a/n: hi all,
Last chapter was pretty light in the Kate + Sophie department. Hopefully this one will make up for it.
Cheers,
EQT.95
Kate tiptoed across the flat from the bathroom, conscious of the two sleeping forms occupying the couch and bed and leaving tiny droplets of water in her wake. Shortly after their chat, Mary quickly retired to Kate's bed, finally succumbing to the bottle of wine that had been fighting with her heavy eyelids for the last hour. That left Kate free to wash the grime of the night off her.
She reached for another glass and filled it with water, wiping her brow as she did. It was then that a blinking light out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. She squinted to interrogate its origin and realized it was coming from her phone. Forgetting the glass on the counter, she reached for the tiny device and blinked to let her eyes adjust to the bright screen beaming back at her as she clicked it open and saw the cause of the notification:
S: you awake?
Kate stared at the glowing screen in a mix of surprise and confusion. She glanced at the timestamp and saw it had arrived three minutes earlier. A brief moment passed where she considered leaving the message unanswered when another notification popped up:
S: what do you know about butler's wife?
Kate wasn't sure how Sophie correlated her with knowing anything about Delia Pflaum, but her interest was piqued. Before she could formulate a cryptic response that toed the line between faux ignorance and veiled skepticism, another notification appeared:
S: i can also just ask luke
Kate smirked at Sophie's knack for reading her mind. Of course - she'd been pestering Luke for weeks about their unmonitored use of her login credentials.
K: he's asleep; he wouldn't be much use to you anyway
S: does that mean you won't be either?
K: depends. where are you? can you talk?
S: just leaving the office
Kate scowled, realizing her shittiness from earlier had driven Sophie back to work. Her thumbs hovered over the keypad as she fought the tiny voice in her head to back down. Instead, she let them tap out her next message:
K: you want some lamb?
Kate watched the message go from delivered to read and found her breath catch as she waited for the three dots to appear.
S: depends. you done being a prick?
"You have a knack for breaking curfew," Kate remarked.
"Perks of being a Crow," Sophie shrugged through a mouthful of lamb.
Sophie had arrived at the fourth floor unit minutes earlier and, after a quizzical glance when she knocked and found Kate on the other side of unit 402, was advised that Mary and Luke were passed out two floors up. That meant one of the seventeen other unoccupied units would have to do for the midnight brainstorming session.
She was taken by surprise at the decor: the unit was fully furnished - sparsely, but it carried all the necessities: dinnerware, seating, lighting.
"Is this a spec unit?"
"No, why?"
"I just assumed with all the furnishings."
"Oh, no, uh… most of the applicants don't have the budget to furnish, so we've fitted them out a bit."
"Really?"
"Why? You don't like the colors? I told Luke not to-"
"No, no, that's… that's not what I meant."
"So what has you looking into Butler's wife?" Kate asked, grabbing a glass from the shelf.
Sophie waited to swallow before diving into an explanation: "Last night the Crows raided a building we suspect was being used by this fear toxin gang-"
"Blue poppy," Kate interrupted over the sound of the faucet filling the cup.
"What?"
"You should call it what it is," Kate said. "Fear toxin is made from blue poppies."
"How do you know that?"
"I thought you said you were looking into Butler," Kate replied, taking a gulp from the cup.
"I am - we are, but that isn't exactly information you can search on the internet," Sophie scowled.
Kate shrugged, "Luke found something sciency. What's up with the wife?"
"Delia Pflaum," Sophie said. "She disappeared nearly ten years ago and left behind a portfolio of buildings all around the city. The building we raided last night was owned by her, and I have it on good authority that a number of other locations could be possible hotspots for this fear, er, blue poppy gang."
"Rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?" Kate smirked, leaning against the counter opposite Sophie. "Whose authority?"
"That's not important. What is important is understanding Butler's motives."
"So you do think he's behind this."
"I'm not leaving any stone unturned. And if your extra-curricular browsing history is anything to go off, you're well-versed in his tenure at Arkham."
"I'm not sure what you're talking about," Kate replied leaning against the counter. She reached over and picked a piece of meat from Sophie's plate, just avoiding a swat from the fork suspended in Sophie's hand.
"So what do you think?"
"About?" Kate asked, licking her finger clean.
"Butler."
"I thought you wanted to know about his dead wife."
"Missing."
"Sorry?" Kate asked.
"Her body was never found."
"Sure, but it's Gotham. Whose body is found?" Kate shrugged. "Half of them get tied to a cinder block and tossed off the dock. Besides, it was ten years ago."
"Delia Pflaum wasn't just anyone though. She had status; she wouldn't have just gone missing out of nowhere," Sophie reasoned.
