One bright day in the middle of the night
Jonathan Crane, as a psychiatrist, noticed many things when it came to watching other human beings. For example, he noticed when Brianna reached onto the floor of her cell and appeared to be pulling at something non-existent, and when she suddenly turned around and her eyes widened in such a surprised way. He had not yet seen this expression on her face. Then, with a shock of excitement drilling through him so hard it almost hurt his heart to feel it pounding into his ribs, she stared with pure terror.
He knew fear when he saw it. He was accustomed to it quite enough in his line of work. Or, rather, hobbies, to say correctly. He wasn't particularly paid for what he did, not any longer, anyway. If it wasn't for that damn Rachel Dawes he would still be doing what he did best, but she was dead, last he heard. Blown to bits by the Joker. The lucky bastard.
He had watched as she was dragged back from the showers, he presumed, kicking at the guards in a way that was very unlike her, not quite grinning, but not quite holding her straight expression as she had before so often. She was not easily phased.
However, Jonathan believed he had found out exactly why she was locked up in Arkham, seeing as she had managed to kick one of the guards straight in the face, earning her several swear words. They were generally nicer to the female prisoners, but it appeared as though they deemed her enough of a threat to toss the 'worst of the worst' at her as they shoved her unceremoniously into her cell.
She hadn't turned to them and started screaming, but as the fear faded from her eyes and a slow smile over took her features, her harshly blue eyes connecting in a deadly way with Crane's, he had a feeling she was about to.
"Oh, ickle Jonathan Crane," she called quietly. Jonathan's eyes flickered, catching the surprised look of Pamela. She stood from her bed, that of which she had been laying on, and crept up to the front of her cell, pressing her slender finger-tips against the glass. Jonathan knew that these two talked often—he listened in enough, being curious of the ever strange Brianna Clark.
"Brianna?" Poison Ivy called, a frown falling on her plump, red mouth. She bit her lip, something most men would have found immensely attractive. Jonathan Crane could only find it annoying.
"Wandered out into the rain," Brianna continued, and Jonathan realized she was rhyming as she sang in a familiar rhythm. He frowned, narrowing his eyes slightly. He itched to push his glasses up his nose, but he refused to do so, knowing that it would be a sign of fear in her eyes. He would not allow that, not when she was becoming so intriguing. "Don't you like bed time stories?" She suddenly asked, noticing his frown.
This was not Brianna Clark, not in the slightest. Realization must have flashed across his face, because she smiled even wider, her eyes growing darker.
"Be quiet in there!"
Not-Brianna jumped as a guard yelled down the hallway, incredibly skittish. She stood up straight harshly and began to pace, biting her nails nervously. It was such a sudden change in actions that Jonathan wasn't sure she had switched into another personality.
It appeared as if she had this disorder, now that he noticed. He assumed she had multiple personality disorder, but which was the dominant personality, he wondered. Mostly because he was quite enjoying the fearful jumpiness of this little cat at the moment.
This went on for a while. Jonathan realized he couldn't take his eyes off of her, and Brianna's jumpiness made Pamela nervous, as well. The Joker had been gone for some meeting with his doctor, but when he came back and noticed little Brianna not being so Brianna-like he got a bit excited and tried to make her talk to him. He had nothing on her, however, nothing to make her respond, and she refused to do so. Something was on her mind.
"Ah, Ms. Clark?"
Jonathan looked up. Her normal nurse had come back, the strangely blond one that didn't appear as if she belonged. He had known she was new, but she seemed only to cater to Brianna's needs. A strange little fact, indeed. Alas, when her name was called, Brianna didn't look up. The nurse repeated it several times, before growing frustrated and calling out to her violently.
Brianna's head snapped in her direction, and a cruel smile grew on her face. Were Jonathan a normal citizen of Gotham, he was sure that this smile would have sent chills down his spine. The nurse appeared unaffected, however, as Brianna lurched towards the Plexiglas, pressing her hands against it immediately before the nurse, then pressing her face against it in a childish way that made Jonathan wince and turn back to the torn novel he was offered, that of which he had pretended to read through several times now.
"The names Emma, you wench. Emma Wolfe, if you'd please."
Emma Wolfe. Curious.
The Joker cackled. Jonathan narrowed his eyes, and he felt a smile itching at the corners of his lips. So he was correct. Either this, or she was an incredibly good actor, which just didn't seem to be like her in the slightest. Then again, if she was simply a good actor, then that would be just what she would like him to think.
"I apologize. Emma, Dr. Burton is waiting to see you."
Emma smiled and pulled away from the Plexiglas, waiting for the guards to come and take her away. They were cautious, telling her to turn around, place her hands out towards the door. They cuffed her, and practically carried her away between the two of them, the nurse leading the way, her high heels click-clacking against the tiles floor.
Murmurs echoed down the hallways, curious inmates peering out of their clear and white cages, wondering why an inmate was leaving to visit a doctor past dinner time. Much like in high school rumors would spread, people would gossip.
When she returned, it was time for lights out, several minutes late at that. She appeared quite smug with herself.
