Prologue

A clean conscience. 

You've probably done lots of things. Things you wish could be wiped away, like dirt on your skin. 

A clean conscience is the monster in my closet. The bogeyman under my bed. The shadow that follows my dreams.

When I remember them, that is. 

My parents abandoned me 36 hours in. I got found, underweight and sickly, and I had foster parents. Sucky foster parents who made even suckier adoptive parents. When I got old enough to think in logical strings they just… left me during the day to fend for myself. I guess that was my second experience of "tough love".

Moving out at 16 - without so much as a blink of high school - was ambitious and, looking back on it, a little stupid. For a while it was just me, my clothes and the world. Even when I did get a job and a leaky roof over my head, the only thing on my mind was the open road.

I kept moving around, going where the wind blew me. I didn't even have to think about it and I'd be gone again, on my way to another crappy job and another grotty flat with a leaky roof.

I didn't regret it though. It was weird; I should have regretted it. I should have regretted a lot of things but… I didn't see the point in regret. As long as I learned instead of passing notes, regrets were just lessons in strange wrapping.

That was something Garfield taught me, back when we were kids. Something he taught me again when we were teenagers and strangers to each other. Something he taught me again when we later met for the first time.

Something I never really learned.

No regrets isn't a part of me.

To someone whose past is fake, having no regrets, having a clean conscience… those things are just collateral damage.

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If you're confused about the differences in the characters in this compared to in the animated series, please bear in mind that they're older in this story (19-20 years old instead of 15-16).

In the comic, as BB got older he became more focused and more of a leader-figure. Another point to think about was his obvious anger-button for Terra (he completely flipped out when she was revealed as a traitor, etc).

updated Sep 5 '10 by OddOneOut