Chapter 8

Guilty

The smell of fresh paint was thick in the air.

Clara knew she was dreaming the moment she looked in the mirror in front of her and saw that there was no trace of the ugly scar running down the left side of her face, and her hair came past her shoulders like it had used to.

There was the gentle hum of conversation nearby and when Clara turned to look she saw several overstuffed sofas. Her parents were there, and so were some of her old friends from her year at university, but right at the end sat her sister-in-law, Millie, and Dereck himself.

She ran to them, beaming, never had she felt so much joy before. Giddily she ran giggling around the room, finally climbing over the back of the sofa on which Dereck and his wife were sitting, childishly she forced them to move aside so that she could sit between them.

'Clara, you overgrown brat,' her brother grunted when she accidentally stood on his stomach as she clambered down to sit. 'Can't you sit somewhere else?'

'Go easy on her, Dereck, she's just nervous,' replied Millie. 'She've never been to court before.'

Clara didn't know or care what Millie was talking about, she was just glad the whole nightmare was over. To reassure herself of her brother's continuing existence she prodded him in the shoulder several times, ignoring his complaints until he got up and stalked off, leaving her alone with Millie.

'He's such a kind soul, isn't he?' she said to Clara. 'That's why I married him, such a kind soul.'

Dereck was now standing beside their parents and pointing back at her accusatorily.

Then without warning he crumpled into dust.

She felt as if her heart had stopped.

There was a sharp eerie whistle. Everyone got to their feet, and filed out of the room through two huge doors.

Clara quickly scrambled after them. On passing through the doorway she realised she had just walked straight into a courtroom, everyone was already seated.

'Bring forth the defendant,' called a voice.

Seated high above her was a board of judges. And it was only then that she noticed that on either side of her stood security guards, they held her arms so she couldn't move, and when they pulled her towards the stand she had no option but to comply. She was pushed into a hard cold seat facing the court, her hands were shackled down to the chair's arms.

She looked out towards the crowd pleadingly, searching for an explanation from a familiar face. She found her parents and her sister-in-law sitting side-by-side, but when she caught their eyes they all looked away. Millie was dressed in black and weeping. There were others amongst the crowd as well, inmates from Mercy's psychiatric ward, some were even from Arkham City - the Penguin himself was sitting at the back of the room, looking very bored, surrounded by his henchmen. Croc too was there, but he looked as impassive as ever, there was no recognisable human expression on his face to indicate he thought anything at all of the hearing.

'Honest people of Gotham, we are gathered there today to conduct the trial of Miss Clara Dawson,' said the lead judge, and not to her surprise Clara realised it was Two-Face. 'Hereby accused of fratricide, the murder of her own brother, Dr Dereck Dawson.'

'I didn't do it, I swear!' she shouted upon seeing the horrified looks on her parents' faces.

'Our first witness, Dr Elton Rogers.' said the Two-Face over her shouting. 'Would you please take the stand?'

She recognised Dr Rogers immediately, he had been her therapist for many months after the incident at Arkham Asylum the year before.

'There is no question as to Miss Dawson's guilt,' he began in nasally voice. 'Completely loopy, mind you. But still very guilty. When the medical personnel first found her after the murder, she stabbed one of them with a knife, completely unprovoked. Clearly she shows severe anti-social tendencies.'

'Do you deny these charges?' the judge asked Clara directly.

'Of course I do!' she shouted angrily, she was beginning to develop a headache, the smell of fresh paint was beginning to be overpowering and she had no idea where it was coming from. 'I didn't mean to do anything, I would never have killed my own brother!'

'Do you deny stabbing a medic, a person whose intentions were purely good, when they tried to rescue you in Arkham Asylum following the breakout incident?'

'I...I was terrified, I didn't know who he was! I'd only just regained consciousness! I didn't know what was going on.'

'Do you deny having a hand in your brother's death?'

Clara found herself shaking violently, she tried to get up and run, but shackled to the chair she couldn't even stand.

'I didn't kill him!' she screamed when fleeing failed. 'I would never have harmed him! I was only interning at Arkham Asylum that summer because he worked there! I wanted to be closer to family, if I hadn't I would have studied in another city!'

