2. Love Madness

Summary: The doctors back in Crypton Asylum would later talk about the missing Dr. Hiyama and say that she had a bad boy complex.

Theme used: the usual doctor-falls-in-love-with-the-patient.

A/N: Inspired by Batman, specifically the Joker and Harley Quinn, or Dr. Harleen Quinzel. Which means I don't own anything. As usual. The ending has been left open ended on purpose and further explanations are at the end to avoid spoilers.

Posted: 11/03/2013

Word Count by Microsoft: 5,955

Her red hair was pinned back into a neat, professional bun. Not a single strand of hair was out of place and they would stay where they were supposed to for a few hours, held there by hairspray and hairpins.

'. . . if uncle wasn't there and if it weren't for the fact that I owed him so much . . .'

Makeup? Decent, subtle and again, professional. She looked ready for business, not a party. That would make a good first impression on most employees and she hoped that her new fellow coworkers would be of the same opinions.

'. . . fifty percent of the doctors there die. Painfully. Murdered by the patients. In what world is this a good idea?'

Her blouse was clean, ironed and white. The collar was stiff and it wouldn't have looked out of place at a conference.

'But uncle survived for twenty years and he really needs me there . . . .'

She pulled on the white lab coat and tucked the mandatory glasses in the breast pocket. Her eyesight was a perfect twenty-twenty, but the spectacles – without actual prescription lenses set in them – were meant solely for protection against a few of the inmates.

Miki Hiyama looked into the bathroom mirror and tried to convince herself that everything would be fine.

"See you, SeeU," she waved to her cat with the fluffy golden fur before leaving her apartment.

First day at work. Yay.

She had experience working with the mentally unstable – five years at the Mikuo Hatsune Institute as a decent doctor with a spotless record – but the Crypton Asylum for the Supernatural Criminally Insane was, to put it nicely, a place filled with irreparable whackjobs. The insane criminals put in there weren't normal; that is to say, they had superpowers. Only unlike the world's superheroes these people used them for the side of 'evil'.

Miki had a hard time believing in evil. Yes, the sociopaths and the psychopaths had been creepy with their eyes without any remorse within them, but their conditions were due to their mental issues. Abuse in childhood, something gone wrong with their brain during fetal stages, things like that. Evil was something that didn't exist in her opinion.

Her uncle knew about her views, which was why he had asked for her help at his job. "Miki," Dr. Kiyoteru Hiyama, record holding doctor for longest time spent working in the Crypton Asylum for the Supernatural Criminally Insane, rumoured to be the evillest place on earth and her father's brother gave her a hug. Enveloped by his arms she smelt the familiar odd mingled scent of coffee and exhaustion on him. He released her and she could see the bags under his eyes had gotten darker than they had been on Thursday. "Glad to see you. How have you been?"

"Good," she answered. "So, what do I do?"

Uncle Kiyoteru smiled at her. "Always enthusiastic. Just like your father."

She nodded and waited for him to continue, ignoring the reminder of her deceased father.

"Well, I'll be here for today, but I'll be wrapping up the last mountain of paperwork on my desk. I've arranged for one of my colleagues to give you a tour around the place, as well as a talk on what to expect."

"And that's it?" she had been expecting more, like how to best talk to the patients, what kind of things to expect . . . usually, her uncle was much more thorough than this.

Her uncle gave a small shrug. "Meiko specifically warned me to leave you, and I quote, 'a blank slate that hasn't been impressed yet'. She's been here for quite a long time as well. You're in good hands."

Since he was supposed to go away for a conference taking place halfway around the world for a month's time Miki could only hope that the person he had chosen could keep her alive till he came back. She couldn't really deny him this break; he'd all but raised her single-handedly while balancing a full-time job. He deserved this vacation more than ever.

Her uncle's definition of 'good hands' turned out to be a woman roughly around her uncle's age with short brown hair and a charismatic personality. "Nice to meet you," she reached out and gave Miki a firm handshake. "I'm Dr. Sakine, and I have just been asked by Dr. Hiyama to show you around and get you used to this hellhole."

