A/N: Thank you to all you guys that have been reading! And a big thank-you to Raina King for your author and story follows and favourites, I really appreciate it! :) I hope you enjoy this chapter as this is where we see a bit of the Joker, but the next one is where it will all start to kick off. So if you like it, or if you have any comments or suggestions, please review! :)
Disclaimer: I do not own anything from The Dark Knight trilogy. All I own is Cora and any other original characters in this story.
It was early. The clock on the wall said twelve past two. I'd been watching the tiny red hand that counted the seconds, listening gently to the hushed sounds of the corridor. Occasionally there would be the faint patter of footsteps, soft footfalls passing by the door. I let my eyes flutter closed each time, feigning sleep in case they looked in. I wanted for it to be real so badly; my body was craving rest, my legs curling up beneath me snugly as I laid on my side, eyes straining a little in the dim light.
I was starting to remember what had happened. It caught me off-guard at first, flickers of memory gradually seeping into my head, filtering through. I vaguely felt myself dig my nails into my palms in concentration as I tried to string them together into a coherent order. I was surprised and a little bit shocked at how much I had forgotten. A whole chunk of time had been forced from my skull. I had never gotten drunk before, but I could guess that this was a sensation that a person who had passed out the night before might wake up to. It was kind of scary, having a black hole that was now filling itself back up and not having a clue what had led to my current situation, but reasoning that I was here, that I was alright, I felt myself relax a little.
I could remember being in a café. I liked this one: the atmosphere was always quiet, meaning that you could read while you had breakfast if you wanted. I did this a lot before school - I was halfway through my book now. Pushing my mind back to what was going on, I picked out that my dad was there, too. This was normal. We sometimes went there together and had breakfast; I always opted for a blueberry muffin and a coffee.
Cursing myself again for how distracted I was getting, I forced my brain back to the point at which I was waiting at the pass, and I noticed a man who looked to be in his mid-thirties start to walk over in our direction. My dad was behind me, but suddenly he was in front of me, and the man stepped so close that the two of them were practically chest to chest. He was oozing that kind of confidence that makes your stomach twist, the kind that causes your heart to race at what could possibly be going through his mind.
I remembered sensing the people around me inching backwards, some of the few customers at nearby tables rising to their feet slowly. I was staring, my brain torn between two things as the very real prospect of some kind of fight occurring began to steadily increase: stay and try and stop it, or run. But it was before I could do anything that the gun was drawn from his jacket pocket and he was raising it, just as someone that seemed to have come out of the blue leapt up and crashed into him, trying to pry it out of his hand. Screams erupted around me, customers and staff rushing to get out. I found myself caught up in the middle, pulled in all directions, people elbowing to get past. I registered something catch me across the head, and it was then that everything came to a stop.
I let out a deep breath I must have been holding. It was weird, finally knowing what had happened, or rather, remembering. But this wasn't the wider picture. I didn't know who the guy was or what his exact motives were, apart from the obvious, though I could make a pretty good guess. From the limited knowledge I had of the criminal world, they had to have a good reason for doing what they did. No one just broke the law for the fun of it. I contemplated this, the Mob trials that were this week suddenly entering my head. It had probably been someone working for them. Harvey Dent's campaign to clean up the streets was obviously stirring people up, and the fact that the Falconi crime family were finally in the process of being brought in front of the judge must have done something.
This wasn't the first time something like this had happened, and it wouldn't be the last. It was a minefield growing up and living in Gotham. You only had to look at someone in the wrong way, and your face could become a bloody pulp in seconds. Though, it wasn't just 'ordinary' criminals that made us all fearful of being out alone. The events of last year suddenly filled my mind, recalling with a pang of terror the fear gas.
There was nowhere else to go other than to stay indoors and wait it out. I'd been terrified, staring down at the streets below that were swamped in the suffocating mist. I had been home alone, watching from my bedroom as people drove themselves into madness, out of fear. The gas was so thick and prying it pierced through even the smallest gaps, filtering under door and window frames so easily that I had to speed around and cram them with anything I could find to keep out the fumes. I had only mildly felt the effects, the worst of it had been in the Narrows, but it had been an experience I never wanted to have again.
I shuddered at the memory, pushing this out of my mind. The first rays of sunlight had begun to stream through the blinds to my left, providing a welcome sight. The sounds of the city as it slowly woke met my ears, the first signs of traffic becoming distinguishable from down below. It was a comforting thing to hear, the opposite to the silence of the hospital during the night, and so within mere minutes, I soon found myself fast asleep, in a much more peaceful and restful slumber.
Just a couple of miles away, in a location unknown, the Joker was grinning to himself. He was standing by the window, looking out over the vast city of Gotham – his city. They would know this all too soon. Things were about to fall right into place. At this delicious thought, his massacred mouth stretched even further apart at the sides, baring two rows of small yellow teeth as his tongue flicked over his ruby red lips.
"Boss!" one of his men called. He was rushing as he entered the room, panting a little in order to tell his boss the news. But as he got closer to the hunched figure by the window, faintly silhouetted by the dull morning light that was seeping through the glass, the powerful instinct for self-preservation began to kick in to his body. He came to a stop a couple of meters away, not daring to come any closer.
