Disclaimer: I wish I owned Jonathan Crane but I don't. All other characters are free agents. The title is from Poe. This is part of the CAT series. You can find where it goes on the timeline by visiting www. freewebs catverse. html or just figure that it comes after "TINSTAAFL," in early April.

Trigger warning: bullying and its aftereffects, violence against a child (mostly implied).

The Pæan of the Bells

It was midnight—far too late for a boy so young to be out alone. But Jonathan Crane was no ordinary boy. He had no one to care how late he stayed out, so long as he wasn't doing "filthy things." No one would care if he was too tired to stay awake at school tomorrow, so long as he passed his tests—and he always did. No one would care how badly bruised he was when he finally turned up. As long as he didn't have to go to the hospital, he was fine. No one cared.

Jonathan raced through the cornfield, endless stalks of green hampering his progress, hiding him from his pursuers, but hiding them from him, as well. He knew they were out there, somewhere, but he couldn't tell where. He could hear them running through the corn and calling out his hated nickname.

"Scarecrow! Where are you, Scarecrow?"

The boy sobbed as he ran, terror and exertion combining to tighten his chest until he was sure he wouldn't be able to draw his next breath. His feet felt heavier than lead. But he couldn't stop. If he did, he knew that they would catch him. And this time, they might forget the unspoken rules. They could put him in the hospital. They could put him in the ground. They could do whatever they wanted to him, and there was nothing he could do to stop them.

"Scarecrow!"

The voice sounded closer than the others. He looked back over his shoulder, but didn't stop running. And, in true horror movie fashion, the moment he stopped watching where he was going, he slammed into something unpleasantly solid.

He fell flat on his back, unable to hold back a cry of surprise, and looked up at—

A scarecrow?

Not one of the older boys. For a moment, his relief was so great, he couldn't think of anything else. Then he remembered that every moment he spent staring stupidly up at an inanimate object brought them that much closer to catching up with him. He scrambled to his feet.

Something seized him by the back of the shirt and lifted him up.

"Should have known I'd find you here, Scarecrow." The voice was too deep to belong to a child; no boy near his own age could have raised him so high up off the ground.

"Don't," he gasped. "Please." The older boy shook him so hard his head snapped back with an audible crack as his teeth clacked together. Jonathan whimpered, a small, frightened sound that any animal might have made. It was the closest he would come to screaming for help.

It wasn't that he was too proud to scream. He wanted, with the kind of desperation few happy children could have understood, to run, sobbing, into the arms of the nearest adult. He wanted someone to make the bullies go away. But he had long since learned that such a thing would never happen. No one would ever believe that the mayor's son, the class president, and the star of the football team had been picking on nerdy little Jonathan Crane, a boy half their size, who was nothing and nobody to them. He didn't even have any lunch money for them to steal.

And no one would ever believe that they had talked their older brothers into helping them beat up a total stranger, just for the hell of it. Not such good little boys. Not the sons of community leaders.

"You're a little candy ass, ain't you?" The older boy shook him again. His teeth rattled, and he sobbed once, very softly. "Hey! I found him!"

The other voices answered, and Jonathan gave up hope of surviving the night as lumbering bodies started crashing through the corn, heading right for him. He went limp, and didn't try to fight the tears running down his face. How many voices did he hear? Seven? Eight?

The other boy let him go unexpectedly, and he fell facedown in the dirt he knew so well, hard Georgia soil that would never soften a fall for him. His instincts told him to curl into a ball and hope they tired quickly of the game of kicking at an unresponsive lump. But he moved too slowly.

There was a pair of shoes in front of his face. He didn't know when they had gotten there, or how, but there they were—a pair of shoes just slightly bigger than the ones he was wearing, although these were much newer and in better condition. (His own feet were already big enough to make him awkward and clumsy, a sign that he was going to be tall someday, and big enough to fight off bullies like these—someday, in the distant future, too far away to do him any good in the here and now.)

