well, sorry for the long wait. thanks so much to the wonderful people who Reviewed. they make me so happy.
this was beta read by the awesome Birchtail. i say this every time, but thanks soooo much for beat reading this for me.
other then that, i hope you enjoy the latest chapter of Shadow Hood~!
Shadow Hood
Chapter 3
The Red Bird Flies
~Gotham City Hospital~
Three days..
Three days until Jason finally showed sings of waking up.
Three long, horrid days of torturous waiting.
Bruce, Dick, Damian, and Tim stood in the waiting room again, in the late afternoon of the third day. Damian and Tim had been sent home to sleep, but Dick had gone home only once, to check on them, and Bruce not at all. He had barely moved from the bedside the whole time, leaving only for necessities.
Elizabeth stepped in for a routine check.
"I'm going to check how he's..."
She glanced up at the heart rate monitor, the breathing monitor, then back down at the boy, and a smile suddenly lit up her face. "He's waking up! But you will have to leave for a minute so he won't be upset. I'm sorry." She shooed the family out of the room, and they uncomfortably hovered around the leaned door while Elizabeth watched Jason wake up. Bruce was unreasonably excited, so excited that he could barely stand to be outside the room. But for this once, he wouldn't complain about being shoved over to the 'kids' table'. It was supposed to be for Jason's good.
Suddenly, Bruce's ears pricked, and the boys crowded closer to the door as they heard the sounds of panicked moaning, rapidly escalating and growing in volume, from behind the door.
In a split second, it was a scream, and Dick was the first into the room. Damian followed not far behind, and Bruce barely managed to squeeze in before Tim.
What they found horrified them. Jason had started trying to get the tubes that connected him to monitors and IV drips out of his arms, and Elizabeth was having a hard time holding him down so his wounds wouldn't reopen. Bruce could see her glancing over at the table next to her, which held a full syringe of morphine in the case that something like this would happen. This was fairly common occurrence in Gotham hospitals, and Jason was a prime example of the rule.
"Let me go! Why am I here? Let me the hell go!" he shouted at the top of his lungs-which was louder than they would have guessed, seeing that he still had one collapsed.
"Jason, calm down!" Dick shouted, moving closer to the bed to hold him down. Elizabeth was losing hold, and she needed to reach the syringe.
"NO! NO! LET ME GO! I HAVE TO GET TO HER! THEY WILL KILL HER! LET ME GO!" Jason shouted, struggling against his restraints.
"Jason, calm down! We are trying to help you!" Damian yelled back, worry clearly written on his face in the place of the habitual arrogant disgust.
Jason struggled even harder, seeming as if he had not even heard Damian. Perhaps he hadn't.
Damian stepped up to the table with the syringe on it and picked it up, giving it to the doctor. A little of the disgust was back now-what kind of doctor couldn't do something as simple as sedate a rowdy patient?
Elizabeth plunged the syringe into Jason's shoulder and pressed down the plunger. Within seconds, his body went still, and his voice trailed off as his eyes closed.
"What happened?" Bruce growled. Dr. Bosworth stepped away from the bed, dropping the syringe back on the table and giving Damian a nod.
"I-I don't know. I don't think he would have sustained any brain damage from his stay in the hospital; maybe it has something to do with what got him here in the first place."
Bruce's frown only deepened. He stepped up to the bed and put a hand on Jason's still, white forehead, shaking his head.
You let it happen again.
Elizabeth began checking up on him, making sure none of him wounds had reopened. She sighed in relief when she found none.
But the hope that they had earlier, that Jason might wake sane? Gone.
Once again, they stood by Jason's bed, worried thoughts running through all their heads. Bruce couldn't sit anymore; he felt like he had sat forever in that chair, wishing, wishing that Jason would wake up.
What would happen when he woke up this time?
Suddenly, Jason started to move around in his bed, his head moving from side to side as if he were having a nightmare.
Jason lay in an empty warehouse. He could see himself in this dream, and he could also see his surroundings-the boxes, stacked up high, some of the slats broken. The concrete, hard and slick and rough at the same time. And the door, a little door at the opposite side of the warehouse from where he was.
Someone came in through it. It wore purple, and had a face of a disturbing white color. It was the Joker.
He instinctively cringed away, but couldn't help himself. He was already injured, and it was only now that he realized he'd been wishing and hoping for the Joker not to come back.
