A/N: WOO-HOO, THE DAY OF THE DARK KNIGHT IS HERE! I'm sorry, I had to put that in all caps. It's monumental, and yes, that tragedy was horrible, but that's not stopping me from seeing it here in the Midwest. Nothing will stop me seeing that movie, which I'm going to see this afternoon! I'm so excited. I didn't even sleep that well last night, that's how hyped-up I was. So, wow, can't believe the number of hits here lately. I feel like this story is finally hitting its stride. Here's the big chapter today.
Oh, and to someone who reviewed last chapter: Yes, technically speaking, I suppose that chapter did have a purpose. I use "filler" too loosely, I realize that now. And yes there were spelling/grammar problems, but those were type-o's I didn't spot until too late. And all the little things...It's just I'm not professional here. You got to give me leniency for that. I'm not Suzanne Collins. I'm not JK Rowling. I'm nowhere close to their level. I know, though, that you like this story and thanks for that and the concrit. It was just overwhelming for me to digest and honestly, I felt like a crappy writer. So...thanks? I guess, I'm still unsure about how to take that.
Chapter 7: In Nightmares where Darkness Lurks
"Amelia, glad I caught you this early!" Cate called out from a few parking spots down from her own. It was really fortuitous that this should happen due to the rarity of this situation.
"God, we haven't really talked that much in the past few days, have we?" Amelia asked conversationally, ambling towards her.
It had indeed been a while. If that case hadn't taken so much precedence over her mind, then maybe she should have taken the initiative to schedule a few girls' night outs. Cate was always the one to plan them on the spot when she had time. To herself, Amelia thought she was quite boring and noted that was probably why she hadn't much in the way of close friends.
"I know we haven't, but then again, we do work in separate departments." Cate gave her friend a hug when they met up. "Besides, I've actually been keeping my distance. You know, ever since you told me that whole thing with Mark had imploded…"
"I'm fine," Amelia replied, shrugging indifferently. "Turned out he wasn't my type anyway. Just another disappointment."
Cate nodded in understanding. "I get what you mean. Seems like men aren't that interested in career women like you and me. I know I've been having a hard time. It could be not finding the right one yet. Anyway, let's say we go to Starbucks on Saturday night. I met someone I think you might li—"
"I'll think about it, Cate." Amelia started walking toward the Intensive Treatment facility before calling out louder, "I'll call you tonight!"
Maybe she would. Maybe she wouldn't. It all depended on if the case made her forget this morning or not. Besides, after Mark and every other man who didn't work out, she wasn't too keen on meeting this mysterious person at Starbuck's. No more dating for five months, that would be her strictly enforced rule. What was the use in trying anymore?
With that saddened yet resolute frame of mind, she unlocked the door to her office, carefully opening it with a half-warm cup of coffee in her hand. She was always on the go, much rather like Starbucks coffee. Well, it was her drink of choice for a reason. Sipping some more of that cappuccino, she went over to her desk where her work laptop was. She had to pore over every bit of Crane's notorious Arkham file again, to check if she missed something. Left out some key pieces that comprised him as the terrorizing criminal. There had to be something she missed…
"Dr. Harland," someone addressed.
She'd only turned around within a millisecond when a cloud of white dust was sprayed in her direction, causing her to spill her cup of coffee. It clouded her vision to the point that she couldn't identify the perpetrator. However, if there was one thing she'd done intelligently enough, it was that she had instinctively covered her mouth and nose with her hands. The instant that she was struck by that, the idea had sprung to her.
Nonetheless, that fraction of a second of utter bewilderment had been the slightest bit too late. Amelia was coughing, knees buckling, and horrifically aware that she'd inhaled some of that white spray.
"Shit, anthrax," she said to herself, voice muffled by her hands.
That was her immediate guess anyway. Who knew what it really was? That stuff could have been cocaine for all she knew. Well, one thing was certain. If she valued her life, she had to get the hell out of her own office.
And she did, practically running out, careful not to inhale any more of the spray than she had to. As soon as she deemed it a safe distance on down the corridor, Amelia finally allowed herself some air…
…But dissolved into shaking soon after. Not crying still but close to it.
Eventually, she regained her composure and got hold of a janitor a few hallways away to explain the situation to him. She warned him that it would be advisable to hold a cloth to his nose and mouth, as there was something dangerous filtering throughout her office.
Then, after all that chaos, it was on to Crane.
Predictably, he wasn't too chatty today. Amelia described it in her notes as…almost…sulky behavior. Now, that was unusual. He shouldn't have taken their quarrel so personally if that was the origin of his abrupt moodiness. At the same time, though, wasn't that a departure from how unaffected by another person's words he was? He struck her as a man who refused to care what anyone thought of him.
Well, clearly, she mused to herself, as he has managed to terrorize the city on more than one occasion. Would that be the actions of someone who was timid and wanted to naively be friends with everybody?
