Grave:

Part II:

Louise

or

- Clawing to the Surface -

"O, hark! what mean those yells and cries? His chain some furious madman breaks; He comes-I see his glaring eyes: Now, now, my dungeon grate he shakes. Help! Help! He's gone!-O fearful woe, Such screams to hear, such sights to see! My brain, my brain,-I know, I know I am not mad but soon shall be."

~Matthew Gregory Lewis

There are two moss-covered graves that rest in a small cemetery just on the edge of that derelict place called "The Narrows" in Gotham City. Both tombstones are wrapped in creeping vegetation, sparse during the fall and winter; particularly leaf-strewn during the spring and summer. Both graves sit beneath a lone tree with a bare trunk and flimsy looking branches that bloom pale pink and white for around one week in the spring, on a good year. The two graves lie side-by-side, peaceful, solitary, separate from the rest of the graves. The engraving on both carves out an identical last name and a similar date of death. To the casual observer the graves would indicate nothing more than two related people, one girl and one boy, who passed away at relatively young ages both. There is only one living person who knows the deep chasm of difference that exists between those two graves. There is only one person living who knows that while the first grave holds the body of a girl whose suffering has ended forever, the second holds nothing – nothing but an empty hole and an empty coffin and an empty closure to anybody who knew the young man who was supposed to rest there.

There is only one person who knows that Jack Napier does not reside in the grave that marks his final resting place. Only one person who acknowledges that he lives but does not live; he died but did not die; he is everywhere and nowhere at all; he is everything and nothing. There is only one person who knows this, and she is the only one who would care to know it; she is the only person who would care to visit those two graves that sit peaceful and unnoticeable at the edge of a city which deals in chaos and obtrusiveness.

There is only one person who knows five year's worth of information concerning a young man who disappeared in a flurry of desperation and foolishness and was pronounced legally dead one year later, though his tombstone already sat above the coffin that was lowered into the ground with the rest of his possessions long before that date. There is only one person left who knows, who would still know, the exact way that young man stood and breathed and laughed and existed.

There is only one living person who knows all this, but she may not be living for much longer. Because some mysteries are better left unsolved; some secrets are better left six feet under.

Some things are better when they're kept in the grave.

Louise Speller was unsure about returning to Gotham City after ten long years of steadfast absence. In truth she could not explain to herself why she had finally decided to take that completely unnecessary plunge. She told herself that it was founded purely on the basis of an opportunistic career choice, but she knew that this was false. Metropolis had twice the number of safe, reliable jobs that offered her position – in fact, she was quite certain that it would have been a smarter choice to remain where she was, considering the extreme likelihood that at any given moment she may step into a building in Gotham City that just happened to be rigged to blow.

No, though she told herself that the move was meant to help her professionally, financially, and maybe even socially, she could not deny that what she was really returning to Gotham for was the graves.

She hadn't seen them since the day she'd left. One last goodbye; one last, lingering look before she turned her back on her past and rushed into her future without so much as one inkling about what she would do or where she would go. She only knew that she could not stay, could not be tempted to go back to that cemetery and stare at the two names she had known, of the only two people she had ever truly loved. One day she might sit and stare and become so immersed in death that she forgot that she herself was still living, still breathing. Leaving was the best choice. It was the only choice. Without those two people there was no point in staying in Gotham. No point in trying to pretend that they hadn't breathed in that air and walked those streets. So she'd left, and she thought that had been the end of it. But it wasn't.

The desire to return had rose up in her steadily for the past three years, smothering her little by little with repressed nostalgia and forcefully-forgotten memories. Her fear had kept her away, that terrifying prospect of walking back into the city that he had been apart of – Gotham was almost like a dream to her, and for the longest time the idea of going back and not finding him there was almost inconceivable to her. But time had changed her, and while the pain was more so dulled than lessened she felt that now she could handle it. Felt that now, after all this time, she had to. It was shameful that the graves had gone so long unattended; so long bare. She was ashamed of how fast she had ran from them. Now they seemed to call out to her, ghostly whispers at night that beckoned her onwards towards the city that she had once believed she could not stand to set foot in again.

