His heart resumes its beating on the first turn. By the second, his eyes slide into focus. The third, his head pounds. Realization dawns as memory returns and anxiety builds and builds and builds with no release until he's sure he'll just explode into a ball of light, just self immolate and end it all, end them with him. When the car stops so does his breath. The joy he feels at seeing sunlight, maybe for the final time, is lost as Bullock looms over him, menacing. His words are lost as he struggles to speak, prepared to beg for his life if he has to but he can't. And then-
"P-p-p-please-"
But the moment is gone and Gordon grabs at him, drags him out of the car, and he struggles to stand on beaten, tired legs as he scrambles away. He rambles, not breathing, pleading, trying in vain to offer himself in any way that would spare his life. With growing dread, he realizes he's run out of pier and out of time and things to say and wishes (not for the first time) that he'd chosen a different path, that everything hadn't gone to hell the way it did and his breath comes raggedly, so loudly that he barely hears Gordon's words as the bullet burns his face and his body goes numb from the shock of the cold water.
I'm dead, he thinks, I'm dead and it's all over and I can breathe again. He struggles to remember the last words he heard, the final touch he's ever
experienced, but his mind is blank and instead he holds his breath for as long as he is able. When he surfaces, gasping, struggling for breath, he remembers them.
Never come back to Gotham.
He stumbles out of the water like a sinner from the baptismal pool, dripping and righteous and changed. He can't explain it, the feeling pumping
through his veins, and trembles with some strange sort of anticipation. The closest he's ever felt to this is with a bat in his hand and a giddy rage in his heart. He turns and studies the city one more time.
Never come back to Gotham.
He won't. Not yet. Not until he's strong and he's sure and ready and the city damn near belongs to him. Not until the blood of Bullock and Gordan and Mooney runs from his bare hands. Not until he has embraced himself without shame.
He will return to Gotham. And they will never see him coming.