"Why does it sound to me like you don't think she's dead?"
"Because I don't think she is."
"And what proof-" Kate began when a folder appeared from Sophie's bag, "… is that proof? Did you just do this for dramatic flair?"
"Did it work?"
"A bit," Kate said, sliding the file toward herself. She flipped the cover over and began surveying the information. "Where did you get this?"
"My request for paper records finally came through," Sophie explained, taking the pause of Kate surveying the documents to grab another bite of food.
"And what? You think this Patient 010-05-041716-A is her?" Kate asked, quickly skimming the first page. She noted with growing curiosity that the patient's name was redacted and other portions of the form had been blacked out.
"Check out her admission date," Sophie said, already digging into her bag for her next trick.
"The 3rd of June, 2010. So?" Kate asked, setting Sophie up with a softball.
"Delia Pflaum went missing on the evening of June 2nd," Sophie replied, tossing the police report next to the Arkham file.
"Sure, but doesn't Arkham have a revolving door policy when it comes to patients? They release like, ten a week to make room for all the new ones. That a woman happened to be registered the day after Pflaum's disappearance doesn't prove anything," Kate challenged. It was an obvious point but one that needed to be made early on if this theory was to have any legs.
"That may be the case now, but Arkham ten years ago was much different; they didn't just send every criminal and their mother for treatment. Care was more hands-on, and it was a very restricted process to keep patient to doctor ratios low. Most of the time it had to be court ordered with the written support of three different doctor's."
"So couldn't we just dig up whatever court order and doctor is attributed to her?"
"That's what's atypical about this patient," Sophie replied. "None of that documentation exists. She was brought in under Arkham's emergency clause and immediately placed into Dr. Butler's care."
"What's the emergency clause?"
"If a patient was deemed qualified by a staffed doctor at Arkham, they would immediately bypass the standard system and be absorbed as a patient. It was intended for at-risk patients so their registration could be expedited, but it turned into-"
"Let me guess," Kate offered, "Was it politicized and used to keep high-class family members from being dragged through the papers from the public display of court proceedings?"
"It's almost like you grew up in Gotham," Sophie smirked. "The number of patients that fell under the emergency clause and who were among Gotham's top five percenters is far too correlated not to be coincidence."
"And so what? You think Pflaum's disappearance was staged so she could be taken in as a patient because of… what exactly? And who approved her? And why? There was no history of mental illness in her files when… uh…"
"Yes?" Sophie asked, clearly amused by the situation Kate had just trapped herself in.
"From what I remember in the papers when she, um, disappeared," Kate tried lamely to clarify.
"You can stop lying. Your little search history was actually a decent trail of breadcrumbs."
"If you know all of this then why do you need my help?"
"Because you think differently than me, and I could use that right now."
"I'm flattered."
"It wasn't really a compliment," Sophie shot back with ease. "Normally I'd just go to Jacob."
Kate's face fell at this admission, but she understood. She was raised and trained by Jacob for the better part of her teenage years, so it'd make sense they interrogate similarly.
"So then back to my original point. Well, actually, make that two points: why would Pflaum be admitted as a patient, and what does any of this have to do with the blue poppy gang?"
"I don't know," Sophie admitted. "It's not clear why she'd have suddenly been admitted, but my hunch is Dr. Butler approved her. It's common for the assigned doctor to be the one who ushered them in using the emergency clause. What's especially curious is that Butler, before this date, had never used the emergency clause on any patient. Beyond that I have nothing. That's what I'm trying to figure out. It might be a wild goose chase, but this whole thing just doesn't add up to me."
"Why?"
"Have you ever read any of Butler's papers? Or-or watched any of his lectures?"
Kate shook her head. For all the research her and Luke had done, she couldn't recall reading anything past his patient notes. She was certain Luke had taken that dive, but it hadn't been a priority for her.
"He's… he's very controlled; almost calculating."
"So are psychopaths," Kate challenged.
"But in an empathetic way," Sophie elaborated.
"Calculated empathy? That's a bit of an oxymoron, Soph."
"His early work was groundbreaking. He's incredibly intelligent, and has produced amazing results with all kinds of patients," Sophie continued, unphased by Kate's remark. "He managed to reach the 'lost causes' in an unprecedented way."
"But…?"
"He stays in his lane. He's calculated in that way. He knows what he's good at and has no interest in what he's not."
Kate blinked, clearly not following.
"He's had plenty of opportunities to play into the politics of Gotham or use his stature to get things, but he doesn't. In all the records I've seen, he's never once accepted an event to a private gathering."
