Midnight Voyage

Bo was still reeling over the fact that he'd seen Gordon Ramsey in the flesh and did not have time to answer the questions before the conversation moved on to something else. He watched as Tim seemed to grow embarrassed at the mention of the Batman movie, which was odd, but not that weird, all things considered.

He leaned on the table, looking over at Tim. He figured it might be best to change the subject. But it sounded like Winter already did.

He looked between Sarah and Winter.

"Left what out? About what?" he asked, trying to catch up. "You mean back when we were talking about years and time stuff?"

Winter kept her eyes trained on the girl in question, "She's leaving something out," she said to the tall man without looking at him, "I do not know what."

"What exactly am I leaving out?" Sarah asked in between bites of the avocado dish, confused.

"I don't know," Winter smiled, then turned back to the cookie still in her hand, suddenly more interested in finishing that than she was in asking questions.

She was leaving it out for a reason, or maybe Winter was mistaken. That happened sometimes, and Summer's voice didn't now reach her well enough to correct her. Summer always did know people better than Winter did.

"Is there a graveyard here?" she asked abruptly. She would like to speak to Summer, and graveyards made that so much easier.

Alex felt a lump in her throat when Winter mentioned the graveyard.

"A graveyard?" Why would there be a graveyard on the ship?"

Suddenly, she looked around her, and lost her awareness of time and space. She was somewhere else now, wondering if they knew. Wondering what would happen to her. She started to shake.

She'd mostly blocked out memories of that night. The only thing she remembered was Margaret's face, smiling because she remembered Alex, but confused as to why she was showing up with her friends in the middle of the night with knives. But not thinking they'd hurt her.

Margaret's dark haired friend, who the courts said was a travel writer and gone to college in Paris. She'd wanted to live in New York and have her own restaurant. She and her husband had been trying for a baby when they'd gotten the call from Margaret. Her own fiance was out of town on work. Come to Colorado for a week. Keep her company for the Fourth of July.

So they obliged. Three perfect people in a perfect house, like porcelain dolls.

They'd been so beautiful. Too beautiful to be real. To beautiful to really hurt.

Spoiler

I imagine that the crimes would still be fairly notorious nearly fifty years later, but still somewhat faded from the public view. So the modern day characters would know the name Jay Whitman, they'd know Margaret Kelly was an Olympic swimmer that was murdered, but they wouldn't necessarily connect the two, and they wouldn't know Alex's name. Sarah, obviously, is another story.

Spoiler

That's good to know! So Tim would definitely know about both of them, but Kirux would be completely oblivious.

Tim noticed Alex shaking right when Kirux did, but it was Kirux who beat him to reacting. Frowning, Kirux got to his feet and went over to Alex - almost shyly holding out his stuffed animal in front of him. He was studying her face the entire time with a childlike version of worry. It was something about the way he frowned and the way his eyes moved.

Tim didn't know what his observation meant, but he'd keep an eye on Kirux to be safe.

"Are you okay?" Tim asked Alex. Kirux nodded in agreement, pushing his stuffed animal towards her a little more forcibly.

Tim's question registered. Are you okay?

It was a simple question in theory, but one that was difficult to answer. None of this made any sense. Most of her life hadn't made any sense. It made sense when her mom is alive. it made sense when she met Jay. And it made sense when they lived at Eagle Rock, for a while. At least, until everything fell apart.

The mute boy held out his stuffed animal. Alex hesitated for a moment before she took it. He seemed so innocent, so pure. It did give her some comfort. It made her feel safe. Like a child again. So why did her past keep wanting to bother her?

"I don't know," she said. "I don't know if I'm okay. My life hasn't really made any sense in the last year."

Everyone looked at her.

"There's more, but I'm afraid you all would think of me differently."

Megara rolled her eyes. Whatever it was this girl was going to say, Megara was curious, though it was fairly clear she wasn't going to say anything unless she was assured that no one would look at her differently for it.

So, Megara made an offer. If she was honest, it was probably the dumbest thing she'd ever done.

"Alright then," she said, "how about this, you tell your story, I'll tell one of mine." Whatever this girl had done, Megara could almost definitely take any negative attention off of her. But only if the attention she got was, indeed, negative would Megara reveal any of her truly horrible acts. Otherwise, something lighter would do. Maybe that count she'd killed back before she was recognized as a real threat to anyone in particular? Something like that.

And if the girl didn't have any horror stories at all, if she was overreacting, then Megara could just tell them about the thievery she engaged in on the regular. It was harmless - mostly - and for the sake of staying alive. That should be fine.