Miki was a bit surprised at the choice of words used to describe this place, but she held her tongue. Some people just didn't like their jobs, and with the reputation this place had she couldn't blame her.

"At the moment, we have ninety three patients in our establishment," Dr. Sakine began as she walked over to the hallways stretching east. "That is the largest it has been since 1989 when the Hero League had their Headquarters in Crypton City for that year. Mind you, the numbers will shrink soon when some of them make their breakout."

She was used to seeing news of breakouts from Crypton Asylum in the papers, but the casual way the older woman talked about it so matter-of-factly threw her off a bit. This was on an entirely different level from the one she had been expecting. "The patients," she began. "They, er . . . ."

"Kill?" Dr. Sakine stopped abruptly and turned around with her hands on her hips. "Why yes, doctor, they do. Ever since I first started to work here – that's fifteen years ago – twelve doctors, seventeen nurses and forty guards have been killed on duty, never mind the ones killed outside of work by the escaped patients, as well as the ones attacked by families and friends of victims."

Her uncle had already warned her about the ridiculously high risks and chances of death.

"But someone's got to do the job," Dr. Sakine said grimly. "Those bigwigs up there with their fancy talks and idealistic promises don't know anything about the kinds of people down here."

Essentially what her uncle said, minus the desperation in his voice when he had called to ask her to do this. "Fifteen years is rather impressive," she offered weakly.

Dr. Sakine gave an impassive shrug. "They like me. They like your uncle as well, which is why he's still alive. You don't last long if they don't like you."

Miki nodded, showing that she understood the message. The brown-haired doctor began her walking and talking from where she left off. "I'm sure you've heard about our patients. Care to name a few?"

Her eyes rolled upwards as she dug in her memory, a habit left over from a nervous childhood. "The Mirror Twins," she said immediately, thinking of the infamous torture killers. Other frequent stars of newspaper front pages came to mind and she blurted them out as she remembered. "The Green Lord, Silence, Chimera, Princess Sandman . . . ."

"All the famous ones," Dr. Sakine concluded briskly. "During work hours I advise you don't refer to them by their titles. Call them by their real names. Most of the time hearing their birth names gives them the illusion of being closer to you, which may make them like you more. When they're addressed by their titles, they distance themselves from what few neat things we've been able to teach them. I must tell you, you won't be assigned the ones you listed till you have at least five years of experience under your belt. You'll start with the milder ones."

She was perfectly fine with that. She knew that in this place she was vulnerable. Fresh meat. The arrangement suited her.

What she wasn't perfectly fine with, however, was the sight of all the mentally unstable in matching orange jumpsuits sitting outside in a plaza filled with colourful plastic picnic tables – of all the things in the world – eating their meal. Yes, the eating plaza filled with the supernaturally insane criminals in orange jumpsuits and tables fit for five year olds were separated from them by a wire link fence. No, the fence did not make her feel safe from said supernaturally insane criminals in orange jumpsuits and tables fit for five year olds in any possible way. "Is that . . ."

"An idea proposed by our lovely bigwigs up in office? Why, yes it is!" the doctor walked closer and some of the patients saw her.

"Hey, Dr. Sakine!" Miki tried not to gawk as the Mirror Twins waved to the doctor – and by default her – with identical power-inhibiting collars wrapped around their necks.

"Good morning, Mr. and Ms. Kagamine," she replied smoothly.

"Morning, Doc!" a man with green hair that clashed hideously with the orange clothes he was in chirped. The Green Lord. Oh, my.

Dr. Sakine didn't even blink. "Good morning, Mr. Megpoid."

The man she had a hard time recognizing as the Silence looked up with blank eyes. ". . ."

"Good morning, Mr. Hibiki."

Miki had to admit; she was impressed at just how casually Dr. Sakine treated all of them. One of the patients even waltzed up close to the fence. "Hey, Dr. Sakine," a pink-haired man identified as 'L. Megurine' by his orange jumpsuit leaned on the fence, fingers gripping onto the wire. "Who's the kid?" he asked, gesturing with his chin at her.

"This, Mr. Megurine, is Dr. Hiyama."

Megurine blinked his ice blue eyes and looked her up and down. "Well then, our doc's cross-dressing," he declared. "Have to admit, he's much prettier like this."

