The Crane and the Falcon
Chapter XI
Lieutenant Sparkles - Teeheehee, don't we all. Wink, wink.
Katherine - Cue major waving. I hoped the Bon Jovi song wasn't too cheesy, I was listening to it in the shower the other day and was inspired. And Sakura's adrenaline addiction is going to be a big factor later on in the flashback chapters. I'm so glad you (and everyone else so far) like her! I hoped she wasn't a Mary Sue!Wow, I just watched the trailer for Breakfast on Pluto and OMG. Cillian Murphy as a mentally-challenged (?) Irish boy looking for his mom…WOW, HE'S STILL SEXY, EVEN WITH THE AFRO.
On a different note, I am going to be tweaking the storyline just a tad to set up a little "heart to heart" between Rachel Dawes and Sakura. Hope that doesn't anger anybody or whatever…
"I knew you'd come."
"If you don't mind injecting me-," Jonathan said with a small smile. He wriggled in the jacket to emphasize his predicament. Sakura fingered the syringe and nodded. She was no stranger to needles. In her college years she was addicted to heroin and nearly died when she overdosed at a metalhead party in Detroit. Prior to her heroin habit, she had peddled cocaine at high school and had become addicted herself. She had attended rehab twice before her 24th birthday.
She flicked the syringe and made sure there was no air in the vial before pulling her chair up next to Jonathan. With her free hand she pulled a switchblade from her boot and cut a slice out of the thick cotton jacket. Jonathan winced as the needle punctured his skin but he was immediately grateful as he could feel the final effects of his toxin dissipating. Sakura gave his arm a loving pat before meeting his eyes. "Now you."
"Don't you need this for replication?"
But he shook his head. "I have more samples in the lab. I'm expecting a high price for them." He tried to sound nonchalant and unfeeling, his usual monotone, educated tone hanging in the air. But the flicker of emotion in Sakura's dark eyes made him soften. "I want you immune to this. It'll make me sleep easier."
She slowly raised a hand to his face and touched his cheek tenderly, not saying a word. "How can I refuse such a cute face?" she said with a hint of a smirk. His lips, paled by the threat of Arkham, spread into a slow smile that was rarely afforded to anyone. Sakura leaned forward and gave him a short kiss on the lips before pulling back and rolling up her sleeve.
"It's been a while since I've shot up," she muttered, glancing at the syringe with a dark smile. "Hope I haven't forgotten how to do this." Jonathan straightened his head and narrowed his eyes. Sakura's drug-soaked past was never a welcome subject. He didn't know her during her darkest days and did all he could to keep her from relapsing.
"Get a new needle," he said sharply, his eyes now ice.
Sakura looked back to him, startled by his tone. "What?"
"I said, get a new needle. Sharing needles leads to-."
"Don't give me you M.D. bullshit!" she spat, the needle held in a trembling hand. "I know what sharing needles causes, alright? I'm not an idiot, and I'm not a patient, so don't treat me like one! Besides, you don't have anything that I could possibly catch, correct?" She took a breath before continuing, allowing her words to sink in. "And if you did, well, now would pretty irresponsible time to tell me, Doctor Crane."
Jonathan bristled at her final statement and he had to keep himself from snarling back. "I still have trace amounts of the toxin in my blood. I don't want any of it in your system, understand? I don't know how your body will react, and you having a seizure isn't on the top of my To Do List," he said in the calmest voice he could muster. Then there was silence with only Sakura's chocolate eyes forcing themselves against the mirrored blue orbs of Jonathan Crane. Outside the door, she could distinctively hear the nurse cough. She set the vial and the syringe down on the metal chair with an angry clang before wrenching open the door enough to slide her thin body out.
The door shut behind her and Jonathan sighed to himself. Hot, angry tears bit at the back of his eyes and he was forced to blink profusely to keep them from spilling. Sometimes Sakura made him so angry he wanted to throttle her in her sleep, douse her with a concentrated dose of his toxin, anything to make her break, to finally see the fear in her eyes again. He had only seen it once, before they became an "item", when he had convinced her to sit a therapy session. He had been the one examining her. But the door reopening made him snap back to the then and now.
