(Batfic) Sing, chapter 32
Previous chapters & Speak: speak_sing
They liked the gardens. The gardens were clean, chilly in the early December sunlight, but Bethany had fussed over him and tucked his favourite fleece blanket around him before going to sit with Rachel and the girls. Jack tilted his head back and breathed the crisp air in deeply, revelling in the way the cold bit into his sinuses. He’d been behaving, had made remarkable progress in the laughable excuse for therapy sessions Met Gen boasted. They got to see Rachel and the girls daily. They weren’t going to pretend it wasn’t a struggle, trying to merge into one personality without alerting anyone, keeping their temper when provoked by anything, but it was worth it.
They were out of that wheelchair and out of that straightjacket, the bullet wound was healing nicely, Janet and Susie had been moved into Rachel’s room and Janet’s therapy was also going well, he heard. Dealing with the heroin was easier than the rapes she’d survived. Jack worried about her. He wondered if she hated him for what he’d let happen.
So, essentially, all they were waiting for was for Rachel to give birth. The doctors were expecting it to happen any day, any moment. Jack was hoping she lasted another week and a half, lasted until she was thirty-seven weeks along and full-term. He didn’t think that would happen, not with all Rachel had been through, but he hoped.
“He’s right there, gentlemen.”
Jack raised his head and watched two black-suited men in black sunglasses follow a middle-aged nurse toward him. He vaguely recognised her, but it was the federal agents that held his attention. He kept his hands clasped loosely between his knees as he tilted his head to the side and watched them.
“What can I do for you?” Jack asked.
“Jack Dawes?” He nodded and didn’t roll his eyes. “I’m Special Agent Byers, this is Special Agent Mencina, FBI. We’ve been sent to inform you that, due to your involvement in taking down the mob in Gotham City, the FBI has decided to . . . Overlook the fact that you deliberately withheld potentially vital information from us.”
Jack blinked and mouthed the words as he repeated the agent’s last sentence. He found it a little wordy, but otherwise understandable. “So, what, I’m not in trouble?”
“Not with the Sergeant Major of the Marines on your side.” Mencina didn’t sound please and jack just shrugged, not smiling. “No, the Pentagon’s decision is that you giving us the information on Moskowitz and Bentley would have done more harm than good, and proceeding the way you did, you managed zero civilian casualties and a complete destructuring of several major crime families.”
“Do I get to go home with my family?”
“That will be up to the Barnstable County courts,” Byers told him. “They’ll decide what to do with the minors in your care.”
Jack glanced toward Rachel’s window. “My wife can take care of them; she’s got a good support system. I don’t want those girls in foster care.”
“That’s not our decision.” The agents stood there for a moment or two longer before leaving, their errand finished.
Jack yawned and leaned back again, looking up at the blue sky and wondering how it could be so cold on such a clear day, wondering why it wasn’t raining or snowing. He didn’t want it to do either; his baby girl might get sick, on top of being premature. Metropolis simply had odd weather patterns.
“Are you visiting a family member?” the nurse asked as she returned.
He looked at her from barely-opened eyes and shrugged. “My wife’s on bed-rest. She’s going to have a baby.”
He got a grandmotherly smile as she tucked a strand of greying brown hair behind her ear. “Congratulations. Your first?”
Jack sighed again and nodded. “Yeah. A girl.”
“I’m sure she’ll be just fine. This is a good hospital; we have the best obstetricians in the state working here. May I . . . ?” Jack turned his head slightly when she gestured next to him and shrugged. He didn’t care if this woman sat next to him. He was practicing being calm, and the other one was mildly interested in her. “My son and daughter-in-law are having a baby, soon. My son and I don’t talk, but . . . it’ll be my first grandchild.”
It took a moment before social niceties kicked in and Jack mumbled an awkward congratulations. “Soon?”
“Oh, any time, now.” The corners of her brown eyes wrinkled with a smile and she was naggingly familiar, so Jack raised his head to get a better look at the woman. She couldn’t have been more than twenty years older than him, maybe less. “I work in Paediatrics. Maybe I‘ll see your little girl.”
He wasn‘t sure if he wanted that or not. “Oh. I’m Jack.”
“Noelle,” she replied after a moment’s hesitation. Then she smiled again and stood up. “Are you all right out here? Warm enough?”
“I’m fine,” he muttered. “Thanks.”
“Well, don’t stay out too long. You’ll catch your death of a cold.”
Jack snorted to himself as she got up and walked back into the hospital, then looked up at Rachel’s window again. He could only visit her at specific times. He also needed to hobble his way to his stupid therapy session; at least Doctor Morgenson had insisted on being a part of the group love-fest. The good doctor was just about the only thing that kept Jack in that horrible room, talking to those idiotic lunatics, the doctor and his girls.
The good thing, Jack supposed as he got up and walked toward a different door while the guards waiting there watched him, was that he wasn’t constantly fighting to stay in control any more, and therefore wasn’t in need of as many drugs as usual.
~
“How are we, ladies? Everyone’s still with us, I see.”
Doctor Curnen was too chipper, Rachel felt. Then again, she herself had been up half the night, her stomach aching. She’d tossed and turned, but hadn’t been able to get back to sleep and wasn’t happy about it. Jack’s arms were around her, his fingers twisting in hers as he helped her to sit down on one of the available couches. Completely ignoring the one guard sent in with them, he carefully arranged himself behind Rachel, resting his chin on her shoulder after kissing her neck and crossing her arms over her chest, his own arms over them. Rachel had been surprised that the other mothers had agreed to let him in the class with her, but his attention to her and the guard’s presence had obviously put them at ease. Not that she’d been making friends, exactly.
“Are you all right?” Jack whispered in her ear. Doctor Curnen glanced at him, but kept talking about the day’s agenda.
“Just a headache,” Rachel whispered back. The Braxton-Hicks contractions had been increasing for the past day or so, but they weren’t painful.
She was laying on her side on the floor, propped up against Jack as the doctor led them through what to expect during the delivery, when she felt something run down the side of her buttock. Jack helped her move onto her back and she used that to put her hand on the floor beneath her as she moved, and it came away wet. Her eyes got big and she glanced up at Jack quickly, but he hadn’t noticed anything. Rachel swallowed and returned the slight smile he gave her before looking around for the doctor. She didn’t want to alarm Jack. He was having a hard enough time as it was. She didn’t need to spring labour on him like this, but . . .
