Within the span of two months, Harleen Quinzel became a somebody. No longer was she a pretty-faced newbie, a wannabe psychiatrist to the worst of the worst. No. Those times were gone just like her way too narrow parking lot at the asylum's unkempt backyard. Now she had her own, newly whitened box reserved in the front, right opposite Dr Arkham's. Her pay check gained three figures overnight and the window in her office she had been complaining about ever since her arrival was finally fixed. She was even getting cheerful hellos from the well-respected senior doctors every Monday as she passed them on their way to weekly meetings.
She was aware she became an enigma, a young wonder-shrink who managed to stay on the "Clown Prince of Crime" case longer than any other professional in history.
Of course, Dr Arkham immediately took advantage of the circumstances and invited Gotham News to make an interview with the "woman behind Joker's steady recovery".
He spent half of the interview interrupting the camera-shy doctor with his inputs of how he made sure she got the job and how he "knew from the first moment she was the right choice, believe me!"
There were even talks of doing an interview with the laughing patient himself, an idea especially pushed forward by Arkham, but the asylum board led by an infuriated Bruce Wayne buried these hopes 12 feet under.
Dr Quinzel adapted to her new role, of course. The blonde realized very quickly she had to strike while the iron was hot if she wanted to take full advantage of her unexpected rise to fame. And famous she sure was. Suddenly, she was showered with offers of the best research grants in the States and international psychiatric associations were blowing up her phone to press her into at least considering a visit and giving a speech about her treatment of "violent psychopaths". Some of her university teachers and friends even called to congratulate her on her "fantastic achievements". It was safe to say she was beyond surprised. Happy, but very surprised. She had the field of psychiatry served on a silver platter and she hardly did anything to earn it.
Perhaps that was the part that worried her the most. Because as much as she tried to fake smiles and act pleased with all the new opportunities that awaited her, she knew it was all undeserved.
She was hardly curing the Joker. Sure, he agreed to do everything she asked and stuck to his side of the bargain with a surprising consistency. She had all the test scores and answers she could possibly want: he made no attempts to sabotage their sessions now.
And yet, she had no clue who she talked to every Friday afternoon. His madness still escaped her understanding, his plans, his thoughts, his desire to possess and destroy remained veiled to her. She might had been considered an enigma by the public, but his mind was a far greater mystery.
Any attempt at therapy was doomed from the start. How could she cure him when she didn't know what to cure?
Abstract. He was so abstract.
Yet at the same time, he was very material to her. The more she met with the green haired mob boss from cell 14965, the more she felt like her world above the ground level of the hospital was just a hazy dream. Her reality now lied within four padded walls.
She had no idea when she first began to feel that way. She knew though that every time she was getting cheers from her colleagues or envious glances from the other interns at the facility, in her heart she couldn't wait to be locked down and just left alone with him.
The blonde pressed her eyes close.
Yes. Despite everything, there was something undeniably familiar about that pale man with his notorious rictus grin. She knew his type, knew it like the palm of her hand. She grew up surrounded by loud men with gang tattoos and hidden revolvers in the pockets of their black suits. She passed their great cars in traffic jams on her way to school with her mum. She met them lounging in bars as a teenager, the smoky air filled with their arrogant laughs and occasional gun shot. Sometimes, they wolf-whistled on her and her giggling friends from the shadows of ran-down, abandoned buildings, their hard eyes illuminated by the light from their cigars.
Maybe then, somewhere in a similar area, similar avenue in Gotham City, the Joker had been smoking his own cigar, eying pretty girls exiting a club as he leaned across the hood of his expensive car. Or maybe he hadn't had an expensive car. Maybe he was a no one back then, his era of terror not yet begun.
She could almost smile as she visualised him, a boy from…The Narrows, perhaps? Maybe he hadn't even had the tattoos or the wild hair dye job at that time. Perhaps he was a regular young man from a slum, a guy with an absent father and a drug addicted mother who had to support himself since ever.
God knows whether he was insane back then too.
And perhaps just like her, he wanted the finer things in life. She could imagine him obsessed with a high class life, the cash, his desire for the glitz and respect he saw those men in black suits and golden teeth receive everywhere they went. She suspected he joined some local gang at an early age and rose above his station soon after. Can't keep a good man down. And she was sure he was damn good at whatever thug business he had to do in those days.
And so, he was here now. With his pet hyenas, a purple Lamborghini, his gold jewellery, million dollar watches and perfectly coiffed hair.
He made it to the top. They both did.
He was the King of Gotham's underworld: a force only Batman dared to challenge.
She, well she was the current star of Gotham's psychiatry.
And they both had to crawl from dirt like cockroaches in order to get where they were now.
Yes, thought the blonde doctor as she moved to stand by her balcony and stare at the rain drops sliding down the window pane. Joker was a memory, one that was distant but still very colourful, very much alive. He was Canarsie. And that was the one thing she desperately needed whenever she was too terrified to meet the scrutinising glances that followed her every step at the hospital.
He simply felt like home.
…
It happened about two weeks later.
Dr Quinzel walked to her session on shaky legs, the clicking of her high heels echoing in the empty hallway together with her badly supressed sobs. Oh, how could she go and face him now?
"You think you are so clever, don't you?"
"You mop around with your little doctor's badge, basking in the glory of your lucrative patients list…"
"… Do you think I don't know how exactly you got the job?"
"The Joker was mine!"
"Of course, you are the head girl of the moment in more sense than one…!"
"Be very careful, princess…"
"So tell me, who's the lucky guy: Dr Arkham? Or the Clown himself!?"
"…but believe me, what goes around, comes around, Quinzel…"
"I don't know what game he's playing with you…..no chance of you winning."
