A/N: I am SO sorry, everybody, for my lack of updates. You all must be furious with me. My life has been so busy, and I promise I'll try to send updates to Elphie more often. In the meantime, enjoy ch. 4. It's pretty short, as I didn't have a ton of time, but here it is nonetheless.
Chapter Four: Now That's Prestigious
Gwen's first day at the GPD wasn't filled with much activity, at least on her part. Gordon was called out around midday for a major drug bust in Gotham's slums, which brought several suspects into custody by two o'clock. Ramirez showed Gwen around the building in the morning, pointing out the archives, internal affairs department, and conference room to her new protégé. They picked up her secure username and password at the front desk, and Gwen spent her lunch break getting to know her new PC as she munched on a chicken salad sandwich Wuertz had picked up for her on a deli run for everyone in Major Crime. (Ramirez told Gwen that Wuertz did that every Thursday.) She also managed to get registered for a parking place, which was actually less convenient than the guest parking place she had taken that morning. Then, someone gave her the full Why So Serious case file to read. Although she already knew every detail of the ARG so far, she couldn't let that on, so she skimmed through it anyways and tried to look interested. Tomorrow, Gordon assured her when he returned from the drug bust, she'd have some real work to do.
At four o'clock, Gwen was informed that that would be her daily departure time. After giving Gordon and Ramirez a polite goodbye, she headed out, hopped into her Toyota, and headed home. When Gwen made it back to her apartment, everything was calm and peaceful. She kicked off her shoes and collapsed on the couch, turning the television to the local news, as usual. Now that she was going to be at work every day, she realized, she was going to need to make sure her cell was always charged. She caught the strap of her purse with the toe of her boot and whipped it around into her lap. As she dug out her cell phone to charge, she saw that it was blinking: one new message.
Gwen quickly put the phone up to her ear and dialed voice mail. The recording began to play almost immediately.
"Good evening, Gwennie," the voice on the other end of the line purred. "Congratulations on your new line of work. My psychoanalyst? Now that's prestigious. Unfortunately for you and me, since your new line of work is so--" He paused for a moment, chuckled. "--dangerous, the GPD is going to be watching you like a hawk. Can't have anything happening to their ace in the hole. So I won't be able to drop by in person as much as both of us may like. And you, my dear, are going to have to be very careful. Do your job. Bring me down. But don't reveal how much you know." The sound of the Joker's now-familiar hysterical laughter filled Gwen's ear, cutting off suddenly when the line went dead.
Gwen couldn't relax after hearing the Joker's message. She went through the motions of a relaxing evening, but her mind was racing. Although the Joker didn't seem to be disappointed in her decision to take the position the GPD offered her--in fact, he'd seemed downright pleased with her--Gwen felt that she had somehow made the wrong choice. This was going to change everything. In the past weeks, she had lived and breathed the ARG. Now she would have to sever all ties with it so that she could do her job and destroy it. She had originally involved herself in the game to take down the Joker, but, well, everything had changed since then. Now she just wasn't sure what was right. Right, wrong, the lines were hopelessly blurred now. Finally, around ten-thirty, she was able to fall into an uneasy sleep.
Despite her not-so-restful night, Gwen woke up the next morning feeling refreshed. Since everyone seemed to have gotten to know her the previous day, she decided to begin to move back towards her regular wardrobe choices. Today her outfit consisted of a highlighter yellow blouse and a brown skirt printed with dull flowers and leaves that fell to her calves in uneven layers. She accessorized with her regular assortment of bangals and a necklace made of wooden block-shaped beads. Once she had eaten and otherwise prepared for the day, Gwen headed out for work.
When Gwen arrived in Major Crime, Ramirez was waiting for her.
"Gordon's not here, but he left us something to do," she told Gwen.
"Us?" Gwen asked. "You don't have to help. You have a job to do, too."
"Actually, no. I'm between cases right now, and even so I'm your mentor. That's my job," Ramirez replied. "Anyways, he'd like us to sift through the Why So Serious case files, along with that forum they took down a couple days ago, Clown Communications Gotham. Look for any new details about J they might need to know during future engagements."
"Such as?"
"You know, skills the person may have, hints at where they may live….their gender, for that matter. Anything that might be useful."
"A-ha."
A/N: There we have it, everyone. Again, I *promise* to try to update more faithfully. In the meantime, read and review!
A/N2: When my friend G says more faithfully, what she's really saying is that it might be several weeks because her dear friend, the one that created this account, is busy packing and getting ready to move and then unpack and get settled, before she is able to update any of her stories. So, it will be more faithful, its just you have to wait quite a few weeks before it can be called faithfully updating… Please bear with me! I swear I'll update as soon as I get settled!
~Elphie