“Rachel? Are you all right?”
She jumped and looked to the left as Doctor Curnen raised an eyebrow at her. “Uhm, I’m fine.”
The doctor walked around the small group, still talking, until she was opposite Rachel and smiled as she looked the expectant mother over carefully. Her eyebrow went up again and she nodded to herself. She took out a notepad and wrote on it, then gave it to an attending nurse. The woman read it and slipped out the door. Oh, Doctor Curnen was good. Jack didn’t pay any more attention to the doctor that entered the room a few minutes later than he did anyone coming in, looking the man over and then returning his attention to Rachel. Doctor Curnen introduced him as the head obstetrician and he made his rounds, talking quietly with each couple for a minute or so until he got to Jack and Rachel.
“How are you holding up?” he asked gently. He was looking at Jack, but glanced down just long enough to meet Rachel’s gaze.
She nodded and smiled while Jack answered. “Uhm, fine. I guess.” He watched the doctor take Rachel’s pulse, just like he’d done with the other women. It was harmless.
When he turned to Doctor Curnen, Rachel looked up at Jack and he immediately smiled down at her. He was grateful to have any time with her, and looking at her let Doctor Brooks give any message he needed to Curnen.
Which was to end the class. “All right, I’m sorry to cut class short today; there are a few things I need to get done that can’t wait. If it’s convenient, we can pick up again in, say, half an hour?”
Brooks handed Rachel a towel while Jack was looking at Doctor Curnen, then helped Jack help Rachel to stand while the rest of the couples answered the woman. “We have an exam scheduled for later this afternoon, but we can do it right now,” he said casually. “Mr. Dawes, if you’d like to sit in on it?” Jack nodded eagerly while he hugged Rachel. “Good. Right this way . . . I think we’ll use a wheelchair, Mrs. Dawes.”
There was one waiting outside the classroom and Rachel sank into it gratefully, then looked at Jack again and smiled. He breathed a small sigh of relief. “Thank you, Doctor.”
“No problem. Betty . . .” A young nurse stepped over to push the wheelchair while Brooks flipped through Rachel’s medical chart. “How have your contractions been?”
“I’ve had a lot, but they don’t hurt. Uhm, six or seven an hour since . . . Yesterday. I woke up last night really sore, and I couldn’t get back to sleep.”
“Is everything all right?” Jack broke in nervously.
“Of course,” Brooks said as he ushered them in to the elevator. “We’ll be there in a moment.”
“Do you want me to get rid of my scars?” Jack asked quietly.
Rachel looked up in surprise. “Your scars?” He nodded and she pursed her lips. “I don’t mind them; I hardly even notice them. But other people see them and associate them with the Joker, with everything you used to do.” She took his hand and kissed it, holding it was the nurse wheeled her down a new hallway. Her panties were feeling wetter by the minute. “It depends on what message you want to send to other people.”
“Oh. Are you in labour?”
She blinked up at him before smiling, and Brooks answered. “Mrs. Dawes’ water broke, is all. There’s nothing to worry about.”
Jack’s grip on her hand tightened, though. “Thirty-six weeks.”
“Which is close enough to full-term that there should be very few problems, Mr. Dawes. Don’t worry; I have years of experience with preterm births. In spite of the circumstances, Mrs. Dawes is in excellent health and I don’t expect to keep your baby in the NICU more than a week.”
Rachel saw the signs of stress that no one else saw and kissed his hand. “I’m all right, Jack. I’m fine.”
“Does it hurt?”
He was closing in on himself to keep any budding hysteria at bay. Rachel loved him. “Not yet, but I’m sure it will soon enough. I love you, Jack.”
He swallowed sharply as they entered another room. “Me, too.”
“Mr. Dawes, if you could step over there, Mitchell will give you a rundown of what’s going to happen. Betty’s going to help Rachel into a new gown and we’re going to see how much she’s dilated in the next room, first.”
Mitchell picked up from there and kept up a running commentary, his low voice soothing to Rachel, at least. Rachel was gripped with the sudden urge to see her mother. Her mother would know what to do, how to comfort Jack. She cleared her throat after a few minutes.
“Doctor . . . Is it all right . . . I mean, Jack and my mother? She knows how to keep him calm.”
Brooks paused and looked through the door’s window to where Jack was pacing, wringing his hands. Then he smiled and nodded. “I think that would be fine. Betty, get in touch with Mrs. Dawes’ mother and let her know she’s needed here. I’d like to keep as few people in the room as possible,” he explained to Rachel. “I understand your current youngest wanted to watch the birth?”
“She’s not ours; not yet,” Rachel corrected him as her heart started to speed up. “But yes, Susie wanted to watch.”
“We’ll see how it goes. She might be able to be here for the very beginning.”
“If a crazy Asian twink tries to get in, kick him out,” Jack said as Mitchell let him into the room. “She’s not really his wife.”
Brooks turned a startled look on Rachel and she shook her head as she laughed. “Our friend Hideki. Doctor Brooks says only you and Mom can be in the room,” she assured Jack. “Maybe Susie, for the beginning.”
“Morgenson gave her some IQ test and says she scored off the charts,” Jack blurted out. He sat next to the head of the bed when Mitchell gave him a chair and took Rachel’s hand. “Told you the kid’s a genius. Bona-fide. Why’s she wanna watch?”
“Because children are curious about everything, and she wants to be the first to see Ava. Plus we never told her it was going to be messy.”
Jack paused and then picked up a completely different topic, stroking Rachel’s hair back from her forehead compulsively until Bethany was ushered into the room and shooed him off.
“You’ll make her go bald,” the older woman said affectionately.
“Four years of constant sex and she’s not bald there yet, so I doubt that’s true,” he snapped back. “How long will this take?”
“You have somewhere else to be?”
He paused and then flushed, leaning over the bed to cradle Rachel’s upper body in his arms. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right,” Brooks said from the business end of the bed. “One centimetre dilated; the contractions you’ve been feeling have been actual contractions, by the way. They’ll start to get painful soon.”
