Crane approached his couch warily. Standard procedure, even outside of a formal setting, demanded that he check up on his apparent patient. The henchclowns had removed the greasepaint, but the Joker was still paler than he should have been. The lead thug came to stand at Crane's shoulder though he maintained a respectful distance.

"He's not well, but not too bad either, considering," Crane mused out loud. He turned to the lead henchclown. "You mentioned that he tends to recover rapidly?"

"Yeah, you should see some of the Bat-inflicted injuries he manages to recover from. Even fractures don't keep him down for long. I think it was the infection that finally got to him. Even when he was sewing his arm up, he didn't say a word. He just giggled a bit and kept smiling. He seemed to find it funny," the thug explained.

"I know you told me not ask, but the knife gash, how did he—" Crane began.

"Well it's like, well you know how you're not supposed to run with scissors…" the thug trailed off into self-conscious silence.

Crane gave him a measured look. "I see. The startling thing is that I'm not really surprised at all. Don't disturb me unless there is a change in his condition." With that, he went to his room to read in a vain attempt to recapture a sense of solitude.

Only an hour after he had sequestered himself, Crane was interrupted by the nervous henchclown. He shot a speculative look toward the draw containing a small supply of toxin before dismissing the notion. He went to the door instead.

"What now?" Crane snapped. He was gratified by the way the henchclown flinched.

"He's awake."

Crane gave no outward reaction to the news. He walked calmly toward the couch. The Joker was indeed awake. His eyes were still a little too bright and his colour wasn't great. However, he was wearing a huge grin to complement his involuntary one and he seemed to have broken the fever. Such a recovery rate was astounding.

The clown was half sitting and half sprawling on the couch. His gaze flickered rapidly around the room, noting details, before settling on the bandage around his arm. His hands fiddled with the old blanket that was tangled about his legs. Occasionally he'd poke at his bound wound and giggle to himself.

Crane stood still as he observed. It would be hard to distinguish a delirious Joker from one that was acting in his usual manner. The clown did not seem at all bothered by the unfamiliar environment or the fact that he was half dressed. The wary presence of his henchclowns probably contributed to this. After a moment, Crane broke the silence and addressed his patient.

"Joker."

"Scarecrow."

There was a pause. "How are you feeling?" Crane asked, falling back on accepted procedure.

"Super-duper, doc. I hope the boys haven't been too much of a hassle," the Joker smirked.

There were many questions Crane wanted to ask, ranging from the practical, 'Why me? Why here, considering that you've never actually met me before this?' to the more psychologically interrogative. Conversation had never been a strength of his.

"'The boys' haven't been disruptive to their full capacity, but I can't say their presence has been welcome." Tact was not one of his strengths either. Apparently the Joker found this amusing.

The clown raised his voice to address the other individuals in the room. "It seems you've overstayed your welcome, boys. Whoever has my coat can hand it over and the rest of you can scram. I'm sure the doc has better things to do than look after you lot."

The lead henchclown handed over the Joker's shirt and coat and stepped back quickly. It hadn't been necessary to tear the cloth to get at the wound, which in hindsight was probably a very good thing. The Joker fished around in the pockets with practiced ease and withdrew some small tubs of greasepaint. His smile widened.

The henchclowns filed out wordlessly, a couple of them throwing looks over their shoulders at their boss. The lead one had the audacity to give Crane a warning look as if he was the one who had just acquired a coat's worth of knives.

"You aren't leaving with them?" Crane asked the Joker pointedly.

"Nope. You know as well as I do that I'm not fit for proper travel."

Crane decided that if the Joker was well enough to be ordering goons around and restoring his makeup, he was probably well enough to travel—not that Crane was about to press the point without a key advantage. However, he did spare a moment to wonder if dosing the Joker with fear toxin was worth the risk if something went wrong. Scarecrow was quick to point out that he'd be willing to do it, regardless of risk factors. Crane ignored the suggestion.

The doctor remained quiet as the Joker re-applied his paints. When the clown was finished, Crane asked his first question. It was reasonable to think that the clown would be more likely to talk without his thugs hanging around like stray puppies.

"Tell me, why did your thugs bring you here? Surely there are more sensible places they could have brought you to recover. I am not known for my adherence to the Hippocratic Oath."

"True, and there're a couple of reasons. I know that unlike some back-alley doctors who would wet their pants at the sight of me, you'd never be tempted to call the cops. You have more to lose than any of those petty criminals. Also, I've always wanted to meet my predecessor. You were the first costumed villain in this city and with the vagueness of events… you might even have predated Batman."

The Joker's expression twitched in an odd way as he mentioned his archrival and the gleam in his eyes was almost impossible to categorise. Crane noted this and filed away the interesting response. One day, he'd have to ask the Joker about his opinion regarding the vigilante.

"Did you actually tell your thugs to bring you here in the event of your incapacitation?"

The Joker snorted. "Oh yeah, I sit around for days and days, working out every eventuality and explaining contingency plans to the boys. That's how I like to spend my time."

"Touché. But if you didn't tell them to, why did they bring you here?"

The Joker shrugged. "They're good at being adaptable, at least the ones that manage to stay alive are. One of them probably remembered my ah, distaste for most doctors and decided that you'd be a safe bet. I make sure that a few of them know some of my contacts. It's also fun to tell some of them one thing and the others something contradictory. I guess it's just lucky that one of the competent ones was in charge."

