Disclaimer: If I owned any Batman related characters...the world would be a scary, scary place. It's still a scary place, but in a very different way. So we can all safely assume that I do not currently own any such thing.

This is part of a series. The CAT series, no less. View the timeline at www. freewebs. com/ bitemetechie/ catverse. html after you take the spaces out, and then, well, get to reading. I warn you, it's a lengthy series. But I think it's worth the time and effort. And I hope you do, too.

A Very Squishy Christmas

They were dead. They were really dead and gone. All three of them, his spirited, sadistic, cheerful little followers, the cookie-wielding maniacs. Al, Techie, and the Captain—real names, according to their tombstones, Lydia, Laura and Nichole, although he had no idea which was which.

He had seen the graves. They had to be dead.

So why did he still feel so jumpy, as if they were still hiding around every corner, waiting to jump out and surprise him with snuggles and mugs of hot chocolate?

Maybe because it was Christmas Eve.

"I'll offer you Christmas dinner every year for so long as we both shall live, in exchange for your solemn promise not to take revenge on anyone involved in bringing you here." So the Captain had sworn at the so-called Treaty of the Old Oak Tree, when they had reached a stalemate in what (though he hadn't told them so at the time) had been the first snowball fight he had ever fought. It had been Al's first time, too, or so she had admitted later.

And the Captain had kept her promise. For five years, no matter where he had been on Christmas Eve, there had been a hot meal delivered anonymously to his doorstep by the end of the day.

Except for last year, when he had let Edward (not Eddums, not Riddles, not Mr. McNygma) talk him into visiting them again. He had ended up eating fast food that night, but it had been worth it to see them and all their friends twitching on the floor as the fear toxin destroyed their silly little minds.

"Destroyed" was a relative term, of course. Once they had recovered, they took it as an invitation to come and visit him, riding to his rescue when he needed them most.

Not that he had ever thanked them for it. The idiots.

He had allowed them to stay with him, in the role of cooks, bodyguards, and all-purpose henchmen (or henchgirls, as they liked to refer to themselves.) If he hadn't given his permission, they only would have found another excuse to come to his rescue someday, and he did not want to put himself in their debt. They never would have let him live it down.

And in the six months they had been with him, he had stayed out of Arkham and away from Batman, made enough profit to buy new books for all four of them (books being the only things they had ever asked of him) and…gained some weight. He still wasn't exactly burly, but the girls had finally stopped following him around morning, noon, and night insisting that he "put some meat on his bones."

Although they had started to take an even more perverse delight in calling him "Squishykins."

And now they were gone. He couldn't say he really missed them, or their teasing, or their…things they did. He was happy having the lair to himself, he really was. There were only two reasons he could possibly have wanted them back, neither of them all that compelling. One was that he wasn't much of a cook, and he had come to enjoy the complicated meals they would whip up sometimes to tempt him out of the lab when he was too focused on his experiments to remember to eat or sleep. And the other was that they were damn useful as meat shields. He hadn't exactly enjoyed the cooing and petting they had given him the few times he had been injured while they were with him, but he had appreciated the way they had always been willing to throw themselves headfirst into danger just to give him a chance to get away. He certainly wouldn't be limping if they were still alive…

But he did not miss them.

Not at all.

And he was venturing into their side of the lair because…

Because…

Because he was curious. And he wanted to make sure they were gone.

Yeah, that was it.

Part of their deal had been that he would give them their personal space and not invade it, and they would stay the hell out of his side of the lair. (And, yes, that was the exact wording of their agreement.) He had kept his part of the bargain, and never ventured into the vicinity of their rooms. Of course, the girls had all broken their vows at least once, the Captain most of all. She had come into his room every day for a week to force feed him soup when he was sick, and then once every month or so to beg him to help her make a baby. At least the others had never come inside his room when he was well enough to chase them out.

One of these days, he was going to have to teach that woman that a promise didn't mean "until I think of a good reason to break it" or "until my biological clock starts ticking again, you mean, mean man-thing."

Oh, but he couldn't. She was dead, and he was never going to teach her anything, ever again.

They were all dead and gone. Really, really gone.

And, no, he wasn't sad about that. It just…well, he had enjoyed teaching. Not teaching them, specifically, but teaching in general. And they had been so eager to learn…

I do not bloody well miss them. I don't!

