Gladys did return to the porch, with a welcome basket of muffins, an eagerness to weasel her way inside of the "mystery house", and another neighbor: Cait. Cait was another recent addition to the neighborhood. She had four kids, a husband abroad in the Air Force, and sold homemade candles on Saturdays in a village a few miles away.

"I didn't know there was a village." Evie led them to the nook of the sunflower-speckled kitchen and offered them a drink.

"Guess it is fairly new." Gladys explained. "Used to just be a gas station and general store. Now it has all sorts of cute little shops and food spots."

"They're talking about building a small ski lodge." Cait chimed in.

"Neat."

"So, where are you and your husband from?" Asked Cait. Gladys seemed particular invested in the answer by the way she stared Evie down.

Crane hadn't anticipated neighbors, so they never discussed a backstory. "Midway." Evie lied quickly. She had intended to say "Star City", as it was the closet thing to, yet farthest place from Gotham she could think of right on the spot. Midway? That was only a half day's drive. Fuck.

"This must be quite the change of scenery for you, then!" They both chuckled. "No skyscrapers here, that's for sure - not to mention miles safer."

Evie choked out a laugh. "Yeah..."

Gladys looked around the kitchen. "Got a lot of work to do here, don't you? How come y'all let this house sit so long?"

"I don't really know - it was Theo's thing." Yes, he's spent the last ten yeah on and off rotting in one of the east coast shittiest prisons. Isn't that just a scream?

"Have you not been married long?"

Evie couldn't help but stare and wonder how Gladys could smile so wide. How does one smile so wide while also eating?

"I guess not." This was supposed to be, at best, a lonely retreat where she could descend into madness and perhaps eventually drown herself in the lake, or something poetic like that. Crane had assured her the "wife" thing would be a rare and situational explanation - not a role she would constantly be expected to discuss and act out. For lack of a better phrase - this sucked.

"Hmm." She was definitely fishing, but Evie couldn't guess what for.

"We have a contractor in the neighborhood, you know." Cait stepped in again. "Very reasonable, for the only professional in so many miles. He just redid my entire first floor, if you would like to see his type of work?"

"That'd be so great."

She stood up. "Maybe stop by tomorrow? I actually need to make a run to the market, but I could not pass up the chance to see this place."

"Oh, okay." Apparently there was so much want for entertainment that people just invited strangers to head on over to check out their renovated mantle. Evie hadn't been expecting neighbors or any socialization at all, let alone experience the culture shock that comes with living out in no where.

Cait pulled on her coat, put her dishes in the sink, and left Evie and Gladys alone.

"Where's your husband?" asked Gladys.

Evie finally took a drink of her tea. "Poking around upstairs, I guess." He was spending all sorts of time in the attic every since they moved in.

"He looks a little old for you." Gladys took a drink too, staring her down over the rim of her glass.

Kind of weird for an acquaintance to be so immediately affronted by some other couple's age difference. "Okay." What else was Evie going to say? Yeah, that's because he is.

"Honey, don't play coy - I saw your face when he called you his wife." And Evie was sure it must have been something, since she distinctly remembered wanting to vomit. "You didn't have to move all the way up here to make it work with some old man you don't even love."

Evie had never received advice this deep and straightforward - not from her closest confidants, and certainly never by a random southern grandma - but she didn't appreciate hearing it one bit. Probably because Gladys' perception of what was "off" between her and Crane was so very, very wrong. She felt the truth angrily welling up inside her, like a marshmallow about to explode in the microwave.

Cops.

Your parents.

Therapists.

Your sister.

Dr. Phil.

Those sweet little reminders quickly diffused the feeling. She wasn't going to get home the right way by indulging every mildly nosy person about "Theo".

"I don't know what to say to you, Gladys, moving was rough."

Gladys tilted her head. "Of course, dear." She finished her drink. "You don't have to entertain Cait further if you aren't up for it. The contractor is Phil Green. He lives in the big cabin on Pinecrest, and he will know exactly how to treat this house." Evie didn't bother showing her out, which was probably the equivalent of a "go fuck yourself" to these people.

She needed to find out more about this up-and-coming tourist village, or better yet, see it for herself. That would give her the best jump on putting together a game plan.

A door could be heard opening and closing somewhere upstairs, paired with the creak of century old floorboards. Seemed Crane was done with whatever he was doing for now. Evie got up from the table and walked to the stairs to meet him.

"We had visitors."

Caught off guard, by both the news and Evie's sudden appearance, Crane's eyes widened slightly. "Did we?"

"Yeah, Gladys brought muffins she thinks I'm too dumb to tell are store bought." Probably thought she was the first person alive to put clam-shell packaged baked goods in the oven to pass them for homemade. "Also, I hope you know something about Midway, because I just told them that's where we used to live."

He sat down on the steps, rubbing his temples. Everything had just been one thing after the other lately. "Why?"

Now that Evie had taken a moment, she could sort of see how Gladys could be a little weirded out by them together. The scraggly beard Crane was growing growing added a good ten years on top of the twenty he already had on her. He looked especially gaunt at the moment, as she filled him in on the mornings events.

