Chapter Two: "Ask The Lonely"

You've been picked and it's over
What's the chip on your shoulder?
Out side were solid rainbows
Inside is where the heart grows

Picking up the pieces
Something more to believe in
As you search the embers
Think what you've had, remember

Hang on, don't you let go now
You know, with every Heartbeat, we love
Nothing comes easy
Hang on, ask the lonely

You've got some fascination
With your high expectations
This love is your obsession
Your heart, your past possession

Let down your defenses
Won't be up to the one who cares
As you search the embers
Think what you've had, remember

Hang on, don't you let go now
You know, with every heartbeat, we love
Nothing comes easy
Hang on, ask the lonely

When you're feeling love's unfair
You just ask the lonely
When you're lost in deep despair
You just ask the lonely

Ask the lonely

When you're down in deep despair
When you're down in deep despair
Ask the lonely
Lonely

Charles had left Tetch's room about half an hour later, a smug grin on his face as he combed back his dark hair with his hands. Deep green eyes narrowed, but the grin stayed as he saw Illia Saint not looking as smug and happy as he was. Apparently she had been waiting for him since he did away with Jervis.

"Hey, baby, what's up?" he winked, casting his charm. "Been waitin' for dear 'ol Charles?"

"In fact I have..." Illia replied sourly and removed her glasses and hung them out of her pocket, holding up a set of papers. "These papers represent your contract of pay to work here at this institution, correct?" There was a daring look on her face.

"Yeah, what's this all about?" Charles raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms, "You got a problem, or somethin'?"

"As of now...your days of sodomizing the other patients..." Illia's hands gripped the edges and ripped the pages into shreds, the pieces landing neatly into a trashcan in front of her feet. "Are through. Your contract is null and void, and the police are coming. We've been through this. I told you to stop. When you don't listen to Illia Saint..." She whispered into his ear, her voice seething with hate, "Bad things happen."

"Hey! You can't do this! You have no /proof, woman." Charles hissed, his demeanor changing as he snarled back, ready to grab at her and attack.

"Check the cameras, Charles," Illia hissed back, quickly evading him by stepping away. "And if you lay one hand on me, that's one more account in court you'll have to recall. I'm warning you."

Charles cursed and started running off, "I'll get you for this, you nosy witch!" he shouted, rushing down the hall.

"Sticks and stones, Charles..." Illia muttered under her breath, turning around to leave as she muttered under her breath again, "Sticks and stones."

Jervis was recently strapped into his straightjacket since the nurses had requested he needed sleep now, along with his therapist. He wasn't lying when he had told Illia he had sleeping trouble. The scratches that decorated most of his body was caused by himself when he had attacks in his dreams. He would constantly claw at himself in aggravation and wouldn't wake up even when he was bleeding. So therefore they began putting him in a straightjacket so to not harm himself anymore.

Tetch, though, after Charles left after...a few events...the rogue was shaking and panicked sweat soaked his forehead as he leaned against the wall, shallow breaths escaping his mouth as he shut his eyes tightly. It was very hard to calm himself after what had happened just a short while ago and it took a while before he drifted off, sliding to the ground.

Illia's gait was a little more quickened than it had been the day before, her straight white locks bouncing in time with her steps as she quickly made her way into Arkham Asylum with her briefcase in hand. There was a serious look in her black eyes, one of her pale hands reaching up to tuck away a few tresses that disturbed her sight. Today was session two- the seconds step of what she planned for Jervis' recovery.

Turning the corner, she swung into her office and closed the door, tossing her briefcase into the corner and slouching down into her chair. Her fingers fiddled with a flask that hung from her belt, and taking it off, she unscrewed the cap and took two large gulps of the liquid inside. Her cheeks went red, and she took a huge breath of air. "Wow...stronger than I remember..." Illia observed, putting the silver container down onto the desk and sitting up before picking up the telephone and pressing the intercom button. "Please send in Mr. Tetch..." came her collected voice. "Quickly now, I haven't got a lot of time to waste today."

The person on the other line muttered a reply and sent someone off to fetch Tetch who didn't look all too great. A large bruise had shown itself on his right cheek which was obviously left over by Charles the other day. Lack of sleep was eminent, but the Mad Hatter didn't seemed to be bothered by his appearance, considering he never really got a chance to look at himself lately for a long time.

Jervis was taken out of his straightjacket and was carelessly shoved out of his room and forced down the hall with his arms held back by one of the guards. He was soon left in Illia's office, the guard slamming the door as he left. Jervis only sighed and took a seat, rubbing his cheek and mumbling nonsense to himself quietly.

