Twelve years earlier:
"Can I play?" the seven-year-old girl asked, her blonde curls bouncing up and down excitedly as she skipped towards where the other children were playing, her wrist still un-branded and scar-free. Her babysitter Lana had told her she was not allowed to leave the house without her, but she had grown tired of watching Sofia and Alberto play War from her window. Alberto was pretending to be the police, while Sofia was the mob- or to put it more accurately, the Romans.
"Ow!" Alberto was shouting, "You threw a rock at me, Sofia!"
"Wimp," her cousin sneered back, and chucked another rock at him, hitting him squarely in the head.
"Can I play, please?" Elena repeated, clasping her hands behind her back and rolling back and forth on the balls of her feet anxiously. She was wearing a daisy headband and her best white dress, (the one her uncle had given her, he was so nice!) but didn't care if she got it dirty in the street. All she wanted was to play with her cousins. She'd even be willing to be a police officer on Alberto's team, if Sofia wanted her to.
Alberto looked at her curiously, but Sofia looked at her with disdain. "Mommy says not to talk to you."
"Why?" Elena asked, taking a step backwards. This was not the reception she had been expecting. She had moved in a week ago from the group foster home, and though she didn't share a room with Sofia, they lived in the same house. They even went to the same school- Elliot Collegiate Academy. By all seven-year-old standards, they should be friends.
"Cuz she said that even though your Mommy was my Daddy's brother, you aren't part of our family, because your Mommy was a slut that married a policeman."
"You're a liar!" she said hotly, her hands clenched in tiny fists at her side. Her Daddy was definitely not a policeman. She didn't really remember him or her mom that well- they had died a while ago- but she would have remembered that. Elena didn't know which was worse: Sofia calling her mom a slut, or her dad a policeman.
"She was a snitch, so that makes you one too!" Sofia taunted.
That was too much for Elena, so she punched Sofia in her fat mouth, her knuckles colliding with her front teeth. And Sofia, never one to back down from a fight, prepared to retaliate when a grownup stepped between them.
"You little monster!" Louisa Falcone squawked, shoving Elena away from her precious Sofia. "Are you alright Fia, darling?" Her cousin shook her head "no" with false tears forming in her eyes and enraged, Louisa turned on Elena. "I have no idea what possessed my husband to bring you home, but if you hurt one of my children again, you will be very sorry. You are no niece of mine." Sofia grinned maliciously from behind her mother, and moments later Elena was left standing alone in the middle of the street. The silence was eerie and unsettling, even if they were in Uptown Gotham- a relatively safe neighborhood. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly and tried to remember her father.
Her memory was fuzzy and blurry, like opening your eyes underwater and trying to see. She vaguely remembered the smell of black coffee and stripped red ties hanging off of doorknobs in their old brick house. Concentrating fiercely, she tried to recall her father's face. She struggled to look up at him, but he was too tall. Then something that glinted gold caught her eye. With horror, she remembered the shiny gold badge he always carried with his that hung from a chain around his neck. She felt him pat her head softly and then muss up her hair, but her eyes were focused on that badge, swinging side to side like a pendulum. Squinting her eyes, she struggled to make out the word: GCPD.
"Well, Miss Moretti?" Crane asked impatiently, his eyes glinting with masked annoyance, and snapped her out of her daydream.
"What was the question?" she asked, trying to push her memories of her life with the Falcone's from her mind. Her daily sessions with Crane in the past week had not improved- each of them a battle to see who would end up the most irritated. She'd like to think she won most of the time.
"I asked," he replied, half rolling his eyes behind his glasses, "What do you remember of your birth parents?" That was not the question he really wanted to know the answer to, though. What do you fear, Miss Moretti? That is what he wanted to ask, but he knew it would most probably elicit some sarcastic response from her, rather than the truth. His hands itched to use the needle filled with toxin in his coat pocket.
"See, there we go with the personal questions Doc. Mariah Carey might ask you why you're so obsessed with me." He gave her a nonplussed stare. "It's a pop culture reference, forgive me, I forgot you go home every day to live in your little hermit cave."
"If this arrangement is no longer quite to your satisfaction, I would be more than happy to contact Mr. Falcone and alert him."
