Author's Notes: Well, it's that time again! It's November and that means National Novel Writing Month! In case you reading this and going "huh?," National Novel Writing Month is when you write a 50,000 word novel in thirty days. It's fun, distressing and all around writing good fun! Anyway, this is going to be my project for NaNoWriMo so expect lots of updates and hopefully not too many typos but you've been warned...there will be typos! If the story turns out as well as I imagine it, I promise to go back and fix the typos!

When thinking of what type of story to do for this month long challenge, I decided that I should write my own backstory to one of my favorite characters: Jonathan Crane. So even though he may seem slightly out of character at times, I'm trying to show his descent into the darkness. So really, you should only see glimpses of the Jon Crane we all know and love but hopefully I can pull this off. You never know till you try! So, onward! And please, leave a review! God knows I'll need the encouragement!

Accepting Chaos

Chapter One

I accept chaos. I am not sure whether it accepts me. I know some people are terrified of the bomb. But then some people are terrified to be seen carrying a modern screen magazine. Experience teaches us that silence terrifies people the most.

-Bob Dylan

"So what's the trouble, Jonny?"

The old wood in the church creaked under the weight of age. There were no lights, the building was built decades before electricity. There were candles but he had no way to light them. The only things he did have were the birds that made the dilapidated building their home, the head of the scarecrow he had taken and hidden in the rotted out pulpit and his fear.

"Jonny?"

No, that wasn't all he had. He had Scarecrow. No longer just a head stuffed with straw and an old potato sack with a lopsidedly stitched grin. The Scarecrow had become his protector, the voice that spoke back to him in the darkness and consoled him when no one else did. He was friend, father and educator all in one. Something in the back of his mind told him that this was not right but he couldn't argue with the comfort it brought him in a life filled with sharp pain and bitter disappointment.

"Grandma found my library book under my bed."

The silhouette of the Scarecrow head looked down at him from what was the pulpit. "What was her issue with the book?"

Twelve year old Jonathan Crane scuffed his worn shoe against the rotted planks of the floor. "It was about Freud."

"And what is wrong with Freud?"

"She says he's an evil man who turned his back on God and instead indulged in sinful perversions."

There was a beat of silence and Jonathan could hear the birds preening not that far above him.

"And what do you think, Jonny?"

Filled with the confidence of his own opinion, Jonathan stood up from the pew that he had been sitting in and started to pace in front of the alter. "I think some of what he had to say was right but I also think that Jung was right in some of his theories as well."

"Tell me more about Freud, Jonny. We already discussed Jung last time."

"Well," he felt a true smile come across his face. "Freud believed-"

The front door swung open on rusted hinges, the meager light from the early evening momentarily blinding him. He heard his mother's unsure step as she crossed the threshold. "What did you do now, Jonathan?"

Before he could defend himself for his actions that landed him in the church prison, his mother caught sight of the scarecrow head on the pulpit, eliciting a startled yelp from her. She was even more faint hearted than he was when it came to this church turned torture chamber.

"Honestly, Jonathan," she complained. "You know Mr. McDugall was looking for his scarecrow head. You have to give it back to him."

What felt like a righteous anger filled him. "No. It's mine. He can make another one."

Now she was exasperated as well as annoyed as she pushed past him and snatched the burlap sack off of the pulpit. "You're giving it back to him tomorrow and apologizing for stealing it."

"That's not fair!" That short comment earned him a stinging slap across the face.

"Grow up! Stop playing these silly little games."

His eyes smarted from the blow and he wiped his sleeve across his watering eyes. He wanted to tell his mother that he was grown up, much more so than he should be. He wasn't yet a teenager and yet understood Freud's theories of various fixations or Jung's theory of archetypes. He knew his own mother's weakness was the guilt driven desire to do something, anything, to please her grandmother, his great-grandmother, but knew that she never would. His great-grandmother was so deeply embittered in her old time religion to even see past her own piousness. There was nothing for either one of them to do but survive and he was worried his mother wouldn't.

"Grandmom said that she found a dirty book under your bed."

He was too distraught over the loss of the scarecrow head to even feel any sort of embarrassment over the false accusation. "It was a biography of Freud."

His mother pinched the bridge of her thin, straight nose. "Jonathan." She sounded so terribly disappointed with him. "Here," she shoved the rough material stuffed with straw into his hands and a surge hope that quickly rose to the surface was dashed almost instantly. "Make sure you give that back to Mr. McDugall first thing tomorrow morning."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And Jonathan?"

"Yes, Mom?"

"Please stop causing trouble."

An adult Jonathan Crane, recently Doctor Jonathan Crane, slowly blinked back to reality. He was sitting in his new office at Gotham University. True, he had been handed all the general psychology classes and basic level learners but he was only twenty-one. His students were only going to be at most four years younger than him. Managing a class of over a hundred students was going to be daunting and next to impossible given his thin build and young looks. Well, there was nothing like jumping in with both feet.

As he made his way through the crowded halls of the university towards his lecture room, he let his mind wander back over the memory that had taken over his thoughts just a few minutes ago. Even though he had promised his mother to return the scarecrow head, he never did. He had hidden it under some loose floorboards in the church and knew she would never follow up with the farmer down the road.

When he left to study at Gotham University at the age of fifteen, he took the scarecrow head with him, empting out the straw and folding up the burlap sack in his beaten up suitcase. He still had the scarecrow "security blanket" if you will, tucked away in a dresser drawer at his one bedroom apartment. He had given up speaking to it and imagining it replied. In fact, he was actually quite embarrassed at his childhood conversations with the sack so he never mentioned it to anyone for the sake of him being drug into a psychological evaluation. No, he had come too far to be slowed down by some Neanderthal questioning his higher intelligence and calling it insanity.

