Chapter Two: Request Denied
Moira was escorted to the South Wing by an orderly named by Bentley Truant—26-years-old, average build, brunette, blue eyes, and a massive temper for an orderly at a hospital for care and sensitivity.
Bentley Truant was only one of very small selection of orderlies who could stomach the South Wing and wasn't afraid of them. With a history of elderly abuse in nursing homes, Moira gave him a job over the South Wing where there wasn't much helplessness in the patients. Just people who matched his anger, and should they grow unruly, Bentley could match them. He wasn't burly or very strong, but his anger could overcome that obstacle.
Despite his personality being that of a little boy who liked to pull apart the legs from Daddy Long Leg spiders, Moira liked him enough.
"He been talking about his stupid shit all damn day, Headmistress," said Bentley respectfully.
"I told you that you don't have to call me that, Bentley," Moira said amusedly, walking through the South corridor briskly with Bentley at her side, striding quickly to match her pace. "Moira is fine."
"Seems a bit informal," said Bentley.
"That's the point, child," said Moira.
"Well, we ain't friends."
"Oh, I'm hurt," Moira teased him. "I thought we were very good friends."
"You're my boss, ma'am."
Moira smirked and continued to walk ahead of him, always pleased that the moody boy respected her title and position. Perhaps she hadn't hit the mark as an elderly woman and that's why he didn't see her as a lesser than; but regardless, he was quite considerate.
He passed a card through a scanner and the steel door to the South Wing opened.
When Moira entered, the violent ward's common room was emptied as was protocol for the South Wing, and all inmates were in their cells, each room guarded by a Briarcliffe officer, hands on their pistols in their holsters at all times. The orderly led her through the empty common room, down the open hall of the patients' rooms. Before she would venture toward Strange's room, she checked on the various clients through their appropriated small door windows.
When all seemed to be in order, she greeted the guard who stood by Strange's door.
"Looking weary this morning, Officer Docks," said Moira.
The guard in question looked as tired as a person who had played about three rounds of 20 Questions with a toddler.
"Strange is unforgiving in his incessant discussion," Officer Docks remarked lethargically. "Been talking for a good minute until I told him that you were on your way. Hasn't said a word since." And then he breathed, "Thank fucking God…"
Moira smiled and patted him on the shoulder.
"You're doing fine, Docks. Go to my office, sweetie. Dr. Arden can treat you to something that will make the day a little easier."
Bentley watched Docks take off to Moira's office. He licked his lips enviously, knowing what lay ahead for the lucky cop. Bentley wanted to have a drink too, but Moira never invited him up to the office. Drinking on the job sounded pretty fun, but none of that for the loyal orderly. Moira caught his look of jealousy and shook her finger,
"One day, my pet." She caressed his jawline with consideration, and Bentley pursed his lips. "One day. But you have to earn your keep around here to get those kind of rewards."
"I'm loyal," said Bentley. "I do enough."
"Good enough isn't good enough," Moira remarked. "Thank you for escorting me to through the halls, Bentley. You're no longer needed here. Resume your duties, feed the patients, find Bella Donna May and get the East Wing ready for movie night."
"But—" Bentley wanted to debate the efforts of his loyalty, but the pointed look from the warden zipped his lips, and his cheeks strained with the tongue in his mouth flipping up and down to retort something to her, but he digressed. "Fine."
"Thatta boy," Moira approved, lightly tapping his cheek with her short-nailed, manicured fingers.
Bentley pulled his head away from her begrudgingly, as a small boy would when his mother wouldn't let him have a cookie or soda so close to bedtime.
Moira saw him cross the hall, and when a small cry came from one of the rooms, Bentley slammed his fists against the steel door and shouted angrily, "Shut up!"
Moira shrugged this incident off, scanned her ID card and inserted a key into a deadbolt.
The door opened and Moira looked down at Dr. Hugo Strange, who was reduced to a black-and-white clad little man with a full beard, looking worn and torn.
"Hugo." Moira said.
"My name is Doctor—"
"Yeah," Moira chuckled. "That title has been sacked for a few years. You're not a doctor anymore. You're a patient...of my hospital. Remember?"
