This is where things get interesting. So within the next chapters will be a few time jumps and journal entries will surface that belong to both Crane and Nelson. I will make these jumps pretty clear, I don't want to cause any confusions to happen.
Remember my Joker is also Arkham-verse and Harley will be as well when she is introduced. I'll actually mention Harley quite a bit as she is something Arkham staff avoid in conversation and something like Crane and Nelson's responsibility, or so they feel.
Hope you all enjoy!
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Two years crept by slowly and Crane and Nelson seemed to age quickly as they continued to work there. Both doctors stood a head above the rest, always dressed in fine clothing and never was a hair out of place. As the months moved along, Dr. Crane became a stoic voice of reason while Dr. Nelson had loosened her tight grip and was much more relaxed and fluid in her day to day. They ate lunch often and shared their notes. They would often switch patients to see if the other doctor could see something the main doctor could not. They were often not seen one without the other doing their rounds together. While they would call each other friends, they had arguments often. Nurses and orderlies would walk by their offices and hear their screaming voices, calling each other a slew of insults. Many would giggle and snicker and say something like, they fight like an old married couple. However, they would both calm down enough soon enough and the yelling would stop.
As the first year rolled by, Nirvana was named head psychologist of maximum security while Jonathan Crane was named Head Psychologist of Arkham Asylum. They both ruled their own realms but became the ones that interviewed for new recruits. It was hard to pass their mind traps and tests but those who did were often placed on easy cases, keeping them on the upper floors and very rarely allowed them access to their patients in maximum security. The few that they did allow down below often didn't stay long. Few had the backbone for the violent outbursts and personal threats that one got everyday when they came into their designated rooms. They often asked to leave to the upper floors or quit all together. Or they became infatuated with their patient, gained a multiple personality, and broke out half the person trying to get their 'puddin' out. But Nelson and Crane avoided that conversation at all cost. Both of their jobs had been put into jeopardy because of a lovestruck girl and they had assured their superiors that this would never be an issue again.
The next year was when Crane had gained more on his plate than it seemed he could handle. Between his patients, renovations of maximum security, hiring new people, and the weight of his own life on his shoulders, while he would never admit it to anyone, Nelson could see he was becoming overwhelmed. So she insisted on taking over some of his patients, organizing a chart of some she would take and some he would keep and it came down to the wire when they had brought Joker into the mix. With Nelson taking Quinn on as a patient, she believed it only natural she take Joker as well. However after the last incident with Joker and a female psychologist, Crane thought it too dangerous for Nelson to take the Crown Prince of Crime onto her plate.
Through another shouting match, however, Crane gave in, handing over the files for Joker and Harley Quinn with the same stoic face he always wore. Nirvana did her best not to take the situation lately. She read case file after case file and kept her thoughts in order as she decided what to do with her new patient. Harleen was easy enough, let her ramble and she stays relatively at ease. Don't call her Harleen to her face because it causes her to become violent. Don't talk bad about her "puddin". Simple enough for anyone with two brains but the other would be different. She decided that isolation for a while would be her better option. Not from everyone but from sessions and doctors. While Crane disagreed with this idea he didn't see a need to fight it either. He would prefer Nirvana not getting any closer to the clown than necessary. While they remained neutral in most aspects, Crane would easily admit he had a respect for the woman. She was intelligent and extremely goal orientated, just like himself. Though their goals differed greatly from one another, he respected her need to do good. He just never shared that need of hers. When speaking about her to his superiors, he often called her naive, but went on to say that it was that naivety that caused her to wake up every morning and do her job well. He often spoke harsh with Nirvana, but his attention to her was soft in its own way. He did what he could to look after her, as a brother would a sister. And she looked after him, seeing him differently than others did. He was grateful to her for that.
Dr. Nelson had received Joker as her patient in July of that year, but didn't schedule their first meeting until October. She had decided six months without a meeting had been long enough. So she had met Joker on a quite night on October 30th, making it a point to avoid any sessions on Halloween. The walk down her familiar hallway seemed to have a chill in the air. Without Crane down there all the time, it had been a lonely little section of the asylum. She missed having a friend within the never ending threats that she faced everyday. Aaron Cash always seemed close by, but he had his concerns while Nirvana had hers. She wasn't scared of Killer Croc or Zsasz. They were broodish and easy to see through. She was afraid of the ones like Edward Nigma and Pamela Isley, competent but completely unpredictable individuals with minds that have a plan before you even enter a room. And Joker was one of the people who didn't even have to think of a plan for it to follow through with relative ease. While doctors gave him credit for almost flawless performances as far as his outlandish plans went, Nirvana saw his escapes were nothing but clever mistakes. They happened without much thought and what made him scary to her, was that these mistakes came to reap fruit when very little water was given to the blossom.
