Disclaimer- If I was Dan, and you asked me if I owned this, I would take off my glasses and clean them and try to awkwardly explain why I don't. However, I don't wear glasses. So I'll just say that I don't own anything.

Rating- T for some mild language and very brief sexual references.

Summary - Dan doesn't want to give up the mask - but he has no choice.

A/N - We have reached the end of my harebrained little scheme! I do hope you enjoy it. You could almost consider the end as following directly on from the end of the last chapter - but, because I can't help myself, there's a lot of stuff intervening before then.

Thanks to those who've reviewed: Animefangirl12, Raven Aorla, Nellodee, Isis11, and Silential. You guys are awesome!

Hallelujah

When he is 8, Dan Dreiburg realizes for the first time that knights in shining armor don't exist anymore. His parents have tried to explain this to him over and over again, but he can't seem to understand it. How can something be, and then cease to be? He recovers from his initial disappointment when he realizes that he's going to be the one who brings back knights in shining armor. When he tells his father this, he just snorts and says something about a system of some kind or other.

"I am going to do it, you know," he'd huffed with the full force of an eight year old's pride.

"Son," his father said dryly. "You're going to be a banker."

Dan Dreiburg hates money.

Of course, eventually he understands that his father was talking about the feudal system, and reads all about the socioeconomic conditions in which knights lived, and about some of their more dubious activities in the Middle East. Eventually he understands how something can be, and then cease to be... for a time at least. Even when he's in college he can't shake this feeling that such a potent symbol for justice, for honor, could simply vanish into the mists of history. He knows the reality fell far short of the myth... but still.

For a while he considers becoming a firefighter. Or a cop. Or, hell, even joining the army. But every time he stands outside a recruitment office he feels reality falling short of the myth again. Knights didn't fill out paperwork. They won their names on the field of glory. He is close to giving up his quest when the answer - the wonderfully simple answer - lands in his lap, in the form of a newspaper article called "The Minutemen: Where Are They Now?". Of course, with his vision impaired by youth and nearsightedness alike, he manages to ignore the accounts of insanity, murder, and mysterious disappearance - he even ignores the first Silk Spectre's glowing reports of her daughter's progress, unaware that this is the woman he will fall irrevocably in love with - and focuses on the story of Hollis Mason. Good, kind, down-to-earth, well-adjusted Hollis Mason.

Of course, he'd been alive when the Minutemen were around, but only towards the tail end of their downward spiral, and he remembered very little of them. His eyes were too clouded by visions of knights then. Now the two images meld together as seamlessly as bird's feathers and he sees his destiny taking shape before him. Of course he's meant to believe in knights and justice and courage - of course he's meant to have a fascination with birds of prey - he's meant to follow in Hollis Mason's footsteps.

Slowly now, careful, wouldn't want to upset Daddy Dearest. He's got to finish college first, even if his degree isn't in business at least it's still something. He can't break the old man's heart. He knows they already talk about him as it is, in their expensive suits and ties, drinking 20 year old scotch at the country club. They shake their head at the mention of Dreiburg's boy and say he'll amount to nothing - a fine name gone to waste.

Dan Dreiburg really, really hates money.

But, to his credit, his father lets him do what he will. In fact, when he graduates from college he even encourages him to go on to his master's degrees.

"Son, I just want you to make something of yourself," he sighs.

That's another thing Dan hates. That phrase.

"What the hell does it even mean, make something of yourself?" He shouts, drunk, to his roommate as they're preparing to leave the dormitories for good. "Didn't they already make me twenty-two goddamn years ago? No, I was probably immaculately conceived or something. They couldn't feel enough to have sex."

That's his biggest fear: not feeling. He can't stand the thought of suits and ties and quarterly reviews and twenty year old scotch and men shaking their heads and wives taking their bourbon with a Valium on the side. He wants to feel, to live as owls soaring in the night did, as knights on the field of valor did. As Hollis Mason did under the hood.

Even though he wants to be brash and reckless and daring, he can't bring himself to commit the mortal sin of assuming the identity of Nite Owl without asking permission first. As his mother would put it: what would Emily Post say? So he writes a letter, in the politest terms possible, asking for Hollis Mason's permission to take up the mantel, like a squire kneeling before his lord, waiting for the sword to descend on his shoulder in blessing.

When he receives it, he's beside himself with joy. He even does a rather unmanly dance across his new living room. And in-between reading and studying he begins to put his new knowledge to the test, building gadget after gadget, dream after dream, until, at last, he's ready to test his mettle.

There are plenty of mishaps - like the iron suit that breaks his arm and has him laid up for weeks, unable to go out onto the street. He's angry at himself for that one. He thought he was just starting to make headway on convincing this Rorschach fellow to work with him. After all, where was Arthur without the Round Table? He doesn't like having to lie about where he got the broken arm from, either. He tries to tell himself that it's all part of the heroism, keeping his identity safe to protect those he loves. Then he realizes that he doesn't really have anyone to protect - not after his father dies. He's more upset by that than he was prepared for. He died before they ever really knew each other.

He leaves him a lot of money. Dan Dreiburg doesn't mind the money so much now. It's with this money that he buys his new house and the subway beneath, and builds the Owlship. It's with the Owlship that he and Rorschach mount their war on crime and injustice. He is a strange partner, to say the least, but a partner nonetheless. He understands, in some manner, what wearing the mask means, even if he won't talk about it. Still, he won't tell him who he is underneath the mask. Dan tells himself that this is again part of the heroism - that they are keeping each other safe by keeping their identities secret - but every night it just leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. He doesn't even know his only friend's name.

