Batman Begins/Dark Knight 1. Chapter 1

**Hello there!**

**This is my first Batman fic. I was watching The Dark Night the other day and decided to have a go. Needless to say I don't own any Batman characters, but obviously I do own OCs. The Joker in the early days. Please review after reading! I really appreciate it!**

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"Ace."

The girl and the boy stop in their tracks. They look at each other and then for the source if the voice. The dark and the rain try their best to conceal the figure sitting under the metal staircase in one of Gotham's darkest alleys, but their young eyes find her. A dim light from a nearby cracked window gives her a faintly visible outline. There is a moment of silence where all that can be heard is the rain on the pavements, the wind rattling the metal stairs and the familiar wail of a distant siren. Then they hear her two soft clicks and two cards are flung out from the shadows. One lands at the girl's feet and the other at the boy's. They bend to pick them up, but a voice cries out, stopping them halfway down. They pause, straighten up again and look to where the figure in the shadows has now stood up.

"Traditionally an omen of bad luck," the figure says, "It's a little known fact in today's society that it used to be thought of as the "death card". Myth and folklore claim it to bring bad luck, but who listens to these tales nowadays? Nobody takes the warnings of the last few gypsies seriously, not with all the modern science and technology around to prove this, that and the other. Over the years the Ace had evolved along with the games we play. Now it is often the highest playing card, so turning over an Ace gives one the feeling of happiness and good fortune rather than the sickening dread it used to bring to those who touched it."

"Does it really bring bad luck?" the girl asks, drawn in by the stranger and her tale of the Ace.

"Does it really bring death?" the boy's eyes are wide.

"Time will tell," the woman murmurs. Both children shiver. "King," she continues, louder this time, but in the same breath. "Rumoured and linked to historical figures. Charlemagne, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great and King David have all been likened to the Kings in the deck of cards. Some see this as an honour and think it a good way for them to be remembered by, but others see it differently. They see the once great and respected, powerful men reduced to nothing but prints on shiny pieces of cardboard that are then swapped and fought over by drunken men."

"What do you think?" asks the boy, tilting his head to one side.

"I think there is little honour left in being great," she replies. The boy frowns.

"So, you think it's better to be bad?"

"Queen," she says as if he has not even spoken. "Also linked to historical and biblical figures- Rachel, Judith, Pallas and Argine. Naturally, the card is one step below the King which proves nothing but the inequality of the sexes. Historical prejudice has a way of seeping its way into modern-day life and staining it a little. It may be a small stain that goes more or less unnoticed, but it's there nonetheless."

"Can it be removed?" the girl asks.

"What's done is done," the woman claps her hands together, making them both jump. "If history did not leave its irreversible mark on us how would we learn from it?"

"But-"

"Hush, child. You want to know of the suits, don't you?"

The girl nods.

"Spades, clubs, hearts and diamonds," the stranger lists. "Four suits, four seasons. Thirteen cards per suit, thirteen weeks per season. Each suit has its own element and its own representation of class. Spades- a name taken from "spada", the Italian for "sword", which is what the symbol used to be until it was changed to avoid the inevitable confusion of the English people. The element of air and the class symbol of nobility. Clubs- representative of peasants and fire. Diamonds, the symbol of the Earth and the merchants and hearts belong to the water and the clergy."

"Who decided this?" the girl asks. Her eyes widen at the meanings behind symbols she knew well. Hidden things in a pack of cards she had never given much thought to. It puzzled her that she had neither wondered nor questioned the symbols on the card, why they were what they were and how they were chosen.

There is no answer to her question from the stranger in the shadows. "Joker," the woman says slowly. "The lunatic, the madman. He has no suit. He cannot be tamed. He is fickle. No suit. No mind."

There is a silence. The children wait for her to speak again, but she does not. She turns away from them and they watch her walk back into the dark of the alley. The air seems still around them.

"Wait!" the boy calls as the darkness blurs her outline and begins to merge with it. "You forgot your cards!"

They both look at the cards still lying by their feet, but when they look back up again the woman and the dark have become all but the same entity. They look at each other and then back down at the cards. They bend to pick them up. The wet pavement has stuck to the face of the cards, so they have to slide their fingernails under the edges to prise them away. Neither of them looks at their cards until they are standing upright again. They stare at the back of them for a moment as everything they heard from the stranger fills their heads. Then, simultaneously, they turn the cards over and study their own.

"What did you get?" the girl manages to ask through a dry lump in her throat.

"You first," he presses, still transfixed by his card. She sighs and rubs her thumb across the face of the card as if it might change it.

"Ace," the girl speaks and flips the card round to show the boy. "You?"

He shows her the front of the card. "Joker."


	2. The Ace and the Joker

**Hey, hope you liked the last chapter. Here's another. Please review! **

**LV**

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Alice**

"Gotham," Jack says slowly as if he is saying the word for the first time.

"Is a shit-hole," I finish for him. I look up from the table to where he is silhouetted against the morning sun. It's not the kind of sun you see in pictures or read about in books. It's not a lovely golden yellow colour that softens the skyline. It's dull and the only colour it seems to give off is grey. Grey and tired as if it too has given up on the city. It's tired of the rut we seem to be stuck in, bored of the lives it is forced to shine upon and maybe, just like us, it is wondering why it bothers to rise in the first place. It's not like much can change around here. He turns his head to face me and smiles. I like his smile, but it's not something many people often get to see. I don't think I've ever seen him smile in public. His eyes that are a strange mix of grey and brown flicker down to what I was staring at on the table before me. He frowns.

"Alice..." he sighs, swinging his legs down from where they were tucked up to his chest and hopping down from the window ledge to stand beside me. As he does this I quickly move to snatch the card off the table. His hand jerks towards the card, but I'm too fast.

"No!" I twist away from him as he reaches to grab it off me. He steps back and I slide it into my back pocket. He licks his lips before biting down on his bottom one. A frown creases his brow. "Why so serious?" I ask him in an attempt to tease out a smile and lighten the mood. His eyes move back up to mine.

"Alice..." he sighs again. "You need to stop obsessing over these cards."

"I wasn't," I lie. "I was only looking."

He cocks his head to one side to study me, "You were 'only looking' yesterday too, and the day before that and, in fact, every day since we got them. They don't mean anything, you know. You could have got any one of those cards."

"But I didn't get _any _one, did I?" I pull the card back out and flip it round so that he can see the Ace. "I got _this _one."

I hold it close to my chest, so that he doesn't try and take it from me. He stares at it and I can see it makes him uneasy. That's the trouble with having a friend you know better than you know yourself. You know when they are lying. You know when the one person who is meant to comfort you feels nervous by the same thing you are. It doesn't help to ease the worry at all. "It doesn't mean anything!" he says, although he sounds less sure and he's looking at the card, not me. If he were looking me in the eye, I would feel safer.

"That's not what that woman said!" I remind him, as if he needs reminded. "She said it brought bad luck!"

"Yeah, but she also said that it is a good sign in games nowadays! As in _**now**_adays."

I squeeze the card tighter in my hand. The edges bend slightly in my hand. "She called it the 'death card'."

He looks at me then. He shakes his head. "That won't happen, Alice," he sounds determined. His tongue darts quickly out of his mouth as he continues to shake his head. I can see the agitation in his movements, in his eyes and I can hear it in his voice. "I won't let it."

"Don't make promises you can't keep," I warn him. His tongue darts out again, to the other side of his mouth this time. "You have no way of knowing what's going to happen."

"I do. I do... I... I ...I do!" he insists. His eyes flicker to the doorway and then the window before looking back to me. His voice drops to a whisper; he looks around as if someone may be lurking in the empty flat. "I have a plan."

He runs a hand through his short blond hair and then places it between my shoulder blades, propelling me towards the window. We stand shoulder to shoulder and look out onto the crumbling buildings. Rubbish spills out onto the streets and mixes with the piss and blood that you never seem to be far from round these parts. I look at the cracks in ever slab of cement, every brick. Cracks that have been caused by the crack in society that are so easily slipped through. Clothes hang out on dirty lines in dirty air. A siren wails in the distance. I can always hear a siren, but I never seem to be able to find the source. Jack and I think they just have a recording of one on repeat to fool us into believing that there are authorities out there that are trying to change the way things are run around here. Maybe they do work in the richer areas of Gotham., but here? Here, where there's murder and drugs and theft? Here where's there's homelessness and desperation? Here where the worst of humanity come to fester and die? The authorities don't come near here.

"A plan for what?"

"A plan to get out of here?" he says and I have to look at him to check he's serious.

"Out of Gotham?"

He nods. "We don't have to be like _them_," he nods to the shapes on the street of the homeless men and women waking up and emerging from the rubbish. "We're different- you and me. We don't have to get stuck here. We'll leave. Once we're done with school, we'll go."

"You're mad!" I smile at the thought. His eyes could over slightly.

"No I'm not," he scowls. I wince at my slip-up and do my best to cover it by giving his hand a squeeze.

"I didn't mean-"

"I know," he says, cutting me off before I can get the words out. That way he doesn't have to think about _her _too much. He should think about her, talk about her, but he never does and I don't want to push him into it. He gets enough reminders at school. Kids can be so cruel.

"So when we leave," I change the subject. "What will we do? Where will we go?"

He shrugs and his face becomes more animated, "Change cities, change lives... change names!"

"Change names?" I repeat and he nods again. His eyes are wide and fixed on some distant place, a distant time.

"You can be..." he looks away from the distant place to study me. I wait to see what he'll come up with, then his eyes flicker to my hands and he grins. "Ace. And I'll be the Joker."

He slips a card out of his own pocket and smiles at it, like he's happy to see it. I wouldn't be if I were him. "Ace and the Joker?" I repeat. "Nobody will believe they are our real names."

"But why not?" he says, although it doesn't sound much like a question. "That's the beauty of it. People don't have to know our real names. We don't have to have _real _names."

"But... that's stupid."

He shakes his head and turns to face me full on. "No. No it isn't. It's genius. We can have any kind of name for ourselves we want to. Get a reputation. Reputation is power and with no names we can't lose that power."

"You're-" He blinks and I catch myself. "... not thinking this through. What about money and-"

"Money doesn't matter," he says firmly. "With money there's a limit. With power... you can have anything."

I know what he's thinking now. He's thinking of revenge on everyone at school, showing them that they were wrong about him. I know the feeling, but he shouldn't build his hopes up. People like me and Jack don't ever get anywhere. Not from where we are now. We'll end up stuck in a life of crime and drugs, pulled into the seedy underbelly of Gotham that is fast becoming more than just the underbelly. I look back down at the card in my hand. An Ace, the 'death card' and I realise that there's the more likely scenario. We'll soon wind up dead.

**Jack**

She never spoke about her scars.

I don't think she even thought about them. There were only a few of us that knew the truth about where she'd got them. Her, me and her parents. Of course, everybody knew that she had them. How could they not? How could they not see the lines on either side of her face, running from the corners of her lips upwards? A permanent smile, even when she was crying. Every kid at school stared and whispered. They pointed and laughed and jeered at her. The kinder ones did it behind her back, but there were those who pointed them out, made fun of them, wrote things and drew pictures on the toilet walls and even went so far as to draw on their own versions. These were the people that made me feel sick with hate. I had never felt hate so strong it can make you want to retch. Never. But I felt it for them. I met Alice and then I saw what they did to her and it made me feel queasy.

Now I've said that you may wonder why I never did anything to stop it. It wasn't because I was scared, no, not of them. I was scared of losing Alice. Those scars that cut up her face were my saviours, because without them she would have been beautiful. You could tell that just by looking at her. If you were to imagine her without the scars, she would have been as close to perfect as any human can be. Without scars she wouldn't have been an outcast, a freak. She wouldn't have been like me. She would have been popular at school, loved by more people than just me and I wouldn't have known her. It is for that reason that those scars are the most beautiful things in the world to me.


	3. Games

**Thanks to everyone who's reviewed :) **

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Jack**

They were different, my moments with Alice. They were safer, quieter. Even my own thoughts seemed to hush and relax. I remember the day I told her of my plan for the future. A plan for both of us to escape, to be happy. I still have that plan at the back of my mind, you know, in case I should ever need it. I don't think a night goes by that I don't think about it- what could have, _should _have been.

I was right about what I said to her. Power is important. I don't think Alice ever quite understood that. She was a little, uh, naive you see. She thought that you could get by in life by being nice to people, like that would somehow get you something in return. She thought that if you started at the bottom and payed your dues you could somehow work your way up to the top. Well we did start at the bottom, the _very _bottom of the food-chain and now I'm at the tip-top of the triangle. Everyone knows me. _Everyone _has heard of me. There is not _one _person in this shit hole that doesn't know of the Joker, but I didn't get to where I am today by being _nice _to people. I got here through fear, reputation. I'm not loved, but I don't need to be. I need to be feared, because if people are scared of you then they play by your rules. I like games. I like to experiment with them, but they're only fun if it's _my _rules, okay? Otherwise things can get a little... messy.

**Alice**

Jack's a lovely guy, he's just a bit... misunderstood. He's so enthusiastic about some things and given his... family circumstances, it is often misinterpreted. He likes things to be in his control and he has a way of getting it. I'm not sure what it is, but he can usually get himself out of anything by turning people against themselves and each other rather than him. That made it sound like they like him. They don't. Most people really hate him. They really hate us.

"You alright?" Jack nudges me out of my gloomy thoughts. He nudges me a little too hard and I wobble on the kerb.

"Yeah," I smile. "Just tired."

He adjusts his schoolbag on his back so that the straps are exactly the same length. It's raining, again. It always seems to be doing that. I bet it doesn't rain in the posher parts of town. Or if it does it won't be as dirty. It'll be clean and shiny like out of a tap. And it probably only falls at night too when ot won't bother anyone. Or ruin their hair.