Her heels clicked and echoed with each step as she went along. The door, her door, came into view under its own florescent light. She kept her hands in her pockets as she reached the metal barrier between her and the Clown Prince. What would she say? She hadn't really a clue. She didn't want to think to hard about it because if she thought too much she felt like he'd be able to read her like a book. He had gotten to Quinzel so easily, was it really so out of reach he wouldn't get to her? She inhaled deeply through her nose and exhaled slowly through her mouth, expelling all doubt from her mind and she opened the door smoothly and let herself inside.
Bright green eyes took in the man in the chair with a careful glance before pulling her patented crooked smile onto her pink lips and sitting down in front of the pale faced man with the green hair.
"Case file 325, Interview with Joker," she spoke into the air before looking directly at Joker and speaking to him directly, "I'm sorry it's been so long since we've gotten the chance to meet. My name is-"
"Your name is Nirvana Nelson. Do you really think I haven't heard of you before, you're the big man on campus down here! Or should I say big woman," the man snickered, a large grin spreading across his permanently smiling lips. "What have you got for me, Doc? It's been so long since I've been in a session. I was beginning to think you all forgot about little old me," his voice was almost like nails on a chalkboard, not high pitched but unsettling and slightly to jovial for a mass murderer. Nirvana however kept her face completely blank except for her small smile.
"I'm so sorry that I kept you waiting. It has been busy these last few months. I didn't mean to make you feel neglected."
"Well atleast I haven't been completely and totally abandoned. I had the crow to keep me company. He visited my cell every night. Kept me wide awake with his wild dreams," Joker ended this with a laugh again while Dr. Nelson rose a thin eyebrow in the question that she didn't have to answer before the Joker continued, "OOOH you know about the Scarecrow, don't you?! He is all over this place. Has been for yyeeeeeears. The darkest, most forgotten crazies have met the Scarecrow atleast once. He's a hoot!" Joker stated, slapping his knee as a disturbing toothy grin stayed on his face. The chains attached to his feet and hands rattled at the sudden movement and Dr. Nelson felt her guard raise suddenly, feeling the hair on the back of her neck raising suddenly.
"But who is the Scarecrow, Joker?" she asked in a steady voice. Joker had turned his head to study the hand and feet cuffs on him, jingling them around with an amused look face on his face before the question caused his face to contort in a sick glee and when he was about to open his mouth, the sound of glass breaking startled Dr. Nelson so that she was standing immediately and she turned to look at the mirror behind them, the mirror was a double-sided one where other people could watch the session. The glass was splintered in a large circle. It reminded Dr. Nelson of a spider web. She looked at Joker who was always looking at the glass with interest before he realized he was being stared at and he quickly shrugged, "I didn't do that one, Doc." Nirvana looked at the guard in the room with her who was also looking at the glass, a look of slight fear on his face.
"Take him back to his room. I'll see you on November 2nd," she directed at Joker who seemed to have the look of disappointment a child would wear.
"Oh but Doc, we were just getting started," he agreed but Nirvana was already out of the room and moving to the next room where the observation mirror was see through. She quickly threw open the door and was greeted by no one. The room was completely empty. Nirvana shut the door, waiting to see someone behind the metal but saw no one. It was only her. She ran her fingers over the glass gently as she watched the security guard pull up Joker, but Joker was looking at the glass and laughing. Nirvana narrowed her eyes and studied the glass quietly, running her nails down the glass as she looked at it with interest.
Maybe there was something to this Scarecrow rambling. Her heart beat had slowed down to a calm rhythm and she chuckled quietly before leaving the room. She would have to tell Dr. Crane about this of course. But maybe she would wait for a little while. She didn't want to cause him anymore stress for the time being.
Crystal eyes were narrowed as they watched a TV screen with intense concentration. The lean man stood in darkness of the tech room of the maximum security floor. His chest heaved as he had moved so quickly he hadn't even registered his own movements until he was tucked away out of the view of the eyes of the asylum. He watched as she watched her fingers ran down the glass that his fist had just impacted and felt oddly comforted as she left and he didn't immediately receive a phone call. He sighed and sat down in the desk chair and began to erase the footage from the room. His knuckles stung as he wasn't a physically strong man but he had punched the glass with the force of a man three times bigger than him. He worked through the pain in silence and quickly erased the footage with ease and quickly left the room.
He didn't need someone like Joker ruining his Halloween but he also didn't want Nirvana to be pulled into it all. He wanted her to steer clear of the chaos the Scarecrow would soon bring to Gotham. He walked a secret way through the halls and made his way up to his office, remaining silent as he walked. He thought of Nirvana and Joker and cursed himself for allowing her to take him as a patient.
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AND thats it for this chapter. Next is Halloween and all the fun of seeing Scarecrow getting his first taste of fear in large masses. A Halloween Gala at Wayne Manor. Dancing and screaming will make the city rattle to its bones and Nirvana will see the face of the Scarecrow!