Quicklog, Gotham: Babs G/Jim G
[Being home in the afternoon felt wrong, but here he was, the early moon already in the sky. Then again, most things felt wrong these days. Jim had a backlog of newspapers—decades' worth—, from pulpy tabloids dripping with overblown yellow—facts could be found within; buried deep, but they were there—to the renowned Gotham Gazette. He had them stacked in front of him or tipped, spread, along the pristine face of the coffee table, and he was trying to sift through them, his notepad open on the cushion next to him, the pen having rolled sideways into the crevice, swallowed and forgotten.
The paper was indented, some things jotted down in a scrawl—differences and similarities in black ink as he tried to trace Gotham's path over the years he'd apparently missed. White t-shirt, dress pants, and dust, he looked up when he heard the door open.
The Clocktower was exactly the same as he remembered, with a few strange additions (antlers?), but the voice that called his name wasn't the woman he always expected's. Barbara. Same name. His niece-cum-daughter. Another detail he couldn't yet wrap his mind around.
He could tell she was making her way toward the kitchen from the thrown sound of boots, and he went that way, entering through the archway opposite. There she was, red hair. He moved to help her with the bags, relieving her of their obnoxious weight.] Barbara. [He tried a smile.]