We both slow down as we reach the gates of the school, not that we were walking all that fast to start with. I could hear the sound of a playground. It's unmistakeable, isn't it? That sound of hundreds of teenagers. Bitching and laughing about the weekend. Things they did, the parties they went to that we weren't invited to. Jack looks sideways at me. I tilt my head to look back at him before we take the first few steps into hell.

The whistle rings out across the court. The shrill noise lingers on in the huge space. People stop running and look to Mr Wood. I pick myself up off the ground and wipe the back of my hand across my mouth. Yup, my lip's bleeding from where my tooth bit into it as I landed. "Watch where you're going!" I flinch as Connor screams it in my face.

"Sorry," I mumble as best I can, although I can feel that my my lip's starting to swell.

"She shouldn't have to look where she's going," I wince as Jack puffs himself out and squares up to Connor. "She had the ball, it was _you _who tried to tackle her."

Connor sneers. Is that what you think? Well, maybe she'll learn from this incident, learn to watch where she's going. It might even scar her, a perminant reminder... That'll teach her a lesson. He looks at me and I feel my cheeks start to burn up. Oh, wait, looks like someone already tried to teach her a lesson, but she didn't learn, did she?

Jack smacks him one and Mr Wood comes running over to restrain him. But no-one's restraining Connor. He's the one that should be restrained if there's to be any hope in hell of calming Jack down. A circle of classmates and teammates alike has formed around the scene that's unfolding. A scene that's all too familiar. "Jack..." I say, warning him, he looks at me. His tongue's darting in and out every few seconds.

"It was a foul, Mr Wood," he says through gritted teeth. "Connor's tackle, it was a foul."

"No, it wasn't." Connor says immediately.

"Yes, uh, yes it was," Jack's voice is level, but I know that doesn't mean that he's calm. Mr Wood, however, does not know this and eases up his hold on Jack.

Connor turns to the spectators. I glace round at them as he does so, they all look so keen, so interested and so caught up in something that has nothing to do with them. They're all waiting for Jack to snap again. Connor knows this, he knows they're all on his side. "Did anyone else see my "foul"?" he asks them. The crowd shake their heads. Connor smiles. "You see."

Mr Wood nods. Jack looks at him. "No... no no no... no," he shakes his head repeatedly. "You see, by the _rules _you have to punish him."

Mr Wood surveys Jack seriously. "Now, now. If he says it wasn't a foul-"

"THE RULES...!" Jack shouts and the rest of his sentence runs together in his anger. He lunges for Mr Wood's whistle. I don't know what he's going to do or how he thinks that will help him if he gets it. My heart seems to have stopped in my throat. Mr Wood steps out of the way and Jack stumbled forwards, head first into the crowds. They let him fall and I see some of them laugh and all of them smirk.

"See, sir?" Connor says innocently. "He's mental." Jack's head snaps up from the ground and he twists to glare a Connor, who knows all too well the effect his words are having on Jack. "He's mental, a lunatic. He should be locked up... just like his mother!"

Jack tries to get to him, tries to scramble to his feet, but Mr Wood is already restraining him and trying his best to tell Connor off. His best isn't good enough. I can see the hurt burning along with the hate in Jacks eyes, but I knew I was the only one who saw it there because I was the only one who bothered to look. I see the smirk on Connor's face and my hands start to shake. I clench them to stop it, but then I see Connor open his mouth one more time. He's not done torturing Jack. Everything speeds up. There is a moment of confusion where I swing forward and then I'm standing there with knuckles covered in blood. They're grazed from where they've come into contact with human teeth. Connor's squirming at my feet, his foul mouth full of his own blood. I feel strangely calm, though I know I'm in trouble... it doesn't seem to matter. I glance at Jack. He's smiling at me and I smile back, suddenly realizing why it doesn't matter to me if I get punished for this. I didn't do anything wrong. I was just looking out for Jack. Connor was in the wrong and I dealt with it on his level. The only language Connor understands seems to be a punch.

We look out for each other, Jack and I. I know that while my own family may try and once succeeded in hurting me, Jack never will. I can trust him, _do _trust him, with my life. He'd never hurt me.

** Jack**

I don't have the original Joker card anymore, the one that woman gave me all those years ago. I left it somewhere, that was the mistake that got me stuck here the first time round. A rookie one, probably the reason I made that mistake was because I _was_ a rookie. I didn't think about how it still had my DNA on it, so I laid it on the body that was still seeping warm blood. I use the Joker as my calling card, you see. I leave a card with every one of them, but I'm a little more careful nowadays. Now I handle them with gloves, make sure I don't touch them. That way they can't be traced back to me. Not that they still have my record. I destroyed that long ago for complete anonymity. Complete power. I leave my card as as a present for the deceased, something for them to remember me by. It's my own person farewell. My own trademark sign. Kind of me not to ask for or take anything in return, don't you think? I took something away with me that first time though. I did a kind of swap, one card for another.

I left the Joker on the corpse... And walked away with the Ace.

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**Please review! ta x**


	4. Arkham Asylum

**So... uh... hey. Don't be alarmed if the alert for this popped up and you were left wondering what the hell this was, I had also almost forgotten that this story was even a thing I was doing. As you may have guessed, I ran into a bit of a hurdle with this story, meaning that I knew exactly how it ends, but the whole middle section had just fallen completely out of my brain. And so I decided to leave it untill it came back to me and promptly forgot about it. But I remembered recently and felt insipred again, so this is it. For real this time, I promise.**

**Basically, the moral of that story is that I'm sorry this has taken so long and no worries if you've forgotten what this even is.  
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**LV xx  
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**Alice**

Jack stares intently at the floor. I watch his eyes harden. The floor beneath us shakes as the subway train rattles onwards. It won't be long now. I reach out and gently placed a hand on Jack's forearm. He gives a start and looks up at me. He looks lost and on the brink of something awful. Something I can't put my finger on, something I don't really understand, but it's something that scares me. I run my hand down to take his and wordlessly tell him that everything will be all right. It takes him a while, but I soon see that he's found himself again. He seems stable once more. I even manage to coax a brief smile from him before the train begins to slow. I let go of him and stand up before he does. He's bracing himself, psyching himself up for what I know is his least favourite day of the week. I walk in to the crowded carriage; I know that he will follow me. It's the same routine every week, almost like a ritual.

It's not long before his shoulders brush against mine and he pushes our way through the crowd to the door. Everyone is crushed into one small carriage. We are like cattle on their way to the slaughter, except cattle are far happier. They, at least, have the benefit of not knowing their destination. Everyone around us is acutely aware of the hell they are returning to and it shows on their miserable faces. They are so wrapped in their thoughts that nobody bothers when we push past them, nobody even flinches at the stench of piss and vomit that seems to have soaked into the air around us. People only talk if they are with someone they know and even then their words are few and far between. The train is so nosy that I don't think there is room for much speech. The wheels scream along the track and nothing feels stable. Everything rattles and clangs against whatever it is next to. I'm certain that it's not safe and that the amount of filth and grime surrounding us cannot be hygienic. But it's no different from the rest of this side of Gotham and so everyone turns a blind eye. Humans can get used to anything.

We step out on to the filthy platform and I see rats scurrying off in the shadows. They're not as timid as you might think. Not here anyway. In Gotham's seedy underbelly rats and humans live side by side in near enough the same conditions. The station is pretty empty; there aren't many people who travel to or from this particular one. It's best to stay away from those that do. As we climb the stairs towards the dirty grey light of outside, we come across two drunks on the brink of a brawl. Jack automatically moves closer to me and walks slightly in front, so as to face them before I do. I avoid eye contact with them and we walk in silence, but they still notice us.

"Alright, darlin'?" one of them shouts. His voice echoes and bounces around the stairwell. Out of the corner of my eye I see Jack tense and I pray that he will keep his cool. I do not react.

"Why you ignorin' us, hun?" the other one joins in. "I'm sure your boyfriend won't mind you talkin'."

Again, I don't react. We draw nearer to them. They walk down a few steps, slowly approaching us. Soon they are close enough for us to smell the stench of cheap alcohol. "What? You a couple of mutes or something?" one of them chuckles. But then the other one gets a good look at my face.

"Here, look at this… who cut up your pretty face, doll?" he reaches out and grabs my chin, forcing me to look at him for the briefest of seconds before Jack's fist comes out of nowhere and smacks him back. Quick as a flash, Jack pushes me behind him and springs on the guy again. He pins him up against the wall with one hand clenched around his throat. The man tries to get away, but his struggles only seem to make things worse.

"Jack don't!" I call out, but he doesn't listen to me.

"Apologise," he demands. His tone gives the illusion that he is calm, but I know that means he is at his most dangerous. His tongue darts quickly in and out of his mouth and a fiery fury burns in his eyes.

"I… I'm sorry…" the man chokes out.

"Let him go!" I plead loudly, but Jack's not done yet. He smashes the man's head off the wall so violently that he cries out.

"Like you _mean _it," Jack snarls. The man's eyes are wild, bulging. They find mine and plead with me desperately.

"I'm sorry!" he says again. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"It's ok," I say, more to Jack than him. "Jack, let him go. It's ok, let him go."

Very slowly, Jack lets him go. The man bolts at the first opportunity he gets. His friend had already fled. Jack breaths heavily, leaning on the hand which had been clutching the man's throat. He closes his eyes for a second. The stairwell starts to shake as another train passes through the underground. Then Jack lets out a roar of anger and slams his fist into the wall. He leaves yet more cracks in it and also a slight dent. His knuckles start to bleed.

"Hey," I say gently, placing my hands on the top of his shoulders. I guide him round so that he's facing me. He stares at his hands. They're shaking. "Why so serious?" I ask.

He relaxes slightly, and although he does not smile he at least raises his eyes to meet mine. He stretches the fingers of his bleeding hand, testing him. He then reaches up and runs the index finger of each hand along either one of my scars. Then he smiles. He's the only one who genuinely smiles when he sees them. And he's the only one who smiles in a good way. As if they are the best thing about me, rather than the one thing that drives everyone away. I smile back and move my hands from his shoulders. "Okay now?" I ask. He nods. It's not exactly the first time that this has happened and I'd be a fool to think that it would be the last. I can't keep these hideous scars covered forever and they're not exactly easy to ignore. The trouble with scars is that no matter what you use to cover them you can always _feel _them there. I only have to run my tongue along the inside of my cheeks and I can feel the bumps, grooves, ridges and stiches.

Jack's in a predictably quiet mood. He doesn't often speak on this particular journey and I never push him to. He deals with things in his own way and you just have to let him get on with it. You might think it pointless that I walk with him every week without fail if all we do is walk in silence, and I can see why you would, but staying with him means more than words. With a friendship like ours words aren't always needed to show support.

Jack stops. Arkham Asylum looms up in front of us.

It's not a pleasant looking place. It stands on the outskirts of the City, looking at it from the top of the hill, resentful at having been pushed out of Gotham. It seems to be a place of permanent darkness, surrounded by high fences and shut in by heavy metal gates. A wall of trees, which seldom seem to have anything growing on the sharp, scraggy branches, also serve to keep the inmates in and the sanity out. I think it rains even more here than it does elsewhere in this miserable City. We get past security without having to say a word; they've begun to know us by sight. Jack slows on the long path to the door. I keep walking, knowing that as long as I do, he will follow.

"Don't wait for me," he says, although he says it every week.

"Don't tell me what to do," I quip, raising an eyebrow. There's laughter in his eyes. "I'll leave if I want to."

"Do," he says. We smile because we both know that I won't. We walk in to the dingy reception. I sit down and Jack walks to the reception desk to have a quiet conversation with the woman behind the desk. She knows who he is. He's here every week without fail. He disappears through a door, glancing at me as it shuts. I smile encouragingly and then he is gone for the next hour. I get out a book and burry myself in it, trying to ignore the cries of those that the City has managed to break down. If I were ever to go mad, I think Arkham would make me worse.

When Jack appears again he's tired and angry. As we walk back in to Gotham in silence I take his hand. By the time we get home he's almost himself again.

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**Jack**

They say that madness could be genetic, but I find it insulting that they think I inherited it from my mother. That explanation is just too… uh, _easy_. I fought so hard to rid myself of ties to her. Only Alice knew that I visited her in that hellhole. The hellhole I now call home. _Arkham… _the word brings bile to my throat. I used to watch my mother in here and pity her. I used to worry about her being in a room by herself for so long. I've never understood why they don't just let the mad mingle with one another.

Perhaps they would tear each other to shreds. ..

Perhaps that's why it isn't allowed.

Would be fun to watch, eh?

Maybe they think I'm crazy because I visited her. As if I caught it from being in the same airspace. Like a disease, a sickness. But madness isn't a disease. Madness is beautiful. Madness is liberating. When you're mad you can do what you like. Because people just blame it on your mental health… or lack of it. They can't blame my mother's genes or influence for the way I am. The only ones the people of Gotham City can blame are themselves. I've seen what the papers say about me- the son of a local madwoman gone mad himself and awaiting trial. But they don't get it. You see, there are many differences between my mother and I. I don't think my mother was really mad at all. I don't think she knew what madness... what _true_ madness is. I think she was just selfish. She couldn't even successfully take her own life. She just wanted the doctors to have reason to section her so that she could escape. Escape the burden of having someone like me as a son. Being more of a danger to herself than others she was in a low-security cell, which is a luxury compared to where I am. She had enough food to stop the hunger eating her away. She was treated with some level of dignity and compassion. I have stared insanity in the eyes only to find that I was looking in the mirror. She barely even scratched the surface. She was never accused of murder. That's why we're different.

I was wrong to pity her when I saw her.

She looked at Gotham and sighed wistfully at the thought of home.

I look at Gotham and all I can see is it burning. I look at Gotham and I smile.

