'Psychotic Reaction' by Ride.

I feel depressed, I feel so bad, 'cause you're the best girl that I ever had
I can't get your love, I can't get a fraction
Uh-oh, little girl, psychotic reaction
I feel so lonely night and day - I can't get your love, I must stay away
I need you girl, by my side
Uh-oh, little girl, would you like to take a ride, now
I can't get your love, I can't get satisfaction
Uh-oh, little girl, psychotic reaction.

I'm Not a Hero

He was halfway across the linoleum floor when he remembered, and turned on his heel to unlock her door again.

"How embarrassing," he grinned, tucking the gun under the waistband of his jeans behind him. "I'm so forgetful."
His eyes found their target, still sitting in the middle of the room, unmoved.
With a violent contraction in his stomach he registered the expression on her heart-shaped face.

Of course she would have let her guard down the second he'd left. She'd been straining just to hold it up in front of him. Now she stared up at him, cheeks strewn with moisture that she couldn't brush away, eyes wide and tragic under gently sloping brows, lips parted in a look of utter desolation and misery. So innocent, indecently abused, isolated in her fear. He recognised that countenance, he knew it in the depths of his memory. It was written over every inch of his rotting core. The pages of his history were unfurling right in front of him.

That split second of weakness was all it took for Jonathan to pounce, to shoot like toxin through his limbs and overtake him. In Alice's face he saw the echo of his own transformation, her response to his every minute movement, her wariness.

He stumbled to her feet, his knees hitting the carpet sharply, and buried his face in her lap like a child.

"Alice I'm sorry, he made me do it, he's making me do it, I can't do anything –"
"What are you doing?" she interrupted, voice hardening.
"It's Crane," he whimpered, clinging to her as best he could. "Crane is doing this. He's trapped us both."
"What are you talking about?" she almost screamed. "Why are you still trying to fuck me up?"
"No no, Alice, no -"
"Get off me!"

He forced himself to lift his gaze, looking into her face as the first of his own tears spilled over.
She glared down, expression blank with shock, taken aback by his sincere grief.

"Todd?" she asked after a long silence.
He shook his head fiercely. "It's me. It's Jonathan."

Another pause. She just kept looking at him, and he basked in her contemplation with the pure excruciating joy of her recognition, of being seen for himself, not Todd, not Crane, not Scarecrow. He felt too light, a little giddy, and so afraid that he could barely move. Crane was still clawing for control. He could only hold him off for so long.

"You said," she thought aloud at last, "you said that when you started teaching – you left Jonathan behind."
"Please listen to me."
"When you say Jonathan, do you mean – before everything happened – when you still had a chance? Jonathan?"
"I'm weak, Alice, and he's so strong. I let him take over. He helped me survive."

Alice retreated into a deep, intense silence. He remained where he was, in his position of supplication, waiting for her judgement. Did she trust him? Would she reject him? The thought alone was enough to produce fresh streams from his wide eyes. How could he possibly go on existing if she didn't believe in him? He would become all Crane, masked and consumed by that chilly exterior. He would cease to be worth anything except for his conquests, his power to destroy.

Would it be all that bad? Anaesthetised and unaware that he was ever human? What he didn't know couldn't hurt him, after all.
Was it worth losing his soul to relieve himself of the agony?

She finally spoke. "That's how you managed to play Todd so well. You were trying to get out, through him."

She trusted him. She had chosen his continued existence. He felt dizzy, and not altogether sure how he felt.
"Sometimes, yes. But I need to tell you –"

She had latched onto her belief in him, however, and her brain was working at top speed with this new idea, searching for an advantage.

"You don't want him to hurt me, Jonathan," she said abruptly, "we can work together. We can stop him."
"It's not that simple –"
"Jonathan, I need you to untie me."

She was deadly serious, desperately urgent. Her silver eyes pleaded with him more forcefully than her words could. Those eyes that had once looked into his with warmth, intimacy, affection. With a glance she offered him all of these things anew. She would protect him. She would love him. He would finally be loved – and none of this would be necessary. That was all he wanted, really, wasn't it? To be loved? To be respected?

Wasn't it?

He trembled against her. His hands shook, slowly – slowly – towards the bindings around her right wrist.

"You'll run from me," he half stated, half questioned, in an agonised whisper.
Her silence was infinite, terrifying.
He refused to break his gaze. "You can't trust me. There's no reason for you to stay."

She took a breath, and looked as though she would have lain her hand on his, if she could have.

"Jonathan," she murmured, "I want to help you. I've always wanted to help you. Please let me."
"I don't understand."
"If you let me go now, we'll have to make some choices. Either you will have to let me walk out of that door –"
"No."
"Or we will have to go together, and find people who can help you."
"No," he growled abruptly. "I'm not like him, Alice, but I've only broken out because of you. I can't let them take you from me."

She looked at him with real sadness. "Has he kept you caged up for that long? All those years?"