The graves were the only legitimate reason Louise had for leaving her present and future behind and returning to her past, partially in hopes of digging it back up and reliving it again, and maybe this time getting it right.

So she was understandably dismayed when things did not work out the way she had initially planned.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand. You're saying that the Narrows is . . ."

"Closed off, that's right."

Louise shifted her purse from one shoulder to the other. The police station she was standing in was crowded and it stunk of crime and metallic iron bars and stale paperwork that sat on desks for weeks. On the wall next to her there was a cluttered board tacked onto the wall, innumerable pictures of wanted criminals, rapists, murderers, robbers, serial killers, broadcasted for every entering person to see. She turned her eyes away from them. She did not want to see their faces.

"I'm trying to get to a cemetery. I have family buried there and I'd like to visit their graves."

The man she was speaking to had a bored look on his face. His beard was scruffy and full of crumbs, his suit wrinkled and stretched taut over his gut. It didn't seem like he cared very much about what deceased family she had. Perhaps she'd been living in Metropolis too long, city of hospitality and fine moral character. The adjustment back to Gotham was slow going, apparently. Was it worse or had she just forgotten how soulless it really was?

"I'm sorry, Miss, but like I said, the Narrows is a quarantined area for the vast majority of the public. It's an extension of Arkham Asylum, now. Nobody in and pray to God nobody gets out."

A shiver passed over her at the mention of the infamous asylum, but she wouldn't be deterred by such a small setback. She had uprooted her entire life to come back to this place, to face her demons. Now that she was here she couldn't be told that her demons were delayed.

"There must be some exception . . . An honest human being couldn't consciously deny me my right to pay my respects to the dead. It's almost sacrilegious."

The man merely shrugged. "I dunno all about what it is, but I do know that it's protocol to deny any request for admittance unless you come with one hell of a reason and a nice official permit. So far we're only allowing those who operate at Arkham, government officials, and cops like myself to access the island. Sorry lady, but you're just going to have to light a candle for them in church if you want to get your respects in."

Louise sighed, the disappointment washing over her in waves. So this was what all of those pangs of purpose she had felt late at night came to? One huge dead end. What had been the point of all those lingering senses of resolve she had felt at night; that violent belief that she had unfinished business here? She had thought, so damn foolishly, that she was meant to come back here. It seemed like one huge laughing joke on the part of Gotham City – they had built it, she had come, but when she arrived there were no ghosts playing baseball . . . . only dry cornfields for as far as they eye could see.

"There isn't any way I could get myself permission . . .?" Louise began, leaning closer over the counter and opening her eyes wide in a pleading expression.

"Why I'll be damned! Look who it is!"

Louise straightened, the inner awareness that told you somebody was directing a comment towards you making her turn and look for the source of the voice. It sounded rather familiar, with a slight Southern twang that seemed to tug at her memory from long past, though she couldn't imagine why . . . it wasn't the lilting twitter of Lola's voice and it wasn't his voice, that forceful alto that sent her limbs trembling, and those were the only two voices she really cared to hear calling out to her. They were the ones that never would.

A slim figured and long-legged woman stood in front of her. Her pressed and pleated khaki slacks and cashmere sweater set spoke of wealth and the succinct tone of her voice separated her immediately from the rest of the common people milling around the police station. Her face was pretty but normal, with no distinct characteristics to set her out and jog the memory. In fact, if it wasn't for the hair – the pixie cut mass of gleaming, vivid red curls – she might not have recognized her at all. But Louise did recognize that hair, and that accent suddenly found meaning and even a name that she could attach it all to.

"Sydney . . . Sydney White," said Louise haltingly. Was it White? Or was it something else, something similar? Perhaps another color like Grey or Black or Greene? The red-head grinned wide, revealing teeth that Louise was certain used to be much more uneven and slightly less gleaming.

"Oh honey, it's Carroway now." She held out one manicured hand and wiggled long fingers. A diamond ring and silver band glinted dully in the dim light of the station. "Married for five years now. Isn't it fantastic?"

The enthusiasm was just right and Louise got the feeling that this wife – privileged though she may be – really did love her husband. It was nice, in a way, that she had married for love and just happened to get the money along with it. So few relationships happened that way. Usually you married for love and accepted having no money or you married for money and lamented the fact that you had no love. It was almost unfair that somebody out there had managed to acquire both.