Another man came up to the fence. "That's why they call you a dumb piece of shit," the newcomer with silver hair and mismatched eyes muttered. His name, embroidered in black thread on the breast of his bright orange clothes was 'Utatane'.

Miki felt a jolt go through her body when Utatane made direct eye contact with her. Those eyes . . . . They felt like they were reaching out and digging into her brain, searching for secrets within her. She wanted to look away from him and curl up, but she couldn't even blink.

It was single-handedly both the most terrifying and exhilarating thing she had ever experienced. The closest feeling she could compare this to was being on a rollercoaster speeding down a drop so steep it was practically vertical. Like pressure coming down at her from everywhere adding onto the feeling of adrenaline pumping all over her body.

Dr. Sakine stepped in front of her, breaking whatever spell he had been casting on her by shielding her from the sight of his eyes. She found that her eyelids were capable of moving again, and gladly exercised her regained ability to blink furiously. Had it only been a second? It had definitely been unsettling.

Utatane turned away to face Megurine again as the pink-haired man tried to defend his estimated brain capability. "I'm joking."

"Really."

"I'll leave you two to your debate," Dr. Sakine concluded before beginning to walk away. Miki glanced at the two one last time before following.

"You don't want to look into his eyes," the doctor warned as they stepped back inside the building. "Utatane's a hypnotizer."

Miki grabbed her glasses and put them on. The lenses, while not actually correcting her (already perfect) vision, did protect her mind from such manipulative powers. Fat lot of good they'd do her while she was away from the socializing, mind-controlling criminals. She mentally berated herself for the carelessness as she asked her guide a question. "What was his villain identity?"

"Galahad."

She had never heard of him.

Miki may have never heard of a super villain hypnotist who called himself 'Galahad' but she definitely remembered the silver haired prisoner with hypnotizing eyes when she received his file the next day. "Your first patient here," Dr. Sakine's eyes softened in pity. "Good luck."

She took it with a quietly spoken thanks and opened the file on her new desk. The mug shot of the silver haired man with the different coloured eyes stared back at her impassively. Miki put the photo away before delving into his profile.

Name: Piko Utatane

Known Aliases: Galahad, Kane Pitt

Date of Birth: December 8th, 1982

Height: 177cm

Weight: 59kg

Strengths: Has the ability to hypnotize people with eyes and occasionally voice. Physical strength is not on level of supernatural but he is in excellent condition. Black belt in karate.

Arrested: January 5th, 2013

Arrests Prior: 7

Escapes: 7

Registered Cases: 10

Cases of suspected of involvement: 250

Her eyes widened at the large number of suspected cases where he was involved. No wonder she hadn't heard of him. If someone was suspected that many times the newspapers would have given up on covering him after the first three or four accusations. No one wanted to read about someone being thought as a suspect over and over again, and certainly not two hundred and fifty times.

The small number of registered cases puzzled her. Why had he been sent to this place of all asylums?

Her question was answered when she flipped the page. The next few papers were all documents describing his ten known cases. One familiar, famous name nearly made her spit out her coffee. She swallowed the caffeine filled drink and choked for a bit before recovering. She had thought Senator Nero Akita had been put in a coma because of a car accident on the way to a state dinner. Apparently it wasn't so.

By the end of reading about his modus operandi, she couldn't help but be thrilled in a frightened way. The man wiped the minds of his victims and left them an empty shell. Some even forgot how to breathe and died without knowing or understanding anything. She had never handled anything like this in her life.

The more scared part of her brain brought up that if this was a case they thought easy enough for a newbie, she would have hated to see who her uncle and Dr. Sakine had to deal with on a regular basis.

Oh, well. She was in the situation right now and there was nothing she could do to change it. Best to learn as much as possible about her patient before he came into the room. Best to enjoy the learning experience and live through.

The notes on him made by the previous doctors were neatly typed up – most likely by a secretary who could decode the cryptic scrawls all doctors possessed. Every single one of them – fifteen, written by five different doctors – warned her and all possible future psychiatrists for Prisoner Utatane about his eyes and his voice. 'You might as well as stab yourself with a pencil', one doctor had written. 'And gouge your eyes out.' The footnotes on that piece of paper added that some parts of the original comments made by the doctor had been edited for vulgarity.

