Chapter 2

Dawn watched her sister lock stares with Batman. They'd been staring at each other for what felt to Dawn was an hour but probably was only about a minute and a half. Since declaring that they worked alone, they'd fallen into this staring match. She was pretty sure if they just started talking, they'd find Dana, stop Al Ghul and his apocalypse and discover they were soul mates. Okay, maybe the soul mates part was pushing it, but Buffy had a thing for tall, dark and broody and they didn't come more tall, dark and broody than this guy. The only negative Dawn could see was that he wasn't a vampire.

"We can handle this," Buffy said, finally. Dawn wasn't sure if her sister was talking about the Arkham escapee, Ra's Al Ghul, Dana or something else altogether. "You can work alone on whatever it is you're doing."

Batman still said nothing and maybe it didn't creep out Buffy, but Dawn found herself getting a serious wiggins.

"Well, good night," Buffy told Batman with a small finger wave, as she brushed past him to the mouth of the alley. "It's a school night and Dawn has to finish her homework. Come on, Dawn."

"Wait." Batman's voice was low but there was a definite command in it.

"Sorry," Buffy called over her shoulder. "School night."

There was the softest rustle of fabric – barely perceptible unless you hunted vamps for a living -- and suddenly there he was in front of them, blocking their way. "I said wait."

"Are you going to talk this time?" Buffy asked, folding her arms across her chest and tapping her boot on the pavement impatiently. "Or are we going to stare at each other all night?"

"What do you know about Ra's Al Ghul?" he asked.

"What do YOU know about him," Buffy countered, matching his intensity. A second later, she laughed, the tension easing out of her shoulders as she dropped her arms at her sides. "This is ridiculous. Look, get this guy back to Arkham, let me get Dawn home and meet me tomorrow night at the Holy Rood Cemetery."

Dawn wasn't completely sure, but she thought she saw Batman relax slightly and possibly even the tiniest hint of a smile on his face. "I thought you worked alone."

Indicating Dawn with a jerk of her head, Buffy flashed Batman a full-on grin. "And you really believe that."

"Not for an instant." With that, he disappeared up and over their heads, back into the alley, Dawn supposed, to gift wrap the Arkham patient for the police.

Now it was on, Dawn told herself. She could hardly wait until tomorrow night.

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"I can hear the stars singing," Drusilla sing-songed, her head thrown back, eyes closed. "They have a message for you, my Scarecrow."

"Do they?" She was gloriously mad, and for the first time since he'd woken up in her care, he allowed his thoughts to linger on just what it could be that Drusilla feared.

Drusilla turned her attention back to him, dancing a slow waltz around him. The candles illuminating their nest cast her shadows on the wall and he watched them. Stopping suddenly, she leaned forward and let her lips brush his ear as she whispered, "Your master is nearly healed and he thirsts for revenge almost as much as you do."

Revenge. On the bat. On Rachel Dawes. On Gotham herself. Al Ghul was alive. Drusilla knew where to get more of those marvelous blue poppies. Fear would rule Gotham again. But first, revenge. Delicious revenge. He'd make more toxin, stronger toxin ---

"An apocalypse," Drusilla announced. "He's going to start with Gotham City. And then he's going to destroy the world."

Al Ghul could, Scarecrow knew.

Suddenly, Drusilla clapped her hand to her head and moaned. "It's the Slayer. She's here. She's going to try to stop it."

Slayer. He knew about the Slayer. Crane knew. It was back there, buried in Crane's memories, before Scarecrow took over. He wasn't sure exactly what those memories were, couldn't quite wrest them out from the compartment where they were locked away, but there was something there. Something that brought a delicious chill along his spine. Just a frisson, really. But looking at Drusilla, he knew that this Slayer was something she feared. A great deal. And oh, how he wanted to explore that.

"She changed everything," Drusilla told him, answering his unspoken question. "Changed the rules. Drove us underground. Nasty Slayers everywhere. Even in your precious Arkham."

The memory he'd been prying at finally came loose and he saw her. Her name escaped him for the moment, but he remembered her particular brand of madness. The file didn't do her justice. It painted the girl as a victim. Both parents murdered. Abducted by the murderer. Tortured. And then suddenly, found. She was catatonic for years until she woke up violently. Dana – yes, that was her name – danced through Los Angeles leaving a delightful pile of bodies. She arrived in Arkham, heavily sedated but still ranting and so deliciously dangerous until Al Ghul had given him the key to unlocking her fears. Dana, he – or maybe he was still Crane then – discovered, was still afraid of the monsters under the bed. Monsters like…Drusilla. It was clear to him now. She wasn't human. She was a –

"Yes, my Scarecrow. I'm a vampire."

His lips curled in a smile of pleasure that reached his very core as he gave her fear a name. "And you're afraid of the Slayer."

"Buffy." Drusilla spat out the name with palpable disgust.

"Buffy?" Even as he repeated the name, there was yet another Crane memory answering the question Scarecrow just voiced. Dana's only visitor. Buffy and…some other glowing green girl. He remembered now. "You're afraid of Buffy."

"And you, my Scarecrow, are going to discover what Buffy fears."

He couldn't wait.

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The file didn't make sense.

Dana Barrows belonged at Arkham. Or rather, she would have belonged at Arkham had she lived in Gotham or committed her crimes here. Bruce absently rubbed his chin, fingers rubbing over the stubble, eyes still fixed on the computer screens in front of him.

The screeching of bats – his early warning system – alerted him to the arrival of Alfred in the Batcave. Bearing a tray laden with coffee and warm croissants, Alfred paused and studied the image of the girl on the screen. "Your new project, Master Bruce?"

