There was one less person in the Arkham rec room that day. Edward would have asked what was going on, but the weeping Harley sprawled across the faded green couch in front of the TV said enough. The extra guards posted around the doors simply drove home the point.

And we didn't even hear any alarms this time, Edward thought.

Jonathan had mentioned it before, once after a mission.

"But if he can get out, surely we can as well," he said. He had chuckled, a gleam in his eyes. "It's really not as hard as it looks. Once you get in and get to know the place, you learn about the places that the workers don't know about, the cracks that you can slip through."

The rec room was quieter than usual. Most had their heads down, their eyes on the books in their hands or at the wall. Even Jonathan and Jervis seemed lost in their own worlds, neither moving their chess pieces.

Edward's eyes wandered from them to the small phone at the end of room. It was in the corner, housed between two small pieces of wood, made of old, faded metal. Beneath it was a dusty, ancient phone book that looked as though it were heavier than a brick.

With quick steps, he walked towards the phone, never slowing even as the guards' gazes locked on him.

The corner was slightly darker than the rest of the room, the fluorescent lights above having burnt out long before. Few ever went back there; most of the wretched lot inside either had no one at all or the people they were close to were in their at well.

Or, at least in Harley's case, used to be there. Knowing The Joker, he would be back in after a few buildings fell or the Bat-Signal got fired a few times. In fact, the only person that Edward knew had ever come over here willingly was Two-Face, whose hands had shook as he flipped his coin to decide if he would ever actually pick the phone up.

It wouldn't have surprised Edward if the phone turned out to be older than he was. Everything in the building was old, the asylum a sort of living museum to everything that Gotham wanted to hide away.

Just relax, Edward thought. You aren't always going to be an exhibit here.

He dialed the number as quickly as he could, his legs jiggling as he waited for the phone to stop ringing.

"Hello, who is this?"

"Jillian?"

There was a pause. "Edward? What happened? Why are you calling?"

"Nothing happened, I just called to see if Emily is home and if I could see her."

"Oh," she said.

"I'm calling from Arkham."

Jillian sighed. "I see."

Edward bit his lip, gripping the phone tighter.

"I just didn't expect a call, that's all. Yes, Emily is home. I just picked her and Angela up from school earlier." There was a pause and then a shuffling sound. "Emily!"

Another shuffle and footsteps.

Edward had done other phone calls before, scheduled ones. His doctors had specifically told Jillian, who could then inform Emily, in advance; he could only hope that she hadn't tried to coach the girl on what to say during the call.

This time, there was no warning, no plan. Despite himself, Edward grinned.

Control was a rare thing at Arkham, at least in the hands of someone as new as him. No wonder the older patients all fought like starving dogs to get whatever scraps of it they could.

"Daddy?"

Edward paused for a moment, unsure of how to respond. It wasn't that he lacked the words to say, but that he had so many, millions of words that had simply been held in his mind and only now could be released.

"Emily?"

"Daddy!"

Edward gripped the phone tighter. "Emily, how are you doing? Have things been going well for you?"

"I lost a tooth," she said.

He smiled. "Really?"

"Yeah! It's my third one lost!"

"Your third? Wow." He paused, lightly rubbing his chin. "Let's see… The more you take from me, the bigger I get. What am I?"

"A hole!" Her reply came in seconds. That was an easy riddle, one that he had first asked her when she was only a toddler.

"Correct," he said. "Keep losing teeth and your mouth will be full of them."

Emily laughed. "I promise not to wiggle my loose one then."

"I'll hold you to that. So, how has school been going?"

"My teacher likes me!" Emily's voice rose.

"That hardly surprises me."

"She says I write too messy though."

"Just keep practicing," he said. "And don't worry, there is surely worse handwriting out there." He had thought doctors with chicken scratch handwriting was a myth, at least until he saw some of the doctor's medical notes. It had taken him a while just to figure out that they had been writing in English, let alone what they had been saying about him.

"I will!" She paused, and just before Edward could fill in the silence she spoke again, her voice low.. "Daddy, can I ask you something?"

"What, sweetie?"

"Mommy says that you're in the hospital, that you're sick."

"Well," he responded, "yes."

At least she knew what was going on with him. Now sick? He wouldn't label himself that, though the doctors (most of those working at Arkham could only have the term loosely applied to them) certainly had; it was the easiest way to get him locked in there, one less rogue for Batman to deal with and one less person that the Gotham City Police Department had to worry about.

"Why can't I come visit you? My friend Lizzie broke her arm and had to go to the hospital for three days! I got to visit her, and while I was there I got her a get well teddy bear. She got lots of those and flowers." Her voice lowered even more, so low that he had to strain to hear her. She sniffled. "Why can't I do that for you? How come I'm not allowed to go to the hospital?"

