Crane had a strange feeling of déjà vu as he stepped through the door. Compared to Arkham with the sedate pale greens and blues, and the ever-present sterile white, the riot of bright colors almost made him squint behind his wire framed glasses. Cardboard butterflies dangled from the ceiling on string, paper plate smiley faces gazed back at him from the windows and a medley of scribbled crayon artwork that easily could pass for a mangled version of a Rorschach test fluttered on the walls.
Emily smiled and gently grasped his arm.
"Don't be shy, Jon." She turned to the preschoolers who suddenly were staring at him. "Kids, this is Dr. Jonathan Crane. He's here visiting us today."
"I don't like shots," mumbled Sarah, a three-year-old red head.
"No, he's not that kind of a doctor," Emily said. "He's a – a head doctor."
"You go to him when your head hurts," asked Mikey, a boy with curly blond hair.
"Um, no." Emily struggled for the right words for a moment. "You go to him when you feel sad and want to talk."
"Oh! My brother is so mean to me," Sarah cried. "He stole my doll the other day and I'm so angry –"
"That's enough, Sarah," said Emily.
"Sibling rivalry is a common occurrence for children in Sarah's age bracket. Clearly her older brother is displacing his anger toward his sister by hiding a possession – in this case a doll."
The children stared blankly at Dr. Crane; he could have sworn Mikey at this point was drooling.
"Okay, back to play time everyone," Emily said brightly.
The kids just as quickly lost interest in Dr. Crane and went back to playing with their toys, talking very loudly and occasionally screaming over something.
"Charming," Crane said. "I can see why you enjoy working with children."
He took a step into the room and something squeaked underfoot. Crane stooped down to retrieve the offending toy and saw that it was an green alien toy that, when you squeezed it, not only would make a pathetic wheezing squeak, but its eyes would pop out.
"And this toy is even more charming," Crane said, in mild amusement.
"The kids are always leaving the toys everywhere. I'm sorry; it's such a trip hazard. Kids! Start picking up your toys and putting them away if you're not playing with them or no cookies!"
There was a general moan, but the kids herded in the stray toys and threw them haphazardly in the red, yellow and blue plastic toy boxes.
"I remember at one time you wouldn't deprive them of cookies and milk when I suggested it," Crane said smugly.
Emily turned her attention briefly from the pandemonium of children and gave him a sidelong glance.
"If I recall, you wanted to do that just to gauge their reaction. Now I'm no psychiatrist, doctor, but from my experience I know that kids will scream and cry at a moment's notice if they don't get their way. There's no psychology in that."
"Actually there is," he said. "Children will do anything to fulfill their desires, just like their adult counterparts."
There was a tense silence between them and Emily focused her attention back on the children. Crane was wondering how long he would spend visiting her daycare, already boredom was setting in. As manic as the energy was at the center, it paled somehow to the inner complexity of the mind, the unexpected violence he might encounter from a patient – the thrill of releasing the Fear Toxin on an arrogant criminal.
Here he could do none of that, although he was intrigued by how pliant and malleable a child's mind would be. He truly could shape it into whatever he wished if it would be possible to acquire a child at the asylum – and how would the toxin affect a child, the mind and his development?
Ah, so many questions. All will remain unanswered, regrettably. Dr. Jonathan Crane, you have no patience for children.
"Jon, what are you thinking about?"
Crane turned his gaze back to Emily, her warm, brown eyes curious.
"Just a therapy regimen and some psychoanalytic application," Crane said.
"Always thinking about work. Here, let me show you something. I'm very proud of this."
On a shelf too high for the children to reach, but easy enough for them to see was a glass aquarium, which was filled with grass, leaves and twigs. At a distance, it appeared to be empty, but upon examining it closer, Crane made out a silken cocoon dangling securely to one of the branches while nearby a bright green caterpillar contentedly munched on some leaves.
"The one in the chrysalis will be a butterfly soon," Emily said. "That will be such a delight to the children. They've never see it before."
Crane gazed at the chart nearby the case detailing its lifecycle from egg, larva and pupa, to butterfly.