She was in the process of putting that particular note into the back of the file where she wouldn't read it again when the buzzer made that hideous sound to warn her. She flinched a bit, but composed herself as two guards escorted her patient in. "Good afternoon, Mr. Utatane," she said when the guards had left after handcuffing him to the chair. "I'm Dr. Hiyama. We met yesterday."

Miki pushed the glasses further up her nose – how did her uncle bear wearing such uncomfortable things? – when he glanced at her. "What's your name?" he asked.

The standard response, to try and deflect attention back to the psychiatrist. At least there was something routine in every mentally unstable criminal, with or without superpowers. "I'm sorry, Mr. Utatane, but we're here to talk about you today, not me. Please, just call me Dr. Hiyama. It'll be easier."

"Easier?" He sighed like he was talking to a child who didn't understand anything. "The patients here," he drawled patiently, leaning on one armrest. He was speaking to her, but he didn't look directly at her. Rather, his mismatched eyes were directed at the grain of the wood on her desk like he found nature's pattern fascinating. "Are all used to one Dr. Hiyama, and that's your uncle."

The hair on the back of her neck rose and she felt cold. No one had told him that Uncle Kiyoteru was related to her. The name gave away the knowledge that they were related, yes, but not the nature of their relationship. She could have been his sister, his daughter, maybe even his wife. All were perfectly good explanations, yet he had called him her uncle.

"We don't like being told to change, doctor," he murmured lazily. "Who knows how we'd react when we're told that 'Dr. Hiyama' isn't a man but a woman for us now? Granted, it is for a month only, but like I said," he made eye contact, amused now. "We don't like change."

All her psychiatric training told her not to bend to his subtle threat. Dr. Sakine's advice – make them like you – said otherwise. Her survival sense agreed with Dr. Sakine, but even those two together weren't enough to go against the training hardwired into her brain. "But those are the rules . . . ." she gave a helpless shrug. They were, really. She had to be professional even if she was surrounded by a bunch of crazy psychos out for blood and sadistic torture.

He stared at her for a long time. "How about I call you Dr. Red?" he suggested at last, offering a compromise.

Anything to get a move on. She had to give a little to take a little. "Alright."

Piko Utatane seemed much more pleased after that. "Very well, Dr. Red," he leaned back in his seat and looked down at the table again. "What do you want to know about me?" he asked, the image of an honest open man. As honest and open as he could look in an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs, anyways.

"How about what you like to talk about?" she asked, wanting to take it easy for the first day. And for the rest of the session, till the buzzer that signalled the end of their time went off he talked about willow trees and gentle streams and she listened, taking notes and asking the very few necessary questions required.

"Good day, Dr. Red," he inclined his head and let himself be escorted out by the guards.

"Good day, Mr. Utatane," she tidied up her papers and waited till he was gone to leave the therapy room, knees knocking together with relief.

Dr. Sakine met her outside with an impressed look. "You handled that well."

"Really?"

"He rarely lasts the full hour," Dr. Sakine explained. "This is only the third time he's managed to fill the full session."

"What happened to the doctors in charge of the other two sessions?"

The brown-haired woman rolled her eyes. "Doctor. He had to go to an international conference for doctors studying nutjobs."

Ah. Her uncle. "Wait, he was handling Utatane?"

"He was being uncooperative. The man before had to get therapy for some unknown reason and no one else stepped up."

Ew, therapy. All psychiatrists hated having a therapist comb through their minds. They never agreed with the methods those amateurs used. She remembered the last time she had been forced to talk to a therapist. It had ended with a cup of coffee being thrown at her new white blouse. Miki didn't really feel like losing another silk blouse.

Still, he was her patient and as long as he didn't try to do anything to her or request a new doctor, she'd stick with him like chewed-up old gum on the underside of high school desks. Every day she walked into the room at one o'clock in the afternoon, talked to him for one hour and spent the rest of the day and the beginning of the next analyzing his mind. He wasn't particularly unsettling to her, though he constantly talked about swaying weeping willows and clear streams next to the trees.

