Author's Note: Hi all! Inspiration has returned for this fan fic and it returned with a couple more plot bunnies with it! I'm really enjoying this story and I hope you are too so stick with it if you would be so kind and please, please, please (yes, I am unashamedly begging here) review. Thank you so much!

The Space Between

Chapter Three: The Crane Twins

Bruce had managed to stay up in time for the morning paper to be delivered. Alfred had handed it to him and all thoughts of getting some sleep quickly left his mind. A picture of Amy Crane was on the front page of the paper with the headline "Insanity Runs in the Family?" above the picture. Apparently, she threw a brick through a car dealership window at two in the morning claiming "she wanted a closer look." When the police arrived she was already sitting behind the wheel with the dealership's keys in the ignition. It came with no surprise that she was quickly taken off to Arkham to be placed in maximum security until she could be further analyzed by the doctors. She had gotten exactly what she wanted: to get closer to her brother.

Bruce had tried to get some sleep but couldn't. His mind kept accusing him of not listening more closely to her. She had basically told him that if he didn't help, she would get to her brother one way or another. She had definitely made good on that promise. He knew she wasn't insane, not in the least. When he had spoken to her she had been lucid, calm and direct. However, Jonathan Crane had always appeared that way as well. Maybe the paper's had it right, insanity was genetic.

Giving up on sleeping, he headed down into the kitchen and was surprised to see Alfred sitting at the breakfast table with a cup of Earl Grey, no doubt, reading a handwritten letter.

"You're up early."

"As are you, Master Bruce."

Bruce poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down at the old wooden table across from Alfred. "Who's that from?"

"My niece, the one that travels with that violin band."

"Lindsey?"

"Lynnlee, actually. Usually she sends me a postcard but apparently part of the band is breaking up, her boyfriend with it. There's only so much she'll talk to her parent's about but 'Uncle Al' is a whole other matter. The group that is staying together has booked a six week performance here in Gotham."

"Did you tell her she can stay here?"

"Of course not. She'll be staying with Lucius."

"I thought Lucius only had a studio?"

"It's a very nice studio."

"Tell her to stay here. She can have the whole second floor and one of the cars to get in and out of the city. Besides, I've never met any of your relatives so this should be interesting."

"And what of your nocturnal activities, Master Bruce? Lynnlee was and always will be one of the most curious and stubborn people I know."

"Hm," Bruce hid a grin behind the mug, "I wonder where she got the stubborn streak."

"Her father. Anyway," Alfred folded up the letter, "she's made it abundantly clear that she doesn't want to intrude and will most likely find a furnished apartment in the city which is why I'm hoping she'll take up Lucius' offer."

Bruce shrugged. "As long as she knows she's welcome here."

"Of course, Master Bruce. Now, what's troubling your mind?"

Leave it to Alfred to cut right through the façade. "I can't figure this Amy Crane out for the life of me. Why would she get herself put into Arkham? She'll see her brother but as for helping him, she can't do that locked up in a cell."

"Perhaps she thinks she can help him. Or at least protect him."

"From what?"

"The other inmates. He's locked up in the same prison that he ran and terrorized most of the inmates. I'm sure there's quite a few of them who wouldn't mind doing some terrorizing of their own."

Bruce laughed. "She's a short, scrawny woman who looks about fourteen. I would love to see her try to protect her brother from some of those dangerous criminals."

"Well, I took the liberty of pulling some strings and requesting the personal files on the Cranes when I first saw the news conference. You wouldn't believe the lives they've lived. It appears that Amy has done nothing else but protect her brother from bullies."

"Really?"

"I actually spoke to one of the foster mothers, Pearl I believe her name to be. She still lives in Oklahoma. She gave me quite a humorous tale concerning one such incident when they were eleven." Alfred got up from the table and picked up a stack of papers from the counter, still continuing his story. "Pearl said that the neighborhood bully was calling Jonathan names, as was a natural part of the day. She told me, and I quote, 'Amy came out of nowhere and dropped the bully hard. She smacked him so many times it was starting to sound like applause.'" Alfred and Bruce shared a laugh before Alfred turned serious again. "Unfortunately, that was the only humorous story I found in those files. It's like reading a novel on everything that's wrong with the child care system."

Bruce pulled the top sheet of paper towards him and found two six year old kids with black curly hair and bright blue eyes staring up at him. There was no mistake that these kids were Jonathan and Amy Crane. Both of them had swollen, red eyes making the almost transparent blue stand out even more. "What else did you find out about them?"

