#jamesgcrdon

Since waking up from her coma, Isabella was still getting used to things now. She knew she was very lucky that time moved on so slowly in Gotham -- technology hadn't changed at all in the two years she'd been in hospital -- but there were still small, odd, things. The mayor was different, and the newspapers referred to events she didn't know about, and public figures she had no recollection of.

She was trying to get up to speed on everything, to fill in the swathes of blankness she had. Time sometimes slipped away. She would be reading a book, and look up to find that several hours had passed, and she hadn't moved a muscle. Or she would walk into a room, and quite forget why she had walked in there in the first place. It reassured her to remember her doctor, with his smooth voice and calm demeanour and pink glasses, smiling at her. Things will seem unusual at first. That must be why. She was recovering.

She crossed her ankles and peered through her glasses at today's newspaper. The park was quiet for mid-afternoon, and she was grateful. Loud noises made her jump. But she felt someone looking at her, and she glanced up from the paper to see a man standing there, staring at her. She felt an inexplicable sense of deja vu, as if she knew him, though she had never seen him before in her life. "Can I help you?" she asked politely.