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Gotham was satisfying. As it turns out, Seb was right; Jim needed a holiday. It was a pleasant change of pace, watching the chaos explode around him without having to worry about conducting it himself. But of course, eventually enough is enough. Too much of a good thing will always turn sour.

So, when a Door to Milliways turns up shortly after the death of Harvey Dent, Jim takes it.

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"Anything interesting?" he asks after a few minutes.

"No," she says absently, frowning at the screen. "Lots of no. No, she isn't booked under her own name in any major hotel in the state. No, she isn't booked under Jenny's name, either. I guess she has the sense not to be that obvious. I wish she didn't."

"What sort of aliases would she favor?"

She may have the sense to avoid using her own name, but the sensible stupid have a way of thinking themselves very clever. She won't have picked something random as she ought to have done; rather, it will be something obscure related to her own interests, something that will make her smirk at how she's pulling this off right under everyone's noses.

"I don't know." Matilda frowns at the screen again, but this time not so much at the screen as coincidentally in its direction. "She likes the Olympics and being mean to kids and she's superstitious and selfish and nasty."

"Olympics," he murmurs. "Hammer throwing, perhaps. Champions. Women, of course."

That is not, unfortunately, a set of data he happens to have memorized.

But Matilda can look it up.

She does, and starts cross-referencing.

He waits.

"Where do I know the name Phoebe from?" she wonders. "I'm sure I've heard it before, like I know somebody who has it or something, but I don't. Was there a Phoebe in the movie?"

"No."

But he expects there's a reason why it might have caught her attention.

"There's a Phoebe Fuchs here staying at a hotel in Buffalo. Ruth Fuchs won the gold medal in javelin in the 1972 olympics - that's Miss Trunchbull's year. I'm just not sure about the Phoebe. I think I read it somewhere, maybe."

"Think about it," he says. "It's in there somewhere. It will come to you."

Matilda isn't ordinary. If her mind is suggesting a connection, there's a reason for it. She is, however, six years old; she lacks practice in letting those connections surface. She needs the extra moment of concentration, and the reminder to take it.

She scowls at the screen. The memory hovers just out of reach. She can almost see the paper it was on, old and yellowing, but she can't think where...

...Oh.

"It's Jenny's mom's name," she says aloud, shuts her laptop, and stands up. "We need to get to Buffalo."

Jim, who had still been leaning against the wall, straightens up.

"Does Jenny have a car, or will we have to borrow one?"

She would, in fact, steal a car for this.

Luckily, she won't have to.

"It's in the parking lot. I don't know where her keys went, though."

Not that she thinks that's going to be a problem, with Jim here.

Sure enough:

"I don't need them," he says, heading for the door.

He puts Detective Campbell back on as they exit the office, but they don't stop to chat - he calls a thank-you to Miss Li without breaking stride. Easier all around that way, and more consistent for Matilda to be able to explain later. (Details are important.)

The car is outside, as promised. It is small and light blue and extremely Jennyish.

Even without Matilda's guidance, Jim would recognize it as the most likely in the carpark to be hers.

He hotwires it without even looking at what he's doing.

"Directions?"

She can give them to him all at once. He'll remember.

That is exactly what she does.

It's so nice working with someone who can keep up.

Isn't it?

In what may be a surprise twist to anyone who doesn't pay close enough attention, Jim sticks carefully to the speeding limit. He does not, after all, have a license to drive in this world; getting pulled over would not only be unendingly tedious, it would also destroy any advantage gained from speeding, especially since he'd have to be a bit more cooperative than he'd usually bother with. Rendering officers of the law unconscious would, he thinks, be likely to cross a line for Matilda even under these circumstances.

"Do we have a layout for the building?" he asks.

"Not a good one. There were some pictures, but just of the outside. I didn't have time to look for blueprints."

"We'll improvise, then," he says. "These places tend to be fairly cookiecutter."

He doubts the Trunchbull will have chosen anywhere especially fancy.

"You handle Miss Trunchbull, I'll stay out of her sight and get Jenny out."

This is not the plan he would have chosen an hour ago, but an hour ago they didn't know she had powers of her own. Matilda has a chance at defending herself against them; Jim does not. Best for the Trunchbull to think Matilda is on her own. Jim will only be a liability if she finds out about him.

She runs through a similar chain of logic in her head, then nods.

"Good plan."

As much as Matilda wants to be the one to rescue Jenny, there are two jobs here and she'll be better at the other one.

"You'll need to be ready to knock her out," he says. "We don't know exactly what she can do."

It's best all the way around to ensure that she not be able to do it.

(And, he doesn't say, once she's safely unconscious, he can take it from there.)

"Also a good plan," she acknowledges, although she doubts it will be that easy.

No, very likely it won't.

"All my plans are good," he says airily.