Chapter 14

Friend

All around her the tunnels echoed as she walked, the old ground scuffing below her shoes.

She walked for what seemed hours, through miles of underground tunnels, searching.

Croc was nowhere to be found though, and she started to worry that he might not be around at all. Clara remembered that the Penguin had been worried about Croc going off to work for someone else - she hoped this was not the case as if he had Clara knew there was very little chance she'd be able to follow him.

But worse still she feared that on rounding one of the twisting tunnels that she would find him dead, having succumbed to the injuries dealt the week before. She didn't know how badly he had been hurt in the fray but seeing as he had been shot at by at least half a dozen people and had been fighting some sort of giant monster at the same time it would be a miracle if he had escaped unscathed.

Clara didn't dare call out for him, she knew these routes were sometimes used as shortcuts by the various locals within Arkham City and she wasn't going to risk giving away her position.

She couldn't give up yet though, she had no idea what she was going to do if she couldn't find him. She did not want to be alone again.

The route she was currently taking ran by a stagnant waterway from the drainage system that had long since been disused, she knew Croc swam so she reckoned he might use this route, but what she didn't like was the narrow walkway by it was impossible to hide on if anyone came the other way.

All the time she walked she listened for any sound that might indicate the approach of anyone.

But like everywhere else she had searched that night it was empty, she was alone.

Then the water to her right seemed to explode.

She knew it was Croc immediately, but it was clear that he didn't know it was her, and Clara was only just able to evade his claws as he swiped at her, brick chipping away behind her with a crack as she leapt away.

Only to stumble and fall into the water.

It was freezing, and she surfaced sputtering and struggling to get out again. But Croc had already slid back into the water by this time, she felt the water surge behind her like a tidal wave as he came at her again.

Hands fastening around her form, claws digging in.

'Croc, stop!' she managed to yelp just before he pulled her beneath the surface.

The water was suffocatingly cold and dark, and his grip was inescapable and crushing. She could have easily died within the next few seconds, but he must have recognised her voice because the pressure on her almost immediately stopped increasing, but she could feel his claws had already torn through the material of her jacket and cut into her skin.

Surfacing again she gasped for air. She found herself looking right back at him, and in the low lighting she hoped that he would recognise her too.

'Tony?' he questioned disbelieving, bringing her closer to scrutinise her.

'That's what they call me,' she said through her constricted lungs, frail fingers tugging on his to release her. He slowly let go of her, giving her an odd look.

'What are you doing here?' he growled almost angrily.

'I never got to say good bye,' she replied weakly. 'You left so suddenly.'

Croc didn't reply, he swam around her curiously, the motion of the water nearly spinning her. Clara paddled for the side of the waterway, grabbing onto the hard surface of the walkway.

'Croc?' she asked as he silently continued to circle her.

'Follow me,' he told her without explanation, turning and swimming away.

Clara, realising she was about to be left behind in the cold water on her own, kicked away from the side and trying to follow after him.

The whole situation was rather surreal, and her mind was still catching up with what had happened.

She could barely see him in the tunnel, he was just a dark shadow in the water, and she quickly found herself falling behind, having to paddle rapidly just to stay afloat as her clothes became saturated with water and began to drag her down.

'Hey, slow down!' she cried after him.

Croc circled back, almost completely submerged below the water, and for a moment he looked much like his namesake - then he disappeared below the water. Clara was a little spooked by this action, she knew he was there but she couldn't see him, and wasn't exactly sure what he was up to.

For a moment she was paddling alone in a dark tunnel, the cold seeping into her bones.

Then abruptly a hard uneven surface was rising up below her, instinctively she gripped on. Croc surfaced with a snort, breathing out the water he had inhaled in a surge of mist. Clara found herself resting against his broad back, she held onto his shoulder.

'Joker's goons use this passage way as a shortcut,' he informed her as he began to swim again, Clara could feel the water surging around them as Croc swam. 'I've got a more sheltered spot close by.'

'Okay,' she replied quietly.

Croc swam for a good further ten minutes or so, most of the journey was silent. Clara didn't really know what to say to him, as asking what exactly had happened the week before might be awkward - as would asking how his week away had been. Croc didn't really say anything either, but whether this was because he didn't know what to say or simply did not want to talk wasn't apparently obvious.

