A/N
Hey guys, thanks for reading my story, I'm really glad you guys are liking it. I put a lot of time and effort into this story and I'm really happy to do so. I've studied Law, Police codes, Mafia laws and physcology for this so everything you're reading is quite accurate. The Joker is only mentioned in this chapter and I'm sorry but I want to establish Lily's change. Please please please review and give me any suggestions or feedback, I love and value your opinion! And Ross is actually based on a combination of a few people I know (none of them are good) and don't worry, Ross will pay. I'm a man of my word, or well, Woman of my word xD
Anyway, enjoy!

~CandiLand95

Chapter Four

Five days passed since that night. Five days Lily had been in a coma. And during those five days Bruce had stayed by her side, only leaving to go to the bathroom, everything else was either given to him by Alfred or put on hold. Not only Bruce's non-existant life had been put on hold but so was Gotham's protector, Batman. Gotham nearly lost two of it's greatest knights five days ago and the citizen's didn't even know it.

The Doctors had told Bruce four days ago to call her family as she most likely wouldn't make it... her brain had endured an immense amount of damage and signs of life were minimal. Bruce glared at them when they suggested this and growled "She will make it." And they left him alone after that.

Bruce held her limp hand for hours and pleaded her to fight, to pull through for him, Alfred and Rachael. Lack of sleep finally took it's toll on the devilish Playboy and he rested his head on her lap and fell into a deep slumber where Lily was alive and well and of course innocent. Lily's finger began to twitch within Bruce's slack grip but Bruce didn't feel it, he was too exhausted. Slowly her violet eyes opened up and looked around frightened and puzzled. Her vision was slightly fuzzy and the lights of the room were blinding through her eyes. It was as if she was being born all over again, a shock to all the senses.

The droning of the machines were almost deafening, the stench of bleach filled her nostrils, lights blinding, the blankets scratching her unbelievably sensitive skin and the taste of morning breath overridden her mouth. Lily closed her eyes and bit back the bile in her throat that was threatening to rise. After a minute, her senses slowly died back down to a bearable measure and Lily opened her eyes to search around the room.

Her eyes locked onto the sleeping man with a head of untidy brown hair on her lap and his hand loosely gripping her own. Gently, she raised a stiff arm and pushed his hair out of his eyes affectionately.

Bruce stirred and sleepily opened his eyes in a childish manner. "Lily?" he asked groggily. Lily looked at him confused but Bruce just broke out into laughter and pulled her into a tight hug. "I knew you would pull through!" He murmured into her mattered dark locks. Bruce closed his eyes shut and a tear slipped down his cheek, Lily was alive, HIS Lily was alive and well.

Lily put both hands on his chest and weakly pushed Bruce away giving him a questioning look. "Pull through?" She stated rather than asked. Bruce nodded his head and took her hand into his again.

"Yeah you were in a coma for five days, if Batman hadn't pulled you out when he did, you would have died."

"Batman?" She asked, frowning slightly.

Before Bruce could reply, Dr Davis walked in and dropped his notepad in shock when he saw his colleague awake and moving around. "Miss Carter you're awake!?" He gasped, taking his glasses off as if to confirm her very existence and his own sanity.

"Miss Carter?" Lily asked even more confused. Bruce's heart took a nose dive down to his tingling feet. "Is that me?" Lily asked innocently. She looked down at her bloody and bruised body covered in hospital garments and gasped. "What the hell happened to me?!" She exclaimed. Her head snapped up at the two worried men and with a pleading look in her eyes asked "Who am I?"

xXx

Lily sat there unmovingly as the Doctor spoke to her and Bruce. She felt so empty, so lost. Lily knew where she was, Hospital where she apparently works, she knew the dashing man next to her was a man called "Bruce" and the doctor in front of her was "Dr Davis". But who was she? How did this happen to her body? And who was this "Batman" that apparently saved her?

Bruce signed the papers given to him by the doctor with shaky hands as Lily watched him in interest. 'Who is he?' His face was unshaven and dark circles surround his worn brown eyes but he felt so familiar to her. 'Is he my husband?' Lily looked down at her hand and saw no traces of a wedding band. She looked over at Bruce's hand and could never see him wearing a wedding band, it didn't seem to suit him at all. 'Boyfriend?' Lily mentally snorted. 'No, he doesn't give off that kind of vibe good or bad.'

