A/N: A double update for your dear writer's birthday. :)
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.
"Mommy...? Why doesn't daddy love us?"
"Stop it! Don't touch her!"
"You can have me but cannot hold me; gain me and quickly loose me. If treated with care, I am great, and if betrayed I will break. What am I?"
"Trust."
"She's just a kid."
"I expect great things from you, Ms. Connors. Very great things."
"Promise me we'll always be together?"
"GAAAHHH!"
"Yes Ms. Mooney...."
"You're in the game now. No turning back."
Bang!
"Hahahahaha!"
"Ozzy!"
"What happened?"
******
Alyssa's shot open and she gasped for breath like she had been underwater. She looked around, trying to get her bearings.
This was her room, her bed, her apartment.
Her hand went to her wrist, and she turned her bracelet, brushing her fingers over the charms as they passed the top of her wrist. The feel of the familiar shapes – and the memories that came with them – had always calmed her down.
Once she remembered where she was and how she had gotten there, she pulled the bedsheet up her chest and looked around for Edward, but he was no where to be found. Frowning, she stood and grabbed her robe of the back of her closet door, sliding it on before going out to look for him.
She found him in the kitchen, in only his undershirt and the pants he had been wearing yesterday, setting a mug of coffee next to a fully made breakfast. He looked up when she came in.
"Alyssa." he smiled. "Good morning."
"Morning. This for me?"
"Yes." he nodded. "I woke up early, I've already eaten."
"Why didn't you wake me? We could've eaten together." she slid into her seat at the breakfast bar.
"I, well I knew how stressed you've been lately." he said somewhat sheepishly. "With your recovery, and with your campaign. You needed the rest."
"You're doing that thing again; where you analyze something about me and don't tell me." he looked down. "Eddie?"
"I just-I just worry about you, that's all."
"Mm-mm." she shook her head. "You've worried about me since we were teenagers; this is different."
He took his glasses off and sighed as he rubbed his eyes. "...You made it stop." he said softly. "He's gone." he tapped his temple. "Or at the very least he's quiet. I-I don't know what happened, but I don't wanna mess it up. I don't know how delicate it all is...."
"Hey..." she reached over the counter and took his hand. "I know none of its guaranteed, and I know how much not knowing bothers you, but you can't worry so much poindexter."
"I can't just turn it off."
"Well maybe I can." her fingers ran up his arm as she stood and walked around the counter to wind her arms around his waist. "Here's what I want you to do: shut your eyes-" she kissed his shoulder. "clear your mind-" she kissed his neck. "and just focus on me." she whispered in his ear.
******
Despite its re-purposing, the flea was still very much a safe haven for everyone who needed it. Alyssa didn't stop being Mama Gotham just because she was running for mayor.
With how busy the building had become however, it wasn't surprising when the captain of the GCPD slipped inside during his lunch break. Since every word he said against Alyssa Connors was shot down, he decided to see the woman in action.
What he found surprised him; there were kids making campaign calls, designing buttons, arguing over slogans. And in the very center of the crowd, entirely in her element, was Alyssa pointed everyone this way or that, and settling all the disagreements. None of them noticed him, they were to focused on their work.
"Mom!" a girl – Selina he thought her name was – came towards the woman pulling a injured girl with her arm around her shoulder.
"Oh my god, Bridget!" Alyssa abandoned her work and ran to help the girl. Barnes couldn't see the extent of the damage from where he stood, but her clothes looked old and worn and she could barely stand. "Selina, go get my first aid kit."
"On it!"
"Its fine!" the girl, Bridget tried to protest.
"You're burned! I'm putting aloe and a bandage on that weather you like it or not kid."
She looked slightly irritated, but said nothing more.
******
Barnes caught Alyssa in one of the back rooms of the flea, folding laundry of different sizes.
"Hey."
She looked up, startled, and frowned. "What are you doing here?"
"I saw you with that kid. How come you didn't ask her what happened?"
"She wouldn't have told me." she shrugged.
"Thought these kids were supposed to trust you?"