'And therefore the court finds you guilty of all charges,' said the judge without a further question, slamming his hammer down. 'If you had not been at Arkham Asylum that fateful night your brother would probably still be alive, and you would not be here!'

'I didn't kill him!'

'If you had not chosen to study in Gotham University he would still be alive, if you had not chosen to study Medicine he would still be alive, if you had waited outside on the night of his death he would still be alive,' the judge paused to readjust his wig, and then sneered. 'And if you had died that night, then he would still be alive. How do you plead?'

'Inno-' the word died on her lips, tears began to pour down her face. She saw her family was leaving the courtroom, they didn't look back once. And she was all alone in the insanity. 'Guilty!' she shouted. 'Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! It was all my fault! I shouldn't have been there!'

She thrashed and thrashed, desperately trying to escape from the shackles, but not matter how hard she fought she couldn't escape.

Then without warning the chair she was chained to fell through the floor.

Clara knocked her head upon the wall as she rolled. For a moment she looked up at a cracked dusty wall, she was lying nearly upside down, her legs still over the top of what appeared to be a pile of cement bags while one of her arms was folded uncomfortably beneath her. It took her more than a few moments to realise that she must had rolled off the pile in her sleep, and that she must have fallen asleep in a storage room somewhere.

Wait, since when had she slept in a storage room?

She still felt tired, but it had been a long time since she hadn't felt tired, at least she wasn't exhausted anymore. Rubbing her head she looked around slowly at the room she was lying in, the emotional upset she felt from her nightmare though made her feel as if she had just run a mile.

Yep, it was definitely a storage room, she decided. She couldn't see much from her awkward angle, lying behind the sacks of what she was pretty sure were cement and mortar, but there was grit upon the floor, and she could see wooden crates and sacks piled up to the ceiling. Not far from her was a stack of cans of paint, they had been used recently and the smell of drying paint that had dribbled out from under the lid was thick in the air.

She could also hear a rhythmic hissing, a rushing sound, and she figured there was probably a boiler nearby.

Reality abruptly became starker as she realised she had no idea what time it was, or how she had got where she was. She would be in trouble if the others thought she was shirking work, and with this thought she quickly swung her legs down so that she could get to her feet.

Shaking her head to rid herself of the last her sleep, Clara saw Dereck flicker in and out of sight in the corner of her eye. Shit, not now. She was just about to argue with herself over this disturbance in her vision when she saw a very much more physical threat in the room. The rhythmic hissing, she looked over to its source. Dereck, whether she liked it or not, was not actually in the room, but Killer Croc was.

Frozen she watched the slow rise and fall of his chest, his head was turned away from her, one arm slung across the pale scales of his underside; fast asleep. What was he doing here? What was she doing here?!

Then it all came rushing back to her, the night before. The others, they had been trying to kill her. Then Croc...she had grabbed him thinking he was one of them, or a pillar perhaps. She remembered how silent everything had suddenly fell, and the thing she had grabbed though covered in material it didn't feel quite like a body. The material was cloth, and felt damp beneath her fingers, but what should have been a body beneath it was too solid, uneven in shape, not tapered the way a torso should have done.

Then a roar, an angry roar, the like she had only heard once before when Killer Croc had killed that man in front of her. She heard a heavy thud and a scream, and knew that she would rather risk the other's wrath than be run down by Croc on accident.

Immediately she ripped off the blindfold and then she looked up at what she had grabbed onto, and felt as if her heart had dropped to her stomach. Clara's eyes leapt up to lock with Croc's, she couldn't stop herself, she was so scared, so certain that she was going to die.

The exhaustion she had been feeling all night, all the stress and terror, her fatigue and hunger, got the better of her. She knew it had, because she couldn't remember anything before the ceiling moving as everything became unnaturally bright and unfocused. She had lost consciousness.

But now what? How had she got here?

You were carried obviously, she told herself. And then it dawned on her that Croc, being the only other person in the room, was the most likely person to have taken her down here, if it had been One-eye then he would have dragged her back to the dorms where everyone else slept.

Quickly she looked herself over, for a moment fearing that she would be missing an arm or a leg. But found she was all in one piece. Her elbows were grazed, and her legs bruised, but that was all from the chase with Zsasz and the disastrous rescue mission to the Joker's. The rescue mission seemed a hundred years before, she couldn't believe it had to have been only hours before.

