"Come on, Baby
don't fear the reaper
Baby, take my hand
don't fear the reaper
We'll be able to fly
Baby, I'm your man"
Denmark + Winter, Don't Fear the Reaper (Re:Imagined)

Three Years Later

Bitter, cold air bites at my face as I make my way up the stairs of the stoop leading up to my apartment.

The thick stench of cigarette smoke and expired sex fills the air of this city yet another night.

I can hear my mother's soft, raspy voice in my mind: "This city's a hotbed for everything we're told not to do."

I never quite understood what she meant until after she died. She and my father kept me decently protected from the horrors of Gotham and it wasn't until she died that the wall they built to shield me had broken. My dad decided that sheltering me from how the city really worked wasn't going to do me any favors. He and mom had always hoped I'd get out of here as soon as possible but he gave up hope when she did. The only difference was that he didn't go to the extent she went to in order to escape hopelessness.

I unlock the front door, getting in quickly to avoid risking anyone or any thing slipping in behind me without my knowledge.

The five deadbolt locks lining up the worn-down wood are secured, and I walk to the kitchen and set my keys on the counter, swinging the fridge open. The light from inside of it is the only thing offering off any ability to see clearly through the dark room.

I grab the TV remote from the kitchen table and switch the television on, grabbing a bottle of water out of the fridge.

An emergency broadcast from channel 9 News interrupts regular programming and I ignore the news reporter as she speaks of a stolen news van, which isn't anything this city is a stranger to.

" . . . We are now getting video from the thief, which we will play in hopes it leads to his apprehension." The news reporter starts and I roll my eyes, turning back to the fridge to start grabbing things to make a sandwich with.

"Testing, testing," The familiar voice isn't smooth like it used to be. It's gravel filled, but I still recognize it as if it were yesterday. I snap around, rushing to the TV to see the best I can.

"This is a sick joke." I say to myself, disbelief clinging to every thought racing through my mind. "I watched you die." I continue, speaking to Jerome, knowing he can't hear me but saying it anyway as if he'll stop his own speaking and answer my confused tone with an explanation as to how he's living.

"Am I live? Am I on air? Can you hear me? Ah, screw it. Let's do it. Hi. Some of you may know I died. Uh-oh. Take it from me, death is dull. But coming back . . . that is something." I watch as he goes on, his movements and show-stopping charisma are still just as potent as before and despite his grotesque appearance of what looks to be his face stapled on, he looks pretty close to how he looked when I last saw him. "Leave it to dying to give you a whole new perspective on life. And I would like to share that with you." He looks directly at the camera as he speaks, demanding attention from every Gothamite watching as he steps to a man tied up behind him, dressed like a cop. "Uh, Officer, you look terrible. Hey, you got . . . Oh." Jerome flashes a lighter with the flame exposed. "Tonight, Gotham—" He interrupts himself briefly, as if struggling a little to think correctly. I'm not sure what the toll of dying takes on someone, but it's safe to say he's got a few bugs in his processing. "In the darkness there are no rules. So, tonight, Gotham, do what you want. Kill who you want. Hmm?" The words send a chill down my spine like they always managed to do. "And when morning comes . . . you, too, shall be . . . reborn." With this, he lights the end of a dynamite stick that's tethered to his hostage's chair, and cackles maniacally.

I don't understand what exactly he meant by darkness, until moments later a loud explosion rattles the city, and the power goes out in my apartment.

I stumble to the door, unlocking the locks and looking outside to see the whole city is completely blacked out.

I try to get to the GCPD before all hell breaks loose, preparing myself for my father's wrath due to me coming back to Gotham without telling him.

I open the doors, and I'm met with utter chaos as some of Jerome's lunatic followers are struggling against the police who're trying to put them away in holding cells.

"Get those freaks in the cages!" My father shouts, and my attention goes to him and James Gordon, overlooking the room with disturbed looks on their faces.

Their work is about to be cut out for them.

I start to them when I'm suddenly cut off as two weirdos attack a single officer in front of me.

"Hey! Watch him!" James shouts, pointing to the officer and he and my dad rush to his aid.

"Let go of me!" He cries out as they start separating the two off the man.

I move out of the way as my dad pushes one against a holding cell and punches him in the stomach while James yanks the other one up and slings him over a desk, gripping his collar.

"What about you, huh?! Do you know where Jerome is?! Where is he?!" He screams out to the laughing follower.

"Where is he? Look around! He's everywhere!" The guy replies giddily and I feel sick to my stomach.

I'm suddenly grabbed by my father, my arms aching with how hard he's holding them in his shaking hands, but I know he's not meaning to hurt me.

"What the hell are you doing here, Nicolette?!" He yells at me over the destruction around us. I open my mouth to answer but it's interrupted by him looking up at the window close to the ceiling and shouting, "incoming!" before pulling me out of the line of fire.

