Olivia wished that she could stay asleep. She kept her eyes closed and found herself longing to go back to the dream that she'd had. But there was a voice calling her name and forcing her to wake up. As she slowly came round, she felt slightly uncomfortable. The floor underneath her body was hard and she knew there were a couple of arms around her, holding her firmly. She grunted in annoyance at him continuing to try and wake her, burrowing tighter against whatever it was her cheek was pressed to.

"See, your girlfriend would rather stay asleep than be conscious in your presence."

"Shut up." That was Ed's voice. Olivia knew that. But the other voice sounded familiar as well. But it couldn't be. They had been nowhere near Gotham. They had stayed away from Gotham. And then she remembered what had happened. She remembered they had been in a hotel and knocked out.

But where were they now?

Olivia reluctantly opened her eyes, knowing that she would have to face the truth sooner or later. She blinked a few times, looking around as she realised that Ed was knelt on the floor, cradling her body against his. The room they were in was dimly lit, statues lined the walls and Olivia recognised a few of them as owls. But what alarmed her most was the fact that they were in cages. They were locked in cages.

"What the hell is this?" Olivia grunted out, finding that her voice was hoarse.

"I believe that we are currently in the Court of Owls little prison," a voice that wasn't Ed's spoke and Olivia turned to the side, looking into the next cage to see Penguin. Olivia rolled her eyes and looked to the ceiling.

"I think I'd rather be asleep right now," she declared and Ed's lips quirked upwards at hearing her. She hadn't even bothered to try and push him away from her yet. Instead, she seemed quite content to allow him to keep her against him.

"Pleasure to see you too, Miss Gordon," Penguin said, his voice sarcastic.

"Wish I could say the same," Olivia dryly responded and she tried to sit up further. Ed helped her move and she rested against the bars behind them as he moved to stand up, hands going to his hips as he looked down to her and she scratched at her neck. Her brows arched as she looked down at her body. "What the hell are we wearing?"

"I believe this must be the prisoners uniform," Ed informed her.

They were all wearing the same grey jumpsuit. Ed's was slightly too short on his ankles while Olivia's was too long, the sleeves coming right down to her fingertips. Olivia suddenly winced in pain as she woke up, a hand going to her leg as it ached. Ed picked up on the movement and he knew that she would be in pain. He had seen her take painkillers during the journey here, but he doubted that whoever was holding them prisoner would be so accommodating.

"Does it hurt?" Ed asked her.

She only nodded once, knowing that there would be no point in lying to him.

"What's wrong with her?" Penguin questioned, sitting down on the wooden chair inside of his cage.

"My leg hurts because it ended up completely crushed in a car accident thanks to someone cutting my brakes," Olivia sniped at him, turning to glare at him and he shrugged his shoulders, his lips curling upwards in a sneer.

"You're going to die sooner or later being with him. Do you think that he won't kill you? Do you think that you won't go the same was as Kristen Kringle?"

"Enough!" Edward snapped, his glare setting on Penguin as he moved towards the bars nearest Penguin's cage. "You tried to take Olivia from me because you were jealous. And guess what? Even when I thought she was gone, I didn't love you back. So get over it."

Ed turned his back to Penguin and knelt on the ground in front of Olivia, seeing her look to him as his gaze focused on hers and he wondered just what it was she was thinking. He longed to know what thoughts went through that big, beautiful brain of hers. Reaching out, he dared to let his hand move to her hair, tucking it behind her ear and brushing out the knots in it.

"Because I'll always love you," he said to her and Olivia chewed down on her tongue, lowering her gaze from his. Why could this not be simple? Why could she not simply tell Ed that she didn't feel the same way? But Ed took her silence to mean something else. She wasn't going to deny her feelings. She just didn't know if she could openly tell him just yet.

"No, you didn't love me," Penguin said. "But I am here because you shot me, Ed. You destroyed everything that I had built and because of that I am going to get revenge on you. I am going to get my revenge and I am going to kill you…but not before I take away what you love most first…your precious little Olivia."

