"Shade?" the woman standing at the edge of a bridge in Gotham said. She couldn't believe the vigilante was beside her. She had come from beneath her, carrying a large gun with a cord coming from it. A grapple gun.
The police officer shouted at the woman to back away from the edge. He was a couple of yards away, afraid to approach because the woman may get scared and jump. The woman had told him to stay back or else she would jump over. She had a newborn in her arms, wrapped up in a blanket, the only protection in the frigid December air for the child.
"Stay back! Don't come any closer or I'll jump!" the woman ordered Shade.
"Okay," Shade said calmly and looked at the woman. She was very thin and had thin brown hair. Her eyes were open wide and she looked paranoid. Her pupils were dilated.
Shade knew that this woman was on some type of drug, but she couldn't be sure which one. The bridge was not the tallest in Gotham and Shade felt that it was possible for the woman to survive the jump. But the frigid water was likely to kill her baby immediately.
"You don't have to do this," Shade said. "You're-"
"Shut up!" the woman shouted. "You don't know me. You...I'm a horrible mother. Adam and I will be better off this way..you'll see-"
"Is that his name? Adam?" Shade asked.
"Yes," the woman said.
"And what is yours?" Shade asked her.
"Elise," the woman said after a long pause. And before Shade could speak again she continued. "Look...I will...jump-"
The woman's words became breathy and anxious.
"I made up...my mind," she said. "And no one..can change it. I can't...stay here..I am through.."
Post-partum psychosis, combined with whatever drug this woman was on, Shade realized. The woman took a step forward.
"Adam," Shade gasped and the woman looked at her. "Give...give him to me. Please..I will make sure he's okay...please."
The woman appeared to be considering it for a moment.
"Please," Shade said again.
She looked into the woman's vacant eyes. Large empty black pupils. In a split second, she stepped forward, flinging herself over the edge, opening her arms and letting the baby fly down separate from her.
The quick reaction from Shade stunned the police. She was over the edge right behind the woman without hesitation. Several officers ran to the edge of the bridge and looked down. They could see Shade hanging from the cord on her grapple gun, the bright blue blanket that the baby was still wrapped in was the only thing that gave them indication of where to look to see her in the dark. Shade was holding the baby. The mother was gone in the water.
.
.
.
"Is everything alright?" Alfred asked Adriana when he found her in the foyer sobbing.
"Oh...Alfred," she said. "No...no...this city...I hate what it's doing to me...doing to everyone.."
Alfred wrapped an arm around her shoulder and she cried against him. After a long cry she finally calmed down.
"Bruce was never like this," Adriana said when she had mostly gathered herself. "Crying...after a night of vigilantism."
"There is absolutely nothing wrong with crying, dear," Alfred assured her.
