戈登回到家后和芭芭拉吵架了.芭芭拉一直等到很晚,独自坐在漆黑的房间里,准备了冷晚餐,庆祝他们即将购买第一套房子.不幸的是,那顿晚餐中缺少了最重要的人.
芭芭拉知道戈登很忙,但她也知道他的忙并不是因为他缺乏完成工作的能力.这是因为他工作的地方实际上并不需要警察.
一路陪伴在戈登身边的芭芭拉很清楚,以戈登的能力,他不需要在哥谭以外的任何城市那么辛苦.更重要的是,她知道即使戈登如此努力,也没有什么不同.他不能在这里保存.
当戈登回来时,芭芭拉正坐在沙发上,抚摸着一张照片.这是他们实习后拍的照片,当时戈登和她都很小,几乎像孩子一样.
那时,他们都还不到20岁,才刚刚开始恋爱,还不到两个月.他们在聚会上喝醉了,谈论了他们的梦想.
芭芭拉来自一个陷入困境的家庭.她想赚钱来改善父母和兄弟姐妹的生活.戈登出生于一个中等富裕的中产阶级家庭.因为警察曾经救过他的家人,他一直梦想成为一名正义的警察.
虽然他们的愿望不同,但他们坠入爱河.即使是持续数年的异地恋,也不会磨损他们的爱情.
但在这个夜晚,似乎所有被压抑的情绪一下子爆发了.芭芭拉坐在沙发上,默默地抽泣,而戈登站在门口,一言不发.
不是他不想安慰芭芭拉,也不是他可以无视心爱的女孩独自哭泣.
但他知道,他知道芭芭拉想说什么.他也知道他无法回答她提出的问题——为什么他坚持要留在哥谭?
戈登不是土生土长的哥谭人;他出生于芝加哥.他也不是出身贫寒;事实上,他来自一个富裕的中产阶级家庭.他也不是天才;他的大部分成就都来自努力工作.
从他的老师到他的同学,再到他即将成为女朋友的他,每天都和他在一起,没有人理解这个问题.为什么戈登放弃了他在芝加哥警察局的光明未来,来到这个被上帝遗弃的哥谭并在这里呆了多年?
戈登在哥谭警察局没有取得任何值得注意的成就.
他的晋升速度非常缓慢.几年后,他仍然只是一个团队负责人.他没有破过什么大案子.即使他为某些案件做出了贡献,他也从未获得过荣誉.更不用说伸张正义或改变哥谭了.
但戈登非理性地痴迷于留在这里.每次老师和同学提起他,都忍不住为他感到怜悯.在他们眼里,如果戈登有一点灵活性,他的成就会比现在大得多.
Gordon walks over and embraces Barbara. She is crying, but she doesn't ask anything. She knows the question she wants to ask, Gordon has never provided an answer to.
When faced with the choice between his badge and his beloved, Gordon always remains silent.
Gotham nights are never without cries, but Barbara's tears must be exception. Few shed tears for their lovers here. The warmth in their hearts isn't even enough to warm themselves, let alone cry for something as futile as love.
It is because Gordon has witnessed too many tears in Gotham nights that Barbara's sadness and tears make Gordon even more distraught. He feels like he has become a worse murderer than the criminals.
He awakes, when he decides to live in this abyss, he should not expect anyone on the ground to pay him much attention. Even if there are such people, their fate will be shedding tears for him, just like the cold rain of Gotham nights falling on him. But these tears are always futile. Countless tears of lovers are like countless drizzles, unable to change this inflexible stony heart.
The next day, Harvey comes to visit Schiller again, which surprises Schiller. This lawyer always very cares about formality and rarely visit without announcement.
"Yesterday, Gordon comes to see me, hoping that I can find a legal consultant job for his fiancée, preferably in Metropolis or any other southern city," Harvey says.
"I feel something is wrong with him, so I come here. It's not just a simple argument between him and his fiancée. They have already bought a house and even planned to have a baby. But now, Gordon seems like he wants to break up with Barbara. Something is not right..."
Schiller trusts Harvey's intuition. He calls Gordon but his number goes unanswered. When he calls the police station, Gordon's colleagues tell Schiller that the hardworking detective who has been working overtime for years hasn't come to work that afternoon.
Schiller has a bad feeling. He quickly contacts Gordon's partner, as known as Batman.
Last night, Gordon thinks it over the whole night. In the end, the following morning, he breaks up with Barbara.
To ensure that Barbara will leave Gotham as soon as possible, he asks his friend Harvey, a prominent lawyer, to help find her a new job, preferably far away from Gotham.
Gordon is just an ordinary person. The emotional impact of breaking up with his girlfriend of many years nearly drives him to the brink of collapse.
In the police station, Gordon can't work the whole morning. By lunchtime, when everyone goes out to eat, he can't stand the empty office.
He walks out of the police station in a daze, only wanting to find a place with more people so that he won't be immersed in that despairing sadness.
But things don't go as planned just as he expects, his troubles are far from over.
He hasn't walked far when he notices someone is following him. Gordon becomes slightly more sober and wants to hurry back to the police station. There are heavily armed guards there and it won't be easy for someone to intrude.
But the person following him is cunning. When Gordon sees a few faces staring at him with ill intentions on the road ahead, he knows continuing to walk forward won't lead to any good outcome.
