A/N: I'm sorry this took so long. The first 1500 words were written three years ago, and the remainder written today, so please forgive any lack of cohesion.

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Disclaimer: I don't own anything except the plot and the characters not found in Batman Begins.

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Chapter IV

Jonathan Crane had never lost his bearings. Between the school and his home, he had mapped out every road, every building in his mind, an ugly labyrinth of grey concrete jungle that he had forced himself to commit to memory. It was the only way to outsmart those bullies, for he could never beat them in a fight, even if the spark in his eyes seemed to be ready to ignite and burn at any instant and he wielded his fist with righteous anger and sheer frustration at his own weakness.

His map could only serve the movement of his feet. In the physical sense, he never lost his compass; he could run.

You can run but you can't hide.

And that was true. There was no escape to a world where there were only four plain white walls and nothing stood between him and peace. Perhaps, no such world even existed in the first place.

For the science of cartography would forever be limited, there was no map in the world that could include his feelings, his desires, his fears, and direct him to an imagined utopia. There was no compass which pointed him toward healing, acceptance and love.

There was Ethel. There were dreams. He could dream.

But once he entered the world of dreams, everything changed.

In the world of dreams, lines could melt, faces got distorted, and voices become amplified to an unearthly volume. In the world of dreams, there were no clear feelings, only screaming, choking sensations as the world whirled round and round until everything became muddled and unclear. Not that they were clear in the first place. In the world of dreams, there were no constants, no law of gravity, no lifebuoy or handhold.

And as his eyelids slowly slipped shut, he mumbled, Not that sort of dreams...

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Darkness had already descended upon the city hours ago. Ethel sat on the front steps of the house, hugging her knees close to her, shivering in the chilly breeze. She wondered when Aunt Serena would be home, until it dawned upon her that she would probably have to sit out here for the rest of the night. For what was left of it, she corrected herself, which was not much. It would do her good to convince herself that this was a blessing in disguise.

She sighed for what could be the third time, and chewed on one fingernail. She'd forgotten how many times this had happened. Ever since Uncle Fred had died, her aunt no longer treated her as part of their family. In fact, she mused, it had been so even when he was still alive, and only unknown to her due to her own childishness. It was one of the things a child could be vaguely aware of but never notice or confront outright. Children had this untaught ability to shut out the undesirable and focus only on what they wanted to believe. Nothing could erode their pillar of hope, for them there would always be a sun-dried tear, a sob stifled by candy in the mouth, a scrape soothed by kind words. You could tell a child that there was a blackout and he would tell you that the sun was still going to rise tomorrow.

But you're no longer a child, stupid. And now she knew, that all along the streaks of tears were still present, the sobs were swallowed and still stuck somewhere in the throat, the cuts still raw and red and oozing stinging pain.

So now she was sitting on the front steps. Her aunt was probably out partying, entertaining clients. The boys were all staying over at their friends' place, and there was no hope that the lights in the house would suddenly flicker on, and someone would welcome her home, bring her to a nice hot meal at a table, lead her to bed, soft and warm and...

Oh shut up, she hissed. Thinking about food had made her stomach growl. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to catch some sleep.

Nothing happened.

She opened her eyes again. A cricket chirped merrily, in blatant mockery of her being locked out of her own home. She bit her lip. House.

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It starts simply enough. They are sitting side by side on the bridge, the river running beneath them. She swings her legs once, two times, and stops. He stares at her, her green eyes, her small mouth, and surprises himself by running his fingers through her hair. It is a dream; where things happen. He can hear her breathing; see her chest rise up and down as his own heartbeat quickens. A flutter of the eyelids, her hand on his, and he lowers his eyes. It feels like he has jettisoned his worries into the river, and now its calm surface is tumultuous and he cannot see that which lies beneath the surface. He does not need to, for he only needs to look into her eyes and he will know.

He turns to her, and she smiles at him. They don't speak; words would have endangered the birth of a moment, once lost, never to be regained. It was too precious, too beautiful, too much to bear. His heart beats frantically.