Why would he have carried her here though, unless he planned to eat her? Well hah! The joke was on him, he was asleep and she wasn't restrained, if there was any better time to escape then it was now. She carefully began to tiptoe towards the door, Croc blocked much of the way, but she could climb over the sacks of cement behind him and get out easy. She smiled smugly to herself, trying to ignore the nagging concern that even once she was out of the room, she would still have to face the others and she had no immediate plan on how she was going to avoid this.

His breathing rate didn't change as she climbed, though the dry mortar was hissing as it was compressed by her weight. But then the sacks were shifting, she had dislodged them somehow, they fell towards the ground. Clara half jumped, half fell off the top, right on top of Croc's sleeping form.

And his eyes opened.

The smell of fresh paint was strong in the air, and Croc knew that the band must have repainted the carnival stands again, the colour began to flake every few months or so. Bright colours were important for the carnival, it drew the public's eye and attracted the crowds. A warm weight was upon his chest. But when he opened his eyes he saw that it was dark, but what with Becky shoving him to get up he thought it had to be morning, or perhaps late evening. It must be time for his act. Had he drifted off?

'...time already?' he mumbled, half asleep, turning to look at her.

It was not Becky.

And for one moment he was filled with an all consuming sadness. He had been dreaming, times had changed, he was no longer a carnival side-show freak and everyone else he had known who had worked there was now dead, gone, cold in the ground or at the bottom of Gotham bay.

He didn't know why she was leaning over him, but almost instinctively he grabbed hold of her when she tried to back away. She didn't scream though, she didn't even struggle, but the all familiar scent of fear was thick in the air, a constant reminder that he was not amongst friends.

'Did you carry me down here?' asked a very small voice, barely above a whisper. Her small body was trembling in his grip but she wasn't struggling to escape, instead she looked directly at his face. She sounded confused, perhaps dazed.

Had he? Croc took in the room he was currently lying in and remembered the deal, hired by the Penguin. Accommodation wasn't the best, but Croc wasn't picky, an old storage room to himself, he didn't mind that at all. And then the woman, or girl - he had no idea how old she was - she was down here because he had carried her down here, because he hadn't known what to do with her, because he had been experiencing deja vu and nostalgia like nobody's business the night before. Huh, must have eaten something funny.

What was he supposed to do now? Habit dictated that he got rid of any nuisances, but right now he didn't find her particularly annoying, just a distraction, and he wouldn't mind a distraction right now - especially with how his mind seemed to be insistent on reminding him of his past, something that he hadn't dwelt on in many years now.

'If you did, I'm very grateful,' delicate little fingers pressing gently around his wrist, discretely trying to relieve him of his grip, but to his surprise he found he didn't mind the touch. It wasn't even meant to be friendly, normally he associated touch with the wish to do harm, but that wasn't the case in this situation.

'The others are probably going kill me regardless,' she continued when he said nothing. 'I looked like an absolute coward.'

Was he supposed to care? In the distant past, Croc thought he could have done. But what was she trying to do, acting like he was normal?

'What are you up to?' he asked her suspiciously, cutting off any further words she might have to say regarding the situation of the evening before.

'I was going to go find my way back to the dorms, need to find out what I need to do now,' she said. 'I got responsibilities, given that they don't throw me out now.'

'Throw you out?' he asked, confused.

'Well, they don't keep what they don't want,' she shrugged her shoulders, though her grip remained on his wrist she was no longer pushing away. 'And I would say that they probably don't want me anymore,' she chuckled nervously and tried to smile at him.

Was she was trying to be friendly?

Suspicion at an all time high, he let go of her immediately, she fell out of sight with a small thump. He lay where he was, listening. He heard her get to her feet again, shuffling towards the door.

'I don't suppose that deal we had is still valid, right?' she asked cautiously, one of the two double doors pulled slightly open so that she could bolt if need be.

Deal? Oh that.

'No, it's off,' he replied, not looking at her. 'Now get lost, I want to sleep.'

She vanished without another word.

