There's a Year One comic for Scarecrow that came out the same year as Batman Begins, so I decided to give this Jonathan that backstory (minus the pretend play - that I just threw in there for some Extra Sad)

To answer a quick question in the last review, yes, Batman does come back that night, but the city isn't freed for a couple more days. At the very least not until the next afternoon, but it's hard to imagine that sort of plan coming together and getting executed like that in eighteen hours. But I guess that would be very ~Hollywood~

~ Penny.

Everything hurt. Evie felt absolutely paralyzed, acutely aware of every muscle and cell in her body being pinned down in pain.

Where was she? What the hell happened? Was Crane still there? At a point the sense of pain seemed to dull enough for her to take a blind note of what was going on around her. She felt the needles in her arm, and heard a light beeping, plus the sounds of traffic, sirens, and planes. Looked like she wasn't in Gotham after all unless a lot of stuff had happened to change very quickly, but Christ, what a way to go about it. After much inner debate, she decided it was time to take a look around, even though opening her eyes was like peeling off a scab.

Clearly a motel room, judging by the wallpaper and the thickest, ugliest tan print drapes she had ever seen in her life. Evie wanted to push herself up, survey her surroundings a bit more, but was certain the slightest movement would cause her skin to rip like she was made of paper.

"You're awake. Finally."

In no way had Evie regained enough control of her face to glare, but she made a valiant effort of it. "What...the fuck." Her throat was raw, each syllable scratching its way out like sandpaper against a peeled orange. She felt the vibration of Crane's approaching footsteps, but didn't turn to look at him. Not just yet.

"Welcome to Delaware, Darcy Lynn." Crane stated briskly, every bit a doctor in this moment.

"...What?"

"It's your new name. Best I can do for you at the moment, I'm afraid, but I kind of like it. Rolls off the tongue."

"Am I a southern débutante?" She mocked.

"Well, it's nice to see you still have your quick-thinking skills." There was the scratch of pen against paper, which for whatever reason sounded much too loud.

"You're writing that down?"

"Mhmm." The quick clicks of the pen were equally deafening. "You're not a scientist if you don't detail out your experiments in writing."

Evie grit her teeth. "I am not. An experiment." Such a simple statement was taking an awful lot of wind out of her. "What did you do?"

"I gave you a sort of...altered biological warfare drug. Risky, but it was the simplest thing I could whip up, under the circumstances." Sounded awful giddy for it not being his first choice, making the situation more unnerving than it already was. "Then I gave you a sedative with just enough antidote as insurance."

"Probably could've just gone with a sedative, don't you think?" Evie lamented. At least anger appeared to work as a fair distraction from the pain. "Or maybe just not given me anything at all. Wild idea, I know, but it might have just worked."

"Well I wasn't about to rest our escape on the shoulders of your acting skills. Plus you needed to look in bad enough shape to require transport." Crane knelt down, and she could feel his breath on her neck. "I'm very sorry, but it was, without a doubt, the easiest and safest way to get here." His shoes squeaked against the linoleum when he stood up, his hands sliding under her back, gingerly forcing her upright.

It wasn't nearly as painful as she anticipated. Her muscles were weak, and her skin tingled, but it felt more like she had slept in an awkward position, or even had flu fatigue, rather than her body violently ripping at the seams and spilling out her entrails on the cheap flooring. Evie finally looked at Crane. He was shaved and showered, already sporting new clothes, which made her feel about a million times worse, sure that she currently represented the withered human embodiment of a piece of beef jerky.

"Can you rate your pain for me?"

"I don't know. Four, maybe five. Ish."

Crane began the motions of a typical checkup.

"How'd we do it?" Evie asked, staring off into space as checked her reflexes. "How'd we get out of Gotham?"

He hesitated, but there was no harm in revealing anything. Not like she could call anyone back home about it. "There's a small group of emergency responders and fishermen at Roger's Basin. They transport people in severe medical emergencies to sanctuary cities. Look up, please." He shined a light in her eye. "They have a sort of code worked out with the gangs, so they don't get sunk or bothered. Even thugs have a heart for kids with cancer needing treatment, I suppose. Follow the light."

"Oh." She hated to admit it, but perhaps his plan had been pretty...smart. "Risky", as he had said, but obviously it paid off.

"As you might have guessed, you qualified as an extremely severe emergency. You stressed them out quite a bit. Apparently New York and Atlantic City are closed off for the week, and they didn't think you'd make it all the way to the bay." Lastly, he asked her to stand. An overwhelming sense of vertigo caused her legs to buckle, but she was able to steady herself and stand without support as he requested. "But that worked out in our favor. Jersey and New York have very strict border checkpoints right now, and this state does not. Anyway look at you now, miraculously recovered. Just have to wear a scarf for a few days is all."

