Victor is curious – "Why did you do it? I don't quite understand but Jonathan of course sends his love." - I can almost see the smile on his gaunt pale face – "He loves it when you give Dr Arkham ulcers." I laugh and tap back a series of rapid long, short beats in reply - "Things are never logical with me, Victor. You of all people should know that."

Victor Freeze is the last of the romantics, a man who is willing to do anything to prove his undying love to a woman even turn himself into a walking block of ice, but I do not need him to understand why I breached security protocol other than it was my prerogative. She is my guilty pleasure and one I intend to keep to myself.

There is of course a price for my actions which Dr Arkham will extract from me in kind over the long days. As expected he has suspended my visitation rights indefinitely and mandated over Dr Carver's objections that I be kept in my cell 24/7 until all investigations detailing the cause of the breach are completed. My sponsor has likewise been blacklisted and will no longer be permitted to visit Arkham. But other than the fuss, life here continues along the same old same old routines of life, death, and insanity.

"How soon?" – I tap – "Has he indicated a time? A day? Why the delay?"

"No, but soon he says and to be ready." – Victor taps back – "Jonathan is waiting for something."

"Or someone." – I tap – "With Jonathan Crane you can never be sure."

It is later in the night that I hear the first blast; one of the liquid nitrogen coolant pipes that maintains Victor's cell at the subzero temperatures he needs. Followed by another and yet another, each blast louder than the first and each rocking Arkham to its foundations. The British are coming.

I watch the lights in my cell flicker once, twice before surrendering to blackest night. Arkham is about to become a nightmare. I hear a collective scream ring out as the power goes out cell block by cell block and the electronic security doors deactivate and slam shut locking down inmates and staff alike in the darkness until the screaming reaches a crescendo of terror and then merciful silence.

I sit and wait, but not for long, the manual lock to my prison clicks opens and I hear the scratching of metal on the stone corridor outside my prison like chalk on blackboard. It sounds like something or someone is moving or dragging a large metallic object across the floor. I turn my head towards the door and greet my visitor – "Victor, long time no see."

Scuttling low on the ground with his long spinney limbs, Victor Freeze is nothing more than a frozen head and torso encased in an exoskeleton which resembles a giant spider crab. Clicking two of his metallic limbs together Victor taps his greetings to me. He has brought company, an old friend he tells me and I smile – "Prof Crane, how nice to see you again."

"Dr Isley, how very nice to see you again too." – Jonathan Crane returns my smile as he returns my greeting, his mouth full of small sharp white teeth all the better I imagine to eat me.

He is tall over 6 feet, long lean sinewy graceful like a cat with much the same eyes; his whites stained a curious jaundiced yellow all the better if I believe what he tells me to see me. He has spilled liquid perhaps coffee all across the front and sides of this jumpsuit leaving dark unpleasant patches that remind me of ink blotches. This is most unlike him. Crane is most careful about his appearance down to his immaculate tailored silk suits.

"I trust that you weren't too shaken by the explosions, Dr Isley? That's the problem with liquid nitrogen coolant systems isn't it, Dr Fries?" – He continues with a nudge and a wink, a parody of an over grown school boy put on specifically for our benefit – "You have to make sure some fool doesn't meddle with the pressure relief device. Its all better left to the experts."

Crane is polite and cheerful to a fault as he locates the manual release for my cell. There is something disturbing about a man who carries on as if he has just met old acquaintances for after dinner drinks when he has literally brought a heavily secured facility screaming to its knees. That must have pleased his bloated ego no end, the cries of a terrified Arkham sweet in his ears.

He springs the door to my cell and giving me his hand gently helps me out – "Mind your step, Dr Isley. They will be turning the emergency power on soon. Standard practice for a code red situation in Arkham, kill the power and switch to the backup generators."

The touch of his hand, the sound of his voice is warm, strong, reassuring. Jonathan Crane is an attractive attentive man with a wonderful old world manner about him but he makes the metaphysical hairs at the back of my neck stand on end. There is something about Crane; an unexplained darkness about him that makes even me uneasy.

He moves to check his watch but abruptly stops – "Oh I almost forgot." - He smiles as he reaches into the pocket of his jumpsuit for something and presses it into my hand – "A little gift, I heard what he does when he comes around. I just want you to know that I don't think it was very nice for him to do that. "

It's a small plastic name tag with the word "Leonard" stuck on it wet and slick with blood. Crane did not spill coffee on himself.

