A/N: Sorry for the immensely late update! I must admit, I am missing the Joker dreadfully. It's much harder to write without him in it. I was re-writing this chapter again and again because I wasn't happy with it, but I'm quite happy with what I managed to write. It's a little short I know but to be honest I want to get the family thing over with and bring the Joker back in. I can't help myself. I really miss him…like a lot. Can't wait for him to return!

- Chapter Twenty-One -

A Freak Like Me

Lieutenant James Gordon shuffled solemnly into my hospital room with his hands clasped in front of him, as if he was about to attend a funeral. I saw his eyes flicker towards the wires buried deep into my skin, a soft sigh escaping his lips. I quite liked his moustache. I wondered if it tickled him every time he spoke. He slid into the lime-green seat beside my bed, meeting my gaze steadily and he did his best to give me a reassuring smile. It didn't reach his eyes. He didn't say anything for a little while, and I was grateful for it. The only sound apart from the beep, beep of my heart monitor was my own breathing. The wires leading to my nostrils that helped my breathing brushed across my cheeks with every movement, tickling me just like I imagined Lieutenant Gordon's moustache tickling him. It looked like a caterpillar. I tried not to smile. What a funny thing to be thinking about at a time like this.

"Hello, Miss Reddington – is it okay if I call you Ruby? You can call me Jim, if you like. You remember me, don't you?"

I gave him a small nod. He smiled again, little crinkles appearing at the corner of his eyes. He had kind eyes. The kind of eyes you can trust just by looking at them. Every time I moved my fingers, I felt those transparent plasters pinch my skin. In a way, I felt caged. Isn't it strange, how they had taken me from you, but I had never felt so trapped in all my life? If I stood to stretch my legs, an anxious, eye-avoiding nurse would bustle in and strap me back into that damned bed. She'd fiddle with the wires, glance at the drugs they were pumping into me and bustle back out again. I was grateful they wanted to help, but it felt as if they'd clipped my wings and I was gonna be stuck in that room until my dying day. Life is strange that way. They say they're the good guys, but I didn't feel like they were doing any good at all. That sounds awful, I know - but it's the truth.

"Ruby, the nurses tell me you haven't said a word," Jim said firmly, shifting in his seat. "Did he threaten to hurt you if you said anything?"

I shook my head, trying to think of how I could put my feelings into words. Sometimes, there isn't a word in any language we know of that can tell someone how you really feel. I guess that was because I didn't know how I felt. You never threatened to hurt me. Even though you hadn't, I still didn't want to tell Jim anything. I didn't even want him to know your name, because that was our little secret. Besides, I bet you there were hundreds of Jacks in Gotham. He wouldn't find anything more on you than that. Or maybe I was just making excuses to stop that heavy feeling weighing down on my chest when I looked into his kind eyes.

"Well, Ruby, I just want you to know that you have nothing to fear. You're safe now."

He took my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. I nearly winced as I felt the needle buried into the back of my hand shift beneath my skin. Jim didn't notice a thing. The plasters pinched me again. They shook me from my thoughts, and I met Jim's gaze very slowly.

"I haven't spoken to anyone because I didn't think they'd understand if I did, Jim."

His gentle smile flickered into a frown, his eyes filling with confusion. He wanted to help me, I know he did. He wasn't just trying to suck all the information he could out of me, like a nosy leech. He was hanging on my every word, Jack. It was nice to have someone listen to me rather than just stare.

"You know when something awful happens to you, and the first thing someone says is they understand your pain even if they don't? I mean, the nurses here, they can barely stand to look at me. Sometimes I feel as if I'm in a coma, and I'm simply aware of everything around me. Do you know what I mean?"

"No, I don't," he replied, and I felt a sudden rush of warmth towards him because he hadn't lied to me. "I won't pretend to, either. But I do know that you won't feel that way forever."

I hoped he was right. He cleared his throat, clasping his hands in his lap. I was itching to ask him something. It had been bugging me from the moment he walked in that door, and I couldn't keep it in any longer.

"Are you going to arrest me?" I blurted, my nails digging into the palm of my hand.

Jim's head snapped towards me in surprise. If Jim had been baffled by me before, then he was positively comatose with confusion, shifting once again in his seat. "Uh, why would we arrest you, Ruby?" he asked, letting out a slightly nervous chuckle.

"I saw the newspaper," I replied as if it were entirely obvious. "He showed me it, he told me that if we were ever caught you would think I had stolen from the bank willingly, that you would-…"

I don't know if you've ever had the pleasure of feeling as if you've been hit by a speeding train. Or a grand piano has fallen from the sky and landed on you. Or someone has thrown an unreasonably cold bucket of water over you. If not, well, try and use your imagination here Jack because that's how I felt. Jim was doing that sympathetic half-frown, half-smile and I knew you were a dirty, pig-headed, freak bastard. Not only did I look entirely stupid, but Jim had begun trying to comfort me. You couldn't have known, Ruby. A woman who worked at the café you were taken from came forward a week after you went missing, said she saw you leave with a man and when we checked the CCTV we were certain it was the Joker and then he sent us a message and – you couldn't have known…

If I ever saw you again, I would rip these needles from my skin and gauge your eyes out. I suppose being around you for so long had brought out my violent side. Well, I didn't care. All that hatred I felt for you bubbled up to the surface again. Bastard.

