I'd gone back and rediscovered "Alternative scenes" by Rena Estphan, in which it answers the question as to what if Rachel chose BRUCE instead of Harvey - and her letter explains it? I was inspired by that letter but chose not to show the actual written one, given actions speak louder than words. I always wanted Rachel to choose Bruce since before I began this story, and "Alternative scenes" was the basis of confirmation.
Chapter Seven
A son...he had a son. His name was Damien, and he was four years old.
He was a spitting image of himself, even had the dark hair of both parents, and Bruce's brown eyes; however, the boy's had light and full of hope and happiness unlike his father. While Bruce held it in him that things might not get better after all, his luck changed altogether. He was still angry that the woman he loved, who made it clear in the last note she left him that she always loved him and would choose him over Dent after all, had been hiding from the world all this time just for protection. Any other person would say it was bullshit that they tried protecting them, that it was hardly an excuse.
And speaking of Dent, when he told her the truth, she had been utterly devastated that he had to sacrifice his cape and cowl for the greater good, covering up the fact that Harvey went mad because of Joker and over her "death" - but if the people of Gotham knew what really happened, then every criminal he locked up would be on the streets...and chaos would be irreparable, and the people would lose hope.
Her eyes had been shining with tears. "Harvey was always a good man," she'd whispered, "but in the end, he was torn down by a monster who proved that even a great man could fall." Just like I said that night, Bruce thought in devastation. He could have left it there and allowed her to freely stay away from him, instead of waiting for her as he'd done all his life, but she remained by his side and with Damien.
Bruce had limited parenting experience, and he wasn't even there when his own child was born, wasn't there to watch him grow. But Alfred had been his only father figure since Thomas Wayne died, and no mother since Martha after that. No female figure besides Rachel, who was currently in the game room with their son, and Alfred was there with them, supervising and smiling broadly the whole time. Mother was smiling and laughing in her sleeveless navy blue dress and short, bouncy curls framing her face, and son was squealing for his mother and the old butler to look and see him winning.
Bruce felt left out; he just didn't know if he should join them. Damien liked him the moment Rachel brought them to meet last Saturday and made the decision to abandon their slums home permanently and so soon; he was happy that she told him who his father was because he deserved to know.
Bruce stepped away from the doorway and rested his whole back to the wall beside it. He'd just now thought about this; he'd always imagined himself and Rachel married with children, and now that both mother and child were in his life again - well, mother especially, and the child he was just getting to know - he wanted a real wedding to actually happen. But his other half wondered if she wanted to rush into that so soon when they'd been parted for so long and he was just learning about a son.
He already had the ring; it had been his mother's, and it was pure antique romance. He pulled it out of his shirt pocket and held it between his forefinger and thumb. Victorian-inspired, like much of the manor before either of them were born, with five round sapphires so dark they were almost black resting in a yellow gold band embellished with a filigree scroll pattern.
"I believe the answer would be yes, Master Wayne."
Alfred stuck his whole self out through the doorway and found his "young" charge staring at his mother's old wedding ring. Bruce laughed nervously and put it away. "I don't know. We just got back together, our son needs to get to know his father more..."
"But remember the note, Master Bruce?" the butler reminded him. "She made it clear that when the day came when you were..." He lowered his voice. "...finished with Batman, she would be waiting for you. You hung up your cape and cowl, remember, but you never moved on from her to find another life. You just sat in this house waiting for something to happen again because Rachel was gone and nothing here for you now."
But she's here, and the wait was worth it, Bruce thought with a smile and a nod. And then the doorbell rang, getting both their attentions as well as the other two inside the game room. "Now who could that be at this hour?" Alfred muttered as he went to answer the door. Bruce followed him, not waiting for Rachel and Damien, in time to see none other than Sinéad Ryan - the young artist who brought him and the love of his life back together - Anna Ramirez, who he remembered used to be in Gordon's unit and left because she worked for the mob...and Jonathan Crane, former Arkham Asylum head and the infamous Scarecrow, all drowned out in the rain pelting in smaller amounts in the background.
"Miss Ryan, what a surprise to see you again," Alfred greeted her. "And who are your friends?"
"Anna!" Rachel whipped past Bruce and the butler, taking her friend into a hug. "What's happening?"