"…Enjoy the fun while it lasts because one day, you'll enter that therapy room and you'll never come out!"
"Who do you think you are?!"
"…they will be washing your brain off the walls!"
Her voice. Her terrible, terrible voice that snarled so many insults… She could hear them still, shouting at her inside her head.
Dr Leland.
Joan.
How could she?
She blindly searched for the monitor and swiped her ID card across the screen. The gate buzzed and she was let into the Special Care Unit. There were no guards with her this time. She was coming to the session 10 minutes earlier. She just felt that if she wouldn't go in right then and there, she would not be able to do it all…
The blonde wiped her wet cheeks with the back of her hand and pushed the cell door open with what she hoped was a nonchalant move.
Of course, he could tell something was off the moment his pale eyes searched her flushed face. It didn't take him long to make her talk. He had a gift for making people do that. He always got what he wanted, even from her. The young psychiatrist was aware of all this when she burst into tears for the second time that day right in front of her patient.
And as stupid as she knew it was, she recounted all her fears, all her pains and the bitter betrayal she felt in between heart-wrenching sobs. She couldn't calm down, not even after she told him everything Dr Leland accused her of in that atrium by the asylum's canteen.
She felt so lonely. So alienated and confused and the hot tears brought her the only relief.
Joker watched her for a long time with an unreadable expression on his unusually serious face. She almost missed his words as they drowned in the sound of her wails.
"What?" she croaked.
"I said she is not fit to tie your shoelaces. None of them are."
She let out a small breath as she slowly raised her head to squint at him through puffy eyes. She was certain she imagined it. And yet, the way he tilted his narrow face, offering her a small smile, a genuine, comforting smile… she had to believe it. Warmth spread across her tense body as she shakily returned the gesture. So he could behumane after all…
"You know," he continued with his eyes rolled upwards to the cracked ceiling, "I was never truly appreciated in my job either."
Her slumped shoulders froze. Did he just…?
Joker hummed before cracking a smile: "How does that saying go? It's the quite ones you gotta watch? Something like that. People are really fucking stupid!"
He laughed, but his amused expression soon turned into a scowl: "They always underestimate, don't they? Thinking they're better, that they deserve things more than you. Well, that's when their downfall happens, isn't it, doctor? You don't lose because your enemies get stronger. You lose when you start thinking you're above them." He pierced her with an intense stare, face suddenly void of any emotion.
She could tell he was waiting for her reaction, but she was too surprised to say anything. She wiped away her tears awkwardly, gazing up at him with red-rimmed eyes. After all, his past had always been a taboo in their discussions. Joker only ever allowed her a glimpse at his more current affairs.
"So," she began in a shaky voice, her dry throat clenching painfully, "what did you do to prove them wrong?"
He didn't answer straight away. Lowering his eyes to meet hers ever so slowly, his mouth stretched into that silver-lined smirk she began to like so much.
"Oh I got rid of them. Because the reality was that everything they thought they could do, I could do better."
She suddenly felt very cold, her chest still heaving with silent sobs.
He let out a low chuckle, averting his gaze from her frail form. When he spoke again, she couldn't help but feel shivers running up her spine.
"Of course, I got into a bit of trouble after that. Made some beginners' mistakes as you might call it. Self-control is not one of my strengths as you would know, doc! Anyway, it all escalated into a chase with a large Bat…,"
Her eyes widened like saucers. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Bat? Did he get acquainted with Batman before he even became the King of Gotham?
"…followed by a little unexpected dip in a nasty liquid. Hence my beautiful looks," he added with a cackle, lifting his non-existent eyebrows at her stunned expression.
And in that moment, her exhausted heart swelled up with a sudden wave of profound and deep-running pity. Acid. He fell into acid.
It made sense in a way, she shuddered. There were so many rumours, so many versions of the story as to Joker's eccentric looks. Was it makeup? Did he have some sort of a rare skin condition?
However, she noticed the subtle bleached quality to his translucent skin the first time she sat her eyes on him, and knew there had to be more to it than what was whispered on the streets. Of course, she would had never guessed this was truly the cause. Her chest tightened at the thought of aggressive chemicals burning away layers and layers of skin, dissolving the pigment and leaving behind a blanched canvas of alienation and misery. She could not even begin to imagine the amount of pain and confusion he must had gone through when he emerged… Was that the moment when he tipped over the edge of his sanity?
As if hearing her thoughts, he gave her a smirk before scolding her: "Oh don't make me into a victim, Dr Quinzel. You see, it was a touch of fate. At least that's how I see it. Unpleasant but necessary to build character. Pain is a wonderful thing. Instrument of gods."
She was so immersed in digesting his twisted philosophy that she hadn't noticed Joker's grinning face creep towards her from across the table.
"Don't let them tell you what you can or cannot do, doll face. The world is in the palm of your hand and it's only up to you whether you take it or not. It's all your choice. Just like it was mine."
She looked up into his deep blue eyes in amazement. His face had never seemed more beautiful to her than in that one, fleeting moment. Her anguish, her hurt were suddenly all gone and forgotten. She knew then he was trying to comfort her all along.
Feeling moved, the young doctor gave her patient a small, heartfelt smile: "Thanks, Mister J."
The grin he gave her then was the proudest, the most manic she had ever seen on him. He loved it! He loved that name!
And as his cackling filled the stuffy air around them and her heart soared at his approval, she knew she had been right before:
He truly was home.
...
And there you have it: the first time Harleen fell a little bit in love with her grinning patient. Once again, a huge thank you for all the feedback, especially to you great people that left a review! I could not keep a smile off my face as I read your kind words. I am very, very happy that you like this story!
So thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Let me know what you thought!
ZeldaK