"I wasn't really – aware – of myself, until you woke me. It's hazy," he held his head in his hands, "I don't understand it. I don't know where I end and he begins. There aren't lines. Only shifts, in my head. Reality sort of slides back and forth. It's more like – I change my mind, or he changes it for me. I don't know. I don't know. I'm him, he's me, but he – he's a kind of anaesthetic. He kills everything that I feel, or warps it, or turns it against me. And he's so strong, Alice, he's going to win. I can't win because I always lose. It's what I do. It was only because of him that I became powerful. Then he didn't need me. Nobody's ever needed me."

He knew the words she would say before she even said them.
"I need you."
"You need me to set you free."

She shook her head slightly as her eyes began to well. "Jonathan, I need you to be the man I was falling in love with."

It was as if he had never known warmth before. It spread like an alien force throughout his chest, from his centre, filling him with something wholesome, something wonderful, something horrific. He was relieved. He was weak with relief. But while he opened his mouth to laugh, all that came out was a strangled sob. A whole stream of them followed closely behind as he hid his face against her leg, shoulders heaving with the weight of all those years, lost, wasted, written in stone. The years that had made him who he was, unalterably.

"And don't you dare say that was all for show, when you were Todd. I can see you now, and you're the same." She tried to lean down towards him, straining against the bonds. "I care about you, Jonathan. I care what happens to you. I haven't let myself get attached to anybody – but I think this was all meant to happen, and even if it was coincidence, it was right. I think I'm here to help you. I want to help you. I don't want you to be alone. I wouldn't leave you, no matter what happened, you understand? Jonathan? Please, look at me – look in my eyes so I can tell you. Please."

He obeyed, though he could barely see, locking his features in their contorted shape to stop himself from breaking down.

"I love you," she said without hesitation.

His stomach pulled at him so ferociously that he folded right over into himself, crumpling like a ball of paper, slithering away from her as he sat heavily upon the carpet. His arms twisted like barbed wire around his knees and sucked them into his torso, tighter, tighter, as though trying to fill the all-consuming void that had opened up at his core.

He is supporting himself against the doorframe because his legs won't hold him. A monster is trying to claw its way out of his mouth from where it's been living, down, deep down in his torso. He keeps forcing air out of himself, shrivelling his lungs in the effort to help it to escape. But it can't. It's a part of him. Every new breath he is made to take in only feeds it, feeds the monster and its desire to escape, until he feels as though it's cracking his ribs to tear its way out through his skin. He is aware of her, unmoving, looking on and not stirring a finger.

"Why won't you hold me?" he pleads, sliding gradually down, down, until he crouches and holds himself instead, like a jigsaw, afraid that at any moment he will simply drop away and scatter into limbs and quarters.
"I can't," her voice floats, descending like a feather. "It wouldn't mean anything."

Jonathan drew in a breath so deep and fragile that it felt like the last breath of his life.
Then the wailing began.

It was unlike anything he had ever heard, a drawn out 'aa' like the noise that somebody makes when they've been severely injured, played in slow motion. It wouldn't stop, and the void still gaped wide within him, and his arms wouldn't unwind from his legs.

"No," he realised he was saying. "No, no, no, no, no."
Alice was crying his name over and over, the sound of their panic mingling.

"Jonathan! Come here – let me hold you, for fuck's sakes, Jonathan, let me hold you, I can't watch this. Jonathan!"

With an effort of will that surprised even him, he began to crawl towards her. He rose to his knees, arms reaching feebly. Finally he clung to her; she twisted her head to kiss his neck as his chin dug into her shoulder.

"Sssshhhh," her voice was soft as an embrace. "It's okay, sweetheart, you're okay. You're okay."

But he wasn't. He clutched at an unresponsive body. There were no arms to hold his torso in one piece. Where was the relief he needed? Where were her comforting, caressing hands, where was the press of her muscles against his back? Where were her arms? They were strapped down.

His fingers fumbled for the duct tape of their own accord.

She tried not to tense and she tried not to hold her breath, but he noticed it all anyway.
The void in his stomach had become a cold weight, and for a fraction of a second he paused.

"Jonathan?" she asked, as she noticed that his sobs had quietened.
Her throat was rich and guttural with fear.
He could smell it on her skin.

Another silence, while he looked sternly at the hand he was about to untie, rigid as a statue.

"… Jonathan?"

With a short snap of the neck he flicked his hair away from his face, jaw tightening, limbs relaxing. Then he raised his eyes to her once more, and felt a deep satisfaction at the shock beginning to register on her face. One side of his mouth quirked upwards in a humourless smirk.

"Nice try," he hissed, and then rose fluidly to his feet. "You're better than I gave you credit for. But don't think that he's getting you out of this. He's not strong enough."

She was crestfallen, but she concealed it well.

"Is he alright?" she bit back. "What have you done to him?"
"He told you, he and I are the same. He's just changed his mind again with my help."
"So he can hear me when I say he's stronger than you. We're stronger than you. Me and him."
Crane sniggered. "Obviously. That's why you're still strapped to a chair."

