I am Gotham. I do not learn from my mistakes.
I am Racheal, weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted because they are no more.
A pale, perfect boy lies dead on the operating table, chest jumping with the pulses of the defibrillator. His dark eyes are staring, open, terribly and wretchedly empty. Strong arms hold me back as I scream for Angel, they are dragging me to the door. I bite, scratch, kick and taste the bitter salt of my own blood. More hands, more struggle—I can no longer see him, and still they haul me back. Angel can't die! I am screamingsobbing, Angelscan'tdie—!
I wake, and Angel's eyes are open.
They are smooth and wet, liquid like a doe's. I am mesmerized, caught in the contrast between their gleaming whites and profound darkness.
I want to touch his face, run my fingers over the soft lines of his jaw, trace one, trembling tip down the perfect line of his small nose. But he is so fragile, so delicate…
I fear to break him.
I reach a timid hand over to caress his curly hair. Looking into those eyes I falter. I fear rejection. But I am foolish-he raises a small hand and touches mine, the sharp tips of his tiny nails prickling my skin.
"Hey," I whisper.
I love him. Irrationally, irrevocably, eternally. At twenty-six I find myself staring into the eyes of the child I can never have. At eight, he sees his murdered mom.
I wanted a child. He needed a mother…
We are destined to be. He was born here, in my arms. The dark dreams of his past are erased when he looks into my eyes, his horrible secrets are safe with me, locked forever behind my lips. Already have I forgotten them.
He is pale and beautiful, sorrow and silence, darkness and light… and he is mine.
I will hold him, raise him, love him.
What would you call perfection if you could hold it? I call him Angel.
"Hey," I whisper again. He smiles weakly back. But there is pain in those dark eyes, pain and fear. "They can't hurt you anymore." I breathe, "Angel…"
I touch his face. He is pale and strangely cold. Twin tears leak from his weepy eyes, tracing down my fingers to drop burning onto my palms. I ache to pull him closer, that enthralling, maternal desire to press him against my skin where nothing can harm him…
My fingers brush something dark and wet. For a moment, I cannot breathe. In all the world there is only the cold whiteness of his pale face, the burning darkness of his deep eyes and hair…there is no color here. I cannot focus, my vision blurring. What is this scarlet on my hand?
It's blood.
Angel's blood. I fling back the cover and it has spread in a seeping, scarlet stain across half the bed, the sheets, the mattress, his skin all coated with a with this same, poisonous shame.
My scarlet-stained fingers are in front of my face, but I cannot move, only stare into those pain-stricken, expectant eyes and realize my Angel is dying.
Agony.
I know now that Hell is choosing between letting an Angel die, or surrendering him to the Devil himself. But this is the price I pay in taking him. This is the price of silencing his secrets, my own private purgatory for all my crimes: to choose.
Yesterday I murdered his bastard of a father. I took him for my own. The hospital will ask questions. If I tell CPS the truth, they will take him away. I would go to prison. He would forever be one of hundreds of molested little boys, forced into psychotherapy, labeled, victimized, forever a foster-child, never a son, eternally pitied…
He is limp in my arms now, wrapped in the blood-soaked bed sheet. His dark eyes stare up into mine, trusting, loving, deceived. I'm sorry Angel, I'm so sorry—Gotham Memorial Hospital is three blocks from my apartment, I stagger under the weight of my choice, the boy in my arms less a burden then my guilt. I am too selfish to let him die. He looks into my streaming eyes and believes they are all he needs, he trusts me to make it better, erase the pain like his dark and disturbing dreams…
But I will only make it worse.
Midnight headlights cut across my blurring vision, strangely iridescent, splitting into a thousand shafts in the diamonds of my tears. The night is weeping too, her freezing guilt falling with a sudden flash of silent thunder. My long, flickering shadow a demon, pulling me, weighting me, haunting me down…
I stumble, spill my burden onto the star-strewn, shimmering street. I bear him up again, my child, my Angel, my savior, dying in my arms as cold and still, terrible and beautiful as a Pieta-Christ, wet and wretched against my heart.
Help me! God somebody help me help Angel I am shouting, shouting as the boy in my arms trembles and shakes, his doe-eyes rolled back, dull instead of gleaming they take him from me and lay him on a stretcher, flopping horribly and bucking from the shock his blood is gone his blood is gone and running in scarlet streams like the freezing, dripping rain still falling from the sky and my burning, blurring eyes-
I wake. Angel's eyes are open, staring into mine.
Oxygen tubes poke harshly into his tiny nose, his arms a tangle of IV tubing and the countless units of borrowed blood. He is lying on his stomach, his frightened face turned to me over the pillows.
His liquid eyes begin to focus. He sees me.
And smiles.
I am forgiven.
"Angel," I whisper, touching his face, running my finger down the straight line of his nose, pressing the tip. He mimics me weakly, laying a trembling palm against my cheek. Tears trickle and run onto his tiny nails. I weep. My face is inches from his, laid on his bedside, staring, loving, adoring. I memorize every detail, the shape of his cherub's mouth, his perfect nose, those wide, doe-like eyes, the tears clinging to their impossible lashes…
Angel.
There are footsteps behind me, uniforms reflected in the unending pools of his fathomless eyes. They are here.
"Ma'am? We need to talk."
Let them try to take him from me. They will not find it easy. My lips are on his perfect face, my hands buried in his sweet-smelling hair, his breath is soft and warm, panting gently against my throat. He screams as I am forced from his embrace, the sharp tips of his tiny nails ripping ribbons of flesh from my outstretched, flailing fingers I am dragged I am screaming AngelAngelAngel—!
My hands are clenched around the doorframe, my body suspended and tossed by an angry mob of reaching arms and flashing badges, Angel's mouth is open and he coughs in a silent, wordless scream. Our eyes meet and I tell him they will have to spill me before I divulge his secret, that they will take me from him and tell him that I have done those horrible things to him, that he can never, ever see me again because his blood was on my sheets and I'm a horrible fucked up child molester who deserves to die in prison anyways and the lies, lies, lies I will take and bear in your name because I love you, Angel—
Their force is unrelenting. My arms are weakening. Our gazes hold us locked. His pale lips part.
I'll come back for you, Angel! Whatever it takes I promise I'll come back—!
I am taken.
Call me Gotham. I do not learn from my mistakes.
I am Racheal.
You cannot comfort me.