Sorry for the delay, we moved and it's been hectic. Thank you very much for the reviews, the follows, and the favorites! I hope this is worth the wait, and I can't make promises, but I will try to be more timely! Thank you for your patience, and next time I write a story, I'm just gonna have it finished before I post it! ;D
Chapter Six
Life went on for Sophie, uneventful and without a hint of danger. Sophie didn't think that it was the lack of danger that left it hard to get up in the mornings, that made sleep feel like it had warm comforting claws in her that never wanted to let go.
Some mornings she woke up feeling like a zombie, just trudging through her day, mindless, on autopilot just to get the basics done. Other days found her waking up hot and bothered and racing around her world like she'd taken a double shot of an espresso.
On one such day Sophie found herself at work, and a thirteen hour day gone with still too much day left with just to herself. She was shoving her arms into her sweatshirt and exiting the ER when she heard her name being called. Sophie turned and paused as Dr. Romalotti hurried up behind her, pulling his white lab coat closer to himself.
"Hello Sophie!" he said with a cheerfulness that she couldn't mimic.
"Hey Dr. Rome," she sighed, and moved forward, looking up at the sky, gauging if the snow would finally fall tonight.
"Sophie, are you alright? You're not your usual self, you don't seem to smile anymore," he asked, reaching to put an arm around her shoulders.
One corner of her lips twitched up and she shrugged.
"I also find it odd that when I've requested your assistance in the private sector my request was met with quite a threatening glare. Care to explain?"
Romalotti's voice was jovial, but his eyes were curious. "Have you finally gotten some sense into that head of yours, girl?"
"Francis," Sophie grumbled and looked away, just in time to see a shiny black car pull up to the curb.
Sophie was silent as Francis stepped forward and cursed, "Damn, there goes my night. Ah well, at least I'm off of my shift, no needing anyone to cover me now. Ah girl, I"m glad you got some sense, but their little wars are escalating, and I could really use your talent," he lamented.
The door opened silently, but no one emerged.
Sophie looked over the physician's shoulder and into the darkness of the cab of the car. She couldn't see them, but could feel the heat of those brown eyes upon her. Years seemed to pass, but Sophie came back to herself when a snowflake landed on her nose.
She blinked away some drift, and hugged herself tightly, moving in the direction of her apartment with a side step.
"I don't know if I got any more sense, Dr. Romalotti, or if I just found our clientele to be...unpleasant, poor company."
"I guess that means you won't be joining me, eh Sophe?" Romalotti said with a slight laugh, already waving her away and moving towards the car.
Sophie huffed, her puff of air coming out as a white cloud and she turned before the pull she was feeling could take over.
Time went on and it became almost easy to live as if he'd never re-entered her life and left it again. Then just as suddenly, he dropped back into it.
Sophie was sleeping when she heard it, the dull thump of someone falling into the wall. It woke her up, but the sound was vaguely familiar as occasionally drunk residents came home and stumbled along the hall to their home.
Sophie's eyes found her alarm clock and blinked sluggishly at the numbers and then her lids closed back swiftly. Just as sleep began to reclaim her, another thump sounded, but this one seemed to be at her door. Her eyes opened again, and she listened again, her head nodding as she drifted back to sleep. Another thump. Sophie sighed and slid out of bed, grabbing a robe to cover her pajamas and sliding her feet into her slippers before daring to walk on the hardwood floor. When she went to her door flipped on the front room light and looked out the peephole, there was no one in the hall.
Sophie yawned and ran a hand through her sleep-tangled ponytail as she looked this way and that down the hall through the glass.
Just as she was about to walk away, another thump came, and this time it definitely came from her door and made her jump back.
"Hello? Who's there?" she called, looking through the peephole again. Another thump.
Sophie weighed her options and then cracked the door, grateful for the security chain. Her green eyes found no one at eye level, so she leaned to the side and looked farther down to see a figure in black slumped against her door. She saw his bald head and quickly sprang into motion.
"Oh Victor," she fretted, closing the door and unlocking the security chain before falling to her knees as the door opened and he slumped backward farther. His eyes were closed in pain and his skin was clammy.
Sophie bit her lip and then made a hasty decision to wrap her arms under his own and pulled him farther into her apartment, closing the door once his feet were out of the way. She opened his suit coat and found his black button down underneath slick with blood. From far away she heard herself making a sound in the back of her throat, a whine of worry. Hurriedly she unbuttoned the shirt to find a bullet hole to the right of his sternum, and another just above his right collarbone.