“You popped out so fast the doctor almost dropped you,” Bethany told her daughter cheerfully. “I expect Ava will be much the same.”
“Don’t you dare drop my daughter,” Jack began heatedly.
“Oh, knock it off. He knows what he’s doing.” Bethany pushed Jack down into his chair and ran her fingers through his hair as Rachel gasped.
“Oh, Christ, that hurts!” she panted after a minute or so.
Bethany’s hand on Jack’s shoulder had kept him from jumping up. “Like a menstrual cramp?” Brooks asked. Rachel nodded. “Not a problem. Don’t push. We’re really just waiting at this point. I think we can let your little girl in for a while.”
Rachel wanted to tell her mother that she was scared, but the look on Jack’s face said enough. He was worried about her and Ava both and didn’t need her own fears added to that concern. She swallowed and tried to get comfortable.
“Janet’s at the hotel,” she told Jack. He looked at her in surprise. “Dick’s really mad that you shot him.”
“Yeah, well, didn’t need him trying to be a hero and getting anyone hurt. Didn’t trust him.”
Rachel wasn’t sure how she managed to keep Jack occupied for the next hour, even with Susie’s entrance and her mother’s help. She’d been up and walking around with him until that started to hurt, then laying down and letting him rub her shoulders while her mother rubbed her feet. He was calmed down by the time Charles arrived to take Susie back to the hotel. The little girl whined for a moment, but didn’t put up too much of a fuss, and then her contractions decided they meant business. Doctor Brooks had her lay back down and then Bethany was on Rachel’s left and Jack was on her right, and Rachel was forgetting everything she’d been told in the two childbirth classes she’d attended at Metropolis General, curling in on herself and clenching her teeth with each contraction.
She wasn’t aware that Charles had bullied her way back into the delivery room until the Marine was gripping her shoulders and murmuring instructions in her ear in the tone of voice that had Jack obeying her without a thought, much less Rachel. When the latest contraction let her go, Rachel lay back and panted while Charles grabbed Jack’s ear.
“Look, you moron, would you be a good dom to your sub, already? Tell her to relax. This isn’t going to go any smoother if she keeps tensing up like that.”
Jack hissed and then looked down at Rachel, who was looking back at him while she caught her breath. He half-stood and leaned over her, one hand cupping her cheek as he kissed her firmly.
“Calm down,” he murmured in the voice she very rarely disobeyed. The other part of him was glad to be concentrating on her face, instead of the messy bits. Rachel’s eyes flew open and Jack kissed her again. “It’s all right, Rachel. Calm down. Relax.” They had three to five minutes before the next contraction and he talked to her the whole time, smiling at her, distracting her from the pain as best he could.
Rachel sucked in her breath and started to tense for another contraction, and Jack kissed her again. “Piss off,” she muttered through clenched teeth as the doctor urged her to bear down. “Don’t touch me. Keep talking to me,” she gasped out a minute later.
Jack drew back until the doctor reassured him that very few women wanted to be touched while they were in labour, then talked to her quietly with the occasional input from Charles or her mother and Rachel clung to his hand, or to Charles’ or her mother’s when he needed to sit down. The pattern repeated endlessly, it seemed, only interrupted when Brooks started telling Rachel, who had started yelling and swearing a while ago, to push. In truth, when Jack glanced up at the clock, almost nine hours had passed. Close enough to endless. He smiled down at Rachel and kissed at her nose while he transferred her grip to his other hand, shaking the now-free one in the hopes of getting the circulation flowing again.
“Almost there,” the doctor told them.
“Can I ground her for this?” Jack asked softly. Rachel rolled her eyes at him and whimpered with pain. He dabbed a damp washcloth against her forehead and that prompted a smile. “I’m going to lose the rest of my hair from this.”
“Vain,” Rachel gasped out.
Jack shrugged, his heart skipping a beat, again, when she cried out in pain. Her grip on his hand tightened and he squeezed back. “It’s okay, baby, it’s okay. We’re almost done.” He was going to faint. Maybe it was lack of food. Rachel suddenly relaxed in his arms, though, and he patted her cheek urgently. “Rachel? Rachel!”
“I’m okay,” she whispered. “Ava . . .”
“What?” Jack whipped his head around in time to see the doctor lift up a small bundle of white blanket and carry it to a nearby table. “Ava!” His heart felt like it would burst out of his chest.
“She’s all right,” Doctor Brooks said over his shoulder. Charles held Jack back until the doctor came over to them, holding a tiny thing in his arms. “We need to get her to the NICU, but this is your daughter.”
Jack stared at the tightly-scrunched, bluish face and thought his heart might actually stop. “That . . . She’s . . .”
“In need of the NICU,” the doctor said firmly. Rachel was craning her neck to see her child and tears filled her eyes as Brooks turned and left.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Jack sat down and looked at her in confusion. “What for? He said she’ll be fine.”
“I didn’t want her to be early.”
He paused, then slowly pulled Rachel into his arms again and rocked her as she cried. The nurses were still doing something at the other end of the bed but he ignored them, stroking Rachel’s hair and kissing her.
“It’s fine,” he whispered in her ear, “she’ll be fine. You’re both okay and that’s all I care about.”
Rachel cried herself to sleep in his arms.
~
They were whispering behind him.
“What’s he doing?”
“Counting.”
“He’s been here an hour.”
“He says she might have grown more fingers or toes while he wasn’t looking.”
“Doesn’t that entail him not looking, though?”
Jack squinted and trailed his finger just over Ava’s left foot. “Eight, nine . . . ten. Good.” He’d been in every day since her birth to just stand there and look at her, look at the tiny little thing he and Rachel had made together. Rachel was sitting behind him and twisting a bit of her skirt in her fingers. She’d been mortified at how Ava had looked at first, bursting into tears and declaring that Ava was ugly. Jack still couldn’t find fault with the infant, though. She was, he thought, absolutely perfect and today Brooks had said Rachel could try breastfeeding her.
“Still ten of each?” the doctor himself asked as he walked up.
“For now,” Jack replied happily. Even his impending incarceration in Arkham wasn’t dulling his mood. “Can I hold her today?”