He wanted to make the same offer, but he wasn't sure what he could say. There was only so much that he could tell without giving away one of his many major secrets. He knew that it probably didn't matter to the group here. There was a Batman film - Tim Drake was supposed to be fictional. But that was where the problem was. If he admitted that he was Timothy Jackson Drake, the third Robin of many, then they'd probably think he wasn't all there mentally. And if he said the truth about who he was - that Tim Drake wasn't his first life - then he was sure they'd think he was even less there than if the secret about being Robin came out.

So he didn't offer.

He just nodded in agreement.

"My own life has been a little...crazy lately," he admitted. He glanced over at Megara. Robin was a stretch, and so was Jack, but being Megara's friend wasn't even remotely close to the two. "I met Megara, and we're both from two different worlds. I also live in Goth-"

He caught himself.

"-in a very dangerous city," he corrected, "so I'm used to more...morally questionable things."

From the aghast look on Kirux's face, he wasn't, but he didn't make any objections. He just sat back down and looked attentively at both Megara and Alex, eagerly awaiting their stories.

Bo recognized the look on Alex’s face once attention was drawn to her. He was sure he looked like that many, many times in his life when traumatic and unwanted memories reared their ugly head. He wasn’t on the side of the table Alex was on, and he didn’t want to crowd her or scare her, so he stayed put. It wasn’t like she knew any of them for a sudden hug to be welcome, especially when she was scared to the point of shaking.

“I think you’d be surprised. My past might make you guys look differently at me too. But like, I’ll throw in a story too, if it’ll ease your nerves. I can go first if you need a minute. It’s up to you. You don’t have to share if you don’t want to, but if it’s weighing on you that much it might help to talk about it.”

"I killed someone. Three people, actually," Alex said. "My friends and I. You might have seen us in the news." She was surprised at how easily the words came out of her mouth. But then again, it was all anyone ever wanted to talk to her about. "I didn't mean for anyone to get hurt." She thought about how stupid that must have sounded, but she didn't have anything to retort it with.

She looked over at Sarah, who seemed to be emotionally distant from the conversation. She was beautiful too. So confident and mature and sure of herself. There was something about that which irritated her, though she couldn't put her finger on what.

All of the women she met were so pretty. Helen, for instance, turned heads when she walked down the street from the time she was fifteen. Claire, so she'd read, started dating someone almost immediately after she left the group and went home to her parents in Minnesota. Apparently, they were now married. Helen probably was too, go figure.

All of the girls, they'd find someone else. They had other loves. For Alex, there had never been anyone but Jay. And Jay knew it too. He'd always trusted her with things he'd never trust anyone else with. Other girls might make him turn his head, but if it was the middle of the night and he was lost and alone, it was her he'd call to lay in his bed. Not Helen. not Claire. Certainly not Debbie or Sasha or Michelle.

Her.

All she'd wanted that night was for him to be happy. For things to go back to when they were good. That wasn't wrong, was it?

She bit her lip, waiting for someone to say something.



Sarah froze. There was no way this was the girl. The girl who'd loved her ex-husband, or so the papers said, from the moment they'd met, unaware of what Sarah had already uncovered years before, that he was no good, that the only person he cared about was himself. She put two and two together, cross referencing the black and white mugshots she'd seen with the girl sitting in front of her. For whatever reason, she didn't realize it until now.

She felt like she was going to throw up. Maybe the avocado dish had been too much. She got from from the table and started walking back the way she'd came. She made it as far as the entrance of the theater when she threw up on the carpet.

She sat there for a moment, trying to gather the courage to swallow her pride and tell someone about the mess she'd just caused. She hadn't cried in a long time, not since she got the letter from Jay in prison. She'd done a great job of forgetting about Jay, about moving on with her life. She was happy with Ed. Happy with Adam. Happy with her life. And now it all came crashing back. It wasn't fair, especially when she'd put in so much work to leave it all behind.

Just then, she heard a voice. It was a familiar voice, one she'd heard a million times over on her record player. A voice just as rich and distinctive speaking as it was singing.

She looked up. Frank Sinatra, for some reason in a staff uniform, was kneeling to meet her gaze. But this wasn't old, gray-haired, a little pudgy and divorced from Mia Farrow Frank (though he still had a voice of gold) this was the Frank she crushed on in her childhood.

"Is everything alright?"

She couldn't form words.

A pit formed in Tim's stomach.

Alex was A. Altman.

He had caught a glimpse of her name on the sign in front of what had to have been her room, but was too distracted by everything else to put two and two together. Alex Altman was a name that had come up in his forensics class, back when Timothy Jackson Drake had just been his favorite character. He remembered doing a project on murders with unusual twists. Alex had killed someone famous at the time - an Olympic athlete? - and had done it with a group of friends that all rallied around Jay Whitman.

