August 2: It's Gonna Be Alright
Title: It’s Gonna Be Alright
Series: A New Day at Midnight
Author: Vashti (tvashti)
Crossover: The Dark Knight Rises
Character(s): John Blake, Sarah the OC Slayer, Buffy
Rating: FR-13/PG
Summary: Sarah has a surprise for John. At church?
Length: ~2080 words
Disclaimer: Only the words are mine, and that’s probably up for philosophical debate.
Notes: This is part of the follow up series to the Midnight City series. Although I’ve started at least a dozen(!) stories for this, some of which I've even finished, this is the only one I’ve actually posted ( AU companion pieces notwithstanding). Thank you August Ficathon :D
§§§
The first time John had done this, waited for his sister in her church’s little foyer, he’d felt very…exposed. He kept expecting someone to either come out of the sanctuary and try to pray for him, or come in from the street and ask him for help.
The latter he could handle; there weren’t many social services, streets or bars in Gotham that he didn’t know.
The former kinda creeped him out. The only prayers he was used to were the ones he’d heard in mass as a boy, and the truth was he hadn’t really been paying attention. Sarah’s church was…different.
Every now and then he went with her to Sunday service, most notably on the big holidays like Easter and Christmas, or if they were doing something and needed an extra pair of hands to help out. Why not, right? But somehow the services always surprised him. They didn’t last too long, maybe an hour from start to finish, but somehow they always seemed a little unhinged, a little spontaneous. And the congregants always seemed to be expecting something. It made him look over his shoulder. A lot. Especially during the singing when people stood and he couldn’t see around them.
Sarah tended to snort and roll her eyes at him. A lot.
But he never went with her to weekday Bible study class. Before her accident, she’d go and meet him in the cave after. After the accident, her friend Maria and/or her husband would pick her up from John’s condo and bring her back.
Then Sarah had insisted that she should be in the cave. That she could still do this. “I don’t need my legs to track your signal on a map, or pull up info, or mediate while you and Buffy bicker over the comms.”
“You and Buffy bicker over the comms.”
“Blah blah blah. You know what I mean. I’m going back to work. Which means someone should really pick me up on Wednesdays unless you want me to explain to Maria and Gabe why I insist that they drop me off in the middle of the woods a few miles outside Gotham.”
So he’d started picking her up from her weekday Bible class. “Tell me again why Buffy can’t do this?” he’d asked that first, nerve-wracking evening.
“You’ve seen Big-Sister Slayer drive, right? Are you trying to paralyze me for real? Because this neuro-stuff is supposed to go away eventually, but I’m pretty sure that whatever Buffy did to me would be permanent.”
Two months after she’d returned to “work”, he, Sarah and Buffy had moved into Wayne’s old penthouse, much to his and Sarah’s chagrin. They’d all been squeezed into John’s condo since Sarah’s disastrous first run in the field, and it hadn’t been working. His condo was meant for one and could handle two, but was a squeeze with three, especially when one of them was wheelchair bound.
The girls had already started looking on their own when Wayne had suggested it. “There’s remote access to the cave in the lowest sub-basement.”
Which meant that he didn’t have to pick up Sarah from church anymore. Which relieved them both to no end. “You’re so twitchy! Seriously, no one in there is going to hurt you. Sister Ro might talk your ear off, but she’s like the dentist. You get candy if you survive the ordeal.”
John had snorted and rolled his eyes.
But he kinda missed it, picking her up. He missed the long ride through Gotham and into the hills. He missed the conversation and the silences. He missed the emotions that played across her face when she rolled out of the sanctuary: joy, contemplation, contentment, sorrow, pleasure, grief. He even missed the rare occasions when their eyes would meet, and she’d hold out her arms for a hug, and she’d drag him down into an embrace that should have hurt but felt more like home than not. He’d adopted her as his ward almost a year ago (wildly unnecessary when the adoptee was a slayer, but it had seemed like a good idea at the time), and there was still so much to know about this young woman whose hugs felt like home and whose naked emotions were a mystery inexplicable. Every revelation made her more precious, and him more protective, and their relationship more… “That was the right thing to do.”
“You think so?” he’d asked Wayne early one morning, his time.
Wayne had smirked at him. “Don’t you?”
John heard singing behind him and pushed off the decorative pillar he’d been leaning on. That was the signal that class was almost over. Two months of picking up Sarah had cured him of most of his unease. And Wednesdays were different. Wednesdays were quiet, even in Gotham. No one liked Hump Day, apparently, and that was fine by him.