Brooks’ expression was the same as the other days Jack had asked, and he didn’t push as the doctor lifted his girl out of her crib-thing and carried her over to Rachel. Jack stayed by his side and watched everything.
Rachel looked up and swallowed as she was handed her baby for the first time. She’d been in with Jack to see her, of course, and it had helped that the hotel Bruce had put them all up in was only a block away from the hospital, but it was still hard to leave each day without Ava. Jack had been allowed to stay only until Ava was sent home, then she’d be losing her husband.
She couldn’t think about that right now. She shivered and, under Charles’ supervision, moved the flap of her nursing bra/camisole aside and patiently offered Ava her nipple. It took a couple of tries and Rachel was ready to start crying again, but with Jack humming soothingly in her ear and Charles encouraging her, she held back tears until Ava had finally latched on and started suckling. Then Rachel did start to cry softly as she cradled Ava gently against her, stroking the soft cheek her little girl presented to her.
“She’s beautiful,” Rachel hiccupped. It hurt to nurse at the moment, but she wouldn’t have bottle-fed the baby for anything.
“I told you so,” was Jack’s pleased murmur. “She’s perfect.”
“She won’t eat a lot right now,” Charles said quietly. “It’s all right if she falls asleep.”
A few minutes later the preemie did just that, needing to be woken up just enough for a short burping session. Then Doctor Brooks was taking her back and Rachel protested.
“Let Jack hold her. Jack hasn’t held her.”
Brooks frowned and looked at the armed guard standing beside Jack. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Dawes, according to policy ---”
“Policy my stockings,” Noelle snapped at him as she stomped up. “Melvin Brooks, you give that man his daughter. Do you know what that man went through for his family?”
“Look, Nurse McGallagher, it’s not my decision ---”
“Then you’re a terrible person,” she cut him off. “Rachel, Jack can hold his daughter.”
She turned to scold the doctor some more and Jack stared at her, something in his mind clicking at her last name in a way he wanted nothing to do with and he was just about to open his mouth and launch himself toward the woman when something small and warm was pushed into his arms. Jack looked down in shock and his arms curled automatically around Ava so she wouldn’t fall, his baby girl yawning a little in her sleep. He sat back in his chair and held perfectly still, everything in his life swept away and replaced by wonder as small eyes opened and looked up at him blearily.
“I was right,” Rachel murmured. Jack could only grunt as Ava went back to sleep in his arms. “You do look handsome holding our baby.”
Jack leaned down, very gently, and pressed a kiss to Ava’s forehead.
~
“There you are!” Tom called from the porch. “What took you so long?”
“Flew there, drove back,” Jack called back.
“Yeah, yeah, come in and let us see her!” He waved idly at the Gotham police car in the driveway. “They’re here to take you away, but they’ll let you get Rachel and the girls settled, first.”
“Tact, Tom, tact,” Helna said as she held open the screen door.
“I’m friends with Jack; it wore off.” He pulled his friend into a half-hug. “It’ll be all right, man,” he murmured in Jack’s ear. “We’ll get you back. Otherwise I have to help that Edward Nashton guy write his new novel. He just moved to town, and I hate mystery novels.”
“You better get me back,” Jack muttered as he set Ava’s car seat down by the coffee table and was pulled into a hug by Helna. “Hey.”
“You . . . You . . .”
Jack ignored her blubbering and swooped Mitzi up, giving her a kiss on the cheek before blowing a raspberry. She squealed with laughter and then he knelt and set her down.
“This is Ava, Mitzi. Be gentle; she’s very small. Remember? I told you about Ava. She’s a little early, isn’t she?”
The toddler looked up at Jack with big eyes, then down at the sleeping baby. “Ava?” Jack nodded with a grin. Mitzi giggled and then leaned over the car seat, kissing Ava’s cheek.
Jack laughed. “Hey, Tom, check it out. Your daughter’s a dyke.”
He got a toe in his backside. “She is not, Jack, she’s just being friendly.”
“Whatever; I’ve got great gaydar, and Mitzi’s a dyke.” He leaned down and took Ava out of the seat, kissing her gently and trying not to cling as he turned to Rachel. “Well.”
Tom and Helna had packed his bags. Janet was standing in the doorway to the kitchen and Susie had just discovered the kitten Jack had bought for her, squealing over the small tabby.
Jack turned to her. “Hey, Susie, give me a hug and kiss. I have to go away for a while.”
“How long?” she asked as she hugged him.
Jack squeezed her tight and smiled when she kissed his nose, returning it with a kiss on her cheek. “I don’t know. Not --- not everyone thinks I’m a hero. I’ll be back as soon as I can. You just, just be a good big sister to Ava, all right? Do what Rachel says, and help Janet. Take care of them for me, all right?” There was a lump in his throat that he was having difficulty talking past.
“Daddy . . .” Susie looked at the two officers outside the window and wiped tears away. “Is it because I shot those men?”
Jack was going to start crying. “No, baby, it’s not because of you at all. I’m in trouble, not you. Never you.” He stood up and looked at Janet, who had tears running down her face. “I’m sorry.” She turned and ran to her bedroom, sobbing. Finally Jack turned to Rachel and walked with her out onto the porch. He handed Ava to her after another kiss for his baby, and the infant’s cheek was wet when Rachel took her. “Rachel ---”
His voice broke and Jack leaned down, burying his face in the crook of Rachel’s neck as they both sobbed. He kept apologising, promising her it was only until after the criminal trial, and Rachel pretended they both believed that.
After a few minutes Jack draw back and wiped his face off on his sleeve, then kissed Rachel firmly.
“I love you,” he whispered. “I love all of you. Don’t --- don’t forget that.”
“We won’t,” she told him, then Jack had to turn away or risk refusing to go at all. He turned to the two officers and closed his eyes as he nodded, letting them cuff him and read him his rights as they led him to the police car.
It was a long ride back to Arkham Asylum.
And that's it. The end. The last few chapters were difficult to write, simply because I was getting really burned out, and it showed. I'm sorry about that. I hope the last couple of chapters make up for that, and there will be another sequel. I'm going to take a break from it for a while, though, and work on a couple other fics I've been wanting to write. Thank you, everyone, for reading and sticking with me! I'll be around, and the next fic will be happier. Promise!
