"What do you believe in?"

Those Who Know

Ramirez

She's in a hospital. She knows why she's here. The things she's done are not forgotten. Maybe, when the sun finally rises, they'll only be shadows—reminders of what's she's done, and what she hopes to never do again. She's in a hospital and in the bed next to her is her mother, reading the newspaper as if she didn't have terminal breast cancer and her daughter did.

"Anna." Her mother smiles.

The lights are low. She's grateful. Her temples squeeze into her eyes. The pressure there is blissful. She's grateful to have pain. It was a pistol whip. It could have been a killing blow. Ramirez settles down in to the hospital bed, as if physically separating herself from the memory for a moment. Harvey Dent. The stench of his burnt flesh haunts her. Grotesque sights are a part of being a cop; you became desensitized to it eventually. The smells—though—always linger. Death's perfume is so singular it cannot be mistaken. Dent breathed, but he was dead. (There was no denying that stench.) Everything he stood for, believed in, fought for: bombed, burned, buried. After meeting the Joker once, she knew the answer to the question "why?" It was obvious. Any decent person could tell you. He was hope for Gotham. Our knight in shining armor, she thinks, horrified at the image her mind conjures. Sinews. Flesh. Bone.

"What happened?" Ramirez murmurs. She needs a distraction.

"Batman murdered Dent." Her mother says it like a joke. The headlines tell her it's not.

"He didn't," she vows. The twisted rage and desire Dent expressed when he held her at gun point squeezed her throat closed. She remembers the reason he had her on the phone. "What about Jim's family?"

"Safe. Apparently Batman was holding them hostage and something about working with the Joker," her mother hums, not looking up from the tabloids.

"That's not true," Ramirez growls. She didn't doubt Batman was there, but something happened. Bats don't attack unless provoked. He made a decision. People hate people who make decisions because they make things happen, for good or bad.

Her mother glances up and raises an eyebrow, as if not days before she was evacuated because a lunatic threatened to blow up the hospital she was checked in to. "Who are you trying to convince?"

Author: In honor of this coming Friday, I've decided to do this short flick. Enjoy. Review. And get freaking excited! =D

(All quotes are from the movie "The Dark Knight" and no, in fact, I don't own any of this.)