The Joker didn't seem to acknowledge his presence, and the man was tempted to call again, but after a couple of seconds he watched as the man in purple slowly turned to face him, an eyebrow raised inquisitively, his freshly-applied war-paint looking even more menacing. The man couldn't help but gulp, taking in the cold, dark eyes that stared at him from within the blackened eye sockets.
"What-ah is it?" the Joker asked, causing the man's heart to pound in his throat at the sight his stained teeth bared in annoyance at being interrupted. "Y'know, you shouldn't disturb someone when they're thinking." He slid a knife out from one of his pockets, gesturing eccentrically as he spoke. "It's bad man-ners," he scolded in a sing-song voice, waving the point of his knife in the man's direction and staring down it menacingly.
"I-I'm sorry, Boss," he managed, as the clown before him licked his lips. "We just thought you should know – that – that everything's ready, and we're all set." Beads of sweat began to appear on his forehead. The Joker's eyebrows raised in response to this information.
"Ah," he said in mild surprise, turning away a little as he mulled it over in his head. The man, from where he stood, could see a faint smile appear on his lips. "Excellent," he breathed. "We can't have just anyone taking her home from the hospital, now, can we?" he asked, though the man knew that he didn't really want an answer. He turned back to the window. "Now that would be bad man-ners."
It started off as a giggle, before turning into a full-blown, crazed bout of laughter that caused shivers to go down the man's spine as he watched the figure that was now wheezing in front of him, waiting uncertainly for him to finish. This was a regular occurrence, one he had had to grow used to.
The Joker finally settled down, still breathing heavily. He turned his head back in the man's direction, looking more serious now as he ran his tongue over his lips again. His goon quivered at the knees. Was he about to kill him?
"Keep me informed if there's a ... change to the situation," he ordered lowly before turning back to face the window, looking back over the city as the morning sun grew higher in the sky.
"Yes, Boss," the man replied, speeding out of the room as fast as his legs could carry him.
A pink, sleepy dawn had perfused the small hospital room, a soft sheen of coral from the sky outside reflecting off the metal surfaces. My dad was sitting on a nearby chair in his black overcoat, his eyes stern. It was quarter to seven; with only a few minutes left to spare before he would ultimately have to leave for work, something had urged me to tell him about my sudden understanding from earlier.
"You remember?" he asked, and I nodded. I had relayed everything back to him, more and more details materialising throughout the morning. I felt incredibly relieved, now that I was confident in the knowledge that there was no longer anything missing from my mind. He sighed. "We think it was a guy working for the Mob, trying to take me out of the picture. He's in custody, but we'll never be able to link him to them, there's just not enough evidence."
I nodded in response, though an inner turmoil was going on in my head. It wasn't anything new; criminals escaped from charges all the time, though of course Harvey Dent was trying to change this. There was a big part of me that was disappointed, and fearful that it would happen again. I sighed, thinking carefully of what to say.
"It's frustrating," I said truthfully, fiddling with the sheets of my bed.
He nodded, letting out a long sigh through his nose. "This city," he said, "it needs something. Not just someone to clean up the streets, even though that's all well and good. It needs something to hope for." He chuckled, looking down. "It's not me. Perhaps it's Harvey, I don't know for sure, even though his methods are so radical. We're trying hard to get this city back on the right track. It's just not enough, everything's threatening to go downhill. There are some good people here, people worth protecting. That's why I do this job. It's hard, though, when the people around you suffer for it. That's always the way." He smiled bitterly. "Oh, I don't know. I guess all you can do is just keep pushing forward, waiting for the light at the end of all of it. I just can't help but wonder sometimes whether I truly am making a difference. Whether this city is past saving," he said.
He was staring in the direction of the window, though his eyes didn't seem focused. I could only imagine what was going on behind them, but I didn't want to ask. It was a fragile silence, a rare kind of atmosphere when someone is so wrapped up in their own train of thought that it would almost be cruel to disturb them. I toyed over it in my mind. Perhaps Harvey Dent was what the city needed. The heroic-looking figure I saw on the front of all the newspapers. But was Gotham past saving? I'd never thought about it before, never really having a need to, but hearing my dad say it had sparked a debate in my head over the city I'd lived in all my life. I thought back to the man who'd first leapt up and tried to pry the gun away from the guy back at the café. No, I thought. It couldn't be past saving. Batman entered my head too. He truly had to love this city for him to go out every night and do what he did.
My dad looked back at me and smiled slightly, and I quickly diverted my attention back onto him. "Thank you," he said. "It always helps when you have someone to ramble to so you don't feel like a complete madman."
We both laughed, though my mind was swimming and I was sure his was too. He got to his feet, leaning over to bring me in for another hug. "You're getting a taxi home as soon as you're discharged, right?" he asked.
"Yeah, the hospital organised it," I told him, remembering what Julie had told me.
"Good." He leant back, pulling on his coat that he'd hung on the back of his chair. "I guess I'll see you at home, then," he said, smiling. I nodded, returning it.
Once we'd said our goodbyes and he'd left for work, I felt my thoughts return to Harvey Dent. He was one of the nicest, most good-hearted people I'd ever met, having been introduced to him once. Could one person bear that much responsibility on their shoulders? I wondered whether this was true of Batman as well. We were all just people, after all. Sighing, I shook my head, trying to clear it. I had the knowledge that I was being discharged later on this morning to look forward to.