'You're a very fast swimmer,' she remarked as the silence began to stretch.

'Yeah,' Croc replied, and left it at that.

Ahead of them she could see brighter lights and an opening into a different tunnel, it was dry land and Croc appeared to be heading for it. As Croc stood the water around him rushed off as a wave, Clara fell back into the water with a splash, surfacing and sputtering in indignity at the shock, water in her eyes and up her nose, and she was freezing!

Clara paddled rapidly for dry ground, Croc stood waiting for her in the water - but where he could stand comfortably waist deep in the water she could barely touch the ground with her toes. Clara put her arms upon the edge of the waterway and tried to pull herself up, but found that it was impossible. The space between the ledge and the water was too high for her to get proper leverage, and her clothes, especially her jacket, were sodden and heavy with water.

'You gonna get out?' he asked, watching her pathetic struggles indecipherably.

'I'm trying, give me a minute,' she complained, but it was hopeless, she was freezing cold, her hands turning numb, and her waterlogged clothes felt as if they weighed a tonne. She kicked frantically at the water, churning it up and getting nowhere. Croc either got impatient or took pity on her at this point because he swam over and picked her up out of the water before climbing up himself.

'Thank you,' she said, teeth chattering with the cold, once he had placed her down again.

'You're cold,' he remarked.

'Well, I've been warmer,' she tried to joke, but even she didn't find it very funny, her cold damp clothes were sticking to her and she felt like an icicle, she tried to change the subject. 'So...you left rather unexpectedly.'

'I didn't have a choice,' he replied a little irritably. 'They would have gutted and stuffed me like a damn trophy, then put me in a display cabinet,'

'I thought it might be something like that,' she replied, leaning to one side trying to get a better look at him. But despite the ordeal of having been shot at by several guns the week before, he didn't have any open wounds - scales had been chipped away in places and there were some obviously new scars, but he had healed well. 'It's good to see you're still in one piece, I was looking everywhere, I was worried you might have died.'

'You were?' he asked surprised, but then he looked away hurriedly as if embarrassed - and it took a few moments before he looked back at her with a scowl to compensate for his moment of weakness. 'What are you doing here?'

'Like I said, I was looking for you.'

'If this is about going back to the Penguin's gang, you can forget it,' he warned her. 'I'm not going back there, I'm better on my own.'

'It's not, I promise,' she told him sincerely. 'I've deserted, I'm not going back there either.'

'What happened? What did they do to you,' he growled, catching her arm and pulling her closer to inspect her. He hesitated upon finding where he had torn her jacket, any blood from the ordeal had been washed away but he could see the damage he had inflicted - how close he had nearly come to killing her.

'They didn't do anything.' she said, but found herself wrapping her arms around his as she desperately sought comfort. 'But they would have done if I had stayed. You know the guy who I said thought I was his son? He was shot, just a few hours ago. I wouldn't have lasted much longer without him if I had stayed. I hated working for the Penguin, but it was a way of surviving at least. I'm glad to have left.'

…

They came to the end of a tunnel where there was a large hole in the ground – much of the brick work having fallen away to reveal a room below the surface. Croc promptly dropped down into the room with an almighty thud, leaving Clara to dawdle awkwardly at the edge of the drop – she was not going to risk leaping some 10 feet onto an uneven floor.

'Here,' he offered presently, raising his arms to her. 'I'll catch you.'

Clara frowned a little, but she leapt. He wasn't particularly soft to land on, and for a moment in her mind she compared him to a tough leather sofa. It was strange being this close to him, in a near hug that wasn't really a hug, she almost didn't want to be let go.

Croc deposited her gently upon the ground.

The room they were in wasn't very big, particularly not for Croc, and it contained two mattresses and a small table - Clara couldn't help but wonder if this place had had occupants before Croc had moved in. Indeed there were human bones around, skulls in particularly dictating that they couldn't have belonged to anything else, and she took a hurried step back. For one blissful moment she had forgotten who she was dealing with.

She noticed Croc freeze behind her, and she turned to peek nervously up him, Croc wasn't looking at her though but glaring at the bones scattered about the room.

'I...err, nice place,' she offered feebly. 'Roomier than my old one, I was living in the crawlspace under some old house.'