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	5. Change

**Jack**

It's amazing how quickly things change. Change starts like a fire. With just a little spark. And innocent glow in the dark. Some of 'em start gradually and others erupt… explode, like they had some kind of help, a catalyst… like gasoline, y'know? But no matter how the change starts or how quickly it spreads, just like a fire, the most ferocious of changes rips everything apart. And when it's done everything that it's touched is unrecognisable.

It was after one of our many trips to Arkham that things changed for us. There was one little glow in the dark and then a spark that ignited the lives of Alice and I. That one little glow grew in to a raging inferno, which ripped our lives apart. And that one little glow was the blue light of a police car outside the flats where Alice lived.

We took no notice of it when we saw it. Alice even looked relieved at the sight of it. It wasn't a usual sight around those parts, which was strange really seeing as it was us who needed them most. That's the justice system all over- failing those who need them the most. It's mere presence at the door made me feel, uh… much more secure about leaving Alice's side. It was the one night that I didn't worry about what might happen to her on the way up the stairs, which was my first mistake.

It was the one night that I should have worried about her.

**Alice**

Jack always walks me home. _Always. _I tell him that he doesn't need to and every time he refuses to leave my side until he sees that I am safely home. Even though walking to my block of flats is way out of his way. He never comes in, although I can tell that he wants to. I just can't risk my Grandmother seeing him. She has no specific problem with Jack, but if she knew that we had been to the Asylum she would freak out. She likes Jack and I want to keep it that way.

As we round the corner we slow our pace a little. Jack frowns at an unusual car parked outside the tower block of flats where I live. It takes me longer than it should to realise that it's a police car. That goes someway to explaining why it's as quiet as it is. Usually there are shouts and screams, violence, arguments, drunken laughter. Now there is just silence. It's nice, I like it. I could get used to the presence of a police car if this is what it does.

I stop at the door that doesn't quite lock and smile at Jack. It's already dark and most of the streetlights aren't working, but I can tell he's more relaxed than usual about letting me go the rest of the way by myself. "Same time tomorrow?" I ask.

"Bright and early," he forces a smile at the prospect of school. It's nice to know that there's at least one other person who shares the same dread that I do. We look at each other for a moment and smile. It's comfortable and I know I should go in. "Well…" I say. "Goodnight."

We hug. "Night, Alice," he says quietly.

I close my eyes and breathe in his familiar scent. It's a smell that makes me feel calm and happy. His hug is strong and protective. I hope that he feels as safe with me as I do with him. I would honestly fight alongside Jack until the bitter end. "Night," I murmur again as I let go and step back. I turn to push on the door and he turns to walk away. I stand in the doorway and watch him go, silhouetted against the weak lights of the City with his hands in his pockets before he disappeared in to the shadows of Gotham. I hope, as I do every day, that he gets home safe. I realise that I'm still smiling as I turn to make the long climb up to my flat. I live very near the top and the lift's never worked, so it's a climb I'm used to.

I reach my front door and I'm surprised to find that it's unlocked. "I'm home!" I call, throwing my bag down with a thud.

"In the kitchen, dear," my Grandmother calls back. She sounds serious. The door is half-open, as I approach I see that there's someone sitting at the rickety old table. Who could it be at this time of night? I push on the door, immediately suspicious. A policeman looks up at me. He's sipping tea from one of my Grandmother's least chipped mugs. He looks tired and pale. I can't quite work out how old he is. His face is young, but his hair is flecked with grey and he's developing worry lines. I frown and look to my Grandmother for assistance. Her fearful eyes do not reassure me.

"What's going on?" I ask her. The look in her eyes changes from fear to concern but she doesn't answer. My eyes flicker to the policeman's.

"Alice?" he asks. I can see him trying not to look at my scars.

"Yes."

"My name is D.I Shipman."

"What is this about?" I ask again.

He's reluctant to tell me. "It's about your father… Thomas Garret." Ice cold dread cuts through me at the sound of his name and I start to shake. I feel my breathing becoming shallower. It doesn't feel like there is enough air in this room. My palms are suddenly cold, but sweaty. I clench my fists.

"What… what about him?" I ask, fighting to keep the tension I am feeling from showing in my voice.

He takes a deep breath. _Please let him be dead. _"You're aware that he was being kept in Blackgate Penitentiary?"

I nod. "Yes," my voice is barely a whisper.

"It is with regret that I must inform you, on behalf of Gotham City Police Department, that earlier this morning it was discovered that Thomas Garret was not in his cell."

I feel dizzy. I have to sit down. "What… so… so he's just… _gone_? You just let him go…"

"I assure you, Miss Garret that we're doing all that we can to find him as quickly as possible. We just have to let his next of kin know. And… protocol dictates that we need to ask," he looks a bit embarrassed. "We need to ask if you might have any idea of where he could be."

"You think we'd let him near us?" My Grandmother springs forward with disgust etched in to her features. I bury my head in my hands in an attempt to stop the world from spinning. "Do you really think that we would have anything to do with him after… after what he did?"

"I'm sorry, m'am," he says hurriedly. "But I had to ask."

There is a heavy silence, during which I hold back tears and gulp down the lump in my throat. "What if he comes here?" I say, looking up. My Grandmother has no answer for me; she just turns immediately to the half empty bottle of brandy.

The policeman sips on his tea, giving him the excuse of a full mouth so that he can avoid answering for long enough to come up with an answer. "We will do our best to catch him and get him behind bars," he says eventually. It's an answer I could have predicted. Desperation forces my eyes shut. I hear him stand up and feel him put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry Miss, we're dedicated to keeping you and the rest of Gotham safe."

As he shows himself out I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. 'Safe' is something I have never felt in the hands of Gotham's scarcely present authorities. I open my eyes again, hoping that my Grandmother might offer me some comfort, or an easy answer, but she is too busy trying to find her own answers at the bottom of a bottle. My chair scrapes against the floor and I leave the room with my head in a spin. The hallway is dark and the light in my room is switched off. The door stands ajar. I freeze and stare at it. Did I leave it ajar? What if _he's _in there?

I stand still and listen.

Every creak I hear, every time something moves in the wind I think it's _him… _waiting for me. I stare at the door. The darkness inside seems to grow. I can't go in. I can't. I back away from my door slowly, trying to be as quiet as possible. When I come within reach of the front door I grab the handle. "Alice!" my Grandmother calls when she hears the door open. Her words are already slurred and she sounds drowsy. I hear her clatter around the kitchen. It won't be long until she's sleeping. "Alice, where are you –hic- going?"

I let the front door slam behind me and begin my walk down the stairs. I start off slowly. My mind and heart are racing. I'm too numb to walk any faster, but a small noise somewhere on the stairs behind me jolts me into a run. I stumble down the last few flights of stairs, convinced that _he's _behind me. Chasing me. I speed out of the door and into the dark streets. I'm not sure exactly where I'm going until I get there. I stop to catch my breath outside Jack's block of flats. I look up. His light is on. I wipe the tears from my eyes as best I can, although I can't seem to stop them from falling.

I desperately want to see Jack. I need to feel safe. I steal a glance behind me. The shadows twist and seem to close in on me. I let out an involuntary whimper and dart around the back to the fire escape. The rain had made the metal wet and I slipped a few times on my way up. I scramble up to the eighth floor and crouch by Jack's window. The curtains are drawn, but the light shines through. My trembling hands knock twice and then I sit back, breathing heavily. I feel sick.

I pull my knees up to my chest. After a slight hesitation Jack's curtains open. I see his confused face peer out and I can't hold back a loud sob. His eyes immediately fill with concern and he pushes the window up. I reach towards him and wrap my arms around his neck. He pulls me in as I bury my face in his neck.

"Why so serious?" he asks and I manage to smile through my tears.

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**Hey :) Please leave a review and let me know what you think of the story so far. It would be greatly appreciated. Thank you :)**


	6. Promises

**Jack**

Y'know how they say that blood is thicker than water? Well I think they're being too literal. Of course _scientifically _speaking blood is far denser than water, but why should that tie you to your family above all other people? Why should the density of the liquid in your veins or a shared gene pool give you a sense of loyalty to anyone? And don't try telling me that instincts've got anything to do with it. If humans had any kind of instinctual behaviour towards their family it could only be an instinct to fuck them up. There's no such thing as paternal instincts. If there were how could a mother leave her children? How could a father cut up his daughter? Especially a daughter as beautiful as Alice…

The way I see it, your family are thrown together out of chance… not because they want to be there. Not because _you_ want them there. Not because they… uh, what is it?... _care. _But because they have to be. For some inexplicable reason we are bound to family out of duty. Nobody gets to choose their own family. And they sure as hell wouldn't have chosen you.

One person I did chose was Alice. I was lucky, in a way, to have found someone who actually _wanted _to be near me. She actually _did _care. And not because she felt bout to out of a sense of duty. Not because the society determined that people who happened to share a few features should look out for one another. She was better than family. Much better. And I would do anything to keep her safe. _Anything. _No matter what the cost.

**Alice**

"Hit me. Come on, again!" Jack stares me in the face, sweat glistens on his forehead. I take a deep breath and give him my best shot. I hit the cushions he's tied to his hand. "Better."

"Jack... why are we doing this?" I ask, taking another swing.

"Self defense," he says. "We gotta be prepared, gotta know what's coming."

"And what are you expecting to come?" he blocks my left hook. "A giant cushion monster?"

He smiles at that one, "No, but I am expecting the future."

I stop and stare at him. "What _kind _of future?"

He doesn't answer. Just grins. "_Not _a cushioned one… at least, not at first. C'mon, Alice."

I give in a practice my left and right hooks a few more times, just to keep him happy, but I don't really see the point. I'm not getting any better and it's not going to save my life against someone with a knife… or a gun. Oh God, what if he gets his hands on a gun? I stop hitting Jack's makeshift boxing equipment and step back. My arms are aching. I push my sweaty hair out of my eyes and sit down to put my head in my hands. "Jack," I sigh. He's at my side immediately. I hear the cushions fall to the floor and feel one of his hands between my shoulder blades.

"Hey," he says gently. "Why so serious?"

"What's the point?" I say miserably. "How is this going to help?"

He sits down beside me. "Alice, I have a plan, trust me."

"You know I trust you," I take his hand in mine and look at him. "I just think it would help if I knew what I was preparing for."

He narrowed his eyes in thought. "I suppose…" he says reluctantly. It worries me that he doesn't want to tell me what he's planning. Usually he tells me anything I ask him.

"Jack…" I say quietly, "Please… I need to know what I'm getting myself in for."

He nodded. "All right… it's a big plan though, Alice, but it'll work." Neither of those statements surprises me. Jack's plans are never really on a small scale and he has a hundred per cent success rate. What worried me is what this particular plan entails, if he's so reluctant to tell me.

"What is it, Jack?"

"We're going to disappear…" he says.

"Disappear?" I repeat. "What… like… run away?"

It doesn't sound all that bad an idea; it's certainly one I've considered before. "Uh…" he hesitates. "No, not exactly."

"What then?" I press him for details.

"Well… running away is too easy, they might come looking, and we might get found."

I raise an eyebrow. "Well, what are you suggesting then?"

He looked away from me, thinking about how to word it. Whatever 'it' is. "Uh…" he says again. I wait patiently for him to finish. "Nobody will come looking for us, if they think we're dead."

I'm immediately alarmed by what he's said. For a moment the brief madness of some kind of crazy suicide pact flashes before my eyes and I feel a bit sick. "What?"

He sees my panic. "We won't really be dead, Alice," he said quickly. "People will just assume that we are."

"And… and why would they assume that?" I asked apprehensively.

"Uh… well, uh… there's gonna be an… uh, don't worry, nobody will actually get hurt, but… uh, there's gonna be an accident at the school and we're gonna get away," he finally explained.

"At the _school? _What's going to happen at the school?"

He grins, "We're gonna blow it up."

**Jack**

I trained Alice for days before I let her in on what I was planning. It was tough, but every time things got difficult I just thought of the night that she told me her father had escaped and it renewed my determination. It's a night often haunts me. Her heartbroken, tearstained face at my window. It was the only time that seeing fear in someone's eyes hasn't made me smile. It made me angry. Because she didn't _deserve _the fear. There are some people… most people… in this life that just deserve to suffer… deserve to be scared down a peg or two… Alice was not one of them.

I remember the way her body trembled in my arms and how it sparked off a rage that ripped right through me. It felt like someone had sliced me open, right down the middle, and set my innards alight with a fire that just wouldn't go out. I just wanted to take all of the pain that Alice was feeling and feel it for her, so that she didn't have to. Then I wanted to make whoever caused her pain feel a thousand times worse for a thousand times longer.

I pulled her through the window into my room. She could barely stand on her own. She sobbed into my chest. I rested my chin on the top of her head and pulled her backwards until we were both sitting on the edge of my bed. I let her cry for a while, before I asked her again, "Why so serious?"

She gave a half-laugh, half-sob and pulled back slightly so that she could look at me. I kept an arm around her shoulder. Her scarred cheeks were drenched with tears. Her shaking hands wiped a few away. "He's… he's escaped," she choked out the words. I didn't even have to ask who she was talking about. I pulled her back to me immediately and let her rest on my shoulder. I glanced down at her, saw her shut her eyes and one of her hands reached for my free one. I let her take it.

"You'll be fine, Alice, he won't get you," I said immediately. I was so sure of my conviction. "He won't."

I knew she wouldn't believe me, but already… even then… plans, ideas, schemes were forming in the back of my mind. I felt her sigh. She sat up again and shook her head. "Jack…" she sounded desperate. "How will they catch him…_how? _The police can't do anything. They can't protect me."

"No," I agreed, taking her face in my hands. "But I can." Her eyes met mine and her tears stopped falling. I watched myself trace along each of her scars. They were so beautiful. I stopped when they reached the corners of her lips, but I couldn't seem to pull my hands away from her face. "I promise."

