I am deeply grateful to all those who are following this story and leaving reviews. They mean the world to me.
Just a little trivia, when I checked to see the views this fic has gained, it has 666! Dunno, it just made me laugh.
Okay.. let us continue.
4. Us Minus 4 Is A Crowd
Either something happened or the day was just naturally suffocating. Light seemed bleak and somewhat dead as it filtered the corridors. And even though it was still early past noon, it looked as if night was coming just around the corner.
It was week 3 now, and Harleen was confident in her continuously successful meetings with the Joker.
Or Mista J rather. The thought of the name itself was comforting. Ever since their trust talk, their nicknames became the normal addressing of each other.
It was easier to talk with each other in this way. There was no worrying about positions and place. They talked how they want and whatever they wanted, they talked about.
Harleen had never been this close to a patient's mind before. And she knew that if she kept up her conversations with her patient she knew that she was well on her way to curing him.
Of course, these thoughts were all to herself. There's no way she could tell the admins about it. The last thing she needed now was the entire faculty on her case.
But aside from trying to look professional to hide her unprofessional methods from her peers, a new issue had taken stage. And it distinctly involved her patient.
"We highly advise that you take extra precaution with the criminal today, ma'am."
Harleen gave the guard a sharp look.
"The term is 'patient', and what development would there have even been that would risk my safety? Our discussions have been decent so far."
The guard shifted his gaze to his companions.
"He assaulted an orderly, ma'am." He said.
"Excuse me?"
"Yesterday... while they were distributing his dinner. He attacked and critically injured one of the orderlies as they were getting him out of his straitjacket."
The young doctor stopped just a couple of feet away from the meeting room, where she knew her patient was waiting.
"Why would he attack all the sudden?" She asks, because there has to be a reason. She knows that there's always one with him. Even on the expense of a laugh from assaulting another.
The guard, however, looked at her like she had just said something stupid, and the words that he says next are all the more insulting.
"There's no need for a why for a criminal like him. This circus freak can kill you in a thousand ways and only laugh at your body when he's finished. So I suggest that you watch yourself with your so-called patient if you want to keep me from doing my job."
It was obvious disregard of her position, and that the burly man was only speaking out of plain prejudice over her patient. She could countermand the behaviour then and there. After all, she was one of the main psychiatrists in the asylum now. Guards (as default) would always be second to that.
But she was still a novice, still questionable. And if she even dares to try and defend her place, it would only serve to prove them right.
Bowing her head, with some dignity, the doctor made for the door, leaving the guards outside.
She caught on her patient by the table, and he greeted her as she sat down.
"I thought you weren't gonna come in today."
She fake-chuckled. "I only ran a few minutes late." She said, arranging her pen and clipboard.
"It's 4 minutes.. But that's just me." He said.
She notices him looking over by the door. There was something in his face. Written between the lines of veins and vacancy that were always under his eyes. And Harleen can't understand.
It goes on for a while, and when she realizes that he's not looking at her, she looks over her shoulder and she understands then. One of the guards was peeking through the glass.
"Ah.." She mumbles, uncertain. He's still on the door, and she can't bring herself to get his attention. So she waits-anxiously- and for a moment, she wonders if he had overheard them from outside. And what thoughts he had about it from thereon.
The Joker blinks, so slow that it's fascinating to watch, and he finally slides his gaze back to her. There's something else there now, and she can't understand again.
"What did those fake-Johnnies say to you?"
It was a half-expected question, one that he shouldn't even ask, because he obviously knew. It was always so challenging whenever he wanted her to indulge in a question he already knew the answer to.
"I was informed that you had an 'incident'." She says, careful and cautious because she doesn't know how else to put it.
He hums, low and chilling. He must be recalling the said incident himself, Harleen thinks.
"I hold no argument to that notion." He said.
"So you did?" Harleen questions and then sees the broadness of it so she adds: "Assaulted an orderly, that is?"
"Yes." Came the reply, faster than she would expect.
Harleen adjusted her glasses. "May I ask why?"
Her patient scoffed and it added to the amount of strikes to her pride.
"Why would you want to know?" He backlashes, and it ends the doctor's patience.
"Because it's my job as your doctor. I'm supposed to know everything that happens around you!"
She's standing now, and her eyes don't leave him as she rounds the table and comes to his side. She finds, however, that even though she was standing, and he was sitting down, straitjacket and all, he was still the more intimidating one. It was an envious quality of his.
"Now I can't do my job and keep you amused at the same time."
That was a hard one. She had never dawned her complete 'psychiatry' mode before. Seeing her as only that, and not as the unexpectedly verbose-shooter, was almost-almost displeasing to the Joker.