'Most people don't come back this far, so I don't need to worry about them catching me by surprise,' he responded a little distractedly, making a rather poor attempt to clear the floor by kicking some of the bones to the one side – unfortunately this just made Clara more aware of them as they rattled upon the ground.

'You can stay here if you want, but there isn't much room,' he told her promptly. 'But you're going to have to find your own food, I haven't got anything down here.'

'I can manage, like I did before,' she replied, moving to sit on the mattress that did not feature the centre piece of skulls and metal chains. 'I'm just glad to get out of the cold, and well...you know, not be on my own like I was before.'

Croc grunted and then crouched down to sit against the wall opposite her, seemingly at a loss at what else to do.

'What's your plan then? Go back to old times like before you joined the Penguin's, except you'll be staying here, right?' he asked, he sounded rather hopeful.

'As long as you don't mind, you're the only person I trust in the whole of Arkham City,' but even as she said this her eyes couldn't help but wander towards where she could see the bones of Croc's previous victims. Involuntarily she shuddered, it was impossible to simply pretend nothing was wrong.

'If you trust me, then why are you so frightened?' his mood abruptly changed.

'I don't mean to be. I-I err...well, I'm came from a very different environment, erm, to this place,' she replied quietly. 'Death and stuff...I'm not used to it yet, I don't know if I ever will be, but I'm trying my best.'

He didn't reply, and Clara feared she had upset him.

'What I mean is that I'm kind of frightened all of the time,' she said hastily. 'It's kept me alive this long, so it must be doing some good.'

'You're frightened I'm going to eat you, aren't you?' he asked irritably, glaring at the bones on the ground again.

'No, of course not.'

Croc moved quickly, abruptly he was crouched over her. Clara fell back in surprise, raising her hands in front of her to keep him back, finger tips pressed against his pale scarred chest. Wide eyed she looked up at him fearfully, and he stared back.

'You're lying, I smell your fear,' he accused, he drew back, moving away from he so that he was sitting on the mattress beside her. He made no move to leave nor to move her though. Clara lay flat on her back for a few seconds in total silence, but then she sat up as well.

'I would have reacted exactly the same way if anyone else had tried to scare me like that!' she told him, swallowing her fear. 'You scared me on purpose! Stop accusing me of trying to trick you, I wouldn't be down here if I didn't want to be, I came here voluntarily.'

'Why?' he growled, not looking at her.

'Because I thought we were friends...' she bit out bitterly. 'I thought that maybe you cared, just a little...maybe.'

'So you thought that I would help you out?' he snarled accusingly.

'I'm not seeking charity, I'll earn my keep, I'll do what I promised to originally – I lure some idiots down here for you like you wanted,' she said, and then rather brokenly added. 'But please, don't send me away. I promise I won't go back on my word. Even if you don't consider me a friend, I consider you one, and right now there is no one I would rather be around than you.'

'A friend?' Killer Croc didn't seem to have anything to add to that, he turned around to look at her again but would not look her in the eye. 'You can stay here, I already said so.'

He seemed unable to say anything else, so she tried filling in the gap.

'So what area of the city are we below at the minute? I'll need to familiarize myself with the area before I can be of any use.'

'I don't want you luring no one,' he growled, flopping backwards so that his shoulders and head lay upon one half of the mattress. 'You'll get yourself killed.'

'...you don't? That's good I guess,' she replied, pleasantly surprised. 'But I'm going to have to go up anyway, to find myself food, I might as well know about the area.'

'I want you to keep away from the Joker's territory, he's got snipers everywhere,' he warned her, turning to regard her with his intense gaze. 'Anywhere North of the bridge is alright, it's not claimed by any of the big three. Still dangerous though, every psycho without a patch of turf lives there.'

'I know how to look after myself,' she grumbled, she remembered that the biggest hauls she had ever gotten had always been from the bigger gangs - but she knew all too well that they had to be the most dangerous ones as well. 'I survived just fine before.'

'Yeah, I remember, you were skin and bone,' he agreed with her sarcastically.

'I did better than some.' she countered, pouting. 'And if I remember correctly you weren't all that chubby yourself, one of the first things I noticed about you back then was your ribs.' Then rather bravely, she leant over and poked him in the side to exaggerate her point.

'I'm an opportunist, I see an opportunity and I take it,' he looked up towards the crumbling ceiling. 'It just that there aren't many opportunities here.'

