Mixed Emotions

Part 3

By Kali

Dear... Diary? Journal? Whatever. Urm. I don't know why I'm writing in this thing. Leslie thought it might help me deal with what happened yesterday. But, I'm fine. I told her that over and over. Still, she smiled at me, in her wise, kindly way, and I melted. So, I agreed to comply. To write it all down and get it over with.

Note to self; don't write anything in here that can't be read by the "family." Just in case.

Okay, what to say?

Have you ever had one of those days? You know, a day where things go to hell in a hand basket? Well, I have. More times than I can count, to be honest.

Maybe it's just my lot in life? Some sort of karmic retribution for stealing all those items over the years? Who knows. All I do know is that the timing couldn't have been worse.

I was wandering around downtown Gotham, window-shopping, when some jerk steals my purse! Normally, I would've gone chasing after him. But, being seven months pregnant, well, that tends to slow a girl down a bit. So I stayed put, stewed, and gave him my best kitty cat glare of doom as he ran down the street. Oh, I did yell, "Stop thief!" But that was about as effective as yelling "taxi" during rush hour.

Then I got to go on a "fun" trip to the Gotham City Police Department, where I reported the theft to an officer who barely stifled her giggling at the irony of Catwoman being robbed by a petty thief. Oh, God, I'll never live that down.

Dejected and a tad humiliated, I returned to my window-shopping for my little bambino. That's when the real "fun" began.

I first realized that I was being followed when I was standing in front of Bernstein's Toys, looking at a wide array of fuzzy teddy bears lined up in their window's display. I noticed him out of the corner of my eye. He was standing, somewhat nervously, by a nearby fire hydrant reading a copy of the Gotham Gazette. The only problem was, it was upside down.

I decided to test my theory by weaving my way into the mid-afternoon crowd, and then heading for the front window of a lingerie store. Sure enough, when I looked again, there he was. With that infernal newspaper still upside down.

Many thoughts entered my mind at that point. That maybe he was a reporter hungry for a story. That maybe he was a secret admirer of mine. I did have some of those over the years. Wearing a skintight costume will tend to do that. Draw them in like moths to a flame. Which is partly why I dress the way I do as Catwoman. It distracts some of my adversaries. Causing them to make mistakes. But, I digress. Anyhow, as I've said, many thoughts entered my head in regard to the mystery man. What I really didn't consider was that he might be dangerous. Well, that's not exactly true. When you've lived in a town like Gotham, as long as I have, one tends to expect a murderous lunatic coming out of the woodwork every now and then. I just didn't expect some sicko, an unknown sicko, at that, to be bold enough to attack me, the infamous Catwoman, in broad daylight. With numerous potential witnesses milling about. But, attack he did.

I was heading for a phone booth, to call for Alfred to pick me up, when he came up to me, and put one knife to my throat and another to my belly. Normally, no big deal. Under regular circumstances I would've been able to disarm him in a heartbeat. But, as I've mentioned before, being rather pregnant made the situation a might more complicated to deal with.

Anyhow, he forced me into a nearby apartment complex. I didn't find out until a few minutes later, that it was the apartment complex that he lived in. Of course, I was mulling over various ideas of how to get out of the mess, safe and sound, the entire time he was forcing me, at knifepoint, to go with him.

When we reached his apartment I found out how truly disturbed he was. He had headlines about me, and pictures of me, plastered all over one of his walls. With words like "whore," "gold digger," "bimbo", and other "fun" terms smeared in large, red letters over my pictures. Then he started ranting and raving, and thoughts of the Manson murders came unbidden to my mind.

"You're all the same. Every one of you! All out for our money. No good bitch! Well, I'll teach you! I'll make an example of you! Yes, I will. You'll pay, the way she never did!" the man hissed, waving the knife in my face.

His ramblings, I can only assume, had something to do with either his mother or an ex-wife. He really didn't explain, and I wasn't exactly in the mood to hang around to find out. He was so caught up in his diatribe that he didn't even notice me inching towards the sink in his kitchen and pulling out a dirty pan. In fact, he didn't seem to become aware of me again until just before the frying pan connected to his face. I had hoped that it would knock him unconscious but, as it was, he had partially turned at the time, and I ended up hitting him in the nose. Still, it worked as a distraction as he screamed and coddled his broken nose. I grabbed the cordless on the wall and made a beeline for the front door.

Trouble was, the phone was dead. And not just that one. After breaking into an apartment a few floors down, I realized that he had cut the phone lines to the building. So, here I was, on the 19th floor of an apartment building, with an obsessed psycho stalking me, who had left me with no means of calling for help.

At least, that's what I thought originally. Then I saw a computer, and a realization dawned on me. I hurried over to it, and crossed my fingers as I inspected the back of the PC. Much to my displeasure, it proved to have a modem connection.

Then another thought occurred to me. While my cell phone may have gone bye-bye due to now severely suspicious reasons, that didn't mean that there might not be others cells located somewhere in this building. The trick was to find either a cell phone, or a computer with a cable or DSL connection, before he caught up with me. He had disabled the elevator after we had gotten off on his floor. He had also gloated about how no one would be around to hear me scream, since he had made a point of observing and recording his neighbors' comings and goings over a period of time. For their sakes, I prayed that he was right. The last thing that I wanted to have happen was for innocents to be caught in the crossfire.

