Officer Grayson was having one hell of a good day.

He had rejoined the department after the leave he had been forced to take for his injuries to heal ended and as he was back, he seemed much more cheerful than usual. Perhaps he really needed those few days off to rejuvenate himself. Or something had happened in those few days that had influenced his mood entirely.

Gary was ready to bet money on the latter. He had been very sure ever since Richard had returned his car keys with the biggest smile on his face. Upon asking, he had brushed it off, saying it was just a good day to be back at work but Gary knew that wasn't entirely true.

Something had happened but his best friend was not telling him. 

"Alright, tell me what did you have to drink?" Gary had folded his arms defiantly and was peering down at Richard who was in his seat, happily going through some paperwork.

"Nothing. I just had coffee and breakfast, the usual."

"Are you high?"

"No, I don't want to get fired."

"Then what's with all the cheery, smiley attitude? Granted, you're not one of those grumpy serious blokes but you're normally not this happy either."

"Say that to anyone in the GCPD and they won't believe you," he replied lightly, going back to his work, "There's nothing wrong with me, honest."

Gary narrowed his eyes at him as if it was still hard to believe his words. "And you never mention the GCPD..."

The light sound of his laughter resonated around them, "Gary, I know you're a detective but you've never acted like that before. There's nothing to investigate, relax."

Gary's suspicions only deepened as the day dragged ahead. They had to go on a raid which turned out to be a false alarm, they had to deal with a highly annoying group of protestors threatening to block the city square, and then they got landed with a case on short notice. Nothing seemed to be going well for that day but Richard was still over the moon.

He was calmly dealing with everything on his plate, sorting out whatever problems arose without a single complaint. True, he was always amiable but it seemed he was even more approachable and eager to do all his tasks. Nothing seemed to tire him out.

Gary was surprised because he had never seen him like that before. It made him wonder if he really was like that back in Gotham, a pure ray of sunshine that refused to dim down no matter how worse the day got.

By the time they were finally clocking out and Gary was driving him back home because his car hadn't been returned, he put forward one last question, "I forgot to ask earlier but why exactly did you borrow my car yesterday?"

"I had to go sightseeing," he replied but the slight hesitation before answering gave him away.

"By yourself?"

"Well... Not exactly," he gave in, knowing there was no putting Gary off his case now.

The silence between them lingered but surprisingly, Gary didn't ask him anything else. He seemed to have a very good guess on who accompanied Richard on the sightseeing and he didn't want to take the risk of being proven wrong if he asked out loud.

When Richard's destination came and he got out, turning to bid his farewell, Gary remarked, "It's good to see you like this for a change."

He smiled, knowing his friend was sincere and wanted him to be happy, "To be honest, I haven't felt like this in a long time either. I don't know how to react to it."

"Well, don't fret about it. As long as you're happy, nothing else matters," Gary advised, backing his car out to the road, "See you tomorrow."

***

The painting had been finished, with each stroke of color applied and each detail tended to.

Erica leaned back in her seat, observing the canvas closely. Right in front of her was a life-like image of the man who had carved his way into her heart so quickly that she didn't even notice when he started to mean such a lot to her.

She didn't know if it was his gentle blue eyes or his smooth velvety voice that attracted her to him from the very beginning. But now after a considerable time of knowing each other and habitually seeing each other around, she couldn't imagine going back to her monotonous circle of life if it didn't include him.

She had tried resisting that attraction at first but it only ended up pulling them closer together. And now it was impossible to deny that he held an irreplaceable spot in her heart, filling a void that no one else had tried to heal before.

Her fingers trailed slightly to the lips she had painted, pale pink, and turned up in an amiable smile, an expression that she knew so well by then. He smiled very often in her company; she had just captured that beautiful smile on paper through that painting.

But there seemed to be some difference as the painting lacked the life and humor that Richard displayed. After all, it was just a painting, her version of what he looked like.

It couldn't capture how he made her feel, how his smile lit up the room, and how her heartbeat started racing each time they were close enough to eradicate that small gap between them.

He wasn't with her at the moment and yet he was everywhere, in her thoughts, in her memory, and in the painting in front of her. The ghost of his lips against her own felt very much real and she let go of the painting, taking in a deep breath.

Something about him pulled her in like a magnet and he felt the same way too.

As the painting had been completed, she stood up and unhooked the canvas from her easel, taking it to the back of her studio where the rest of her paintings were displayed.

Seeing the rest of the work and the painting in her hands, she could only wonder at the sheer difference in style between them. The details, the colors, and the coordination were all different from her usual paintings.

It was clear that she had been in a very different headspace when she had painted her most recent canvas.

That difference could also exist because the person she had just painted wasn't another brief glimpse that she would see and dismiss in her life. He would be the start of an upcoming chapter in her otherwise monotonous life, one that she was both nervous and excited to read.

He made her heart flutter like a high school sweetheart. And she wasn't foolish to let that feeling slip from her grasp after so long of feeling absolutely nothing of such meaning.

***