The next day, she did not wake up early as she normally did. She didn't even wake up when the lights came on. It took a guard to come and wake her for breakfast, and even then he had to yell a couple times, thoroughly annoying Jonathan and several other inmates. Pamela was pulled out after her, and Jonathan was left to be dragged to breakfast with the Joker, his least favorite meal partner.
"So, ah, I see you're just as… interested in our new little, uh—inmate as I am." The Joker licked his lips obnoxiously, shoving the noxious food into his mouth as if it was his last meal on earth. Jonathan was thinking it might very well be, if this conversation went on much longer.
"I'm simply curious, is all," he grumbled, trying to ignore the Joker's disgusting smell. He was feeling less and less of his appetite at this point, and desperately wished that the damn idiot would just bathe, for once.
"She's quite the, ah, pretty little crazy," the Joker scoffed, almost choking on his grey pancakes. Jonathan rolled his eyes, his glasses reflecting the harsh light of the small eating room. He didn't understand why Arkham decided to try this ridiculous little… experiment. It just wasted more money on their part, and it wasn't like they were preventing fights from breaking out. More than likely, they were instigating them. He wondered how long it would be until their little system came crashing down and they went back to shoving everyone in a cafeteria.
"Ya know," the Joker spat, little chunks of grey matter landing on the table, stabbing his fork at Jonathan. "I think she likes—you, Johnny-boy." He cackled, his face close to splitting in half as he threw back his head. Jonathan reeled back in disgust, wishing he could simply spray the Joker in the face and be done with him. His fingers twitched, but there was nothing for him to touch.
He wanted out of this damn asylum. It was driving him insane.
How ironic.
Between breakfast and lunch Emma was called away once again, this time going with a small smile on her face and her head bowed. Jonathan had to eat with some nameless red-headed man for lunch, someone who thought themselves too intelligent to look at him, instead taking his time scribbling question marks on to napkins that he stole from the lunch room. Jonathan didn't mind. At least the idiot didn't talk to him.
By the time dinner came, he was giddy, a feeling he didn't often have. The hairs on his arms were standing on end, and he simply wanted to taste her fear on his tongue for the first time. He wanted to find out what had happened, why Brianna was no longer Brianna.
However, as he was pulled into the miniscule room to eat his dinner by the guards, Doctor Burton was waiting for him. He sent his previous college a glare as he was forced to sit down much too roughly by the callous, meat headed guards. He was still wearing his hand cuffs, but he was allowed to set his tray down. As if he wanted to eat any of the shit that they had put on it.
"Jonathan Crane," Doctor Burton greeted, nodding sagely as if he was some old Buddhist Monk.
"Doctor Burton." Jonathan did not nod, nor did he smile or let his glare go, attempting to stare down the old man with his steely blue gaze. He was not impressed with the doctor's appearance, not in the slightest.
"I am simply here to observe Miss Clark. Ignore me as best you can," Doctor Burton said, trying to keep up a look of professionalism. Jonathan decided that this would be the best course of action, himself, but it was not of any help from the doctor. After a moment, a look of his own professionalism (long since unnecessary, from the day that he was put in this damn place for the very first time) turned his face into an ice-cold mask. It was a mask he had not donned in a long time, and though he knew this he was unaware of the crack that turned his eyes gleeful, excited by the fear that his knowledge and powerful will would elicit from such a weak man as Doctor Burton.
"I would never interfere with an experiment on a patient." A lie, of course, that shook the doctor to the core. His eyes shone, but he made no motion to show Jonathan otherwise. His own statuesque attitude was sliding away, dripping off his fingertips as they shook. A battle more than won, and Jonathan turned his eyes to the door as the guards stationed outside of it separated, and Brianna stepped between them.
There was a bruise forming on her lower jaw, and something deep inside of Jonathan jerked at his stomach, twisting it in a way that made him want to squirm in his seat. His lips twitched just slightly, though he wasn't sure if they were his lips, or Scarecrow's.
The beast wriggled beneath the surface of his skin, but Jonathan was good at not letting it show, not in this damned place. Another mask, stashed beneath the floorboards in an apartment somewhere. It's been so long that he's forgotten where, but he has ways of finding out. He was sure that if he bothered to find it when he got out it wouldn't be a problem.
Brianna cautiously took a seat across from Jonathan, her hands cuffed behind her as a tray was set in front of her. This wasn't something that happened often—only when someone wasn't being 'good,' as it were, and even then there was only a small gap between behaving and misbehaving so badly that one was simply shoved into isolation. She stared down at her own tray for a long time, her brown hair dripping over her shoulders, and she did not eat.
"What is your biggest fear?"
Jonathan and Dr. Burton's heads snapped up immediately to stare at Brianna. She hadn't looked up, but a smile was set dauntingly on her lips. Immediately her doctor began to scribble on the clipboard he had let fall to his side, excitement and curiosity on his face. The scratching of his pen filled the room, but Jonathan couldn't hear it. The only thing he could hear were her words, echoing around in his head.
"Mine?" She looked up then, her blue eyes drilling into his sharply. They were bright, burning dangerously in a way that made his skin itch. He was leaning forward slightly, hungry for the answer. He wanted to know what she feared. Was it really so easy that she would tell him on her own, no coaxing necessary? The one thing he wanted so desperately to know about her, the one thing he would invest his time in, she was going to spit out across the dinner table now, at this very moment.
