Here it is everyone! The thirteenth installment! My most sincere apologies for the delay. I've been bringing in the green and what not. Again, never ending thanks to my reviewers for keeping my drive and inspiration up to keep writing this. The only thing I own is Elise, you know.
But without further ado, I give to you chapter thirteen! Happy reading.
Chapter Thirteen;
The feel of freezing cold was the first thing Elise felt when she came to. The next thing she knew, she was gagging and coughing up ice-like water that had trickled down her nose. When she was fully conscious again, she sat up immediately and shook herself in an attempt to get water off. She pondered angrily to herself if using freezing water to wake her back up was truly necessary. Then, she suddenly stopped when she remembered where she was and what had happened. Slowly, Elise turned her head around all the way, both ways, to meet wide eyes around her.
'How embarrassing,' Elise thought to herself as she continued to look past the police officers surrounding her. When her eyes met a particular person, the same feeling that she felt right before she fainted hit her again. This time, Elise forced herself to stay there and wondered, 'Am I dreaming or is that really my uncle standing there?'
Elise felt like a little child, sitting in the middle of the hard, unforgiving tile floor, her mouth hanging open slightly at the unbelievable sight of her uncle standing no more than twenty feet from her.
Jim Gordon looked at his only niece and smiled sadly at her. With the smile still on his face, he began to walk toward Elise. When he began to walk, Elise jumped up from her seated position, immediately feeling light headed as she did so, but she pushed that feeling away and ran over to her uncle.
When they reached each other, Jim wrapped Elise in an enormous bear hug that picked her up off the ground. Elise laughed joyously to herself as the tears began to fall. It felt simply amazing to Elise to be able to cry because she happy. She couldn't remember feeling that enlightened and so hopeful. Jim laughed with her and she could see heavy tears that threatened to fall behind his spectacled face. Elise took a step back from her uncle and shook her head disbelievingly at him.
"I thought you dead, Uncle Jim. I watched you die. I saw it from the apartment building," she stated in wonder. Elise looked to her uncle, expecting an answer. As Jim began to open his mouth, a loud, insane laugh rang through the room. It was a sound Elise hoped she wouldn't hear ever again, or for a very long time, at least. She left her luck drain away from her with the cackle she could never escape from.
Every single head in the room turned to the single cell in the center of the room. From beside her, Elise heard her uncle sigh. She imagined he had hoped that the prisoner would have left her alone. The assumption almost made Elise laugh out loud. The Joker, leave her alone? Never.
Angrily, Jim Gordon turned towards the cell and pointed his index finger at him, "You leave her alone, you son of a bitch, you hear me!? You've done enough damage to her and I won't let you hurt my family anymore."
The Joker simply flashed a huge, horrendous grin at the heated man across from him. He then turned his gaze towards Elise, who was still a distance away from the cell. As he looked at her, Elise froze. A flood of memories came tumbling back into reality.
"She looks a-okay to me, Co-mission-er," the Joker rolled the words off of his tongue slowly, "But who's to listen to me anyways, eh?" he asked mockingly. He then casually laced his fingers together and sat back against the metal bars of his cell. He wouldn't say much more, if anything.
Elise was sure her uncle was shooting daggers across the room to the Joker, but childish looks wouldn't get them anywhere. She took a deep breath and took a few steps forward until she reached her uncle. Still looking at the Joker, she put her arm around his waist and instructed, "Come on, Uncle Jim. We need to go home," she guided him towards the exit from where she came, adding, "I'm sure Barbara wants to know her husband is alive and the children need their father."
Jim nodded his head, ran a single hand through his graying hair and sighed, put his arm around his niece and said, "Let's go."
Uncle and niece walked side by side through the room, where police officers bowed their head in respect to the fighting duo.
"Oh, Elise…" an all too familiar voice drawled from behind them.
Going stiff, Elise slowly turned around to face her once captor, she quietly asked, "Y-yes?"
Smacking his lips and slightly smiling the Joker explained, "When I let you go that night, you remember?" Elise nodded, not knowing where he was going with the story, "I promised myself that I would come back for you," he nodded his head crazily as Elise's eyes grew wide, "You know, Elise, I'm a man of my word," and he laughed and laughed and laughed.
Elise shook her auburn red hair in fear as she turned on her heel to run out of the room. As she ran, she could see some of the officers run past her to the cage. She could hear the pounding of batons against the bars, a feeble attempt on their parts to get the cackling fiend to shut up. Running footsteps behind her reassured Elise that her uncle was following her.
When she was far enough away, Elise stopped running and stood against the wall, attempting to catch her breath. She closed her eyes sharply and finally stood back up fully. Her uncle caught up with her and put his hands on her shoulders.
"Elise, listen to me," he put his face close to hers and swore, "I promise you I won't let that bastard get take you again. He isn't going anywhere."
Although Elise didn't have complete faith in her uncle's words, she nodded faintly and replied, "I've seen just glimpses of what he can do, Uncle Jim," she then wrapped her arms around herself, looked away and spoke down the hall, "I'm afraid that with him, if there's a will then there's more than definitely a way."
She could only imagine what the man next to her was thinking. Of course, she was troubled and naturally she expected him to understand. But even she didn't expect the Joker to get caught. She knew well enough that that Joker only did what he wanted to or did things only if he had to. Elise wondered morbidly if he had planned to get caught, as to make the Gotham PD believe that they were one step closer to bringing him down. Elise almost wanted to smack herself for thinking that the criminal mastermind could outsmart some of the bravest and smartest men she knew but after a week of being his captive, Elise's hopes of a turnaround were, understandably to her, not too high.
Quietly, Jim said, "Come on, Elise," and escorted her to where the offices were located.
