Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Of the transitions in her life, from child to queen, and back to child again, from beloved daughter and tolerated sister to the last Pevensie, this transition is the most abrupt.

She inhales, and she is Susan Pevensie, secretary, struggling to hold her professional exterior together as The Valiant Queen’s favorite song plays on the radio at work. She exhales, and she is in a different body, huddled in a dumpster, as someone loudly slams on the metal outside.

“Where are you, brat? I saw you come in here!” A woman’s voice shouts, slurred with drink or substance of some sort, but sounding American even through the slur.

Susan knows she should be scared right now. And confused. Her body is. She can feel her heart pounding in her chest. She’s broken out in a cold sweat. But though the body and soul are connected, they are not the same. And if she’s managed to hold back the tidal wave of grief and guilt these past six months, mere fear and confusion will not break that barrier.

The woman keeps shouting and hitting things, but when no response is forthcoming, she continues down the alley. It is a bit strange how she doesn’t look in the dumpster, but it is better to avoid looking gift lions horses in the mouth. Susan can hear the unevenness of her gait, and how she trips, and stumbles into walls. Which just seems to make her angrier. Or at least louder. But eventually, the woman staggers away.

Susan waits eight minutes to ensure that the woman isn't coming back before pushing herself out of the dumpster. It is difficult to get enough leverage to push open the metal dumpster lid. No matter how she arranges herself, she can’t manage to push it open with her arms.  She ends up lying down on the garbage, pushing up on the lid with her legs. Susan hears the sound of something—some type of stone, perhaps bricks—fall off the top of the dumpster as the lid swings open. 

Some of the tightness in her body releases as the risk of starving to death in a dumpster decreases significantly. Though the whole scenario raises some questions. If the lid was covered, how did she get in the dumpster? Magic is the answer of course, but… how did the woman know she was there? It could be a coincidence that the woman was speaking about a brat and Susan just happened to wake up in a small body in the dumpster. Susan truly hopes so. For if it is not, then this is far more complicated than being transported and de aged. Though this is not Narnia that place, Susan does have experience in that sort of thing. But if the woman knew she was there, then this body is not hers but of a person already existing. What happened to them? How did Susan end up in their body? Could she return it to them? Her stomach is churning like a ship in a tempest. The thought of that is… horrifying on some primal level, perhaps not deeper than grief, but on a similar scale.

Susan takes a breath. No sense in borrowing trouble. She needs to channel that most Just King and focus on the realities of the situation. The practicalities. Things she can actually affect. 

Step 1: climbing out of the dumpster. It only takes Susan a couple minutes, one muffled curse as she loses her grip on the top of the dumpster and falls back into the trash, and a skinned knee from the alley street to slip out of the dumpster. Not the most refined exit, but an exit all the same.

Step 2: appraising the situation. Susan doesn’t have a mirror. But looking over her body, it looked like it had roughly the same size and musculature of herself at around 12. She has no major injuries, and the only minor injury consisting of a skinned knee that needs to be cleaned as soon as she can. This body has no scars, same as Susan at 12, so only a mirror could determine if this is her or someone else.

Her attire consists of a button up blouse with sleeves to her elbows, once white and now more a dingy yellow, and covered in trash stains; a dark gray plaid skirt going past her knees, also trash covered but showing it less; and saddle shoes. None of them are pieces from her wardrobe at any age, in any realm. Checking the skirt's pockets reveals nothing and she doesn’t have a bag, so her supplies consist of nothing.

She doesn’t know precisely where she is, but from the dumpster and the decidedly modern (though surprisingly worn) buildings she can see, she's in a city in the real world. Potentially America, from the woman's accent, but she could have been a tourist of some kind. If Susan can find a newspaper, or a kind person to ask, she could narrow it down further.

Step 3: planning for the future. She needs to find water and food and shelter. If she found a lost child in London, she would take them to the proper authorities to be looked after. So she should find a police officer, and have them take her to an orphanage or such. It galls her a bit to go from being completely independent to being a child no one would take seriously again. But denial is the most useless stage of grief, and she refuses to lose herself in daydreams and wishes again.

Step 4: carrying out the plan. Susan straightens her clothes and runs her fingers through her hair to make it as presentable as possible before leaving the alley.

The weather is pleasant; more on the cool side, but well within comfortability, and with an overcast but not yet raining sky. It's cloudy enough that she can't use the location of the sun to determine the time. She decides to keep an eye out for an abandoned newspaper or umbrella, in case it does end up raining.

It's clear that she's in a less nice part of town. The tall brick buildings up and down the street loom, even during the day. Many buildings have holes, or boarded up windows, and she has to avoid piles of trash as she walks on the street. Some rats are even bold enough not to move as she approaches.  She doesn’t see many people, despite it being daytime. The ones she does are nervy, with that look to them that if you pushed them, they would push back. Hard. And none of them seem too concerned about the dirty child wandering around. 

She does her best to pull out her regal ‘I have power’ walk to try and emulate that air of danger and avoid people making problems with her. A 12 year old girl makes an appealing target, and it isn’t as though she's strong enough to take chances. 

What is strange about them is their style of clothing. Everyone is dressed far more casually than she's used to, with jeans and t–shirts being worn as regular clothing. Women are roaming about similarly dressed. And lots of people are wearing headphones, but it isn’t as though they are operating switchboards or on the radio. But fashion is something to take note of when she is safe.

As she walks and walks and walks she keeps an eye out for either a police officer, or a payphone. She passes by a newspaper machine, but she doesn’t have any way to pay, so she can just see the first page. It’s titled the Gotham Gazette, a city which she has never heard of before. The headline is about the Olympics, and none of the other article blurbs seem particularly enlightening. They don't give the country or anything. She’s not Ed good at utilizing even the most random bits of information. But the thing that really gives her pause is the year. 70ish years in the future. She can feel her stomach cramping, but shoves it down. She’d survived in a realm that could be considered medieval, which was further in time than 1949 to now. She just had to reframe her expectations of what the world would look like. Be ready to adapt to whatever the new social mores are. Be willing to learn.

Susan takes a breath and continues walking. Shelter first. Then she can figure out what all of this means. She should be focusing on the world around her, but the back of her mind is buzzing with the implications of this. But even half paying attention, she sees a payphone, and runs over to it.

Emergency numbers are free, but she can't remember what America's is... luckily it is printed on the front of the payphone.

“911, what’s your emergency?” A man’s voice comes through the phone, almost bored. He’s not slurring his words at all, and it’s definitely an American accent, so she is most likely in America.

“I…” How could she not think about what she was going to say when she called? Stupid, Susan!

“If there’s not an emergency you need to hang up, there’s actual people who need help.” The man says, frustration in his tone.

“No, I… I’m not sure where I am? I don’t… I’m not from here and I’m all alone and I don’t know what to do.” Susan says. It’s better to avoid saying anything she might have to contradict later.

“Are you hurt?”

“No, not really, but my parents are gone and I don’t have anywhere to live and I don’t know where to go.” 

The man sighs. “How old are you?”

Susan gets the sense ‘I don’t precisely know’ is not a good answer. “12”

“Mmmm. And how long have your parents been gone?”

“...” Susan doesn’t answer. If this was her body, she could make up a story, but if this body belonged to someone else, this was the kind of thing that could trip her up, and make her appear unreliable.

The man sighs again. “Are they coming back?”

“I don’t think so.” It’s also something that could come back to bite her, but its much less specific than giving a timeline. 

There’s a long pause on the phone. “So you’re 12, alone, and no one’s taking care of you, is that it?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re calling for help from… Crime Alley?”

Who named an area of the city Crime Alley? That was just asking for trouble. But if he's asking, that’s probably where the pay phone is. “Yes.”

“What’s your name?”

“Susan”

“Alright, Susan. Sending someone to your location. They should be there in an hour or so. Don’t leave the area, and stay safe.”

An hour? This isn’t an emergency, but it seems like a long time for a young girl to wait by herself in the sketchy side of town. There is a bench near the payphone, so Susan sits there. Waiting. Trying not to worry about this whole situation and failing.  It is a lot. Time traveling over 65 years in the future, to America, in a child’s body that may or may not be hers, all by herself? 

But no matter how much she thinks, without any new information, she can’t come to any clear conclusions, so it is more stewing in her own misery than real problem solving. The only new piece of information is that she still has an English accent, so maybe the chances of her being in her own body have risen? It’s unclear if that would transfer over? But it doesn't help much.

