A/N: CAUTION-CHANGED CONTENT!
Hello there my dear readers! THANK YOU for returning to this story! Once again, I'm terribly sorry for the wait. I am making up for it by adding THREE new chapters today. In order to do this, I had to do some magic with story content thus far….
So the first two new chapters are a prequel/different version of the last chapter I posted (Chapter 11.) I split the original version into two parts with a slightly changed plot and added material.
The third new chapter called Black Horse is then a BRAND NEW CHAPTER. And a brand new character is coming, make a guess I say it was about time Mr J brought things forward…
I'm sorry for any confusion this edit may cause. I've removed the original Chapter 11. to make this transition smoother for you. I just feel this version creates a better setting for what I'm planning to do with this story in the future.
So bear with me, I hope you will enjoy this revised chapter more than the original.
We are nearing the end of Sick Rose, ladies and gentlemen :) Enjoy the ride.
Harleen stared lifelessly at the blank sheet in the medical file. She was freezing in that damn room but through the headache she had barely paid attention to it.
In that case, doll face, consider me to be madly in love.
The words were on a replay in her head for the past seven days.
Consider me to be madly in love.
She sighed, covering her face with ice cold hands.
Why did he say that? What did he mean?
And most importantly, did he mean it?
Could TheJokerpossibly….
….
"Remember when we talked about the Cheshire Cat?"
"If I remember? Doctor Quinzel, you know I live for these moments with you. What have you got?"
Her heart fluttered in her chest like a butterfly trying to escape from a glass jar. For how long can she go on like this?
She knew it, she felt it all play out on her pinkish skin and watered eyes, in her shy glancing away from his grinning face. The soft laugher and then sudden tensing of the lips, the eternal struggle to school her face into a serious, impassive facade… She truly hated herself sometimes.
The young doctor cleared her throat.
"I-I brought you a kitty. I thought you might like it. The kitty, I mean. It's just a stuffed toy but… Well, I thought that this way-…. This way you can always have me here with you even if I'm not really around. It's a… ha, It's another therapy trick just for you."
The laughter she let out was too high-pitched, too anxious but he didn't seem to notice.
Instead, he gave her a brilliant smirk of his own: "Har-leeen,"
She shivered.
"This is all very thoughtful of you. How do the French say it? Merci beaucoup?"
She gulped, unable to tear her eyes away from his toned arms and broad shoulders, which he rolled and rolled like a young cat stretching on a rooftop. "I-I don't know. I have never learned French."
"Ah, maybe you'll know this one, Harls. What would you say about….je t'aime?"
His laughter then made her heart skip a beat.
…..
It was… possible.
After all, not many studies had been done in that particular area.
If the whole "psychopaths can't form true attachment" hypothesis hadn't been an empirically confirmed fact, then it could be wrong…
Harleen bit her lip.
But was this the case? Was this even his correct diagnosis?
If he was the sociopath everyone in Gotham City so religiously claimed, then how could she understand him so well?
How could they get along?
He was not sane, she'd give them that. She couldn't deny there was something very wrong with the man behind the infamous Joker…
She sighed as she flipped a page in his medical file. She knew it by heart by now. She even remembered the page numbers.
Yes. Mister J had plenty of issues. Deep seated, dark, lost in his past, in his memories. They were all the things he refused to talk to her about no matter how much she had tried to relieve him.
They were like a tumour: spreading through his brain, seeping through his veins and infecting him with madness the limits of which were probably unknown even to him…
But no.
This was not what psychopathy looked like.
After all, his sympathy, his concern, their conversations and his smiles….weren't they all just too genuine to be anything but real?
He had to be real!
It all had to be real.
She just couldn't bear it, couldn't have it any other way….
Even if the others couldn't see it.
…
Bruce Wayne eyed the blonde girl with hostility, lips twitching at the sight of the dress that peeked through the white flaps of her coat. She didn't have the time to button it up, Arkham called her in such a hurry…
"So you are Harleen Quinzel."
A statement, not a question.
She winced at the lack of her professional title but plastered a smile on her face nevertheless.
