Metamorphosis
I
As far as government programs go, witness protection isn't so bad.
It'd be different if I took it seriously. If I took it seriously, then I'd have certain complaints—for instance, the fact that despite Jim Gordon's dogged efforts, my case was consistently swatted aside by whoever is in charge of the federal program, meaning that I stayed in the hands of the state, and at the end of it all, was relocated a mere hour upstate from Gotham City, still in easy reach of the danger.
Fortunately, I don't take it too seriously—and by that, I don't mean that I'm walking around telling people that I'm in witness protection, going by my real name, or otherwise treating it like a big joke. Gordon put me here because it was the best way he could manage to protect me, and I'm not so much of an asshole that I'm going to take his hard work for granted. The issue isn't that I don't appreciate the state's protection—it's that I just don't think it's going to work in the long run. I know the man they're trying to protect me from, the domestic terrorist-slash-terrifying force of nature known only as the Joker, and I know that if he wants to find me, he will. It's as simple as that.
You'd think that sense of inevitability would be unsettling at best, paralyzing at worst. It's not. Sure, I know I should be scared, especially given that at the conclusion of our last meeting I shot him in the knee and explicitly dared him to come after me again, but prolonged exposure to the Joker seems to have permanently addled me.
No, addled is the wrong word. It makes it sound like I regard the changes I've experienced as negative ones. The truth is the opposite. I'll say one thing: being abducted by the Joker and toted around like a favored pet as he wages his personal war against Gotham City certainly helps you cut the fat, so to speak. Mind, I'm not necessarily saying that he deserves any credit for my personal journey—he may have been the catalyst that inspired it, but given that he seemed to be doing his utmost to rip me apart and turn me against myself the whole time, it certainly wasn't his intention that I end up wholly on my own side.
He should have taken advantage of my surrender the first time, when I gave up and essentially asked him to end it for me—he should have put a bullet in me then and there, but for all the Joker's superior strengths, he has plenty of flaws, and one of the most damning ones is that he is greedy. He wanted to push it further, he wanted the satisfaction of watching me kill myself, and there was the fatal flaw in his plan. He thought the only way for me to go was further down, but he underestimated me: somehow, in the time between asking him to kill me and getting my hands on a gun, I'd grown so sick of being jerked around by him that I'd changed my mind. I chose myself, if only because I knew he was betting on me being too tired to do it anymore, and I'd promised myself that I wasn't going to let him turn me against myself again.
I didn't realize it at the time—at the time, it was just a "fuck you," an unpleasant surprise for the man who'd been putting me through several levels of hell for so long—but the choice was a significant one. After the dust settled, I was startled to find that the emotional numbness and general languor that pressed down on me constantly in the span between my Joker encounters had evaporated completely, and it didn't take me long to figure out why.
At the bottom of it all, it's about power. Specifically, power over me. From the beginning, he held it all—I spent all my time in some state of awareness that at any moment he could drop back in and disrupt my life, which led to an attitude (consciously held or not) of "why bother living it?" Once he had come back, he was able to use my internal division against me: he teased and poked at the parts of me that I was ashamed of, that scared me, or that I didn't understand, threatening to drag them out and expose them, and because I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to handle what he showed me about myself, I went along with him so that he wouldn't be provoked into doing it.
In listening to him, in granting credence to his opinions about me, I'd been allowing him to pry my skull open, poke his fingers into my brain and give it a good stir till I was too mixed up to tell up from down. The minute I'd decided to stop letting him turn me against myself, I felt like I could breathe freely for the first time in a year.
The effects of that decision were far-reaching, and the realization of this took a while to hit me. At first, I thought it was just the old numbness that was guiding me through all the inconvenient, invasive days that followed the Christmas fiasco. However, at some point as I waded through the process of testifying against him (recorded separately and submitted into evidence; Gordon personally made sure that I wouldn't have to testify in court), the skeptical glances from police officers and citizens alike, and the crush of reporters that hounded me everywhere I went before Gordon's request for witness protection finally went through and whisked me away from them, I realized that this was far from the truth.
The attention I received after that Christmas vastly outstripped the fuss the press made the first time around—witnesses to Joker violence are a dime a dozen in Gotham City; even the unusual nature of his initial interest in me only prompted a few raised eyebrows and some minor media attention before it faded away, but this was different. By featuring me in one of his cute home videos which he then had broadcast across all of Gotham's news networks, he made the whole city privy to my abduction as it was happening, and when I got out alive and the rumor started that I had shot him to escape, the city went nuts. To the general public, I was a hero.
