Police Officer Dick Grayson pulled the short straw and got stuck with filling out the paperwork for his and his partner's most recent arrest. Amy Rohrback, said partner, was dropping off the bags of cocaine and money to the evidence room and then was supposed to scent out the most recent batch of coffee available. Dick was seriously hoping that whatever pot she discovered wasn't one left there from this morning.
He was ready for his first day back to work to be over. Apparently the bridge incident had been aired in Bludhaven as much as it had in Gotham City. He had been teased all day about his Batman costume, and while he had laughed with everyone for the first few hours, it was getting kind of old now. He had been receiving candy bars and even a couple of pumpkins cut up to resemble Gotham's most famous Bat throughout the day. Every time he and Amy had come in from the streets, and this was number three; there had been another handful of candy and another decorated gourd sitting on his desk.
The station was a madhouse. Dick rubbed his eyes and glanced around at the numerous arrests and several irate or hysterical victims scattered around the room. Sometimes the only way to tell the difference between those arrested and those victims was to count the handcuffs. He reached into the top drawer of the desk he and Amy shared to pull out a couple of extra-strength ibuprofen. The constant roar of the station was punctuated by bursts of yelling or screams and the scraping of chairs. Unwilling to wait for the return of his partner, Dick popped the pills into his mouth and swallowed them dry.
And a king-sized Snickers landed in the middle of his paperwork.
"Maybe it isn't the noise," the voice of fellow officer, Derek Chaney, cut through the din. "Maybe it's low blood sugar."
Dick pursed his lips and picked up the candy bar. He was seconds away from chucking the thing at Chaney's head, when his phone vibrated. He had tossed it on top of the desk when he sat down, and he watched as it danced across the files that were strewn over the desk. He had just come back from Gotham only yesterday. What was left to be said that hadn't been discussed while he had been there?
He groaned as he rubbed the crease between his eyes; reminding himself that he loved his family, truly, he did. Sighing, he reached for the device when Chaney snatched it up first.
"It's a text," he announced loud enough for people to hear halfway across the room. He touched a button, standing up and jumping away when Dick attempted to grab the cell phone away from him. "You got mail," he read. "From Elle . . . Who's Elle? I thought you were pining for someone named Barbara."
Dick jumped up; stepping on the chair, then the desk he practically launched himself at Derek. The two of them slid across a neighboring desk, scattering paperwork and files across the floor. Their co-workers leapt out of the way, but none bothered intervening.
Yanking his phone out of Chaney's hand, Dick scrolled back to the text as he walked back to his desk. "Pick those files up, will you, Chaney," he called back over his shoulder.
Chaney grumbled, but bent down to pick up the papers and folders. After all, he might have avoided being tackled had he just handed the phone back and kept his mouth shut. Everyone knew from 8 months of experience that mentioning the ex-girlfriend came with consequences.
"Sorry about that, Grayson," Chaney told him when he was done. "That was a low blow."
It was a surprise, however, to find that Grayson wasn't sulking in his chair. Instead he was leaning back in it with a smile on his face. Chaney frowned.
"Hey, what's up? Did you and that pretty redhead finally get back together?" Chaney leaned against Dick's desk.
Dick looked up, startled to find Chaney still hanging around. "What? Oh, um, no, we didn't."
Observant as any good officer of the law, Chaney noticed that Grayson was still smiling as he said that. "No? I thought you had it bad." He looked down at the phone in the other man's hand curiously. "So, this Elle person; is she the new ball-n-chain or what?"
"Or what," Dick answered mysteriously. He pulled up a video that Elle had sent him. Considering that she never called him at work, let alone sent him a video, Dick was too eager to wait until he was off work to look at it.
The video popped up with a close-up of Elle. Dick recognized Chez Donovan's in the background. He glanced at the time. One-fifteen . . . She would be at rehearsals right now as she was scheduled to sing tonight. She was talking to whoever was holding her phone.
"Yeah, and you just press that button right there when we're done," she was saying.