After around 50 minutes, a cop car pulls into the alley. There are two cops, one in the driver's seat and one in the passenger's seat. 

The cop in the passenger's seat gets out. She is a woman. Susan knows about woman police officers in England, but she’d never seen one before! And this one was fully armed with a firearm! Her understanding of women police officers is that they had less duties than men, and may or may not be armed? So this was… interesting.

The woman police officer approaches. Susan can’t hear her, but she can read her lips, and she says something like “well, I’ll be damned” as she approaches Susan. She seems wary, eyes scanning the surroundings as if she is in hostile territory. 

The woman police officer has blonde hair long enough that it needs to be pulled into a bun. Her eyes are blue, and not particularly kind, though they don’t appear unkind either. She’s young, late 20s or so, and does not have a wedding ring, nor a tan line indicating that she commonly wears one, but if she takes it off for work, it is possible that it would not develop.

“Hello.” Susan says, when the police officer gets into earshot.

“Hello.” The police woman says, voice neutral. “Are you Susan?”

Susan nods. 

“I’m Officer David. My partner in the car is Officer Jefferson. The call said you were on your own and you didn’t know where your parents were?”

Susan nods again.

“Alright. Do you want to come to the police station with us? We can try and find them, and somewhere for you to stay.”

Susan nods once more.

“All right then, if you want to get into the car?” Officer David says.

Susan walks to the car, opes the side door, sits in the back seat, and buckles her seat belt. Officer David gets in the car as well.

Officer Jefferson says. “Well, that was fast.”

Officer David slaps him on the shoulder, lightly. “Don’t make the kid regret it.”

Officer Jefferson grumbles a bit, before starting the car and driving. 

Officer David offers to put on music as they drive to the police station, but the thought of dealing with one more foreign thing right now, while she has to figure out some kind of cover story, does not sound at all appealing, so Susan refuses. Instead, they just drive in silence.

Susan has never been the smart one, but she needs to think of something. She knows that she will not be able to pretend to fit in. She knows nothing about current events, fashion, technology, or even much about America. She has a English accent. If she is in her own body, she has no paperwork. If she is in someone else’s body… that is not something that she can really deal with until she knows it. She needs some explanation of all of these things, but as of yet, nothing has come to mind.

The police station is very intimidating, at least seven stories tall, made of deep brown stone. Something about it makes it look almost like a cathedral to Susan, though she couldn’t give specifics. It’s not like large columns, or stylized windows, or a large bird statue on the top are aspects of cathedral design. Just something about it…

Officer David escorts Susan inside, past the busy front office, into an elevator up to the third floor. Susan is a tad overwhelmed. Not by the number of people, but it is the kind of place that should feel somewhat familiar, but doesn’t. Every desk has a personal television with a keyboard, and she sees people using strange tablets in their hands. The snippets of conversations are similar odd. Some are familiar, about romance, or weekend plans, and some are about… space stations and politics and whatever a ‘batman’ is. Everyone is human and so it feels like she should be able to relate, but she just doesn’t.

Officer David takes her to a private room. It’s very quiet, both in terms of sound, as she can’t hear the outside from inside, as well as decoration. The walls are painted beige, and the carpet is a deep brown. There’s a similarly brown couch, with lighter brown decorative pillows and a blanket on it. There’s also two metal fold up chairs across from the couch.

Officer David has Susan sit on the couch. Officer Jefferson comes in to take her fingerprints. 

Officer David offers her water, and ‘gold fish’ afterwards, saying that they’ll need to wait for a cps caseworker to arrive. The water is refreshing, but Susan does not enjoy the gold fish, as they taste like burnt cheese and have an unpleasant texture.

Susan asks to go to the bathroom after eating them. If there is a mirror in the bathroom, she can lay to rest this ‘her body’ vs ‘someone else’s body’ nonsense and know whether or not she needs to worry about it.

Officer David takes her to a private bathroom, and waits outside. Susan enters and locks the door. She almost wants to avoid looking in the mirror, but that is foolish and cowardly. She balls her hands into fists and looks. She looks like herself. And it hurts to look. Her haircut is what she had at 12, before leaving to the countryside. While using the restroom, she looks at her body under her clothes. No new scars. The woman shouting for a brat was probably just a coincidence. The relief running through her is almost enough to make her smile.

She also takes the opportunity in the bathroom to wash her knee. She has no idea what was in the dumpster, and she would really rather not get some horrific infection. 

Officer David has a strange expression on her face when Susan walks out of the bathroom, perhaps because she took longer than expected, but she leads Susan back to the private room to keep waiting.

Since Susan knows she is in her body, and there isn’t going to be paperwork, it increases what she can say. 

After around 23 minutes, the cps caseworker arrives. It is a woman. She’s wearing a black pant suit, and her brown hair is cut in a severe bun. She’s wearing light cosmetics, foundation, and a bit of eye color. Is married. She sits in one of the rickety chairs, pulling out a clipboard, and looks at Susan intently.

“Hello Susan, I’m Alice Walker, and will be your CPS caseworker. How are you today?” Her voice is low, for a woman’s, but sounds kind.

“I’m doing fine. How are you?” Susan returns, trying to be polite.

“I’m doing well, thanks for asking.” The woman responds. She writes something down on her clipboard. “Shall we get to business?”

And with those words, Susan spends the next half hour using every diplomacy skill she ever learned to avoid giving the intense woman any information. After all that thinking, she doesn’t have a good enough cover story that makes sense without physical evidence, and she doesn’t have any of that. So she just needs to avoid giving as much information as humanly possible, without seeming belligerent. 

By the end of the conversation, she’s given the caseworker only a few pieces of information. Her name is Susan. She’s not from Gotham. She doesn’t know where she’s from; her family avoided people and civilization. They all died recently. She hitchiked her way to Gotham, and doesn’t know where she came from. She doesn’t have any paperwork. Her parents' names were Christopher and Helen, but she doesn’t know their last names. 

When the case worker stops asking questions, Susan can tell she is frustrated. Susan doesn’t know how much she is believed, but the caseworker never comes out and says she’s lying so it could be worse.

After another wait in the room, the case worker comes back, saying that she has a placement. And thus begins the most terrible year of Susan’s life.

Chapter Text

It takes a couple minutes in the thin dawn light for Elaine Thomas to get her work set up at the kitchen table. Tea, hibiscus, in her favorite mug; noise canceling headphones, pink, playing lo fi beats for studying; legal notepad, bound in black leather, ready to be written in.

Duke was out late last night, didn't come home until almost 4 am. It was funny how he thought that she wouldn't notice. His grades were still good, and he didn't smell like alcohol, so she was letting it go for now, just until she got a handle on the world two years after being jokerized. She keeps having to remind herself that he's 17, not 15, and adjust her parenting strategies accordingly.

Rebuilding a life after a villain attack that left you essentially in a coma for years was hard work. Her body may have been up and around, but she didn't remember any of it. What's more, is she had to get all the aspects of her life together again. Finding her son, getting a new apartment, locating all their old stuff, getting legal documents together. And the hardest part was getting her job back! Social workers in Gotham were seen as being useless at best, but she still needed to meet their low standards. Proving that she was cured of joker toxin and passing all the psychological assessments took a month. And even after all that, people in the department still didn’t trust her!

Despite her anger at having to prove herself all over again, Elaine knew that this was for the welfare of the children. So instead of making a fuss when she wasn’t assigned any of the new cases, she decided to work through the back log of children no longer in the system, and make sure all the ts were crossed and is were dotted.

Kids declared dead were easy: make sure the death certificate was from a legitimate source, and confirm that the details matched the file. If not, flag it for review. It wasn’t common, but sometimes a death report came where the names matched, but not the ages. That sort of thing.

Similarly, new legal guardians were simple. Make sure that all the welfare checks had been completed, and/or parenting classes had occurred, and if not, flag as needing more work from the primary caseworkers.

Runaways was where it got more interesting. Other people might just sign off the file, but Elaine refused to allow such shoddy effort to stand. She cross referenced with unidentified bodies in the area, tried to find social media and see if they were still posting, and track down known associates of the child to see if they were with them. Not always to put in the file. Unless they were dead. But just to know. These kids often ended up alone and forgotten, and the least she could do was remember them, even if the system failed them.

And as she opens up the latest file, she could tell from the size of it that it's going to be a doozy.

