Yvonne took another sip of coffee, scanning the document before her in mild concentration.
"I made you something."
She looked up in surprise, smiling as Cat held an object in front of her.
It was a scrap of paper, torn crudely from an office notebook. The paper was yellow and margined with horizontal cyan lines. On the sheet Cat had drawn a beautiful rendition of Yvonne's face, all in blue ballpoint.
"They wouldn't give me proper pencils." Cat admitted, slightly embarrassed by the lack of professional technique. It was, perhaps, even more impressive given that Cat had managed to draw such artwork with a cheap pen.
Yvonne kept forgetting that Cat had such a talent.
"It's beautiful." Yvonne smoothed the paper over the wooden desk, tracing the portrait with the tip of her forefinger. "Thank you Caterina."
She shrugged in response, as if it hadn't taken her all night. Then, her head jerked up with a sudden thought.
"Do you hate me?" She asked, bluntly, her face free of accusation or anger. The way her hands fiddled with the hem of her prison-outfit, however, betrayed how nervous she was.
"No." Yvonne answered without hesitation, meeting Cat's eye in a sort of challenge. "And trust me, i can't say the same for all my patients."
Cat laughed; a hollow, sad chuckle that echoed around the small room.
"How can you say that?" She smiled into the desk. "How can you even look at me?"
She reached up her left arm to rub a few stray tears from her still-grinning face, and Yvonne saw again the flashes of red that lined her wrists.
Yvonne told the medical team; they didn't care. She even brought it to the Warden; only to have him send a single officer to check if she was mutilating herself; he said she currently wasn't.
Because they didn't catch her, they denied that Cat ever hated herself in that way.
'Morgan's too sadistic to feel anything,' The Warden had explained over a bowl of tomato soup in his office, 'Why would she self-harm?'
The more sessions she had with Cat, the more she justified it to herself.
"You're not insane." Yvonne assured her in confidence, and she angrily shoved her cup across the desk to hold Cat's hands in her own. "You're not a psychopath."
Cat blinked with a quivering lip, biting the inside of her cheek to stop the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes. Their hands remained interlocked, Yvonne created circles on her thumb.
Yvonne could sense that Cat didn't believe her, that she needed proof of Yvonne's belief and faith.
"You can't be a psychopath," She stated simply, and released Cat's grip, "Some people are broken by their lack of empathy, you on the other hand, you feel things more deeply and more genuinely than most people can ever hope to. That's what makes you different from them, and that's what made you what you are; because you care so damn much that it destroys you."
Cat was staring at her with her mouth hanging open, tears frozen in her eyes and an expression that could only be described as complete awe.
"Y-you believe that?"
"Absolutely."
She smiled, a watery but thankful smile, and rubbed tears from her eyes.
"You know." She said, her voice tinted with desperate humour, "I wasn't always this frail."
"I know." Yvonne tapped the file knowingly, despite its horrid contents a small smile passed her lips.
"I was kind of a badass."
"I know that too."
Cat nodded, content, and gazed out the blinded window. The sun hit her face flatteringly, and Yvonne noted for the hundredth time how beautiful Caterina Morgan really was. Not the flawless, model symmetry that the media defined as beautiful to sell overpriced products; but beauty in the scars on her chin, the small upturned lips, the dark and soulful eyes.
She was beautiful because she chose to be. Morgan knew how to get extra food at dinners, how to convince one of the officers to give her another blanket.
Confidence was her makeup, and she wore it magnificently.
"So," Yvonne looked away, she knew that Cat's beauty was often taken advantage of, and she felt guilty just admiring her. "What happened with Two-face?"
"Who?" Cat blinked at her in confusion, before recognition dawned. "Oh, you mean Dent?" She seemed uncomfortable again, shifting in her seat as if it burned her.
"Well-" Cat continued her story...
The room was cramped, and cream in colour. Mint-green curtains were folded against themselves, letting bands of sunlight peek through the blinds. Cat gazed at the man in the bed, and couldn't for the life of her pair him with a name. It wasn't Dent, the cool and calm District Attorney, the chivalrous hero to pull Gotham from the grips of chaos.
In fact, it was barely a man.
His flesh was charred and ripped, ribboning down his face to reveal rotten-meat coloured tendons and a sheer eyeball. Cat felt her blood turn to coolant in her veins; it was unnatural, he shouldn't be alive.
Dried blood flecked the green pillow, elicited from his horrendous injury. He was heavily sedated, and still, his left eye was lidless and staring right at her.