Quickly she stood and went into the closet just to left of the front door and opened it, retrieving her spare stethoscope. The lung sounds on the left side of his chest were clear, but labored, and the right was diminished. Sophie set the stethoscope off to the side, and with a quick touch to his face, she stumbled to her feet again to grab her cellphone and a few towels and blankets hurriedly.
Moments later she was beside him again, sliding a towel behind his head and throwing a towel onto his chest and applying pressure with one hand while the other dialed Francis Romalotti's number.
"Sophie, Jesus, it's two in the morning, wh-"
"Francis, it's Victor, he just showed up at my door. He's been shot, and I need your help with him," she beseeched, hearing her own voice, full of terror from far away.
"What? Wha...okay, okay. Give me a moment, where do you live again?" he asked, and she could hear him fumbling about on his end of the line.
"I think I can get him down to the street, if you can be there to pick us up and take us to the place by the river," Sophie stated, and then recited her address before hanging up the phone and shoving it into her robe pocket.
Leaning forward, Sophie placed both of her hands, bloody as they were on either side of his pale face.
"Victor, Victor please, we need to get downstairs to meet Francis," she pleaded. His face was slackening, and she felt her eyes burn, her throat tight and painful. Sophie leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his slack lips, his hairless brow, his cheekbones.
Not this way, please God, not this way, Sophie thought, and his eyelids fluttered and rose, brown eyes staring at her in silence.
"Help me stand you up," she whispered, and after a moment, he nodded slightly, then staggered to his feet with her help. Sophie threw a blanket around his shoulders to cover the sight of his blood chest, and snatched her purse from the counter, shoving it over her arm. Victor swayed and she wrapped an arm around his waist, and feeling the gun in his belt, she quickly withdrew it and placed it on her counter. Ignoring the blood on her floor and the bloody towels, she ushered them out the door and locked it behind them before half pulling him down the hall to the elevators.
Once inside with the doors closed she readjusted her grip on his waist, and used her free hand to press to his chest wound.
"Listen you, you're not leaving me like this. You hear me stubborn man? You're not dying on me," she snapped at him without real fire and momentarily rested her head on his chest before the elevator ding sounded and the doors opened.
His legs which had been doing a fairly good job at holding him up began to buckle and stumble, and Sophie stopped to adjust his arm farther around her shoulders and once again readjust her grip on his waist before she dragged him out the front door. Snow was falling, and his shallow, fast breaths were painfully evident in the cold weather. It seemed like forever when a white sedan pulled up to the curb with a squeal of tires.
Doctor Romalotti emerged from the driver's seat and hurried to open the back passenger door. Sophie hurried them over to the vehicle and tried as gently as she could to push Victor in and onto the seat.
She heard Francis cursing at the blood on them as she crawled in after him and the door closed behind her.
"Stay with me Victor," she said firmly, placing firm pressure on his chest with one hand and stroking his brow the other.
His eyes opened again, and blinked at her in silence. They closed, heavily, and then opened again much later.
"I can't get through your window anymore, Sophie," he words came out in a tired mumble.
Sophie smiled silently, and pressed a kiss to the side of his face. He had come to her when he was gravely injured, and maybe he couldn't love her as any typical man would love a woman, but didn't his actions speak just as loud as words?
The door was opening again, and Francis was ushering them out, but they needed significant help this time. Between the two of them, Sophie and Dr. Rome managed to sling Victor's arms over their shoulders and drag him into the make-shift clinic.
What happened next was a whirlwind of movement, they got Victor onto the surgical table and Sophie was stripping off her robe, tossing it out of the way as she pulled her hair back severely and then scrubbed in, movements jerky and hasty.
They worked on him and they worked, Romalotti issuing orders and drug dosages, the blink of bullets falling onto a tray...Sophie's ears took in the Doctor's orders, but she was acutely aware of the beeping of the vitals cart next to her, the quiet hiss of the oxygen as it entered his nose. She started IVs, fluids and antibiotics that she titrated manually.
'You're going to live, you're going to live,' she promised him with all her heart.
"Ya wanna hide from me, eh? You wanna hide like a coward? Like a pussy?" His dad slurred, and with a thunderous clap, a large backhand sent his mother to the ground at their feet. Cornelius and Victor Zsasz looked down between them at Mona, her porcelain face various shades of violet, brown and yellow as she lay against the linoleum unmoving. Cornelius hocked up phlegm and spit in her direction as he sprang over her and grabbed Victor by his right arm, dragging him through the house and out the backdoor.
