Author's Note: Here is the second chapter. Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed. Feel free to tell what you dislike, like, all that sort of thing. Critical reviews are great. I hope you enjoy!
Elena sat in her office, trying to think of a new way to get inside Harvey Dent's head. He was more than willing to explain that a coin was fair, and it seemed that the whole of his newfound existence rested on that idea. Elena found herself caught between a rock and a hard place, because things could definitely go one of two ways: a) she manages to convince him that his fair coin isn't going to help him muddle through an unfair world and he is cured, or b) she convinces him that he coin isn't going to help him and he goes completely over the edge. As a psychiatrist, she has to focus on the well-being of her patients, but never has she had a patient that was so unpredictable before. If she could just perhaps understand him a bit better, maybe she could come to pinpoint his reactions better…
There had never been a patient like Harvey Dent. Ever. No one was as unpredictable or frustrating to her as he was. From what she had read in his file, he didn't seem to have any qualms about losing his own life, but then he also had a desire to punish those that he believed play a role in Rachel Dawes's death. She knew that he blamed himself. He blamed himself, he blamed Gordon, and he blamed Batman. He never mentioned the Joker…not that she could blame him. She didn't really want to talk about that madman, either. Perhaps that was why he didn't care whether he lived or died. Because he believed that if he died, it would be fair punishment for his supposed part in Rachel's death. She jotted a noted about that on her notepad…Rachel Dawes and that coin were definitely the keys to unlocking the mind of Harvey Dent, and she was determined that she would be the woman to do so.
She remembered what her favorite professor from grad school had told her. "When you're stuck, just keep your pen moving and see what comes out," he had said. So that's exactly what she did. She let her pen move over the paper, and all the questions and thoughts that she had about Harvey Dent just came pouring out. Where did the coin come from? Why did he go into law? How does he feel about letting all his hard work go to waste? If the world was unfair then why even try at all?
When she finally stopped writing, she stopped and looked at everything that was written on the paper. She circled any questions that she thought might be relevant and then put them in order from most important to least important. Then, she elaborated on the questions that she thought might get her the most response. Understanding Dent was going to be key. Before she could do anything else, she had to understand what was going on inside his head…well, understand it the best she could, anyway.
Her cell phone beeped, reminding her that she had an appointment with another client in fifteen minutes. It was Allison, an obsessive-compulsive mother of three who believed that by organizing the cereal boxes in the grocery store, she was saving her children from some impending doom. She had been meeting with Allison for three months now, and she knew that she was going to be bored through the whole session. Normally, she wouldn't be. Normally, this case would be something of great interest to her, but she couldn't get the idea that Harvey Dent and his fascinating brain were right upstairs.
Allison arrived promptly at four, the last appointment of the day. She sat down on the other side of Elena's desk, and answered all of Elena's questions. They went over her diary, and Elena gave her a "homework assignment": walk into the grocery store and buy bread without reorganizing the cereal boxes. Throughout the whole thing, Elena was ridiculously distracted. Harvey Dent, the white knight of Gotham, was upstairs, and she was down here with Allison, who was going to be just fine. In her head, she cursed herself for her unprofessional thoughts. She shouldn't be focusing on one patient at the expense of another.
'Yes,' she thought. 'This case definitely is going to get me in trouble.'
Allison left promptly at five. Elena saw her to the door, and then began packing up to return home. She grabbed her patient files and tucked them into her bag, before heading upstairs for one final check in on Harvey. He was still lying in bed, strapped down. There were no windows in his room, but there were definitely objects that he could hurt himself with, and she didn't want to take that chance. There was a security camera in the room, which allowed her to see what he was doing at any given moment, but that still wouldn't help her if he decided to do something drastic, like hang himself with a bed sheet.
There was a guard stationed outside his room. It was one of Gordon's people. She hadn't expected Gordon to send her a female guard, but he did. She was his niece, apparently. She seemed like a nice enough girl, and 'girl' was definitely a proper description. There was no way that she was a day older than twenty three. Pretty quiet, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It just meant that she wasn't very likely to leave and go tell anyone that she was guarding Harvey Dent at the mental hospital, which suited Elena just fine.