The window shatters and a bottle that's on fire lands on the desk James had the looney on seconds earlier, and ignited it in to flames.

Gordon hands him off to another officer and the man beams with excitement as he watches the flames dance before us.

"Tonight . . . Gotham is . . . Awakened!" He exclaims and James, my dad and I all look at each other wearily.

"Lock him up." James orders the cop. They pass by me, and I keep my eyes on the ground, avoiding looking at him but it does no good.

"He'll be coming for you, you know?!" He says to me and I look at him, rolling my jaw.

"The hell is he talking about?!" My dad barks, stepping between us.

"He's psycho, Dad. All he wants is panic and if he plants the idea that I'm in danger, it'll worry you to death. That's their goal. Chaos. He's full of it, just ignore him." I rub my arms through my long sleeve blouse as I watch the officer drag the man away to a holding cell.

"You wouldn't even be a part of this if you would've stayed upstate with your Aunt Priscilla, Nicki." He scolds, taking my wrist and pulling me to the Commissioner's office to make a phone call.

"I have a month off from college and I thought I'd come visit you." I lie, crossing my arms and he shakes his head.

"Yeah, well, you picked a great time, didn't you?" He shoots back, pressing the phone to his ear as he dials a number.

I huff out a breath and try to think. How in the hell am I going to keep myself out of trouble this time? How am I going to keep all of my skeletons in the closet this time?

I feel a panic coming over me, but not because Jerome's back, because I can just feel that everything I've been hiding is about to come out in the open and it will probably give my father a heart attack or a stroke or cause him to become an alcoholic again.

"Ana." I mumble, looking at my father. "Dad, I need to borrow the phone really quick to call Ana."

"Not now, Nicki," he waves me off, going back to his conversation.

"Dad, she's working at Wayne Enterprises, now. That's a rich company so God only knows what all these creeps are trying to get in to over there. I need to know she's at least trying to get somewhere safe."

He ignores me, continuing on.

"Right, got it." He says before hanging up just as James walks in. "Lights aren't coming back tonight. Tomorrow, if we're lucky." He informs him.

"This thing just keeps getting bigger." James tells us. "It's not just the cult anymore. It's ordinary citizens taking Jerome's cue."

"Meanwhile Cobblepot's gone MIA." Dad announces as the phone starts ringing. "You call down to city hall and literally no one's in charge, although that might actually be good news." He gets tired of the phone, plucks it from the hook and hangs it up again to stop the ringing.

"We need to find Jerome." James starts. "He's the symbol. If we can take him out, maybe it can limit this to one bad night."

The phone starts ringing again.

"How the hell are we supposed to find him out there?! The city's one big dumpster fire!" Dad motions with a look of helplessness in his tired eyes.

"Jerome said he wanted to plunge the city in to darkness so people can do what they want, right? He's not one to miss out on the fun, so what does he want?"

Dad hangs the phone up, again.

"A puppy?" My dad suggests sarcastically. "How the hell should I know? I didn't talk to him."

The phone starts blaring again.

"No, but Lee did." James recalls aloud, leaving in a hurry to track her down.

My dad finally answers the phone with a very loud "yes?!"

I follow after James, considering my father's indisposed with whoever's been trying to get ahold of the department throughout their conversation.

"Jim," I say over the noise rattling through the building and he looks over his shoulder but doesn't stop walking. "I need an escort to Wayne Enterprises to check on a friend. Dad won't let me leave with the city like this."

"You don't need to leave the department, Nicki. Especially since we haven't pinpointed Jerome." He argues. "You and everyone in this city is possible collateral until we have him in custody. It's safer here."

"James," I stop his stride, borderline begging him. "My dad and Ana are the only people I've got. I need to know she's okay."

He stares at me for a moment longer, thinking, before finally nodding.

"I'll send a team out to bring her here but it'll have to be discreet. These freaks tear cops apart and if they realize it's a GCPD operation, they're guaranteed to kill them." He tells me, starting back to go to Lee. "What's her name?"

"Ana—well, Anastasia Falcone." I give him a full name and he turns once more and gives me a look before finally grabbing an officer and telling him to get a few others together and head to Wayne Enterprises.

Waiting is a horrible thing to do. Just sitting there, helpless, completely at the mercy of what someone else decides to do . . . yet, here I am, sitting and waiting for Anastasia to speak as she looks at me from behind her flashlight.

I insisted on coming to check on her, since I'm the only one who knows what she looks like, but didn't exactly check with my father to see if I could go before we left, so he's probably going to kill me when we see each other again.

I wait for Ana to say something, anything, because the last time we spoke she told me I was throwing my life away for a lunatic. At the time she said it, I didn't think he was crazy. And I didn't think what I was doing was crazy. I just thought if I managed to keep things under control to an extent, it wouldn't matter. But a lot happens in a year and a half. A lot of growing occurs, and I like to think I've gotten myself together for the most part compared to where I was when I first met him.

