Wow two updates in two days!
I'm on a roll!
Thanks to Sweeney. Sparrow. Joker. Love and LuvIsAThing XD
thank you!
Review!
"You think that he did this?"Chloe asked her mother in a small voice. No one needed to ask who 'he' was.
"I don't know" was all that Grace could say, holding back tears.
Joey stared at the two women in front of him and back at the television, which was now talking about some fight that had broken out during some football game. Apparently it had been one hell of a dirty game.
The thought of pushing the detonator himself came back to Joey and he imagined the feel of the whoosh of the explosion. The adrenaline rush. And for a brief moment he pictured the comedy, of randomly picking up the detonator and saying ""What does this button do? Before pressing it and watching a building blow to smithereens. And his uncle praising him. It was the feeling of finally belonging that Joey loved to imagine the most.
"Dave might have been in the explosion; can you go and make some calls Hun?" Grace asked Chloe with pleading eyes. She didn't want to give her daughter a job like that, to look and see if someone had died but she wanted to talk to Joey and even though her daughter knew what was going on around her now, she wanted some things to be kept only between her and her godson.
Chloe just nodded and left the room silently, before Grace turned around to properly look at Joey.
"Where were you? Did you see him?" she asked with concern flooding her eyes.
"I needed a break, I saw my dad on the internet and it just...I needed to get away for a while and I went to get a smoothie...and then 'he' turned up and began to talk to me"
"Tell me everything"
"He asked if I was ready to help him and said that he was going to go ahead with his plan on Monday" Joey didn't want to tell Grace that he had mentioned Chloe because then he would end up telling her about how an emotion had flickered in his eyes and Grace was barely stable as it was.
"Anything else?"
"Only that he would see me again, before it went ahead" Joey responded truthfully.
"And your father?"
"Ran Arkham, got arrested, he is an inmate there now"
"So what do you want to do now?"
Joey had to admire Grace, after everything that happened so far she still kept her cool and asked Joey his opinion on matters and what HE wanted to do. Usually adults would get hyped up and try to control everything but, like the Joker, Grace thought that control was just an allusion and she thought that everyone was the same.
"I might see him"
"Are you sure? Do you want me to come with you? Bring you to Arkham even, just in case you need an adult with you"
"Okay"
"When do you plan on going?"
"Right away"
"Come on then, Chloe will have to come too, since I don't trust her being home alone with everything that is going on at the moment"
Grace got up and put on her jacket and got her keys while Joey stood up and watched her since he hadn't taken off his jacket when he had walked in. Chloe looked at her mother when she walked into the hallway and put down the phone.
"He wasn't there, thank God. Where are you going?" she asked her eyes wide.
"You are coming too, come one" Grace ushered.
Chloe didn't waste any time with coats and just went outside after Joey. Grace locked the door and went down the pathway to the car. It was a small green ford focus that was very clean, for an old car. The three of them got in and Joey hopped into the front passenger seat. For the first time ever he didn't hear any complaints from Chloe about her not riding shot gun and he couldn't help but smile a bit at this.
They arrived a few minutes later and got out of the car. Grace got out last and locked the door before following the two teenagers inside. The reception area was huge and the place smelled of bleach and disinfectant. There was a big round desk in the corner of the room with a small woman sitting behind it wearing glasses on top of her head as she searched through files. Grace walked up to the distressed woman, probably an intern.
"Excuse me" Grace said in a gentle voice, "Could you tell me where the visiting room is please?"
"Down the hall and to your right"
"Thank you" Grace looked over at Joey and began to walk briskly down the hallway. Joey found it amazing how Chloe had managed to stay quite this long; he imagined that she was only quite now because she was walking around inside the loony bin. She probably thought that if she made a noise a nutter would jump in front of her.
Grace opened the door and walked through, only to be stopped by an orderly that demanded the name of the inmate that they wanted to see, along with her name and details, until he finally asked the question that they had all been thinking of "What was Cranes connection with them". Grace and Chloe looked at Joey when Grace had said that Crane was Joey's father. The orderly just looked at him for a brief second before letting them pass. He had obviously known that they weren't lying to him.
