Another update? Already? Hey. I've got unexpected time on my hands. And it's a long one . . .

Thanks for reading.

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The doors of the underground station were flung wide, police tape running in zigzag diagonal bands across the opening. In the cavernous lobby at the top of the escalators nothing moved. There was enough dirty glass at the front of the building to allow the sun to light up the windows of the desks on the side wall, and the brightness made the deep well of black into which the corridor descended all the more unwelcoming.

In the middle distance, away behind the dirty grey warehouses on the other side of the road, a siren wailed into life, cutting briefly through the warm air and dying into silence. Crane looked over his shoulder, the sun flashing in the lenses of his glasses. Bruce ran a hand lightly over the grip of the gun in his belt. Then he reached out and pulled the tape up to form an arch. The doctor was industriously searching in his pocket for another pill, fringe hanging down over his eyes.

"After you." Bruce's heart was beating a little faster. He had missed this. In all his dreams of a life elsewhere he had acknowledged that he would never feel this way again. It was the price he would have to pay. He remembered his cellmates telling him about their experiences with opium, how, once you surrendered to the drug, even after you were cured of your addiction nothing ever felt that good again. A flat world. Empty.

Crane ducked gracefully under the barrier, fluidly spinning around to hold the tape up for Bruce to step through the doorway. The sun had warmed the air of the building until it was almost uncomfortably hot, only the air nearest the door holding the murmur of the breeze.

To all appearances the building was utterly abandoned. Bruce walked slowly across the echoing tiles toward the slope of the escalators, every muscle of his body prepared for the future. He could feel the adrenalin pulling at his spine, liquidizing his chest.

A waft of cooler damper air rose up from the darkness far below, mixed with the smells of diesel fuel and bleach and decay. It blew into his face, moving through his hair with cold shivery fingers. Down in the black a dim sputter of blue neon flickered and burned.

"Stay behind me." He didn't turn round to see if Crane was paying attention. If Crane really wanted in to the Narrows then he was going to have to play by Bruce's rules for a change. Not that Bruce was particularly enchanted by the idea of the doctor following him down those steep steps into the unknown. Again his hand came back to the comforting bulge of the gun.

He hated escalators. Always had done, hated the clank and rattle, the mechanisms grinding away below the metal sheets. Irrationally he shuddered at the thought of the stairway lurching into life as they descended, a last flutter of life from the dead circuits. Sucking them down into the pit.

His boots clanked against the steel, one hand guiding him down the slope of the rail, away from the light. He closed his eyes, counted down from five, opened them again and was relieved to see that his night vision at least was still as good as ever. The silver surfaces gleamed dully on either side of the flight of stairs, reflecting those last rays of sun that had journeyed this far below ground.

On the stair behind him he could hear Crane sliding one hand carefully along the banister, measuring his steps down into the unknown. Mark my footsteps, my good page, tread thou in them boldly. The memory of the words surfaced unsummoned, the corners of his mouth twisting up almost against his will. He didn't think Crane would appreciate the parallel nearly so much.

At the bottom a long corridor led off into the distance, a few dimly bulbed emergency lights casting a dull gleam on the tiled walls. The light fell down into dark pools of shadow, blending into the dirt and grime that had coated every surface, clinging like grated cheese to the tiles.

The silent corridor smelled of piss and stale cigarettes. Discarded papers and food wrappings lay strewn across the floor. Bruce could imagine the panic there had been on the day when the toxin had been released, the last train to make it out of the Narrows pulling away from the platform of Arkham Underground with the first wafts of distilled fear floating in on the air conditioning.

Crane was by his side, pupils huge behind the glasses as he struggled to make out what lay ahead in the low light levels. Bruce felt a stab of irritation, irritation he knew was childish and pointless, that the doctor had made no mention of his choice of route. He supposed that Crane had thought it all out days ago. Being locked up gave a man time to think. More vacant time than he might necessarily want.

