Disclaimer: Property of: Warner Bros, DC Comics, Legendary Films, Chris Nolan, Bale and Ledger. WHY?? I WANT IT!! WHY NOT ME?!

Warnings: Pre-Slash! Huzzah!

-Not necassarily my usual, but still...I hope that you enjoy. I'll get some good old slash out later this week, hopefully.

--Beta'd by the lovely Compy, who did this unhumanly fast late last night.

Not Quite Drunken Ramblings

By: EIW

Twenty years…

Jim Gordon had been on the force for twenty years.

The officer in question was currently sitting at his dining room table in the dark with a bottle of whiskey. The mayor had just declared him to be the new police commissioner. It was a nice honor, but still a dangerous one in this town. Especially with the Joker and the mob wandering about murdering people left and right.

The commissioner took a swig from his dark brown bottle and delicately set it down on the wooden table. It was past midnight and Jim couldn't sleep. He couldn't imagine that many average people could if they had any idea of what had happened during Harvey Dent's transfer earlier that night.

He ran a hand through his rapidly graying hair. He was getting old, too old to deal with demented clowns in make up that fired bazookas and took down helicopters with only a handful of minions.

Jim had faced villains and criminals of every sort. He'd seen people rise up to become heroes and he'd seen others fall and become the enemy. He'd seen every sort of fight and rivalry. He'd even been a part of a few 'good guy, bad guy' feuds himself. Even with all this experience, Jim Gordon had never seen anything like this...this thing between the Joker and Batman.

Their rivalry was the stuff that legends were made of. It was something that was only told in books or on television. It wasn't something that actually happened.

They pushed and pulled against one another incessantly. Neither one ever stopped or faltered. It was like they were born to do this, to fight with one another. It was almost like destiny, if one believed in all that pre-ordained rubbish. Jim himself had never believed in all that, but seeing these two…it made him rethink his stance on a lot of things.

He hadn't noticed how…intense they were when up against one another. Then again, Jim reminded himself, he had been busy, busy trying to fight the mob off and get Dent out of the city streets safely, busy with his wife and kids, too busy to notice that something was happening with his closest ally in this war against crime, too busy to notice that something was changing from within with the arrival of the Joker. It was subtle at first, but soon it couldn't be ignored. Batman had finally become what Gordon had known he could become for a long time now.

He'd become unstoppable, untouchable, the perfect hero for Gotham. He'd become Batman. Whatever this man had been before, he'd given that up and seemed to understand that this was who he was supposed to be.

Truth be told, it was more than intimidating to be near someone like that. Gordon didn't know whether he was proud or scared at what this man had become, but either way he was selfishly relieved because whatever this transformation was, it helped clean up the streets of Gotham.

Jim prided himself in being one of the few that had the pleasure of seeing Batman's fights close up. He'd seen several high class criminals be brought in by Batman including Dr. Crane and his nimrod criminal backers. Gordon had seen all of this, but he'd honestly never considered how truly different the Joker and Batman's relationship was, comparatively speaking.

Tonight had been the first time he'd noticed it.

Gordon was sitting in the SWAT van. The obnoxious SWAT guy next to him was yelling about something. He needed to stop the van, though. His instincts told him that the Joker wasn't after them anymore. He glanced out of the windshield, watching as the downed helicopter burned brightly against the obscenely black night. The florescent lights from the skyscrapers bounced dizzyingly across the street, creating twirling light patterns on the asphalt of the already torn up road.

The air was still and heavy.

The night seemed to wait patiently for something. The smoke hovered lazily in the air making the view from the SWAT truck slightly hazy, but then again, that could just be his adrenaline winding down.

Gordon couldn't be too sure; his brain was working in overdrive trying to figure out this situation, trying to figure out where Batman was, and more importantly, where the Joker was. He took a few calming breaths and gripped the steering wheel tightly. His gloves made a quick squeaking noise as the night became completely silent.

BAM!

Suddenly, a semi-truck was thrown directly behind them. It was upside down and moaning from the fall. The wind from the semi-truck's flip rocked the SWAT van slightly. Gordon looked out as the dust thinned. The figure of the Joker crawled out slowly. Gordon watched carefully and opened his door slightly, silently hoping that it didn't make an overly obvious groaning noise, which would surely catch the Joker's keen attention.