"But then how did he get such a large endowment for Arkham?" Kate asked. It wasn't a secret that Arkham had fallen on hard times years before Butler showed up. With his presence came a sudden injection of money that helped keep Arkham afloat while expanding their services over the years. "He's a genius, but no one with money in Gotham just hands millions of dollars out for being smart."
"Delia was a big proponent of his work. She would host fundraisers and attend all sorts of events on his behalf. He whiled away at the asylum and she rubbed elbows with Gotham's elite."
"Sounds like a dream marriage."
"It kind of was. They both did what they were good at and Gotham was better off for it. Arkham started making progress and patients were successfully being released back into society."
"So what changed? I mean… I know it had those golden years, but I've been away for a while, and Arkham is pretty much what I remember it as a kid."
"It took a nosedive a decade ago."
"But the endowment is still in tact. It's not like Arkham doesn't have the funds to be what it was."
"I haven't been able to check it because old patient files aren't digitalized, but my hunch is that Dr. Butler's methods took a turn."
"Meaning?"
"His early work was all about one-on-one patient engagement. He tuned every treatment to the needs of the individual. It was why Arkham became so successful but also why the patient count was kept so low."
"So you mean that he didn't always use blue poppies on his patients."
"Glad you've stopped pretending you didn't break half a dozen laws and dig through the files on your own," Sophie grinned.
"To be fair, Luke is the one who logs in every time. I couldn't remember your password with a gun to my head."
"Well that's good to know, because I change it every month. Crow protocol."
"But then how-?"
"Luke and I have an agreement," Sophie shrugged, and Kate felt a pang of jealousy that they'd been communicating without her. "You guys were still digging for information because you don't have any real hobbies, and he'd pass along anything interesting."
"Fine," Kate said with more sharpness than she intended. "It still doesn't explain how or why she'd be patient... 010-05-041716-A," Kate said, rattling off the number for added effect.
"It's almost like you know exactly when I need relevant information to advance my argument," Sophie smirked.
"Aren't we all just acting out someone else's master plan?" Kate replied dryly.
"Do you notice anything interesting about the patient number?"
Kate peered at the paper for a moment before shrugging with disinterest. "Should I?"
"Not if you don't know what to look for," Sophie remarked.
"Which I'm guessing you do."
"Right-o. All of the numbers mean something."
"And the letter?"
"That too," Sophie said, and Kate smirked at the obvious excitement showing on Sophie's face. It was the same nerdy excitement she donned whenever she got to explain something at Point Rock. "The first two numbers represent the year of being administered: 010 for 2010."
"Ok, seems obvious enough."
"The next two numbers depict a scale from zero to five with five being the worst. The first number represents 'risk of harm to self' and the second number represents 'risk of harm to others'. These numbers are assigned based on feedback from the Arkham-appointed doctor and can change with time. The idea is that, once both numbers reach zero and remain there for three months, the doctor can suggest a review of performance for discharge."
"So the first zero means she isn't a harm to herself, and the five means she's… what, basically a threat to everyone?"
Sophie nodded. "It also means her exposure to everyday workers and patients is limited. She would spend most of her days in isolation. Only people included on a permitted list can technically access her."
"Which would be ideal if you're a high-status member of Gotham's elite and trying to stay out of the public eye," Kate pondered out loud. "But that still doesn't-"
"Hold up, I'm not done yet," Sophie interrupted, already anticipating Kate's cynicism. "There's still the last set of numbers. I'll give you a hint: the biggest number possible is 262626."
Kate scowled, staring down at the six digits: 041716. Sophie smirked as Kate muttered them out loud, trying to solve the mini puzzle.
"They're initials," Kate answered. "D-Q-P."
"Delia Quinn Pflaum."
"No shit," Kate gaped in shock.
"Like you said, it might be pure coincidence-"
"No way," Kate interrupted, shaking her head in disbelief. "How many DQPs could there be in the world let alone running around Gotham?"
Kate picked up the files and wandered over to the couch where she spent the next few minutes pouring over this new information, interrogating it for the slightest lead.
"Is this all you have on her?" she called out as Sophie set her empty plate into the sink.
"There's Butler's notes, but all of his originals are in shorthand, and I haven't cracked it yet."
Kate nodded, her eyes not leaving the pages. It was a tricky situation: she had months of research floating in her brain, and she was struggling to distinguish what Kate Kane should know from what Batwoman would know.
"What other files did you get copies of?" Kate asked after a few more minutes of studying the materials. Sophie had made her way to the loveseat positioned across from the couch by now and was beginning to unpack more folders.