She smirked at him, her pretty lips curving upwards in a smile that could kill. It was dark in a small way, in a miniscule way. If he had seen her on the street and she had tossed him a small smile, he would have thought it was normal at that moment, and later it would itch at the back of his mind and he wouldn't know why until he heard about some death on the news or killed someone himself. It spoke of death, of impending doom. Her smile spoke of a storm.
But until then, there was sun peering downward through the clouds. And it chose to grace him.
"I'm afraid," she murmured, and all eyes were on her. She stretched out her elbows, but she couldn't go far with her cuffed wrists. She raised them over her head, her arms bent at awkward angles. Some mocking stance of Christ, of a hanging corpse. "Of scarecrows."
Jonathan blinked, and then she laughed wickedly, throwing back her head and Scarecrow saw the Joker in her as she did this. Her chest heaved and she threw herself backwards over her chair, and for some reason Jonathan compared her to a possessed body. This was not the Brianna he had observed.
This was Emma Wolfe.
Doctor Burton appeared disgruntled, but he made no comments, instead opting to write silently. Emma's laughter died eventually, but she didn't say another word, simply going back to her original position of bowing over her tray and smiling her dangerous, before-the-storm smile. Jonathan leaned back in his chair and watched her as she smiled, simply curious as to where this girl had come from.
It didn't take long for him to come to the realization that something must have happened to her as a child to cause this sort of mental separation. The good doctor wanted to know more—he wanted to study her, to ask her, to force the information from between her pretty pink lips. Mostly he wanted to hear her scream.
He noticed that Brianna did not fear—that hadn't escaped him, and he hadn't wanted to accept it.
But Emma feared.
Yuki sighed and ran a hand through his hair, staring at the envelope in his hand. He knew that he shouldn't be anywhere near Brianna's house in the first place, but she had disappeared. Vanished into thin air, and he was worried.
He had figured he would check around for her spare key, but there was no need. Her door was unlocked. And if that wasn't worrisome enough, she hadn't been getting her mail. Yuki pressed his lips together, fiddling with the one plain envelope that had caught his eye, apart from all of the bills and advertisements for unimportant things. It was dirty, and he was sure that the little dash of red on the corner was blood. The thought caused him to shiver and he made a point of not touching the little splotch.
She had nine messages not yet listened to blinking green on her answering machine, and he knew that seven of them would be his worried voice begging her to call him back and to stop ignoring him. He knew now that she wasn't ignoring him-she was gone. Where she had gone to, he had no idea. She had been absent from his life for a month now-disappearing without a word to him or anyone in his work.
What was even stranger, however, was that the blond woman had seemed to vanish, too. He thought her name was Kendall though he wasn't absolutely sure. That, and John quit, the nice but somewhat quite guy that worked on the sports column which only pissed off their boss because he had to find someone new to do all those various jobs. Yuki had only nodded and listened politely-he was too busy thinking about the night he and Brianna had spent together. Had it meant nothing to her? He had always been sure that it meant they made a connection.
Yuki frowned as he looked around her apartment, in wonderment at the neatness. He had only been here once before, that same night, but he had been a bit too... preoccupied to notice. He sighed, placing the letter on the counter. He had decided to grab her mail on the way up, but was surprised to find it had been sent from Blackgate State Penitentiary of all places. He wouldn't go as far as to open it, but he was still curious and frowned deeper as his fingers lingered on the pale envelope.
Behind him Yuki could hear the noise of the other apartment people bustling about. Someone was walking down the hallway, the couple above was arguing about something, a child laughed somewhere else but it didn't sound correct. A chill struck down Yuki's spine and he frowned, glaring at the yellow wallpaper that covered the kitchen walls.
Yuki's fingers clenched into a fist as he realized he should probably get going, and he swiftly turned around, only to suddenly realize that he wasn't alone. Someone was standing in the doorway, and he quickly felt sheepish, realizing that it must be one of her neighbors who didn't recognize him and thought he was breaking into her apartment.
However, after a second look, Yuki realized that he recognized him and smiled awkwardly. He opened his mouth to greet him, staring into the green eyes of his ex-coworker.
Upstairs, the old, slightly overweight Katherine shrieked, gripping her favorite vase in her hands as she breathed heavily, face red with anxiety. "I saw her, Kyle! I fucking saw her in bed with you!" Tears streaked down her face and silvery-yellow strings of hair, long since having gathered split ends, sticking to her salt-and-mascara covered cheeks.
"Shut your goddamn face, Katherine! You didn't see shit-you just-" But Kyle was stopped short by the sound of a gunshot.
A/U: Yeah, it's been a while. School and all. But the school play that I'm in just finished, so I hope to get around to writing a bit more. :/ Also, I'm using a cheap-o word processor that apparently cannot find spelling errors, so I'll be doing most of that on here, where it actually does read them, thanks to the internet and my wonderful computer. I'll do my best to catch them all, but if there are any that I've missed, feel free to call me out.
Also, how do we like Emma?