"Jack," she whispered and I watched the way her lips moved when she said it. I looked up slightly. Our eyes met and I couldn't seem to pull mine away. I ran my fingers back up her scars so that I could cup her face in my hands. I felt her hands slide up my arms to my shoulders.

"I promise," I'd said again, although I'd hardly been aware that I was even speaking. She smiled before I kissed her. It was then that I knew that I had just made the only promise in my life that was worth keeping.

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**Please leave a review, they really motivate me to keep going. :)**


	7. Plans

**I know that Batman, and the Joker in particular, are a sensitive issue at the moment, so please know that I don't want to offend or direspect anyone by updating. My last intention is to upset anyone and my thoughts are with all those who were affected by the tragedy in Colorado. RIP to those who lost their lives. I could rant about the guy that did it, but I don't want to contribute to giving him the publicity that he wants. I believe that all of our thoughts should be directed towards the victims and their familes and getting them the justice and help they deserve.  
**

**A lot of love to all of you. I hope that you are all okay.  
**

**LV xx  
**

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**Alice**

I would never say that I had ever been scared of Jack. Not once. It's not that I don't trust him, but his most recent plans do… unsettle me. This is huge. Far bigger than anything he had dreamt up before and I'm not exactly happy about it. I know Jack, I know the way that he gets so caught up in _how_ things would work that he doesn't think about the effect on other people. Especially those people he doesn't like or care about. I had always felt safe with Jack and I trusted him with my life, but I wouldn't necessarily trust him with other people's…

"Blow it up?" I repeat, after staring at him for what felt like hours.

He nodded. He'd known this would be my reaction. "It's all right, Alice, I got it figured," he assures me. "No one will get hurt, I promise. The only casualties will be us."

"Jack…" I say, I'm still far from sure about this, but he's already caught up in explaining things to me.

"Except that we won't really be casualties… people will just assume that we are because they can't find us… y'see?"

"But… Jack…."

"Nobody will get hurt," he assures me again, earnestly and I'm inclined to believe him. "Unless you _want _them to… I could always change the-"

"Jack!" I say again, sharply. "No." He stops talking immediately. He stands up and goes to a drawer in his desk. I watch apprehensively, but he's only pulling out a stack of paper. He looks a little nervous as he brings them over and sets them down in front of me. He stays standing as I settle myself down, cross-legged on his bed and spread them out in front of me. I give all of them a quick scan. There are various blue-prints, layouts of the school, diagrams and timings of everything he has planned. I look up at him. "You've really thought about this haven't you?"

"'Course I have," he nods. I narrow my eyes and say nothing, looking back over his plans, mulling them over. They _are _meticulous in their detail, but… it could be risking far too much to carry them out. He seems to sense my hesitations and leans over. I move up so that he can sit next to me. He pulls up one piece of his plans and draws it to my attention. "Uh… look… uh, look at this. See… that's all happening at lunchtime, when there won't be anyone at that end of the building. And uh… it'll look… accidental."

"How do you know how to do all this?" I frown. He shrugs. "I mean, where did you learn how to set off this kind of thing?"

"Chemistry class, in case you haven't noticed… I'm not exactly _bad _at it," he smiles. "It's not hard once you know what reacts with what…"

It worries me that he knows this kind of thing. "And you can be sure that nobody will get hurt?" He nods fervently.

"Like I said, nobody will be around."

"But," I tilt my head and narrow my eyes. "How can you be sure of that? What if someone's there by mistake?"

He sighs and pauses a moment to think. He pulls the blueprint of the school forwards. "Uh… if we, uh, set off the fire alarm _here," _he circles the area in red pen. "About… uh, five minutes before. Then everyone will be out of the building before the actual fire starts. It will, uh, mean that _we _are more pushed for time though."

"That doesn't matter. I just want everyone to be safe. I don't want anyone to get hurt. _Anyone_," I say slowly.

"All right," he nods immediately. "It's just meant to be a distraction while we get away. That's all."

"Do you promise me?" I looked him straight in the eye.

"Yes," he doesn't hesitate, so I know he's telling the truth. "Whatever you want. I don't care. Just as long as you're safe and we're…" he stops himself. I know what he's going to say, but for some reason there's a part of me that wants to hear it out loud.

"As long as we're… _what_?" I press. He shifts uncomfortably and looks away from me.

"Together," he says quietly. I take his hand. I can feel myself smiling involuntarily. He hesitates before looking at me. He's tense, but when he sees my smile he relaxes a little and smiles back.

"Always," I say quietly and then I'm not really sure where to go from here. We haven't spoken about the kiss since it happened. I haven't even really thought about it… or what it meant to him or me. I know that may sound bad, but it at the time it had just seemed so natural. Now, with him staring at me so intently I wonder if it was somehow, in some crazy kind of way…. Exactly what we both wanted. Then again, what if he doesn't feel the same. I know how much he cares about me, but… This is ridiculous. With everything that's going on, everything that's happened or could be about to happen, and here I am… stressing over whether or not some boy feels the same way about me as I do him. Although, he's not just _some boy_, is he? He's my best friend.

Jack's finger tilts my chin up so that I'm facing him directly. "I love you," he says and then his eyes widen at the shock of hearing himself say it.

"I love you too," I hear myself murmur back and I feel my fingers in his hair. I can still see the intensity in his expression. I rest my forehead against his. "Why so serious?" I ask in a whisper and I'm surprised to hear him whisper the same thing at the same time. We both smile and I know at that moment that there is nothing better, or more natural that being in love with your best friend.

**Jack**

I meant what I said to Alice. Every promise I made to her was sacred. Not one person was going to get hurt in my little diversion if she didn't want it and on the day, not one person was. I never got why she cared so much about it when they wouldn't have given the same thought to her and had taken every opportunity to hurt her physically that they got.

I remember that night when she made me think about other people at school. It hadn't ever really occurred to me what might happen to them. She was always the one who made me think, showed me that maybe there were some people who were worth saving. She saw the best in people and it was her belief in them that made me more open to the possibility that there was a 'best' to believe in.

**Alice**

Jack walks me home, as he always does. As I slip my hand into his I feel more relaxed than I have in a while. At the door of my building he hesitates, but does not stop as he usually does. "Let me come up with you," he says. I look quizzically at him.

"Why?"

"Just… in case," he says. "If there's any more nasty surprises I want to be there. I should have been there last time."

I say nothing, but leave a light kiss on his lips by way of reply and lead him up the stairs by the hand. I freeze as we reach my front door. It's already open. It shouldn't be. Jack's grip on my hand immediately tightens. He stands protectively close to me, "Your Grandmother?" he asks in a low whisper. I shake my head and try to speak round the lump in my throat. A lump of fear.

"She shouldn't be… she shouldn't be back yet." We stand still in the hallway and look at the door. The apartment behind it is completely dark. Jack takes a few steps forward. "What are you doing?" I whisper frantically. He turns and pulls me towards him. I pull my eyes away from the apartment door to look up at him. One of his arms wraps around my waist and he presses a finger of his other hand to my lips. He looks down at me intently.

"I'm not letting you stay here tonight if it's not safe," he says quietly. "But sshh, beautiful, and do what I tell ya."

An array of smart comebacks spring to my mind. In any other situation I would not have let him off with telling me to do as he said, but now I'm happy to let him take charge. I'm glad he's there. I nod and he brushes a few strands of hair from my face. He kisses my forehead and turns back to my door. I watch his eyes dart around. I try to fall into step with him, but he puts out an arm to push me a few steps behind him.

He pushes the door open quietly and steps in. I follow, holding my breath. We stand there for a few seconds and let our eyes grow accustomed to the gloom. A noise from my bedroom makes me jump. I look to Jack for reassurance, but he is so focused on my door that he doesn't look back at me. He crosses over to my door. I follow. We both near the doorway and within a matter of seconds we see a silhouette against my window. The tall shadow of a man moves across my room. I only just manage to hold in a scream. He doesn't see us, but Jack immediately turns and scoops me up. I don't know how he manages it, but he carries me silently and quickly from the apartment. He runs down the stairs and only sets me down when we're a safe distance away. I can feel how much I'm shaking.

"Was that him?" Jack asks as we make our way hurriedly back to his.

"I don't know," even my voice is shaky. "It… it was dark I couldn't see… I don't-"

"It's okay," Jack puts his arms around me. "Stay with me. If it was him and he comes looking… I'm ready for him."

I didn't even ask what he meant for that. I didn't even care.

**Jack**

I thought of that night when we had both got our cards from that woman in the alley. I thought of how she had described the Ace- _'turning over an Ace gives one the feeling of happiness and good fortune'. _Those were all feelings that I had when I was with Alice. I had never felt more happy or luckier than when I was near her. She was my saving grace. She had a way of pulling me back from the edge. I was never really sure what I was on the edge _of_, but it always felt big and… kind of dangerous.

She managed to dull the rage and the pain, which burned inside me when she was not around, to the point where I didn't even notice it anymore. Without her I would have been angry all the time, but she seemed to be able to stop that part of me. As long as I had her I knew that I was safe. I knew that I was safe from myself. She was the one person who knew everything, every tiny detail about me and didn't even flinch. She knew every dark corner of my mind and still she loved me. I couldn't believe that she did. Every time she kissed me seemed like a gift and every time we were apart I was scared that she wouldn't come back in time from stopping me from falling over the edge.

Without my Ace, my beautiful Alice, I wasn't sure where I would land.


	8. What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stranger

**Alice**

I lie still in Jack's bed and stare at the darkness that's hiding the ceiling. The sheets are cold, I can't sleep.

"Go to sleep, Alice," Jack's whisper floats out of the gloom. I smile in spite of everything.

"I am asleep," I whisper back. I hear his soft chuckle. There is another moment of silence between us. I almost turn to lie on my side, so that I can face where he's lying, but I don't. His bed creaks and I don't want to keep him up. I also don't want him to know that I _want _to keep him up. I feel safer with him awake, but that's selfish. I know I have too much on my mind to be getting to sleep any time soon.

"She'll be all right you know," he says and I'm glad he's awake. I take the opportunity to roll over onto my side. I can just make out the shape of his body lying on an airbed on the floor. "Your Grandmother, she'll be all right."

I gulped, "I hope so."

"You called her in time," he reminds me. "She'll deal with the police and go straight to a friend's to stay, just like she said she would."

"Yeah," I say, although my throats a little dry. "I guess I'll hear from her in the morning."

"Don't worry," he says. It sounds a lot like an order. I nod.

"I'll try," I promise. He's reassured me. There was no way that she'd have gone back to the apartment. She was safe. Probably safer than me. After all, he wasn't out to get her. I shivered and pulled the covers further up until it was only my eyes that were peeking out. I don't like the silence. "Goodnight," I say, for something to break it.

"Goodnight, Alice," he replies immediately.

More silence.

"Night," I murmur again.

"Night," he chuckles.

Every unexplained noise I hear heightens my fear. I turn again to lie on my other side. I feel guilty for not caring about disrupting Jack. Now I'm facing the door, I thought that would help me. I thought it might calm me down, but all I can picture is the door opening. I can feel tears in my eyes. I wipe them away. My hands are shaking.

"Alice…" Jack's whisper fills me with relief.

"Yes?"

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah," I say, but it's very unconvincing.

"Give me your hand," he says and I feel his hand land on my mattress with a soft thud. I reach out and take it. Instantly, I feel a tiny bit calmer. I lie on my back again. I realise how uncomfortable this must be for him, so I give his hand a squeeze and let go. He leaves it there for a long time before gently sliding it off. I can't tell whether it slid off because he wanted it to, or because he's fallen asleep. After a slight hesitation I swing my legs out of bed and slip out from between the sheets to join him on the floor. He moves to make room for me and lifts his duvet up for me to slide under. His arm goes round me as he makes sure that I'm covered and warm. It stays there for a moment, lingering round my shoulders. Now that we are closer I can make out his face in the gloom. He looks tense, as if he's not sure that what he's doing is okay. To show him that it is, I reach out and run my fingers down his cheek. He smiles and I gently put my fingers on his lips. He kisses them. I smile and set my head down on the pillow closer to his face. When I move my fingers from his lips he closes the distance between us and kisses me gently, while running his thumb along one of my scars.

It's the first time tonight that I've felt safe.

He lets me stay with him without questioning it and I fall asleep with my head on his chest.

**Jack**

I tried not to sleep that night. I tried to stay awake and watch over her, so that if she stirred any time during the night she would feel safe. I was sure that her bastard father wouldn't come looking for her here. At least not tonight, but in case he did I wanted to be awake and ready for him. Alice fell asleep fairly quickly after that and it was difficult to keep up my focus. She looked so peaceful and it was so warm with her lying in my arms that I couldn't help but feel the happiness spread through me.

I've now come to see that happiness… it's like a sickness. It can dull your senses and lull you into believing that everything has a chance at turning out all right. It can slow down your reactions and cause you to make mistakes.

It caused me the biggest mistake of my life.

But maybe that was a good thing… Maybe the mistake I made that cost me everything, including my happiness, was exactly what I needed. Y'see… happy men… they hardly ever get things done. You seldom see a _happy _man trying to change things now, do'ya? Cause why change things if you're happy?

I'm changing things now. _Big_ changes are coming. And Gotham's gonna pay.

I may not have known it at the time, but my stunt at the school… it was like a trial-run. It gave me a taste of what I can do.

**Alice**

I'm not comfortable with this. Not at all. I've been nervous for the whole morning. Trying to act in the way that I naturally would is taking up all my effort. I'm not sure that I'm doing a very good job of keeping calm. It's a good thing that nobody except Jack pays me any real attention or they would have noticed my increasingly distracted behaviour. The clock seems to be moving at a pace so slow it doesn't seem possible, but at the same time I'm shocked every time I look up by how close it is to lunchtime.

