JMJ

Chapter Seven

Jervis Wakes Up

As Jonathan was just reaching for the chair, Jervis reached behind Dr. Leland's ear and removed the chip behind it. Jonathan froze in mid-motion as he watched Jervis drop it onto the floor. Jervis stepped on it himself as Jonathan let the chair slam down in front of him. Teeth tightly clenched, he waited.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Leland," said Jervis before the psychiatrist could utter a word in her blinking surprise.

Jonathan let the chair ban onto the cement floor.

"Jervis Tetch?" she gasped.

Jervis dropped to his knees.

"I beg your forgiveness! I beg the forgiveness of you and Pr. Crane both! I— I'm ready now. Truly I am. To be freed from my corrupted Wonderland. The things I loved the most and destroyed! If there's any way! Any possible way to save the crumbs that are left. Despite all I've done. I'm ready now! I'm ready!" and he choked on his sobs. "Please. I'll do anything, anything, anything…"

He pulled the chip curled around his own ear and broke it simply in half between his fingers like a pretzel.

The guards woke up, and they moved a lot faster than Dr. Leland to apprehend Jervis still sobbing on the floor.

Looking haggard with his mouth still hanging low Jonathan leaned heavily upon the chair in front of him, but he found himself enough to clamp his mouth shut. Dr. Leland was approaching him steadily. Looking up at her in alarm, he feared she was about to do just what he had feared the most— that she would accuse him of being an accomplice, but all she said was, "What did you do?"

Blinking stupidly, Jonathan answered, "I… I'm afraid, Dr. Leland, that I don't know for certain…."

He turned away with a hallow expression. He felt that old habit of his listening to his heavy breaths and quickly palpitating heart from the fears that had just past through him. He had not as of yet recovered from them. It was a habit that had stayed with him for as long as he could remember and had become more acute than ever when he had taken up the guise of the Scarecrow. It likely would remain with him until the end of his days. He was so absorbed on this habit and the history of it that he almost forgot about Dr. Leland until she spoke again.

"Are you alright, Pr. Crane?"

Jonathan gave a start as he returned to her. He felt silly beneath her concerned gaze. He was not a patient here anymore.

"I—" Jonathan cleared his dry throat; standing upright, he straightened his disheveled shirt a little. "Excuse me. I believe I'll be alright after a moment, thank you."

"Can you tell me what happened?" she asked.

#

I'm not sure if I really did anything, and that rather he simply did not do it all himself, Jonathan thought deeply to himself as the cab drove him back to the hotel. He had only needed someone to talk it through with him…

But he was still rather in a daze about what to think of Jervis Tetch. He had been unable explain much to Dr. Leland at the asylum either, and Dr. Leland had to apologize more than once for Jervis forcing her to bring him here. That had ended any conversation about Tetch as Jonathan had tried his best to convince her that he was alright.

As he calmed down in the back seat of the cab, he had to admit that his return to Arkham had not been all bad for him personally. He hoped it did Jervis well, but he could not speak for him. For himself, he knew that despite the unpleasant nature of the visit, it had been a facing of his fears.

As a professor of fear and phobia's one would think I would be able to face my fears better with the knowledge of how useful it can be, he thought to himself.

But then he had to remind himself that combating the nasty habit of embracing fear was a lot more difficult that simply listening to one's own vitals absently, and a lot more detrimental.

After that he continued on in a sort of half-daze of relief that at least the visit had ended, and he continued staring up at the ceiling of the cab right up until it stopped in front of his destination.

He stepped up to the vintage hotel door. Harley was waiting for him with an umbrella. The rain that had just begun to fall seemed to release some tension; though Harley's welcoming face did the rest. Before his own release from Arkham, Jonathan had never known a face to run to and never had a thought of needing one, but now that he did have a loving face to look to, his heart melted, especially now. It melted into putty as he darted through the rain under the shelter of his hat (he had checked it several times for chips in the taxi despite himself). His heart was nearly dancing in the rain by the time he was under Harley's umbrella, and she took him into her smaller but far more aggressive arms to pull him down for a kiss.

