Chapter 1: Psychology of Dreams

"What do I dream about Dr. Murphy? You mean what kind of nightmares do I have? Hmmm, probably the last time I had a nightmare was last week. Christopher Lee had died...though that's not great for a psych report is it? Oh well, take what you want from that as you usually do from me."

-Patient interview tape 3# patient 64224 AKA: Elizabeth Griffin AKA: Psyche. Dr. Murphy presiding

46 Years later

The bat cave was silent. All assumptions Terry had previously had had been shattered. Psyche was such a well known member of the old rogue's gallery back in the day, revered by some of the new gangs popping up around Gotham, especially the feminist gang members. Now, he had learnt that she was far from the idealised personification of evil and female strength ("man, is that an oxymoron or not?" he asked himself).

"So instead of that raging feminist people think of her now, she was just Crane's lackey?" He asked dumbfounded. Bruce looked up sharply, a dark shadow fell across his face as he glared at his protégée.

"Have you listened to anything I've said?" Bruce almost snarled, his eyes would have flashed red if they could have. Terry took a step back. If Bruce acted like that when he was Batman, then no wonder he had the criminals of Gotham scared. He needed to damage control the situation

"Well yes but...but what you've just told me doesn't sound like the Elizabeth...Catherine...oh, whatever she called herself! The Psyche everyone knew! My point is, from what you've just told me, she was completely obsessed with Crane and would do anything for him if he just asked her to. I mean come on! What exactly is the difference between her and that Harley chick?

Bruce sighed and turned back to the computer screen. Tapping on the keyboard momentarily, he brought up two images on the computer screen. Terry recognised one instantly.. the other, he had never seen before. One was Elizabeth Griffin's infamous Arkham shot. It was nothing like the picture of a teenager beside it. Terry nearly did a double take, "It's the same woman!" Bruce nodded solemnly.

Terry looked at the two women. The teenager on the left was round faced with dimples, with fairly long, chemically straightened hair which was highlighted with auburn streaks, smiling as if she hadn't a care in the world. The woman on the right, looked like the same girl, but she was different. Gone was the highlighted hair straightened into submission, instead, it was past the point of normally long, was bushy and ridiculously curly. It was no longer colourful, but was a deep dark colour, stuck somewhere between brunette and black. She was no beauty by any stretch of the imagination in any of the pictures. As a teenager, she wore a ridiculously cheesy grin which showed off typically bad English teeth and exacerbated the roundness of her face, giving her a double chin effect. The teenager wasn't ugly, but she would have hardly won Miss England. Despite her cheesy smile, she seemed delightfully shy and coquettish, like a girl who would be welcoming if she got to know you. The woman on the right, Terry looked at her, having to remind himself that it was the same person. It wasn't the fact that her face was no longer obviously covered in make up to hide a multitude of spots, or the obvious cosmetic surgery on her nose. It was the way the woman held herself. In the teen picture, Catherine slouched with typical teenage candour with no consciousness of how she was looking. The grown, unsmiling Catherine however, held herself with a regal countenance. This was helped by her rather large (post surgery) nose which gave her a proud, haughty look. She stood in front of the camera on her mug shot upright, as if judging anyone who looked at the picture for daring to look upon her face. Terry understood why he had never known her real name or story; it would have been easy for her to disappear if nobody intentionally looked for her or knew beforehand her story, then nobody would link this soured woman with the jokey teenager besides her.

"She was never a Harley Quinn Terry." Bruce said solemnly, "You need to understand that. She never was."

"Sounds like you respect her." Terry exclaimed. In all the time he had known Bruce, Bruce had never spoken about any of his enemies like he did at this moment in time. Bruce looked up.

"Pay attention now Mcginis." He said curtly, "You are going to learn probably the most important lesson in being Batman right now."

Terry looked at him with raised eyes, but the old man wasn't registering his successor's presence, he was fixed on the purple rocket boots behind the glass case, lost in memories of the past. He wasn't surprised if Bruce could still see her, standing erect in those boots as she did forty odd years previously.

"When I saw her in that bank for the first time...yes, maybe. But from the first time I took her mask off to the moment I found her unconscious in that alley...and finally, that last time I lay eyes on her...she was never a Quinzel." He muttered, lost in time.

