I hope I didn't scare anyone away with that last chapter. It was a very cruel thing to do, but like I said, there is a reason for it.

Becca and Mabel belong to me and the Batman characters belong to DC Comics.


Becca was angry with her uncle—no, scratch that—she was pissed. Why would he lie to her and make her think she'd been hallucinating? Is that what Gotham's so-called 'protector' had told him?

Becca's anger at her uncle lessened. That had to be it—the Batman had lied to him, and he'd believed the story as the truth.

Why would that winged rat lie, though? Wasn't he supposed to be a hero, or something? Did he not want the richest man in Gotham to know that his niece had been protecting one of the city's most dangerous criminals? If so, why? What did he have to gain by lying?

Becca sighed and massaged the bridge of her nose, and her thoughts switched from Batman to the criminal she'd been protecting. It had been a week and she still though about him. She still didn't like him—at least, she didn't think she did. She'd just gotten used to him, and she knew that all the efforts to save him and keep him from getting hurt worse was for nothing since he'd been dragged back to Arkham Asylum.

Was he still hurting? Was the knife wound healing? Was there someone there to make sure he ate regularly?

Why did she care?

Becca sighed again and pulled out her phone. She flopped down on the couch in her room and dialed a number, then brought the phone up to her ear. "Hello, I'd like to speak to the head nurse, please—it's urgent." She was put on hold, and then, "Hey, Mabel. It's Becca. Listen, can you do me a favor?"


"Yeesh, talk about your fixer-uppers," Becca muttered as she pulled her black and red Yamaha R15 bike up to the front gates of Arkham Asylum. She rode up the steep path carefully and found a suitable place to park her bike. She dismounted the bike and took off her black helmet, hanging it on one of the handlebars, and combed her fingers through her hair.

The guard at the front of the building—an older guy named Joe, according to his nametag—asked her name and the purpose of her visit, and she simply told him she had an appointment and gave him her name.

"Thompson, you said?" he asked, looking through the papers on his desk. He found one and squinted at it. "Says here you're here to see our nurse, followed by a visit to one of the inmates."

Becca nodded. "That's me." She showed him her ID, and Joe informed her that he would have to send her through an x-ray and a metal-detector before she'd be allowed into the main building. She had to take off her shoes, belt, and take out her piercings—three rings and one stud in each ear, a stud in her nose, a bolt above her eyebrow, one in her tongue, one in her bellybutton, and two where she'd rather not say, thank you very much—and put them in a plastic tray (like at the airport). She walked through the x-ray machine they had and stood still with her hands spread as Joe waved a small metal detector over her.

"The inmates don't usually get visitors," Joe confessed as Becca fitted her last piercing back into place. "Most people avoid these crazies like the plague."

Becca slipped on her shoes and shrugged. "I'm just here to check on someone," she said simply. Joe told her to have a seat, and that their chief of security would be along shortly to escort her to the head nurse's office. A few minutes later a tall, muscular (kinda hot, if you liked the big beefy type) man in a crisp guard uniform came into the office.

"Rebecca Thompson?" he asked, and she stood up. He held out a large hand for her to shake. "Lyle Bolton, chief of security. Welcome to Arkham Asylum."

Becca smiled hesitantly. "Thanks."

He gesture for her to follow him. "Make sure you stay close to me—every one of these scumbags is dangerous, and we wouldn't want anything bad happening to you."

Becca internally bristled at 'scumbags.' It wasn't like these people had the choice of being crazy, after all. She kept her mouth shut, though, and followed Mr. Bolton through a series of hallways.

Mr. Bolton knocked on a door and opened it a fraction. "Miss Johnson, there's a Rebecca Thompson here to see you." He then waved Becca into the small clinic. "Just let us know when you're ready for your visit and we'll send another guard to escort you to the inmate's cell." He left the room, closing the door behind him.

"What on Earth possessed you to come here?" Mabel asked as she came around a privacy curtain. "I know you're reckless, but . . . ." Mabel sighed. "Becca, these people are dangerous."

Becca looked around. "I don't see anyone dangerous." She paused. "Unless you've got a knife hidden up your skirt somewhere," she teased.

Mabel huffed and led Becca around the other side of the privacy screen. On an examination table sat a short man with sandy blond hair and crooked teeth. His eyes were a light blue and they had a slightly dazed look in them. He gave Becca a crooked grin. "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" he asked her, his overbite giving him a slight lisp.

Becca thought for a minute, and then shrugged. "I give up, what's the answer?" she asked.

He tilted his head. "I haven't the slightest idea," he giggled.

"Becca, this is Jervis Tetch, one of my patients." Mabel smiled gently at the small man. "Mr. Tetch, this is my friend Becca."

Jervis smiled back at Mabel, not seeming to register her words at all. She helped him off the examination table and Becca had to hold back a snort of laughter at just how short he was. "What's he in for, annoying the populace with book quotes?" she asked, a smile on her face.

