"Leila, please let me take you home," Edward was pleading with his daughter. "You can stay with Mom and I tonight, then we can get your car in the morning."
Matt, Leila, and her father stood out in the middle of the street in front of the convention center, in the midst of a crowd of onlookers from the memorial, watching as one emergency vehicle after another pulled up to the scene. The entire city block had been closed off, now bathed in a spectacle of flashing police lights. The mayor and more important city officials had been escorted away from the building promptly and though everyone had been urged to go straight home, most of the throng remained, talking amongst themselves in hushed, anxious voices. Leila shook her head, finally pulling her eyes away from a bomb sniffing dog as he was led from the building.
"Daddy, I'm fine, seriously," she told him, smiling calmly up at him. "They said he escaped, not that he was on a hunt for the female paramedic who examined him a week ago." A somewhat hollow laugh escaped her after these words, though this did not seem to soothe her father or Matt as the two men both remained staring at her with matching, anxious expressions. She rolled her eyes. "I'm going home and staying there until I go back to work on Monday. I'll be fine, I promise."
Edward sighed, reaching out with both of his large, soft hands to rub her upper arms soothingly. "If you insist. But I'd feel much better knowing you at least had an escort back to your car...Perhaps-" He paused, turning his head this way and that, searching quickly for a nearby police officer whom he could ask, but Matt was already stepping in.
"I could walk her back," he offered, glancing from Leila, up to her father and back again. Upon noticing the newly formed scowl on her face, he hastily went on. "You know, just to her car, to make sure she gets in safe."
There was a moment where Edward took a deep breath, squinting somewhat contemplatively at Matt, as though trying to assess whether he could trust him with his daughter. After a few seconds, he nodded, exhaling heavily.
"Alright, that sounds fine. Thank you," he finally agreed, patting Matt on the shoulder before turning to Leila. "You will call me as soon as you get inside your apartment, understand?" he asked in a suddenly stern voice, reminding Leila of years past when he warned her strictly to be home by midnight 'and not a moment later'. Despite her instinctive urge to inform him that she was not a child anymore and was not even remotely scared that the Joker might be after her, she nodded politely, stepping forward to kiss his cheek.
"I will, Dad," she answered, glancing to the side when Matt rounded her elbow, glancing up and down the street as though the president himself had ordered him as her personal guard. She ignored this, gazing imploringly up at her father. "And please tell Mom not to freak out. I'm really not worried, so she shouldn't be either."
After being assured that he would attempt to keep her mother as calm as possible, Leila said goodnight to her dad and allowed Matt to lead her away from the scene, passing between the parked, barricaded police cars. By now, her feet were killing her after standing in her heels for most of the night, so the temptation to remove them and simply walk barefoot back to her car was very great. However, Matt was taking his job of escorting her very seriously, so it seemed unlikely that he would allow her to stop for even a moment to remove her shoes.
It rather remarkable to Leila that he had not cricked his neck yet, as he constantly turned his head to glance behind them and after the fourth or fifth time he had done this, she sighed, rolling her eyes, struggling to keep up with him in her tall heels.
"Matt, do you really think he's about to jump out from behind a dumpster?" she asked waspishly, blowing a wayward lock of hair away from her face as a breeze blew it there. "I swear, you and Dad are being so paranoid about this."
At these words, Matt suddenly stopped, at the corner of the entrance to the parking garage and he turned to face her, his expression stern.
"If there's anything we do know about this guy, it's that he's unpredictable," he said, once again glancing up and down the street to either side of them. "He's...he's crazy! Who knows what he's after?"
Leila folded her arms across her middle stubbornly. "Yeah, but I highly doubt his...masterminded plan involves some random girl he met a week ago. I mean seriously, he doesn't even know where I live!" she exclaimed, shifting her weight from one heel to another as her toes began grow numb against the pain. Reaching out to her, Matt used his hand under her arm to turn her into the garage, where they began walking uphill to the first level of cars.
"He could easily find that out, Leila," he replied dismissively, glancing over his shoulder.