Clara got the impression that Croc was not tired at all at the moment, but he didn't leave her. They continued talking intermittedly until Clara fell asleep.

When he awoke, he could feel the living warmth of a body by his side.

Tony, or whatever her real name was, had moved in her sleep. Though facing away from him, her back was pressed right up against his arm and shoulder, and there was something oddly comforting about someone being there. The feeling it brought to him of being loved again, like back before the circus had been blown apart, a point to being alive other than simply living to be alive.

And it was good to see her alive, for her to be so near. When he thought about how he had nearly killed her he was filled with dread. He could have easily torn her to pieces and not even recognised who she was until he had been feasting on her bones. It was horrible to even imagine. He wouldn't let it happen again, he would make sure he knew where she was in future, he would protect her. If she felt safe then he in turn would feel safe.

Talking about feeling safe...

The skulls and bones of his past victims littered the room still, he knew their presence distressed her. And though he cursed himself for being weak, knowing full well he could force her to stay if he wanted, he didn't want her to want to leave. Her staying here by her own freewill meant a lot more to him than anything had in a while, and he decided that as soon as she was awake that they would find another hideout, somewhere else to sleep where Tony wouldn't be reminded of what he was.

Cannibalism. He didn't know how many times the doctors in Arkham Asylum had tried to drill it into him that it was inhumane, but since he knew that they also thought his whole existence was inhumane, this hadn't meant much to him. It was something that had crept up on him, in his earlier days there had always been jokes that 'the-gator-boy' might bite but as time passed his hatred of humanity increased, one day he had just snapped. Dead enemies were good enemies, he had learnt that long ago, but there was nothing better than an enemy which had been completely erased from existence - that was all gone. Here in Arkham City, it had become a necessity again, he caught and killed anyone he could, not merely his most hated enemies.

Clara mumbled in her sleep and shifted to lie on her back.

She looked so frail. Ashen faced and exhausted, grubby and too thin, she was better off than when they had first met, but only just.

A possessive feeling overcame him. He wanted to touch her, to just prove that she was really there, and ignoring the warning in his mind that he might hurt her, he rested one hand upon her stomach. She moved only minimally in response, turning her head so that he could see her sleeping face. A strange beauty in her tranquility. He had never been close like this to someone before, it was thrilling in a strange way.

Encouraged by her lack of responsiveness, he rolled over onto his side, leaning his weight on his left elbow to get a better look at her - but in doing so he knocked the area where he had accidentally injured her the day before.

Clara did wake up this time. Eyes opening in surprise at the unexpected pain.

'Oh, hi,' she exclaimed, wide eyed upon finding him so close. Then she went red in the face and fell silent. He quickly drew back, embarrassed, rolling over onto his back again and looking away from her. Clara quickly sat up beside him, wincing at her cuts.

'I suppose it's time to wake up,' she said, laughing uncomfortably, rubbing the back of her neck. 'I'll need to head out now.'

'Head out where?' he asked, then quickly tried to reason with her, fearing that she might run off. 'We're going to find somewhere else to sleep, no need to worry about staying around here.'

'It's not that, I'm starving,' she replied shrugging her shoulders. 'I won't be going far, just to my old hideout. I buried some tins of food for an emergency backup a while back, I want to see if it's still there.'

'I still say we find some place better than this corner. It does the job fine for me, but that ain't enough now,' he replied relieved, getting to his feet. 'This place feel kind of cramped.'

'Ok,' she looked as if she wanted to say more, but didn't dare. Inside he sighed in annoyance as she carefully got to her feet avoiding eye contact, she was so timid so much of the time, he didn't like it, the behaviour was too similar to that of everyone els- then she looked up at him and smiled. Smiled - a sort of terrible sad beauty behind all the grime. He felt as if he had been hit by a tonne of bricks, overcome by a feeling he was completely unfamiliar with, and he found himself looking away.

'So, um, lead the way?' said a small voice by his arm, and a few seconds later he felt little fingers touch cautiously at the back of his hand. Experimentally he turned his hand over so that hers fell into his palm, to his surprise she didn't pull away – though she did look a little uncertain. Then, unexpectedly, her fingers closed around his thumb.

