A/N: This story illustrates one of many possible reasons for Jonathan Crane being so severely apathetic. It's uncopyedited and a bit off-the-wall, and I own nothing except for the boring high-school counselor that is Natasha Ellis and the random singer that is Chase McLaughlin. Also, this scene is called The Plays because it was originally supposed to be about Ellis's reaction to one of the plays that Crane mentions he wrote - however, I felt oddly compelled to write this instead, and so I might write the story that this was supposed to be and post it under a different title.

Oh, and if you're going to bother reading this, please review it.

Natasha Ellis rested her head in her hands, letting out an exhausted breath as she rubbed her closed eyes with the heels of her palms. As a school counselor she was well-versed in psychology, and in her eight years of service to the Gotham Unified School District she had seen a lot of strange kids go through high school (with widely varying degrees of success) - but from the moment Jonathan Crane was shoved through the door of her office, she knew she would have to change the way she approached her job.

It had seemed like a normal Tuesday, with her normal Tuesday appointment schedule all finished at precisely 7:05 PM, and she was just sitting down to eat a greasy tuna sandwich for dinner when Security had knocked on the door and left her alone with a very angry and apparently very dangerous student. Natasha wasn't at all scared of him - he was handcuffed, and as far as the rest of his appearance, he was not at all intimidating beyond the distant possibility that he would try to stab her with a No. 2 pencil. He certainly didn't seem like the type who would have any problems - he looked healthy, which pretty much ruled out drugs and physical altercations; he somehow didn't seem like the type who would have unprotected sex, which eliminated the remainder of the physical problems; so whatever he was in her office for, it was probably psychological.

She opened a blank treatment file. "Name, birth date, and academic standings, please?"

"Jonathan L. Crane, 31 October 1981. I take AP Chemistry, AP Calculus, the Grammar and Punctuation elective, fourth year German, AP Eastern European history, and I have the lead role in the annual musical, plus piano lessons during recess. I'm graduating this year, first in the class of '97 and most likely with honors in the drama, science and possibly linguistics departments, and I published an article about social phobias in identical twins in the Gotham University Journal of Psychology. I've written six stage plays, three sequential screenplays, one musical, and two novels, the first of which won 30,000 cash in a contest held by the University."

Natasha stared at him for several seconds after she wrote down his schedule - the prize from the novel would explain his nice clothes and sense of entitlement. She had never heard of anyone taking on such a large courseload, or graduating with honors in three departments, let alone doing it all in only 2 years. "That's really rather incredible, Jonathan, but I am still going to need a little more information - specifically your GPA, personality type, and the reason you're here."

He scowled at her, and suddenly she remembered his performance in last year's production of Sweeney Todd. It wasn't an altogether pleasant memory, as the show had actually driven several audience members to tears of fright and shrieks of terror - and for one brief moment, Natasha had the vivid image of this seemingly innocent and polite student standing on stage, transformed, drenched in blood to form the very picture of anguished revenge as he loomed over the corpse of his enemy - she shook the thought from her mind and tried to focus on his answer.

"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" Now she felt stupid, humiliated. This never happened; she never lost control like this.

"4.06, INTJ, and if I thought there was a purpose to this visit, I would have seen my own counselor about it." He said all this with an air of vague annoyance, as if he expected her to know all this - which, it turned out, he did. "That should be in my file."

Natasha chose to ignore his obnoxious devotion to the idea of his own superiority, if only on the grounds that he was worthy of it. She opened a drawer in her desk, fishing around until she emerged with a red folder so thin as to near two-dimensionality - it was labeled J. L. Crane, and appeared to be surprisingly new and crisp in comparison to the other folders in the cabinet. "I have a record of your past transgressions here. As you can see," she said, opening the folder, which was empty, "there are none. I'd hate to see this folder start to fill up - and of course, according to the Honesty Rewards program, if you tell me what you did to deserve being forced into the counseling office - off-hours, I might add, and in handcuffs - then I might be able to reduce the amount of time you have to spend in detention." She sat back in her chair and raised her eyebrows expectantly, crossing her arms and ankles.

Jonathan sighed, closing his eyes and somehow managing to slip the handcuffs off with apparent ease. This puzzled Natasha, until he pressed his hands together tightly, and several of the joints popped back into place with sickening cracks. She winced, but he didn't appear to feel anything at all.

"You've got CIPA?" she asked, still puzzled.

"No." He opened his eyes but didn't elaborate. "In response to your earlier statement, I am well aware of the Honesty Rewards program, however, I have done nothing that would deserve a detention, suspension, or expulsion in any reasonable school system." He had taken a silver gel pen out of his messenger bag and was writing something on the inside of his right wrist, the cap of the pen held between his teeth.