(And he wasn't saying "bloody" because it had been a word that had peppered their conversations. It was just a word that fit the situation. It didn't have to have anything to do with them.)

He had wondered exactly what they had left behind, though. If there were anything useful there, he might…he might be able to…use it.

One problem: he had never been to these three rooms since they had moved in. He didn't know which room had belonged to which henchgirl.

That shouldn't matter. He was looking for useful items, not mementos. It didn't matter who had owned what.

Except that he was curious.

Curious.

That was all.

And, staring at their doors, there was plenty to be curious about.

The doors had all been decorated.

Very oddly decorated.

There were stickers, magnets, and odd scrawls on message boards, in addition to various peculiar items that he wouldn't have expected to see scotch-taped to doors. A picture of a bunny saying, "Have a great day, you worthless turd." A picture of a man with a chainsaw and a shotgun, with the caption, "This is my boomstick." A picture of a happy family, with the caption, "Children are a blessing. You never know when you'll need blood or a spare kidney." Two pictures of a naked man standing spread-eagled on a boat.

A picture of a woman with a cake, with the caption, "Because chocolate can't get you pregnant."

He could only guess that the Captain owned that particular door. The other stickers ("Talk nerdy to me" and "Come to the Dark Side. We have cookies.") seemed to fit her, as well. And he could imagine her playing with the sheets of bubble wrap overhanging her message board. Then again, he could imagine the other two doing the same.

He brushed aside the bubble wrap to read what was written on the board.

"Secret entrance to the Captain's quarters."

Well, that was clear enough. He was reaching for the doorknob when the condoms caught his eye.

Okay…

Why were there free samples of condoms taped to her door?

One of them bore the message, "Make sure you ask before you use this. –Men Against Violence."

Well, that was mildly amusing, he supposed. He turned away and tried one of the other doors. It was locked.

Of course.

With a reluctant sigh, he turned back to the Captain's room. The doorknob turned easily.

He felt as if something was trying to force him in there. He wasn't particularly interested in following the whims of fate…but what else could he do? Picking a lock was more effort than he felt like putting forth. He was tired. Working alone was taking more out of him than he remembered.

Maybe he really had gotten soft.

No. He was fine. He didn't need them.

He went into the Captain's room.

Interesting.

These rooms had been completely empty when he had given them to the girls. He had left it up to them to find furniture for themselves.

Apparently, the Captain had found a bed, a rolling chair, an extra large bookshelf, and a wooden crate that she had stuffed full of clothes. He decided not to look too closely at that when he saw a pair of hot pink panties on the top.

There weren't many personal items scattered about the room—nothing much that couldn't be easily replaced. On the bed—which was neatly made and covered with a fluffy blue comforter that just invited snuggling—were a Raggedy Ann doll, its face discolored by water spots as if it had been cried on repeatedly over a period of many years, and a round, cuddly-looking Batman toy that looked relatively new.

He picked up the stuffed Batman by the leg and discovered that it was soft and pillow-like.

"What was she doing with you?" he asked, trying and failing to imagine the woman cuddling with anything other than…well, him.

It didn't answer, so he dropped it on the bed and turned to inspect her bookshelf.

The bottom five shelves were stuffed full of books, but the top shelf held those personal items he had been looking for.

There were two framed poems. One was titled "Wake Up, Stars" and had handwritten notations for what appeared to be guitar chords, along with the words, "He knows" written at the bottom. There must be a story behind that. And he wasn't likely to ever know what it was.

Tucked into the corner of that frame was another poem printed in what appeared to be a program for a funeral—"You Dance: for Aunt Hannah." The words seemed to have been written for a woman who had died of old age, a fate he couldn't begin to imagine for his—the girls.

And next to that was a poem titled "Laura Nova," written by a friend, apparently as a going away present.

And now he knew. The Captain's name had been Laura. A nice enough name, he supposed, though it didn't really seem to fit her. So many girls her age had the same name, he could understand why she'd wanted to give herself a nickname.

Well, he had grown used to calling her Captain, and it was a bit late to go changing it now.

He went back to poking through her belongings.

