Doe Eyes ✧ Gotham [1] #Wattys2019

chapter six

            Jane woke around 3:00 am, unable to fall back asleep. Her mind was all over the place. She was trying to come up with some reason and solution to the hallucinations. It was keeping her up. It also didn't help that she was having constant dreams of past childhood memories and the voices yelling insecurities at her. Finally, Jane sat up from the bed, exhausted from trying.

"Not sleeping well?" Jerome had mockingly asked her from the side of her bed. She didn't look over at him. She was done talking to that thing. Jane was convinced that the more she spoke to it, the more it was making her crazy. "Why are we still here, Janey? Have you still convinced yourself that someone in this world cares about you?"

That hit Jane harder than she thought. She was starting to feel like a burden to Bruce and Alfred. She was supposed to only stay until the threat of Jerome hurting her had gone down - and it did. She should've left the moment he died. Now Jane was here, doing nothing but going crazy and being a burden to these kind people.

She had no place here - she never did.

Jane knew what she had to do. Quickly, she grabbed her small suitcase that laid next to her bed  and grabbed all of her things, not really caring how neatly they laid in the suitcase. She fixed up the bed to make it look nice and cleared out any signs that she was here. And as she looked from the doorway back into the clean room, she felt sad. If she had no place here, where did she have a place?

She looked away from the room and started to quickly drag her suitcase behind her. She didn't want either residents of the house to hear her trying to leave. 

As she closed the huge door to the Manor, she felt like she was doing the right thing.

She sighed and muttered softly to herself. "Onto the next adventure, Jane."

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It was around 6:00am when Jane finally made it back into Gotham and was standing in front of her apartment door. She finally unlocked the door and stepped inside to close the door behind her. She felt weird standing in her apartment. It had been roughly a week since the last time she was here. It didn't feel like home anymore. This apartment represented a new life, a new beginning. The girl who rented this out wanted all of that. She was naive and thought she would be able to become "normal" despite her upbringing.

This new Jane knew better.

She was never going to be normal and be able to live a normal life, especially with her current situation with the voices and hallucinations.

"Home sweet home!" Jerome had walked across the room and flopped onto the couch. "Wow, I haven't been in here since I threatened you." He smiled. "Ah, what good times."

Jane ignored him and dragged her suitcase towards her small bedroom, dropping it at the door.

"Still ignoring me?" He appeared in front of her. "Does it make you feel less crazy?" He laughed, which made her flinch. It sounded so real. "Well sorry to break it to you sweetie but I'm still here! So you're still crazy."

The voices were defending him.

He's right.

You're crazy.

You're going to break. They always do.

You'll become everything you despise about your brother.

Jane closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"You need to let me take over, Jane." His voice got closer to her but she kept her eyes closed, trying to focus on her breathing. "I can bring out the full potential in you. Potential I saw in you when we were kids. Ma saw it. It's why she hated you so much."

Jane's eyes quickly snapped open and stared at him for that. Mentioning her mother hurt. "Don't talk about her." Her voice was low. "I don't have any potential, Jerome. None of this is even real. You're in my head, so I can control you being here. So please! Leave me alone!"

The hallucination looked down at the little girl and smiled. She was clearly trying to act tough, but really she was scared of what they were saying to her. "It doesn't work like that. You don't control this."

Jane rolled her eyes and turned away from it and started for the door. "That's where you're wrong. I'm in control of what happens in my life, and I'm not about to let some hallucination tell me what to do."

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"Please Joe. I'm so sorry I didn't call you back. My life has been crazy for the past week." Jane was currently trying to get the old waitressing job she had before her life went off the rails. She was begging the manager, Joe, to let her back on.

Joe rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his beer belly. "Jane. You left in the middle of a shift. Then you disappear for a week without answering any of my calls. How do you expect me to take you back?"

Jane couldn't lose this job. It was the last connection she had from the life she tried to have. "I know, I know. I'm really sorry." She sighed. "My brother broke out of Arkham and he was recking havoc on my life this past week. But he's gone now and I'm ready to come back."

She glanced over her boss' shoulder and noticed Jerome smiling at her. Yeah, he's head but  he isn't gone. He's still here to ruin your life.

Joe sighed and thought for a moment. "Fine." He said after a moment. "You can come back. But you're on a probation period so if you do one thing wrong, you're out."

Jane smiled. "Of course! Thank you so much, sir!"

Joe reached to the side and handed her an apron and a writing pad. "You can start now. Camille called in sick so I'm down a person." Jane nodded as he walked away, excited for the new start.

"Wow.. Look at you Jane." Jerome's voice taunted. "One step closer to appearing as normal as the rest of these duds."

She ignored him as she placed the pad down and started tying the apron around her waist. The diner wasn't busy, in fact it was kinda slow, so she figured she would start wiping counters down. As she started on the front counters by the kitchen, she heard a voice.

"Hey Jane."

She looked over to see Katy, her co-worker from the night she left. She averted her eyes and continued to clean. "Hey."

Katy placed a hand on Jane's shoulder. "Hey, um. I'm really sorry about last week." Jane paused and looked at her. "I- uh, I saw your brother's video from the night he...you know.. passed." Jane wanted to cringe at where this was going. However, she kept her cool and nodded. "I can't believe you went through that."

There it was - Pity.

Katy pitied Jane for all she went through that night; the psychological torture of him trying to kill her and then watching him die right in front of her.

Jane hated the look Katy was giving her. She hated pity. But for obvious reasons, she couldn't just tell her to stop it. So Jane faked it. She managed to get a tear to roll down her face as she said softly, "It's okay, Katy. I'm getting through it." She sighed. "It's just hard, yah know?"

Katy nodded. "Yes of course." She embraced Jane, which caught her by surprise. She wasn't used to affection like this (or at all for that matter) so she instantly tensed. However, quickly she learned and warmed up to the hug and hugged (rather weakly) back. "You are so strong, Jane. I'm here for you."

Katy finally let go after a couple more seconds and smiled at Jane before leaving. Jane felt very strange after that. She couldn't remember the last time she was hugged. She didn't grow up with much affection and realized it was kinda nice.

"You should kill her." Jerome appeared next to Jane, leaning on the counter. "She thinks you're all cute and small." He smiled evilly. "It would really shock her to see the apple didn't fall far from the tree, huh?"

Jane clenched her teeth as she started wiping the counters once again. "Shut up, Jerome."