"Are you going to talk at some point, Mr. Crane?" Amelia, unfortunately, couldn't disguise her boredom after ten minutes of silence.
"I don't understand…"
She perked up at Crane's softly spoken words, even though he seemed to retreat within himself with them. "You don't understand what?"
Pencil poised over paper, she could sense her very ears tingling for a response, any response, as long as he spoke.
But, Crane observed how she appeared then and snapped brusquely, "Must you jot down every damn word I say?"
This perplexed but more so discouraged Amelia who resignedly put her pencil and clipboard aside on the arm of her chair.
She coolly replied at length, "For your information, I jot down possible implications of what you say. I'm not a court reporter, Mr. Crane."
"No," he acknowledged before tacking on, "But, you're cold and detached like one."
Oh, honestly…As if they were that unfeeling in real life.
Idly taking up her pencil and clipboard again to write, she replied as if it were no consequence, "But, weren't you as well, Mr. Crane? After all, you were in my profession once. Didn't you have to detach yourself from—?"
"Only because I was planning out my latest experiment with every one of them," Crane said darkly, his muffled voice sounding more terrifying than usual. He sat upright, back rigid, though he clearly put on an arrogantly, fiercely proud air.
But, his eyes, intense and murky like his thoughts.
He regretted nothing from those days, no matter how many times he'd made people suffer. Whatever kind of heart he did possess had wilted and died a long time ago.
Amelia very slightly trembled in rage. "Have you no shame in what you did, Mr.—?"
"And stop calling me that stupid name I no longer go by. I'd disowned it the very minute I knew my true identity. It's Scarecrow, always has been, always will be." Crane raised his voice yet didn't exactly scream at her before he got up, gave the lounge chair one solid kick, and stormed off to the door.
Amelia didn't try to stop him, not remotely. She was aware that it would be a lost cause, persuading him to come back. His lapse in temper, though, had actually provided her with some more insight into him.
And suddenly, pity crept into her heart for him. She could hardly explain why. It was just that her psychiatrist instincts told her that Crane had plenty of concealed anger rolling off him in waves.
And that anger had stemmed from hurt.
Later that day, Amelia also sensed increased levels of anxiety within her. She shrugged it off, attributing it to stress from her job and how agonizingly slow progress with Crane was. At this rate, she doubted she would ever reach that dream breakthrough she quested for.
And in the afternoon, she paced in her office, answering phone calls and scheduling appointments when she could. Anything to keep her mind off him, possibly the devil incarnate himself.
That evening, nothing on TV could pacify her escalating worries, so she just shut it off. Persephone the cat begged to be petted, and so Amelia acquiesced but with a lack of a presence of mind. Persephone sensed this and so headed toward her bedroom where the catnip mouse was.
Eleven o'clock at night, she struggled to get to sleep and decided to call Cate with the message that it was doubtful if she could make it to Starbucks on that Saturday. Cate picked up and said OK, she understood and proceeded to ask her friend if she was sick.
No, no, fine, fine, have a good night, Cate. Hang up.
Near midnight, when Amelia at last drifted off to the comfort of sleep, she was in for an awful night.
It started off mundanely enough with her interviewing Crane as usual and with him looking quite bored. Nothing out of the ordinary there.
However, he soon took out a spray can and sprayed her with his potentially deadly toxin.
Amelia ducked, made sure not to inhale, and was unpleasantly shocked to find that the floor had become entirely cavernous. There was no floor, none at all to speak of. Internally, she panicked and when she did fall (reminiscent of Alice), she screamed at the top of her lungs.
Would it ever stop? Would it ever end? When would she die?
All those inquiries except the last were answered when she did hit the ground. Dusting herself off, she surveyed her surroundings but found herself in unfamiliar territory. Everything looked scattered, disconnected somehow. Parts of broken walls, bits of broken floor, all floating in a swirling vortex that miraculously didn't suck any of this in. And she was amid all this havoc with no way out, nowhere to go as far as he could tell.
Well, what else could she do? Desperate times…
She turned her back against the vortex and readied himself to leap off the platform on which she stood. Surely, she would wake up after this.
"No, no, I can't let you escape, dear Doctor," a scathing, distorted voice taunted her. "I have much bigger plans for you."
Amelia quickly swiveled her head his direction. Her stomach plummeted once she observed that a gigantic version of Crane stood before her. He wore what he normally did to the sessions except for the shirt.
Physical appearance again she paid no regard to but the penetrating pale blue eyes. He radiated with a malevolent light around him, as though he was a fallen angel in Lucifer's employ. Those eyes caught most of it, and they pulsated with it along with scorching heat. They were made of white fire now, it looked like, hotter than the sun.
Quite intimidating, yes, she would grant that but also…breathtakingly beautiful…
"Why aren't you panicking?" he gruffly asked her, leaning in so close that his gargantuan head hovered over her. "No screaming, no flailing—you aren't desperately attempting to jump! Why?"
