JMJ

Chapter Sixteen

Courage

Slowly, almost lethargically, Jonathan lifted his eyes to Dr. Bartholomew.

It was the same. Nothing that man could do could he ever take seriously.

His round balding head always beaded with sweat even in the coldest of days with the heating system still acting up. His beady eyes behind his glasses, darting like a pair of field mice cocking their heads for the sign of the next owl, could hardly keep a steady enough gaze on a patient anymore to be called a psychiatrist. When he spoke his little voice quivered with those supposed calm, collected words he had learned from his schooling in how to speak to a crazy person as if he doubted the words himself. When he tried to sit straight and open, he was like a faulty popup tent ready to cave-in at any given moment. Jonathan could hardly look back at his pasty face and his grim puckered brows when he was trying to be serious anymore than his pale smile when he was meant to be encouraging. His smile looked like the expression would melt into jelly clean off his face when he dared.

Jonathan closed his eyes slowly before opening them again at the wall behind the good doctor as he held his hands together in his lap with a grimacing sigh.

But there was one thing he noticed. There was one thing that sent shivers down Jonathan's spine despite himself as he patiently waited through his appointment. As much as he noted, felt, anticipated, even tasted every twitch and whiff of fear and anxiety permeating from Bartholomew's weary body like a predator surveying potential prey, he did not feel hungry for it. He did not feel satisfaction. He felt more as though someone was force-feeding him high fructose corn syrup through a tube when he had already had too much to eat. It made him sick to his stomach. It almost made him gag, and he already felt so under par from the lingering aftereffects of his self-injections.

Bartholomew was the same as ever. There was not the slightest change in his behavior today from the last session he had— a short reentry session when he first returned from the hospital. Well, except for the minutest factors of Bartholomew noticing the changes in Jonathan Crane. In fact as Jonathan closed his eyes again slower than before, Dr. Bartholomew asked, "Are you feeling too ill today, still, Pr. Crane?"

"I…" Jonathan cracked.

He cleared his throat, but his mind had gone blank.

Anything he said would be written down for later. Anything he said would be analyzed by this unwell man who needed at least a vacation, if not true retirement. He was looking for something, searching desperately, but at the same time with very little hope that the change in Jonathan Crane was a good sign of things to come.

"I don't feel that I'm as ready for this session," Jonathan said honestly and unemotionally, "as I originally led you to believe."

"But it was you yourself, Professor, who wished to meet earlier than later," Bartholomew ever-so-gently pressed like some apprehensive schoolboy poking a stick timidly into what looked like a dead animal that had showed some signs of movement.

"I apologize."

"There is no need for apology to me, Professor, but you insisted that you could not wait, especially in light of the request for a visit."

"Perhaps it is unwise to continue with it," Jonathan said before he caught himself, because this too would be seen as something for analysis.

He had done it to himself. He knew that. The longer a person remained under the charge of Arkham Asylum and deemed mad, the less he was a person. The more he became a beast to be studied. The longer Jonathan remained, the less he was a patient to be cured or even a number to catalogue for the state and the more he was the Scarecrow to the eyes of all. The more he was as the Joker. Incurable. Something to be contained like a manufactured disease that could go viral. Not too long ago that pleased him that the staff were giving up trying to cure him. It even had amused him that he remained a subject of interest in the study of psychology. Perhaps it was to try to prevent people from becoming as hopeless as he was, perhaps curiosity, though more likely it was just to tell the state they were trying for fear of being downgraded in state funding again except for security measures.

The sick feeling in his stomach was growing and become thinner like corn gruel more than syrup.

"Why do you feel it be unwise?" asked Dr. Bartholomew, almost steady this time as he looked hard at his patient.

Bartholomew wanted to care. Jonathan could sense that. He always had. Some part of Bartholomew always would, he supposed, no matter how his patients threw it in his face, but he dared not care too much. He had been taken advantage of far too many times. He was too emotionally involved in Arkham Asylum to be a doctor anymore.

Jonathan sighed. "I don't know."

"There must be some reason."

Because there was no reason for Harley Quinzel to reenter this cave of despair if she did not have to— this pit of Hades. Because part of him did not wish to see her. Because the part of him that did wish to see her was in agony because of the part that didn't. Because in the end Jonathan felt it was almost as useless as Dr. Bartholomew did. He was broken. Mad. Always would be.

He said none of these things. Bartholomew knew his psychiatry enough to see that Jonathan had an answer even if he was not willing to share it.

"Professor Crane," said Bartholomew in full seriousness. "If you feel badly about what happened, closing yourself off all the more will only make the pain stronger. If it is true, and I believe in part that it is, that you are reconsidering your current life, then would it not be rather a benefit to have some encouragement?"