(You are the base creature I shall emerge from, Scarecrow said in Crane's mind. You are the slinking worm, weak and defenseless that can be crushed. But from you I shall be born, strong, powerful, invincible, Fear Incarnate!)
Scarecrow – the name that shall strike terror into the hearts of everyone in Gotham City, Crane thought. Ah, you are amusing, but please don't make me laugh in front of my good friend. That might be embarrassing, even for me.
(You deny your destiny, content to slink on the earth like this caterpillar? It's time for me to emerge from the cocoon, cried Scarecrow. Break free, spread your wings! Become Terror!)
"Germy Jeremy! Don't touch him or you'll get Jeremy Germs all over you!"
Crane's eyes snapped from the butterfly case to where the child's voice came from.
"I don't have germs," Jeremy said. "And the name is Jerry."
These children were not the young preschoolers Emily had shown Crane earlier. They were nearing kindergarten. Jerry was a boy with buzz-cut black hair and clothes that seemed too short for him. He was surrounded by two girls and a boy.
"Jerry Berry, we should be wary! Don't touch him! It's Germy Jeremy," laughed one of the girls.
Meanwhile the other children were dancing around him.
"Look! He's wearing clothes that are too short," cried the other girl.
"His parents can't even buy him new clothes they're so poor," said the boy.
"They just hate him," said the girl. "He's so ugly!"
"Oh, look," the boy exclaimed. "Is Germy Jeremy beginning to cry?"
"Oh! He is! He is! Germy Jeremy is cryiiiiiiing!"
The children began to laugh again and dance around the trembling boy when they noticed a long, lanky shadow towering over them. One of the girls looked up and saw a man in a black suit with piercing blue eyes glaring down at her. It reminded her of the look she received from her father when she was in trouble, only much worse somehow from this stranger.
"Do you feel better now? Are you happy," Crane asked, a bitter smile on his lips. "Does it somehow make you feel superior to crush that poor boy's feelings into the ground?"
"What's 'superior' mean," asked the girl.
"Oh, I know you think it's all innocent fun and games now, tormenting him like that, but it's not," Crane continued in a torrent of tightly controlled anger. "Imagine what it's like for him! Imagine what it's like being laughed at and alone. Because it's not funny and if you still think it is – I have something that can change all that."
He gazed at the children with his icy blue eyes. The girls' lips trembled in fear and the boy looked at him as if to say "What a creep!"
"Jon! Why? What is going on," asked Emily. "I thought you were still over by the butterfly case."
"It's okay. Everything will be all right now," Crane sighed as he watched the bullies gingerly depart.
He turned his eyes toward Jerry, who still was huddled on the floor, his arms wrapped around his knees, partially obscuring the pants that were too short on his long legs. Crane kneeled down on the ground beside the boy and gently removed a handkerchief from his breast pocket, handing it to the boy. Jerry quickly wiped the tears away, hoping nobody else noticed he had been crying.
"Th-thank you," Jerry said, and handed back the handkerchief, but Crane refused.
"Don't let them bully you," Crane whispered to the boy. "They draw strength from your fear and sadness. Never let them."
Crane walked alongside Emily in silence for a moment and gazed at the long row of apartments before him. The moon gleamed high in the early evening sky while the street lamps shone pools of warm light along the sidewalk.
"I'm glad you're living in a good neighborhood," Crane said. "I want you to be safe."
"What, now you're my father? Jon, you really astound me. You're not who I thought you would be."
"And how did you think I would be?"
"Oh, I don't know – just different."
"That word is very open to interpretation. Please elaborate."
"Well, you're no longer that boy I met back in high school."
Crane slightly smiled, looking down at his highly polished black leather shoes before turning his pale blue eyes toward her.
"You are more guarded somehow. Did someone hurt you, Jon?"
"Just the normal wear and tear of life, that's all, Miss – excuse me – Emily. I do work at one of the largest asylums for the criminally insane. That does make you a bit more guarded than usual."
"The criminally insane? You work with criminals? You never told me that."
