𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐗𝐘

Now Fish turned to Emma. "You certainly can't be called a coward, my dear. Come on." She motioned for Emma to follow, striding to her private table in the back. She took her seat against the wall and leaned back, staring at her former lieutenant. "What are we talking about, Emma?" she asked, sipping her drink. "Didn't I make myself clear before? I don't blame you for moving on. Or have you come to tell me that your new boss isn't all sunshine and roses?" she chuckled.

Jonathan sat patiently on the pleater booth seat in the diner they had decided as their meeting spot. Pushing the glasses that rested on the bridge of his nose further up, he scanned the menu as he awaited the arrival of Jeremiah's lackey. Three minutes stood between her and being late. Maybe he should have been more meticulous about his requirements. Wasting time this close to Halloween was not an option. As if on queue, the bell at the top of the door rang indicating that someone had entered the small space. "I was getting ready to leave."

As soon as she walked in, she knew it was a terrible gamble. The club was getting ready to open for the night, and the music pounded throughout the mostly empty room. The bartender was cleaning the counter, and he paused as soon as she walked in. "We're not open yet -- Emma?" Ecco froze. She recognised him. "Hello Leon," she said curtly. He had worked for Fish before, and obviously stayed loyal. He glared at her. "Rats aren't welcome here," he said, his tone venomous.

Ecco mentioned that she saw Jerome and neglected to mention it to him and he glanced up to her with a near shocked expression on his face. If it had been only a few weeks ago, that would have been an unforgivable offence. If he was outside, wandering Gotham City with Jerome loose and on the streets? Only for the one person who's meant to protect him, not to tell him... He bristled a little. Glancing over her. Deciding if this was a punishable offence or not. Like a flip of the coin, Jeremiah brushed past it with a simple. "You should have mentioned it sooner."

She continued. Telling him that she could take care of it. He glanced slowly up and away from her. Letting his eyes wander into space. Staring into nothing as he brought up one hand to his lips in thought. Sure. Ecco could handle him. She had before... but then again... it wouldn't be very personal, would it? "No," He said finally. Snapping Jerome's diary shut and tossing it aside onto the coffee table in front of him. "He can't hurt me. He tried already and he failed." He admitted coldly.

Getting up from his couch to walk a little closer to hers. Jeremiah took a seat on hers right next to her. "The night he died for the third time, I went home and discovered a gift in my office. It was addressed to me in your handwriting, so I trusted it enough to open it. It was a Jack-in-the-Box. Not exactly a gift you would have given me but it went off without needing to crank it. There was a clown's face that popped out of the box and some kind of gas sprayed from it's mouth and onto my face," He gestured with one hand to his face before reaching up to remove his glasses from his face. Tucking them into his jacket pocket and gracefully removing a small packet of moist towelettes from behind the glasses. He opened it up and pulled out a sheet. "I suppose from the note, Jerome intended it to be an insanity spray. Obviously, it did nothing to my mind. Instead it merely caused some... cosmetic effects."

A few seconds passed, and he said she should have mentioned it sooner. That was all. She gazed at him steadily. "I know," she replied. "I'm sorry. I won't make that mistake again." It was exactly the kind of thing she'd heard the lackeys say, the kind of thing she'd never needed to say to Jeremiah. She never used to make mistakes. Or, if she did, he'd never held them against her.

In an effort to make it up to him, and to remind him that he could trust her, she offered to take care of his brother. Again, it was an offer she never would have made, before his change. She had attacked Jerome on Jeremiah's orders, but it was one thing to knock him out, and it was another thing to kill him. But she knew she needed to offer, to remind Jeremiah that she was still valuable, that she would do that for him in an instant, and lose no sleep over it.

He refused, and she wasn't surprised. But before she could reply, he snapped his book shut and threw it casually onto the table. He can't hurt me. He tried already and he failed. Ecco froze. When had Jerome tried to hurt him? How had she not known about this? She didn't say anything, and Jeremiah stood up and walked to her couch to sit next to her. He kept talking, in his same odd, lilting, voice, that was becoming more familiar to her than his old way of speaking. It was almost hypnotic, and she gazed at him and listened.

He told her about the jack-in-a-box, the gas spraying into his face, and as he spoke, he slowly took off his glasses and placed them into his blazer pocket. Insanity spray, he said. Jerome had gassed him? He said it had only had cosmetic effects, and he raised the cloth of his face and wiped it down his cheek, and she saw that it was makeup. Underneath the pink, his skin was papery white. She stared in silence as he reached up to his eye and removed a contact lens, and she saw that his eyes, which used to be deep brown, were now in fact pale silver.

