sunday_reveries 8.16-22 - "Are you insane?"

[take_mychances]

Also serves as an RP thread for arkhams_dr, questionorigin and a_carrion_crow.

Why am I doing this again? Dalia had been asking herself the question all day. Now it was finally time for her to leave work and head over to Crane House for dinner with Duela and Jonathan (and presumably Joshua, who never missed out on an opportunity to condescend to her) and she was still questioning

Comments

[take_mychances]

While Jonathan got his tea, Dalia made her way to where she remembered his study was located. She turned on a lamp, though that didn't do much for the shadowy room and sat down in the high-backed chair across from the desk.

[arkhams_dr]

Crane entered, carefully carrying his cup and saucer. He'd changed very little over the years - become a little slower, perhaps, a touch of grey hidden in his dark hair. He sat behind the desk, flanked by two portraits on the wall, one of Duela and the other of a woman, dark-haired like him, with intense, pale green eyes.

"You had questions."

[take_mychances]

For a moment, Dalia was at a loss for words. She frowned, trying to think of where to start. "My dad says she was normal before she encountered you. Duela...says she always had problems...What was she like when you encountered her? I mean--why--were you in contact with her--in the first place?" Dalia looked away, arms crossed over her chest.

[arkhams_dr]

"She did have problems before we met - not terribly uncommon ones, but problems nonetheless." His eyes stayed fixed on her face, not blinking. "She contacted me, then, after some research, she provoked me. Deliberately. I sent her a...message, if you will, one that most would have taken to heart. She pursued the matter. Clearly, she wanted my help. Despite what you think you know of me, I am very, very good at my chosen profession. She never told you?"

[take_mychances]

"What kind of a message?" Dalia wanted to know, looking back at him.

[arkhams_dr]

"My usual method in those days - I sent her an envelope with my latest formula. Rather than retreating, though, she sent me another message, asking me to meet with her. As I said, she wanted my help. Somehow, she knew I was the only one who could help her." He stirred his tea, glancing away from her for the first time, but his eyes flicked back to hers almost immediately. "I gave her everything she wanted."

[take_mychances]

"Latest formula...the--fear gas," she said, putting things together. "Why? Why would you do that? How--would that help her?"

[arkhams_dr]

"Oh, that wasn't meant to help her. It was meant to scare her away. Put yourself in my shoes - here I am, trying to keep up with my work after the Bat destroyed my largest test to date, and out of the blue, a junior assistant district attorney comes knocking. I wanted to shoo her away, fire a warning shot in the general direction of the White Knight's office. I didn't even send a killing dose." He paused, drinking. "But she came back. Alone. Knowing what you and I both know now - what she and both knew then - can you imagine further contact on her part was anything more than an invitation? I think I still have her letter. There was even a valentine inside. She meant to intrigue me, and intrigue me she did."

[take_mychances]

"And then you kidnapped her," Dalia said, remembering the newspaper article.

[arkhams_dr]

"And then I began her treatment," he corrected her, voice still calm. "She never pressed charges. She never protested. She understood. In order to have what she wanted, in order to become what she needed to be for the life she craved, she chose to change."

[take_mychances]

"Change how?" The calm in his voice at once settled her nerves and ratcheted them up. Wasn't this what her father had warned her about?

[arkhams_dr]

"She wanted to live in Gotham, to truly be a part of it. She wanted a fairy-tale life. These are not compatible goals. She wanted a man she couldn't have, she thought. She wanted someone who didn't exist - most of the time. She wanted passion and unquestioning devotion. She wanted a calm oasis and she wanted the storm, all at the same time. You see the problem with this, I trust. I helped her see that the world is what we perceive it to be, and that we can change our way of seeing."

[take_mychances]

Dalia let his words sink in, playing them over a couple of times in her head, putting them together with things she already knew or had inferred.

She wanted a man she couldn't have...

"His fiancee - that - Dawes woman. She wanted to be her - or at least...have him." Dalia frowned. "That's why Duela said that thing about my boss and about men in a position of power." Her frown grew deeper. "I'm not like her."

[arkhams_dr]

For a moment, a look of disgust crossed Crane's features. "That Dawes woman. Useless in every sense of the word - Harvey should count himself lucky that the Clown removed her. Not that I didn't envy him the task." Neutral again, he continued, "but yes, Nadine worshiped her as she worshiped the image she had of Harvey. It's fortunate for both of them that fate intervened - and I, as well. Without my treatment, Nadine would have proved much less adaptable, much less accepting of Harvey as he truly was. Of course, you know quite well how much he depends upon her."

[take_mychances]

"She depends on him even more." Dalia's voice grew quiet. "They both..." She looked away again, afraid to say more, afraid to voice the concerns she'd shared with Duela, the reasons that brought her there that day.

[arkhams_dr]

"Yes, it's not the most stable of systems - but it's what she wanted. I was only there to facilitate her process, to allow her to achieve her goals, not to impose my own judgments upon her," he shrugged. "Harvey - well, half of the time, Harvey's been someone I wished to help, as well."