His driving companion tried to protest, but Gordon shut the door quickly. He didn't need to be nagged right before he was about to possibly die. He leaned against the truck, trying to make himself become part of the shadows like he'd seen Batman do so many times before. He wasn't having too much success, but the hench-clowns that the Joker had weren't paying attention to his position. They were too busy watching the Joker shoot up cars and begin to walk towards Batman.

Gordon looked to see what they were staring at and caught sight of the scene.

The Joker was shooting up various cars that passed into his way. Blood splattered across people's windshields as their cars crashed into various objects that lined the street. The Joker was walking in a straight line, with his purple coat flapping about, headed directly towards Batman. Batman was sitting a few blocks away on an armored motorcycle (Gordon couldn't be sure where he'd gotten it from, not that it mattered), watching as the Joker continued forward with his purposeful stride.

Batman didn't seem to notice that the Joker was violently shooting random people in their cars. His attention seemed to be glued on the demented clown that appeared to be glowing from the light of the various fires. The chaotic atmosphere was very becoming on the Joker. He was positively luminous.

Gordon could just imagine the crazed look on the clown's face.

The engine of Batman's bike began to roar to life again. A few seconds later, his bike shot towards the Joker. The Joker simply stopped in his tracks and stood firmly still, simply waiting for the Batman to come towards him. To come and get him.

The Joker's entire being seemed to give off an energy that was electric and turbulently threw itself around, crackling into the silent street. Batman's aura was calm and languidly burned into the darkness. In the center of the street, these two entities clashed together, creating a violent storm that left a feeling of heaviness upon the remaining onlookers. In that moment, the rest of the world was disregarded and irrelevant.

No one else mattered.

Gordon could feel that all the way over there.

The presence of these two people seemed to be important. Gordon felt like this was a battle that should be written about. Maybe this was how the onlookers of the battle of Troy felt when they watched their warriors stand off against one another, but again, maybe his brain was just rambling on about nothing. He just couldn't seem to focus himself at the moment. Not when Batman and the Joker were facing off against one another.

They were impossible to look away from.

The moment seemed almost intimate somehow, which was absolutely absurd, but still Jim felt awkward watching these two like this. It was as if they should have the entire world all to themselves and then they could simply do this forever. It only seemed right that they should. They were in their elements. This is what they were born to do.

Gordon could hear the Joker yelling something about hitting. Jim's ears were still ringing from all the gun fire from earlier, so he couldn't be too sure what was said exactly, but it didn't seem to matter much as Batman flew through the street. As the two foes stood against one another, Jim watched as the scene before his eyes seemed to slow down and the seconds started to crawl by. Everything seemed pause and watch this clashing of nemeses .

Gordon could practically see every muscle move in the Joker's body. Just as Batman got close enough, the Joker's shoulders rolled back and he stood up completely straight. His hand tightened on the gun. The Joker took a sudden breath and yelled again. His voice ripped through the slow atmosphere of the night and everything was immediately shot back to normal time.

Batman suddenly skidded out of the Joker's path and slammed into the ground, rolling a few feet and laying still in front of the semi-truck. The Joker followed his movements in an almost hypnotic fashion. He seemed to be under some sort of spell, unable to look away from the Dark Knight, which was easily understandable; not many people could actually look away from someone that extraordinary.

However, the way that the Joker looked at him was simply frightening. His eyes glittered violently with an emotion that Jim had never seen before. The Joker's face was sinister as he practically skipped towards the sprawled out figure that was Batman. He took out a knife and Jim was shaken back into reality.

He needed to save Batman.

Gordon grabbed his gun and slowly, stealthily, walked towards the maniac and his clowns.

As the Joker reached down to grab Batman, Gordon noticed that it wasn't in an overly violent manner. The Joker was almost careful with his enemy. Well, Gordon reasoned, careful for the Joker that is.

The close proximity of the two rivals was doing strange things to the world again, but Jim didn't give it any heed this time. He was too busy trying to catch this bastard to be thinking about abstract Earth-moving feelings at the moment.

He felt overly accomplished when he had the hard metal pointed at the Joker's head.

Jim finally got to save the man that had saved Gotham too many times to count. It felt nice to make a notch in the belt of debt that they all owed to Batman. The last thing Jim remembered clearly was the look of spite he'd gotten from the Joker as the clown had been placed in the police van.

It had been a very poisonous and wild look. Gordon wasn't sure that he'd ever seen anything like it in his life. Those glowing eyes were singed into his brain. Every time he blinked he saw that look again. Jim took another swig of alcohol. It stung his throat, but blurred the repeating images, making them swim and haze together so that they became almost indistinguishable. However, this only lasted for a moment and then they were as clear as the sun again, prattling around incessantly, insisting upon unnecessary amounts of his attention.