The laughing villain made a beeline for Jason. Then he raised the crowbar he seemed to always hold, and used it to strike Jason, again and again, in a numbing rhythm of cruelty. He could feel his lip split, then his skin bruised and broke under the cold metal as well. A few seconds later, he knew his other lung had collapsed, and now he felt as if he would die.
"At least the other boy wonder had some manners," grumbled the Joker. But this time, it wasn't even provoked.
He knew what was supposed to happen now; he was supposed to be numb and the blows would stop hurting. Then maybe he'd be passed out when the bombs exploded.
He felt it taking him over... the numbness... the pain was gone... the Joker evaporated in a thin vapor of smoke.
It was only when his hart monitor picked up speed that they really knew what it meant to worry.
Beep beep beep beepbeepbeepbeep
It was going so very fast so suddenly; Elizabeth didn't even have time to try to fix something.
Suddenly, the wild pattern on the screen turned to a flat, long line, and the machine emitted one long, long beeeeeeeeep.
Jason's heart had stopped.
Doctor Elizabeth pushed a button on the side of Jason's bed repeatedly, and within seconds, nearly six nurses entered the room.
She herded the family out of the room, then rushed back to Jason's side. This time she shut the door.
Damian poked an electronic listening 'bug' into the room under the door (only Damian would bring such a thing to a hospital) and turned up the little speaker outside.
"Clear!," was the only word they could make out amongst the buzz beyond the heavy oaken door.
Panic seeped into the hearts of all.
Jason had to make it out of this, and not only for his own sake. He couldn't die again.
Bruce felt useless. Just like the last time, Jason was dying and he couldn't do one damn thing.
Memories of him holding the motionless body of Jason flooded his mind, and he frowned hard, trying to shake them off. But they were very persistent, especially at a time like this, when his guard against them was down.
It seemed like forever that the nurses and doctor bustled about inside the room, and the family outside finally got tired of listening to Damian's bug and leaned against the walls next to the door.
But when the endless, long beep of the flatline changed to weaker, smaller bursts of sound, they knew that Jason had been stabilized. A collective sigh of relief escaped the waiting group, and Damian, not all that surprisingly after today, was the first to knock on the door.
Elizabeth cracked it, not wide enough for Damian to get his foot in. Annoyance creased the boy's forehead at that-not many people were intelligent enough to avoid the easiest way to get a door open.
"He'll be fine now. He just needs lots of rest, and no, I'm afraid you can't see him at the moment. In a few hours, maybe." The door closed again, and Elizabeth disappeared inside to look after Jason.
A passing nurse gave them a strange look, and they finally stood up and headed for the waiting room. It wasn't like they were using Damian's bug anymore; there really wasn't anything to be heard.
And so here they were. As they sat in the plain metal-frame-and-cushion chairs in the waiting room, rain could still be heard. It was almost as if Gotham was crying for Jason; weeping for his life, and mourning for his long-dead innocence.
One by one, the Bat's family left the room, either going to the nearby bathroom, or getting something to eat at a vending machine (Damian, that is).
Two hours later, when they'd all returned to the waiting room and were either dozing or worrying in the waiting room, Elizabeth gave them a smile in passing and finally spoke.
"You can see him now."
Her shift was probably over; and she looked like she deserved a rest. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her hair was disheveled. Bruce stood and put a friendly, grateful hand on her shoulder before going out the door and down the hall to Jason's room.
Dick and Tim followed close behind, with Damian trailing a bit behind them all, a Snickers bar in one hand. Bruce opened the door slowly so they wouldn't wake him if he was sleeping. Excitement and hope-an unreasonable amount of hope-filled their hearts.
When the door was all the way open, there worst dreams came true.
Dread replaced the hope in their hearts, and a sudden adrenaline rush-not of the good kind-took the place of the excitement of a few seconds earlier. Their happiness was gone.
The window was open, the curtains around it already dark with the rain's moisture.
The bed was empty, the covers tousled and tossed carelessly to its foot and dragging on the faux hardwood of the floor.
Jason was gone.
He had escaped, and through a second story window….
Cliffhanger! lol, want to know what happens next? me too! we have so much in common :D
haha, ill up-date as soon as i can, in the mean time, tell me what you think of the story so far in the little review box below VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV VVV