"Somewhere between twenty and thirty of Butler's patients but, like DQP, their identities have been redacted for privacy," Sophie replied, pulling out another stack of folders.
"Even from the Crows?" Kate asked in surprise.
"We can get names of potential suspects, but since all of these patients have been at Arkham for the last ten-plus years, there's very little grounds to get identities. We'd need more evidence to get that information. Knowing how the patient ids work is a start at least."
"Hm," Kate pondered, "I'm guessing this isn't exactly following protocol," Kate said, gesturing to the stack of files.
"Oh, now you have a thing for rules?"
xx
"Have you brought Butler in for questioning?" Kate asked, slapping another patient file on the stack of others she'd skimmed over the last hour.
Sophie shook her head. "If he's involved-"
"Or behind it," Kate interjected, taking her role as devil's advocate seriously.
"-I don't want to lose the element of surprise. The moment he thinks we're suspicious we'll lose that advantage."
Kate nodded in understanding. It was the exact same reason Batwoman hadn't made a visit of her own to interrogate Butler.
Over the last hour they had learned a lot and almost nothing. While they had collected a number of initials and years of admittance, they would need to cross reference them against court records to try identifying any of them. Kate noted with some relief that there were only three files left.
"Ha, found it," Kate exclaimed in sudden excitement.
"What?"
"008-45-101303-B," Kate rattled off. "You said he was moved over to Butler just over ten years ago."
"Who?" Sophie scowled in confusion.
"Scarecrow."
The brief pause that followed made the blood drain from Kate's face.
"No I didn't."
Kate stared down at the folder in her hands, willing back the last minute. "You sure?" she asked, trying to contain the adrenaline sending her heart rate higher. She chanced a glance up at Sophie who was eyeing her curiously. "Or maybe I saw it in one of the files on Arkham's database," Kate feigned lightly, flipping through the papers for added casualness.
"Could be," Sophie remarked, turning her attention back to her own patient file. "Let me know if anything catches your eye."
"Mhm," Kate replied, stealing another quick look at Sophie before relaxing into the file.
Another unknown amount of time passed as they read through documents, throwing out one theory after another to see what stuck. They were slowly building out a larger timeline for what they saw as a pivot in Butler's approach to patient care and subsequent deterioration in quality. Kate's theory was proving more and more accurate as she read through Jonathan Crane's file: shortly after becoming his primary caregiver, Dr. Butler began testing out a new drug on patients. The files didn't explicitly say 'blue poppies' but they did include a log of all prescriptions and drugs administered to each patient over the length of their stay. A nonspecific set of letters and numbers began appearing on patient charts beginning in 2009 - shortly after Scarecrow was placed under Butler's purview.
Kate was eager to dive into Butler's notes, but knew a brighter mind would be needed to crack the shorthand style he wrote them in. She was already anticipating the next morning when she'd snag Luke's brain to tackle such a task with excitement.
"Is that really the time?" Sophie exclaimed, glancing at her phone after tossing the last folder onto the 'done' stack.
"Time flies?" Kate offered with a small cringe of apology as she was wrapping up her own version of the same.
The weight on Sophie's eyelids grew in realization. "Apparently. This was good though; I'd never have had time to do it at the office, and now I can pass this to Paulie first thing tomorrow and get him to sleuth through the court filings."
"Sleuth? Good word."
"Well it'll be the last of the night," Sophie surrendered. "Is it ok if I crash here?"
"No, I'd rather you wander the streets of Gotham alone, in the middle of the night, and in the throws of the blue poppy gang," Kate replied dryly. "Yes, of course you're crashing here."
"Great, I'll take the couch," Sophie volunteered, stifling a yawn.
"No, you can take the bedroo-"
"I have to be up before you anyway."
"You sure?"
"That I have to be up before you? Yea, I still have to schlep back to my place to shower and change before I head into the office."
"I thought you said 'sleuth' was the last of the night," Kate grinned, earning an eye roll of disapproval from Sophie. "I'll grab a spare blanket. Clothes are in the bag on the counter," she called, walking down the hall into the lone bedroom.
"You brought…" Sophie looked in shock as her eyes fell on a duffle. "You brought down clothes?"
"Yea," Kate said as her head popped into the doorway. "Unless you like the discomfort of sleeping in a blouse and slacks."
xx
Sophie had passed out moments after her head touched the pillow. She was ripped awake nearly an hour later by a cry that sent her bolting upright in alarm. She scanned the darkened space, reorienting herself to the apartment when she heard the sound again coming from behind one of three doors in the flat.
