"What we remember from childhood we remember forever - permanent ghosts, stamped, inked, imprinted, eternally seen."

~ Cynthia Ozick

Chapter 4: Session # 1 – Past

Iris DeLaine was not a nostalgic being. She had never been such a person. Well, perhaps, she had been in childhood—all seven years of childhood that had been granted to her. But that was a part of her past which she had no need, reason, or desire to unearth.

Which was precisely why she hated group therapy.

"Miss DeLaine, why don't we start with you first?" Dr. Sunshine beamed, twirling a bright pink pen between lime green-tipped fingers, "After all, age before beauty, as the saying goes. Now then," she continued, dutifully ignoring the expression of wintry distain etched upon the teenage inmate's face, "Where to begin…you know I must admit that I'm having difficulty finding anything very specific in your file. How am I supposed to start you off if I have no idea where to even begin?"

"That is the general idea, Doctor." Iris answered dryly, her angular face propped up with one hand; the other rested upon her folded knee, spidery fingers tapping irregularly against the bare skin, "Are there any other blatantly obvious notions you wish to address before we go on to the group part of group therapy, or is the youngest member of this little club going to be the guinea pig for the week?"

Dr. Sunshine was seated in the chair directly pointing towards the door. Her introduction had established the color scheme of her clothing which the inmates would be forced to look out and only hope they wouldn't be blinded. She was certainly keeping up her designated image, today bearing a pair of bright red slacks and a lemon yellow top, with matching sandals. Her hair was drawn up in a neat bun, a professional contrast to the childish color scheme of her clothing and nail polish. The inmates surrounded her in the traditional circular formation established by Dr. Bartholomew. Harley was sitting next to the empty seat beside Sunshine, knees crossed on the cheap plastic seat, arms folded behind her head; Ivy sat demurely beside her, ankles neatly crossed, hands folded in her lap. Across from the three women, Iris and Jervis sat beside each other, the latter toying absently with his hat, fixing the ribbon around it with a concentrated look on his face.

"Miss DeLaine, I might have only been here for a few short days, but don't think I haven't noticed your hostility towards the people who are trying to help you." She clucked her tongue, shaking her head, "Why do you act like that?"

"Why do you insist on talking to me like I'm a toddler?" Iris replied coldly. Blonde eyebrows rose at the wintry tone of the teenager; she made a note on her clipboard before looking back up with her usual beaming smile.

"You seem to have an issue with authority, Iris—"

"Miss DeLaine will do just fine," Iris said, eyes narrowing dangerously.

"And you have no desire to establish personal connections with your doctors. You do know that we are trying to help you, don't you, sweetie? Does that scare you?"

"I'm not afraid of therapy," she said quietly, "And sweetie is not necessary."

"Honey, tell me," Sunshine said, purposefully ignoring the last comment, as well as the cold look in her eyes, "Does this come from something that happened when you were just a little baby? How was your relationship with your parents?"

"Excuse me?" Iris said quietly, her face tight and frigid.

"You heard me, sweetie, how was the relationship with your parents?"

The living room was a large area, with royal purple carpeting pooling out from under the mahogany furniture, lining the warm ivory-painted walls, and spilling out into the foyer through a rounded archway carved into the structure of the wall. In the foyer, thick purple fabric met cool, solid tile; the individual stones combined to creature a design that one might expect to see on the floors of Indian temples. The tiles continued up from the entry hall to the grand staircase—a splendid piece of architecture, winding, twisting as it climbed higher and higher through the six story mansion. Each individual floor had its own extension from the staircase; there was a glass elevator with gold and silver trimmings to the immediate left of the staircase, for any visitors who possessed little or no desire to make the trek up the tiled stairs. Many visitors were there for business matters, with either the Master or Lady of the house; they were quite frequently elderly men who called upon the Master of the estate, and it was for their very benefit that the elevator had been specifically built and installed. Such generosity had been rewarded with considerable donations to Master DeLaine's growing corporation, or in the event of a proposition from DeLaine, such a proposal was immediately passed with little consideration to the contrary.

It was in the living room that many a visitor often spotted a child—all knew her to be Mr. DeLaine's child. It was rumored that she was not his first, but in the view of high society, she was given that very title and treated as such. In the social view, she was the heir, first-born and pride of her parents'. For her tender young age of 4, she was quite the pretty thing, the society ladies always said. A small, lithe creature, with already a mane of inky black hair, falling in a neat sheet to the middle of her back; pale skin and oddly rosy lips, and a pair of the bluest eyes you had ever seen in your life. When she was taken to the parties and galas of her father's business, the ladies always swooned and crooned over the child. Their eyes, exaggerated by the abundance of makeup they always wore, took in the whole vision with many a coo and soft "ooh" of admiration: the slender child, with her inky stain of hair drawn up in a ponytail, or hanging down her back, but always tied with a silk ribbon which flawlessly matched the color of her dress for the evening; these dresses were always silk, with the occasional trim of lace; and finally, the neat little white or black stockings with a smart pair of shoes to complete the image of perfection.