"Jonathan is on my side," she barked. "He knows I won't leave him. He knows I want to help him."
"Do you? I thought your style was a stealthy exit, before things ever got too intimate."
"You know I've haven't been close to anyone before Jonathan. Not for years. Now I can't leave him. I don't want to."
"Sorry, sweetheart. Forgive us if we don't trust everything you say."
"How are we supposed to rebuild this relationship without trust?" she echoed his earlier comment mockingly.

He frowned heavily at her. "You're making me late. I do have plans, you know. What was it I'd come back for? Oh – yes – that darling mouth of yours. I knew I'd missed a dash of duct tape somewhere."

"You could never offer Jonathan what I can give him," she shot as he reached for the roll. "What I want to give him."
He paused. "Do you really think that?"
"I can give him all the love he never had. I can give him happiness. For the rest of his life. You get the picture?"

Crane clutched his belly and laughed aloud, high-pitched and eerie.

"I love Jonathan!" he cried joyfully. "I gave him everything he needed. We're on the same team, him and I. Always have been. We know what's important in life. Power. Recognition. What difference does it make if an insignificant girl falls for us out of the blue?"

"It makes all the difference," she said quietly.

He took a step towards her suddenly, bending at the hips to lean in until his breath caressed her cheek.
She flinched as she felt the cold muzzle of the gun pressed against her neck.

"See, you don't seem to take into account," he purred as he slid the barrel tenderly along her jaw, "that Jonathan and I want the same things. Exactly the same things."

Stopping just under her chin, he used the weapon to tilt her head back gently. Their lips were inches apart; he could see the vein in her throat pulsing beneath her honey skin. He looked down at her from beneath his lowered lids, with a gaze as serene and scorching as a snake's. Her stormy grey irises blinked back at him, wide and fearful and mesmerised.

"I never was one for physicality," his voice was husky and intimate, "I left it all with Jonathan. But then, I've never seen anybody dance like that before. You look stunning as a blonde, I mean, the red really suited you. I bet he would have paid you the money you stole from his pocket, if you'd asked. But where's the fun if you can't be a little risqué sometimes?"

The look she gave him would have made a lesser man cower. But he was the Master of Fear.

"You stalked me?" she hissed.
"I was curious. I haven't had," he inched closer, "sexual attraction towards anyone since Jonathan first found me. I suppose all I needed was to trap myself in an apartment with an attractive stripper for a week. I am only human, after all."
"You're pathetic. You're not human. You're a monster in a human suit."

The index finger of his free hand rested lightly on her knee. He trailed it gradually, smoothly up her thigh as his blood began to rush and his breathing deepened sensually.

"The trouble is, Alice..." he lifted his hand abruptly to tuck a wayward strand of hair behind her ear, angling her face towards him. "The thing is that you can't deny it. You love this human suit of mine, don't you? I've seen you looking. You were so ready to shed everything for me. Why do you think I stopped you? Or rather - Jonathan stopped you. To protect you from me. Because he knows I've caught your scent," he inhaled with relish, "and I'm game. It's irresistible. I'm sure you feel the same, I mean, it's got to have been a while since you last got laid. Like it or not, Alice, you want me. You know, you know that I would be so much more fun than your snivelling sweetheart. He wouldn't treat you like a woman. You want me to control you, consume you, take you down into oblivion. All that running, and the one thing you really want is for me to pin you down. It's the submissive streak in you. I can tell you're that kind of girl."

He wasn't expecting the saliva that hit him square in the face a split second later.

"Alice," he sighed as he wiped it away with the sleeve of his hoodie, keeping the utmost composure. "I really thought you'd been brought up with more decorum than that."
"I can't say the same for you."
"No, you can't. But that's a jibe at Jonathan, not at me. I'd be careful what you say to him."

"Give him back to me," she snarled.
"I'm afraid that's not possible."
"You mean you're afraid to die so he can be human again."
"I mean that I can't die. I'm as much a part of this body as he is." His voice soured. "Even if I wanted to escape, I'd have to take him with me. But why would I? There's still so much work to be done! – which reminds me."

He grasped the tape, tore off a strip, and finally placed it over her mouth. Kissing the plastic in mockery, he straightened to his full height and tucked the gun back into his jeans.

"If you'll excuse me, honey. I have a new name to make for myself in this town." He grinned widely at her. "New people to bargain with, new places to terrorise. Just another day at the office. I'll be back for dinner, so make sure it's on the table!"

Cool and collected, he spun on his heel once again and made the familiar trip to her bedroom door, diligently locking it behind him.

He wasn't lying when he'd said that he was off to make a new name for himself, or that he had people to bargain with.
He already knew what his new-fangled alias would be. He had known for quite some time now.
And as for bargains…

He was off to meet with the most powerful criminal in Gotham at present: Sofia Falcone herself.

So so sorry about the long wait! I've had tonnes of stuff going on recently. Hope you liked this chapter! As you know, reviews are always very welcome!