Soon enough the singing turned into the general hum of conversation, and the doors of the sanctuary were being pushed open. The first person rushed out and never saw him. The second and third nodded politely, eyeing him a bit curiously, before leaving. A couple in deep conversation were next, quickly followed by three, no four, women talking animatedly between them. Spotting him, they came over to shake his hand and wish him good evening, it had been so long since they’d seen him, they hoped he was doing well, and isn’t that sister of yours making wonderful progress. They hoped to see him on Sunday, but John was very careful not to make them any promises, somewhere between respect for the faith that had kept him off the street and fear of a sister who’d badger him into keeping his word.
Speaking of… Sarah’s mouth split into a wide grin, the long fringe of her dark hair falling across her eyes and her ponytail off her shoulder as she tipped her head to the side. “Hey Stranger.”
“I saw you this morning,” he said as he leaned down to hug her.
“That was hours ago! Hey, go meet Buffy downstairs on the curb, okay?”
John pulled out of her embrace, eyebrows raised. “Are we adding sees-the-future to your list of abilities?”
“Ha ha ha.” Sarah glanced around her. Seeing no one there, she said, “Not my specialty and I’m glad it’s not. Those girls…” She shuddered.
“Hi John.” He looked up and caught the eyes of Sarah’s friend and her husband, Maria and Gabe. They were both old enough to be Sarah’s parents, if they’d started young, and had adopted her as the daughter their sons sometimes made them wish they’d had.
Gabe came around and shook John’s hand. Then he turned to Sarah. “You ready?”
She nodded. John frowned. “I thought I was taking you home.”
“You are,” she said. “But you have to meet Buffy first, so John’s going to help me down the steps out front.”
“How do you know Buffy’s here.”
“I told her to come. Duh.” She rolled her eyes. “Please go before she thinks I was playing with her. I don’t think she’s ever been here before.”
“You know Buffy doesn’t drive. She’s probably not-“
“She texted me while we were singing the Doxology! I told her you’d be out in a minute!” Something caught Sarah’s eyes and she immediately colored.
John looked over his shoulder to see the church pastor exiting the sanctuary from another door. He chuckled. “Texting while singing, Sister Sarah?”
“Like you’ve never texted before,” she said, but her blush continued to grow. The shells of her ears had gone red.
“Yes, but not during the singing.”
She dipped her head. “Sorry, sir.”
Smiling broadly, the pastor patted her shoulder. “Maybe next time, wait a few minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mr. Blake, so good to see you again,” he said, stretching out his hand.
John took it. “And you, sir.”
“We hope to see you again?”
“We’ll see.”
“Ah…” Something about the way he said it made John wonder if he knew how carefully John was choosing his words.
Sarah was pushing at him, though, before he could give it much more than a passing thought. “Go already!”
“Fine!” Looking up at Maria and Gabe, he said, “Are you sure you don’t want to borrow her for a while. Forever maybe?”
He left the pair laughing as he crossed the small space and left the church altogether. There, at the bottom of the steps, was Buffy in her leather motorcycle jacket and fashionable scarf. Smiling, he ran down the steps to meet her.
“Oh thank God you’re here!” She threw her arms around him. Hard. “I just knew I got it wrong. Directions and Buffy, not exactly the best of friends.”
“Buffy, my bones are creaking.”
“Sorry!” She released him and dusted him off. “Sorry! Unlost Buffy is perhaps an overly grateful Buffy.” She smiled. “Everything where it should be?”
John flexed. “More or less.” She pouted and he smiled. “I’m fine. Really. So you and Sarah are going out?”
Buffy shrugged. “I dunno. She just said that she had a surprise for me and to meet her here at her class. So this is the church she goes to?”
Their eyes were drawn to the church’s façade. It was a smaller, older building. The architecture said that it was a Gotham original, and John wouldn’t have been surprised to find a Gotham Historical Society plaque up somewhere.
He nodded in response to Buffy’s question. “Every Sunday and Wednesday, unless something comes up.”
“Hmm. Smaller than I’m used to.”
“It’s pretty inside.”
“Is it?”
“If you like Gothic architecture and stained glass.”
“They’re Catholic?” she asked, turning to him.
John chuckled. “Not from what I can tell. But this might have been a Catholic church orig-“
“John! Buffy!”
The pair turned their eyes to the top of the stairs where Sarah was standing, clutching and being clutched by Maria. Gabe was off to the side, Sarah’s chair folded up and held tightly under one arm. Except for the people whom John had seen leave, it seemed the rest of her class was standing behind them, her pastor included.