The sun shone through the roof early in the morning. Catherine Adams groaned, shifting from her position slightly and and buried her head into the rib cage of the man she was entwined with in the makeshift haybed. Dr. Jonathan Crane (more well known in the city that the two people could see out of the hole in the roof as the Scarecrow) opened his eyes to look at the unknown presence sleeping on his stomach. Upon discovering Catherine's dark locks spread over his chest and hiding his face, he smiled sleepily, raising a finger to her head and swept away the hair to reveal Catherine Marie Adams. This sudden exposure to the sun caused the sleeping woman to squirm irritably.

"Go away sun." She groaned, throwing her arm around her head and over Crane, as if trying to meld herself fully with the bemused man beside her. Jonathan stroked the top of her scalp fondly with an elegant, long finger.

"Time to wake up Sparrow." He whispered to her, smiling to himself remembering the first time they had woken up together; only a few days ago, but to him (and Catherine), it was so long ago. Catherine opened her eyes softly, looking up at the man she had broken out of the insane asylum hours ago (presumably). She smiled softly.

"I thought I'd dreamt it." She whispered, "that I'd dreamt it and I'd wake up on a plane back to Yorkshire...I didn't want to wake up..." Suddenly, she hissed in pain, sitting up sharply and staring at her hands. Crane took her wrists and looked down at her bandaged hands. They had begun to weep. He looked to the woman on top of him with interest. She smiled bravely.

"It's nothing Hannibal." She tried to reassure, "I'm fine."

During her captivity under him, Catherine had displayed features of Agliophobia yet now, she had worst physical injuries than anything he had inflicted on her and yet she stared at those which she had inflicted by her own hand calmly, as if they weren't there. Crane wondered at this self restraint she was showing, wondering if the play of last night had changed her. The Catherine he knew before they had given into each other had been vocal in her thoughts and desires, could she now not even say if she was in pain? Had he really broken her in more ways than one? His mind whirled to one Harleen Quinzel. No matter how hard the Joker had hit her, she never seemed to respond. This had always troubled Crane, he had found this non reaction to pain disturbing and in this moment in time, felt anxiety to the idea that Catherine was now just a vacuum of things such as pain or emotion. There was only one way to disprove this. He smiled into her dark eyes lovingly, before dipping his own gaze and squeezing her fingers hard. Catherine screamed loudly. The pain coursed up her arms like electric shocks, causing her back to arch in sheer agony. Crane smiled knowingly. He had been frightened that the noises Catherine had made last night would be the last he heard such divine screams. Now, he was satisfied that his Catherine still existed.

"Come Catherine." He demanded, taking her by the wrists and pulling her up, ignoring their nakedness, "These need redressing."

The radio in the barn was the two fugitive's only link to the outside world. Two days after Jonathan and Catherine had gone into hiding, the morning news came on to wake them (or more specifically, Cat) with the daily update on the world they were no longer a part of. First, it announced such pointless reports which hardly qualified as news, like Lindsay Lohan being put in jail yet again for drunk driving. It then moved on to the more interesting and reassuring reports on how the disastrous search for the Scarecrow and his 'unknown accomplice' were going (thankfully, the media were under the illusion that an unknown accomplice was the one behind ordering the execution of Catherine Adams and the policewoman. "It'll make your introduction to Gotham easier." Jonathan had remarked by her side). It also brought news Cat didn't want to hear, such as the news that her 'body' had been flown back to the UK.

Hearing her mother's voice on the radio, Cat stood up and walked out of the barn to walk to the edge of the field and sat on the fence looking out on Gotham. She sat there all day, just looking out on the city in the distance. Crane didn't approach her at all as he could see that she needed space, not somebody flapping around her. However, he never left his vigil in the barn door, watching her carefully. When Cat gladly returned inside that night, Crane didn't mention the radio report to her, or ask her how she was feeling. Instead, he offered her a feast of tinned soup and dry bread. Cat smiled and accepted the token wearily, along with water which Crane strictly rationed due to the day's dehydration. They continued the evening silently, he reading psychology articles, she, curled up in a corner of the bar, not speaking a word to each other, apart from when Cat announced in a dead tone that she was going to bed. She got up to climb the ladder to the upper part of the barn where they had designated as their sleeping area, when she felt a tug on her hand. She whipped around to see Crane, still sat on his chair and eyes still fixed on the book in his lap clasping her hand. To anybody else looking in on this, this would seem like a very detached gesture.