How strangely normal, they must have looked, and more than normal. How strangely old-fashioned and quaint they must have looked to any onlookers. Little would anyone know who either Jonathan or Harley was and even less would they know where Jonathan had just been. Though, he was sure that his display was reminiscent of a soldier come back from war to his lover across the sea.

"You okay, Jonathan?" she asked in her cheerful way.

"I…I don't know," said Jonathan now smiling gently despite himself.

"Well, let's get outa the rain anyway," Harley said with a down-to-earth sort of shrug that made Jonathan feel as though he had finally escaped the disturbingly fanciful flight Jervis had dragged him onto and the fog he had remained in even after leaving the asylum.

"Yes, that does sound like a good idea," Jonathan agreed with a slight tease.

"Then you can tell me all about it," Harley said. "I wanna know what happened. Oh, and I ordered out for Chinese. Is that good with you?"

"After that experience, anything is fine with me," Jonathan said simply as they stepped inside.

"Great!" said Harley and shook her umbrella.

Ah, good old down-to-earth again!

Soon they were seated over fried rice and egg rolls. Harley went first, speaking about her quick visit with Veronica Vreeland, who despite becoming a victim of the Joker with her cousin because of the whole Lunabat incident, had remained insistent upon being friends with Harley. She had even come to their wedding, small though it had been, and not nearly the sort of wedding Veronica's lifestyle would have allowed her to see before. This was besides the fact that another prominent member of Gotham society had showed up named Bruce Wayne. But that was digressing.

"So," Harley said. "How did it go?"

Jonathan paused a moment to decide exactly how to begin. Now, in the quietude of the apartment, Jonathan felt he had settled the whole thing down enough in his mind to be able to speak of it clearly to someone.

After a bite of rice he said, "I believe it's too soon to know for sure how exactly Jervis will continue from this point on, though I believe that his longing to escape his madness is sincere."

"See!" cried Harley nearly choking on her rice; after she had swallowed properly, she said, "I knew he'd come around."

"Oh!" Jonathan could not help but moan. "And round and round we went."

"Yeah, but you got your feet firm on the ground, right?" asked Harley pleasantly.

"It was hard to say how firmly I was anywhere for a while, but I do have them back now," Jonathan admitted. "It's difficult to explain everything without going into the deep details of the whole occurrence, but he needs to find courage enough for the next leap."

"He just needs to let go long enough to move on, right?" Harley offered.

"Perhaps, though, he's made it more difficult for himself considering that he influenced Dr. Leland to allow me to come to Arkham in the first place even if he had removed the chip himself before the end."

Harley's eyes went wide. "Okay, now you got to tell me!"

#

"I'm just curious," said Alice, "but why do they call water boots 'Wellies' in England?"

Jervis blinked in surprise.

He had been entirely unaware of the fact that Alice was still standing so near him.

They had said their customary good-mornings to each other on this wet dreary Monday morning, and Alice had come in wearing her water boots with which to exchange for her little black flats. She had just closed her umbrella. Jervis had assumed she had gone to her desk, but she remained holding her flats and smiling at Jervis in that candid, innocent, friendly way that she did.

"Sorry, if that's a weird question," teased Alice in reference to Jervis's slightly gaping mouth. "I didn't mean anything weird by it."

"N—no, no, I'm sorry," said Jervis. "I'm not offended. I was— I was only thinking. Of course! It's not a weird question."

He smiled toothily and found himself recoiling into himself more than he liked. Try as he might to straighten his posture, he could not quite manage to be correctly erect. He tried to hide his uneasiness with a laugh that ended in more of a titter, and he closed his eyes and clasped his hands as he cleared his throat.

"Are you sure?" Alice was half-teasing again, but Jervis could tell she was honestly not quite sure.

