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Gotham is bleak the way people like to complain that London is bleak—grey and smoggy, without even the benefit of the bountiful if small green spaces that make London less of an urban wasteland.
But Gotham pulses with life. She pulses with death too, absolutely, but people expect that. They fail to notice the living—and half-living—essence that permeates everything, the push and pull of cosmic forces rushing through the city's chaotic network of streets the same way blood rushes through a living body's veins, sustained by the beat-beat-beat of a being's heart.
Jazz feels comfortable in Gotham, and she assumes that it's because of her liminality; she's not naive enough to think she hasn't been affected by ecto-energy after living on top of an active portal for so many years, after all. Danny won't confirm or deny the degree, but Jazz knows that she isn't just human these days.
Jazz wonders what Danny feels when he comes to Gotham to visit her; she doesn't ask, though, because her little brother is trying so hard to keep her out of ghost drama so that she can have a "normal" life, and Jazz has learned to stop pushing. He'll come to her when he needs help; until then, she'll keep building the life that she wants, and she won't stop to ask if Danny approves of the normalcy levels of it.
What she didn't expect, though, was to learn that she feels comfortable in Gotham because it houses her soulmate. But when Black Bat crashes into her—literally—Jazz feels that jolt as their gazes meet. She knows this woman, even though she knows almost nothing about her at all.
"You're—"Jazz starts to say.
A hand quickly covers her mouth. A minute head shake. "Go. Not safe."
Not here, Jazz realizes. Fair enough. She's gotten to comfortable with rogue attacks, probably, but Danny isn't here to protect her, and she's technically just a civilian.
She nods, and Black Bat releases her. "Go," she repeats, and then she's off, grappling away.
Jazz decides to trust her soulmate's advice rather than her own gut, which is telling her to go after the vigilante. She heads to safety instead.
Jazz learns that her intuition was right.
Black Bat doesn't seek her out.
After a few days, Jazz stops expecting a figure to emerge from every patch of shadows she passes, and she just goes back to her life.
It's fine. There's no guarantee a person will ever find a soulmate; there's no obligation that says they have to be anything to each other, metaphysical bond or not.
Gotham feels a little less cozy, though. Jazz pretends she doesn't notice.
Months pass, late fall easing into a bitter winter, and then winter giving way in fits and starts to an inevitable spring. The drizzle and fog remain, but green weeds begin to push up from cracks in the sidewalks, and flowers start fighting to bloom.
Life goes on.
And then, when she's really, truly stopped waiting for anything to come of this, she sees her again.
Her soulmate.
But not Black Bat.
Jazz has a job at a coffee shop not too far from the university, and today she's working the register through the morning rush. Just as the line starts to get down to a manageable level, she looks up to meet the gaze of the next customer, the words, "Good morning, what can I get for you?" on her lips, when their eyes meet.
Catch.
Hold.
It feels like time freezes, but Jazz's heart keeps pounding in her chest.
Brown eyes widen, something like fear in them, and that kicks Jazz back into gear. "Uh, sorry, lost track of thought there," she says with a polite Customer Service smile. "What can I get for you?"
The boy with Jazz's soulmate smiles a perfectly polished and polite smile back at Jazz. She barely notices, but does glance his way for a moment in an attempt to look normal. "Good morning. Could we get a chai latte and a mocha with soy milk and extra espresso?"
"Yeah, of course," Jazz says, nodding quickly and scribbling down the right shorthand on each cup. "Name?"
"Tim," the boy says, and that's it.
"Got it." Jazz tries to convince herself that she's not disappointed not to have a name for her soulmate. It doesn't really work.
After Jazz gets off her shift, she's fighting a stress headache that has not at all been complicated by not wanting to cry, and she pushes out the back door into the alley by the dumpster with a tumblr full of espresso full of determination to get back to her dorm as quickly as possible so that she can turn off all the lights and lay in the dark listening to sad girl music.
She almost doesn't notice the dark-haired girl lingering toward the end of the alley. But after a couple of steps, she does, and she draws up short. "Oh. Uh…"
Her soulmate gives a hesitant smile. "Hi."
Jazz's brain feels a little staticky from headache and shock, so she just… stares.
The smile falters, but her soulmate takes a couple of steps closer. She's not in arms reach, but just outside of it—giving space, but so close.
"Hi?"
A hand is offered. Jazz hesitates for a moment… and then, she takes it. "Cass."
Her soulmate's name. "Oh," Jazz says again. "I'm Jazz."
Cass' smile is dazzling, suddenly, somehow, worth all the uncertainty and heartache of the last few months.