"I don't know." She admitted, sounding sheepish, but not-too-secretly enjoying how exasperated he was looking the more she spoke. "They asked, I panicked. At first I thought 'Star City'...but 'Midway' came out instead."

"Midway is fine, actually." He informed her. "That city is ripped apart every time they turn around, their population records are a mess. Practically nonexistent. We can flesh out the backstory later."

"Well, it is what it is." Not much she could do about it now but shrug. "On the bright side, there's a contractor in the neighborhood, and a new-ish grocery store a couple miles away."

"Yes, what a relief." This place had evolved so much more than he had assumed - his secluded safe haven had attracted unwanted attention, and was now part of a budding township. Not what he had in mind at all. This changed everything, all over again. He stood up, intending to head back to the attic - his plans needed to be sped up quite a bit. Crane stood up. "Could you come upstairs with me for a moment."

She followed, feeling a little uneasy when they reached the door and narrow steps to the attic, but she wouldn't be able champion her case for a village visit if she frustrated him first.

It was actually a pretty pleasant space. Everything looked clean and well organized and cozy - much like his stolen apartment in Gotham. She briefly observed board full of hexagons and letters Evie couldn't decipher or even tell apart. Crane had complimented her before for having good grades in science, but to be honest it was nearly impossible not to. Class sizes were so insane, the only things the teachers had the energy to assign and grade was either a multiple choice sheet, or copying chapter definitions x many times.

Crane cleared his throat, gesturing for Evie to sit in the brocade armchair by the desk.

"I didn't say anything wrong to them, you know." Evie kept her cool, but still wanted him to know she hadn't been blowing it.

Unfortunately, the instant defense did little to inspire Crane's confidence."I'm sure you think you didn't."

"Come on, haven't I been a-" she braked hard before the words "good girl" slipped out, realizing how kind of gross that would sound. Plus, she was supposed to be keeping cool. "Look I'm playing along. I don't want to go home either." Better.

Without knowing the extent of the conversation, it was hard to tell if it was salvageable, or if an online search could decimate them. "You also don't think ahead of what you say."

"Excuse me, but you gave me nothing to go off of besides a dumb name and gross, fake marriage." Staying calm had been a noble endeavor, but it appeared she had wasted her patience on Gladys. "Literally, all I have is "Ooh - I'm Darcy Lynn. I'm definitely an adult, with a happy and totally normal marriage to an 1880's fisherman'."

Crane was silent for a while. "So you don't like the beard."

"There is nothing to like about you," Evie bristled, tone dripping with acidity, "but the beard does you no favors. You look like the old man from Home Alone everyone thought murdered his son."

That made him laugh. Really, and genuinely laugh.

"I really hope you stay like this. It's fun, it's nice..." If the laugh hadn't already shaken her out of confrontation mode, that phrase did the trick. She saw him reach into a drawer, but then he moved his body to block what he retrieved, and what was doing with it.

When he was finished, he set a syringe between them.

Evie's eyes narrowed. "You said no more needles."

"I said 'hopefully' no more needles for 'a while'." Crane corrected her, in stiff, mocking air quotes. "But you shouldn't worry. Things are different. I'm not using garden hoses and carafes and questionable substitutions."

Yet again, Evie had fucked herself into a corner. She really thought she could get away before he decided to get up to his old tricks? This had been so obvious, from a mile away - she should have never come up here at all. The village could have waited.

"What is it." She kept her voice flat. His monologue would give her time to think.

"Have you ever considered how you might make Darcy into a better you?" Evie was none too pleased about her ignored inquiry, but what he was saying also carried the potential to go on and on. "Someone smarter, stronger...fearless?"

She had to admit, that last part caught her attention in the worst way.

There were some things Evie felt she no longer had to fear - her family getting hurt, or being shot and put in the pit at a moments notice - but as Crane was so kind to remind her, in this place he had what he couldn't obtain in Gotham: his research, proper equipment, and supplies. She hadn't contended with Scarecrow at the height of his ability, and anything that might make him less threatening would certainly be invaluable...but what was the benefit? The catch? Fear made up almost the entirety of his upper hand. He knew that.

"Why?"

"Because I think you deserve it." Crane didn't know how to put into words how Evie had breathed the life back into him - returned his sense of control, of will and purpose, and most recently, his greater sense of self, though he didn't want to give her that much credit anyway. "We have been given a grand second chance. And, sure, I may not have easy access to an understaffed, poorly run mental institution, but I think with some help..."

Oh no.

"I can share this piece of myself with you," he knelt down in front of her and took her hand, making this the sickest proposal Evie could imagine, "for us to become something greater, together."

But if this was a "proposal", maybe she could...

"Can I think about it?" It was worth a shot, wasn't it?

Crane smiled, and reached a hand out to cup her cheek. It took every bit of nerve not to instinctively recoil from it.

"No."

There was a low clicking sound right next to her ear, before Evie's vision disappeared in smoke.