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When Jim finally comes to her place, to shower and change and to perhaps get something to eat, he looks like complete and total hell. It’s to be expected, really, given the case before he’d spent part of the night in a chair with a sleeping boy on his shoulder. But the case doesn't completely account for the haunted look in his eyes, the one that makes Jim look so much older than his years. No, that's only a look you get when you nearly lose something that is important to you.
On top of it all, Lee is more than a hundred-percent sure Jim doesn’t understand what’s going on in his own head.
But that isn’t what matters, here. What matters is the look she’d seen on Jim’s face at the hospital. That fear, familiar and gut-wrenching, the knowledge that someone he cares for was on the edge of death.
Someone he loves.
She recognizes the look; has seen it almost every time he looks at her.
Her initial gut reaction had been to be upset, to be jealous. To confront him with the information when he got to her apartment. But the more time passed between her discovery, and between the time when he had shown up, something like understanding had rolled over her.
Something very much like understanding and sadness that Jim doesn’t understand, at all, and something else. Something that she can only name as resolve.
Because she loves Jim. She knows, too, that Jim loves her. But Jim loves the man in that hospital bed, hooked up to the machines, leaving Jim looking utterly, completely devastated. It was a look she has never seen on his face, and she’d be damned if she ever saw it again.
“How is he?” she asks softly, glad that he had come here, to her. She presses in close to him, offering her warmth to him. He feels cool beneath her hands, stiff from sleeping in the chair, from staying in one position too long. But he leans into her, eyes slipping closed as he seeks her warmth.
“No change,” he murmurs, voice rough with emotion and lack of sleep. He wraps his arms around her, slow and warming, pressing his face into her hair. Breathing her in. She wraps herself around him, tightly, pressing her palms into his lower back, keeping him close.
“There’s… There was no change. I… I figured it would be better to…” His voice is shaky, and her arms tighten around him.
“You needed to step away, because you need to be strong for Bruce. It’s okay, Jim; I know,” she murmurs softly, comfortingly, remaining tucked close to him.
There’s a long moment of silence, unsure and what one could very nearly call heartbreaking.
“I just. I can’t—I don’t understand,” he whispers, roughly, the confusion clear in his voice. His voice is broken, and if there was any way to make this easier for him, she would. She hesitates to speak, wants to let him work this out, but she is sure that he won’t. He won’t understand, because he hadn’t been looking. Wouldn’t have been, she doesn’t think.
There was still so much that she has to learn about Jim. And there would be time for that, she would make sure of it. But for now… For now she needs to help him know himself.
“It’s alright, Jim. Think about it,” she tells him softly, urges him. But he remains lost in his confusion, evident in the way he shifts, the slight shake of his head against the top of hers.
Normally she wouldn’t even think about this, wouldn’t push, not with the situation at hand. But she’s tired, she’s worried, and she wants to make sure that Jim will be okay.
“You…” She doesn’t know why, but she hesitates in saying the words. The three words, the ones that will change everything between them, change everything in their fragile, dark little world. She takes a breath, steps back a little to be able to see his face as she thinks properly on what to tell him.
“You care for him, deeply,” she finally informs him, thinking those words would actually be something that he believes, thinks about, doesn’t automatically dismiss out of hand.
He seems to freeze, blue eyes going briefly wide, before slowly slipping closed. It is quite a bit like the hospital, him leaning into her touch. Seeking what comfort he can in her touch, in her presence. She presses in close, moving one hand to stroke his cheek. He leans into her, even further into her touch, eyes still closed.
“It’s okay to care for people, Jim. It’s okay to care for Alfred,” she tells him, reassures him, emphasizes because she isn’t sure he gets that. From what she understands, from what they’ve talked about, the two of them, Jim has only really let himself get attached to a few people since his return from war, since he joined the police.
There is so much more that she could say, that she should tell him. But she doesn’t want to push, can’t push. Knows better than to push it beyond what has already been said, here.
At least for now. There will be more of a conversation later, once there is no immediate danger. But for now, this has to be enough.
“I don’t know… I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, Lee,” he tells her, brokenly. Letting his forehead fall against hers, letting his hands shift to cup her face. He sounds so lost, and it breaks her heart. She wishes that it would be easy to tell him what to do. Because, deep down, he is a man of action and in this there is nothing that can be done, no action to take, at least not yet. Not with Alfred's current physical state. She could tell him what he needs to do, what he needs to think about, what he will need to finally admit when everything falls back into place where it belongs.
But if she does, he will resent her, he won’t listen, and she doesn’t want to hurt him that way.
“Get showered, Jim. Then go back to the hospital and back to Bruce,” is what she can say, does say, instructs. Because, at least, that is an action that can be easily taken, and one that will give him a little bit of needed strength to carry on through the rest of tonight, and however many more nights he needs to be there with Bruce.
He swallows, takes a breath, shaky and deep, as he gently brushes his thumbs along her cheeks.
Warm and sweet, a bright moment in this dark, dark place. This was hers, and she feels a momentary flash of insecurity, insides clenching when she realizes that setting him on this path means that she will have to share this. But that is something that the two of them will discuss, and figure out, between the two of them.
Or, between the three of them if they managed to come to that. They were, after all, adults.
“Alright,” he finally tells her, after pressing his lips to hers in a brief, chaste kiss. Barely a whisper, and part of her wants more, the part that will forever and always be attracted to this man who is now stepping away from her. She watches him for a long moment, before finally turning away.
The least she can do for him is set up a pot of coffee going for the two of them. There was still quite a bit of the night left to go, after all.