Susan, no last name, of nowhere in particular. Not an American citizen, but not a citizen of anywhere else either. Elaine sighs. Parents not getting their kids paperwork was a great way to keep them controlled and helpless, and there weren't any easy ways to bypass the bureaucracy machine and get some.

Elaine writes down her notes using orange sparkly gel pen in her black bound notebook.

No paperwork. Cult, villain adjacent, or illegal immigrant?

Susan was 12 when she entered the system, 13 now. Her initial intake form noted her to be in ‘generally good health’, with no serious injuries or scars. So wherever she had been before Gotham, her physical needs had been met at some bare standard.

Her first caseworker was Alice, who Elaine knew was a solid, if unenthused worker. Switched midway through the year to Dave, which was concerning. Dave was the kind of social worker that just didn't care. Did enough of his job to be too much effort to fire, but didn't try all that hard.

Case worker switch. Why?

Alice conducted the initial interview, but hadn't gotten much information. Looking at the transcript, Elaine gives a little smile. Susan managed to avoid giving more than basic information, which was a feat for a child. And though she was uncooperative, she was polite. And she called herself in? Interesting.

Diplomatic. Skilled at dissembling. Why did she call herself in? This was a deliberate choice. And since she called herself in, why would she leave? What was she looking to gain?

Alright, time to look at placements.

The first, with Mr. and Mrs. Sharp. Very conscientious, took advantage of extra classes when they could; a good choice for someone new to the foster system, and without biological family, as they were people who wanted to foster to adopt primarily. If they had been a good fit, it could have been a neat solution. And Susan seemed to be doing well. Good grades, getting involved in extracurriculars, things needed to make a life.

First placement. High level of engagement.

Initially being with the Sharps is difficult, but in a positive way. Like the pain in Susan's muscles after a good swim. They are warm and kind and welcoming. Mrs. Sharp calls her honey and gives her home cooked meals made with love. Mr. Sharp helps her with her homework, and tells funny stories.

But they’re just like everyone else. They only want to hear about what they’re interested in. The second it seems she might bring up something from her past, something personal, something that would indicate that she hadn’t always been their child, they shut it down.

At first, she doesn’t notice. 

“I used to swim a lot.” Susan says, while filling out her math homework at the kitchen table.

“Oh, really?” Mrs. Sharp asks, in that way people ask when they’re only half paying attention, as she chops vegetables for dinner.

“Yes. We used to go down to the pier and swim for hours, and race each other, and we’d walk home as the sun was setting, and had a jolly time.” Susan says, ignoring how her heart clenched at their memory. Even if she tried to think their names, she'd want to curl into a ball and cry, much less try to say them.

“Well, that doesn’t sound very safe, does it. People these days let their kids roam around too much!” Mrs. Sharp says, her knife slamming against the cutting board.

Susan notes the conversational cut–off, but doesn't think much of it. People have a variety of reasons why they might not want to talk.

But it keeps happening.

She mentions how she used to sew with her family, and Mr. Sharp says that that's something "only poor people have to do". Her class has a family tree assignment, and neither of them want to look over it, despite the fact they look over the rest of her work.

And Susan initially, is confused. Why wouldn’t they want to get to know her?

And then Mr. Sharp asks her to call him Dad, and she gets it.

She smiles and agrees, and ignores how choking it out tastes like blood in her mouth. She’s excellent at ignoring the things in life that upset her.

And if she signs up for clubs at school so she doesn’t have to spend more time in that house then she has to, well, she's just trying to be an accomplished girl.

The file does mention the Sharps asking for more information about where Susan was found at the beginning of her placement, because Susan had a severe lack of knowledge about the world. Not just the U.S. Apparently she didn't even know about the Justice League. And didn't know how to use technology.

No knowledge of world events. Could be faking her lack of knowledge of anywhere in order to mask where she's from so she can't be deported, but not knowing what the Justice League is? If it's true, severely isolated cult seems most likely. Especially as she knew enough about older forms of technology, like pay phones, and radio, but not things like computers.

Susan sits in front of the computer in the Sharp's office. Yesterday Mr. Sharp taught her how to use it, and told her to "Feel free to use it whenever!"

If she hadn't had years of etiquette training her mouth would be agape. She'd been reading about the social movements on the United States wikipedia page, and the strides made since 1950! The end of racism was good, but the thing that really knocked her socks off was for women.

A world where she could have a real job that mattered! Women could have bank accounts, and get divorced, and live their lives like men. She could avoid being a shame if she remained unmarried! It was normal! She could be a doctor or a lawyer, or... well she couldn't be the President of the United States because she wasn't a citizen, but a woman could! And googling England was the same!

Susan lets out a slightly giddy laugh, the first she's done in the six months since that terrible day. What a place. What a world!

Why hadn’t the placement worked out? Slightly further down on the file, there’s a note: issues with immigration court, needs more documentation. Ah. That’s unfortunate. They couldn’t adopt Susan anytime soon, so it didn’t work out. But two months at a stable placement wasn’t anything to scoff at in Gotham.

Placement 1: High level of engagement. Lasted: 2 months Ended due to not being able to be adopted. Ick.

It’s under 12 hours from when the social worker said adoption would be a complicated process when the Sharps send her back. Like a dog to the pound.

Mrs. Sharp has the beatific smile of a saint on her face as she tells Susan to keep the clothes and school supplies they got her.

As if they were doing her a favor.

Susan takes a deep breath. Diplomacy is predicated on understanding someone’s viewpoint. In their minds they are. She shouldn’t be angry. 

She thanks Mrs. Sharp before going to Mrs. Walker, ignoring the ice burning through her veins. Next family would be better.

Second placement was with the Whitmores. A couple, with a teenage son. Usually took in older teenagers, but their longest placement had been two years, so they were pretty reliable. It starts off well. Good grades, joining clubs, etc. But 3 months in, Susan’s accused of having drugs. Only weed, but as someone so underage, it was not a good look.

Elaine browses through the rest of the file. No further illicit materials caught. The fact that there was a. no drug test and b. no further illicit substance charges seems to indicate that either this was a one off, or it was someone else in the house. If she had to bet money on it? The son.

Placement 2: Lasted 3 months. Ended due to illicit substances being found. Probably she was just the scapegoat. The fact that Alice didn't investigate further and put the charge in her file is surprisingly lazy for her. Did something happen while I was gone? (Should look into her other files, and see if there's similar issues)

The Whitmores were less nice than the Sharps. Mostly they wanted a live–in maid. It’s a lot of work, a lot of chores, but somehow less draining than pretending to be someone's happy daughter. Susan had never thought that menial labor was something she could enjoy. However, there is something pleasant about having a simple, concretely defined, completable task to do, despite the amount of work. 

Everyone, the mom, dad, and 17 year old son are apathetic towards her, but she’ll take apathy.

When Mr. Whitmore finds weed in his son’s bedroom, he shouts at her and won’t stop shouting for almost 20 minutes. Calling her a bitch, a no–good tramp, and all other number of ignoble nicknames. He won’t listen to her ask to be tested, or anything reasonable. Susan stands in their spotless living room, listening as he calls her a lazy, ungrateful pig. And she takes it. Until he starts “your no good parents are better off dead” And Susan refuses to listen to what he has to say. She walks out of the house, ignoring his shouting getting louder, and goes to the library where she asks the librarian to let her use the phone to call someone. He’s nice enough to let her do that, and  she waits there while Mrs. Walker comes.

When Mrs. Walker arrives she says that they are willing to take her back if she apologizes. Susan refuses to apologize to someone who said things about her family. And so she takes her stuff and leaves.

Placements 3, 4 and 5 are all on the shorter end of placements, only lasting a couple weeks each. Both 3 and 5 ended due to reasons inside the foster parents control. For 3, the foster mom decided she didn't actually like kids after getting a foster kid. Which is insane. If you don't know if you like kids, why would you foster? And 5 ended because they decided to remodel their house and didn't have space for a foster kid when remodeling. Why would you make a commitment to a child and then break it like that? What was wrong with people? Somehow she was always surprised at how careless people could be.

Placement 3. Lasted: 3 weeks. Ended due to foster mom deciding she didn't actually want to foster.

Placement 4: Lasted: 1 week. Ended due to sick family member needing care.

Placement 5: Lasted: 5 weeks. Engagement at school: High. Ended due to house remodeling.