“Shouldn’t Gabe be holding Sar and Maria the chair?” Buffy asked, vocalizing John’s thoughts.
“Probably.” His brow furrowed, he watched his sister’s cheery expression closely. She looked far too happy. And mischievous. “What’re you doing?” he called up to her.
“Thank you for asking. I’m doing this!” She nodded to Maria, who released her grip and then slowly, carefully, pulled her hands away. Gaze focused on her own feet and the stairs, Sarah held on firmly to the railing under her right hand but kept only a light grip on the woman beside her.
Then she put one foot down on the stair in front of her.
John surged forward, only to be arrested by Buffy’s hands on his left arm. “Let her try. Even if she falls, she’ll be fine by the morning.”
John shot her a look.
“You know I’m right.”
Still, she kept hold of his arm as they watched, captivated, while Sarah slowly descended the twelve steps that led down to the street.
“Tada!”
John was out of Buffy’s grip like a shot the moment both feet were on the pavement. “What are you doing?!” He snatched her out of Maria’s light grip and pulled her close. “What if you fell!”
“Hello!” she whispered. “Slayer.”
John pulled back. She stuck her tongue out at him. Looking over her shoulder at Maria and Gabe, both of them beaming, he said, “Are you sure you don’t want to keep her?”
They laughed, as did the other class members who had all been following oh so slowly behind.
Still standing in his arms, Sarah turned to her friends. “I did good, right?”
“You nearly gave me a heart attack!” an elderly woman said.
Sarah just grinned. She turned to Buffy. “Good surprise?”
“Awesome surprise!” She bounded up beside them, blond ponytail swinging. “Is this why you wouldn’t let me sit in on your physical therapy all last week.”
“Mmhmm.”
“High five!”
Sarah gave her a look.
“Lame?”
“A little.”
John shook his head. “This is why you told us both to come?”
Sarah nodded. “Yeah. I wanted to show off to everyone who’s important to me.” Using her arms against his as leverage, she pulled herself up and kissed his cheek. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“What’s life without a couple of heart attacks?”
Grinning, she squeezed him hard.
“Sarah. Creaking.”
“Sorry!”
AN2: But I must confess that I started this fic yesterday but got seriously distracted with stupidity. Unfortunately my own. I fail at life sometimes.
Series: A New Day at Midnight
Author: Vashti (tvashti)
Crossover: The Dark Knight Rises
Character(s): John Blake, Sarah the OC Slayer, Buffy
Rating: FR-13/PG
Summary: Sarah has a surprise for John. At church?
Length: ~2080 words
Disclaimer: Only the words are mine, and that’s probably up for philosophical debate.
Notes: This is part of the follow up series to the Midnight City series. Although I’ve started at least a dozen(!) stories for this, some of which I've even finished, this is the only one I’ve actually posted ( AU companion pieces notwithstanding). Thank you August Ficathon :D
§§§
The first time John had done this, waited for his sister in her church’s little foyer, he’d felt very…exposed. He kept expecting someone to either come out of the sanctuary and try to pray for him, or come in from the street and ask him for help.
The latter he could handle; there weren’t many social services, streets or bars in Gotham that he didn’t know.
The former kinda creeped him out. The only prayers he was used to were the ones he’d heard in mass as a boy, and the truth was he hadn’t really been paying attention. Sarah’s church was…different.
Every now and then he went with her to Sunday service, most notably on the big holidays like Easter and Christmas, or if they were doing something and needed an extra pair of hands to help out. Why not, right? But somehow the services always surprised him. They didn’t last too long, maybe an hour from start to finish, but somehow they always seemed a little unhinged, a little spontaneous. And the congregants always seemed to be expecting something. It made him look over his shoulder. A lot. Especially during the singing when people stood and he couldn’t see around them.
Sarah tended to snort and roll her eyes at him. A lot.
But he never went with her to weekday Bible study class. Before her accident, she’d go and meet him in the cave after. After the accident, her friend Maria and/or her husband would pick her up from John’s condo and bring her back.
Then Sarah had insisted that she should be in the cave. That she could still do this. “I don’t need my legs to track your signal on a map, or pull up info, or mediate while you and Buffy bicker over the comms.”
“You and Buffy bicker over the comms.”
“Blah blah blah. You know what I mean. I’m going back to work. Which means someone should really pick me up on Wednesdays unless you want me to explain to Maria and Gabe why I insist that they drop me off in the middle of the woods a few miles outside Gotham.”