"Save me the trouble... and tell me how to help you, Mista J..."
Her face softens upon the nickname, like a sad child given an ice-cream on a rainy day. And all the Joker can do is grin helplessly for both their sakes.
"Well...let's just say that my dinner last night was a little more unsavory than usual.."
Harleen keeps her position, listening now and making sure to keep her tethers on the hold.
"You know I hate this straitjacket, right Harley?" He asks and she nods. "It's just sooo irritating.. It makes all these noises and stretches against my skin like blade taffy.."
A low growl erupts in his throat, something between anger and distaste. His eyes were on the door again and (probably not) coincidently a guard was peaking through the glass again.
"It hurts a lot more when you try to take it off."
Harleen meets his gaze which is now holding its third indescribable transformation. It's almost like watching a rose unravel on its own. Mystifying, yet at the same time horrifying to reach the point of its final petal.
"Did they hurt you?" She asks and the question is only half-finished when he speaks up.
"Roughly removing this ridiculous jacket, even as I'm giving my complaints, is quite acceptable compared to getting bashed on the brains for something as small as a shoulder ram."
As he says this, Harleen notices a brighter-than-usual spot on the side of his head. It's dark and red, easily contrasting the neon of his hair, and Harleen can already tell how long and big the cut before she puts her hand on it.
"Oh my God." She gasps and the Joker closes his eyes so she doesn't see them rolling.
"It's always good to call the Heavens in times of sorrow." He joked and laughs lazily.
But Harleen is not amused. If anything, she looked severely angry, and the Joker knows that it's not directed at him.
She doesn't question about the injury anymore. He already painted her a picture, and it would seem that she didn't take too kindly the thought of him, her patient, being mistreated by security right under the faculty's noses.
And the Joker knows that her kindness was only so very limited.
The young doctor withdrew from him and she momentarily exits the room.
"Get me a first aid kit." She orders to the guard who had been eavesdropping.
He gives her a look, condescending, and there's a hint of a smirk and laugh beneath his smug face. "Why?" He finally asks.
"Because I have a patient in their that needs medical treatment because some hospital lackey needed a punching bag."
There were murmers between the other guards, but the one in question firmed his gaze on the doctor.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"The hell you don't! And unless you don't want me to report you to the high admins for your behavior, I suggest you get me that first aid kit before I free my patient from his restraints and lock you in the room with him."
It was an interesting way to get her point across. But it did the job. There was only one more second of testing gazes before the guard went off.
Harleen goes back in to her patient and the guard returns in minutes with the first aid.
His eyes slant across to the criminal, and he wishes the doctor's presence away so he could give the freak another well-deserved hit.
"That'll be all, ma'am?" The guard asks as he hands the white box to Harleen.
"Yes, thank you." She says without looking.
She pops the container open to a series of medical supplies, when she remembers something. "Could you leave me and my patient please?"
He doesn't hear it wrong and when he inquires about it, the doctor says: "Leave us... You and your men. Leave us."
"You don't mean leave our place by the door, do you?"
"So you got the idea." She says, taking a roll of bandages. "If you do, then please... Go."
"With all do respect ma'am-"
She cut him off by raising a hand.
"I think you and I both know that we've passed the point of respect. And if you don't want it to get any uglier than you've already made it to be, please see yourself and your men out."
He shuts up now, and he decided to desist before anymore of his dignity could be forsaken. He gaves a gesture of a hand to his men outside, and they reluctantly leave.
When he exits himself, he gives one last glance through the glass, and the Joker flashes him a mad grin beyond the doctor's line of sight.
"Thank God." Harleen exhaled, working on the cut on the Joker's head now, knowing they were alone now.
"Gutsy move you did back there." He said.
"I was gonna have to do it at some point. He was a real bother." She replied.
"Well.. he won't be bothering you anymore.." He says and she nods in agreement.
"Plus, we get to talk more freely now that we don't have any snoops around."
"Not that we can say the same for tomorrow." He intoned just as she finishes treating the wound on his head.
"I might have a way to fix that.."
The next day when they meet, Harleen enters the room with her head held high, and the Joker sees no guards outsise the door.
She explains that she requested the admins remove them since it would make their sessions more progressive. Whatever that would mean in his twisted sense.
"I don't suppose you can have my jacket requested to be removed, too, can you?" He asks and she laughs. Louder and more care-free than it had ever been.
"Don't push your luck, Mista J."
And he knows that he won't have to.
It hurts so bad to write this on my phone! My gawsh, I'm crying.
Usually, I think there are first aid kits in waiting rooms (if that's what they're called) But it was more fun getting that guard to do it. Haa!
Johnny reference, because Mista J misses lil Johmmy boy. *WINK*
Thanks for reading!