The bell rings and I feel sick. I stand up slowly and file out of the classroom with everyone else. I feel Jack's presence behind me and I'm a bit less shaky. He guides me to his locker. The halls are busy with chatting people. I glance around, not wanting to see what he's putting in his bag and checking that nobody else is interested in it either. Of course they're not bothered by what we're doing. They never are. It scares me a little how excited Jack looks when he turns to me. "Ya ready?" he asks. I gulp and nod. It's all I can manage. He smiles his approval, not registering my nerves. "Just stick to the plan," he whispers before disappearing away down the crowded corridor.

I adjust my bag on my back and walk the opposite way from him, keeping my head down. My hands nervously feel along the edges of the box in my pocket. I hear a faint rattle and try to stop it in case someone notices. Naturally, nobody does. The crowds in the corridors begin to thin out until the majority of pupils have filed outside. Eventually I reach a corridor on the second floor of the school that we knew would be empty. I glance around before pulling the box of matches and a sheet of paper out of my pocket. Checking the corridor as I go I strike a match and hold the flame to the paper. When it catches fire I lift it up into the air and let the smoke curl up towards the smoke detector. I brace myself for a few moments. It doesn't take long for the alarm to go screaming off around the building. I let the burning paper fall to the ground, stamp it out and run. I bin it further down the corridor, far enough away from the smoke detector that nobody would bother looking for it. If the firemen had any suspicions that the smoke alarm had been set off on purpose, before the fire had started, we didn't want any evidence lying around.

I sneak in to a dark and deserted classroom and chance peering out of the window. People are pouring out of the front door and gathering in the playground. I see them all turning their heads to look at the school for any signs of smoke. I hear their chatter and laughter. I have never felt further from them. When the flood of people slows to a trickle I turn my back on the window and run out of the room. I check my watch as I go. It's been five minutes and forty-nine seconds. Eleven to go.

Ten.

I round the corner.

Nine.

Eight.

Seven.

I reach the top of the stairs and begin to hurtle down them.

Six.

_Please be all right, Jack._

Five.

Four.

I jump the last few steps and reach the first floor. I know I'm not going to make it on time as I start racing to the basement.

Three.

Two.

I brace myself.

One.

**BOOM.**

The blast from the second floor shakes the whole building around me. I fall the last few steps and smash into the stone of the basement floor. All of the air is pushed from my lungs and for a second I can't move or breathe. Jack's face swims out of the haze in front of me. "Alice?! Alice are you all right?"

It takes a moment before I can nod. "Yes," I say, finally able to gasp in another breath. "Yes, I'm fine."

He pulls me to my feet. I can already see smoke billowing down the staircase. Jack looks at it and tugs on my hand. "Come on," he says urgently.

"Shit, Jack… how much did you use?" I say with a mixture of amazement and fear. He pulls on my hand again as he starts to run, dragging me with him.

"Just enough," he says, all the muscles in his face are tense. He's so focused and unfazed by what's going on. It scares me slightly. I've never seen him like this.

We run to the kitchens. I'm relieved that they're empty, it gives me more faith that the rest of the school will be too. They've left things cooking and pans boiling. It looks a bit creepy all deserted like this. Jack rushes me through to the back and into a large cupboard where there's a high window that leads to the back of the school. Jack jumps up to open the window as the sprinklers in the kitchen turn themselves on and the smoke that has been chasing us catches up. I watch it fill the kitchen and move towards us, coiling around everything it comes into contact with.

"Alice!" Jack shouts over the wails of many smoke alarms. I turn back to face him. The window is open. "Come _on._"

He puts his hands together to give me a ledge to stand on. I scramble up. It's a fairly small window, which is almost at roof level in the kitchen, but outside is exactly at ground level. I slide out of the gap and then turn to reach down to where Jack is. The school kitchen backs onto the car park. With everyone distracted by the fire at the front of the building there's no one around to see us. I stretch out both hands. He takes them and doesn't look away from me as he pulls himself up. Despite everything I smile. I'm thankful for him and I'm thankful that we're getting away. He smiles back. He looks elated by everything that's going on. He clambers out to join me outside and wastes no time in turning to a black rucksack positioned behind a small bush nearby. He really does have this planned. He pulls out a mask and a black hoodie and hands them to me. I stare at them.

"Put them on," he says, pulling out his own.

"What? Why?" I ask, but I do as he says.

"In case someone sees us," he explains. "We can't be recognised, or this won't work."

I can't believe that he's thought of this. His planning has never been so meticulous. Then again… he's never planned anything this big before. Both of the hoodies are just a little bit too big for us, meaning that there is no chance our everyday clothes could be seen. He takes my schoolbag and shoves it inside the one which had contained our disguises and hands it to me. I put it on and look down at the clown mask in my hands. Jack already has his mask on. I hesitate… surely this is a step too far? Despite not being able to see his eyes I can feel him looking at me, waiting. I slip the mask on over my head and look back at him.

I hear him laugh and I smile at how silly we look. He reaches out and pulls my hood up. That way it's unlikely that anyone will see our faces and just in case they do, the masks mean that they will have no idea who we are. Flames crackle from two floors above and I can hear the distant sound of fire engines.

I notice Jack's limping as he takes a few steps forward, but I don't have time to ask him about it or check that he is all right. He takes my hand and we walk swiftly away from the school, hoods up and heads bowed. We don't speak until we reach the abandoned apartment that Jack had prepared previously. It's not much… and, frankly, it's disgusting, but it's safe. We plan to travel out of Gotham as soon as we can, but we need to lie low for a bit.

Jack is on edge. He glances around us, checking that there is no way we could possibly be seen. I've seldom seen him so focused. His eyes dart around behind the slits in his mask and he looks coiled, ready to spring at any moment, any sign of danger. He pushes me inside the building and only relaxes when the door shuts behind us. We walk up the stairs in silence. I notice that his limp seems to be becoming more prominent. I worry.

As we near the door his foot gives out and he stumbles. I put my arm around him for support and help him into the room. When the door to the apartment is shut he walks away and sinks onto a mattress in the corner. I slide the blot across the door and turn to face him.

"What is it?" I ask, crossing the room towards him.

"Nothing," he says hurriedly. I ignore him and kneel down to examine his leg. The flesh underneath his jeans is freshly burn. I wince at the sight of it. I had suspected that this would happen… there was no way he could have been playing with _that_ much fire and not got burnt.

"Oh, Jack…" I whisper when I see it.

"I'm fine," he insists.

"You sure?"

He nods. "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, Alice," he reminds me.

"Stronger?" I repeat. A cracked mirror lying propped up against a wall shows us both sitting on a filthy apartment floor in oversized hoodies and clown masks. "Or stranger?"

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**Sorry, I know this one was long. Thanks for reading :)**

**Please leave a review and let my know your thoughts.**


	9. Calm

**Just to give you fair warning that this chapter is a love scene.. It's not _overly _graphic, but if you don't like that kind of thing then don't read it. :)  
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**Jack**

Y'know how they say there's calm before a storm? Well there's calm after it too. It's a moment where everything is coated in a perfect silence and everything seems still. But I guess, after the chaos of a storm anything would seem still and calm. It gives things a chance to go back to normal, or if the storm was huge and completely devastating it gives things a chance to find a new normality.

That's what Alice and I were trying to do. Find a new normality.

The thing is… if you know that the storm is coming and you have enough time to prepare for it then you can make your new normality as good as you need it to be. And that's what I was counting on. I was going to give Alice the best kind of normality that I could possibly create for her. The kind of normality that wasn't normal at all. Because she deserved more than normal. She deserved perfection. For things to be perfect you have to dream big. And my dreams get a little weird.

**Alice**

I wake before Jack. His hands are tangled in my hair. I can hear his steady heartbeat and feel the slow rhythm of his breathing under my head. I don't want to move in case I wake him up, so I lie in his arms with my head on his chest enjoying the peace and quiet of not having to live in fear anymore. I smile without meaning to. My body feels lighter than it has in a while. I stretch my legs out and wiggle my toes, letting out a happy little sigh. I know that our plans are far from over, but the hard part is done. All that's left for us to do is to keep our heads down and get out of Gotham. It shouldn't be difficult; nobody ever took any notice of us normally. I'm sure that Jack has some kind of plan. He always does.

A rat scurries close to the mattress before it darts into the darkness of a small hole in the wall. I don't even flinch at the sight of it; they've been making their presence known all night. Over the years we've gotten pretty used to them. Rats in this end of the city are pretty used to humans too. It's an odd kind of co-existence. Jack stirs and I look up at him. His eyes open slowly and a smile spreads across his face. "Morning, Ace," he mutters.

"Morning," I smile back at him, a warm feeling spreading through me. I see my mood reflected in his eyes. He runs his fingers through my hair. We lie in perfect silence. Everything seems still and calm. It's almost like we are the only two people in the whole world. Even the noises from outside seem dull and insignificant. I could lie here forever, but I know we'll need to move. Jack already looks business-like and focused. I don't like it. I just want him to stay in that happy mood where nothing else matters. At least for a little bit longer. I prop myself up on my hands and move so that my face is above his. I lean down press my lips to his. He wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me so that I'm lying on top of him. I settle there, perfectly happy with where I am now. I move my hands to play with his hair. His rest gently on my hips. As our kiss deepens his hands run slowly up my back. My spine tingles at the feeling before his hands reach my shoulders and one of them tangles itself in my hair. I raise my head from his and look into his eyes. He smiles at me and I see that he's relaxed again. "Hey," I smile back, kissing him lightly. "We did it."

I kiss him again and I can still feel his smile as our lips meet. "We sure did," he grins, his voice muffled because of the small distance between our lips. The next time I go to kiss him his head turns slightly so that his lips meet with the scars on my cheek. He's so gentle with them, so careful. Each kiss along it is softer than the last. I frown.

"Why do you that?" I ask, my voice is just a whisper.

"Do what?" he murmurs as his kisses move to the other scar.

"Treat my… my scars like they're… well…" I trail off, suddenly embarrassed. Why did I bring that up? He takes my face in his hands and forces me to look him in the eyes. It's not something he has to do much forcing to get me to do. His eyes are so full of a love that I can't even explain, but it's one I feel for him too.

"They're beautiful, Alice," he says. I frown, not because I don't believe what he's saying, but because I can't believe he's saying it. He looks so sincere. He touches my scars and his smile widens. I don't know whether to smile or cry at the sentiment. "_You _are beautiful, Alice."

"Jack…" I sigh; it's all I manage before his lips are back on mine. His kiss starts off gently at first, his lips move slowly with mine. Soon, his kiss becomes deeper, hungrier. He eases my mouth open a little wider and his tongue plays slowly with mine. But still he feels tentative. He's testing me, working out his limits. He should know that when it comes to him, there aren't any. I want to let him know that it's okay, but I don't really know how to go about it. He runs his hands quickly back down my spine and then slowly over my hips, up my sides and across my shoulder blades. I nibble gently on his bottom lip and I feel the pressure of his fingertips on my back increase slightly. It makes me smile. I tear my lips from his and kiss my way down his neck. I feel the rise and fall of his sigh of enjoyment. His fingers trace absentminded patterns down the length of my back. As his finger snags on my shirt he accidently pulls it halfway up my back. I feel him freeze beneath me.

I stop my slow progression down his neck and prop myself up on my hands above him. "Sorry," he muttered, not looking me in the eye. "I didn't mean… I wasn't trying-"

"It's okay," I cut across him, smiling down. He looks unsure as to what I mean. "It's okay," I smile and sit up to straddle his waist. He looks at me intently as I guide his hands to lift up my shirt. He lifts it as far as he can reach and I pull the rest of it up over my head, as he returns his hands to the small of my back. I bend to kiss him again as he rubs from my back, across my hips and then over my stomach. It gives me a strange kind of thrill to feel his warm hands placed so intimately and gently on my body. I trust him completely, as my best friend he's seen almost everything… we've done almost everything together. But not this. This is the one area that we've never covered before. It feels right that we're exploring it now. It's new, it's different and above all, it's exciting. I know every inch, every corner of his mind and now I feel the need to get to know his body just as well. I can tell by the way that he lightly brushes his fingers along every inch of my bare skin before he cups one of my breasts in his hand that he feels exactly the same.

My heartbeat quickens at his touch. I'm so aware of his every kiss, every caress and every touch that my body seems to prickle with an odd kind of heat. The apartment around us is freezing and I need to be closer to his irresistible warmth. I don't care that the building we're in isn't as clean or well-kept as it could be. The love I feel for the man beneath me is so pure that it doesn't matter where we are. I run my hands all over his chest, eventually slipping them under his shirt. I slide back on his lap so that he can sit up and raise his arms for me to take it off him. My eyes drink in his chest. I smile and bite my bottom lip. He leans in to kiss me and I explore his bare chest with my hands. He lies back down, pulling me with him without breaking our passionate kiss. His hands slip to my waist to roughly pulls my hips closer to his before moving his hands back to my breasts. I can feel that he is getting hard. It's pressing into my thigh. Maybe I should be deterred by this, but I'm not. I'm not sure how to proceed, but I know that I want to. I pull my lips from his and begin to kiss my way down his chest. His hands grab the backs of my thighs and he pulls so that my hips are directly above his. I sit up slightly and angle my hips so that his hardness is pressing against the warmth between my legs. His thumb brushes over my nipple through my bra and I feel an unexpected twinge of pleasure that draws a gasp from my lips. He smiles at the sound. I smile back.

