"You're a peach of a man, Sykes, you know that? A real whale on the barnacle of life!" The Joker smirked as two bulky orderlies lifted his securely-straitjacketed form up onto the examination bed.

"I'll take that whence it comes, Mr Kerr," replied the doctor, impassively.

"Ooh, touché! Let the tongue-depressing begin…" He stuck out his tongue, wagged it cheerfully at Sykes for a moment, then waited, open-mouthed, while his rapid eyes scanned the room. A photograph on the desk caught his attention. "Oogh ga guowd, gahk?"

Sykes looked up from the Joker's medical file. "I beg your pardon?" The civility in his voice was wearing thin.

The patient rolled in his tongue and moistened his mouth theatrically before repeating his question. "I said: 'Who's the broad, doc?'"

Sykes saw little point in concealing the answer. "That's Lauren. She just graduated cum laude from Gotham University."

"Teacher's pet, eh?" the Joker insinuated slyly, his eyes not yet straying from the mousy yet photogenic young woman in the green dress.

"I can't see that that's any of your business, Mister six-oh-three-five-dash-nine-ell. Now, can you feel this?" Sykes touched the Joker's knee with an instrument.

"Nope."

"This?"

"Nope."

"Here?"

"Steee-rike three, yer out."

"Hmm." Sykes picked up a small medical hammer and tapped at the knee. Joker's leg reacted in the expected fashion. "Reflexes normal."

"I'm delighted to hear it. But we're still not on speaking terms."

"The nerves aren't communicating to your brain. Have you had any accidents recently? Anything out of the ordinary?" Sykes almost couldn't believe he was asking that, seeing as what constituted 'ordinary' for the Joker was about as mundane as a trip to Bizarro Disneyland for most people.

"Negatorio. But I've had some odd spells of late. The occasional ride in the inner-ear Tilt-a-Whirl. Golden circle tickets to see Vertigo at the Odeon. That sort of thing." The Joker's face, temporarily ungrinning, was long and sombre. He stared straight at Sykes, coldly measured up his physician. "I assume you know why."

Sykes took off his spectacles, cleaned them on his handkerchief (a momentary slip of the fingers revealing to the Joker's keen eyes that he was uncertain and killing time with the gesture). "I'll need to do some tests. But it's probably nothing more than a trapped nerve and perhaps some hypoglycaemia."

"You know best, doc." The Joker's smile was simpering. "After all, five million inmates can't be wroooough…" With a triple-punctuated impact, the Joker's entire lanky form met with the floor. The orderlies were quick to react, pulling him back up to the bed and laying him on his back, while Sykes, internally flustered, fetched his penlight. Moments later, the Joker's lips drew back in a snarl and he groaned.

"Lie still," commanded Sykes. He lifted the Joker's eyelids, shone his light at each green-ringed pupil, came away nonplussed. "We'll have to unwrap him," he told the orderlies, whose faces showed that they were none-too-happy about this prospect.

"I gotta say, Sykes," the Joker chuckled breathlessly, "I'm losing my faith in your diagnostic skills."