After their fourth session together, Utatane paused on his way as the guards began to take him out. "Congratulations, doctor," he said in a partly sincere, partly mocking voice. He left without offering her any explanations. The guards probably knew what he was talking about, judging from their expressions, but they left with him and she couldn't really remember what they looked like. She didn't have a particular desire to track them down, either.

Miki chose to ask about it to another psychiatrist there. "What did he mean?" she asked when she finished explaining the reason for her curiosity.

Dr. Kaai smiled. Her new acquaintance was a woman with an extremely youthful countenance and delicate figure that all together could only be called 'cute'. Much like her appearance, she was sweet and sometimes childishly caring. "You're the first doctor to last more than three sessions with him."

"Is that really a good thing?"

"It is here," she gestured at the wall where the pictures of doctors hung. Under some of the pictures pieces of papers with writing scribbled on it hung, telling to all passing that so-and-so lasted some years here, or managed to make this patient do something. Things like that. "Everyone knows he's extremely picky and hard to work with. You'll be in the Hall of Records for that. 'First Doctor to last more than Three Sessions with Galahad'."

Indeed, the guards that had escorted the hypnotist back to his cell were coming towards them with a piece of paper in their hands right this moment.

Miki felt just a bit proud about her new achievement. Maybe Crypton wasn't so bad after all.

"I'd like to know why you wiped Senator Akita's mind and left him in a coma."

A week in her transfer to Crypton she asked about one of his few known cases. Utatane clearly didn't mind her presence and Crypton Asylum was desperate to show the bigwigs that they were making some progress in fear of yet another budget cut by the director board. She had decided to ask about the senator he had mind-wiped.

He raised one silver eyebrow at the newspaper's picture of the golden-haired politician before he was put in a comatose state. "He isn't my worst one."

"No," Miki agreed. "But I was curious."

With Utatane, she had learned, a bit of her personality had to be involved with this. He fed off personal touches and shrank away from any systemized ways, sometimes reacting harshly against them. Or so the notes had said about the latter. He had never reacted harshly against her. Still, better to be safe than sorry.

"Were you?" he looked right at her like he did when he was checking to see if she was lying or not.

"Yes," she answered honestly.

Utatane looked pleased and a bit flattered. He glanced at the picture of the blonde on the table and thought for some time. "He had one of the brightest minds I'd ever seen."

"Brightest minds?" this was new. None of the tapes from his past therapy sessions – and she had combed through them all back home as she tried to delve into his mind – had mentioned anything about bright minds.

He smirked half-heartedly. "You wouldn't believe me."

"Try me," she never could resist a dare.

The silver haired criminal looked at her with knowing eyes and began his explanation on how everyone's minds were different. Personal touches, unique features, that sort of thing. He, however, could also see the brightness of a mind. He didn't know what the brightness was for or what it meant, but he liked those minds. He liked them very much.

"I'd like to keep them," he murmured, voice barely above a whisper. "Let them light up my darkness."

"Why? Do you have a dark mind?"

"Careful with your words, Red," he said mockingly. Utatane had ditched the title 'doctor' the previous session. "I might be extremely insulted because of the unwanted implications your statement had on my fragile mind, snap and cause a bloodbath."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Utatane," she apologized. Miki was sorrier to Dr. Sakine, who was probably tightening security and safety this very moment because of the statement, but she was able to channel the regret to her voice. He had worded his reasoning in a way that ensured her asking him the question, so he probably didn't mind it. "I didn't mean it that way." Whatever way that was.

"I know."

She found herself smiling. He was like a kid sometimes. Threatening a bloodbath even if he had never been violent before . . . .

When their time was up she leaned forward, expecting his usual cryptic exit remark. "Well, Mr. Utatane," she sighed as the guards came in. "I'll see you . . . ."

"It's Piko," he grinned. "We're friends, aren't we? Friends don't call each other 'Mr. Utatane'."

And then he let himself be taken out by his guards.

Three days later she received a note from the offices informing her that her session with one Utatane, Piko had been changed to nine in the morning. Her afternoon session would be with another patient.

