“So what you’re sayin’ is, you want me to go to my high school history teacher who’s been through the wringer with his wife and offer up a kid with issues and a mom that’s disappeared?” he asked.

“You think for a second they’ll say no, then no, I don’t want that shit,” Lee returned.

“My guess, they won’t blink at the kid. But the mom has disappeared. She comes back—”

“She won’t come back,” Hank stated.

“If she comes back—” Joker started again.

“She won’t come back,” Lee said firmly.

Joker stared at him.

Then he asked, “Dad?”

“Dad’s out of the picture,” Hank said.

Fuck.

They knew the dad.

They also knew the mom.

They knew everything.

Fuck.

“How out of the picture?” Joker pushed.

“Very,” Hank told him.

Joker looked between the both of them.

Then he clipped, “I get their hopes up, shit goes south, we got a problem.”

“There won’t be any problems,” Lee replied inflexibly.

Joker took a beat.

Then he said, “You gotta give me twenty-four hours.”

“Why?” Lee asked.

“’Cause I gotta talk to Carissa,” he told him.

“Good call. She can back you up with your teacher,” Hank muttered.

Actually, he hadn’t thought of that. But he’d pull her in on that too.

What he’d thought of was little fingers curled around his own.

Tight.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “But gotta talk to her mostly because, they say no, I gotta know if she’s good takin’ on a baby who might have problems down the line.”

Lee’s head jerked, and Hank stared.

Joker walked away.

* * *

The next day, standing in the Compound, Carissa at his side, her hand tight in his, Joker stared at Keith Robinson, who stood, head bent, hand lifted and wrapped around the back of his neck.

They were the only ones in the room.

They waited.

He took his time.

Finally, he dropped his hand and looked at Joker.

“I can’t put my wife through it again.”

Joker nodded.

He’d given him the info, and he wasn’t surprised at his decision. The man loved his wife. Carissa went through what Keith watched his wife go through, Joker would make the same call.

“Then Carissa and I are takin’ her on.”

Keith blinked before his face changed.

“That’s honorable Carson,” he looked to Carissa, “Carissa, honey,” back to Joker, “but believe me when I say that if things turn, you fall in love in an instant, and hearts break very easily.”

“I’ve been assured by people who can do that that things won’t change,” Joker told him, repeating something he’d already shared.

“You think that and then—”

“Keith, you don’t get me,” Joker cut him off quietly. “These people would not have approached me if they didn’t know things would not change.”

Keith stared into his eyes.

Joker let him.