Gods of Chaos


Disclaimer: See Chapter 1.

Chapter 4- Meaningless Noise

-


The tape cuts into her hand.

Doctor Harleen Quinzel is pacing in Arkham's staff bathroom, back and forth across the dingy tiled floor.

She doesn't know what to do.


It is very rare in a person's life that they can claim that a day was at once the greatest and yet the most terrible day of their lives.

But Harleen thinks she can.

When he arrived, it was her chance. To crawl out from under the psycho-therapy rock and be noticed. He was, at the time of his capture, the most wanted man in Gotham. As a criminal, of course, but every psychologist worth their salt was watching closely, all through those days of terror, because here was a chance that came along...well, never, for most of them.

Gotham seems to have more than its fair share of mental patients, but there are none to compare to The Joker. And for a girl from a small town, for a girl who had spent crushing, draining, thankless years amongst the hospitals and prisons and institutions and asylums, it was a hand up out of the pit.

It would mean book deals, articles, seminars, respect- something hard to come by, in this field, when you were blonde, young and female- and it would mean money. The great and common motivation.

But not his. Hadn't she heard that he had burned a fortune, more than enough money to seize the Mob, hell, the whole city, by the throat? And for what? To prove a point?

It was insane.

And yet...he didn't seem insane at all.

Of course, there are words that describe parts of him: psychopathic, sociopathic, sadistic.

Delusions of grandeur- and yet-Harleen's never met a man who didn't have delusions of grandeur. And are they delusions, when every man, woman and child in Gotham knows his name?

No matter how you try to define him, he slips away, changes his skin, right before her. He talks to her with such gravity, such understanding.

When he looks at her, she feels nauseous, so afraid. Her stomach drops and her fingers shake and she blushes and yet, and yet she feels so...bold with him. He is from a much larger world than she has ever imagined. He knows so many things.

And he doesn't think he's sick. It's not uncommon, but when he tells her that medication won't, can't fix what he is, (and he seems pleased by it), she believes him.

She has told him, more than once, to keep an open mind about his treatment.

But he just laughed- my God, that laugh-quirked a brow, leaned forward-like it was a secret- and said, "Ya know the trouble with keeping an open mind, Har-ley? Someone will always insist on coming along and...dropping things into it."

How can he get to her so quickly? When he speaks, she's so fascinated that she forgets to take notes. She takes the recordings of their sessions to her office and listens to them over and over again. He controls their sessions, really, she can't delude herself into thinking that these sessions are the same as the others she conducts. That he is just another patient.

She doesn't want to admit it-obssessed, you're obsessed- but that word hangs in her head, especially late at night.

She doesn't sleep well any more, in her tiny apartment. And she notices things like- I have no pictures on my walls-my bed's covered in case notes-my God, I have no life, I have no life outside these papers, this career-it's funny because she's never really noticed, cared, before.

Before him.


She looks at the tape.

And now you've betrayed him.

She looks at her reflection, tries to see that girl-where is that girl, who was so enthusiastic about helping people-but her blue eyes are wide, and empty, staring back out of the mirror.

Judas.

She's done her deal with the devil- no worse-with a Dick- and he's going to want the tape.

Once he has it-

He doesn't even have it yet and already-

If she gives it to him-

There will be money, yes, and respect and probably articles and book deals and lots of lovely things to clutter up her bare apartment-but-

What about him?

The door squeals on its hinges behind her and Richard is framed in the door. His strong jaw looks weak, quivering under the harsh lights. His voice echoes over the tiles.

"Have you got it?"


Some-thing's wrong.

Something's wrong something's wrong

something's wrong

some-thing'swrongwrongwrongwrong

Beep.


They've done something-what have they done-why can't I-

Beep.


Calm

Down.

What's the last thing that-oh.

Harleeeee-n.

Harleen and her little ex-peri-ment.

She-and the tape-

Oh.

Oh.

Beep.


Shush.

S-hush.

Because everytime...

I get...

Excited...

They kick in.

Okay...

Okayyyy...

Gotta get out.

They've wised up somehow (you know how)

That-tape-and-they-drugged-me-

Nobody.

Drugs.

Me.

-and-now-its

Thought I had my little Harls all figured out.

Hee-heh-heh.

Oooohhh

That

Bitch.

Beep.


Harleen leans over his bed, watches sadly as his eyelids twitch.

Whatever he's dreaming of, it makes him frown, makes the scar tissue bunch and twist in grotesque ways. She wonders if he realises what has happened.

She wonders if he knows that it was her.

But Jeremiah's word is still law and while he's in charge, he's quite content to let this particular patient rot in a drugged sleep. It's quite an elegant solution for all involved really.

(She has to gulp down the nausea. This is not humane at all.)

Every time the patient's heart rate spikes over the approved resting rate, or his brain activity become more complex than what is considered necessary for basic function, the drug is administered straight into the vein.

(They have to feed him by IV now, like he's a vegetable. It makes her sick-)

If he's never fully conscious, then he's never a danger to himself or to others. That's the bottom line.

(My god)

She strokes his hair, because he can't stop her.

"I'm so sorry." She breathes, quietly so that the surveillance microphones won't pick it up.

She remembers his wild, joyful laughter in their last session, the drug singing in his veins, making him speak so quickly that the words knotted themselves up as they came out. Jumbled sentences about escapes and French and purple and knives and smiles and Batman-always Batman-and how stupid they all were, thinking that a straitjacket and a padded cell could hold him.

That she could cure him.

That stings, a little, even now.

Nobody wants to try any more. Nobody wants to bother about him any more. He'll gather dust, here, in this tiny private room, tied to his bed, not even realising what he's missing.

And it's her fault.

"I'm so so sorry."

She passes two guards, one either side of the infirmary door, on her way out.

She doesn't look back.

She can't.


Someone is there...

...

whispering

...

...

...

...

...

who is it

was it

...

...

...

...

I can't think-

Properly

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

Don't...

leave

...

...

tell

me

why

I

Can't

Beep.


Every few days she stops by, strokes his hair, watches his dreaming face.

He doesn't look peaceful.

She can feel his ribs, now, count them even, her fingers tripping over each bone through his shirt.

The nurses say that he's stable, fine, fine, all fine they say, but they don't care.

Sometimes she can't come by at all, although she does try. But with all these new patients she's been assigned...

It's too painful, looking at him waste away so slowly, and knowing somewhere deep down, that maybe it could have been different. It's a pain like a knife-thrust, so deep in her gut, and it comes when she watches Richard smile in the hallways as they pass, when Jeremiah sits back in his chair with a satisfied sigh at the end of their meetings.

Sometimes it comes when she's sitting at home, listening to the television bounce off the walls. Meaningless noises. Bouncing off all her pretty new things.

Even when he wakes up, the nurses say, he doesn't do anything. Just stares, normally, at the ceiling. Blinks so slowly that they can count seconds in between. He doesn't speak to them, doesn't seem to realise they are there.

And that means he's off in his head somewhere-plotting, planning, surviving?

Or is there nothing?

If she was to speak to him now, call his name, would her voice just bounce off the walls?

When dogs go rabid they get put down. But humans don't get that same sort of detatched practicality. They must live on.

Suffering.

And somewhere inside, she knows he is.


Next Chapter: ?

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Taluliaka.