Mama Gotham

Tear It All Down

Warnings: Mentions of cutting and suicide.

Alyssa had always thought that the type of company she kept said something for her own state of mind. She knew she was a little off kilter, but right now she wouldn't be surprised if someone handed her a striped Arkham uniform.

The warehouse Jervis had brought them to had been a blur. Perhaps it was her mind's habit of suppressing all things to do with the top hatted hypnotist, or perhaps it had something to do with trauma, but at the moment she could only recall flashes of angry words that had been shouted.

Somehow or another, she had ended up at the GCPD in one of their interrogation rooms. She was pretty sure Jim had driven her here, but she didn't know if she had been in the car alone.

Her mind was running over the past few hours, but it was melding those memories with older ones, making it hard to tell where one moment stopped and the next began.

"W-Why would I wanna teach you?"
"I dunno. What does that matter? I'm the one who's going to win."

"'Lyssa, look at me....I have loved you all our lives, and I've always protected you."
"Jervis you don't know what love is! And protect me?! Do you really not understand what you put me through?!"

"You just gotta stay alive."

The door to the holding room Alyssa had been brought to opened, snapping her out of her thoughts and back to the present.

"Captain Barnes...."

"Ms. Connors." Barnes pulled out the chair across the table from her, slapping a case file down on the metal. "Can I get you anything? Water? You hungry?"

Alyssa shook her head. "No thank you."

"Alright." the GCPD Captain took his seat at the table. "Now, I've spoken to your sister, and I've spoken to Ms. Tetch. They both said you knew Jervis best."

"Yeah..." she nodded numbly. "T-They didn't tell me, is he, did he really get away?"

"Unfortunately yes." Barnes said, looking regretful. "But we're doing everything we can to track him down. That's why I need any information you can give me, any idea on where he might go, what he might do next."

"Honestly?" Alyssa gave a hollow laugh. "I haven't got a clue. The Jervis Tetch I knew died a long time ago. I'm actually starting to wonder if he was ever even alive...."

"Okay." Barnes sighed, pushing the case file to the side. "Why don't you start from the beginning?"

Alyssa looked down at her hands. She traced the tip of her ring finger over the inside of her wrist, recalling the first time she had properly noticed Jervis' existence. She'd pitied the small boy. She hadn't thought there'd be any harm in befriending him.

How very wrong she'd been.

"....The earliest years of a person's life shape who they are." Alyssa said after a long pause. "Jervis had parents who didn't give a damn that he existed unless he was waiting on them hand and foot. We've known each other all our lives, but I didn't really pay any attention to him until I found him cutting his wrists open when we were six."

"What happened?"

Alyssa winced and fought back tears. "Jervis and I....our parents were the same; we both had plenty of reasons to want to be dead. The difference was that I had reasons to be alive." she laughed humorlessly. "I was gonna get out of Gotham and live in an actual house in a town where people cared about each other. But you need to understand, that was for me and only me. Jervis...his reasons for being alive were people. He's got no real sense of self. Who he is begins and ends with his obsessions."