"'Lucky'? You could easily be dead, or in Arkham by now, if they'd taken you elsewhere."

The Joker shrugged again. "Maybe. Who knows what's going to happen next? I could still end up dead tomorrow, for all I know. Part of what makes life fun is the unpredictability. There's no good reason to obsess about control, you gotta just let stuff happen. That's why I don't sit around thinking about 'what if' and 'might'. It's useless because life likes messing up neat little plans. Life is messy, but more importantly life is chaos."

Crane had never heard something so absurd or irresponsible. It was true that all things tended toward entropy. It was basic thermal dynamics. But humans had the ability to impose order and fight against entropy. Surely no one could live without making some sort of rudimentary plan? The idea of being shoved around by the whimsical currents of probability was entirely unappealing to the doctor. However, he remained silent. If his professional experience of psychiatry had taught him anything (apart from that his contempt for humanity was a well-founded conclusion), it was not to argue with the lunatic about irrelevant points. That way madness lay.

~X~

The relief that Crane felt at having his apartment comparatively empty, was short lived. Ignoring the Joker's presence until he had some idea of how to deal with him was Crane's first instinct. This meant that Crane decided to have an early night. He felt only vaguely apprehensive about leaving the Joker to his own devices. The clown was still recovering from the infection and he seemed quiescent for the most part.

There was no television in Crane's current residence, a fact the Joker had bemoaned, but there was enough reading material to keep anyone occupied for at least a few months. Besides, he should be sleeping to give his body a chance to recover and Crane had advised that course of action.

Unfortunately for the doctor, the Joker was not known for doing things which were logical or advised. He did in fact pride himself on his chaotic behaviour and, as a few unfortunate individuals could attest, his ability to be pathologically annoying. Crane shouldn't have been surprised, not really, but when he awoke to find the Joker's face mere centimetres from his own, he let out a rather undignified squawk and promptly fell out of bed.

From his position on the floor, Crane heard the distinct sound of giggling that quickly became full blown laughter. Scarecrow's growling from the back of his mind made an interesting counter-point to the unwelcome sound. Gathering as much dignity as possible, Crane rose stiffly from the floor and went out toward the kitchen. He resisted the impulse to slam the door and instead closed in a pointedly calm manner. The laughter from the bedroom only increased.

Throughout the day, the Joker seemed to be relatively dormant. Apparently he could behave in a civilised fashion if he so chose. There were no further incidences of irrational behaviour, and Crane was similarly trying to avoid provoking the madman. Neither of them mentioned the Joker's morning antics.

That next night, he let the Joker have the damn bed and Crane took the couch himself. He wasn't pleased, but sleeping on the couch was a small price to pay for sleeping alone. The next morning when had woken, he was even less pleased. He wasn't quite sure how the maniac had managed to 'share' the couch space without waking him, though it served to highlight the Joker's maddening resourcefulness. At least a part of him had expected this so that his reaction was rather more angry than undignified. Crane spent the day acquiring a lock and fitting to the bedroom door.

Crane took his room back that night. He left the Joker sleeping on the couch, crept to his room and was careful to use the lock. The next morning he wasn't really surprised when he woke up next to the Joker, with no evidence to suggest that lock had been tampered with. It was plainly typical behaviour that was clearly intended to drive him insane.

After three nights of waking up with company, Crane was on the verge of sleeping on the floor. However, he suspected that even that would not deter the Joker from his nightly attempt to push Crane over the edge. Granted, discussing the issue in bed was probably not the best location, but the bed was his territory and he was not about to back down. So he decided to bring the matter up as tactfully as he could.

"Are you trying to make things as unpleasant as possible in the mornings or was it just a happy accident?" Well, it was tactful by Crane's usual standards.

Crane continued to rage when the Joker's only response was to give him an amused look. "Perhaps you just can't stand to be alone for any length of time and find the need to—" Crane paused. He regarded the Joker more careful, his gaze searching for meaning in the clown's expression. When he spoke next, his voice had taken on a more coaxing and analytic tone.

"That's it, isn't it? You don't like being alone. This wasn't a calculated attempt to irritate me." Crane had definitely slipped into his psychiatrist's voice, albeit unconsciously, but his next question held an odd edge of intensity. "Does it frighten you to be alone?"

At this, the Joker finally reacted to Crane's interrogation. His smile was anything but cheerful. "Careful there, doc. If you think this is the most unpleasant thing I could do to your mornings, then you are seriously lacking in imagination."

Crane nodded absently. He was mostly oblivious to the threat, as thoughts were streaking through his mind with their customary speed and efficiency. The Joker needed an audience by his very nature. Normal people needed others around in order to remind them that they were human and to help them be human. A human in isolation could quickly lose their grip on their own humanity and certainly on their sanity.

The Joker, on the other hand, approached the same conclusion from the opposite direction. He needed to be around people to remember that he wasn't like them. He needed to be reminded of humanity in order to remember how to avoid it. The Joker—not as an individual, but as an entity or symbol—couldn't exist in a vacuum or without the people that he necessarily mirrored and warped. The Joker, without others around him, would cease to exist. No wonder he sought out Crane's company. It made Crane consider why he had dismissed his henchclowns. However, the interest of solving that minor puzzle paled in comparison to the idea that someone as psychopathic as the Joker was capable of feeling fear. That most certainly required further investigation.