Disclaimer: Same disclaimer as the previous three chapters. :)


Chapter 4: I am the Dirt You Created

The Fall Semester started without a hitch, and Senna found herself just a bit too busy to make anymore moves against Crane. Though it was probably best if she countered a move of his instead. So, she waited patiently those first two weeks for Crane to initiate his own mind games towards her, a response to her earlier antics. No doubt he'd also want to see her reactions, but seeing as how she barely left her office outside of her classes, he probably hadn't grasped a time to hide a camera. Senna decided to start having an actual lunch break, and take it outside of her office. She knew he'd watch her for a few days before determining this was a new habit of hers, and then he'd make his move.

Senna sat quietly looking over her notes with her coffee, at a cafe on campus. Her notes were over Dr. Crane and his patients. Ever since the college offered her the position, she had been building reconnaissance on the good doctor, more than just reading whatever research paper he had just published. She actually knew his two work schedules and most of whom his patients were, and their diagnoses. She had even placed a bug in his two computers to see what he was up to.

Smiling to herself as she looked through her copied patients' notes, Senna noticed a pattern with all of Crane's patients: at least once a month, but generally twice in a month, all of his patients seemed to get "agitated" with Crane during their therapy sessions, and would have to be restrained and sedated as a result. To an untrained eye, these simply appeared to be random outbursts of insanity, but for someone who was once tormented by the man, Senna saw a teenager who learned how to finite his demented need to experiment on people.

Though she stared at the page before her, her eyes were no longer reading it. Her mind flashed back to her teenage years. Her eyes were blindfolded, and she was being lead by a slightly shorter, much ganglier, younger Jonathan Crane.

"Jon? Where are you taking me?" the braces toothed-capped brunette asked, fear already in her voice.

"Hush! Just trust me," teenage Crane answered.

A pout hit her lips as the hands on her shoulders directed her to the left before replacing their positions elsewhere: one to her hip and the other to her hand.

"A big step up-forward," Crane directed.

Shakily, teenage Senna lifted her leg until she found the step her was prompting her to. Pressing her weight into him as she stepped up, Senna whimpered as she teetered, initially.

"Just don't move," she heard him say when he retreated from her. Her hands went immediately to the top hem of her long skirt as away to steady her nerves. She could hear a pencil moving across paper, and assumed that her boyfriend must be writing something.

"What- what are you doing?" she cautiously questioned. "Senna, are you afraid?" was his response.

"N-no. I'm move ne-nervous. I'm still blindfolded, and.. and I don't know what we're doing," Senna answered, shivering when a breeze suddenly struck her. A few more scribbles later, and Jonathan finally untied the back of the blindfold, letting the fabric catch the wind and fall where it may. Almost immediately after, a shriek of terror escaped Senna's lips. The scream echoed off of the night clad buildings around the five-story rooftop she was currently standing on the ledge of.

Blue eyes dilated to a point of nearly losing the blue. Her heartbeat was so loud in her ears that she barely heard what Jonathan asked next.

"Are you afraid now, Senna?"

The brunette was too busy staring down at the street below her, and playing her fall to her death over and over again in her head to really hear what her smiling boyfriend was asking. More wind blew, and another shriek escaped Senna's lips while he hands clenched her skirt for some kind of stability.

"Are you afraid?" Jonathan asked again, with a harsher tone, annoyed that she hadn't answered him the first time.

"Yes! Yes, I am! Please, Jon," Senna shouted, pleading that he bring her down from the ledge, her eyes glued to the street. More pencil to paper noises were heard just before Senna pleaded again, "Please! Jon!"

Hands came up to her hips, and for a tiny second, it felt like they were leaning her forward instead of pulling her back. A blink later, and the hands were pulling her back, off of the ledge, and turning her into Jonathan's embrace, where Senna promptly started sobbing.

"Shhh... I'm here. I'm here," Jonathan cooed while his hand gently stroked the long brown hair in a comforting manner. Senna was shaking in his arms, and grasped his shirt as if he was the very thing keeping her alive. She sobbed, confused by what had happened, but also incredibly thankful that he saved her, and pulled her back. Jonathan, however, was smiling to himself, a thing that Senna was unable to see due to her face being buried in his shirt.