The shoes were attached to a pair of feet, which were encased in thick white socks. The socks came up over the ankles and disappeared into the legs of a pair of blue jeans. The jeans were new, as evinced by the lack of fraying around the hems.

He had gotten as far as the knees when one of the shoes came up and kicked him in the teeth.

"Get up, Scarecrow."

"I'm not a scarecrow," Jonathan said, and spat blood on the ground, his last act of defiance for the night. When the foot drew back to kick him again, he scrambled up into a kneeling position. A foot in his back sent him sprawling in the dirt again.

"Come on, you can do better than that."

Gritting his teeth and ignoring the pain in his shoulder where the boot had hit him, Jonathan struggled to push himself up, only to have his arms knocked out from under him. His glasses—his brand new glasses that he had been specifically warned not to lose because they couldn't be replaced, went flying off his face. More shoes joined the others, encircling him. He heard a very disheartening crunch.

"What's the matter? So weak you can't even stand up, pansy boy?"

"Leave me alone," he whispered. He couldn't trust his voice to go any louder than that without dissolving into messy and very dangerous tears.

A strong pair of hands seized him by the shoulders and yanked him up off the ground. He caught a blurred impression of the other faces as he was spun around to face the one holding him up.

Beau Thompson, fifteen years old, on the wrestling team, but not captain, not stupid, but not terribly creative. Jonathan was actually relieved to see him. Beau was one of the few who actually cared about the unspoken rules. Most of the others probably wouldn't kill him on purpose, but Beau wouldn't do it even by accident. He wouldn't be spared the pain or humiliation, but Beau would make sure he was able to walk away from it, or crawl at the very least. For that, Jonathan was uncomfortably grateful.

"Stand up for yourself, shrimpy," Beau said, and shoved him backwards. He landed against something solid, and didn't have to look up to know who it was. Chad Berry was recognizable by smell alone. He always smelled as if he had just come from a refreshing roll in something several days dead, and he was exactly the kind of boy who would have known exactly where to find bodies of just the right freshness. And yet, he was a hero at Jonathan's school, idolized for his ability to throw a ball, run, and knock other people to the ground.

Now Chad used his immense athletic prowess to knock Jonathan into the arms of the next one. A few years older, more than a few sizes bigger; he didn't have to know the boy to know his type. This one was extra dangerous because he was observant. Seeing that Jonathan was able to brace himself against their shoves just enough to avoid having all the air knocked out of him, this one shoved him sideways instead.

Knocked off balance, Jonathan fell facefirst into someone much smaller, but not much softer. He tried to pull away when he realized he had his face pressed against a girl's chest, but she caught his shoulder and held him tight against her with a grip hard enough to bring fresh tears to his eyes. She was at least sixteen, pretty, not the type who usually joined in on this. (But in a few years...said a whisper of a thought. In a few years, things would be different.)

The girl slapped him. Then she shoved him at the next boy, Dylan, the mayor's sainted son, who didn't even give him a chance to stop stumbling before he planted both hands on the smaller boy's back and pushed him away toward the next one.

Of all the ones he knew, Dylan hated him the most, for reasons Jonathan had never understood. But class president Peter was the most inventive, and the one least worried about the consequences of his actions. He was the one Jonathan feared the most. And well he knew it.

A solid fist slammed into his stomach, driving the air out of him. He folded over the other boy's arm and started to slide toward the ground.

"Stand up, you pansy," Peter snapped. Jonathan made a sound somewhere between a cough and a squeak, and tried to push himself away. His efforts gave him just enough freedom to slide the rest of the way to the ground. He curled into a ball, doing his best to protect his face and body, and fighting the nausea that rolled over him in waves. He was not going to throw up on himself, and give them that much more to use against him.

"Come on, Peter, didn't I ever teach you how to hit a guy?"

At the sound of that voice, Jonathan started crying in earnest. Not Bill. Not Peter's older brother. Not him again.

Not again. Not again. Not again. Not again. Not again.