Illia's sharp black eyes whipped up at the sound of his figure seating itself before her desk, her glasses low on her nose from keeping her head bowed over her reading material. Her eyes had caught sight of the demeaning blemish on his cheek, and she reacted stiffly, as if personally begrudged for it. She knew who had done it, too. Instead of speaking right away, though, she made a few quick notes in her files and closed the file, placing it face-down on her desk and leaning in on her elbows. It was a habit she had, one that she took up when a conversation was about to take an intense turn.

"I take it your night went rather roughly. Thus my first question for today is whether or not you'd like a cloth to go around the small bag of ice." Her middle finger pressed leisurely down on another button, one meant to summon a guard. "The ice, however, is not an option."

Jervis looked up when he heard the woman begin to speak and sighed, "A cloth would be fine," he smiled weakly, "Thank you." He didn't comment about what happened last night and stayed quiet afterwards, looking around.

A guard walked into the room after Illia pressed the button, "yes, ma'am, something wrong?" He made a glance at Jervis, as if expecting the little man did something horribly wrong.

Jervis looked back at him and waved, smiling thinly, "Hello."

"Not necessarily wrong, per say, but I do have need to request of you some ice wrapped in tin foil, as well as a thick dish towel," Illia replied with a slight smile of her own, appearing as genial as one could appear at this time in the morning. She tucked her black pen behind her ear and folded her hands on the desk. "That is, if you don't mind."

The guard only nodded and grumbled as he left, his footsteps heard down the hall.

Jervis looked back at Illia and blinked, "So what are we going to do today?" he asked as if nothing had happened at all last night. Perhaps it was his way of coping, but who knew the real thoughts in his mind? He brushed his bangs out of his face and crossed his legs as he sat down and pushed the seat back to a tilt.

"Today..." said Illia muffled as she ducked behind her desk to open her briefcase, coming back up with another paper in her hand, "We do the assessment test." Her fingers trailed to her temple, where she found the end of the pen and tugged it from behind her ear. "A little more question-asking, really. More or less your opinion of things." She took the cap off of the pen and relocated it to the tail-end of the writing utensil. "Let's begin now, shall we?" Her finger trailed to the first question. "Answer these questions on a scale of one to ten, one being the most degraded, ten being the most commendable. Easy enough?"

"Yes, quite easy. Ask away," Jervis answered, waving his hand. He still was a little wary of Illia. Well, after everything that happened him in the past few years, he learned to be wary of everyone.

Illia gave a conformational nod before focusing back on her paper. "Alright. First item on the paper: how would you rate your stay at Arkham Asylum thus far? Answer honestly." Her pen was poised over the paper, ready to circle the corresponding number.

"Hmmm..." Jervis pondered this for a moment, rubbing his chin, "Well...I'd say a two...it could be worse."

At that moment the guard walked in, placing the ice and other things Illia requested on her desk and left without a word.

"In my opinion...this place could use a LOT of work," Tetch muttered, glaring at the door where the guard had left again.

"That's a given. This place has been in need of evoked changes for decades now," responded the therapist as she made the appropriate markings on her paper before dropping the pen and pulling the supplies closer to her. "Next question..." she trailed off as she began her creation of a makeshift compress, wrapping the ice in the foil as she spoke, "How would you rate the guard service around here?"

"You said only one through ten, true? If not, I'd say a zero. Not that I expected good treatment, but you can always hope," Jervis grumbled, crossing his arms as he continued to lean back in his chair.

Illia wrapped her concoction of ice and foil into the dish towel and handed it over to Jervis quickly, re-gripping her pen to add the "zero" to the scale and circle it. "Any particular one you'd like to complain about while I'm doing the assessment?" she asked without looking up, her dark eyes again focused on the thin piece of dead tree that she was using to record the information she was taking in.

Jervis leaned over and took the ice pack, thanking her and placing it against his swollen cheek, "Well, I suppose one in particular. His name is Charles," he said while shrugging, "I'm sure he's not the only guard around here that gets bad comments, though. And no one really cares about the opinions of the asylum's wards."

Illia had picked up her flask in her opposing hand, just halfway through a sip when she heard the name "Charles", whereas she stopped mid-drink, put down her silver container with a clank and quickly gulped down the odd-smelling liquid already in her mouth. "Oh, you won't have to worry about Charles anymore..." She crossed her legs professionally and wrote down what he said as she commented, "They found him dead in an alleyway this morning."

