We Were Born Sick • Gotham Fanfiction •

XLIII: Capsized

"I know you'll think this is crazy, but all I want to do is hold  you, and I think that if you'll let me do that just for a few seconds, I  can walk away, and never speak to you again."― David Guterson, Snow Falling on Cedars

~()~

"What?" Bird asked, as Harvey turned to face her on the sidewalk with raised eyebrows and an expectant expression on his face.

"It was perfect." He stated.

"It was not perfect... I hated the downstairs bathroom." She asserted.

They  both politely smiled and waved to the real-estate agent who'd shown  them three different houses that day, as she drove off and promised to  come up with a list of more properties that had what they were looking  for.

"And I don't care much for her either." Bird admitted, "Why  does it matter to her if we'd planned converting spare bedrooms to  office space or..." Making air quotations in the air with her fingers she  repeated, "Plan on extending our family."

Harvey broke out in a  laugh at the look on her face and said, "Because she's trying to help us  find the perfect place –this is a long-term investment, we're buying a  house together."

"Yeah, but come on Harvey... we haven't even talked  about kids or anything ourselves, I certainly don't feel much like  having that conversation with a stranger in the room." She continued to  complain, almost seeming to grow frantic.

"Hey, hey." He breathed,  rubbing his hands up and down her arms to calm her down as he said, "We  don't have to decide anything right now and you don't like the house  –so it's already forgotten. All we need to worry about at this moment in  time is that if we don't decide on somewhere before my lease is up  we're both going to be living out of your apartment –your very small and  crowded apartment."

"I know." Bird breathed, taking a few breaths and trying to calm herself down, "Can we just walk for a minute, I need some air."

Nodding,  he took her hand in his own and they started down the sidewalk away  from the house they'd been walking through with the agent just moments  ago.

"Who knew trying to find a place to live was such a headache." She breathed, rubbing her forehead with her free hand.

"Are  you serious?" Harvey laughed, "Trying to get my apartment was a  nightmare. All of the pre-approvals I had to go through for the building  and I lived out of a hotel for nearly two months –they kept pushing  back my move in date."

"Mine was easy." Bird remembered, "They'd  just renovated the apartment itself because there was a double homicide  that happened there. I was able to move right in without having to pay a  deposit up front... no one wanted the place so my rent is also a lot  cheaper compared to the other units. Which sounds silly coming from me,  but I moved out as soon as I turned eighteen and the only money I had  was from working at Fish's club."

She came to a stop when there  was a tug on her hand, and she looked back to see Harvey had stopped  walking a few steps behind her.

"There was a double murder that happened –in your apartment?" He asked.

"Yeah."  She nodded, "A few months before I moved in. There's actually an  indentation in the stone mantle of my fire place from where a bullet  grazed it."

He watched her, unsure of how to feel about the newly  learned information, he never was in times like this –a part of him was  both glad and impressed that she didn't scare easily and didn't let the  bad things that could happen stop her from living and another part of  him felt uneasy about how indifferent she could be to things that would  shock others.