Disclaimer: Do I own Scarecrow? Yes as a matter of fact...I have an eight inch tall action figure of him sitting right here on my monitor and he is one scary mo fo. Red glowy eyed variant...creepy lookin'.

A/N: Written in about thirty minutes while listening to O-zone on a constant loop, eating pixie sticks and downing soda pop...so it's probably not all that good. This was just one of those things that spent most of the day pestering me and then refused to be ignored when I sat down to write tonight.

I hate that.

Anyways...I blame this story on Twinings (whom you should all go fawn over and worship), who inspired my love of Scarecrow and the resulting obsession that followed. Personally, I like her version of Crane better than most of those that have been presented in the comics...if for no other reason than her characters can get away with calling him 'Squishykins', 'Squish face' and several other things that I'm certain he would be quite put out about.

(Originally posted from December 2006 to May 2008. Revised: November, 2008)

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It was accidental, but then again, such things often are. After all, no one ever goes looking to become obsessed; no one seeks out a thing to which the devote their every waking thought. Instead, obsession is one of those things that creeps up on you and will not be dismissed, grabbing hold of your existence and hanging on, refusing to be shaken off.

Such as it was for Dora Theodore, a librarian at the north side Gotham public library, who was currently staring off into space thinking about the man in question.

She hadn't meant to become obsessed with the Scarecrow, it had just...happened.

It began innocently enough, innocuously, really, if she stopped to think about the facts involved. She had been out walking late one evening, on her way home from work when she stumbled into the midst of a full on battle between the Batman and his villain of the evening. They were fighting right in the alleyway that lead to the entrance to her tiny apartment, so they were indeed hard to miss.

Dora's first instinct was to run, as it should have been, but that was quickly thrust aside by another emotion as Batman slammed the Scarecrow face first into the pavement with a sickening crack.

Too stunned by the display of brutality to move, she stood transfixed while the lanky man was yanked up off the ground by the menacing vigilante. Dora had never witnessed a fight before; she abhorred violence, even going so far as to avoid watching it on television, so to be presented it first hand was something that left her in shock.

The Scarecrow clenched one hand into a fist and swung it at Batman's face hard. While his aim was true, the hero didn't even flinch at the blow. The Scarecrow then lunged at Batman, fingers curled into claws as he reached for the masked vigilante. Batman struck mercilessly, knocking his foe away as though he were a fly to be swatted aside.

Dora's fascination was in competition with her horror as she watched the rail thin man go at the giant again. He was so...so little in comparison to Batman. Granted, he was tall, but he certainly didn't look like there was much to him under that costume. Surely one blow from Batman's monstrous fist could crush him!

David and Goliath. That is what she was watching: David and Goliath. An epic battle between not only good versus evil, but big versus small as well. Batman barely had a scratch on him, but the Scarecrow was looking less and less like he was up to continuing the fight. Blood dribbled from the corner of one of the eye holes in his sack cloth mask, his shirt was torn at the shoulder and his chest was heaving. He gathered himself up and made one last impressive run at the Bat, only to be knocked across the alley and landed at Dora's feet.

Not surprisingly, she let out a startled squeak and started to back away. One of her heels sank into an uneven patch of pavement and she fell backwards, landing in a graceless lump across from the Scarecrow. She began to scoot away from him, the instinct for self preservation finally surging up inside her as it should have done many long moments before.

But something made her hesitate, if only for an instant.

It was the eyes; those blue, blue eyes that made her freeze.

Blood was leaking from one of them, trickling down the brown sack cloth and something close to compassion tried to make itself known inside Dora.

A lungful of fear toxin was the reward for her moment of pity and those azure eyes seared their way into her memory as the world started closing in around her, stifling her screams and stealing her breath.

Claustrophobia. Oh, how she loathed it.

Scarecrow scrambled up off the ground as his prey curled up into a whimpering ball and made a mad dash in the opposite direction, banking on the fact that Batman would care more about the fallen woman than he would about the escaping criminal.

True to form, Batman played the hero and snapped up the innocent bystander without a second's thought. She trembled and wept and was all around uncooperative until he gave her the antidote, after which dropped her at a hospital and then he disappeared into the night to seek his quarry.

And that had been Dora's first encounter with the man named Crane.

Her second encounter took place three years later in the bleakest part of December and was far less intrusive than the first.

Once more, she was on her way home, this time with a paper grocery sack full of various necessities--milk, butter, eggs and the like--cursing the fact that she still hadn't been able to scrape up enough money for a decent car that wouldn't break down at the drop of a hat.

In retrospect, it had been a very foolish thing to be wandering the icy walks in high heels with a bag of heavy groceries, but with her car in the shop and her fridge bare, she had no choice. So she teetered along, trying desperately not to slip and land on her back.