"And this is Jonathan," Sinéad answered to the butler, coming inside with the Scarecrow after the two women. Bruce had to say he wasn't expecting the former Arkham administrator to be here at his house, and to know he and Rachel, as well as Ramirez, a dirty cop, had worked at the same bar for the last four years wasn't pleasant. But then again, without trying to be mean, Crane couldn't just revert back to his old ways with his way of living now. But what about Ramirez?
Bruce abandoned his attention from the man who poisoned Rachel and the girl to the two women beside him. "What brings you here?" he asked, trying his hardest to be pleasant. The Hispanic looked wary and what she had to say wasn't going to be good. Was there ever any good news at untimely hours?
And then Alfred cleared his throat. "Perhaps young Master Damien should retire to bed for the night and we get these three settled in during this storm, then we talk in the parlor room."
"Aww, Mommy," Damien whined, making everyone in the room laugh. "Do I have to now?" His mother admonished him before taking him upstairs herself.
~o~
Jonathan felt like a mouse being in the grand Wayne Manor, especially being around Rachel Dawes who had reunited with the father of her son, none other than the billionaire himself. However, he felt warm and comfortable by the fire with Sinéad by his side, and just being beside her made him feel a little safer. He chastised himself for being so weak that way.
The hot Earl Grey made by the butler couldn't compare to Sinéad's, but it made him want to crawl to sleep now, except he couldn't. He, she, and Anna Ramirez - revealed to be a "sight seer", or clairvoyant - were just telling the master of the house and the butler everything they needed to know. Well, to anyone else, they would just be called crazy. And Jonathan tried to piece it together that there was something about Wayne that made him think he was so familiar, and not from the way everyone else thought they knew...
"My mother and I have carried the Gift of Sight for centuries, through sixteen generations of the women in our family," Anna was explaining. "I was the one who convinced Rachel to go into hiding, and your son to go with her..."
"She told me all of that," Wayne interrupted calmly, "but I want to know how you three are involved."
"See this?" Jonathan turned his head to see his maybe-interest pulling the left side of her soft green shirt's lace-trimmed, modest neckline to show the black mermaid. "You know this means something, Mr. Wayne, and it's not just a tattoo."
Jonathan decided since she was revealing her secret, it was time to reveal his. "And this, as well." He stood and turned his back to them all, lifting up his t-shirt to show the elaborate wings on his back.
"You're a phoenix," Wayne stated, then to Sinéad, "and you're a mermaid. I won't find it hard to believe."
"You won't find it hard to believe that I'm not exactly the creature half-human from waist-side up," Sinéad joked, sitting back down, "and fish-like waist down, with the green-scaled tail, combing my hair constantly." And slight webbing between the fingers, white and delicate like the skin between the egg and the shell, Jonathan thought, remembering one particular specimen. "My mother is one, but as a result, I was a burden to her and my father who are still in an unhappy marriage, but it was my grandmother who was a merrow herself, Siobhán Carlin, who brought me up and told me the truth about everything and gave me sole guardianship of this." She reached into her left boot and pulled out the most fantastically carved dagger he'd ever seen, and it raptured the attention of Wayne and Alfred the butler. "This is the Lann Na Beatha."
"The Blade of Life," Alfred spoke with a nod. "Yes, I recall this story all too well. According to legend, the wielder gains extraordinary power for good or for evil, depending on your morals. The power to defend and protect the innocent, and to kill your enemies...but also to do something far more unspeakable than anyone would ever admit."
"Summon the undead," Sinéad answered. She put the weapon back into her boot. "Yes. I have to keep this from falling into the wrong hands. My gran made it clear all will be lost if this is taken out of our line of vision."
Jonathan found himself meeting Bruce Wayne eye-to-eye; the man was looking at him in a way that many looked at him after his release from Arkham two years before, but not in so much as a hostile way, the rest of the conversation about the weapon drowned out. He then shifted his attention away when Anna rose up, announcing she was heading upstairs to check on Rachel and her son. "Oh, pardon me, I'm coming," Alfred announced, joining her.
~o~
Damien was whimpering as he stood behind his mother at the man in black who approached them. Rachel gritted her teeth as she took in the sight of him with the black scarf over his mouth, knowing that he was a ninja from what Bruce told her about his experience with the League of Shadows. "Who are you?" she demanded.