This made him feel all the weirder. His face began to buzz with embarrassment about making the question more than it had to be. He was so used to being by himself and thinking to himself and being off in his own world in general lately even though Alice hardly meant anything more by the question than simply making conversation with an acquaintance she was trying to get to know, he was acting as though she was asking when he was having surgery in an unmentionable location.

Stupid, stupid, he was scolding himself even as he began to answer as casually as he could, after another cough.

"Arthur Wellesley," he managed.

"Hmm? He invented them?"

"N—no, he— well, sort of, but he was a… a mar— field marshal. Duke of Wellington, you see. Defeated Napoleon at Waterloo?"

"Oh."

"He had a cobbler design a special sort of boot and made them popular among the upper classes."

Alice brightened. "Oh, I see. Thanks."

"Yes, I… well, you're welcome…"

She was leaving for her desk now, and again, Jervis assumed she was done with him. He was turning himself to his own room anyway and trying not to watch her sweep of golden hair as it slipped out from out of her raincoat hood.

"…Glad I could be of assistance…" he muttered to himself.

He released a breath he had been keeping tight behind his voice.

"Mmm hmm," said Alice absently after she took off her boots and was mindlessly slipping on her flats.

His heart was fluttering.

Why couldn't he speak to her properly?

He did not used to be so antisocial. He had always been a little awkward and had his shy moments, true, but he could not shake himself entirely from what the world had done to him. "Broken his spirit," is what part of him wanted to call it. He bemoaned it bitterly on the inside.

He found himself even bemoaning the fact further that he had practiced being a person who had no qualms about speaking his mind at all when he used to play those games with his sister and mother. The Hatter had no qualms about speaking his mind. Granted he was a character and even within his own realm was mad, but Jervis could have spoken as him far easier than speaking as himself. Why could not such practice be enough for acting out the stage of real life? Of course, it was not the same thing, but it wasn't fair.

Alice wanted to talk with him. She wanted to get to know him. The fact that he was foreign made it at least simple enough to start a conversation about impersonal matters. To get comfortable. But Jervis could not even do that. It was not fair. He wanted to speak. Why couldn't he take this chance of escaping his loneliness? What was he afraid of?

Eventually, if you keep acting like this, he told himself. She will give up trying and you'll have lost your chance to have any sort of relationship with her. It's the first time anyone's really tried to get to know you since college. What's happened to you, Jervis Tetch?

He wanted to have a real relationship with her already, and it was driving him crazy. He didn't even know her. Not really, and yet, that smile, that laugh, that gentle candid ease with which she spoke and moved about! The merry way she typed like a young musician playing a piano was enough to make him wish he could ask her to marry him right now on the spot.

The fact that her name is 'Alice'? his mind challenged.

No, don't be stupid, he thought back even though part of him wanted to call it destiny— something foretold in the stars even though he was a strict man of science and intellect— not a believer in luck and fortunes.

"Well, I…" Jervis started, but the conversation had ended. He had to come up with a new topic himself if he wished to continue.

He could not help but feel it to be like the awkwardness of Alice in Wonderland at the tea party during the silence that followed Carroll's Alice and the partiers' first pathetic conversation. He almost considered telling her a riddle as a way of breaking the awkwardness of this silence, but he quickly changed his mind about that.

Maybe I should really start reading something else for a while, He thought half-heartedly. Maybe…something like Moby Dick. That would sober you.

He started again, "…I hope you have a good day today, Miss Pleasance."

Alice turned. Her full attention was on him. Her blue eyes were so lively and bright. She squinted oddly at first. Then she smiled with a sort of sympathy of understanding.

"Thanks, you too."

He swallowed hard, but he knew that was it. He would have to try again later. He tried this every day. Sometimes, he had a little better luck than other days. Sometimes he never got past "good morning". Sometimes he felt he had simply made a fool of himself by saying too much and fumbling over himself like an oral klutz. Then he thought it was better all around to say nothing at all, but some things had been a success.

