Disclaimer: Batman stole my virginity

Author's note: I know, I know, I'm a total asshole for taking so long to get this out. But don't hate me too much – I just got engaged! That's partly why my head is jammed so far up my bum. Thanks for returning! I love you.

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Crane didn't notice Katie approaching until she was two yards away. She hugged herself to block the chilly morning breeze and stopped just behind him. "What did you throw?"

Crane passed the phone over his shoulder. Katie took it, puzzled, then realized the battery was missing.

"Why would you do that? A working phone might have come in handy." She stared at the back of his head and pushed the phone into her front pants pocket. The gentle wind fought with her hair, strands sticking to her lips.

Crane wasn't sure if it was the wind or Katie's staring, but a chill awakened the fine hairs on the back of his neck. The feeling wasn't completely unpleasant. "One call from a nosey friend is enough for this trip."

"I still think answering was best. If I hadn't, the police might have believed her. As is I'm sure they patted her on the head and told her to calm down."

Crane chewed her words over, annoyed she might be right. "Even if it was, we can rest assured nothing like that will happen again."

"And why is that?" Katie asked, her tone maternal - as if she were asking him to explain why his homework wasn't finished.

"I called an associate."

"To do what?"

Crane turned his head slightly and spoke over his shoulder. "I've already told you. Her number was on your caller ID and I kept it incase something like this happened. Actually someone kept it for me."

Katie didn't respond. Crane's bottom lip twitched as another chill brushed his neck. It felt similar to the tips of delicate fingers trailing lightly over his skin. He thought of Katie's touch and forgot that she hadn't replied to his statement. He lost himself further, his head feeling lighter and lighter. The pills, he thought. When was the last time I took them?

Katie stepped next to Crane and stared in the same direction as he did. As if sensing his thought, she took the translucent orange bottle from her other pocket and held it in her fist. "I think you've missed about two doses, doctor."

Crane looked at her hand out of the corner of his eye and waited for her to give him the bottle. The tickle was no longer confined to his neck. Invisible fingers ran over the back of his knees, the insides of his elbows, then his entire back. He felt them on his heart and in his gut, and he grew impatient for Katie to give him the pills.

"Calling someone to do something to Amanda was a bad thing. Haven't you heard of karma?"

Crane didn't follow, the humiliating twinge of panic rising. He needed two pills to suppress it. Just two. Open it and give me two, he thought.

"You know; you do a bad thing, a bad thing happens to you."

Crane reached out to take it from her, but Katie tucked her fist under her armpit and hugged herself again. "What goes around comes around. An eye for an eye, all that good stuff. Do you believe in that, Doctor Crane?"

"This isn't the time to discuss that topic." Crane looked Katie over. She was poised and confident, nothing moving other than the rise and fall of her chest and her loose, tangling hair.

"Actually, you're wrong. This is the perfect time. You obviously called someone to harm my best friend. And as much as I care for you, it can't go unpunished. But I also can't really wait for karma to pay you back - so I'll push it along." She placed the bottle in Crane's eager hand.

Crane shook it, opened it, then looked into Katie's eyes – the cap in one hand, empty bottle in the other.

Katie smiled and shrugged.

"This isn't funny," Crane growled. He dropped to his knees and patted Katie's pockets.

"Good, because I'm not joking."

Crane's hands froze on Katie's hips. He used them to pull himself to his feet, rising slowly and watching her face the entire time. Getting up felt like it took an eternity, everything slowing down. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," she whispered.

"You need them, too."

"Not as much as you do," Katie said, her whisper high and sweet. Crane's eyes were so bright that morning it was hard for Katie to tell where his irises stopped and the whites of his eyes began. Just a thin aqua ring defined the border between them. Even pretty when I'm mad at him, she thought.

Crane's anger built inside him, released as trembling hands and bared teeth. "Where are they?" he whispered back.

"She's my best friend, Crane - I love her. I had to protect her."

"You love me." Crane growled, poking Katie's chest with his index finger. He stabbed her again with it, both times right over her heart. "Me, Katie. Me."

"Oh Crane, I do," Katie said, her voice parental once more. "All I said was I'm repaying you in advance for whatever might befall Amanda, honey." She laid her palm against his left cheek and pouted. "I wuv my crazy baby."

Crane smacked Katie's wrist away and pushed his finger against her throat. "You have five seconds to tell me what you did with them."

"Relax. Come on, I'll show you." Katie walked back towards the truck.

Crane followed her closely, every wound on his body burning. He scratched brutally at the gash on his hip while simultaneously nibbling the cut in his bottom lip.

Katie stood by the left rear side of the vehicle.

Crane looked at her expectantly.

Katie tapped the little gas tank door.

The truck was still running, the smell of exhaust overpowering that of the damp woods on both sides of the road. "I don't know what you mean," Crane lied. He knew what she meant, but he didn't want to believe it.

"What has it been? Fifteen, twenty minutes since you walked away with my phone? Probably all dissolved by now, don't you think?"

Crane punched the truck with the side of his fist. Katie jumped but otherwise kept her cool. "I needed those," he hissed, sliding his hand along the truck as he came closer to Katie. "I can't successfully escape if my mind slips away," he told her, a lump rising in his throat. Not from tears, but from dread.