The sixth placement has an incident report, so that doesn’t look good. Susan was slapped by Mrs. Zamboni, leaving a cut on her face from a ring. Unacceptable behavior from foster parents, of course, and probably startling. It was terrible how this girl kept getting shuffled around. Whoever was approving these foster parents was not doing their job up to snuff. Because some bad foster parents were normal. But this many? For one girl? How many more kids were being shuffled around this this? And despite all this Susan was keeping her grades up and joining clubs, which was remarkable. Maybe her coping strategy was school? Because this had to be stressful.

Placement 6: Lasted 1.5 months. Engagement at school: High. Ended due to unfit foster parent (physical violence)

Note: Figure out who has been approving these foster parents, or why so many people who are not committed are applying. Did they raise the money given to families or something? Why are they so much worse than before?

Susan rushes into Ms. Zamboni's apartment. She knows she's late. A fight between Batman and Killer Croc had damaged the normal bus route, and the detour took an extra 15 minutes. Making Susan 8 minutes past curfew. Which was against the rules, but with the extenuating circumstances...

Ms. Zamboni is sitting in her armchair right across from the front door. Her lips are pursed, and her eyes are cold. "You're late."

"I'm terribly sorry." Susan says in her softest voice.

"And what, you think saying sorry is going to make up for the fact that you broke the rules?" Ms. Zamboni asks, expressionless. Her fingers are tapping the arm of her chair.

"No. I didn't intend to, though! The bus took a detour and it added on travel time, so I was late, despite not leaving any later." Susan says as she takes off her shoes but holds onto her backpack, as Ms. Zamboni only wants that put away in her bedroom. She walks into the living room, standing in front of Ms. Zamboni's armchair.

"Sounds like you should have planned for that." The tapping on the armchair gets louder.

"Yes, I understand. Once again, sorry. I'll take whatever punishment you see fit and ensure this doesn't happen again."

Ms. Zamboni sneers. "Oh, how gracious. Deigning to take your punishment." She pauses for a moment before shouting. "Girls!"

The other two foster children, Samantha and Penelope run to the living room, and stand next to Susan. The two of them shrink into themselves under Ms. Zamboni's cold stare. Susan should, too. It might make her less mad.

"Come here, girl." Ms. Zamboni says.

Susan walks over, back straight, gait even, as was trained into her.

"You need to learn that actions have consequences. As an adult you can't just be late to things and break rules all willy nilly! Kids these days, having no respect."

Susan is still standing tall as Ms. Zamboni reaches from her armchair and slaps her across the face. Susan feels the ribbing of her knuckles and the sharpness of the fake ruby on her ring when the back of her hand hits her. She can feel a small amount of blood drip down her face.

"That's what happens when you break the rules." Zamboni says.

Susan can tell she is supposed to be humiliated. Being slapped is supposed to be embarrassing, and making the other girls watch is meant to make her feel shame. But the fact that an adult woman feels the need to hit her because she was late and didn't make herself small to appease her? The heat in her gut isn't shame but anger.

"And what happens when you break the rules?" Susan asks, face expressionless. "Do you deserve to be slapped?"

"What?" Zamboni asks, clearly flustered at Susan's nonchalance. Samantha and Penelope stand frozen in the living room.

"Legally, you cannot use corporal punishment on your foster child. You just broke that rule. Would it be appropriate for me to call your neighbors over and hit you in front of them?" Susan begins. She walks over to the phone.

Zamboni looks as though she can't figure out what to do. This encounter has gone off script and she must be unused to the children she takes in not being intimidated by her.

Samantha and Penelope are looking down at the floor, but Susan can see a tiny grin on Penelope's face. Samantha just looks confused.

"It wouldn't be, would it. Because in the world of adults, it is inappropriate to use physical force on someone, unless you are endowed with the authority to do so, like a police officer. So if this punishment is meant to teach me about the adult world, perhaps it should actually follow its standards." Susan starts to dial Mrs. Walker's number.

Zamboni gets up, realizing what Susan is doing, but Susan picks the phone up off the charging dock and runs upstairs, Zamboni following.

"Alice speaking."

"Hello, it's Susan. Zamboni just slapped me and is attempting to take the phone away from me. I'm going to take the other girls to the local Starbucks. Please meet us there." Susan says. It's not the most polite way to go about it, but she needs to get off the phone and get the girls out of here.

Susan runs into the bedroom she shares with Penelope and drops her backpack on the ground in front of the door. Zamboni doesn't notice it as she runs into the bedroom, and trips on it. Susan runs out of the bedroom and shuts the door, locking it from the outside. Zamboni might destroy their things, but all the girls had put the truly important things underneath a loose floorboard, so she wouldn't be able to destroy anything valuable.

As they walk to the Starbucks, Penelope calls her brave.

The fact that it made her burst into tears was more embarrassing than anything Zamboni could throw at her.

The next placement also has an incident report, and a copy of an email?  How bizarre. Looking at the email, Elaine's eyebrows rose. An email from Susan?

Dear Mrs. Walker and Mr. Roth,

I am given to understand that the point of the foster care system is to provide a relatively safe place for children while custodial arrangements are made.

Being harassed in the place I am meant to live is not safe. 

One Jeremy Reynolds, expressed interest in dating me. I said that I was uninterested in dating a boy 3 years older than myself. He has since refused to take no for an answer. Attached are documented witness statements from the other children in the group home about how he continued to pressure me to go on a date with him.

I spoke to Mrs. Williams, who thought it was "cute" that he liked me, and compared it to “boys pulling pigtails”. So nothing was done. I thought to continue rejecting him and attempt to live here despite the discomfort, but then he put love notes on my bed. Attached are photos of them. Signed.

Once again, Mrs. Williams refused to intervene, so I went to my caseworker, Mrs. Walker to attempt to get her help. She did not provide it, stating “since it is another youth, she should rely on the woman in charge to deal with it” . So she clearly was not listening to me on this issue. I got the other girls in the group home to keep an eye out, and they found him attempting to observe me in the shower, which is definitely sexual harassment. The second set of witness statements attests to that, as does the video caught by Julienne Dench, showing him opening the bathroom door despite knowing I am in the shower.

As I no longer trust Mrs. Walker to intervene on this issue, this email is being sent to her, as well as yourself, Mr. Roth, in the hopes that something could be done about this, as this is unacceptable.

Best Regards,

Susan

The fact that a 12 year old felt the need to extensively document a situation happening to her and get signed witness statements because the caseworker couldn't be bothered to do their job was appalling. What had happened to Alice? Seriously. And CCing her boss? What a ballsy move. Susan was obviously a smart, self–assured person, but the fact that this happened at all was an outrage.

Placement 7: Group home. Lasted: 11 weeks. Engagement: high. Ended due to: Unfit environment (sexual harassment). Social worker changed to David Cooper, after Alice failed to do her job and Susan went over her head. (Note: really have to investigate Alice)

If this hadn't been enough to make Susan want to leave foster care, Elaine kind of doesn't want to read what did.  But she committed to remembering this girl and trying to make sure she is safe, so she will do that, despite her feelings. It hurt to know that if Bruce Wayne hadn't taken Duke in while Jay finished up his contract, Duke might have had to deal with this. Makes it more visceral.

The eighth placement was always meant to be a short term placement while Dave found other options. So it ended on time, and without any notable issues, other than the fact that Susan hadn't gotten involved in extracurriculars at the new school. She'd always joined debate club, or a handicraft club if the school had one, but for this placement, nothing. It's possible it was just due to the fact that this was meant to be short term, which would be understandable, but something to take note of, in case it occurred more. Her grades were still good.

Placement 8: Short term. Lasted: 2 weeks. Engagement: Medium. Ended: short term placement.

The ninth placement is Susan's last placement before she ran away. Elaine takes a breath and looks out the window for a second, letting the sun warm her face for a minute, before returning to work. Whatever happened here was what pushed Susan to leave the foster system (or perhaps she got kidnapped? that's also possible in Gotham), so it would probably be sad and depressing and make Elaine question humanity again.

There’s a medical report in the file. 27 days after entering the home, Susan was admitted to the hospital. Injuries included broken ribs, severe abdominal bruising, a wrist sprain, a black eye, and a concussion. 

It’s been almost a month at the Rochesters. It’s cramped, with three other foster kids, and never quite clean enough, no matter how she scrubs things, but there’s enough food to eat and nobody’s hit.

So Susan wasn’t prepared for Mr. Rochester to storm into the living room, shouting at Finn.

