Disclaimer: See #1 for it.
#9
Midnight
It had turned on as she was dressing for bed. It lit up the clouds that always seemed to hang over Gotham at night, no matter what season it was.
She was too frightened to leave her room to ask Ari if someone had escaped from Arkham or if it was something else.
Ari always seemed to know which it was and who was involved.
It wasn't that she was frightened that something would happen to her. Oh no, that wasn't the issue.
The one time she'd gotten mixed up in anything done by one of the Rogues, she'd been treated with nothing but respect. Ari had told her it was probably because of Jervis and that if the Joker did anything to her and Jervis found out about it, the Joker would be smiling out the other side of his face and be dancing to whatever tune Jervis wanted him to via a control card.
No, what Alice feared was that the answer would be someone had escaped Arkham and that someone was Jervis.
She worried about him so much, worried about if he was sleeping enough, eating enough, if they were treating him well at Arkham or not.
The symbol in the sky was the sum of all her fears. Not that she wasn't grateful for what Batman did, she just didn't like the fact that her poor Hatter might be the one Batman was trying to capture. Batman had a long track record of bringing in members of the Gallery in less than tip-top shape.
The soothing sounds of Ari knitting in the other room failed to put Alice to sleep as they normally did.
Alice lay in bed and watched the Bat Signal click off, unable to sleep and unwilling to lose herself to peace on such a night. She knew that neither she nor Ari would be getting any sleep that night.
For some reason, Ari never went to bed until Alice was asleep. And tonight would be no different.
It comforted Alice to know that she wasn't the only one worrying as she lay there, praying with everything she was that Jervis was safe and not the subject of whatever caused the police to summon Batman.