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Another save. A little white girl, Juliette Simmons, that has had the town abuzz, so much so that there have been coordinated searches, fundraisers, even a plea from the mayor and a $150K reward to bring Juliette home.
The Bat Team was already ten steps ahead of the GPD (who they suspect shuffled their feet a bit, to make their rescue appear more heroic). But the Bat Team wasn’t there for pats on the back, for the city to blow sunshine up their ass. They knew the work that did needed to be done, and it needed to be done right. Gotham was not a safe place. But when it came to kids, the whole team felt that they should try to soften the blow for them, as much as they could. Ryan especially.
Sophie watches Juliette cling to Ryan, to Batwoman, as she makes her dramatic entrance. Sophie’s been posted up with her new security firm, Moore Secure, and takes a small break to watch from the TV in her office.
Something’s off, Sophie realizes, as Juliette runs to her mom, eyes leaking so much they could drown the city. She tries to piece it together. No, not the mom–she seems genuinely happy to see Juliette again. The GPD look mildly pissed but are trying to hide it with forced smiles and nods towards Batwoman. The reporters are trying to push through the security holding them back, microphones shoved so far out, for a moment, Sophie worries about them disclocating their shoulders. But then she hears the shit coming from their mouths, and instead of worrying, wishes worse than dislocation upon them.
Those things fit. What’s out of place here?
Juliette turns back to Batwoman, her mom keeps her wrapped in her arms as they make their way back to Batwoman. Ms. Simmons tearfully thanks her again and again, Juliette says, (but Sophie can only know from being able to read lips–the crowd is so loud–), “Thank you for saving me. Thank you for saving my life.”
There! In the way Batwoman smiles. She’s kind, of course. A touch of softness underneath the bulletproof vest. But she’s….distant. She doesn’t reach out to touch Juliette, in reassurance. She keeps her hands on her hips, in that ridiculous superhero pose. Even as she says, “You were doing a great job of keeping yourself alive before I got there. You’re much stronger than you know.”, her hands never move from her hips.
Sophie’s head tilts at the words. Ms. Simmons nods and starts to pull Juliette away. Batwoman appears stoic, but Sophie reads it as dazed, a little confused as Batwoman looks taken aback, like she doesn’t remember how she got there. Before she can form any other thoughts around it, Batwoman shoots her grappling hook in the air and takes off into the night.
They’re at Sophie’s to celebrate. Or something like that.
Mary is re-enacting the fight scene she heard over the comms, adding in her own “fuck you, weirdos” and such as Luke pipes in every now and then to remind her that’s not exactly how the save went down. Ryan watches them with a small smile. Sophie watches Ryan. In the middle of their light arguing, when Mary and Luke direct their attention to Ryan saying:
“Ryan, tell Luke how I am not only accurately describing the fight, I am adding a peek into your thought process as well to add flavor to the story.”
Mary turns to Luke, “Cause that’s what friends do!”
Luke shakes his head, “Arguably, adding inner thoughts of a friend to a story is not a pillar of friendship. And we were all there–well, except Sophie–”
Luke’s eyes get big as he tries to play off his glance to Sophie. He is a terrible liar. Sophie’s gonna have to deal with that one day, but Ryan doesn’t even seem to register what they’ve said.
“Ryan?”
“Hmm?” When she notices everyone looking at her expectedly, she switches gears. “I think I’m gonna turn in. Real tired.”
Mary looks worried, “Are you okay? What feels out of place?” She starts to walk towards Ryan to do her Doctor Check and Ryan moves towards the door to avoid it.
“It’s nothing.” She smiles, trying to disarm them. “Just got the wind knocked out of me. Gonna sleep it off.”
“Well, you want me to bring you anything?”
“Nah, I’m fine. I’ll see y’all later.”
As she moves to open the door, she can feel Sophie following. Usually, this would make her heart skip–still–but right now it makes her feel like the walls are closing in.
“Hey, no need to walk me out.”
Sophie raises an eyebrow.