"I hope you don't mind the change," she said to him at their new time.

"Not at all," he hummed. "I was the one who requested it."

She shot him a confused glance and opened her mouth when a blood-curdling scream came from outside. Alarms began to ring shrilly and the red lights in the room blazed. The room's security doors, thick and strong steel controlled by the building's computer system closed over their exit. She jumped out of her seat and hurried over to examine the sudden appearance of the air-tight doors that could probably hold back a trigger-happy tank equipped with a flamethrower and several machine guns. Dr. Sakine had told her about this. Should a patient (or two or three or just all of them) escape their cells or guards the emergency lockdown system would activate immediately to save as many lives as possible. It was also a hopeful way of trying to keep their patients in the asylum. According to the eye-rolling female doctor, the system had never managed that part.

"It'll probably unlock within an hour," her patient assured her. "On the other hand, I don't think you'll get a chance to talk to Aquaria."

Her scheduled new patient had been Ring Suzune, also known as Aquaria, the hydrokinetic woman who was striking out at humanity for polluting water. Miki sat back down and chose not to ask just how he knew about her next case.

When the doors finally unlocked and the guards took him away, her patient – it was hard to call him 'Mr. Utatane' after his words last session and it was extremely unprofessional to call him by his first name – he gave a sideways tip of his head. "See you tomorrow, Miki."

She began to reconsider the idea of going to a therapist.

Dr. Sakine just gave her a new file with the information on a new patient. "Ms. Suzune and five others escaped," she said. "Two guards were stabbed. Take the rest of the day off."

Her second patient was an eccentric professor named William Stockley. He was nice enough, nearly harmless almost, if it weren't for his beliefs that technology had to replace all living things. Whether by changing life to cyborgs or killing all living organisms out he didn't seem to care.

"You'd be a lovely robot," he told her. "I can just imagine . . . SF-A2. What do you think?"

She thanked him but turned him down politely. After that particular session, she found herself wanting to take a nice, long bath where she could soak away all her troubles.

Saying her goodbyes she went home and found a bouquet of red roses waiting for her. It wasn't a mistake, since her name was on the card's section for the recipient. The sender was someone named 'Tate'. She didn't know a Tate.

Miki put the flowers in a SeeU-free vase and took her cherry-scented bath.

"You smell like cherries," the silver-haired hypnotist noted when he sat down in his seat. "Actually, you smell like a chemical that has been arranged in a laboratory to mimic the scent of a fruit identified as a cherry for the sole purpose of profit and convenience."

She had no idea if that was a compliment or not. "Will you tell me about your cases?"

"Am I your friend?" the silver-haired man – after his last words she couldn't call him Mr. Utatane or Piko, not even in the safety of her head – asked instead of answering.

"All the people in Crypton Asylum are your friends."

"That's not what I mean, Miki."

Under the desk, the fingernails of her left hand silently drummed impatiently against the skin of her thigh. "How do you know my name?" she asked, starting to feel a migraine come on again because of him and his mysterious ways of getting information. All the surveillance footages they had identified him in showed him alone. The only interactions he had were with the guards and maybe Megurine every now and then. It had been virtually impossible for him to know what he did yet he clearly possessed that information and Miki wanted to know how.

Maybe her head wasn't as safe as she had thought.

The man flashed her a very youthful grin. "I know everything about you."

Miki resisted the urge to shudder. There he was, doing this again. Give her the illusion that he was harmless and then strip her of those thoughts by showing his true self.

Yet she couldn't deny that his way wasn't interesting. While eerie, it was almost . . . refreshing for someone to know her so well. The traditional dance of getting acquainted hadn't been necessary for him.

She ditched the idea and got professional, trying yet again to make some headway.

At the end of yet another time-consuming yet not very productive session he dropped another set of final words, as usual. "You have one of the brightest minds I've ever seen."

To others, it may have been a compliment. To her, from him, after the justification he had given for the mind-wiping, it was a statement of terror. A hidden threat.

Dr. Sakine was there almost immediately after she heard about the situation. "Go home," she ordered. "You'll get a new patient tomorrow. I'll take Utatane."