The quiet shutting quietly made him quirk an eyebrow. Quiet was not Sakura's way. She would storm and scream, punching walls until her knuckles bled, break in her new Ferrari during rush hour. This was not Sakura. This was someone else. "Good afternoon, Dr. Crane."
"Good afternoon. You would be?" he replied, trying to sound civil and unfeeling. His eyes glanced towards the window of the door. He could see a figure, pacing by the look of it.
Sakura.
"Harvey Dent. I'm the new District Attorney of Gotham City. I hope you don't mind answering a few questions about the events of last night..?" Dent noticed the chair by Crane's seat and the vial and spent syringe next to it. He took out a small notepad from his binder and jotted something down. "I understand Ms. Falcone paid you a visit a few moments ago?" he began, not waiting for an answer to his first question. He moved to the corner and dragged the other chair in front of Crane and took a seat.
Crane's eyes stayed on the door. She can't come in here now. They'll question her for sure. Then he turned his head mechanically to face Dent. "Shouldn't I have a lawyer present for any form of interrogation, Mr. Dent?"
But Dent took the retort in his stride. "I understand you were declared insane by a Dr.-," he checked a sheet quickly, "Strauss, but you seem quite lucid right now."
"And?" Crane growled.
Dent smirked, "And this wouldn't have to do with the drugs you just took or Ms. Falcone's visit?"
Rachel Dawes stood in the hallway, having accompanied Dent on his first visit to Arkham Asylum. She had awoken from her sedated sleep not an hour before, and the new D.A. had convinced her to make another trip to Arkham, despite her misgivings and the incident the night before. She surveyed a loop of video over a television in a bank of security feed TV's.
"What did she give him?" she said to the nurse next to her. The woman was shaking in her tennis shoes, knowing that saying anything would be considered testifying against Sakura Falcone. "Ma'am?"
The woman shook her head. "I- I don't know," she stammered truthfully. "She went into his office, and came out with two vials of something. I don't know what it was." She prayed she hadn't said anything that would cost her life. Onscreen, Sakura and Crane's kiss was being replayed.
Rachel narrowed her eyes and flared her nostrils, arms folded tightly across her chest before setting off at a quick, angry pace to the maxium security wing. Her footsteps echoed off the tiles walls and she avoid the leers of the dozens of patients she passed. She reached the cell with a small flush rising to her cheeks and her blood began to boil. "I'm not surprised you're here," she said slowly, eyes on Sakura, standing only a few feet away. The other woman turned slowly, a manicured eyebrow raised.
"The same can be said of you, Miss Dawes." Sakura's arms were crossed in front of her and her diamond jewelry winked in the light. She grinned coldly, knowing that Rachel had seen her the night before, and that she was not the damsel in distress she portrayed herself as.
"Don't smirk at me, Falcone," Rachel spat, taking a step forward. "You're going down with Crane, and no amount of money or lawyers can save you from a life behind bars!"
But Sakura only raised a finger and ticked it back an forth with a sigh. "It's amazing how naive the assisant D.A. can be, isn't it? So young and sheltered from the horrors of the city you try to save." Sakura took a step forward as well, but it had much more effect and held much more malice. "Understand this," she continued, "No matter how hard you try, no matter how much hard evidence you have, I will never spend a night 'behind bars', as you so eloquently put it. Just accept that every time you come gunning for me, I'll always be bringing more heat than you can muster up."
"We have you on tape, Falcone. Whatever you gave Crane will be analyzed within the hour, and you will be arrested for-."
"Please, Miss Dawes, your voice tends to give me a migraine. I don't want to have to turn to my illegal kilos of cocaine fresh from Colombia or the refined heroine I have lying around to get rid of it," she teased, watching Rachel's face tighten with glee. "Now, I understand you said you have video evidence of the exchange between myself and Dr. Crane?" Rachel supplied no answer but only grimaced at the word 'exchange'. "A small hint for the future, Miss Dawes. Keep your key evidence under lock and key, because now it's long gone from Arkham." Sakura began to walk away from the cell, disheartened that she hadn't been able to finish her visit.
"You'll never get away with this. I know about you and Crane! Your connections can't save you anymore!" Rachel called after her.
Sakura's calm voice floated back to her as she disappeared around a corner. "Good day, Miss Dawes."
Oooooh, Rachel knows. What shall ensue? Cookies to whoever guesses what happens next!