They were led to a row of tables with a glass panel separating the visitors from the inmates and little wooden barriers that gave the visitors their privacy. They were given their own booth and Grace told Joey that she would wait at the other side of the room with Chloe until he was finished. Joey just nodded quietly and turned back to the glass in front of him, which had little holes so that the people could hear each other, and waited for the man that he hadn't seen in almost fifteen years to walk in.
Will I leave you guys there? Cliff hanger!
Or...if I'm nice this one time...you guys can give me reviews ;)
Deal?
Two minutes later there was a sound of a door slamming and a group of orderlies came into view. They were leading a man with tussled brown hair and a straightjacket over in Joey's direction.
This was Jonathon Crane.
He was walking with his head held high and he radiated confidence. And it was in that moment that Joey decided that he didn't want to play nice.
He was placed in the chair across from Joey and he simply stared at Joey with a calm look upon his face. His eyes said another thing.
"Miss me?" Joey asked sarcastically.
"Joey?" Jonathon asked in disbelief.
Joey left out a dry and humourless laugh. He was beginning to hate this man more and more and couldn't help but give him a dark glare.
"What did she ever do to you?" he asked in a low voice that he didn't know that he was capable of. He was the reason that his world was upside down, that he was an orphan, that his mother was dead, and maybe even the reason that the Joker became the Joker, he still hadn't decided on that bit yet. At this point, Joey would gladly choose the Joker over Crane any day.
"I knew that you would come and find me eventually, I just didn't think that it would be here...or with me ...like this" Crane said, beginning to get a bit uncomfortable now.
"Well you should have thought about that when you were slamming your wife's head against a wall now, shouldn't you" Joey replied with perky sarcasm.
"Those were different times; I'm a changed man now"
"Yeah I know, the straightjacket is kinda obvious"
"You probably came here looking for answers so let me explain"
"Yeah, answers. Not excuses. And questions usually come before answers. Last I checked, you were avoiding mine"
"I don't even remember doing it."
"Bullshit. Drunk people say that they don't remember but they always do."
Crane continued as if he hadn't been interrupted. "I loved your mother"
The saying Till Death Do Us Part rang throughout Joeys head as he said this. He may have hated the man in front of him but he wasn't going to interrupt again. This was his life that hung in the balance, in a way. Whatever he learned today would either make him or break him.
"We met after your uncle was incarcerated here. She was devastated and she was finding it hard to cope. I saw her at a laundrette, she was having trouble with the machine and she was angry so she was kicking the washing machine, trying to take her anger out on it. The dent is still there I believe. I went to help her and she seemed happy that someone had decided to do so. What can I say...we clicked. A year later we were married and then you came along. You brightened up her world."
"Okay" Joey said in a quiet voice, which made Crane seem a bit more comfortable until Joey's voice turned to that of an acidic one "So please cut the optimistic crap and tell me the proper uncut version...please"
"I wanted to get a better job to make more money and I studied medicine and psychology, we were scraping at the time. What else do you want me to say?"
Joey knew that Crane was being squashed and he knew that Crane knew. This was getting a bit fun.
"So...does this mean that you will be visiting more?" Crane asked after a few minutes.
"I don't know yet" Joey replied, standing up to leave. It was obvious that the isolation was getting to the former shrink.
"But I'm your father" Crane said firmly.
"As far as I know, I have no father" Joey said in a dark and emotionless voice before walking off with Grace and Chloe hot on his heels. He didn't bother to look back at his dad; he just wanted to get out of this place.
They were in the car when the silence between the three of them was finally broken.
"So what happened?" asked Joeys red haired friend with impatience.
"Nothing"
"All that for nothing?"
"YES CHLO ALL FOR NOTHING!"Joey shouted, not caring that her mother was sitting right beside him and using her nickname.
The tension in the car on the way home was unbearable.
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