Just a few yards ahead of them sat her faithful gold Camry, and with it, the sanctuary of her car seat where she could take off her shoes and wiggle her protesting toes. She gave a groan of weariness as she approached the driver's side door, then turned to give Matt a very blank, annoyed glare when he opened her car door for her, once again glancing over his shoulder toward the entrance to the stairs across the lot from them. When he turned back to her and noticed the look on her face, his eyebrows furrowed, while Leila tossed her hand exasperatedly.
"You wanna sit in my lap and drive me home too?" she asked, pulling open the door to her car, to slide into the seat and kick off her shoes. Glancing back up, she noticed Matt's expression deepen, causing her let out a laugh as she pushed the key into the ignition. "Matt, seriously, it's going to be fine. You're just feeling guilty because you let my name slip in front of him. But honestly, he probably doesn't even remember it," At this, she reached up, using one finger to push his hand away from the roof of her car, where he had been leaning into the open doorway. "Now go home. I'll text you when I get to my place, just so you don't lose any sleep over my well-being." she concluded sarcastically, earning her a hefty eye-roll from Matt as he turned from her car to finally begin walking away.
The drive home was eerily quiet. After passing through several green lights in a row, Leila wondered if the citizens of Gotham already knew of the Joker's escape, if there had been a broadcast on the news yet. The streets certainly seemed more empty than usual for a Friday night, no staggering groups of newly twenty-one year old's, no classy, wealthy couples walking back to their fancy brownstones and vaguely, she had to wonder if this was perhaps an ominous sign. Was she being a bit foolish to take the news of the Joker's escape so lightly? If the whole city was feeling that fear, was she being downright stupid to think she alone was safe, when that madman knew her full name?
"No," she said obstinately, aloud to herself as she pulled up to a stop light. There was absolutely no way he could want anything to do with her. She was just some random paramedic, some offhanded person that had only given him a simple exam. Like she had said, he likely didn't even remember her name. Besides, what use was she to him? It wasn't as though she was famous or wealthy enough to hold hostage. She wasn't a criminal for him to exploit or team up with. She was just a regular person, living a regular life, working a regular job. There was no way-
Leila gave a gasp and jumped as a loud car horn split the air beyond the car, alerting her to the fact that the traffic light before her was green and had been that way for several seconds. Sighing, she pushed her foot on the gas, placing one hand on her chest, where she could feel her heart banging away against her sternum. All she had to do was get home, get inside, lock the door and crawl into bed. Perhaps then she could turn on the news...find out if the officials knew anything specific about the Joker's escape or his possible location.
It had been all too easy to play the bold card back at the convention center with her dad and Matt, but as Leila walked along the empty, and suddenly much longer hallway to her apartment door, she could not help herself from glancing back over her shoulder every few moments. A low thump of music was playing from one of the units, the bass' rhythm giving an eerie, heartbeat-type sound, to match the pace of her feet. Her shoes had remained off and were now being carried in her hand as she walked along. It made her feel stupid to have even thought of a scenario such as this, but she figured if someone were to jump out or sneak up on her from behind and if she were to swing hard enough, the pointed heel of her shoe just might break skin. She could not believe how stupid she had been to act so brave and nonchalant with her father just a few minutes prior.
However, the moment she reached her apartment door, unlocked it and stepped inside, a wave of comforting relief washed over her. Just the sight of her safe, empty home was enough to bring back those carefree emotions from earlier, making her feel as though nothing could harm her while in the confines of this place. Leila exhaled heavily, dropping her shoes on the hardwood floor near the kitchen before moving straight toward the fridge, tossing her black clutch purse onto the counter as she went. The food at the memorial had looked revolting, as expected, so her stomach was now completely empty and complaining loudly. Just as she reached for the door handle to the fridge, she jumped when her phone began ringing on the counter behind her. She sighed, rolling her eyes at her own startled reaction, and reached out to answer the call upon seeing that it was her father.
