Never…

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Red Eye or Batman Begins!

Chapter Nine

Jim Gordon opened the briefcase that Jonathan Crane had carelessly left behind. His mouth dropped open as he peered at the alarming contents. A knife, a gun, and three empty hypodermic needles lay on the top of his jumbled files, a piece of burlap, and other miscellaneous items that Crane had put inside. Bruce carefully picked up the empty syringes.

"I'll get these to Fox and maybe he can run some tests so we can determine exactly what were in these." Bruce suggested. What have you done to them, Crane?

"You should probably have him run a complete set of blood work on Amy as well."

"Good idea. Anything else of interest in there?"

"I think I found our Scarecrow." Gordon said grimly, as he held up the piece of burlap which acted as a modified gas mask. Bruce twitched instinctively at the sight of the mask that had covered his enemy's face.

"Get rid of all traces." Batman heard Crane's distant, calculating voice say as an instruction to the men. They immediately followed instructions, grabbing gas cans as one of them made the suggestions that they torch the abandoned dwelling.

Batman instantly went into motion, disarming the two criminals, and then turned to face Crane, who had donned a burlap mask which covered his entire head, as he raised his arm in which a small cloud of white smoke was emitted directly into his face.

He had breathed part of the gas in and choked, seeing a whirlwind of images collide around him, not to mention the terror he felt in his chest as he looked at Crane's mask only to see a multitude of bats fly directly from the demon's mouth, circling around him.

"Oh, having trouble?" Crane asked him mockingly. Shoving him backwards, Crane said, "Here have a seat, have a drink." He told Batman as he dumped a bottle of liquor over him. "You look like a man who takes himself too seriously."

Through the haze of dark images that traversed his mind, he saw Crane holding a lighter as a flame flickered at the end. "Do you want my opinion? I think you need to lighten up."

It was sixteen years ago when he had been exposed to the Crane's toxin once, however Amy had endured it repeatedly for the past several years.

"Amy will have to identify it eventually," Bruce remarked sadly. The poor girl simply did not deserve all this torture she had been through.

Gordon nodded and turned to the files. He noticed that there was one for Amy and another for Lisa. He cautiously flipped through them and shook his head in disgust at Crane's notes on their individual 'sessions'. It was rather disturbing reading material which concisely documented all the torment he had put both women through.

"This is one sick bastard." Gordon muttered. "It's a wonder that they are even still alive."

"They are strong," Bruce admired the courage of Amy and Lisa. "Both of them had to be, however Lisa was emotionally crippled before Crane even got his hands on her."

"True," Gordon sighed, reflecting on what Jackson Rippner had done to his wife well before she had ever met Jonathan Crane.

Bruce took over for Gordon and continued to riffle through the briefcase. He found Crane's personal notes on the injectable medications as well as several vials of the various fluids. "I need to get these to Fox as well. Hopefully he can tell us something more about it."

"Sounds like a plan," agreed Jim.


"Rachel?" Amy asked quietly, not looking up from where her eyes had stared fixedly on the pin-stripe pattern of the suit jacket Rachel was wearing.

"Yes?" Rachel answered.

"Can I show you something? Just so that I know it's real?"

"Of course. What is it?"

"I found these before he hurt me," Amy said, carefully removing the photographs and newspaper clippings from her backpack. The glass in a few of the picture frames had shattered, yet the photographs were still intact. Rachel slowly took them from Amy's trembling hands.

"You found these?" she asked her, amazed at what Amy had uncovered. She was looking at an entirely different Lisa captured in the photographs than the one that she knew today.

"Uh huh."

Rachel looked from the photographs of Lisa and Jackson Rippner to Amy. "Bruce wasn't joking when he said that you resemble him."

"Resemble who?" Amy was curious. I don't look like anyone.

"Jackson Rippner."

"No, Jackson, don't!" Lisa Crane was screaming.

Amy watched from the relative safety of the stairs. The screams had drawn her from her room, carrying over her music, startling her. There was a man wearing a suit just downstairs and he was stalking her frail mother with a knife. He reminded her of Jonathan Crane, yet it could not be her father. He was taking a nap claiming exhaustion from a long day of work.

