By Indiana
Characters: Sabrina (OC), Edward Nygma
Synopsis: He was her most complicated client, but among her most rewarding.
(follows 'For Dad')
It was that time of year again.
Sabrina looked up at the neon sign that indicated the entrance of the GCPD - and she never had figured out why it needed such a sign in the first place - and pulled open the door. This was the latest location of her client, who had been shuffled from facility to facility over the last several years. Well, he didn't belong here anymore than he'd belonged at Blackgate. She took a deep breath and walked to the administrative office.
He wasn't the worst of Sabrina's clients, not by far; she'd defended clever psychopaths and remorseless murderers and even a molester or two. Some of them blurred together after a while. Her family was none too impressed with her career choice, but as a public defender she'd kept her fair share of innocent people at home as well. This particular man was not innocent, but Sabrina had never been entirely convinced he was completely guilty, either. Hence why she spent more time on his legal briefs than anyone else's. His charges were often completely sound - on the surface. However, anyone who actually paid attention while interviewing him could see that he was not quite in his right mind. His first several lawyers had not been doing so. Enter Sabrina.
She stopped in front of the desk, which was adjacent to the holding cell - merely containing a few morose small-timers at the moment - and told the man there, "I'm here to see -"
"Interview room A," he interrupted without glancing up from the monitor he was squinting at, and Sabrina's jaw tightened. The police in this town were a shade too arrogant for her liking.
She opened the door. The room was more rundown than it had been six months ago, when she had been there to interview a petty thief, and empty other than a table and two chairs vaguely in the centre. She sat down and opened her briefcase.
She had one briefcase for every time he'd been caught.
Every case contained audio and transcripts for the dozens of interviews that needed to be conducted when he was brought in. All of his known informants had to be interrogated, and none of them ever wanted to give up anything because what he paid them was worth the jail time. But what he paid her was worth the effort, so she kept it up no matter that the list of his known associates seemed to lengthen every damn time. And along with those, of course, were the interviews conducted with the man himself, which often ran far longer than necessary because he had the amazing inability to stay on topic. They were something to listen to when she needed a distraction or idle entertainment, but as far as defending him went, they weren't that helpful. They did, however, provide extensive evidence that he had not been thinking straight for at least the last decade and a half.
She looked up at the sound of the door opening, and had to look up again; she always forgot just how big he was. He looked so much shorter in the newspaper. He was again thinner than last time, though now he had put on a good deal of wiry muscle, and something more complicated than time had aged him considerably. He did not look at her as he was lead to his seat, hands cuffed together in front of him. And she was reminded of why she had decided to defend him in the first place: for all the things he'd done, there was some bitter vulnerability that made her wonder just how much of a choice he had in his actions. Perhaps he was entirely competent, and she'd been wrong all this time; perhaps she was more responsible for allowing him to continue on than she wanted to be. But she liked to think otherwise.
"He doesn't need those," Sabrina told the officer behind the chair opposite, "and there's no need for you to stay."
The officer's brow creased. "Ma'am, I'm sure you know what you're doing, but – "
"I do. Now stop arguing and do as I've asked."
He did so, clipping the cuffs back onto his belt and leaving the room. Sabrina moved the briefcase aside. "Good afternoon, Edward."
"Good afternoon, my dear," the Riddler said, and he folded his hands together on the table.
"You know why I'm here." She removed a sheaf of papers from her case. "The highest count, aside from attempted murder, seems to be kidnapping? Again?"
"She wasn't kidnapped," Edward answered. "She entered my property willingly. She was merely held without consent."
Well, false imprisonment carried a significantly smaller penalty than kidnapping. She made a note.
"Other than the usual attempted murder and assault, which can be thrown out, that's all they can hold you for. Except for the vandalism." She had significantly more manila folders containing photographs of the property he had drenched in that strangely phosphorescent green paint and those odd but impressive mechanical constructions than she had for all of their other meetings combined. Inside one of the collections were freehand sketches of the Batmobile found painted on walls, perfect renditions all. She had stared at those for a long time. All of the things a man of that degree of skill could have done, and he had become a supercriminal.
There had to be something grievously wrong with him.
"Do you have children, Sabrina?" Edward asked. He was still looking at his hands.
She paused in turning the papers she held over. "No." It was an odd question, not only because it was one usually asked when the person doing so had already kidnapped said children, but because he dealt so deeply in information brokerage that she would have been honestly surprised to learn he didn't already know the answer. "I've been considering it, but I'm not sure that's what I want to do right now."
"I always wanted children," Edward continued, largely as if he hadn't heard. "Of course, in my line of work that's a foolish notion. It's not at all a child-friendly environment."
"I see," Sabrina said, though she didn't, not at all.
"But then I ended up with some." His fingers were white due to the force he was clenching them with. "I had three."
"Where are they?" Sabrina asked, to be polite mostly. This had nothing to do with either her or her job. She could do a lot of things, but she could not help him retain custody of those kids. Once they were gone, they were gone.
"They're dead," Edward said.
That explained why he was so subdued. He had usually set into one of his endless rants by now.
"One of them is alive. Maybe two of them. Possibly even all three. And I keep trying to believe that it could be all three. That they all made it. But I've never been so fortunate. And so I try to think of which one it is that survived. But how can I do that without playing favourites? That's something a parent tries not to do."
Sabrina put the papers down and waited for him to get to the point.