After being asked several times if she made it home safely, if her door and windows were securely locked and after promising that she would call him in the morning, Leila hastily put together a simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich, her curiosity to see the news outweighing her desire to cook a whole meal. The time was only just nearing nine-thirty once she plopped down on her couch next to Murphy, but if her assumptions were correct, the regular programming would have been interrupted for the breaking story of the Joker's escape from custody. Of course, there was every chance that the media had been warned to keep it hushed for the time being, at least until most of the details had been put together. This was not the case, as was immediately obvious the second Leila turned to the main news channel.
"-urging the city to be observant and aware of their surroundings. Any suspicious behavior should be reported to the police immediately," came the first words through the television speakers. Footage of a wrecked armored police vehicle was being shown, the back doors thrown wide, revealing an empty compartment. Leila brought her feet up onto the couch, curling in on herself as she nibbled absentmindedly on a bit of crust, her eyes wide.
"For those who are just now joining us, this is the scene of the Joker's escape earlier this evening along 31st and Main street. Two officers were pronounced dead, along with one corrections officer in critical condition. Commissioner Gordon has urged citizens to remain indoors tonight and to take every precaution possible to ensure their safety."
So I was right, Leila thought to herself, reflecting on the barrenness of the streets during her drive home. The city had been warned to stay inside and it seemed, to her surprise, that everyone was taking this seriously. There had been city-wide threats before, but a select group of idiots could have always been found throwing extreme caution to the wind and going about their business as usual, walking the streets late at night as though daring the evildoers to mess with them. It seemed this time though, the threat was real to them. Everyone had seen, over the past month, just how serious the Joker was, how he could get to anyone through manipulation or a few well placed pawns. His ability to evade capture was surprisingly impressive and it seemed anyone willing to supply information on him had to be ready to lose their life one way or another. A shiver wracked Leila's body and she quickly stood from her couch, crossing over to the window, to pull the long curtains across it. One could never be too careful, right?
Returning to her spot on the couch, Leila curled back into her previous position with her long legs tucked up against her chest, watching as more footage from the scene of escape was played. The same information was being repeated, with the words changed only slightly to make it seem fresh, as was typically the case with breaking news, when the details were still hazy. Leila's shoulders heaved as she took a deep breath and exhaled, leaning forward to turn off the TV. She figured that if anything new was discovered overnight, it would be on the news in the morning. For now, it seemed as though there was not much to report other than the fact that he had escaped and if she sat there long enough, listening to this over and over, it would only help to make her paranoid.
As she picked up the remote to turn off the television, her jaw stretching in a wide yawn, her breath hitched in her throat when a new image suddenly appeared on the screen; a picture of a man with green hair, wearing an orange jumpsuit. Leila's skin erupted into a prickly coating of chills. Quickly, she pressed the pause button on her remote to freeze the frame.
The picture had seemingly been taken the very same night that she had examined him, as she could see the white sterile strips along the right side of his face, where she, personally, had cleaned the makeup from his skin and applied them to close the deep cuts. It seemed the rest of the paint had been removed later, likely by force, revealing several ugly purple, yellowing bruises along his left cheek and jaw. Though these previously unnoticed marks were not what Leila was staring at; it was the expression on his mutilated face.
It was almost as though he was staring directly into her soul, just as he had in the ambulance while she wiped filthy greasepaint from around his eyebrow. The deeply malicious, yet invasive look in his eyes was just as present in this mugshot as it had been that night, and had almost the same effect on her.
A heavy dose of fear spread through her as she stared at the screen, her eyes dropping to the visible, hellish scars on either side of his mouth, curving upward in his devilish smirk, a grin that spoke clearly of formulating plans, unfinished work in the outside world. Wildly, she wondered how the police could have ever fooled themselves into thinking they had locked him away for good. All one had to do was take a single look at this man's expression, in just his mugshot, to know that he had not finished what he started, that he still had other plans. His grin was almost taunting, mocking the city for thinking he had finally been captured and their terror had come to an end.
