Disclaimer: I don't own Batman.
Summary: "You were...whispering 'Scarecrow' in your sleep, Rachel." CraneRachel, mentions of HarveyRachel, oneshot
Um. Yeah. I have a soft spot for this pairing, for whatever reason. I just really wanted to write this little oneshot. It's set after Batman Begins and maybe just a bit into The Dark Knight. Definitely before Harvey's downward spiral, though. Anyway, the idea just wouldn't leave me alone. I really hope that y'all enjoy this! Thanks so much for checking this out!
Illusory
The first thing she notices upon waking is a large hand, clamped tightly around one of her thin shoulders.
The second thing she notices is that she's covered in a thin sheen of wet.
The third thing she notices is Harvey saying her name.
Rachel doesn't exactly recall the happenings that lead up to this, but obviously she has been worring him, so she turns to him, her eyes filled with sleep, and says, groggily, "What? Are you okay?"
Harvey laughs a bit, and then replies, "I'm supposed to be asking you that."
This puzzles her, causes her to rack her brain for whatever reason. She tries to figure out what exactly it was that caused him this kind of strife, but she can find nothing of the sort.
"You look a bit clueless," he says in that friendly, loving way of his.
She pushes a hand across her forehead, brushing away the few strands of hair that were plastered to her skin. The hand moves to cover her eyes, which she rubs, as if trying to gain some perspective. "What...what happened?"
He pauses for a moment, as if the words are hard for him to say, as if they physically hurt him, but nonetheless they spill from his mouth like water from an overflowing sink.
"You were...whispering 'Scarecrow' in your sleep, Rachel."
She tenses.
"You...don't say," she muses.
"Yeah."
The imagery from her dream comes back, piece by painful piece. It is slow going at first, so slow that she believes Harvey would have thought that she had returned to sleep. Though, Harvey has always been an observant individual, and he stares at her for a moment, the weight of his question sinking into her skin the longer it remains but a breath in the air.
After a few moments of silence, he says, "Crane." Not a question at all, just a statement of a fact. His eyes are kind as he looks down at her, her cheek pressed into the pillow, her eyes - though dim with sleep - stare at him with something vaguely resembling remorse.
Rachel does not know what else to say. As the bits of her dream come back, she realizes that it would be a lie to deny the fact Crane had been the star of her dreams. Of her nightmares. And she does not want to lie to Harvey about anything like this (though, she admits, she does have her share of secrets that must not be told).
"Yeah," she replies, and her voice sounds meek almost, timid and embarrassed. She feels a flash of heat permeate her cheeks, and she feels like crawling into a ball, pressing her fists into her eyes, and just ignoring the entire situation.
But she doesn't.
To do that...well, that would mean she cares a bit more for the insane doctor than she should.
And she does not.
She can not.
After all he did, after all he could have done, Rachel can not allow herself any fond thoughts of him. She remembers him in court, the slimy sneaky way he would try to get prisoners into his asylum. But she does remember those eyes of his - bright blue and intelligent - that never ceased to entrance her. She remembers the look of his hands, slender and careful.
But she remembers the cruelty of him, the way he had sneered at her right before he dosed her with that toxin.
And she does not feel anything more for him after that.
Rachel tells herself this adamantly.
But she has a feeling that, as often as she says that, the words lose their meaning, and she's right back where she started.
Every time she has a pitying thought for Crane himself, she remembers just what it was like to be within that toxin's clutches. She remembers the hallucinations, the terrifying imagery that made her feel as if she were going crazy. She remembers the feel of her life leaving her. Remembers Bruce saving her.
So she thinks of all those things, denying the weird sense that the dream gives her. The dreams where she thinks of the man behind that garish, frightening mask, are the worst, she finds. It is easy to hate the mask, but not so easy to associate the man with the horrors it was responsible for.
The dream itself was of nothing important. Just swirling images of the mask, intermingling with the bespectacled face of Crane, with her screams as background music as everything fell apart around her in a whirl of terrifying hallucinations. Hallucinations that reminded her far too much of the toxin's actual effects.
After the lengthy pause, she just says, "Just a nightmare...nothing to worry about."
The words sound false in her own ears. She wonders just how Harvey hears them.
A look of understanding crosses his face. He does not accuse her of anything, just wraps a strong arm around her shoulders and pulls her tightly to him, all the while nestling into the familiar sheets of his own bed. She stares at him, and at his chiseled good looks, and wonders why she can't just dream about him. She wonders why her dreams are haunted by the image of a man gone mad.
She doesn't ask him this. He presses a gentle kiss to the crown of her head and she lays her head against his chest.
The rhythm of his heartbeat lulls her quickly to sleep.
However, once she's in the arms of unconsciousness, she still dreams of piercing, whirling, crazed blue eyes, and the mask they hide behind.
End.