Fish and Bits

A Visitor

A/n- Thanks again to @jokersmulti, your help is always welcome. Also I'm sorry that this chapter isn't as long as the others. 

     Finny had been left on his own, for once. However it did not effect his behaviour too drastically, as he was hovering motionless in his bowl. Every minute or so, a bubble emerged from his mouth and he attempted to eat it. This cycle repeated itself for an unsettling amount of time.

     A window creaked open, and Diana cautiously stepped inside, making her way swiftly towards the bowl containing Finny, "Hello?" She whispered, "Are you awake-?"

     Breaking the monotonous pattern, he turned towards her, 'Hello. I was not expecting a visitor.' He appeared to tilt his head out of confusion and curiosity.

     "I want to know about what the Joker is planning, can you tell me?" She crouched in front of the bowl, carefully lowering the bag she had been carrying to the ground beside her.

     'They don't feed me enough.' He blew some bubbles at her, then proceeded to chase them and swallow them once more.

     Straightening up, she glided across the floor to avoid making the old floor boards creak. Opening cupboards and cabinets, she found what she was looking for. Retrieving the fish food, she returned to the bowl and sprinkled some in, "Is that better for you?"

     'Yes. You are kind.' He desperately ate the food, then apparently lost interest and started swimming in circles. 

     She watched his progress patiently, rethinking her original plan and trying to reconsider the best way of extracting information from him. "I brought you a gift.."

     'A gift? What am I going to do with a gift?' He stopped and whirled around to face her, looking startled as if he had already forgotten what she looked like. 

     Opening the burlap bag, she gently lifted out a brand new tank, a larger size and with much more durable glass. "This..? I just want you to answer some questions, please.."

     He was silent for a time, wistfully contemplating the offering, 'He would be suspicious, and he might try to kill me.' He resumed swimming in circles, putting both Diana and the offering out of mind.

     Diana frowned and bit her lip out of frustration, then her expression softened and she replaced the tank back into the sack. Extracting a sticky note from a drawer, she scribbled a short message and attached it to the side of the sack, "There, I've made out so the note is from someone else, and that this is a gift for you and Joker. Now will you help me..?" She looked at him, her tone pleading a little.

     'Well....He fed me dough....Bad dough...It made the water bad, it made it hard to stay alive.' He nervously flicked his tail to the side, avoiding making eye contact with her. 'He doesn't talk, I don't remember..'

     She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, seemingly ashamed of herself, "Oh...I didn't realize your memory became that faulty...Is it because you've been in this form for this long?"

     'I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about.' He turned around, ending the conversation, but his tone suggesting that he was doing it not out of discomfort but rather to keep something hidden that wasn't meant to be shared.

     Her expression darkened, her eyebrows knitting together as she regarded him with suspicion and wonder. "Thank you for your help." Turning on her heel, she collected both sack and tank in her arms and set them carefully just outside the door, then closed it and flew out the window, locking it behind her. A gust of air was all that remained and the room fell silent once more.

     Finny had watched her go, his memory running wild with flashes of images, snatches of dialogue and a waterfall of sound. Thrashing his tail around, he turned himself and observed the door, waiting. 

     It wasn't until the early hours of the morning did Finny's patience reward him. A thundering of footsteps stopped just short of the door and an exclamation of surprise alerted Finny that Joker had returned. The door flung open and Joker entered, carrying the gift.

     "Look, old friend! Someone's left you a gift! Who do you suppose it was?" He removed the tank from the sack with a great deal of excitement and placed it on the table beside Finny, allowing him to see the tank for himself. 

     The fish swum around in enthusiastic circles, expressing his newfound joy over the tank. He did not answer Joker's question, not even gracing it with a bubble.