Elena sincerely hoped he was bluffing. She had been stalling telling him anything of real importance, painfully aware of the fact that he could hand her back to Falcone at any moment. But strangely, he never did. Perhaps he believed that only the mind could grant you power in Arkham, and consequently was avoiding using brute force to force her to cooperate. It seemed like something he would do. Little did she know that he wanted to know more about her, not Falcone.
"Oh please, we both know you would miss me too much," she said sarcastically, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she did. Jonathan was hit by the overwhelming smell of vanilla, with a hint of jasmine. It must be that damned shampoo she made me get, he observed. Well actually, she had never specified what type of hair care products she wanted, so he had chosen the one he thought had smelled best. But why did he care what she smelled like?
Thank God he had banished Scarecrow temporarily from his mind earlier that day in order to have some privacy with his patient otherwise he would have never heard the end of it.
"That is doubtful," he informed her, seemingly unperturbed.
"Fine," she said, straightening up. "I'll tell you about my parents… when you tell me about yours."
His expression did not change, but she saw him clench his jaw and sensed his mood was souring beyond its usual I-hate-the-world-ness.
"I'm afraid there would be very little to tell," he drawled, doing his best to seem nonchalant about the subject. "But you, on the other hand, have quite the story. Your parents' names are Dante Moretti and Adelina Falcone, according to the Foster System's records, and you were taken into the home of Carmine and Luisa Falcone at the age of seven after they were murdered. A mob hit, the report says."
What do you fear, Miss Moretti? he thought again. The memory of your parents' death? Abandonment?
"Astounding detective work, Doctor Crane." She didn't even flinch at the mention of her parents' murders. "If you must know, my mother had the brilliant idea of marrying the policeman heading the investigation into her brother. She was going to testify in court against him, actually, but Falcone killed her and my dad both. I was put into foster care for a couple of months, then I went to live with him for eleven years. There. End of story." She had a grim smile on her face- her life story sounded like some bad joke.
"I am guessing your home life was not the best?" he asked, one eyebrow arched. He had perfected the art of looking disinterestedly interested.
"I thought you didn't guess, Crane," she shot back, quoting what he said in a previous interview. She went back to slouching in her chair, crossing and uncrossing her long, slim legs as she did. Crane's eyes were inexorably drawn to them for half a second before they darted back down to the manila file folder in front of him, heat rising in his stomach. He should not be feeling this- the last time he had, he ended up humiliated by his supposed "date" and her boyfriend. Blood surged in his head at that particular memory, and he recalled how he had sworn that day never to allow his judgment to be clouded by emotions again.
"It wasn't that bad at first," she continued. "I didn't find out he killed my parents for a long time. People never really bother to tell seven-year-olds much, you know?" This was the most forthcoming Elena had been about her past since she had arrived in Arkham. She had no idea why she was sharing this after all those years- and with Crane of all people. She was suddenly very aware of the intensity of his gaze, and began to feel self-conscious in her thin grey dress.
"And what exactly was the nature of your relationship with Mr. Falcone?" he probed, his questions laced with renewed hostility to mask the tumult of other emotions he was feeling. "Was he just your uncle, or did you feel you could manipulate the mob boss further by sleeping with hi- "
There was a loud, harsh groan from the chair scraping across the floor as Elena jumped out of her seat and slammed her hands down on Crane's desk, causing the sole lamp on his desk to fall on the floor and the bulb to shatter. "Don't you… You don't know…" she growled through clenched teeth, her voice quivering in rage.
Jonathan could see how badly she did not want to talk about Falcone, so he pressed the subject. "I don't what?" he mocked, standing up as well, amused by her violent response. "Are you admitting that you and Mr. Falcone were involved?"
"No!" she snarled, her hands clenched in tight fists at her sides.
"No it did not happen, or no you are not admitting... ?"
"Shut up!" Elena shouted. "You- you are unbelievable." She turned around, visibly shaking, and walked towards the exit.
"We are not finished here, Miss Moretti," he droned in an icy voice.
"Yeah we are," she challenged, turning around to face him. "What about your home life, huh? Who turned you into such a psychopath?!"
"Don't change the subject," he replied lazily, walking out from behind his desk towards her. "Why did you do it? No, don't tell me, you surely weren't in love with him, now were you?"