He licked his lips and leaned forward in the chair, resettling his hands on the table. "Most often when I am imprisoned I spend all of my time planning my next escape and, consequently, my future plans, but this time… this time all I can think of beyond leaving is finding them all safe. And in doing so I have come to the realisation that all of this is meaningless. Nothing is worth the selfless love and respect they gave to me. There's no need to discuss my case, as I will be leaving before the date of the hearing. I'm going back to find my children and value them as I should have in the first place. None of this makes any further sense to me."
She folded her own hands together now. She was not all that surprised to hear he had fathered children; he was attractive, intelligent, and had a great deal of money. There were probably plenty of women of the criminal element who were willing to go a night with him even if they had to put up with his eccentricity to do so. Three sounded a little irresponsible for a man who was so meticulous with his affairs, but she supposed there was some explanation behind that she didn't really need to know. "I'm relieved to hear that, Edward," she told him. "But why are you telling me all of this?"
He looked up at her now, and as usual she could not hold his gaze; not because he was attempting to intimidate her, but because there was so much intelligence in his eyes that she felt like she were withering under it. As though he were on another plane of existence higher than she was, and it was the fact that he didn't belong in this day and age that had brought his mind to ruin. The most frightening thing about him was the fact that he had the ability to do so much and yet truly did so little. Perhaps his curse was everyone else's blessing.
"You are one of a very rare few who has ever showed me kindness, Sabrina," he said, very solemnly. "I could have found my own way out of Blackgate, obviously, but regardless I do appreciate your efforts all these years. I may have invested a great deal into retaining you, but you were the one who accepted in the end." He readjusted his glasses, moving them higher up the bridge of his nose. "All of your time spent keeping me out of prison has not been entirely fruitless."
He reached into the pocket of his prison jumpsuit and removed a blank envelope, which he slid over to her. It was folded around a package inside of it, and when he entwined his hands together a second time she took that as a sign to unfold and open it.
All it contained was a package of some sort of drink mix, on which was written 'For Dad' in a hand that didn't have much experience with writing. She stared at it, not at all knowing what to say.
"I failed them and all they want is for me to know they still care," Edward said quietly.
Sabrina was not entirely certain of what he meant, but it seemed being forgiven for failing, coupled with the potential loss of something he had cared about, had provided some sort of psychological breakthrough for him. She hoped it would last.
He stood up and held his hand out, and she looked at it, confused. "You're leaving now?"
He smiled just a little. "No, not now. I must wait until the infernal drugs they had me on have no further effect. They believe me to be taking them still so I must pretend to be docile." The smile inched up his face. "You won't tattle on me, will you, my dear?"
She rose and grasped his hand, shaking her head. "I'm here to keep you out of jail, not tell you what to do. Good luck, Edward."
His hand was strong and warm, the palm marked with healing calluses. Physical work had changed his physique, then; it made sense, as he was not exactly the gym rat type. She closed the briefcase and he sat back down.
"I'll send someone in after you, then," she told him, and he half-shrugged. She slid the envelope back across the table and he put it back wherever he was keeping it. She didn't really want to know.
"Thank you," Edward said, as her hand was wrapping around the door handle. She looked over her shoulder.
"When you get home, you hug those kids and tell them you love them," she said sternly. "You only get so many second chances before they grow up and realise you're not going to change."
He didn't answer, but he was staring at his hands with an expression of… horrified sadness, maybe, as though he was afraid he had lost one or more of them and had never done those things with them. She wouldn't say she was glad, exactly, that such a thing had befallen him, but… she was glad that something had shown him what was important. It was unfortunate his poor children had to fall into the crossfire, but hopefully he really hard learned something from all of this and truly meant to walk away from this criminal lifestyle. It was a waste of his talents, really.
By the time she returned home there was already an email in her inbox indicating he had paid her retainer, or severance it was now she supposed, and it was more than he usually sent but she wasn't going to lose sleep over it. She unpacked the briefcase into a filing box, and now he was no longer her client all of those files were going to have to go into storage. They'd been sitting in her office for years upon end, and she felt a sort of nostalgic melancholy at the realisation they'd be gone soon. For all the things he'd done and for all the headaches he'd given her, she'd been on his side and now she'd never know if he made it or not.
About a month later she was leafing through the mail that had arrived at her office to find a plain envelope, no return address but with a forever stamp from Canada affixed to one corner. She opened it, puzzled, but knew immediately who sent it when she looked inside. She sat down and removed the drink mix from the envelope and looked at it for a long moment.
He'd sent her a riddle, the cryptic bastard. And she'd never have any way of knowing the solution, but it seemed that he only would have sent this if he didn't need it to remind him of something.
Sometimes she received letters from innocents she'd kept out of prison, or subdued but grateful voicemails from criminals whose sentences she had fought so hard to reduce, but this… she had to say this was among the greatest messages she'd ever received.
She placed it carefully inside her desk drawer and returned to work.
Author's note
This was supposed to be whimsical. It's not. Maybe next time.
Sabrina is the name of a server at work who smiles a lot and has really nice hair and also laughs at all my jokes, even the horrible dad jokes.
I was looking up forever stamps because I originally had 'permanent stamp' there and that's not what they're called; they don't seem to have them in America so basically a forever stamp is a stamp you buy in a pack for a set rate and you can use it forever, even if the price of a stamp goes up after you buy them.
If you haven't read 'For Dad', basically he was in jail all doped up on sedatives and his robot kids sent him a package of hot chocolate mix. Sabrina doesn't know its hot chocolate mix because it's just a plain white package.
Which of the kids are alive? Are any of them? My secret )