It took only a second to understand the cause, and she instinctively rose to her feet, feeling an immediate pull to find Kate and stop whatever nightmare was swimming through her mind. She crossed the short distance down the tiny hall to the bedroom door, not bothering to remain quiet - Kate's cries were enough to drown her movements out.
She opened the door and located the bed and Kate lost in the delves of her dreams. Pausing only to allow her eyes to adjust to the darkness, she closed the distance between her and the mattress, settling onto the edge of it and surveying Kate. This was far different from two days earlier when she'd first seen Kate gripped by a nightmare: she had cried out then, but there was something more severe, more vulnerable. It sounded like she was almost pleading with someone; her words broken into confused fragments.
Sophie felt her hand extend, hovering over Kate's arm in uncertainty. She wanted to wake Kate up, but had no clue if it would matter. It might just delay the inevitable. Before she could decide, she was alarmed by Kate's fingers suddenly gripping at the sheet beneath. Her other hand grabbed at her forearm, as though she were at war with herself. Instinct took hold, and Sophie placed a hand on Kate's shoulder as she whispered her name.
"Kate?" she began, feeling the flexed muscle from Kate's arm continue to strain against herself. "Kate," she said, more forcefully this time, and it stirred Kate awake. As though working off some dream momentum, she shot upright, startling Sophie in the process.
Kate blinked, her eyes wide and her face contorted with disorientation as she worked to catch her breath. They scanned through the dark and landed on Sophie sitting on the edge of the bed, her own face broken into its own contortion as she watched Kate in concern.
"Soph."
The single word cut through the night, and Sophie was struck by the raw emotion in it. Somehow, wrapped up in that lone syllable was a combination of fear, surprise, hope, and relief, but more than all of that there was uncertainty - like somehow her very existence had startled Kate.
"Hey," was all she could manage saying, her mind racing to translate the look on Kate's shadowed face. It mirrored the layers in her voice which only confused Sophie more. Kate was many things, but emotionally transparent was not one of them, and right now she was staring at Sophie with a ghostly expression like she hadn't seen her in years.
What happened next Sophie barely had time to react for. She felt Kate's hands on her before she saw them. This was quickly interrupted by Kate's lips against hers, and for a moment Sophie could only follow, allowing Kate to push her down into the mattress.
Any fog of sleep vanished, leaving behind a wave of shock and adrenaline as her brain worked to catch up to the automatic way her lips responded to the aggressiveness of Kate's kiss. The feel of her lips against Sophie's was as electrifying as ever, but there was an unfamiliarity to the way Kate hungrily leaned into her. They'd shared plenty of passionate kisses, but there was something more to this. While there was the pull of desire, there was also a strange urgency behind the way Kate nipped at Sophie's lip and plunged her tongue into her mouth.
Sophie barely had the sense to register this as Kate deepened the kiss. She felt her hands instinctively pull Kate closer, every hidden desire from the last few months being tapped into with this single act.
Moments passed, Sophie being led blindly by Kate above her, unsure what sparked this shift in Kate but also not wanting to interrupt the moment to interrogate it.
Sophie ran a hand between Kate's shirt and her skin, and she was struck by the heat radiating from Kate. It was practically burning, and it was this first red flag that pulled Sophie from the moment and made her aware of other small details: the deep breathing, the shaking, the beads of sweat.
Sophie tore away from Kate's lips and felt a cool breath of air fill her lungs as she focused on Kate's silhouette floating above her. She slid a critical hand to Kate's chest and realized her heart was pounding and her chest was heaving to catch her breath.
"Kate, wh… are you ok?" these weren't the words she expected to ask, but the bliss of the moment had vanished and in its place rose concern. Her other hand found Kate's sweat-moistened cheek as she stared into the dark, trying to read the thoughts of the mind inches from her. A confused moment passed between them, and Sophie could feel reality slowly catching up with Kate. Her breathing was just as labored, but her body became more rigid, pulling back to increase the space between them.
This wasn't the reaction Sophie wanted. For a brief moment she'd been floating - confusedly, yes, but a glimmer of hope had blossomed nonetheless. Now though, an all too familiar fear crept through her. It was a fear that she was about to lose something again - that she was about to lose Kate, and before she could second guess it, she impulsively lifted herself from the mattress and followed, closing the space between them.
Her lips found Kate's, and she felt the sting of resistance and surprise respond from the body above her. Time froze and her heart stopped for a moment as Kate jerked back in surprise, but just as quickly as she pulled away, she leaned in to reciprocate. Their lips met again except this time without the same urgent, forcefulness from seconds before; instead it held a caring tenderness, laced with soft, light touches. Kate submitted, lost for a moment to this version, letting it guide her back down toward the bed and melting into the gentleness of Sophie's fingers running up the back of her neck and weaving their way through her tossle of short locks.