"I'm about to head home. Any change?" Elena asked, gesturing to Dent's room.
"Nope. He's been pretty quiet all day, except right after you left. He yelled for a couple minutes before figuring out that it wasn't accomplishing anything," she replied, her voice quiet.
"Okay, well…someone's coming to relieve you, right…?"
"Yeah. They'll be here in a few minutes. Don't worry about it. Go one home."
"Thanks again…I'm sorry, can you give me your name one more time?" Elena asked, her tone full of apology. Normally she wasn't terrible with names, but today was just one of those days.
"Barbara, but everyone calls me Babs. Keeps everyone from confusing me with my aunt at family dinners."
"Right. Babs…I'll see you tomorrow, then?"
"Bright and early, I'll be here."
Elena smiled at the girl and quickly left the office. The drive home through the five o'clock traffic wasn't a terrible one, probably because her mind was elsewhere, just as it had been all day long. Harvey Dent.
"Elena, you have always prided yourself on your professional ethics. You are not going to give up everything that you built your career on just because of him. You're going to rehabilitate this guy and be done with it. You're going to treat him like every other criminal that you used to treat, and it's going to be business as usual," she said to herself, pulling into her drive way. She quickly gathered her things and went inside.
Her house was dark, and she quickly flipped on the nearest light switch. Needless to say, it was quite a shock when she turned on the light to find Batman standing in her living room, studying her diploma. She dropped everything she was holding and managed to break her glass coffee table.
Batman was already a pretty intimidating idea without seeing him in person. Meeting him in person, he was more intimidating than she could have imagined. Slightly over six feet, she could tell that he was solid muscle. Yeah, definitely very intimidating.
"Dr. Elena Connelly?" he asked, his voice low and raspy.
"Yes?"
"You're treating Harvey Dent, correct?"
"Yes, I am."
"He was in love with Rachel Dawes—"
"That's usually the case, when two people are dating. Unless you're dating Bruce Wayne, though, I don't think the term 'dating' really applies to what he does."
"I don't think that you grasp the seriousness of the situation. The fate of Gotham rests on you being able to rehabilitate this man. My reputation is shot; they need someone that they can believe in. Someone with a face, even if it is as disfigured as Harvey Dent's."
"I'm aware of this," she said, her voice very serious. "I take my job very seriously, and I'm very aware of the consequences of not being able to help Mr. Dent. However, half the battle is understanding him, and that's going to be a complicated process."
"He was driven mad by grief. How hard is that to understand? He lost the person that he loved most in this world and it drove him to madness."
"That was the catalyst, yes. However, I find that with criminals, they rarely do something that they weren't capable of doing beforehand. They've normally entertained the idea, and this event is what drives them to try it," she explained. Batman was silent for a long moment before speaking.
"After the parade…the memorial service for Loeb, he had gotten a hold of one of the Joker's men. He was a paranoid schizophrenic that had been in and out of Arkham for the past few years. Dent was wanting answers, and I found him alone with the man, pressing a gun to his forehead, threatening to shoot him with the flip of a coin…"
Elena smiled. This was just one more bit of information that she could use to unravel the knot of Dent's mind. She whipped out a pen and a pad and jotted the whole thing down, stopping to ask again for the finer points of the story. Batman willingly provided details, which was of great help.
"Thank you, for this. It's going to be very helpful," she told him. He just nodded tersely. "And you know you owe me for the table, right?" she said playfully as she turned her back to set down her pad and pen. When she turned back around after setting the pad down, he was gone. She was hardly surprised. After all, he had to appear and disappear all the time now, so she imagined it was nothing new. She spent the rest of the evening doing her more mundane work: reviewing files for her less interesting patients, reviewing copies of Allison's journal, that sort of thing. Then, she worked out, fixed herself dinner, took a shower and was in bed by 10:30 with a book she had been wanting to read for months. She was asleep ten minutes later, and her dreams were plagued with bats and burns.
Harvey Dent didn't sleep well. He was used to sleeping on his side with Rachel tucked up against him…Rachel was dead, and the straps kept him from turning on his side…the burns did, too, a bit. So instead of sleep, he pondered Dr. Elena Connelly. He knew who she was. He had personally called more than once to try to convince her to examine various members of the Falcone crime family, but she had always decline, claiming that she valued her own life too highly to risk it for a corrupt system.
