MATILDA...

"Matilda, it feels as if you're holding something back." Doctor Connor asks as I stare at the ceiling. "I...h...h...have nightm...m...mares."

"About?" She asks me. "Abo...abo...about th...th...the-" I groan and go to hit myself but Doctor Connor takes my hand and tuts.

"Look at the coin." I resist but she shows me the coin. "Bu-"

"Don't worry. This won't bring Tilly. She hasn't shown herself at our sessions lately."

"That's what she thinks..."

"Bu...but..."

"One...two...three...drop." My eyes get heavy and I feel my body relax.

"Tell me, what are you afraid of, Matilda?" I hear the question and my body seems so sluggish.

"Tilly..."

"Why?"

"She did something bad, really bad."

"What did she do?" I go to answer but there Tilly was standing next to Doctor Connor.

"Really? You're telling on me? Bad girl." Tilly then takes out a pair of scissors and jams it deep into Doctor Connor's throat.

I try to scream but it's all coming out too slow. She then wipes the scissors off clean on Doctor Conor's lab coat and walks towards me.

"Bye bye, bad girl." She strikes me in the forehead and before I feel the pain. I wake up.

"Ahhhhh! Ahhhhhh! Ahhhhh! Ahhhh!"

"Matilda! I'm here darling! I'm here!" My grandmother comforts me until I'm silent again.

"What did you dream about?" She asked. I go to answer but, when I glance in the mirror, Tilly was staring with a smile on her face.

"No..no...nothing."

EDWARD...

That morning I was in the examination room, practicing on how to talk to Miss Kringle. Although my mind keeps going to Matilda.

"Miss Kringle, ever since I first laid my eyes on you-"

"Fuck her, you have Matilda now..."

"Be quiet. I don't need your opinion." He swaggers out fixing his tie. "What you need is to stop pinning after someone who doesn't even care about you and start having fun with Tilly."

"Miss Krin-"

"Do you remember how she clenched us between those lovely thighs of hers? How she moaned and how that belt of ours wrapped around her throat? Lie to me Eddie, because you tossing off in the bathroom sink thinking about her, is all the proof I need to know you want her just like I do. Now go to her!"  I wince as his voice screams at me.

He's right, I can't stop thinking about our last encounter. How she smelled, how her lips tasted, god how she felt wrapped around me. I want more of her, but just a little taste, just to satisfy my hunger.

So I look around the precinct until I finally find her, walking out of the commissioners office.

"Miss Harper?" She jumped and held her hand to her chest. "Oh! Yo...yo...you gave me a fright, Mr. Nygma."

"I do apologize, but I came to you because I would like to have dinner with you tonight..."

"U...um-"

"Chez Moi. 7:45." I hand her a card with the directions and she tinkers with her glasses. "I...I'll be there."

"You will." And with that I turn on my heel leaving her alone.

****

Hours later, I was preparing a fine French cuisine for dinner. As I put a torch to the crème brûlée I heard a knock at the door. I looked at my watch and it was 7:45 on the dot.

When I answer, I see Matilda standing there in a dark emerald dress, her hair was down and she was squinting. "Ed...ed...Edward? Please t..tell me that's you? I b...broke my glasses on my way up."

"It's me. Come." I take her hand and close the door behind us. "Where are your glasses?" She digs into her purse and takes out the snapped in half glasses.

"I'll be right back." I take them from her and look for an old pair of mine. I simple pop the lenses out and put them in my old frames.

I come back and look at her for a moment. She looked very beautiful in that dress. "Close your eyes." I tell her. She does what she's told and I place the glasses on her face. "Now open."

She opens her eyes and smiles wide. "Ho...how did you fix them?" She asks. "I just put your lenses in one of my old frames. No big deal. But I hope you brought your appetite. Because I cooked."

"You c..cook?"

"Yes, I'm a quite good one in fact." I boast. "We...well I feel ho...honored." I offer my hand and she takes it. I lead her to the kitchen table and there was our meal.

"Ev...everything looks lovely. I...I just wished my st...st...stutter-"

"You're perfect, Matilda." I tell her. She blushes as I pull a seat out for her. "Thank...k...k you."