I could deal with 'hero,' but Gotham doesn't boast the leakiest, most corrupt police department in the United States for nothing, and at some point, someone told the press that I wasn't the Joker's victim, but his accomplice. You can imagine the shitstorm that drummed up.
So there I was, dealing with the harassment of a starkly-divided press (half of which wanted to paint me as some vigilante hero, the other half of which was determined to prove me a villain) on top of all the legal red tape I had to wade through. The old Emma would have been helpless, frozen like a deer in the headlights of all the attention, but something had changed. A whole lifetime of feeling threatened by people en masse (and people in general) melted away. Instead of hiding in my apartment and refusing to expose myself to the crowds outside like I would have done before, I'd throw on hats, scarves, sunglasses (and these only because I knew witness protection was pending and it'd be better if the public wasn't familiar with my face) and pass through them like they weren't even there.
(There was an exception. One reporter tripped me in the process of trying to aggravate a confession out of me. I stumbled, regained my footing, turned around, and laid him out. I busted my hand in the process, and Gordon hadn't been happy with me, but it was all on camera, the guy technically assaulted me and I'd been acting in self-defense, so I was pretty much in the clear. The newspaper the guy worked for made it into a huge story about how I was clearly unhinged, so everybody won.)
This wasn't like the unnatural fearlessness that I'd been suffering the year before. That had been owing to his influence, some unnatural state of emotional stasis in which I was suspended because I was waiting for him to come back. What I'm experiencing now is different—it isn't so much that I'm not afraid as that I've found the strength to be at peace with that fear. Better: I've figured out how to use it as a motivator. These days, I look forward to the pulse of adrenaline I feel as I pitch myself into any remotely frightening situation. It feels good, makes me feel alive, and most of all, it serves as a reminder that I don't need him. Considering that once upon a time I'd been afraid that I'd grown so dependent on him that I wouldn't be able to feel anything unless he prompted it, this feels significant.
There's also the notable fact that this time around, I flat-out dared him to come after me again. It doesn't make that much of a difference in the scheme of things—he'll do what he wants, he always does—but it feels good, having made it clear to him in so many words that I no longer dread his involvement in my life. In fact, a part of me (the same dark, inexplicable little part I would have been ashamed of before all this) is looking forward to it.
So no, I don't take witness protection too seriously. I cooperate just fine—I try my best to answer to my new name, Lilah Carpenter, and I work the job that before would have seemed insurmountable (now, faking interest in my tables seems like the easiest thing in the world). I keep a low profile; I try to make it clear through my actions that I appreciate the work Gordon's done for me here.
(I draw the line at coloring my hair, a suggestion that was bandied about quite a lot at the beginning of all this. If—when—he finds me, it's not going to be because of my hair, and I'm attached to my natural copper shade. I make up for my concession to vanity by wearing a lot of scarves and hats when I'm in public.)
In deciding where to relocate me, they'd weighed the risks of placing me in a busy neighborhood, where I was more likely to be recognized, against the risks of placing me somewhere a little more isolated, where there'd be no one around to help if something did happen. They seemed to make a decision pretty easily—my face had been all over the news for the past few months, and if the Joker came after me, it's not like having neighbors would improve my situation any. They ended up placing me in an old farmhouse a few miles outside town—I gathered that the previous owner had gone under and sold their land to the farm that bordered them, which leaves me surrounded by corn and… not much else.
It's been surprisingly good. Life in the city is crowded enough as it is; after spending months under scrutiny, the isolation out here is a welcome relief. Add to that the fact that I grew up in a place like this, quiet and flat and lonely, and I'm more comfortable than I have been in a long time.
The Joker escaped Arkham two weeks after he was committed, by the way, two weeks after they moved me up here. I wasn't surprised, though the marshals assigned to keep an eye on me seemed to be (again, they're state marshals, not local to Gotham—otherwise they'd realize that this isn't that unusual an occurrence). For a couple of weeks, they amped up the security on me—police checking in what felt like every five minutes, to the point that they actually risked exposing me (my coworkers at the restaurant commented on how often they were seeing cop cars, and the marshals' unmarked cars loitering in my driveway were hardly inconspicuous). Time passed, the Joker busied himself causing trouble in Gotham, and eventually, the police attention on me eased off as they figured there was no threat.