With a jerk, Leila pushed the power button on the remote before flinging the device away from her as though it had burned her. The television across from the couch was now blank, though a vague outline of the Joker had been left in the screen, fading into the black as she quickly stood up and walked away, shaking her head in an effort to clear the image from her mind. She was just freaking herself out, like watching a horror movie alone at night then thinking every small noise from then on was someone trying to break in. She had not been scared in the slightest while out with her father and Matt, so there was no reason a simple picture should have changed that. All she had to do was go about her business as usual for the next two days, then go back to work on Monday. Everything would be fine.
As was typically the case, Leila's days off seemed to fly by at an unnaturally fast pace. One minute, she was waking up on Saturday morning, without so much as a thought about watching the news, the next, she was being woken by her alarm at nine o'clock on Monday morning. She now found herself climbing out of her car at the fire station, just as Matt and Jay pulled up into the parking spaces on either side of her. The familiar ambulance was rolling into the bay across the parking lot from them, where the other team of paramedics would unload after finishing their early morning shift.
Leila looked over at Matt when he rounded the back of his jeep, adjusting the bag on his shoulder and wearing an expression of mild surprise as he glanced her up and down. She held out her arms demonstratively.
"See?" she asked, grinning widely. "I told you I'd still be alive." Matt rolled his eyes.
"It's only been like two days, Leila," he replied warningly, glancing over the top of her head at Jay as he joined them in their walk up to the bay. "You have no idea if he's still-"
"No one's seen hide nor hair of him since that night," Jay jumped into the conversation. He had obviously seen the news. "If he's got a lick of sense, he's got as far away from this city as possible by now."
On Leila's other side, Matt tutted skeptically. "That sounds like wishful thinking to me," he commented, leaving Jay to let out a chuckle.
"No, that's common sense thinking," he corrected. "Why would he stay here and risk getting caught again? Nah, I say he's moved on...picked another city to mess with."
Between the two men, Leila remained quiet, thinking. She had to agree with Matt to a certain extent but what Jay was saying made sense as well. It was beyond stupid to even begin trying to understand the way the Joker's mind and logic worked, so she remained out of the conversation and instead addressed Phil, the leader of the other team of paramedics, as he hopped down from the cabin of the ambulance.
"Hey," she greeted him, glancing down at his uniform as a gleam of something liquid caught the sunlight against the black material. Waving one hand, she motioned at the slowly drying blood stain. "Rough morning?"
"You have no idea," Phil answered, talking over his shoulder as he stripped off his ruined uniform shirt and dropped it into a biohazardous waste bag, leaving him in just a plain white tank top. "Had a heart attack at 7:30, a bout of dehydration about fifteen minutes after that, then a huge car wreck just now. Fuckin' guy in a Cadillac-" Phil paused to let his two hands smack together loudly in front of him. "-went smashing into a building down on Fletcher. Cops think the brake lines were cut...thinkin' it's foul-play."
"He survive?" Jay asked. Phil shrugged, glancing down at his white tank top to find that the blood had soaked through and made a reddish brown stain along his stomach.
"He's in critical over at GMH," he answered in a nonchalant sort of tone that Leila hoped to never acquire, no matter how long she'd been working. "But he was tachycardic and in shock on the way over there, so who knows." Again he paused, to carefully peel off his tainted tank top and toss it into the bag along with his uniform shirt. "All's I know is, if you have a night like our morning, you're in for a rough one."
As Leila could have guessed, Phil was not psychic and their evening shift remained relatively quiet, beyond the usual, elderly slip and fall routine and one minor car accident. The team even found time between calls to eat at their favorite downtown diner, before returning to the firehouse at the end of their shift. To Leila's surprise, neither Matt nor Jay mentioned the Joker again that night, for which she was immensely thankful. The lack of conversation on that topic was helping to keep her mind off of it and further that route of carelessness she had already set out for herself.
The following evening however, would not prove to be as uneventful, as the team quickly discovered upon arriving to the firehouse to begin their evening shift. Leila and Matt had just finished pushing the stretcher back into the ambulance after the last team cleaned it, when Jay came rushing out, clipping the radio to the pocket of his black cargo pants.