“How dare you!” He shouts as he walks up to Finn, face red, spittle going out of his mouth.

Finn looks like a deer in headlights from the couch. His mouth opens and closes uselessly like a fish.

“My daughter. MY DAUGHTER!” Mr. Rochester screams.

Ah. This is about the romance between Finn, a foster son, and Lucille, the actual daughter. Being around Lucille hurts like a gaping wound, but from her talks with both Finn and Lucille (what they would tell someone 4 years younger) was that both of them "were into" each other.

“I’m sorry sir, but… but I love her. “ Finn says, hopeless romantic that he is. Susan’s seen the books of poetry in his backpack.

Susan sees Mr. Rochester reel back, arm getting ready to punch. Before Susan can begin to think she’s on top of Finn, doing her best to shield him with her body.

She’s not going to watch a grown man beat up a kid. No. Unacceptable. And maybe her being between them will make Rochester stop and think. And–

Susan is not used to physical pain. Emotional pain, yes, but she was Queen Susan the Gentle. She generally did not fight with melee weapons, and as such did not generally deal with acute pain. Cramping, yes. Fingers hurting and even bleeding as she learned to shoot the bow and play the harp, but those were deliberate, or natural.

A fist to her back was not natural.

The first thing she noticed was how it took the wind out of her. The air in her lungs rushed out with a weird wheezing sound. And then the pain. A dull ache spreading throughout her back. And then he hit again, and again, and again. 

Susan tried her best to stay upright, and on top of Finn, so Rochester couldn’t hit him. She grabbed onto Finn so she couldn’t be easily moved.

It felt like it went on and on and on. Susan could run away from Zamboni and get to phone. But if she moved this time, Finn would get hit. And this was a grown man. She didn’t… She hadn’t practiced any of her defense knowledge and this wasn’t… she couldn’t remember what to do. She just had to lay there and take it.

All she could remember was Edmund holding her, hand running through her hair, after the first time she was kidnapped and a man tried to make her marry him, and she just stopped being a person while she was locked in that tower.

“We’re not like Lucy or Peter, brave enough to just go for whatever stupidly risky plan they come up with in their weird little brains. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do anything. I promise we’ll always come for you, if you promise not to turn off your brain, okay Su?”

But Edmund’s not coming, so he can’t say anything, and Susan floats away.

Susan’s in the hospital for a week, but then… Dave sends her back?! Why would he do that?! Why would she go back?! In what world do you send back a child to someone who beat them? Who put them in a hospital?

Elaine is used to the horrific things people could do to kids. She doesn't like reading about it, or hearing about it, but she knows what to do. But the point of CPS was to help kids. Get them out of unsafe places and turn those places into safe places. She'd knows how corrupt Gotham CPS was in previous decades, but there'd been the big clean up, and a concerted effort to make the department respectable again. So to see coworkers fail to do even the barest minimum is just a spit in the face.

Placement 9 Lasted: 35 days Engagement: High Ended: Susan ran away after being reassigned there. (Note: Investigate Dave)

Susan stares at Mr. Cooper from her hospital bed. “Please repeat that.” She says, staring blankly at him.

Cooper gives her a television smile. “Right, so. The whole troublemaking thing means that it’s really hard to find you families. So we’ve got three options. First, you get deported.”

Considering Susan is not a legal citizen of any country, she has no clue where they would deport her to. Would they just stick her in a bus or a boat and chuck her over the boarder? How would that even work? 

“Second, you go to juvenile detention.”

Susan could probably survive juvenile detention. She knows how to make adults like her, and she’d survived under rations in the war, and could probably survive whatever terrible food juvenile detention would have. But it would go on her record, making it exceedingly difficult to go anywhere good for college.

“Third, you go to the only family I have that will accept you: The Rochesters.”

Or she goes back to the man that put her in the hospital.

Cooper is still smiling. Anybody with any sense of empathy would stop smiling as they laid out these choices, but clearly there’s something wrong in his head. And his work ethic.

Susan smiles back at him, like a chimpanzee making a threat display. “I’ll go back to the Rochesters.” She says softly.

“Excellent.” Cooper says before leaving the room.

Susan the gentle is done being gentle. She’s tried their way, to follow the laws of the land, but this is ridiculous. She’s been good, she’s done what she is supposed to do, and she is being punished for it. She may be willing to tolerate much to avoid conflict, strife, and having to give up her creature comforts, but she does have her pride, and she will not take this.

That night, after returning to the Rochesters, she takes the backpack of school books and clothes she’d collected in her time in foster care, before sneaking out the window. 

She’s never had to survive on her own before, but other children manage to do it, so how hard could it actually be?

Elaine can’t blame Susan for running away. 

Susan didn’t have anyone from before foster care that Elaine knew about, nor did she have social media. No known Gotham haunts. 

No Jane Does looking like her in the morgue, either.

Wherever she is, Elaine hopes she’s doing well. 

The sunlight has shifted from the early dawn light into midmorning. Elaine looks at her notes and the computer. Today, she’ll spend with her son. But when she goes back to work tomorrow, Elaine is going to be on the warpath. Whatever happened to Susan was a result of poor management, incompetent assessors, and overall, a failure of the department. She can’t find Susan, but she can work on fixing the department. Again.

Chapter Text

As the fire of her self–righteous anger fades, Susan starts to feel a chill in her bones. Her jacket is not of the highest quality, and the chill of Gotham in winter only gets worse after dark. There's no conveniently placed fur coat to grab to brace herself against the biting winds.

It would have been better to time her escape for the morning; both to avoid prime crime time, and to have more than a few hours to find a place to sleep. However, she can't go back now and risk Rochester having noticed her absence and deciding to put her in the hospital again. Or returning her.

It's no use thinking about what she could have done better. It's already happened, and she's not safe enough to brood. She needs to make a survival plan. Back to basics.

Step 1: Appraisal. She’s physically mediocre at best right now. She’s been let out of the hospital, but her ribs still hurt, and she’s overall tired. She’s wearing a jacket, a scarf, her watch, and her only pair of sneakers. Inside her backpack she has a week’s worth of clothes, a bag of teriyaki beef jerky, a full bottle of water, a notebook and writing utensils, a gas mask, and 52 dollars from doing odd jobs at former placements.

Step 2: Plan for the future. She needs to find a place to stay for the night that will protect her from the cold, and the ruffians and scoundrels that roam the streets of Gotham. She has enough water and food to last until tomorrow. Anything else is a problem for Future Susan.

Step 3: Implementation. Where can she stay? It’s 6 pm right now, early enough that it’s not suspicious for a 13 year old to be walking around and getting on a bus by herself. She has around 2–3 hours to be in public spaces. As it gets later, people might think she has questionable parents, but nobody is going to call the police until 9 or 10 probably. The later she’s out, the more problems she has to deal with.

She only has a flip phone, so she can’t google anywhere to stay. Think, Susan, think.

None of her placements have been in areas with lots of abandoned buildings; Gotham CPS prioritizes financial well–being in its foster families. Despite having been here a year, Susan hasn't done much exploring of the city itself, not in the way that would give her knowledge of a place to stay. Some other kids in her placements ran away, and she knows she overheard Priscilla talking about her plans after leaving, but it didn't seem important at the time, and so it slipped out of her head like a marshwiggle in a swamp.

Susan wracks her brains. Something. Anything. 

She can risk Robinson park, but in addition to the killer (?) plants, she doesn’t have a tent or a sleeping bag, so she’d be in 40 degree weather without protection from the wind all night. 

The Gotham art museum is already closed, and even if not, it’s probably not worth even trying to pull a Kincaide and live in the museum, even if it would be “really cool”. The Kincaides didn’t have to deal with security for Catwoman and other miscreants.

A shelter isn’t an option because they have to report her to CPS. If she can’t think of anything else, she can stay at one for the night, but she’d have to sneak out in the morning, and it’ll put her on their radar as someone to watch out for.

And then it hits her. Tonight, her school has a basketball game at Central Middle. If she buys a ticket into the game and slips into the bathroom during it, she can sneak into the school. Most schools in Gotham have security cameras on the outside, but Penelope said that “only the real sketch ones” have security cameras on the inside. So as long as she stays inside all night, and leaves in the rush of students in the morning, she can have a safe, relatively warm place for the night.