Her question reverberated in his mind. If some of them deserved to be punished, why did your coin let them go free? In his mind, he knew that she was right, that there were things that couldn't and shouldn't be decided at the flip of a coin, but that was fair. That was the only way to be fair in this unfair world. Fairness was the most important thing in this world, especially when the world was so unfair.
Mostly he thought of the smug expression on her face when she had come to speak to him. She acted like she had all the answers, like she was going to be able to 'fix' him. He knew for a fact that she didn't have all the answers, because he didn't have all the answers, not that he would ever admit it to her. There were still so many questions that he couldn't answer, or didn't. Anything pertaining to Rachel…it hurt his soul just to recall her face, just to think of her light being extinguished…nothing about that would ever be fair…
Tears flowed down his cheeks, burning the disfigured half of his face. Rachel was gone, and there was nothing to lighten the darkness of this existence. There was just this: day after day of being the fallen hero of Gotham, stuck listening to Elena Connelly's stupid questions and trying to dodge them with witty answers. Life was bleak…but it didn't have to be…accept that he didn't have his coin…how to decide, how to decide…?
Eventually, after pondering her questions for quite some time, and trying to decide how to decide…well, he fell asleep, and he dreamt of auburn haired librarians and books about pennies.
When he awoke, breakfast was waiting for him on a table in his room. It was going to be rather difficult to eat, however, because he was still strapped down. His stomach was growling, and he wasn't about to wait on Doc to come around to talk to him before he got to eat anything, so he used the only instrument available to him: his voice. He yelled, knowing that someone had to be around to hear him. Sure enough, he was right. After a few minutes or so, a young girl entered.
"What do you need?" she asked, her voice brisk.
"I can't eat if I'm strapped to a bed."
"Very true. But, before we do anything, I have to remind you…there are two options here: you can cooperate and I'll unstrap you, or you don't cooperate, in which I'll have to feed you. Now, your cooperation is going to make this much easier on both of us, and you get to maintain your dignity. What's it going to be?"
He stared at her for a moment, taken aback by how up front she was. She didn't bother to play games, she just said what she wanted…that was refreshing, especially give the way that Doc liked to ask questions that didn't seem to have good answers. He liked this girl…well, better than Doc, anyway.
"I'd prefer to feed myself, thanks." The girl smiled and undid his straps. "What's your name?"
"You can call me Babs."
"Babs? Like…Barbara?"
"Like, Babs."
And with that, she's gone. He ate his breakfast in silence, or, at least tried to eat it. It took him a while to get the hang of things, because half the food didn't want to stay in his mouth, which made eating extremely uncomfortable and difficult. Halfway through his meal, he felt like giving up, but then he realized that his shrink would probably ask him even more questions about that, so he finished the meal. It was actually pretty good.
Half an hour after he finished, he could hear the click-clacking of heels on the tile, and he knew that Doc was coming to pay him a visit. She opened the door, and despite his dislike of her, he had to admit, she looked…lovely this morning. She was wearing a black pencil skirt that hugged all the right curves, and red peep toe pumps…Rachel had loved heels…
"How are you this morning, Mr. Dent?" she asked, her voice more subdued than yesterday.
"The same, I suppose," he said, his voice annoyed.
"Did you sleep well?"
"Not really, you?"
"The same."
"You slept badly? You mean to tell me that you can't just rationalize your problems away?" Harvey asked. She smiled tiredly.
"It's not quite that simple. You're an…interesting man, Mr. Dent, and I've been given the…opportunity to treat you, and I'm trying to get this right."
"I don't need treatment, there's nothing wrong with me. I've had my eyes opened, that's all."
"You say that your way, your coin, is the only fair way to live in this unfair world, correct?" she asked.
"Yeah, I think I made that pretty clear, Doc."
"I understand that you don't particularly care for me. Why is that?"
"Because you're smug, like you have all the answers in the world, when I know that you don't," he answered before he could think of a reason not to.
