A/N: This chapter goes along with the events of episode 10 of the first season, when the assassins hit up Wayne Manor. Since there's no explicit mention of time (except that there's no snow and the trees are green), I'm being a little free with the timeline here and probably fudging it a bit. Anyway…hope you enjoy reading.
"I haven't spoke of bad times,
I have no use.
Erase the memories—
It's something I must do."
"Sick of it" –Evans Blue
Chapter Nine:
The manor was quiet as Margot got off her bike and walked around back, expecting to find Mr. Harrison waiting for her in the toolshed. It was empty. Frowning, she checked her watch, wondering if he'd already started work without her. No, she wasn't late.
Perhaps he was just anxious to get started.
Checking the schedule—just a bunch of notes scrawled on a wrinkled piece of paper on a clipboard—Margot understood why. They were supposed to be pruning the hedges on the west side of the grounds. It was always a long, arduous job.
Sighing, she grabbed the trimmers and made her way out towards the hedge.
"Mr. Harrison!" she called out, hoping he'd call back. She didn't feel like searching through the shrubbery for him.
She heard a scuffle somewhere nearby, a rustling on the other side of the hedge. It sounded more like a startled deer than Mr. Harrison. Still, she made her way around to investigate.
"Mr. Harrison?"
Margot turned the corner and stopped cold, her limbs rigid as her gaze landed on the body half-obscured in the hedge.
"Mr. Harrison!"
She ran forward and crouched by the man, feeling for a pulse. He was gone, his eyes staring blankly up at the sky, blood soaking the front of his shirt. He was still warm.
A gunshot suddenly rang out, echoing in the quiet morning air. It came from the house.
Rising quickly, Margot raced towards the manor, her feet pounding unevenly over the ground. She urged herself to go faster, feeling her thighs burn, her knee protesting painfully. What if she was too late? What if that gunshot had just killed Alfred? Bruce? Cat?
More gunshots rang out, farther from the manor this time, somewhere off to her left. Margot veered towards them, her heart hammering, her breath catching high in her throat, her leg threatening to give out.
Faster, you weak, fucking maggot!
"BRUCE!"
God! That was Alfred's voice. Margot crashed through the last hedge and nearly tripped over a body on the ground. She didn't know the man. Christ. For a moment she'd thought it was—
Alfred, just paces away, whirled on her, gun raised. She stopped and threw up her hands.
Recognizing her, he lowered the gun.
"What the hell is going on?" she demanded as she approached. "You're bleeding, Alfred!"
"They're out there," he replied, waving her off and pointing emphatically. "Master Bruce and the girl."
Margot immediately began to run in the direction he'd pointed.
"There are two armed assassins after them!" Alfred told her as he joined her.
She whirled on him. "You're hurt, go back!"
"Not bloody likely!" the man responded, pushing past her.
They searched the woods frantically, calling out to Bruce and Cat, but it soon became clear to Margot that they weren't there.
"They're long gone. We need to go back and call the police," she told Alfred.
The man ignored her. "Bruce!" he bellowed.
Margot stepped in front of him, forcing him to stop. "We need to call the police!"
"Do it then!" he growled at her. "I'll keep looking."
"You're injured!" she pointed out, holding him back with a firm hand on his chest. "Are you really going to be any good against two armed assassins?"
The man gave her a long, steady stare. "I'll be fine," he insisted. "Go." When Margot still didn't move, he barked, "Go!"
Realizing that short of shooting the man in the leg, she wouldn't be able to stop him, she leveled one last reproachful glare at him before running back towards the manor. Somebody had to call the authorities.
The police arrived after a grueling twenty-three minutes, meeting Margot at the front door.
She recognized the one at the head, the same detective that had visited many times before. Detective Gordon.
"Where are they?" he demanded without introduction.
Margot pointed towards the woods. "Bruce and Cat ran that way. Alfred's out there searching for them."
The man nodded and touched her shoulder as he said, "Stay here. Officer Burns will take your statement." Then he turned to the other units that had arrived with him, leading them out into the woods.
Margot sunk down on the stairs as Officer Burns approached and asked, "What happened, Ma'am?"
She felt surprisingly calm as she relayed what she'd seen back to the officer. Mr. Harrison. The gunshots. The body. Alfred. But her whole body was trembling, and she knew that the shock wouldn't last long. Soon the events would lose their dreamlike quality and become all too real.
She heard quarrelsome voices approaching and glanced up to see Detective Gordon and his partner with Alfred in tow.
"We have every available unit out searching for them," she heard the detective insist.
"They're not going to bloody find them!" protested Alfred.
"Which is why we need you here, giving us a statement, so that we can find the people that are after them," Gordon responded, adding with firm reassurance, "We'll find them, Alfred."
Margot watched as the men approached, saw the fight go out of Alfred for a moment, replaced by the heavy weight of despair as it bowed his shoulders and deepened the creases on his face. A moment later, though, the man had straightened again, his eyes narrowed and fierce as he passed by, taking the lead as he showed the others inside.
Margot stood, intending to follow.
Detective Gordon's partner noticed her and turned to Officer Burns. "Did you get everything from her?"
The officer looked at Margot, who nodded.
"Good." Turning to her, the detective rested his hand on her shoulder, looked her in the eye, and told her, "Go home. We'll contact you if we need anything else."
