The moment they merged he could feel it. A new sense of purpose had just been born within him. Not only that, but a few things started to reveal themselves to him.

James Gordon was keeping the truth from Leslie because he feared for her safety. But Leslie was a smart woman, so Edward knew that she knew that Gordon was keeping secrets from her. That's why she looked so dejected this morning. Gordon must have lied to her about a case he was working on and she had taken it hard. It was a weakness that could be take advantage of.

He smirked. "It'd be such a shame if someone were to use this against him."

A knock at the door snapped him out of his thoughts.

"Anyone in there?" The familiar voice of the janitor said.

Edward rolled his eyes, great, this imbecile. He held a job wiping shit off the walls and yet he treated him as if he was lesser than the feces he cleaned.

"Yes, I'll be out in just a moment." He was certain that the janitor was rolling his eyes at this point.

"Oh, it's you. The freak. Knowing you, you'll take the whole damn day in there."

Edward grabbed several pieces of paper and rolled them up into one big ball.

"Oh, well. In that case I'll provide you with ample time to rest your diabetic ass. We wouldn't want you collapsing from doing more than just sitting on a couch now would we?"

Silence.

He smirked. That pathetic excuse of a human being had probably expected him to apologize and hurry up, but no. Not anymore. Never again will he be talked down to.

He wet the wad of paper and sticked it to the drain. Once he made sure that it was tightly secure he moved to the stalls.

"W-who in the devil do you think you are you freak?! Don't talk to me like that ever again!"

Edward grabbed more paper and built it into an even bigger wad that he then threw in the toilet. He flushed it and made sure the water level rose to the brink of spilling over.

"Or what? You'll report me?" He made his way over to the sink and turned the faucet to full. He flushed the toilet and made his way to the door.

"Let me remind you," he said as he opened the door. "That you are a disgusting overweight man that has multiple complaints against him from the female staff here. You are one more complaint away from being fired, and you do need the job to maintain the family that you have, right? I mean, who's going to hire a high school drop out that impregnated a sixteen year old girl? So if anyone is going to show some respect, it's going to be you. Understand? Shit cleaner?"

It seemed like Edward was talking to a tomato rather than a human being.

"Oh," Edward said, walking past the janitor. "One more thing, have fun with the mess!"

Confused, the janitor opened the door to reveal just what Ed had said, a mess. Water from the faucet had spilled over and dirty piss stained water was quickly making its way towards him. It would take him over an hour to clean the water up, and another hour to make it smell good.

"Screw you, Nygma." He muttered.

Line Break

"I'm sorry that I'm late, I had a run in with the janitor." Edward said, closing the door to the M.E room.

Leslie smiled. "It's ok, but you could make it up to me if you passed me those scalpels."

With an "of course," Ed retrieved the tool and handed it over to Lee.

Lee thanked him and got to work.

"Any idea what happened to John Doe?" Asked Ed as he slipped on the proper attire.

"Well," Lee said as she cut the arm of the corpse. "There does seem to be some foreign chemical in his veins, other than that, it would just be the missing organ, but I haven't gotten to that yet. No blunt force trauma or lesions are on his skin either."

Ed nodded and grabbed his case. The chemical part was understandable. They could be dealing with a sadist. (Not the first one to be found in Gotham). But sadists also usually physically tortured their victims, so if this was a sadist, he was acting out of his M.O. And that is something that wouldn't bode well for the anyone. On the other hand it could be an experiment. Doctors in the black market are always experimenting with live subjects, so this could have been the unfortunate soul that crossed his path. Whatever the case, he wouldn't know until he could run proper analysis on the chemical.

Ed placed his case next to the table and opened it to reveal an assortment of tools a CSI would need on the job. He took the syringe and a vial out, sanitized and ready to use at a moment's notice.

Leslie moved the incised arm to allow him a better window to draw chemical from him.

Once the chemical had been drawn from the victim and secured in the vial, he turned to Leslie. "I will go and identify what this chemical is, once I'm done I'll let you know."

She nodded, the chemical wouldn't take too long to analyze, so he'd be back by the time she got to opening up the body.

Line Break

Ed placed the vial in the vile rack. He grabbed the chemicals that he would need and his microscope and got to work.

Lee.

That name intruded his thoughts, and although he shouldn't be thinking about her, he couldn't help himself.