Behind the poems was a picture of the Captain at perhaps fourteen years old, with braces and badly permed brown hair, holding an unbearably cute small blond child on her lap. They wore matching shirts that said "I'm the little sister" and "I'm the big sister," and they both looked far too happy to have been merely posing for the camera. He had never seen the Captain smiling like that, not even after eating enough fudge to pacify a bull elephant.

Honestly, the girl in the photo looked as if the only thing preventing her from bursting into flames of joy was the reminder that such an act might bring a premature end to whatever event was making life so grand.

Next to that was a Batman Pez dispenser, still full of strawberry Pez. He considered taking a piece, but knowing it was at least two months old, he left it alone.

Next to the Pez was a bobblehead of the Incredible Hulk. Closer inspection proved that it was also a pen.

And next to that were a few action figures of Gotham villains, the kind that had been sold for a few months before the boycotting organized by various morality groups, and a lawsuit from the Joker, had taken the things off the shelves. (Ironically, both the Joker's lawyer and the leaders of the anti-villainy groups had received identical bouquets of fatal begonias from the clown once that battle was over.) There was one figure of the Joker, two different versions of the Riddler—one of which was still in the box, and clearly a prized possession—and one of the Scarecrow himself, clutching a pitchfork/scythe. The Scarecrow figure was standing with its arm draped around the shoulders of a contemplative angel, which struck him as odd. He knew she preferred to have about as much—or little—to do with organized religion as he did, and he couldn't imagine her getting down on her knees to say her prayers at night. She had certainly never given any indication that she believed in angels.

Then again, he couldn't quite picture her with a Raggedy Ann doll, either.

Maybe these things weren't really hers, or maybe she just collected them because she liked the way they looked. There was a jewelry box painted with the face of the Virgin Mary, which was just that shade of blue that she seemed to be so fond of. (Not the face, of course, but the virgin's clothes and the background.)

He checked inside the box, and found some jewelry that he had never seen her actually wear. Most of it was junk, but he could probably get something for it at the pawn shop. Not much, though. Maybe he should just leave it alone.

There were a few other trinkets. A Tae Kwon Do trophy. A replica of an Oscar that looked as if it had been used to bludgeon someone to death. An origami dragon. An inhaler and a bottle of prescription medication that she certainly wouldn't have left behind if she were still alive.

Well, there was really nothing useful there, but at least he had a little more support for his "they are dead" theory.

What kind of woman left so little behind her when she died? Other than the books, there was nothing here she couldn't have just thrown into that backpack she always carried, if there had been some emergency that forced her to leave in a hurry. She didn't even have any extra shoes lying around.

Coming around the side of the bookcase, he discovered a guitar leaning against the wall. A careful pluck of the strings told him that it was exceptionally out of tune. He didn't touch it again.

Well, this had been a complete waste of time, hadn't it?

Maybe there was something under the bed. It couldn't hurt to check, anyway. He couldn't just keep these rooms exactly as they had left them, as some kind of shrine to his departed children.

(No, he was not feeling fatherly about them, and whatever ill-conceived emotions might be trying to batter their way into his heart had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that—no. The four of them had not been a family, and he had no reason to miss them when they were gone.)

Pushing past her stack of battered old notebooks—which he would read eventually, but not just yet—he discovered a cardboard box, still taped shut and bearing a UPS label. Behind it were more boxes, but for now he ignored them, focusing on the first one he had discovered. He dragged it out into the open.

"Do not open until October 17!" someone had written in bold, dark letters on the cardboard.

They had disappeared on the 16th, although the tombstones had listed their dates of death as October 19, the day the bodies had been discovered.

What was left of them…

He tore open the box. Inside were several smaller, wrapped packages, a few folded pieces of paper, and a card.

A birthday card.

She had died and left unopened birthday presents in his lair.

(No, he wasn't sad. He didn't feel sorry for her. He wouldn't have cared about her birthday when she was alive. He certainly didn't care about it now that she was dead.)

He sat down on the bed with the papers, filled with curiosity that just could not be denied.

Then, frowning, he bounced up and down experimentally.

Her bed was springy.

It was comfortable.

It was nicer than his.

Where did she get this, and why haven't I ever found one like it?

He stopped bouncing when he realized how undignified he must look.

Well, it was still comfortable.

He opened up the papers and discovered that they were letters and artwork from her younger sisters. All three of them.