"Miss? Would you like a refill?" came a voice from the present, breaking Senna out of her memory. "No, thank you," she replied, looking up at the waitress with a sweet smile. The teenager walked away, attending to another table, and Senna brought her mind back to the plan at hand.

The copied notes were placed down next to her notepad, her arm covering it to keep the wind from blowing them around while she wrote down her observations, and schematics for her next few moves against Crane. She didn't exactly have an end game, just the drive to make him pay for the abuse he put her through, perhaps drive him to the edge of insanity, the way he had driven her? But it would take so much more than just a few, simple mind games to break Crane. Unlike high school, Crane was successful now, a known name in his field, and held some power in Gotham between being an instructor at the college, and the director of the asylum. The stronger a man was, the harder it was to break them down, but once they were broken, they fell so hard.

Crane would need to lose everything in order for Senna to be able to properly break him. The name he built up for himself, his career, his education- it would all have to be torn from him. She was already in a good position to do this what with being an instructor at the college as well as having nearly all access to the asylum thanks to her own successful career that gave her alliances with the government. It had greatly bothered Crane when Senna showed up to observe one of his therapy sessions, and it bothered him even more when she used her fancy government badge to further speak to that patient after Crane's session with him. The man hated not having control, and has actually called someone at the FBI to try and get Senna removed from his establishment. It didn't work, of course. Senna's badge held ten times more power than the director's badge did, and she simply smiled at him when his brow began to twitch in irritation as the man on the other end of the phone explained to him that Dr. Swan was to be shown anything she wanted, at any time, without hesitation.

Things were unraveling slowly, but they would need to be that way in the beginning. No need to rush something that was already years in the making. She wanted to relish everyone of his disappointments. Speaking of disappointments, Senna's lunch had run a bit late, and she was certain that Crane had broken into her office by now, and set up something to try and keep surveillance on her. So she gathered her things, and placed them neatly in her black, leather messenger bag before getting up from her chair to leave the cafe, setting money on the table as she walked back to the psychology building.

Her heels clicked on the stairs as she ascended them to her office, hoping that Crane heard them echoing all the way to his. He hated hearing the clicking of heels, and in high school had demanded that she never wear them. They weren't in high school anymore, and there was beauty in the simple annoyances. Her keys jingled as she unlocked her office door and did an initial look around of it before flipping on her light switch. It was the way the papers were slanted on her desk, just slightly to the left, that told Senna that someone had been in there, brushing against the stack as they moved around her desk, then readjusting them to appear straight without picking them up to tap them on the hard surface to fully straighten them back out. Details, Crane. You still assume that I don't pay attention to details.

Senna pulled her keys out from the door, and let it close behind her as she went to sit behind her desk. When she opened her top drawer, she jumped at the sight of a dead spider sitting on top of her pens and pencils. "Ew! Oh my gosh, seriously?!" she reacted, knowing that she was probably being recorded. She acted grossed out, but not fearful, and grabbed a few tissues to pick it up and throw it in the trash. She wouldn't admit to herself that her heart was actually pounding, and her skin felt like it was crawling. Instead, she let herself become angry, and used it to fuel her revenge. After all, she knew he was bound to make a move against her, it was just a matter of time. And no doubt, he'd have another one waiting for her sometime soon, Crane's form of tit-for-tat, but his next move would probably be something alive. Senna mentally prepared herself for what else of his old tricks he'd use on her. Rats? Centipedes? Scorpions? Whatever it ended up being, Senna would be able to handle it this time around.

The rest of her time in her office was spent typing on her computer, and grading her first set of assignments. She tried not to give any further thought to the dead thing in her trash can, but she did absent-mindedly push the plastic container away from her desk with her foot while she typed up an email response to a student.

Both Crane and the Scarecrow noticed this small reaction via the small camera they set up in the corner of Senna's office. Well, Johnny-boy, looks like she's still a little fearful of the classics.

I knew she would be. Twelve years is a long time, but there are some things that a person never gets over, no matter how far they've come.

When do I get to play with her?

After I learn how to break her again, after I have her trusting me again. She would be a very good experiment for the toxin, with all her focus on anger and apparent new found confidence.

Yes, she'll be quite a lovely sight to see, trying to hang on to her new self, as you and I remind her of her true place.

The two snickered at the thought, as Crane switched from the camera screen on his computer to an opened internet search on how to obtain maggots to use in his next trick against Senna.