So he’d started picking her up from her weekday Bible class. “Tell me again why Buffy can’t do this?” he’d asked that first, nerve-wracking evening.
“You’ve seen Big-Sister Slayer drive, right? Are you trying to paralyze me for real? Because this neuro-stuff is supposed to go away eventually, but I’m pretty sure that whatever Buffy did to me would be permanent.”
Two months after she’d returned to “work”, he, Sarah and Buffy had moved into Wayne’s old penthouse, much to his and Sarah’s chagrin. They’d all been squeezed into John’s condo since Sarah’s disastrous first run in the field, and it hadn’t been working. His condo was meant for one and could handle two, but was a squeeze with three, especially when one of them was wheelchair bound.
The girls had already started looking on their own when Wayne had suggested it. “There’s remote access to the cave in the lowest sub-basement.”
Which meant that he didn’t have to pick up Sarah from church anymore. Which relieved them both to no end. “You’re so twitchy! Seriously, no one in there is going to hurt you. Sister Ro might talk your ear off, but she’s like the dentist. You get candy if you survive the ordeal.”
John had snorted and rolled his eyes.
But he kinda missed it, picking her up. He missed the long ride through Gotham and into the hills. He missed the conversation and the silences. He missed the emotions that played across her face when she rolled out of the sanctuary: joy, contemplation, contentment, sorrow, pleasure, grief. He even missed the rare occasions when their eyes would meet, and she’d hold out her arms for a hug, and she’d drag him down into an embrace that should have hurt but felt more like home than not. He’d adopted her as his ward almost a year ago (wildly unnecessary when the adoptee was a slayer, but it had seemed like a good idea at the time), and there was still so much to know about this young woman whose hugs felt like home and whose naked emotions were a mystery inexplicable. Every revelation made her more precious, and him more protective, and their relationship more… “That was the right thing to do.”
“You think so?” he’d asked Wayne early one morning, his time.
Wayne had smirked at him. “Don’t you?”
John heard singing behind him and pushed off the decorative pillar he’d been leaning on. That was the signal that class was almost over. Two months of picking up Sarah had cured him of most of his unease. And Wednesdays were different. Wednesdays were quiet, even in Gotham. No one liked Hump Day, apparently, and that was fine by him.
Soon enough the singing turned into the general hum of conversation, and the doors of the sanctuary were being pushed open. The first person rushed out and never saw him. The second and third nodded politely, eyeing him a bit curiously, before leaving. A couple in deep conversation were next, quickly followed by three, no four, women talking animatedly between them. Spotting him, they came over to shake his hand and wish him good evening, it had been so long since they’d seen him, they hoped he was doing well, and isn’t that sister of yours making wonderful progress. They hoped to see him on Sunday, but John was very careful not to make them any promises, somewhere between respect for the faith that had kept him off the street and fear of a sister who’d badger him into keeping his word.
Speaking of… Sarah’s mouth split into a wide grin, the long fringe of her dark hair falling across her eyes and her ponytail off her shoulder as she tipped her head to the side. “Hey Stranger.”
“I saw you this morning,” he said as he leaned down to hug her.
“That was hours ago! Hey, go meet Buffy downstairs on the curb, okay?”
John pulled out of her embrace, eyebrows raised. “Are we adding sees-the-future to your list of abilities?”
“Ha ha ha.” Sarah glanced around her. Seeing no one there, she said, “Not my specialty and I’m glad it’s not. Those girls…” She shuddered.
“Hi John.” He looked up and caught the eyes of Sarah’s friend and her husband, Maria and Gabe. They were both old enough to be Sarah’s parents, if they’d started young, and had adopted her as the daughter their sons sometimes made them wish they’d had.
Gabe came around and shook John’s hand. Then he turned to Sarah. “You ready?”
She nodded. John frowned. “I thought I was taking you home.”
“You are,” she said. “But you have to meet Buffy first, so John’s going to help me down the steps out front.”
“How do you know Buffy’s here.”
“I told her to come. Duh.” She rolled her eyes. “Please go before she thinks I was playing with her. I don’t think she’s ever been here before.”
“You know Buffy doesn’t drive. She’s probably not-“
“She texted me while we were singing the Doxology! I told her you’d be out in a minute!” Something caught Sarah’s eyes and she immediately colored.
John looked over his shoulder to see the church pastor exiting the sanctuary from another door. He chuckled. “Texting while singing, Sister Sarah?”
“Like you’ve never texted before,” she said, but her blush continued to grow. The shells of her ears had gone red.
“Yes, but not during the singing.”
