Vicki's Return
Category: Blogging
Current mood:  adventurous

After leaving Gotham, Vicki Vale spends a year in Santa Barbara.  It was four months after returning there that she gave birth to her son.  She left him with her brother, James, asking him to keep her son safe.  She then journeyed to South Africa and vanished in the Republic of the Congo.  A year later, she appeared in South Africa on the arm of a scientist named Dr. Marius Cole.  There was no explanation for her disappearance. She and the doctor headed to California.  There they stayed in the house that was once her mother's.  The doctor opened a clinic in Santa Barbara, promising miracles and delivering.  He became the toast of California, and was often seen with Vicki at his side.  She barely spoke, a silent, beautiful presence by his side.

Vicki kept her son Thomas with her at the house in Santa Barbara.  Marius rarely interacted with the child or his nanny.  Vicki did spend hours on the beach.  It was the safest place she could find.  Despite the troubles in her relationship with the doctor, she believed her son was safe. She was, however, slowly withdrawing from attending social events as time went on.  There was an unsettling side effect to his Invictus Serum and she was struggling to come to terms with her life.  Luckily, Thomas was young enough to not pick up on her moods and she made attempts to always be cheerful.  But she did leave him with the nanny for long periods and went out to the beach to avoid Marius.

"This is unacceptable, Victoria.  You are the greatest proof that the Invictus Serum works.  You should be shouting it's benefits from the rooftops." Marius had walked down the beach to stand beside her.

"You should have left me dead in the jungle.  Shout it from the rooftops?  You turned me into a monster, Marius.  After what happened at the hotel in South Africa, and on the plane?  Those nightmares that I can't control?  Your serum did that to me."

"I am sorry that you think it is a curse, Victoria.  I pray nothing bad happens to that precious son of yours.  I wonder what the Invictus would do to him?" He leveled a gaze at her.  "Even if you send him back to your brother, I can reach him.  I recreated you, and I love you.  You should never doubt that.  I hate to resort to threats, but you force me."

  Vicki fled from him, arriving in Gotham on a raining October morning with a small boy in tow. She stayed with Knox, introducing the boy as Thomas and refusing to answer his questions about Africa.  She slept for the first two nights she was in Gotham, after so many nights of fearing sleep. The first night, one of Knox's neighbors jumped out a window, screaming.

  


Back In Gotham
 

The guest room was gray and dark blue, and he watched her draw the blinds and lay the young boy on the bed.  The child rolled into his side, eyes closed tightly.  She sat and rubbed the boy's back.

  Alexander Knox stared, frowning at her altered state.  She was gaunt, keeping her gray-blue eyes from him.  "Four years since you left, and barely a word." He looked at the dark haired little boy.  A toddler, three years of age he guessed. An unpleasant thought occurred to him.  "I saw you on TV, with that miracle doctor.  Though that boy would be too old to be his."

    "I'm sorry, it was difficult when I left and…" She swallowed.  "Forgive me, I will explain this too you after I rest.  Thomas and I are very tired.  "No, Thomas is not the doctor's child.  He is a child of Gotham." She kicked off her shoes.

  "Vicki, what happened in Africa?" He watched her lay down beside the boy, and close her eyes.  "You were missing for a year.  I thought you were dead."

  "I was dead, but he brought me back!" She kept her eyes closed, despite the tension in her voice as it rose.  "Please, no more questions. I am so weary, you don't even know.  No one can know we are here." He drew back from the room, his last glimpse of her pulling the boy back against her to whisper "I promise" against his dark hair.

  The scream woke him.

His neighbor was pounding on the walls.  Knox slid from his bed pulled on the bathrobe and moved to glance out into the hall.  Others were out in the hall, one man pounding on the door of the screaming man.

"Shut up, we're all trying to sleep!"

The door flung open, the generally mild Mr Krebs rushed out with the wild looking his eyes, his hair disheveled, his pajama top torn.  "Out, out, GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!!" He ran down the hall, shoving people out of the way.  "I did pence!  I paid my dues..!" He turned at the end of the hall and ran full speed, until he reached the other end and flung himself out of the window.  He screamed for the entire ten story drop and Knox felt his stomach twist.

From the corner of his eye he saw movement, and turned to find the toddler staring at him with calm blue eyes. Knox knelt.  "You should be in bed."  "You have to find my father.  Mother says it's the only answer, or that will happen again. The dreams find out secrets and she can't control it." Thomas glanced at the crowd.  "He won't be the last." Knox shivered, glancing at the broken window.  When he looked back, the boy was gone.

He heard the sirens and went to check on Vicki and the boy.  He found both of them asleep and found that the shiver turned into something deeper.   Whatever had happened to Vicki, it put all of those around her in danger.

  Meanwhile, elsewhere in Gotham City….

