Author's Note: Cast of Characters can be found on my profile.
Madness Becomes Her
Prologue
The sliding of the ward door grates on my nerves as it closes behind me with a loud scrape and latch of the lock, and I jump. Ahead of me, the main hallway stretches and branches into a labyrinth of corridors, and I suddenly feel lost among them- as if this is my first day at Arkham, as if I'm just a grad student again, with only my protective I.D. badge to separate me from the inmates. Except this time the fluorescent lights are blinding, the locks are all bolted against me, the cuffs are on my wrists, and I'm the one wearing the bright red jumpsuit.
"Come on, Quinzel."
The guard pushes me forward- a burly guy with the name tag Benson that I don't recognize- and I shuffle along the stone floor.
As we pass cells patients stare out at us. They don't seem surprised to see me, which I find strange. But then I remember how quickly gossip spreads through the network of Arkham's children, and I realize that they must have been waiting for me ever since my papers were stamped yesterday. Clinically, legally, completely insane. I cringe.
"Doctor."
Up ahead a woman is sticking as much of her body out of her cell as she can, she sneers at me as we slowly approach her.
"Doctor," she says to me, her voice faux-sincere as she pleads for my attention. "Oh, doctor, can you help me? I'm so c-c-c-c-crazy and I know you can help me!" She breaks off into hysterical laughter and a dozen or so other patients join her. This isn't maximum security and this isn't the ward I worked on, but these women recognize me nonetheless, and they find it positively hysterical to find that the tables have turned. Pretty soon the entire ward is laughing, their cackles bouncing off the stone walls in horrible echoes.
Suddenly, I'm overcome by panic and I turn around, saying, "I don't belong here," and I try to hurry back down the hallway. Benson, however, has a firm grip on me and he turns me back around before I can get anywhere.
As he pulls me forward he says, "You're not going anywhere."
"What's the diagnosis on you, doctor?" another woman asks, and the others laugh even louder.
Doctor, they call me- it's their own little joke.
Without warning, Benson stops and uses his key ring to unlock the door in front of us. As soon as he opens it he pushes me inside and slams the door shut behind me, the lock clicking in place immediately.
"Someone will come for you shortly," he tells me- as if I didn't know- and then leaves, the sound of his heavy shoes disappearing as he gets further and further down the hall.
And then, there's silence, save for the lunatic ramblings of the women around me.
"Doctor, doctor, give me the news," one of the women begins to sing. "We've got a bad case of loathing you!"
Laughter closes in on me.
"Harley and Joker sitting in a tree," another patient sings- her voice shrill and high. "F-U-C-K-I-N-G."
This gets a rise out of the other women and they laugh and shriek in amusement.
I slide down the grimy wall into a sitting position and shut my eyes against the noise.
"Come on, doc," the woman who first addressed me speaks again. "Tell us, was he hung like a horse?"
His voice urges me- for no one else to hear- Go ahead, Quinn, rile 'em up.
I don't say anything though.
"We all know you two were doing the dirty during your sessions," the same woman says, her voice carrying across the ward. Where are the attendants? Why don't they shut her and the rest of her catcalling fiends up? "Indulge us."
Come on, kid.
No.
"Just tell us the truth," she says. "It's not like we don't know you two were screwing- we all know that's why you went nuts."
"I didn't know insanity was communicable," I reply.
He laughs in the recesses of my mind.
The women shriek in delight.
Give 'em more! Give 'em more!
"Did you two screw on the therapy couch?" another woman asks.
"What happens between Mr. J and I behind closed doors is none of your business," I say, and my reply is met with boos and other sounds of dissent. "But," I continue, and they quiet down. "If we had been together, there was very little joking going on."
This is met with hoots and howls and general chaos by the ladies of the ward.
In my head, he says, That's my girl, and so I don't hear anything else.