I start slowly moving my hips on his and feel the steadily hardening rod in his pants grow beneath me. It rubs against me and again I hear myself give an involuntary gasp at what I'm feeling. He unclasps my bra and slips it off. I arch my back when he pulls me closer to him, so that he can access my breasts without stopping the slow movements of my hips on his, which he seems to be enjoying. He nips, licks and tweaks my nipples until he's got me into a state where this isn't enough. I need _more._ The blood in my veins is burning with my longing for Jack.

"Jack…" I breathe his name. He stops what he's doing and looks up at me. "How's the leg?"

He looks a little bit confused. "Uh… it's all right..." he mutters.

"Mind if I take a look?" I ask and his grin is devilish. I slide off him and kneel by his crotch. I bite my lip again at the sight of the bulge in his pants. He laughs. I reach out and unfasten his jeans. He helps me pull them off him. I kneel by his burn and gently reach out to touch it. He winces and I kiss the skin around it to make him feel better, before I leave a little trail of kisses on his inner thigh as I work my way up. He sits up and pulls my face towards his. This time his kiss is far from gentle. His lips crush against mine, revealing the longing that's made my body ache is most definitely mutual. He pushes me down onto my back and spares no time pulling off my own jeans. He pulls my underwear off with them and begins kissing my legs, mirroring the path I had taken up his own inner thigh moments ago. I nearly shudder with the longing I feel inside me. His hand pushes my legs further apart. I don't resist him.

"Jack…" I say again, my voice louder than it had been and dripping with need. He raises his head and smiles at me. I wait for him as he pulls off his boxers. I smile as he lowers himself down on top of me. I wrap my legs around him. His eyes meet mine. His gaze is intense. I need him. He bends his head and kisses a spot behind my ear. "God, I love you," I murmur.

"I love you too," his lips dance by my ear. I move my hands to his hips and he looks at me. Our lips meet and he slides gently inside me. My nails dig into his back and he stops. "You all right?" he asks to be sure.

"Yes," I nod fervently and I move my hips to the rhythm of his. This was the perfect moment after all that we'd been through previous day. I had never felt safer, more secure, or calmer about my future. This was my future. _He _was my future. Paradise.

**Jack**

The thing about storms is… the thing that people always forget… is that there's calm before and there's calm after, but there is also calm during. Right in the middle. The eye of the storm is perhaps the calmest part. But you gotta remember that that means there more storm coming. And you better not get the eye of the storm mixed up with the calm that comes after. It can be dangerous if you do. People let their safety slip. They get hurt.

That's the mistake Alice and I made. I thought, as we were lying in paradise in that dirty apartment, that we had reached the calm at the end of a storm, but I was so, so, so wrong. It wasn't the end. We were lying in the eye of the storm. And the worst was yet to come.

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	10. Back Soon

**Jack**

So… I suppose you wanna know what happened that day? Many people do, most of 'em cops. Well let me tell you about it. It's a day that left a lot of people talking after it happened like they knew anything about what had gone on. Like they knew anything about either of us. It seems to be a day that everyone seems to get all mixed up about. It's the day I committed my first murder, y'see. Or, at least, that's how they see it, but the way I see it… it's far more tragic than they give it credit for.

I left Alice sleeping. She looked too peaceful, too still to wake up so I didn't. Instead I got up and put my clothes on quietly, real quietly, so that I wouldn't disturb my Alice. When I was dressed I looked around for something to leave a note on, to let her know I'd be back soon so she wouldn't worry, y'know? I dragged my fingernail along the grime on the window and scratched out the words 'BACK SOON'. I didn't want her panicking if I wasn't back by the time she woke up. I could have waited till she woke up, but I just had to know. I needed to know if our plan had worked or not. If it had then Alice and I would be safer. We could get on the move, get out of this shithole. As long as nobody was looking for us… we'd be fine.

I put my hood up before I left to hide my face from anyone who might be passing by and recognise me. Just in case there were people on the lookout for us. I kept my head down and walked fast. I didn't want to look anyone in the eye, just in case. I chose a shop a few blocks away from where we were hidden, so that if I went down I wouldn't take Alice with me. I needed to keep my Ace safe, keep her hidden. It was a lot like playing a game of cards with the people of Gotham. I had to keep my Ace close to my chest, if anyone knew that I had her they'd surely try and take her off me. The stakes were high, I just couldn't know how high until I got my hands on a newspaper.

There were other people in the shop when I got there. People are less likely to pay attention to you if there's a crowd to blend into. They're too busy getting annoyed by other people getting in their way and fucking up their day than what a tall, lanky, skinny teenage boy is doing by the newspaper stand. The top copy of the Gotham Gazette has a picture of our burning school on it. I remember I had to bite back my laughter as I picked it up. It was just nice to see the outside of the school building looking as shitty as the insides of the people who were inside it. It was what they all deserved really. And why _wouldn't _that bring a smile to someone's face? I unfolded the paper to see the photo in full, just to the side of it there were two tiny pictures of me and Alice. The headline read; "Two teens dead in school blaze", with a subtitle announcing that our bodies were unaccounted for. A quick scan of the text told me that it was assumed that we were too charred to be recognisable. The head teacher had issued a statement saying how much we'd be missed. Apparently we'd been "well-liked among our peers, who were all shocked and deeply distressed by the events of yesterday". Just goes to show you how little the school knows about their pupils and the lives they lead. There were also quotes from our supposed "friends", most of whom I'd never ever heard of or spoken to, saying how much they missed us and wanted us back. It's strange how death can make everyone your best friend. It's funny really. Either that or they just wanted to get their names in the papers. Probably that.

"You gonna buy that?" the shopkeeper called over to me from behind the counter. I thought about it, and then I nodded without looking directly at him. I hadn't planned on it, but seeing how well everything had gone I felt kinda proud of me and Ace. She'd want to read it. It'd give her a laugh. I folded it up again and took it as I walked away from the rest of the papers. I picked up a little bit of food too, to keep us going.

When I got out of the shop I opened the paper back up and couldn't hold back my laughter any longer. "We did it, Ace," I grinned. "We did it."

**Alice**

I'm so cold. My face is so cold. Although my eyes are still shut I can tell that it's light outside, but because there are no curtains on the grubby windows, so I'm aware that it could have been light for some time. I have no idea what time it is. It smells musty in here… it's unfamiliar. I remember where I am and reach for Jack. When all my fingers meet is air I open my eyes. He's not there. I sit up and look around; the apartment seems to be empty.

"Jack," I call, but there is no reply. I turn to look at the emptiness behind me. "Jack," I say again, even though it's evident he's not here. I just don't like the silence. Where is he? I stand up and wrap the sheet around me. Maybe he's just out in the hallway. I call for him again, louder, but there is still no reply. Feeling genuinely scared and alone I pull on my clothes as quickly as I can, but it's difficult because I can feel my hands shaking as I do it. I keep looking at the door, hoping that he'll come through it. When I'm dressed I cross over to the door and open it slowly, peering out into the dark hallway to see if he's there. He's not. I shut the door and turn back to room. I keep expecting him to appear. The apartment feels bigger that it did before. And colder. I sit back down, cross-legged on the mattress and pull a blanket around my shoulders. I don't know what to do with myself. I look to the window and see a message scratched in the filth- "BACK SOON". Jack. Thank God.

Feeling much more relaxed, I stand up and decide to make myself busy. I feel nervous without Jack here, I need something to do. The dust scatters beneath my feet as I walk into previously unexplored parts of the apartment. It doesn't exactly take long to wander around it. It's basically one filthy room with a filthy kitchen and a bathroom we've not had cause to use yet. I hope we don't have to. How long are we staying here for? He never said. I wander into the kitchen area and have a look around. I'm hungry, Jack will be too but I doubt there's anything in here we can eat. I look in a few of the drawers. Most of them are empty. There are a few knives, a spoon and a couple of forks in one of them. I take out the sharpest knife in there and lay it down on the counter near me. It just makes me feel slightly safer.

I move onto the cupboards, there's only three and the first two are empty save for a spider's web and a few dusty crumbs. There's a dodgy looking tin in the third one. It's not labelled, but it is unopened. I take it out. It's heavier than I thought it would be. I weigh it up in each hand. I don't trust it in the slightest, but if we get desperate it will do. I wonder if Jack's planned for this at all. He probably has. I'd be lost without him. I set it down next to the knife and turn away from the kitchen to wait for Jack. I walk over to the window and look down onto the street. There's a few people walking there, but I don't think any of them are Jack. I lean my forehead against the windowpane and watch them go by.

A door slams behind me. It sounds like it's coming from downstairs. The sudden noise makes me jump and turn to face the apartment door. Jack's back. I feel my smile as I hear footsteps on the stairs. "Jack!" I call, walking to the door to greet him. He doesn't answer, but I can hear the echoes of his footsteps getting closer. "I found some food," I continue. "I'm not sure what it is. Or how old it is, but if you're hungry we can always take a look." I pause and wait for him to answer. He doesn't. "Jack?" Nothing. "Jack?" The footsteps stop right outside the door. My hand is on the handle, but suddenly I don't want to open it anymore.

Why hasn't he said anything yet?

Quietly, I slide the bolt across and back away from the door. There is still no sound from the other side. Then, the handle turns and the door moves as someone tries to open it. Then the handle rattles again and the person on the other side pushes harder to get it. The door shakes a little.

"Alice," a voice calls, but it's not Jack.

"Dad?" I whimper, feeling my body go numb.

Jack… where are you?

My back hits the window and I glance sideways. The words 'BACK SOON' are beginning to look less and less likely.

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**Thank you for reading :) Please leave a review.**


	11. Past the Eye of the Storm

**Helloo :) If you follow all of my current stories then I'm sorry that you're going to have to put up with the same author's note three times. Anyway, I'm moving into University accommodation on Saturday, so I might not have as much time to write as I would perhaps like to, especially seeing as I need to get settled in to my new place, meet my flatmates and get packed/unpacked (wish me luck I'm so nervous, I hate meeting new people :S) So this is just to let you know that there will be a longer gap between updates than might be normal. Please don't be cross with me; I'll be back on it as soon as I can be. **

**As always, thanks for reading.  
LV xx**

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**Jack**

I know the murder's all you want to hear about. It's all everyone wants to hear about. So you wanna know? You want to ask what everyone's been asking me? You wanna know if it was me who killed Alice.

Well… I'm getting there, all right? You're gonna just have to be patient. You're gonna need the whole story, not just the media's version of it. Stupid people believe stupid things. And Gotham breeds idiocy.

So… I was feeling good when I made my way back to Alice. We were on our way to getting out of all this. All of this shit. My plan was going so well. So very well. Y'know how before I spoke about being in the eye of the storm? That bit of calm that I'd forgotten about? Well I still hadn't remembered. I was still so smug, so _pleased _with myself that I hadn't thought. I hadn't planned. You need to plan these things. Or they start to go wrong.

That was when I learned that all it takes is for you to be careless once. You can make _one_ mistake and everything goes to shit… falls apart.

Mistakes can be fatal.

**Alice**

The door shakes, trembling on its hinges as he rams his shoulder into it time and time again. It reminds me of my door at home. The one we'd had when I was a kid and I'd lived with my parents. It had never been very secure and when it had been stormy outside it had rattled just like this one is doing now. I had always thought that if you were to ask it, and if it could talk, it would have told you that it wasn't because of the wind slamming against it. I believed it to be shaking out of fear. Just like I was. The violence of the shaking matched the tremors in my body so completely that I found it difficult to believe that it was caused merely by stormy weather outside. I had always had a connection to that door, always known it to be my silent ally. I had often felt it looking at me and willing me to use it. To open it as wide as it could go and run out into the night while _he _lay sleeping. And now, years later, here was another door acting as my silent ally. Keeping him out as long as it could while I sit, shaking, opposite it.

I pull my knees right up to my chest and curl up beneath the window. I want to get up and run, but where can I go? My only exit is blocked by the man I'm trying to escape. I think about jumping out of the window, but we're pretty high up and I'm not sure that I can survive the jump. Even if I did get back up again, would I be able to run? Then, through my tears, I see the knife I had laid out glint on the counter. I can use that… I glance back at the door and see that it is close to breaking point. I leap to my feet and run to grab the knife. I feel the cool steel in my hands when suddenly the door bursts open. I whip around to face him, hiding the knife behind my back as I do so. I know I can use it if I need to, but I'm not sure that I can actually kill someone. _Just defend yourself, Alice. _I wish that Jack was here. He's so much better at this kind of thing than I am. My hands are shaking so much. I can't control them.

"What's wrong, Alice?" he looks at me, curling his lip. I back away slightly, into the kitchen. "Don't you recognise your old man?"

I haven't seen my father since he had given me the scars that had haunted me ever since. I was six years old at the time. It had been eleven years since I had last laid eyes on him, but he still filled me with fear. He's older, obviously, but looks just as strong as he did eleven years ago. He looks like he might have built himself up in prison… I suppose that he did have the time. And if he'd started a fight there it would have been against someone his own size. I've grown, but standing in front of him, I don't _feel _any taller.

I struggle to find my voice. I think I might throw up. "I… I… I don't..."

He's laughing at my fear. "C'mon, Alice, don't you have anything to say to me?" he asked. "I mean… you went to all this trouble for me. Letting everyone think you were dead. Your grandmother… she must be real _cut up _about it."

His word choice makes my stomach drop. "What did you do to her?" I ask, finally able to form a whole sentence. He chuckles and shakes his head.

"She'll be fine," he assures me. "But you… you've done a bad thing, worrying everyone like this. Did you really think I wouldn't find you? You're my little girl; of course I'd keep an eye on my little girl." He smiles and I flinch when he reaches towards me. "Don't worry angle, I just came to see about that boy that you're with. Where is he now?"

"J-J-Jack?" I stammer. Please come back now Jack. I need you.

"Yes, J-J-Jack," he mimics me, one of his hands grabs at my hair. My palms are sweaty. I can feel the knife slipping from my grasp. I raise my chin and try to look brave. I can see Jack's last message still scraped into the grime.

