(Hello again! I'm glad that I got some reviews that were positive about the first chapter. And because of that, I've decided to show my appreciation and upload the second chapter today! I do not own the Batman characters except for Tommy Tetch, Gatsby, Caleb, and Amber. Katherine, Katlyn, and Chelsea are friends that have graciously allowed me to use them in my story to cause chaos.)

Chapter Two

House Tour

September 2nd, 2011

The rest of her day didn't get any better, more little incidents occurred. Since Amber still had cafeteria duty, she was told to continue supervising even after her mishap in the garbage can. That's when she had a run in with the lunatic who called himself the Condiment King. During his ravings, he squirted a bottle of ketchup and mustard all over Amber's scrubs before security took him away. "All will cower in fear of the Condiment King!" he screamed as he was dragged away.

A guard took one look at Amber's stained uniform and chuckled. "First day, huh?" he guessed. Amber gave a strained smiled, holding back the answer she really wanted to give him.

Going into the employees' bathroom to clean herself up, she grabbed a few paper towels and wet them under faucet. She caught a glimpse of her reflection and groaned. Her left cheek sported a dab of ketchup. Sighing, she wiped it off and muttered, "You're out of your mind." She started to try getting the stains out of her clothes, watching her motions in the mirror. "Absolutely crazy, that's what you are."

The door to a stall opened and Amber jumped as she turned to look. A black woman of medium height in a doctor's uniform looked back at her with a knowing gaze. "No, you're not crazy, but talking to yourself out loud does draw some stares," she said. The woman walked to the sink next to Amber and washed her hands. "I'm Dr. Joan Leland by the way."

"Amber Johnson."

"New, huh?"

"Is it that obvious?"

Joan took in the stains on Amber's uniform and gave a small smile that said, "Very."

"Is it always like this," Amber asked.

Joan took her time with drying the water from her hands as she came up with an answer. "Sometimes," she said slowly, "other times it can be worse. And then there are days when nothing happens." She tossed the paper towels in the trash bin and shrugged. "But this is an asylum for the criminally insane; anyone who expects it to be a cake walk should just leave."

"I just didn't expect it to be this hectic on my first day."

"With our patients you have to expect the unexpected and react as soon as possible." Joan gave her a smile. "I hope to see you again, but if not, I understand. This place can get under your skin." She turned to leave. Amber barely had a moment to think things through before she practically flew after Joan.

"Wait! I need your guidance!" she cried. Joan turned around to look at the new nurse, an expression of curiosity and confusion on her face. Amber took a deep breath. "Let me explain; I need someone who knows this place and can tell me the ways of the asylum."

Joan cocked her head to the side. "So basically, you want me to be your jedi master and you be the padawan?"

"Help me, Joan Leland. You're my only hope."

"Nice reference usage," the older woman noted with a nod of approval. "But I don't know if I'd have the time to –,"

Amber set aside her pride and fell to her knees. Her arms wrapped tightly around Joan's legs. "Please! I've been harassed by the Joker, thrown into the trash can, rolled down the hall in said trash can, been snickered at by the guards, got my scrubs decorated by the Condiment King, and it hasn't even been an hour! Please!" She looked up at Joan with pitiful green eyes and sniffed. "I'm desperate here!"

Joan looked at the ceiling, sighed, and lowered her gaze back down at Amber who had now developed the watery eyes look. "Okay, I'll help," Joan said, defeated.

Amber leapt to her feet with a fist pump. "Yes!"

Joan cleared her throat. "I'll only help you out for a month. That's as long as I can go, I'm a very busy doctor."

Amber nodded her head vigorously to show she understood. "Uh-huh, one month. Got it! Thank you, thank you, thank you! You have no idea how much this will help me out!"

Joan couldn't help but smile at her eagerness. She took Amber by the wrist and began to walk, pulling her along. "C'mon, there are a few people you need to know about if you're going to work here."

They made their way back to the cafeteria. Amber was a bit hesitant to go enter but Joan assured her they wouldn't be mingling with the patients too much. She led her to an area of tables that staff members sat to eat their lunch but could keep an eye on their patients or charges.