"Do you have a girlfriend?" This was a routine question for counseling sessions, and Natasha was quite sure that Jonathan knew enough about psychological evaluations to know it didn't mean anything personal - or if he didn't, he surely would have noticed her engagement ring.

"No." He was examining his nails now, the pen recapped and still held between his teeth, and he seemed so bored that Natasha wondered briefly if she should just let him go home.

However, something in his tone, combined with the wry little smile that had just jumped onto his face, made her wonder if this was simply a case of her asking the wrong question. "How about a boyfriend?" She exhaled nervously - he was wearing a necklace whose pendant she couldn't quite see, and if that pendant was a Catholic cross, she could be in trouble...

His wry smile turned to an honest one, but it faded as abruptly as it had appeared, to be replaced by an expression of slightly dulled anguish. His jaw worked from side to side for a moment before he answered, "Not anymore."

"Oh." She hadn't quite been expecting that, and it certainly wasn't the reason he was in her office, but nonetheless, she recognized the painfully obvious signs of something that needed to be talked about. "Tell me about him." Natasha wondered briefly if she sounded sympathetic enough.

"He was amazing - sweet, compassionate, social. Everything that I wasn't. I helped him with his homework, and he taught me how - he taught me how to not be afraid. We were together since we were 13, but I suppose we got the red card in the quantum draw, because when we were 15 he was diagnosed with nasopharyngeal cancer. He had six months at the most, perhaps seven or eight with aggressive treatment, but the doctors said he wouldn't start to feel any symptoms for about a month. His parents were out of town for the week, and he invited me to spend the night at his apartment - we went out for dinner, and when we got home, we watched Tron, and he asked me ... he asked me if I would think any less of him if he was afraid. I told him I could never stop loving him for something so natural, and - how confidential is this?"

"The only circumstances under which it would be legal for me to disclose anything in this session would be if there was overwhelming evidence that someone's life was in danger."

Jonathan seemed to consider this for a moment. "It had better stay that way." He paused, frowning. "We had sex for the first time that night, and by the time I woke up the next morning, he had been dead for nearly an hour. Slit his wrists in the bathroom; left me a note saying that if he lived forever, he would remember me forever, and that if the end was just the end, then he was glad he had died while his life was still perfect." He bit down hard on his lower lip, dropping his face into his hands to hide his tears and clenching his fingers tightly in his hair. "I didn't know what to do with myself. I broke nine bones in my left hand and fourteen in my right from all the anger I took out on the solid plaster walls of that apartment." He looked up at Natasha - she was shocked to see that his gray irises had turned to a deep black, and some sort of makeup had smudged itself around his eyes, which were staring through her with enough passion that she was surprised to not hear the wall cracking. "Two days later, I took the casts off to perform in the musical, and I suppose I never really healed properly, seeing as I can't feel anything in either of my hands. It was a nightmare, relearning how to write and type and play the piano - I didn't even try to relearn the harp. I saw that as a sort of sacrifice for him; my finest art, lost to me as surely as he was."

Natasha couldn't bear to look at him any more, couldn't stand to see the eyes of someone so deeply scarred. And so she clenched her fists and stared blankly down at her desk, which suddenly seemed devoid of all its bright colors. The roll of happy-face stickers was mocking her, and the hum of the fluorescent lights whispered that she was nothing compared to the boy sitting across from her. "I can't ..." she whispered, hoping he would understand.

"I know." He stood up, putting the handcuffs in his messenger bag and slinging it over his shoulder as if it were just another normal day at school. "Tell them I escaped without telling you anything meaningful - they'll believe you, I've done it before. This time I'm not coming back to Narrows High." He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, wrote down an email address, and left it on her desk. "If you ever need someone to talk to," he informed her with a grim smile.

"Where are you going?" Natasha was confused.

"Europe. I have some friends in France who wouldn't mind giving me a clean start. I'll be back to Gotham in about a year, to get my college degree - I have a scholarship to GSU, so I suppose I'll have to keep my name. If it's not too much trouble, I'd like you to forget you've ever met me."

"What about the musical? The Drama department isn't big enough to have understudies, and the show is in a week."

"Tell them to give my role to Chase McLaughlin - he'll do fine."

"Alright."

"Someday," Jonathan said, reflectively, "they're going to say very interesting things about me. Don't think for a moment that they are saying anything but the truth." And before Natasha could say anything, she was alone in her office, with nothing but an arbitrary numerical email address and an uneaten tuna sandwich.

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