We Were Born Sick • Gotham Fanfiction •

XXXVI: Where the Devil Won't Go

Bruised my knees getting down to pray.
Won't repent 'til my judgement day.
It's a mean world that I've known.
Never got no good doing what I'm told.
It's a mean world that I've known.
Now you'll find me where the devil don't go. - Elle King, Where the Devil Won't Go

~()~

"Well?" Bird asked, as she nervously sat on the edge of the chair and fidgeted with the sleeve of her jacket, "What do you think?"

"I think..." Harvey breathed resting his elbows on his desk and rubbing his eyes, "That right now I wish I was one of those lawyers who kept a bottle in their desk drawer."

Her eyes fell to all of the final will and estate documents on his desk and with an apologetic look she said, "I know this isn't what you wanted to spend your lunch break doing, but I had all of these papers drawn up and I wanted you to look over them –you're the only one I trust."

"I can't do this." He finally sighed, tucking the documents back into the thick navy blue folder and roughly closing it.

"I need you to-"

"I have court in less than an hour. I need to be able to focus during the trail and not sitting there paralyzed from the thoughts of losing you." He argued.

"I'm sorry." She apologized, "It's just that my dad had everything all in order, you know? He'd made plans and took steps to make sure everything was done just as he wanted and I'm trying to follow his footsteps. I need to know if everything on these papers are exactly how I want, so that I can leave them with Alfred." Her eyes dropped to the floor as she said, "Just a side note; I told him if something happened to me that you've got copies of the papers for my shares in my father's company to go to my brother."

When he sat completely silent and didn't say anything or even make a movement, she asked, "Harvey?"

"What the hell happened?" He demanded to know, "Last week you were asking me to trust you and saying things were going to get worse, but that in the end it would all be okay –and now you show up here with estate planning papers and talking to me about this like we're discussing where to have dinner!"

"Nothing happened." Bird exclaimed, "I just... I'll be able to sleep a lot better knowing everything is in order."

"Yeah, well, you'll be the only one able to sleep." He muttered.

"Once I know everything is okay and these papers are filed away, we never have to talk about it again –I promise and then things can go back to normal." She was too quick to say, and he asked, "Normal? Starling, I don't even know what normal is anymore.

"Harvey, please." She whispered, her eyes and tone pleaded with him for both his understanding and help.

Lowering his head he let out a sigh of defeat before opening the folder back up and picking the first few pages up. Trying to pretend like he was examining legal documents for someone he didn't know and dearly love. He read over them and laid them to the side with a nod of approval.

As he picked up the next one his eyebrows lowered and she asked, "What's wrong?"

"Why am I listed on here?" He asked, reading further as he said, "It says you're leaving me –whoa... that is..." His eyes darted back to her, "A lot of money. I think someone made a mistake."

"It's not a mistake." Bird replied, "If something were to happen to me, I want to make sure you're going to be okay. That you can pick up and leave Gotham and start somewhere fresh and not have to worry-"