A woman sat beside my bed, dabbing at her eyes and sniffling quietly. I pretended to be asleep, you know, just so I could watch her for a little while. I like doing that sometimes. When humans know you're studying them, they tend to fidget and act entirely different. The woman, she was clasping a box of tissues to her chest like she thought one of the nurses would run off with it. The world was sleep and hazy for me, everything a distant blur. I watched her for a while, lying on my left side. I couldn't feel a thing. It used to feel like I was being pinched a thousand times in one place whenever I so much as brushed against my stitches. Not anymore. I was drugged up so much I could barely tell you my name even if I tried. After watching that woman for ten minutes, I realized - it wasn't even a thought, it was something a very vague, distant understanding that I hadn't even noticed happening – that the woman crying at my bedside was my own sister.

Karla had gained a little weight, her chubby fingers encased with very sparkly, expensive rings. Her eyes were puffy and red, hair frazzled and almost falling out of the bun she had scraped it all into. It fascinated me. I thought she was a stranger. Isn't that awful, Jack? After years of not seeing her, of only getting a card every now and then with a hastily scrawled love Karla, I had forgotten what my own sister looked like. I knew I wasn't exactly the same Ruby she had known. My eyes had bruises around them as if I had been in a punching match. Arms littered with cuts, hidden behind bandages. I was bruised and battered, tired and guilty. The moment she saw my dazed eyes flicker open, she launched herself at me.

She smothered me in kisses, wetting my skin with her tears, sobbing dramatically into me. She kept saying my name, over and over again, like she thought I would disappear if she didn't. I didn't know what to do. I sat there, with this stranger who was supposed to be my flesh and blood and I felt nothing but guilt and shame because I wished it were you sitting beside me instead. She pushed my hair from my face, searching my eyes for something she couldn't find – I know she couldn't find it because she wrapped her arms around me and buried herself into the crook of my neck. Karla was sitting on one of the wires nestled into my skin, and boy did it hurt.

Karla said she missed me. She said she was sorry this happened to me. She said she should have been there. She said the guilt was eating her alive. How could she have let this happen to her little sister?

She was biting her lip as tears ran down her chubby cheeks. She stood up and went over to the window that faced the hallway outside and quickly drew the curtains.

"There are so many reporters trying to get your picture," she said shakily. "They've been hounding us for weeks."

I watched her cross the room and sit in the seat beside me again, taking my hand in hers just like Jim had done. Violet burst into the room, and the whole thing started again. She missed me, she was sorry, she should've been there, how could she let this happen? It was like they had rehearsed the whole thing just for me. They fluffed my pillows. Rearranged the flowers by my bedside. Dabbed their eyes with tissues. Then they stared at me, waiting for something.

"Those are some very pretty flowers," I said weakly, nodding my head at them. "They uh…they really brighten up the room."

"Why are you doing that?" Violet asked quietly.

I frowned. "Doing what?"

"You're licking your lips all the time. The way you talk, too, it's different. It's like-…"

I knew what she was going to say even though Karla shoved her harshly in the ribs to keep quiet.

She was going to say that I was acting just like you. Bad habits. I ducked my head, almost ashamed. It wasn't the family reunion I had expected, if I'm honest. I mean, when I imagined seeing my sisters after all the time I had been with you, I thought that…well, I'm not sure what I thought. I just hadn't expected this. They were avoiding my eyes, just like everyone else. I bunched my sheets in my hands, wanting to scream until my voice went hoarse. It was so glaringly obvious, they didn't know what to say to me, or how to act around me anymore. I hadn't meant to lick my lips so much, or talk like you. I didn't even know I was doing it. I fiddled with the little bracelet they put around my wrist that had my name on it. Ruby Reddington, another stranger in my life.

"Have you…Have you heard anything about him?" I asked, my voice cracking.

Violet looked at Karla. Karla looked at Violet. Neither looked at me.

"You can tell me," I said more firmly. "I want to know."

"Ruby, we really don't think-…"

"Please, Vi."

She sighed, casting one more glance at Karla. "H-Harvey Dent is missing. They think…they think he might have done it."

Karla snorted. "Might? Of course he did! He's an evil, manic psychopath! He's crazy! A freak!"

"No, he's not."

You should've seen the way they looked at me. Disgust written all over their faces. They were looking at me like I was the crazy one. I heard the monotonous beep, beep of the heart monitor beside me, even though it felt as if my own heart had frozen inside my chest. I was glaring at the sheets in front of me, because I couldn't stand to look at them anymore. I had said it without thinking it. You hated being called a freak unless you were the one saying it.

I suppose in a way, I had become something of a freak too.