Well, that could have gone better. Clara jogged up the stairs, finding that she was not familiar with the part of the building she was in. She knew it wasn't anywhere near the dormitories though, and she still had no idea what time it was.

She soon found her way back to the upper floors, she could see light through the windows and knew it had to be sometime during the day. Everyone was generally awake at this time, though some would be trying to catch a few 'z's, no one generally went out until after dark - too easy a target for an enemy sniper.

Clara didn't have the exact time, though she knew the common room housed one lousy clock which was missing the glass cover. She didn't really want to go to the common room, but she didn't have a choice, it was either that or find One-eye, and she had no idea where he was.

She got more than a few stares on her way through, some people were lazing around as she had expected, but it seemed they were too lazy to be bothered to say anything. It wasn't until she got to the dormitories that anyone said anything to her, she bumped into Enrique, the guy from the day before that had been talking about sharks.

'Wow. And this time I really thought you were dead,' he exclaimed. 'How'd you get out of this one?'

'Eh, what are you talking about?' Clara feigned dismissively, ducking around him and heading into the next room, but then stopped and looked back. 'You wouldn't happen to know where old One-eye is, would ya?'

'One-eye?' he paused a moment. 'Oh, yeah, the crazy old guy, el tuerto. Nope, I haven't seen him. Not today anyway, he stormed off looking all kinds of angry last night though, something about his son dying. Eh, wait a moment. You're not...I mean I know that...Are you One-eye's boy? He think's you got eaten last night, everyone does. I have to ask you again, how'd you survive?'

'I don't know, guess I'm just lucky.'

'More than lucky, I heard you passed out at that monster's feet. Everyone's been-'

'I did not faint!' she exclaimed angrily, interrupting him. She was bluffing but she was honestly frightened at the possible repercussions of not being believed, so she made up a tale. 'I got knocked on the head.'

'Eh, I wasn't there. So I'll take your word for it,' Enrique said, raising his hands so that his palms faced her in a calming gesture. 'Word spreads quick though, it's what everyone is saying that happened.'

Enrique swaggered away without a backward glance, leaving Clara feeling a little stupid. A nice guy, she noted in her mind, possibly too nice, keep an eye on him just in case. An ally though? She needed allies desperately, One-eye was pretty much useless out of being a free pass to live here, he didn't defend her and she wasn't expecting him to either. There was going to be hell to pay when the evening came, no one was going to let her live the last night down when they found out she was still alive. That and she now knew she needed to avoid loud-mouth Frankie like the plague if she wanted to continue to survive.

He didn't see much of her over the next few days, and was confused with himself when he realised that he was actually seeking her out amongst the others. He never went as far as to go looking for her, but he watched. When she was around, she skulked, either sticking very close to certain individuals or staying far away as possible from the others. Sometimes she watched him too, but it was a nervous look, not unlike that the others often gave him.

She was just as frightened of him as everyone else was, and he really shouldn't have cared less. But fate for some twisted reason had decided to dictate that now, of all times, was when he was going to feel lonely. The memories of his past at the carnival had resurfaced abruptly, and at first they had filled him with a nearly uncontrollable rage, but as that died away he found that he could not look at the stringy little rat the same way again.

Croc knew his thoughts of this matter would eventually revert, that he would see her for the pest she was again. Let time pass and things change, as they always did, for the worse. She no longer needed to have anything to do with him, she wouldn't talk to him again.

So it was a surprise when she came directly to him one night after he had been out scaring off Two-Face's troops. Even if it was accidental.

He had heard a scrambling below a grating, an air vent that ran below the storeroom that they had given to him. He hadn't hesitated a moment in ripping the grating up and grabbing the source of the noise.

'I swear I can explain!' she squeaked dangling painfully from where Killer Croc held her up by the back of her jacket. He regarded her with narrowed eyes, uncertain what to do next, her eyes were fixed on his teeth.

'Watcha doing skulking around in the vents?' he doubted already that she had even known he was there, the way she had been loudly scrambling down the airvent like a demented rabbit had been too loud to indicate sneaking. He noticed that her lip was bleeding, and there was bruising along one side of her face, the blood was still fresh - Tony had been in a fight recently, if he was not mistaken probably less than an hour or so before.