He does not understand why his stomach lurches when their eyes lock, why he does not shy away, why she has chosen him. It is a dream, he protests. The feeling is so visceral, he can't explain it. It has nothing to do with books, fear, or even simple plain logic. It has everything to do with the deep sinking sensation in his gut. It has everything to do with her leaning in closer and closer until he can feel her breath on his nose, until...

She vanishes.

He stands up instantly; turning round and round, searching for her, until he is dizzy and his legs cry, "STOP!" It is then when he spots her in the water. Her arms are waving desperately for help, each scream filling her lungs with water.

He's not thinking, he knows, when he jumps into the river.

As soon as he plunges beneath the surface, he gets transported to another place, another time. He recognises it not by the same roaring sound of water but by the ringing in his ears. And that which chokes him is not the water but his own guilt and fear. Insanity overwrites reason in the world of dreams.

The screaming continues like a siren, wailing. Except that with the reversal of time, the screams sound younger, and he recognises Julien's voice, ringing clear from her face that hovers before his, "You let me die, you let Mommy die!"

"No!" he tries to scream, but no sound comes out of his mouth. He is frozen.

For one who thinks so lucidly, who goes over every action in his mind before executing it with the careful menace of an assassin, he wants to deny that accusation and explain himself. But in his heart, he knows it's true, that he has borne the guilt all these years.

"Yes, yes, yes," she cries, plaintively, accusingly, "you broke your promise!"

"No," he screams, 'no, no, no,' all in vain. He can only echo in his heart, No.

"You've forgotten about me!"

No.

"You've forgotten about fear, about fighting!"

NO.

She starts to laugh. In the break between giggles she mouths, "Scarecrow."

He starts. She has never called him that. He asks, in a doubtful whisper, "What...what did you call me?"

Julien fades and is replaced by Ethel, who screeches, "SCARECROW!!!"

The bullies' voices join the chanting chorus of "scarecrow, scarecrow", and as the chanting increases in volume and intensity, he can clearly distinguish Julien's and Ethel's voices above the rest. Louder and louder; the noise, he can't shut it out, he wants to, but he can't, he can't. All he can do is scream just loud enough to cover the noise, and this is what he does, over and over...

Until he wakes up.

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As the night wore on slowly, painfully, her thoughts began to focus on a single person. Hunger and insomnia made people do that; think about things they carefully avoided or carelessly glossed over. She had never felt this unsure. Teetering on the edge of uncertainty for so long had made her wonder if there was a confounding virus that coursed through her veins, a blurring between her desire and the cleft in his heart she wished she could see and seal.

She needed to sort things out. And what better place to do so other than--

The Bridge.

They had spent a lot of time there in their spare time, just sitting side by side, watching the water. Maybe the turbulent waters would somehow swallow up her doubts and leave her clear and decided. Maybe being there would help to remove the sludge from the surface of everything.

She rose, and took a few resolute steps out of the gate.

It was time.

----------

The sheets were tangled around his legs, snaking in figure-of-eights about his ankles, stark reminders of the water that had gripped his feet and pulled him beneath the surface to enter the world of voices. He took in gasping breaths, quick and fast at first, then slowly becoming long and deeply drawn as minutes passed. His chest was heaving, and he was crying without sound. Embarrassed, Jonathan wiped the tears away angrily with the back of a hand, but they kept coming, and nothing could stop the flow.

He stood up from the bed, and swayed slightly, his feet unsteady. He stumbled out of the room and into the corridor. He was compelled by some unknown force to move, to walk. Pushing his tousled hair out of his eyes and holding his other palm to the wall, he swept his eyes across the apartment. Each breath returned to him loud and laboured. He swallowed.

All was silent.

----------

She hurried along, clutching her bag close to her. The wind whipped her cheeks and her long hair trailed behind her, a brown banner carried by the wind. Almost as soon as her resolve had set in, she was clouded by doubt and now she paused and glanced behind her. Her eyes shut briefly.