Sophie was absorbed in the feel of Kate pressed against her, her lips dancing between soft and intense. She felt a familiar warmth flow through her as Kate responded to every tough. The moment grew, and the events that led up to this were forgotten by Sophie until everything came crashing back to earth.
A small sob escaped Kate's lips, and Sophie felt the first tear stain her cheek. Kate's lips pulled away from her, but she didn't resist Sophie's hand, cradling her forehead against her own.
"I… I'm sorry, I-"
"Kate?" Sophie whispered, her brow furrowing as she tried to understand the latest change. She felt another warm tear land on her cheek and then the slight shake of Kate's head against her.
"I can't do this," she whispered through another tear. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have-"
"Kate, it's ok. It's-" Sophie began, a sense of familiar dread pleading for her to retreat. Kate's weight shifted, and in a single move she was standing, backing away toward the door. "Kate, wait."
But she was already gone and out the room.
Sophie stared at the doorway, processing the moment. Her ears strained for the sound of the main door opening and closing to break the silence, and she hesitated in uncertainty when no sound came. She climbed to her feet and slowly stepped out of the tiny room, down the hall, and into the seating area. Sophie found herself grappling with the image in front of her: there, hunched in exhaustion, sitting on the edge of the couch with her elbows propped up on her knees and her head hung in her hands was Kate. Even from yards away she could see the deep breaths rising and falling through her. Sophie leaned against the wall, watching from a distance as she weighed what to do.
Somehow the sting of Kate's latest rejection of her wasn't the first thing that crossed her mind. It wasn't that she didn't feel the rejection like a punch to the gut; it was that somehow she knew she wasn't the one hurting most. It was Kate who was hurting. It was that, for a moment, Kate had surrendered to an impulse only for something to yank her away. It was that, Sophie realized, she was closing herself off from the world again.
As each minute passed she felt the pull to cross the room grow, and after a final hesitant moment she gave in to her instinct. Her feet fell over the cool wood flooring, and she silently closed in on the familiar silhouette. She quietly settled onto the cushion next to Kate. A minute passed where neither said anything.
"I'm sorry," Kate whispered. "I didn't mean to - it wasn't-"
"What do you see?" Sophie interrupted quietly.
"What?"
"From the fear toxin. That's what this is from, right?"
The words hung in the air, but a comfortable patience took hold of Sophie as she waited for Kate to respond. She didn't have a clue what time it was, but she guessed nearly five minutes of silence elapsed before the first break in Kate's walls. Her fingers unclenched the bunches of hair she'd been gripping onto before she slid them to her face and pressed the tips of her fingers to her eyes. A slow exhale was the final telltale sign, and Kate's hands fell as she finally broke the quiet:
"It depends. It always starts the same before becoming something else," she began. "I don't see a lot at first. It's always so dark. Pitch black, but I hear… I hear everything."
Kate paused, as though trying to recall every nuanced sound that her dreams cook up.
"I hear the city - Gotham; the train, the people, the traffic. The claustrophobic sounds of crosswalk beeps and honking and the white noise of conversation. But it's always from a distance - like I'm underwater or… there's a wall between me and the sounds. And then I hear Beth's voice cut through; she's always laughing. It's this bright, sprightly sound that echoes off somewhere in the distance."
"Good word," Sophie whispered softly, and Kate's head turned to give her a cautious glance of surprise. In turn Sophie offered a small smile of apology, and she watched another piece of Kate's defense fall. Kate turned back ahead and let her hands distract themselves as they clasped and unclasped around each other.
"I always think I'll find her before it's too late, but I can never move; instead it's like I'm on this prescribed trajectory, like a rollercoaster, and I'm just along for the same ride every night, but it's also like I'm experiencing it for the first time. When it starts I know it's just a dream, but then I forget and…"
Kate paused, scowling in thought as images replayed through her mind.
"Beth and my mom are together, and I'm trying to get to them, and I have to…" at this Kate trails off again, and Sophie realizes something is holding her back. "Anyway, after ages of… searching…" Kate begins again, and the word choice feels forced. Sophie can tell Kate's withholding parts but knows better than to press her. "I think I've found them only… it's not… it's not Beth - except it is. I mean, she looks like Beth but she's holding Alice's dagger and… and I know what's coming because I've seen it so many times, and I try to… I beg her not to, but she won't listen," Kate says, and Sophie can see her replay the dream in her head as a deeper scowl furrows into her brow. A moment passes as Kate relives the scene once more before explaining. "She slits my mom's throat, and I'm just… paralyzed. I can't move, I can't… and the look of betrayal on mom's face when it happens - the disappointment in me for not... Beth let's our mom collapse onto the ground in her own pool of blood and she just laughs. That's when Alice shows up and she… takes the dagger from Beth and… There's just so much blood."
