Title: Chelsea Grin – "Life Inside the Music Box" (3/4)
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: The Dark Knight
Genre: General, eventual crime drama-ish
Characters: This chapter, Bruce Wayne, Commissioner Gordon, Dr. Quinselle, and the Joker.
Summary: "And that was the point, wasn't it? The Joker would always keep him guessing. That was the point of everything." From Bruce's POV.
Word count: 4,659
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to DC. I'm just messing around.
Author's Note: Just so you all know, the kid? Totally based on my cousin. Also, don't like, don't read. That's all.

Alfred thought it was an incredibly stupid idea.

Alfred, in all his wisdom, thought that donating so much money to Arkham would look extremely suspicious. Half a million dollars, just for the maximum-security wing? Just for one cell in the maximum-security wing? It was beyond stupid, and Alfred told him so more times than Bruce cared to count.

He told Bruce that he would be caught if he went through with it – he would be caught, and no one else could save Gotham. After Rachel's funeral, Bruce stopped caring. He donated the money, and the press made a big fuss about it, of course. But, for whatever reason, no one ever connected his name with Batman's. Bruce was still safe. It was almost disappointing.

Dr. Pascal gave Bruce a call when the modifications were finished. Understandably, he had used the money for more than just the one cell that Bruce had specified, but Bruce didn't mind, just as long as the one cell was the most secure cell in the country. Pascal reassured him that it was, but Bruce wanted to see for himself.

Alfred thought that was an incredibly stupid idea as well. "You don't need this, Master Wayne," he said the night before Bruce's tour of Arkham. "Not now. You don't need to waste your time on a criminal already safe behind bars."

"Yes. I do."

The last thing Bruce heard before he fell asleep that night was his voice, growling with laughter.

"Ohhh, you… you just couldn't let me go. Could you."

The drive to Arkham Asylum took less time than he planned. Much to Alfred's dismay, he left the penthouse over an hour before Pascal expected him there, and arrived at Arkham thirty-five minutes early. And there was his first problem of the day.

Bruce Wayne was never early. Bruce Wayne was always late.

He sighed, parked the car across the street from the hospital, and turned off the radio. Alfred was right – this was stupid. If he walked into Arkham right now, someone clever, someone smart, would figure out why. Though the thought was repugnant, he could only use Rachel's death as a cover for his inexplicable humanitarianism for so long.

Bruce closed his eyes, felt his heart stop for a millionth of a second. Rachel.

He remembered the first time they met. He was six and shy; she was five – five and two-thirds, actually, she was very adamant about that – and fearless. She found him in the library reading a Dr. Seuss book while his father took her mother around Wayne Manor, and before he even knew she was in the room – or, for that matter, who she was – she snatched the book from him and told him that he was too old for "baby books."

"But it's The Sneetches," he'd protested. "It's my dad's favorite book. He says it's important."

And Rachel shot him a look that unmistakably said prove it. Her tiny hands seemed to be attached to her hips, her elbows sticking out like thorns from a rose. She pursed her lips, and then she was suddenly sitting next to him, saying, "Well. Read it to me, and I'll tell you if it's important."

So he did.

He opened his eyes and set his jaw. He could not think about Rachel now. Abruptly and without thinking, he climbed out of the Mercedes and crossed the street. He didn't bother to check and see if any cars were coming – they could hit him, for all he cared. He kept his eyes fixed on his destination, studying every inch of it.

The new Arkham Asylum was nothing like the old one, which worried Bruce. It looked exactly like every other office building in Gotham – tall, cold, and unforgiving. A little bit boring. And hell, it was ten pure stories of windows. Bruce didn't like that at all. Any desperate criminal with a brain – or without one, depending on the criminal – could jump out of a window.

Bruce understood why this new Arkham was so innocuous – it was camouflage. There was nothing foreboding or unsettling about it, and in that same vein, it wasn't even vaguely reminiscent of a hospital. It was just another building in Gotham, and superficially, it wasn't special in any way. Every Gothamite knew that Arkham housed some of the most dangerous minds in the city, but from the outside, no one would be able to tell. It was completely and deceptively normal.

