"Nobody's supposed to know my family history, you know?" Jacqueline said to Dick the next day as they walked through a crowded city street, "It was never officially declared for the world to know…all the same, all the time I wonder, who knows? You know?" she pointed to random people they passed, "Does he know? Does he? Does she? And it's the same in New Jersey, I always wonder who knows? Does anybody know? The people I do know, if they know they don't say anything, but if they don't say anything, then it probably means they don't, but if they don't, if they did, what would they do then? I know we're supposed to be a people that prides itself on not punishing the daughter for the sins of the father, but it's a better idea in theory than in actual practice."
Dick tried to be reassuring and he said to her, "Most of the people in Gotham City never found out, as far as I know, I don't think it's gone any further than just the police, and us."
"And Batman and Robin," Jacqueline added, "They know, in fact," she huffed, "They were the first ones to find out."
"Nobody even knows who they are," Dick replied, "So it's a safe bet the general public's never going to know."
"I hope not," she shook her head, "in the last year I've done a lot of work to try and put my past behind me."
Dick knew it was best to keep to himself his comment about knowing only too well how well time did not separate you from your past, no matter how far you went, or what you did, it was always there, ready to haunt you. That was something both he and Bruce had learned the hard way a long time ago. Nothing could undo the past and nothing could erase the memory of it either.
"If I haven't mentioned it before," Jacqueline turned to him, "I'm really grateful that you and Mr. Wayne agreed to put up with me, especially knowing about my family. I wouldn't chance staying with anyone else who knew for anything in the world. I'm sure there are a lot of people who would jump at the chance to kill me because of who my father is." She shook her head in despair, "The damage he's done, the legacy he's left behind…nobody would ever give me the chance to explain, and I can't blame them. People in Gotham hear the word 'joker' and everybody thinks the same thing, a deranged criminal who terrorizes people for kicks. And anybody who hears the name 'Jack Napier' draws the same conclusion…how could I ever explain being the daughter of that?"
"So what do you do?" Dick asked her, "When you tell people about yourself?"
She bit her lower lip momentarily and said simply, "I tell them that both my parents died when I was young. It might as well be the truth, it's as good as the truth where I'm concerned. Usually it catches people so off guard, they don't want to ask too many more questions after that." She looked down at her sneakers as they walked along as she continued to explain, "I've had to rework my whole life story, people ask how I spent my teenage years, you can't say in an asylum, so I tell them a hospital, say anything that would require large amounts of time shut away from the world, but I don't offer to show any scars." She tried to laugh at her own joke but it fell flat.
"And now?" he inquired.
She shook her head, "My father saw to it that I'd never have a normal life, I can't get too attached to anybody because eventually they would ask the wrong questions and they'd be drawn in close enough they could dig around and find the truth. It's a cruel thing, setting your child up to go through life alone…and the kick of it all is I bet it never occurred to him once in all these years." There was a hint of venom in her voice now as she added, "If I ever saw him again, I'd…"
Jacqueline didn't get to finish that thought because as they turned the corner, Dick spotted a few friends from college heading their way and the next thing he knew, he was getting asked 20 different questions by 3 different people about what he'd been up to lately. When he turned to introduce Jacqueline, he did a double take as he realized she was gone. He made an excuse to his friends of having to cut this visit short and he took off back the way they'd come, and he looked around and spotted Jacqueline standing by the big display window of a jewelry store. He went up to her but before he could get a single word out, she turned to him and explained, "I don't want to be a problem for you or anyone else while I'm staying in the city." She nodded towards the corner they'd passed and added, "I didn't want to put you in a tight spot with your friends."
Boy oh boy, it was becoming more obvious all the time that this poor girl had been left with some serious issues.
"The whole world isn't out to get you, you know," he told her.
"Not yet," she responded, "That's the operative word."
He took her by the hand so she couldn't run off again and told her, "Come on, let's get out of here."
They turned the corner past the jewelry store and about collided with another man.
"Watch where you're going!" he exploded at the two of them.
"Sorry," Dick replied, wondering what exactly the big deal was.
Jacqueline said nothing, merely looked down like she was ashamed. Once the man left, she turned to Dick, jerked on his jacket sleeve and told him, "Dick, that man had a ring on his hand."
"What?" he asked.
Jacqueline pointed to the bruise on her face, "That man had a ring on his hand, with a big stone in it, just like the one whoever attacked me in that other jewelry store had on his hand when he clocked me. I think that's one of the thieves."
Almost forgetting himself for a minute, Dick rounded the corner and tried to track down the man who had just left. But it was too late, he was already gone in the crowd. Just as well, he realized, because he just remembered he wasn't supposed to know as much about the jewelry caper as he really did.
"I think," Jacqueline said to him, "I need to tell Commissioner Gordon about this."
Dick turned to her and said in response, "I think you might be right." And he needed to tell Bruce about this as well.
"If the police can catch the jewel thieves, then they can push ahead with a trial, and if I am to be called to testify as a witness," Jacqueline told Bruce that night over dinner, "Then that means I could get that done and go back to New Jersey sooner, and won't have to keep intruding around here…so I'm hoping they manage to bust those crooks tonight."
"I'm sure they will," Bruce told her, sounding amused by the whole story, "If anybody can catch them…"
"That," Jacqueline said, "I'm pretty sure would be more a job for Batman and Robin…don't misunderstand, I have nothing but the fullest respect for the long arm of the law, but I've seen these guys in action, nobody can stop criminals like Batman and Robin."