"Is there anything I can do for you Sparrow? A mydol? An Atarax? " His eyes still firmly on the book. Cat stared at him expressionlessly, as if she hated him. Rather unexpectedly though, she suddenly flopped onto his chair, throwing her arms around him and buried her head in his shoulders. Crane held her loosely. For a year, he had pulled the strings to Catherine's life, had seen her display every emotion to him; Hate, bitterness, nostalgia. In the last few days she had shown the deepest, rawest forms of loyalty. Never had he seen her cry like this though, pressing her face into his shirt. He may have been a specialist in human fear, but to Jonathan Crane, human behaviour still remained a mystery.

"Psyche." He muttered, holding her loosely. Two days had passed since Catherine Adams had given up her life and busted him out of Arkham, and two days had passed since Catherine had given herself willingly and passionately to Dr. Crane, yet he still felt uneasy when she touched him. Years of isolation had left him unfamiliar with humanity and the most basic of emotions. For Cat though, he resolved to make an effort. He wrapped his arms around her tightly and stood up. Due to the massive difference in height, it wasn't hard to completely lift her off the ground. With Cat still silently crying into his shoulder, he carried her fireman-like up the stairs to the upper loft and laid down with her on the makeshift hay bed they had constructed (as opposed to the first night when they had simply take each other on the floor). Stroking her hair gently, he heard her giggle manically.

"Shame, if this was fiction, I wouldn't be crying over something like this. I wouldn't be like this just because I heard my mum's voice on the radio." She mumbled, chastising herself angrily into his shirt.

"It's alright Sparrow." Crane assured her, "Unfortunately for us, humans rarely change their thought patterns. I doubt in a film that the director would bother carrying on with life after the big scene, showing the reality of life after a person's decision. It doesn't give the same closure to all the herd that paid to see a romantic scene so that they can go home and carry on their own dull, unfulfilled lives...Catherine?" He looked. Cat was no longer crying into his shirt, instead, her head was turned to the side and her eyes were closed. She was lost in a much needed and much welcome sleep. Crane sighed. Even though the best thing for her was sleep, it still irked him that she had fallen asleep during his rant. How could she fall off suddenly like ...like a cat anyway? He'd never know.

"Hush little Sparrow don't say a word,

Hannibal will buy you a mockingbird"

Nothingness. Cat stretched her hands out into the vast darkness, calling out in confusion.

"Hannibal?" She called uneasily, was he watching her on the camera again? It wasn't possible! She was out of the cell wasn't she? She couldn't see a thing. "Where are you?" She shivered. Could she really be this needy for Crane after only being away from him for a day? Wait! If she wasn't in his cell, and she wasn't in the hospital, where was she?

"Jonathan!" She yelled out. In the back of her head, she was yelling at herself. Why be so scared? Only the weak felt fear.

"Nothingness." A strange voice growled in the dark, "Nothingness and that's what you deserve."

She woke with a start, shivering under her quilt. In her half asleep haze her body was frozen in a sleep induced paralysis. Fighting the fear beating in her chest, she stretched her arm out to where Crane had been when she had fallen asleep, the fear screamed out intensely when she grabbed thin air. In her drowsy state, she moaned out.

"HANNIBAL!" She sat up sharply. All was well; she was back in the barn. As the memories came flooding back to her, she sighed in relief. It was just a dream...but where was Crane?

Cat looked around confused. When she had fallen asleep, she had been in Crane's arms. Now, for the first time since she had broken him out of prison, she had no idea where it was...and that knowledge scared her.

A quiet grunting came from outside the barn, causing Cat to jump slightly in shock. It sounded angry. As if Crane was fighting some unfortunate soul who had stumbled across their hideout. Cat eased herself down the steps quietly. If somebody was daring to attack Jonathan then she could take them by surprise. Pulling Baptiste's gun out of her belt, she edged to the door and swung herself round, pointing the gun. What she saw made her gasp.