Almost like Bruce himself.

Even though it was oddly reassuring, he ignored the thought. It was a distraction, and he couldn't let anything distract him now. He focused. He put on his mask, strutted through the front door of Arkham and swaggered up to the front desk. As he leaned nonchalantly up against the front desk, he flashed the receptionist his best Bruce Wayne smile. "Hi. Bruce Wayne for Dr. Pascal? I, uh, hope I'm not too early."

A sheepish grin this time. The homely receptionist liked that, and Bruce hated himself for a moment. "Dr. Pascal's waiting for you in his office, Mr. Wayne," she simpered. Bruce really hated himself for making her simper. "Just down the hall and two doors to your right."

He gave her a little nod of thanks and sauntered down the hall with his hands in his pockets. He kept his face completely blank as he inspected the inside of Arkham, stupidly blank, like the billionaire playboy they all thought he was. Once again, the building's artificial normalcy struck him. Everything about it rang false, and nothing was at all hospital-like – at least not on this floor, which he assumed was just offices and storage. As he strolled down the hallway, he noticed that the floors were carpet rather than linoleum, and the rooms were lit by the sun rather than fluorescent light bulbs. It was those subtle differences that disconcerted Bruce the most, and made him regret his decision to come here. Alfred was right, Bruce told himself again. Beyond stupid.

Bruce found Dr. Pascal's office with relative ease, and once he spotted it, he immediately perceived that the door was ajar. Instinctively, he slowed his walk and did his best to eavesdrop inconspicuously. At first, he only heard indistinguishable murmurs, but as he got closer, the voices became more discernable. One belonged to Dr. Pascal – his voice was unmistakable, a tenor with an unfortunately nasal timbre – and a second belonged to a woman with a jarring laugh. The third voice was all too familiar, and hearing its fatigued but commanding tones made Bruce's stomach drop.

"You have to understand, Doctor," Commissioner Gordon was saying, "that it's completely against protocol. Your patient may be inhuman, but he's not some animal at a zoo, and you cannot let just anybody come in and stare at him."

"I realize that, Commissioner," Dr. Pascal replied, not a little coldly. "But you have to realize that Bruce Wayne is not just anybody – he's a significant investor in Arkham Asylum, and after donating so much money to the maximum security level, it only makes sense that he'd want to see exactly what his money got him."

Bruce stopped a few feet from the door, hands still in his pockets, and peered through the doorway, brow slightly furrowed. From here, he could see just a sliver of Gordon, part of the back of his head and neck, and just from that slight view, he could tell that Gordon was tense. Not good.

There was a long pause before Gordon answered. "He wants to see what his money got him," Gordon repeated, disbelief evident in his voice.

"Yes."

"He wants to see the new security upgrades that he paid for."

"Yes!"

Another pause. "That is absolutely out of the question."

"I'm sorry, Commissioner, but that's not for you to decide – "

Gordon stood up, and Bruce took an automatic step backwards – he didn't want the Commissioner to see him just yet. "It is for me to decide, Pascal," Gordon said with stony decisiveness. "I don't want anybody but the doctors of this hospital knowing anything about these security upgrades – even I don't want to know. The more people that know, the bigger the chances are that he'll escape, and that cannot happen."

"But, Commissioner," interrupted the woman, speaking for the first time since Bruce had started eavesdropping, "you can't possibly think that Bruce Wayne, of all people – I mean, he paid for the upgrades for this specific prisoner – he's not going to turn around and try to break him out!" She sounded too desperate, too cheery – and almost hopeful. Odd.

Gordon shook his head, but before he could reply, Bruce stepped forward and knocked once on the door. "This wouldn't be Dr. Pascal's office, would it?" he asked with a slightly befuddled look. Gordon turned and put his hands on his waist, frowning and disgruntled, and Bruce lightly pushed the door, widening the gap. "I'm afraid I got a little lost – tried to find the men's room and got all turned around, you see."