He couldn't help but notice that the doctor's face was starting to heal a little, the swellings around the eyes beginning to go down, the darkness of the bruising fading from blue to yellow. At some point Crane had removed the plaster from the cut on his jaw and the line lay marked across his white skin like a piece of red thread.

Once again Bruce felt the horrible sensation of something spinning out of kilter and coming clatteringly loose in his chest. He believed now, more than he ever had done before, that something truly terrible must have happened in Crane's past. Something bad enough to push the doctor towards the edge, the edge from which he had finally jumped into the shadows.

He didn't need to imagine the straitjacket. He already knew only too well what losing control felt like. Ducard had taught him well. But it wasn't always possible to contain everything that he was feeling . . .

Crane was looking at him searchingly, more curiosity than he normally permitted to show sparkling in his eyes. "Penny for your thoughts?"

The doctor was a shadowy figure in the darkness, cheekbones casting long smudges of darkness down the hollow cheeks. Bruce remembered the look of detachment on Crane's tired face as he had stroked the blue steel barrel of the gun gently along those bones.

"What are you afraid of?" he said, and he listened to the tug of the words as they disappeared into the black, tiny puffs of air dissolving. Empty rhetoric. Vanishing into the stillness.

A measured smile parted the swollen lips, the eerie accommodating smile that Bruce was starting to dread. It was the kind of smile that might once have transformed Crane's face, made him look human. Now it only served to highlight the taint of madness that gleamed behind those cold blue eyes.

"Everything." Crane's voice was a muted whisper, sad and low. "Nothing."

The lights high in the ceiling over their heads guttered and flashed, the occasional crackle of electricity breaking the silence with a crunch of static. Crane held Bruce's gaze levelly, chin slightly raised. The defiance was back, the old defenses thrown up against him.

Before long Crane would be gone. And Bruce would never have a chance to understand anything. When the warm creamy surf of the South finally curled around his feet he would stare out over the ocean, into the distant line of the horizon vanishing into the sun. And he would wonder exactly who Crane had been.

He turned away and walked cautiously away down the poorly lit hallway, footsteps echoing off the tiles all around him. He had never appreciated until now exactly how unsettling an empty station had the potential to be. A space intended to be filled with the crush and push of jostling bodies, the mechanoid voices of the public address system. But then, this station hadn't been like that for years. Since the time when his father had been alive.

The platform was as empty as the corridor, only a few pieces of garbage blowing across the greasy tracks in the cold draft that sucked through the passageways. The air was thick with diesel fumes, catching at his chest, forcing him to regulate his breathing. Crane was walking away from him towards the mouth of the tunnel, his feet scuffing on the concrete, hair hanging down over his face. His hands were in his pockets again.

Bruce began to think that the sooner they got into Arkham the better. He wasn't sure how many more pills Crane was going to need to maintain this level of functioning but he was certain that the doctor's supplies must be beginning to run low. He'd seen the madness already. And even under the influence of the drugs Crane was still very far from sane.

He lowered himself down from the edge of the platform to drop onto the tracks, boots squelching into something far less pleasant than simple mud or dirt. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a sudden scuttling movement beside his foot and twisted sharply away, breath caught in his mouth. Just a rat, he told himself. Just a rat.

Further along the line ahead of him he could dimly make out Crane sliding down from the platform edge onto the rails. In the furthest reaches of the tunnel the blackness was almost complete. He wished he'd thought to pack one of the torches from the Batcave in his bag. It wasn't like him to set out without making some sort of preparation.

Crane was stood at the mouth of the tunnel, waiting. Even in the gloom he could see that the doctor seemed a little more agitated than usual, almost . . . excited.

"Next stop Arkham" he said shortly. He was starting to long for the time when this was all done with. Finished.

There was no hesitation. Crane followed him into the darkness without a word.

The oily lines either side of them hissed and whispered under the weight of a distant train, moving somewhere out on the network. Bruce prayed that nothing would come down the track towards them, catching them like rats in a trap. There was no room either side of the steel rails for even Crane to flatten his frail body away from the rush of an oncoming train.