Those long, strong fingers grabbed a handful of his shirt. He flinched. His skin crawled. Memory alone stopped the breath in his throat.

Please, not again. Please, not again. Please, not again.

They could hit him all they wanted, he wouldn't complain, he wouldn't fight back, they could do anything they wanted to him, just not Bill. Not him.

Please just make him go away, he begged, with no clear idea of exactly who he expected to hear his thoughts. It didn't matter. He would have accepted any help that might have come his way, even the slimmest, faintest hope—but there was none to be had. All he could do was squeeze his eyes shut and hope that he could will himself into unconsciousness before the worst of it, and that maybe once he was out, they would give up and leave him alone.

He felt both hot and cold, and strangely numb. He might have been screaming, but no sounds could pass through his frozen throat. What was happening? When was it going to happen? The anticipation was almost too much to bear, but he didn't dare open his eyes.

And then someone said, very sharply, "Jonathan—"

When he opened his eyes again, only two things were obvious—he was still lost and trapped in the dark, and there was someone standing over him, reaching down to touch him.

But he was no longer unarmed. Never again would he be the helpless plaything of one of them. Before he could form any thoughts more coherent than that, his hand closed around the tiny canister of toxin under his pillow, and he sprayed a cloud of fine white mist in the face of his visitor.

It made a very satisfying sound, like a miniature explosion, and went ice cold in his hand. Whoever-it-was stumbled back, gasping for breath.

She—unmistakably female—wailed a heart-wrenching, "No!" so filled with anguish, he might have felt a pang of remorse had he been anyone but himself.

Then she did the last thing he would have expected, and threw herself on top of him, sobbing wildly.

Startled, he kicked out at her, writhing away from a grip that only got tighter as he struggled to escape it. She kept screaming, "No, no, no," again and again, terrified beyond reason by the thought of losing whatever it was that she perceived him to be.

When someone else called, "Squishy?" it occurred to him that he had probably just gassed one of his own minions.

"Get off me," he snapped, trying to push her away. She only clung more firmly to him. "Get off!"

"I'm turning on the light," said another voice. A moment later, he found himself squinting, momentarily blinded. "Jesus, Squishykins, what did you do?"

Standing in the doorway, staring at him in mild alarm, were Al and Techie. And wrapped around his torso was a red-faced, sobbing Captain, reduced to monosyllabic shrieks of terror and black despair. It would have been interesting if she hadn't been wrapped around him.

"Get her off me now," he bellowed. Apparently, for once, they understood just how serious he was. The two sane (well, saner) henchgirls darted forward to pry their friend away from him. As they fought to move her, she started screaming so piteously, they had to release her, and she snapped back into her original position just like a rubber band.

"Sorry, Squish. This is going to take a while," Techie said. He glared at her over the awkward burden of hysterical woman-burr. She just smirked. "If you didn't want this, you shouldn't have gassed her. Hey, Captain, look at me." Her voice went from sarcastic to soothing so quickly, he wouldn't have believed it possible if he hadn't heard it for himself. "Look at me. Captain, look up. Look at me." A few more repetitions brought about the desired result; the Captain's hysterical sobbing calmed down to nothing more than ragged, hitching gasps, and, trembling, she managed to look up at her friend and actually see her. "She's not here," Techie said firmly. "Your sister is safe. She's asleep in her bed, and she's in no danger. She's not here. And if you'll just come with me and stop crying, we can call her in the morning so you can be sure about that. Okay?"

For a moment, the Captain sat, frozen. Then she released her hold on Jonathan and sprang at Techie, knocking her flat across the bed and sobbing with renewed vigor.

"Ow," Techie muttered, and didn't try to get up. Al sat down next to them and added herself to the group hug, in a much more restrained manner than her Captain had done.

Crane sidled over to the other side of the room, where he could observe their bizarre behavior without fear of contamination. He knew they were as fond of each other as they were, inexplicably, of him, but he had never expected to see them act so…so…so very kind and caring. They had never given a single sign that any one of them had so much as a shred of true decency within her. Reluctantly, he had to admit to himself that there might be more to them than met the eye…He might have more to learn about them before he was ready to cast them away.