He kept talking, saying that this was the worst Jerome could do, but Ecco was barely listening. Everything was clicking into place. The change in his voice, his calm demeanour, the reason why he could leave the bunker without fear, the odd sense of menace he'd exuded. It must all have happened after he'd been sprayed with this gas, whatever it was. And she found herself agreeing instantly. Of course he wasn't insane. It had freed him of the anxieties she'd seen ruining his life for the past six years. He wasn't terrified of his brother anymore. He was admitting things she'd always known were true -- he was a genius, he was certainly more clever than Jerome. He said it had done nothing to his mind, which she didn't completely agree with. He was calmer now, more rational, obviously more ruthless. But those weren't bad things. Now she knew why he had changed, she felt her previous concerns melt away. Whatever this gas was, it obviously wasn't deadly. He wasn't sick, or dying, despite the paleness of his skin being startling.

Startling, yes, and she felt another complete inappropriate sense of attraction that made her cringe internally. Her calm expression didn't reveal it, but she knew it was there. She wanted to see both of his eyes, without the contacts. She wanted to see him without the makeup, the man he was now. But she pushed the feelings down violently, and at last, she smiled at Jeremiah. Now wasn't the time for this. She needed to focus on him.

"You should have mentioned it sooner," she said, teasingly, repeating his own words back to him. "I knew you'd changed. Of course you had. I didn't know why, but it wasn't my place to question you." She paused, unused to being emotional, unsure of how to proceed. "I wish you had told me, Jeremiah," she said, using his name, as she rarely did. She had the stupid urge to reach out and take his hands, but she didn't. She just clasped her fingers together. "I'm glad you have now. Thank you for trusting me." She paused. Felt as if she needed to say something else. There was an elephant in the room, and they both surely knew it. Her role, now he didn't need a proxy, and he'd proven he didn't need a bodyguard. She gazed into his mismatching eyes, and was startled again by how striking his new eye colour was.

She explained that the architecture was beautiful and he smiled despite himself. "The architecture? A girl after my own heart." He teased, leaning over the journal in his hands to say it. She asked where he would be and his smile dropped. Where would he be? He didn't often let himself fantasize about that. He was safest here. In his bunker. Surrounded by twists and turns and long grey concrete walls. He finally blinked, letting his eyelashes flutter a bit as he tried to think of an answer to her question. Glancing down at the pages in his hand. Drawings of his head removed from his body by a chainsaw that said 'Jeremiah Special' on it. It used to scare him and now he felt... indifferent. "I saw Jerome again last night. He doesn't seem to stay dead... does he?"

Suddenly, he stopped smiling, and she realised she must have said the wrong thing. Again, it was such an unfamiliar sensation, to feel as if she could say the wrong thing. Of course, he had always been her boss, but she'd never felt uncomfortable or unsafe in his presence. She did now. The silence went on for a few moments longer, and at last, Jeremiah spoke. He said he'd seen Jerome, that he didn't seem dead.

Ecco knew she shouldn't have been surprised, even in her muted way, by Jeremiah's lack of fear. He'd made it clear he wasn't afraid of his brother. But it was still so unlike him that it was startling. She didn't let her surprise show, and decided to just speak to him in the matter-of-fact way she always did. "No, he doesn't," she agreed. "I saw him outside the party. I was going to tell you, but I was waiting for the right moment. I'm sorry I didn't." She studied him for a few seconds.

As the woman pulled out the plaster of a small first aid kit, Dinah let out a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness." She managed to say as she slipped her shoe off and used her hand to support herself, tearing the plaster away from its seal with her teeth. "You could say that. I should be flattered for an encore. That's when my bonus rates kick in." She mused as she covered the wound on the back of her heel. "Though, extra money almost makes it worth it." She wince as she slipped the heel back on. "Thank you. Honestly, you may have just saved my life."

Better then most. Tara mused the words. Briefly she wondered what she would have said, if someone had asked her that same question once upon a time when she'd been a piece in someone else's chess board. Then again, back then she thought she was the Queen. The most powerful piece, the one who should have been protected. Turns out, the truth was that Tara was nothing more then a pawn. "That's not much of a glowing endorsement." She noted duly, and took a sip of her wine that tasted less then stellar.

"Probably the same thing that brings most here," A death wish, maybe. Or maybe the want to live in a place that was constantly changing, that wasn't boring, that wasn't the same brick wall staring back at her for hours. "Morbid curiosity." Tara said, and though it wasn't a lie it was far from the whole truth. "And I'm guessing you came here for work?" The word was in tune with a inclination to where Ecco's eyes had previously gone to her boss.

Ecco paused as she brought the glass up to her lips, and lowered it again. She turned to look at the young women, whom she recalled meeting at the Mayor's party. "You did?" she asked softly. She put the glass down on the bar, and felt a rush of cold and controlled anger. "Which guy?"

Echo. Tara was somewhat surprised at herself for even recalling the name as she did. She couldn't say what, but something about the blond had struck a cord with her. Enough so to speak up when she saw something troubling going on. "Back right corner." Tara told her. "His hat is weird. Can't miss him."

She walked across the deserted main room of the club without pausing to see how it had changed, and headed straight for the backroom, where she knew Oswald would be. Without knocking, she pushed open the door and saw him standing there, a gun in his hand, grinning at someone she didn't recognise. There was a dead body on the floor, with a bullet hole in its head and blood pouring onto the carpet. She calmly looked up and met Oswald's gaze.