"He'll be back soon," I say, determined to sound like I'm sure of it. "So you better… you better leave now."

"Now why would I do a thing like that?" he asks with a nasty curiosity.

"He… he won't like you being here," I say. "You should just leave us alone. Please." I didn't mean to beg him, it just slips out. Fuck. I feel like I've regressed back to being six year old, when I actually thought that pleading with him would do any good. Even now, it seems to be the only thing I could think of saying in an effort to stop him. I step away from him. "You should leave," I say again, this time with more conviction. He's not moving, but he's not coming towards me either. I feel slightly more confident in myself and my own strength.

"You look like your mum," is all he says.

"You _murdered_ my mum," I reply. He frowns. "Now _leave me alone._" I feel proud of myself, standing up to him like this. I've never spoken to him like this before, but the mention of my mum has made me angry. I've spent so long being terrified of him that I'd forgotten to be angry with him for everything that he has done. He doesn't deserve to be free. And he sure as hell doesn't have the right to take _my _freedom away from me. I can feel anger like I've never felt before boiling up inside me. "**Get **_**out**_**.**" I say fiercely. He doesn't know what to do with this. My mum used to fight with him something dreadful, but he's not used to me answering back.

_Clang._

Fuck.

The knife's dropped from my hand. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. His eyes follow the sound of the _clang _and he sees it lying by my feet. He looks back up at me. Shit. "You little bitch," he says quietly. "You weren't going to use that on your own flesh and blood were you?"

I gulp down the fear in my throat and stare at him defiantly. "I didn't stop you."

For once, I don't mind that he's looking at my scars. They are his handiwork after all. He should see what he's done. I thought it might make him feel guilty, but he's smiling now. I feel sick again. Then, suddenly, he snaps and that temper I was once so used to seeing flares up again. "You **bitch**!" he roars, stumbling towards me. I crouch to grab at the knife. I see how close he is and I swing the knife towards him. There's no time to think about it. I hear him cry out and then I realise that I've made contact with his leg. I try to pull it out. It's stuck. I take my chances and run from him, heading from the door.

I feel a searing pain across my scalp as he grabs a fistful of my hair. I scream out and he pulls me towards him. "No! No! Please!" I whimper, hating myself for doing so. He strikes me across the face. I can taste blood.

"Is this what you've been doing? Running around with that boy?" He's gone red in the face and a vein in his forehead is throbbing. "You're a slut just like your mother."

"I love him!" I protest fiercely. Blood spills onto my lips. He throws me against the wall and I numb myself to his blows. I used to do that when I was a kid, and I find it so easy to slip back into that numb state of mind. I sink to the cold floor.

"Get up," he orders. I try to but I'm shaking so badly I can't stand. He shouts at me again and this time his shout is accompanied by a sharp blow to the side of my head. His roaring insults echo in my ears and ring out in my head as his fists slam against my body, but I don't feel him hurting me. His foot crushes into my side again and again. I can smell the blood now too as well as taste it. For a second, it ceases. I raise my head.

"Dad," I say groggily, hoping he's tired himself out. I see something glinting in his hands. He's pulled the knife out of his leg and he's standing above me. Blood drips from the blade onto my face. I try to get up and run, but the pain tells me that there's something broken in my leg. My father crouches down and uses his free hand to force me to look at him. He takes in my scars before he stands up again. I feel myself tense as I watch his heavy black boots walk round to my back. He puts a foot on my spine. All I can do is brace myself before he sets out to finish off what he started eleven years ago.

The pain feels like it's burning me up. I'm dissolving into it and away from reality. I can see the door, the poor door. It tried so hard to keep him out, but it could only manage for so long. Just like me. The door was hanging off its hinges and I was slipping closer to death with each slow, torturing drag of my father's knife on my back. I see a flicker of movement out in the hallway before I slip away.

Jack.

Jack.

I'm so sorry I failed you Jack.

**Jack**

When I got back to the apartment, so happy, so smug, so sure of myself… I was too late. The door was broken clean off its hinges and when I stepped in I saw that there was a small area under the window was bathed in blood. I saw Alice, beaten, broken, unmoving. Her eyes closed as I looked her.

So you wanna know? You want to ask me again? Go on, I've been asked so many times. Was it me who killed Alice?

l may not have had the knife, like the cops say I did. But I did let her down.

So, yes.

I'm as much to blame as her father is, I should have been there. It's my fault.

I killed my beautiful Alice.

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	12. Scar for a Scar

**Jack**

Mostly, when people meet the father of the girl they're in love with they're nervous. They wanna make a good impression. So they dress up real nice, ya'see? So that he will think that they're good enough. They smile, they shake his hand. They're on their best behaviour. Not me, though. The day I met the father of the girl I love I didn't put on any kind of fancy display. I didn't shake his hand.

I killed him.

I saw him standing at Alice's feet, the man who had taken everything from me and I was blinded by white-hot rage. It burned through my veins like hellfire and rose up to boil me whole. I don't know how I got there, but the next thing I knew was that my fists were pummelling into the sides of his head. He hadn't seen me coming, so I got a few blissful moments of hatred out before he swung his arm and hit me with a roar of rage. I didn't even feel it, I wasn't sure what I _could _feel anymore, but it flung me to the other side of the room. That's the thing about me y'see. I'm tall, but I'm scrawny, not all that strong physically, but you don't really need to be. Ever heard the phrase "mind over matter"? Well… it's true. See, if you can get in to someone's mind then everything else doesn't matter. If you get a chance to mess with their head then you'll soon see that they're helpless. They have nothing to do with all of their strength.

I looked up from the corner he'd thrown me into. He looked so smug that he'd managed to throw someone half his age and weight to the other side of a room. I saw that there was murderous light in his eyes, but he didn't know that the very same light I saw inside him was pulsating through me… coursing, sparking, and jolting through my veins. I smiled at him. That confused him. A well placed smile can confuse even the sharpest of minds. And his was as blunt as a spoon. A laugh escaped my throat at how arrogant he could be considering he wasn't going to make it out of this.

"Do you remember…" I clicked a crick in my neck before I stood up, "the day you brought her home?"

My question threw him and he stopped making his way towards me. I scrambled to my feet. "What?" he frowned at me.

"From the hospital," I continued, just to clarify. It was my turn to advance towards him. He was still very unsure where I was going with all of this. He'd soon see. "The day she was born." Being in the same room as him made me feel physically ill. Have you ever been so angry that you felt nauseous? I have, I was that day. It took everything I had not to rip him apart there and then. But that would have been too quick. Too merciful. I glanced down at the knife he was still holding, really quickly so that he wouldn't remember he had it or see my interest in it. He frowned and I could tell that his eyes weren't focusing on me anymore. They were fixed on some distant day in his past. Good. I wanted him to realise the magnitude of what he'd done, what he'd taken away from the world. "Do you remember how it felt to hold her for the first time?"

For a brief moment her father smiled. "She held my thumb," he said quietly and he dropped the knife in order to wrap his own blood-stained hand around his other thumb. I had him now. I knew I had him. And I would enjoy this.

"How small she was…" I continued, bending slowly to pick up the knife from the ground. "How fragile…" Before he could react I reached out and grabbed his face, forcing him to look at the body of his daughter. His beautiful, beautiful daughter. "Now look at her," I said, pressing the blade of my knife to his throat. "Look what you did."

"Alice," he said her name. I kept him in an iron grasp as I readjusted my hold on the blade.

"Which thumb was it she held?" I asked, taking hold of his wrist. He flinched. "Was it this one?" I didn't wait for him to answer me before I sliced it off. The sound of his pain was glorious. I waited for it to stop and for the echo to fade away. He tried to struggle, but I kept him still.

He began to whimper. "Are you going to kill me?" he asked.

Coward.

Can you believe that was all he cared about? Not about what he'd done to his own child, but about what I was going to do to him. So I took great delight in saying, "Yes."

I don't know how people can condemn what I did next. I think they're too quick to get all on their high-horse about stuff like this. Nobody likes to think of themselves as a murderer, but under the right circumstances we've all got it in us. There are those that try to use things like religion or morals as a way to explain how they could not _possibly _take another human life. That's the sheer arrogance of our species. Only those who can afford morals actually stick to them. 'Cause let me tell you… if you lost everything and you were standing within reach of the person who'd taken it from you, you would do what I did.

It wasn't enough to merely kill him. He'd taken two lives in one day. I needed to make him suffer. I got him on the floor, face down. Then I twisted his head to make him look at his daughter, to look at the damage he'd done to her. Because that's what he would have coming to him. I hit him across the head until he was still, but remained conscious. Then I took the knife and dragged it… slowly… real slowly down his back. I watched the blood pool and him twitch beneath the blade. I thought my hand might shake with the enormity of what I was doing, but I kept my cool. Cool as a cucumber. Matching up what he had done to my Ace, mirroring it exactly.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot… a scar for a scar.

Life for a life.

When his back was a shredded as the damage that he had caused I drove the blade right through him and listened to his dying groan. When he was still I stood up, feeling calm for a second. And then I just felt empty. Not like I was hungry or anything, no, not like that. Just like there was nothing inside me anymore.

D'ya know how it feels to see your whole world broken before your very eyes? Do you know what it's like to see it lying in pieces in front of you, bloody and beaten? To see it collapsed. Crushed, dying, dead. Do you know what it's like to lose everything all at once? Huh? Do you? Well I do. I know exactly how it feels and it's a feeling that never leaves you.

I saw my world lying on a filthy, cold, dirty floor. She was bloodied and bruised. Her hair was matted with her own blood, her clothes were as shredded as the flesh on her back. Her face was turned towards the door, but her eyes were closed and her skin was pale white.

I went over to crouch beside her. I reached out a finger to slowly brush her blood-clotted hair from his face. Her skin was still warm to my touch. Something splashed onto her face and I looked up for the source of the leak. Then I realized that it was my own tear. Once I'd acknowledged them, they were hard to stop. I bent down real close to Alice and breathed her in. I tried to choke out her name, but it was difficult to squeeze it past the big lump in my throat. Wouldn't have done much good anyway, it's not like she could hear me. I let her scent fill me up; it was usually such a comfort, but not now. Nothing could do that job now. This was never part of the plan, never part of my promise. I'd promised to protect her and now here she lay… dead in my arms.

I probably would have laid there forever. Until I had died along with her. There wasn't any kind of pain- not disease, illness, starvation or death that was equal to the pain I was in. I would have been far happier if I had died instead of her. I only moved when I heard the sirens coming. I knew at once how this would look. It would look like I'd killed them both. They'd make that assumption immediately and I couldn't live with that. I didn't care what they did to me. I didn't care if they shot me on the spot… but to have everyone think that I was _me _who drove a knife through Alice?

No.

No, I couldn't deal with that.

The sirens stopped outside and I heard footsteps on the stairs. I raised my head from Alice's hair. I wasn't ready to leave her. I wasn't ready to say goodbye.

How could I possibly say goodbye to my Ace?

I reached into her pocket, where I knew it would be, and pulled out her playing card. One corner of it was seeped in her blood. I took the Joker card from my own pocket and swapped them, so that we would always have a little piece of each other. I kissed her scars one last time. I couldn't bring myself to look at her again. I should have. I should have looked at her one last time, for as long as I possibly could. But I couldn't, I just couldn't.

I fled out of the room and into the hall. They saw me. I know they saw me, but I saw them too. And I saw the guilt in all of their faces. Guilt they didn't even know they had. Why do they never come when you need them? Why do they only care _after _someone has died? Why? They could have stopped it if they'd come earlier, they could have, I know they could have.

They saw me fleeing, but there was nothing they could do about it. They couldn't catch me. They couldn't shoot me, not with so little to go on. Y'know what they're like, them cops. They take too long to do anything and people get away. They've got guidelines to follow. Rules. It makes 'em indecisive. Useless. Shit.

I looked down at the Ace, t_he death card, _but all I saw was Alice_. _

I tried to say goodbye, but I couldn't. And I never would.

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**Thanks for reading, please review :)**


	13. Broken Connections and Broken Bones

**Jack.**

I stood there and waited, staring into the shadows. The drizzle soaked my hair to my forehead and the wind did all it could to force me to move, but I didn't budge. This was where I needed to be and I wouldn't go until I got what I came for. Trouble was, I wasn't sure what exactly it was that I was looking for. Answers? Possibly. Revenge? Probably. Someone to blame? Highly likely.

Despite having got my revenge on Alice's father, I didn't feel as settled as you would like to think a guy would be when he'd just settled up the score. Y'see, the thing is, a life for a life doesn't always work out like that. It doesn't always make things even. It was one pathetic, worthless, useless life for a beautiful, innocent young light that had been extinguished. And that just doesn't seem like a fair exchange now, does it? Truth is, there's no soul out there that can match hers. And I'm including myself in that too, don't go thinking I'm arrogant or anything. But a lot of me had died along with Alice. I still had all my brain, all my ideas, all my smarts, but without Alice there was something missing inside me. Without someone to care about I just couldn't muster up an ounce of caring in my whole being. It wasn't that it was too much effort, of too painful to remember what it was to care… the ability to care was just… gone. Not even a tiny shard of it left to care about myself.

Something moved in the shadows of the alleyway. I turned the Ace card over and over in my hand, waiting. Then I saw her, sitting under that metal staircase. I knew she'd come eventually.

"Joker," the old woman said. Her voice is exactly the same as I remembered. "You're the Joker boy."

"Yes," I replied and then I'm not sure how to continue. I knew that I had sought her out for a reason, but when she was sitting there in front of me there seemed to be little I could say. There was something about seeing her again that had changed me back to being that nervous little boy. That little boy with a crazy mother and a father who didn't give a shit. That little boy with only one friend in the whole world. A friend who he is, already, even at that young age, completely in love with. That little boy who still had his Ace.