Something people would always note with awe about the DeLaine girl was her obedience. Even when the gala dragged on for hours and hours without a foreseeable end, she never fussed or bawled with tired irritation. She sat quietly upon her designated seat, her hands politely folded in her lap during speeches, legs always uniformly placed together, not like the other children who sat sprawled and indecent in their chairs, whining and making a scene for the parent. No, not this one; DeLaine's girl remained quiet during the entire ordeal; even when the adults were falling asleep in their seats, she seemed to be staring with rapt attention at the speaker. People always noticed this. It could be someone as utterly dull as the accountant, rattling off the latest numbers from the corporation's statistics, which no one desired to hear, but it was policy nonetheless (because none had thought to change said policy). The child would listen, eyes and ears open and alert, her thirst and hunger for their words positively radiating from her little form.

If one spoke to this girl, they would find themselves quite taken aback by her use of language. Where other children where using one, two, maybe three word sentences, this one was speaking as one might expect a child of ten, perhaps even twelve years to speak. She was polite, gracious, and had the best table manners of any child these society folk had ever seen. The ladies always complimented Mr. DeLaine on his child's ability to distinguish the salad fork from the entre fork, the way she neatly spread her napkin out across her little lap, how she always asked for something with "please" and "may I", and of course, her ability to recognize every man and his wife by face and recalled their name with a "Mr." and "Mrs." The men were always commenting about the child's looks to DeLaine, praising him on his choice of a wife and the offspring their union had produced, saying that, "The girl's bond for the modeling agency, just like her mother!" The women gossiped amongst themselves about Mrs. DeLaine, exclaiming they simply did not know how she did it—raising a child, providing for a family, and all while keeping herself young and stunningly beautiful in her modeling career.

They were the perfect, ideal American family: a successful, caring father, a beautiful, loving mother, and the prodigy child.

If any actually had considered to look closer at the four year old child of Mr. and Mrs. DeLaine, however, they might have noticed something that would have been quite unsettling to them. Beneath the neat, clean silk of her dress were marks—small scars, bruises fading or just beginning to rise, raw, red patches upon the belly, legs, and pelvic region from where the pale, tender flesh had been rubbed raw, quite often with ammonia…and even more often for no reason. But even more unnerving, if one looked closely into the eyes of this secretive child, they would have seen sadness—a heavy, impenetrable, devastating sadness that would melt the heart of even the most hardened criminal.

It was a typical day in late October, specifically 7pm, October 30th. The sun had set some hours ago, leaving in its place a blanket of thick violet and dark blue across the sky. By the time the moon would rise that night, the sky would be ebony, just like the color of the child's hair. She sat in the living room, the only other place in the house she spent her time, other than her private quarters, dressed in a lovely blue nightgown, hair sporting a silk ribbon. In her hands, she held a large piece of paper, construction paper to be exact. On this paper was a drawing, one which consumed every corner of the paper with color and detail. This was no mere childish doodle. Great care had been taken when creating this work of art. It depicted the sunset flooding the late sky, over the ocean shore. The water included a soft white foam line, done carefully with a colored pencil and crayon to give it the appropriate texture on the paper; the waves themselves were shown rolling and tumbling over each other, colored the vivid color mixture which they reflected from the heavens. The sky was an array of pale purple, vivid magenta, royal blue, and burning gold; the sun itself was a gold and red orb, sinking below the distant horizon. This drawing had not been done by the mere imagination, but by the child making her way down the shore which her home rested near, supplies in hand, and watching the sunset with rapt attention until every detail was perfectly etched into her memory, and upon her paper.

One of the two doors opened in the entry hall, followed by a steady, uniform precision of footsteps walking upon the tile. A soft rustle indicated a coat being hung on the mahogany coat rack beside the door, and then the footsteps continued. Soon, a tall figure, dressed in a professional suit and carrying a briefcase, walked past the arched entry into the living room.

"Daddy!" the child called, standing and walking with all haste towards her father, her small legs taking extra strides to keep up with his long ones, "Daddy, I drew this for you. Daddy, won't you look?"