But when they're out there, when they're way over their heads and there's every chance he's not coming home that night, he doesn't regret a damn thing. He feels more alive in those moments than anyone anywhere has ever felt, he imagines. It doesn't matter if the rest of life pales in comparison after the high of risking it - it doesn't matter if that high feels dangerously like an addiction. He is alive, and he is making a difference.

He's overjoyed when he's invited to join the Watchmen, and by sheer force of will alone he overrides the Comedian's sour comments at the first meeting. Ozymandias is right. They can save this world.

(One day, the tables will turn in an icy land, and he will agree more with the Comedian than with Ozymandias. But that day is far in the future.)

He turns a blind eye to all the problems the Watchmen face, ignoring the fact that no one but him can seem to stand Rorschach, or the fact that Dr. Manhattan has effectively ruled the rest of them obsolete. He tells himself each night when he sits on top of a roof looking down on the world he must save that this is his Camelot. It is no shining city on a hill, but it is his nonetheless. It is worth saving, he tells himself.

And what would his Camelot be with a Guenevere? He knows that she's too young for him, he knows that she's Manhattan's girl, but he finds himself falling in love with her anyway. He loves her fire and her dedication, even if she denies enjoying her life as a superhero if he speaks to her about it. The look in her eyes when they're back to back in a drug dealer's den speaks volumes anyway. She loves this and they all know it. He loves her, and everyone but her seems to know. He knows he'll never have her, but that's the point of courtly love, isn't it?

It's around 1975 that everything starts to go wrong. His mother dies, to begin with, leaving him dangerously alone in the real world and that much more in love with the one he sojourns through at night. He turns thirty-two for another, and soon the bruises aren't healing as quickly, and he can't get by on three hours of sleep. He looks up his old friends from college and all of them are already married with children.

"When will it be your turn, Dan?" they all ask him. "Invite us to the wedding!"

Then there's the Roche case, and Rorschach's sudden descent into silence, robbing him of his only friend. And all of the other cases that go bad suddenly follow - until at last the cops are on strike and the people are in the streets and he's standing there asking what happened to them. They were supposed to make the world a better place.

Ozymandias has already made a clean break, of course, well before anyone hears of the Keene Act, and he tells Dan to do the same. He thinks about it for a moment and then slowly removes his goggles and pushes back his cowl, extending his hand.

"Hi. I'm Dan Dreiburg."

He takes his hand warmly, gives it a strong shake that hints too much at the strength its owner possesses.

"Well done, Dan. Well done."

He leaves that meeting with a bad taste in his mouth. He can't help but feel that he's somehow played into Adrian's hand, and that it might be a hand that holds more cards than he cares to know about.

He tells Laurie next, and gets so nervous when he does so that it comes out Drei Danburg instead of Dan Dreiburg. She bursts into laughter, and the sound lights up the dingy night.

"Oh, Dan, I am going to miss you," she smiles, putting her hand on his arm. He wishes that his costume would evaporate so that he could feel that soft touch on his skin. It's been so, so long since anyone but himself touched him in tenderness and not in rage.

"Well, you'll just have to come visit me then. You know you'll be welcome any time," he smiles back, nervously. He knows she won't visit. He feels like he's clenching his hands around all of them, these Watchmen, praying that one of them, any of them, will stay at his side. He's beginning to see why he must take off the mask - but he's also beginning to see that he doesn't remember who he is underneath it.

He tells Rorschach who he is next. That ends badly, with hands around throats and words that can never be taken back. Of course that little bastard is never going to give up. He's glad that he won't. He knows someone needs to be out there, even if it isn't him. Of course it's not him. Everyone said Dreiburg's boy would turn out to be a disappointment when they were sitting in their country clubs swilling their scotch. And they were right.

He stays out as late as he can that night, knowing that it may very well be his last under the hood. He breaks up every riot he can, taking their hurled curses as his penance. He did his best, and it wasn't enough. It was never enough. He deserves their anger.

He gets home and, slowly, piece by piece, peels Nite Owl off his skin, and puts him behind the glass, a relic of what once was, and has now ceased to be. Like a dusty old suit of armor in a quiet hall somewhere in England. He understands now. He understands how things can be, and cease to be. We inevitably destroy what we love. But, still, for a few shining years, the best ones of his life, he was someone. He did something. He made a difference, however small. And that's something no one can take from him.

He wishes he believed that.

He gets dressed and prepares to go upstairs. He'd left the TV on before he left for the night, and now he hears the first news report of the morning blaring in the background:

"After a vote on the Senate floor this morning, the Keene Act has passed with a historical unanimous vote. The famous act has ended vigilante justice once and for all, and the masked heroes are expected to give themselves up today. Let's go to our reporter at the NYPD headquarters and see how the news is being taken there."

"It's wonderful news," a gruff, grizzly old cop with a beer gut hanging down over his belt says. "Now we can finally get back to doing our jobs."

That will be him one day - fat and old and purposeless. He stands at the top of his basement stairs, looking down on the life he is leaving behind, and knows that nothing will ever compare to it. He risked it all, and he lost it all, and, God, it hurts more than he was ever prepared for to think that maybe he should've just been a banker.

"As you can see, Eileen, the era of the costumed adventurer is truly over," the reporter says somewhere in the background, beckoning him back to the real world.

"Well, Hallelujah," he murmurs back, and turns off the lights.

fin

I did my best, it wasn't much

I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch

I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you

And even though it all went wrong

I'll stand before the Lord of Song

With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

A/N-- Whew, sorry about the delay there, folks. Real life intervened and all that. Well, that's the end! I hope you enjoyed reading this fic as much as I enjoyed writing it. I don't know whether I'll be returning to Watchmen fanfiction after this - I've got some ideas but I've got a busy summer ahead of me. Keep an eye out just in case!

Keep fighting the good fight,

Verona