Gotham's Unknown 2 (A Batman Fanfic)

Chapter 18: Love for the Dead

Years had gone by and no one had seen Sarah, Joker tried so hard to find her but everything he did was for nothing because he never found her. It was almost like no one even cared to find her, he pleaded with Malcolm every session to tell him something, anything at all but Malcolm came up with dozens of lies and excuses and that made Joker realize that he couldn't trust him anymore. After that realization he stopped talking to Malcolm during their sessions, he wouldn't say a word and then would get sent back to his cell.

While Joker was being ignored along with Sarah utter existence, Edward was starting to suspect that something was wrong here. Edward had gone three days without seeing Daniel and that started to worry him terribly. Eventually after the fourth day of his son being missing Edward had enough of this so he ran around looking for him until he finally found him. Daniel was on the floor just outside his cell beaten to hell. He wasn't moving so Edward started to tear the worst as he ran up. "Daniel! Daniel!" He shouted as he stopped running and stood over his son. Tears started to fall from his eyes as he dropped to his knees. He scooped up Daniel in his arms and held him close. "Please no! God no!" He begged as he felt how cold Daniel was as he hugged him. "NO! NO!" He screamed as he held him. Suddenly guards came running but Edward didn't care. The guards stopped when they saw this display not wanting to separate him from his son.

Eventually Edward was escorted back to his cell but was quickly brought back out and into the visitation room where Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock waited for him. Edward's eyes were red and puffy from his tears as he sat down. "What do you want?" Asked Edward in trembling tone as he sniffed and lifted his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
"Our condolences for your loss." Said Harvey as Edward glared at him.
"Go to hell!" He growled as he breathed heavily getting frustrated.
"What the hell is your problem!" Barked Harvey as Ed slammed his hands on the table.
"MY PROBLEM IS THAT I JUST SPENT THE LAST HOUR BAWLING MY EYES OUT BECAUSE I FOUND MY SON DEAD ON THE FLOOR! So my apologies if I don't want to be pitied by a man that always hated me!" Shouted Ed as he glared at Harvey.
"Ed, we are not trying to pity you, we want to help you." Said Jim as he sat down across from Ed. "I think you know as well as anyone, your son's death isn't how it appears and that's why I want to offer you a chance to help us track down who did this to him." Said Jim as Edward glared at him skeptical of his offer.
"Why?" Asked Ed as Jim sighed.
"After everything you've done, the people you've hurt, you were still one of the best forensic scientists I've ever worked with. You notice things about cases that wouldn't have ever been solved without you. I know no one else in Gotham wants to solve this murder more than you and I think you're the only person that can give your son the justice he deserves." Said Jim as he looked at Edward with a pleading look. "Please Ed, help us." Begged Jim as Edward nodded.
"Ok on one condition." Said Edward as looked at Jim very sternly.
"Of course anything." Said Jim as Edward took a breath.
"I wanna help Lee do the autopsy." Said Edward as Jim did a bit of a double take.
"Are you certain you can handle that?" Asked Jim as Edward sighed.
"Everyone handles grief differently Jim and my way of handling my grief is putting my nose to the grindstone and finding who hurt the person I love and I can't do that without seeing his body." Said Edward as Jim sighed and nodded.
"Alright." Said Jim as Edward smiled a little as he was glad that once he found who did this, he was going to let Oswald handle things after the person was arrested.

They brought Edward out of Arkham and to the GCPD. On the drive in the armored vehicle they were transporting him in Jim decided to ask him about Daniel. "So what was he like?" Asked Jim as Edward looked up from the floor.
"What?" Asked Edward as Jim sighed.
"Your son, what was he like?" Asked Jim once more as Edward looked at him for a second.
"Why do you care?" Asked Edward genuinely believing that Jim shouldn't care about him or Daniel so this was utterly confusing.
"You know what happened to my daughter right?" Asked Jim softly as Ed nodded.
"Yeah Joker shot her and she ended up paralyzed." Said Ed as he remembered the day that girl was born and how much he and Oswald had done to protect her and her mother.
"And Joker had also kidnapped me that day. He showed this awful slide show of her, it was horrible and since I had no idea she was still alive I assumed the worst so I want to say I understand how you feel but I don't know anything about your son more than his arrest record, I just want to hope that there was more to him than what I was led to believe." Said Jim as Ed sighed in a shaky sort of way.
"Um well he was very creative, he loved music he actually played piano in Oswald's Lounge that was how he first got involved with Oswald's well anything. Originally I told Oswald to keep him safe and out of everything he does but Daniel wanted to be a part of it and there's nothing I could do to stop him since he didn't want anything to do with me." Said Edward as he sighed.
"Why did he hate you so much?" Asked Jim as Edward sighed and slouched.
"All I wanted to do was keep him safe but I guess I was so protective of him that I drove him away. Recently though we had gotten a bit closer and he wanted me to protect, to be there for him so I guess things ended well for us." Said Edward as he almost started crying again. "I loved him so much and now I can't even tell him that." Said Ed as tears fell from his eyes.

