Devil's Playground • Gotham Fanfiction •

V - Please Don't Leave Me

"I do not use the word home lightly. So when I sigh into the crook of your neck; believe that your spine is a timber frame. Your kiss a welcome mat and your enveloping arms my front door." - esekao, tumblr

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Bird let out a heavy sigh as she stood against the far wall in one of the Arkham visitation rooms.

She looked down to her shoes and then to the metal table mounted in place.

Her eyebrows fell as she started to realize this was the exact same room she had her visitations in when she was an inmate.

She remembered the first time Harvey Dent had been permitted to see her.
How she'd ran to him. Her face buried in his shirt.

How he smelled like soap and cologne.
The way she'd wanted to bathe in that scent and hold onto it forever.

"What is this?"
"Where are you taking me?"
"It's not visiting hours!"
"Why aren't you talking to me?"

Bird looked up expectantly to the door to the room as she could hear Nygma yelling from down the hallway.

Paranoid as ever, she thought to herself.

Finally the door opened and the guard roughly shoved him inside the room, where he just barely caught hold of the edge of the table to keep from falling down.

Bird's eyes went to the metal cuffs on his wrists.

"I think we could do without the restraints." Bird let out a sigh.

"Miss Wayne?" Nygma looked at her. Every ounce of uncertainty showing as confusion on his face.

Once the guard removed the cuffs and left them alone, Nygma rubbed his wrists from where the cuffs had been on far too tight.

"I have to admit." He breathed, "You're one the last people I expected to see."

"I have to admit." Bird echoed, "You're one the last people I want to see."

"Then why are you here?" He asked. Eyeing her once more before taking his seat at the table.

"Is Oswald okay?" Nygma questioned.
It had been more than a few weeks since he'd last been there to see him.
Quite a gap from how frequent his visits had been before.

"He's fine." Bird answered. Noting that he did seemed genuinely concerned while asking.

"We sorted things out with Fish." Bird wasn't sure why she offered the information up. Not like she owed him anything or cared enough to try and sooth his nerves.

He made a noise and nodded his head.
That explained it then, he thought, why Oswald hadn't been back.
Well, that and Bird's return to Gotham.

"Oswald suggested that I come to see you." Bird explained.
She left out how Oswald was currently off to work out a deal with the new head of psychiatry at Arkham for Ed's release.

A process they were told would take a full day. So Oswald wanted to be there first chance he got so that Ed could be out that night.

Nygma didn't say anything. Just sat silently and watched as Bird drummed her nails on the table surface, seeming to look everywhere in the room except at him.

"Why haven't you broken out of here?" Bird finally asked.
The tips of her fingers blanched white with pressure as she leaned over the table some to get a better read on him.

"Didn't work out so well the last time." Nygma gave a rather despondent shrug.

Bird arched a brow, but didn't argue with him.