"And you didn't need your coin to make that judgment. Did you use your coin to decide to love Rachel Dawes?"
"Don't you say her name! You're not to speak of her," he yelled the minute that her question was finished.
"Let me ask you a series of questions—"
"You've been doing that since you walked in the room."
"If you had to choose who would live and who would die, between Carmine Falcone and Rachel Dawes…who would live?"
"Rachel, of course."
"Rachel and James Gordon."
"Are you serious? Rachel."
"Myself and Rachel."
"Rachel. It will always be Rachel. I would choose her over anyone."
"Without the assistance of your coin."
"Of course. Rachel was a good person. She was doing so much good—"
"So was—is James Gordon. Some would say that I do good. You certainly did. What makes all of us so different from her?"
"I loved her, that's what makes her different!" he yelled, his face contorted with hate for his psychologist.
"You would never risk her life on the flip of coin. Why can't you give the rest of the population that same treatment? Everyone is someone's Rachel. I'm someone's Rachel—"
"Who do you go home to at night?"
"My personal life is none of your concern. It doesn't affect your treatment. The point is, everyone has someone that loves them. James Gordon has a wife and children, as you very well know. Even Carmine Falcone had people who loved him. What gives you the right to risk their lives with the flip of coin?" Elena asked, her voice pensive.
"Because my coin is fair? Which part of fair did you not understand?"
"You chose your victims, and the coin decide if they lived or died. You don't flip a coin over the fate of every person you meet. You think that you're free of the consequences of human frailty, but you aren't. You continue to let your opinion of a person decide their fate, you just do it in a different way than you used to. Instead of appealing to a jury to do it for you, you have taken the law into your own hands, and you can't do that."
"Before the Joker came to town, the people of Gotham applauded the Batman for it."
"And if I recall, you were amongst them. But he doesn't kill people, have you noticed that? He isn't murdering them, he's turning them over to the courts, for their fate to be decided. You could do that. That's what Rachel would want you to do—"
"Don't you tell me what she would want! You don't know what she would want!"
"Anyone with common sense would know that she sure as hell wouldn't want you flying off the handle and killing people, that's for damn sure!" Elena snapped at him, her composure completely gone. She stopped and took a few breaths, trying to calm herself. This was most unprofessional behavior, and she was hating herself for it. She also knew from the look on Dent's face, that he was taking great pleasure in knowing that he definitely was getting some enjoyment out making her lose her temper.
"Do you know the five ethical principles of psychology, Harvey?"
"Can't say that I do, Doc."
"The first principle is the principle of beneficence and nonmaleficence. Basically, it means that I'm not allowed to harm you, physically or psychologically, and that I cannot let my personal beliefs interfere with your treatment…you're not exactly making it easy to follow this principle, Mr. Dent. My answers are logical, and try as you might, you cannot negate logic. I know that you're a logical man, because you understand the ideas of what is fair and what is unfair. You're clinging to a broken, system. Let it go, and you're free. Free of this place, free to mourn Rachel properly…but cling to that, and you're stuck here," she said.
Harvey just stared at her for a moment, contemplating her words. He knew that she was right. Her logic was right, but he wasn't ready to let go of his coin, of his principles of fairness. The world was so crazy and chaotic these days, that it was so easy to let someone—something, rather—else make the decisions for him. But she was right, damnit, and he didn't want her to be. He had wanted to beat her at her own game, and he couldn't…she had rendered his coin useless. She had torn his principles apart, and he didn't know what exactly he was going to cling to. Instead, he collapsed back in his bed and refused to look at her.
"Harvey, I know that things are chaotic in this world, but we just have to do the best we can muddling through. I went to school for…a very long time to teach me to muddle through things, and I can help you. You just have to let me. When you're ready to let me help you, I'll be here," she told him, her voice soothing. Then she rose and left the room.
She knew that she should feel some sense of triumph, like she had accomplished something, but instead, she was remembering the look of loss on his face. It hurt her to her core, and made her more fascinated still, because she knew that if he let her help him, she would come to understand even more, what a complex man Harvey Dent really was.
Author's Note: So, there you have it! I hope you liked it. If not, let me know why.