The next day

What the hell was I thinking? I asked myself as I was sitting on the bus, my body being swayed by the vehicle's turns, stops, and frequent bumps. He must hate me now…and who can blame him? I've criticized his way of life after he's achieved the position he's been struggling to gain. But I'm worried about Butch, and Ozzie for that matter. If things are as fragile as he said, he may get hurt, or worse. I decided to write him a letter to apologize, but first I had an engagement to attend to. The letter was in my purse, waiting to be placed in a mailbox. The bus finally reached the stop that I was waiting for, and I got off. The concrete was still wet from the storm the night before, and unfortunately, a giant puddle greeted me when I landed. Thankfully I wasn't going to a formal event, otherwise I would have been very disappointed.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Kapelput. How are you?" Ozzie's mother greeted me at her door and invited me inside. Even though we had a fight, I didn't want to cancel my regular visits with his mother. Now that I understood her condition a little better, I was able to maintain a positive correspondence with her. We started a conversation regarding her younger years, and she reminisced about a romantic rendezvous with the son of an employer while she was a cook. "Oh, Dear! I haven't even told Oswald this story!" she tapped one of my hands with hers, "You are very easy to talk to my dear!" I smiled in appreciation and there was a knock at the door. "I'll get it…" I said to allow Mrs. Kapelput to remain seated. Her door didn't have a peephole so I couldn't see who was there. I opened the door just enough that was allowed with the sliding lock in place. I saw a tall, thin woman with olive skin and long raven hair pulled in a tight ponytail. She was dressed in black leather from head to foot and looked as if she was a dominatrix, and I hoped that she wasn't. "Can I help you?" I asked through the gap between the door and the door frame. "Is Gertrude Kapelput in?" "May I ask who's calling?" I responded cautiously. Her lips curled in a smirk and she suddenly kicked the door open, knocking me down to the floor.

Mrs. Kapelput shouted in shock as the intruder stomped in, along with a couple of men dressed in black and carrying guns. Before I could react, the woman roughly grabbed Ozzie's mother by the arm, and threw her to one of the men. "Stop!" I screamed as I got up and tried to force him to release her, but suddenly I was hit across the face that made me fall to the floor again. My vision was blurred for a moment, but I still tried to get up again. I heard a gun cock and I saw a gun barrel pointed at me being held by the woman. "You better stay down if you know what's good for you," she said, "we're only here for the old bat." "No, please. Take me instead!" I pleaded. I could see the gears in her head working through her eyes as I saw Mrs. Kapelput being gagged by the man that held her in my peripheral vision. "Please! Let her go!" I screamed at him. "Enough!" the woman looming over me yelled. "Take them both!" I felt a large hand scoop me up roughly from the floor, causing me to cry out before a cloth was forced between my lips and I felt plastic ties forcing my wrists together behind me. Before long, we were being shoved into the back of a black van and the sliding door slammed shut; separating us from the outside world.

As we were being transported, I did my best to try to comfort Mrs. Kapelput; which was quite difficult with gags and our hands being kept behind us. I was able to move my body so that my back was against hers so that I could hold her hand in mine. She was weeping as we were struggling to remain upright with the van driving through the city. I tried to keep track of where we were going, like Sherlock Holmes in that movie that I liked; but alas that was fiction, and the situation that we were in was reality. I lost track of where we were after only a few turns. After what seemed like an hour, the van stopped, and we were dragged out of the van to a large warehouse. We walked for several minutes beneath greenish florescent lights and rusting architecture, our footsteps echoing over the concrete floor. I could smell something unpleasant and I could hear seagulls in the distance. We must be near the river I thought as we approached an opening in the wall with bars, like a cell. The woman opened the door with a key from her pocket and one of the men ungagged Mrs. Kapelput and used a knife to release her from her bonds. She was then forced in the cell and the door clanged behind her. "No! please, please let me go! Felicity, please help me! Oswald, please! Oswald…" she broke down into bitter weeping and I was able to fight my way out of my captor's grasp. With this new freedom, I ran to the cell, and began trying to comfort Mrs. Kapelput the best I could.

The freedom was short lived, however, when I was yanked by my arm back to where I was before. The woman came up to me and studied my face. "Who are you, anyway?" she yanked the cloth out of my mouth so that it fell down around my neck. "How do you know her?" she gestured to Mrs. Kapelput. Should I tell her? I don't understand what they're after. Are they after a ransom from Ozzie? If so, I shouldn't tell her, right? But what if I can convince them to let her go? Maybe if I'm more valuable to them, they'll let her go. As I was debating, she yelled in my face. "Answer me!" This shocked me out of my inner dialogue, and I answered on impulse, "I'm Felicity James…I'm Oswald Cobblepot's girlfriend…Please, let her go. I promise that I'll cooperate, and he'll want me back so…you won't need her right?" "Hmm" she responded, again scrutinizing my face when she said, "James, huh? You wouldn't be related to Mayor James, would you?"

I was again faced with a dilemma. I was indeed related to the mayor of Gotham, though we were estranged. He was my father's brother, but ever since we moved away from Gotham; they lost touch, so I doubted that he would even know what I look like now, let alone that I was back in the city. "Yes…" I admitted quietly, "But we haven't spoken in years." Suddenly, her cellphone rang. She answered it quickly with a "Yeah?" While she was talking on the phone, I asked my captor quietly if I could just talk to Gertrude a minute. He nodded and walked with me over to the cell opening. Mrs. Kapelput was still weeping while sitting on the cot that was in the cell. I again did my best to console her, apologizing that she was in this situation and that I couldn't save her. She got up and came to the bars, reaching through them and cupping my face in her hands, using her thumbs to wipe away the tears that were on my face. "Köszönöm angyalom. Isten védje meg téged és drága Oswald" she said. Though I didn't understand what she was saying, my heart was moved, nonetheless. I said a quick prayer for both of us, and suddenly I was yanked away from the bars a final time.