"Dad?" Amy cried out, running to her parents' room. "Dad?"

How could he sleep through her mother's terror-ridden screams?

The cries ceased and she spun around to check on her mother. Had the stranger killed her?

Amy screamed as she could only stare in horror, because in all of his cruel glory stood the Scarecrow that she thought only existed in the realm of her nightmares. He smiled menacingly at her, the stitched mouth of the mask taunting her. She fell backwards in shock as she quickly tried to scramble backwards away from him.

"Aw, we haven't forgotten yet, now have we? We still remember our fear…"

Amy kicked the monster's knee and darted past him as he crumpled towards the floor. She raced down to where her mother was lying prone on the tile floor.

"Mom? Mom!" Amy was frantic.

"Don't let Jackson find you," Lisa whispered, her blood slowly pooling on the floor around her. Amy could not see the wound or its severity. "Run…"

Amy was about to protest when the Scarecrow grabbed her from behind, his arm encircling her waist, pulling her towards him as his other hand gripped her short hair, yanking her head backwards as a needle pricked the delicate skin of her neck. She whimpered in pain and slowly gave in to the approaching blackness.

"Jackson Rippner tormented my mother, didn't he?" Amy asked Rachel quietly, returning to the present. The past had a way of so often intruding upon her weakened mind.

"A long time ago," Rachel responded halfheartedly.

"But I saw him! I saw Jackson!"

"That's not possible," Rachel was shaking her head in disbelief.

"I saw him just a few years ago! He attacked her with a knife! She called him Jackson and told me to run! Then…" Amy was shaking in fear. "Then Scarecrow came for me…"

"Amy, Jackson Rippner died before you were even born. You simply couldn't have seen him. You might have just been dreaming."

"Then who…?" Amy became dazed for a moment, lost in thought. Where had he been? Why didn't he help her?

"Amy?" Rachel's worried voice echoed within her ears.

"It was him, wasn't it? Dad; he used the clothes in the trunk to torment her. But why?" Amy was near tears. She was still having a hard time dealing with the fact that Jonathan Crane was a psychopath who had tried to harm her.


"Fox?" Bruce called out as he wandered down into the basement of Wayne Enterprises. Fox often preferred to reside down there with his various scientific endeavors, even though he had been promoted several years earlier.

"Yes, Mr. Wayne?" responded the somewhat eccentric African-American who poked his head out from behind his computer to greet his employer.

"I have a rather interesting case for you. It involves our old friend Dr. Crane and his affinity for fear inducing toxin. I found these in his house." Bruce laid out the notes, vials, and empty syringes in front of Fox. The older man appeared to be intrigued as he picked up a syringe to examine.

"Do we know what the purpose of these were for?"

"All I know so far is that he has been using them to experiment on his wife and teenage niece for the past several years. It relates to his special interest in fear but that's all we've been able to determine."

"When did he get married?"

"Just after the toxin was released in the Narrows. He married his twin brother's pregnant widow."

"Wow, that for sure makes for an interesting family tree," remarked Fox. "Crane had a twin?"

"His name was Jackson Rippner. Lisa Rippner, I mean Crane. Oh, whatever…" sighed Bruce in confusion. "She murdered him over sixteen years ago."

"And ended up with Crane? Odd…"

"Yes, extremely. Apparently Crane's been using them as lab rats for the same amount of time."

"Well, I'll run some preliminary tests on these. It is possible that I could have some blood samples from them to collaborate my results?"

"Of course. His niece is staying at my home. However Lisa might be a separate matter in trying to obtain a blood sample. Either Gordon or myself will try to speak to her," Bruce said, however he was relieved in knowing that Fox would help him out.

"And if possible, would I be able to speak to Amy?"

"I think that can be arranged."

Author's Notes:

In the next chapter, we'll see Crane's arrest and Amy's reaction to needles. It might take a day or two for the next chapter to be posted and I'm sorry. It's the last week before finals and life is a little crazy, but I'll try to stick to the every day updates. Enjoy! Major thanks to emptyvoices for all of her help!