Has anyone else been having trouble with documents? Because I have. For some reason when I uploaded this the letters were mixed up and bold in-and it was missing over a thousand words, no idea why. Hopefully when I upload this it doesn't look like that, *fingers crossed!*

Chapter Eleven:

Unusual colors, again

After telling the clerk at the front desk that I planned to stay for two more weeks- a proposition which earned me a brown-toothed grin- and being forcefully shoved into the room by Julian Stone/David Ewell/Richard Archer/whatever-the-hell-his-name-was, Vikki and I made the bed; the quilt looked cleaner than the sheets so we climbed on top of the quilt and tried to get some sleep, but failed and instead stared at the ceiling all night, until, at about 3:30 in the morning, Vikki broke the silence.

"What do we do?" She whispered.

"What he says, of course." I replied.

"But then we'd be aiding a criminal by disguising him; we could be arrested!"

"Nah, you won't have done anything; you'll get off scot free, and I think they'll be pretty sympathetic with. Besides, it's better to get arrested later than die now." Vikki sighed, nodded, and stared back up at the ceiling, we stayed that way until about 7:00, when Julian Stone burst through the door.

"Mornin', sleeping beauties!" He shouted, I shielded my eyes from the chink of light shining through the door, and pretended that I had been asleep, arching my back in a catlike stretch. "Come on! Wake up and smell the black medicine!" I turned on the bedside lamp and saw that he was carrying a Starbucks bag and two cups of coffee. Maybe he wasn't so bad after all.

Vikki and I sat up and he forced the coffee cups into our hands, along with breakfast sandwiches. As we gulped the scalding coffee down our throats, Stone paced around the room explaining the days itinerary. "We're all going to go down the street to that sewing shop, you're going to buy the things you need, and then we're going to come back and you" he pointed at me, "dearie, are going to work, and you" he pointed at Vikki "will stay quiet, got it?" We nodded, "alright, you're done eating, let's go."

…

'The Rag Barrel' as the shop was called, might have been the smallest sewing shop in town, but it was surprisingly clean and neat, especially considering its location; I would have visited it more often if Hoover Blvd. wasn't so questionable. A sweet lady at the counter helped me find everything we needed, despite the fact that the entire time we were there Stone had his hands pressed against the napes of our necks. Sweet, but not very smart. The gold nylon and elastic were easy enough to find, but a pattern for a pair of pantaloons was an entirely different story. We searched through old boxes and shelves and finally found patterns for a jester costume under "children's Halloween". It would have to do. The only sewing machine they had for sale was an old, standing one and close to being an antique; the needle was rusty and crooked, and the pedal had broken in half. The woman did give me a sizable discount, but I was still very worried about working with it. As with the pattern, it would just have to do.

After hiring a truck to drive the sewing machine back to the hotel and paying the clerk to let us bring it inside the hotel, I sat down at the machine and got down to business. I vaguely remember asking Stone if I could use the phone so that I could cancel my outing with Dahlia, and him saying "of course not" and telling me to sit back down. It took hours just to prepare for the creation of the costume. First, I had to adjust the pattern so it would fit a different type of body; the pattern was plus-sized and meant for a child of around twelve years of age. Unfortunately for me, my client was a 6-foot-3, thirty something man, and –though he was very muscular- he was by no means plus-sized. I asked Stone for a long piece of wax paper and marker so that I could do this (if you're a tailor or thinking of becoming one don't do that by the way, just search online. In my position though, I didn't exactly have the time so I just had to improvise, lesson to be learned here, don't ever tailor suits for criminals at large). Once I had adjusted the pattern to the point where I could feasibly use I set to work putting marks on the fabric, which was difficult as Stone hadn't provided me with any pins. By the time the pattern was drawn and the fabric cut, it was already dark. It was then that the real work began. My fingers flew, slide, turn, stitch, finish, clip, lift, down, slide, turn, stitch, clip… There I sat for three days straight, not eating, or sleeping, just working.

…

The sun was just beginning to shine through the dirty window, I yawned and sat up, discovering that I had fallen asleep at the sewing machine. I looked around the room, Vikki was curled in a ball on the bed, sleeping fitfully, pieces of discarded cloth sat at my feet. I lifted the needle from the fabric, and checked over my work. I hadn't poked any holes into it, which was a surprise considering the fabric seemed so delicate, the stitches weren't too big and they didn't tangle anywhere, the sleeves and legs stretched a good amount, it was done. I looked behind me at the clock, it read 5:20 AM; it was only then that I realized just how long I'd been working. I stretched my arms and stood; damn my legs were stiff. After tiptoeing past Vikki, I knocked on the door lightly, "Stone?" I asked, no answer, "Sto-one?" I opened the door just a crack, and found Julian Stone sleeping on the floor outside of the room. I wondered briefly whether I should wake Vikki and leave, but decided against it. As I had no idea what he would do if I woke him up, I chose to stay in the room until he came in; the man had killed multiple people after all. I did a final pre-flight check of the costume before hanging it up in the closet, as to make sure it wouldn't get wrinkled before the "Jester" came to get it. Stone finally walked in at 7:00, before he could shout any of his standard morning greetings, I cut him off. "Stone!" I called as he walked into the room.