They arrived at the GCPD and Edward was immediately shown to the morgue. He stepped in and saw Daniel's body laying on the table. Edward and Lee started to look over the outside of his body. "These bruises and lacerations were obviously afflicted post mortem." Stated Lee as she looked over Daniel's body.
"There's a prick mark here that was inflicted before death, I think he might've been injected with something." Said Edward as he ran his gloved hand over the prick mark.
"We could do a toxicology report, see what they injected him with." Suggested Lee as Edward nodded.
"Jim?" Asked Edward as didn't even turn to look at him.
"Yeah?" Asked Jim as Edward finally looked at him with only a side glance.
"Has anyone told Oswald of this?" Asked Edward as Jim shook his head.
"No, we wanted to wait until you were here, we thought you could keep him from doing something rash." Said  Jim as Edward nodded.
"That's good." Said Edward.

After that discussion they called Oswald and Oswald got down to the GCPD though they didn't tell him why he was needed there. Jim showed him to the morgue and once he saw Daniel tears flooded down his face then he looked at Edward. "ED!" He said in a tearfully painful tone as he hugged onto his husband. "Who did this to our son!?" He asked as Edward shook his head.
"I don't know but I'm gonna find out! I promise." Said Edward as he looked at Oswald. "Just promise me you won't try to handle this yourself!" Edward begged him as Oswald took a breath.
"Of course, I'm gonna do for our son what I never got to do for my mother." Said Oswald as he put his hand on the side of Edward's face and kissed him, they both felt a little calmer after that. "Find whoever did this and make them pay!" Said Oswald as Edward nodded.
"Of course." Said Edward with a smile.

Edward sat in the morgue looking over Daniel's corpse and was sort of talking to him when he was all alone. "These were definitely done to you while you were still alive." Said Edward as he looked at Daniel's wrists and noticed cuts in the skin like he had struggled against restraints. "What were they doing to you?" Asked Edward as he caressed the side of Daniel's face in his gloved hand but then noticed these burns in his temples like he was administered shock therapy. "Arkham doesn't do shock therapy anymore, what the hell!" He growled as suddenly Lee walked in.
"I got the toxicology report back and it looks like they killed him by pumping him full of sedatives, so he didn't suffer in death but why beat him afterwards?" Asked Lee as Edward took a breath.
"They were covering their tracks, trying to make it seem like he died due to the guards beating which is a common occurrence especially with Daniel he knew how to get under their skin and that was something written in his file." Said Edward as he started to laugh.
"What?" Asked Lee as Edward turned to her.
"I know who killed my son." Said Edward as he grinned. "It's obviously someone among the Arkham staff, only Arkham would have the equipment suitable to do this kind of stuff and only Arkham has enough sedatives to kill a person." Said Edward as he removed his gloves.

Edward informed Jim of everything he had discovered and Jim realized something. "I heard something about Wayne Enterprises reopening the Indian Hill Project." Suggested Jim as Edward sort had a bit of a flashback of what he had seen in the first Indian Hill Project.
"You don't think they were experimenting on Daniel?" Asked Ed as Jim sighed and Edward knew that they must've been.

Since Edward's services were no longer needed he was sent back to Arkham but as he sat in his cell this grieving the loss of his son, he had a realization. Joker's daughter was immortal so if anyone could save Daniel she could. The next day Oswald came to visit him like normal so he decided to propose the idea. "Absolutely not!" Stated Oswald as Edward didn't understand.
"Why not!?" He demanded as Oswald shook his head.
"Because if it doesn't work then you'll blame yourself and I don't need to lose you too!" Said Oswald as tears started to fill his eyes.
"Oswald I can't just sit here and do nothing! If there's a chance he can come back then I want to at least try! What would he say if he heard you giving up like this!" Barked Edward as Oswald slammed his hands on the table.
"I'm giving up because he asked me too!" Said Oswald as Edward looked at him confused. "I visited him the other day, he said he felt like something was wrong and that he didn't have much time left." Said Oswald as he sighed. "I thought he was just being paranoid but he made me promise him that if something were to happen to him, that I was just supposed to drop it. I tried to fight him on it and said that I would make whoever hurt him pay but he freaked out and started yelling. He said that would want to hurt him are dangerous, too dangerous for any one like us to handle. He begged me that if he died I was just supposed to let it go so please just do what we wanted us to do. Please." Begged Oswald as he gripped onto Edward's hand. "Please, the way Daniel was talking, it really scared me. Please don't get involved more than you already are." Oswald begged him and Edward sighed in a shaky way and nodded.
"Ok." He said softly though it was an utter lie, he wasn't going to give up on this, not on Daniel.