Before going back out, I decided to look around for items that I could use to defend myself with. I found some marbles in a music box, a lemon juice squirter bottle in the fridge, and a baseball bat. I contemplated grabbing a knife but fears of it being used against me and the baby, caused me to ditch that idea. As it was, I wasn't entirely sure that the baseball bat was a good idea.

The first computer that I came across that had a DSL connection also had password protection. Cursing my infernal luck, I headed towards the front door, only to hear him noisily approaching. Quickly, I prepared to greet him, and greet him I did. With a full shot of lemon juice to his eyes and a baseball bat to the gut.

I left him bent over on the floor as I headed for the stairwell. I went down as many floors as I could, before I heard him enter the stairwell several floors above. Damn, he was determined. As quietly as possible, I continued on till I reached the door to the next floor. I opened it, entered, but before shutting it, leaned down, and pulled out a couple of marbles from my pocket. Then I rolled them on the stairs. They made a racket when they hit the stairwell floors below. Then, I gently shut the door.

It was after breaking into the third apartment on the floor, that I finally found a computer with a cable connection. One that didn't have password protection. Fortunately for me, most computers, these days, come equipped with AOL. So, I managed to sign on under "guest", and started composing my S.O.S. e-mail. Stopping briefly to put another chair in front of the front door. I had found mail sitting near the computer, bills waiting to be entered into Quicken, I assumed. So, I knew where to put my location as. Not that Barbara technically needed that to send help. No, she could have traced the computer's IP number, if necessary.

That being done, I sat and waited. Armed with the juice squirter and the bat.

If Dick saw the last sentence I just wrote, he might make a pun about it. He has such a different perspective on things, than Bruce. It's refreshing, in a way. He'll make a good big brother.

In hindsight, I really don't know how I kept so calm, under the circumstances. Maternal instinct? Common sense? All I knew was that I had to try to keep a cool head for the baby's sake. I hummed an old lullaby as I rubbed my belly, in an attempt to keep focused and relatively calm.

The ultimate indignity of it all, and what still gets to me, was that this man, my attacker... The psychopath who threatened the life of my precious baby, really wasn't all that threatening. At least, not in comparison to some of the rogues that I have taken on in the past. If I hadn't of been seven months pregnant, he would have been a relative cakewalk for me to handle.

After a few minutes, I heard the man pounding on the front door of the apartment. Screaming and ranting his head off about making me pay.

"Just what do you think you're doing?!" A somewhat familiar female voice shouted in the hallway.

"What in the hell are you doing back so early?!" the man asked dumbfounded. "I watched you, your comings and goings, for over two weeks!"

"It's summer break," the woman answered hostilely.

I could hear the muffled sounds of flesh hitting flesh, and bones cracking. The man yelped in pain.

Cautiously, I opened the door a crack. Making sure to leave the door chain securely intact. What I saw was a painfully familiar, raven-haired woman laying waste to my would be killer.

My thoughts at that point were like, "Naw, it couldn't be. Could it?" I mean, what are the odds? That she would happen to live in that apartment complex? I'd probably have a better chance at winning the state lotto.

The woman growled, ranting off a bunch of obscenities as she gave the man a swift kick to the groin. Seeing me, and in particular, seeing my pregnant belly, her fury seemed to increase even more, if that was possible. "Attack a pregnant woman, will you?!" She continued angrily. She brought a knee quickly up to the bent over man's jaw, as her elbow connected to back of his head

A few minutes later, the perp was trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey. With a sticky note on his forehead, which read, "Care package for the Gotham City Police Department. Please, don‘t handle with care."

"You okay?" She asked me. "Your baby?"

"Fine, thanks," I answered back, giving her a weak half-smile in gratitude.

"Well, I think we'd better have a doctor check you out, just in case."

"You'll get no arguments from me."

I'm not sure whether or not she recognized me then. But, after Dick burst in, from the stairwell, calling my name, she probably put two and two together. As it was, his reaction to seeing her, confirmed my suspicions regarding her identity.

So, okay, maybe not everything went wrong. Maybe I exaggerated a teensy bit. My baby and I are okay, more or less, and words can't express how grateful I am for that. It's just... is she going to be a target for every sicko out there? That's what I really can't stomach. And that's why I've been stalling with Bruce over his marriage proposal.

Great, huh? I meet the man of my dreams. A man who is practically the polar opposite of my drunkard father. We fight, we flirt, we kiss, he attempts to arrest me, and we fall in love. Not necessarily in that order. It's like something out of a... Well, okay, not exactly like that. At least not for most people. At least, I hope not. But, to a girl like me, it was a dream come true. I had found my prince, and he's handsome, debonair, compassionate, rich, and heroic. Oh, he has his not-so-nice qualities, too. He can be demanding, arrogant, stubborn, brooding, and a major workaholic to boot. But, I love him.

Hmmm... Helena. I do so like that name.

Disclaimer: All Batman characters are the property of DC Comics. This little fan fiction is meant as pure, harmless fun, and as such, no profit is being made from it.