"That's great. But what are you doing in this place?" Louise asked as she came closer, snapping open a clutch tote and pulling out a sharply cornered calling card. She slid it over to the man behind the front desk.

"Tell someone to call me if you hear anything back, would you?" Sydney requested absently before turning back to Louise and shaking her short tomato-red hair out of harried eyes. "Oh it's been dreadful, let me tell you. I went up to visit my hubby and bring him some lunch and when I came out my car – I drove the Benz up myself, of course – was gone, poof, vanished! Some damn fool went and stole it in broad daylight and nobody even said one thing to stop him. But that's Gotham City for you, isn't it? Though I do declare that it's never been quite this bad in the daytime, before."

The man behind the desk watched the two of them speaking and then cut in, "Well, at least we don't have some murderer masquerading as our savior these days. Things can only get better from here on out – once the city realizes that the police are back in charge."

Sydney Carroway laughed airily and there was a note of definite coolness in her voice as she snapped back, "Oh, are you in control? You tell that to the owner of the chop shop you find the remains of my car at, will you?"

Louise raised her eyebrows as the man went beet red and spluttered in indignation. Sydney turned away from him without another word and placed one large hand on Louise's arm. "What are you doing now, dear? Why don't we go have a few drinks someplace and catch up?"

Louise had nothing to do and nowhere to go except back to her cluttered apartment and unpack. She hadn't even set up her bedframe yet, which meant that for the time being she would be napping on a mattress that was laid flat on the floor. Which was fine, but it would probably matter a lot less once she had a few martinis in her. Besides, she hadn't seen Sydney for ten years, not since the day of their graduation from St. Katherine's, when the willowy ginger had hugged her tightly and told her to "take care of herself and whoever else might come along", though Louise hadn't had any idea what she meant by that. She had been too distraught to care very much. Graduation had come only three weeks after Lola had died. Four weeks after he had disappeared. Three weeks after she had heard that he wouldn't be coming back. Their tombstones had come in the very next morning, and she had left that afternoon.

"Sure," Louise replied, hiking up her purse onto her shoulder and turning back to the man behind the desk. He still looked as though he was trying to formulate a biting reply to Sydney's slight. "I'm going to come back in a couple of days to ask again about this. Mention it to a superior of yours, please? I'm very adamant about getting into that graveyard."

The man grunted and looked down at his paperwork. She guessed that she would probably have to go through this entire process again when she returned. Still, it was worth it if at the end she could lower herself onto the ground in front of those two graves and trace her fingers along the names that she hadn't spoken aloud, consciously, in a decade.

"You fairly disappeared from the face of the planet after graduation. I tried to get in contact with you, you know – I even went and hunted down your mama, but she told me that you'd taken off without a word to anybody. It was the darndest thing. I couldn't make heads or tails of it."

Louise swirled around her drink with her straw and stared across the high-top table at Sydney, who was making her way through her second vodka lemonade. She didn't look as though she was drunk in the least, though her accent had thickened and her posture had relaxed to the point where she was actually leaning with her elbows on the table, something sophisticated Sydney would probably never do.

"I just had to get away for a while," Louise replied softly, taking a drink of her Long Island iced tea and readjusting herself on her stool. Sydney looked at her with the timeless sort of sympathizing smile that made you believe she just understood without having to be told. She wondered if Sydney might have found out what happened. If she had gone to her mother there was a chance that she did know, even though what Louise had told her mother was limited to begin with. "Get away from all of this . . . Gotham . . . the Narrows. God, it was no place to live."

"I don't blame you. I live over in the Palisades, now, and I absolutely despise coming into the city most of the time. Especially for the past year or so – good Lord, but I couldn't even get on a plane back to Georgia fast enough this time last year! It was like hell had come to town, literally."

She knew what Sydney was speaking about. Even Metropolis, the City of Light, tasted the darkness when the Joker emerged. They had been sheltered, they had been complacent and assured of their safety, they had been unwilling to intervene, but they had been appalled.