One such time was when he mentioned to Meryl later that same dreary day. The sky was still dark and rain was falling in buckets. Alice had decided to just have lunch at the office instead of going out into the rain, and thus, for Jervis, providing further opportunity to speak with one another. He wasted a lot of time thinking about what to say, and lunch time was almost over. Dr. Cates would be arriving back soon from eating at her favorite restaurant down the street. Neither rain, snow, or an alien warship blasting half of the North Side with instant disintegration rays stopped Dr. Cates from doing anything.

"Meryl and I used to play in the rain till we were soaked to the bone pretending to be in a sea of tears," he remarked unsure of what he was actually saying yet, and it was under his breath.

He was uncertain if Alice had even heard him; sometimes when he muttered like that she didn't.

But she had this time.

"A sea of tears?" laughed Alice.

"Oh!" Jervis jumped despite himself. "Uh, well! We were very little then… and we got into trouble for it."

"She's your…"

"Sister," Jervis insisted more emphatically than he had intended, as though part of him was trying to insist that she was in no way a competition for his affections at a more romantic level.

Again, he inwardly scolded himself severely.

"My brother and I used to play in the rain too," said Alice as though she noticed nothing unusual, "but mostly when we were at the cabin our family used to rent. We always managed to get there when it was raining. Funny, huh?"

"Yes…" breathed Jervis; then he cleared his throat. "You know," he started out much more strongly now, and he smiled gently. "I—I hope this doesn't sound too strange, and maybe we'll just be even after this morning for odd things to say, but you do remind me a little of Meryl."

Alice laughed.

"What?" she asked.

"No, really!" Jervis said feeling slightly more confident still as the laugh was in no way confused, or mocking, but simply in a tone of candid and pleasant surprise and the joy of life that was in her. No. That was her. "You're both very… cheerful and good-humored and… sweet."

"Aww, thank you," Alice said with the friendliest of teases in her voice. "If that's how you view your sister, though, I think you're also just as sweet. It took me years to get along with my brother again, and we're still kinda… meh!" She waved her hand to indicate the classic comme ci comme ça.

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Jervis, trying to hide his wide, Cheshire Cat beam from ear to ear from being called "sweet" by Alice Pleasance.

"Unless, siblings just are closer in England than in America," she laughed.

"Ah! No," laughed Jervis. "No. Not in general. We were special in that regard."

"I'd like to meet her if she ever comes to visit you," said Alice in her pleasant way.

Jervis' beam dropped.

The fact that she wanted to meet his sister was enough to make him float away with hopes that she might be just as interested in him as he was of her. At the same time, what kept him from floating off to Wonderland about it was that Meryl was probably never going to visit. Meryl had asked if he was going to come for Christmas. Maybe Jervis would do that, but he would hate for Meryl to come to his miserable, little apartment in Gotham City. The thought made him tremble. Not to mention having to explain what he was doing for a living without lying to her like he was starting to do to everyone with his secret side projects that had nothing to do with his proposals to Mr. Wayne.

Anyway, he did not have to think of an answer to Alice in front of him, right now. Alice knew he had to scurry away into his little hole like a rabbit into a burrow when Dr. Cates' power pumps were suddenly marching down the hall towards them.

#

I would hate for her to visit my miserable little cell in Arkham Asylum, Jervis thought unhappily. I…can't contact yet. I can't. Maybe I never will.

Dr. Leland had come into his cell and had been there some moments. Jervis was calm now. The whole of the staff at Arkham had been checked for chips like grade-school campers after a hike through the woods for ticks. His own hair had, just before Leland's arrival, been searched thoroughly and roughly by a very rude orderly who had been muttering all the while about shaving all the inmates' heads completely bald.