They liked the gardens. The gardens were clean, chilly in the early December sunlight, but Bethany had fussed over him and tucked his favourite fleece blanket around him before going to sit with Rachel and the girls. Jack tilted his head back and breathed the crisp air in deeply, revelling in the way the cold bit into his sinuses. He’d been behaving, had made remarkable progress in the laughable excuse for therapy sessions Met Gen boasted. They got to see Rachel and the girls daily. They weren’t going to pretend it wasn’t a struggle, trying to merge into one personality without alerting anyone, keeping their temper when provoked by anything, but it was worth it.
They were out of that wheelchair and out of that straightjacket, the bullet wound was healing nicely, Janet and Susie had been moved into Rachel’s room and Janet’s therapy was also going well, he heard. Dealing with the heroin was easier than the rapes she’d survived. Jack worried about her. He wondered if she hated him for what he’d let happen.
So, essentially, all they were waiting for was for Rachel to give birth. The doctors were expecting it to happen any day, any moment. Jack was hoping she lasted another week and a half, lasted until she was thirty-seven weeks along and full-term. He didn’t think that would happen, not with all Rachel had been through, but he hoped.
“He’s right there, gentlemen.”
Jack raised his head and watched two black-suited men in black sunglasses follow a middle-aged nurse toward him. He vaguely recognised her, but it was the federal agents that held his attention. He kept his hands clasped loosely between his knees as he tilted his head to the side and watched them.
“What can I do for you?” Jack asked.
“Jack Dawes?” He nodded and didn’t roll his eyes. “I’m Special Agent Byers, this is Special Agent Mencina, FBI. We’ve been sent to inform you that, due to your involvement in taking down the mob in Gotham City, the FBI has decided to . . . Overlook the fact that you deliberately withheld potentially vital information from us.”
Jack blinked and mouthed the words as he repeated the agent’s last sentence. He found it a little wordy, but otherwise understandable. “So, what, I’m not in trouble?”
“Not with the Sergeant Major of the Marines on your side.” Mencina didn’t sound please and jack just shrugged, not smiling. “No, the Pentagon’s decision is that you giving us the information on Moskowitz and Bentley would have done more harm than good, and proceeding the way you did, you managed zero civilian casualties and a complete destructuring of several major crime families.”
“Do I get to go home with my family?”
“That will be up to the Barnstable County courts,” Byers told him. “They’ll decide what to do with the minors in your care.”
Jack glanced toward Rachel’s window. “My wife can take care of them; she’s got a good support system. I don’t want those girls in foster care.”
“That’s not our decision.” The agents stood there for a moment or two longer before leaving, their errand finished.
Jack yawned and leaned back again, looking up at the blue sky and wondering how it could be so cold on such a clear day, wondering why it wasn’t raining or snowing. He didn’t want it to do either; his baby girl might get sick, on top of being premature. Metropolis simply had odd weather patterns.
“Are you visiting a family member?” the nurse asked as she returned.
He looked at her from barely-opened eyes and shrugged. “My wife’s on bed-rest. She’s going to have a baby.”
He got a grandmotherly smile as she tucked a strand of greying brown hair behind her ear. “Congratulations. Your first?”
Jack sighed again and nodded. “Yeah. A girl.”
“I’m sure she’ll be just fine. This is a good hospital; we have the best obstetricians in the state working here. May I . . . ?” Jack turned his head slightly when she gestured next to him and shrugged. He didn’t care if this woman sat next to him. He was practicing being calm, and the other one was mildly interested in her. “My son and daughter-in-law are having a baby, soon. My son and I don’t talk, but . . . it’ll be my first grandchild.”
It took a moment before social niceties kicked in and Jack mumbled an awkward congratulations. “Soon?”
“Oh, any time, now.” The corners of her brown eyes wrinkled with a smile and she was naggingly familiar, so Jack raised his head to get a better look at the woman. She couldn’t have been more than twenty years older than him, maybe less. “I work in Paediatrics. Maybe I‘ll see your little girl.”
He wasn‘t sure if he wanted that or not. “Oh. I’m Jack.”
“Noelle,” she replied after a moment’s hesitation. Then she smiled again and stood up. “Are you all right out here? Warm enough?”
“I’m fine,” he muttered. “Thanks.”
“Well, don’t stay out too long. You’ll catch your death of a cold.”
Jack snorted to himself as she got up and walked back into the hospital, then looked up at Rachel’s window again. He could only visit her at specific times. He also needed to hobble his way to his stupid therapy session; at least Doctor Morgenson had insisted on being a part of the group love-fest. The good doctor was just about the only thing that kept Jack in that horrible room, talking to those idiotic lunatics, the doctor and his girls.
The good thing, Jack supposed as he got up and walked toward a different door while the guards waiting there watched him, was that he wasn’t constantly fighting to stay in control any more, and therefore wasn’t in need of as many drugs as usual.
~
“How are we, ladies? Everyone’s still with us, I see.”
Doctor Curnen was too chipper, Rachel felt. Then again, she herself had been up half the night, her stomach aching. She’d tossed and turned, but hadn’t been able to get back to sleep and wasn’t happy about it. Jack’s arms were around her, his fingers twisting in hers as he helped her to sit down on one of the available couches. Completely ignoring the one guard sent in with them, he carefully arranged himself behind Rachel, resting his chin on her shoulder after kissing her neck and crossing her arms over her chest, his own arms over them. Rachel had been surprised that the other mothers had agreed to let him in the class with her, but his attention to her and the guard’s presence had obviously put them at ease. Not that she’d been making friends, exactly.
“Are you all right?” Jack whispered in her ear. Doctor Curnen glanced at him, but kept talking about the day’s agenda.
“Just a headache,” Rachel whispered back. The Braxton-Hicks contractions had been increasing for the past day or so, but they weren’t painful.
She was laying on her side on the floor, propped up against Jack as the doctor led them through what to expect during the delivery, when she felt something run down the side of her buttock. Jack helped her move onto her back and she used that to put her hand on the floor beneath her as she moved, and it came away wet. Her eyes got big and she glanced up at Jack quickly, but he hadn’t noticed anything. Rachel swallowed and returned the slight smile he gave her before looking around for the doctor. She didn’t want to alarm Jack. He was having a hard enough time as it was. She didn’t need to spring labour on him like this, but . . .