The last of the rec room's noise faded away-Harley's sobs, various moans, guards' grumbles-until the sound of the sniffling on the phone filled every part of Edward's ears.

"I…" he began.

I don't think that a teddy bear could do much for me, Edward thought.

He had to be careful what he said with all the guards around. There was no freedom of speech, not in Arkham. The place was old, trapped in a mix of 1894 and 1984.

"I'm at a special hospital, dear." It wasn't a lie, just not the whole truth. She was a smart girl, surely she could understand, at least maybe someday.

"Why? Are you going to die, Daddy?" Her voice rose in a sharp squeal. "Please don't die!"

"Of course not!" He sighed. "Emily, I can't explain it to you right now. I just want you to know that I'm thinking of you."

More footsteps came.

"Edward?"

"Jillian?"

"What happened? Emily started acting weird, began to yell. Did something happen?"

Edward flinched. Had he not been forced to wear long sleeves, he might have felt a chill at the sudden ice in her tone. "No, she just asked me what I was doing here, why I was sick. She asked if I was dying."

"Oh." Jillian's voice lowered.

"Have you told her?"

"No!" She sighed. "You know I can't."

You could, Edward thought, though he supposed that even she couldn't get all the details correctly.

"I apologize," she said before pausing. "I just got worried when I heard her yell and rushed in to check on her."

"Thank you for looking after her. I know that you…" He didn't have to say it; she had already said it for him nearly seven years before.

"She's doing well, asks about you every day." There was another pause. "Emily misses you. She likes her friends and school, even gets along with Angela and Brandon, but she has quite adjusted."

"I can understand that."

"I just want you to know that she's always thinking about you. Just a few days ago she brought home a stunning paper from school, everything correct, and asked if she could mail it to you. I haven't quite had the time to get to the post office yet."

Edward smiled. "If you could, please make the time."

"I will. Would you like to speak with her?"

Edward sighed. "Time is changing and I'll need to go soon. Things are stressful here at Arkham now, though I'm sure you've already heard about that from the news. I'll just have to call another time. Tell Emily I love her, alright?"

"Of course."

"Thank you, Jillian, for everything."

He had hoped to get by early on good behavior, he truly had. Still, if that goon, that low life scum that had gotten thrown in here with his boss thought that he could call Edward a sap and pretend to talk to someone on an imaginary phone, then he had something else coming.

There was no noise quite like the crunch that rang through the air when Edward's fist collided with his nose. Even hours later in the silence of his cell, Edward could still hear it echoing through his ears.

Dr. Martin was one of the few doctors in Arkham who actually deserved the title. Still, for once Edward did not look her in the eyes.

"I assume," she said, her voice filling her office, "that you know why you are in here today."

Today, there were two guards stationed inside with them.

Edward nodded, his eyes on his hands folded neatly on top of her desk.

"And I suppose that you have a reason for the incident that brought you here." Her voice was flat, neither angry nor approving, a tone that dug into Edward's skin.

He finally looked up. Though her voice held no feeling, she had one eyebrow slightly raised, her eyes locked on him. This was a puzzle that she alone could not solve, no matter how much she wanted to put the pieces together.

"Yes," he said. "Unlike most of the brutes here, I only use violence when I have a use for it. I have always preferred brains over brawn."

She blinked, once, twice. When she closed her eyes, for one moment he did not see the sharp pupils locked onto him.

"Well," she said after a moment, her voice filling the small room, "what is it? What happened in the rec room earlier?" For a moment, something filled her voice, something that broke free of the cold tone. Finally, there was something in her voice that wasn't as sterile and cold as the Arkham floors.

Curiosity, Edward thought, killed the cat.

Though he supposed that she had heard worse before. There was no doubt that she had other patients, and he doubted that most of the others only had a record of thievery.

Curious, yes, Edward thought, but why not just listen to the prisoners? Most of them talk a mile a minute.

No doubt word had spread across Arkham. Though the Joker's escape had certainly sped up the day, the lazy, bored feeling of an average Arkham day had mostly hung in the air. The punch had ripped through the air, faster than anything or anyone else in the room, sending the nurses into a frizzy and the caused the rest of the prisoners to yell. Had they had any cash, the money would have been on him.

Him, the riddle boy, the puzzle prince, skinny little Nygma. Whatever name they thought of next would be slapped on him in a heartbeat, and for once he would take it.

"He insulted my daughter." Edward clenched both of his fists, his fingernails digging into the palms of his skin. He could still see the bastard, red faced and unshaven, that sneer that was left on his lips only moments after he finished speaking. He had been all muscle, nothing but a goon who would never truly reform.

To him it had probably been a joke, a little lively commentary in the clown prince's absence.

The goon never did get to deliver the punch line.