"In all probability, Doctor, if you are correct in your conjecture," remarked Jonathan not withholding his irritation and a little disdain.

"But if you do not feel you're ready, we can call the visit off or postpone it," said Bartholomew. "Would that make you more comfortable?"

Dr. Bartholomew did not like the idea of Harley visiting. He could not hide it from a professor of fear, mad or otherwise. Bartholomew knew this too.

Jonathan sighed. "We may experiment with the visit, I suppose. There will probably be enough supervision to satisfy the state considering her unfortunate ties with the asylum."

Jonathan wished she had not asked him. Although part of him wanted to see her just this once if anything, he wished she had just let the card he had given her be enough to call it even. But he should have known Harley better than that. It was best to get it over with rather than postponing the inevitable.

Bartholomew nodded slowly. "If that is what you wish, Professor."

There was a long pause. Then Jonathan said firmly, "It is."

#

No other inmate knew about the visit. It was to be kept as quiet as possible. Many of the staff members did not even know. Just a quick in and a quick out with immense supervision over the inmate Jonathan Crane before he was brought to the cold little room where he would be meeting with Harley Quinzel.

Below a small barred window, there was a table in the middle of the room— solid and metal with two folding chairs. Above it was a buzzing ceiling light where some gnat was trying to stay warm having lived its whole life in winter's chill inside its asylum.

Harley met Jonathan looking cold and miserable with hands folded over the table. His hair ruffled, his uniform haphazard, and his eyes still ringed with faint dark circles and cast down at his hands as though this was some sort of session of interrogation with a prisoner of war. Those eyes did not lift up as the guard opened the door.

Harley frowned.

She cleared her throat and forced a cheerful smile, which once she held there, it remained, "Hey, Professor!"

As Jonathan raised his eyes, at first it was like looking into the eyes of a dog at the pound— soulful, miserable and lost. Then he tried to smile back. It was a painful endeavor to watch and made Harley almost lose hers as she winced.

"Good afternoon, Miss Quinzel," he said before dropping his eyes to the table again.

Harley shook her head and took her seat at the table without anymore delay. She ignored the guard's penetrating eyes on her back. She had not been allowed to bring anything with her aside from the polka-dotted trench coat on her back, and even that had been searched and given back to her again no matter how many times she had insisted and signed papers saying that she had no intention of helping the Scarecrow escape. The only one who kept that entrance into Arkham from getting ugly was the appearance of Dr. Leland who assured the guards that this was a necessary therapy session for the patient she was visiting and to not upset her before she went.

Good old Dr. Leland, thought Harley.

"So!" said Harley as cheerfully as she could to the morose tattered creature, so forlorn that he might blow away in a gust of wind; she scooted her chair in closer. "You look a lot better from the last time we met." She tittered a little.

Despite his misery, he looked less pale, his rings around his eyes were not nearly as black and his eyes were not nearly as red, and he was not shaking anymore or breathing strangely, so that was a good thing.

"Thank you," said Jonathan, his brows softening briefly.

Silence.

Awkward silence.

Harley chewed the side of her lip.

It gave plenty of opportunity for the constantly howling wind outside the asylum to moan perfectly with Jonathan's mood.

But just as Harley was about to break it again, Jonathan spoke, "I thank you for coming, Miss Quinzel…"

"Aww, c'mon, you can still call me 'Harley'," chirped Harley. "You don't have to be formal."

"I'd prefer it. I only accepted this so that I could thank you. Thank you properly, I mean."

"Well, you already said 'thank you' enough for me," Harley said encouragingly.

"I mean for stopping me," Jonathan went on as melancholically as a poem by Poe. "I would have destroyed myself. I wanted to destroy myself. I wanted it so badly, that had I not been in the state I was in physically, I might have killed you for it… eventually."

Harley gave a careless shrug to combat the melodrama he was trying to raise as she replied candidly, "Yeah, I know."

Jonathan sighed. "I… the Scarecrow… I can't go on with it."

Harley's eyes widened. Although she had dared to hope something of this nature was going on in his mind, it still surprised her, but she said nothing as he went on.

"I've resigned myself to the fact that I shall spend the rest of my days here at Arkham Asylum where I indeed belong. No more escapes. No more terrorizing the citizens of Gotham. It's over. Forever. I've been afraid to face myself for so long— to face who I am, the miserable creature that was born to look nearly human but not. A creature of shadow not allowed to bathe in light, but for that one moment that I was allowed it at the hospital, I thank you. I thank you from the depths of my soul for everything that—"

"Jonathan," Harley said sharply, unable to hear anymore.

"Excuse me," Jonathan quickly apologized.