God, she looked good. Her dark hair was piled onto her crown in a messy ponytail, exposing her neck. She was wearing an oversized, boatneck sweater; this one a medium taupe over top of cream-colored skinny jeans and matching taupe, knee-high boots. She always looked classy, even when dressing down. He knew this was her rolling out of bed and shuffling to rehearsal with her eyes still closed look. Elle might have been sleepy when she left her apartment, but she looked bright and alert now.
"Oh, my God! Who the hell is that," Chaney breathed over his shoulder.
Dick reached back, without bothering to look, and shoved the man away with a hand over the guy's face.
"Hey! Ow!" The man grumbled, but was right back where he was but a moment before seconds later. "No, seriously, Grayson. Who is that? Don't tell me that is Elle!"
"Don't you ever shut up," Dick complained. "I can't hear what she's saying."
"Neither can I," Derek said. "Turn up the volume."
Dick complied. The station was loud and Chaney was likely to talk all the way through this.
Elle walked over and was talking to several people who played for her regularly. When she turned back around she was carrying a ukulele. A second later, she started strumming. Dick grinned. He had no idea that Elle could play the ukulele.
Her voice floated through the phone.
...
"Well, you done done me and you bet I felt it
I tried to be chill but you're so hot that I melted
I fell right through the cracks
Now I'm trying to get back."
...
Elle danced around as she sang to the phone, grinning as she performed especially for him. The song was sweet and upbeat and suddenly Dick wasn't so tired anymore. Even his headache was easing.
...
"Before the cool done run out I'll be giving it my bestest
And nothing's gonna stop me but divine intervention
I reckon it's again my turn
To win some or learn some.
...
"But I won't hesitate, no more, no more
It cannot wait, I'm yours."
...
Chaney was quiet where he was stationed at his right shoulder. Dick felt another couple of people stop behind him over his left shoulder, but he didn't bother looking. He must have been concentrating hard because the roar inside the room seemed to fade a bit into the background. Dick was glad of this because now he could hear her better. Something in him relaxed.
...
"Well, open up your mind and see like me
Open up your plans and damn, you're free
Look into your heart and
You'll find love, love, love love.
...
"Listen to the music of the moment,
People dance and sing
We're just one big family
And it's our God-forsaken right
To be loved, loved, loved, loved, loved . . .
...
"So I won't hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait, I'm yours. I'm sure
There's no need to complicate
Our time is short. This is our fate.
I'm yours . . .
...
"Do docha do docha do do docha do
Don't cha want to come on . . .
...
Elle took little side steps closer to the camera with the music, a grin splattered across her face and a teasing look in her eye as if she were looking right at him that very second.
...
"Scootch on over closer, dear
And I will nibble your ear . . .
...
Several people started laughing there. It sounded like more than a few now, but Dick was enjoying his little semi-private concert, and didn't bother glancing back. So long as they shut up so he could hear Elle laughing her way through a little scat.
...
"I've been spending way too long
Checking my tongue in the mirror
And bending over backwards
Just to try to see it clearer
But my breath fogged up the glass
And so I drew in a face and I laughed.
...
"I guess what I'm a saying is
There ain't no better reason
To rid yourself of vanities
And just go with the seasons.
It's what we aimed to do
Our name is our virtue.
...
"But I won't hesitate no more,
No more it cannot wait
I'm yours . . .
...
"Well, open up your mind and see like me
Open up your plans and damn, you're free
Look into your heart and you'll find
That the sky is yours . . .
...
"So please don't, please don't, please don't . . .
There's no need to complicate
'Cause our time is short
This oh, this oh, this is our fate
I'm yours . . .
...
"Oh, I'm yours. Oh, I'm yours.
Oh, oh, baby
Do you believe I'm yours?
You best believe, you best believe I'm yours . . .
...
Elle continued to play and hum along for the last few seconds of the song. When it ended, she walked close to the camera and blew him a kiss.
"I hope you're having a great day, sweetheart," she grinned at him.
Elle signaled the person behind the camera, and then turned and walked back to the band. If the video had been supposed to end then, it didn't. The camera followed her as she raised her arms to group of people that had accompanied her song.
"I'm so in love," she yelled out, and everyone there in the band laughed and applauded her.
