AN: Currently chipping away at a Dracula/Batman...something. Stoker forgive me. This is a piece of that-takes place after Jonathan Harker (Crane here) flees Dracula's (Joker's) castle and is reunited with his fiancée (Mina in the original, Kitty in...this). BUT he's getting over a case of brain fever-basically, he checked out because VAMPIRES WTF-hence Kitty's initial restraint. Title from the Moodorama song of the same name.
The sound of the door opening woke him and he wondered how long he'd been asleep. It felt like a few minutes, but...oh.
Oh, he wasn't awake at all. Just another dream, a very real one.
"Jonathan." He hated these dreams. They always made waking up that much harder. "Jonathan, I-"
Her voice caught and she fell silent before stepping into the room. He wished he'd wake up, he couldn't deal with this, not so soon...
She sat down by his bed, hands curled in her lap. Nothing new. He'd wake soon, then, and worry Sister Helga when he wouldn't talk for an hour.
That was the idea, anyway. But she didn't vanish and he didn't wake and the silence grew thick between them. Well, ignoring the perpetual flapping of bat's wings at the window, but that was always there. At least it wasn't the howling of wolves.
The bat grew angry and a sudden screech made him flinch and sit up in bed. He was awake now, he had to be, when he turned she'd be gone like she always was...
But she wasn't.
She was still there, looking at him as though she'd seen a ghost.
Perhaps it's me seeing ghosts.
Mostly just to see what would happen, he lifted a hand and let his fingers brush a loose strand of hair out of her face.
She didn't vanish.
"Kitty?"
The ghost-look disappeared and before he could brace himself she'd flung her arms around his neck.
Warm and here and real she's not a dream?
He risked putting a hand between her shoulders and when she didn't turn to smoke he hugged her, running his fingertips over a patch of velvet ribbon on her dress.
"Kitty-"
"Jonathan, where have you been, what happened-"
Oh, Kitty, I don't know myself.
"The nuns wouldn't tell me anything, they said you would-"
Was it all a feverish delusion?
He could tell her now, and if he changed his mind he could put it off as the ravings of an invalid. But he couldn't...not now. Maybe not ever.
He tightened his grip on her and shook his head.
"I don't know, Kitty." he managed. "I don't know."
It didn't matter. They'd go home and he wouldn't have to think about it again, except during those late hours when the world slept and the Count reclined in his library, speaking of old battles and-
Enough!
It didn't matter. None of it mattered, none of it had happened. He'd been ill, that was all.
Kitty suddenly pulled back and he repressed the urge to cling to her.
"Kitty?"
"Shh." She stood up. "That bat has no manners..."
Before he could stop her, she opened the window and took a swipe at the bat with a broom. It screeched but flew away without a fuss.
"There." She closed the window and tugged the drapes closed. "What is it with these places, absolute infestations...I take it back, love, when we're married, let's stay in England and not go traveling."
He'd agree to that.
She came back over and sat beside him. He sank back against the pillows, exhausted but reluctant to sleep lest this all turn out to be some grand hallucination.
Did I ever leave?
"You should rest." Her voice was thick, on the verge of tears. "They told me you've been ill-"
"Don't go."
Warm, trembling fingers
Cold and firm, threatening to choke the life out of him
stroked his hair before taking his hands.
"I won't."
He believed her, clung to that belief like a drowning man clung to driftwood.
"Promise?"
"Promise."
He finally let his eyes drift closed. If she was here then he was safe and maybe...maybe that whole nightmare hadn't happened at all.
If only that damned bat would stop flapping its wings against the window, he might have believed that.
THE END