"This area's used by orderlies and nurses who are in charge of more than one patient. Depending on the circumstances of the patients, an orderly may have to keep a constant watch on their charges and so lunch for the patient also doubles as lunch for the orderly's," Joan informed her. She glanced at the clock on the wall and checked her wristwatch. "The Head of Security should be here at 12:30." The moment the clock turned from 12:29 to 12:30 a man walked through the double doors. "There he is," Joan said.

Amber's jaw fell open. The man was huge! Not in a fat, bulky sense, but in muscle! His neck had to be as big around as her thigh and his arms looked as though they could break you in two without a sweat. He had a square jaw and a thin line of a mouth that told her it rarely curled into a smile. His black hair was in the classic army buzz cut and he wore his uniform in perfect accordance to the dress code. As he walked, he kept a hand close to his baton.

Amber slowly closed her gaping mouth and gulped uneasily. "That's the Head of Security?"

Joan nodded. "Yep. Officer Lyle Bolton. Don't let him catch you staring. He hates that. Oh, and he can smell fear." Amber's head snapped around in Joan's direction. Her eyes were wide with panic. Joan let out a laugh. "I'm joking!" Amber sighed with relief. "Except for the staring part." Amber tensed up again. "He used to be the security expert at Wayne Enterprise."

"Why'd he leave?" Amber asked, her voice dropping to a whisper.

"Bruce Wayne himself recommended him to Dr. Arkham. The asylum was in desperate need of a new Head of Security and Mr. Wayne said he was the best man for the job."

"And Dr. Arkham just went with it?"

"Bruce Wayne makes many contributions to the asylum."

"Ah."

Nurse Amber glanced at Bolton in time to see him snarl at a patient who crossed his path. The patient scampered away with a yelp and a satisfied smirk appeared on Bolton's face. "So basically I have to get on his good side?" The look on Joan's face told her he didn't have a good side.

Joan stood up and smoothed out her black skirt. "Time for you to meet Gatsby."

The room where art therapy took place was spacious and surprisingly bright and colorful despite being in Arkham Asylum. Amber spotted a few hurriedly drawn pictures on the wall. A patient's work when the therapist wasn't looking? She couldn't help but smile at the idea.

"Gatsby?" Joan called out.

"In here!" a man's voice replied from the supplies closet. Joan and Amber walked over to the open door and found a lanky man with unruly black hair and a goatee balancing boxes of paints in his arms. "Ah, my sweet, sweet Joan! How are you?" he asked cheerfully. He pushed the boxes onto a shelf and hurried out of the closet to take hold of Joan's hand and plant a kiss on it.

"I'm fine, Gatsby," Joan answered.

"Good, good, good, good!" His smile completely vanished when his eyes fell on Amber. "Who are you?" he asked with no cheerfulness.

Joan put a hand on Amber's shoulder. "This is Amber Johnson, our new nurse. I'm showing her around for a while," she explained.

The pearly white smile reappeared. "Oh fine, fine, fine, fine. Hello Miss Amber, I'm Gatsby; it's very very good of you to come work here."

"Gatsby's the art instructor."

"Yes, yes, yes. So, so sorry for the cold treatment, I was worried Arkham might be replacing me."

"Gatsby, I've told you there's no need to worry about that," Joan said in a tone used by someone who's had the conversation before.

"Well, I suppose it is a bit of a silly silly worry," Gatsby conceded. "After all, no other art therapist would dare come here. And they just don't approach the subject as I do. I feel that art can help these patients heal whatever hurt they feel and break through their barriers so they can express themselves!"

Did the man really just pose? Oh no, he's looking at me! Smile, woman! Amber slapped on a polite smile only to nearly squeak with surprise when Gatsby crossed her personal space and came nearly nose to nose with her. He studied her face intently and nodded his head.

"My, my, my, my, my, you have such pretty green eyes. Best keep away from the Joker, Miss Amber."

"We've already met," she muttered. Gatsby let out a loud, high pitched, giggle. Amber turned her eyes to Joan and widened them ever so slightly. The woman gave her a reassuring smile.

The art therapist stared at her again for a moment, his hand stroking the black goatee on his chin. "You know, I think I might want to paint you," he said suddenly.