The rest of the night was a blur really, Gordon realized, putting the police into motion, locking the clown up, getting the new commissioner job, and of course, seeing his wife and kids again.

Still…

All that Jim Gordon could think about was that confrontation that he'd witnessed. There was something very interesting about Batman and the Joker. Jim vaguely wondered if Batman had figured it out yet. He supposed that they both had to know that they were perfectly suited to fight one another. How could they not?

The Joker knew at least, Gordon reasoned, that's why he could get Batman's attention so easily. He knew everything about his enemy and used the people of Gotham to get his way. The citizens of this town were just an easy route to get to Batman. The Joker probably wouldn't even bother with them if they couldn't be used to get to the caped crusader. Everything that the Joker did was connected to the Dark Knight in some obscure way, the commissioner realized. It was an eerie connection and one that Jim wasn't sure what to make of.

This new realization didn't change anything, really. It was just sort of there, lingering in his brain and giving off a distinctly eerie feeling. Once again, Jim wasn't sure what that feeling was supposed to mean. These days, he found himself not knowing what was happening most of the time. It was more than unsettling.

One thing that Gordon did know, though, was that the way those two had stood facing one another in the black of the night was other-worldly. It wasn't human or natural.

Jim didn't know how to describe it and it was beginning to give him a headache, but his brain wouldn't let itself wander too far from either person. The scene had been too haunting and strange.

One thing that was easily observable was that these two were perfectly suited to be one another's arch-nemesis. They were always synchronized when they fought. They always knew what the other was thinking. They moved together in an odd dance of sorts. They even seemed to breathe at the same moments.

Everything they did, they did it together, perfectly in sync.

Jim wondered if this was how it always was when they were around one another. Was it always so blindingly intense? Jim supposed that that was an irrelevant question. He shouldn't be thinking about this. There wasn't really anything to be thinking about. It was just an indescribably odd moment in time that he'd randomly seen after a long night and a few too many near death experiences.

It didn't mean anything of any kind. He was just tired and slightly tipsy.

Ring…Ring…Ring

Jim glanced at the phone, wondering who could possibly be calling at this hour. As he got up from the table, Gordon suddenly got a sinking feeling in his stomach. Something wasn't right.

"Gordon," he said groggily into the phone.

"Commissioner, Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes never made it home tonight." Jim stared vacantly for a few moments at his small kitchen and glanced out the window.

"Commissioner?" the voice on the other end questioned.

"I'm here. I'll be at headquarters in ten minutes. Get the clown to the interrogation room. There isn't any doubt that he is responsible for this."

"We're on it, sir."

Gordon hung up the phone and leaned against the doorway of his kitchen. This night would just never end, he thought tiredly. He called a nearby officer and asked for a ride, saying something about his car being in the shop. He wasn't drunk, but he still didn't want to be driving, and his wife would murder him if she found out.

Jim walked towards the stairs and up to his room to get dressed. It wouldn't be fun to explain this to Barbara. He'd just gotten home and come back from the dead. She would be none too pleased about him leaving so soon.

He sighed and walked up the stairs. There was no time to lose. People's lives were swinging in the balance and his personal life would have to wait until another time as per usual. His wife would understand. She always did.

Commissioner Gordon got into the car as it pulled into his driveway and it darted off into the night. He hoped that they weren't too late to save these people. Dent and Rachel were pawns. The Joker was using them, just like he used everyone else. He wanted to get Batman's attention, that was all. It was just a game to him and it seemed like it was becoming something similar to Batman.

Not that Batman was abandoning them or anything of the sort, but his intentions were different. He was just as obsessed with the clown as the clown was with him. The two abductors were in a game in which they had no idea what the rules were. They were all in the game, Jim supposed, but at least he'd figured out that it was a game before he was in too much trouble.

The commissioner glanced around at the passing houses. The sleeping people had no idea of their own insignificance. They were simply pawns in a game against two rivals that would last until the end.

Jim wasn't sure what the end was, but it sure wasn't a pleasant thought to have at 2 AM. All this thinking about destiny, pre-ordained supernatural rivalries, and humanity's insignificance had really put a damper on his already low spirits. Jim reminded himself that there was coffee down at the station.

Coffee always made everything better.

Thanks for reading and please review!

It's not actually slashy, but I needed to get my groove back, so I can actually write something semi-articulate. Well, articulate for me : )