"Oh, dear," Jervis said, his eyes wide, "What happened?"

"The sodomizer was apparently sodomized..." Illia replied both calmly and extremely straightforwardly as she picked up her flask and twisted the cap back onto it, giving it a couple of violent shakes while commenting, "And after all of the damage was done, he was drugged to death." She removed the cap gingerly and brought the flask to her lips, grimacing as the substance tried to burn at the inside of her mouth. "Mmm..." The noise was one of slight pain. "So says the medical examiner, anyways."

"Hmmm," Jervis raised an eyebrow and didn't seem all that surprised, "Can't say he didn't deserve the way he went," he spoke as he kept the icepack against his face, "May I make a request?"

"Sure," Illia choked on her drink again, deciding it best to not try to drink anymore of it for now. "What can I do for you?"

Jervis watched her drink whatever she happened to be drinking and looked curiously at her, "Well, I was hoping if I could possibly have some tea. It's been a long time and-what exactly is in that?" he asked as he pointed to her flask.

"Oh, this?" the therapist held up the flask. "It's my own mix of stuff." The edge of her tongue came out of the side of her mouth as she went into thought. "It's got sake, whiskey, rum, beer, white wine, red wine, light ale, dark ale, Windex, and Clorox." She cleared her throat. "As for that tea..." Her finger found the intercom button again. "I can do that." She pushed down on it.

"WHAT?" answered a bitter reply. It was the same person Illia had called the last two times, and the person didn't sound very happy. "I have other things to do right now, could you wait one second?!"

Jervis opened his mouth to comment on her incredibly odd drink and stopped, wondering how the woman would take the rudeness of the speaker box.

Illia frowned at the box for a moment, then switched it off and stood up. "Pardon me for a moment, if you would." She smiled sweetly and walked to the door, opening it, and disappearing out of it before closing it behind her. She stood for a moment to gather her sense of direction before her steps led her straightaway to the office where the intercom attendant was located, and as an accent to her underlying rage, her gait had picked up speed until she found herelf outside of the door of the office in less than fifteen seconds. She stood there for a moment before clearing her throat, opening the door without knocking and walking in, her expression so calm that she almost looked cross.

"I need to speak with you."

The secretary looked up and narrowed her already squinty eyes at Illia, "Do you mind? I'm VERY busy," she snapped, typing on her computer and no longer acknowledged the therapist's presence.

Meanwhile Jervis just began pacing the room, taking the ice off and wondering if a plan of escape would be a good idea. Thoughts were swarming in his brain and he turned around to face the door, but stopped when a very large grin appeared in front of the doorknob...

Waiting a few seconds for her presence to take effect, Illia suddenly lept forward and grabbed the collar of the secretary's shirt, jerking her up out of her chair. Her face was within inches of hers. "Now listen, you arrogant, pompous PRICK. I have had it up to my eyeballs with you and your bad attitude over the past couple of days, and I am no going to take it anymore. Oh sure..." Illia flailed a free hand as she spoke, "Busy, busy, busy... ALWAYS busy! Too busy to provide a simple service because you're already too damn busy playing a fucking game of SOLITAIRE!" She released the secretary and continued to scowl. "Now I'm gonna go back to that room, and I'm going to buzz you again. AND YOU'RE GOING TO ANSWER LIKE A CIVILIZED HUMAN BEING!" On that final note, she turned around and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

The secretary stared at the door after Illia left and shakily sat back down and fixed her suit and took a deep breath, waiting for her to be buzzed again.

While Illia was on her way up, the grin in front of Jervis began to form a head around it, and eyes. Not much longer an entire form appeared floating on air. It was a cat. A very unique cat. It was very skinny and its fur was matted and sticking out in every which way as if it was shaved by a very ecstatic kid.

"Oh, you can't leave yet," whispered the cat with the very large grin. Its tail flicked and it placed itself on the ground, purring as it went around Jervis' feet and suddenly vanished again when the door opened. Jervis had no time to react or speak to the odd cat and smiled sheepishly at Illia and moved out of her way.

Illia closed the door behind her as soon as she had made it back into the room, taking a deep breath through her nose. She showed no signs of having just threatened anyone, and it was a good thing, too. It was quite the poor image to be placed on a therapist. Leisurely, she crossed the room and sat back down. "Forgive me. Urgent business called." She pushed the button. "Now then...let's see about that tea..."