"Got a stabbing over on Cleveland," he announced, pulling open the door to the driver's seat of the ambulance. All at once, the lights and sirens came on, the sound magnified by the tall structure of the bay, causing Leila's ears to ring as she climbed in behind Matt and slammed the back doors shut. Taking a seat on the bench, her body lurched to the side when the ambulance began moving and she looked up just in time to catch a pair of blue latex gloves as Matt threw them to her.
"I'm surprised we haven't had more of these over the past few days," he commented loudly over the sound of the sirens overhead. Leila's eyebrows arched as she looked up from sliding the gloves onto her hands.
"Gloves?" she asked jokingly with a laugh as she flexed her fingers to rid the latex of any pockets of trapped air. Across from her, Matt rolled his eyes.
"Stabbings," he corrected. "Seeing how the Jo-" At this, Leila cut in, shaking her head as she leaned to the side to pull open a compartment and begin laying a large, blue tarp of sterile paper over the stretcher.
"We've had dozens of gunshot and stabbing victims in the past," she reminded him, smoothing out wrinkles in the paper and beginning to layer towels over it. "The chances of this being related to the Joker are slim to none, Matt. I think Jay's right. I think he's moved to a different city by now. This is probably just some fight gone wrong." Leila paused to wonder privately if she truly agreed with Jay, or if she was simply grasping at wishful thinking.
In the jump seat, Matt remained silent, though from the way his lips had pursed tightly across his teeth and his eyebrows raised, it could not have been plainer that he wholeheartedly disagreed with her. Luckily, Leila was spared the opportunity to comment further as the ambulance came to a grinding, sudden stop and without hesitation, she leaned forward to open the doors and climb out with Matt right on her heels.
Two police cars, their red, white and blue lights flashing, were the first things they saw as the darkened street was revealed to them. The officers belonging to the vehicles were found over on the sidewalk, kneeling on either side of a man, laying on the ground, moaning and writhing with his bloody hands clamped over the left side of his abdomen. Leila rushed over while Matt remained behind, to assist Jay in pulling the stretcher out.
"What's going on?" she asked one of the officers as she knelt between them, placing her own gloved hand atop the victim's tight grip on his wound. Before either of the policemen could answer, the man on the ground, who she noticed reeked strongly of booze and body odor, suddenly cried out.
"HE FUCKING STABBED ME!" he shouted, moving his hands away from the wound so Leila could see the area he had been clutching. "SNUCK UP BEHIND ME AND FUCKIN-"
"SIR," Leila said loudly over his voice, fighting with both hands to grip the man's wrists and prevent him from causing more harm to himself by grabbing his deep injury. "We're taking you to the hospital, okay? But I need- SIR-" Her words were drowned out by another shout of pain and desperately, she glanced over her shoulder, where she found Matt and Jay wheeling the stretcher toward her and preparing the sturdy plastic plank on which they could lift him. It seemed useless to try and explain to the homeless man that they were attempting to help him so Leila stayed quiet and instead motioned to the police officers to back up so she and Matt could place the body support on the ground beside the victim.
"One, two-" Matt grunted on the count of three and in one swift movement, they had moved the man onto the support before lifting it from the ground and laying it carefully atop the stretcher. Leila turned to the officers as Matt and Jay began wheeling the howling man over to the ambulance.
"Do one of you guys want to ride along, in case he says who stabbed him?" she asked, motioning over her shoulder with a bloody, gloved thumb. "If he keeps up like this, we'll have to sedate him and he might not remember when he comes around." The officers exchanged quick looks as if playing a game of 'not it', before the young black policeman nodded.
"Yeah, I'll come," he said and immediately followed Leila over to the back of the ambulance, where Matt and Jay were securing the wheels of the stretcher. The officer cringed as the victim's shouts reached a new level of hysteria. "Is he gonna make it?" he asked, pausing for Leila to climb in ahead of him so he could follow. She nodded distractedly.
"He should, but he's losing a lot of blood by panicking like this," she answered loudly, taking a seat on the victim's left, injured side, while Jay climbed down and slammed the doors shut, closing them all in and magnifying the shouting. "SIR!" she yelled. "I need you to try and relax, okay?!" The man's eyes bulged out of his head as he looked over at her, writhing and twisting against his restraints.
