VI

Two years earlier, just after the Joker had made his big bang of a debut in the city, he had been quickly sent to Arkham. Jim Gordon had just been appointed the new Commissioner and the whole city harbored mad loathing for The Batman. The fiend of the night who had murdered Harvey Dent, after even The Joker left him alive but scarred.

It had been an unsettled time. But an exciting time, for Harley. She had just finished her final semester in college and was starting as an intern at Arkham Asylum.

Harley was a smart girl. Smart enough to know when it just straight up wasn't worth it to study. When there was an easier way, why not take it? Her professors were all lonely old men. Who could resist the charms of the innocent young student? She got straight A's all throughout her college career, but not because she hit the books hard.

She had always known what she wanted to do, but everyone else had seemed pretty surprised about it to be honest. It must have been because she was such a genius gymnast. Harley had always had unprecedented control over her body, even when she tripped up she managed to orient herself to keep from getting hurt by bad falls. Like a cat, her bones seemed to be able to twist her into the right position. She was a force to be reckoned with in competition, if only because she was capable of performing the hardest tricks with very little effort.

The gymnastics got her a scholarship and a lot of people thought she would go on to continue in that, but Harley wasn't interested. Gymnastics was too much discipline and practice—things that were required whether she needed them or not. Her coaches always demanded that she be on a perpetual diet, regardless of the fact that her weight had never affected her performance the way it sometimes did with other athletes. She wanted to eat like a person, and she didn't like the other rules either. Harley had never loved the idea of rules.

Psychology attracted her, because she liked to know how people thought. Psychiatry attracted her specifically because she was curious about people who didn't think correctly. The unusual was a wonder to her.

"I'm surprised you wanted to work here, Dr. Quinzel, with your grades you could have gone someplace with a better salary, at least," the director at Arkham showed her around on her first day. The dark hallways and gothic stone aesthetic gave the place a feeling of mystery. The two of them traveled deeper into the Asylum, past armed guards to the cells of some of the most dangerous men who ever wrecked havoc in Gotham.

"Well, extreme personalities have always interested me," said Harley with a smile. She was being careful to keep her accent in control. She knew that she had the tendency to forget and slip back into her natural (annoying some would call it) way of talking. But after going to college for so many years, she felt compelled to smoother it under a more 'professional' subdued tone.

"Extreme personalities?" the director laughed shortly, "Is that what made you choose Arkham? Well, let me warn you… these are hard core psychotics. You won't be allowed to work with any of them until we feel you're ready to handle it."

"How long?"

"It could be years… some of these guys are more than just intense. Some of them are dangerous, even locked up in here, they can do a lot of damage." The director had stopped walking in front of a certain cell.

Harley glanced at the sign on the door; the one that usually had a name and a patient number. She read it twice; "Name Unknown".

"Who…" she started to ask, but moved to the side instead, there was a window looking in on the tenant, "The Joker," she realised, her heart kicked into the next gear and felt like it ran right into her ribcage. There he was.

He had been stripped of all his earthly affects and possessions. They were probably being held in a box somewhere upstairs. In place of his funky purple suit was a pale jumpsuit just like the ones that all the other patients wore. His dirty-blonde hair was slightly greenish, like it had all been soaked in chlorine repeatedly, matted, singed and not washed properly before. Ever. His make-up was gone. But he looked no less supernatural without it. Harley swallowed and was surprised by how young he looked. His thin face was intensely shadowed under the black eyes and his cheeks were hallowed out. He had the over-all look of being sort of emaciated. The scars on his cheeks were frightening even without the make-up, because of what they suggested about him.

She followed the jagged lines with her eyes. She had seen scars like this before. Cutting open the sides of someone's mouth was a gang-torture practice, especially popular over in Europe. Glasgow smile, from the Scottish mob, or sometimes it was named after the Chelsea area in England. She'd heard stories. People died sometimes… they bleed to death; passed out from shock and didn't wake up in time to stop their own life from flowing out of them. The scars she'd seen in the past were much cleaner than this.

The Joker's scars were still swollen and roughly stitched together. It made her think that he must have had someone who was decidedly not a medical expert try to suture the skin back together. He may have even tended to his own wounds without any sort of medical aid. The rough, messy way it had been done was evidence that he had not gone to a hospital.

He was looking at her.

"We've yet to assign him a new psychiatrist. No one wants the job," the director admitted.

"I'll do it."

The director looked in astonishment at Harley. "You can't be serious?"

"I'll work with him. You said no one wants the job—I want it."

"You've got to let me finish the story first," the director suggested firmly, "He's only been here two weeks… we had him with one of our veterans. This guy has dealt with all sorts of serial killers and rapists and the like, in the past."

"What happen to him?"

"The Joker stabbed him in the neck with his own pen."

Harley covered her hand with her mouth and let out a little squeal. From the corner of her eye, she could see that The Joker was still watching them through the window. He had seen her reaction and must have guessed what the director had just told her, because he busted out laughing and leaned over, clutching his sides.

