Your Frown Is My Umbrella

By the time Joker had managed to get on the road again, Damian was ready to leave for work.

“I should be back by seven,” Damian announced, snatching his keys off of the wall.

Reign nodded from her seat at the table. He sauntered towards her and gave her a quick peck on the top of her head. The drunkenness that possessed him yesterday had been washed away in the night, and now he was the gentle caring man she had first fallen in ‘love’ with.

“Love you,” he called over his shoulder as he left the room.

“Love you, too,” she called back and slumped in her chair as the front door shut behind him.

With a heavy sigh, she pushed her half eaten bowl of Corn Flakes across the table and buried her face in her hands. She hadn’t slept well the night before. Every time she managed to doze off, a startling nightmare would jolt her back to the real world.

There was one dream in particular that disturbed her the most. She had dreamt she was standing in the alley outside of their front door. A light rain was falling from the sky, and she was simply walking barefoot when something caught her eye. There was a little doll sitting in a rain puddle by her feet.

Reign picked it up and held it in her bare left hand, examining the dark button eyes and tattered maid’s dress it wore. Just as she began to think it looked familiar, needles sprung up from beneath the doll’s arms, legs, and torso. The sharp silver pins pierced her pale palm and fingers, forcing her to scream in shock and throw it back to the ground.

She backed away from the self-impaling voodoo doll and prepared to make a run for it. That was when things got worse. A strange clinking sound began to pitter-patter all around her, and suddenly the rain wasn’t so gentle anymore. In fact, it wasn’t rain at all.

The cool water droplets had been replaced with shards of splintering glass.

Another scream tore its way up her throat as the prickling pain engulfed her entire body. The bits of glass pierced through her t-shirt and into her skin, resulting in more screams. She stared in terror at her arms, seeing dozens and dozens of shards sticking out of her skin like crystallized needles.

The doll she had thrown to the ground began to grow. Reign stood frozen in her spot, too afraid to move. When it reached human size, it began to speak with the voice of the anger monster without even moving its blood red lips.

“How does that feel?!” it shrieked, cocking its head to the side. “How do you like it?!”

Reign wailed when the doll reached out with its cactus-like arms and grabbed her by the shoulders. It glared at her with those cold button eyes and Reign thought for certain that it was about to kill her. The hail of glass continued to plummet down around her, and she was finding it increasingly hard to keep her eyes open.

She began to cough in the doll’s grip, and it threw her to the ground. Reign’s grey eyes bulged in shock as she realized she couldn’t breathe. She lifted her head from the pavement and caught a glimpse of the puddle beneath her. There were strikingly vivid swirls of red mingling within the shards of glass and rainwater. Reign saw trickles of the crimson liquid drizzling down her chin and into the puddle.

She was coughing up blood; choking on it. Her throat closed up entirely and her upper body collapsed to the ground again. Her head fell to the pavement with a sickening crunch as bits of glass splintered beneath the weight of her skull. Then everything went black.

When she woke up, she was on the bedroom floor next to the night table with her face buried in a pillow. She had spent the rest of the night wide awake with the lights on.

With a miserable groan, she rested her forehead on the tabletop.

“So tired,” she grumbled.

But she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. She didn’t even want to sleep. Sleep meant dreams, and dreams meant nightmares.

So what was she going to do all day? Sitting around and feeling like shit didn’t seem very appealing. Just as she was about to groan again, an odd thumping sound resounded in the kitchen. When she lifted her head from the tabletop and listened closer, she decided it sounded an awful lot like footsteps.

No, not footsteps; taps.

Reign and Damian lived on the ground floor in a building that took absolutely no security measures. Breaking in wasn’t exactly a difficult task to accomplish…

That’s when she looked down and realized the heel of her right foot was tapping against the floor, resulting in that persistent thumping rhythm. When she stilled her foot, the noise stopped. She frowned.

As tired as she was, she was also inexplicably restless. Not to mention paranoid.

“Stop it,” she mumbled in self-disgust.

Reign got up from her chair and brought her breakfast dishes to the sink. She stared out the little window above the sink and sighed somewhat longingly. Off in the distance, she could hear cheering and loud music. Today Gotham was throwing a celebratory parade for the new District Attorney; Benjamin Crenshaw. She remembered seeing a brief report about it on the news a few days ago.

“And with The Joker behind bars, we believe this will be one of the most successful public celebrations Gotham has ever seen.”