"If you were in my case, you would understand, doctor." Edward folded his hands together. "You would know why I did it. I didn't want to fight him, at least not until he opened his mouth." He was babbling then, the words coming out faster and faster. His nails dug tighter into his skin, so sharp and so hard. How long had it been since he had trimmed his nails? He couldn't remember, but it felt like months.

"Edward," she said, her voice having returned to its cool tone, "I knew you had a reason." She looked him over once again but said nothing else.

Edward looked to her. Dr. Martin was a thin woman with few wrinkles, her skin a deep, dark brown. Her eyes said nothing that her mouth did not. She held herself with a straight back and pursed lips, her suit wrinkle free and glasses spotless. Would she have given the goon that same look? Could she truly have just stood there and watched, never moving a muscle save to tighten her gaze on the man before her?

There were too many possibilities, too many possible correct answers with no exact one.

"Someone had to teach that-" Edward stopped before he could let the word out. There were a thousand expletives he could throw out, little pieces of dynamite thrown into the wreckage just to break what was left of the rubble into a thousand more pieces. "I had to make him, and everyone around us watching, know what it meant to interfere with The Riddler-me-and my daughter."

"And you showed him," Dr. Martin replied.

"I showed him stars." Edward held his fists up yet unclenched them. The palms of his hands were bloody, not enough to warrant medical care but enough for him to notice the red stain spreading across his hands from the small half moons etched into his skin. "And I'll do it again if he ever tries to mess with me."

"Were you trying to prove that to him alone?" Her voice rose, though it was merely a louder form of the blank tone from before. "Or to everyone around you, everyone who saw you?"

"Well, yes-"

"Were you trying to prove it to yourself?"

Edward opened his mouth to reply but stopped himself, his eyes landing on her clock. It was close to time to leave, the time to get back to his cell before dinner got carried around. The time to try and stick the puzzle pieces of that day together and see what the big picture of the day really looked like. It wasn't as if he had the box's cover to check.

"I never thought I was proving myself, at least not back then. It was all about her, little Emily. Someone has to."

Dr. Martin folded her hands together, her fingers intertwining. "I can see that you are quite a protective man. That makes sense, especially in this situation." She raised an eyebrow. "But it leaves me with one important question. Why, Mr. Nigma, if you love her so much, do you continue doing this? How could this criminal lifestyle appeal to you when you have her to worry about?"

The clock ticked on but not fast enough. He could feel Dr. Martin's eyes on him. Not judging, not in the way that she looked at him; at this rate, she deserved a medal for being so disconnected.

"It wouldn't be fair to just give you an answer to that." Edward's eyes rumbled back to the clock. "A man can't spill all of his secrets at once. Besides, some riddles you just have to solve yourself."

Emily dug through the piles of newspaper left on the ground. Her class looked like it would be recycling a mountain of it. Across from her, her friend Natalie sat cross legged reading the comics. A few other students were running around the recycling center.

Wiping sweat from her brow, she glanced further down at the papers. She had seen his face, she was sure of it.

"Hey, Emily," Natalie suddenly called. "What are you looking for?"

Emily didn't reply. She had to focus, and there was no way to explain why she was digging through the newspaper. Natalie was her friend, but…

But this was her problem.

"Can I help?" she dropped her paper on the ground and stood up.

Emily shook her head.

"Aww," she replied.

Emily just kept moving. She had seen the paper earlier, she was sure of it.

She moved back a sports section and then stopped, hand frozen just above the paper.

"Scarecrow and Riddler caught," she read, whispering the words. "Villains apprehended."

The first picture, the large one showing a man covered by what looked like a potato sack and mask along with a man in a suit, didn't matter. What mattered were the pictures below, the ones that showed them holding signs with numbers on them.

Daddy, she thought. Her eyes wandered down the article.

She paged through the dictionary, the book heavy in her lap.

"Asylum," she read. "A noun." She put a bookmark in that page and then turned back towards the article. She had kept it with her all day, never letting go of it or showing it to anyone else during the field trip. It was her article and hers alone.

Arkham, she thought.

She began to flip pages, a few at first and then many. R was just before S and yet…

It's not there, she thought.

She flipped through a few more pages, her eyes wandering up and down the small text. It had to be there, it had to. Jillian had the biggest dictionaries, the kind that had the meaning of every word in the world inside.

Emily kept flipping, the words becoming a blur and mix of letters.

Arkham, Arkham, Arkham, the words repeated as a mantra in her head.

She jerked back away from the book suddenly and stared down at her hand. In it was the torn paper from the "a" section. Quickly, she pulled her bookmark out of it and stuffed the paper back in before closing the book. She shoved it back on the shelf, and then went back and grabbed the article.

Maybe Jillian's dictionary really didn't have all the answers in the world.