Author's Note:
This chapter has been updated in my attempts to correct errors and make the story more cohesive. The rest of this author's note is the original text. Thanks to all of you for reading!
I wrote this chapter faster than I expected and so I am sharing the joy and getting it out to you all sooner too. I hope you enjoy the way that this story is going. I really enjoy reviews and I love to hear all your ideas and theories about what is going to happen, so please don't hold back! Thanks again to all my lovely fans out there!
I do not own any of the Nolan characters used in this story; I only own my original characters and ideas. I am not making any money from this story.
Chapter Four – Otherside
Turn me on take me for a hard ride, Burn me out leave me on the otherside, I yell and tell it that, It's not my friend, I tear it down I tear it down, And then it's born again…
How long how long will I slide, Separate my side I don't I don't, I don't believe it's bad, Slit my throat, It's all I ever….
– Red Hot Chili Peppers
Tiana awoke feeling confused and disoriented. Slowly the events of the previous night returned to her and she was appalled to find that her weakness had forced Bane to sleep on the floor again, or at least she assumed that he had slept during the night. At that moment his guarded eyes were watching her with a bit of a glare in their fathomless depths. She slowly rose to her feet, unable to completely stop the whimper that fought to fall through her lips. Instead of a full on whimper, all that came out was a whisper of a sigh, but Tiana knew that Bane had heard it when his eyes widened momentarily.
She began doing her stretches, although she had to modify several of them so that her overstressed body could withstand the discomfort. She knew that they would be back for her today; they were having too much fun to stop now. She also knew that if she had any intention of protecting the man sitting across from her she would have to give them something. Either that, or take something away. She knew that he would be better prepared for what was sure to come if she could somehow reduce his pain. That idea got her mind to thinking and she slowly came up with a plan. A dangerous one, but she felt confident that she could succeed. She knew that she had to.
When she heard the sound of the men coming for her from down the corridor, she halted her exercise and gave Bane a hard look. "You must rest, Brother. Take advantage of this respite they have chosen to give you. It will not last. I will try to bring you something for the pain when I return."
Tiana's treatment went along in a manner that was very similar to the previous day, although they seemed to grow bored a little more quickly than before, and her treatment ended while her mind was still fully reeling from the effects of the drugs. It seemed as though the corners of the room were home to countless evil monsters, and the shadows that usually felt like home to her seemed only to hide untold evil. She moved apprehensively off the table, allowing the cuffs to be reapplied to her thin wrists and a guard started to lead her from the room.
Her eyes somehow managed to fall on the shelves that housed the analgesic drugs, and her mind managed to return to clarity for a moment as she remembered her plan. She inspected the possibilities before her and quickly concluded that her best choice was a pile of syringes that were prefilled with morphine. Her plan solidified in her mind as she neared the drugs that were needed so desperately by Bane. When she drew parallel to the shelves she allowed a deeply pained moan to flow from her lips and seemed to double over in pain, her cuffed hands flailing out in front of her for stability. When Dr. DeAngelo roughly pulled her back upright she had already gotten what she wanted, and allowed herself to be led from the room without further commotion. The joyous look that had covered the good Doctor's face had not escaped her mind however, and she shivered internally as they continued down the hall.
By the time they reached her cell, her mind was almost completely lost to the darkness around her. She only just barely clung to reality, knowing that she had a job that would have to be finished. Then she could slip into the cold darkness and let the monsters take her where they pleased. She could hardly care anymore.
She suddenly found herself in her cell, with the door closed behind her and her cuffs gone, and was rather bewildered by her lack of memory of the moments that had just passed. She glanced around the room and found what she was looking for almost immediately, though he was not where she had expected him to be. He was, in fact, exactly where she had left him. He was not, however, in the same condition that she had left him in. Sweat dripped slowly across his pained features and the scars that covered his face and head stood out, bright white against his deeply red skin. His eyes were closed, his breathing slow, and she assumed that he was sleeping, in spite of his state, or maybe because of it.
Her hand absently dropped down to the pocket of her scrubs and pulled out the eight syringes that she had been able to grab from the shelf. Moving toward Bane as if in a dream, she uncapped one of the needles and gently pushed the plunger forward until a tiny drop of fluid slipped from the tip. She crouched beside the large man and slammed the needle into his strong arm, shoving the plunger fully down in one fluid motion. She slowly removed the needle from his flesh, just letting it drop on the floor beside him, and then her body gracefully crumbled to the floor beside it. Closing her eyes and letting the monsters of her imagination take her, monsters that paled in comparison to the monsters of her real world.