Jervis gave her a weird look. "You're awfully rude, aren't you," he said, and Becca swore the milky color in his eyes disappeared, just for a second, but then it was back, along with his dopey smile. Mabel bent down and ran her long manicured fingernails through his hair. "If everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a great deal faster than it does," she said before kissing him on top of the head.

Jervis's dopey smile got even dopier. "Quite right, my dear Alice," he sighed, and then a guard came to escort him away.

"Alice?" Becca asked, giving Mabel an incredulous look.

Mabel sighed and smiled sheepishly. "Remember when I dyed my hair blonde a few years ago?" she asked.

Becca nodded.

"That's the year I got this job, and Mr. Tetch only ever called me Alice when we first met." She dropped her gaze and rubbed her arms. "I never had the heart to correct him."

"So you've just been letting a crazy man call you by the wrong name for three years?" Becca asked incredulously.

Mabel huffed. "He's ill, Becca; he's not in his right mind." She spun back around to face her friend. "Anyway, I assume you're here to see Dr. Crane?"

"You assume correctly." A beat, then, "How is he?"

Mabel didn't say anything.

"Wow, that bad?"

Mabel sighed and went to a filing cabinet. She opened a drawer and pulled out a file folder and leafed through it until she found Dr. Jonathan Crane's most recent medical report. "Four broke ribs, right arm broken, right wrist broken, broken hip, internal bleeding, critical stab wound." She closed the file. "Not to mention the cuts and bruises that seems to appear overnight." She put the folder back in the cabinet and closed the drawer. "I'm doing my best to take care of him, but it's never enough—he's not getting any better, and if anything his already existing injuries keep getting worse." She sat down heavily. "I don't know what to do, Becca," she admitted.

Becca sat down beside her and hugged her friend. Mabel was doing all she could, but like she said, it just wasn't enough.

Suddenly, Becca was nervous about seeing him.


Jonathan was in utter disbelief when he was told he had a visitor. He was too busy thinking of who would be visiting him to notice the pain in his arm as medics fastened him in a straight jacket, but he quickly snapped out of it when the straps were tightened and pain shot up his arm

"Consider yourself lucky someone even cares about scum like you," Lyle Bolton sneered at him as the straps were tightened even further.

Jonathan's only though was 'Who in their right mind would be visiting me?'

The inmates around him shuffled in their cells, curious about what was going on and why The Scarecrow had a visitor. They weren't sure what they were expecting, but what they weren't expecting was for his visitor to be a five foot girl with dark hair, an AC/DC t-shirt, ripped jeans, converse, and multiple piercings.

The girl was escorted into Jonathan's cell, and it took him a moment to recognize her.

It was Abigail's granddaughter, of all people.

Jonathan groaned inwardly. 'Why me?' he thought, looking up. 'Of all the people in the world, why do you hate me most of all?'

By dinner, everyone would know that this little girl had come to see him, and he wasn't sure he wanted to deal with that.'


"You look like shit."

Becca mentally slapped herself. 'Nice starter,' she thought.

Jonathan didn't say anything, just stared at her with the coldest blue eyes she'd ever seen.

"That came out wrong," she admitted.

He raised an eyebrow.

Becca sighed and leaned forward in her chair. "I came here to see how you were doing," she said after a minute of silence. "That jackass told my uncle a big fat lie about me being drugged and held captive, and he tried to convince me I'd hallucinated the whole thing." She cracked her knuckles and rubbed her fingers. "Mabel told me how bad it is." She looked up at him. "She said . . . she said nothing's healing, and that everything keeps getting worse."

"Please stop telling me things I already know," Jonathan snapped suddenly. "You think I'm weak, that I can't take care of myself?" he hissed.

"That's not it at all!" she snapped. "God, I'm trying to say I'm worried about you, and you make me out to be the bad guy!"

"I've told you, I don't need your pity!" he spat and shot to his feet, then winced and fell to his knees. Becca was at his side in an instant, ignoring the medics telling her to step away. "God, I forgot how stubborn you are," she huffed as she tried to help him up, but she must have grabbed his broken arm because he yelped—dear god, he actually yelped—and tried to twist away from her grip. She held up her hands and backed away as the medics grabbed him on either side and hefted him upright, then pushed him back onto the bed, ignoring his obvious hiss of pain.

'They don't care at all,' Becca though, horrified. 'None of these people give a damn about the patients here.' She took a deep, calming breath. "I don't pity you," she said after another minute. "I know you can take care of yourself, but you have to understand—when I found you behind the Iceberg, you were almost dead." She wouldn't meet his gaze. "I've never seen you in good health—I've only ever seen you lying in a hospital bed." She looked up then and met his gaze. "I was scared," she said quietly. "I'm still scared; I actually care about what happens to you."

He was silent for the longest time and Becca assumed he wasn't going to say anything else, so she stood up and turned towards the door where Mr. Bolton was waiting to escort her out of the building.

She almost didn't hear him when he spoke again.

"Why?"

Becca turned back around and gave him a genuine smile. "I haven't the slightest idea," she answered, and then she left.


A/N: Is the pacing still good? I'm not rushing, am I? God, I hope I'm not rushing things.