Jonathan Crane stood by the door by himself, his orange Arkham shirt off, revealing his gangly, scarred body. He stood erect in the moonlight, flailing his arms around in a semi elegant position, bringing his left leg up with his arms in a graceful pose which reminded Cat irresistibly of the martial arts films she used to be obsessed with. The martial arts films which were probably still on her shelf in her room back in England. Crane's foot swiftly came up in a block for an imaginary adversary, before bowing his head and bringing his fists up in a flailing motion, but shaping them into a beak motion upon contact of the air. Cat gasped, she had never imagined Crane to be the fighting sort, he always come across as a thinker instead of a fighter, leaving it up to his henchmen or the Scarecrow (who even then, only really used a gun). Watching him now though, Cat felt her eyes light up and a knowing smile played on her lips.

"Crane style Hannibal?" She asked, quite loudly, causing him to spin round sharply. Seeing Cat holding a gun, his eyebrows rose.

"After today, I must confess Catherine that I did wonder if you were having second thoughts" He sighed heavily, picking his shirt up off the ground and put it on, buttoning it back up, "Though the lengths you would go to to free yourself of me, I must say, the Scarecrow would be proud." Cat looked at him confused, before realising that she was still holding her gun.

"This? Wait, no! I'm not...don't worry...I couldn..."

"That's all I need to know." He smiled cockily, turning his back on Cat and walking back into the barn. Cat stood on the spot blankly. What the hell had just happened?

"Hang on! What's all you need to know?" She demanded, storming back into the barn. After a year, she thought that she'd be used to Crane's idiosyncrasies like talking to himself and walking off...or saying something sarky and walking off. Pounding back into the barn, Cat yelped a little when she came back face to face with Jonathan. Jonathan holding two glasses in one hand and a bottle of Vega Sicillia Unico 2000 in the other with a smirk on his face.

"All I need to know about you Catherine, is that when you do leave me, you'll just shoot me point blank. You won't be babbling like an idiot when that day comes." He said sarcastically, "Because just now was the latter, I think it calls for a celebration." And strove past her into the cornfield.

Cat stood in the door for a second shell shocked. What the hell happened? She sighed heavily. Crane still had the power to play her like a violin.

"Sparrow, this bottle cost $500, it's a bit sad for me to drink it by myself." Jonathan muttered from outside. Cat sighed, admitting defeat and joining Crane outside under the stars. Taking a glass from Crane, she groaned, letting herself fall into the corn beside him.

"I was...concerned." She mumbled, "I woke up and you weren't there...and then I heard noise. I thought you were being attacked..."

"Much appreciated." Crane smiled slightly, "Regrettably, I'm afraid sleep will never be a pleasure for me as it is for you, so I'm afraid I cannot be by your side whilst you sleep, I would be bored to even attempt to do so. Please do not be afraid in future Sparrow, believe me, there will be more things in Gotham which will frighten you more..."

"I won't be afraid!" She snorted indignantly, "I've lived with you for a year,you pushed me to the edge and, let's face it, I think now I've seen the worst..."

"There's a marked difference between me preparing you to face fear and actually coming up against fear." He retorted sharply. "Only a fool knows no fear, you'd do well to remember that Catherine."

Cat looked to her side, Crane was still sat up opening the bottle of wine. He was right, even he felt fear (though Cat was probably the only person who had ever seen what she saw and lived to keep her mouth shut). Cat sighed , she still had so much to learn.

"But here, do not fear my Sparrow, nobody will come across this place, as isolated as it is." He reassured her, offering her a glass of the sparkling liquid. "To your long and illustrious career by my side then my Psyche." He toasted courteously, raising his glass. Cat stared at the bottle. True, she loved alcohol. Before her kidnapping, she was obsessed with cocktails and rosé wine. Now however, after a year on just water and the fact that it was the middle of the night, she wasn't so sure.

"In the cell, I was so free of time I probably ate breakfast in the evening for all I know and think you'd woke me up in the morning to eat. Now...I don't know, guess it'll take me a while to settle back into normal time." Crane smiled.

"The red fox," He stated cockily, looking to his side at her, "is a nocturnal creature, they like to confuse their enemies... like you. They are so like you, I'm sure if they could, they'd drink fine wine as well." Cat smiled, sipping at the wine. After a year of just drinking water, the alcohol went straight to her head, causing the world to spin and make her feel as if she was floating. She clung to Jonathan tightly.