"Scarf?" Evie's hand went instinctively to her throat, feeling the long, thin scabs, suddenly remembering how they got there. The annoyance toward Crane quickly faded, blood draining from her face.

Evie had never seen Cranes mask in person . She didn't know what his fear toxin looked or smelled like, or how it worked. It was hard to imagine that he was in charge of an entire insane asylum, testing and torturing, running drug rings on the side, having honest to God henchman on his side. Besides the initial shock of watching him him "work" as a "judge", she had spent the last couple months watching him pick at ingrown hairs on his neck and complain about lower back pain. He made a good enough first show of frightening her into place, but at times it was hard to take his past seriously when she was full of false, teenage confidence telling her he seemed like literally any other dirty old pervert in the city. It didn't occur to her that she could have gotten away with so much more than she did, because he only wasn't who he really wanted to be for lack of opportunity, and now, out from the variable apocalyptic landscape of Gotham, he could be that person again. Those "treatments" he gave her at the apartment, the shots he gave to her the night before - those barely fell under his scope of "passable" - what was he going to do to her without all the same limitations? Her heart picked up speed, making her muscles ache again.

He felt it, as he removed the needle from her arm. "Sorry." He mumbled. "Last needle You'll need for a while, I hope." Evie tried to control her breathing. "Are you alright to shower on your own?"

"Yes." She answered quickly. And loudly. "I'll be fine." Crane paused again, to survey her face.

"Good." His reply was stiff, unconvinced. "I'm sure you'll feel much better once you're clean."

Doubtful, Evie thought to herself, feeling like she was walking on stilts to the bathroom, trying her best not to collapse on the floor, at least not until after she shut the door behind her. Definitely a more draining feat than she expected, but nothing compared to the way she near about jumped out of her skin when she saw her reflection. Her hair was a greasy, knotted mushroom of bedhead, eyes bloodshot, and then there were the scratches - bright red and swollen against sickly, pale skin. She looked like both the junkie and the junkie's personal ghost who haunts them about what the future holds should they continue the path. Gripping the counter with both hands, she inched her way to the shower and turned it on. Her limbs felt heavy and weird - not completely unlike the initial symptoms of Crane's bio-drug or whatever he called it - and she panicked, dramatically swinging her arms behind her in some odd attempt to prove that she was retaining control over her body. What she did accomplish was knocking over a track of mini-shampoo bottled and wrapped, seashell-shaped soaps. Fuck, she winced as they all clattered loudly on the floor, but still hoped that maybe the running water masked it.

Of course, it didn't, and Crane burst through the door thinking she had fainted, instead finding Evie knock-kneed and leaning against the counter. He sighed, helped her upright, and began undressing her.

"I can still shower on my own." Evie insisted.

"Sure, sure." He answered curtly. "I will just stand here to make sure you don't hurt yourself."

"Yeah, that's your job, I guess." She mumbled, trying not to slip and she kicked off her jeans. Crane pursed his lips in annoyance, but said nothing, and guided her into the tub, making sure she was steady before stooping down to retrieve the dropped bottles. As promised, he settled himself on the counter and did his best not to stare her down. Evie shut the curtain.

The water did feel amazing. She sat on the floor to give her tired muscles a rest and started the attempt to finger out the knots on her head. Being the weak think she was in her current state, it didn't take long for her arms to give out as it she just completed a thousand push-ups instead of merely lifting them over hear head. Evie dumped the whole bottle of conditioner on her head and hoped for the best. Her hair almost always looked knotted to hell anyway. Inching over the shower handle every few minutes, she started to wait for Crane to get bored and find some other task in need of handling, but as the hot water began running out, it was clear that he was going no where without her. When she finally gave up and turned off the water, he was right there to hoist her back up, wrap a towel around her, and carefully lead her past his makeshift medical setup - that was, in fact, a folding table and an IV on a hanger - and over to the bed. Pulling a fresh set of clothes from her backpack, Evie bit her tongue, trying to keep her expression as blank as possible as he helped dress her, finally knotting a thick, grey scarf around her neck.

"I had planned to have us walk around outside for a bit," he said, pulling her over a bit more to sit on the edge of the bed, "but you are clearly not as well as you had me believe."

"I feel great." She asserted, watching Crane slip his bag strap over his shoulder, then add on her backpack. Wasn't her fault that her mind and body were on different tracks.

"Well, we may as well get on the road." He reached out his hand to her, pulling her up again. Evie begrudgingly leaned against him as he walked them out.