Bruce looked at Lily and forced an uncomfortable smile. She had been staring at him for most of the time she had been awake and when she wasn't staring at him, she was looking at her broken body. She still looked like Lily but something was different, her movements were more sharp and her eyes seemed to pierce through to his soul. It was if she was a totally different person inside Lily...

Bruce shook his head and held out his hand. "C'mon Lily, I'll take you home."

"Home?"

xXx

The car trip had been quiet but Bruce didn't want to push her, he was a stranger to her and she was a stranger to herself. The doctor had advised Bruce to give her time and help her out as much as he could without pushing her too far. Bruce shuddered at the consequences he had been told just half an hour ago. 'Insanity, Suicide, homicide...' He hated the idea of Lily hurting herself or being locked away in a padded cell like Jonathan Crane but the thought of Lily killing someone and having to put an end to her killed him inside.

They pulled up at into her driveway and Lily looked at Bruce puzzled. 'She doesn't even recognise the house she grew up in...' Bruce thought sadly. He jumped out and opened the door for the reluctant dark-haired girl. Lily walked past Bruce without acknowledging him and touched the police tape across the front door. something in the back of Lily's mind stirred, like a distant memory whispering in her ear to remember. A woman screaming and a gunshot racketed through her head followed by a small voice calling out "Mummy?"

"The police must have forgotten to take down the..."

"I thought I had drowned..." She said softly, running her fingers along the smooth plastic of the tape. Bruce frowned and gently pulled the tape off the door frame and quickly unlocked the door, not really wanting to tell her what had happened in this very house. Lily looked up at Bruce's stony expression and decided not to push it just yet, he looked exhausted.

They walked into the house with bated breath. By special request, the police department had sent a cleaning crew through the crime scene and cleaned up the puddles of blood and sick. The house had remained in complete silence and left an eerie aftermath within it's walls. Bruce watched as Lily looked around the house and explored the things she use to know. Lily walked around the house slowly and looked at the still frame shot of her past life; photos of a happy smiling girl with a mysterious man and woman mocked her, fruit rotting in the fruit-bowl attracted flies... and then she found her room.

Soft pink walls, white furniture trimmed with pink and covered with posters of bands she had never heard of. 'A little girl's room!' She mentally hissed. Lily scrunched up her nose and someone chuckled behind her, scaring her. She swept her feet around and knocked one very surprised Bruce onto his back.

"Ouch!" Bruce gasped. "What was that for?"

Lily frowned "Never sneak up on people Bruce, they might kick you onto your ass." Lily looked surprised at what she said and so did Bruce. She extended her hand and Bruce gladly took it and they both straightened themselves up. "So this is my room?"

"Yep."

"I like pink?"

Bruce laughed. "No, you actually like the colour purple. Your mum painted the walls pink when you were a baby."

"Expecting a girly-girl then huh?" Lily joked as she opened up a draw. The first thing she laid eyes one was a turquoise turtleneck sweater with a huge kitten face on the front. "This is quite ridiculous..." She said, lifting up the sweater and holding it against her curvy frame. Bruce laughed and the uneasiness disappeared. Lily carelessly flung the sweater back into the draw and tried desperately to remember what she once had.

"Well I better get home, Alfred is probably worried sick..." Bruce started, ruffling his already messed up hair. Lily could see he was exhausted because of her... how many nights had he been awake just to stay by her side?

"Stay, Please?" Lily asked softly, looking up into Bruce's brown eyes. Bruce smiled, 'Why not?'

xXx

Lily and Bruce were curled up by the fireplace while they watched a movie he claimed was her favourite. Lily had changed into a pair of stripy pair of purple short shorts and an ice blue singlet top she had found underneath a vast collection of sickeningly cute pajamas and jogging shorts. Bruce just took his top off and his belt leaving him in black pants and a white singlet. They had dragged blankets and pillows to build a type of nest while Bruce told her stories of what they had gotten up to in their younger years.

"So we were best friends?" Lily asked, taking a bite of her pizza slice.

Bruce nodded. "Very much so, there was also Rachael..." He said blushing slightly. "Me and Rachael had a thing but... we didn't agree on something and she moved on..." He downed his cup coke and Lily raised an eyebrow.

"Really?"

"Really."

"How did we meet?" Lily asked curiously.

Bruce laughed. "Your mother was a maid of Wayne manor, and a close friend of my parents. She use to bring you to the manor so we could play. After my parent's died, she looked after me along with Alfred. She was like my adoptive mother, and you were my sister... until she married Ross."

The name seemed familiar to Lily, and not in a good way. "Who's Ross?" Bruce shifted uncomfortably in his makeshift seat.