"It's called the Invictus project, it's a serum  that can alter a person's mental or physical state. It's what allows my patience to reach the perfection they so desire. I think that this serum could be useful at Arkham. Imagine instead of years of therapy, the ability to in 6 months, actually heal some of the most psychotic and notorious criminal." Dr. Marius Cole was giving Dr. Anne Carver his best smile.  "I can show you all the necessary studies, and give you access to my clinic records.  I'm just here to offer my help."

The Dreamstalker
 

In the deepest darkness, she stood and let her mind reach out.  She let herself reach out through the dreams of others.  The exercise was meant to help her control her new ability, but she was still having trouble doing so.  Her mind locked in on the dreams of one man.  He was dreaming of a child and what he had done to her.  She observed the dream, unable to alter it at first.  Suddenly, she was being the dream from the child's view.  She was suddenly able to fight back.  The man was suddenly frightened as the dead child in his dream moved, white eyes staring at him as the body moved towards him.  She gave the child an unEarthly voice and stayed close to him as he ran, begging the dead child to stop tormenting him.  He was screaming, trying to run faster to get away.  The dream suddenly ended and she woke.  Thomas was still asleep, the toddler's steady breathing was calming her.  Marius would have said there was no harm in killing monsters.  But at what point would she become one of them?

"You are no longer average.  I brought you back to life, so you are my creation and a more beautiful living doll I could not imagine.  How lucky I am that you are mine." Marius had told her once. 

She found the knowledge of her resurrection disturbing.  If not for Thomas, she might have simply killed herself.  It would correct what Marius had done to her.  She had to protect her son from the man's madness.  Marius had threatened to use his serum on the toddler.  As she struggled to return to sleep, she found herself pondering whether Thomas's father might be able to protect him against Marius.  As far as Marius knew, the boy's father had died.  The truth had to remain hidden.  She knew the man would follow her, and that she would be unleashing him upon the city she still considered home. All she could do now was pray that he would find a new obsession. She also prayed that her new ability would be satiated for the rest of the night.

The Next Morning
 

Knox stared at Vicki across the table. Her son was sitting on the sofa, watching Sesame Street in total silence.  Despite the fact that the night's events had not woken her, there were still circles under Vicki's eyes.  She had't touched her breakfast, though she was slowly sipping the black coffee he'd set before her.  He had been telling her about the events of the night. 

"That's terrible, that poor man." She sighed, setting down the coffee.  "Allie, I don't know why you would think you saw Thomas.  If he had woken, it would have woken me up."

"Does Wayne know about him?"

"No, but there are reasons for that.  He will understand." She took another sip of coffee. "I can't explain it to you. But I should get a hotel room and not stay here again. I need Thomas to stay here.  He's safer here until I can make other arrangements. Marius will follow me here."

"Then you should take him to Bruce.  Wayne Manor has the best security in the city. Thomas said my neighbor wouldn't be the last."

"Marius brought me back with his damn serum, and now my dreams hurt others.  I tried to control it, but I haven't been successful.  That serum altered me, and there's no fix.  Now he's using it on others.  He told me that no one else has had side effects that last more than a few weeks.  But I don't believe it."

"What are you going to do?" Knox refilled her cup.

"Whatever I have too.  I just need Thomas to be safe.  I should take him to Bruce.  He would be protected there and where he belongs.  But I need to explain to Bruce why I never told him." She stared down at the coffee.  "I can keep secrets with the best of them, no matter what it costs me "

 
One Week Later

She stood on the roof of the apartment building, looking down at the sidewalk below. The wind whipped her long red hair around her and she finished the glass of champagne in her hand. She dropped the glass to the street below. Barefoot, she shivered, the silk of the dress whipping as well. She could hear the sounds of sirens in the distance, and closed her eyes. For a moment everything faded.  She was hearing drums, and the laughter of children, the calling of birds and the rustling of the grasses.  She could feel the warmth of the sun as well.  It was the sound of feet on roof behind her.  She knew who it was, since she'd abandoned his party.

  "Is this what it's come to? The fall would be incredible, but the stop is a killer." James Vale regarded his sister. "I really want to help you, but you have to talk to me.  Tell me what happen, and let me help you.  It was terrible, getting messages from you twice a week and then nothing for months.  You show up at my house, grab Thomas and then disappear again.  Again nothing for almost a year till you brought Thomas here.  So I came here to find out what was going on.  You barely sleep, barely eat and I've heard a few things in my time here.  You're carrying a gun.  You're paranoid.  And a former criminal in the building you're staying in suddenly commits suicide because of a dream. What did that man do to you? Come away from the edge and we'll go get coffee."

She laughed.  "It's a little late for you to play the concerned big brother.  Is this your guilt talking?  You watched over Thomas while I was in Africa, we're even.  You have done your part." She stepped back, turned and walked around him.  "I wouldn't have jumped, because I'm already dead, even if I look alive.  Don't stay in Gotham, go back to your lover.  Thomas and I are fine." She moved towards the door. "You aren't innocent and if my dreams find you, you will be punished."