I know better, he's done this before, but I'm not going to say anything to the cops. I refuse to do anything to try to either prevent or encourage him to come to me. Things will happen as they happen.
It's mid-September now, and it's been a beautiful month. The whole year has been unusually clear and mild, actually, at least once the ice thawed, as if someone up there's trying to make up for the miserable winter. I've been spending a lot of time outside as a result—first at the shooting range a few minutes away, practicing so that I could get licensed to own a gun (which I did, and do, to the marshals' approval), but lately it's been gardening. I'm not much of a green thumb, but being outside feels good now that I'm away from the city, so I've stuck at it.
I spend my evenings at least in part out on the porch overlooking the long, cornfield-lined drive that leads up to the house, usually with a book and a drink or two, always with my SIG P220 beside me. Part of me is enjoying the weather. The other part of me is waiting—for him, for news from the cops, for anything, really. I don't agonize over it, I'm neither dreading nor anticipating any news or disruption, but given the fact that I pretty much issued the Joker a standing invitation, it seems prudent to make sure I don't get caught off-guard.
It's about 7 PM, and the sun has just disappeared, but the twilight is still bright enough for me to read by. I'm sitting on the porch as usual, chair tilted back, booted feet braced against the porch railing, working through my second beer, the empty bottle of the first and my loaded gun sitting on the table just beside me.
About two minutes ago, I started hearing the distant rumble of a motor. I ignored it at first, because it's not that unusual; I do have neighbors out here even if I don't really see them—but it's been getting louder, closer, so I sit up a little straighter and watch. It's not long before a car appears at the end of the driveway.
I bring my feet down to the porch with a clunk, righting myself and taking hold of my pistol in one move. Cautiously, I get up, standing at the railing and waiting for the car to get closer.
It's not a cop car, and it doesn't look like any of the cars my marshals use, either. It could be some lost citizen, using my driveway to turn around and head back to town like a sane person, but I'm not that lucky. It seems to take forever to reach the end of the drive, where it comes to a too-abrupt stop a few feet away from the porch where I'm standing. The dark tint on the windows combined with the too-dim light keeps me from seeing inside, but the inconvenience is short-lived—the driver-side door opens, and someone steps out.
And… I have no idea who this guy is. He's not wearing clown makeup, but that's hardly reassuring—he's huge, well over six feet and built broad besides, bald, sporting a brown goatee I associate more with bikers and convicts than anyone I might want on my property. He slams the car door and stares at me, and the hungry expression on his face does little to reassure me.
The sudden spike of fear I feel at the sight of him comes with a welcome pulse of adrenaline that has me lifting the gun, bringing my spare hand up to hold it steady as I take aim directly in the center of his chest. Pitching my voice to carry, I say, "How 'bout you tell me exactly why you're here or head back the way you came, like, now?"
The sight of the weapon doesn't seem to faze him, but before he can really react, the passenger door opens and the car's second occupant steps out.
It takes me a second to recognize him. The face paint is missing—standard for when he has to travel by car, I've found—but more than that, he's dressed strangely. Not just strangely: he's wearing the standard uniform issued to members of Gotham's PD, the stiff shirt unbuttoned all the way, hanging open over a white t-shirt. There's a smear of browning blood across his forehead, and as he climbs out of the car, he staggers, catching himself by propping an elbow against the top of the open car door. Even as he regains his balance, though, even staring down the barrel of my gun, he's flashing a yellowed grin at me.
And I'm more than a little surprised that the first thing to bubble up out of my throat and past my lips is a laugh. The Joker cocks his head, still grinning, wordlessly inquiring what's so funny, and I find myself asking, "Who'd you piss off this time?"
He pretends to consider the question even as he steps back with some trouble and slams the car door shut. "You know, Em, an easier question to answer might be 'who didn't I piss off?'"
I snort. Well, at least he's not fucking around and playing innocent. Now that the majority of him is no longer hidden from my view, I can see the cause of his limited mobility—there's a big, dark bloodstain covering his right thigh, leaking all the way down his leg, still wet. This might be enough to make me lower the gun on its own, but there's still the matter of the hulking stranger.
I make the concession of training my gun on him instead, but other than glancing to make sure he's staying where he stands, my attention is on the Joker. "Who's this?"
