jla_watchtower | Multiplicity

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Multiplicity

Five minutes is all it takes. She wanders out into the hallway in search of coffee. When she returns, her midnight patient is gone. The bed is empty. The sheets are twisted and forgotten. The IV dangles, dripping its contents out onto the floor. She stands there in the doorway, staring in disbelief.

Her sleep deprived brain struggles to comprehend the facts. When she left, the Joker was unconscious. His tortured and mutilated body would not have permitted him to move with the speed needed to leave the surgical suite. Someone must have helped him. Or someone must have taken him.

There's only one person she knows who can move that fast.

Another sensation begins to build right along side the acid burn in her stomach. It's a knot. Pure, unadulterated anger. He brought her a patient to care for, regardless of her feelings. He brought her the man who killed Alfred. He expected she do everything possible to save the Joker. He removed that patient without her permission. From her clinic.

Twenty minutes later, she once again lets herself into the Manor. She bypasses the house and makes a beeline for the cave. There isn't an ounce of fear amidst the rage.

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There's no transition. No context. She jerks her hands away and scrambles several feet to the rear. Her instincts are screaming for her to retreat. Her heart is traveling a mile a minute.

Ivy's words echo in the empty space and begin to circle in her brain. Unending. Unrelenting. Undeniable. What good are you Leslie? She's telling you the truth. You don't really make a difference.

"You weren't here," she stumbles. "Joker..."

She begins to look around in vain

"Oh, looking for that someone to save you? don't you just hate that in a man when they don't show." Her eyes bore into Leslie. "He's too busy with other projects, dear. Everyone that hurt him," Her smile is like a slit throat. "And he's saving you for last - the dessert course for a bloodthirsty Bat..."

The anger that consumed her is starting to bleed away. In its place is confusion. Most of what Ivy says falls on deaf ears. Leslie is too busy trying to connect the green woman's appearance in the cave to some plausible explanation.

Ivy is bound much the same way Joker was. She's occupying the same spot. Her injuries however are different. "You can't be here," she challenges.

"Can, can't, can, can't. No room for you here, doctor." Jervis Tetch is now in Ivy's place. His injuries, too, are different. Saliva is practically pouring from his mouth--a mouth deformed and festering, teeth barely clinging to the gums.

"We're all mad here, Leslie. Joker, Ivy, Batsie, even you. But Batsie, he's maddest of all. You've seen what he does. What he can do. And guess who he's coming for, my good madam?

"Beware the jabberwock, my son..."

She closes her eyes tightly against the grotesque sight. The smell propelled in her direction is renewed with every word. "I haven't slept in 48 hours," she justifies.

It is enough to explain these strange hallucinations? These strange occurrences? She herself is far from sure.

"The jaws that bite,
The claws that catch,
Beware the jub-jub bird
And the vicious Banderbat!"

There's another new item now. A knife in the Hatter's open palm, extended to Leslie as if it's an offering. A way out easier than the Bat's option.

"The vorpal blade went snicker-snack, Leslie..."

She cracks her eyes to have a look. How a knife ended up in his hand is a complete mystery. The offer? Denied. She shakes her head and takes another step back. "I don't have anything to fear," she states. It sounds almost as if she's trying to convince herself.

"No?" And now it's the Scarecrow, his head lolling to one side sickeningly, the noose around his neck disturbingly tight. "Everything you thought you feared has come to pass. Batman is as violent as you feared. Alfred is dead. They are all lost to you. And Leslie... it will only get worse. You will find new things to fear, and they, too, will come to pass."

He offers the knife again.

"There is only one way out, Leslie."

The pain is fresh and new. The events that have occurred replay in her mind with shocking accuracy. She hears the sound of shattering bone as Batman dispatches her alleyway attacker. She sees Alfred's heart stop. And then refuse to start. She forces back the rush and looks up defiantly at the nearly arrived phantasm.

"There is always an option!"

"Such as? Let us look at it rationally, Doctor. You have lost everything important to you. Your mind is going. Your health. Your friends. Your family. You have nothing left. You are a waste of resources that could be better used helping others."

For a shockingly long moment, his words make sense. What does she have left?

The dummy in the case speaks up from nearby. "Look, it's simple arithematic! Ya use food to stay alive, but ya give nothin' back! The food you eat could save someone else's life. Am I right, Dummy, or am I right?" He casts his gaze towards the Scarecrow.

And the Scarecrow is now the man who attempted to mug her the other day, his neck crushed. He holds a wooden dummy of Alfred in his hands, holes riddling it where the Joker shot the real man. Termites crawl in and out of these holes.

The man speaks, stuttering as he trembles and coughs blood, his body showing clear signs of withdrawal. "Y...yeah, man. If you'd just g...given me the money, I... I would have gotten a...way. The Batman never would h...have hurt me. If you just g...give up, it makes it b...better for everyone."

He makes the Alfred dummy speak, and sawdust dribbles from its mouth as it talks in a faux-British accent, the best the junkie can fake.

"Oi, Leslie! D...do you know wh...why I died? Not because the Joker sh...shot me... but because of your hands. You can't hold them steady, can you? Trembling hands... y...you were too inept to save a man's l...life. To inept to save my life."

She glances down at her hands and as if on cue, they begin to shake. "No," she protests. Her hands are the tools of her trade. Without a steady pair, she isn't long for the profession.

What if her hands did shake as she tried to save Alfred's life? Could she be partially responsible for his death? She forces her memory for an answer. There's no recollection beyond her own remorse.

The anger returns. She lashes out, swiping the puppet for its master's grasp. The riddled wood flies and hits the cavern floor. It shatters into a multitude of pieces. The termites flee as if rats from a sinking ship.

"Yeah, that's right! Just like that, ya dumb bimbo! Your hands shook, and shattered the butler to pieces!"

The mugger is Bane now, his drug tubes infected and burrowing through him as she watches. "There is but one solution, senorita. Accept it."

She jerks her head towards the miniature gangster. Her expression is harsh and unforgiving. "I did everything I could! There wasn't enough time!"

"You did everything... but save his life. But keep your hands steady." Killer Croc is in the place of Bane now, his skin flaking and peeling in bloody clumps.

"Face it... you haven't improved anything. You've only made things worse... when you're effective at all."

Zsasz now, all his tally marks open and bleeding.

Her fists curl reflexively. "I can't save them all! No one can!"

"Can you save any of them? Any of the people you really care about?"

"You couldn't save Spoiler."

"You couldn't save Jason."

"You couldn't save Alfred."

"And you couldn't save Bruce."

Multiplicity

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