I don't own DC comics.

Chapter 1

'Message 1: Sunday August 15 at 10:53 am.' Said the cool voice of my voice mailbox. The following voice was that of a more cheerful woman. "Hey Lynn. It's Reba. Just touching base with you since our meet up last week. If I'm not mistaken it's your rest day before you go off to your new job right? Good. You're taking my advice. I wanted to make sure you were still good for the 29th for our next meeting. Call me when you can. Keep strong."

'Message Two: Sunday August 15 at 12:45pm ' The next voice was one I would know anywhere. "SISTA!" It shouted. "Hey, it's me. Don't forget we have to break the news to Dad about where you're working. You sure you don't want to tell him now? Whatever. I'll see you after work tomorrow. Don't forget I'm making you my infamous pork chops. Also I have this girl I want you to meet, but more on that later."

'Message Three: Sunday August 15 at 1:12pm' A softer bubbly voice came up. "Lynn, hey. Pick up. Don't tell me you're shutting yourself in so you can 'relaxe'. Fine I get it. Well. You be safe hun. Gotham isn't like the West Coast. I'll try calling tomorrow after work."

'Message Four: Sunday August 15 at 9:44 pm' There was a long pause, a male voice speaking softly into the phone. "Lynn? Wow… Kate gave me this number, said you were back in town.' Again a long pause. " It's been a long time. Five years right? Man… I've missed you Lynnie Bug. Maybe I shouldn't call you that. I'll try calling you later this week. I've got a lots of meetings with Wayne Enterprises, but I'll try to catch you. Umm. Bye?"

Looking down at my phone I let out a long sigh. Tell people I'm taking a day to myself and suddenly everyone needs me. That did give me a chuckle though, Logan my twin brother knew I was taking yesterday for myself. Getting myself all prepped for my first day. Choosing to tell dad tonight, after my first day was to insure that I can handle my new work environment. I mean, it's not any day you start working at Arkham Asylum, the lead facility for the criminally insane, at least for Gotham City.

Caller number one, Reba, my guardian angel in tiedye knew I was taking the day before to gather myself. Her appointment on the twenty ninth would be enlightening at least. At most we both figured out I have a relapse in something, probably thanks to a mental patient inside of Arkham, and I'll have to leave Gotham, again.

Caller number two was Logan, no surprise there. He's been very attached since I got back. I don't blame him. Me living on the west coast has done nothing for keeping our family together. Hence is why Dad didn't call and Logan had to mention him. That was a tricky relationship, but one I told myself I was going to work on.

Caller number three was Kate. Kate's been my friends since kindergarden. We had both had pigtails and in a five year old brain that was like fate. She's been the most supportive, and her being annoyed that I didn't pick up was alright. The last time I didn't pick up I ended up with a big secret that even she doesn't know. Most likely Kate was calling to get details about a club we were going to next week. But with her calling later I didn't think I would call her back.

Then there was caller number four. David Sterling. I'll just call him my ex-boyfriend. I kinda disappeared on him one night in October during Junior year of college. He was an all around dream guy. Fit, handsome, smart, he was top of his business classes when we were at Gotham University. He was literally the perfect guy. But things happened, things I'm still working with Reba about.

My cat Carl looked up at me with these large green eyes. "You're lucky no one calls for you." I said reaching over and scritching him under the chin. He was a beautiful ginger cat. The little purr monster started his rumblings. "But some of us need to work."

My living room was small, basic ikea furniture and things I had found at the local goodwills. The landlord was alright with me painting and in a few weeks I would pull up my sleeves and do just that. Just that morning I was enjoying my third week back in the city I loved. Getting off my sofa Carl followed me to my only bedroom and hopped on my blue and white comforter that was still in a tangled ball from me getting up. I ignored his nesting as I walked over to my small shoebox closet. Inside I had pulled to choices for my first day.

Choice number one was a navy blue dress, tight, and worthy of being the biggest badass to walk into Arkham… besides Joker, and Riddler, and Penguin, and… okay so the inmates are going to be bigger bad asses than me. I got that. But out of the doctors I would look the best and hopefully get respect. And knowing the rumors about Arkham, respect was going to be hard won and hard kept by the inmates.

Choice number two was a bit less 'bitch walking in' and more 'conservative doctor'. It was a nice pant suit. I wore it to my second interview, the face to face interview with the board at Arkham. The grey material was paired with a soft peach color top. Nice, simple, and very boring. It was the 'safe' choice for today.

'Use that place deep inside of you, pull it out and show it to the light.' a voice from a long forgotten past whispered to me. A voice I had once known, cared for. And alike always, he was right.