All this time, while Victor and I sat and waited in our cells, Crane was waiting for someone, someone with questionable judgment and behaviors who had access to the secured containment facility where Victor and I are kept. Someone whose damaged psyche he could sink his long fingers into, someone to twist, turn, and throw away like the screw top off a bottle when he saw fit. I wonder if Crane ever even knew his name.

Victor taps something to Crane and he nods in agreement – "Quite disgusting really." – Before turning to me in all earnestness – "We aren't all like that you know."

I smile and nod. Crane is a man who makes his point.

We are smiling in the dark like little children sharing a dirty joke when the lights begin flicking back on again. The Arkham grid has started drawing power from the backup generators, the same generators they use to electrify the metal mesh that covers the skylights of my cell to stop me from breaking through the glass. Someone should have told Cavendish that overloading the generators is a stupid thing to do if Arkham intends to keep me contained within the electrified barrier because as power is progressively restored to each facility it cause the continuous voltage running through the frame to spike dangerously downwards.

I have been wanting, waiting for this, looking out through the skylights day in and day out and knowing that if not for the lethal voltage running through the mesh I could simply think out loud and walk away from this detestable prison.

The vines lining the walls and roof of the cell block wake as they sense the disturbance in the rapidly weakening electric field and reach out lovingly to me. They have waited such a long time for our reunion. I watch as their tendrils send sprays of sparks out into the night as they impatiently tear their way through the metal mesh, shattering glass like falling leaves.

"It's beautiful, isn't it? Sorts of reminds me of the 4th of July and Christmas all rolled into one." – Crane whispers as he takes my hand. He is right it is beautiful; the taste of freedom is so sweet it takes my breath away. But Crane is not one to linger over beauty, like a man he has things to do and people to see – "Shall we go? Ladies first and mind the glass."

The last I see of Jonathan Crane is at a local tavern in Cancun. He is at the bar surrounded on all sides by a gaggle of giggling ladies all high on charm and tequila. A Gotham's ladies group that caters to wealthy women of a certain age eager to escape the winter snow and hail for a chance of romance down south. Crane is in his element.

I catch his eye across the room and we nod our silent good byes. He would have thought me rude to leave without a word. He is a strange man and I am not sad to see the back of him. I imagine that he will leave with his new friends to take in the sights as they make their way down the Yucatan Peninsula. Perhaps he will leave bodies in his wake, a boy here, a grandmother there or perhaps he will be the perfect travel companion, generous, witty, and kindly to a fault. He reminds me of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, only Crane is both at the same time.

I said my good byes to Victor soon after, he was making his way down to Antarctica where he hopes to be able to stabilize his rapidly deteriorating condition which has already resulted in the loss of his limbs. It started as a sore on one of his hands before quickly spreading to all his extremities, the quacks at Arkham just stood by and watched as gangrene set in and bit by bit his tissues turned black and malodorous.

I was only going as far as Kuhikugu at the headwaters of the Xingu River where I still have friends. I was sad to see Victor move on, I would miss our conversations. I hear later that he eventually returned to Gotham, drawn back by grief to locate the cryogenics capsule which holds the thing that was once his wife. He loves her truly, madly, deeply still. He is a man frozen in more ways than one. Crane likewise returned drawn back like Victor by his personal demons.

I don't know why I don't return maybe it's because unlike them I didn't wish to face my demons anymore. Perhaps I am less pragmatic than men. I believed I could run away from Gotham. Things are better here in the endless sea of green, where it's peaceful and full of life. Sometimes I dream about Robinson Park; my hanging gardens, the children, and my beautiful wild thorny rose. When I wake Gotham seems so far away in the heat and sounds of the jungle that stretches out as far as my eyes can see, and I take comfort in my forgetfulness. It should be spring again there. It was early spring when they pulled the first body out of the big lake which sits in the heart of Robinson Park. I remember she had beautiful cornstalk eyes.

Waylon comes to visit for a while. I know he hopes that I will return with him, he has so few friends left, but he does not press me. Instead he swims with me in the warm sunshine and makes me laugh again. Waylon loves making me laugh.

He tells me he thinks the fare in the Amazon Basin exotic and spicy, unlike the greasy fatty trash he feeds on at home. He tells me Dr Craver has a new high profile patient, a man who used to hawker hot dogs at the Park. I wish her all the best.

I don't know what became of Harley or her. Waylon never tells me and I never ask, soon Waylon too is gone; Gotham calls to him. He tells me that time heals all wounds, but distance is a comfort to those of us who cannot rely on the balm of time.

