Insanity // J.Valeska

Part Twenty-Eight: The Clown

[Stephanie Harlem]

The weeks following her breakdown life returned to normal for Stephanie Harlem. She picked up her schooling and began to tackle the mass of lessons that she had missed from her family's private tutor. Next she went back to dance and gymnastics, gradually rebuilding her strength with plans of competition in the near future. She stopped going to the office and the police station, preferring the quiet isolation which she enjoyed more with the voices in her head silenced. Occasionally, Stephanie visited Wayne Manor where she helped Bruce with his parent's murder case and the two just enjoyed one another's company. She loved learning recipes from Alfred in the infamous Wayne kitchens and the engaged teens spent most of their time pestering the butler.

Word of their engagement had yet to be released, and with how things were going for the pair, they debated whether there was any point in ripping up the contract. It had been their parents' dying wish after all - some things were meant to be honoured.

At least that was what Stephanie told herself.

When night fell though, she dreamed of Jerome. Her ginger maniac who loved her despite his history; who would never change a thing about her so she was contorted to society's ideal image. He had cared for her, for her, and she him.

And now he was just, gone. With no proof that he had ever even existed.

Stephanie Harlem had just stepped out of her family's car when she saw the flash of red hair.

And, of course, she ignored it.

She forced her feet to move forwards, somehow managing to cross the threshold of her uncle's apartment without collapsing in a heap. Everything hurt, and everything that didn't was numb. She was numb. She was hurting.

When she entered the apartment, she leaned back heavily against the door, not bothering to lock it. She had the place to herself yet again: Jim had been staying late at the station all week, working on a case. As for the few moments that he had to himself, he was with Lee Tompkins. It wasn't that he didn't want to spend time with his distraught niece - because he did - it was just he lacked the time. Plus it was becoming more and more obvious that Stephanie wanted alone time, time to cope with her grief in private, where there were no prying eyes or ears.

Opposed to proper counselling like they'd originally discussed, Stephanie had taken to the occasional session with Lee after hours. Additionally, the time she spent with Bruce Wayne was therapeutic in a sense: two orphans coming together to figure out how to live the strange life that they'd been born into.

Her alone time however, gave her time to ponder on the life she could have been living should Jerome still be alive.

A shitty life, she'd concluded.

But a life lived in love, nonetheless.

Stephanie pushed herself off the door and rushed through the apartment and leapt out the window, catching herself on the fire escape one window over. With ease she swung her body upwards and began to climb the ladders to the roof.

She hauled herself over the roof's ledge and sighed in content, letting the cool Gotham air whip through her tresses. Stephanie splayed her arms out wise and twirled in a slow circle, enjoying the coolness against her flesh.

With a sudden spring in her step, Stephanie made her way to the opposite end of the roof. She leaned her forearms against the ledge, her watery eyes scanning the city beneath her tiredly. Her neck relaxed and her head dropped, eyes sliding shut as the air left her body. She needed to relax somehow, unwind.

Her head snapped up all of a sudden, and Stephanie jerked to the side, frantically scanning the rooftop.

There was nobody there.

Her eyes narrowed as she looked around, aware she could very well be going crazy; there was no way she just heard Jerome's laugh.

She spun around so she was facing the ledge once more and paused, the breath knocked from her body.

A man - Jerome? - stood on the rooftop perpendicular to her. Only... his face was concealed by a layer of... clown makeup. The man smiled broadly at her, messily painted lips stretching into a grin worthy of the Cheshire Cat. He raised his hand slowly and waved his fingers, articulating the movement carefully.

Stephanie had never felt so terrified in her life. Clowns: she had always hated them.

Her neck turned suddenly at the sound of a car colliding with another, and when she looked back, the man was gone.

*edited*