"They were born here, in Gotham. Their father was a defense lawyer who refused to defend Falcone's predecessor. When the children were both six, Falcone's thugs broke into their house, shot and killed both of their parents."

"They left the children alive," Bruce murmured, more to himself as he remembered that night in alley where we watched his parents being gunned down.

"Their mother had hidden them in the closet," Alfred continued, "saying they weren't home and refused to tell them where they were. The police found them a day later, still in the closet. They had no other relatives who would take them."

"No other relatives?"

Alfred gave him a pointed look. "No other relatives that were willing to raise twin six year olds, no. Once they were put into the system, they never lived in the same place for more than six months, each foster home farther away from Gotham and worse than the one before it. The only one where they seemed remotely happy was with Pearl in a small town the size of Wayne Manor called Kildeere."

Bruce flipped through some of the files and just briefly read over some of the reasons they were changing homes on such a frequent basis. A couple were from financial burdens the foster parents couldn't shoulder, too old for raising kids, health problems but the one that stuck out to him most was a fifteen year old Amy's written account of how she woke up in the middle of the night staring down the barrel of a shotgun. "No wonder Crane is the way he is. His entire childhood was completely out of his control. In a strange way, his actions against the city make some sense."

Alfred leaned back in his chair. "It also makes Amy's strong desire to get to her brother understandable as well. They went through everything together and that formed a bond closer than the average sibling. They were each other's stability and in a world gone mad, that stability means everything."

Still staring at the dark history of the Crane siblings, Bruce asked "Did Pearl happen to mention what the bully was calling Crane?"

"She did," Alfred smiled without humor. "Scarecrow."

Dr. Jonathan Crane was running out of ways to keep himself awake. There was only so many things he could do with a straightjacket on, which was the point of the jacket. The only things he could move were his legs and head. Tapping his toe on the floor and lightly banging his head against the wall always fell into a rhythm that started to put him to sleep and with sleep came the nightmares.

He had spent the better part of his time of his unlawful release trying to fine tune an antidote for the fear toxin. He had already made one and injected himself with it but apparently it wasn't strong enough for the concentrated dose the Batman hit him with that night. He had suffered the terrifying delusions for a few hours before they faded to the background of his mind and he could control them. But when his mind was unguarded, say REM sleep, the nightmares came back with unrelenting terror. Most of the time when he did manage to fall asleep, it was his own screaming that woke him. It was a humiliating place to be considering where he had fallen from.

Just as he was trying to think of another way to keep his mind active, someone wrapped on the observation window as they passed. With dull interest, he focused on the window, that he was used to always being on the other side of, when a couple guards and orderlies walked past, a new patient in tow. At first he thought the sedatives were playing tricks on him but when his sister turned to look in the room, the emotions that played out on her face were anything but a trick. All it took was that one second of seeing her and he could tell every emotion that she was feeling: sadness, empathy, anger and the slightest twinge of fear.

His mind raced as to why, of all places, she would be here. He had puposefully broken all contact with her with he accepted al Ghul's offer. There was only one thing that struck honest fear into him and that was losing his sister. As much as it pained him to ignore the phone calls and emails and threats of her coming out to Gotham to see him, he didn't want al Ghul to have that kind of leverage over him. Well, he should have known that she would have found a way to get to him. She always did.

Suddenly, he found himself wide awake, sleep the fartherest thought in his mind. He had to get to her, talk to her and explain the series of events that unfolded. He had to get her out of here.

Amy had counted the doors the seperated her from her brother. There were five. She supposed they didn't want her to talk to him, despite her telling Lieutenant Gordon her plan of entering the facility. He told her she would have two days before he told the head pyschiatrist that it was a ruse and yank her back out into civilization. As far as Arkham was concerned, she was crazy. She had begged and pleaded with anyone who looked at her to see her brother but the orderlies and guards locked the door to her cell and departed laughing racously as they did so.

Figuring there was nothing to do but wait for her evaluation tomorrow and hope that Gordon reached someone by now, she curled up on the little cot in the room and tried to fall asleep but the image of Jon in the straight jacket refused to be pushed out of her mental sight. Her eyes welled with tears as she thought back to their childhood and how the bullies would restain him to give him their sound beatings. They always seemed to forget about her, most likely thinking a girl wouldn't fight back. She had brought more than her fair share of bullies to their knees with her surprise tactics. But they may as well have put a straight jacket on her now for she had no way of fighting this battle for Jon now. Giving into the stupidity of her plan and thinking the Batman may have been right about Jon not being the same person anymore, Amy did something she hadn't done for many years and cried herself to sleep.