The Universe's Mixer

It had been over 48 hours since Dinah first discovered Jake missing. She’d slept for maybe two hours in that time. She was running on nothing but fumes, and she was starting to run out of the hope that the next person she questioned would somehow have the answers that would lead her to Jake.

The Joker had him. That was the only thought that kept her going, that drove her to haunt everywhere she could think of, beating up anyone that might have answers and an inclination not talk to her. There had already been information that led to nowhere, a string of false leads and the sense of a wild goose chase.

She was getting sloppy, and edgy. She knew this. Dinah finally had to tear herself away from the warehouse district, reminding herself that she wasn’t going to help Jake unless she was smart about her approach.

She considered returning to the Clock Tower, but remembered how it had felt to go back there the previous morning. It was empty, a hollow reminder of the fact that she’d failed Jake.

Instead, Dinah tried to call Harry. When he didn’t answer, she wasn’t entirely surprised. Disappointed, but she knew that meant that he was probably just as hard at work on his end. Which also meant that he probably needed a dinner break just as much as she did. She managed to find the little Italian restaurant by the Clock Tower again. Not a sign of a good day as she’d taken it on Sunday, but it was a comfort all the same. She picked up two healthy carry-out boxes of pasta and headed for Harry’s.

( The nightmares never really go away. Not forever. )

Errol watched people. Beauty watched him watching them pass by the windows of Bookmark Books for hours, when the troubled man worked with her, watched the creased plane of his face change in the smallest ways as he kept his own council on the things he saw. Now that he was gone, Beauty did much the same. She perched on the high-sitting chair behind the counter at the front of the store, and stared for hours out the window, watching people go by. She used to lose herself in books in the back of the store, but she'd lost her taste for it sometime after she realized Errol wasn't coming back. The thought made her sadder than her thoughts about her family, and when she considered this for any number of minutes, the implications frightened her.

Today was different, though. Today, instead of watching the wash of people pass into and out of her sight, she was watching the small table that stood just in front of her window outside. The door was wide open into the shop, the late spring breeze was filling the air with the scent of some nearby roses, and the table -- one she'd never seen before, but knew belonged to her store -- was piled high with books. These books kept on changing, every time a new person passed into view. As familiar as she was with the books in the small store she minded, she recognized most of the volumes as they appeared and disappeared on that table. Sometimes The City caught a customer like this. Most of the time it didn't.

Nearly two hours had gone by since the changing stack of books had attracted a single person.

Lorne settled nicely back into life in the City, once it stopped making him behave like a human child. The masquerade, the hat, snappy as it'd been... he'd had to do a lot of explaining to Fred, and a few other people, that mid-twenties for him was a lot like the terrible twos for humans.

His Sea Breeze intake was increasing.

While grateful for the City's gift of Caritas, Lorne didn't care for the up-in-the-air way in which it functioned. LA was good, it was predictable, mostly. Bad things happened to good people, sure... but it was unlikely you were going to be institutionalized, turn into a child and receive myriad messages about a personal ad you didn't place.

The outside observer would not know anything at all was getting to Lorne. Business as usual was exactly that--business as usual. The music played, the booze flowed, the wings were served hot.

On this particular night, after offering a comic book character he didn't recognize a little advice on how to cope with his loss of nemesis, Lorne sat on the edge of the club's stage with a mic in his hand and a huge smile on his face. He handed the mic off to the next willing singer, who chose to belt out a version of a Pink song that actually half made him wince.

He smiled at patrons as he walked past, and offered to refresh their drinks. When he got to the bar, he held his own glass out, with wide eyes, and nodded heartily. He hardly noticed the person on the stool to his right.

There was no consistency. It wasn't long before Jake didn't know which he dreaded more - the time he was alone to dwell on his own, or the times he got his "visits" from Jack. It hurt, it hurt more than anything had before. It hurt more than the slow, steady drip of insanity when he and Roland had been separated. It hurt more than being told that Babs was gone, that someone had taken her away. It hurt more than hearing Dinah had been hurt and he wasn't there to help her.

It hurt more than having to withdraw from Oy, knowing his pain was hurting the billy-bumbler. Jake was locked in his own mind, alone and lost.

He wanted to stay there. Close up his mind, lock it behind him, and pull the metaphorical blanket over his eyes until the boogeyman went away. But there was nowhere to hide from the specters in his mind. Haunting shadows of Roland walking into an ocean, hearing the lobstrosities calling out to him. Did-a-chik? Dum-a-chum? Dinah, flickering in and out of place as she sat down, telling him that there was simply no way for her to be there for him. That, in the end, the City wins all. Babs, turning towards him with empty eyes to say that she couldn't, wouldn't come back.

Jake was strong, a gunslinger. But he was a child, and Jack was a professional. The cuts, the burns, scratches, the bruises - all were administered with precision. Jake cringed when he found himself welcoming them, just to have someone else in the room. Welcoming the agony to escape from the silence, from the loneliness. Someone to save him from the ghosts.

It was the kindness he hated the most, he craved the most. Those gentle moments in his arms, having his wounds tended to, soothed. The caring touches, the softly-spoken words. Comfort like Jake had never had in his life. His own parents had failed in that regard. Greta Shaw had been too professional. The gunslinger had raised him hard, the only way he knew. Babs had gone too soon. Dinah was too unsure of her place with him. But Jack, the Joker, showed him more kindness than Jake had ever known.

It was all starting to blur. The hate and the craving, the hurt and the home, the loneliness and the wanting. Ghosts in the shadows. Cool water trickling down his raw throat. Ice cream, to his childish delight. Once, he had the companionship of a kitten. A warm, soft kitten that nuzzled at his fingers and slept against his shoulder. Some time later (hours, minutes, day, night, those things had ceased to hold meaning) the bloody skin and fur had adorned his head like a cap, while Jack had hung the organs on him like ornaments on a Christmas tree. The next time a rat had crept into his room, Jake had thrown things at it until it went away.

No day. No night. Just alone, or with Jack.

Jake was on his own. Alone, and lost.