"RELAX!" he screamed. "That maniac stabbed me and you want me to relax!"
"Who stabbed you?" the officer cut in, leaning forward as Leila struggled to get a pair of scissors close enough to the thrashing man to cut his tattered, bloody clothing away from the stab wound. "Can you remember what he looks like?" Leila gritted her teeth in frustration as the homeless man's back arched off of the stretcher and he howled in pain again.
"Get him away from me!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. "He's trying to kill me!"
"You're safe now!" Matt's voice joined the din, his hands reaching over across Leila's to press a thick blue towel against the oozing wound. "We're taking you to the hospital! No one can get you th-"
"GET HIM! HE'S GONNA KILL ME!"
It seemed the man was now pushing himself into a psychotic break, his heart rate spiking dangerously high as he thrashed against the restraints holding him to the stretcher. Leila reached over Matt's head as he struggled to hold more towels against the bloody hole in the man's side, stretching her fingers for the box of clean syringes, where she gripped one and pulled it down. Matt glanced over his shoulder quickly as she reached behind him, opening another compartment to reveal an array of tiny, glass medicine bottles.
"Hurry," he murmured, having obviously realized what she was doing.
Beside them, the officer finally gave up his attempts at professionalism and shouted over the man, "WHO STABBED YOU?!". Leila succeeded in pulling enough of the sedative into the syringe and was in the process of leaning forward to roll up the filthy sleeve on the victim's arm when his raspy, strained voice cried out again.
"THE JOKER!"
Silence fell through the ambulance as Matt, Leila and the officer all went still. She could feel Matt turn his head to look at her, but she ignored both this and the instant sinking feeling she felt, instead reaching out again to prick the man's raised vein with the needle, before pushing the plunger on the syringe to inject the sedative. The effect was almost instantaneous.
The man's shouting subsided, his body gradually stilled, until his eyes closed halfway and he lay limp along the stretcher, giving Leila the opportunity to cut away his shirt with the scissors. She was still adamantly avoiding Matt's eyes as she could practically hear him gloating inside his head. Thankfully, the officer was the first to speak as he leaned away from the paramedics, allowing them room to begin attempting to staunch the flow of blood. He let out a nervous laugh.
"He's crazy, right? I mean...why would the Joker stab some homeless g-"
At that moment, the ambulance came to a sudden halt and within seconds, the back doors were being pulled open, revealing a group of nurses and one emergency room physician, all waiting to receive their patient. Leila was the first to jump down, forcefully ignoring the police officer's words as she reached out to begin unlocking the wheels of the stretcher. She spoke to the doctor first.
"Male stabbing victim, missed the Splenic artery, possible schizophrenic, pushed 2 milligrams Lorazepam," she explained, pushing the head of the stretcher toward the sliding doors leading into the hospital, surrounded by the team of nurses.
"Was he lucid when you picked him up?" the physician asked, pausing once they had reached the interior of the emergency room hallway. Leila nodded, watching as the nurses quickly transferred the patient to one of the hospital's own stretchers.
"Somewhat," she answered. "But once we got him in the ambulance, he had a break. Could be trauma induced delirium, but the way he relived the stabbing directly afterward makes me think schizophrenia. Either way, he'll have to be sedated until he can tell you if he was on any anti-psychotics."
"Alright, thanks."
With that, the doctor went sprinting after his newest patient, leaving Leila to take a deep, steadying breath, and begin walking back toward the exit, pulling the ambulance's bloodied stretcher along behind her. As she approached, she could see Matt and Jay through the glass doors, standing at the back of the ambulance, seemingly waiting for her, and she gritted her teeth together tightly in the back of her mouth. She just knew Matt was about to come at her with a hasty 'I told you so'. Hopefully, Jay would have enough sense to agree with her.
"Don't even start, Matt," she said the moment she stepped outside, holding up one hand to stop him. "That guy-"
"I told you!" he interrupted, tossing his hands out to either side of him in exasperation. "I told you he was still around!"
