Whatever life she had wanted to live, it wasn't this one. She had been fascinated at the thought of marriage, the thought that two people could fall so deeply in love with one another that they could bear to spend the rest of their forever together. She was no orphan, but her divorced parents didn't seem to share the same beliefs on fidelity. The younger version of herself had looked in the reflection of the gold-painted car and told herself that she'd never make the same mistake. Love, two people, forever. She vowed never to let it happen to her.
She wished sometimes she could've settled down somewhere together with a nice young man, maybe a couple of children. Like now. Should've left when she had the chance.
Jonathan wheezed, spitting blood onto the sidewalk and readjusting his hold on her shoulder. Barely able to see, it was five thirty in the morning and the rain was coming down in sheets of ice. She continued to hobble, trying to keep her bare feet from freezing and him from collapsing. "We're almost there," she whispered into his ear. "hold on." He gasped in response. There were sirens in the distance, and she had to believe they were for them because otherwise she'd give up and they'd both be dead. It was almost too late; a tear slipped from her eye and stopped at her cheek, frozen.
"I'm sorry things turned out this way."
She knows Jonathan can hear her, and she knows he can't reply. He's bleeding, he's bleeding and she can do nothing until they get to Gotham General where he'll be treated and they'll take him away and send him back to the asylum, but it'll be worth it because he'll be alive and that's all that matters.
She's feeling dizzy and her fingers are numb, but it's funny since she never imagined this is how a first date should go. This was just the beginning, the quiet voice in her head murmured, and the rest came fast and sharp in the form of a .308 round of ammunition. Lead and brass slices though the air at one thousand, two-hundred-ten feet per second, straight below her collar bone and into her chest. She doesn't feel much; it's mostly when she ends up looking to the rain instead of holding him when something felt that wrong.
Jonathan scrambled on the sidewalk, throwing himself over her body like she is someone worth saving. His voice is gone, but she can hear him wheezing in shock and horror. His hand was on her body, trying to stench the bleeding with two fingers. The sirens are louder now and she can see the red and blue lights projected on the sides of the streets as tires squeal against wet pavement. She could feel her lungs expanding and deflating madly under her skin as she tried to bring in air instead of blood. A dark shape of an officer materialized, she could hear the faint noises of Jonathan's distress above her while she laid on the road and did her best not to die. As she was loaded onto a stretcher, she could feel Jonathan's fingers snagging at her hands, scrabbling to keep a grip, but it was hard enough to hold a hand, much less trying to stay alive.
She couldn't be sure if she made it to the hospital, but she hopes she did, for his sake.
