A/N - This chapter mentions a character called Ophelia, she is not a part of the batman story but is Cranes sort of girlfriend in an awesome if tragic fan fiction called "University" by a author on here Called SeventhSister and i thought I'd just pay my dues :) and you should really go check that out just hit it in the search bar or look it up on my favourites
Chapter 2
It was the middle of winter in Titan city, and it was freezing, snow was falling heavier than it had for years and there was ice coating the streets and the rivers of the city, this was a brutal change from the blistering summer they had had. Titan city lies on a coast with a large stretch of water leading off to other huge, crime infested metropolises. It was on this shore, more specifically on the tiny island that titan tower was placed upon… that a ragged and frozen form washed up… Tall and skinny, dressed in frozen, soaking rags long battered beyond any recognition of what they may have been before. Just like the man wearing them. The form shuddered and coughed violently, he was alive… Which in of itself was a phenomenal feat, it was way below 0 degrees in the water and he looked as though he had been in the water for some time, by all rights he should have frozen to death or drowned hours ago… Yet here he was…
He was tall, with medium length hair pulled back behind his ears; his face was as white as a ghost with his eyes sunken into his sockets and his prominent cheekbones jolting from the man's violent shivers… He had survived thus far… but even the most novice of medics could of told you this man was dying, very slowly but very surely, he was covered in bruises and if the hypothermia didn't get him the blood dripping half-heartedly from the stump where his left hand should have been will.
Yet. He stood up, and let out a scream, not a scream of pain, or one of triumph… it was a scream of all consuming rage…. Rage and fear, aimed at nothing in particular, as though he was shouting at the world, and the devil underneath it and expecting a pretty damn good answer and then… Oddly, he chuckled. Short, yet definite as if whatever answers he had got were pretty funny... He had survived the night and he would be damned if he was going to stop and rest now… He took a few steps towards the huge "T" shaped structure up the shore from him, but 2 steps away from the icy depths it was clear he had no strength to stand, and he collapsed… the man was furious with himself, at his own weakness and his own body's unwillingness to get up when there was so much to do… yet he understood… So cold, so so cold. He started to crawl, desperate to reach the tower, this man was no fool, and he knew if he did not get medical attention immediately he would die.
And he could not allow that.
For he was a man obsessed.
There was still work to be done.
One crawling drag after the other, pulling himself inch by inch closer and closer to the tower, only slightly faster than the incoming tide, the moonlight reflecting off this giant glass structure… Guiding this lost soul, not 10 feet from the door now, 5 feet, 3 feet. It was unclear whether it was salt water or tears running down this man's face as he leaped upwards with the last of his strength and threw all of his weight into the door which, thankfully opened with a crash and an alarm.
The man did not care for the alarm, it would only draw people, and hopefully help to him… and he could just lay there. With no strength to move and barely any to breath, he could feel unconsciousness claiming him; darkness was starting to shroud the outer edges of his vision, for what could be the last time. He was about to receive his rest. And he allowed his mind to wander… about his life and how he ended up on the floor of a strange building, freezing to death with only one hand. His thoughts ran through the events of the night, with the asylum and that bastard bat. And that creature that took his arm in the sewers before he could escape and drifted through the sewer system out into the ocean. Oddly… his thoughts drew him to the fleeting memories of his life before all of this, teaching psychology at Gotham university… he couldn't help but wonder how it all came from that boring and, rather satisfying enough life… to this, which, of course made him think of Ophelia… his darling Ophelia… but those thoughts only brought more pain, and anger… ever since he lost her he was doomed to be alone. So desperately lonely, and for a moment he wished to die, to be able to join her again… but he jarred himself, he couldn't leave yet, he needed to make the world know exactly what it was like to lose everything you care for, and yourself in the process. To feel the hatred and fear glowing from a city burning itself to the ground, to watch all the "civilized people" eat one another. Only then could he finally stop this crusade of vengeance and rest once more, find a city that didn't know him, and settle down and find something boring to do. Quietly he wondered whether this city, wherever he was… would have accepted him years down the line, or more deeply at the back of his mind… if he could ever stop this, if he could ever hang up this monster he had forced himself to become. But that was thought for a much less dire time…
He didn't know where he was, and he didn't care, as he heard muffled voices getting louder and louder towards him, panicked voices. He swore this place will learn the true meaning of fear… he would make sure of it… he was finding it an immense task to keep his eyes open for any longer. So he closed them.
And 2 minutes later Jonathan Crane died right there, on the floor of Titan Tower.