"Letting your mother hide you behind her skirts, what a spineless little shit," his dad raged as they stumbled along a winding path, "Next time I call you, you're gonna come out and face me like a man, ya hear?"
Victor blinked as spittle sprayed across his face, and the smell of his father's cheap beer rushed into his nose. There was a loud creak as Victor ran his free hand over his face, but before he had a chance to see what was happening he was being thrown forward, into a painfully sharp, coppery smelling hell-hole. Victor tried to spring out of the rusted fridge in the Zsasz backyard, but with a large fist to his jaw he was sent reeling back in, watching as the night disappeared from his view as his father closed the door, laughing at his spunk and cursing his idiocy. 'No way out, no way out' Victor panicked, and reached forward blindingly to put all his weight against the door.
"Hey!" his dad boomed, "You keep it down in there ya little shit and think about what you've done! When you get outta there you're gonna face me like a man when I call for ya!"
Victor paused and waited, listening for his father's exit, but heard nothing. After a few moments of silent, just when he thought it was safe to try again he heard the sound of one of his father's chains from the shed, clunking and banging as it was threaded and wound around the fridge. Then the sound of the lock, and the deafening bang it made as it landed against the outside of the fridge.
Cornelius gave the appliance a kick for good measure, and then moments later the screech of the back door slamming closed.
Victor rammed into the front and rammed into it again, but he was simply too small, too weak and he felt his eyes burn with tears. Nobody could see him cry in the dark, so he shouted and he cried and pushed, kicking out here and there, thankful for his ratty old sneakers, since his hands and arms were getting sliced open with every movement. The backyard was a maze of Cornelius' forgotten and abandoned fixer upper projects, fridges that he had lugged home from the shop declaring there was still life left in the old ice box. Years of neglect and the elements had turned them into petri dishes of nature, but also fun hiding places for two kids just trying to be kids and forget the ugliness of the world they lived in.
Sophie!
Just the thought of the blond haired girl next door made Victor's heart soar, and he shouted as loud as he could "Sophie! Sophie!"
But there was no reply.
Victor gnashed his teeth and tried again, but still nothing. He began to feel lightheaded and folded himself into a cramped seated position. He lost track of time, and even fell asleep, offered a modicum of comfort that he would hear Cornelius trying to break into the fridge if his rage willed it. At some point he might have heard his mother's quiet voice a whisper on the wind, repeating his name as she tried not to wake her husband, but when he was able to pull himself out of sleep, he heard nothing, and then he became aware that he had to use the bathroom. It was horrible and it was shameful and he cried some more since no one could hear him and know his shame.
He did not know how much time passed, since he kept dozing, and seemed to be harder to wake up each time. His breaths were shallow, and although he had thought it was because the smell in here was disgusting, his foggy mind supplied oxygen, or the lack thereof, and Victor realized he wouldn't still be alive if there wasn't some kind of leak or opening in the old fridge letting it in.
Victor…..Victor…
Sophie…Sophie!
Victor willed his eyelids open and stayed utterly still as he listened.
"Victor, Victor?!" her voice squeaked quietly.
"Sophie!" Victor yelled as loud as he could, and pushed against the fridge, slammed his hands against the front.
"Victor!" he heard her again, and so he made more commotion.
"I'm here!" he screamed so loud his throat hurt.
Then the door jiggled, but did not move.
"I'm here! I'm here!" her voice was warbling with tears, and he heard her trying to open the door, tugging on the chain.
"Where is the key?!"
And Victor's heart fell….on his key ring, on his dad's key ring…
"He has it, Sophe, he has it," and Victor hung his head and gritted his teeth.
She didn't stop though, he heard her slamming something on the lock, over and over, and he heard her crying and hitting her hands against the door.
Sophie, little Sophie, his only friend in the world.
"Victor, Victor, I'll be right back. I promise, Victor, I'll be right back. I'm not gonna leave you in there Victor, I'll be right back!"
Sophie, Sophie, little hero Sophie.
Then there was silence…..unbearable silence. Then there was a commotion and a clatter.
Victor froze inside the fridge, what if...what if Cornelius got Sophie…? Every hair on his body stood on end, and his ears strained to hear a muffled scream, the snap of bone, or the slap of a hand against flesh.