"Not only do I work with criminals," Crane said. "It's my specialty. I'm curing them and soon they will be safe. They will harm no one ever again."
Emily stared at him, now her eyes guarded.
"That sounds impossible," she said.
"Nothing is impossible," he said. "Not for me. I have discovered a breakthrough in their treatment."
"I would like to see it if it truly is so amazing."
Crane stopped walking, his pale blue eyes glinting in the cool moonlight.
"You want to see Arkham?"
"And why not? You saw my daycare center today and I know you don't care that much for children, Jon."
"It's dangerous at Arkham."
"Again, trying to protect me! I said I would be okay walking home alone tonight – like I've done these past five years now. I'm big girl now."
Crane took a step closer toward her and Emily suddenly felt nervous, seeing him so close. He did look different now, his skin translucent and pale, his eyes gleaming.
"Bad things can happen in Gotham City. I have seen it," he whispered. "I just don't want it to happen to you."
For a moment Emily couldn't speak, not knowing what to say to him, but the silence was too thick, settling upon them both like a muffling veil.
"Is that why you gave Jerry that advice about those bullies? Were you hurt, Jon?"
Crane suddenly turned away and gazed down the street again.
"Your apartment is the third to the left, is that correct," he asked. "We're almost there."
"Please, Jon. I noticed the cuts and bruises back in high school, you know."
Crane's brisk walk stopped as quickly as it started, but he dared not turn toward her.
"You were beaten up by bullies in high school, weren't you?"
Crane remained silent, but didn't move, as if frozen to the lonely sidewalk by her words.
"I – I did notice them, Jon. I just was afraid to say anything."
"Afraid?"
Crane turned around and she saw a strange glint in his eyes, a flash of something she had not seen before, something hungry, even sinister.
"What were you afraid of," he asked insistently.
"I – I was afraid to embarrass you, to hurt your feelings by asking you."
"Oh, no! You would never do that. Never!"
Emily felt she suddenly must be crazy, because although this was the same man she had been with all day, it felt like a completely different person. No longer was he wracked by pain and sadness. Easy were his steps as he walked toward her, a sly grin upon his lips, a dark fire flickering in the depths of his eyes. His lips parted as he closed the space between them and she could almost feel his warm breath upon her in the cool night. She began to feel her heart race and tried not to meet his gaze; somehow afraid she would fall into the depths of his eyes and never find her way out again. But when she dared to look up, she saw he had changed back, returned to Dr. Jonathan Crane. The fire had been near extinguished to a dull flickering ember as he gazed back at her with those mesmerizing blue eyes.
"Thank you, Emily. Thank you for caring about me then."
They walked the rest of the way to her apartment and continued to talk about trivial matters to dispel the tension that had happened a moment ago. At the doorstep, Emily turned to go inside, but stopped, hesitating to open the door.
"I really enjoyed our time together, Jon, but –"
Again the dead silence settled upon the air. Crane was unphased by the silence, almost seemed to expect this moment, much to Emily's surprise. It broke her heart in a way to see that he was so used to rejection and disappointment.
"But you did not take your advice you gave to Jerry. You have sadness and fear, don't you, Jon?"
A slow grin broke the unimpassioned mask that usually graced Crane's face when expecting some emotional blow.
"Perceptive and astute as always," Crane said. "I believe you missed your calling in psychiatry."
"But you didn't answer my question," she said. "Look, I know it's a huge question to ask. Listen, I'll tell you what I'm afraid of."
Again the manic, hungry spark glimmered in Crane's eyes, but just as quickly it was snuffed out.
"No, please Emily. Don't tell me that … I don't want to know!"
Crane began to leave, almost in a hurry as if afraid she would shout out her worst fear, like some terrible secret he would be unable to purge from his mind once he heard it.
Blodeuedd – I'm so glad you were excited I began on my sequel. I hope you are able to post more reviews soon "hint" and that your studies aren't too grueling. I am still in awe of your last chapter of "Dark My Light." I hope you enjoy this next chapter.