Maybe things should just be left as they were.

But in the flutter of time between one moment and the next she looked down at her hands, empty without his, and they told her exactly what she had to do.

----------

Jonathan's sigh lent slight reprieve. His body sank closer to the wall, now moist against his clammy palm. He jerked his head to the right, and then the other way, assured that he was alone in the apartment. Suddenly he turned around and there it was behind him, a face in the floor that grew into a dark figure of seven feet featureless and glowering which he knew not what it was or who, only that it spoke Evil and by its uneven steps toward him was probably no longer content with mere surveillance. It was too far away to be his shadow.

Jonathan backed away, knocking over the pile of books on the table and almost stumbling into a chair. He could feel its cold fingers an inch from his neck as he tore away to the door and out of the apartment, certain that it was following him as he ran out into the quiet night.

----------

The streetlights flickered out, causing her shadow to dance and disappear. Ethel glanced warily from one side of the street to the next and quickened her pace. No girl should wander alone on the streets of Gotham this late at night, but something told her to carry on, a pressing need she held and she beheld in someone she could come to love.

----------

The streets were suspiciously empty this night, but Jonathan was oblivious to this as he fled from his pursuer. He did not know how long he ran, or how far. His heart cried out to him to slow down. The tingling at the back of his neck had disappeared. He jerked his head around and discovered that the figure was no longer there. He frowned, and checked again. It was gone.

Pausing, he rested his hands on his thighs, utterly spent. Could it have been merely a figment of his imagination? Or was it…? A low laugh echoed from a deserted building to his left and he jumped. It was hardly safe here. Reason advised him to head home and soon, but the idea of returning to the apartment made him nauseous. He coughed a laugh at the notion that he had nowhere to go. Everything seemed out of focus and as he brought a hand to his face he realised that he had left the house without his glasses.

'Hey, kid,' someone hollered. He turned.

'Yeah, you,'

Jonathan squinted. Surveying his surroundings, he got his bearings as best as he could and hit the pavement running. Driven by fear and little else, he let his legs direct him to the one place where he'd felt safe, once, before.

----------

Finally Ethel arrived at the bridge. She sat down and crossed her legs. The edges of the river framed the sky, its surface rippling the clouds that parted to reveal a sliver of moon and a star. Her fingers wound their way around the handles of her bag and her thumbs met when she picked up the slightest hint of footsteps at the other end of the bridge.

She rose as he stumbled toward her, not crying but his face wet in all the right places, his eyes wild with fright as he fell into her arms, his tall frame crumpling when she held him about the waist. With his head resting on her shoulder Jonathan could feel each breath warm against the pulse at her neck. He closed his eyes and sobbed, no longer out of fear of his pursuer but at the thought that he had seen It, and that the only reason why he could was an association between him and the Evil distilled. That that was closer to him than a shadow, for it was the thing which festered in his heart, sprang in his gait, came between his fingers and all he touched. Yet all this while she held him still, her hand at his back firm and comforting, even when all he would ever be capable of was evil. How could it be that only yesterday her eyes suggested that he could be saved? He pushed her away and stumbled backwards, passed his fingers across his eyes as if wiping away a spell.

Ethel moved in, whispered, 'Jonathan. What's wrong?'

He turned from her. 'Nothing,' he paused, 'everything.' Then, 'I don't know.'

She stepped closer, ran her thumb in slow circles on his palm. 'You don't have to say anything.'

'You should go,'

'No,' as she took his hands, pale but unyielding, and he brought himself to look at her. Against the water she stood, the waves beating uselessly beneath her feet, his sole lighthouse of sobriety shining regal in the night. He met her steadfast gaze. If he could believe it, he told himself, he would. He would be saved.

'But this,' he indicated the dark expanse of water with his hand, 'this is how it'll end,' He swallowed. 'This.' The tears came to his eyes again and he looked away.

Resting her lips on his shoulder, Ethel murmured, 'It doesn't always have to be this way.'

To Be Continued...