A/N: I am not a native English speaker so sorry if there're any grammar/vocabulary mistakes.

Opinions and reviews are very much welcomed. Thank you so much for your support!

*I'm sorry I didn't update before. I caught a cold and my whole head felt clogged :(


4. Can I Ask You Something?

Bane didn't allow anyone into the room during the following week. He didn't cause any commotion about it, he just rose the palm of his hand whenever someone entered the room and said a simple 'not today'. Jane managed to convince the nurse to bring him food and medicines every morning. She walked into the room, left the wheeled tray right on the other side of the door and left. Every night, right before leaving, Jane would open the door, take the empty wheeled tray out and lock the door again. Even though she never got a reply, she always wished good night to him before locking. During the rest of the day, she sat on a chair outside the room and waited. At the beginning, Heather, the nurse, always brought her some magazines from the hospital cafeteria, but Jane always replied that she didn't have time to gossip about people's lives because she had more things going on in her own life. Heather stopped bringing her the magazines and Jane found the time she needed to think, to think deeply. She realised that maybe that was the reason why James Gordon had given her that assignment. She gave long walks along the corridor and sometimes she stood by the window, looking at the trees that had been replanted and at the people that were standing under their shadows. She liked to observe the children, they were always running amok, yelling and playing. They were so full of life and energy; they were the proof that Gotham was still alive and she sensed that their energy sometimes got into her body because she felt much happier after seeing them play. Usually, she always ended up reflecting on Bane. After seeing the kids play, she didn't understand how a person could possibly want to hurt them. Jane was very well aware that Gotham was corrupt, she knew that some people really needed to be taught a good lesson but the children…they were so innocent. During the siege of Gotham, she heard all kind of stories about him. The most popular one was that he had been brought up in a prison and looking at him through the glass, that kind of made sense to Jane. Maybe he's just a victim, she thought. Maybe he could have been different. But of course there was no way of fixing him now. When she thought about fixing, Jane thought about herself. She didn't really know why she was helping him, she just felt like she was tired of seeing suffering, death and broken families. Maybe her conscience was telling her that the huge masked man could have someone that cared about his life, that cared about if he lived or died. Or maybe she was just loosing her mind.

She left the window and came back to the chair. Before sitting down, she took a look at him through the glass in the door. At first she didn't react, her brain had gotten used to see the same image every day, a big masked guy lying on the bed. She turned around to sit on the chair and just as her body started rotating, her brain responded to what her eyes had seen: an empty bed. Please, be in there. She felt shivers going down her spine while she tried to find the key to the room in her pocket. Cellphone, wallet, bubblegum, car keys, home keys and finally, Bane's keys, as she had named them. She opened the door as quickly as she could and ran into the room. The bed was empty, but the floor wasn't. Jane could distinguish his hands between the metal bed legs, he was on the floor at the other side of the bed. There was a heavy but rhythmic breathing, no coughing, no choking. Jane finally reached him and looked down. The first thing she saw was a huge back, his muscles were tense and sweaty. He was raising his body with his arms, he was doing push-ups. Bane looked at her feet.

'Hello, Miss Sykes,' he said while moving.

'Hello,' Jane allowed herself to relax, 'I see you are in a better mood,' she said surprised.

'Yes. I hope I didn't cause any major alterations to your daily activities', he increased the speed of the push-ups.

'No, don't worry. My only daily activity is sitting on a chair,' she said as she sat down on a chair.

'That's not quite true, Miss Sykes. I have seen you walking up and down every day or did you think that you were the only one who could look through the glass?' he chuckled.

'Yeah, well. Not quite much of an activity,' Jane observed the bandage on his body, it was still in place and clean. She wondered where he had learnt to do it, she wondered if he put away the mask to shower. 'So, what made you be so happy today?'

'I'm not especially happy,' he stopped moving and stood up. Jane had forgotten how tall he was and felt trapped for a second. He looked at his arms and shook them to release the tension, 'but life is too short to waste it grieving the past, don't you think Miss Sykes?' he looked at her directly in the eyes. Jane realised for the first time that they were blue.

'I guess,' she said.

'You only guess? It seemed to me that you had much experience in loosing those closest to you.'

'Yes. But I don't wanna talk about it'.

Jane stood up and stretched her neck moving it to both sides. Bane remained silent for a second, looking at his hands and cracking his fingers.

'Of course. I understand,' he said in a very serious tone.

Jane was surprised that he didn't insist and thanked him. He nodded and opened the door of a small white cupboard that was hanging on the wall. Inside, Jane could see that there were clean pants and shirts. Bane took out a pair of pants and put them on the bed. Then, he took the wheeled tray that was standing by the door and placed it near the bed. He started removing the bandages from his torso, very slowly and carefully, sliding his fingers between each layer of cloth and pulling from them at the same time. When he had finished, he put the long piece of cloth inside a plastic bag and tossed it under the wheeled tray, which was loaded with the new bandage material. He took a look at the sutures and Jane did the same. The main one from the operation was right in the middle of his chest and it went all the way down from the area under his neck. He had another one on his shoulder but it was much smaller and it didn't look as striking as the one on his chest. Jane looked away, she thought he maybe wanted to have some privacy.