He only has a gun with him. Though the magazine is full, the handgun has limited firepower. Relying on his familiarity with the terrain, he turns right into an alley with his gun and hides in a blind spot around a corner.
It doesn't work. The people following him obviously know the terrain well. When they see Gordon turn right, they immediately follow.
The footsteps outside the alley grow closer as the sky gradually dims. Gordon counts seconds silently. When the footsteps appear at the entrance of the alley, in the moment the visibility is worst as the sky turns dark, Gordon fires a shot towards the entrance.
Seeing that his bullet doesn't hit anyone, Gordon immediately gives up his initial plan. He knows the other side must be trained assassins who won't be affected by visibility.
He immediately puts away his gun and runs backward. Two gunshots come from behind. Strangely enough, those gunshots have the muffled sound of a suppressor. Gordon quickly understands that they aren't locals in Gotham.
Assassins in Gotham wouldn't use a suppressor, it's useless. No one in Gotham would be shocked to gunshots, as if they're putting earplugs on a deaf person.
Thinking about this, Gordon has a new plan.
The people behind him chase closer, clearly superior to Gordon in terms of stamina and explosiveness. Gordon runs to the end of the alley and quickly climbs up a wall along an external wall.
When he reaches the top of the wall, the pursuers arrive. It's precisely when Gordon's movement is stagnant that a shot rings out, and he is hit. He flips off the wall and falls into the courtyard.
The bullet hits his arm, not a fatal injury. Gordon holds his arm tightly, continuing to run forward, shouting, "The Black Tower gang is after me! They shoot! They shoot!"
The courtyard belongs to a nightclub. Hearing his words, people rush out, and the people chasing Gordon are surrounded by this group of gangsters.
Just as he has climbed onto the top of the wall, in an inconvenient moment, he is shot three or four times.
Gotham's rule of action: regardless of seeing or not, regardless of who the other side is, shoot them first. Talk after they're down.
But Gordon's crisis isn't resolved. Obviously, the people chasing him are a group. The first person who gets rid of is just a decoy. Soon, as he runs across the alley and onto the street, he sees a car rushing towards him.
It seems like they have several plans, or maybe they originally intended to drive Gordon onto the street through that person and then run him over with a car.
Gordon rolls to the right, but the car doesn't hit him. Instead, a dark hole of a gun barrel extends from the car.
Just as Gordon stands firm, he gets shot again. This time, the bullet hits his back and Gordon lets out a scream.
However, because the shot is fired while the car is moving at high speed, it doesn't hit organ. Intense pain overwhelms Gordon, but his will to survive keeps him running forward.
The more painful it gets, the clearer Gordon's mind becomes. He knows if he keeps running like this, he will be caught in a few minutes. Enduring the intense pain, he firmly covers his chest with one arm and his other arm, bleeding from his gunshot wound, doesn't stop flowing blood.
Gordon follows the route in his memory and runs to the back door of an apartment. The lock on the back door is broken, always fits badly. He uses his injured arm to forcefully pull the door lock. Every movement causes intense pain due to the injury on his chest. Gordon's breathing grows heavier.
Soon, the door opens slightly. Gordon isn't tall and doesn't have a muscular build. He just manages to squeeze through the crack.
After entering, he doesn't stop, climbing the stairs three steps at a time, opening a window in the nearest corridor, and desperately climbing up. Then closes the window and hides on the protruding eaves of the second floor.
Hearing the sound of the door being hit below, Gordon grits his teeth. Sliding down along the eaves, he falls straight onto a shelter. Fortunately, when he slides down face-up, his fresh blood doesn't leave a trace.
After falling on the shelter, Gordon uses his last bit of strength to roll down, covering himself with the garbage bags below. After a while, he hears the footsteps inside the building disappear. They don't find him and seem to have left.
Gordon lies among the trash, feeling the strong smell of blood with every breath, the gunshot having hit his lung.
His arm is already numb due to blood loss, but he can still clearly feel the engagement ring on his ring finger. His body temperature is gradually merging with the cold metal ring.
He recalls the look of disbelief and heartbreak on Barbara's face when they break up.
He thinks Barbara is right.He is a fool. An incurable fool. A fool who will never learn to flexibility, a fool who deserves to die alone.
Gordon feels an irresistible coldness creeping in. Immediately after, a warm stream flows from within his body, and the blood from the cut on his forehead falls down. It flows into his eyes, staining his vision with a bright red, shrouded in a layer of darkness.
Soon, it starts raining again in Gotham. Today's rain is nothing special, just like every night rain in Gotham, thin and cold.
Gordon's consciousness gradually blurs, like a trapped beast lying in the abyss. The rain falling from a high altitude can't save his dying life. But it reminds him of the rain of tears from his loved one, arousing a stronger emotion from his heart.
He thinks,
If he is inherently a stubborn fool who can't learn to adapt, he would rather sacrifice all his life in this quagmire, with a stony heart.
Let him die here alone. The rotten wind will blow over his dry bones, erasing any traces of his existence. And when faced with this endless darkness, his last piece of a soul will still resist stubbornly, refusing to kneel down.
Gordon thinks—
Let him stay here, against all criminals, until the next dawn.