Kate was staring down at her outstretched, shaking hands as though they were the one's covered in blood.
"And there's absolutely nothing I can do about it. I can't… I can't help her or-or stop Alice and… it's because I didn't help them when I had the chance."
The confession took Sophie by surprise. She had enough experience to know Kate walked around with a certain amount of survivor's guilt when it came to Beth and her mom, but, perhaps ignorantly, she thought the years had distanced Kate from those feelings - that she wasn't haunted with their memories in the same way. This suggested quite the opposite.
"Kate, you aren't-"
"I know," she interrupted with a knowing sigh. "I know I shouldn't. But-"
"I know," Sophie said softly. Part of her wanted to ask a hundred more questions about the dreams - to understand the finest of details that flooded Kate's mind, but she also understood how intimate those details could be. More than that, she didn't want Kate to feel pressured into reliving them in waking life. It was bad enough they had taken control of her nights.
"Why was tonight different?" Sophie asked quietly after a moment.
"What?" Kate asked, glancing back in surprise.
"The other night you weren't… you talked in your sleep but it was nothing like this," Sophie said, admitting what they'd avoided discussing two days earlier.
"You were… I didn't realize I had…" Kate stammered, unsure what to say. "It was the first night I've slept through in… honestly I'm not sure."
"Kate?" Sophie asked, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.
"What?"
"Why was tonight different?" she repeated.
"I… it's not-"
"Please don't say it's not a big deal," Sophie interrupted.
"It was dumb, and I… I forgot to get cilantro, and I thought I could just pop down the street and there was a… I thought he was hurt. I wasn't thinking and then… it just happened," Kate said lamely, trying to minimize the level of scrutiny from Sophie.
"Do Luke and Mary know?" Sophie asked, realizing if they did it was unlikely they'd both have so willingly gone to bed without checking on Kate. "When was this? And how did you recover so quickly?"
"Perks of having that Hamilton connection?" Kate offered lightly.
"That… Kate that explains nothing. Even if you have access to the trial antidotes that doesn't… there's a reason we don't use it in the field. It knocks you unconscious faster than a tranquilizer."
"Perks of having that party life?" Kate tried to explain away.
"You took something else?"
"A supplement. Like a vitamin," Kate waved off.
"What was it?"
"Soph, it wasn't-"
"Kate, your aloofness doesn't work on me," Sophie interrupted.
"Good-"
"Don't say-"
"-word," Kate finished, earning a glare of annoyance from Sophie.
"When will you get it through your head that people care about you?" Sophie said, her voice wavering with frustration. "I'm not asking to scold you, I'm asking because I'm worried about you, Kate. There's a reason I won't let the task force just roam the streets unprotected, and it's because of effects like this. How many times have you been hit by fear toxin now? Two? Three? Five?"
Kate retreated from her typical deflecting and instead averted her gaze back to her hands which were folding and unfolding around themselves.
"Three," she muttered in defeat.
"Th… Kate… does anyone else know? Have you… have you talked about this with anyone?" Sophie asked, her chest hurting with the realization Kate had likely been sitting alone with this.
"Luke knows about the first two," Kate said quietly. "Mary knows about one."
"But they don't know about tonight?"
Kate shook her head, and instead of the anger she expected from Sophie, she felt the warmth of Sophie's fingers reach out and entwine themselves in her hand.
"And do they know about the dreams?" she asked softly. Silence answered and her face fell into a small scowl. "Why do you always have to be so damn stubborn?"
"Probably the same reason you came over to work a case at midnight," Kate replied. "I'm a-"
"A Kane. I know," Sophie sighed, and their conversation faded into quiet, both getting lost in their thoughts for a moment.
There was something calming about it, and while it both crossed their minds to unfurl their fingers from the other's, they remained together.
"You remember that time I crashed your bike?' Sophie asked, shedding light on where her mind had wandered.
"I think you mean that time Melvin crashed my bike," Kate clarified with a soft chuckle.
"He wasn't the one behind the handlebars," Sophie corrected.
"Yea, but he's the reason you were even in that situation," Kate argued back, and Sophie heard a familiar impatience in her tone as she withdrew her hand from Sophie's.
"We've been over this-"
"It won't change my mind," Kate said with stubborn belligerence.