He jumped, "yes, Sarah?" He asked, gaining his composure,

"Call your boss, his order's ready."

…

I slept for most of that day until Vikki shook me awake at 6:00. "Sarah! Sarah! Wake up!" She whispered urgently. When I opened my eyes I became aware of two things, one; I was starving, (no surprise as I hadn't eaten in three days), and two, we were not alone in that room.

In front of me stood the Jester, Stone and two thugs who I didn't recognize. "Sarah" 'the Jester' said pleasantly, "you finished my order early?"

"Yes" I replied, climbing off of the bed and walking to the closet, I opened the door and pulled out the completed costume, pointy shoes and all. He looked over it for a moment, and walked into the bathroom. "Huh?" Asked Vikki.

"I guess he's trying it on." I muttered. We waited a few minutes before he stepped out, my jaw almost dropped. There wasn't much wrong with the costume per say; it fit pretty well though the sleeves could have been a little looser and the hat looked a little big, it was just that the wearer planned to commit crimes in it-and live. "W-well?" I asked,

"Well done, Sarah!" He said, beaming. He fished around in the pockets of his coat (which he had hung up) and handed me a fat envelope, this guy is… I tried to think of a word to describe him, and surprisingly the words road kill! Came to mind.

From then on I classified all of Gotham's costume-wearing criminals in four categories;

Big Shots (the "Monarchs of the Underworld" so to speak; when a rogue commits a high profile crime, they usually become a Big Shot for a while, maybe a month, but later become Gents or B-Rollers as public interest dies down, it's only criminals such as the Joker who stay there for long),

Gents (people usually described as "gentler rogues", most of the time they don't keep Gotham's children awake at night with fear, but people still knew not to mess with them, ex. the Riddler),

B-Rollers (up and coming rogues that haven't made a splash yet or rogues who have faded into obscurity; I can't think of an example of one of those who you might have heard of), and

Road Kill (rogues who are absolutely hopeless and will probably end up dead or arrested inside two weeks, 98.3% of my customers fit in this category).

"Pleasure doing business with you." He shook my hand and gestured for his men to leave, Stone wiggled his fingers goodbye as he left, I was very tempted to flip him off.

The door shut, Vikki and I stood in silence for several minutes, and she turned to me, "we, are never staying in a hotel, again."

…

We checked out that evening, I ended up letting the concierge keep the money for the full two weeks though, it belonged to 'the Jester' anyway and I felt kind of sorry for him, he didn't seem too bad, even though he had a crap job. We decided to clean up the fabric scraps and leave the sewing machine there, it was too heavy to bring back to the hotel and we didn't have a car; oh well, I thought, I'll leave the next guests to mull over the mystery of the sewing machine…assuming this room ever gets any more, which it probably wouldn't. We hailed a cab and were back in our apartment by seven o'clock. The first thing I did was go to the phone and call Dahlia.

She picked up the phone almost immediately, "hello?"

"Dahlia?" I asked, "It's Sarah, listen I-"

"Sarah!" She shrieked, "where were you, I waited in the restaurant an hour for you, I tried calling you, are you okay, what happened?"

"Listen, I'm okay, I just-"I thought up a lie quick "-had a family emergency."

Dahlia paused, "go on."

"My, mother...was taking care of my- stepsister's, second cousin's… daughter… Leanne! And found out she couldn't do it herself-Leanne's high maintenance, so she called me. I went over to help, I love Leanne, but I don't own a cell phone or a car and… the power went out… so I couldn't call!" I didn't have a stepsister nor did I know anyone named Leanne-I knew the response was shaky before it came out of my mouth, but she seemed to buy it.

"Oh…" she said quietly, "sorry to hear that."

"Listen, I'm really busy with something right now, can I call you back?"

"…Okay…"

"Great, bye!" I hung up the phone before she replied.

Just as I was about to sit down, a scream rang out from the living room, "SarAAAAH!" Shrieked Vikki.

I left the foyer as quickly as I could, rushing to her side, "what is it Vikki?"

She pointed a quivering finger at the balcony door, "look…" She squeaked.

Confused, I walked over to the door and opened it, I gasped.

There, standing on my balcony, was Batman. And he did not look pleased.