A/N: Thank you for all the reviews and thanks especially to garnet86 and thepixieblonde for reviewing both chapters. Hope you enjoy this chapter!
The first thing I became aware of was the fact that I was surrounded by several people all talking somewhat simultaneously. I opened my eyes and realized I was in the Emergency Room of Gotham County Hospital. I tried to sit up and immediately regretted it. Having the blood pound down from my head did nothing to help my already throbbing head.
Closing my eyes, I put a hand to my hand to ease the pain and vaguely noted I must have fallen hard on my right side as I felt my arm protest as I moved it too much.
The doctor who bustled into the room had an air of authority and efficiency about her. I couldn't seem to find my tongue as she started in.
"Good! You're awake! My name is Dr. Geneva Raskos and I'm the one in charge of your care since you arrived. Georgiana is it? Would you mind telling me what you remember?"
I grimaced. "Well it's not much. I remember walking home and seeing a man in an overcoat overtake me right before my apartment building and him hitting me with a gun. That's it, until I woke up here."
"Hmm, right. Not much there. Any place other than your head that hurts? We did an exterior examination when you were brought in and all that we have found so far is the bump on your head and of course what's written on it." The doctor looked thoughtful as she jotted down a note on the chart in her hands.
"What's written on it? What are you talking about? What's written on my head?" I was confused. Surely she had misspoken. Why would anyone write on my face? Aside from the drunken parties that I'd chauffeured Penny to time or two, I'd never seen anyone write on another's face.
"There's a word, Sleeping, written on your forehead." Dr. Raskos had moved towards the door. "The police will be in to speak with you now that you're awake."
I watched as she left and was replaced by a detective in plainclothes.
He reiterated the same question the doctor had asked and I repeated what I'd told her. Then he pulled a several pictures out from his coat pocket. They were polaroids that looked recently taken.
"Do you know any of these people? Any of them look familiar in any way?"
I thumbed through the pictures slowly. Some had been taken when the subject was aware, eyes closed but others had the person in them staring straight at the camera as if they'd seen a ghost. Each of the people had a word written on their forehead. Like mine.
I paused at the last picture. "This guy was on the train with me when I went home. He got off two stops before I did. I don't recognize anyone else."
I was about to hand the pictures back to him when I thumbed through them again, this time paying attention to the words written on their foreheads. Feathers, day, night, by, you, no, have, aid, flight, who, out, lose, care, about. The words didn't seem to make any sense. Don't forget, sleeping… my mind reminded me.
I handed the photos back to the detective with a sigh and apology that I couldn't be more helpful. He smiled and thanked me as he left- giving me a card with a number to call in case I remembered anything else.
I sat there for several minutes thinking about what had happened and asking myself the question that all the others were probably asking themselves. Why me?
Realizing I wouldn't be able to answer that question on my own in a hospital room, I hopped down from the gurney and stretched to make sure I wasn't going to be crawling out of the ER. Satisfied that I was all in one piece despite the soreness, I sought out my nurse to be discharged.
Safely ensconced at home, the first thing I did was shower and take rubbing alcohol to the permanent marker on my forehead. I had some fantastic bruises on my right side, all along my right arm and shoulder where I'd fallen, but other than that I was perfectly fine. After scrubbing myself clean, I lay down in my bed, willing sleep to come. Half an hour later, I gave up on sleep and went up the spiral stairs to my rooftop deck. Being the daughter of a semi-rich lordling had its perks. Being able to have the top floor and roof all to myself was one of them.
I settled into one of the Adirondack beach chairs I had strewn about the rooftop. I was facing towards downtown and watched the clouds drift in and around the tall buildings. It was a warm fall evening and I only had a light tank top with flannel pajama bottoms.
I reached a hand and turned the radio next to me on. "…not sure how many people were attacked in the streets today. Police aren't releasing any information about the nature of the attacks or if it is related to the breakout at Arkham. We will keep you informed…"
I changed the station to an oldies station and as Sinatra's smooth voice sang about flying to the moon, I felt my eyes close. My body began to relax, infinitesimally at first and then quicker as I realized I felt safer on the roof than in my own bed. I snorted at the irony of it all and inhaled a deep breath. I froze. I could smell sweat, oil and something definitely male.
I opened my eyes and had to bite back a laugh. Batman stood before me, glowering down at me as if I had purposefully set out to do something to irritate him.
Forcing myself to relax again, I cocked an eyebrow. "Can I help you?"
"You were assaulted today a block away. I need to know what happened." His guttural growl sent a tiny shiver down my spine and had heat pooling between my legs as I had a quick flash of thought of that voice saying dirty, naughty things in the heat of passion.
I reclined farther into the chair and smiled indulgently at him. "Well it was my understanding that you have an in with the GPD. I've already given a statement to them. You can get it from them." A tiny part of me was quite insistently telling me I shouldn't be so comfortable with this masked vigilante but I instinctively knew he wouldn't hurt me. No matter what the papers had said after that DA had died.
"I can't use that source anymore. Now… What. Happened." He took a step closer and he towered over me, an imposing figure in black that would make most grown men shake in fear.
I don't know why I couldn't take his intimidation seriously but all I felt like doing was giggling and I knew that giggling would not be well received.
"Guy hit me. Wrote 'sleeping' on my forehead. That's all I know. You want anything else? Ask the people who found me." I smiled up at the forbidding masked face, knowing I was probably irritating the hell out of him and feeling a perverse joy at that knowledge.
The growl that emanated from the man above me had my toes curling in a way he definitely hadn't intended.