Seeing and hearing a loud, functioning city again felt like she was on another planed. Everything here seemed to shine, the atmosphere was lighter, the air was cleaner. Traffic, people yelling, children laughing. How strange it was to know that so many people were unaffected by what was happening just across the water, just...going on with their lives like nothing was wrong in the world. Evie felt herself almost resenting them for it. Didn't anyone care about what was was going on in Gotham? Had the topic run its course already? unbelievable.

They stopped at a green SUV with California plates.

"Stealing a car, really?"

"The car is already stolen." Crane produced a set of keys to open the passenger door, allowing her to get comfortable while he put their things in the back.

"Soooo...we're driving. To the PNW?"

"I could put you down for a plane trip, if that's really what you'd prefer." She finally noticed how tired and exasperated Crane looked and sounded, and wondered if he had been awake the whole time she was "recovering".

"I would be good."

"We're driving." Crane snapped. He had never gotten the proper grip on Evie he wanted - a decade in prison (mainly in solitary) had left his sense of purpose and fearsome demeanor more than a little diminished, a lack of resources left him more helpless than Evie had ever been in their time together. Incredible what a bit of light assault and empty threats can do to a person's psyche. Now that they were out of Gotham and in the open like this - without mind-altering medications or equipment, where his threats no longer held the same weight - all it would take was one careless slip-up, and Evie would disappear in an instant, putting people on the trail of his final resources. There are a lot of lakes in the Pacific North West, but only so many yellow, Victorian lake houses containing a high-end lab's worth of materials and every shred of his former research. He really needed her to stay a dim bulb for a few more days, but he would be increasingly irritable and on edge for the time being. If worse came to worst, he could pull another assault out of the bag, but he liked to think he and Evie were in a decent place with each other, and he didn't want to lose that footwork.

The car ride was only quiet as far as the freeway.

"What are we going to do when we get there?"

He sighed. "I don't know...get some new furniture? Definitely have to start a list of repairs."

"I've never been furniture shopping." Evie drummed her fingers against the window. "I have a uncle who worked apartment maintenance. He always gave us stuff that people left behind. It's insane what people just ditch when they have to move."

"What a fun first experience you have in store, then." He responded dully.

Unperturbed by his disinterest, Evie kept on trying to make conversation. "So...what'll your name be?"

He couldn't exactly avoid that question. "Theodore. Theo Sinclair."

"Yeesh, suddenly I'm thankful for Darcy Lynn."

"Actually, I picked it."

Evie made a face. "Why did you get to pick a name?"

"It was a long time ago." Crane said. "Theo was a sort of...alter-ego I had as a child."

"That's cute I guess." Evie shifted in her seat to face him better. "What'd you do as Theo? Did you act like a little cowboy?"

May as well break it in with a disturbing childhood anecdote, that might put an end to the topic of his past for a while. "I grew up in a small farm community. There's an old, large property on the edge of town, with a chapel, and a graveyard. It's a, uh...in a certain state of disrepair, I would call it. Prime spot for haunted rumors, dirty, full of birds. I got locked in there quite a bit, whenever I got in trouble, or just because they felt like sticking me in there." Crane glanced at Evie's face, her expression growing tentatively horrified. "After a while, there was nothing better to do than pretend I was a millionaire - most of the time I sort of looked the part - and the chapel was my mansion, and it made me feel...a little bit better."

Evie turned back in her seat and stared at the road, not sure what to say. Not even a crack at how hard it was to imagine him as a child playing pretend. Heck of a way too ease her into his background. There was still one more question she wanted to ask, before giving him back the silence he wanted. "Who is Darcy to Theo?"

He knew this question had been coming too, but had rather hoped to avoid the subject until they got where they needed to be. "I think it goes without saying it'd be, well, stretch to call you my daughter. Kind of a risk to label you as any relation. People are nosy out in no where, you know."

A sick knot began forming in her stomach as she waited for him to follow up on that sentence.

"It'd be easiest just to call you my wife."

Never thought she'd consider "wife" a dirtier word than "whore", but here she was thinking it.

"Just to simplify things." He reiterated. "We aren't going in front of a priest."

Yes, because that made it so much less real. Like they wouldn't be living together and furniture shopping like married people do. Like he was never going to kiss or fuck her again like a husband would. She knew that was the entire reason he wouldn't name her a daughter or cousin - most people tend to feel uncomfortable when they notice blooded relatives getting touchy-feely, and Crane didn't want that attention on them.

"Think I'll take a nap." Evie murmured to him.

And so, within an hour, the first stint of a week-long road trip was hopelessly ruined.