"How true," Bruce responded a bit dryly, casting a knowing look towards Dick when Jacqueline wasn't looking. A minute passed, and he addressed Jacqueline again and asked her, "Do you have any plans for the evening?"
"No," she answered, picking at her food, "I think I'll just stay up in my room tonight. I…I've been given some more thought towards art school, I thought I might spend the night working on some pieces to submit and see if they'll accept me." She gestured helplessly and said, "I've got to figure out something to do with my life, I might as well start the process of elimination and see who all won't take me."
"I'm sure you'll do fine," he said to her.
"I sure hope so," Jacqueline replied, "So far there doesn't seem to be much else I'm any good at…except being a throw rug." She smiled a little at her own joke but she was sure the meaning was lost on the two men. Little could she have known just how well they understood what she was talking about.
"Oh I don't know," Dick spoke up, recalling her first encounter with Alfred when they arrived, "You could always hire yourself out as a bodyguard. After one time, nobody would be dumb enough to mess with you."
His comment wasn't able to draw a laugh out of her but it came pretty close; it was the first time that night that she genuinely smiled at anything.
Later that night, Dick quietly made his way across the hall to Jacqueline's door, and he knocked and waited to see if there was any answer. There was none. He called out her name quietly, no response. He turned the knob and opened the door slowly. Jacqueline had fallen asleep on top of her bed with about a dozen sketches scattered about her, and a sketch pad dropped on the floor beside the bed. He went over to the bed to make sure she really was asleep, and she definitely seemed to be out of it. No wonder he supposed as he glanced over what she'd been working on all night. He gathered the drawings together to put them up where they'd be safe, and he had to admit, she did have artistic talent. If nothing else he figured she could get a job drawing for comic books.
By about the 4th or 5th drawing he picked up, he had to stop, and look at it again, and closer. It was an elaborately sketched picture of Batman and Robin, very detailed. At this rate, she could even get work as a police sketch artist if she kept this up, he thought. But the next one he found unsettled him; it was an equally detailed drawing of the Joker, every last detail down to a T if his memory served him as well as hers did. For the life of him, he couldn't figure out why she would, why she would even want to remember the Joker. The obvious that it was inevitable didn't register as a possible reason why, there had to be something else, but he couldn't put his finger on it.
The next drawing he gathered up off the bed made even less sense, until he had a minute to put it together. It was a very carefully drawn sketch of a woman, and this one he would wager had to have had the most scrutinizing attention paid to it, because he couldn't spot a single error anywhere in the drawing. As he looked at it, it finally dawned on him that this had to have been Jacqueline's mother, Nancy Kennedy, and if that was the case…wow. Any other words to describe the woman in the picture just eluded him. And the more he stared at it, he found himself wondering how a woman like that could've ever gotten involved with Jack Napier, and he was sure Jacqueline had had plenty of time to wonder the exact same thing.
Through all of this, the young woman on the bed never moved a single muscle, it was obvious she was dead tired and now dead to the world. Perfect. Dick placed her artwork on the dresser where nothing could happen to it before morning, pulled the covers up on her without disturbing her, and exited the room as silently as he had entered. It didn't seem to him that she would be going anywhere until morning, so that was one less thing he and Bruce would have to worry about as they headed out tonight.
Jacqueline shot up in her bed with a gasp and a startled yelp. As she opened her eyes and started to piece together where she was, she realized it had just been a dream. But that didn't make it any easier for her to calm down, it wasn't a dream, it had been a nightmare. She sat up in her bed and felt her heart beating against her chest like a war drum and waited for it to slow down, likewise with her erratic breathing as she tried to catch her breath.
She had no idea what time it was, all she did know was that it was late, it was night, the room was just about pitch black, so she was guessing that it was sometime after midnight, she had no idea when she'd fallen asleep. She didn't even remember falling asleep.
The room was stifling her, the walls were closing in on her. She had never been claustrophobic, but this was a room, nice and fancy though it was, it reminded her too much of a hospital room, or of a jail cell, both of which she'd already spent far too much time of her life locked in, and she felt locked in now, and slowly suffocating in here. She had to get out, she had to get some air. Frantically she went to the door, opened it and tore off down the hall. At the time she had no idea where she was going, but she just ran down the hall, then down the stairs, and found herself at the large front doors. Oh it would be so easy…but wait, she stopped herself and realized, if she opened them, she just might wake up the whole house and bring everybody running.
She forced herself to calmly head into the living room, where she collapsed on the couch and spent the next few minutes forcing herself to calm down; telling herself over and over, she was fine, it was just a dream, she could breathe, the walls weren't closing in on her, she was fine. After a few minutes it seemed to work, her heart slowed down and she couldn't hear it pounding now, and she was able to breathe again. But still…she couldn't shake the nagging feeling in the back of her head that something was wrong, and she needed to get out of this house. If she was quiet, she could undo the lock, open the door, slip out, and nobody would be the wiser. She would do it. She got up from the couch, tiptoed back out to the front hall. The locks came undone with very little noise, so far, so good. She slowly turned the knob on one door and very slowly pulled it open, not making so great a noise this way. So far, so good. She stepped out into the night, pulled the door shut behind her, and was just about home free, in a word. Jacqueline wasn't sure right offhand where she was going, but something was just telling her she had to get away from this property, away from this house. Maybe, she thought to herself as she made it down to the front gate and got past it, maybe she'd go back to the jewelry shop and see if the cops had arrested anybody yet. She could use a little piece of good news after the stay she'd already had back in Gotham.