AN: If you'll remember, everyone at fault for her death had to suffer for it. Hence his lack of suicide, tempting though it may be. Also...I am not at all sorry. I laugh at your tears.
The Puppeteer Patient 120402-Because I can.
Christineoftheopera-I don't believe so. I disobeyed the one rule of horror-always check. Deaths never stick unless you check. No, he's out there, somewhere. That's how these things go.
Just-Me-and-My-Brain-I wish it was the ending...
He looks at the bullet. Such a tiny thing, really. But lethal. And messy. But he's built up an immunity to his toxin-shame, that, he'd hoped for poetry.
No. He'll join her soon enough, but Batman will do it first.
He came to the conclusion that Batman is not dead, because that is simply not possible. It goes against the laws of…well…everything. He'll show up, it's only a matter of time.
He sets it down and looks in the mirror. An exhausted face looks back at him, haggard and flushed with fever.
He's tired now, tired and beginning to slide downwards. He can barely choke anything down anymore, and what little he risks usually comes right back up. Two weeks, maybe three. It's certainly too late for a doctor.
He collapses onto the bed, the jolt sparking another wave of coughs. Once they fade, he takes a drink of water, small as he can manage.
She doesn't come.
This morning he tried something to goad Batman into coming-flooded an elementary school with fear gas. When he last bothered to check the news, the death toll was around a hundred-more adults than students, oddly enough. Not that he particularly cares. The intent was there, and that's enough.
Why doesn't she come?
He shivers and makes his way under the blankets. Batman isn't coming tonight, either, apparently. How unfortunate.
He wakes suddenly, choking and sputtering, and has no idea why.
At least, not at first.
"You're still here."
She's sitting at the foot of the bed now, and there's blood on her dress, so much blood. "Batman isn't coming, you know."
"No." He falls back with a low groan. His chest aches. "No, he's not coming."
"Wonder why?"
He shrugs. She bites her lip and looks at him through lowered lashes like she always used to do when she wanted something.
"I could take you with me." she says. "You're sick. You can barely get out of bed." She holds out her hand. "You could come with me."
He sits up and is just reaching for her when the door flies open and she vanishes.
"Crane."
Dammit! God dammit, two more seconds would have been enough!
He opens his mouth to say so and winds up coughing again, nearly doubled over and now quite convinced that he's going to cough up a lung.
He coughs up something, at any rate-a bloody lump of god-knows-what slides up his throat and into his palm.
Ah. Fascinating.
Batman is not moved.
"It's not my fault she fell, Crane. It was yours." He ignores that and lets one hand fall, moving to that little slit in the mattress. "Don't you remember? You had her."
"You did." She's behind him now. "You let me go."
Here! A horrifically potent formula, one hundred percent fatality rate.
Fingers slipping through mine no no god please no Kitty!
"Remember?"
He adjusts the bottle in shaking fingers.
"Good-bye, Bats."
But he can't even activate the mechanism. And Batman hurtles across the room, grabs him by the throat, and throws him backwards.
This room is small and Batman is angry. The result is that the window can't take the impact. The fourth-floor window, to be exact.
He balances for a second and his eyes lock on hers.
"Kitty, please…"
"Good-bye, Jonathan."
"Kitty!"
And he loses his balance.
THE END