'Trying to hide, please, I'm not spying on you or nothing. It's the others, they're after me, they're always after me,' and her eyes rolled fearfully like a caged animal. He let go of her, slumping back down against the wall, to his surprise though she stayed where he had dropped her.

'Why are they after you?'

She looked at him uncertainly. 'Because they can, there isn't anything more to it,' she said quietly.

They sat in silence for a few moments.

'They don't bother you, though, do they?' she asked in wonder, leaving Croc uncertain whether to feel insulted or appreciative - surely she knew they would bother him if they thought they could get away with it? 'You're strong.'

That one last, tiny comment, immediately alerted him to what she was up to. She was sizing him up, sizing the situation up, seeing how she could use it to her advantage, how she would use him.

'No,' he growled before she could think any further over the matter. 'I'm not going to be your freaking bodyguard, don't even think about it.'

She curled back into herself, moving slightly closer to the open vent and her escape route, but she wasn't outright fleeing.

'Couldn't-'

'No!' he glared at her, but she looked back defiantly, she was scared and she injured but that just made it all the more apparent that she was desperate and wasn't going to back down so easily.

'I'm not asking you to follow me around,' she said quickly. 'I just want to know that if I stand near you, that you won't swat me away like a bug. The others won't go near me if you're nearby, they're too scared for their own lives. I'm not actually asking you to do anything.'

He regarded her suspiciously for a moment. She hadn't denied she wanted to use him, she hadn't even tried to strike a deal, like a parasite… but as far as he could see there was nothing she could do to hurt him, and she had nowhere to run if she did.

'And, I didn't figure this out till later, but you pretty much saved my life last week,' she continued with a small uncertain smile. 'I never got to say thank-'

'It wasn't intentional,' he snapped, she recoiled which was not surprising, but what did surprise him was that he felt a tinge of regret as his words. How long had it been since he had had anyone to talk to for more than a few words, that didn't want to either gut him or screw with his mind? She would turn on him as soon as his use expired, that he was sure of as the sun would rise, but that wasn't likely to be anytime soon, and if she did, or rather when she did, he would kill her.

'Thank you, nonetheless,' she said very quietly and began to crawl back down into the vent, taking his silence as a negative.

'I don't mind,' he said abruptly, and she stopped and looked at him confused, so he added. 'I don't mind if you're nearby. You're one of the Penguin's gang, I'm not supposed to hit you anyway.'

Tony - was the name short for something or was it a nickname? - paused at his words, then smiled softly. 'Thank you, this means a lot to me, I'll have to find a way to repay you at some point.'

He grunted and looked away, to be quite honest this conversation was getting quite awkward for him, he wasn't used to being spoken to like this. Croc was almost glad when he heard her moving away again. His stay in Arkham Asylum had separated him too long from the real world, days at a time with little to no company other than his own mind had left him feeling awkward and angry with any interaction whatsoever with anyone.

Growling in frustration he put his head in his hands as he listened to the last distant thuds of "Tony" as she scrambled along the air vent and beyond his hearing range.

Quick summary of this chapter:

Clara is dreaming, she has a nightmare that she is in court for the murder of her brother. When she wakes up she finds that she is in a storage room, but she has no idea how she got there. She quickly spots that Croc is also in the room, fast asleep. Clara tries to sneak past him, but ends up waking him up by accident. Croc is not pleased, but doesn't hurt her, he merely glares. Though he doesn't say this to her, Croc carried Clara with him the night before to the storage room because he was confused after his bout of nostalgia, but now that he is awake again he is beginning to reconsider keeping her around. They talk for a while, Croc eventually sends her away so that he can sleep, but he still feels very confused, especially now that he is on near friendly terms with Clara.

On her way back to the dorms in search of One-eye, Clara briefly runs into Enrique, she talks to him briefly and notes that he is suspiciously nice for one of the bad guys, and notes to herself to keep an eye on him just in case.

About a week has passed, Croc has been taking more notice of Clara. One evening, to his surprise finds her scrambling through an air vent. They talk for a while, ultimately Clara asks him if he will protect her from the others, Croc is reluctant to agree, but when Clara points out that he doesn't really need to do anything, he agrees.