Figuring out the bus route to Central Middle is annoying, as she doesn’t have an app or google to figure it out, but using the way too small map on the bus stop, she manages to find a suitable route. Luckily, she doesn't have to take fare money out of her budget, as in Gotham, foster kids get a card that covers their public transportation. Eventually, it'll be deactivated, but until then, Gotham's her oyster.

It’s 6:32 when she reaches the school. It costs 6 whole dollars for a ticket, which is annoying, but the last thing she needs to do is be hasty. She can make back 6 dollars. If she tries to make it on the streets and falls through the floor of an abandoned building, or gets kidnapped, or has any number of other terrible things happen to her, she can’t reverse that. She still has 46 dollars. It'll be okay.

The gym is pretty packed for a middle school sports game. She sees Alphonse and Roger from math class sitting in the bleachers, but they don't seem to notice her as she sits on the end of the stands, nearest the door into the main school building.

The basketball game is pretty boring, despite being varsity. Actually, most sports are boring. She can recognize the physical skills and strategems needed to succeed, but honestly, compared to a good joust, or a melee, it’s remarkably tedious. She might be more interested if she knew any of the players, but as it is, it's just mediocre children running around with a ball.

But she feigns interest, carefully watching the ball move across the court, booing or cheering as needed until a particularly intense game moment in the last quarter. Then, she leaves the gym, entering through the doors to the school proper. Hopefully everybody was paying attention to the game, and if not, thought she went to the bathrooms. Seeing no one in the hallway, and no cameras in the ceiling, she finds the nearest stairwell.

The school has three floors. Susan heads for the top one, so there’s the least likelihood of anyone hearing her as she tries all of the doors in the hallway. Sometimes people forgot to lock their doors, and if they did, she can hide in there, without breaking in. Nope, all of them are locked.

The sounds of cheering from the gym get louder as the game comes to a close. There aren’t any windows in the hallway that can show her to anyone outside, but it would be better to be hidden somewhere in case anybody decides to roam the school building. 

Susan runs down to the second floor, keeping an ear on the game as she tries the doors. If it sounds like the game is over, and she still hasn’t found a room to hide in, she’ll run up to the third floor and pray that no one needs to come up there.

Just as she starts to worry she was going to have to try to lock pick a classroom door with one of her hairpins (she’d only ever learned to pick Calormen locks), one of the classroom doors opens. Susan ducks in, and shuts the door quietly.

It’s a basic classroom, only desks, no fancy reading corners or anything. The walls have a map of the United States, and various posters about important historical events on the walls. The teacher’s desk has a manila folder with a sticky note saying “for the sub”. 

Susan gets comfortable on the floor up by the whiteboard, so she's not visible from either the outside or inside windows. She pulls out her beef jerky and nibbles at it. It's hard to commit to eating it all when she'll be out of food when its gone. Drinking the water is easier, as there's water fountains all around the school.

It takes about an hour for the school to empty of people. She manages to pick the lock of the bathroom door on the second floor (it's much easier than she thought it would be), and she uses the sink to wash up a bit. She wishes she'd taken a shower to get the hospital feeling off of her at the Rochester's. She could go down to the gym and try and shower in the locker rooms, but considering the game tonight, something about it feels risky.

Susan returns to the history classroom, heading to the teachers desk. She pulls out her yellow sweater, balling it up, and using it as a pillow as she lays under the teachers desk. She sets an alarm on her watch for 5 in the morning, before drifting off to sleep.

Her rest is fitful. Sleeping on the tiled floor is cold, as the heat is off, and though it’s definitely better than sleeping outside, it is by no means comfortable.

Susan jolts awake at the sound of her alarm. She quickly gets up, putting her sweater back in her backpack. She's hungry enough to finish her beef jerky. After, she grabs the broom in the corner of the room to sweep under the teacher's desk. She leaves the room, fills up her water bottle, and tries the doors of the janitors closet on this floor and the next. She attempts to open the closet on the third floor with her hairpin, but unlike the bathroom door, it takes more finesse than sticking in the hairpin and wiggling it, and it takes long enough that she hasn't managed to open it when she hears a car outside the school building. Damnation!

Susan scans the hallway. She could try hiding in a bathroom stall, but if someone goes in there and finds her there when she's not supposed to be, the jig will be up. Similar issues if she hides in a classroom.

Susan notices a large metal vent near the floor. It's insane and undignified, but it looks big enough to fit her. And there's not a lock on it, only screws, and they look big enough she could unscrew them with a quarter. It might be uncomfortable, but no one would be looking for a homeless child in a vent.

She quickly opens the vent, her hands steady despite the nerves. The metal is cold, and it's a small space; she is half curled up to fit. Her muscles are going to be sore after the few hours it'll take before she can depart. She realizes the second issue with this plan. She has to hold the grate in place until she leaves, because the screws are on the outside, and the cover won't stay on its own.

It's a boring, yet tense couple of hours. Boring, because it's just her and her thoughts. Tense, because every time she shifts in the vent, she makes peculiar metal sounds, so she has to stay as still as possible, ignoring the cramps in her muscles, so no one hears her.

The only thing that breaks up the monotony of the wait is watching people pass by. From the angle she's sitting, she can only see their legs, but it's something to look at that's not the metal grating, or the beige and red floor tiles, or the beige cinder blocks of the school walls.

The first person that walks by is a man, wearing khaki pants and dingy sneakers. They have paint flecks all over them. Art teacher, maybe? He is a skinny man, and he walks skittishly. Like a man scared the wind will pick him up and carry him away. Why is he so nervous? It could be something boring, like he is new at the school, or he could be nervous because today he is going to confess his love to a fellow teacher at the school, and he is anxious about how she will react. If he's the art teacher, perhaps she is the math teacher, and they are supposed to stay apart because the arts department and the math department are at war over funding...

As people pass, Susan continues to make up little stories about their lives and the drama within the school. It might be queer and rude, but it is better than her own thoughts.

A woman walks by wearing purple velvet pants embroidered with flowers. She doesn't walk close enough that Susan can see the stitches to determine if they were hand sewn or not, but they look to be such fun. Perhaps this is the woman the khaki pants man wanted to confess to.  As she approaches, Susan can hear the woman singing a song to herself as she walks. Her voice is low for a woman's, but lovely when she sings, though the woman stops when she notices someone else walking down the hallway.

Susan abruptly realizes what an invasion of privacy the last few hours had been. The woman clearly didn't want anyone to hear her when she sang, and Susan got a glimpse because she didn't know she was there. As queen she had spies who delivered reports, but she’d never thought about what it looked like to collect that info. Here were people not expecting to be observed, doing the private things that people do when unwatched, and here she was watching them. For no purpose other than her own amusement. Like a creep.

It isn't like she is watching them at their homes, or in the bathroom though. This is a school, a relatively public place. Anyone could stumble on another person at any time. Is it really that terrible?

Finally, kids start filtering into school. She waits until there’s no one visibly around the area of the vent, before slipping out, straightening up her clothes, putting on her backpack, and walking out of the school with no one the wiser.

She grabs a 2$ breakfast sandwich from Big Belly Burger. (Bat Burger is better, but doesn't have breakfast options). 44$ left. 

Today she has to figure out the logistics of being homeless. Past Susan didn't want to deal with it, but it's too urgent to give to Future Susan. She needs internet access, and going to a coffee shop is definitely going to be too much money.

Susan decides to go a library. It might be a bit of a dumb decision, as it's a governmental building, and she's a child technically on the run from the government, but if she mentions that she’s doing online school, and her laptop is broken, they probably won’t be too suspicious if she’s only there for today.

The Gotham City Public Library Central Branch is the kind of building where you can feel the history. The building looks old, with its white pseudo–Grecian stone columns, and carved pediment depicting Apollo fostering Chiron, but according to a plaque inside, the entire building had been destroyed in an earthquake and Wayne corporation financed its complete reconstruction. So maybe Susan isn't feeling the history, just the... ambiance of learning. Or she's easily fooled by elegant facades.

Susan waves to the red–headed librarian in the wheelchair at the front desk as she enters, before pulling out her library card. It is a risk to use it, if she’s being tracked, but the chances of police subpoenaing a library for usage records sounds… crazy? At least for the first day she’s gone missing.

Susan boots up the computer. She pulls up a school website of Webster online school to switch to in case someone peeks over her shoulder.

Right. Research.

The problems are thus; Gotham soup kitchens and homeless shelters are mandatory reporters, i.e. she will have to go back to CPS. Online she finds that it’s a controversial policy, so if she can create enough plausible deniability about her age, they might help, but unless that happens, they’re out.