"Is he alright?"

"He's alive, if that's what you mean." The director took Harley's arm in her hand and started to lead her away.

Harley glanced back at The Joker.

He winked and mouthed something. It could have been 'Come and see me sometime'.

'I will.' She mouthed back.

Harley's first day had ended with the director promising her that even if she worked harder than anyone at Arkham ever had and went through all the necessary training, it would still be at least three months before she was allowed in the same room as The Joker.

The result was that, for three months, The Joker didn't have a psychiatrist, and Harley worked harder than she ever had in her life. She actually did the work herself, actually studied and reviewed the case-files and wrote the reports and studied on how to look perfectly competent for the evaluations that she was required to take herself. And she studied The Joker himself. His crimes and what little information that his previous shrink had managed to glean from his twisted mind.

Most of the notes read about like blahblahblahblahhahahahablahblah… deviantblah… blahblahhahahaha… psychotic… blahblahblahblahhahahahaha… beyond help.

Harley thought she could get a little more out of him than that.

Two armed guards were stationed outside the Joker's cell, so they could watch through the window and make sure that the 'pen incident' was not repeated. It was the only way that they were going to give The Joker the shot of working with someone again. The constant supervision annoyed Harley, but she didn't say anything against it. Arkham had to do what they thought was necessary, even if she, for some reason, felt confident that The Joker wouldn't hurt her.

His cell only had three affects; a flat chaise-lounge like bed and a chair. Both of which were made form the same metallic material and were bolted to the ground, close to each other, so that the chair was beside the head of the bed. And there was a toilet shoved in the corner. The sparse surroundings suggested punishment. Probably, for nearly killing his doctor. It was disturbing to see the man slumped against the wall with his legs splayed out in front of him in this nearly bare room, smiling. She didn't even see any bedclothes. Necessary precautions were one thing, but how could they let him live like this? With no comfort at all; just cold metal and hard rock.

"You're not coming to speak to me?" The Joker looked up from the cement and made a show of rubbing at his eyes in astonishment, "are you?" He leapt up, half strutting towards her, like a cat who had just spotted a kitten with a toy he might like.

"I'm your new psychiatrist… do you mind if I call you Mr. J?"

"You are far too young and beautiful—how did you get them to allow… a little bird like you to visit me?"

"Well, I-"

"-I know about you… you've been here three months, and you've worked so hard. You wanted to work with me," he flashed a Cheshire grin, "Mr. J is fine, as long as you let me rearrange. Your name. A bit." He finished the sentence with a smack of his lips.

"How so?"

"Harleen Quinzel. If you chop it up for parts, we have Harlequin."

"Like the French clown. I know."

"Harley. Quinn. Har-leeee. Harlequin. Now that's a name that puts a smile on my face."

"I want you to feel comfortable around me."

"Oh, I do, Ms. Doctor Harlequin. I do. So, why don't you… ask me?"

"What would you like me to ask you, Mr. J?"

"Ask me how I got these scars."

"How did you get those scars, Mr. J?"

"Oh, no. No, no no… Hehehehe. Haha. I couldn't tell you that, it's an awful story."

"Well, I'm curious."

"…I typically have a knife in my hand. Feels, a little strange without something. You don't have a pen, do you?"

"Why don't you lie down?"

He turned to face the chaise lounge and for a moment looked like he was obediently following Harley's instructions. However, he merely glanced at the crimson cushions before dropping to the ground and sliding across the cement several feet, so that he was lying on his back beneath the couch. He put his arms behind his head, and shimmed on his back so that from this vantage point, Harley could just see his face coming out from under the furniture beside her crossed ankles.

"Fair enough," she said brightly after reviewing the way she had chosen to phrase her request.

"I was… a bit of an awkward teenager. I didn't have friends in high school. Then, this cute little family moved in next door to me, and they had this little boy. Eight years old. He was a lot like me. The other kids didn't want to be friends with him, so, since we were both alone during the afternoon, he liked to come over to watch TV in my living room with me," he looked at her eyes while he spoke. It was a bit startling… usually, her patients gazed up at the ceiling or looked at their own fingernails. "So, one day… this poor kid turned up with his throat slashed, half-buried in the wood-chips on the playground, and the coroner says that the kid was abused. Sexually. They never found out who, but all anyone ever remembers is that he hung out with that. Grubby. Creepy kid, next door… so I, can't get a job. Everyone's saying these things to me… looking at me, and I'm a sicko and a psycho and I… am walking home one night, when I see these guys I know from school, on the street. They yell. I try to run, but they're faster than I am. They corner me in the parking lot of this drug store and carve me."

"…I'm so sorry. That's terrible."

Fun Fact: Clancy Brown was the scary bad-dude in Highlander. He's also the voice of Mr. Krabs on SpongeBob SquarePants. I think that's swell.

Song of the Chapter: The Rolling Stones, "Sympathy for the Devil".