Bane had lost all knowledge of the world around him. His whole world consisted of nothing but pain. It had been years since he had watched Talia make the jump, or maybe it had only been weeks. He no longer knew or cared, all he knew was the pain. He sat in the same place he always sat, a secluded corner near the maze of stairs that led to the climb that led to the jump; the jump that his Talia had made. The pride and love that he felt for her were the only two things that could take his mind away from the pain. He tried to picture her sweet little face and pushed back at the shadows that tried to claim her from him, the deep, dark shadows of his suffering.
He heard the shuffling footsteps of the prison doctor moving toward him and attempted to feign sleep, hoping that the doctor would just leave him alone. He opened his eyes when he realized that it was pointless to fight the older man. The doctor felt guilt for having left Bane in the condition that he was in, and so had taken it as his duty to force Bane to eat. To survive. The pain was too great to allow him to chew his food, so his diet consisted of a watery gruel. It did little to sustain him, but it kept him alive. Something that was becoming more annoying every day. Bane just simply didn't have the strength to fight life, however. The doctor spooned the tasteless mash into his broken mouth and he allowed the mush to slide down his agonized throat. He detested this daily ritual. He hated how weak it made him feel, like he was nothing more than a helpless infant. He knew that the only reason the other prisoners no longer bothered him was because he was not worth the effort.
His mind drifted off, allowing his only friends to join him in his misery. Pain and rage were always with him, even when he tried to push it all away and focus on his little Talia. He opened his eyes when he heard an unfamiliar noise from above him. His damaged body would not allow him to look, but he kept his eyes open, and listened for any hint of what was happening. His eyes widened when a minuscule man, dressed in all black slipped past him. It struck him as odd that he had long, red hair sticking out from under his cowl, but the thought slipped from his mind as the little man ran up the back of one of the prisoners, snapping the neck of the much larger man and continuing on to engage another opponent, all without a loss of stride.
Bane lost track of the little man and noticed several other men dressed in black, all fighting groups of prisoners that were foolish enough to challenge them. Many of them carried automatic weapons, and the sound of gunfire rang of the stone walls. He noticed that all the men were accomplished fighters, though none of them moved with the wild grace that the small man held.
And then there was a man crouched before him, and this man did not wear a cowl. Bane could see that the man's mouth was moving and he tried to focus hard enough to hear his words. The man's voice was fluid and warm, "Are you Bane? The one that sent my Talia to me?"
Bane could only nod his head in conformation, but he felt a boiling rage in his soul. How dare this man refer to Talia as his? Talia was and always would belong to Bane.
Bane woke up ready to fight when he felt the new and unexpected pain in his left arm. His right hand fisted up, preparing to crush whatever was hurting him, but his eyes fortunately focused before he struck. The source of his new pain would also be his solace, a syringe was firmly planted in his bicep and he could feel the warmth of the morphine spreading through his flesh. His eyes followed the small hand that held the syringe and traveled up her slender, white arm, stopping when he spotted the fresh blood that had spilled from her neck. As he watched she slowly pulled the needle from his arm, dropping it on the floor and then slowly falling down as well.
He had been unable to move for hours and it took several minutes for the morphine to provide the relief necessary for him to move. Though the pain was far from gone, it was relieved enough to allow him to function. Once he felt the pain starting to diminish, he slowly pulled himself to his feet and stretched his massive form. Then, crouching back down beside the sleeping form below him, he reached out and picked her up with a quiet grunt. She began to weakly struggle against him and he could feel that she was losing the strength she had shown him the night before already. He gently pulled her closer and murmured in her ear, "Easy, Little One. You are safe here." He could feel her muscles slowly soften in his arms and her breath became steady again.
He walked her to the bed and gently placed her sleeping body on its cold surface. As he tried to move away from her he felt a viciously strong hand grasp his wrist and her sweet voice fell on his hungry ears, "Brother, did the morphine help you?" He was taken aback that her question was one of concern for him, and not one of fear for herself. He studied her for a moment, still feeling that he was missing an important piece of the puzzle, and for some reason his mind went back to the dream he had been awakened from. He failed to see how it was relevant, however, and shook his head slightly to clear it.
He looked back down at the girl's face, surprised to see her eyes open and looking at him expectantly. "Yes, Little One. But you are foolish to give me something to halt my pain… Without that hindering me I could easily break your pretty little neck." He reached out and wrapped his large hand loosely around her neck to prove his point. She simply closed her eyes and nodded, with a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
He watched in amazement as her pale hand rose to his and gently slipped between his hand and her own neck, intertwining her fingers with his, gradually pulling his hand down to rest on her blood stained chest. "Of course, Brother, you could kill me if you so desired. I would even let you, but why would you kill your only ally in hell?" Her eyes looked into his, searching for what she seemed to already know as truth. And when she easily found it, she smiled lightly, rubbing the back of his hand with her small thumb.