I picked the dress. I slipped it on and observed myself in the mirror. This is the largest I had ever been, and it's the happiest I have ever been as well. Of course I screamed the first time I saw the size tag. Five years ago I would of had a fit finding out I had become a size eighteen, thank you Lane Bryant!

The clock was at eight forty five, so I picked up a milk crate that had my secret weapons inside it. I will admit that my methods for helping people will be see as… strange. But looking at my background and the way I got into the mental health profession, it would seem almost logical at that point.

"Now Carl, Dad and Logan are coming over tonight. So no girls over, and keep the house clean. Oh and if any robbers come in… sit on them." I said. Yes, I'm well on my way to becoming a crazy cat lady. I know.

The car ride to Arkham was tedious. Gotham rush hour traffic is pretty bad. I mean it's nothing like L.A traffic, but it has it's moments where I question if this is the mad house. To calm my nerves I popped in an audiobook. 'Silence of the Lambs' was playing, but after a good ten minutes I took the CD out shaking my head. What was I thinking? I was going into Arkham! When traffic came to a dead stop for the sixth time I riffled through my things and found a different audiobook to put in. Peter Pan, with a cast of actors for the readers. Lovely.

Traffic finally turned to go to whatever destination it was looking for while I kept moving to the outside of the city. Arkham was on an island just outside of Gotham. The road leading into Arkham looked like a road from a warzone. Large potholes had to be dodged, and signs that said things like;

'caution now entering surveillance zone'

'only GCPD and Arkham employees only'

'hitchhikers might be inmates'

My mouth was drying my the second as I looked around the deserted landscape. FOr it being august it was very brown and dead on the Island. Thinking about those who like in Arkham, one would think Poison Ivy would make this place like Mother Nature's playground? But it's very much not.

There was a large fence coming into view with a very secure looking guard tower. Driving up I pulled my ID and the letter from Dr. Arkham. The guard on the other side looked as if he belonged more comfortably in a mercenary squad, not a mental health facility. He smiled up at me with a missing tooth smile. "Name miss?"

"I'm Dr. Coleman, the new heir?" I said leaning closer to him from my car. I handed him my ID which he looked at looked over at me.

"You've changed a lot." He said handing me the ID.

"It happens when you're in college." I said giving as nice of a smile as possible. Here's something I learned. Be nice to everyone, you don't know when you'll make a friend, and if that friend will be useful for something later.

The guard nodded. "Well, I hope you have a good day. Just follow the signs for employee parking. Dr. Arkham will be in his office by now."

I got a parking spot and picked up my milk carton and looked up at the actual building for Arkham. The building I had read from somewhere was built by the Arkham family in the late eighteen hundreds. It was the jewel of Gotham until insanity came to it's doors and the original dr. Arkham had turned it into a mental hospital. Only since then things have never gone well for the place. Insanity in its doctors, rampant crime of the criminals kept leaking out into Gotham. No, this wasn't the best place to work, honestly it's the bottom of the barrel. But when I told Reba I had gotten the job she told me if I could make it two years here then any hospital in the United States would want me.

The entrance was the old ballroom, grand in a long forgotten way. If someone took the time I bet this place would be the shining star of Gotham. Seated between two large staircases was an information desk. And around the grand room were people, normal looking people sitting in uncomfortable looking chairs. Could these be family members here for visitation? A part of me wondered if Joker had a younger brother who instead of a clown makeup wore a nice tailored suit and had a large stock portfolio. The idea made me smile never the less, even if I assumed Joker had no family to claim him.

The woman at the desk was sever looking with pinched lips and very thick eyeshadow. She looked up at me with a disdainful look. "Yes.." She groaned. "How can I help you?"

"I'm Dr. Coleman." I said leaning closer. "I'm the new Doctor? Dr. Arkham wanted to see me before I got settled in."

At the last sentence the woman nodded and pressed a button. A door near by clicked. "Cash will see you to Dr. Arkham's office." She then looked at my dress. "You were stupid for wearing a dress. You'll learn."

A guard walked out of the door. The first thing that got my attention was his arm… his left hand was now a hook. I could only guess how he lost it. Probably one of the inmates had gotten to him during and escape. Which one I could only speculate, or find whoever is going to be the gossip mill and find out.

"Your Doctor Coleman?" He said looking me up and down. Me and my bitch dress and milk crate.

"I am." I said making myself sound larger than I really was.

He nodded then gave me a shrug. "Better hurry along. Dr. Arkham doesn't like to be kept waiting."

Cash, as the receptionist called him, lead me down hallways that reminded me more of a prison than a mental hospital. The prisoners themselves were in dark brown scrubs with their names embroidered on their chests. No… these weren't prisoners, if I started to call them that in my head I would never be able to give them the care they needed. These were patients, mental patients who needed my help.

We arrived to a very official looking door. Cash gave a knock and a low man's voice called for us to come in. Giving me a nod Cash opened the door. "Good luck."