"Thank you," she all but shoved the slightly wrinkled and worn file on the hypnotist into her bag and got into her car. No, wait. She didn't trust herself to drive. Miki got out and called a cab. Crypton Asylum didn't tow their employees' cars away and freeloaders valued their lives far too much to rest their cars here. She'd take another cab in the morning.

The taxi driver looked at her with wariness and suspicion, probably trying to see if he recognized her as a super-villain. She just sighed and gave him her address before getting in. Inside the car it smelt like stale cigarettes and the upholstery was filthy. Miki buckled up and kept her eyes out the window on the ride home. When they pulled up in front of the apartment building, she paid the man and went in where the doorman waved from his post at the lobby as she walked by him to get to the elevator.

Nothing for her in her mailbox. She unlocked the door and greeted her cat before taking off her coat and replacing it with a fuzzy bathrobe. Settling into her couch, she turned the television on. A rom-com, some kind of CSI show, the latest installment in a horror story that had been appearing recently . . . .

The action movie seemed like the best choice. "SeeU!" she called, wanting her cat. "Here, girl."

Her cat sniffed, but obliged. She sat in her lap and shot her a look, like she was saying 'fine, but only because I want to'. Cats were like that.

It was a nice movie. Her favorite actress starred in it with her fiancé and the storyline was decent enough – two rescue squads in need of rescue from within a collapsing building. Halfway through the movie they all got out of there and were rushed to the hospital.

"Incompetent people the government hires."

Miki stood up without remembering in time that SeeU was perched on her lap. The golden cat flew off with a screech of protest.

Her silver-haired patient sat on the other side of the couch with both his mismatched eyes totally focused on the screen. "It's the same with the police in Crypton City," he continued. "I honestly don't see how those tax monies are being used properly if they can't even stop criminals."

It took several tries, but she eventually managed to make her tongue move. "They do stop criminals without superpowers."

"True," he acknowledged. He wasn't wearing the neon orange jumpsuit anymore. Somewhere along the way he had picked up a white shirt and a pair of jeans. "But I've seen more heroes taking down ordinary criminals than actual cops."

"I'll take your word for it," she sat back down. Maybe she could ask him a few gentle questions and he'd fall back into the routine. "What are you doing here?"

He took the remote and changed channels, surfing through her limited options on television until he settled on the evening news where an urgent news flash was going on about an escape from Crypton Asylum. One Piko Utatane, better known as Galahad, a criminal with the abilities to wipe and control minds with his eyes and voice had escaped after apprehending two nurses and three guards singlehandedly.

Why hadn't they informed her of this? Miki checked her cell phone. It was off, and wouldn't turn on even as she jammed her thumb at the power button. A slight whistle from his direction made her look at him. He was twirling the cell phone's battery in his fingers, flipping around like it was a square coin. "Catch," he tossed it at her and she managed to grab it before it fell to the ground.

"Thank you," she restored the power source back into her cell. The screen lit up, but it would take a few moments. By the time it was fully functioning he could have very well wiped her mind and besides there was no way he'd let her actually call for help. "And if I may ask again, what are you doing here?"

He gave her a vague smile but didn't meet her eyes. "Would you call me by my name?"

Miki knew she wasn't safe. He was crazy and even if he hadn't rejected her as his doctor in the asylum he was still very capable of hurting her. Interest wasn't the matter at the moment. Doing anything and everything to keep him calm, happy and docile was. Dr. Sakine would eventually realize that he'd most likely go after her. The sensible woman with the keen sense of survival probably already suspected it. "Piko."

Her mind's mental taboo on calling him by his name lifted like nothing had happened. It was almost a bit disappointing at the lack of drama. No lightning flashing, no trumpets from the heavens . . . .

But she did think that the name fit the silver-haired young man.

Piko smiled a real smile. "I always wanted to try this."

And then he leaned in and kissed her.

I had a lot of endings in mind. Miki getting mind-wiped and kept by a crazy Piko as his 'wife', Miki becoming a villain like Harley, Miki dying, all sorts.

In the end I chose to leave it open ended, partly because I wanted people to be able to choose their own ending and partly because everyone would hate me if I let her be mind wiped.