Now that their regard was focused away from him, he felt tolerably safe indulging in that shaky, weak feeling that always followed his most vivid nightmares. The ones derived from true memories persisted in affecting him this way, no matter how hard he tried to be cool and logical about it. He didn't want them to pick up on this particular weakness of his, even though they must surely have appeared in his room because they had heard him crying out in his sleep—a habit he would have to work around, if he intended to keep them much longer. And they did seem far too persistent to be driven off by normal means. But maybe this would do the trick. If he neglected to share the antidote with the young woman crying on his bed, he could possibly hope that she might retire in delicate health to the country, taking her two friends with her, never to be heard from again. Or at least she might take herself back to that sister she was so afraid of losing.

He would accept very nearly any fate that allowed him a return to the freedom and solitude he had always enjoyed. (Or, if not precisely enjoyed every minute of every day, at least he had practiced it, willingly and with not much reason to complain.)

Al, he would later decide, must be some kind of mind reader. At length, she disengaged herself from the group and carefully approached him, looking more sober than he had ever seen her. He crossed his arms and gazed at her sternly, hoping to disguise the fact that his hands were still shaking. (And as for why, he did his best to push those reasons from his mind, and focus only on his irritation at having been disturbed and, worse, touched by the hired help.)

"You do have an antidote, don't you?" she asked.

"Of course I do," he snapped, and then stopped to wonder why he hadn't said otherwise, as he'd intended. She looked a bit troubled, perhaps by the fact that he hadn't immediately run off to get said antidote. Or perhaps it was something else that bothered her. She was giving him such a searching glance, he felt she must be uncovering the dirtiest little secrets from the very deepest recesses of his mind. He wanted to shove her away. This one, in particular, made a habit of coming in close where she wasn't wanted.

"Are you all right?" she asked, too softly for the others to overhear.

"Fine," he growled, and took a step away. She seemed only partially satisfied.

"Any broken bones? Sprains, strains, anything like that?" She made it fairly clear by her expression that she wasn't really asking after his physical wellbeing.

"I said I'm fine." He stepped back again. She followed, still speaking in a low, disturbingly gentle tone.

"I don't think we're going to be able to get her out of here while she's like this. So the sooner you get her tranked or whatever, the sooner we'll get out of your hair. And…I think I'm going to make some tea. Do you want a cup?"

"No."

"We have honey vanilla chamomile," she wheedled.

"No."

"Okay." She smiled comfortingly, and suddenly hugged him—not quite so suddenly that she provoked his fight-or-flight response, but enough that he didn't have time to raise his hands to ward her off. She released him quickly, nuzzled his shoulder with her forehead, and ran off, looking confoundingly cheerful.

He reluctantly concluded that he had a lot to learn about their warped little minds before he gave them the boot.

xXx

Half an hour later, he found himself sipping a cup of tea, which Al had "forgotten" that he didn't want, staring down his three henchgirls as the Captain, still shaking and supported both physically and emotionally by a friend on each side told him, briefly, the story of her cherished baby sister, whose safety, security, and even emotional state, it seemed, the older sister considered her personal responsibility.

He wouldn't have been able to get back to sleep, anyway. He might as well be getting something useful done, and what better than to learn how to turn one of the women who had attached themselves to him into a quivering mass of terror-filled jelly. What she loved the most, she would, by necessity, fear losing. And that was something he was going to need to know.

He ignored the fact that he was suddenly making long-term plans for their attachment to him. He ignored the fact that listening to her rambling tale of childish love had utterly distracted him from his own momentary weakness. And he utterly ignored the fact that occasionally he had murmured things to her that were almost…comforting.

Well, he had to encourage her to keep talking, didn't he?

Author's note: Hugs all around. If you're still with us, you're going to love "April Showers." And also, have some tea.