Sleeping in abandoned buildings is technically a crime. Which normally wouldn’t be a big deal, except she already has juvie hanging over her head. Also she doesn’t know of good locations; she’s not too familiar with the side of the city with more abandoned buildings.

She needs a way to make money, for food and supplies, and the subway and bus when her transport card gets shut off. The issue is, she’s thirteen, and doesn’t have useful skills. She can do secretarial stuff, but no one’s going to hire a thirteen year old to do that. She could become a cleaning lady, but she has no supplies and again, thirteen year old. There’s illegal stuff, but she'd rather not completely ruin her life. She could try and work out odd jobs on the internet, but she doesn’t know enough to make that work. She could try and make stuff and sell it, but that requires base costs of supplies, and advertisements and such.

Susan sighs. Still not many good options. If she had an instrument, she could busk, but that’s not enough. Future Susan is going to have to figure this one out.

She needs a place to stay. She doesn’t make money, so anywhere that makes her pay is out. Shelter out, abandoned building, out. Outside isn’t an option unless she gets a tent or sleeping bag or something…. She also needs a place to keep herself clean. And something in Susan’s head clicks. She slept in a school last night. Is there any reason she couldn’t sleep in one tonight? There’s showers in the locker rooms, and she could sleep in classrooms. Central Middle is big enough that nobody will think it’s queer that they don’t recognize her, when she slips in and out.

Where to stay on the weekend though… Unless she stocks up on supplies, being in a school for a weekend is bad news, because she's going to be stuck there unless she wants to get caught on the outside camera. But, it's another problem for Future Susan. She can just see how the next few days at the school goes, before making big plans like that.

Before heading back to the school, Susan stops by a grocery store and picks up some canned beans and a can opener. The three cans of pork beans cost 3.96$, and she finds a can opener on sale for 3.01$. 37.03$ left. She'll need to investigate the school kitchen to see what she has access to, but for now it's something to eat.

Sneaking into the school is a breeze. No one notices her in the hustle and bustle of departure time. Going up to the third floor, she lurks in the hallway until it clears out enough for her to hide in the vent.

Watching people feels less awkward with more people passing by. It's less personal, and everyone is expecting that they will be seen by someone, so it doesn't feel as privacy violating.

Nobody piques her interest as much as the lady in the velvet pants, though. She's one of the last people to leave the building, other than the janitors. She walks out of the building, talking to an older woman in a long black skirt. Susan only catches a snippet of their conversation.

"I understand the need for discipline, but they're just children." Purple pants says.

The older woman sighs. "Teachers these days... Nobody is going to learn anything if they don't respect you."

"They do respect me." Purple pants says, slight bite in her voice. Not enough to be rude, but definitely pushing against older woman's authority.

"It's your classroom. Just don't be surprised when it doesn't work out."

The most annoying part about hiding in the vent is waiting for the janitors to leave. They don't leave the building until 10 p.m. Which means she has to spend a lot of time hiding. If she’s planning on staying here, she needs a better way to deal with this.

She practices wedging the vent back in such a way that she doesn’t need to actively hold it. It makes a sound, but if she times it right, no one should notice. That way, she can lay down in the vent, and take a nap, meaning she can use her time outside of the vent for other things.

Actually climbing through the vents is a lot harder than it seems. Inside is all slick metal, so her skin squeaks, and there’s not many grip points, and when she moves wrong, she can bang body parts into the vent itself, making a loud clanging sound. For now, vent travel is beyond her abilities.

That night she investigates. It’s hard to stay clean when dumpster diving, but there’s a lot of leftover food in the school’s dumpster. Disgusting, but better than starving. She tries to stick to things in packages;  there's more than she thought there would be, kids must throw away food they don’t like. If she supplements her food with things she scavenges, she might only have to stock up on food for the weekend, letting her stretch her budget longer.

She showers in the gym, with boys soap she found out in the guys locker room. Kind of gross, but at least she’s clean. She bags up her dirty clothes in a plastic bag so they don’t touch her clean clothes. She also grabs chalk powder from the gym to help with the vent grip problem.

Days pass, and Susan gets used to vent traversal. She can even make it work without the chalk! She only does it during passing periods, to disguise any sounds she might make, she sweats more than a greased pig sometimes, and her arm muscles burn, but she makes it work.  She gets to watch classes sometimes, which initially is interesting, but moreso just serves to remind her that her plan of getting a good education and becoming someone important is out of the picture now.

So instead, she tracks down the woman in the purple velvet pants. Her name is Ms. Cynthia Webb, and she’s an new teacher here, just having graduated with a teaching degree. Susan tries to spread out her queer stalker moments among different people, but she keeps coming back to her. She’s just… a lovely person. She sings to herself when she walks down the hallway, and her voice is beautiful. Her style is bewitchingly confident, as she wears bright colors, unafraid to stand out. Her laugh is loud and bold. She’s kind to students who ask her questions, and she always has a smile. She draws little pictures on the whiteboard every day relating to her lesson. It's just... nice to watch someone so kind.

Susan makes handmade flyers advertising her babysitting skills using school supplies from the teachers lounge, and puts them up at the library (though she doesn't stay any longer than that). The red–headed librarian doesn't seem to care that she's a child not in school, but a different librarian might be more stringent, so she can't risk staying too long. If she had sewing supplies, she could advertise tailoring, but it has too high of an initial start up cost.

But as it becomes Friday, Current Susan has to deal with the weekend plans that Past Susan didn't. She still doesn't know anywhere it would be safe to be, so she buys enough food to last for the weekend and decides to hunker down in the school. 28.07$ left. It's a lot of beans and cup noodles microwaved in the teacher's lounge. She'll need to figure out better food sources so she doesn't get scurvy, but she has to make it long enough for that to be a problem.

On Tuesday, after going to the laundromat (24.57$ left), she decides to try going to Robinson park. She’s never been. Half the time Poison Ivy had taken it over, and the other half of the time she was too busy at school and such. But Ivy was supposed to be in Arkham right now, so it should be safe enough, and if she went back to the school, she'd just stalk Ms. Cynthia.

Getting to the entrance of the park is… underwhelming. She’d somehow expected it to be big and bold and clearly Other . A hallmark of The Wild . But it looks like any other park. Tamed grass, curated flowers, trimmed trees and bushes along carefully sculpted paths. It might be a bit greener than normal for this time of year, but it doesn't scream "magic".

But Susan wants to see if there was anything here. Anything… more. So she walks into the park. There are a few scattered people, but it's pretty empty. Could be due to the cold, or fear. Hard to say.

Susan picks a direction and starts walking. She walks a good ten minutes at a brisk pace, even with her short legs, but… nothing. 

She doesn’t have all day to spend here. To get back into the school with minimal risk, she needs to be there by 3 pm, when the day ends, so the cameras don’t mark her out as notable.

She doesn’t have time to wander around and hope for the best. 

Susan closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She remembers the smell of life as she danced with the dryads at the beginning of spring, the warmth in her stomach when He shook His mane, the chill when the White Witch raised her wand. Or even that terrifying weight of Old Magic as a fundamental force of the universe, as big as Time turned its eyes towards you. Is there… anything like that here?

She stands there for several long minutes, before she smells a strange scent on the air. It smells… almost too sweet, like satyr’s avens. Only the barest hint of it.  Keeping her eyes shut, she follows it, being careful as she stepped each foot down to avoid tripping, or walking into people. The scent gets stronger, strong enough to follow even if she's not focusing on it, and she opens her eyes, doing her best to keep following it. She walks north for 15 minutes, the scent continuing to grow, and more notes being added on. Sweet, but with deeper notes, like petrichor, and the rusty tinge of blood.

And finally, she sees it. A forest. A true forest. Not these half dead things everywhere has now. Layers upon layers of plants, old growth and new growth interspersed. But she doesn’t hear any animals, and flowers she doesn't recognize are blooming, despite it being February.

Susan can see the boundary where the two worlds: pruned garden and vivid forest met. She walks up to it, careful not to overstep.

She sits on the ground cross legged, in front of it, and just… feels.

It isn’t like… there. More wild, untamed than her kingdom had been, even at its worst. For it ultimately belonged to Him and He may have not been a tame lion, but He did care for her and her people. This forest does not care one iota about anything outside of its survival. Moreso than not caring, it is hostile. It would enjoy painting itself in her blood.