I image Harley is probably running circles round the Joker like a planet orbiting her sun king, and I know she's happy wherever she is. Harley somehow always is. Harley will eventually forget me, and find herself someone else to latch onto. Likewise she will be doing whatever she does. I think that's best too. She is better off without me, without having to play politics with the Bat.

One day, while I am sitting in the shade dreaming of cool summer nights in Robinson Park, one of the natives calls out to me and tells me that a woman has come to Kuhikugu, tourist to see the mythical lost city of Z. I say nothing. No one comes to Kuhikugu to see the sights. The British are coming, the Eagle has landed, and my past, present, and future are colliding.

I debate moving further inland away from the river where the virgin jungle is thickest and no human has ever ventured and returned, but I am tired of running. That night I make my way down to the river to the trading post, a figure is on the cot at the far wall sleeping when I enter. I stand and watch from the door a while before leaving.

She's waiting for me outside. "Was it difficult to find me?" – I ask. She steps out of the shadow into the silvery night; dark head dark eyes with that maddeningly familiar smile.

"I would have found you eventually." – She says quietly, with a hint of triumph despite the exhaustion etched into her face – "You didn't make it easy for me but I believe that if you really didn't want me to find you, the trail would be cold."

"Did you ever give up hope?" – I had forgotten how strangely charming she sometimes is. "Always and never." – She replies as she steps towards me – ". I would spend days and weeks following leads that went nowhere, but every time I felt like I had reached a dead end, there would be a news story, or a rumor, or an eyewitness report, that would point me back onto your trail…."

She hasn't changed. She is still full of herself, so cock sure of who she is and what she needs to do to maintain the status quo. But even more damming she sees me not as I am but what Gotham and the Batman have made me out to be; a danger that needs to be locked away in a tiny glass cell for the greater good.

I feel the familiar panic of fear and doubt seeping out of me like tainted water from a polluted spring. I paid the price once of believing that she would not unfairly judge me but in truth I am nothing more than a game to her; an interesting challenge she has set for herself. She has come to hunt me down and skin me for the bragging rights.

"I'm not going back to Arkham, detective" – The words come tumbling out of my mouth before she can finish speaking. She stops and looks at me as I slowly back away from her wary of any sudden moves. The jungle has suddenly gone quiet, the trees swaying unnaturally in the stillness.

She knows I am lethal when I have to be and if she is smart she will let things be, if she is not than we will see who hunts who down and skins them for the bragging rights. I will write my name across her smooth pale skin like I did to Edward Nigma. But she does not move, she is transfixed in position like a statue chiseled out of cold, dead marble looking at me with eyes alien and unreadable. I am almost in the safety of the dark cool green when she reaches out for my hand - "Pamela…please I want to talk."

I stop and stare. She looks like she might cry as she stands there all alone dirty and tired with an outstretched hand trying to hold onto someone she does not understand; Gotham a million miles away.

She has pursued me across a continent. I do not understand why she does not attack me, knock me down and push my face hard against the mud and tell me she is doing this because she wants to save me from myself. That is what they do. There is no grey in their world, only the clarity of sunlight and shadow.

She calls out to me again - "Pamela." - she says - "Please." - Not Poison Ivy just Pamela. I have not been Pamela for a long time. Woodrue killed her and I buried her deep down inside where she never sees the sun, that stupid naïve school girl who didn't know any better than to have a crush on her collage professor.

She is silently crying now as she reaches out to me, I can see the tears as they streak down her grime coated face; I still think beautiful. I do not rememeber the last time I cried.

Is this how things heal? Can I even begin to unravel the hurts that I wrap around myself like a coat of thistles? There is a lot I do not understand. I do not understand her. I do not understand myself. If imperfect understanding is the human condition, than there is no difference between her and me. We all pay a price for the roads we take, but sometimes we have a chance to stop and look back at the choices we make and if we are brave and bold enough to take steps to make amends. That much I know.

She has pursued me across a continent, but she will let me walk away from her; disappear back into the vast sea that is the jungle if that is what I want. She has given me more of a choice than I have ever given her.

I turn and look at the green all around me taking their beauty into myself one last time, before I walk back into the night drawn by a desire I had thought forgotten to touch her face.

***

THE END (???) - for now at least? OK I need to apologise. This is the 3rd time I've rewritten this chapter and baring hell and high water this is it. If you're pissed at having to read it again, I'm really sorry it took so long for me to get things together. The endings always kill me. Please leave a review.