As we eat I watch her a second and see she's enjoying her meal. "Matilda, I wanted to talk to you about the other day." She drops her fork and we both go to pick it up. I get to it before her and she backs away from me.

"Th...tha....that was um..."

"I uh, enjoyed it." She looks up at me as she bites her bottom lip innocently. "You di...di...did?" I nod. "Yes, I erhm. Can't stop thinking about that moment. Please I apologize if I sound like I'm being inappropriate. It's just, you're a puzzle to me. And I like puzzles."

I see her lips move but she wasn't talking to me. I clear my throat and take a sip of wine. "How's Tilly?" I ask her.

Her whole body freezes. "Ex...excuse me?"

"Tilly? I do-" She takes off the glasses and stands up, she then walks around the table and sits on my lap. "You asked me for, Eddie?" I swallow hard as the air in the room begins to feel hot.

"Yes--I did." She strokes my cheek. "I'm guessing Matilda was boring you to death. Don't worry she does the same to me too."

"No she's not bo-is it hot in here or is it just me?"

"It's you. You're hot." She giggles. "What's green and then red? Frogs in a blender. Ha!"

"You're funny, and adorable.  But I wanna talk to the other guy." She leans in and bites my earlobe. "Oh God..." I moan.

"Oh you shouldn't call for him until I'm on my knees, Eddie." She straddles me and I see her dress rise.

She makes me look at her. "No touching until your other personality speaks up."

"Bu...but that's not how it works." She shakes her head. "That's a shame. I really wanted to have a long...hard...chat with him." She gets up and I snatch her back.

"You really should let me out to talk more often..."

I take off my glasses and grab a fistful of her hair and make her look at me. "You asked for me?" She goes to nod but winced, as I still keep a hold of her hair.

"You like it when you're rough handled don't you, Tilly?" I trace my finger against her full bottom lip, she takes my hand and puts my finger in her mouth, sucking on it slowly.

"Mhmm." She takes my finger out of her mouth and I loosen my grip. "What a problem we have in front of us."

"What a problem indeed."

"Hmm, we have all of our clothes on, I am extremely horny, and you look as if you could use a tight pussy thrown your way."

"I do, but before we go on with this, and we will we need to discuss somethings." She rolls her eyes and gets off of me.

"Talk? You wanted to talk to me?" She says in a bored tone. "It won't take long. I just want to ask you about that little puzzle you're working on."

"I see. You have to always find out what's on the up and up? Can't let a mystery stay a mystery, huh? Eddie..."

"You know me so well, now how about letting me in on that puzzle?" She shakes her head. "You see I've been working on this puzzle for fifteen years, so unless you have fifteen years to piece them all together, then I'm sorry you can't know."

"What are you afraid of?" I ask her. "I'll give you a small clue, cause one you're cute, and two I really want to us to have some good times on this table. Let's see, there's the fears of a child, which I was afraid of the dark. The fear of an adolescent, which I feared rejection. Ah! But the fear of an adult? There are many. But for me? I fear, that Tilly Darling won't accept the fact that she's a bad little girl. She wants to be this perfect shy creature so bad, she needs me. Like she needed me all those years ago."

"Hmm, and what did she need you for?" She takes a sip from my glass and looks through it with one eye and squints the other.

"Tilly's family, on the outside was perfect. So so perfect. But if you looked past the facade, you see daddy dearest, had a far too firm hand with mommy. And mommy liked to drink in the day. And little sis? She just wanted to pretend that we were happy, she wanted to pretend so much that she ripped her hair out from all the stress. Fucked up right? An eight year old stressing about family when she should be playing with her dolls and thinking about unicorns..."

"And you?"

"I? Oh I was the normal one. I saw my family as the sinners, and they needed to be cleansed."

"You killed them?"

She wags her finger at me. "See, Eddie boy. You just can't do that. You can't ask questions you don't want the answers to." I stand and place an arm around her waist.

"I'm just piecing the puzzle together like you mentioned, Tilly...darling."

"Oooh, I think you deserve a reward, let me give you a reason you should call the almighty father's name." She moves my hand gets down on her knees in front of me.