"It doesn't matter..."

"But-"

"Lilith please, let's just watch the movie." Bruce growled. He could feel Batman's rage push through so he kept his mouth shut. Oh yes, Bruce knew who killed Lily's mother and who tried to kill Lily but he hadn't had the chance to track him down yet. Lily closed her mouth and stared intensely at the screen for a few minutes.

"Why doesn't she strike a bargain with Jareth or at least attack him? She can take out armoured guards but she can't take out a guy with glass balls?" Lily complained grumply. She looked over at Bruce and her face softened, he had fallen asleep again. Lily picked up a loose blanket and covered his exposed skin and made her way up to her alien-like room. She began a thorough search to see if she recognised anything and hopefully figure herself out. Lily was a puzzle to herself and she desperately wanted to solve it.

She began tearing the room apart, clothes went flying, piles of junk began to grow 'Ugh I am so getting a new wardrobe after this' She thought to herself as she ruffled through her modest clothing. She grabbed the handles on the bottom of the wardrobe but they refused to budge, not even a bit.

Lily flung open her wardrobe and noticed something was amazingly familiar about opening this wardrobe like this. The clothes inside were packed in tight and colour coded. 'Neat-freak' Lily mentally labelled. Grabbing fistfulls of coathangers, she removed all the clothes to reveal a map of Gotham city covered with little red pins, circles and newspaper clippings along the innerwalls of the wardrobe. Lily gasped as her eyes skimmed over the map and the red marks until a joker card pinned to a newspaper clipping above a dive in the narrows caught her attention.

Carefully, she unpinned the clipping and read over the text. It was about a homicidal clown who calls himself a Joker. Written at the bottom in red ink was "Gotham Sirens". Lily frowned and tried to de-code what someone (most likey herself) had written on the bottom. Suddenly it clicked and Lily spun around to see a poster of the "Gotham Sirens" near the window.

Lily scrambled over to the poster and tore it off the wall and turned it over to see a blurry picture of the Joker in his war-paint and a tacky navy blue suit with a description underneath.

Name: Joker (real name unknown)
Pattern: N/A
Sightings: Too erratic to track
weaknesses: None
NEXT BIG BAD

"Joker?" She murmured as she read over the information. Suddenly a memory came crashing through her mind...

The Joker walked up to her and pointed his gun at her. "But who are you?" He traced the gun down her back as he spoke to her.

A shiver ran down her spine.

She spun around and knocked the gun out of his hand and twisted his hand behind his back.

"I'm the Dark Masque." she growled into his ear. The Joker scoffed and gripped onto the fabric of the corset and flung her over himself. She gasped in pain when she landed on her back and the Joker grinned in sadistic pleasure. She was not expecting him to have that much strength. Lily spun around and knocked him down as well. She climbed on top of him and sat on his waist to pin him down and then she reached for her handcuffs.

"Kinky." The Joker giggled. He rolled her over so then he was on top. "But we just meet."

Lily gasped, 'I fought this maniac?' She then spotted another poster and she stormed over and ripped that one down and turned it over:

BLACK MASK
CAPTURED BY DARK MASQUE
ARKHAM

She ripped down another poster.

CALENDERMAN
CAPTURED BY DARK MASQUE
ARKHAM

Every single poster was the same, a bad guy who was captured by the Dark Masque, some had warning labels others were completely harmless. Lily walked back over to the wardrobe and looked at the map again and she noticed under some of the pins was a letter like a J which came up multiple times in various places.

'Joker...'

A ribbon was sticking out from the bottom of the wardobe and Lily narrowed her eyes. Carefully, she slowly tugged on it and the bottom lifted up to show a hidden compartment where the draws use to be. Knifes, guns and other varieties of weapons and the Dark Masque costume from her flashback were inside. Lily lifted up the mask and a pleasant chill ran down her spine. She could remember the thrill of fighting the Joker, the adrenaline pumping through her veins...

"Lily?" Called out Bruce from the stairs.

Quick as a flash, Lily closed the compartment and wardrobe doors. "Coming Bruce!" She quickly got up and ran out to the door and bumped quite literally into Bruce who instinctively grabbed her arms to steady her. "Uh Bruce, w-who is the Dark Masque?" She stammered.

Bruce frowned. "How..."

"Newspaper. There was a newspaper article about the Joker and it mentioned the Dark Masque." Lily lied easily.

"She's a, vigilante like Batman but less recognised... She's powerful but was holding back, I don't know what, no one knows what..."