She succeeded right up until a small boy came barreling down the walk and crashed into her, flinging her unceremoniously to the ground. Her grocery bag came in contact with the cement and she could hear the dozen eggs inside break.

That was a buck fifty she wasn't going to get back.

With a grumble and a groan, Dora got up and brushed the snow from her knees, wishing she had worn pants today rather than that blasted 'sensible' tweed skirt. She stood and swept up the paper bag, about to start off again when something caught her eye.

Or someone, rather.

Across the street, sitting on a park bench, was the lanky frame of Jonathan Crane.

Scarecrow.

He looked different, of course, without his costume, and there was a long red and green scarf covering the bottom half of his face, but Dora knew it was him.

It was his eyes that she saw first. That same deep-yet-clear color that had been a part of her nightmares for the first six months after that night in the alley was not one she was likely to forget.

Dora froze in her tracks and just stared at him, half bent over, grocery sack dangling from one hand.

First, her mouth went dry with terror, remembering what had happened three years prior, followed by a sudden jerk in her knees as the part of her brain concerned with things like safety reminded her that she was currently in the position to become the unwitting prey of this particular predator again.

However, as terror is wont to do, it left her paralyzed and her higher brain functions went on vacation.

All she could do was stand and stare.

He didn't seem to see her, which was a God given miracle, considering the fact she was the strangest looking thing in the immediate vicinity, stooped over with a paper bag hanging from one hand that was dripping eggy goo everywhere.

A pigeon landed near him (what a pigeon was doing on the ground in Gotham during this kind of weather certainly boggled the mind) and for a moment, Dora feared for the small creature's life.

That fear multiplied ten fold when she saw Crane glance around himself, checking to see if he was being watched before he reached inside his pocket.

Dora silently urged the animal to fly away, knowing that whatever he had in store for it couldn't have been good. He was a villain, after all…wasn't that what villains did? They hurt small, defenseless things, careless when it came to the repercussions so long as it furthered their goals and--

Plop.

The remnants of a half eaten sandwich hit the pavement with a soggy flop in front of the pigeon.

Dora blinked. Now, that simply didn't make any sense.

Maybe it was drugged? That seemed like a possibility…yes…the bird would inadvertently become one of Crane's test subjects. That had to be it.

The fat little thing waddled to the sandwich and pecked at it, its head making several jabbing movements as it did so.

Nothing happened. Not a thing. No conniption fit, no seizure, no sudden, violent death…nothing.

The pigeon ate its fill and then flapped away, seemingly none the worse for wear.

Why? This was the Scarecrow for crying out loud…he delighted in striking fear in any living creature that crossed his path, Dora herself had been a prime example…why hadn't he done something to the bird as well?

She hated it when she put two and two together and it didn't equal four. Something was cosmically wrong for all the facts she had about the man before her to be contradicted so completely with a single act of compassion.

Surely there must've been some explanation for the change in behavior…

And that was how the obsession began.

After she gathered her wits and set off for home at as close to a sprint as she could manage in those thrice damned heels, she started to wonder about the man she had seen on the park bench.

He was so different from the image of the Scarecrow. So much more…frail.

With the mask on, he seemed a spectral being; a great and terrible figure; a force to be reckoned with.

Without it, he was but a man: gaunt, weak and harmless, almost like an underfed dog. Of course, the same fire lay behind his eyes, but the rest of him was ill equipped to strike fear into her heart without the aid of his mask and toxin.

She tried to push it out of her mind--tried to ignore the nagging need to know why--but strive as she might, she couldn't make it go away. Curiosity burrowed its way under her skin and settled there, intent on staying for the duration.

It itched just beneath the surface of her consciousness, demanding to be addressed and refusing to be ignored, to the point that she could hardly concentrate on her work.

It took three weeks of wrestling violently with her conscience to finally give into the temptation to try and find out more.

It took another week and a half to convince herself that staking out the park in hopes of seeing him wasn't crazy.

Even then, she wasn't completely convinced.

On her day off, she took a thermos of hot coffee and a blanket, and then found a spot where she could watch the park bench he had made an appearance at without being observed by its occupant.

Within the first hour, she had polished off half of her coffee and was grateful for the warmth. By hour two, the coffee was gone and she prayed the blanket would suffice. Hour three saw children playing in the snow nearby but the bench remained completely empty.

By the time hour six rolled around, Dora was scolding herself for her stupidity.

Why would a master criminal return to the same place twice? Surely if she would think of that as being part of pattern behavior, the Bat would as well.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Now, she had managed to get stiff muscles and most likely a case of frostbite, and for what? He didn't show.

Dora started folding up her blanket and gathered up her thermos, cursing her idiocy the entire time.

What a complete and utter waste of her valuable--

Well…maybe not a complete waste after all.

He had decided to make an appearance just as she was preparing to leave.