Less than half a mile between them and the next set of station lights and already it felt like an eternity to walk. The loneliness of the dark tunnel settled on him like a cold damp cloak, filling his head with whispering voices.

He quickened his pace a little, the darkness light enough for his practiced eyes. Behind him he heard Crane stumble clumsily into a pool of foul water, struggling to keep up in the blackness. Mean spiritedly he sped up just a little more, relishing his position in control. He was the one driving now and the kick of the power sent tiny spurts of adrenalin through his body. A passing feeling. Transitory.

In the gloom of the tunnel walls, blurring out beside him, he saw the shadowy form of a gloved fist, slamming into a pale white cheek, and he looked down, uncomfortable with himself. There wasn't all that much separating him from Crane right now. Only his compassion, whatever there was left of that. Once upon a time he had told Ducard as much.

He stopped and waited impatiently for the doctor to catch him up. The blackness was almost total now, the least glow from the station behind them still allowing him to see a little. From all he could remember this bit of track was fairly straight and he only hoped that the next set of lights would appear before these ones were completely gone.

Crane's voice cut like a razor into his thoughts, scattering them out into the damp atmosphere of the tunnel.

"Why do you do it, Bruce?"

It was impossible for him to see Crane's face but he could guess what it looked like. The intensity, the dark pleasure masked behind the smile. But there was something else in the voice now, a breathless edge to the words.

"Do what?"

"The mask, the cape, the . . . altruism." The last word was almost spat out. Crane's voice had dropped back to that unnatural bitter shiver Bruce had heard from behind the storeroom door. "The Bat Man."

"Revenge." The answer was on his lips before he could stop it. Before he could decide if that was even true anymore.

"Everyone loses their parents Bruce." Taunting, light words falling into his ear like acid.

"How about you? Scarecrow." And he said it like he meant it to hurt.

"Oh, I made my decision years ago." Crane's voice was still light. Offhand. As if nothing was really that important. "Be afraid or be feared."

Yeah, Bruce thought. Me too. And he sped up just enough to leave Crane a few paces further behind him.

It was a few minutes later that he realised that the source of the light had switched from behind them to somewhere up ahead. A few more steps before the glow began to crystallize into the D shape of a platform.

Instinctively he slowed his pace, eyes straining against the dark to make out any details. He felt Crane slow his pace to match and wondered if the doctor too was struggling to see what lay before them. How much trust he had invested in Bruce's ability to get them through this in safety. None at all, most likely, he thought with a half irritated flash of temper.

And in the flickering glare of the platform lights something moved.

Crane was already up by his shoulder, eyes shining in the darkness. Bruce extended his free hand very slowly across the tunnel, blocking the psychiatrist's movement forwards. He wouldn't make the mistake of putting his hand on Crane a second time. "We've got company."

He heard Crane's small intake of breath, the near silent footsteps slowing to drop a little behind him.

"So this is it." The weird note of excitement Bruce had heard before filled Crane's voice, a little higher than usual. He's enjoying this, Bruce realised, and against his will he smiled at the doctor's hidden strength. It seemed like they both drew power from the darkness.

"Afraid?" He had to ask.

"No." The smile was audible in the voice now.

"Even of dying?"

"Oblivion?" A cold laugh accompanied the word. "Life could never be so sweet."

Bruce's lips met in a thin line. If he died here in the dark then everything would be accomplished. Alfred would know he had tried. Gordon would forget the masked vigilante who had once tried to make the city they both loved into something more than a rotting hulk of corruption. Gotham would go on beyond them all, a tall ship heading on out into a never-ending silver sea. Life could never be so sweet . . .

He turned to look at Crane in the half light. Very deliberately the doctor reached up and removed his glasses. "Show me how it's done."