Dr. Pascal, a rail-thin man with a dark complexion and even darker bags under his eyes, jumped up from behind his desk at the sight of Bruce and sputtered, "Mr. Wayne! I didn't think – I didn't expect you to be so early!"

"Am I?" Bruce said disinterestedly, and he stepped into the room. At the same time, the woman – another doctor, he guessed – rose from her chair and clasped her arms to her chest. "Huh. Thought I was late." He shot a small grin to the blonde, and the corners of her lips twitched into a brief smile. Gordon's frown deepened.

Pascal cleared his throat and adjusted his tie. "Mr. Wayne," he said as he walked around his desk, "I'd like to introduce you to Dr. Quinselle, the chief psychiatrist of the maximum security ward."

"Quinselle?" Bruce asked as he held out his hand. She took it, smiled, and nodded, but he noticed that her eyes became distant the moment he said her name. "Is that French?"

"Probably," she said with a small, cold smirk.

"And, ah, this is Commissioner – "

"We've met, Pascal," Gordon interrupted hastily. "No need to introduce us." He offered his hand, and Bruce took it warily. He knew Gordon wasn't stupid. He just hoped he was oblivious to the painfully obvious. "How's that Lamborghini?"

Bruce laughed, partly out of relief. "Still in the shop, actually."

Gordon grimaced. "That much damage, huh?"

Bruce resisted the urge to say, "You should see my other one." No point in completely risking his cover just for a cheap laugh. Thankfully, Pascal cleared his throat again and said, "Let's get to business, shall we?"

They all took their seats, with Pascal behind his desk and Bruce in between Gordon and Dr. Quinselle. "Well, Mr. Wayne, before you arrived, the Commissioner and I were having a slight… disagreement," Pascal said delicately, and Bruce raised an eyebrow. Both doctors shifted in their seats, clearly uncomfortable. "Commissioner Gordon feels that it's – well. To put it simply, he doesn't want you to see any of the improvements that you paid for."

Bruce turned to Gordon, making sure that the look on his face was purely petulant, and Gordon said quickly, "Look, Mr. Wayne, it's a question of safety, that's all."

"Safety?" Bruce scoffed. "Come on, Gordon. You've got to be kidding."

Gordon shook his head again and leaned forward. "No, no, you don't understand. It's not a question of what's safest for you, Mr. Wayne, but what's safest for Gotham. In less than a week, that man nearly destroyed our city. He chose his targets well – he got rid of the best people in the city. Now, without someone like Harvey Dent standing up for the good in Gotham, can you imagine what he would to this city if he escaped? He'd burn it to the ground. I cannot let that happen – and I won't. Not on my watch. For Gotham's sake, I don't want anyone but him and his doctors to see the inside of his cell. I can't take any risks with this guy."

After a moment, Bruce swallowed and slowly nodded. Quietly, he said, "I think I understand, Commissioner."

Gordon eyed Bruce carefully. "I don't mean to pry, but you're not exactly the charitable type, Mr. Wayne. Why the sudden interest in Arkham's security?"

Bruce's reply was short and required no further explanation. "Rachel Dawes was a friend of mine. I just wanted to make sure that the man who killed her gets what he deserves." Gordon nodded, and he rubbed his forehead sadly. Clearly, he still carried the weight of Harvey's accusations on his shoulders, even five months afterwards. Bruce sympathized, but of course, Gordon could never know that.

Then, Dr. Quinselle stood up, interrupting both Bruce's and Gordon's thoughts. "Well," she began in a professional but rather dismissive tone, "it seems we're at a bit of an impasse, aren't we? I mean," she amended quickly as all three men in the room opened their mouths to speak, "the Commissioner doesn't want Mr. Wayne to see the new facilities – which is completely understandable, and wise, of course – but if Mr. Wayne doesn't see the improvements, then he's wasting a trip here, isn't he?" She looked directly at Bruce, and there was something cunning and unfathomable in her expression. Frankly, it worried Bruce. He wasn't sure what to think of this doctor.