Inside of Dr. Arkham's office I got a feeling off of who Arkham was. You can tell a lot about a person when you see their what I call their trophy wall. Dr. Arkham had a large trophy wall that took up the right side of the room. The pictures were aligned with awards and certificates that Dr. Arkham had gotten. He also had pictures of himself with a number of famous people, many of them politicians for the Gotham area. The room itself was grand with rich dark wood that encased books and busts of famous philosophers. A burgundy leather sofa sat in front of a large dark hard wood desk that had neat stacks of papers. Behind the desk was Dr. Arkham himself.

Dr. Arkham was in his early forties with rapidly greying hair on a long face. He reminded me more of a donkey with the way his jaw stuck out. He wore a nice suit with a very off putting tie in a fluorescent blue, not my color of choice on a guy like that. His glasses were pushed to the very tip of his nose, they balanced like the scales of justice on the very beak like tip.

"Dr. Coleman." He said standing up. I was a good half a head taller than the older doctor. This had been the bane of my existance since I hit puberty. My body shot up and out faster than everyone else. These days I didn't care if people were smaller than myself, growing up does that I think.

Dr. Arkham shook my hand his face was grim. "I'm sorry, we had a disturbance last night."

"Disturbance?" I said. He gestured to the sofa and I took a seat placing the milk crate next to me.

"Yes. Seems Penguin thought he could intimidate Mad Hatter."

"Oswald Cobblepot intimidated Jarvis Tech?" I said.

Dr. Arkham blinked at me. "You know here we use their hand picked names. Keeps them more distant from the normal population."

That was a warning sign. Treating the patients like something other than human was not going to add a welcome human relations to the place. If the patients can't connect to the staff then what hope was there to help these people?

Dr. Arkham folded his hands on his desk and watched me. This was a tactic I had used under very different circumstances and because of that I leaned back, showed him I wasn't worried. "Dr. Coleman. You're the first female psychologist we have hired in Arkham since Harleen Quinzel. Did you know Dr. Quinzel at all?"

" I met Miss Quinzel at a conference once. She was giving a lecture on psychopathic minds and how she thought they worked. She was very passionate." I said keeping the finer details in my fog of the past.

"Then you do know what she has gone crazy because she fell in love with Joker."

That story rocked the medical community. A doctor falling in love with a patient was forbidding in most circles, but beit that the patient was Joker… there was no pleasant ending for that. Harleen… now Hardly had gotten a codependency disorder and now couldn't fully function without someone holding her hand. I knew where she was coming from. And that's the only way I was going to be able to help her where others had failed.

Dr. Arkham let out a drawn out sigh. "We had no other options, no male doctor will work with Harley. Joker has a nasty habit of killing her doctors." He then smiled. "But a nice lady like you, surely you'll be able to get through to the girl."

"I'll be honored to work with her."

"But." Dr. Arkham cutted me off. "We have criminals in here. Sickos who think they can manipulate us. Cobblepot can be persuasive, so can Riddler, that guy can act sane long enough to get you to do anything he wants. So be on your toes. The men in here… you do like men right?"

"I'm straight." I said shortly.

"Good, the men in here are not going to cure themselves for you. Most likely they'll twist you into whatever shape they want you and force you to be their little play thing." He said. His words hurt. Did he give the same speech to the men who came in here. He probably didn't. I could feel old thinking from Dr. Arkham. Treat the ill with pills and lock them away from society. What happens once those people break out and are off said pills, well they're back to their murdering rampages. I had seen a different way when I was younger, and part of that way for me here.

"Now you'll be meeting Early this afternoon. Cash will show you to your room." Dr. Arkham opened a drawer and placed a small black object on the desk. "This is a tazer. I do hope you know how one works?"

"I'm a native to Gotham sir." I said picking it up.

He nodded. "I would rather my medical staff be more armed, but the board sees otherwise. If a prisoner gets uppity than give them a good shock and report them to the nearest guard." With that Dr. Arkham stood, me I stumbled up to meet him. He walked around his desk and shook my hand. "Good luck Doctor. Arkham might not be Jon Hopkins, but it's got it's own lovely charm."

Walking out of the room I felt like I needed to take a long shower. Cash gave me a small nod. "We should hurry up. They're going to be moving around the level ones soon."

"level one?" I asked my voice giving a small crack.

"Yeah, Joker, Victor Zaza,..." He looked down at his left arm "Killer Croc."

Right, he lost his arm to killer croc… I would make sure I remembered that for later times. I prayed I would never have to deal with him. He was one of the people here I would doubt I could help. Probably best to leave him in his cell… where ever that is in here.

"We move them to their therapy sessions around this time."

"all of them get sessions?"