"You'll go nowhere near her!" Ed snarled and Olivia knew she had to intervene as Ed's hands wrapped around the bars tightly and he tugged at them while Oswald laughed at him.

"Enough!" Olivia snapped loudly, forcing herself to her feet with the help of the metal bars behind her. She leant against them, keeping the weight off of her bad leg as she looked between Ed and Penguin. "You both hate each other, that much is obvious, but you two yelling at each other and making idle threats isn't going to help us right now, is it? Because if we don't get out of here then you won't be able to kill each other, so I think we have more important things to worry about."

The two men went silent at hearing her and Olivia nodded, hopeful that they had come to some of their senses. Looking to Ed and back over to Penguin, Olivia sank down into the wooden chair next to her as Ed leant against the bars and folded his arms over his chest.

"Then what do we do?" Oswald questioned. "And why keep us captive here instead of kill us?"

"It's obvious why someone is here," Ed said and looked to Olivia as her eyes widened in surprise and he shrugged his shoulders at her. "You're Jim's sister. Jim is part of the Court…well…allegedly…you can be used as leverage against him. I'm just here because I was in the way, but they haven't killed me yet."

"No, because that's my job," Penguin hissed.

"Only if I don't kill you first," Ed retorted.

"My God, can you just stop it?" Olivia asked, exasperation clear in her voice as she tossed her head back and looked to the ceiling before glaring at them again. "Do you not quite understand that your arguing isn't going to help us get out of here?"

They went silent then for a moment before Penguin spoke.

"You know, you can tell you're a teacher," he said.

"She's got a great teacher voice when she's angry," Ed confessed.

"Very impressive." Oswald nodded.

"Also sometimes quite a turn on," Ed said, a small gap between his thumb and finger as he held his hand in the air and looked to Olivia with a smirk as she shot him a stern look. He shrugged his shoulders and tried to defend himself. "What? It's really very attractive, especially when you wear that-"

"-Ed!" Olivia interrupted him with a snap and he waved his hands and paced in a circle.

"Sorry, not the time or place," he said.

"No shit," Olivia mumbled.

"But it is hot," Ed pushed his luck one more time.

"I do not want the image of you two having sex in my head, thank you very much," Oswald said.

"Not an image I'd forget," Ed mumbled.

"My God, you two are intolerable," Olivia complained.

But before they could even formulate a plan, the doors to the room opened. Ed instantly stood by the door to the cage, instinct taking over him as he kept Olivia behind him. He felt her stand up, a hand going to his upper arm to keep her balanced as the three guards opened up their cage.

"What is this?" Ed demanded to know.

"We need Miss Gordon," one of the guards spoke. "She's to come with us."

"I don't think so," Ed said, wagging a finger and chuckling darkly.

"It wasn't a question. Now move aside," the other guard spoke.

"You're taking her nowhere," Ed retorted.

"We gave you a chance," the guard said before pulling out his baton from its holster. He raised it in the air and before Ed had chance to do anything, the guard struck him in the stomach. He doubled over in pain as Olivia lost her balance holding onto him, grabbing onto the table instead.

"Stop it!" Olivia demanded from him.

The guard continued to hit Ed each time he tried to stand up. Olivia fought through the pain of her leg and tried to push him off of Ed, but the other guard grabbed her by the arm and dragged her forwards and towards the exit. She tried to fight him as the other guard kept hitting Ed. He was wriggling about on the floor as Olivia yelled loudly.

"Leave him alone! Let him go!" she demanded.

She couldn't fight him off as the guard wrapped an arm around her waist and dragged her backwards as she wondered exactly where she was being taken.

…

"You think that I am the leader of the Court of Owls?"

