Chapter 1: Stay With Us

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters besides those that don't seem recognizable (Mike, Billy the Chef, etc.….) and my OC is Sylvia Gordon. All the main plots of Gotham belong to the Gotham writers. I have subplots throughout the original plotline. No profit is being made from this, and this story is purely based on fiction.

"We need to get….to the ICU…. Make…. Turn this way…."

A female's voice came in and out, like I was being pulled out of the water, only to be shoved back under the rolling, garbled depths once more. Metaphorically, of course.

I could open my eyes a little, but the effort to do so was a lot of work. My body was limp. I tried moving my arms, to wiggle my fingers, but nothing happened. I tried moving my toes—wiggle toes, come on! —but they refused to obey.

"Drive faster…."

Jim.

I could hear his voice; I felt him moving on my right, sitting in the ambulance with me.

"Stay with me, Sylvia…. with me…." He said, his voice muffled and echoing.

Looking at him, I could see the worried lines creased on his forehead, his blue eyes, which bore the same resemblance to mine, watching me. He was holding my hand firmly, and the other touched my shoulder.

What was happening to me!

Was I dying?

I tried turning my head to get a grasp of all that was happening around me…. but I couldn't. I was incapacitated. A neck brace kept my head still, just as the drugs being pumped through the needle in my arm made my body limp. Dead weight.

I heard the steady purr of an engine, and the siren sounds of the ambulance, but they were muffled too. I forced my eyes open, fighting the urge to fall asleep. I couldn't fall asleep—I had to know what was happening. If I closed my eyes, I was certain I wouldn't wake up.

I felt a hand on my thigh, it was soft and light. Glancing down, however, I saw that it was gripping, my clothes wrinkled with the pressure.

These ambulance people really know how to kick up the morphine.

I followed the pale hand to a well-suited figure and saw that it was Oswald Cobblepot who occupied my left-hand side. Raven hair, cerulean eyes looking at me with just as much worry as Jim. He saw that I was awake, or trying to stay that way. He spoke but like the rest of the voices in the ambulance, his words were muffled, garbled noises to my ears. I tried to speak, but even as my mouth moved, it just barely did so. It, too, felt like dead weight, detached from my body.

"It's okay, Pigeon…." Oswald said with an attempt of comfort—but his voice shook, and I could see his true emotions so clearly written on his face. Fear and worry. I glanced between him and James Gordon, my older brother. They were saying more, their voices firm, but soothing.

The numbness in my brain was stretching out, creeping towards my forehead, down to my nose and mouth. I couldn't keep my eyes open. When they closed, Jim was shouting. Then Oswald was too…. Were they shouting at each other? Or at the drivers of the ambulance?

So tired….so….

"Lift her on the stretcher on one—three…. two….one!"

Two men dressed in white lab jackets grabbed the top and bottom of my cot and hoisted me on a metal gurney. They spoke in medical jargon for the better part, which only confused me. The stretcher was being followed by two men—Jim was barking orders at his police officers to do something while Oswald ignored everyone else and quickly, to the best of his ability, kept up with the stretcher.

I tried to talk, to tell him I would be okay. But nothing came out. I couldn't even make out even a syllable. And my arms couldn't even move to hold my hands out to him.

Men and women dressed in seal blue scrubs hurried to the stretcher, swinging open double doors. The intercom garbled 'code blue'. Why did I get the feeling that I was that code blue? My eyes were getting heavy….

Don't close them. Don't you fucking dare. Come on, Sylvia….

More medical jargon exchanged between what looked like fifty people in the room—then again, my vision was doubling, even tripling the true count. I started panicking, seeing the hard, stern expressions of what I assumed to be the doctor as he made cynical comments about bullets and the morality rate of one being able to survive.

My panic caused a ripple of extra maneuvers from the nurses around me. Their eyes darting to the machine that calculated my heart rate and blood pressure before rushing around like chickens with their heads cut off.

"Miss Gordon…. Miss Gordon!"

I looked up at the ceiling. Blocking my view was the doctor.

Salt-and-pepper hair, medium build…. I think he was wearing glasses…. maybe?

"We're going to get you fixed…. up, we're going to make you…. better, can you hear me?"

I narrowed my eyes, trying to understand him. Or at least to read his lips.

"Can you hear me?" He said loudly.

The morphine….so numbing, so powerful. I couldn't….

Ten minutes passed—or maybe five hours—I couldn't be sure.

"One more shock should do it—everyone stand clear!"

Two metal pads connected to a defibrillator hissed and a nurse held them above my chest.

Oh fuck, they're going to shock me…. WAIT! I'm AWAKE!

I mumbled loudly, "mm-mm!" and I was certain they hadn't heard but the doctor, like a saint, saw my eyes open just a little and despite the breathing tube down my esophagus, I successfully caught the doc's attention. He quickly pushed the nurse away.

"She's back!" The doc shouted. "Don't shock her—Miss Gordon…. Sylvia!"

"MM!" I barely managed.

"Good, thank god..." sighed the doctor. "We're fixing you up, Miss Gordon. Don't you worry. For the rest of the procedure, we'll need you unconscious. This will only hurt a little…."

He brought out a syringe and plunged it into my arm. I protested as much as possible and back to the unconscious side I went.

Tired…. sleepy…. just a few more minutes, I thought. A few more minutes, please. Then I will get up.