“Came to see why I’m walking you out in the first place. You know, we can ask them to leave. You can stay over.”
It’s like Ryan doesn’t even hear her.
“Yeah, I’m just gonna turn in.”
“Yeah, you said that.”
“I guess I did.”
Sophie crosses her arms. More out of frustration than anything else.
“Makes sense. Seems like this one took a lot more out of you than expected.”
Ryan’s shoulders tense at this, but she just smiles to Sophie. “I think you’re right. I’ll see you later.”
Before Sophie can say anything else, the door closes gently behind Ryan.
Sophie wants to go after her. Hand is already clutching the doorknob, one foot poised to run. But she said she wouldn’t push.
Sophie lets go of the doorknob. Turns back to her apartment and tries to laugh along with Mary and Luke before they decide to head out. She gets ready for bed, and sets her phone on the charger, ringer on high. She turns to pull the covers up around her, settling further into the bed, trying to figure out why she’s alone in it.
“I won’t push.”
It’s not til the middle of the night when Sophie remembers what Ryan said.
“You don’t have to.”
She wants to go over to Ryan and figure this thing out, but she knows that a sleepy Ryan–she smiles at the thought, then is hit with a pang of loss when she remembers Ryan’s side of the bed is empty–is not a reasonable Ryan. So she tries to lay back down to sleep, but sunrise finds her before sleep does.
Inside the Hold Up, Ryan’s moving around at the speed of light. Sophie vaguely wonders if there’s a special event happening tonight.
“Ryan, about last n–”
“Could you grab my phone? It’s in the office.” She stops moving around, looks to the ceiling, trying to think. “Maybe? I think that’s where I left it.”
“You never forget your phone.”
“...Okay?”
“Like, never. You keep an eye on it all the time.”
“Didn’t know you were tracking me, Ms. Moore.” Ryan smiles as she says it. Continues setting up for the day.
Sophie doesn’t smile back. “Ryan, what’s going on?”
Ryan stops moving the drinks and turns to Sophie, confused. “Wait, what’d I do?”
“Are we really back to this?”
Ryan slowly puts down the glasses. Trying to gather herself. “Sophie, can you just tell me what I did so I can fix it?”
“You didn’t do anything, Ryan. And that’s the problem. Something is obviously un-Ryaning you and you won’t trust me with it.”
“I trust you.” Ryan answers, voice small.
Sophie sighs, “Sometimes I wonder if you really believe yourself when you say that.”
After five more minutes of non-answers the conversation is over.
This time Sophie leaves.
But Ryan doesn’t chase after her.
She’s used to being left behind.
No, don’t think about that.
No, look at the glasses.
They still need to be set up.
The bar stools need to be wiped down.
God, look at this floor, it’s a mess. She mopped when she opened but it’s still filthy.
She cleans.
And cleans.
And cleans.
She hears screams.
And never hears her phone ring.
Later that evening, Sophie finds Ryan on the floor of Renee Montaya’s boarded up “office”. She’d spent the day looking for her everywhere. Batcave. Her and Mary’s apartment. She even went to Jada’s house, which she has to remember *not* to bring up to Ryan for at least two weeks. That’s if there still is a them by that time. She’s barely keeping her anger in, arm cramped from keeping her phone to her ear for hours, only getting Ryan’s voicemail in response.
She’s moving quickly towards the office, checking it even though she knows it’s the last place Ryan would go, terrifyingly calm as she says to her voicemail: “Ryan, I swear if you’ve skipped town just to get out of talking to me, I am going to–”. The phone ends the call as Sophie stops talking. Through the slits in the boarded up door, she sees Ryan sitting cross legged in the middle of the floor.
“Ryan?”
Ryan doesn’t appear to hear her. As Sophie rolls her eyes as she gets on the ground to scoot under the little hole that Ryan must’ve crawled through to get in here. She stifles the gasp as she makes it inside the room.