"Then what are you suggesting, Harlean?" Pascal asked monotonously. Bruce couldn't help but notice the thinly veiled disdain in Pascal's voice when he addressed Quinselle. It was somewhat strange – until now, Pascal had seemed like a rather tolerant individual, but it was quite clear that he did not approve of Dr. Quinselle, or her ideas.

"Simply a compromise, Tristan," Quinselle said, sweetly abrasive. She turned and spoke to Gordon, openly indicating whom she thought was in charge. "Commissioner, how would you feel if Mr. Wayne observed a therapy session between myself and Mr. J? You could observe as well, if you – "

"I'm sorry," Bruce interrupted. "Who the hell is Mr. J?" He knew, of course, but he felt the blood involuntarily drain from his face at her suggestion. It was all he could do to distract the rest of them from noticing his suddenly white face. Obviously annoyed, Dr. Quinselle explained the reasoning behind calling a man with no name but the one he gave himself 'Mr. J' – it was part of his therapy, apparently – and Bruce pretended to listen attentively.

Gordon, on the other hand, looked dubious. Dubious and almost horrified that Quinselle would even suggest such a thing. When she turned to him and asked him again what he thought, he took his glasses off and rubbed his brow again. "It's up to Mr. Wayne," he sighed. "If he wants to see him, I'll stick around. If not – well. That's that."

Bruce leaned back in his chair, shrugged, and said with casual resolve, "Well, I've never seen him in person before. I think I'd like to see Rachel's murderer, just once."

The truth was, Bruce saw him in the mirror every morning.

Dr. Quinselle wasted no time in organizing the impromptu therapy session. Twenty minutes after Bruce had made his decision, Dr. Pascal led Gordon and Bruce down to the basement (which, Bruce was happy to see, looked almost exactly like the old Arkham: grimy and grim), where the therapy sessions normally took place. Five minutes after that, Gordon and Bruce were standing on one side of a two-way mirror, and Dr. Quinselle and her patient were on the other side, sitting across from each other at metal table and conversing with each other almost normally. Almost.

Bruce completely missed the first few minutes of their discussion – something about waiving doctor-patient privilege, which only made the patient laugh – because he was too busy studying the man's face. Had it not been for that eerie voice, Bruce would have been hard-pressed to say that this man and the Joker were the same entity. Without the makeup, he looked nothing like the Joker – he was just a man with some incredibly unfortunate scars. Bruce had thought they had looked bad covered in paint, but without the makeup, they somehow managed to look even worse. Now he realized that the red greasepaint disguised rather than accentuated them; under the fluorescent lights, he could see everything – the crevices from ill-sewn stitches, the clean slash that was his right grin and the jagged one that was his left grimace, the two small but deep cuts in his lower lip… Bruce couldn't help but wonder how he got those scars, and he knew that he would probably never know the truth.

And that was the point, wasn't it? The Joker would always keep him guessing. That was the point of everything.

Then, through his musings, Bruce heard the Joker say his name. Bruce never expected to hear his name come out of that mouth. It was almost profane, but if nothing else, it made Bruce pay attention.

"Wait, wait – Commissioner Gordon and Bruce Wayne?" the Joker repeated after Quinselle, and he laughed. Bruce hated that laugh, and somehow it only seemed worse coming out of that almost-normal face. "Well, well! Isn't that special. You want me to, uh, do a trick for 'em, maybe recite some poetry, like a good little crazy? Or maybe - " he sat up straighter and gave Quinselle a knowing look that Bruce knew all too well " – maaaaybe I oughta apologize to Brucie. For crashing his party, you know." He glanced at the two-way mirror out of the corners of his eyes, then back at Quinselle, and he grinned. "You'd love that, wouldn't you?"

Bruce glanced briefly at Quinselle – she was holding her notepad close to her chest and idly twirling her pen in and out of her fingers, blushing and smiling. Smiling coyly. Concerned, Bruce looked over at Gordon, who was also frowning powerfully. He saw Bruce looking at him and shifted his weight onto his other foot. "Noticed that too, did you?" Bruce merely nodded.