Does everything have to come in groups of three? Doesn't anyone know the value of solitude anymore?

He read through the letters, and realized for the first time just how much these children loved their oldest sister. The letters read like a thousand quotes the henchgirls had spouted at him, only toned down to the level of young children, and without the sexuality that had occasionally crept into his girls' speech.

He forgot to remind himself that they weren't his girls.

He was a bit preoccupied with the realization that these children had loved their sister, deeply and truly, and she had loved the three of them with equal fervor.

And his girls had loved him the same way.

He didn't let that thought continue. He wasn't prepared to consider what the analogy might say about his feelings about the girls.

For now it was quite enough to realize that he had been loved. For the first time in his life, there had been someone who actually cared for him.

For the first time and the last time, he was quite sure. There would never be another group of people like those three girls.

(But it wasn't as if he needed them. It wasn't as if he couldn't handle things by himself. He didn't need them or their ridiculous ideas of love and friendship. He didn't need them…)

He didn't need them, useful though they could sometimes be. If they were still alive, he wouldn't have been allowed to go without food long enough to feel the first pangs of hunger, much less to continue not stuffing his face once he realized that his body wanted him to eat. The Captain had considered her cooking a form of stress relief, and all three of them had gotten stressed when they thought he wasn't taking care of himself properly.

He wasn't that hungry, he told himself stubbornly. He certainly didn't feel like putting forth any effort to get himself some food.

But if they were still alive, he wouldn't be this sore, with a set of bruises under his clothes that promised to be really spectacular in another day or so. And he wouldn't be this tired, because they had proven that they were more than willing to shackle him to his bed if they thought he wasn't letting himself get enough sleep.

But it was better to be able to make those kinds of decisions for himself. And, at the moment, he didn't feel like going through the trouble of walking all the way over to the other side of the lair.

Well, he might as well not make this a completely wasted trip. He stretched out across the Captain's bed.

He might as well. It was his lair, after all. And the Captain certainly wasn't going to come back and exclaim, "Somebody's been sleeping in my bed, and there he is!"

And besides, this bed was far more comfortable than his. And the sheets smelled faintly of Gain.

Somewhere in the lair was a half-empty bottle of Gain bearing the homemade label, "Al's crack." She had loved that stuff so much, she'd named herself laundry mistress, and for six months everything had smelled like Gain, from his socks to his mask to those rags he used in the lab, with the bloodstains that just wouldn't come out.

No, he had not just had a memory of Al that bordered on fond. He just wasn't capable of feeling any fondness for her. She was the woman who had thought it was a good idea to put him in a straitjacket, for crying out loud.

Then he actually smiled, remembering the day she had washed the straitjackets…

Maybe sleeping in here wasn't such a good idea.

Actually, he should have moved on to a different lair two months ago. Or at least changed the locks in this one, just in case.

He should leave.

Oh, hell, but he was tired. And he was not going to let uncomfortably warm and fuzzy (or at least, lukewarm and slightly blurred) memories chase him away. He took off his glasses, pulled the corner of the comforter up over his shoulders, and defiantly snuggled his head down against the pillow.

And he quite firmly ignored the trio of female voices in the back of his mind, trying to sing him to sleep.

"Feed the birds, tuppence a bag. Tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag…"

He didn't hear a word of it.

He was just barely conscious when he didn't hear them segue into "There's a Rumbly in My Tumbly."

And he certainly didn't hear himself mutter sleepily to the empty air, "Fine…I'll have a sandwich later."

If he had heard that, he might have been a little disturbed.

--

He woke to the feeling of something prodding him between the shoulder blades.

"Go away, Al," he muttered. "We'll open presents later." He was warm, he was comfortable, he was getting his first decent rest in days, and—

--And Al was dead.

He sat up quickly, throwing off the covers.

There was Batman's little friend, Nightwing, staring down at him and looking completely nonplussed.

Crane looked down and realized that the Captain's bat-doll had somehow found its way into his arms. He flung it away.

"Don't you people ever take a day off?" he snapped.

Nightwing looked amused.

Amused.

Damn it, the boy was not allowed to be amused by this.

He threw a punch. Nightwing blocked it easily. He tried again. Again, his hand was swatted away.

"You're upset," said the young man.

