Thank you very much for reading my first attempt at a Batman fic! All feedback (concrit, encouragement, whatever ya got) is greatly appreciated! Also, as I have yet to watch the entire animated series, I apologize if I make any canon consistency mistakes (I've done my best not to) and ask that if you spot any, go ahead and point them out to me, please.
oOo
Prologue
"Red! Pammy Pammy Pammy!"
"Hey Harley," said Poison Ivy. The guard who'd let the redhead into Arkham's Communal Recreation Area backed away and shut the door behind her as her blonde friend sprang across the room to hug her hello. Pamela always loved getting one of Quinn's more enthusiastic greetings, and she savored every second of that hug, knowing that any day now the Joker would be hauled back into the asylum and become the sole receiver of his girlfriend's attention once again.
"What's up?" she asked Harley as they parted.
"Nothin' much," she replied with a bouncy little shrug, "Jerv's hoggin' the TV."
"Is he now…" said Pamela. She looked over Harley's shoulder at the sofa that faced the television and saw Jervis Tetch curled up in a ball, resting his chin on a knee and grinning from ear to ear, his gaze transfixed on the screen. Half-seated and half-sprawled next to him was Professor Crane, scowling deeply with his arms crossed. Ivy figured the Scarecrow was just peeved about his chess partner finding an alternate source of amusement, but then she crossed the room and turned to look at the TV.
"Oh Jervis, really?" she moaned as the too-cute tot on the screen wheedled "I didn't mean to…" to the mirth of the alleged studio audience, "This show?"
She remembered "Love That Baby," had watched it a lot as a kid. Even then she'd found its plotlines cheesy and humor frequently groan-worthy. Now that she was old enough to know that far better programming was available, she found the old sitcom unbearable.
"See?" cried Crane, "I'm not the only one who thinks this show is utter drivel, simply abhorrent!"
"Corny as hell," Pamela added, though she got the feeling Jervis wasn't listening to her nor the Scarecrow.
"Shush…" the Mad Hatter murmured, waving a hand at them vaguely.
"I will not 'shush'," said Crane, sitting up indignantly before launching into an eloquent rant about how he would "no longer be subjected to this torture" because he couldn't stand another minute of "this insipid nonsense" and so on.
"They been bickering like that since I got here," said Harley.
"Really?" said Pamela. She'd be more surprised about the Scarecrow getting so excited over the television if it were any show but this one. As it was, she supposed she couldn't blame him.
"Well," said Harley, "Professor Crane bickers. Jervis shushes." As if to prove her point, Jervis whispered, "Please Jonathan, do you think you could at least hush until the next commercial break?" His eyes remained locked on the screen.
"I don't think—" Crane began.
"Then you shouldn't talk," said the Hatter. He giggled to himself at this, though Crane looked half ready to punch him.
"Seriously, though," said Jervis, "This is my favorite episode. May I please watch it in peace?"
"Your favorite?" Harley repeated curiously.
"Never would've pegged you for a Baby fan, Tetch," said Pamela.
"Oh, well…" said Jervis vaguely. He wasn't about to relate to his fellow inmates the story of how he had gotten into the show in the first place; looking back on the matter now made him feel rather silly. It had all started back before he became the Mad Hatter, when one day his dear Alice had said in passing that "Love that Baby" had been her favorite show growing up. In retrospect he realized that this probably had something to do with the fact—which she also once casually mentioned—that growing up her family had had a very finicky television set that even on the best of days would only allow two channels through with any sort of coherence. Before realizing this, however, he'd resolved to watch the Gotham Nostalgia Network's daily reruns of the show every evening until he was absolutely sure he'd seen every episode. He hoped to perhaps eventually share in Alice's nostalgia this way, that this would help him form a more intimate connection with her. Of course he soon came to regret this decision, but nonetheless he stuck it out to the end. Such a grueling quest had little reward for completion, but at least the pleasure of this particular episode was worth sitting through an entire season of the regular un-amusing monotony.
"Wait a minute," said Pamela, glancing back at the screen to see a familiar scene, "I know this epi—"
"Oh!" Jervis cried giddily, "Everyone be quiet; it's finally getting to the good bits!"
"One time Mistah J told me the best part of this show's the end credits," Harley whispered to Ivy. Being a little young to have grown up with it and not big on reruns, the harlequin girl didn't have much of an opinion of the show herself.
On the screen was a scene in Baby's bedroom. The little girl was tucked into a crib beneath a bunch of frilly blankets while Daddy (As she pondered the scene, Pamela wondered if the parents' actual names had ever been mentioned on the show.) was sitting in a chair at the bedside, reading to her from a book.