Reign frowned. Everything seemed to revolve around that madman these days. On the news, every other report made at least some reference to The Joker; tying him in with the problem and placing the blame on his purple clad shoulders.

Was that fair? Was it really right to blame everything on one man? Was it even possible? She decided it wasn’t. The Joker may have been a criminal, but he was a person just the same. To pin all the blame on him was simply illogical and unfair.

Without even realizing it, she had chosen a side; his side.

Reign ran her gloved fingers along the edge of the countertop and squinted out the window. Rays of cheery sunshine illuminated the entire room, and it was no doubt a gorgeous spring day out there. Normally she dismissed beautiful days with a mere glance.

Now she felt oddly drawn to the daylight. The sunrays seemed to be calling to her; beckoning her. It was an odd idea to assume the sunshine was trying to tempt her out of the safety of her home. Very seldom did she go outside by herself. She couldn’t even remember the last time she had.

So what was going on? It could have been mere curiosity picking away at her. Maybe it was just the idea of a parade that made her want to go out. She had never seen a parade before. Of course, if that was all she wanted she could just watch it on the television.

But that option didn’t seem very satisfying. You never get the full impact of an event when it’s filtered through a television screen. You never get the same rush of excitement or happiness when you aren’t really there.

“Hmm…” she murmured and eyed the dirty pane of glass warily. “I wonder…”

She mentally slapped herself for even considering going outside. And by herself, no less! What would Damian say?

“He’d get mad,” she muttered. “He’d just get mad.”

She shuddered violently and hugged her chest. She needed to keep her head on straight. No good ever came from taking such chances. It was best to stay inside where she was safe.

Yes. Safe.

But was she? Really? Was she safe?

Reign groaned and whirled around to leave the window behind her. Even still, the sunshine continued to cascade past the clouds and into her kitchen as a relentless reminder of what she was missing.

Her woolen hands found her face and she murmured exhaustedly.

“I can’t. I can’t go out there just to see some stupid parade. I just can’t.”

She took a reluctant step away from the sink, and then another. Yes, she could handle this. She could go and find something else to do. That parade was just a silly idea.

“Why would I want to go to that parade anyway? Stupid…”

Before she knew it, she had made it to the living room. The ratty old loveseat was just to her right. All she had to do was sit down, yet all her body wanted to do was run out the door and into the streets like an excited little child.

“What is wrong with me?” she whispered and forced herself down on the sofa.

She had never felt like this. To her, it felt as though she simply neededto go out there. Something was yanking on her pant leg, so to speak. Reign tried to ignore it. It had to be her nerves playing tricks on her. Going outside all alone just wasn’t a good idea. It was a flat out bad idea. If Damian were here –

“But he’s not here,” she mumbled. “I can do what I want.”

She stood up very slowly and walked towards the kitchen window again. The cheers were louder now. People were obviously having a good time. She wondered briefly what it must be like to have friends and family to go out with. All she had was Damian.

“Just a peak,” she told herself. “I’ll just step out the door and see what it’s like.”

And so she did. She strapped a pair of old running shoes onto her feet (almost forgetting how to tie the laces), and opened up the front door. The moment she stepped outside and the unfiltered sunlight hit her face, she realized something; she hadn’t applied her foundation to hide her scars.

Although part of her couldn’t imagine running into someone, she wheeled around and headed straight for the washroom to apply the makeup that made those scars damn near invisible. Just to be safe. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself.

Immediately afterwards, she went straight back out the door and into the alleyway. The cheering from the crowds seemed to fuel her determination.

“I can do this,” she told herself and felt a flock of excited butterflies fluttering in her belly. “I’m just going to go down the alley and have a peek.”

Miraculously enough, the parade was going down her road now. All she’d have to do is walk to the end of the alley and she would find herself amongst the other citizens of Gotham who had come out to witness the festivities. She closed the door behind her without locking it and began timidly trekking towards the blaring music that the local high school instrumental band was playing in honor of Benjamin Crenshaw.

She could barely hear the sound of her own footsteps as her legs moved in that rhythmic, mindless pattern. Left, right, left, right…

It felt like someone else was controlling her body. Never before had she done anything so flat out irresponsible. Back inside, there were floors that needed sweeping and messes that needed cleaning. And yet here she was, prancing around in an alley just so she could catch a glimpse of that crummy parade. She was a grown woman for goodness sake, but none of that seemed to matter. Something was leading her away, and it couldn’t have been mere curiosity. This didn’t scare her. It made her feel empowered.

Reign didn’t know it, but fate had finally found the time to give her life some much needed change.