"I didn't come to say 'goodbye' even though I know that's what you want this to be about," said Harley.

Jonathan frowned stubbornly, but Harley's stubbornness was ready to combat it.

"You don't have to stay in Arkham Asylum," said Harley.

Both Harley and Jonathan could not help but notice the shifting of the guard behind them at the sound of that, but though Jonathan gave the guard an ugly look, Harley continued to pretend he was not there as she went on more boldly than before and with a renewed exuberance, "You're not a lost creature of shadow anymore than I am. Stop being stupid. You're not a beast from Lovecraft. Just allow them to sign you sane. Allow yourself to be sane and you can just leave legally."

Jonathan closed his eyes, and breathed through a soft growl. He clenched teeth as he ran his fingers through his greasy ginger bangs after clutching his head. Then he straightened again.

"That's a lot easier said than done, and I don't think that's possible," he replied. "If I listen to that man for another moment, I'll go insane!"

"What?" Harley demanded. "Dr. Bartholomew? He's nothing."

Jonathan sighed again.

"Are you afraid to ask for another doctor? What are they gunna do, say 'no'? It's just an excuse. You're a professor of psychology, Professor, you know better than that!" she crossed her arms aloofly and looked away as she crossed also one leg over the other with a pout and lightly closed eyelids.

The wind continued to blow outside, but it was not a full ambience anymore so much as it was a white noise to fill in the blank space and neutralize some of the old castle's moaning and some inmate's shriek down below.

"I'm not afraid of Dr. Bartholomew," Jonathan retorted then crossing arms also.

"Then you're afraid to face the world outside of the asylum," said Harley simply if not gently.

Jonathan's next sigh was almost a huff.

"It's okay, Professor, it's okay," Harley insisted. "It's okay to—"

Jonathan squeezed his eyes shut under a glowering brow. "—be afraid," he quickly finished frostily alongside her.

They had said it in unison, and afterwards Jonathan's face turned a touch red with embarrassment. The embarrassment melted away, though, as Jonathan turned rather wistfully thoughtful. Harley's arms, still crossed, eased a as he stared up at the barred window above them like a bird afraid to fly again after a broken wing. Then he looked down for a moment before lifting his eyes to Harley once more.

"If you want to stay afraid and rot in here, that's your choice, Professor," Harley said in a tone as casual as though deciding which cereal to eat for breakfast, and she did it fully on purpose, "but I just want you to know before you decide that this is goodbye forever and you'll live like the Raven's 'Nevermore' so that the Scarecrow can torture you alone forever here in your 'pit on the pendulum' and all that Goth stuff," (Jonathan's scowl deepened rather than otherwise) "that if you decide to leave it all behind, I'll stay here to help you so you don't have to do this alone…" Her voice faltered just a little by the end, but she cleared her throat and said quietly but strongly, "It's okay to have courage too, y'know."

Jonathan winced.

It was her last offer. She would not give him another one. Depending on his answer now, she would not argue with him anymore. She would stand up and leave with the last goodbye of their lives. Jonathan knew this. Her mockery was warranted, her offer bare and raw.

He dropped his head one last time after he had finished glowering. Then he said, "Why?"

"Because you're my friend, Professor!" Harley insisted. "That's what friends do, isn't it? Help each other when their down?"

"I wouldn't know…" said Jonathan sullenly, but before Harley could get angry, he added quickly even if tersely, "—But!"

Harley waited as he swallowed on his dry throat and took a deep breath behind closed eyes. When he opened them they were unyielding.

"I will not let your kindness go to waste," he said. "You're right, Harley. You're right… I am afraid to move on. It's beyond foolish, I know it."

Slowly Harley nodded.

"I will request a different doctor, but if I have to deal with Dr. Bartholomew…" he rolled his eyes as he said the name. "…I probably deserve him, anyway. I'll try to find myself and to get out of here."

"There!" said Harley cheerfully.

"You should be given back your license to treat patients," Jonathan remarked almost dryly, but Harley saw past it.

"Thanks," said Harley wryly back. "Glad you think so, but maybe before I leave, I'll just tell Dr. Leland that you want to switch doctors. She and I are like—" Harley crossed her fingers with a wink.

"If you say so," Jonathan shrugged, but he was smiling if only grimly.

At least it was not forced. That was a start.

"Sure, now, stop being so hard on yourself," said Harley. "That won't help anybody, and I'll come back as often as you want me to, okay?"

Jonathan closed his eyes, but this time quite calmly and sincerely thankful. The tiny smile that accompanied it was so gentle that Harley might have called it sweet.

"Thank you. I appreciate it."

"You're welcome."

"You don't know how much it means to me."

"Actually," Harley said. "I do."

Jonathan nodded. "Of course, you do."