We Were Born Sick • Gotham Fanfiction •

XXXI: Moonless Midnight

"So much of the language of love was like that: you devoured someone with your eyes, you drank in the sight of him, you swallowed him whole. Love was substance, broken down and beating through your bloodstream." ― Jodi Picoult, Nineteen Minutes

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Oswald blew out a breath at the extended silence coming from the other end of the call he'd placed to Bird.

He'd just told her that Butch and Fish had shown up at the club to kill him not long after she'd left and Zsasz followed the pair there.

Ultimately, the night had ended with Fish escaping and Butch being recaptured.

"I just wanted to let you know about Fish... she knows you've betrayed her now and she might come after you." Oswald explained.

"Thanks, but I'm not worried about Fish coming after me." Bird quietly replied, before letting the phone fall into silence again.

"I also called because of how we left things between us. You barely spoke two words to me when you came back in for your shoes."

"I couldn't think of anything to say." Bird admitted, rubbing her forehead as she faced out the glass door leading to her balcony.

"Perhaps I should open the dialogue?" He stammered, pulling in a breath before he started to speed talk, "I know you must be very angry with me. What I did was inappropriate and I apologize for any trouble it's caused you-"

"I'm not mad at you." She cut him off, blowing out a heavy breath as she said, "But I can't get into this right now."

"I understand." He quickly said, opening his mouth to offer a suggestion that they meet the following day to talk but he wasn't given the chance as she hung up on him.

"Well, that was amusing... tell me, what did Penguin do?"

Bird closed her eyes at the question, but didn't give a verbal answer.

"So what's next? You're going to finish me off yourself?"

Turning around Bird said, "If you thought for one second I was going to kill you, you'd have never gotten into the car with me."

"True." Fish sighed in defeat and exhaustion as she crossed her arms over her chest and looked at the young brunette in front of her as she asked, "Why did you help me?"

"Just happened to be in the right place at the right time, I guess." She shrugged. After getting her shoes and leaving the club after her fight with Harvey ended with him driving off, she'd only made it around the side of the building before she shut her car back off and sat there feeling completely immobilized from the events of the night. She felt like she'd been sitting there for at least an hour when she heard several rounds of gunfire, and then she spotted Fish climbing out of a window. "And after everything that happened... I still care about you."

With a bitter tasting breath, her smile appeared to be nearly swallowed up in sadness as Fish said, "The old man was right, it is your favorites that disappoint you the most."

Bird's apartment fell into silence before Fish said, "Penguin told me something interesting earlier tonight... just before I'd planned on bashing his head in with a bat. Told me that this whole time he's been working for Maroni, he's really been spying on him for Falcone. Now that's really got me thinking, about how long you've been playing me."

"A long time." Bird admitted.

"So you're coming back to the club in the first place, all the gifts and the displays of loyalty to me..." She asked, letting her question trail off.