Think sand, Amelia instructed herself, this is your dream, after all.
Gradually, with enough persistence, a bucket of sand formed by her foot. She inwardly grinned.
Outwardly, she explained to Crane, "Now, Mr. Crane, I won't give you that satisfaction. You might have gotten the other doctors to yield to you but not me. You won't see me bend that easily."
"Hm." He smirked. "We'll just have to see about—WHAT? AHHHH!"
He cried out in pain, covering the eyes that she had poured the bucket of sand towards. Now, on to phase two…
"It's been a pleasure chatting with you, but you must wait until Tuesday, I'm afraid. For now, au revoir." Amelia spread out her arms and, inhaling deeply, fell backwards into the void.
Far away, she heard a resentful voice vow, "It's not over yet."
Indeed, it wasn't, for she crash landed yet again on a hard surface for flooring. What differed from the clinically smooth surface of the platform she'd just been on was that it felt more like linoleum. Slightly disoriented from the fall, she placed herself in a sitting position and put her hands on either side of her head.
Then, she heard a male teenager's voice. "Let's go in here, Amy."
Amy…No, no, it was another Amy with a different last name. Not her. She hadn't been called that in years, partially due to her insistence for everyone to call her by her full name.
"OK," a familiar voice agreed.
What?
In a second, Amelia lifted her head, eyes sharpened and alert. Inevitably, her jaw dropped open at the image of her sixteen-year-old self trailing after a lanky red-haired boy. And the memories rushed back. And she knew what would happen next.
"Don't go in there with him, Amy!" she screamed at a nearly ear-piercing pitch as she tried placing herself between the ajar classroom door and the two teenagers.
Unfortunately, she was invisible to them as they passed right by her. The boy closed the door behind him, leaving the adult Amelia out in the hall. She looked up it and down it to see if there was a soul around. It was lunch break: teens off campus, teachers smoking and sipping coffee in the lounge.
So, was this the setting then? No one around to…
Amy screamed.
"NO! AMY, GET OUT OF THERE! AMY!"
Desperately, Amelia beat at the door and, of course, tested the handle that ended up not budging. She couldn't do anything about it, apparently a ghost in this world. In 2000 Gotham High…
"I don't believe it," that abominable man spoke from behind her, his tone flat, not giving away much in the way of inner thoughts.
She full-out shook, not caring if Crane noticed now. More furious than anything presently, she slowly turned to face him.
"What?"
Pale blue eyes stared at her somewhat condescendingly. "How dim-witted you were back then."
"You son of a bitch!"
Amelia flew at him, more than ready to attack…
…But, he disappeared, vanished without a trace. That coward. She would get revenge on him, there would be no mistaking that. Heat coursed through her veins, untapped like molten lava. An explosion, just beneath the surface…
Two rough hands grabbed her from behind, pulling her to a rock solid chest.
"Amy, I've been waiting eleven years for this…Do you want it now? Have you changed your mind? I got all you want and more than you'll ever want right insi—"
"NOOOOOOOO!"
Amelia woke up instantly in a violently cold sweat. She sat up so suddenly and so rigidly that she scared Persephone off. The calico leapt off the bed and ran toward the living area. Better that way anyway.
Not even the cat deserved to witness this soon-to-be massive breakdown. While she panted, kept telling herself it was only a dream (dreams can never hurt you), she trembled. It started with her shoulders and proceeded to overwhelm her body.
Ironically enough, she'd spent six months in intensive therapy and counseling to permanently make that excruciating memory fade from her mind. And yes, her mother had even suggested hypnosis, which she'd eagerly gone by. That form of treatment had worked for eleven years. So effective was it that Amelia had forgotten his name.
Yet, there it was in the peripherals: Cody Hill.
That bastard…The one who ended up owning an entire baseball team in the city. The one with a gorgeous socialite for a wife but no children to speak of. Pfft, irony. It ruled her life.
She could no longer remain calm. For, she reached a startling conclusion that made logical sense.
The spray wasn't cocaine or anthrax. Its purpose was to partially alter the mind but mostly the portion of it that was in the dream world.
Why else would Crane have been able to intrude in her sleep?
Out of anger, sadness, and (much to her chagrin) fear, Amelia let out an anguished scream. And then outright sobbed.
A/N: Yeah, this chapter was intense. I wanted to use that dream world used in Arkham Asylum before I put in that twist. I admit that my fave line here is the "fallen angel" one. It looks like something Anne Rice could have written, that's why I was so pleased with it. I haven't outright said in the story what Amelia's trauma was, but it will be mentioned again. And Crane is going to feel her wrath...Oops, did I just say that? XD Well, that much is obvious in this chapter that it isn't really a spoiler. Just that obviously, a really bad dream would disturb someone.