Sharp blue eyes, ones which he'd passed to his child, drifted down to the drawing held in outstretched arms. A large hand moved down to take it from her, examining the detail carefully. He rolled it up and tucked it under his arm, delivering a brief pat to the dark head before making his way up to the fifth floor, where his office and bedroom lay in wait.

"Father, please…" she called after him, voice slowly losing its enthusiasm and eagerness for his approval, "Father…don't you like it? I made it for you."

"Go to bed, Iris."

The door fell closed behind him without another word.

The memories drifted backwards, to 2 years earlier—a spring day, sometime in April or May perhaps. The timing was not so clear this time, as the child was only two years old, barely so in fact. She found herself on the steps of the first level, sitting quietly and turning the pages of a fashion magazine. The magazine and its main contents were of little interest to her; it was the color that intrigued her. After all, she had only recently discovered her interest in and knack for art, and if she wished to excel and please in such a field, she had to learn proper color schemes. The maid had assisted her in learning a few titles she didn't quite know, such as "turquoise" and "aquamarine".

Closing the magazine and setting it down while she stood up, the child then gathered the book up in her arms and slowly made her way down the stairs. What she had not anticipated was the wet texture her bare feet were met with on the recently washed floor. She held her footing for a little while, but about halfway down, her small feet were met with a patch that had not been properly dried. She caught such a spot right on the heel, a dangerous situation and she knew it. Her mind raced: grabbing the railing would surely save her balance, but if she dropped the magazine, it would surely be damaged, even if a little bent. Mother would be furious! That was her newest edition! Trying to cling to the magazine and grasp the large columns of the staircase at the same time quickly proved to be utterly in vain. The magazine slipped; the weight was too much for her thin frame to maintain balance with, and her foot slipped fiercely on the wet patch. The cry of terror barely escaped her lips before she tumbled, slipped, crashed down the staircase, clutching the magazine like a lifeline. She landed with an awful thud upon the floor, quivering and whimpering. She looked down at the magazine. It was unscathed, which was far more than could be said for the child. Bruising had already begun on her pale skin, and she was bleeding a bit from a small knick in the shoulder. Forcing herself to her feet, she hurried into the room parallel to the living room—a private room reserved for her mother. Photo shoots, dress modeling and hemming occurred in this room, as demonstrated by the multitude of mirrors contained in this room. As the sniffling girl entered the room, she saw her mother standing upon the small, circular lift, spinning slowly in place, examining the dress she was currently wearing. The child hurried over. She knew better than to touch the dress, but her arms reached up for her mother, whimpering.

"Mother, please…the stairs…I f-fell…please, it hurts…"

SLAP!

The magazine fell upon the stage quietly as the girl went to her knees, both hands covering her stinging face. Shock and pain mingled in her tears as she looked back at her mother. "What is wrong with you, Iris? Look at what you've done!" the girl cried out as a fistful of her hair was suddenly locked in her mother's tight grip. She could feel her nails scraping the scalp as she was roughly yanked forward. Her watering eyes managed to open, seeing a few small water stains on the silk of the dress, "Look at it, you stupid brat! You insipid wench, if this dress is ruined because of your little waterworks, you know what happens to you!"

"Mother, please! Please not that…"

"You're lucky it's only water, Iris…or you would pay for it dearly! Get out of my sight before you do any more damage! NOW!"

"My childhood was perfectly normal," Iris answered quietly, her eyes barely blinking, face an image of calmness, "Quite uneventful, really…Of course, there were the frequent galas and conventions—high society events that both my parents attended. Frankly, they were of little importance…and I was far too young to remember them very well."

"I don't quite believe that, my dear," Sunshine said, tapping her pen against two nails with a thoughtful expression on her face—always a danger sign for the patients.

"Well, that's your personal opinion, isn't it?" Iris replied with the same tone and demeanor, "Think what you will, Doctor, I am simply telling you the facts of it."

"But if you were too young to remember it all clearly, isn't there a possibility of something else occurring in your youth? Something…quite detrimental to your psyche? After all," she leaned forward, her cleavage straining at the neck of her shirt, "At your tender young age…surely you couldn't have had a completely rational and normal childhood if you've landed yourself in this place. Come now, love…think a little harder."

"I've told you all I remember," Iris said shortly.