Then Bruce was slipping away through the darkness to the platform edge, senses alert, the adrenalin coursing through him like a drug hitting his veins. With one hand he pulled himself up far enough to see over the lip of the raised area, the other hand holding the gun.

Two men were grappling with each other against the platform wall, their breath coming in hard gasps. One of them was whimpering a little, even as he fought his eyes nervously scanning the area for further sources of terror. Bruce remembered the time he had spent under the toxin, the ceaseless rush of fear turning his muscles to water.

He pointed the gun in the air and pulled the trigger. The explosion in the confined space of the tunnel sounded like a demolition bomb.

The two men fell instantly apart, cowering back away from the source of the sound. Both dirty, both half starved looking. Bruce pulled himself slowly up over the edge of the platform and advanced, waving both arms, making himself look as big as possible, shouting. For a second they stared at him, eyes dilated, terror imprinted onto their faces. Then they turned and ran, wildly, colliding with the walls, tearing at each other in their rush to escape.

Hesmiled. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

"Impressive." Crane's voice was as dry as dust. "Will that work with the others?"

Others? Bruce turned to the other end of the platform. Saw with horror the crowd of wide eyed, fear ravaged faces watching him warily. Shifting on their feet like a herd of cattle trapped in an abattoir pen. And he realised that he was between them and the door.

One woman, her clothes torn and tattered, standing a little apart from the edge of the mob, face working lopsidedly, began to scream. It was a high wordless scream, the scream of a terrified child. And the crowd began to move like one body, surging along the platform towards him. He watched horrified as the screaming woman disappeared beneath the trampling feet.

Desperately Bruce dived for the platform edge, every inch of his skin crawling with revulsion. These weren't people anymore, they were zombies. Irredeemably lost. How much impact was an antidote going to make?

Below him in the well of the track he could see Crane running one hand slowly, wonderingly over his hair, eyes fixed on the mob. His face was glowing. He looked, Bruce thought sickly, like a man who had looked into the face of God.

Then he hit the rails with a dull thud and crouched, making himself as small as possible, waiting for the noises on the platform to die away into the distance.

When it was all over he pulled himself upright. Crane was still standing between the lines, transfixed.

"Crane." he snapped. There weren't enough words to say what he wanted to the doctor. The Narrows had been like this for three days now. What other horrors were out there in the streets? Nothing could ever justify this. The contagion of Crane's madness must have truly infected him if he had ever believed that the doctor could be excused for anything he had done. Finally he could see clearly.

As soon as this was over he would make sure that Gordon knew exactly where to find Arkham's former director. Two could play at deceit as well as one.

"Crane." He walked briskly up to the doctor and shook him. Any fear about Crane's response had vanished along with his compassion. He would shoot him now like a mad dog if he had to.

Crane's blue eyes jolted back into focus. "Yes?" His voice was dreamy. Bruce looked at him with disgust.

"Let's get going." He turned away abruptly, walked back to the edge of the pit and pulled himself up onto the platform. Turned and with a reluctance bordering on revulsion stretched his hand down and dragged Crane up from the tracks. The doctor's lips moved in an involuntary whimper at the pressure on his broken ribs, his wounded body collapsing in a crumpled heap at Bruce's feet. Bruce looked away, uncaring.

The body of the woman who had screamed lay broken at the far end of the platform, an obscene trampled shapeless mass. I'm sorry, Bruce thought. Crane's mocking words were haunting him. You seem to have left the job of saving the city half finished. It echoed through his head like the fading sound of a gun being fired.

He turnedback to see thedoctor on his feet, eyes still unnaturally bright, face still touched with the bright glow of delight. He was almost quivering now, driven by the force of some emotion Bruce didn't even want to imagine. The fragile face held no alluring secrets for him now. He finally had seen what Crane was capable of, seen through the masks the doctor had so skillfully shown him. It hurt his pride that he had let himself be fooled for so long.

"Door. Now." Crane moved across the platform as if in a daze, giving no sign that he had noticed the change in Bruce's manner. The long sleeves had fallen down over his hands, a frayed end of the bandage that wrapped his broken finger poking out from the once white cuff.