"I've told you before, Mr. J," Quinselle was saying, "you should only apologize if you feel truly sorry for your actions." He rolled his eyes. For the first time, Bruce noticed that they were brown – with the makeup, they always looked pitch black. "And I'm guessing that you don't feel sorry at all for crashing Bruce Wayne's party."

"Of course not," he said dismissively. "That was the best party I'd been to in years. And I mean that. Yeah, it was a, uh, fantastic party. The food, the woman, the Batman. All dee-light-ful. Except, I gotta say, I was a little… disappointed that I wasn't greeted by the host, you know." He shot a pointed look at the glass and spoke to it. "That, uh, wasn't very polite, Bruce." He shook his head and pursed his crooked lips, still looking at the glass, his greasy hair – no longer green, but rather an unhealthy yellow – trickling side to side like rain on a speeding car.

"Don't talk to the glass," said Quinselle, uncharacteristically stern. He turned his head leisurely to face her, and he raised an eyebrow slowly. "I mean it," she persisted, but her tone was weaker.

He just licked his lips and smiled darkly. "Ohhh-kay." It wasn't exactly a concession, but Bruce assumed he wasn't going to push it, simply because he knew he wouldn't get anything out of it. He leaned back in his chair, waiting for Quinselle to speak, and Bruce noticed his hands. They were together in almost a prayer-like position – not clasped, but relaxed, just barely touching. They almost looked dead.

Dr. Quinselle coughed into her hand and attempted to resume the conversation as if it had never been interrupted. "Who did greet you? At the party, I mean."

He looked up at the ceiling and pretended to think. "Uhhh. Harvey's, ah, one true love. Haha. Rachel. Pretty little thing with bright blue eyes and helluva sucker punch. She's, uh. She's dead now," he smiled, smacked his lips and glanced at the glass again.

Bruce inhaled sharply, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gordon grumble something unintelligible. The Joker had said that for Gordon, Bruce knew that, but he felt like he meant it for him. Guilty conscience, he supposed, but the Joker had a way of getting under Bruce's skin that was particularly unfair – he didn't even know he was doing it. "Oh. And the Batman," he added as an afterthought. "He gave me a warrrrrrrm welcome, ha. How's that little manhunt of Gordon's going, by the way?"

"Well, he hasn't been caught, if that's what you want to know." The doctor leaned forward, obviously interested, and set her notepad down on the table. She continued to twiddle the pen with both hands, elbows resting on the table and splayed out like a child's.

"Uh-huhhhh," the Joker drawled out, eyebrows furrowed for a split second before he abruptly leaned forward and brought his cuffed wrists on top of the table, mimicking Quinselle's posture. "You know the thing about the Batman?" he said with piercing honesty. "He'll always leave you hanging. Not like me. I'll tell you everything you want to know – Batman'll allllllways keep it secret, 'cause he thinks it'll protect him. He needs the mystery. Me – I just think the mystery is fun, that's all." He laughed – cackled, really – without smiling, but smiling nonetheless. Quinselle stopped fiddling her pen, totally engrossed, while Gordon shifted his weight again and Bruce held his breath.

"Take these scars, for instance." He gestured vaguely to his face with his manacled hands. "I know you wanna know how I got 'em, so. I had a kid once. Precocious little kid. Loved Star Wars, and, uh, those ri-dic­-ulous Transformers. And butter, he loooved butter. One year for Halloween, we all –uh, me and my wife – we dressed up like, uhh, like clowns. Now, my wife, she was a bit of an… addict. Always strung out, never paid attention to anything, giggly. That Halloween, after we got back from trick-or-treating, she hides her stash in with the candy, and my son, well. He finds it. He's seen mommy with her special candy before, so he knows what to do. While I'm washing the paint off my face, he snorts – ha – he snorts a lot of it. My wife's passed out on the couch, and I come out, and my son, he's got a knife in his hand, one of his butter knives, you know, and I say, 'You want some bread with your butter this time?' And I pick him up, give him a peck on the forehead, smile at him. Then I notice he's sweating. His eyes are bloodshot. I stop smiling.