"Oh, tush! There must be something more…here! Let's try this, all of you," she gestured to the others with nauseating enthusiasm, "I want you all to close your eyes…take nice and slow deep breaths…in…and out…in…and out…that's right…now then, I want you all to think back to your childhood. Think of your very first day of school…what do you see? Hear? Smell? What feelings are going through your mind as you walk through those doors…you're seeing your teacher…they're pointing you to a chair—where are you sitting? Who is around you? Think carefully now…"

"Class, pay attention now." The teacher was a short and plump woman, clapping equally plump hands together to get the attention of the students. After five or ten minutes, they finally quieted—not out of respect or interest for the teacher, but because all eyes were fixed on the seven year old student standing at the front of the classroom, hands wrapped tightly around a backpack, her eyes fixated on the floor. The rounded hands lowered down to gently clasp the thin shoulders of the girl; it was no doubt meant to be a motherly gesture. It made the girl quiver.

"Miss Robinson," A girl from the front row called, not bothering to raise her hand, "Is that your daughter or something?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Annabelle!" Miss Robinson laughed airily, "This is your new classmate!"

"Classmate?" a bulky boy sitting next to Annabelle spoke with a heavy snicker, "She looks like she's seven or something! If she's lookin' for 1st grade, it's downstairs, kid. This is 7th grade!"

"Mr. Bradley! Have some manners!" she scolded, "Now, I know she might be a bit young, but Miss DeLaine is quite a brilliant child, and I expect all of you to treat her as you do your friends. Now then, my dear, why don't you…" she looked around, clearly pretending to look for a seat in the front row. There were none. "Ah! There we are, dear, why don't you have a seat right there, by the window!"

She might have made it sound like it was a lovely window seat, close to the teacher's desk. It was a desk that had been shoved hastily into the furthest corner of the classroom, behind all other students. The girl slowly made her way to the back, eyes remaining on the floor, her hands clutching the bag, knuckles whitening with the fierce grip. She had to avoid a few protruding legs as she walked, something she did in complete silence. Her lack of response only seemed to provoke the others.

"Nice bandage," one boy sneered, a bit of saliva flying from his fat lips against her bandaged face, "What happened? Mommy get tired of looking at your face, freak?"

"Freak…freak…freak…freak…" the chanting followed her all the way back to her seat. The chair was an appropriate height, but her long legs were in danger of hitting the girl in front of her. She tried to pull them back. She wasn't fast enough.

"Watch it, you creep!" the girl spat, "Don't touch me! I don't need any of your sniffling crap or whatever disease you've caught this week!"

She brought her legs under and through the metal legs of the chair, hiding them in a very uncomfortable position. The desk had been carved and doodled on to the point where there was no area on the wooden surface that would not prove detrimental to writing on a single sheet of paper.

The girl looked down at her textbook as Miss Robinson began to teach. She felt ugly. She felt alone.

She felt like a freak.

"There!" Dr. Sunshine's voice broke the silence of the room, "Now then, how do you all feel?" her eyes swept over the room, searching the expressions a little too enthusiastically. Harley was sitting chewing her lower lip slightly; Ivy was smirking to herself, as though remembering some point of triumph—however twisted it might have been. Harvey Dent was methodically flipping his coin, looking quite uninterested in the whole situation. She made a mental note to the odd look on Edward Nygma's face; he was clearly trying to appear as bored and un-intrigued with the exercise as Dent, but there was a slight twitch to the face. It was gone nearly the moment he noticed her eyes on him.

Her attention was then devoted to Iris DeLaine's face. She was, privately, quite taken aback. Dent's behavior was aloof and dismissive—no doubt a symptom of his dissociate identity disorder; his alter would have no regard for Harvey's past life. But DeLaine…she was not even uninterested. Her face looked as though carved from ice. All features were entirely void of emotion, as though wiped clean by some alien force. She blinked slowly and naturally, nothing to suggest she was using some sort of centering technique learned in youth. Her hands were folded calmly in her lap, shoulders relaxed but not lazy…her entire demeanor betrayed absolutely nothing. It quite nearly gave the impression she had no childhood memories to recall, therefore no emotions to unearth.

"Are you done with us now, Doctor?" Iris asked quietly, nodding to the clock, "Time's up."

"So…so it is," Sunshine said, trying to get herself together, to hide the obvious manner in which Iris' behavior had unnerved her, "Well then, I will see you all next week, won't I? And I believe you're off to…what is it…?"

"Dinner, and then home sweet home," Iris said, standing and making her way to the door, "You'll figure out our schedule soon enough, Doctor, believe me…it's not that hard to learn."