Susan sits at the boundary for a while, her sense of time leaving her. How beautiful in its terrible honesty.

But she cannot live at the park. And so, when her watch alarm goes off, she stands up and walks away.

One week turns to two. She's able to scrounge in the dumpster for food, but she still has to stock up for the weekend, leaving her with 9.37$. The babysitting advertisements don't work, clearly.

She visits Robinson park a couple times, but her transit pass gets canceled, and she can’t afford to actually budget for such a frivolity.

And something is wrong with Ms. Cynthia.

The 13th of March, Ms. Cynthia comes to school in her classic velvet pants, but she's...different. She stops singing to herself when she thinks she’s alone. She acts the same during class, she still draws on the board, but when she’s by herself, there’s just something… off.

Susan can’t put her finger on it. 

Is something wrong at home? Has she realized she has a stalker? 

But there’s nothing to do. Susan doesn’t know her, outside of her peeks at her life. She might know all about the fights with her boyfriend she tells her best friend about, but Susan's never even spoken to her. It’s bizarrely personal yet she doesn't know her, and that means she has no recourse of what to do.

It’s not like you can call the police because someone’s acting peculiarly.

Cynthia starts talking more to a senior teacher, Mrs. Redd. and Susan always got the notion that Cynthia disliked her.

But there's nothing to prove, and so Susan ignores her gut feeling.

On March 17th, Susan traverses the vents to the faculty lounge after school, and sees Cynthia standing over an unconscious Mrs. Redd, holding a knife. Her eyes are cold. This is the face of a murderer.

Ms. Cynthia mutters to herself. "This identity didn't work out, maybe an older woman would be better."

So at least, whatever this is, it isn't Ms. Cynthia. A shapeshifter? Had Ms. Cynthia made a deal with the fae? The student record thing seemed strange for something magical...

Not–Ms.–Cynthia gets closer to Mrs. Redd. Nobody's coming, the school is empty, and even if Susan calls 911, they'll get here too late.

Susan doesn’t have a bow, and she’s weak, but if she doesn't do anything, Mrs. Redd will die. 

Susan is lucky that the vent to the teacher's lounge is in the ceiling. She'll need to kick it with her full body weight to have any hope of moving it.

With a hard kick, it pops out of the vent, hitting Not–Ms.–Cynthia in the head. It also hits Mrs. Redd, who doesn't even stir. Susan winces. But better bruised than alive.

Susan falls out of the vent, slamming on the ground. She mostly falls correctly, but rolls her ankle. She quickly pushes herself up.

Not–Ms.–Cynthia recovers from the surprise of the vent much faster than Susan wanted, and turns toward her, brandishing her knife.

"What's this, a little wanna–be Robin?" Not–Ms.–Cynthia sneers.

Susan keeps her face blank, hiding the scoff she wants to make. She can see the necessity of superheroes for big things, like alien invasions, but it still seemed bizarre to have a group of unaccountable people running around dealing with crimes, without some kind of standardized code or qualification exam. But people generally find a lack of reaction creepy, and Susan needs all the advantages she can get.

Susan looks over Not–Ms.–Cynthia. Outside of the fact it is impersonating someone, everything about it, from movement, to smell, seems human. So hopefully it has human limitations. Outside of the knife, it doesn't seem to have any other weapons. And it is wearing one of Ms. Cynthia's least practical outfits, a long ruffled skirt, high heels, and a nice denim jacket that was a little too tight in the shoulders. It might offer a little protection, but it would also limit it's movement.

Not–Ms.–Cynthia seems to lose its patience, and runs towards Susan, brandishing the knife.

Susan runs to the other side of a desk, trying to keep space in between her and Not–Ms.–Cynthia. It having a knife and her not having any weapons really makes this an unfair fight.

Susan runs again, as Not–Ms.–Cynthia rushes her. It seems not to have a clear plan about how to get her, which is good, as the running gives Susan time to shrug her backpack off. The next time Not–Ms.–Cynthia rushes her, Susan throws the backpack at her, which she struggles a bit to catch, and kicks her as hard as she can in the knee.

Susan hears a loud snap and ignores the nausea rolling up in her. It killed Ms. Cynthia and was going to kill Mrs. Redd. And her!

Not–Ms.–Cynthia drops to the ground, but the knife is still in its hand. Susan takes the distraction, and stomps on the hand with the knife. More snaps, but it drops the knife. Susan quickly grabs it. Her eyes scan the office for anything she could use to tie it up with. Seeing nothing, she stabs the knife in the femoral artery of the leg she didn't hit. One of Ed's favorite moves for disabling someone. It hurt to move with the knife in it, and if they pulled it out, they'd bleed to death without medical care.

Susan keeps her hand on the knife and looks Not–Ms.–Cynthia in the eye. It's angry, so angry, but she's injured both legs and one of its hands. She reaches onto the desk behind her, looking for something else to use as a threat. She passes over pencils and such, before her hand touches a stapler. Susan pops it so it's flat, and holds it in her other hand.

"What did you do to Ms. Cynthia?" Susan asks.

It smiles. "Why do you care? It's not like she even knew who you were."

Susan doesn't flinch. She just raises an eyebrow. She could make a threat, but then she'd have to decide if she was going to follow through or not. Better to let it's brain fill in the gaps.

It laughs. "She's dead."

Looking at it, the most horrifying thing is that it's not magic at all. There's so scent, no sensation of the other worldly. It could be an alien or something, but it moved too much like a human to do that. In the videos of aliens and metas she'd seen, there was always... something that hinted at what they were. Joints that bent too far, eyes a little too bright, things that it was easy to miss if you weren't trained to spot them, but they were there. This thing had none of that. It They are a human.

Susan doesn't bother asking where the body is. Once the spirit left the flesh, it didn't matter. "And Mrs. Redd? Why were you going to kill her?"

"And why should I tell you that?"

Susan looks at them. They can read people well enough to become them. So if she makes a threat she's not willing to follow through on, they'll probably know. If there seemed to be a present threat or a plot, she'd threaten to pull out the knife. But even though the identity theft issue is horrific, as long as the police picks them up, it'll be over. So it's not worth the issues that would come with killing them (and Ed always said if you were going to threaten to kill someone, you had to be ready to follow through). They were probably going to kill Mrs. Redd for a new identity.

Susan sighs. "No reason."

She scans the room for anything to tie up Not–Ms.–Cynthia. Unfortunately, most people don't helpfully have handcuffs or manacles on hand.

Seeing none, Susan walks over to Not–Ms.–Cynthia and stomps on her other hand.

She goes over to Mrs. Redd and grabs her phone to call 911.

“911, what’s your emergency?” The operator sounds just as bored as the last time she called 911. He might even be the same man.

"I'm at the teacher lounge of Gotham Central Middle. I just stopped a woman impersonating Ms. Cynthia from killing Mrs. Redd, and I need someone to take her in." Susan says calmly.

" You stopped–"

Susan hangs up.

Hopefully police will get here soon, and she needs to not be here. If Not–Ms.–Cynthia manages to get up and kill Mrs. Redd before the police get here, well, Susan tried her best. Not much more she can do without inflicting severe head trauma.

Susan approaches Not–Ms.–Cynthia, ignoring the slight flinch they make. She grabs Not–Ms.–Cynthia's purse and pulls out their wallet. She takes out the cash from it. People who try to kill other people don't get to keep money.

Susan grabs her sweater out of her backpack and uses it to cover her head as she runs out of the school. If security cameras don't have her face, it'll make it much harder to track her down.

Running past the school, she heads to the nearest bus stop, getting on the first one that leads anywhere else. She'll figure out where to go once she's out of the immediate crime scene.

She rides the bus seven stops before getting off.

She got 200$ from Not–Ms.–Cynthia's wallet, which is enough to actually pick up some supplies. She can't go back to Gotham Central Middle, and chances are, if they realize a kid was in the vents, they'll keep an eye out at other schools.

Susan goes to a Walmart, ignoring how her ankle aches every time she walks. She buys a tent, a sleeping bag, a whittler’s knife, a sewing kit, a low quality bow string, a first aid kit, and an ice pack, leaving her with a grand total of 32.64$. Counting the 2 bus rides, she's down to 28.14$

Once again, she's out on the streets with nowhere to go. Her faith in humanity has dwindled. She still has no good way of making money, and now she's injured her ankle. She has supplies, but no plan. But you know what, that's Future Susan's problem.