"I don't want you to be sick or back at Arkham. But you're not the only person in my heart, understand?" she said, her calm dissolving. "If you take meds you'll be functional, and even more of my loved ones could be put in danger." The same guilt Katie felt her first day as Crane's therapist washed over her now.

"I can't believe you would do this."

Katie looked away from him.

"This is no eye for an eye, little lady. No one will give out that drug, not even this far from Gotham - at least not without a battery of questions. They might have lost my scent but not the need to find me." Crane resisted the urge to strike at Katie, but the longer he went without pharmaceutical intervention, the less able he would be to hold himself back.

Katie spotted another truck approaching over the hill. "In the truck, Crane. We've been here too long."

Crane grudgingly climbed over the driver's seat and Katie jumped in behind him. She took off quickly, her stomach lurching with the sudden return to the bumpy road.

"Listen, Crane. I know you're very secretive about the details of this trip, but I need you to tell me our ultimate destination and how we're supposed to get there so I can drive."

Crane felt the haze lift for a moment. A little burst of confidence brightened his mood. "Our ultimate destination? How we're supposed to get there? Hmm."

"Yeah, what?"

"Nothing much, I just didn't realize you made your decision."

"What decision?"

"Katie, you know what I'm referring to."

"I don't." Katie didn't look over at him, even trying to block him from her peripheral vision.

"Be as mad at me as you like – you're still picking me over her. Over everything. That's what you're saying."

"I didn't say that. I just need you to navigate, that's all. I'm exhausted, I'm not saying things clearly – don't read into things, okay?"

"You finally made a choice. Good for you."

"Crane! Just tell me where to go."

"I will, I will. I just want you to admit you meant what you said. That's all you have to do. Then we're on our way."

"There's nothing to admit!"

Crane put his finger to Katie's lashes and let tiny tears that had gathered there roll over his finger. "These tell me you do." He kept his eyes on hers and licked his finger with the tip of his tongue.

Katie felt disgusted, not by his gesture but by the part of her that liked it. "What do you want me to say? To do? And, I mean, why do you even care? I'm nothing to you other than some fucked up form of entertainment. I love you, unfortunately, but I don't need to stay with someone who feels nothing for me in return. I should go home."

Crane unbuckled and slid across the bench seat, stopping once his chest touched her upper arm. He rested his forehead lightly on her cheekbone, then lifted his head and spoke to her ear. "I will agree that whatever there is between us is indeed 'fucked up', as you put it. The rest of your statement, though – you couldn't be more out of touch. I'm going to tell you something, and I want you to listen closely. Are you listening?"

"You're talking into my ear."

Crane whispered slowly. "You've invaded my dreams since you first sat in my lecture hall. Anyone I kissed back then, anyone I slept with – I closed my eyes and pictured you. It felt like I was cheating on you. Do you know what that feels like? To feel like you're betraying someone you believed never gave you a second thought?" He traced her jaw with the back of his finger. "You want to know how I feel about you? Do you?"

Katie held her breath and nodded.

"I'm infatuated. Possessed. What I feel runs much deeper than love. You're imprinted on my brain, you're in my bones. So what do you want? To go back to your life the way it was and never see me again? Or, Katie," he said, kissing her neck, "do you want to leave that ordinary, dead-end life behind and make a new, exciting life with me? Someone intoxicated by the very thought of you. Who desires you. Dreams you. Breathes you."

Katie pushed her neck into Crane's lips, her attention to the road waning.

"Stay with me," he said between kisses. "I don't need you to. But," Crane pushed his lips into her ear, "I sincerely want you to. Tell me you want it, too."

Katie parked for what felt like the thousandth time. She wiped her eyes with the backs of her shaking hands and unbuckled.

Crane was anxious for her answer, the feeling heightened by his fading connection with reality. He cradled her jaw and kissed her, pushing his tongue as deep as he could. His hands found their way to her neck. He rubbed his thumbs lightly over her throat. "Tell me," he repeated as they kissed.

Katie was so exhausted she could barely tell if she imagined what he said or if it actually came from his lips. "What if I do?"

The chill returned, starting at Crane's calves, touching every part of him as it headed to his lips. He rubbed the tips of his fingers against the back of Katie's neck in time with his thumbs.

His fingers made it harder for Katie to swallow, but it pushed her deeper into the moment. "What if I stayed?"

"You'd get everything I promised"

"Like what?"

Crane pressed his fingers harder. "Power equal to your intellect. Influence on par with your beauty."

"And I'd have you?"

Crane squeezed his hands around Katie's neck and pushed her back against her door. Their eyes met, unblinking. "Forever, Katie. If you give me your word."

Katie tried to speak, but Crane's grip stopped her. She put her hands over his and pulled lightly on his fingers, silently telling him to let up.

"No. I don't want you to think about anything other than your answer. Just nod or shake your head, then I'll let go."

She was thinking of two things: an answer, and the need for air. Not her family, not her friends, not her job. As rough as he was being, his face was soft. He looked as if he were about to lean in and kiss her – just waiting for her to say the right thing. The less oxygen she got, the less she could think about, and finally the only thought in her mind was to kiss those tempting, expectant lips. Crane suddenly released her throat, letting her take a breath before covering her lips with his. She was confused, and it took her a full minute to realize she had nodded.

TBC

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