She had been in the much more elaborate room than her son's old one, singing to him and reading to him until he fell asleep when Damien shrieked and shrank under the covers at seeing something behind her. This man was here for either her or Damien, or both; maybe he was part of the danger Anna was telling her about. He gave no answer, so she stood and reached for the gun she kept hidden behind her, just beneath the folds of her dress. Her son was scared more than ever as he shrank under the covers to try and hide. She would have suggested under the bed, but it was too late for that. Rachel had to defend her child the best she could. "I don't know what you want, but get out...of my house," she hissed, clicking the safety off.
He still gave no answer as he advanced towards her; his eyes had adverted down, and she knew he was eyeing Damien. She didn't know how he got in, not that it mattered now, but she was going to kill him if it meant risking Damien's sanity later in his life...
The door burst open, and Anna came in along with Alfred. Anna still carried her gun since defense and self-defense were the best she could do as an ex-cop. "Get away from them!" she yelled, firing a shot without hesitation, hitting the man square in the shoulder. It wasn't fatal, but it was enough to make him yell and fall down. "Rachel, Damien, get out of here!"
She grabbed her son out of the bed, held him in both arms as she ran past the fallen ninja and after Alfred. Anna stayed behind to give the guy another shot that actually killed him, but he wasn't alone when he came, it turned out. Three more appeared out of nowhere. Rachel screamed when she felt herself being tugged back, and her son wrenched out of her arms. Damien wailed as he was taken from his mother. "MOOOOMMMMYYYY!" he screamed as he was carried away and out through an opened window; Alfred and Bruce would always make sure the security system was tight, even after Fear Night, but as it turned out money didn't solve all your problems. Rachel tried fighting off the ninja holding her down, but he spun her around and threw her into the opposite direction and straight into Bruce's arms.
"DAMIEN!" he roared as he bounded after the kidnappers for their son, jumping out the window after them. My Bruce, valiant as ever...but he won't make it, she thought worriedly as much as she tried to shove it down. She'd found herself shoved into Jonathan Crane's unwilling hold as her lover went for their child.
He made a face and pushed her aside; bastard, when was he ever going to put his hatred for her aside? Things were starting to get a little better now; well, for her at least, and ought to for him now that he had Sinéad by his side. If she can heal him, as Al said.
Anna had shot down the other ninja that didn't make it out alive, but that didn't stop the other two fast enough. Rachel left Jonathan and Sinéad, dashing past Anna and Alfred to leap out the window herself and find herself on a balcony overlooking the wooded area and part of the road, showing Bruce collapsed and defeated on the ground. Damien was nowhere in sight.
She felt like crying as she leaned over the railing and let the first tear fall and land elsewhere. He'd failed, and part of the reason was because nearly five years of no fighting cost his strength. And our son is in danger. God, it's also my fault because I didn't try my hardest to protect him. What are we going to do now?
And where is he being taken?
~o~
She had been waiting in the darkness of the car patiently when two of her men returned; she automatically assumed the others were dead. No matter; they were slow fools anyways. The important thing was that they had the child.
He was subdued by the time Lee arrived with him. "I hope you didn't use too much chloroform," she admonished him with a wave of the finger as he dumped the boy onto the seat before her of the "borrowed" limousine. "I'd hate for you to kill him when we need him the most."
He laughed nervously and shook his head. "No, madam. He's just out like a nocturnal critter as you wished."
"Good. Now get us out of here, both of you."
He joined Zhiang in the front of the car and revved the engine up, getting them out of here and taking them to her private jet. Smiling, she leaned forward and revealed her face from the shadows to the sleeping child. He would fuss and beg for his parents once he awoke, but she would be the one to put him in his place. His parents will come for him, eventually. We need his mother anyway, for this.
Father will be avenged soon enough, Talia al Ghul thought with a cruel smile as she imagined the pain she would cause Bruce Wayne - Batman - like he caused her.
And now we introduce a major villainess meant to be a surprise: Talia. :D She's pure, independent wickedness with the obvious motive of resurrecting her father for revenge against Batman, similar to TDKR. And she needs little Damien for this, and who knows what role mommy Rachel will play in this. It's gonna be hot and rocking, so hold on tight. We're getting into "The Mummy Returns" now with this! ;D