"It's nice to finally meet you, Mr Wayne. The hospital appreciates your continued support of our cau-"
"I sure don't approve of the hospital's usage of this support as I've been telling Dr Arkham just last week. Maybe you can help me understand here: what's the point of locking that coked-up freak in a solitary cell unit when it is filled with his favourite personal belongings and is granted extra exercise hours? Was it you, by the way, who cancelled his body restraint policy?"
Harleen's ears reddened in anger as she stared at the man in front of her. "I see no point in cruelty, Mr Wayne. Patient 14965 is under constant surveillance, his freedom was taken away by the state. For a man like him, that's enough of a punishment."
"Is that so?" he hissed coldly. "Do you feel like that's enough for what he has done to this city?"
Silence.
"Or did you forget somewhere along your sessions that he is a deranged psychopath with zero regard for human life unless it serves his purposes? He has murdered people younger than you, Quinzel! Little older than kids!"
She didn't dare to move and stared instead at the plush seats at the other side of Dr Arkham's office.
Realising his loss of temper, Bruce Wayne turned his broad back on her, running a hand through his hair in frustration. He paused before speaking again: "But I can tell what has happened here."
In one swift movement, Wayne was facing her again: "Did he tell you his sob stories, Doctor? Abusive, criminal father, drug addicted mother and a house in a slum with a backyard full of trash?"
No. No, how could he…? How dare he! And in that tone... so cold, so pitiless!
Did he even understand what he was talking about? What kind of a life was that?
No. Of course not… How could he ever understand, how could he even imagine what a life in that sort of a neighbourhood felt like? She had never experienced that sort of despair herself but…. just living in an area next to children like that in Canarsie was…!
She hissed the harsh words before she could process them: "Do you know a lot about growing up in poverty, Mr Wayne?"
The man himself remained silent for a while, searching her eyes with an unnerving precision. It reminded her of a different pair which were set in a face no less cunning than the one in front of her right now… She held her head up high though. She would not back down. Not even if Dr Arkham pressed her to apologize for this later.
"I know a lot about growing up with absent parents. It didn't turn me into a criminal, Miss Quinzel."
"It's Doctor Quinzel, Mr Wayne," she replied with a glare.
Bruce Wayne regarded her with a cold, impassive expression on his darkened features before wordlessly gathering his jacket and heading for the door.
Just when she gave up on a reply, she saw him growl over his shoulder: "You are not a doctor yet. Just an intern. And if Gotham City is lucky enough, you'll stay just that."
"Have a good day, Miss Quinzel."
…..
Yes. This was the other issue. It was the one that had plagued her mind for quite some time.
Harleen got up, pacing her office with wild eyes.
Maybe Bruce Wayne was right.
Maybe she was not worth her title, her own credentials.
Because maybe the reason why she got on so well with Arkham Asylum's most notorious patient was that she, just like Mister J, was…
….
"Lucille!"
Nothing. She had only increased her pace.
"Lucille, wait!"
Finally, the woman turned around.
"Yes, Harleen?" Pale. Her face was so pale it made the panting doctor pause in her tracks…
"I-. I-I am so sorry, Lucille! You have no idea how horrible I feel, I don't know wh-"
"No, that's ok." The brunette attempted a smile but it only came out as a tense grimace. "Don't worry about it, I'll figure something out for my dissertation. Maybe Dr Leland will have-"
"But I just came to tell you that of course you can have a few sessions with…with him, if you still want to. You could even start next Friday-"
"No, that's ok Harleen. Really."
"But-"
"Listen, I really have to go now. My patient is waiting. But take care of yourself, alright?"
The blonde stood dumbfounded as she stared after the jittery doctor that hurried down an empty corridor.
She tried very hard not to think of the way Lucille's fingers itched for her panic button throughout their entire conversation...
….
No.
No, no, no. That was not possible.
How could it be?
Just how that could had gone undetected for years!?
She had passed the assessments!
All of them, be it at the university or even before getting on board with this internship.
She had been psychologically tested….
It had to be impossible.
And yet, how could she explain all this? What was going on with her mind? Has she really-?
Because that would be crazy…
But if Mister J meant what he said, didn't it make it alright?
Because it would mean he was not that far gone.
It would mean he wasn't…. And if he wasn't, then she couldn't be either, not for…. This.
She collected a dirty cup with shaky hands and stumbled towards the kitchen area. Tears overcame her before the cup reached the sink.