"Why do you hold the Ace so tightly, my child?" the old woman asked. "If the Joker is yours, why are you holding the Ace?" I stopped turning the Ace in my hands.

"She's-"

"-dead," the woman finished for me. "But you will not find the peace you seek here. You look for someone to blame for her death child, but you will look your whole life. It was not I who caused it."

"You gave it to her," I protested, trying my best not to clench my fists in fear of crushing the Ace.

"She picked it up," the woman corrected me. I could do nothing but lick my lips. They were dry. I had no reply for her. Just anger. Anger I had nothing to do with. Nowhere for it to go and so it was building. Building and building and filling up my body. Squeezing itself into my brain and pushing out against my skull. It blocked up my throat and rendered my speechless. The woman spoke again. "Just as _you _picked up the Joker."

I could only nod.

There was another silence.

"Where is it?" she asked. "The Joker card, where is it now?" I held up the Ace with the back facing her so that she would think that it was my card. I don't know why I felt like lying to her would be helpful. Or that it would work. "No, child," she said. "That is the death card. If you think you can chose that card and it will be your ticket out of here, then-"

"That's not why I took it," I said.

"Ah. I see. Well that's not important. What's important is what you did with the other card. The Joker." For some reason I didn't want to tell her, but she wouldn't drop it. "What have you done with the Joker? What have you done with your mind?"

I gulped. "I left it."

"Where?"

"With Alice."

"Then it begins."

No more was said. She was gone and I was left rooted to the spot. I wasn't sure if I was unable to move, or if it was just because I had nowhere to go, but I stood there for what felt like a good half an hour before I moved even slightly. I turned my back on the alley and make my way in the opposite direction from the way that Alice and I had gone all those years ago. There was no home to go back to. Not anymore.

* * *

I hadn't known how cold I was until I stepped through the door of an almost empty apartment and was sheltered from the wind. Obviously I couldn't go back to where we had been, but I wasn't far from it. I couldn't quite bring myself to leave the surrounding area. I've also noticed that the cops tend to think that whoever they're looking for will be in the immediate are and if not then they look as far afield as they can think to go. They seldom cover the middle ground, so I reckoned I was safe… at least for a little while. The apartment I'd found was on the top floor. I couldn't decide whether its previous tenants had left in a hurry and not quite packed up everything, or if they were just too poor to afford vital pieces of furniture. Either one was as likely as the other in this end of town, but the people weren't home. And that's what mattered. It didn't look like they'd been home in a while either, whatever had happened to them. There was a lot of dust covering everything and rodents had made themselves more welcome than usual.

I put my backpack down on the filthy ground. I don't know why I was still carrying it with me. In all the commotion I don't remember picking it up when I fled, but it was with me. And that was probably a good thing. The less evidence there was of me lying around the crime scene, the better. Then again, it didn't really matter if I got caught. So long as everyone knew the truth about what happened to my beautiful Ace, I wasn't too bothered about what they did with me.

Give me a fucking badge of honour for ridding the world of that scum is what they should do.

But they won't.

They'll just keep giving them to men who rescue kittens from trees and babies from flames. Men who have the respectable background and means to afford keeping that badge of honour out of the mud that their name's being dragged into. Not boys who kill a convict who was on his way to "becoming reformed and changing his life". Not boys with crazy mums and deadbeat dads. Not boys who'll have to make new rules to survive. Rules that they won't much like.

One of the many pieces of crap that had been left strewn in odd places in the almost bare rooms was a small, portable radio. I waited until ten o'clock before I walked over to it and turned it on. It crackled into life, but faintly. Very faintly. It was running low on battery and the aerial was partially snapped and completely crooked. I flipped it round to find the tuning dial and moved closer to a window in an attempt to get a better signal.

For a while there was nothing but static and silence. Then, from deep within the crackling I heard a voice, it was faint enough to be a whisper, but it was there. I held the radio up to my ear while very slowly moving the tuning dial back and forth until she was as clear as she could be. Her voice wavered in and out of audibility.

The ten o'clock news bulletin, I'd got it. It was a shame that the terrible reception meant that it was only coming in snippets.

"…_reports coming in… found in an abandoned apartment…"_ My heart jumped. Headline news. It had made it that far.

"… _one of them a forty-nine year old man… prison for abusing his daughter, who was also found…"_ I closed my eyes. How dare anyone else talk about Alice?

The woman's voice dipped again for an annoyingly long period of time. I shook the radio and it rattled in my hand. _"… presumed dead in the school fire… now thought to have been started… investigations into… ongoing. Police say… found at the scene of the crime… fingerprints of Jack Napier… believed to have been spotted fleeing… still at large."_

Me.

They did think it was me.

I knew it. I knew this would happen.

But what to do? What to do? What to do?

I could turn myself in. Hope that they believed me, but that would never happen. I could run. Let myself look guiltier than I already did.

No.

Neither of them was an option.

The radio dropped to the ground and crackled louder than it ever had when I had wanted it to. In a fit of rage I kicked it across the room and watched it smash. I slammed my fist into the wall. It was good to feel a physical pain. It was a sweet relief from the other pain I was feeling. The pain that was burning up my heart and my soul, consuming them and condemning them to ash forever.

I hit the wall until I felt my hand reach breaking point. Then I squeezed my eyes tightly shut and braced myself for shattering bones. Before I could strike out again I saw Alice's face behind my eyelids and felt a deep tugging inside of me. I used to think that it was the connection we had, binding us together like a rope either one of us could pull on and both of us could feel. She'd have stopped me by now. She'd have kept me thinking straight. Kept me sane.

She should have been there to soothe me. To pull me back the way she always did.

But she wasn't.

And she never would be again.

I slammed my fist into the stone of the wall once more, heard the crack and then blacked out from the pain.

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	14. Life Goes On

**Jack.**

Have you ever woken up with no idea how you managed to fall asleep or how long you'd been out for? It could have been a few minutes; it could have been a whole day. The hours were meaningless and the position of the sun didn't give much away. It never did. Gotham was always grey. It was either daylight or it wasn't, there wasn't very much going on in between. When I opened my eyes I was slumped against the cracked and chipped wall of the apartment, my head was turned towards the window. I grimaced at how stiff my neck was when I tried to move it. Then I felt the pain in my hand. I lifted it up to have a good look at it. The blood had dried and caked itself in between my fingers. They were almost impossible to move, so I stopped trying.

Internally, I felt nothing but empty and that in itself was torture. I would have preferred to feel that crippling sadness. Because that, at least, reminded me of what had happened, let me know that it was all real. I didn't want to seem like I was getting better. Getting better meant forgetting her. And I would never do that.

I needn't have worried. I never forgot.

It was difficult to decide what my next move would be. I was so empty and void of anything- so lacking in energy that wasn't sure I _could _move. Then again… why would I? Where would I move to? Couldn't move backwards, that would be impossible. Couldn't go sideways, that's ridiculous. Couldn't go forwards because that means being further from backwards. And that in turn means being further from her. I already said that wasn't an option. So what did that leave me with? What options did I have? Stay where I was… stay still? I supposed that there was nothing else I could do now that I had nothing to aim for. When you've got nothing to move towards you may as well just stay still and enjoy the ride. Y'see I'd had it all wrong so far. Got it all mixed up. See, I thought that it was important to keep moving on with life, to aim for something and to have a plan. But it's not. All those stupid material things we work for- houses, cars, jobs… _money…. _They don't mean a damn thing. They don't count for anything. Not really.

It was then that I started to laugh, because you've got to really, don't ya? When you were so dead wrong about something you have to laugh about it. And do you know what I found even funnier? I wasn't the only one who'd got it wrong. Everyone else was getting it wrong too. Taking everything so damn seriously. Everyone had just missed the huge cosmic joke that we call life. They treat it more like a game. They play everyone- friends, family, strangers and even themselves to get to the top- to pass every stage, every level. Stabbing each other in the back until the walls of ever business, every institution are steeped in the treacherous blood that runs down to the very foundations of what this culture was built on… all in the name of getting to the top. Passing every level. Level One is easy. You've gotta get good grades, get an education and why? You need to get to Level Two- a job, a good one. And then on Level Three you need to get a family together, but don't spend too much time on them. No. Because you'll spend the rest of your time working your way through all the levels of your job. Trying to get as close to the top as you can. And then before you know it you're life's done. Done before you've even had a chance to live. Death is a very… uh… _final _punch line. And the joke's on you. Because everything you did is insignificant. Everything you did is gone.

Life goes on. But you don't.

Funny, huh?

I stood up, stretching out the cramp in my legs, wincing as I did so. I was aching to my very bones. When I stretched everything cracked and creaked, a noisy reminder of the awkward uncomfortable position that I had been sleeping in. I still had to decide where to go and what to do. I was here to enjoy the ride, but first I had to find it. I knew the police were out looking for me, but I wasn't sure how seriously they would be taking the case. After all the severity of a crime all depends on who the victims are, doesn't it? Alice had been poor, from a broken home. She wasn't the child of some rich couple. Her parents weren't famous or big in the business world- her dad was a convict and her mom was dead. Nobody would care about her missed future. Not like that Wayne kid. When his parents died last year everyone in Gotham cared. It was all over the news, in all the papers. They all cared about what happened to him, the whole city came together, but with Ace… I'm not sure how many people would give a shit. Why would they? There was nothing in it for them. It didn't matter how bright she had been. How intelligent and witty and beautiful and caring she was. That didn't matter to anyone in Gotham, because her family didn't own anything. They weren't powerful enough for it to matter. Then again, to an outsider the case would seem a strange one, which could generate interest. If this had been a textbook case then her father, the escaped convict with a history of abuse and murder, would be the one on the run and the Joker and the Ace would have been lying beside each other in a pool of blood. Perhaps that would have been best. It would also have been an open and shut case in the eyes of the law. But now that the murderer was _me_… it would be different. They'd be looking for a motive and it wouldn't make a damn bit of sense. They thought that I'd killed them both, but why would I? The unknown motive behind this case might just be enough to keep it- to keep _me_- in the spotlight. The nature of the killings could also be a factor.

There's nothing people love more than a little bit of gore. People are sick like that.

And then there was the whole business with blowing up the school, if they had in fact realised that was me, which could potentially through a spanner in the works. Really, it could have gone either way. I could either be Gotham's most wanted or I could have been forgotten about already. Whichever it was, it would probably be best to get out of Gotham. At least for a while. Until the next big scandal swept Alice under the carpet. I looked out around the derelict apartment and then out at the city again. I laughed at how empty it seemed now. It was busy. But there was nothing of importance going on.

I picked up everything I'd brought, checking that the Ace card was in my pocket before I left the apartment. I wasn't really sure how I was going to get out of here. All I knew was that I had to. It was then that I decided that my fate would be to leave Gotham twice in my life. The first time I would leave would be now and when I came back I would be unrecognisable. I would show Gotham for what it really is. But I wouldn't trick them. I wouldn't just mindlessly toy with them. I would wait. I would sit and listen and wait for a time where Gotham's misplaced righteousness had reached a sickening and dizzying high. And I would let it come crumbling down. I would let the people of Gotham tear each other to pieces. Show them for the animals they really are. And when I left for the second time, I would leave Gotham in flames.

The apartment door shut behind me and I stepped out onto the street. It was busy. I put my hood up and kept my head low. Most of the people in this part of town were drunkards and druggies who wouldn't remember my face the next day even if they did see it. It would be when I got into the fancier parts of town that I would have to be careful. People with money give a shit about the news. It makes them feel better about themselves to think that by watching what other people go through it somehow makes them a more caring person. It doesn't. It just makes them fucking nosy.

I decided to head for the train station. In the rush hour it would be easy to slip on any train. I was trying my best not to draw attention to myself, but I could feel the adrenaline coursing through me every time that I saw a police car. Every time it happened I smiled. It was nice to feel _something. _It made change. When I reached the station I stood in the middle of the crowds and looked at the three big electronic screens that were flicking through the various timetables of trains that were running that day. Where to go? I didn't want to be too far from Gotham. I wanted to know as much as I could about it, so that I would know when it would be best for me to come back.

The clock told me that it was 11.03. This was good, I had the whole day. I sat down on a cold metal bench and weighed up my options. Where to go? The station was cold and busy, full of people who were just as cold and busy as their surroundings. I watched the timetables on the screen flicker and change between one destination and another. Different cities, different states… so many options. Where to go? Then something happened that I wasn't expecting. When the middle screen changed once more I found myself staring at a giant, blown-up photograph of my own almost stopped me from breathing. Words ran along the bottom of the screen, detailing the various reasons that the police found me to be a danger to society. I didn't bother to read it. The picture of me was nearly a year old, last year's school picture. It was staged and posed and forced. I seldom looked as well-kept as I did there. The only thing that was real about it was my smile. And that was because at the moment it had been taken, Alice had stood behind the photographer, mimicking his every move and mouthing- "Why so serious?" The memory of it made me laugh again.

"Something funny?" a man asked me. I jumped and turned to see a police officer looking at me. His expression was blank, it was difficult to read. I didn't like it. I stood up and tried to run, but he grabbed me. Another policeman came out of nowhere and tried to grab my other arm. I struggled against them. People stopped to look at what was going on. Through the crowds I saw another police officer making his way over. He was saying something into a radio. I renewed my spirit and determination to fight against the ones holding me. I wrenched my left arm free and managed to get a strike out at the other officer before I was grabbed again.

The screen changed. Alice's face flickered down at me. All of the fight left me when I saw her eyes. "Ace," I whispered. She was smiling, but not at me. I'd never see that smile again. Not for real.

"Jack Napier, you are under arrest on suspicion of murder…"

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Batman Begins/Dark Knight, Drama, Romance