Ana looks different. Her shoulder length, brown hair is slightly frizzy in tiny waves, and her short stature hasn't changed much since I've seen her. She doesn't look as baby-faced as she used to. Her jaw bone is more defined and sharp, her big blue eyes have slight bags underneath them and her lips are pulled in to a thin line as if she's holding back what she really wants to say to me. I hope she doesn't hold back. I deserve to hear whatever she's thinking. I wasn't a good friend to not even say goodbye to her before leaving the city. You would think I would have treated my best friend of 14 years better than that. I abandoned her.

"Give us a moment." She tells the four officers that came with me.

"We'll be downstairs when you're ready," One of them tells me. "And try to make it quick. Jim wanted us in and out as soon as possible to avoid risking anything."

I nod, and the four of them turn around in the stairwell we're in and start back down the stairs. When they finally reach the bottom and the door shuts behind them, Ana drops the glaring light from my face and exhales.

"Jerome's alive." I tell her like word vomit.

"I know, I saw on channel 9." She sighs, taking a seat on a step, smoothing out the fabric of her knee-length pencil skirt.

"How is that possible?" I ask her and she shakes her head.

"With the right technology, anything is possible." She states, resting her cheek against her knuckles with her elbow propped on her knee. "How bad is it out there?"

"Gordon said Jerome's followers aren't the only ones stirring trouble. Ordinary citizens are taking advantage of it." I inform her and she lets out a strangled chuckle.

"Great." She hisses. "That crazy bastard is truly relentless in his efforts. The fact that you saw anything in him is bizarre, just so you know."

"He's sick, Ana." I say it before I can stop myself. "He's not mentally well. He just needs help."

"He just needs to die again." She snaps, looking at me with an irritated expression and I bite my tongue.

I deserve this.

"What does Harvey think of his return?" She asks me next, studying me to see how I react to the question.

"He's not happy." I under-exaggerate the reality of how angry he actually is.

"He's not happy the psycho killer who gave them hell is back from the dead or he's not happy the psycho killer who slept with his daughter and coerced her into multiple murders is back from the dead?" She puts a distinct emphasis on the second option, saying the words with a distaste in her mouth that's spewed out like poison. "Please, tell me you told your dad about you and Jerome or even the fact that you dated him a little while before he turned crazy, at least." She seems to giggle out the words. As if it would be so ridiculous that it's laughable if I hadn't confessed my sins at some point to my father.

I don't answer her, and my silence is all the confirmation she needs and she stops giggling and gets a serious look on her face.

"Oh, my god." She says as she stands. "He still has no clue that his daughter was screwing around with one of Gotham's most sinister criminals?"

Again, I don't say a word and she puts it together.

"Of course he doesn't know you slept with the enemy because in order for him to know that, he'd have to know you even had ties to Jerome in the first place."

"There are only three people who know anything about everything, including myself, and I'd like to keep it that way." I finally speak, my voice darkening at the thought of her telling my father what I'd done.

"And what about lover boy back from the dead?" She cuts her eyes as she makes a point. "He loves adding dramatic flare to traumatizing situations. What if he tells Harvey you were the slutty accomplice? Then what?"

"Dad will think he's lying and I walk away a free woman." I smile, a feeling of my old self resurfacing.

"You're a coward."

"I look out for myself."

"You self-implode then look for easy ways out instead of facing the messes you make. You helped him and you know it. But instead of laying in the bed you made when he kicked the bucket, you ran upstate and pretended you never had a life here."

"And now I'm back to clean up my mess." I state, raising a brow.

"Ah, well, good luck cleaning up with 'Laughy-Taffy the clown boy' strewing hell out right behind you." She scoffs out and pushes past me to head down the stairs.

"How hard do you think it's gonna be to keep this all this from my dad?" I ask her and she shrugs.

"I'm not saying anything to him about it," She assures me. "No matter how pissed I am at you, I won't do that." We're quiet until we almost reach the ground floor. "Who you need to be worried about saying anything is-" Just as she opens the door to the stairwell, we're staring down the barrel of a gun.

Him.

Firstly, this has been a llooooonnnnnnggggggg hiatus, I know, and I'm sorry. However, I would like to say thank you for being patient and I hope to do regular updates on this story. I've found my inspiration with this story once more and I'm excited to share it. The next chapter will include a major backstory on how Nicki and Jerome met, and the part Nicki played in his attempted rise to evil fame while working with Theo Galavan. Please tell me your thoughts, suggestions, etc. Constructive criticism is welcome, but blatant hate does me or you no good so keep it to yourself if it's not put in a way that will help the story. Thanks.