"Are you calling me a vixen?" She smirked at the implication, much to Crane's disapproval.

"I'm calling you a creature of the night now." He corrected, "A creature of the darkest of night, removed from the ilk of the city. It does not matter that we are not in our room and you are not in a straightjacket. Where we are concerned, time has no hold on us"

"Probably a good thing to stay up anyway." She sighed, "The weird dream I just had."

"Oh?" Crane's ears pricked up. He specifically specialised in fear, but he had always had a soft spot for dreams, for dreams are the hotbed for phobias in which no one can escape. Cat opened her mouth to tell him about her dream. She had no idea why it had scared her as much as it did, it didn't make any sense. In the end, she just shut her mouth and whispered:

"Never mind, I've forgot it now."

For the rest of the night, Cat and Jonathan stayed under the stars, drinking wine and discussing the meaning of dreams.

"Do you think dreams can tell the future Hannibal?" Cat slurred unexpectedly. Crane regarded her quizzically.

"Prophetic dreams Sparrow?" He asked, trying his best to seem genuine, but betrayed his sneer. Cat looked to her side and frowned.

"Yeah...you know? You dream and you see the future...like Angela Petrelli ...you know?"

"Catherine." Crane sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Apart from the initial suggestion, which insulted him as an intellect, he doubted that anybody could have fitted so many 'you knows?' into a sentence like Cat had just done. On top of that, she was referencing some idiot thing he had no idea about, clearly a throwback to her 'sane' days. Cat noticed the tone in his voice and banged him angrily with her elbow.

"I'm serious Jon! The ancient Egyptians put a lot of stock in what the priestesses dreamed about. That and the Spartans..."

"Catherine." He repeated again, this time, much firmly, "I'm sure many an ancient society read too much into dreams, but there's a reason those societies are not around today."

Everything from the possibility that dreams were prophetic, to the pros and cons of the Psychoanalytical approach to dreams was discussed after that. It was a lively debate which carried on for the rest of the night, with Cat arguing that dreams represented what the subject knew already and manifested itself in their dreams as repressed desires. Crane argued that dreams did not represent repressed desires, dreams were in fact, manifestations of what a subject had been thinking all day and to relate it all back to sex was a very naive and mainstream view. As the sun dawned, Crane was carrying Cat back to the barn like she was nothing more than a child. Laying her back on the straw and covering her with the blanket again, he looked down at her in the manner a snake regards it prey.

"I promise you Sparrow." He whispered to her, "Dreams don't come true. I'd always be looking over my shoulder for my Grandmother wielding a scythe if they did."

The next morning, Cat woke up confused. It was bright and clearly fully daytime, yet she hadn't been woken up by radio Gotham's 8'o clock news. Crane had removed the radio, only to turn it back on days later with Cat's expressed consent, and never set to go off when the news was on ever again.

Hey Fanfic.

Yep, as promised, here is the first chapter of the long awaited sequel to Psyche. Apologise if this appears to be a bit slow, I didn't want to write fluff but did want to show something of their life in the barn. Next chapter, we meet a new character who will feature heavily in this story (little clue: if you've read The Game, he likes Ferrero Roche's) and the story will kick off from there x

If you've just joined this cannon, I suggest reading "Psyche first because...well otherwise this isn't going to make any sense lol.

My other running story "The Game" is a future storyline to this, but don't worry, with the way uni's going, there won't be any major spoilers to this before I finish the Game, though next chapter will cover why The Riddler and Catherine hate each other so much

Agliophobia is fear of pain.

Competition time: In the last story Psyche, Cat rescued Crane from Arkham. I wrote an alternative, funnier version to that and to one lucky Psyche fan, I'll email it to them and them alone. All you need to do is draw a picture of Catherine as Psyche, or even a scene from Psyche if you wish. Then, put it on Deviant Art under the heading "Artemis's competiton" and send me a link. The top 3 shall be plugged in the story and one person shall win that alternative plot.

Also, big shout out to Decepti-Kitty for her pictures of Catherine already. Thanks for plugging Psyche hun xxxx

Artemis out

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