Jim had dragged Kathryn into the station after he had escaped her clutches the first time. She had worked with Strange, or more accurately, he had worked for her and he had turned Barnes into her own personal weapon. Somehow, however, Jim had escaped his clutches. Kathryn knew that Jim wasn't a true member of the Court of Owls. He was working against them to find out what they were doing, but she had clocked that. She had wanted Barnes to kill him, but it seemed that he had failed. And now here she was being interrogated by him.

"What do you mean?"

"This goes higher up than you could ever imagine," Kathryn informed him. "And the worst part is that you don't recognise that. You can't see it…but don't worry, Jim. You see, we've been watching you for quite some time and we know that you're betraying us…that's why we took something of yours for insurance."

"What do you mean?"

Reaching into her coat pocket, Kathryn pulled out an image. She pushed it over the table and towards Jim. He looked down onto it and his hand began to shake as he picked it up. It was a recent image of his sister. She was moving down a path, dressed in a flowing white dress and on crutches. Ed was stood behind her, a hand on the small of her back as his other hand held a bag over his shoulder, his gaze set down onto her so attentively.

"What's the meaning of this?" Jim demanded.

"We have her," Kathryn said. "We have your sister, Jim, so I suggest, if you want to see her again, you let me out of here."

"No," Jim snapped, banging his fist on the table. "You tell me where she is!"

The door opened then and Alfred stormed in, Harvey close on his tail. Alfred had come to them when he realised that the Bruce Wayne living with him was not his Bruce. The Court had taken Bruce and he need to get him back.

"Where is my sister?" Jim demanded again, the anger clear in his face.

"You think that this an effective method to get anything out of me?"

"He might not be able to use an effective method," Alfred said, "but I can."

Before Jim could do anything, Alfred pulled out a knife and slammed it straight into the woman's hand. She screamed loudly in pain and Jim had to confess that he was upset that he couldn't have been the one to hurt her. She went silent as her whimpers died down, but she didn't answer Alfred as he continued to demand to know where Bruce was.

But he didn't get a chance to do anything as a loud bang exploded through the GCPD.

…

Jim sat on his desk after the fight in the GCPD, unable to comprehend what it was that he was going to do. Barnes had come and he had left nothing but bloodshed and destruction in his wake. The entire GCPD office area was ruined and covered in tossed over desks and scattered papers. Jim had watched Harvey take lead on the clean up, helping wounded officers and directing ambulance crews. Kathryn's throat had been slit instantly by Barnes and now Jim had no idea where his sister was being held. Instead, all he could do was look at the picture he was holding in his fingers, his eyes glancing down at his sister.

He looked up after a moment as he saw the familiar sight of Lee approaching, but her eyes were directed anywhere but at him. "Lee, what are you doing here?" he said her name.

"I'm just here to pick some stuff up," Lee said, hands in the pockets of the black trousers she wore. Her white blouse was tucked into them and she had a red coat hanging over her frame. She began to walk past Jim as she continued talking. "Did you think I was here to help?"

"Would that be so strange to think?" he asked from her. "You would have helped at one time."

"It's just bad timing me being here, but if I had heard then I wouldn't have come," she said, seeing that Jim was holding something in his hands and his sleeves were rolled up, cuts on his forearms obvious to see. "I'm done with this place."

"So you keep saying," Jim said.

"Barnes loved the GCPD, but today he tried to destroy it," Lee said to Jim, looking around at the destruction as she tucked her hair behind her ear.

"It was the virus," Jim replied.

"Or maybe he discovered the truth," Lee said, stepping closer to Jim. "There is no justice here. Look at you, you still haven't paid for the pain that you caused, but that's the difference between us. I am willing to pay for what I have done."

Jim looked confused at hearing her. "What do you mean?" he asked her.

"Nothing," she shook her head and turned to leave.

But Jim didn't want her to go and he knew there was only one thing he had left to keep her with him and by his side. "Olivia's gone missing," he called out to her.

She froze and turned back to Jim. Moving towards him again, she folded her arms over her chest. "What do you mean she's gone missing?"