"Ok, fine,' Sophie said, surrendering to Kate. If anything, Kate's response fed into Sophie's point. It was one of the few times Sophie had seen Kate lose her cool with Melvin, and every attempt to persuade Kate that the crash had been Sophie's fault fell on deaf ears and Kane stubbornness. "But do you remember how you reacted when you found out?"
Kate didn't immediately respond, instead trying to recall the exact moment, but after a minute she shook her head. "I remember Melvin calling me, and you were already at medical?"
"We were still at the scene," Sophie corrected. "But after… I've never seen you so livid before. I thought for sure you were about to break up with me."
"Seriously?" Kate gaped. "Wh-why would you think that?"
The memory was coming back to her, and she recalled that, for a brief moment as Melvin's voice shared the news through the phone, she felt an uncontrollable terror and wave of nausea that something terrible had happened to Sophie. What made it worse was that the reception was bad, and the sound of sirens muddled Melvin's attempt to explain. After a failed couple of minutes the call finally cut out and Kate was left in the dark for the next hour until he and Sophie returned to the dorms.
"Because I thought you were angry about the bike," Sophie explained. "It took five minutes of us talking past each other for me to realize you didn't even care about that or the damage or the cost of the repairs. You weren't worried about the bike or that I'd nearly totalled something so important to you."
"The bike? Soph, you could have died. How could I care more about a bike than you?"
"I don't know. That… it wasn't how I thought about it at the time. I just knew that I'd crashed your bike and felt so terrible about it," Sophie explained. "And your anger wasn't because you were mad about the bike. It was just your way of caring and not knowing how to handle not being in control. It was like the summer with Nathan all over again."
"Did you have a point or are you just reminiscing?" Kate asked, feeling a small wave of frustration at the thought of Nathan Bentley.
"Caring is a two way street. You aren't the only one allowed to do it" Sophie said. "People care about you - Luke and Mary and Jacob. Everyone just wants to know you're ok and that, if you aren't, you'll tell them. Right now I want to lecture you for keeping this hidden in the same way you wanted to chew out Melvin when you found out what happened with the bike."
"I didn't… I get what you're saying, but it's not worth worrying about. It'll pass in no time-"
"No, stop," Sophie interrupted. "I don't care that two or three months from now this won't mean anything, I care that right now you aren't ok. And whether you agree with me or not won't change that. You don't get to decide how much I'm allowed to care or that I want to know you're safe, ok?"
"Ok," Kate surrendered, fighting back the temptation to argue with Sophie. For as stubborn as she was, there were certain things that Sophie's stubbornness would win out on everytime, and this was one of those occasions.
"Great. So, bed or couch?" Sophie asked.
"Couch," Kate insisted, and, to her surprise, Sophie shrugged without a fight. She rose from the couch and stepped out of sight, leaving Kate confused. She hesitated for a moment alone in the darkness before grabbing the forgotten blanket and stretching out on the couch. She shoved the pillow into the couch's arm and was half a moment from closing her eyes when the sound of Sophie returning sent her blinking in renewed confusion.
"Drink," Sophie said, extending a glass of water to her. She'd lost track of the number Kate had guzzled in the last couple of hours, but the mystery behind it was gone.
Kate complied, taking the glass and taking a long sip under Sophie's watchful gaze. When she'd swallowed nearly half she extended her arm to set it on the coffee table, but Sophie's hand intercepted the flow.
"Wh-"
"There's no coaster," Sophie explained, setting a small plate down before placing the glass on top of it. A sarcastic reply was on the tip of Kate's tongue when she felt the weight on the couch shift as Sophie climbed onto it.
"Soph? What're you-"
"You said couch."
"Yea, but-"
"Scoot," Sophie muttered, crawling to lay next to Kate who wordlessly complied, more out of shock than anything. She settled between the cushions and Kate, slipping under the blanket and wrapping an arm securely around Kate. A thousand red warning lights went off in Kate's mind to interrupt it, but the sudden warmth and presence of Sophie next to her extinguished them before she could build up any protest. "Comfortable?" Sophie whispered.
Kate nodded, "Y-yea."
"Good," Sophie said, letting out a final squirm of adjustment as her head settled next to Kate's.
"Uhm, about earlier," Kate whispered, the uncertainty and comfort of the moment mixing in her voice. "I didn't mean to-"
"It's ok. Consider it forgotten," Sophie interrupted, sensing the lingering hesitation and responding with a small squeeze of her arm. She masked her sadness well, concealing it with her broader concern for Kate in the moment.
"Right, ok."
"Goodnight Kate," Sophie whispered.
"Night, Soph," Kate replied, and slowly Sophie felt her relax, the tension leaving the moment and soft, rhythmic breathing followed minutes later.