Gordon thought that she was too weak to be involved in his life. He thought that he could keep her safe by pushing her aside with lies. But how wrong was he. Lee was strong enough to handle his life. He was just a fool for believing other wise.

'So why should they be together if he's only going to keep her in the dark?' Was the thought that introduced itself to him.

And that's right. Why should they be together? He's no good. He can't see her for who she is. But he can, and he's willing to do whatever it takes to get her.

Knock knock.

"Seriously? Can't anyone have any privacy here?" He muttered.

"Come in." The devil himself walked in, James Gordon and co.

"Detective Gordon, Detective Bullock, how may I be of assistance to you?" He asked.

"We need you to look into any company that manufactures or stores, the new street drug, Kolaine." Said Bullock, slamming down the file on Ed's desk.

"Manners, detective. Would it kill you to learn some?" He took hold of the files and looked through them.

The drug was new indeed, but it had a lasting impact. Severe addiction for only an hour of ecstasy, terrible trade off in his opinion, but it's Gotham, people will consume anything that might even look edible so he wasn't really surprised. On the other hand, the person who was shocked was Bullock. The pipsqueak just talked back to him. It does tend to shock people.

"I'll leave a file containing all of the manufacturers and storage units by this afternoon on your desk. And if that is it, Detectives, then I shall resume my work."

Bullock took his leave but Gordon lagged behind. "Are you ok, Ed? You seem, different." Ed smiled at him.

"I leave when spurned, I give all, I take nothing, I can raise you into a king, or make you to a beggar, what am I?" Jim scratched the back of his head.

"Umm, money?"

"Love, Detective, I'm in love." The smile on Ed's face said it all.

"Ah," Jim gave him an awkward smile. "Well, you go after her."

"Oh I will Detective, thank you."

With that, Jim left, closing the door behind him.

The door next to him opened to reveal Lee Thompkins.

"Oh, so you're in love?"

"Why yes I am." Edward replied. She caught him off guard, but luckily he was no longer just Ed. He was someone different.

"And who may this person be?" She asked, crossing the distance between the both of them. She sat herself on the table, her thighs spread out thanks to the surface of the table.

There it was. The primitive urge, clawing at his rib cage. This time, though, he enjoyed it. The rush of feeling was elating. But he couldn't indulge in it now. She was with Gordon, any advances would surely ruin their friendship.

"It's this girl, she is amazing, beautiful, and funny. You don't kno-"

"It's Kristen, right?" She interrupted.

No, it wasn't, but he wasn't going to tell her that he liked her. If he did, it'd ruin their friendship faster than the eye could blink. So for now he needed to keep her away from discovering him.

"Correct." He said. She smiled and reached over from her seat to place her hand on his shoulder.

"I wish you the best of luck with her."

He put his hand over hers. Her hand felt amazing. Soft to the touch.

"Thank you, I appreciate that very much."

Line Breighk

Once Edward arrived home, he threw off his lab coat. That day had been long. Not that he was complaining, being near Leslie for three hours was really nice. He especially enjoyed making her laugh and hearing her insight on what could have killed the victims.

In the end, the chemical turned out to be a cleaning agent, typically used by what he had suspected, black market Doctors. Which one it was, was beyond him. That was up to Gordon and Bullock to find out. Next on his list was who manufactured and stored the new street drug. That was a little too easy for him, if he was being honest. No one but Wayne enterprises had the type of technology to store such a chemical and the equipment to manufacture it. He drafted up all the paper work for them and all they needed to do now was get a judge to sign the warrant to investigate further into the matter.

This wasn't all that happened that day. On his lunch break, he overheard Lee and Jim arguing. Something about him "not being open," and how it was "mentally unhealthy for someone to keep such secrets." To be fair, Ed couldn't care less about Jim and his mental health. He could go insane and be locked up in Arkham for all he cared. The only one he cared about, was Lee.

"I mean, I'd be doing her a service breaking them up. After all, a relationship shouldn't have such distrust between them." He muttered.

"So, time to start planning," he said, a smile spreading across his face.

Line Brake

The next few weeks Ed worked on his plan. He would talk to Lee and ask her about her relationship with Gordon. Obviously, she wouldn't say much, but her body language said more than enough. It wasn't going good. Any sane person could tell that the only thing keeping them together was false hope and empty promises. They were falling apart all on their own, all that they needed was a push, and Ed was going to be the one to provide it to them.