Cash smiled. "Killer Croc doesn't. Better that way in the end."

We continued down, past a number of checkpoints. There were so many guards, I was stunned thinking of the number of times people tried to escape from here. One would think it would be easy to keep the pacientes in here. Cash looked at my glances and nodded. "We get paid shit. So if penguin or Two face want out they only have to find the most desperate and pay them enough to get what they want."

For a place that should have been a beacon of hope, this was the pits of hell. I could hear someone laughing and shouts up ahead. Cash looked behind me giving me a not so comforting worried look. "I"m going to go up ahead and check if things are clear."

Cash leaving did not make me feel safe. None of this did. I picked the tazer up from my milk crate and looked at it. It was a one touch tazer. Meaning I would have to get up close to whoever got this little buddy between the ribs.

Further down I heard more shouting and the laughter dying out. The shouts quited down leaving me alone… with the sound of footsteps behind me. Getting myself turned around I saw a form approaching me. For the last five years I've become an expert at a lot of things, hand to hand is not one of them. The man was able to grab me by the arms and press me up against him. One of his arms went around my neck so he could stop the blood flow to my brain. I knew how long I could last. And I knew how to fake being unconscious, again I have learned many a thing in the last five years of my life.

I slowly let my body go limp in the man's arms. Dropping all close to three hundred pounds of me. The guy didn't calculate how heavy I would be and dropped me to the floor which I quickly braced for. I was able to roll and get the taser out and to his leg. The buzzing sound was sickening as I looked up at the inmate. The man was bald with tally marks all over his body and face. Victor Zsasz's. He fell to his knees the electricity still getting pumped through his system.

Cash must have heard the noise because he trotted back to see me brush myself off. "Well shit." is all he said.

From behind a group of guards were moving someone with heavy chains. You know what they say about train wrecks right? You just can't stop looking at them, even if they are so horrible? Well that's what that moment was for me. A train wreck. Because the guy who was laughing, the guy who made Cash leave me and gave the opening for Zasz to take a shot at me, he wasn't what I expected for one.

Years stuck in the asylum had not been kind. Pale pasty skin. This once rich brown hair looked dull and unkempt. His blue eyes, those blue eyes that could see right past my bull shit. Jonathan Crane. The boy I knew, turned into the man I protected. He was walking past me, his eyes not catching mine. He couldn't have forgotten me. There was no sane reason for him not to look at me. Not to see me and know I had made good on the promise I gave him five years ago. And because of that my heart hurt.

"Come on Scarecrow, play nice with us." Said one of the guards.

Jonathan was almost past me when his foot kicked one of my bag that had been in the milk crate. There he paused. His head twitching for a moment. "Boys, pick up these things and return it to the lady." He said stopping in his progress.

One of the guards bent down and set my items right. The poor guy was shaking as he handed me the crate. Taking ahold of it I was now the person shaking. Jonathan's eyes had rolled over to me. So long ago I would have defended that Jonathan was alright. He was 'fine', but those eyes. He had a similar look once before… and on that night I knew he had lost his mind long ago.

"Boys," Jonathan said, his words curling on his lips into a smile. "to my session. I believe Dr. Arkham and I have much to discuss about his childhood."

The group continued on without incident, Cash beside me shook his head. "He's one of the worst. Scarecrow, you know about him right?"

I wasnt able to say the truth. What would Cash say if I told him how well Jon and I knew each other… calling him Jon for one thing would ruin any plan I had on helping the people in here. No. It was best I kept my mouth shut. "Only what the news tells me."

Cash nodded. "That's all you really need to know. Lost his nuts a while back they think. Dr. Arkham has been seeing to him personally. Crane just can't get it through his head that he's not a doctor any more. They're saying he's in denial."

I would be too after all that happened to him. I must be the only person in the world to really now Jonathan Crane. To know him and to know the thing that lead him to become scarecrow. Dr. Arkham wouldn't be able to break him. Jonathan kept what happened in his family home a secret. I only found out because I walked in on what was happening.

Birds swooping around. Black like the terror they brought into the boy below them. Far off in the distance lighting cracked. 'God who would do this to a person?'.

Cries for help… the bottle, 'cover your face'.

I hadn't had a flash like that in years. Normally it was a flash of other things, but we weren't going into that. I hadn't thought about Jonathan's past when he came to Gotham. My stupidity that he had survived. Only he had survived like any soldier did, and that comes with mental scarring. No. I had done him wrong. And now I was better, I was healthy and I was ready to help the people here… at least the ones who could be helped.

A/N: So I hope you like the first chapter of the second Batman story. For those who haven't read First Kill I highly recommend doing that before going any further. As always please review and thanks for the read.

I didn't look at the chapter before I posted it, so my apologies but everything should be in order!