Gotham City: Crane & Becky Who: Jonathan Crane & Becky Lyons What: A five year jump Where: Gotham City When: This week! Warnings/Rating: Nothing to speak of.
It was to be an ordinary trip back to Gotham City from their visit through to Marvel, but something quite out of the ordinary happened.
Their first clue should have been the fact that the door was slightly different. You wouldn't have noticed it unless you were looking closely, and the differences weren't enough that he took any notice of it himself. So they went through to a Gotham that was similar, but not quite, the Gotham they were used to.
Crane recognized it, however, after only a few hours spent there. It was where he was from, the world unchanged as he had left it, and wasn't this a blessing in disguise? No, there were no doors to take them back to the Gotham they had become familiar with in the last months, but at that point, Crane simply didn't care. This place didn't know him as a villain, had no expectations about him other than the ones he set from that day forward, and here? Here he could be who he wished. He could go back to school, could finish the degree that he had been aching to return to since showing up in that wasteland of a Gotham he had woken up in. Here? He could be someone that mattered.
The apartment that had been his when he had been here before was still there, and though it was small and not that well maintained, it was a home for them to share. He went back to school to finish his degree, though it took a sharp turn into pharmacology along with his previous interest in psychiatry, a mix of the two together that left him giddy and excited. A job at a lab came after that, working on breakthrough psychiatric drugs, and it was here that Crane began to play. Yes, it was a pair of old shoes he was slipping into, and maybe there was no avoiding the path to becoming Scarecrow, but he simply didn't care. He researched, he played, and he created.
As time passed, Becky continued to remain by his side. He wasn't sure why at times, with all the warnings she had been given before they had left, but he didn't question her feelings. It was true enough that he was fond of her, incredibly so, but relationships were simply not something he knew much about. She was the first, and a quiet part of him hoped she would be the last. Bit by bit, he started to open up to her, the things that he was researching, the things that he was creating. If she liked the best parts of him, then she also needed to accept the worst parts of him. He knew he wasn't a good person, not deep down, but if she could see past that and know that he would never cause her harm, then perhaps it would be enough. She didn't run from him, and he didn't push her away, and they continued on like that, growing closer, getting to know one another even more.
Nearly five years passed in total before the door opened for them again, and this time, when they returned, they were both different than they had been when they left. Older. Wiser. Prepared.
Becky wasn’t familiar enough with that Gotham to recognize the changes in this one on her own. She spent most of her time in the home Jonathan had provided for her; her classes at Gotham U weren't scheduled to start until the fall and the job she'd managed to land as a waitress bored her to tears. She didn't know anyone else in the city, and that only increased her dependence on Jonathan; whoever said love was blind hit the nail right on the head when it came to her. And so she blindly followed him to Marvel, and she blindly followed him back, back to Gotham, oblivious to the shift in their surroundings.
But even when the truth became clear, she didn't care. This Gotham, that Gotham, what did it matter? So long as she was with her Jonathan, nothing else mattered. It didn't even matter that there was no door back. Maybe, maybe a tiny part of her worried that he might not have time for her now that he was back in his world, and she told herself she wouldn't beg him to stay, wouldn't be that girl, but her fears were just so silly because he wanted her with him. It was wonderful, to be wanted. He went back to school and she supported him wholly; she was his biggest fan and she didn't care who knew. Oh, she kept up with her singing, took some classes, but the simple truth was that the most important thing in her life was him.
Meddling with psychiatric drugs? Creating and concocting and experimenting? Oh, she was by his side for all of it. She found it all fascinating, really, and she admired just how smart he was. Morality had faded to unimportance and she was so, so very grey. Who needed black and white anyway? She was content in their new life, even happy as the years passed, and so she didn't expect anything more. She might have thought about it every now and then but it wasn't like she was in satisfied, no, why would she be? She had a man who wanted her, a brilliant man who did amazing (if terrible) things, and the freedom to do what she loved. Life was good, and as the years passed, it just got better.
She was thrilled that he opened up to her, thrilled that he included her in his research and that other part of his life that so many people seemed to hate him for. But she didn't see him as a villain or a monster, and no one could ever convince her otherwise. She'd made up her mind.
Five years later, and Becky followed her Jonathan again, through that door she'd thought they would never see again. But things were different, now. Still hopelessly blind and very much in love, she'd come into her own a little, found her footing, gained confidence. She had Jonathan to thank for that. She didn't think of herself as his sidekick, no, not at all. She was his partner. And now, she was ready for whatever life had in store.