"That guy was nuts, Matt!" Leila practically shouted, the doubt she felt in her own words causing her to be more defensive than usual. "You know how many crazy homeless people have probably called the police over the past month claiming to have been mugged or attacked by the Joker? Or even Batman?"
"And that stab wound was just pretend?" Matt asked, his voice raising ominously to match Leila's. "That guy just happened to know exactly where to stab himself to miss the splenic artery? That was a professional stab-"
"Just what would the Joker, the most wanted man in the country, stand to gain from stabbing some poor, homeless person, huh?" she spat back at him, moving between Matt and Jay to climb into the back of the ambulance and begin throwing the blood stained towels and paper into the hazardous waste bin. When Matt didn't immediately answer, Leila looked up, raising her eyebrows in expectation. However, it was Jay that spoke first.
"Guys..." Leila's eyes snapped in his direction, glaring heatedly at him as though daring him to take Matt's side. "It doesn't matter who stabbed that guy. We got him here. He's gonna live. That should be enough." He paused, turning to Matt, and he pointed one finger at him. "Stop freaking out. If the Joker wanted anything to do with Leila, he'd have already done it. Drop it." Jay turned to Leila, moving his pointed finger in her direction as he raised his eyebrows. "Stop being all defensive. If Matt wants to be a paranoid princess, just play along."
Finally, the tension was broken and Leila laughed, shaking her head as Matt frowned deeply at Jay. Before any further comment could be made however, the radio clipped to Jay's pants gave a soft crackling of static and another cool female voice broke through.
"Fourteen year old female, possible Grand Mal seizure, located at one-three-eight-seven Claxonburg Avenue."
At these words, Leila, Matt and Jay all groaned in unison. Seizures were one thing, but a fourteen year old girl having one rarely turned out to be attributed to something minor. Jay reached down, unclipping the radio to press the side button and speak into it.
"EMS team seven-eight-eight-nine en route to one-three-eight-seven Claxonburg Avenue," he said quickly, before returning the radio to its usual place and glancing up at Leila and Matt in the back of the ambulance. "Looks like it's gonna be a long night, so if you two could just hold off on punching each other until we get off, that would be great," he told them, flashing a teasing grin and disappearing from sight, leaving Leila to look over at Matt as she stripped off her dirty gloves. To her surprise, he spoke first.
"Alright, so I guess I am being a little paranoid about this whole Joker thing, but..." he paused, shrugging sheepishly as he pulled a fresh pair of gloves onto his hands. "...I dunno. I just worry about you." His sentence ended rather abruptly, and Leila was almost completely certain that was not what he had originally intended to conclude with. Instead of commenting on this, she laughed, shaking her head.
"You're so lame, Matt..." she grumbled, grinning when she noticed his cheeks start to blush, as he attempted to look at everything in the ambulance besides her face.
"Shut up..."
By the time eleven o'clock managed to roll around, and the shift was finally at its end, the team was more than ready to call it a night. Call after call had come in through the radio, keeping them so busy that the key to the ambulance had not come out of the ignition one time since it had been started eight hours earlier. As Leila hopped down from the back cabin, she groaned when her tired, aching feet made harsh contact with the concrete floor of the brightly lit docking bay. Matt followed suit, hastily unbuttoning the front of his damp, sweaty uniform shirt with a weary sigh.
"Phew, what a night," Jay commented, joining them at the back of the ambulance to clean down the stretcher in preparation for the night crew. "Gotta say, I'm glad it's over."
Matt nodded his agreement, unrolling several paper towels before handing the rest of the roll to Leila. "God, me too," he answered, catching a bottle of disinfectant as Leila tossed it to him. "I can't wait to just sit on my couch with an ice cold-" he went on, but never did get to say exactly what he was looking forward to as a loud voice called out to them from the huge, open sliding doors of the bay. Looking up, Leila saw that Phil was approaching them, wearing a very smug look on his face. She knelt down below the stretcher to wipe the legs and allow herself a heavy roll of her eyes; Phil was not one of her favorite people.
