Overdose Delusion

05

Willow reached over her shoulder and tied her hair up. Rubbing her eyes, she shuffled out of the train, along with the other commuters. Letting out a yawn she walked over to a small shop in the train station and grabbed a coffee. Sure she had cut down her coffee intake, but there were times, like at seven in the morning, when she just needed the coffee.

The walk to the museum was only five minutes away from the station. Willow only lectured in museums which were within a ten minute walk to the station. This was in case she needed to make a getaway. She hadn't had this trouble before Jonathan reappeared. Each time a police car popped up she panicked slightly. She had missed the danger though. The danger of being caught was sort of thrilling, that she could admit to.

It seemed like today was the day where Willow had the pleasure, or displeasure, to talk to a load of school children. Walking around the museum, spouting random information to school children oddly didn't interest her. Children weren't personally known for their attention spans. Most of the boys wanted to run off and look at the dinosaur parts of the museum, or the hall of armour. The girls, they didn't seem to care much at all. Some even mocked Willow's career choice. She, at this point, looked up at the ceiling and let out a slow breath. Children, it was official, were annoying.

Sitting down at a bench when the children were pottering around a room, along with their teacher, she rubbed her eyes slowly. "I like it here." A small voice said from beside her, Willow frowned and looked over at a curly blonde haired girl.

"I do too." The girl smiled widely and looked up at the ceiling. Willow straightened up and looked around awkwardly. She didn't have a track record of talking to children. She could barely deal with adults. "You're not running around manically with your friends." Willow stated. "Why?"

"Oh...they're not my friends." The girl smiled.

"You...said you like it here? You're interested in history? How old are you? Ten?"

"I'm twelve," the girl laughed quietly at Willow's random onslaught of questions. "I do. Museums are interesting, well I like art too. We were meant to be going to a gallery as well as coming in here."

"Double whammy," Willow whistled. "I never had school trips like this when I was at school." She mumbled quietly. "Sorry about getting your age wrong. You do look surprisingly young for a twelve year old."

"It's because I'm shorter than most people my age."

"You and me both." Willow smiled slowly. "Compact. You're not small, you're compact." The girl grinned at this. Perhaps she had got it wrong, perhaps all children weren't so bad.

----

"I like children."

Jonathan looked at Willow with a worried expression. Lowering the newspaper he was reading, he looked up at her. She'd just come home from work, these were the three words to say to him. No hello. "...We're not having children."

"I don't want any."

"Good. That's great even." Jonathan lifted the paper back up and continued to read about Arkham City. He'd spent most of the day trying to research into it. Where was it meant to be, who's meant to be working there, when is it going to be functional? All these questions and many others flitted through his head. "Wait, why do you suddenly feel the need to say you like children? This is seriously one of the most worrying things you've said as of late, Willow."

"Well I was working today as you know," Willow shuffled over and sat on the arm of the chair he was sitting in. "And I had to deal with a load of children. I forgot how annoying they are, you know? And how harsh they can be, then all of a sudden this little sweet girl talks to me." Jonathan nodded slowly while folding up the paper. "She was nice, sort of oddly reminded me of myself...just...the interests, not in general...that'd be odd." Willow looked blankly towards the window. "Some children though I seriously wanted to throw out of the window the little shits." With this stated she walked off to the kitchen.

Jonathan frowned and mulled over her words. Standing up, he peeked into the kitchen. "Did by any chance, the children say something to you?"

"They mocked my career choice!" Willow said dramatically.

"Is that it?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well..." Jonathan trailed off, Willow narrowed her eyes at him. "It was your choice, that's all I'm saying."

"Learned anything new?" Willow waved a kitchen knife at the newspaper which he was still holding onto.

"No. It seems to be very secretive. Way too secretive."

"You think something is wrong."

"Of course there's something wrong." Jonathan walked in and sat at the table. Willow looked up at him while taking to stabbing into a container which held chicken pieces in it. He pointed a finger in her direction. "It seemed like you got too much amusement out of stabbing that."

"Well, what ya know? Stabbing here and there is fun. Inanimate objects don't scream, or squirm or even put up a fight!"

Jonathan looked at her concerned. "You're starting to worry me slightly."

Willow rolled her eyes. "Thanks for the concern yet I'm fine. Anyway, you get to have your odd moments yet I can't have mine?"

"Name an odd moment I had, go on." Jonathan smirked, crossed his arms and leaned back in the chair.

Willow pouted and looked up at the ceiling. Quickly putting a frying pan on the hob she poured oil into it and put the chicken pieces in. She quickly put other things in with it too, Jonathan didn't know what was going in that pan. Yet he was quite content to see how humble Willow was when cooking. "Erm," she hummed. "Jonathan you're odd all the time. How am I meant to pinpoint one moment?"

"That's not a valid answer to my earlier statement." He quipped. "Regardless, we've got off topic. Yes, there's something wrong with this new secure prison."

Willow looked at him quickly while taking to cutting up some lettuce. "Go on."

"When new buildings get created, they're all in the news. That's if they're important. This is by far one of the most important buildings, or sites or whatever to be built in the city. Keeping this in mind, why does no one know anything about it?" Jonathan looked down at the newspaper quickly. "There's nothing. All the articles say is that it'll be secure, and Hugo Strange is involved. How enigmatic and annoying."

Pulling out two plates she placed them on the counter. Quickly eyeing up the chicken pieces she nodded slowly and took to sorting out food for Hannibal. The husky had just lazily walked into the kitchen. Willow sorted out their food and walked over to the table. Putting the plate down in front of him she sat down. Handing him a knife and fork she leaned her head against her hand. "It annoys you doesn't it?" Willow smirked. Jonathan looked up from the food in front of him to her. "Not knowing anything about this, annoys you. I can see it does." She smiled. "Oh, Jonathan Crane is peeved off over a new secure prison he knows nothing about. Never thought I'd see the day you'd get annoyed over something so...so...mundane." Willow rolled her hand and then stuck the fork into the salad and chicken in front of her.

"Willow, you do realise that if we ever get caught, and put in there, we won't know the places of exit."

"Oh, we need to know how to exit that place." Willow's eyes widened.

Jonathan smiled. "Now you know why I'm annoyed over the secretive nature of it."

----

(Edited: 21/Oct/2019)