Jim handed her the photo that he had been staring at. She took hold of it in her fingers and looked down onto it, her brows furrowing and her eyes looking back up to Jim.

"Is that Ed?" Lee questioned. "I knew that she had left Florida, but I didn't know Ed was with her."

"He found out that she was alive and he went to find her. She's been with him ever since, but she…someone found her and has taken her. I don't know who. All I know is that Kathryn told me that they had her and she gave me this photograph. If she's with the Court of Owls then she's in danger."

"What the hell is the Court of Owls?" Lee questioned.

"A secret organisation that runs all of Gotham and, if I am to assume correctly, they intend to destroy the city completely by using the virus from Tetch."

It wasn't Jim who had answered. The two of them turned to the side to see Edward Nygma walking towards them. He was dressed in a green suit with a coat hanging over his arms. He moved slowly and purposefully, his eyes darting between Lee and Jim as Jim reached for his gun in its holster. Ed noted the movement and shook his head.

"I wouldn't bother, Jim," Ed said to him. "We have bigger things to worry about and you might need my help."

"You're a criminal, Ed," Jim warned him.

"But more importantly than that, I'm someone who wants to help and it looks to me like you need all the help you can get. Besides, I might be able to tell you where she is."

"If you can tell me that then why are you still here?"

"Because, despite everything, I might need your manpower and Olivia would want you to help her as well. As much as I would prefer for her to forget you because you constantly interfere in our relationship, I believe that loving someone is putting them before yourself."

"You don't love her," Jim said.

"On the contrary, I love her more than you could possibly know, but I am not here to prove anything to you. I am here to tell you that I think I know where your sister is."

"And how would you know that?"

"Because I managed to escape those idiotic guards," Ed said. "Oh, I worked with Oswald to do it and so that is another issue that you might have to deal with, but the guards had this address on their body. Now, I drove past and there were five men in front of the door. It's a terraced house, but it looks abandoned. I suspect that is where she is being held, but I don't have any weapons except the one gun I stole from the guard I knocked out."

He handed Jim the piece of paper had had taken and the detective looked down onto it.

"And why should we trust you?" Lee demanded to know.

"Do I have to explain again?" Ed asked, exasperated. "This is Olivia we are talking about, the woman I would do anything for."

"He's many things, but I think I believe him on this," Jim agreed with that point. "Harvey!"

Harvey headed towards Jim, pointing at Ed as he moved over to them. "What the hell is he doing here?"

"Oh, calm down, Bullock, I'm not going to do anything brash," he said with a smirk, remembering how last time he had seen Harvey he had his life in his hands. "I'm here to help. Surprising, I know."

"We need to head to this address," Jim handed Harvey the piece of paper. "I think this is where my sister is."

"On it," Harvey said without arguing.

"And as soon as Olivia is back, I swear that you're going in cuffs," Jim said, pointing at Ed's chest.

"Don't threaten me with a good time," Ed drawled back and watched as Jim clenched his jaw and Lee threw him a glare before they headed out of the precinct to find Olivia.

…

Olivia had suspected that she would be tied up and gagged when she had seen the chair in the room, but the men who had brought her to the house knew there was no point in doing that. She couldn't get far. They had dropped her in the room and she had managed to crawl to the sofa in the corner, her leg aching and her body tired. Sitting on it, she tried to stand up and use the walls to balance as she looked for a way out, but the window was frosted and locked, no amount of jiggling it moved it.

Huffing to herself, Olivia collapsed backed onto the sofa and remained silent. The sun was setting and Olivia suspected it was nearly the end of the day. She tried to plan a way out, but she couldn't think of anything. The room was simple with only a soft in it and a chair. The floorboards were wooden and she had heard the door lock on the outside.