Alex Altman was sitting right in front of him.

Alex Altman was real in a way that he no longer was, and he didn't know how to deal with a real person murdering another. It was different than in Gotham. One could always say that Gotham just worked like that - it was the result of an author's choices, not a character's own decision.

Tim didn't realize how pale he had become.


When Alex revealed that she had killed people and Sarah left, Kirux decided that it was a good idea to leave, too. Alex still had Klein, so he'd have to come back eventually, but he really, really didn't feel comfortable around a murderer. He found her being comforted by a really nice man near where she must have thrown up.

Hood to his onesie falling back, Kirux rushed over to her side.

"Are you okay?" he signed.

Megara, for all her banter, hadn't actually been expecting a murder confession. She stared for a moment, shocked more by the admission than the crime.

That was the first rule. The least flexible rule. Do not admit to your sins before those who will live to seek your punishment.

In another way, it was a little comforting to know that she wasn't the lone killer among them. Bloody hands were a large burden to bear, and they were not a pretty sight once revealed. People didn't like to feel dirty, and it was often agreed that the blood on a killer's hands was somehow transferrable.

That was a silly concept, in Megara's opinion, but she hadn't much experience being among the innocent.

Then she remembered that she'd made a promise.

"Does that make it my turn then?" she asked to break the silence, trying for a nonchalant tone and succeeding despite her nerves.



Winter tilted her head and listened. These people were fascinating. Their reactions were fascinating.

The world beyond the grave wasn't all that awful, as Summer said. It was neutral. Truly and fully. The idea that one was evil for sending another there was odd. In winter's opinion, it was permanently separating someone from the people they cared about that made one evil. If someone killed someone who didn't have any such people or possessions to make them want to stay, then why was it evil to let them leave?

That was how Winter saw it. Summer disagreed, but she and Winter often disagreed.

The only thing Bo was surprised by was how quickly Alex admitted it. It sounded bad, probably, that his first assumption had been murder, and that it wasn't surprising to him. The number of lives he'd taken far outweighed three. Maybe it was wrong to measure wrongs against one another, but he'd forgiven people for much more, and it wasn't going to change the way he treated her.

Her name though - it did finally click in his mind. The murders she'd done had been a case that had been known nationally, if he remembered correctly. Hers was a name that went down in history for her crimes, along with a few others, including the cult leader she'd been following. That was about all he could remember of her case if he was honest.

The only reason he knew about murder cases in the first place was because his dad talked about them. Which was strange, now that he thought about it, since his dad was a career killer.

He looked over at the girl who spoke first, clearly to try to break the awkward silence that followed after Sarah ran out of the room and Kirux ran after her. He was glad Kirux went because Tim was looking pale, and Megara a little awkward. Both acceptable reactions, honestly, and ones Alex was probably expecting.

He watched Alex.

"If you want to share," Bo said, leaving room for escape for the girl, even though she'd made a deal of it. He didn't believe in treating matters like this with nonchalance, but he wasn't trying to make a big deal out of it either. His tone remained pretty neutral, but sober.

"But... well, about eight years ago I used to be a hitman." He figured he'd just get it out there as soon as possible. He felt like that was pretty self-explanatory. Most people didn't really want to hear the details, and he didn't want to make it sound like he was trying to one-up her or anything, because he wasn't.

"I quit, because I hated it, and didn't want to be responsible for taking another life. But the ones I did take are something that I have to carry with me for the rest of my life, and it's a heavy weight to bear. But I'm always afraid that it'll make people see me as a monster once they know. So... I get it. In that sense, at least. I never served time for it though."

He probably should've, but would that make things better? It certainly wouldn't bring anyone back. And he could only imagine getting killed in prison if he ever went.

A murderer, a hitman, and, well, Tim. This was starting to look a bit like her old crowd. That would be comfortable if it wasn't so unnerving.

"It appears we're three for three with the killers," she said with some humor. In a twisted way, it really was funny. "Assassin. I can't really give a number for my body count, but I've been at it ten years." Despite her light tone, her gaze dropped to the table. She didn't regret it. She hadn't even particularly disliked the job. She'd left for entirely selfish reasons, she only fought back now because of Eddie. Otherwise, she would have turned herself in. Accepted her execution as one last act of defiance against her boss, her sister, her life.

She shrugged, "Anyway, anyone else got a tragic secret they wanna share?" Hopefully, they did. admitting to having been in the killing business since she was seven was rattling her nerves. She had a fairly ageless appearance, hopefully no one would figure out her real age and do the math. Pity was the last thing she wanted in that area.