[identity profile] lt-gordon.livejournal.com
It's hard, being a cop without a city. Harder if you're Jim Gordon, whose entire self resonates Gotham.

But there's worse things he could be. Besides -- he's going to head out with Barbara and her friends soon, and there'll be plenty to do then -- probably more than he'd like. Jim's learned to take the peaceful moments where they come.

The garden out the back is starting to take hold, and Jim's almost sure that come spring there'll be flowers. And that's good.
[identity profile] twiceahero.livejournal.com
Barbara has been around... REALLY!

She's just been really busy with computer... stuff. She is, in fact, developing a headache from staring at holographic computer displays for twelve hours a day for weeks on end. It's worth it, as she feels like she's starting to get an understanding of the world and what's going on, but it's a pain.

So she decides to get some air. She won't go far, of course, but she can take her chair down the ramp and sit at the base of it in the grass of the field (Zinda had insisted on testing the Aerie One's rough-field landing equipment, and Barbara hadn't objected) to let the crisp breeze play with her hair.
[identity profile] notanoptimist.livejournal.com
So Mel, babies, and older sister came home last night. Sokka was alerted to this in the middle of the night when Hana woke up and wondered what would happen if she closed her hand around the big noise-maker in the middle of her uncle's face. Since the noise-maker happened to be Sokka's nose and she followed up her exploration by sticking another hand in his wide-open, snoring mouth, what happened was a snorting, choking uncle waking up to the delighted face of his tiniest niece.

Today, however, Steph has stolen Hana for walking practice, and Sokka has stolen Louise for Quality Time. This includes sitting in front of Spots' pond and introducing the Firebending baby to the squid baby.

"Can you say 'hi' to the tiny monster, Loo? Say hi!"

"Hiiiiii!"

"Yay!"
[identity profile] lt-gordon.livejournal.com
Gordon is finding the farm an incredibly relaxing place. He's pulling up weeds in the back yard, because it looks like nobody's done it for a while and he's not a man who can sit still on someone else's time.

It's odd; since they broke free of Gotham and he abandoned his city, he should be feeling worse. But he's not.

Maybe there was something to that invisible monster story after all.

He's humming, faintly, under his breath.
[identity profile] lt-gordon.livejournal.com
The hilltop above Gotham is quiet.

Jim sits a little away from Marie and Erin, watching the mist-wrapped city and frowning. He feels so much better up here, away from the -- whatever it is -- but he's still not sure he entirely understands what's going on.

When the car bursts free of the mist, veering slightly interestingly up the hill towards them, he jumps to his feet, turning to call the girls.

"They're back!"
alwaysroomforhope: (serious curious)
[personal profile] alwaysroomforhope
It's fairly early in the morning when Mel, Sokka and Steph crest the final hill and find themselves looking down from the Heights towards Gotham City. Mel is keeping the girls happy in the back; Steph's driving. She doesn't ask before slowing gradually to a stop, eyes on the vista before them.

Gotham. Smoky, dark, twisted, gothic. It almost looks organic, lumpy and misshapen as it is, every building sprouting gargoyles and added wings, twisted into fantastic shapes.

It's so familiar it makes Steph's heart lurch; she hasn't been home for almost a year. She knows the skyline inside out, knows exactly how it feels to leap from the casino to the street below and swing up exactly in time to land on the train, knows where the instabilities in the gargoyles are and just how hard to throw a grapple to get from one end to the other of Ninth in under two minutes. It's filthy and ugly and disease-ridden and smoky and it's home.

Except ...

... this isn't the home she left.

It's with a sigh of pure relief that she realises, slowly, that this is Gotham before the quake, missing the light-filled spires of Luthor's redesign, all the old buildings still standing tall. This is Gotham before she had the baby, before the No Mans' Land.

This isn't her world.

The grin she turns to Sokka is enormous and full of relief.

"It's not mine. I won't find th— her here. Oh, thank fuck for that."
[identity profile] lt-gordon.livejournal.com
 

It had begun during rush hour, in the very centre of Gotham. Blinding circles of white, opening above the heads of the people, sending waves of terror and fear through the commuters and the businessmen.

Blinding openings, the sky itself tearing apart --

-- but nothing had come through.

Nothing, save a wave of cold air and a damp, cold, spreading sense of fear.

The first case had been only moments later. A woman in the street had screamed, seized up, jerked convulsively -- and fallen.

It had been reported on every station. Famous actress fallen into unbreakable coma -- actress in vegetative state -- family mourns --

The second and third cases, the same. The tenth, just a name. The twentieth, just a number.

The hundredth, just a statistic.

The eight hundredth -- the fifteen hundredth -- the four thousandth --

The rate of infection grew exponentially, and rapidly. The streets of Gotham fell quiet. People were afraid to leave their homes. There were those who tried to run.

The sickness struck them in their cars as they left.

And everywhere, the mist grew thicker and thicker, until even in the height of noon the streets were shrouded in damp white fog.

"It's a town of the living dead," Ariella had said, clinging to Jim's shoulder. "They're all alive still, Jim, that's what makes it so bad..."

He'd held her and patted her shoulder, mourned with her, and then -- on the ninth day, when he went in to wake her and found her hanging from her ceiling, lost to despair -- he buried her.

And moved on.

The city still needed him; the city still needed everyone it could get.

On the twelfth day he made a feeble attempt at rounding up a group to escape. They met pale-faced and shaking, and two more seized and jerked and fell into comas while they stood talking; that was the end of that.

Everything stopped. The city was silent, except sometimes for a scream, or the sound of sobbing.

Holed up in the clocktower, Jim had entirely given up hope.

 

Tags

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jun. 13th, 2025 04:59 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios