I never saw it coming.

One minute I'm cutting across tenth, avoiding the dark passageways of the city's downtown area. The next, I'm bloated with tubes and morphine in a hospital bed, wondering where the days went.

In the months after the Narrow went to hell, some parts of the downtown area took on a sharper edge to its once tame nightlife, as if it'd grown teeth. And it had – rotting, crooked teeth. After Batman disappeared, hustlers of all kinds moved into the quiet neighborhood – hookers and drug pushers and swindlers. A thriving crank industry began to spread through the streets. You hear about it all the time – kids dropping in the gutters like flies cause they can't handle the monster. I've dabbled in smack, tried my hand at speed once. But I know better than those fresh-faced uptown kids - never dance with the monster, cause he won't think twice about pulling you straight down into Hell.

That's how I got into this mess. I never trust that part of town, knowing where there's dealers, there's pimps. And where there's pimps – there's my old handler, a meth-addict with a penchant for little girls. I got out as soon as I could, a little over a year ago. I hustle myself now and I do better off. No more cuttin' half with the deadbeat, who pushes his girls to the brink of exhaustion only to take most of their earnings. It was John who gave me hope enough to get out before it was too late. Probably why I feel so indebted to him – I got clean a few weeks after we met, when he showed up on my corner and I flashed my pale skinny legs at him from beneath a tattered old skirt.

The dirty old shitbag still frequents the girl's home to replenish his ranks, not a few blocks away. Easy targets, he'd always said to me, his oldest girl, and the black look in his eyes told me he was the one to break them in. Whenever he talked about his 'little angel-eyed recruits' he'd twist the toothpick in his mouth a little faster, and my stomach would squirm. The older he got, the younger he liked 'em. By the time I left, he'd been chasing after seven year old's who hadn't lost the roundness of toddler-hood just yet.

Perhaps forkin' out a few hundred bucks to his raggedy old ass would've been better than this – waking up with a shiner and a couple of broken ribs in a hospital bed with a crumpled piece of paper shoved into my hand.

I'm not taking no for an answer this time, Charlotte. You're coming home with me.

- John

It wouldn't be a pleasant visit, like our encounters on the rooftops, in the darkness I wore like a second skin. There would be no shields of shadows to hide behind. Bare-faced and naked, I could only sit here, and his eyes would find me in the light. There would be disapproval, in the way he held his shoulders and the how his eyes would stick to the scratchy white sheets. I can imagine it now, how he'd hold the guilt like broken glass…carefully, so fragile in his hands. The more I think of it, those long awful minutes I know are coming, the harder my heart pounds painfully against the splintered ribs. I can hear the pace on the monitor quicken behind me.

I'd been lying there all through the morning waiting for him - helpless, hopeless, writhing in my own self-made misery. It's my fault; I can't blame anyone but myself. Getting jumped, John's note in my hand. All of it is because I don't know how to listen. The thought of disappointing him, and seeing it crushed into the pale loveliness of his face, made me toss and turn and I had to up my morphine after a while from rolling around too much on my sore ribs. Before long, I'd worried myself to the point of exhaustion, and I'd finally slipped into an uneasy sleep during the afternoon.

But as I open my eyes, some hours later, I find him sitting in front of me. I'd imagined how he'd look all morning…but this didn't even cut it. My stomach begins to tie itself into knots.

His mouth is stiff, and he struggles to make it move. I wonder how long he's been sitting there waiting for me to wake up.

He shakes his head. "I wish you'd listened to me…this would never have happened."

I can feel my bottom lip start to tremble, tears welling up behind my eyes. It's too late to hide them. Mortified, I turn my back on him, folding my hands beneath my wet cheek. "I hate I told you so…it doesn't do any good."

Even with my back turned, I can feel the force of his anger flare out like fire. "Right, and I'm sure your stubbornness served you well."

I close my eyes. The tears that clung there slip free and trickle down into my pillow. "I've taken care of myself for as long as I can remember, John," I tell him, trying to hide the tremors in my voice. "I don't need anybody takin' care of me, especially some fresh-faced beat cop."

"You think you're the only one who's had to self-soothe through hard times?" He pauses, a long, aching beat. "Look around you. It might be peace-time for the rich, but down here we're all struggling."

I don't answer, mostly because I don't know what to say. He's right - he always is - and my head is too swollen with snot and sensations I haven't felt since I was a little girl. The last time I cried was when I took my first sleazebag into the back room, hiding the watery look in my eyes in the shadows as the door slammed shut behind us. It's hard to think. It's hard to breathe. And I know all too well I'm wrong.

"You're not in trouble, Charlotte."

"Yeah?" I snap back at him. "You can promise that?"

"I can, actually," he replies. "No one has to know about what you are but you and me."

Most cops would've handcuffed me as soon as they found me out. But here he is, offering to take me in and clean me up. Just the thought of it is overwhelming, of being looked after for once in my life. It makes the guilt run cold in my veins, turns it to ribbons of ice. I don't deserve his kindness. I'm the kind of scum he lifts off the streets and throws in jail, and with good reason. He's wasting his time on the wrong girl.

I clutch my pillow tighter to me, wishing warmth into it, the softness of his cologne. I'm so wrapped up in my own stupid emotions that I don't feel him lift me up at first, but when I do my arms wrap around him, my fingers digging deep into his thin body. I feel like a child again, when I'd hear my father's voice filter through the darkness of a bad dream. I'd follow the sound of it, and it would lead me back into my safe little world of night lights and my mother's snores seeping in from the next room.

I haven't seen my father in years. My mother, even longer.

John's hands knot in my hair, his long fingers catching on the long, loose hairs falling out of my ponytail. He still smells the same, and in the months I've known him I've come to find solace in the fragrant heat of his cologne. I crush my face into his chest and listen to the sound of our heartbeats tangle together, resonant and slow.

"I'm taking you home with me, all right?"

I nod, my skin chafing against the fabric of his shirt.

His lungs expand with a deep, calming breath. "I promise, in a few days, after you've rested, you'll come live with me until you can get back on your feet..." His voice rumbles in my ear. "You'll be safe."

He whispers the last part, as if I weren't supposed to hear.

an: i just had to continue to write this...too many ideas nagging at me! please let me know how i'm doing. :D

disclaimer - i don't own john blake. he belongs to nolan and dc comics.