"He's not gonna talk to you." Cat understated, transfixed by the naked eyeball, but Joker was approaching his bed nevertheless with curiosity shining through his eyes.
She took an involuntary step back, her hands flying to her belt for comfort. Joker fiddled with the motor, and raised the head of the bed with an electronic whir.
The motion caused Dent to stir in his sleep and blink the sedation from his eyes, his penetrating gaze swivelled wildly around the room.
He first noticed Cat, who gave a nervous smile, and he lifted his head to goggle at her in bewilderment.
His eyes then fell on Joker looming over him, and his breath hitched in his throat. The leather straps binding him to the bed groaned in protest as he strained against them. If the look in his eyes was anything to go by, he was planning to strangle the Joker with his bare hands.
"Hi."
Was all Joker said, brandishing a sheepish grin. He sat on an adjacent stool and nodded at Cat to sit beside him, she did, reluctantly.
Dent hadn't stopped his erratic struggle against the straps, and was now trying to use his hands as a sort of crowbar, forcing his wrists against the bonds with no effect.
"I, uh, got you something." Cat said awkwardly, placing a small bear on his night stand. The bear was snowy white, with a blue nose and paws and was holding a red heart with the words 'get well soon' in golden cursive. It had a little red bow around its neck, Cat couldn't leave it alone in the empty hospital room.
Dent barely acknowledged her phenomenal gift, and left it grossly depreciated as he glared at Joker.
"You know," Joker remarked casually, pulling his horrid wig off from behind and releasing the mess of green hair around his face. "I don't want there to be any hard feelings between us, Harvey."
Cat did the same, dropping her itchy wig to the floor and running her hands through her tangled blonde hair. Joker paused his spiel, side-ways glancing at her as she tamed her mane of white and black locks. She straightened, scratching her scalp, and raised her eyebrows at him questioningly. He seemed to shake something off, and tore his gaze from her.
"When you and-"
"-Rachel!" Dent bellowed, breathing hard and glaring daggers at him. Joker raised his hands in surrender, trying to calm the livid man.
"Rachel," He continued, quickly. "Were being abducted." His hands motioned to his right, indicating the place of abduction. "I was sitting in Gordon's cage." He motioned to the left. "I didn't rig those charges."
Cat watched Dent carefully for his reaction, his expression didn't soften, he still looked like he would murder the both of them without a thought.
"Your men," Dent scowled. "Your plan." His head was quivering as he spoke, as if restraining a manic breakdown.
"Do we really look like people with a plan?" Cat laughed nervously, it seemed that out of the two of them, she was the only one who perceive Dent as a threat.
Joker pointed at her nodding, as if approving and emphasising her point.
"You know what I am? I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it." Joker grasped the air before him frantically, illustrating his point. He licked his lips in excitement.
"You know? I just do things. The Mob have plans. The cops have plans. Gordon's got plans. You know, they're schemers."
A strange quietness had passed over Dent, he was no longer straining but listening in disgusted interest.
"Schemers trying to control their little worlds." Cat interjected quietly, blinking up at Dent with a sympathetic look.
"Yes, thank you sweetheart." Joker grinned at her proudly, running his tongue over his bottom lip. "I'm not a schemer. I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are. So, when I say- -Ah come here."
He leaned forward to grab Dent's hand, patting it rhythmically in a gesture of friendship.
"When I say that you and your girlfriend was nothing personal. You'll know I'm telling the truth." He pulled away, nodding contently, and turned to Cat again. "Sweetheart," he batted his eyelashes flirtatiously. "Be a dear and help Harvey with his restraints."
She got up reluctantly, moving over the Harvey's left side to adjust the metal clasps holding the straps to his wrists.
"It's the schemers that put you where you are." Joker continued, smiling at Cat gratefully as she managed to free Dent's left arm and moved on to his right.
"You were a schemer, you had plans; and look where it got you."
The second his arms were entirely free, Dent lunged from the mattress to claw at Cat's neck violently. He seized her throat between his fingers, squeezing tightly until Cat began to retch for air. She yanked on his fingers to loosen them, but already her vision was stained red and unfocused. Cat grabbed his forearms, her thumbs curling around his elbow, and prised it down with all the strength she had left.
Joker stepped forward to capture his flailing arms, and clasped them together forcefully.
"I just did what I do best." There was a sharp edge to Joker's tone, and his lip curled in restrained anger as he shoved Cat behind him with his elbow.
"I took your little plan and I turned it on itself." Dent's hands were violently shifted to the rhythm of Joker's words, there was an evident line crossed and a viscous gleam in Joker's eyes.