Elise turned to her uncle in confusion and asked, "Aren't I coming with you?" She felt a rising panic soar up within her. She furrowed her eyebrows together and said, "Uncle Jim, I thought I lost you and you have no idea how horrible that was to think I saw you die."
Jim Gordon smiled at his niece and explained, "Elise, trust me, you'll be safe here. I promised you that. I have a friend that's here to talk to you and, believe me, he won't let anything happen to you," a now cryptic smile slightly adorned his face and he quickly concealed it while he lead Elise to the door of an office Elise had assumed was her uncle's.
Before she could protest, her uncle had unlocked the door to his office and lightly pushed her into the room. She was sure that he knew if he didn't make her, she wasn't going anywhere. He then turned on the artificial, fluorescent light which lit up slowly throughout the office. Finally, the light shined on a tall, bulky figure, clad in the most ebony of blacks. Elise immediately recognized who the infamous figure was by the pointy-eared mask and the thick armor. And, somehow, she wasn't at all surprised.
'So the Gotham PD has personal connections with the Batman,' Elise thought, amused, to herself. She crossed her arms and nodded slightly before turning to her uncle. He was now at the door, about ready to shut it behind him. He looked at his niece and said, "He'll get you back to our place safe, Elise. Don't worry," with a wink to the Batman, Elise saw her uncle walk down the hall, ready to join his family. She could only wonder how much her Aunt Barbara would freak out.
The thoughts of an angry, yet very, very relieved Barbara Gordon flew out of Elise's head when she realized who was left in the room with her.
To break the tension, Elise commented, "Well, this has been quite a peculiar day for me. Uncles rising from the dead and now I get to meet the Batman. I'm quite the lucky one," she smiled uncertainly with a shrug.
"Your uncle is a brave man, one of the best in the city," Batman commented. His voice was low and raspy, much as Elise could imagine it would be. It was almost impossible to believe that there was a real man under the mask and makeup. She loved the satisfaction of being right; of course Harvey Dent wasn't Batman.
Elise nodded in agreement, "Yes, yes he is. It takes major guts to do the things people like him do," she looked to the caped crusader, "And those like you. I don't think I could ever have the courage to do that." Flashes of memories from her eight days with the Joker faded in and out through her head and Elise had to squint her eyes shut and rub her temples to get them to go away.
"I'm just a man in a mask, Elise. Courage is being able to survive through hell, the kind of hell the Joker put you through," Elise wondered, with each word, if the Batman's voice was truly that raspy and that low or if he just pretended to talk like that to disguise his voice. She shrugged the thought aside and pondered on what he had just said. She had never considered herself brave or courageous. She was just a fighter, with a lot to live for.
"I'm not ready to die," she stated, speaking aloud what was on her mind, "I've got a lot to live for. Maybe my survival will give others hope," Elise always wanted to make some kind of a difference. She prayed she would be alive and make this difference and not become a tragic martyr to the city she grew up in, much like Bruce Wayne's parents and her own parents had been.
The Batman nodded at her and said, "We need more people like you, Elise. People like you, Rachel Dawes and Harvey Dent. People like the three of you fill the city with hope."
With the mention of Rachel and Harvey, Elise's eyes turned wide. She had come to the police station in the first place because she was sure this was the most likely place Rachel would be.
'And she's not…' Elise thought to herself. She turned to the Batman and asked, "Where are Harvey and Rachel? I need to know; Rachel is my best friend. I came here to find her." Elise was shocked to discover that her question had caught the masked man off guard. His mouth gaped open slightly as he looked past Elise and towards the door.
"When was the last time you had any contact with her?" the Batman demanded, serious and almost frantic.
The familiar sinking feeling filled Elise's body again as she replied, "She left me a note on my bedside about an hour before I woke up at the place I was staying. That would be about an hour and a half ago."
As she spoke, the Batman marched towards the door and opened it up. Elise whipped herself around and spoke out her worst fears, "Batman, you don't think he did anything with her or him, do you?" Elise heard her own voice shake. She didn't want to know the answer.
"There's only one way to find out," he said simply. He then marched to where the officers in her uncle's unit were dictating what to do about the situation at hand. When the duo reached the police officers, their faces confirmed Elise's worst fears and their voices sealed the fear.
Rachel Dawes was missing and Harvey Dent never made it home.
Panic spread throughout the police station and one of the uncertain officers, a Hispanic female, turned to the Batman and him what they should do.
"Get him in the interrogation room and let her call Gordon. If he doesn't talk to him, he can deal with me," the Batman demanded. Elise already knew this was a man one didn't say no to. The police officers prepared to relocate the Joker into the interrogation room and one of them led Batman to the room, as to stand in the back shadows and await his cue to do his work.
Before he walked away, the Batman turned to Elise and asked, "Are you sure you want to be here? You don't have to see any of this."
"She's my best friend, Batman," Elise stated defiantly and finally, "I need to know."
As much as her statement was true, Elise was quivering inside as to what the answer could possibly be. She rubbed her arms with her hands and looked away from the Batman's gaze. Quietly, she added, "I'm so scared. I can't lose her."
The Batman didn't say a word. He simply looked at her, maybe trying to figure her out. After a few moments, he ordered one of the officers to give Elise a phone to get a hold of her uncle. After the demand, Batman turned on his heel and disappeared. With a cell phone in her hand and a heavy weight in her heart, Elise stood alone in a now empty hall way. She felt fear accumulate in her body and she prayed with all of her might that Rachel would be okay.
She couldn't bear to lose someone else.
With shaking fingers, Elise slowly dialed her uncle's number to tell him the foreboding news.
It's been days! And I'm finally done! I'm sorry if I made this scene fast. I just had to get it out of my head. I hear dramatic music in my head. Haha. Well, please review and thank you for reading!