Bruce was still holding the gun tightly in his clenched fist. His trigger finger burned with desire. Once they were finally in Arkham, finally at the source of the antidote, he would know what to do. Even Dr Crane couldn't get far with a bullet in each knee. There were stronger prisons in Gotham than the asylum had ever been. Death would be too easy.

He reached the doorway a few steps ahead of the doctor, mind racing ahead, racing to a future where Crane was gone and his own freedom was secured. A strange shadow fell forward onto the platform from the bright lights of the hallway and he paused. Saw in the corridor behind the doorway a single huge figure stood like a colossus blocking his way. And he recognized only too well the tattered orange canvas of the Arkham high security wing.

When he looked over his shoulder he was completely unsurprised to realise that Crane was nowhere to be seen. He had expected nothing less.

Slowly he stepped backwards, tempting the man away from the door, away from the narrow corridor where the advantage would be all one sided. To his relief the man followed. The same fear as Bruce had seen on the other faces was seared into the heavy eyes, but he guessed this one was an example of the fight response. He'd been lucky so far. Now it looked like his luck had run out.

The man hit him with surprising efficiency for someone in such a condition. Bruce lashed out wildly at the grinning face, suddenly struck by how different fighting was without the Batsuit. By how quickly he had become dependant on his little toys. Behind him there was only the blank wall at the far end of the platform. Or the tunnel oninto the Narrows. There was no hope of escape there.

A second later the gun was knocked out of his hand. His attacker had strength and weight on his side and Bruce had only his speed and the advantage of a sound mind. But the pain in his chest was like steel wire wrapping his lungs. He hadn't realised how weak he had become. All the damage his body had endured was finally taking its toll. Then the man was on top of him, sweaty and rank and desparate, the whites of his eyes flashing terror.

Bruce struggled against him with all the strength he had left. The hands wrapping unmercifully around his neck were hot and damp, the man's stale breath seeping horribly across his face in a fetid stream. The lights inBruce's head span and crashed down into the red cloud of pain like a ferris wheel exploding, his tortured lungs grinding against the broken bands of his ribcage.

He could feel the strength draining away from his arms, feel his will to fight weakening. It would be so easy to surrender to the darkness, to slide away from the pain and the dirt, to take that small step into nothing. Once he would have fought his death. It had taken thirty years for him to realize that he didn't actually want to anymore. Crane was right. Oblivion would be enough.

His body was struggling without him now, only the animal force in his muscles still straining for survival, for a single gasp of sweet air. Without emotion he watched it happen, gazing out from a place that was becoming further and further away. The crazed, fixed face of his attacker filled his rapidly darkening vision, filled his world. He stared into the maddened eyes and he could almost bring himself to feel pity. And he almost hoped that Doctor Crane would make it. To the victor the spoils.

And with a quick flicker of partial understanding the face hanging in front of him changed. The wet mouth hung temporarily open, panting out a pained little grunt of surprise. The wild eyes rolled slowly back in the head and the man lurched away from him, the choking fingers reluctantly releasing Bruce's burning throat from their grip. Then the heavy body slid slowly down his heaving chest and dropped like a dead weight to the floor.

A second later Bruce followed, crashing clumsily to his knees, retching uncontrollably. Between the deep tearing breaths that were racking his agonized chest he looked apprehensively up into the previously empty space above him.

Crane smiled encouragingly. In his unbandaged hand he was holding a slim chisel, the blade slick and wet with blood.

"Crude. But effective."

On the tiled wall behind the doctor's dark figure a single neon tube blinked on and off, illuminating the black and white platform sign. Arkham Underground.

Barely comprehending, head swimming with sickness, Bruce stared at the wooden handle of his father's chisel, hanging so loosely from Crane's blood stained fingers. Then the oblivion he had craved came down roughly over his head like a canvas sack and he fell away into the dark.

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