"Look what I did to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets." He raised his eyebrows knowingly, as Cat collapsed into the stool wheezing herself to recovery.
"Hm? You know what I noticed?" Joker asked in a gentler tone, "No one panics when things go 'according to plan'." He put quotation marks around the last phrase in sarcastic exaggeration. "Even if the plan is horrifying! If tomorrow I tell the press that, like, a gangbanger will get shot-."
He licked his lips in thought, his face eventually lighting up as he leaned forward, excitedly. "-Or a truckload of soldiers will be blowing up, or that a kidnapped girl will be killed in captivity, nobody panics. Because it's all 'part of the plan'. But when I say that one little old mayor will die, and the kidnapped girl will become a serial killer. Well, then, everyone loses their minds." Joker writhed his fingers before his face, his expression animated and intense.
He formed a gun with his thumb and forefingers, indicating what he wanted to Cat.
She exhaled sharply through her nose, not completely sold on the idea of arming a vengeful madman. Still, Cat's black handgun was handed wordlessly to Joker, who flipped it playfully and offered it grip-first to Harvey Dent.
"Introduce a little anarchy." He clapped the gun into Harvey's limp hand, an assured smile breaking over his face. "Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos."
Cat watched, horrified from her stool, as the gun's barrel was moved to Joker's temple by his own hands. His eyes were wild in anticipation, licking his lips feverishly as he waited for Dent's response.
"We're agents of chaos." Joker laughed, leaning into the gun. "And you know the thing about chaos?"
Dent looked into Joker's eyes, searching, finding a meaning he never considered, a future he never predicted.
"It's fair." Joker finished in a hushed tone. Cat rose from her seat, uncertainly walking towards the pair with her hands outstretched and pausing at Joker's side, assessing Dent's gaze.
He looked down at his palm, where a silver coin gleamed from between his blood-soaked fingers. The coin was held up between them as Dent displayed it to the Joker, a shiny side of 'heads' facing him. "You live." Dent remarked, his voice deathly low. He flipped the coin over to reveal a deeply scarred side, the only blemish on what was a two-sided coin. "You die." He finished with a snarl that showcased his exposed molars.
Joker grinned, his gaze flitting between the coin and Dent with an odd admiration.
"Now we're talking."
Cat shook her head in terror, waiting with baited breath for Harvey Dent to flip the coin and determine the fate of this suicidal madman.
Except he never did.
Harvey's eyes clouded over, as if heavily deliberating something.
After three seconds of silence, the tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Eventually, the gun slowly moved from Joker's temple and Cat let out a sigh of relief, only to instead lower and point between her wide green eyes.
"Same rules apply." Dent swallowed, his face contorted into a snarl. Cat opened her mouth to object, but Joker got there first.
"Ah, ah, ah." He tutted with a nervous smile, "We need to play fair, Harvey."
"This is fair." His response was clear and resolute, and he lowered the gun until it rested on Cat's forehead between her eyebrows.
She took a deep, shaking breath, and squeezed Joker's arm reassuringly.
"It's fine," Cat muttered, her heart pounding in her ears. "It's fine."
Joker's lips were twitching wildly, his eyes wide as he searched her expression. 'It's fine' she mouthed, blinking back tears of apprehension. Cat met Dent's steely gaze, calming her nerves with slow and obvious breaths.
"I looked for you." Dent's remark was barely above a whisper. "Days and nights. I wasn't home with Rachel, because I was at the office for you. I saw you, at the funeral, Gordon and Wayne were obsessed with retrieving you. How the hell could you do this?"
Cat found herself glancing at Joker, blinking rapidly as a thousand thoughts and memories exploded through her mind. 'He broke me' she mouthed, a few stray tears cascading down her chin. 'I'm sor- '
She pursed her lips and swallowed, trying to convince herself that these words would be a lie. Instead she forced a hollow smile, and nodded at the coin still held between his thumb and forefinger.
"Flip."
At her command, the coin was tossed into the air and hovered for a moment at eye level. It seemed to fall in slow motion, catching the sun's light in its descent into Dent's open palm. He caught it, squeezing it tightly in his knuckles. Every breath was held, in that room, you could hear a pin drop.
Keeping it hidden from view, Harvey Dent unfurled his fingers slightly to glimpse Caterina's fate. His mouth twitched downwards, and he dropped the coin into his lap. Cat was trembling, her stomach fell and she imagined it rolling past her boots and out the door.
"Fine." He muttered darkly.
The trigger was squeezed, the bullet released, and Cat winced violently as the silver capsule sailed past her ear.