“Rachel? Are you all right?”
She jumped and looked to the left as Doctor Curnen raised an eyebrow at her. “Uhm, I’m fine.”
The doctor walked around the small group, still talking, until she was opposite Rachel and smiled as she looked the expectant mother over carefully. Her eyebrow went up again and she nodded to herself. She took out a notepad and wrote on it, then gave it to an attending nurse. The woman read it and slipped out the door. Oh, Doctor Curnen was good. Jack didn’t pay any more attention to the doctor that entered the room a few minutes later than he did anyone coming in, looking the man over and then returning his attention to Rachel. Doctor Curnen introduced him as the head obstetrician and he made his rounds, talking quietly with each couple for a minute or so until he got to Jack and Rachel.
“How are you holding up?” he asked gently. He was looking at Jack, but glanced down just long enough to meet Rachel’s gaze.
She nodded and smiled while Jack answered. “Uhm, fine. I guess.” He watched the doctor take Rachel’s pulse, just like he’d done with the other women. It was harmless.
When he turned to Doctor Curnen, Rachel looked up at Jack and he immediately smiled down at her. He was grateful to have any time with her, and looking at her let Doctor Brooks give any message he needed to Curnen.
Which was to end the class. “All right, I’m sorry to cut class short today; there are a few things I need to get done that can’t wait. If it’s convenient, we can pick up again in, say, half an hour?”
Brooks handed Rachel a towel while Jack was looking at Doctor Curnen, then helped Jack help Rachel to stand while the rest of the couples answered the woman. “We have an exam scheduled for later this afternoon, but we can do it right now,” he said casually. “Mr. Dawes, if you’d like to sit in on it?” Jack nodded eagerly while he hugged Rachel. “Good. Right this way . . . I think we’ll use a wheelchair, Mrs. Dawes.”
There was one waiting outside the classroom and Rachel sank into it gratefully, then looked at Jack again and smiled. He breathed a small sigh of relief. “Thank you, Doctor.”
“No problem. Betty . . .” A young nurse stepped over to push the wheelchair while Brooks flipped through Rachel’s medical chart. “How have your contractions been?”
“I’ve had a lot, but they don’t hurt. Uhm, six or seven an hour since . . . Yesterday. I woke up last night really sore, and I couldn’t get back to sleep.”
“Is everything all right?” Jack broke in nervously.
“Of course,” Brooks said as he ushered them in to the elevator. “We’ll be there in a moment.”
“Do you want me to get rid of my scars?” Jack asked quietly.
Rachel looked up in surprise. “Your scars?” He nodded and she pursed her lips. “I don’t mind them; I hardly even notice them. But other people see them and associate them with the Joker, with everything you used to do.” She took his hand and kissed it, holding it was the nurse wheeled her down a new hallway. Her panties were feeling wetter by the minute. “It depends on what message you want to send to other people.”
“Oh. Are you in labour?”
She blinked up at him before smiling, and Brooks answered. “Mrs. Dawes’ water broke, is all. There’s nothing to worry about.”
Jack’s grip on her hand tightened, though. “Thirty-six weeks.”
“Which is close enough to full-term that there should be very few problems, Mr. Dawes. Don’t worry; I have years of experience with preterm births. In spite of the circumstances, Mrs. Dawes is in excellent health and I don’t expect to keep your baby in the NICU more than a week.”
Rachel saw the signs of stress that no one else saw and kissed his hand. “I’m all right, Jack. I’m fine.”
“Does it hurt?”
He was closing in on himself to keep any budding hysteria at bay. Rachel loved him. “Not yet, but I’m sure it will soon enough. I love you, Jack.”
He swallowed sharply as they entered another room. “Me, too.”
“Mr. Dawes, if you could step over there, Mitchell will give you a rundown of what’s going to happen. Betty’s going to help Rachel into a new gown and we’re going to see how much she’s dilated in the next room, first.”
Mitchell picked up from there and kept up a running commentary, his low voice soothing to Rachel, at least. Rachel was gripped with the sudden urge to see her mother. Her mother would know what to do, how to comfort Jack. She cleared her throat after a few minutes.
“Doctor . . . Is it all right . . . I mean, Jack and my mother? She knows how to keep him calm.”
Brooks paused and looked through the door’s window to where Jack was pacing, wringing his hands. Then he smiled and nodded. “I think that would be fine. Betty, get in touch with Mrs. Dawes’ mother and let her know she’s needed here. I’d like to keep as few people in the room as possible,” he explained to Rachel. “I understand your current youngest wanted to watch the birth?”
“She’s not ours; not yet,” Rachel corrected him as her heart started to speed up. “But yes, Susie wanted to watch.”
“We’ll see how it goes. She might be able to be here for the very beginning.”
“If a crazy Asian twink tries to get in, kick him out,” Jack said as Mitchell let him into the room. “She’s not really his wife.”
Brooks turned a startled look on Rachel and she shook her head as she laughed. “Our friend Hideki. Doctor Brooks says only you and Mom can be in the room,” she assured Jack. “Maybe Susie, for the beginning.”
“Morgenson gave her some IQ test and says she scored off the charts,” Jack blurted out. He sat next to the head of the bed when Mitchell gave him a chair and took Rachel’s hand. “Told you the kid’s a genius. Bona-fide. Why’s she wanna watch?”
“Because children are curious about everything, and she wants to be the first to see Ava. Plus we never told her it was going to be messy.”
Jack paused and then picked up a completely different topic, stroking Rachel’s hair back from her forehead compulsively until Bethany was ushered into the room and shooed him off.
“You’ll make her go bald,” the older woman said affectionately.
“Four years of constant sex and she’s not bald there yet, so I doubt that’s true,” he snapped back. “How long will this take?”
“You have somewhere else to be?”
He paused and then flushed, leaning over the bed to cradle Rachel’s upper body in his arms. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right,” Brooks said from the business end of the bed. “One centimetre dilated; the contractions you’ve been feeling have been actual contractions, by the way. They’ll start to get painful soon.”