"Woman. Tell me what happened. NOW." At that, my eyebrows hit my hairline. "Woman is it? You can come down off your high horse and at least say please. I don't have to help you at all. In fact, I could call the police now if I wanted. You're the Most Wanted person in Gotham and yet you're still trying to help its citizens. Would you like to try again?"
I had crossed my arms in front of me and looked expectantly up at the tense figure that still stood looming over me as if to intimidate by sheer presence alone. I daresay he'd had success with that before.
Taking a step back, he gave a frustrated growl-sigh. "Please."
"Please what?" I saw his mouth tighten and gave a small smile.
"Please tell me what happened today." He ground out the words as if the simple act of conversation was foreign to him. Looking back on our conversation, it probably was.
"I was walking home from the metro station. A man came up behind me in a beige overcoat and pistol-whipped me in the head. He was medium height, brown hair, though I couldn't see his eyes. No distinguishing features I'm afraid. I assume he was the same one to write the word 'sleeping' on my forehead. I don't remember anything after that besides waking up in the hospital. Anything else?" I waited for his response.
"What did the detective ask you?"
"About the same as you, though he did have me look through some polaroids of others that had words written on their faces as well. I only knew one from the train home today." I could tell he was going to leave soon; he'd starting pacing a bit- moving closer to the edge of the roof each pass.
"Hmm, do you remember what any of the other words were?" He stopped pacing, focusing his attention on me once again and I felt a small jolt as I realized it felt familiar.
"Feathers, day, night, by, you, no, have, aid, flight, who, out, lose, care, about and of course sleeping." I rattled off the words without a thought. I could feel his surprise so I answered the question that he hadn't voiced yet.
"I have a very good memory. My sister used to think I had a photographic memory because I could remember the slightest detail of books. It's not that good but it's better than most. I've been running the words over in my head. Trying to figure out what it said. It's obviously a message for someone…" I trailed off as I looked at him.
"You, it's a message for you. From who? Who's it from?" I was suddenly up out of my chair and in front of him, staring up into the face that was now glowering at me again.
"If I knew that, I wouldn't be here, wasting my time with you." His breath was hot on my face and I realized just how close I actually was to him. He hadn't moved an inch when I'd come flying up out of my chair at him.
I felt my breath catch in my throat and my heart began pounding. Batman was one tall, strong drink of water and I suddenly found myself as thirsty as if I'd been 2 weeks in the Sahara without water.
"Waste of time? You've gotten more information out of me that any of the others I'd wager. Else, you'd have been gone within the first two minutes. So either I intrigue you, or I gave you the information you wanted." I murmured to him as my hand came up to rest feather light on his armored shoulder.
"I think a girl should get compensated for her help, don't you?" I threw a saucy grin at him and as I moved even closer, I locked eyes with him the whole way, waiting for him to tell me to stop or push me away.
Surprisingly, he didn't do either and when my lips met his, his eyes widened before slowly starting to close. I closed mine in reflex and reveled in the feel of his lips on mine. I gave a tiny groan of discontent when he gently pulled back and I realized he'd wrapped a hand in my unbound hair.
Untangling myself from his embrace, I laughed softly at myself. Shaking my hair out, I moved back to my chair. Turning to him once again, I was about to say something slightly snarky about always having useful information for him but he was gone.
I let a laugh escape my lips as I saw him gliding 3 buildings across. "Good luck!" I yelled after him but I wasn't sure if he heard me.
Still chuckling to myself, I turned the radio off and walked back down to my bed. Before I drifted off, my only thought was that no one would believe me, not even Josh.
The next three days passed in a whirl. When Friday finally rolled around, I was surprised but happy I was getting two days off in a row.
When Josh appeared in Archives, signaling I'd again overlooked the time to go home, I felt my cheeks turning red.
"Sorry, J. I don't know where my head has been these past few days." Josh had been the best friend I could have after learning what had happened the previous Monday, not letting me leave alone. I hadn't worked the courage up to tell him about my encounter with the Batman because I knew he wouldn't believe me, no matter how much he wanted to.
"It's alright, G. You ready to go home?"
"Yup, just let me file this last document." I headed down to file a memo into R&D's cabinet when I caught a whiff of something familiar and arousing. I whipped around to see Bruce Wayne walking down the back aisle towards the front of the room. My heart was pounding as I looked around for the source of the whiff but the smell was gone. I filed the document and headed back to Josh and Mr. Wayne who were chatting by the door.
"Ah, Georgie, there you are. Mr. Wayne was just saying how he appreciative he was with all that you have done down here." Josh's tone was that of an older brother prompting a recalcitrant sister to thank someone even if he didn't think the person needed thanking himself. I rolled my eyes to heaven and grinned.
"Thank you Mr. Wayne. I really do love it down here. "My eyes twinkled at Josh as if to say 'Is that sufficient?'. When I turned my gaze to Bruce, my heart resumed its gallop and suddenly my palms were sweaty as I realized his attention was once again razor sharp on my face.
"Anyways, we have to be going, don't we, Josh! Don't want to get caught in traffic you know!" I hustled both men towards the door.
"Goodbye Mr. Wayne, have a great weekend!" I waved over my shoulder as I grabbed my things and shoved Josh ahead of me out the hall to the elevator.
As the elevator doors opened, I hurriedly got in and pressed the main level. Looking out to the door to Archives, I saw Bruce Wayne watching me as the elevator doors shut on my face.
The entire ride home I was teased mercilessly but I paid it little heed. My mind, an object I'd only so recently praised, was telling me something that I couldn't quite believe. I'd never known it to be wrong yet but I simply could not believe that it was true.
No, no, no, no… Bruce Wayne couldn't be Batman. Could he?