"I hate him more than anyone," she hissed, jabbing her index finger at him. They were now only a foot apart.
"But he appears utterly obsessed with you," he replied, eyes glittering. "I was speaking to him just last week-"
"You spoke to him?" she interrupted. He should back away- he was entirely too close to her, but her grey eyes flashed with something akin to fear, which captivated him.
"Yes," he answered quietly. "I have convinced him, for the time being, it would be unwise to visit with all the attention he has gained from the DA's office following the institutionalization of his employee Mr. Victor Zsasz. However, I may find it difficult to continue to do so if I am not given the answers I require..."
She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and bit it (an indicator of an anxiety disorder, Crane noted), pulling her eyes away from him to stare at some fixed point over his left shoulder. He wanted to grab her chin and force her to look at him, to feel her grey eyes on him once again. But instead he remained still and waited for her response. Finally, she defeatedly answered, "What do you want to know?"
What do I want to know? The answer was already on the tip of his tongue.
"What do you fear, Miss Moretti?" He took a step forward, closing the gap between them (in order to better gauge her response, of course). It didn't hurt that his body was only a few inches away from hers.
"What?" she asked, shaking her head slightly. That was not the question she had been expecting.
"What. Do. You. Fear?" he repeated, his voice dropping to a heavy whisper.
"Oh, that's easy. Any sort of human connection of course- oh wait, that's you! My bad!" She clutched a hand to her heart in feigned mistake.
"You are in no position to play games."
"I'd say," she replied in a husky voice, moving so close to him that her chest brushed against him, "That I'm in a very good position, wouldn't you?"
"Are you trying to seduce me, Miss Moretti?" His face remained impassive and indifferent.
"Now why would I want to seduce an ice sculpture?" she said bemused, her hand brushing against his buried in his jacket pocket. Then abruptly, her voice changed to a much sharper tone and the smile fell from her face. "You're going to have to use that toxin you have in your pocket there, because you'll never get the answer out of me any other way. Do it or don't do it Crane, I don't have a say in the matter, but I won't tiptoe around you or be cowed by you, I've done enough of that in my life," she said bluntly.
He had been unaware that he had been clutching the syringe filled with his toxin in his pocket until now (he had been a little distracted), but now he pulled it from his coat and held it up to the light. It glowed a beautiful soft green, the product of four years of hard work at the University and Arkham. He flicked the bottom of the needle and squirted a few drops out to ensure no air bubbles were trapped inside before turning back towards her. "A few milligrams of this, and you would be reduced to a shrieking, incoherent mess. No test subject has ever regained their sanity after having this in their system for longer than a few hours. Are you afraid, Miss Moretti?"
"I've got nothing to fear but fear itself, huh Doctor?" she said in a resigned voice, unfathomable sadness in her somber eyes.
That quote made him pause. They were the words that he had repeated over and over again as a child, the very words he lived by. Finding out what others feared was more than a hobby, it was his obsession. It came to a point when he could not meet someone and not wonder what their darkest fears were. But he didn't want to know just that from Elena- he wanted to know everything and anything about her. Infuriating as she was, she was a challenge to him amongst the uninteresting and boring patients and doctors of Arkham. And poisoning her, as satisfying as it would feel, would destroy her mind and prevent her from ever conversing with him again. He knew what Scarecrow's opinion on the matter would be, but what did he want?
"Leave," he said coldly, turning his back on her and pocketing the syringe. "And send Mr. Nigma in on your way out."
Author's Note:
Sorry if the plot was a bit confusing this chapter! The flashback occurs when she is seven, before the one in the previous chapter when she gets her scar. When Elena talks about "The Romans" she means Falcone's mob- that was the name he gave his gang, and Falcone was sometimes known as "The Roman." In this chapter you met two of his children- Alberto and Sofia. They are Elena's cousins, since her mother Adelina was Falcone's sister. Luisa Falcone is his wife, and the mother of Alberto and Sofia. Woot. Hope that clears everything up a little. More to be revealed later (so much back story to cover, arghhh, and I want to do them well!). If you have any questions or feedback for me, don't hesitate to review or PM me, I love talking to my follower! :D Love you all! I will update soon now that camp's over, pwomise. And brownie points to anyone that got Elena's pop culture reference.