“You popped out so fast the doctor almost dropped you,” Bethany told her daughter cheerfully. “I expect Ava will be much the same.”
“Don’t you dare drop my daughter,” Jack began heatedly.
“Oh, knock it off. He knows what he’s doing.” Bethany pushed Jack down into his chair and ran her fingers through his hair as Rachel gasped.
“Oh, Christ, that hurts!” she panted after a minute or so.
Bethany’s hand on Jack’s shoulder had kept him from jumping up. “Like a menstrual cramp?” Brooks asked. Rachel nodded. “Not a problem. Don’t push. We’re really just waiting at this point. I think we can let your little girl in for a while.”
Rachel wanted to tell her mother that she was scared, but the look on Jack’s face said enough. He was worried about her and Ava both and didn’t need her own fears added to that concern. She swallowed and tried to get comfortable.
“Janet’s at the hotel,” she told Jack. He looked at her in surprise. “Dick’s really mad that you shot him.”
“Yeah, well, didn’t need him trying to be a hero and getting anyone hurt. Didn’t trust him.”
Rachel wasn’t sure how she managed to keep Jack occupied for the next hour, even with Susie’s entrance and her mother’s help. She’d been up and walking around with him until that started to hurt, then laying down and letting him rub her shoulders while her mother rubbed her feet. He was calmed down by the time Charles arrived to take Susie back to the hotel. The little girl whined for a moment, but didn’t put up too much of a fuss, and then her contractions decided they meant business. Doctor Brooks had her lay back down and then Bethany was on Rachel’s left and Jack was on her right, and Rachel was forgetting everything she’d been told in the two childbirth classes she’d attended at Metropolis General, curling in on herself and clenching her teeth with each contraction.
She wasn’t aware that Charles had bullied her way back into the delivery room until the Marine was gripping her shoulders and murmuring instructions in her ear in the tone of voice that had Jack obeying her without a thought, much less Rachel. When the latest contraction let her go, Rachel lay back and panted while Charles grabbed Jack’s ear.
“Look, you moron, would you be a good dom to your sub, already? Tell her to relax. This isn’t going to go any smoother if she keeps tensing up like that.”
Jack hissed and then looked down at Rachel, who was looking back at him while she caught her breath. He half-stood and leaned over her, one hand cupping her cheek as he kissed her firmly.
“Calm down,” he murmured in the voice she very rarely disobeyed. The other part of him was glad to be concentrating on her face, instead of the messy bits. Rachel’s eyes flew open and Jack kissed her again. “It’s all right, Rachel. Calm down. Relax.” They had three to five minutes before the next contraction and he talked to her the whole time, smiling at her, distracting her from the pain as best he could.
Rachel sucked in her breath and started to tense for another contraction, and Jack kissed her again. “Piss off,” she muttered through clenched teeth as the doctor urged her to bear down. “Don’t touch me. Keep talking to me,” she gasped out a minute later.
Jack drew back until the doctor reassured him that very few women wanted to be touched while they were in labour, then talked to her quietly with the occasional input from Charles or her mother and Rachel clung to his hand, or to Charles’ or her mother’s when he needed to sit down. The pattern repeated endlessly, it seemed, only interrupted when Brooks started telling Rachel, who had started yelling and swearing a while ago, to push. In truth, when Jack glanced up at the clock, almost nine hours had passed. Close enough to endless. He smiled down at Rachel and kissed at her nose while he transferred her grip to his other hand, shaking the now-free one in the hopes of getting the circulation flowing again.
“Almost there,” the doctor told them.
“Can I ground her for this?” Jack asked softly. Rachel rolled her eyes at him and whimpered with pain. He dabbed a damp washcloth against her forehead and that prompted a smile. “I’m going to lose the rest of my hair from this.”
“Vain,” Rachel gasped out.
Jack shrugged, his heart skipping a beat, again, when she cried out in pain. Her grip on his hand tightened and he squeezed back. “It’s okay, baby, it’s okay. We’re almost done.” He was going to faint. Maybe it was lack of food. Rachel suddenly relaxed in his arms, though, and he patted her cheek urgently. “Rachel? Rachel!”
“I’m okay,” she whispered. “Ava . . .”
“What?” Jack whipped his head around in time to see the doctor lift up a small bundle of white blanket and carry it to a nearby table. “Ava!” His heart felt like it would burst out of his chest.
“She’s all right,” Doctor Brooks said over his shoulder. Charles held Jack back until the doctor came over to them, holding a tiny thing in his arms. “We need to get her to the NICU, but this is your daughter.”
Jack stared at the tightly-scrunched, bluish face and thought his heart might actually stop. “That . . . She’s . . .”
“In need of the NICU,” the doctor said firmly. Rachel was craning her neck to see her child and tears filled her eyes as Brooks turned and left.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Jack sat down and looked at her in confusion. “What for? He said she’ll be fine.”
“I didn’t want her to be early.”
He paused, then slowly pulled Rachel into his arms again and rocked her as she cried. The nurses were still doing something at the other end of the bed but he ignored them, stroking Rachel’s hair and kissing her.
“It’s fine,” he whispered in her ear, “she’ll be fine. You’re both okay and that’s all I care about.”
Rachel cried herself to sleep in his arms.
~
They were whispering behind him.
“What’s he doing?”
“Counting.”
“He’s been here an hour.”
“He says she might have grown more fingers or toes while he wasn’t looking.”
“Doesn’t that entail him not looking, though?”
Jack squinted and trailed his finger just over Ava’s left foot. “Eight, nine . . . ten. Good.” He’d been in every day since her birth to just stand there and look at her, look at the tiny little thing he and Rachel had made together. Rachel was sitting behind him and twisting a bit of her skirt in her fingers. She’d been mortified at how Ava had looked at first, bursting into tears and declaring that Ava was ugly. Jack still couldn’t find fault with the infant, though. She was, he thought, absolutely perfect and today Brooks had said Rachel could try breastfeeding her.
“Still ten of each?” the doctor himself asked as he walked up.
“For now,” Jack replied happily. Even his impending incarceration in Arkham wasn’t dulling his mood. “Can I hold her today?”