"Away went Alice like the wind," Daddy was saying,"And was just in time to hear it say, as it turned a corner—"
"Oh my ears and whiskers," Pamela heard Jervis whispering along with the narrative,"How late it's getting!"
The eco-friendly villainess nodded to herself; this was definitely the episode she thought it was.
"You know this episode, Pam?" Harley asked, quietly, so as not to disturb Tetch.
"Yeah," Pamela muttered back, watching Baby yawn and blink slowly while Daddy kept reading, "It's one of those dream-sequence episodes. She falls asleep listening to him reading and dreams she's in the story."
"It's called 'Baby in Wonderland'," said the Mad Hatter, "You remember this one, Miss Isley?" Meanwhile on the TV the camera zoomed in on Baby's sleepy face and the scene blurred in order to transition into the dream.
"Sure do," said Ivy, "And I can see why it'd be your favorite, but c'mon Tetch, it's still the same stupid show."
"Au contraire," said Jervis, lifting a finger. He seemed about to add something to this, but instead the action on the screen recaptured his attention and he hugged his knees and let out a squeal of delight.
The dream was established now, and Baby was wandering a short hallway full of doors, trying every one of them, of course finding them all locked. The rogues were—to Jervis's relief—mercifully quiet as Baby found the table with the little key and discovered the tiny door the key went to, opened it, peeked out through the doorway that she was too big to go through.
"No fair!" the little girl cried, crossing her arms with a too-cute pout. The studio audience tittered.
"Charming…" Crane drawled.
"We're close to the commercial break," Jervis said with a little sigh, "Please?"
Baby strutted back over to the table in an angry little huff until she spotted a bottle there. Taking the label hanging from the bottle's neck in hand and looking at it, she recited, "Drink me."
And then—this was apparently important, for the Mad Hatter leaned forward in anticipation—the little girl said, "No."
Pamela gasped. That hadn't sounded like Baby's voice at all; it was like a grown woman speaking while Baby lip-synched. The little girl went on in the grown-up voice:
"I'll look first," she said, "And see whether it's marked 'poison' or not."
"That's just freaky," said Harley.
"I never noticed how creepy that was when I was a kid…" Pamela agreed. She noticed that on the show the strangeness had elicited a sort of nervous, tentative chuckle from the studio audience, as if they weren't sure how to react to it.
"Why on earth was it done in the first place?" Professor Crane wondered aloud.
"'She generally gave herself very good advice (though she very seldom followed it)'," Jervis recited in a helpful tone, "'And sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes; and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself—'"
"What are you talking about, Tetch?" Pamela demanded. Normally she could tolerate the man's incessant quotation of Carroll, but this particular quote was stretching out longer than usual and the uncanniness she'd just witnessed had set her on edge.
"'For this curious child,'" he went on, clearly annoyed at being interrupted, "'Was very fond of pretending to be two people.'"
This said, the little man beamed and nodded at Jonathan. The room went quiet for a moment while on the television Baby was growing smaller and smaller via the power of very poor special effects.
"Pretending to be two people?" Jonathan repeated, raising his eyebrows.
"Yes," said Jervis, "Quite a fascinating way to portray it they have there, don't you think?" It was quiet again. Baby adorably pouted over the revelation that she'd left the little key on the table top before trying to shimmy up one of the table's legs.
"If ya say so, Jerv," said Harley with a shrug.
"Oh noes!" Baby cried upon finding herself sliding back down the leg and the audience giggled, sounding relieved to hear Baby talking in her normal voice again. With a dramatic stab of strings from the soundtrack, the show cut to commercial break just before Baby hit the ground. Pamela let out a little laugh then: Was that supposed to suspenseful? Was she actually meant to think that Baby could get hurt? Though if she did it would be the funniest thing that ever happened on the show…
"Why don't you get your heckling out of the way now, Jonathan?" said Jervis, "So I can have quiet when it comes back on?"
"Do stop pouting, Jervis," the Scarecrow replied mildly.
"I wonder how they did it…?" said Pamela.
"Did what, Red?" said Harley.
"The voice," said Pamela, "The studio audience was weirded out, so it obviously wasn't added in later. I guess they must've had a woman standing backstage or something…"
"Actually," said Crane, "It was probably 'Baby' herself."
"No way," said Harley, "No kid can do a grown-up voice that good."
"That's just the thing," said Crane, "She wasn't a kid, even then."
