Author's Note: Thank you for the favs! My story was only up for a day and I already got these emails telling me that people added it to their favorite's, so thank you so much! I'm not gonna lie, I squeed a little :P

And for individual thanks:

Chicki Babie: My first review ever! Thank you for the kind words

Blonde Charger: Thank you! Those last two paragraphs were the hardest to write, so I'm glad that you thought I captured the character :)

And really quick, just to clarify, Victoria Vale (or Vicky Vale as she is more well known) IS NOT some OFC I created, she is a legitimate member of the Batman mythology, and I wanted to try to incorporate her into the Nolan universe of Batman. I obviously have taken some liberties with the character to try to make her fit in and make her more realistic.

Thank you again!

Lieutenant Gordon sat down at his desk, handing over the warm mug of coffee to the frazzled young woman sitting in front of him. "I hope you like watered down coffee." Victoria laughed; it was the first time she had smiled after hours of being at the police station.

"I'm sure it's fine." She said while cupping the warm mug with her hands. She took a sip, her face souring. "Oh god, that is awful." She put the mug down, but kept her hands around it. At least then her palms could be warm. Gordon let out a small laugh, as he reached down and grabbed a bottle of water.

"I can't stand the stuff either", he handed over the bottle, she smiled thankfully. She couldn't help but feel comfortable around Lieutenant Gordon. He seemed like one of those rare people who were genuinely good. He took a breath.

"If the Joker wanted you dead, you would be already." She looked up. "The worst is over." He smiled at her. Victoria couldn't help though but feel a sense of foreboding as she looked into his eyes. He looked down, his face slightly hardened. The worst may be over for her, but her only.

"Lieutenant", Detective Ramirez walked into the room. Gordon looked up at her.

"Another guard was found three blocks down." she handed him a file. He scanned the pages.

"David Tabster", he read from the pages, "same M.O." he said, obviously not expecting anything different.

"The Joker also underlined letters on his name tag", she added, "'t', 'a', and 'b'."

"And on Gus Manfield's, 'm', 'a', and 'n'." He replied.

"Batman…", Victoria spoke as she pieced the letters together in her head. Both Ramirez and Gordon looked at her, she looked back up at them.

"The Joker is telling us something", Gordon said, "A target, possibly. Let Weurtz know." Ramirez nodded her head as she headed out of the office. Gordon looked back at Victoria. "You're lucky your last name only had an 'a' in it." Victoria raised her eyebrows in mock relief. She sat back in her chair.

"Oh God, Gus…", she said as she slowly shook her head. Hearing his name stung, and brought back the all too recent events. She'll never forget the look on his face when she ran past him from the stairwell, how his eyes seemed to be locked in that look of terror, how he was smiling, how she had to cover her mouth to suppress her scream. She leaned her head in her hands, her voice softening. "He was only two years away from retirement", the words were decaying as she spoke, "he always told me how he and his wife were going to move to Hawaii when he was done, how he'd bring his grandkids…" she stopped, lost in her words. Gordon walked from behind the desk towards her, and knelt down so that they were eye level.

"Hey hey hey", he spoke calmly and put his hand on her shoulder.

"I could have… I… I could have… done something…", her words grew weary. The term "be careful what you wish for" also made itself severely tangible. When she moved to Gotham, she never thought she'd actually see one of its notorious residents, much less be in a police station because of it. She closed her eyes for a second, taking in this thought.

"No, don't do that to yourself", Gordon looked strait into her eyes, concerned, "you didn't do anything wrong." She looked up at him. Victoria didn't forget how she stood there for a good five minutes taking pictures of the psychopath instead of calling the police. She damned herself, her constantly nagging curiosity, and her need to capture everything in her camera.

"An emotionally detached observer", she uttered while looking at the floor, barely audible. Gordon looked at her, slightly confused, but she just shook her head, "nothing." She didn't want to bring up that memory now.

"What you need right now is to go home and rest. I can have a patrol car stationed in front of your apartment complex."

"No, you don't need to do that-", she argued.

"I'd feel a lot better knowing you were safe", he said as he stood up. Indeed, Gordon really was one of those rare good people. If her father hadn't walked out of her and her mother years ago, she would have wanted him to be like Lieutenant Gordon. She smiled, somewhat bitterly, at this thought.

"Thank you", Victoria hadn't ever said those two words with such sincerity before in her entire life.

"And take my advice, try to not think about tonight. Sometimes having to deal with the aftermath of these…", Gordon trailed off a bit, "well, it gets to you." Gordon's face once again portrayed a sense of foreboding, as if reflecting the tragedies of his experiences. He sat back down behind his desk. Victoria nodded, more than happy to look for a reason to try to block this night out of her head. She stood up, more than ready to go home and wash away the past few hours.

"I've only been here for a month, and I'm already in a police station reporting a murder", she said this more as a spoken thought than anything else, as she got up to head out of the lieutenant's office.

"Welcome to Gotham", Gordon said, almost a bit wryly.

...

Many nights, Gordon stood on the rooftop staring into the marked sky, never expecting his call to be answered.

But tonight wasn't one of those nights.

He turned around, and saw the dark figure, standing there as if he had always been so. Gordon tossed over the file with the two deaths. "He's definitely trying to get your attention." Batman opened the file and quickly scanned its pages. "Two guards, three blocks away from each other, same M.O…."

"The underlined letters", Batman started. Gordon obviously already saw the significance.

"Do you think he's trying to target you?" Gordon asked. Batman looked down at the city that he was slowly trying to reclaim. First the bank robberies, and now this, but criminals were not complicated. That was one good lesson he learned from that experience, which seemed so long ago now. Batman could already imagine the frenzy that would occur the minute the press got a hold of this information. The escalation of their fears and paranoia, and who they would blame.

"He already has", the dark figure responded. Gordon turned away from him and looked down at the city, worried for what may come. When he turned around to ask another question, the Batman was already gone.

Gordon sighed, "I'm never going to get used to that."

...

Victoria walked into her apartment, which still looked slightly disheveled from the move in. She took the two rolls from her bag and put them on a far away corner on her desk. She stared at them for a moment.

How harmless they appeared, she noticed. A few hours ago she couldn't wait to develop them, and now the thought of it made her physically ill. She could almost feel his stare, just from the tiny negatives hiding inside the plastic casings. She shook her head and left the room, as they sat in the dark corner, silent.