"But things are better now, aren't they?" she asked Sydney, who rolled her grey eyes with exasperation and slapped her palm down flat on the table. "They locked the Joker up at Arkham Asylum months ago."

"Better! Now that we haven't even got Batman running around and scaring the living daylights out of thieves? No, things aren't better. We may not have a Joker threatening to blow us all up, but without Batman? Let's just say that Gotham is geared to turn into one huge Narrows if something doesn't change, and fast."

Louise licked her lips free of any lingering alcohol and nodded absently, letting her eyes wander around the smoke-filled bar they had gone to. It was a higher class place than most, which guaranteed at least moderate protection while they were out drinking, though that was never completely assured in Gotham. She didn't really know what to say to Sydney regarding the Batman, that elusive masked vigilante who less than half of the city adored and the rest abhorred. She hadn't been around when he first appeared on the scene and she hadn't been around when the murder of Harvey Dent took place, though it was hard for Louise to believe that anybody who killed somebody as good as the former district attorney could mean anything but harm. Still, Batman wasn't her hero – they had their own over in Metropolis.

"So you're married," said Louise, changing the subject and looking down at the white hand that was wrapped around a perspiring glass. The jewel was large and pink, with smaller white diamonds surrounding it. It must have cost fifty thousand at least. Her own ring finger tingled in its nakedness, and Louise's right hand absently covered her left, almost in a show of embarrassment.

"Mmm, five years this September. We had a fall wedding down in my home town. The foliage was just extraordinary. His name is Nicholas and he's the CEO of a plastic business with one foot in the stocks and bonds door – like everybody else's husband, I suppose!" Sydney laughed shortly and blew her wispy bangs out of her eyes. Louise didn't mention how very unlike 'everybody else's husband' Nicholas Carroway was. "We live over in the Palisades. Four acres. I raise my own horses and I give all the little kids lessons on how to ride them. They just love getting ponies for their birthdays."

Sydney took another drink, a content little smile on her face. Louise took another sip of her own drink and then asked, "So do you have kids, Syd?"

She shook her head violently, hair bobbing. "Oh Lordy, no! No, I'm not ready for that yet. Nick's trying to get me to come around to the idea but it's just not for me right now."

Louise nodded and swirled her drink around again, her eyes scanning around and examining groups of laughing, tipsy people. Her eyes landed on a man near the bar who had just sat down to order, shrugging off his suit jacket and rolling up the sleeves of his button-down, revealing wiry forearms and broad shoulders which tapered down to thin, thin hips. Her skin tingled and she forced herself to look away.

"And what about you? You must have a man in your life. Kids?"

Louise smiled wanly and replied, "There's been a few men. But none were very serious. No kids."

Sydney laughed and then leaned closer, her voice lowering to a conspiratorial whisper. "Well most of the girls said, when you left, that the reason you'd disappeared so quick was because you . . . got into trouble. You know. With that boy you were with for all those years. We figured that you were expecting and he left you, so you skipped town. It made sense at the time; you looked so awful for that last month. But it's obvious we were wrong, now."

She wondered if she should be bothered by the fact that most of her classmates thought that she had gotten pregnant and then gotten ditched and then ran away to avoid any judgement. Louise found that the only problem she had with that scenario was that it wasn't true. Better abandoned by him with his child than left by him forever, alone, with nothing.

"Whatever happened to that boy, anywho? You were so in love with him I was sure you'd run off and get married as soon as we got out of school. It was all sort of romantic, seeing as he was so poor and didn't even finish high school and everything."

The pleasant reminiscing of the evening was over – here was the part that she dreaded, the part she had run away to avoid all those years ago. The truth. The two words that would cement the reality of the situation again, over and over, stabbing at her heart with every syllable. But she could say them, now. They hurt, they would always hurt, but she could say them.

"He died."

"Care for a smoke, gorgeous?"

He had Jack's hips. Narrow, just the type that drove her wild. Men with large limbs, bulging with muscle, did nothing for her. They almost repulsed her. It was the skinny ones – no, perhaps not skinny, but definitely trim, definitely lean – who caught her eye. Because they looked like him. If she closed her eyes, they could almost be him.