"Have a nice night, kiddies?" he asked loudly, leaning sideways against the ambulance with his wrinkled uniform shirt draped over his shoulder and a lit cigarette bouncing between his lips as he spoke. Matt shook his head, lobbing a dirty ball of damp paper towels into the trashcan on Leila's right.
"Not really," he answered somewhat hotly, casting a sideways look at Leila, who met his eyes halfway. It seemed he was not Phil's biggest fan either. She pursed her lips to keep from grinning, while Jay turned to hand over the radio and keys.
"We had a stabbing earlier at about six, then a fourteen year old girl having a Grand mal, then an old guy who broke his hip, then-" Jay cut himself off, taking a deep breath and rolling his eyes. "Yeah, it was a crazy night."
With the stretcher finally clean and pushed back into the ambulance, Leila and Matt joined the small, growing crowd near the front of the truck, where the rest of Phil's team had arrived and congregated. She caught only a few words of Phil's sentence as she stepped up between Jay and Matt.
"-barkin' and goin' on about how the Joker caused it," he finished with a derisive laugh and a glance at the young paramedic on his left. "I told him, it's really unlikely that the Joker would really wanna waste his time scaring some old fart to death, ya know what I mean? Like that dude's heart attack couldn't have been caused by him weighing about four-hundred pounds, right?"
More laughter erupted from the other team of medics, though Leila, Matt and Jay did not join them. Matt and Jay were looking at each other while Leila fought to keep her eyes on Phil, struggling to ignore the sick feeling that had just settled into her stomach. Someone else claimed to have seen the Joker? Her curiosity and intense desire to write this off as another crazy person's ramblings caused her to speak up, over the peals of laughter.
"Was that guy really crazy, or..." she began, giving a dismissive shrug. "I mean he probably just imagined it, right? Hallucinated, maybe?" Across from her, Phil and his colleague exchanged glances before they both shook their heads.
"Nah, I don't think so," Phil answered. "He seemed totally sane. Started gettin' real mad when I asked him if he was supposed to be on any psych meds. Said there was no way he imagined him."
At this, Leila remained silent, swallowing hard on the newly formed lump in her throat, while Matt nodded, folding his arms across his white t-shirt. "Our stabbing victim said the same thing..." he murmured. "...Said the Joker came up behind him and stabbed him. Got him about an inch below the splenic artery, but-"
"He was schizophrenic," Leila cut in abruptly, shaking her head. "He was having an episode, that's all. I mean-"
"Exactly," Phil took his turn to interrupt her and gave a dismissive wave of his hand. "I mean, seriously, why would the Joker be running around stabbing random bums and giving fatties heart attacks?" These words brought about another round of laughter from his team, which Leila reluctantly joined, purely out of relief that someone else agreed with her.
"If anything, it's a copy-cat," Jay said, once the laughing had died down again. "It's probably just some pathetic guy wearing paint and trying to catch some of the real Joker's publicity."
As the teams went their separate ways, seemed Jay's explanation was good enough for everyone but Matt, though Leila did not care what he thought, nor did she give him any time to voice his opinion before she took her leave through the firehouse door. She was dead tired and all she wanted at that point in time was to get home, where she could slide into a hot bath with a glass of wine, without so much as a single thought of stabbings or escaped psychopaths. Jay had been right. If the Joker wanted something to do with her, though she was absolutely positive he did not, he would have done it by then, and she would have already been lying in a ditch somewhere. At least I wouldn't have to worry about bills anymore, she thought with a short laugh, casting one half-glance into her rear view mirror. The back seat was empty, just as she knew it would be.
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A/N: I PROMISE! THIS IS THE LAST CHAPTER BEFORE THE FUN BEGINS! This chapter and the next were originally meant to go together but it got too long and would have taken you several hours to read it. So I split them up! Have no fear, the next chapter is already in the works and should be out in a timely manner. = ] I hope you enjoyed this one as it was admittedly pretty fun to write. Thanks so much to those who have favorited and reviewed this story so far! It is really encouraging to know that so many people are liking it thus far! Stay tuned for the next installment! -QoM