"I am not!" His fist glanced off Nightwing's shoulder.

"You're a better fighter than this. You never just swing wildly. You're upset about something."

"Shut up!" He connected solidly with Nightwing's jaw…and nothing much happened, except that the youth's head turned slightly to the side, absorbing the force of the blow. He gave up and turned away, seething with frustration.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Crane felt his body go even more tense than it had been already.

Have you been taking lessons, boy? You sound just like one of them. Have they clawed their way out of hell and possessed the bodies of the living just to annoy me a little longer? Is there a CAT looking through your eyes, teaching you to use sarcasm like a handful of darts? Or have you developed this on your own?

No, he did not want to talk about it, any more than Nightwing really wanted to listen. And he did not enjoy being taunted.

And there was nothing to talk about. He wasn't upset, just…embarrassed that he had been caught in bed, and not even his own bed, and…cuddling with a Batman plushie. God, if he could have anything stricken from the record, that would be it. Inadvertent cuddling with a toy was bad enough, but a Batman Pillow Buddy? That was wrong in too many ways to count.

He was not upset. He was not upset by the fact that, three months ago, he would have been unceremoniously dragged out of bed and shoved out the back door long before a vigilante got close enough to poke his unprotected back.

He was not upset by the idea of having to eat Arkham's version of Christmas dinner for the first time in years.

He was not upset by the thought of what the endless, dreary grey deathscape of midwinter would be like behind bars with no diversions.

He wasn't even upset by the sudden realization that he wouldn't mind too terribly having the dancing monkeys to entertain him.

Damn it, he was not upset!

He put up a token fight, just to show that everything was as it should be, breaking the Captain's guitar over Nightwing's head and earning himself a few new bruises and a broken wrist, but nothing serious.

And when he lost, he went along, if not graciously, at least quietly, forcing Nightwing to drag him along, but not putting up any kind of violent struggle.

(But not because if he got himself seriously injured, there would be no one to patch him up with gentle hands and a sweet smile. Only because he was tired. Only because he was tired.)

But when Nightwing took him through the front door, he suddenly dug in his heels and caught at the doorknob with his good hand, forcing the boy to pause.

There was a picnic basket sitting on the top step.

A picnic basket, identical to the ones delivered every year before, steaming slightly in its spot nestled in the new-fallen snow.

And leading to and from this picnic basket were three sets of footprints, starting to blur just a bit as new flakes came down to soften their edges, but still fresh and distinct enough for him to read them.

He was, after all, a man of some intelligence. It wasn't exactly difficult for him to put one and one (and one) together and come up with C. A. T.

Before he quite knew what he was going to do, he had pulled free of Nightwing's grip and was running, following the footprints that led off into the distance.

They were alive. They were alive.

They couldn't be alive.

They must be.

They couldn't be.

Could they?

He'd heard of a gang of three prankster villains running rampant in Metropolis a few weeks back. Those three had appeared out of nowhere, teased the man of steel for a few days (apparently hoping to get a rise out of him, and not with any genuine malice) and taunted whatever villains happened to catch their fancy, culminating with the day they had pantsed Lex Luthor on national television.

Then they had disappeared again.

And somehow, no one had managed to photograph them or get a decent look at their faces. If they were his girls, then they had certainly learned a little something about discretion.

And Al had always had an unhealthy fascination with pantsing powerful men…

He skidded across the ice and nearly fell as he turned sharply, following the footprints into a dark alley. Briefly, he remembered the way they used to tease him about venturing into such places—Squishykins, nothing good ever happens in a darkened alley—but he ignored the memory, ignored the pain in his wrist, ignored the sound of the vigilante just behind him.

He burst out of the other end of the alley, onto another sidewalk. This one had seen heavier traffic; the snow was less pristine, the track harder to read—but he could see them just ahead, turning the corner. At least, he assumed this must be his quarry. They were the only people in sight.

The only one he saw clearly before they turned the corner, he only saw from behind, but she could have been Al. She was the right size and body type. Her hair was wrong, but hair could be changed. And her balance seemed as precarious as Al's had always seemed to be, although that might have been because of the ice.

He didn't stop to think what he would actually say to the girls if it turned out that they were really still alive, if this had all been some cruel practical joke of theirs.

(Cruel? No. Inconsiderate was the word.)