"I…" Hugo said, rising to his feet from his dismal, worn cot, "am not just some toss-away inmate. You put me in this forsaken ward like I am a violent brute—"
"That's because you are a violent brute," Moira said callously. "You're responsible for the murders at Haven, the murders of militant men whom were supposed to liberate Gotham when Bane and Nyssa took control. Killed a lieutenant. All your doing with your chips in the brains of two good men—"
"It wasn't my call!"
"Neither was it Ed Nygma's when you had him shoot an RPG through a window of innocent women, men, and children."
"I was going to be killed."
"Self-preservation must be your biggest weakness, Hugo. How pitiful you must feel that you are trying to make everyone a scapegoat—"
"This is cruel and unusual punishment!" Hugo said angrily, stepping forward to intimidate Moira. "I am asking you to move me to the East Wing. This was my hospital too! These people here want my blood!"
"This hospital has been renamed and refurbished and is no longer your place of employment nor your rules. It is my playground, and I own every slide and swing. You don't even own the mulch that layers the floor... Metaphorically speaking. Of course you know what that means." Moira remarked with a breathless laugh.
She collected herself professionally, gratifying in Hugo's expression of hate. He wasn't used to condescension, but Moira insisted in putting him in his place.
"As for your desire to move to the East Wing," she continued, "That ward is for those who have unstable mental illnesses and is provided for delusional or highly intelligent patients, not necromantic proteges."
"I sense some favoritism," Hugo remarked. "You insult my work as if I were some incompetent barbarian—"
"Not exactly an inaccurate statement, is it?" Moira remarked snidely.
"You shouldn't show favoritism in your domicile, Moira. It'll be your undoing. Ed Nygma is a crazy, personality-split egomaniac with merely a penchant for riddles—"
"Not the time to psychoanalyze Edward, nor me, Hugo," Moira dismissed his proposal. "Edward Nygma is no longer suffering between two halves of the mind; he seems to have realized who he truly is. As should you realize what you really are: a mad scientist, who likes creating abominations in the basement for base value of doing so. I value intelligence in my little zoo I have here. You're not intelligent. Your scientific curiosities are mere intrigues of what it's like to put three different colors of Play-Doh together to see what color it would make. Primitive," Moira explained dryly.
"I can be helpful." Hugo said, trying to appease to her. "You aren't a psychiatrist. You have no qualities that suit you for this mantle you've been given. You're no doctor. I can help you, and you wouldn't have to pay me. My freedom is all I would ask for in return for my services."
"I have all the help I need. It is you who needs help." Moira said. "Your request to be transferred to the East Wing is denied...again."
She began to leave but her hand was caught and Hugo held her back onto his room, eyes pleading.
"Please, Moira."
"You're in no position to bargain. I'm not your puppet on a string, little man." Moira ripped her sleeve from his grasp and pushed him into the bed. He gasped and realized his fealty. "Quit talking to my staff. Quit bucking the system. Stop harassing my orderlies, do not talk to Officer Docks."
"Moira, please—"
"We're done." She stepped out of the room, closed the door.
Officer Docks and Dr. Arden came strolling through the empty corridor and attending her standing in front of Hugo's bedroom door.
Moira sighed in thought. Arden waited for her statement of how to proceed.
She glanced at Hugo and then turned to Arden.
"Have him go to the ICU." Moira remarked.
"Thinking that he needs a little more intense therapy?" Arden said with a smile.
"Electroshock therapy seemed to be Hugo's preference to treat hard-to-deal-with patients when he was head of Arkham," Moira said casually. "It's how Penguin got his certificate of insanity before. Give Hugo a taste of his own medicine, Arden."
Arden nodded.
Moira patted his arm, "Don't be afraid to enjoy a little bit of it yourself, Darling. They say that if you like what you do, you never have to go to work."
"Will do, Warden." Arden commenced, nodding. He glanced at a now cheerful Officer Docks, gestured, and then Bentley Truant followed the orders given by their mistress. As Moira proceeded out of the South Wing, Hugo Strange's screams echoed through the concrete corridor, and then several others hollered out to chorus with his own, then eventually drowned him out by the whooping and laughing in the violent ward.
Moira smiled.