Falling to the floor, she wondered if there was anything she could use as a weapon. Sinking to her knees, she felt around before she felt a loose floorboard. She pulled at it as hard as she could without attracting attention. She managed to prise it loose and she picked it up. Stumbling to her feet, she stood behind the door to the room as she heard noise from outside of it. Leaning against the wall, she raised the board as best as she could as the banging continued outside.

Eventually, she heard the lock in the door turn and she knew she had to act. Once the door had opened, she flung the wood forward, intending to hit whoever was there. But she had no chance. The man grabbed the board as she flung it at him and he pulled it from her as she stumbled over her feet.

"Whoa! Liv, it's me!" he snapped and Olivia sunk to her knees as Jim tossed the wood to the side.

"Jim," she sighed his name and he knelt in front of her, holding onto her cheeks tightly.

"Are you alright? Did they hurt you?"

"No," Olivia said. "They said I was just here as insurance. How did you find me?"

"I'll take thanks for that," Ed's voice appeared behind Jim and she looked up to see that he was dressed in a green suit, looking incredibly smart with a coat over his shoulders and a gun in his hands. "We knocked the guards out and managed to find the address where they had taken you."

"You worked with Oswald?"

"Only for three hours," Ed said. "Now he is back to wanting to kill me, which means you need to come with me because he will come after you again."

"I don't think so," Jim was the one to answer. He helped his sister to stand up, moving her arm over his shoulders as he looked to the door and his brow furrowed. "Where is Harvey?"

"You see, I suspected that you wouldn't let me take Olivia with me and I didn't want you to be stubborn about it…so I knocked Harvey out and the other guards are also out cold. It really isn't hard to outsmart the GCPD."

"Ed," Olivia complained.

"Well, you're resourceful, Ed, I'll give you that," Jim said. "But you haven't knocked me out yet, so your plan wasn't as well thought through as you claim."

"Oh, Jim, haven't you learned yet?" Ed asked and reached into his pocket, pulling out what looked like a dart of some kind. "I stole this from the guard too. Figured it would come in handy."

Without warning, he jabbed the dart into Jim's neck and Olivia looked to her brother.

"Jim…Jim, are you alright?" Olivia asked from him and he nodded.

"Fine," he said, but she felt his grip on her begin to relent and before she knew it, he was falling to the ground. Olivia tried to keep him upright, but she failed miserably as he fell down and she felt Ed grab hold of her waist, manoeuvring her steadily.

"Jim!" Olivia shouted, wondering if she could wake her brother.

"He'll be knocked out for a while," Ed said. "And, honestly, Liv, I am doing this for you. I can keep you safe until I have dealt with Oswald. Your brother never could do that for you, not at the moment, anyway. He is too busy with the case."

"You can't just knock him out, Ed," Olivia complained. "And what if I didn't want to come with you?"

"You really don't get a say, Olivia," Ed said. "Now, come here, and we can get somewhere safe."

Olivia looked to Jim and wondered if maybe Ed had a point. Jim had enough on his plate at that moment in time and a part of Olivia was scared of Oswald. He had tried to kill her before so he clearly had form.

"You don't need to kill Oswald," Olivia said to Ed. "Just find him and have him arrested."

"If only it were that simple," Ed complained. "You know that as well as I do."

Rolling her eyes, Olivia knew that he might have a point. "I'm not a hostage, Ed," Olivia said to him as he felt her reaching for his shoulders and he took her waist, helping her to walk out of the house and he had to admit he had expected more a fight from her. "You deal with Oswald and then I leave."

"I deal with Oswald and then we can discuss our future," Ed said to her. "But you're not even fighting me."

"Is there any point?" Olivia asked him as he took most of her weight and they moved down the stairs, passing unconscious officers on their way. "Jim has enough going on without needing to protect me from Oswald as well…and if Oswald hurts him…we deal with Oswald, Ed. Maybe you have a point."

"Did you just agree with me?" Ed asked from her as they came to the street and he unlocked Jim's car. He had taken his keys earlier on, knowing that this was his plan.