Dick laughed with them, and to his surprise so did a lot of other people; a lot of other people. He turned his head and was astonished to see at least a dozen police officers and a couple of secretaries gathered behind him watching his video play. Amy was standing a few people back and shrugged her shoulders, smirking. She passed up his coffee to him.
If that wasn't shocking enough, Dick suddenly noticed how quiet it had gotten in the room. It wasn't just his fellow officers that had been listening to Elle's little, impromptu serenade, but also the criminals, who had settled down. The victims had also stopped crying and screaming . . . Dick frowned. What the hell just happened?
Several of his fellow officers slapped him on the back, congratulating him on being a lucky guy. People were smiling as they went back to whatever they were doing; a little spring in their step that hadn't been there before. Some of the criminals were still a bit snarky, but none were hostile any longer. He blinked slowly in wonder. He glanced down at his phone again, and then back up at the room's occupants. People were calmer; more mellow, even happy!
Who the hell was happy at a police station?
He shook his head. It wasn't that he was complaining, but what just happened here wasn't in the normal course of things. People who came here were angry, violent, upset, hysterical. They didn't just fall into a better mood because someone turned on a radio. But they did today . . . They stopped what they were doing to listen to Elle sing, and when she had finished, they were almost pleasant.
It was the damndest thing he had ever witnessed, and he wanted to explore this a little bit more.
Dick stood up and took a large drink of his coffee, even though he no longer felt irritable and tired any more. In fact, his headache was gone; not better, he noted, but completely gone in just a few minutes! He grabbed his phone and shoved it in his pocket.
"Amy," he interrupted his partner as she chatted with another officer. "Sorry, but I need to run down to holding a minute. Would you mind finishing the report for me?"
She smiled pleasantly at him as she agreed. Dick smiled back and shook his head in wonder. Amy hated doing those reports as much as he did; it was why they always had to draw straws or play rock, paper, scissors at the end of an arrest.
Filing that away, he trotted down to holding. There had been a demonstration at the courthouse early that morning that had gotten out of hand. Dozens of people had been brought in for vandalism, assault, and resisting arrest charges. He remembered hearing about them having to separate certain groups from one another and that even now people were shouting threats across the aisles and through the bars.
Dick entered the area to discover that the noise and hostility down here was far worse than anything that he had heard upstairs. He felt the beginnings of that headache coming back. He thought about yelling to gain everyone's attention, but he hadn't needed to do that upstairs. People had calmed down on their own within a few stanzas. He pulled up Elle's video and pressed play.
In a few seconds her voice slid through the air like silk. Dick turned the volume up as far as it could go and waited and watched. He felt his eyes being drawn back to the video time and again, but he would catch himself and looked back up at the people in the cells.
Sure enough, after a minute into the song, the volume of noise had lowered significantly. Men turned away from those they had been yelling threats to and slowly but surely, either sat down or turned to face Dick and his phone. By the end of the song, the holding cells were silent; the men in them, if not smiling pleasantly, were at least not actively angry.
He smiled and waved at the group for want of something to do, and was surprised when a few of them waved back. He walked back upstairs marveling at this new information, and a little amazed to discover that the new headache that had began when he came down the stairs had vanished by the time he walked back up them.
He needed to call Bruce tonight. Batman needed to arrange for that meeting with Aquaman as soon as possible. But Dick decided that he wanted to talk to the king of Atlantis first, before he arranged for the man to meet a possible long-lost relative.
REACTIONS? Are new questions arising in your mind?
I really loved this . . . I couldn't imagine a better thing to pop up in the middle of a bad day than to be serenaded by someone you love just because he/she loves you! It seemed like a very "Elle" thing to do!
The song she sings to Dick on the video while playing the ukulele is (if you haven't heard it or haven't heard it in a while) "I'm Yours" written by Jason Mraz and released in April 2008. It broke records by staying in the Top 100 chart for 76 straight weeks. It's only been broken since (as far as I know) by two other songs. I don't know Mr. Mraz and I certainly do not own his song, but I do enjoy listening to it. It puts me into a better mood as well.