Multiplicity

[lesliethompkins.livejournal.com]

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.

Comments

[lesliethompkins.livejournal.com]

"No, I didn't. And if you were the man you once were, you'd already know that." Her voice is little more than a whisper. It's hollow, a reflection of what lies within. An emptiness builds in her very being.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_darkknight_/]

"If you were half the doctor you once were," comes his answer, more an animalistic growl than anything approaching civilised discourse, "Alfred would still be alive."

He drags the Joker's body off the table, fist wound in the coat.

[lesliethompkins.livejournal.com]

She knows the statement isn't true. His words gnaw at her anyway. She swallows hard, fighting once again the despair. The two men closest to her are gone.

"No one could have saved Alfred. A man's heart can only take so much."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_darkknight_/]

Like a child with a gruesom teddy bear, Batman drags the Joker's body behind him, not bothering to look back at Leslie. "Keep telling yourself that."

[lesliethompkins.livejournal.com]

His path is suddenly blocked. Leslie doesn't compare in height. She has to settle for staring up at him. Her eyes are piercing, demanding.

"The last thing Alfred would have wanted was this."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_darkknight_/]

"He's not here, is he? You made sure of that," is the Batman's snarling response. "What hurt him won't hurt anyone again. From now on, what hurts anyone won't be around to hurt anyone else again. The system can't fix problems."

The Joker's broken body is hefted toward Leslie. "But I can. And from now on? I will."

He then muscles past Leslie to continue on his way.

[lesliethompkins.livejournal.com]

Leslie doesn't give up that easily. She finds her footing and moves to intercept.

"Listen to yourself! You're as bad as he EVER was!" She points accusingly towards the dead criminal. "You're not fixing the problem! You ARE the problem!"

[http://users.livejournal.com/_darkknight_/]

His face gets into her line of vision from a few inches away, if that. "And you're not my mother. You're no good to me anymore. If you don't want to be part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Get out of my way. Now."

[lesliethompkins.livejournal.com]

She might as well be a wall. Resolute and firm. "No."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_darkknight_/]

She's not a wall. If she were, his elbow strike - lightning fast, thunderously powerful - would be less effective. As it is, the result should be concussive to the degree that someone large and powerful would be rendered unconscious immediately.

Imagine, then, what it does to a woman like Leslie.

[lesliethompkins.livejournal.com]

Split second timing allows her only one reaction.

As the elbow travels towards her...

There is fear. Fear like she has never known. Fear that consumes. Fear that seizes the heart. Fear that kills.

She drops to the floor of the cave and lies still.