"I understand that Miss DeLaine is your patient, Dr. Leland," Sunshine sighed softly, her shoulder and ear cradling the phone while taking notes on a small pad of paper, "Yes…yes, I understand you were conducting your own—Doctor, how can you say you were making progress? There isn't a drop of emotion in the girl's body! No, I am not backing down from the task! No…no, I am simply asking for your permission to…" there was a long pause, at the end of which the blonde sighed heavily, "I have a technique of my own that might prove useful to Miss DeLaine, Joan…yes, I am aware many have tried, all have failed."

She frowned slightly, "What makes me think she's different? Joan, she's only sixteen! She's not as hardened as the others—oh, don't be ridiculous! There is no possible way she's as hardened as the others, and certainly no possibility she's even worse than them." Another pause, "Well, I'm certain you do know what you're talking about, Joan, but I am quite confident in my therapeutic techniques. Just give me my dues while you and Dr. Bartholomew are out of the asylum, alright? I do have a degree in Psychology, you know. Yes, I'm sure I will," she said, quite sarcastically, "Yes…yes, good evening."

"So…what did you remember about your first day of school, Blue?"

"Classroom full of brats, and teacher who didn't have a brain in her head, and desk that had been beat to the ninth circle of hell." Iris replied, voice dripping with boredom as she carefully examined the barrel of a semi-automatic, "What did you see while floating about in the mystical trance of Doctor Sunshine, Harley?"

"Oh, just the usual…couple of boys acting goofy…guess that means they liked me or something," the blonde shrugged, toying idly with her pigtails. With an idle sigh, she rolled over on her flat belly, looking across the storage closet where all three girls were currently residing…without permission, of course, "What about you, Red? What did you see?"

"A repulsive little brat asking me if my hair was a wig," the vixen answered dryly, "I told her it was not, but if she kept running her mouth like that, I'd be happy to make those little blonde ringlets of hers a wig for our family pet."

"I thought you hated dogs, Ivy," Iris said, toying with the firing mechanism of the gun.

"I do,"

"Not my babies!" Harley protested, "My little boys are angels! You don't hate my babies, do ya, Red?"

"Especially your babies," the redhead said shortly. The clown whined and sat in the corner, sporting pouting lips that made Iris' curve into a smirk. The ebony-haired teen sat back on a crate labeled Explosives: High Risk – Do NOT Handle. She spun the gun idly between two fingers, gazing out the small window. Poison Ivy continued perusing through rows of small plastic drawers stacked upon one of the metal shelves in the storage closet—the closet that housed all confiscated materials of the Rogue Gallery. The gun Iris had been examining, now returned to its place on another shelf, was most likely one used by Harvey…one of two, that is. Iris personally had little interest in guns. They were too quick for her liking; she preferred knives, daggers, or any other blade she could get into her possession.

The gun having lost her attention, Iris was now propped up on the small bench beside the window; a guard sat there during the day, keeping guard over the items. Apparently, it hadn't yet occurred to the security department in Arkham that any escape attempts did not happen in the broad and exposing light of day, but at night, under the cover of darkness. Iris chalked it up to the lack of common sense that was sweeping the city, the state, and the country.

Her lanky arm rested at an angle on the small brick ledge, her dark head resting on her upper arm, eyes gazing out over what little she could see through the small glass pane. Her focus was not on the city, or even how much security was prowling around the asylum tonight. Her attention was on the moon. It was a crescent tonight, a narrow sliver of rounded silver light gleaming in the dark sky. Her hand drifted up, fingers pressing to the glass, trying to reach past wall, glass, and the limits of gravity and space to touch the source of such tranquil comfort and peace that overwhelmed her every time she saw that shimmering silver light.

After a few long moments of lingering in her meditative trance, she slowly returned to the confinement of the storage cell. Her eyes drifted back to her female companions. Harley was currently pawing at the redhead, whining about something or another. Ivy was ignoring her, as usual, while she searched through the drawers. Finally, her curvaceous body straightened, a gleam of triumph in her green eyes, "There you are, my darlings…" she cooed to five or six of her instant-growth seeds, which she tenderly pocketed within the safety of her brassiere, "Safe with Mommy again…" her eyes turned down to the blonde, who was now clinging to her leg with an expression on her young face that could only be described as painfully pitiful. With a heavy sigh, Ivy slowly nodded, "Alright, Harley…you can stay in my cell tonight. If…" she added with a stern expression, "You. Do. Not. Touch. The. Plants…under any circumstances!"

Somehow, noting the gleeful and blissfully ignorant jabbering now coming nonstop from Harley's mouth, Iris predicted she would be hearing the tell-tale crack of a potted plant breaking, followed by Ivy's shriek…in about…an hour. Two hours tops.