Sorry for the delay - I was trying to rehash a project. Isn't quite working out, though, so it's back to my edits.

- Penny

The Holy Grail of pharmaceutical science is a medication capable of keeping people happy, complaint, and productive - basically a real life Soma. Such an endeavor has never been fully accomplished, and its attempts were, of course, not without their pitfalls and consequences. However, the realm of misguided, government-funded labs soldiers on with this task.

Crane had toyed with the idea of creating such a drug - even started a bit of legwork on it, confident that he could accomplish the task given enough time and guinea pigs at Arkham. Things he no longer had top-clearance access to, and could not be easily obtained, given current events. If he wanted to take up this project now, it was back to creating out of jerry-rigged equipment largely comprised of old kitchenware.

Then there was the experimentation process itself. Notes on notes on notes. Writing down every single reaction, no matter how minute. And every reaction to start with is minute. The first couple rounds made Evie tired and not much else.

The next round was a sort of zombie-ish insomnia. Evie wandered around the house late into the night in a trance-like state, glassy-eyed and lethargic, but restless.

In the middle of that stage is where she found herself at a door to a room she hadn't yet explored: the basement.

Crane had never said anything specific about the basement being off-limits, but it felt like one of those unspoken things. Psychopathic men are always keeping wierd or gross shit in basements. However, it was the one are of the house she hadn't explored to death. Maybe seeing weird, gross shit in the basement is what she needed right now. She flicked on the light, revealing a non-threatening wooden staircase. It smelled musty, but not bad. Not that she would know what a rotting corpse would smell like, though. The odds seemed favorable enough that she walked down the steps.

It was actually quite organized, as far as basements go. Her family's was crowded junk pile, where every small trip took hours of sifting and distractions and attempts to clean. Here, there was a clear path to the furnace, a neat wall of holiday decorations in clearly labeled containers. An equally organized corner of camping gear. A large, clean tool cart where tools and attachments rested, perfectly nestled in foam cutouts that must have taken hours to make. Toward the back, it got a little less tidy. The boxes weren't labeled and didn't seem to have a clear place the way everything else did. They weren't properly stacked or labeled - just strewn about in no particular order, as if they had been brought down in a hurry. Then, in the far side of the room, nearly missed just passed the edge of light, Evie spotted a familiar shape under a blanket. A piano. She weaved her way through the haphazardly-spaced parcels. Excitedly, but still carefully, she pulled off the blanket and pressed down a few keys from a familiar scale. Slightly out of tune, but nothing she couldn't fix, and it would be a great use of a couple hours. Evie located the stool not far off and dragged it over. Inside was the lever and the mutes.

Setting to the task, she stood on the bench and propped open the lid.

It was the calmest she had felt since she came here, and between the repetition of turning the wires and pressing the keys, she even started to feel like her old self.

Evie and her sister Allie had both taken piano - something about their folks wanting them to have "structured activities", but really it was about keeping them occupied so the pair wouldn't feel neglected while working inhuman hours. They were taught by a neighbor who was happy to pass on the skill for free, who was by no means easy on them, but did see to it that they both excelled. Allie stuck with piano. Evie eventually branched out, stalking the area pawn shops and taking advantage of any school music class that offered free or discounted instruments, testing out guitars, some woodwinds, briefly percussion in the pit, and currently violin in her school's string orchestra. Piano was still her first love, though, as evidenced by the way she easily slipped back into her old form, the familiar scales. Scales are supposed to be the most tedious part of piano, but Evie never minded them - she found the practice calming. Allie was the one who disliked scales. She would blow through them in a minute just to piss their neighbor off.

Suddenly Evie felt very guilty about the way she had been avoiding thinking of her family. She missed them, the simple things in their family life: her mother brushing her curls, ditching class to go to the bookshop with her dad, secrets swapped with her sister under blanket forts in their shared bedroom - she would have given anything to live out one more normal day with them. It's true when they say you never know the everyday things to really appreciate until they're gone.

They didn't even get to spend one more Christmas together.

Evie paused the scales, re-positioning to begin a new piece. Tchaikovsky. The Nutcracker. Pas de Deaux.

The Addams saw the cheapest production of The Nutcracker on Christmas Eve every year, but they made it a luxurious event all the same, in brand new threads, going to a nice dinner afterwards. Pas de Deaux was Evie's favorite part in the play - she cried during it every time. Something in that final swell of the orchestra toward the end.

If only the reason she was criyng right now was because the song was too beautiful to bear. Her vision blurred and her hands started to slip. She was never going to see them again. There wouldn't be any more Christmas traditions or anything else. Correcting herself, she started playing louder, more frantically, throwing herself out of time. She was going to die here, and all the noise in the world couldn't distract her from it.

There was a hand on her shoulder, scaring her out of the song.

"I didn't know you played." Crane said softly.

Evie let out a small, relieved sigh. He didn't seem angry. "Thought you knew everything about me."

He joined her on the stool, face holding very little expression for her to read. "Only some documents - hardly your life story."

"Suppose I should feel grateful for that too. Long as there's stuff to learn, I'm interesting enough to live."

"Don't say that." Still emotionless, how frustrating. "I've never once said I'd kill you."

"How comforting."

"Promise I won't. I've gotten too fond of you for that."

Humor didn't suit him. Evie finally glanced up at him, but said nothing.

"I think you are just what I needed." Simple. Weak. "You've been good to have."

And neither was that attempt at flattery.

"I wish I knew you played - I would've had this dragged upstairs."

"Hm."

"I wonder who played in this mother, perhaps. All those boxes on the floor are her things - clothes, perfume, all the pictures. I think she may have died."

The lack of pictures in a house that so clearly belonged to a family definitely stuck out to Evie from the start, but she always assumed that Crane had gotten rid of them when he decided to take up residence.

"It certainly does something to explain why they're gone, why they haven't come back." He continued. "It's pretty common for people to want to get away from it all after a death like that."

That did make a lot of sense.

Crane switched gears. "What were you playing before, if you don't mind me asking? It sounded familiar."

"Tchaikovsky." Evie answered simply.

"It was lovely. A little...intense at the end, though." He began to prod. "Is that part of the song?"

"Sort of." She toyed with the keys a little, sing-finger tapping the tune out over again after a few moments of silence. Crane observed, as was the new norm, wondering what tweaks would have to be made to remedy this. Evie was being obedient enough, but obedience suddenly wasn't all that appealing while presented in this...despondent manner. He didn't like her gloomy at all. There had to be some way to let her keep the spark that made her fun, and manageable at the same time. Was it really asking the world? His expression began to darken, which set her heart racing.

"What it is, Evie? You need to tell me."

There was no point in hiding it. "I was trying not to miss them, but I do. I feel bad for everything I'll get never do with them or anyone else again."

"Why won't you?"

The bigger question was how would she? If she did live, how would she ever move past this?

"Because I don't believe you." Crane could have her for fifty years and she would spend every day of it asking when he was going to end her.

Evie watched Crane clenched his jaw - an action that had become something of a tell for when he became annoyed or angry - filling her with a sense of panic, mind suddenly racing for a way to undo her words. Her idle tapping began to falter.

That was well enough for the night, he decided. Gently, he grabbed her wrists, moving her hands away from the piano. "Let's go to bed."