He rounded the corner and saw his three visitors—

And just for a split second, his heart sank.

It wasn't them. It had been silly of him to think that it would be. The one he had mistaken for Al, he now recognized as the Captain's friend, Rosemary. The blond man in front of her was Al's friend, Hugh. And while he didn't recognize the third member of the group, he thought he could safely assume that she was Techie's long-lost sister, or some other such nonsense.

He had a split second of disappointment, followed by another split second to get over it, before he realized that he was no longer controlling his own movement across the icy sidewalk. His feet went out from under him. Some instinct warned Rosemary just in time for her to look over her shoulder as he collided with her.

She yelped in surprise, and they both went down.

More times than he cared to count, Jonathan Crane had fallen onto surfaces as hard as this one. He knew to go limp, and not to use his hands to break his fall. Rosemary seemed to be less experienced in such matters. She was still lying there looking stunned when he awkwardly pushed himself into a sitting position.

Great. More bruises, just what he needed.

He glared up at Hugh and the unnamed third party, irrationally angry at them for…he didn't even know what.

They stared back at him. Then Hugh recovered his manners and reached down to help him up.

Crane ignored the hand and stood up on his own. He glanced back over his shoulder and was surprised to find that there was no sign of Nightwing. He glared at Hugh, irrationally angry about that as well.

"What are you doing here?" he snapped. Hugh went from startled to smooth in the blink of an eye.

"I take it you got the package."

Crane's eyes narrowed.

"Why?"

Hugh just shrugged and reached down to help Rosemary up, pointedly acting the gentleman. She took his hand, just as pointedly accepting the polite assistance.

At the sound of approaching sirens, Crane looked nervously toward the street—but for once, they weren't coming for him. He supposed it would be too much to hope that a major catastrophe had occurred that would call Nightwing away on more pressing business…but it was Christmas Eve, and anything was possible.

"You," he said to the stranger in the group. "What are you doing here?"

"We got letters," she snapped back, absolutely refusing to be intimidated by him. That settled it—she had to be some friend of Techie's, giving him one representative for each of them.

"Letters?" he repeated.

"Letters. Back in October. They said they had a Christmas tradition they wanted us to carry out for them, just in case they couldn't make it."

"They're not really…" Rosemary broke in. "I mean, they're not…dead, are they?"

"Aren't they?" he said with an indifferent shrug. The three of them looked stricken. "What, don't you know? There are graves; if you want to be sure, you can always dig up the bodies."

At that, Rosemary looked a bit ill. She turned away. After a moment, he realized that she was crying. The other girl, likewise, had tears in her eyes, but she looked more angry than sad—like she wanted to come flying at him, fists swinging. And Hugh just looked disgusted.

"You're a son of a bitch," he said in a strangled-sounding voice.

Crane just shrugged. He'd been called worse.

"You've done your duty to your late friends' memory. From now on, spend the holidays with your families."

It was so odd to realize that, unlike his girls, this trio would actually listen to him when he told them to leave him alone. It would be harder to get them to stay than go, now that their friends were gone.

Gone, gone, really and truly gone. He was never going to see them again. He was alone. He was free.

He sighed a little as he walked away from the distraught trio, whose misery, brought on by his own callous remark, should have been so much more satisfying than it was.

He kept an eye out for Nightwing—he couldn't believe that he had actually lost him, or that the young man had been called away for more important work. The Scarecrow just wasn't that lucky.

But in the unlikely event that he was still a free man, he was going to have to find a new place to hole up—to spend his holidays in solitary confinement—until he found a new home for himself. The security of the old lair was irrevocably compromised; Batman and the GCPD would be watching it closely for weeks, if not longer. Going back for anything would have been too great a risk. Going back to stay was out of the question.

An idea popped into his head, but he didn't even consider it. As appealing as it might be for him to hide out in a scary, scary cemetery, and as comfortable as he could make an ossuary, given the proper equipment, he was not going to put himself that close to their graves. What would people say?

Another idea flashed through his mind, and this one he did consider.

He might just have time to snatch that picnic basket off the front steps…

Author's note: Thanks for reading! Coming up next is "Wishy Washy" by BiteMeTechie. I've said it before and I'll say it again--that one is my favorite. Read it, I say. Lurve it.

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