"Huh?" said Harley. Jervis and Pamela also turned their attention to Crane curiously.
"She was a woman with a condition," said Crane, "One of my favorite journals did a piece on her some years ago. It's called Systemic Hypoplasia; it stopped her from aging properly. She was a teenager when she started the show, in her twenties by the time it ended. I don't know, of course, but I'd wager that 'grown-up' voice was her actual voice."
"Now that you've said it," Pamela mused, "That little kid voice of hers does sound kinda fake…"
"Fascinating…" murmured Jervis.
"That musta been awful for her…" said Harley, "To get stuck like that, to never get any bigger…"
"Never get any good at acting either, for that matter," Crane put in.
"That's right," said Jervis with a scowl, "Let it all out now."
"Really I was only stating public knowledge," said Crane, "She tried to 'go legit,' after the show was cancelled. Did some Shakespeare and what-have-you."
"I'll bet that went over like a lead balloon," said Pamela.
"Indeed," said Crane, "Although while we're on the topic, Jervis, this Wonderland episode of yours isn't looking any better than any other instance of this atrocity."
"Oh but it is," Tetch insisted, "I promise. It's such a faithful adaptation, for being just a half hour; watching it feels almost exactly like reading Wonderland, just shorter, with some bits missing."
"Until 'Alice' says 'I didn't mean to', I'd imagine," said Poison Ivy.
"True enough," the Mad Hatter conceded, "But such superfluous flourishes become hardly noticeable when one instead notes the detail put into the script, when one realizes that one of the writers for this one simply must have been quite the Carroll fan. Oh! It's starting again!"
"I wonder—" Professor Crane began to say.
"Please, Jonathan," Jervis whined, "You can't possibly have commentary after mere seconds!"
"I was only going to say," said Crane sullenly, "That I wondered if this allegedly accurate representation of Wonderland is what you'd dream if you were to hook yourself up to that dream machine of yours."
"Oh," said Jervis between suddenly gritted teeth, "Is that it? I suppose I'd offer to test your hypothesis if that machine weren't currently in the possession of the GCPD." He hugged his knees to his chest all the more tightly as his cheeks turned red.
"Oh Jervis," said Harley, putting a tentative hand on the fuming Hatter's shoulder.
"Aw Professor," said Ivy, sucking in a breath through her teeth, "Too soon…"
"It's been months," Crane protested.
In response, Pamela merely quirked her eyebrows with a nod at Tetch, as if to say, "Always too soon for this guy, even if it has been a couple of months…"
oOo
Thanks to the quartet of rogues watching from the asylum, the Gotham Nostalgia Network had a grand total of five viewers for its daily "Love That Baby" afternoon rerun that day, which was about four more than the typical amount.
Her home was a small apartment but a nice one, especially for downtown Gotham. Even after many years of dwindling, Mary Dahl's bank account held enough old "Love That Baby" paychecks to keep her comfortable for at least a few more years to come. She still wasn't sure what she was going to do when it finally dried up.
The retired star was flopped on her sofa now, dully resenting the fact that her legs were no longer than the cushions were wide. As she watched herself make her way through the meticulously—though still cheaply—recreated Wonderland on the screen, she leaned against the giant stuffed bunny (or at least large stuffed bunny; one couldn't really call something as big as she was "giant") that occupied one side of the sofa and hugged a teddy bear to her chest, whispering along with some of her lines. She'd rather liked Alice in Wonderland before she'd had to do this episode, but now she hated the way she could recite large chunks of its narrative from memory, and how the story always reminded her of… something she did her best to force herself not to think about.
Normally watching her show gave her something akin to happiness these days, a sort of bittersweet warmth that welled up in her little chest and, if only for a moment, wiped away all the awful memories of her life since leaving: How she'd been practically laughed off the stage in Macbeth, the endless, hopeless auditions that followed, learning the hard way how to live on her own, without the help of the folks at the studio, or even her parents—where were they now, anyway? She hadn't spoken to them much since starting the show…
Sometimes she liked to imagine getting the old cast back together—except for stupid Cousin Spunky—and doing a few more episodes, for old times' sake. She bet could, if she really wanted; everyone had loved the show—had loved her—back when it was on, so who would turn down a chance to see the reunion? All their old fans would be so happy, and all her old on-screen family would be so happy, and she'd be so happy, everyone would be so happy, it would be the perfect finale…
This episode didn't make her happy, though. In fact, this episode tended to give her nightmares. She hated this episode.
She watched it anyway, mentally retreating into her reunion fantasy when it made her sad. There wasn't anything better to do.