'I don't mind if you look,' he said, 'but maybe you do.'

Jane moved her face towards him again. She couldn't remember the last time that she had seen someone naked, or half-naked. She felt uncomfortable and her eyes went everywhere around the room. She felt how her cheeks blushed little by little and how her hands started to sweat.

'Not used to see a man's body, Miss Sykes?' Bane asked while taking a look at the bottles that were on the wheeled tray.

'I am,' she said, 'I don't like to talk about my private life,' she added after a while.

'I see,' he opened one of the bottles and smelled it, 'would you mind fetching that basin?' Bane pointed at a small table standing under the cupboard of the wall. Jane took the basin that was on it and gave it to him. 'Thank you.'

He poured distilled water in it and added the content of one of the bottles that was on the wheeled tray. Jane observed him interested, she had never seen how sutures were cleaned and thought that it would be nice to learn how to do it, it could be useful in the future. He soaked a piece of cloth in the water and wrung it out throughly. Once it was almost dry, he started cleaning the sutures. He rubbed the piece of cloth in circles, extremely smoothly, first going over the stitches and then over the area around it. When he finished cleaning the one on his chest, he tossed away the cloth and took a new one. He repeated the same movements on his shoulder and then took a small towel and dried both of them very softly.

'Can I ask you something?' Jane said when he started to cover the wounds with new bandages.

'Of course,' he replied without looking at her.

'Do you regret what you did?'

There was silence. Bane finished putting the bandage over his shoulder and then gazed at her for a while.

'No', he kept staring at her, 'I don't,' he secured the bandage with surgical tape and then started to cover the wound on his chest, 'I don't regret doing something that I had planned to do for years.'

Jane didn't say anything else on the matter. She felt she had gotten more than she could have ever wished for and was shocked to hear that he had spent such a long time in planning how to wipe out the whole town. He really must hate the people here. Bane kept taking care of his sutures and Jane started to wander around the room, reflecting on his reply although there wasn't really much to reflect on. She looked at him. He was putting some plastic covering over the bandage, probably he was going to have a shower. The amount of tape that he was using wasn't enough and the plastic covering kept falling. Jane approached him and took the tape from his hand.

'Here, let me help you. Hold the plastic,' Bane did as she told him and Jane started to tape the edges around the wounds. It was easy because he had cleaned the skin so the tape got stuck to it quickly. When she was finished she put the tape back on the wheeled tray and put the plastic roll into its box, 'you have to be generous with the tape.'

'Thank you,' Bane checked that everything was perfectly sealed and grabbed the pants from the bed, 'now, if you don't mind, I need to clean the rest of my body,' he opened a door that Jane hadn't noticed before. It led to a small bathroom.

'Sure. I'll leave you to it, I'll take this stuff out also,' she said while pushing the wheeled tray out of the room.

She locked the door and made sure that this time she put the key in a different pocket. Outside, Heather was waiting to pick up the tray and bring it back full with the food menu of the day. She was leaning against the wall, checking her nail polish. She was tall, a bit overweighted and had long and wavy hair. Jane thought that she was very pretty.

'Hey, officer.'

'Hi, Heather,' Jane said.

'It was surprising to see that he was more active today,' she said while pushing the tray towards the lift, 'I was kind of hoping that he would rot away in that bed,' she said looking back at Jane and smiling.

'Yeah,' Jane ignored the comment, 'you know where I can get something to eat at this time?'

'There's a cafeteria for the personnel of the hospital on the third floor. They'll let you in if you show them the badge, I've told them about you.'

'What exactly have you told them about me?' Jane said while entering the lift with her.

'That your life is boring.'

'I really appreciate that, Heather,' Jane laughed.

Just like Heather had told her, the people working in the cafeteria let her in and greeted her. Jane was surprised to see that they knew her name and then thought that she shouldn't be so amazed because probably Heather had told them a bit more apart from her life being boring. She bought a sandwich and went back to the room. Bane was sitting on the bed, he had something in his hands but Jane couldn't see what it was from that distance. She knocked on the door and opened.

'What's that you have there?' she asked while biting the sandwich.

'A vial of morphine,' he said.

'Are you in pain?' Jane took the syringe and inspected it. She wanted to make sure that there wasn't anything weird going on.

'No, but I will be. I plan to have my dinner soon,' he said putting the vial on the tray and looking at the food.

'Oh. You need help?'

'Thank you but no, I know how to do it myself.'

He opened the sealed package that contained the syringe and loaded it with the liquid from the vial. Jane could see that he had already cleaned the area with alcohol, so he just inserted the needle into his skin and released the fluid. Jane took the bag where he had put the syringe and tossed it into the trashcan. Then she made sure that everything was in order and walked towards the door. She heard Bane's voice.

'Miss Sykes,' he said, 'can I ask you something?'

'Sure,' she said turning around.

'Did you loose someone because of what I did?'

Jane's look went down, she glanced at the floor and then gathered the strength to stare at him again. She could feel the pressure of the tears wanting to go out in her eyes, but they didn't. Instead, her brows furrowed.

'Yes.'

Jane left and closed the door but she didn't say good night this time.