He glances over at his companion as if he'd forgotten about him. "Uh… that's Victor," he says, pressing a hand to his injured leg and making his way towards the porch, towards me. "He helped me out of a jam. I'm returning the favor."
I frown a little—I try to hold it back, but I can feel my forehead creasing into little lines as I look again at this Victor guy. He's watching me, chin tilted slightly down, and at some point, he put on a smile that's frankly fucking creepy. Okay, he's weird and unsettling—that's not the source of my concern, really, not as long as the Joker's around. I'm more stuck on the fact that the Joker doesn't return favors, not in any real sense. Even leaving aside the fact that a genuine code of honor is a foreign concept to him—swapping favors puts him on equal footing with whoever he's deigning to trade with. The Joker doesn't like being on equal footing with anyone.
Something's up, but now doesn't seem to be the best time to discuss it, not with Victor standing there staring. Instead, I move to the top of the steps, reaching them right as the Joker reaches the bottom. He pauses, I put my hands on my hips, gun angled ever-so-casually in his direction, and we regard one another for a moment. At length, arching a taunting eyebrow, he asks, "A gun, Em? Does this mean you're not happy to see me?"
"Of course I'm happy to see you," I say, and I get the rare satisfaction of seeing his eyebrows twitch in what looks like surprise. The movement is followed closely by a glint in his eyes, a self-satisfied one that I don't entirely like, so before he can get too cocky I add, "That doesn't mean for a second that I've forgotten the risk that being around you entails, hence the gun—and for the record, you're taking a risk in being around me, as well. Aside from, y'know, everything else, don't you think Batman's learned from his mistakes? You go conspicuously dark after some public police brawl or whatever, what, you don't think he's going to consider the possibility that you're here?"
He winces, lifting his free hand to wave away my fears like smoke before bringing it down on the railing and pulling himself up one step, then another. "Give me some credit," he says as he goes. "This little ruckus was… mm, something of a private dispute. Trust me. No one even knows I'm not in the city."
Trust you? Not likely, I think, wearing my skepticism full on my face as I watch him ascend another step. As he glances at me to see if I'm buying it, I say, "No one?" My tone asks are you sure?
He pauses, eyes widening in that pretense of innocence he likes to paste on (there it is). "Cross my heart. Er—that is, no one except for him," he tacks on as an afterthought, jerking his head towards Victor, who has wisely remained beside the car.
He moves one more time and now he's on the step just below me, though due to our height difference, I'm still left looking up at him. I close my eyes, just for a second, absorbing the fact that just like that, I've been pitched (or dragged) into his path again, and, like always, my life is about to change. I'd be lying to myself if I said there isn't a part of me that wants this, and I don't do that anymore. The part of me that doesn't want it always sensed that it was inevitable, so it's not kicking up too much of a ruckus, which is good—less internal conflict to deal with.
I can smell him, that harsh, smoky smell that reminds me of destruction. I open my eyes, meeting his gaze for a moment before he drops it, training his stare instead on the curls that have fallen over my shoulders, and he reaches up idly to pet them, fingers casually brushing the side of my neck in the process. I react to the touch without meaning to, pulling in a quick, stuttering gasp of air, and he lifts his eyes to meet mine knowingly for a second before he lowers them again.
"So," he says lowly, pulling one of my curls taut before winding it around his finger, "…pretty please. Can we stay?"
I respond to his coy avoidance of my gaze by refusing to look away from his face. "The fact that you're bothering to ask tells me you already know you'll get the answer you want," I tell him, a bit of wryness creeping into my tone despite my resolution to keep it harsh and unyielding.
He glances up again, and I see that wicked light in his eyes. He tugs on the curl, a bit too hard for it to count as a caress, and when I flinch, he turns to Victor and jerks his head towards the house, signaling the all clear. As Victor goes into the back of the vehicle to gather whatever it is they brought with them, the Joker turns back to me.
"Be a doll and gimme a hand, will ya, Em? There's enough shrapnel in my leg to take down a dozen war photographers."
A/N - Welcome (finally) to part 3 of the Pastimes series! It's been a small eternity since the end of Part 2 and that's... kind of unconscionable. Please accept my apology for the delay, I believe I am the slowest fic writer on the planet. But we're here now!
I'm still working on the editing process, trying to make things cohesive. I plan to have chapter two up in a week or so- chapters will also get gradually longer as I lose control over the process, lol. If you're still here with me after such a long break, drop me a line, I'd be thrilled to hear from you!