She dipped her head. “Sorry, sir.”
Smiling broadly, the pastor patted her shoulder. “Maybe next time, wait a few minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mr. Blake, so good to see you again,” he said, stretching out his hand.
John took it. “And you, sir.”
“We hope to see you again?”
“We’ll see.”
“Ah…” Something about the way he said it made John wonder if he knew how carefully John was choosing his words.
Sarah was pushing at him, though, before he could give it much more than a passing thought. “Go already!”
“Fine!” Looking up at Maria and Gabe, he said, “Are you sure you don’t want to borrow her for a while. Forever maybe?”
He left the pair laughing as he crossed the small space and left the church altogether. There, at the bottom of the steps, was Buffy in her leather motorcycle jacket and fashionable scarf. Smiling, he ran down the steps to meet her.
“Oh thank God you’re here!” She threw her arms around him. Hard. “I just knew I got it wrong. Directions and Buffy, not exactly the best of friends.”
“Buffy, my bones are creaking.”
“Sorry!” She released him and dusted him off. “Sorry! Unlost Buffy is perhaps an overly grateful Buffy.” She smiled. “Everything where it should be?”
John flexed. “More or less.” She pouted and he smiled. “I’m fine. Really. So you and Sarah are going out?”
Buffy shrugged. “I dunno. She just said that she had a surprise for me and to meet her here at her class. So this is the church she goes to?”
Their eyes were drawn to the church’s façade. It was a smaller, older building. The architecture said that it was a Gotham original, and John wouldn’t have been surprised to find a Gotham Historical Society plaque up somewhere.
He nodded in response to Buffy’s question. “Every Sunday and Wednesday, unless something comes up.”
“Hmm. Smaller than I’m used to.”
“It’s pretty inside.”
“Is it?”
“If you like Gothic architecture and stained glass.”
“They’re Catholic?” she asked, turning to him.
John chuckled. “Not from what I can tell. But this might have been a Catholic church orig-“
“John! Buffy!”
The pair turned their eyes to the top of the stairs where Sarah was standing, clutching and being clutched by Maria. Gabe was off to the side, Sarah’s chair folded up and held tightly under one arm. Except for the people whom John had seen leave, it seemed the rest of her class was standing behind them, her pastor included.
“Shouldn’t Gabe be holding Sar and Maria the chair?” Buffy asked, vocalizing John’s thoughts.
“Probably.” His brow furrowed, he watched his sister’s cheery expression closely. She looked far too happy. And mischievous. “What’re you doing?” he called up to her.
“Thank you for asking. I’m doing this!” She nodded to Maria, who released her grip and then slowly, carefully, pulled her hands away. Gaze focused on her own feet and the stairs, Sarah held on firmly to the railing under her right hand but kept only a light grip on the woman beside her.
Then she put one foot down on the stair in front of her.
John surged forward, only to be arrested by Buffy’s hands on his left arm. “Let her try. Even if she falls, she’ll be fine by the morning.”
John shot her a look.
“You know I’m right.”
Still, she kept hold of his arm as they watched, captivated, while Sarah slowly descended the twelve steps that led down to the street.
“Tada!”
John was out of Buffy’s grip like a shot the moment both feet were on the pavement. “What are you doing?!” He snatched her out of Maria’s light grip and pulled her close. “What if you fell!”
“Hello!” she whispered. “Slayer.”
John pulled back. She stuck her tongue out at him. Looking over her shoulder at Maria and Gabe, both of them beaming, he said, “Are you sure you don’t want to keep her?”
They laughed, as did the other class members who had all been following oh so slowly behind.
Still standing in his arms, Sarah turned to her friends. “I did good, right?”
“You nearly gave me a heart attack!” an elderly woman said.
Sarah just grinned. She turned to Buffy. “Good surprise?”
“Awesome surprise!” She bounded up beside them, blond ponytail swinging. “Is this why you wouldn’t let me sit in on your physical therapy all last week.”
“Mmhmm.”
“High five!”
Sarah gave her a look.
“Lame?”
“A little.”
John shook his head. “This is why you told us both to come?”
Sarah nodded. “Yeah. I wanted to show off to everyone who’s important to me.” Using her arms against his as leverage, she pulled herself up and kissed his cheek. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“What’s life without a couple of heart attacks?”
Grinning, she squeezed him hard.
“Sarah. Creaking.”
“Sorry!”
AN2: But I must confess that I started this fic yesterday but got seriously distracted with stupidity. Unfortunately my own. I fail at life sometimes.