She figured why the hell not take a smoke and leaned towards him. The man placed the thin cylinder gently between her lips, and she raised her hand to wrap around it. It wasn't like she smoked often, more for her own amusement than an addiction. When she felt like it. Never enough to crave it constantly. She only craved one thing constantly, and that was quite enough.

Louise inhaled and then, with a flourish, sent a smoke ring floating towards the ceiling. Hovering, grey and wispy, tendrils snaking out and undulating through the air. It was a ghostly thing, beautiful in a sad, captivating way that, for whatever reason, made her ache.

"That's a neat trick. Where did you learn how to do that?"

"France," she said.

"Oh, so you're French? I kinda thought you might –"

"No," she interrupted, taking another drag. "I'm not."

"Oh . . . ."

There was a silence between them, Louise staring at the slow burning filter tip of the cigarette in her hand. The ash glowed red, shuddered at the ends, and then flaked downwards beside her, sprinkling onto the floor. Two drags, and she was already bored. "Here," she said, "Have your cancer stick back."

He took it gratefully, inhaling long and unnecessarily hard. When he exhaled he let out a low groan and closed his eyes, supremely satisfied. Sated.

"So what were you in France for, then?"

She could ignore this, like she did most times. Idle conversation, so out of place in situations like these. But she didn't feel like going back to her bare apartment just yet, so with an inward shrug she sighed and engaged herself. "I studied abroad. For college. I was there for a year and a half."

"Sounds fun. I dunno if I could stay there. All those wimpy croissants, and, ugh, snails. I'm a meat and potatoes man, myself." He took another puff. "But hey," he said through a billow of cigarette smoke, "to each his own."

"Because everyone knows that France only offers croissants and snails on their menus," she said bitingly.

"Right," he said, noticing nothing. "No pizza, even."

"Mmm. You'd have to go to Italy for that, right?"

"Yeah. See, that's why I love America. We're the melting pot. No goddamned Commies are gonna tell us what foods we can and can't have." He inhaled again, almost savagely this time, and Louise rolled her eyes. So he was one of those. How unpleasant.

It was clear to her that it was about that time. The time when she stood and made up some weak excuse and then left, leaving a small bit of her dignity behind her. This time she barely found it necessary to say a thing. She simply stood and retrieved her scattered clothing from the floor and began to dress. His eyes were on her, watching her movements, but she hardly minded. The remorse and disgust wouldn't hit her until the morning; she knew that from many long years of practice.

"Hey, maybe it's not my place. . . ."

She braced herself for some asinine comment, or else a misguided attempt to try to get her to call him in a few days.

"But who's Jack?"

In the midst of pulling up her zipper she froze. Stared dumbly out of his bedroom window. It wasn't a nice view. The side of the building right next door. All grey brick and curtained windows.

"What did you say?"

"Jack. You said his name while we were going at it. I mean, hey, I don't judge. But I'm kinda curious why a girl like you would be pinin' over a guy who don't want her when she could get anyone. Well, almost anyone. Some guys prefer blondes. Or girls with bigger tits."

A feeling of constriction seized her chest. His inane comments, those tactless jabs, infuriated her. She turned around and snatched up her purse from the bed side table, glaring down at his naked body, displayed carelessly, not even covered by a sheet. In this harsh lighting she realized it didn't look half as much like Jack's as she had originally believed.

"None of your goddamned business."

As she swept out of his apartment, shoes swinging from one hand to quicken her exit, she reflected grimly on the fact that no matter how many men she found who had a body that resembled his body, she could never, ever find someone who had his magnificent mind.

A/N: So this is it. Part II. It's taken a while but I think I'm starting to hit my stride. We'll see, anyway. Sydney was pretty much the only friend of Louise's that was even mentioned during the first part of the story. Because it was told from Jack's POV I didn't go much in depth about her school life – that was her business after all, and something I didn't think Jack would be much interested in. So you'll get a nice little glimpse into the character that, I think, you haven't seen before. Plus, as you can see, she's a bit different than she was in the first part . . . . What do you think?

Depending on what you guys think of this I might change my mind about the tone/direction of the story. So, yeah, feedback is pretty important on this one!

And on that note, I'm still replying to all your great reviews from chapter twenty! I just couldn't wait to get this one up. : D