"Get out." Dent commanded, and Cat turned her quivering head to stare at the bullet hole in the wall behind her. She couldn't move, her legs were suddenly useless poles of jelly, and her entire body was shaking like a leaf.
Without another word, Joker grabbed her arm and hauled her out of the room, providing her stumbling walk with support.
"I-I'm okay, stop I'm alright."
Cat tried to break out of his grip, but as soon as she was left on her own accord, her legs failed her and she crumbled to the ground like wet sand. He stooped down, sliding an arm under her knees and another under her neck, lifting her easily off the ground. Again, he displayed surprising and unexpected strength.
"That was fun." Cat tried to brush it off, a half-hearted attempt at a quip. Joker didn't even smile, his face a mask of indignancy, and he scowled in response.
"You do that again, Caterina." He growled, turning a corner down the deserted halls, "And I will kill you."
She shivered, a chill running down her spine, it occurred to her that this was the first time Joker had ever called her by her first name; she didn't like it.
They heard a sudden smash and the tinkle of falling glass shards, as if a window was struck with a heavy object. Cat wasn't certain if she was relieved that Dent escaped, he was obviously a part of Joker's end-goal, and yet she couldn't help hating the two-faced bastard and wishing that maybe, he would be tragically locked in his hospital room when It blew up.
"Top pocket." Joker muttered, looking down at Cat for only a moment. She slipped her hand into his dress pocket, pulling out a grey electrical charge with a metallic antenna.
"Now?"
"Wait."
Cat adjusted herself in his arms, allowing for easy access to the charge between her white and trembling fingers.
"Wait." He said again, glancing over his shoulder as if expecting to be followed. "Okay go."
She pressed the button with all her might, shutting her eyes tight in anticipation. Behind them, staggered explosions burst through the intersecting corridors like demolition blasts, spraying wooden splinters and glass shards in all directions. Cat turned her face into Joker's chest to avoid the flying projectiles and cut off the deafening booms, his hold around her back tightened protectively.
They exited the automatic glass doors and into the blinding sunlight, trudging down the cement stairway as each window blew out in series and sparks fell to the pavement like white-hot leaves. Powdered debris and smoke began to billow from the hospital's exterior and Cat coughed some explosion from her lungs.
Joker seemed to be counting under his breath as each demolition charge activated, and stopped suddenly about 20 feet from the hospital's main entrance sign.
"Uh, go…forwards." Cat stammered in disbelief, swivelling her head wildly as she looked back at the rigged building. It had gone silent, particles of dust and haze hung in the stagnant air and yet majority of the hospital's exterior was still intact.
"Press it again, sweetheart."
She smiled to herself, at the use of her nickname, and brought her thumb onto the button again.
Nothing.
"Uh," Joker licked his lips thoughtfully, contemplating how to handle the malfunction. "Maybe a little…harder?"
Cat shrugged slightly, and jammed the button excessively with her forefinger. There was a beat, and then the rest of the hospital combusted violently with plumes of orange flames and thick smoke. The walls folded in on themselves like paper-mache, and the structure began to shake threateningly.
"Go!" Cat shrieked, hitting Joker's chest with balled fists. He broke into a stagger-like run, Cat bounced in his arms uncomfortably and yet without complaint.
They took one look at the building as it collapsed behind them into a heap of rubble and a mushroom of smoke, before Joker jumped through the back of a parked school bus and nodded at his thug behind the wheel. 20-or-so civilians were shrieking in their seats, heads bowed as the bus shook with every blast.
Joker slowly lowered Cat into a navy-blue bus seat and adjusted her legs into a comfortable position.
"I'm okay." She complained, truthfully this time, and swatted his hand away as he pulled a seat belt across her shoulder. "Leave it, I can do it."
Joker didn't move until she had the seat belt buckled into place, even then he gazed up at her in concern.
"Where to?" She asked, clearing her throat in discomfort under his penetrating gaze.
"Prewitt Building," Joker answered, running a hand through his hair. "We'll set up for the next stage, and you need sleep."
It was as if worrying about her being shot removed a restraint on caution that he had been holding. Cat was growing tired of his distressed expression, and leaned backwards into her seat as the moving bus lulled her. Her seat sagged slightly as Joker sat beside her, and for a few peaceful moments they simply breathed together, relieved and exhausted. Cat felt fingertips brush against the gash on her forehead that she'd all but forgotten about.
"I'll get, uh, stitches."
"Later." She protested, moving Joker's hand around her shoulders and curling herself against him. "Just, sit." Cat ordered, and she lifted her chin to kiss his nose gently.