart. He enjoyed her company and valued her friendship like gold and while they had undoubtedly reached a point where silence was comfortable between them, that particular kind of silence was the most haunting thing Harvey had ever heard.

Neither of them had addressed the heartbreaking reason as to why Carla had flown back to a place she swore she'd never set foot in again, but as Harvey stared at her with a sinking feeling piercing his heart, the words came out all too quickly.

"Carla I'm so sorry," he whispered with a soft shake of his head, eyes glazed over with water he blinked back furiously.

She just swallowed, slowly turning her head to meet his broken gaze and being unable to stop tears from filling her own eyes, an uncomfortable choke of a sob forcing its way from her chest past her lips and out of nowhere, she fell apart.

Her cries were agonising and sent shivers down Harvey's spine, though the pain he felt in his own body was nothing compared to the way he knew Carla was feeling. He scooped her up into his arms and held her against his chest, feeling her shaking with uncontrollable sobs from the pit of her stomach and the chords of her shattered heart, an endless stream of tears soaking through his shoulder as he did nothing but cradle her.

"He promised," she spluttered, "He promised he'd come back, he promised..."

Harvey exhaled heavily and tilted his head up to the ceiling, desperate to keep his eyes dry and hold himself together for the sake of his friend. Her words, however, her heartbreaking, desperate words were heavy enough to make even the strongest of men crumble, and he could do nothing but succumb to the same fate as her as he allowed his own tears paint his cheeks.

"I know. He wanted to, Carla. He loved you so much, he really wanted to."

Carla had never believed Bruce when he'd told her that he promised he'd return to her in Sicily once his job was done in Gotham, or at least that's what she told herself. Though when her phone rang seven cold nights ago and Harvey could barely get the words past his lips as Carla was just about to get into bed, it turned out that her heart had believed him all along.

Her hope shattered into a million sharp pieces around her and she sank onto her knees on the bathroom floor, white moonlight cascading shadows across her shaking body as she sobbed and sobbed and sobbed on the checked tiles for hours on end.

Nothing made sense and her body voided itself of anything good, an insufferable amount of bitter pain shredding her nerves and her purity as she dragged herself from the floor to the room that felt like it had belonged to Bruce.

Carla crawled beneath the sheets and lay on his side of the bed, shivering from her wet tears and choking out more until somehow, her body exhausted itself out completely. She woke up the next morning and faced the truth again after a few blissful moments of believing it had all been some vengeful nightmare but her world came crashing down again, and now not even daylight would bring peace to her.

The news that the Batman had sacrificed himself to save Gotham tied with Bruce Wayne's name being among the long list of citizens caught in fateful collateral damage was something that Carla thought she'd conditioned herself to be prepared for, only she had been wrong.

She thought she'd accepted that Bruce would never come back to her and while she'd worried about his broken bones and bloody scars and lost countless hours of sleep wondering where he was and what he was doing, Carla never actually thought it would all end the way that it so tragically did.

It turned out that she had believed him. Carla had trusted Bruce and believed his promise, she'd hoped and prayed and begged for his safe return and to feel his hands grace her again, to hear his voice say her name and to look into those beautiful eyes and see the world shift around them with one curve of his lashes. She longed for his gentle hands to hold her and for his arms to carry her up the stairs to bed, his lips to kiss her collarbones and his heart to beat in time with her own.

Carla was strong enough to know that promises didn't mean anything but she was weak enough for Bruce Wayne to mean everything, and so her world had seemed to end with his.

"I should've...I should've come back with him. Maybe I could've saved him, I could've helped him like he helped me and-"

"You can't think like that," Harvey silenced her regretful sobs, "This wasn't your fault and you did try. You tried so hard, we all did."

Carla was broken as she looked into Harvey's blue eyes, a mirror image in his tears reflecting her soulless bones and the shell of a person who had lost their light. She had once set foot in Gotham with nothing and now returned with somehow returned with even less. A candle had burned and a fire had roared but the ice of a cold winter had come too soon and for Carla, that same, bitter frost consumed her again.

"I was always so cold with him," her eyes glazed over as she spoke from a deep memory, "Do you think he knew that I loved him?"

Harvey let out a defeated sigh and almost shook his head in disbelief at her question, "He knew, Carla. He knew and he loved you exactly the way that you are. He wouldn't have wanted you to love him any differently."

Carla believed Harvey and while she wouldn't have changed a thing about the way she and Bruce had somehow fallen in love, she couldn't help but regret the times she'd brushed his trying hands away or left his bed earlier than she'd needed to just to make a point, now wishing to trade the world and everything in it for just one more second with him.

"You think?"

Harvey couldn't recall a time Carla had asked for validation and although her ego had often scratched him, he wished to never hear her ask for it again. The hopelessness in her voice was like a blade to his heart and the sadness pooling in her dark eyes drowned his own in turn, the most frightening sight being a woman usually so cool and so headstrong looking at him without an ounce of direction or purpose, in desperate need of someone to take her hand and hold it.

And so he did, he grabbed her shaking hands and squeezed them tight, locking his eyes onto her own and nodding firmly, assuring her with a sad smile.

"He loved you so much, I could see it in his eyes, you were it for him. You were everything."

Another steady stream of tears fell from Carla's lashes and her bottom lip quivered, her shoulders shaking as her fingers wrapped around Harvey's palms, nails digging into his skin with desperation to keep hold of something, of anything.

"I just wasn't enough to save him. I'm never enough to save anybody that I love."