Bane could only watch her in disbelief. How could this imp of a woman have him so well figured out already? And why in the hell was he feeling this way about her? His mind was in a whirl and suddenly everything began to feel so out of control. Why did he feel like he knew the woman lying beside him? He had pushed the compulsion aside as simply being a similarity to Talia, but he was feeling more and more certain that it was something more than that. He just couldn't put his finger on it. He thought back to the dream again, suddenly knowing that there was something important in it. He was thinking of all the images that he had seen inside his dream, his memory from the pit. None of the images made any sense in this world, at least none that he could see. That was until he remembered that flash of red hair on the tiny killer. His eyes drifted to the mass of curls surrounding the girl on the bed and he felt a small tickle of understanding, but he internally laughed at the insanity of it. She couldn't have been more than a small child at that time, and no child could have fought like that man.
Bane was pulled from his reverie by the sound of the slot in the door opening and the metal drawer sliding into their cell. He knew that it contained food of some kind and was tempted to just leave it as he had the previous days, but he knew that the morphine would only last another hour at best and that he had better take advantage of it while he could. He smoothly removed his hand from the Little One's and stood, swiftly striding to the door and collecting the tray of food. He glanced down at the contents of the tray and was not overly surprised to find that, while there were two of them in the cell, there was only food for one. He glanced at the bed, content to give all the food to her when she woke, only to find that she had sat up and was looking at him with her bright green eyes. He spoke, trying to ignore his own voice – a voice he now despised – "They brought you food. I ate earlier."
He watched her face and was not pleased when he saw her eyes darken momentarily. When he saw her mouth move in preparation of speech he expected her voice to come out cold, but he was bemused by the fact that it was still warm and smooth. "No Brother, they only deliver food once a day. And we will share that food, today and every day after. And then we will share this bed, it may be small, but so am I. We both need the small comfort it provides, and I imagine that we will need the shared warmth as well. It will snow tonight." He watched as she folded her legs beneath her and patted the bed next to her. He was extremely hesitant to do as she suggested, but he somehow knew that she would get her way, one way or another.
He crossed the room in two strides and lowered his bulky frame onto the thin mattress beside her, causing it to sag at his weight. He pushed the tray into her lap and leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes to show that the subject was closed as far as he was concerned. His eyes snapped open to the unexpected sound that bubbled up from the girl next to him, from his Little One. She was laughing.
Bane lay on the bed wide awake, in spite of the late hour. Though he had to admit that the woman beside him was right about the comfort provided by their combined body heat – it was incredibly cold in the cell – he was rather uncomfortable otherwise. The morphine had worn off soon after he had finished eating and his body was trying to destroy itself again. Though it wasn't as bad as it had been before, he knew that it wouldn't be very long before he was nearly comatose on the floor again. He simply couldn't allow that to happen, he knew that he had to be strong. He needed to maintain his strength so that when the opportunity came for him to leave, he would be able to.
He tried to shift his weight into a more comfortable position, but when his body would rub up against the sleeping woman behind him she would tense up and whimper in her sleep. He was familiar with the behavior that she was showing. His Talia had done the same thing for a short time, right before he had been forced from the League of Shadows. He knew what had caused this behavior in Talia, and that knowledge had nearly destroyed him. He had made sure that the men that had caused Talia's suffering had died. In fact, he had killed them himself after being excommunicated, and their deaths had been nothing short of horrific. It had been a much more difficult road to travel when he had worked to pull Talia from the pain and fear that had consumed her.
He sat up on the edge of the bed and looked down at the woman beneath him. He was saddened to know that she had almost certainly suffered the same fate that his Talia had, but he also knew that he would be unable to help her find her way out of the darkness. His entire being belonged to only one woman, and he knew that she would find him soon. He detested the thought that she would have to come for him, rescue him from yet another prison. He still intended to try to come up with a plan for his own escape, but he felt confident that she would come for him if he was unable to. She always had.
His mind was brought back to the woman that was now beside him, a woman that he intended to remove from this hell, if he was able. He and Talia always needed loyal companions, and he felt that she had proven herself as such. He watched as she shifted in her sleep, rolling on her side so that she was facing him. She lay still for a moment and then reached out her hand, seeking his missing body. He sighed with frustration, knowing that he was unable to help her in the way she really needed, but unable to leave her alone to the blackness.