With a satisfied smile, he opened the lecture hall door and thought he was in the wrong hall. But no, checking the letter on the door proved he was correct. Lecture Hall C, ten o'clock in the morning, General Psychology. Well, it wasn't quite ten yet and he counted on some late comers but that still didn't explain the mere six students that were seated sporadically throughout the large room.

Squaring his shoulders, he made his way down to the front of the room and set the second hand briefcase on the battered desk. The action got a couple of the student's attention, particular a large blonde kid who looked like a football player. Jonathan had to remind himself of his position in the classroom, he was now the teacher, the authority figure. These jocks, spoiled rich kids and those who just expected to be handed grades were under his rule at the moment. That brought an enormous amount of comfort to him, a kid who had been endlessly bullied all through his educational experience. Until today.

The clock at the back of lecture hall told him it was ten o'clock and he pulled the lecture notes out of the briefcase and slammed them down on the lectern, effectively gaining everyone's attention…all nine of them, at the moment.

"I want everyone to sit in the first five rows." He waited for them to move down to the front but when no one moved, he relied on the work he put into his thesis to motivate them: fear. "Well, I don't believe any student in the history of Gotham University has ever started out their semester with their grade being in the negatives but surely there is a first for everything."

Grumbling, they slowly gathered up their things and moved to the rows he had dictated. Once everyone was settled in their new seats, a new comer came rushing into the room. Jonathan didn't even look them.

"Front row for anyone who comes to class late."

"Man," the blond jock complained, "this is like high school."

The late comer slid into one of the front row seats, separated from her classmates by two rows. Jonathan wished he had paid more attention and was instantly feeling sorry for making her sit there. She looked young, much younger than her classmates and much too young for college. He should know seeing as he graduated from Gotham University with his undergrad at age eighteen . She also had that air about her that he was familiar with, a person whose intelligence sets them apart from their peers. Well, he would just have to be more careful next time when he doled out a punishment for punctuality. He may be strict but he wasn't heartless.

Jonathan started to read off the names on the class roster. "Jason Reilly."

The jock raised his hand. "Do you want me to say 'here' as well?"

"No, Mr. Reilly," Jonathan checked off his name, "the less words you speak the better it will be." A nervous chuckled erupted through the class. "Sally Jansen."

A blonde, cheerleader type raised her hand.

"Lemond Quiah."

"Yo."

"Once again," Jonathan reminded them in a bored tone, "no need to say anything." This was going to be fun…a regular class of geniuses. "Mia Giovanni?"

A young woman with long black hair raised a well manicured hand. She had the look and name that screamed "mob princess." This was just getting better and better. He read through the rest of the names, everyone having caught on by then to his no speaking rule. The last name on the roster was the lone girl sitting in the front row. Alice Williams.

Alice was an extreme type of petite, almost to the point of looking anorexic. Her hair was a vibrant shade of red, curled into tight rings and the few occasions that she actually looked up, revealed bright green eyes. She had the look of someone who was used to being hunted by their peers. It was a dangerous kind of wanting to disappear and he felt an unexpected twinge of protectiveness towards her. Well, it could be that she reminded him of himself or the fact that she looked so young, about sixteen. Perhaps he was fortunate enough to gain a prodigy that he had once been. It certainly would make up for the lack of students he had.

"Very well then," he tucked the roster underneath his notes for the lecture. "Let me tempt fate and ask you, why are you taking this class?"

Lemond was the one that answered him. "Because we have to."

"I see." Jonathan straightened his glasses. "Do any of you have an interest in psychology?"

Three out of the ten students raised their hands. Thankfully, Alice was one of them. "Alright. Let's start with the basics. How many of you can tell me about Freud?"

Nothing.

"Jung?"

"Young what?" Jason the jock responded and the room erupted in laughter.

Jonathan happened to look over at Alice and found her muttering the same thing he was thinking.

Idiots.

He set to work with a sense of satisfaction that at least one of his students wasn't a complete moron, introducing them to the early history of psychology and watching for any spark of interest in the faces. There were maybe three but it was Alice's wide eyed expressions that made him forget the feeling that he was talking to the cinderblock walls instead of interested students. He was never so thankful to see ten to eleven come around. He assigned reading, which he doubted they would ever do, before dismissing them to the next class. Shoving his lecture notes into his briefcase, he looked up to see Alice standing awkwardly next to his desk.

"Yes, Ms. Williams?"

"I, uh," she fiddled with the strap on her messenger's bag, "I just wanted to apologize for being late this morning. I'm not normally late to class."

He wondered why she felt compelled to apologize for her tardiness. The idea of her having ulterior motives, whether good or bad, left him slightly uncomfortable. "See it doesn't happen again," he stated shortly before leaving her there in the room by herself.

Being a professor now, Jonathan had access to the student database. As soon as he went back to his office, he called up Alice Williams' student profile. It didn't give him much information on her, just her school ID picture (which was not flattering to how she looked in real life) and facts that would be relevant for other teachers. She was eighteen years old and that took away some of her prodigy charm he had assumed on her character. Her major was child psychology and her home address was not that far from the University.

He was not normally this obsessive about people. Research, yes. Study of people's reactions to various stimuli, absolutely. Pouring over textbooks and recording his findings and theories of his own, he obsessed over every word. But people as people, never. So he sat his desk, staring at the student ID picture of Alice and trying to figure out how she managed to get under his skin so quickly.