Margot hesitated, glancing past him at the men that were swiftly retreating. But then she nodded and turned away, hearing the man ask Officer Burns, "Where are the bodies?"
The bodies. Mr. Harrison, she wanted to shout at the man. His name was Mr. Harrison! But she didn't say anything. She just walked away.
She could still feel the detective's hand on her shoulder as she limped towards her motorbike, pushing it past the squad cars and officers. She threw her leg over it and sped down the driveway. Were they trained to do that, the detectives? Touch people's shoulders reassuringly? Was it supposed to calm them?
It hadn't calmed her.
She was still shaking, still wrestling with the numbness inside of her, wanting to push it out, but afraid of what would fill the void.
All she knew was that she couldn't go home.
She turned onto the main road and followed it up through the woods, casting anxious glances into the trees that lined the road, hoping to see the two familiar figures of Bruce and Cat. When she didn't see any sign of them, she took the road down to the river, wondering if maybe they'd run that way, towards the city.
If they were there, she didn't see them. They were probably staying off the roads. She had to remind herself that maybe that was a good thing. If she couldn't find them, then it meant the assassins might not have found them yet either. Cat had struck Margot as a resourceful girl, someone who was used to running. She only hoped that it would be enough.
Her motorbike spluttered to a stop a couple of miles from the bridge. In her panic, Margot had forgotten that she was low on fuel. Anger flared up out of the pit of numbness inside her, and she leapt from the bike, pushing it to the ground, throwing her helmet into the grass on the side of the road, and stalking in tight, concentric circles as she tried to think.
"God!" she shouted to the sky, feeling the word rip through her tight throat, creating an opening large enough for all her emotions to escape through, which they all tried to do at once. She fell to her knees and pounded the ground with her fists, feeling the asphalt scrape her knuckles raw, as she replayed the scene in her head.
Mr. Harrison: his front soaked with blood, mouth slightly open as if he'd intended to say something before he died. Alfred: his arm hanging limply at his side, blood oozing down his fingers, the intensity of his expression burned into her mind. Bruce and Cat. Where were they? Hiding? Taken? Dead?
"Stop it," she told herself firmly, wiping her bloodied hands on her pants and pulling herself painfully to her feet. There was no point in speculating.
Margot retrieved her helmet and pushed her motorbike along the road, across the bridge into the city, stopping at the first gas station she saw. She filled up, then rode back over the bridge, making another pass through the woods, down by the river. Still no sign of Bruce and Cat. By then, it was more for her sake than out of any hope of actually finding them.
Night came, and Margot had been driving for hours, back and forth like some banshee haunting the road between the city proper and Bristol County, where Wayne Manor resided. Finally, sore and tired and still trembling, Margot reluctantly turned towards home.
Her mother was already sleeping when she entered, for which Margot felt no small amount of gratitude. The last thing she wanted was to talk to anyone. She went to the kitchen and rummaged through the cupboards, pouring herself a glass of whiskey. Her hand shook, and the amber liquid spilled over the edge, sloshing on the counter as she raised the glass to her lips and drank deeply.
She uttered a long, shuddering sigh and closed her eyes momentarily, pausing to take a breath, feeling as if she hadn't inhaled all day long. Glass in hand, she stumbled to her room, where she collapsed on her bed without undressing, finishing her whiskey and staring up at the ceiling. Images of the morning played across the ceiling as if it were a video and her eyes were projecting it straight from her mind. It kept replaying the same two images. Mr. Harrison, staring blankly at her. Alfred, bloodied and panicked.
When her eyes closed, though, she saw something different. She found herself in a hospital wing, sitting beside a man, watching his vitals on the monitor as they slowly grew fainter and fainter, finally going completely flat.
Boswell, the man who had died in a hospital halfway across the world, with nobody at his side but Margot, who'd only known him for a few weeks—long enough to know that he was twenty-three years old, had a girlfriend and a daughter, was a pessimist and a realist, loved Oreos, and didn't want to die alone.
That's why she'd been there, in a wheelchair herself, holding his hand while he slipped away. And she'd promised that she'd never lose anybody else ever again, because that was war, and she'd left it behind, traveling to the other side of the world to escape it. Except she hadn't escaped it.
She'd never escape it.
A persistent buzzing woke Margot from the nightmares. She reached out blearily, patting the bedside table, the mattress, her pockets, searching for her phone. She found it on the floor.
"Hello?" she croaked.
"Margot," said Alfred, sounding very much awake.
She glanced at the clock, which read 4:47.
"Forgive the early call, but I thought you should know that we've found Master Bruce. He's safe and sound here at home."
Margot sat up abruptly and let out a relieved gasp. "My God. And the girl?"
"Slipped away, vanished without a trace," he replied calmly. "I suspect the little minx has things sorted." There was a pause, and then he continued, "The reason I rang you so early is to let you know that I'll be taking Master Bruce away for a few weeks."
"Of course. Yes, I understand."
"Take whatever time you need for yourself, Margot. We'll discuss things when Bruce and I return."
Margot nodded before realizing that he couldn't see her. "Thank you, Alfred," she said.
The man said something else that she didn't catch, and then the line went dead. She set her phone down and collapsed onto her back, finally letting the tears come free.