I look down at her and she yanks at my pants. I smirk at her as she reaches into my pants and pulls out my cock.

"Oh God..." I moan as she puts me in her mouth.

MATILDA...

I sit in my chair and look at the scissors in front of me. "Wanna play?" She whispers. "Matilda?"

"Huh?" I look up and see Detective Jim Gordon. "I wanted to ask you a few questions, about Officer Teddy Wilkins." I swallow hard but nod.

"What about h...h...him, Detective?" He sits down in front of me and clears his throat. "As you've probably read in the papers, Officer Teddy Wilkins was found in an alleyway brutality murdered. A witness told me that they saw you and Wilkins cozy at the bar. I'm just here to confirm and ask why."

"Right, well I was there for com...com...comfort. I've bee...be...been stressed on a personal matter, and you should know about stress, wo...working in this field. W...we just happened to be there i...in that chance. W...w...we spoke briefly. A...and that's all."

"The witness said that you two had left out together."

"I...I...I asked h...him to walk me to my c...c...car. Whatever ha...ha...happened after he escorted me t...t...to my vehicle, Detective is beyond me." He gets up and gives me a smile.

"Thank you, for your corporation, Matilda."

"You...you're welcome." As I watch him go, I exhale. "You're going to have to take care of him soon you know..."

"Leave me alone, you got me in trouble."

"Leave you alone? Tilly darling I'm you. I'm inside of your head, your body, your soul...you can't escape me. I'll be with you even when you're rotting in hell...."

I get up and go wash my hands. "Tilly, don't you understand. We complete each other, we're going to do this for a very long time, but you need to get on board. That mean no more Doctor Connor. No more grandmother-"

"No, I won't do those bad things-"

"Mmm, you didn't stutter. Am I finally getting to you? Of course I am. Can I assume that you're slowly letting me take control again? Oh darling, you won't regret it-"

"Stop! Stop! Stop!" I run out of the bathroom, scaring a few women on the way out. The room starts to twist and turn which makes my adrenaline spike.

I keep running and hearing her laugh, hearing her call my name.

I run until someone grabs me. "Matilda! Matilda calm down!" I swing but they catch my hands and I see the world warp.

"She hurt mommy! She hurt daddy! She hurt Beth-Anne! She's gonna hurt me!" I feel their hand over my mouth and I can't breathe. "Matilda, be quiet!" They snap in my ear.

I go quiet and as they move in front of me, I see that it's Harvey Bullock. "Who's going to hurt you?" I back away from him. "N..n...no one. I..I...I'm sorry." I speed walk away from him and decide to go home early.

"Miss Harper?" I keep my head down as Edward calls me. "Are you alright?" He goes to touch me but I back away.

"I..I..I'm fine. Just w....want to go home." He steps in front of me and blocks my way. "Ed...Ed...Edward, please." He reaches out and holds my cheek.

"What's wrong? Talk to me." I feel a tear fall and he wipes it away. "O...okay." He takes my hand and we walks to the Medical Examination room.

He then lifts me up and places me on the table to sit. He then sits beside me and we sit there in silence for a minute.

"Today, I ate a half a cranberry muffin. It was delicious and I thought about you earlier. I'm telling you that because those moments were the highlights of my day. But seeing you cry? That makes me sad, and I don't want that."

I nod. "T...T...Tilly scares me."

"Why is that?" He asks as I feel him look at the side of my face. "B...because she makes me do bad things. Really bad. I...I...I wake up at times screaming. I'm afraid s...s...she wants to harm me."

"But she's a figment of you-" I shake my head. "No, she's real. Sh...she's real like you and me. I k..k..keep her here..." I tap my temple.

"Sh...she's always been bad, and I..I came along when sh...sh...she was about to lose it completely. Bu...but now we a...a...aren't little girls. An...an...and she's stronger than me. An...an..and she knows it."

"I think I know what you mean. He's getting stronger than me, and I'm afraid I can't keep him in check much longer." I finally look at him.

"We...we...we're not bad people? Are we, Edward?"

"No, no, no, we aren't bad people. You and I? We have brilliant young minds. That people just don't seem to understand." I lean my head on his shoulder.

He kisses the top of my head and we just sit there until the day is over.