No longer was there any sign of the Hatter's signature tech, but now with no mind control, no dreams, and no depression or other bipolar disorder effects at the moment surging up as a buffer, he felt as prone before the doctor as a patient in the middle of an open heart surgery in an operating theatre. At least with organ surgeries, patients did not have to be awake for them, and there was a more definite beginning and end of the surgery.

His heart ached enough as it was— at least in figurative terminology. It felt more like an examination of this figurative heart than his mind that Leland was about to slice into.

"Is there hope, doctor?" asked Jervis, unable to look her in the eyes any longer. "Have I cried wolf too many times. Or have I had too many episodes that I encouraged and made worse by my own doing that my brain cells are too few in number to hope for life beyond these dungeon walls? Have I mind controlled Arkham once too many times? I beg you to give it to me straight, Dr. Leland. Is there any hope of my wretched self ever leaving this facility?"

Dr. Leland did not answer right away, and Jervis felt the presence of the huge orderly, the one who had checked his hair earlier. He stood beside her and glared and came forward figuratively in the absence of Leland looking at Tetch. He felt the presence of the even larger guard on the other side of the door as well. But then Leland looked at him again. Existence of burley-faced glares subsided again in Jervis' mind.

"As I said at the beginning, Jervis. It will be more difficult because of your dishonesty and your dangerous tendencies of taking over the asylum, and now more than before, but if you truly work at it, you can make it through this. You are a very strong-willed person, and I believe if you put your mind to it, you could be free of Arkham forever."

"But how?" asked Jervis. "I don't even trust myself. Truly, I don't. I could change my mind with the next manic wave. I could spiral myself into another depression. My emotions could get out of control by something else in between. My mental state, my emotional state, is a wreck! I could fight an eternal battle with myself the likes of which I may never escape again. I don't know where to begin or where to end or how to keep myself on track."

"Well, that is my job to help with that," said Dr. Leland.

"…Yes…but being subject to a psychiatrist doesn't make it easy, even one as understanding as you. I had enough of them to know, and this is even before Arkham Asylum."

"I understand," said Dr. Leland. "And I will admit that there are a few psychiatrists who forget what their purpose is or are never taught their practice correctly to begin with, but in the end it is up to you. That is the number one thing to remember. Even at a medical hospital a patient needs to want to be cured."

"And I do," said Jervis. "If not for my mind's sake, at least my heart, if that makes sense."

"It does."

"Then whatever it takes, I'm ready. Even when I walked in a normal fashion and dressed in a normal fashion among people, I always thought of myself as apart rather than a part of this race of Man. For a time, I will admit that I felt I belonged to the Rogue Gallery. In a miserable, crutch-like sort of way, it made me feel like I was a part of something, but it was all a lie. The lie of the Joker, some call it, but I think it may be better called the lie of the Mad Hatter. There is no camaraderie in madness. There are only dislocated gears of a clock that cannot run. Whether being labeled insane or being part of the madness of the rat-race of mainstream life, I will not go back to either. I'm ready to stop being a caricature and become a man— a real man, for the first time in my days upon this solid earth."

Dr. Leland smiled a gentle, sober sort of smile with a slow purposeful nod.

After a short, thoughtful pause, Jervis held up a pointer and said gently, "But there is one thing, I would like to do first before anything else."

"Yes? What is it?" asked Leland with care.

"I understand if you cannot allow this, but anyone can read my letters if they cannot trust me. I know no one has a reason to trust me. Could you— well, might I write an apology to Jonathan Crane? And I would also like to explain to my brother Bertram my predicament and my plans for the future. Especially, my letter to Bertie. I've been unfair to him. All my life I think I have, and the fact that he's reached out to me… I've already been writing it in my mind. I want to tell him how badly off I really am mentally to give him a realistic picture of my…predicament; though I do hope to get better now, if I can. And I do also want to express my sincerest regret for dragging Pr. Crane back down into this cesspool of psychotic filth from which he just barely escaped himself and so very recently."

Again Dr. Leland nodded. "You may do both, Jervis. In fact, I encourage you to do so."