Brooks’ expression was the same as the other days Jack had asked, and he didn’t push as the doctor lifted his girl out of her crib-thing and carried her over to Rachel. Jack stayed by his side and watched everything.
Rachel looked up and swallowed as she was handed her baby for the first time. She’d been in with Jack to see her, of course, and it had helped that the hotel Bruce had put them all up in was only a block away from the hospital, but it was still hard to leave each day without Ava. Jack had been allowed to stay only until Ava was sent home, then she’d be losing her husband.
She couldn’t think about that right now. She shivered and, under Charles’ supervision, moved the flap of her nursing bra/camisole aside and patiently offered Ava her nipple. It took a couple of tries and Rachel was ready to start crying again, but with Jack humming soothingly in her ear and Charles encouraging her, she held back tears until Ava had finally latched on and started suckling. Then Rachel did start to cry softly as she cradled Ava gently against her, stroking the soft cheek her little girl presented to her.
“She’s beautiful,” Rachel hiccupped. It hurt to nurse at the moment, but she wouldn’t have bottle-fed the baby for anything.
“I told you so,” was Jack’s pleased murmur. “She’s perfect.”
“She won’t eat a lot right now,” Charles said quietly. “It’s all right if she falls asleep.”
A few minutes later the preemie did just that, needing to be woken up just enough for a short burping session. Then Doctor Brooks was taking her back and Rachel protested.
“Let Jack hold her. Jack hasn’t held her.”
Brooks frowned and looked at the armed guard standing beside Jack. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Dawes, according to policy ---”
“Policy my stockings,” Noelle snapped at him as she stomped up. “Melvin Brooks, you give that man his daughter. Do you know what that man went through for his family?”
“Look, Nurse McGallagher, it’s not my decision ---”
“Then you’re a terrible person,” she cut him off. “Rachel, Jack can hold his daughter.”
She turned to scold the doctor some more and Jack stared at her, something in his mind clicking at her last name in a way he wanted nothing to do with and he was just about to open his mouth and launch himself toward the woman when something small and warm was pushed into his arms. Jack looked down in shock and his arms curled automatically around Ava so she wouldn’t fall, his baby girl yawning a little in her sleep. He sat back in his chair and held perfectly still, everything in his life swept away and replaced by wonder as small eyes opened and looked up at him blearily.
“I was right,” Rachel murmured. Jack could only grunt as Ava went back to sleep in his arms. “You do look handsome holding our baby.”
Jack leaned down, very gently, and pressed a kiss to Ava’s forehead.
~
“There you are!” Tom called from the porch. “What took you so long?”
“Flew there, drove back,” Jack called back.
“Yeah, yeah, come in and let us see her!” He waved idly at the Gotham police car in the driveway. “They’re here to take you away, but they’ll let you get Rachel and the girls settled, first.”
“Tact, Tom, tact,” Helna said as she held open the screen door.
“I’m friends with Jack; it wore off.” He pulled his friend into a half-hug. “It’ll be all right, man,” he murmured in Jack’s ear. “We’ll get you back. Otherwise I have to help that Edward Nashton guy write his new novel. He just moved to town, and I hate mystery novels.”
“You better get me back,” Jack muttered as he set Ava’s car seat down by the coffee table and was pulled into a hug by Helna. “Hey.”
“You . . . You . . .”
Jack ignored her blubbering and swooped Mitzi up, giving her a kiss on the cheek before blowing a raspberry. She squealed with laughter and then he knelt and set her down.
“This is Ava, Mitzi. Be gentle; she’s very small. Remember? I told you about Ava. She’s a little early, isn’t she?”
The toddler looked up at Jack with big eyes, then down at the sleeping baby. “Ava?” Jack nodded with a grin. Mitzi giggled and then leaned over the car seat, kissing Ava’s cheek.
Jack laughed. “Hey, Tom, check it out. Your daughter’s a dyke.”
He got a toe in his backside. “She is not, Jack, she’s just being friendly.”
“Whatever; I’ve got great gaydar, and Mitzi’s a dyke.” He leaned down and took Ava out of the seat, kissing her gently and trying not to cling as he turned to Rachel. “Well.”
Tom and Helna had packed his bags. Janet was standing in the doorway to the kitchen and Susie had just discovered the kitten Jack had bought for her, squealing over the small tabby.
Jack turned to her. “Hey, Susie, give me a hug and kiss. I have to go away for a while.”
“How long?” she asked as she hugged him.
Jack squeezed her tight and smiled when she kissed his nose, returning it with a kiss on her cheek. “I don’t know. Not --- not everyone thinks I’m a hero. I’ll be back as soon as I can. You just, just be a good big sister to Ava, all right? Do what Rachel says, and help Janet. Take care of them for me, all right?” There was a lump in his throat that he was having difficulty talking past.
“Daddy . . .” Susie looked at the two officers outside the window and wiped tears away. “Is it because I shot those men?”
Jack was going to start crying. “No, baby, it’s not because of you at all. I’m in trouble, not you. Never you.” He stood up and looked at Janet, who had tears running down her face. “I’m sorry.” She turned and ran to her bedroom, sobbing. Finally Jack turned to Rachel and walked with her out onto the porch. He handed Ava to her after another kiss for his baby, and the infant’s cheek was wet when Rachel took her. “Rachel ---”
His voice broke and Jack leaned down, burying his face in the crook of Rachel’s neck as they both sobbed. He kept apologising, promising her it was only until after the criminal trial, and Rachel pretended they both believed that.
After a few minutes Jack draw back and wiped his face off on his sleeve, then kissed Rachel firmly.
“I love you,” he whispered. “I love all of you. Don’t --- don’t forget that.”
“We won’t,” she told him, then Jack had to turn away or risk refusing to go at all. He turned to the two officers and closed his eyes as he nodded, letting them cuff him and read him his rights as they led him to the police car.
It was a long ride back to Arkham Asylum.
And that's it. The end. The last few chapters were difficult to write, simply because I was getting really burned out, and it showed. I'm sorry about that. I hope the last couple of chapters make up for that, and there will be another sequel. I'm going to take a break from it for a while, though, and work on a couple other fics I've been wanting to write. Thank you, everyone, for reading and sticking with me! I'll be around, and the next fic will be happier. Promise!