He also worked on Detective Gordon. He would talk to him more and slip in to conversations, giving his own snippets of insight on what they were talking about. Now, Jim being Jim, was naïve. He didn't see that the reason why Edward was talking to him more was not because Ed wanted to be more involved with people. No, the true reason was to get closer to him. To be near enough to him to influence their relationship. And that was exactly the reason why Ed was being so successful.

"How was your day Ed?" Jim would ask, Ed would reply with a generic answer and Jim would accept it in stride. This was beginning to be too easy, thought Edward. But the point wasn't to do anything now. Right now his goals were to gather information on Jim and Lee. With that information he could easily devise a plan to break them up.

Days passed as Ed learned more and more about Jim Gordon. He would over hear things when Jim and Harvey talked in the locker room, often times they would discuss things when he was around, assuming that he was of no threat to them whatsoever. He couldn't be able to push down his smirk, oh how wrong they were, he was a very real threat, maybe even the biggest one around since he knew so much about their lives. He knew how Jim would hit his favorite bar on Alley Road at 6:00pm sharp when his day was rough and leaving at 6:40. Sometimes he would take Harvey with him, but when days got really bad, he would go by himself and leave at around 8:00pm, worrying Lee, a fact voiced by Jim during one of his and Harvey's locker conversations.

He also knew about his habit of constantly looking into other officer's reports and looking for any sign of tampering. The distrust in that man was palpable. If people knew about his little pastime, his reputation would be buried six feet beneath the ground, but if Harvey knew that Jim was looking into his file, constantly keeping close tabs as to where he has been, it would not only destroy their trust, but the very friendship that they have built. The only person he didn't keep tabs on was the very person that he was trying to keep out from his cop life, Doctor Leslie Thompkins. Ed, on the other hand, did keep tabs on her, which is how he knew she would enter work at 6:00am sharp, her out time was 5:00pm but she would always overwork and leave at 7:00. She hated leaving corpses unanalyzed, she wanted justice for the families of the victims so she wouldn't leave until she was done. This made for a very emotionally taxing day, especially when she couldn't find out what had happened to the victim. Sometimes he would walk in on her and hear her sniffle at her failure. Surrounded by so much death took its toll on people, and Lee was no exception, she needed to vent to someone, and when Jim wasn't there because he was having his own bad day and his inability to share got to him and he left to his bar, it was Ed and Lee alone in his office (more like room) talking about her feelings. From these conversations he learned her love of Chopin and crepes, her hatred of secrets and the injustices of the world. As she talked passionately about whatever topic, he would diligently notice how her eyes would light up with a fire that could only ever burn within her. He noticed how she spoke not only with her voice, but with her body. How each sentence had its own emotion weaved into her body language and how she conducted each word smoothly to the next. Leslie Thompkins was a symphony to be heard, and Ed loved each second of it.

Sometimes they would talk about him, and although he hated his past, he couldn't help himself from spilling forth his deepest memories from his childhood. He would talk about his father and how he would hit him because of some dumb science fact he spewed out or how his mom would emotionally torture him, leaving him emotionally scarred enough to become the man that he was. She would gasp in horror and hold his hand, she had seen some cases of child abuse but she had never thought that her colleague would have been a victim of it. He would squeeze her hand and reassure her by telling her about his grandparents, the only people he truly loved in his family.

When he was having a bad day because his father had beat him or his mother had called him something hurtful, he would walk to their house, two blocks away, and spend the day there. His grandpa would talk to him and tell him riddles while his grandma would cut up a slice of apple pie and hand it to him. After they were done eating, they would sit in front of the tv and watch whatever was on, when a science show came on, Ed would pipe up and add his own little information as the host spoke. His grandmother would be clueless, his grandfather would laugh at her and explain it in simpler terms. He would rub Ed's hair and tell him some more facts that hadn't been mentioned in the show and Ed would just gape in amazement. Lee would smile along with Edward as he recounted to her about his grandparents, losing themselves to time as they talked about their relatives. Eventually they would look at the time and see that it was well past 8:00. A flash of panic would find its way onto Lee's face. She would grab her coat and hurry out the door, worrying that Jim might hurt himself if he was too drunk to walk home, leaving a self satisfied Ed behind.

At this point he was confident that he knew more about Lee than Jim ever has, and now all he needed to do was put his plan in motion.