We Were Born Sick • Gotham Fanfiction •

XIX: We're Going to Hell

Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing. - Elie Wiesel

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Leaning forward over the sink in the ladies restroom at Fish's club, Bird flinched as she washed the blood off the side of her forehead where she'd hit herself with the butt of her gun at Barbara's apartment after she and Jim fled.
Bird had been left to come up with a story about how Jim had somehow bested her and managed to get away before Butch woke up.

She knew the damage had to look bad enough that no one would think she'd done it to herself, but she'd underestimated her own strength and had nearly knocked herself out.

Her face contorted in a pained expression as she gingerly pushed on the swollen bruised skin around where her skin had opened from the impact from the self-inflicted injury. Taking one last look at herself in the mirror, she let out a small sigh before turning to leave the restroom.

Downstairs she spotted a couple of the waiters cleaning tables and getting things set for that night when the doors would be opened to the public, but she didn't see Fish or Butch anywhere.

It didn't take her long to find them in one of the rooms set up as an office upstairs though, in fact she heard them before she saw them. Following their voices, she silently crept up to the door and peeked around the door frame where she saw Fish sitting at the desk and Butch in a chair facing her, with his back towards the door.

"Are you saying you don't think she has what it takes?" Fish questioned, leaned back in her chair as she drummed her nails on the desk and stared at her most loyal and trusted employee.

"No, boss." Butch answered, letting out a sigh as he added, "All I'm saying is that people know her face and sending her out on runs might draw attention to things we don't want attention drawn too."

Bird's eyebrows furrowed as she quickly gathered that they had to be talking about her.

"True enough." Fish conceded, leaning back further as she crossed her arms over her chest and gave what he'd said some thought. "I don't know, Butch. Something just doesn't fit right with her and we were dealt a bad hit with Penguin going to work for Maroni. That boy knows things that could get me killed and when it comes down to it, Bird knows more than he does. She knows about Liza, if she breathes one word of that then we're all dead."

"You really think she'd turn rat?" Butch questioned, a look of disbelief on his face. He'd never expected Oswald to rat on them either, but he'd also never trusted him. Bird was a different story; she'd been around the club for years and aside from the way she'd reacted when the word had been given to kill Oswald, she'd been nothing but loyal.

"No, she's too smart for that." Fish quickly said, blowing out a heavy breath. "I've just been giving a lot of thought to Bird lately."

"I don't know." Butch shrugged, "She's quiet at times, but she does good with any job you've given her around here. She's a good looking girl; the customers like her on the nights she's feeling social."

"Exactly." Fish said, a clink noise sounded from the crime bosses nail as she pushed her index finger to the desk when she spoke, "She keeps her head down, does her job and doesn't make a scene. She's so good at blending in that most of the time I don't even notice she's in the room. Doesn't that remind you of Penguin? He did the same thing –stayed to himself and listened to what was going on around him. If Bird's loyalty isn't here, then we're in trouble."

This time Butch didn't have anything to say, he couldn't deny that she had a point. There had been many times in the beginning before they knew Bird very well, that they'd be discussing business matters that very few were privy too and then realize she'd been within ear shot of them. But the longer she'd been working there, the less they paid attention to it. She became one of Fish's favorites and she'd earned a high degree of trust from her boss.