"He says, 'Daddy, you're not smiling big enough.' And before I know it, he's got the knife in my mouth, and he gives me this." He turned to show the left side of his face, the side with the ragged grin, grinning for emphasis. "I drop him, of course, and he goes over to his mother and pokes her with the knife, saying, 'Mommy, mommy, mommy – can you believe how good with knives I am?'"

Quinselle leaned back in her chair, one hand over her mouth and the other hugging her stomach. "How did you get the other one?" she whispered.

He laughed. "I, uh, I gave that one to myself later. Seemed stupid, to just have half a smile for the, uh, rest of my life."

While he snickered a stifled, high-pitched giggle, Dr. Quinselle sat up a little straighter and rested one arm on the table, parallel to the its edge. "And, uh, what – what happened to your family?" she asked, a professional once more.

He stopped laughing mid-giggle, gave her a blank, deadly stare, and snarled lifelessly, "How should I know?"

Then, the room exploded. There was a scrape of metal against concrete, a maniacal grunt, and a piercing scream, and Gordon raced from the room, with Bruce swiftly behind him. They burst into the room one after the other, and the Joker cackled gleefully, "Commissioner! So nice of you to visit!" Without stopping, Gordon dashed over to the madman and pistol-whipped him without a second thought, which only made him laugh harder. Gordon shouted something over the frenzied laughter, but Bruce was too focused on Dr. Quinselle to hear it.

In the scuffle, she had fallen to the floor, and she seemed paralyzed with shock and fear. Her left hand was cradling her right, and blood was dripping steadily onto the concrete from her hand and down the pen impaled through the center of her palm. Her face was frozen, mouth and eyes open wide, but her expression was odd. It should have been horrified, but instead, it was exuding a morbid exhilaration. She kept looking back and forth between her hand and the Joker, who was still writhing hysterically beneath Gordon's knee, even though Bruce was practically shouting at her to look at him. She seemed mesmerized with her hand, and not once did she look at Bruce.

Almost as soon as Bruce and Gordon entered the room, four orderlies rushed in and secured the Joker. Bruce couldn't tell through the haze of the struggle, but he thought he saw one of them give the Joker a sedative, which stopped his thrashing but not his laughter. He continued cackling wildly as the orderlies dragged him to his feet and hauled him out the door. When they passed Bruce, he looked up from Quinselle and at the Joker – the Joker was staring straight at him, wickedly. With blood decanting from his nose like a particularly fine wine, he said thickly through a drug-induced slur, "Leperrrr." Then he winked and dissolved into hazy giggles as the orderlies pulled him out the door.

Bruce blinked and glanced at Gordon, who was now on Quinselle's other side, trying to get through to her. He hadn't been paying any attention to the Joker as he left the room. Bruce exhaled with short-lived relief, then took his blazer off and ripped a portion of the sleeve off for Quinselle's hand. As soon as the Joker was out of the room, Quinselle's whole being changed – it seemed like she finally realized that yes, there was a pen sticking out of her hand, and she began moaning in pain. Bruce and Gordon tried to calm her, but as they waited for the medical doctors, she only seemed to get worse.

Suddenly, Bruce wrenched the pen out of her hand. It came out with a sickening squelch, and she howled with pain. Gordon was speechless for a moment, and then he fumed, "What the hell were you thinking?"

Bruce glanced at him as he threw the pen to the ground. "I wasn't."

Later, Alfred asked, "Had he done anything like that before? To Dr. Quinselle, or the other doctors, perhaps?"

"No," Bruce told him, head between his still bloody hands. "Never. He just did it today because he had an audience. He wanted to prove that even locked up, he's unstoppable."

Alfred didn't say anything.

"And that woman," Bruce continued, musing. "She had no control over him – he was running that session, not her. She's more fascinated than afraid of him, I think." He sighed. "You were right, Alfred. This was beyond stupid."

"I'm glad you think so, sir," Alfred said softly. He waited a moment before he asked gravely, "Do you think he knows?"

Bruce looked up and nodded slowly, face blank. "I'm sure of it."