Alyssa scoffed and shook her head, setting the t-shirt she had been folding on the pile. "Please don't pretend you understand this city."
"I think I do."
"You don't." she informed. "That's your problem; you know everything, but you know shit." she turned to face him properly. "Lemme guess, you grew up in a normal home, with a happy family, and dinner on the table every night. After getting out of the army, you wind up in this job, and now you've got a plan to fixthe broken city, is that it?"
"That's the goal, yes."
Alyssa laughed humorlessly. "Well let me tell you as story Barnes; I've lived in this city my entire life. My dad was a narcissistic drug addict, and my mom liked to drink to forget the horror that was her life. I had to rob convince stores and pick pockets to keep food on the table and keep the lights on! I spent yearstaking my father's abuse because it kept him from hurting my sister. I stumbled into the wrong situation one day, and was forced to join the mob at gun point. And then, I got cut within an inch of my life just because I didn't put a bullet in the head of some five year old whose dad wronged the boss!" she held up her hands in a 'what-can-you-do' gesture. "And now, I'm doing my best to help kids in those kinds of situations. Because I wish someone would have done it for me. This is my city." she informed him with a hard look. "The fact that you just show up and think you know how everything should be? That's bullshit. You've no right."
"....That's fair." Barnes conceded. "Alright Connors. Teach me."
She studied him a moment to see if he was serious. "...Okay." she nodded.
*******
"Its like living in a coo-coo clock. No pun intended." Alyssa leaned back in her chair, glass of wine in hand. "You know the bird is going to pop out every hour, but if you don't keep an eye on the time, it may surprise you when it does."
"And you're aware?" Barnes raised an eyebrow. Alyssa had discovered he was a lot more mellow once he had a few in him.
"I told you, I know how this city works. And I spent a decent amount of time walking on eggshells around people who wouldn't think twice about killing me; I developed a very keen understanding of human nature."
"'Human nature'? What's that got to do with it?"
"Well its not a matter of whether people are good or bad; its what sets them off. Anyone is capable of terrible and wonderful things in the right situation."
"Nature vs nurture?"
Alyssa sipped from her glass and shook her head. "Mm, not quite. Need vs need. Its all a matter of what they want and how badly they want it. Who they're willing to step on to get their desire, and who they're willing to give it up for."
"You and Jerome." he nodded.
"Yeah. I suppose so."
"Let me ask you somethin' then Connors; what would you have me do?"
"Your job of course. You lock away the bad guys."
"You made fun for tryin' lock up the bad guys."
"No, I made fun of you for thinking you could fix Gotham. I got angry when you treated all crimes with the same level of prejudice. Law for the sake of law is no better than chaos for the sake of chaos, Mr. Barnes. You can't be prejudice; the law is there to make things fair. Least its supposed to be." she sipped her drink.
*******
Alyssa sat in the private booth at her bar, ignoring the sound of the patrons around her in favor of studying the whine glass in her hand. She turned her wrist to make the red liquid swirl in an almost hypnotic way.
"Lex, the road!"
Sceeech!
The sickening gurgle as the man choked on his own blood. The seamless cut on his throat so exact it looked like it had been done by a professional.
"Yo Connors." a familiar voice broke her from her thoughts.
"Hello Butch. Entourage." she nodded to the grunt men behind him.
"We need to talk." he slid into the seat across from her.
"Do we?"
"I've got a message from Penguin; he wants to know when you're coming back in?"
"When I'm coming back in?" she raised an eyebrow.
"Gotham's been missin' its queen." Alyssa scoffed and shook her head. "What?" Butch frowned.
Alyssa thought a moment and took a gulp of her wine. "You see this, Butch?" she held up her wrist.
"Your charm bracelet? Yeah, you've had it since you were a kid."
"Since I was seventeen." she corrected. "It was a birthday present from my two best friends at the time. This-" she pulled the sliver dove out of her pocket. "Was the charm Oswald gave me." she looked at it in her hand. "I was gonna throw it in the Gotham river, chickened out...." she held it out to him. "Give it to him. He'll get the message."