"Wha?"

"I'll do a portrait of you! It's been a while since I've had someone new to test my artistic abilities! And you have such an appealing bone structure; what do you say?"

The man was practically bouncing on his toes! The word 'NO' was the first thing that came to Amber's mind. Instead, Joan intervened. "Thanks, but no thanks, Gatsby. We have a lot of things to see today."

Gatsby's bouncing stopped. "Oh, very well, very well. Some other time then?"

"We'll see," Amber said evasively.

"Till we meet again, my dears!" he sang and returned to his art supplies.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Amber gripped Joan by the arm. "Was that man a former patient here at any point in his life?" she asked.

"You're not the first person to ask that," Joan chuckled. "On with the tour."

I don't think I can take much more today, Amber thought.

Later that night, when all the patients had been taken to their cells and it was nearing lights out, the topic was about 'the new nurse'.

"So, what did you think of the new girl, uh, uh, Amy? Amanda? Amberly?"

"Amber," Crane corrected the Clown Prince of Crime.

The Joker snapped his fingers. "That's it! Aaaamber! Yeah, what did you think of her?"

Crane sighed and closed the book he had been trying to read. He stood up from his bed and walked to his glass wall to look across the hall into the Joker's cell. "I think her to be too soft to work in a place like this," he answered.

"She'd be fun to mess with though," the Joker chuckled.

Crane went back to his bed and sat cross-legged with his book. "For you perhaps."

"She has green eyes; did you notice that?"

"Not really."

"A reaaally nice shade of green. No blue in them at all."

A loud 'ugh' of annoyance was heard from the cell directly in front of the Joker. Katherine sat up in bed and glared at him. "Would you shut up? Some people are trying to sleep! So stop talking about her eyes! What is it with you and green eyes? Do you have some sort of a green eye fetish?"

The Joker stared at her with a look of utter confusion. "How long have you had the cell in front of me?" he asked.

Crane looked back up from his book and adjusted his glasses. "She's been in Arkham for a year, but she's had the cell directly across from you since Batman last put you in here eight months ago."

"Bats!"

Katherine pounded her fist on the cells left wall which was next to Crane's. "Hey, Scarecrow, stop saying that word! I know you did it on purpose!" she scolded. Crane was lucky the walls were solid and not glass so she couldn't see his little smirk.

The Joker frowned. "Back on the subject people and mutated Plant lady!" Poison Ivy had the cell to his right and did not appreciate the remark. "What about the new nurse? We could use her to our advantage."

"Like what? Lie and say the guards will let us have cookies past our bedtimes?" the Riddler sniffed.

The Joker craned his neck, trying to get a glimpse of the occupant of the cell on his left. "No, Question Mark Man, like something bigger. Something like –," He was interrupted by the sound of the guards dragging in a straitjacketed girl who was probably an inch shorter than Chelsea.

Katherine pressed her face against the glass, creating a squeak. "Katlyn! They finally let you out of solitary confinement!" she cheered.

Katlyn was put in the cell to the right of Crane. He groaned in disappointment. Why did the powers that be decide for him to be the one stuck in the cell in the middle of them two girls?

Katlyn struggled to sit up, still in her straitjacket, and frowned at the guards. "Hey, don't forget to take this thing off of me!" she shouted.

"Don't do it! Munchkins are dangerous," the Joker teased.

The guards took off Katlyn's straitjacket and locked the glass wall behind them. She stretched her arms and bounced on her bed. "As much as I like hugs, I don't exactly like hugging myself for six days straight."

"Try eighteen," the Joker muttered under his breath. Only the Riddler heard his remark and sighed sadly. Those had been the best eighteen Joker free nights of peaceful sleep he had ever gotten. Now they were gone.

"So, what did I miss?" Katlyn asked.

"Not much. Victor Fries aka Mister Freeze, froze the cook yesterday because his ice cream was melting too fast," Katherine informed her.

"And we got a new nurse," Chelsea burst.

Katherine glared at the girl next to Ivy's cell. "Hey, no interrupting! I'm the one who was supposed to tell her!"

Chelsea hid under her blankets. "Sorry!"