All over the walls and ceiling. Pictures, Have You Seen Me? signs, little scraps of paper with phone numbers and addresses and descriptions: 5 foot 4, last seen with–, carrying a bookbag, was supposed to come home, 172 lbs, goes to Gotham Middle School, please help, please, please, please. Each one with one thing in common: Black Girl Missing. Each piece of paper attached to yarn, so much yarn, so many different colors trying to connect pieces but their ends hanging from the wall with no connections found. They swing softly, but mocking.
“Ryan, honey.”
Ryan turns around and Sophie can only see cloudy eyes.
Sophie focuses on the practical.
“Why didn’t you have your phone?”
Ryan sneers before turning back to the box in front of her. “You ever notice they say little girl but it can only ever mean little white girl?”
Sophie nods. “I do.” She takes a small step forward. “Why weren’t you answering your phone, Ryan?”
Ryan sags when Sophie doesn’t take the bait.
“I was scared.” Ryan feels something in her chest throb at Sophie’s words. “I couldn’t find you.”
Instead of focusing on that hurt, she answers around Sophie’s question: “There were all these alerts I couldn’t stop. Juliette saved by Batwoman. Little girl rescued. After three days of terror, the city can rest knowing one little girl is back at home and safe.”
Sophie thinks of Ryan keeping her distance from Juliette. The hollowed out look in her eyes while Mary re-enacted the rescue. Sophie waits.
“But then all these thoughts I couldn’t stop kept coming. Like Alice!”
Sophie tries to hold on to the thread, but has to admit she needs help.
“Alice?”
“Yeah!” Ryan turns to look at Sophie. The look Ryan has would be called manic if it wasn’t so tinged in grief. “She was mad that people stopped looking for her. She went crazy, right?”
Sophie nods, chuckling, “That’s putting it lightly.”
Ryan doesn’t hear it. “But she expected them to keep looking for her. She expected them to look! She doesn’t even care that they tried.”
Sophie feels the anger starting to build in Ryan and she slowly walks towards her.
“There are so many Candy Ladies out there.”
Sophie stops moving at the abrupt change of subject.
“The Candy Lady? From when we were little?”
Ryan just repeats herself. “There are so many of them out there and I can’t stop them.”
“There are so many black girls disappearing and I’m not enough, Sophie. I’m not enough. I can’t rescue them all. How could I leave them?”
Sophie moves towards Ryan. “You’re not leaving anyone, Ryan. You–”
“You know there were no signs when I was kidnapped?”
“When you were–? Ryan, I–”
“I told her that someone would notice I was gone. Someone was going to come for me.”
“Ryan–”
“She just looked at me. Like she pitied me.” Ryan’s laugh comes out broken, watery. “Who’s gonna save a kid like you?””
Here, Sophie pulls Ryan to her. Hands on her shoulders, making sure her sure eyes meet Ryan’s cloudy ones.
“You’ve always been worth saving, Ryan.”
Ryan’s bottom lip trembles. Her eyes go to an even deeper faraway place.
“She knew. The jellybeans knew. And deep down, I knew too.”
Sophie pulls Ryan to her. Unsure of what to do, other than to let Ryan talk. Sophie doesn’t think Ryan can hear her where she is right now anyways.
“What if Angelique hadn’t even cared?” Tears and snot are coming out of Ryan and Sophie pulls her closer, tucks her head underneath her chin and tries to move as much comfort, as much safety as she can to Ryan, to all the Ryans she doesn’t know. She uses her arms, and soft kisses to her head, and just being there there there to let Ryan know that she would fight every fucking villain in Gotham with one hand tied behind her back, to go back and protect all the Ryans that needed protecting. She pulls her closer, every second she remembers she cannot.
Ryan burrows further into Sophie’s shirt. Tired.The dirty windowpane etched in her hands as she saw the people with their little clipboards looking for a lost little girl that was not her. She was lost, why weren’t they looking for her? Ryan’s hands itch with the dirt she can never seem to scrub out.
“Sophie, they never looked up.” She’s so tired as she whimpers:
“I was screaming and they never looked up.”