"SOPHIE!" he screamed, and pounded his fists on the front. Then, the chain on the fridge rattled.
Victor's hands snapped back just as the door swung open.
His brown eyes blinked painfully at the sudden intrusion of light and he raised a hand to block the sun.
"Jesus," he heard a woman curse, and after blinking a few times he lowered his hand to set eyes upon his savior.
Sophie looked very similar to her Aunt Carol, if you just twisted her into a woman whose face was lined with bitterness and smoke lines around her lips. The woman still had her nurse uniform from the hospital on, and a cigarette was precariously perched on her dry, lipstick stained lips. Graying blond hair was pulled back into a severe bun that pulled at the skin around her eyes and only served to make her seem older.
In her hands was his father's bolt cutter, and next to her was Sophie whose green eyes were large with tears and fear, and her hands were wringing in front of her, smeared with blood.
Victor looked to his right and his father's shed was open, the door swinging in a slight breeze and he emerged from the fridge, unsure and ashamed.
Sharp, thin fingers grabbed Victor's chin and angled his face up at his savior as she took in the bruise on his jaw, his sunken cheeks, and lower over his soiled clothing, his bloody hands.
Her free hand plucked the cigarette off her lips, flicked the accumulation of ashes somewhere and then she cursed again. Her hand dropped away from his face, and then her eyes went to his rickety old yellow house. She was biting her lip and then turning to face him again.
"C'mon kid, let's get you cleaned up."
With that she dropped the bolt cutter onto the ground and turned back to her house. Sophie's little hand slipped into his own, and her eyes never strayed from his face and she supplied a smile and a squeeze of hand, and although he felt like had been laid bare before the world, she looked at him with nothing but kindness and love and he felt no shame.
When he emerged from Carol Summers' shower, he put on an old flannel shirt of hers and a pair of flannel pajama pants while his clothes washed in the machine.
A roast beef sandwich, a bowl of soup and a large cup of milk sat on the table as he found his way to their kitchen.
"You sure know how to keep secrets, just like that mother of yours," he heard Carol mutter to Sophie on the other side of the kitchen table. There was a snip of scissors as she finished wrapping Sophie's hands, then the scrape of chair on the linoleum as Carol moved to sit next to Victor. Sophie was silent, but her eyes were on his and a small smile was on her face. Sophie's aunt cleaned the cuts on his palms and knuckles with something that stung terribly and then also wrapped his hands in bandages, giving he and Sophie matching mummy-like hands.
"Mona's been a good neighbor to me. So I'm gonna let her know you're here real quiet like, and then we're going to get you and Ms. Sophe here a tetanus shot. Now eat up, it ain't fit for a king, but it'll do ya," said the haggard looking woman as she finished his wrappings She crushed the butt of her cigarette into an ashtray, and then lit another before she moved to head out the front door.
"Maybe it'll be better now?" whispered Sophie, but when Victor didn't reply, only picked up his sandwich, she slid off her chair and then found some cookies in the cupboard and brought them over. He ate silently, his gaze on her bandaged hands.
But it never did get better...it just ended, violently.
Victor woke with a start, feeling needles in his arms and a cold table at his back. Sophie's face was above his own, and he felt her warm, gloved hand on his left shoulder. Her green eyes were dark with exhaustion, dark circles around them that only made them shine like emeralds in her skull.
"It's okay, it's okay," she comforted, and her gloves as well as her Gotham University shirt were caked in blood, her shirt with old blood, gloves with fresh.
"Dr. Rome and I are getting you fixed up, just hang in there, and rest, please."
Her voice was tired, and her eyes were full of worry.
"Falcone….Maroni," he muttered, eyes turning to the side to find the doctor.
"I've already contact Carmine, he knows where you're at," Francis said tiredly, and Victor felt a tug in his chest, through a fog of drug induced anesthesia. He wished there was pain….he wouldn't mind it, other than this disconnected feeling…
"Rest Mister Zsasz, listen to your nurse," the doctor said from far away.
Sluggishly his eyes rolled to Sophie again, her eyes were full of worry, and kept glancing down at his chest.
"I'll need more tallies," he slurred.
Sophie gave him a hard, not amused look.
"I won, they jumped us, but ...I killed them."
Sophie glanced at the doctor, then bent her head next to his, "Good," she breathed into his ear, and although he was numb, Victor felt electrical currents of pleasure rushing through him. "Now rest please, Victor."
And so he did.