How fitting.

Dora dropped back down where she had been sitting before and glanced at her watch, taking note of the time. Four in the afternoon.

She frowned thoughtfully. That was about the same time she had been walking home from work when she saw him last.

So, he did have a pattern after all.

Well…maybe not a completely established one, it was only two instances and that hardly counted as a pattern, but it was a start.

In the days and weeks that followed, she made a habit of popping by the park around four just to see if he was there.

Every alternate Thursday and every third Saturday, he was.

Dora started making a point of changing her schedule around in order to be at the park on those particular days. It just became a habit.

After all, she still hadn't figured out why he was there on those particular days, and she was dying to find out.

Maybe dying was the wrong term to use. She certainly was curious, though.

Besides…it gave her an excuse to watch him. Not that she…liked watching him, or anything, although he was fascinating--once she got over her initial fear of him, that is, which took a much shorter time than she would have thought.

Dora supposed it had something to do with how unthreatening he seemed. He was not an imposing human being without his Scarecrow costume and was quite a bit on the 'bookish' end of the scale (which suited Dora the librarian just fine.). He wore glasses, which was the very first thing she noticed about him after his eyes. They were thin, golden wire rimmed things, that rather reminded her of her grandfather's spectacles.

The hair at his temples was graying slightly, blending into the sandy brown, adding to the impression that he was a fragile creature and not the master criminal of import that Scarecrow was.

Dora began to think of the two of them as separate entities. They were so different, it seemed that they couldn't possibly be the same man. The Jonathan Crane before her looked so delicate that she found herself wishing that she could just go up to him and offer him a bowl of soup.

But that was insane. That was beyond insane. To feel the urge to knit a super villain a sweater was surely a sign that Dora's sanity was slipping away from her. Harley Quinn she most definitely was not. She had no desire to follow the man in his life of crime, she just wanted to…

She wanted to…

To what?

What did she want to do?

She didn't even know. The feelings were there (whatever they were) but they hadn't been able to manifest themselves as coherent thoughts yet.

She knew she wanted to take care of him, but didn't know why, or how, for that matter. One does not make a habit of wandering up to criminals and offering to love them and pet them and call them George. That simply isn't done, and for good reason. It was rumored that last woman who tried to unleash that sort of behavior on the Riddler had been scattered around Gotham in so many pieces they were still looking for bits of her four years later.

So, it was obvious to Dora that if she wanted to exorcise these feelings of 'must-care-for-helpless-puppy-of-a-man', she would have to find a way to do it anonymously.

The answer came in the form of a blow to the head.

Dora had spent a Sunday in early February cleaning out one of her kitchen cabinets when a can of chicken broth and her thermos leapt at her.

When she regained consciousness to find the can and thermos on the floor next to her, she took it as a sign.

The next Thursday was marked on her calendar, which meant that he would be in the park that afternoon. She had a limited window of opportunity in which to work and made the best of it.

She spent Wednesday night making the biggest batch of homemade chicken noodle soup that the inside of her tiny kitchen had ever seen, filled the thermos near to overflowing and then waited.

The next day, at approximately three thirty, she got off work early and carefully set the thermos on the bench that she had taken to calling his. She could only hope that he got to it before one of the local park bums did.

He didn't disappoint.

He arrived right on time and immediately spotted the thermos. He regarded it cautiously for a long time before he finally sat down as far away from it as possible, watching it as if it might sprout legs and leap at him. It didn't, of course, but that didn't stop him from staring at it like it might.

After twenty minutes, Dora saw him edge towards it ever so slightly, still looking like he suspected it might be a bomb.

Another twenty minutes later, he got really brave and poked it.

Once.

Twice.

Repeatedly.

Secure in the knowledge that poking it didn't cause it to blow up, he picked it up with his thumb and forefinger and studied it curiously.

Dora could almost see the wheels in his head turning and it delighted her. Why it delighted her, no one could tell you, but it did.

Another ten minutes of cautious scrutiny, and he finally ventured to open the screw top lid.

To see his brow furrow with momentary confusion made Dora grin against her will.

He was so cute when he was being puzzled.

Crane stared at the soup for a solid minute before he did something that caused Dora's spirits to sink:

He screwed the top back on without even giving the stuff so much as a whiff. Instead, he tucked the thermos inside his ill fitting jacket and left the park, far earlier than he usually did.

Crap.

She had messed up his routine. He'd probably take this as some sort of a sign that someone was onto him or trying to poison him and never come back again.

She should have just knit him that damn sweater.

(Too bad she didn't know how to knit…)

The next Saturday that he was due to come, she returned to the park, though she held little hope that he would be there.

He wasn't, but the thermos was; and it was empty.

A yellow post-it note was tacked to the top as well, on which was written in a very spiky, tightly packed scrawl:

Less oregano next time.