"We have a new nurse?"

"Yes, very new. She just started today in fact," Crane sighed. He put aside his book. It was hopeless to read any further tonight.

Soon a guard came by and bellowed, "Alright, no more talking! Lights out!"

The lights blinked out and the only illumination provided was the dim bed lamps in their cells. Of course, due to an incident involving the Joker and his use of the bed lamp as a weapon, the asylum had the patients' bed lamps replaced with new ones. Ones that were bolted to their nightstand, which was also bolted to the floor. The guard flicked on his flashlight and shined it in on their cells for a final checkup. He checked the left side cells first; Caleb, Nigma, Joker, Ivy, Chelsea, the next one was empty due to the fact its last occupant had been moved to permanent isolation in the lower levels of the building, and the last cell was Harvey Dent. The guard switched to checking the right side; Katlyn, Crane, Katherine, Harley Quinn, Jervis Tetch, and Tommy Tetch.

He finished his checkup and high tailed it out of there. After he was gone, a few moments of pure silence followed. It did not last long.

"I go loo-oo-ooony /as a light bulb battered bug, /simply loo-oo-ooony, /sometimes foam and chew the rug!"

Everyone groaned at the sound of the Joker's voice as he sang the song he claimed to have come up with all on his own.

"Puddin'! Please stop! I need to sleep!"

"I'm sorry but I don't listen to traitors!"

"Puddin'!"

"Mister, life is swell, it'll chase those blues away, /You can trade your gloom for a rubber room, and injections twice a day!"

"Shut up," Two-Face shouted.

"Oh, live a little, Harvey! Come on, join me! You know you want to!"

Harvey paused before he yelled back and looked down at his coin. "Don't you dare flip that coin," Katherine and Katlyn shouted as one.

"I wasn't going to flip my coin," Harvey lied.

"You were thinkin' it," they said together. Sometimes it creeped the other patients out when they did that.

"Just go loo-oo-ooony, like an acid casualty, or a moo-oo-nie, or a preacher on TV!"

"Riddle me this! What is-?"

"Loud, obnoxious, and vile," Ivy hissed out, interrupting Nigma.

The Riddler's bottom lip protruded a bit. "That's not the question at all," he mumbled.

"When the human race wears an anxious face, /When the bomb hangs over head,
/When your kid turns blue, /It won't worry you, /You can smile and nod instead!"

Chelsea sighed dreamily. "Mr. Joker, you're so clever with words."

"Don't encourage him," Crane told her.

Only the Tetchs didn't seem to be bothered by the singing. In fact, they hadn't said a word. Harley pounded her fist on the wall that was next to Jervis. "Hey, Hatter!'

Jervis shot up in bed when he felt the wall his back was pressed to vibrate. He gave a startled snort and rubbed his eyes. "Huh? What?" he slurred.

"How can you sleep with this going on?" Harley asked.

Jervis pulled out a pair of ear plugs from his ears and looked around. "Was someone trying to call me?" he asked with some confusion.

"He has ear plugs!" Ivy screeched.

"Where did he get those?" Nigma asked angrily.

"Tell us where you got them, Tetch, or I may or may not seriously hurt you; depending on which side my coin lands!"

Nigma rolled his eyes. What kind of threat was that? His ear perked up when he realized that out of all the voices shouting now, the one who had started the mess was absent. He looked across the hall into Crane's cell and searched for a mirror. Lucky guy: he was one of the few patients allowed to have a mirror in his cell. Nigma suspected it had something to do with Crane having been a former psychiatrist to the asylum.

The Riddler found the mirror and moved to where he could look at it and see into the Joker's cell. His jaw dropped and his anger flared. That sick clown was asleep! He should have known he would do something like this!

Nigma stomped over to his bed, got under the covers and pulled the pillow over his head; hoping it would muffle the arguing voices around him. "You'll pay for this clown…"

(I hope you got a few more laughs out of this. And what could possibly be roaming around in the Joker's head? Please leave me reviews! Oh, and, if there are any Batman villains that you'd like to see make an appearance in this story, please feel free to tell me! Which means you'd have to leave a review. Hint hint.)