"Don't get used to it," Olivia demanded from him.

He bundled her into the car and went to the driver's side, starting the ignition and preparing to get somewhere safe.

…

Olivia groaned as she heard Ed's plan. They were back in a hotel room considering Ed didn't want her somewhere Oswald might find her. He had gone out and bought her fresh clothes and food before returning. He had also picked up more clean suits and toiletries.

"You're hurt," Olivia said as Edward began changing in the room.

The suite was quite plush, Ed checking in under false aliases. There was a large king sized bed with a TV on the wall across from it. A sofa sat by the window, where the curtains were shut, and a coffee table with a bowl of fruit was on it along with complimentary magazines. The bathroom was large with a stand-alone bath and two sinks beneath a large mirror. The carpet in the room was plush and soft, the walls a neutral cream and freshly painted.

Looking down to the bruise on his torso, Ed nodded. "I guess I am," he muttered.

"Does it hurt?" Olivia asked, looking at his bare flesh and the purple stain on it. He pressed down onto it and winced as Olivia shuffled to the end of the bed so she was closer to him.

"Guess so," Ed said. "I hadn't really paid any attention to it."

"Let me check," Olivia urged from him, reaching for him to come closer.

He stood next to her, her eyes level with his waist as she remained sat and him stood. She pressed down on the bruise and he winced again as she moved her fingers along his flesh. "I don't think you've broken anything," she said to him. "But I'm not a nurse…just had to fix Jim up a number of times."

"It'll be fine," Ed promised her, looking down onto her as she kept her hands planed either side of his waist, feeling the bruise.

"Did the guards do this to you?"

"Yeah," Ed answered her.

"You…you didn't need to try and protect me," Olivia said to him with a gulp, unable to tear her gaze from his stomach. "They were going to take me anyway."

"I did what I had to," Ed said to her. "You honestly think that I would let you go without a fight? Liv, I-"

"-I do love you," Olivia interrupted him, breaking him off from what he was saying as she kept her hands against his skin. Closing her eyes, she wondered what she was doing. What was she thinking? "When I saw them hurting you…I…I wanted them to stop. I hated what they were doing to you and I…being with you…it's impossible for me not to love you. I can't turn it off. No matter how hard I try."

"Then don't try," Ed urged from her, kneeling down in front of her so that he was the right height as she was. She let her lips quirk sadly, a hand going to his chest and pressing against it softly. "Just stop fighting it."

"But it's wrong," Olivia said to him, her fingers running along his skin softly as her other hand went to his hair and pushed it back. "I know it's wrong…but when we're together, alone, like this," she said, motioning between the two of them, "it feels so right. I forget everything that happened…which is also wrong because people have died because of us. We've hurt people."

"We've made mistakes."

"Ed, killing people is not a mistake…well…not all of them," she said, thinking about Kristen and the others Ed had hurt. "I just wish we could go back in time."

"We can't," Ed said to her. "But we don't need to dwell on the past, just think about the future and what we can have. We can be happy. We can leave Gotham and we can be happy."

"What about…if…just for tonight…" Olivia trailed off, knowing that this was a mistake. What did she think would happen? "We just forget about everything else? Because I…" She didn't know what to say to him. Did she confess how she had been so lonely in Florida? How she would wake up and crave Ed's body beside hers? How did she tell him any of that?

"What are you suggesting because I-"

She cut him off as she brought his lips to hers. He startled for a few moments before he kissed her back. He fought through his pain and moved to his feet, Olivia's legs wrapping around his waist tightly, her grip firm as he pushed her back onto the bed and crawled over her. As he moved his hands to push her shirt over her head, Olivia knew that this might be a mistake. But it was a mistake that she wanted to make herself. Just for tonight.

...

A/N: I'm so happy to see that some of you are still interested in this still! I've gained some more inspiration to keep going but as always, would love your thoughts and comments and anything you'd like to see!