"She's somebody's project," Bruce commented, taking a sip of the coffee. "Somehow, she ended up in Arkham, even though her crimes were in Los Angeles. The files I've retrieved say that Crane took her because the security in Arkham was one of three facilities capable of holding her."

Alfred set the tray down and leaned in for a closer look at the screen. "What crimes did you say she committed, sir?"

Bruce hit a key and the video of her attack on the Valu-Place employees filled the screen. They watched in silence until Bruce paused the video. "Two girls were looking for her last night in the Narrows. I cross-referenced Arkham's visitors log and got a hit."

Another keystroke and two pictures filled the screen. One was a blonde-haired young woman. The other was a girl with light brown hair. Bruce took another sip of coffee. "Buffy and Dawn Summers, formerly of Sunnydale, California. No known connection to Dana Barrows, other than that visit."

"Sunnydale, sir?"

There was a note in Alfred's voice that pried Bruce's attention away from the screen to the older man's face. "Yes, Alfred. That town in California that was swallowed by a sinkhole two years ago –"

"Buffy is here? In Gotham?" Alfred blinked and then recovered himself. "I daresay I know the connection."

"I'm more interested in how you know this Buffy."

"I don't, sir, not personally I mean." Flashing a small rueful smile. "It would be more accurate to say I know of her."

"And that would be how, exactly?"

"It's a long story."

"We have all day."

"Then it's best I make some more coffee, sir."

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"You'll think he'll show again, Buff?" Xander asked, leaning against a tombstone. After Dawn's description of Batman, Xander kind of hoped he would. It was obvious Dawn was sure he would from the way she pouted at being left behind because of a trig assignment. Looking around, Xander decided that the Narrows' Holy Rood cemetery wasn't as creepy as even the least scary Sunnydale cemetery, but it gave him enough of a wiggins to tighten his grip on his stake.

Buffy shrugged as she scanned the cemetery. "He's got his hands full. That guy running around with the playing cards, the escaped Arkham patients and ----"

A shrill, feminine scream came from the northwest corner of the cemetery.

"The occasional vampire attack," Buffy concluded, running in the direction of the scream.

Xander followed, stumbling over vines and tree roots in the darkness. He tripped over a small headstone and made it just in time to see a girl run past, still clutching the flowers she'd intended for the grave of a loved one. Buffy was taking on three vamps, all male and still not one snappy dresser among them, Xander noted. Knowing Buffy would scold him later for joining the fray, he did it anyway. Just because he only had one eye didn't mean he didn't see enough to be useful in a fight.

A blow to the back of the head dropped Xander to his knees. Okay, maybe someday he'd be useful in a fight, he amended. While he waited for his vision to clear, he watched Buffy fight. She moved with such grace and purpose that it was almost poetry. And she rarely ever ruined her clothes. That, Xander decided, was the most amazing part. He watched as Buffy staked one vamp, pivoted and used the same stake to take out the one that had been trying to sneak up behind her. Within seconds, she had the vamp cowering against a large tree, pinning him with a stake to the chest and her scowl.

"I'm looking for a girl. A Slayer," Buffy began.

"If I saw a Slayer, she'd be dead," the vamp boasted. The vamp, Xander noted, was trying to look tough in a black leather duster and biker boots. He was no Angel. Or Spike. Not that Xander ever particularly cared for either one of them. And boy, was it gratifying to hear the vamp squeak as Buffy pressed the tip of the stake harder. "Okay, I'd probably be dead."

"The girl," Buffy prompted.

"Haven't seen her. But I could find out." The vamp flashed his fangs in what Xander thought was supposed to be an effort to appeal to Buffy's good nature, but just looked pathetic to Xander.

Buffy appeared to consider it and then plunged the stake in. Turning to Xander, she brushed vamp dust from the front of her denim jacket. "How hard should it be to find one girl in a city?"

"You really want me to answer that?" Xander grinned. "And shouldn't we be looking for that ghoul guy, since Willow's mojo is a no-go?"

Buffy clamped a hand over Xander's mouth and tensed, scanning the dark cemetery. A second later, she let go as Dawn emerged from behind a tree. "Aren't you supposed to be studying?"

Dawn flashed a bright smile and shrugged. "I finished. Was he here? Did I miss him? What did he say?"

"You're right on time," came a low voice from behind them.

Buffy pushed Xander and Dawn behind her. It was an instinctive, protective gesture that always made Xander feel like a total girly-boy. She drew herself up. "Batman."

"Buffy."

She moved aside and gestured. "You remember my sister, Dawn. This is Xander."

Xander drew himself up and hoped he'd managed to recover some semblance of dignity. "Hey."

"Told you I don't work alone," Buffy smiled.

Oh man. Xander knew that smile. Buffy was going to tell this Bat-guy everything. And worse, it looked like maybe she had a crush on him. At least this guy was human, not like that jerk the Immortal. And --- "I'm sorry, did you say something?"

"I said hello."

Great. Now the Bat-guy thought he was a total idiot. Or maybe not since now the Bat-guy was totally focused on Buffy.

"So. You're the Slayer."

"And you've been doing your homework." Buffy flashed a meaningful look at Dawn. "At least somebody here has."

"I did it. I just…you know, didn't take my time or anything," Dawn said, with a sheepish grin, shrinking into her navy blue windbreaker.

Buffy perched on a tombstone and gestured for Batman to do the same. "Ready to talk about Slayers, apocalypses and Rats Al Goop?"

"Ra's Al Ghul," Batman and Dawn corrected her simultaneously.

Xander got comfortable. It was going to be a long, interesting night.