We Were Born Sick • Gotham Fanfiction •

V: The Price of Being Human

"A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out." -Walter Winchell

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Bird opened her eyes and reached a hand out to her bedside table where she groggily located her alarm clock and raised it up to see it was just after nine in the morning. Every cell in her body was begging her to just close her eyes and block out the sunlight, flip over and go back to sleep.

However; that wasn't an option. She had several things she needed to do that day and she was already getting a late start.

Rubbing her eyes with her hand she started to try and flip over onto her back, but her plan was interrupted when she leaned back against something in the bed behind her. Still trying to come out of her sleep state, she pushed against the object in her way only stopping when she heard a groan and realized it was a person.

Quickly sliding out from under her blanket she stood up and spun around to see it was Oswald, still in the yellow shirt and khaki pants as before, lying on top of the blankets –sound asleep.

Remembering he'd offered to sit with her after the nightmare she'd had, Bird realized he must have never made it back to the couch. She started to reach out and wake him up until she realized just how calm he looked in his sleep.

A smile pulled at the corner of her mouth when she realized he was probably sleeping so sound because this was the safest he'd felt in a long time and she didn't have the heart to wake him.

When a cold gust of morning air blew through the window, she crossed her arms over her chest and shivered. Reaching down she flipped the part of the blanket she'd been covered with back the other way so it covered him and sleepily stumbled towards the window to close it until something caught her eye and she slowly turned her head to her dresser where her bottle of perfume was turned ever so slightly the wrong way.

The knowledge that Oswald was still asleep and couldn't see her didn't stop her from shooting an angry look in his direction before she fixed the bottle of perfume and shook her head. For some reason every time he came into her apartment he moved things around, half the time she felt like he did it just to get on her nerves –there seemed to be no other possible explanation for it.

After shutting the window, gathering her clothes and heading into the bathroom to get ready for the day she silently grabbed her purse and walked into the living room where she stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of her coffee table that was now covered in a collage of pictures and newspaper clippings taped down.

Dropping onto her couch to get a better look she saw a map of Gotham City that Oswald had colored different sections to differentiate Maroni and Falcone's territories, not only did he have pictures of the Dons, the mayor and some other high ranking members of Gotham. He also cut out and taped down an article about her parents murders with a picture of them.

There was even a picture of Fish Mooney with a cut out picture of a knife taped over her picture and a hand written strip of paper that read 'BITCH'. He'd also labeled the mayor a dunce and around the middle of the madness he'd written over a newspaper article, 'Going to wipe everyone out'.

Blowing out a heavy breath, Bird grabbed a decorative blanket off her couch and slung it over the table as a makeshift table cloth before placing the small decorative clear glass bowl of sparkly marbles in the direct center and the three remotes back on her table . Two of them worked and the third was only because she needed a third like item to make the row of three.

As she left her apartment and shut the door behind her she started to consider that maybe her apartment wasn't going to be big enough for both of them and their crazy.