Mercy (Fred)
Far different from the slithering, gleeful voices that usually jerked her out of bed, this one was familiar and wonderfully odd and very dear. The City. Its voice still sounded like Thomas Townsend's, to her. It woke her tonight before her memories of Doctor Crane and Edward Nigma started in on her.
Often, the City spoke with her. Sometimes they simply talked about people and why they behaved they way they did. Sometimes she talked with him because she felt alone. And she thought, maybe, sometimes he did the same. But the things it said tonight were not the typical normal conversations they had with each other, and none of it was easy to hear. She was up immediately, threw herself in and out of the shower, and dressed just as quickly. A glance at the clock showed that it was 3 a.m. and she knew it would be terribly, dreadfully rude... but some things were bigger than manners.
Beauty set the watch Bruce gave her onto her wrist as she waited at the gates of the City Commons for the cab she'd called. Normally, she would have been terrified to be standing on the street alone at 3:25 a.m. on a weeknight. Her anxiety over the City far out-shadowed the anxiety that normally would have seized her. Doctor Crane and Edward Nigma seemed tiny, compared to what she knew now.
15 minutes later, Beauty knocked on the door that used to belong to the mayor himself, before the City sent him home again. "Fred!" she called softly. "It's Beauty! I know it's late, but please..."