'You're going to have to help me up, I'm not going to be able to climb that,' she said, gesturing to gap in the ceiling. Her gaze then dropped, having caught sight of the bones on the ground again. Croc wasted no time getting her out of there, scooping her up wordlessly under one arm and climbing up back into the tunnel.

'Hey, you're gonna have to put me down,' she told him after a few moments in which he held her, looking around as he decided on which route he would take to search for a new place. 'I can't really walk like this.'

'We're going to have to meet back in here in an hour,' he told her, reluctantly allowing her to slide down onto her feet again. 'Or you're going to have trouble finding me again.'

'I won't be long, I just need to grab whatever is left back at my old hideout,' she replied. 'I just hope it's not all been found.'

'...' he did not know the right words to express how he felt about her going out in the open again, what he felt was a combination of dread and fear, he did not want her to leave his side again. It was not just possessiveness that drove this emotion though, but one of concern, a feeling that he hadn't experienced in many years now.

'I'll be right back,' she told him when he didn't reply.

He pretended to be indifferent, but he was listening to the distant sound of her footsteps long after she had vanished from sight.

Someone had been living in her crawlspace hideout since she was left it weeks before. She found discarded matches, bloodied bandages and a partially rusted knife that lay discarded to one side. But as soon as she began to grow concerned that there might be someone around, it vanished, replaced by disgust and horror. The person who had been living here had never left, their dead body was curled in one corner, their arms wrapped around their chest, frozen in their last move to save themselves from the cold. Though perhaps the temperature was not the sole killer for there were also suspicious dark splotches about the ground, indicating a more violent death.

Badly injured at the hand of an enemy or frozen to death in the cold of winter. Clara knew that this person could have easily been her if she had stayed.

And she realised just how lucky she had been so far.

She found that her stash had never been uncovered, and she quickly dug it up with the discarded empty can she had left there. Though the spare coat she remembered using as a makeshift sleeping bag was missing. Clara looked over to the corpse again, she couldn't really tell in the darkness of the crawlspace but she reckoned the dead man was likely wearing the missing coat. When she prodded him to confirm that he was indeed dead, she found him rock solid and stiff, decomposition slowed by the icy temperatures but body immobile and cold - dead for some time now. Used to scavenging, Clara thought she shouldn't have felt uncomfortable recovering the jacket, but she couldn't bring herself to.

Suddenly feeling horribly claustrophobic and nauseated, Clara took the tins she had salvaged and scrambled out of the rotting crawlspace as quickly as she could.

She ran out into the cold street, not really paying attention, her sole focus was now on returning to the tunnels and Croc. He'd protect her, she'd be safe down there. Safety was all that mattered right now.

And because of this lack of attention she practically ran into one of the Penguin's patrols. There was at least twenty of them, all moving quietly with weapons raised, out into the city. She literally crashed into one of the stragglers.

She acted quickly, falling back silently, but the man had already seen her. And in the light of the moon Clara saw that it was Enrique. Silently she shook her head at him, pleading with him not to alert the others.

A/N: Sorry about the delay, I've got an excuse as always (not that it means much with how often I give them :P), I wanted to extend this part of the story so I ended up splitting the original version of this chapter into two parts (the extra time spent was on extending these parts so that they made reasonable chapter lengths, adding extra dialogue, scenes, blah blah blah).

In the future (sort of spoiler, but I'm not saying how soon, though can promise not for a few more chapters yet) this story's setting will be moving into Gotham City itself. I'm really annoyed with Arkham Knight's release date being delayed, originally I was hoping to move right along with it in early October, but now that it looks like it won't be released until next February, I guess I will have to improvise and hope the story can remain in cannon with the games.

Thank you LurkingLady and KitWilliams for your reviews! :)

Quick summary of this chapter:

Clara, in searching for Croc, is nearly killed by him accidentally as he doesn't initially recognise her. Croc then leads her back to his current lair where she stays until the next day. Croc decides that need to move out after realising that Clara is frightened by all the bones he has still lying around the place - meanwhile Clara plans to head back to her old hideout to retrieve the food she left there. The two split up temporarily, agreeing to meet back in the same place in about an hour. Clara finds out that someone has been living in and died in her old hideout since she left, nauseated at the fact that this could have easily been her, she runs out into the street and crashes right into Enrique who is part of a large group of Penguin's men heading for Two-Face's turf.