Wait
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Summary: A conversation while awaiting the inevitable. Character death. Joker/Wendy.
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"Joker?"
He looks away from the window and the uniformed men starting away over the slope leading back up to the main road and motioning to unseen others nearer the house to stay where they are, and glances down at the young woman he holds cradled against his chest.
"Hmm?"
"They've set the house on fire, haven't they?"
There is a slight tremor in her voice, and as he nods, her arms tighten around him.
"Do you think we could still get out?"
"We could."
"Should we try?"
He is silent for a long moment, shifting against the rough floorboards and sloping wall of the attic.
"They'll have the doors blocked off. We'll be caught."
She draws a deep breath. The smell of smoke is already faintly apparent in the small, dark space.
"If they take us, we'll still be alive."
"For a time. And held up as a modern-day example of Great Britain's harmful colonial tendencies. Locked up, almost certainly. If not worse."
"We can plan something to escape later."
"Not if we're kept separated."
"Then you can wait for me, and I'll break out and come rescue you!"
He smiles at her sudden enthusiasm as she pulls back and waits for his approval of this plan, head tilted to the side, eyes wide and bright despite the dim light. He brushes a piece of hair off of her cheek.
"Wendy. They won't let you live. If we leave, they'll kill you and lock me up."
"How do they justify that?"
"An unfortunate accident. With the fortunate side-effect of seeing me go insane."
"But you wouldn't. You would just smile scornfully at them for being the kind of people who would kill someone who was surrendering. You wouldn't go insane."
He does not reply, and the silence does not seem like agreement.
She leans against his shoulder, face pressed to the side of his neck.
"I think it would hurt less than being burned to death."
He threads one hand into her hair and puts his other arm around her waist and pulls her closer.
"It would hurt far less to be burned to death than to watch you die and hear that I had caused it until I began to believe it."
"So…we'll stay here."
He nods again.
"Joker? You don't think they found us because I walked into town that day, do you?"
He does not remark on her still calling him that, because there's no point trying to break her of this strange, harmless little habit now.
"That was three months ago. They would have acted sooner."
"Okay."
They hold tightly one another in silence for a time, and the sickly smell of smoke grows stronger, and the air begins to grow hazy. Unless that is just their imagination.
"Did I ever tell you…you know I've always l-loved you, right?"
He can feel her heart beating madly, and he smiles briefly, and then brushes a soft kiss against her forehead.
"I know. I'm sorry."
She tenses.
"Why?"
"Wasted opportunity."
"It wasn't a good time. It wasn't practical."
"I know. Still. I'm sorry. That it wasn't the right time. That it's ending this way. That you're paying for my mistakes."
She looks up at him, and shakes her head mutely, eyes beginning to grow wet.
"I'm only paying for my own mistakes."
"Hmm?"
"If I had just trusted that what we were doing was right, trusted you…I didn't think – or know – all the time that it was right. I can't stop feeling that my negative thinking had an ill effect on the project."
He chuckles, a little weakly, and coughs.
"Negative thinking? The 'bad vibes' that sabotaged the project? You sound like a flower child."
"I do not."
"No, I suppose you're missing the relaxed slur of voice that only marijuana can provide."
She laughs softly, and he smiles and pulls her head down against his shoulder again, and leans back against the wall as comfortably as possible.
"I wonder if your 'negative thinking' about the project would make this easier for you. It might reconcile you to this fate if you saw it as the only logical conclusion to such actions. It might help you to believe that these people are doing what is right, because they're on the side of good and whatever they feel they have to do is justified. If it does, hold on to it."
Images of all those who couldn't make it out of Dokusensha headquarters before the building sunk, and of the citizens of the city who had no time to be evacuated, flicker between them, and hot tears trickle down his shoulder and soak into the fabric of his shirt.
"Maybe it is only right. Because those people probably didn't deserve it either."
He nods slightly.
"Maybe it is. And whether it is or isn't doesn't matter, because it's happening."
"Joker?"
Her voice is a whisper now, and trembling.
"Hmm?"
"It's going to hurt a lot, isn't it?"
"Worry about it when the time comes. If you don't pass out from the smoke."
"Why is it taking this long?"
"They see no reason to do it quickly. A small fire that will eventually work its way up here. I suppose they're giving us ample time to surrender."
"Should we?"
"We've been through this."
"But if they don't kill you—"
"You were wrong before. I would go mad."
"No, you wouldn't. You're too strong."
"The smoke is getting thicker."
"Are you supposed to get down closer to the ground at a time like this?"
"Don't bloody see the point."
"I don't bloody see the point of their coming after us."
He laughs, a bitter sound.
"Ah, Wendy, you don't understand how insulted male pride manifests itself."
She lifts one eyebrow.
"Well, then. I might as well know."
"President Cole was a trusting fool who found himself taken advantage of. He tried to retaliate at the time. Since he failed, his wounded pride was never avenged. This is the perfect way, don't you think? To make damn well sure that a man with no power and no freedom, who is no threat, cannot cause trouble again."
"In other words, pure revenge. Now that he has his bladder firmly under control once again, now that there is no threat, he will take revenge and pass it off as being in the interest of international security."
"Yes."
"We might go to Hell, but I hope there's a special division for people like him."
"Wendy?"
"Hmm?"
"You should know…I think I've always loved you, too."
"I think I did know. I think that's why I was able to keep loving you."
"I had never seen anyone trip over the door-frame and land on her face with such beauty and charm."
"You're making fun of me."
"Only a little."
Their voices both slurred now.
"M'tired."
"Then sleep."
"You too."
"I can't."
She sits up straighter, squinting through the smoke, and she grips his hand tightly as the heat becomes all at once oppressive and nearly unbearable.
"Then I won't, either."
"Alright, I'll sleep."
"Okay."
She snuggles against him and is unconscious in seconds, overcome by smoke and exhaustion.
He closes his eyes, rests his cheek against her forehead, strokes her back absently, and waits.
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End Notes: I'm rather proud of this. Despite being unoriginal, awkward, and melodramatic in spots, I quite like it. I have no idea what we were to make of President Cole's character beyond the pants-wetting, and I have no idea if he would have done something like burn down a house with people (even his now-powerless enemy and betrayer) trapped inside, but I got a sense of him as the kind who would be bitterly embarrassed over first being played for a sucker and then for going to pieces as he did. Once he had the upper hand, I figured, it was quite plausible to imagine him taking a rather pointless revenge on the person who embarrassed him so badly. And not only going after him, but killing him in a painful way for No Good Reason. Ah, No Good Reason: a state of being that describes this 'fic to a tee.
And I should also mention, I've never experienced a house fire before, so I don't know if the smoke would affect them this badly before the fire itself became a problem. I tried to do a bit of research, but all I could find was little songs about "stop, drop, and roll". And as much fun as a musical number would have been… :o)
Now, let's just see how long it takes before I write another half to this, in which they miraculously make it out of the fire and frolic happily off into a field together. :o)