5 minutes before the fifth session
Harleen was sitting at her desk calmly studying the Joker getting ready for her next session with him when Joan came rushing through her door looking like she had just ran around the asylum ten times. Harleen looked up waiting for Joan to catch her breath.
"Is there something I could help you with?"
"I…just came…to see if…you were ok" Joan said catching her breath as she sat down on the chair in front of Harleen's desk.
"I'm fine, why wouldn't I be?" Harleen said in a calm controlled voice.
Joan looked at her like she couldn't believe what she was hearing "but you have had four sessions with the Joker"
Harleen nodded "Yes I believe so"
"How are you not reduced to tears?"
"Maybe because the most common thing he talks about is peanuts and pineapples" Harleen said as if it was extremely obvious.
"P-pineapples? He talked about pineapples?"
"Yes, he's not as dangerous as you think. I think he's kind of…attractive" Harleen said as Joan stood up from her chair all of a sudden.
"Harleen Quinzel! I will not stand here and watch you be manipulated by this monster!" Joan yelled so loud that she thought that the Joker himself may have heard.
Harleen was about to argue against her when she was told that she was needed for her next session with the Joker. Joan glared at Harleen.
"If I find out you have broken the rules for the Joker I will see to your resignation myself"
Harleen nodded reluctantly as Joan left her office as she did not want to be anywhere near the Joker. Harleen watched as Cash and Frank dragged the Joker into the room and threw him on the couch cuffing him to it and once again taking the sack off of his head.
"Thank you I can take it from here" Harleen said as the orderlies left the room "So J, how are you today? Did you get more sleep like I asked?"
"Course I did, anything for you sweets" He said grinning so wide it was almost unsettling. His little names for her like sweets, pumpkin pie and so on, at first she hated them. They were unprofessional but she's come accustom to them and kind of liked it.
"Are you feeling any better?" Harleen asked in hope that they were making progress.
He shrugged his shoulders as if he didn't know "How is that going to make me feel better if I feel fine as I am?"
She sighed, once again he was avoiding sharing his feelings. His true feelings. She looked up and frowned at what she saw, Joker was sitting on the couch looking down at his hand cuffs not at Harleen as he usually would be. She noticeed that he was fidgeting with his cuffs, they looked tighter than before. I guess Frank had put his cuffs on this time and tightened them to the point that they were painful.
"What are you doing?" She asked in concern.
He looked up at her "It's Frank, that fucker put my cuffs on too tight" He chuckled as if it amused him but quickly focused back onto the handcuffs.
"Stop that you might hurt yourself" she said a scent of worry in her voice
He ignored her as he scrunched up his face in anger and started violently pulling at the handcuffs. This went on for two unbearable minutes as Harleen was thinking of what she could do to stop her patient from inflicting self-harm. If she got up and helped him she'd have to explain why she went over the yellow line around the couch warning the doctors how close was too close and if she called the guard's the session would end. She then snapped back to attention with the sound of Joker yelling curses at the cuffs. His wrists were drenched in blood, chunks of his skin and flesh were hanging down over the cuffs. When she noticed this she jumped out of her chair and grabbed the keys from where Cash had left them but she knew that she would have to calm him down before she could even considered removing his handcuffs. She kneeled down in front of him and looked up at him. She didn't realize exactly how much taller than her he was, he was a giant compared to her.
"J, I need you to calm down ok?"
He continued to struggle with his hand cuffs in frustration. She realized that being subtle was not going to get him to stop hurting himself.
"J! CALM DOWN!" He stopped and looked at her in shock, he didn't expect her to care if he got hurt most of the staff would sit back and enjoy the show. She unlocked his hand cuffs setting them on the floor next to the couch exposing large gashes on both of his wrists.
"Look what you've done now" Harleen examined the injuries on his wrists.
"Are you serious?" he asked
She looked up at him in confusion. "What?"
"The staff here would pay to see me get hurt but you, you stopped me"
She nodded "Of course I stopped you now let me find something for the blood"
She stood up and looked for something to soak up the blood, she looked around but when she turned back around to where the Joker was sitting she realized that he had taken off his singlet to hold on his wrists. She stared at his bare chest, she knew they had exercise period but The Joker didn't seem like one of the inmates that actually used it. He may have been skinny but he was muscular too. Oh my god, he took his shirt off. She took another glance at him. How can I be so attracted to one of my patients, ok Harleen, you need to control yourself you hear? He looked up and noticed her staring.
He grinned "Like what you see doc?"
She quickly everted her eyes from him as the orderlies came in and grabbed the Joker pulling him off the couch violently.
"What are you doing?" Harleen asked
She then realized that Joan had followed the orderlies in looking at Harleen with anger.
"Just what is happening here?!" she asked
"The Jokers cuffs were too tight" Harleen replied glaring at Frank "he tried to get them off and ended up hurting himself, badly. So he took off his shirt to soak up the blood"
Joan looked at the Joker and noticed the blood on the singlet "take him to the infirmary and while he's there get him a new shirt, after the nurses have fixed him up take him to solitary confinement"
"What?! You can't punish him for this" Harleen yelled, surprised at how much Joan was over reacting.
"Watch me" Joan was clearly fed up with Jokers…inappropriate actions. Harleen had an upset and distressed look on her face.
"Don't worry we'll take gooood care of him" Frank said grinning as he reapplied The Jokers cuffs, the extension of the word 'good' gave Harleen the idea he was lying. It looked like the cuffs were hurting him even more now.
"Don't you dare hurt a hair on his head you asshole!" Harleen yelled
"Dr Quinzel!" Joan retorted
"You hear that Frankie, you're not allowed to hurt me" Joker chucked as Frank hit him in the head with his baton, Harleen felt tears in her eyes as the Joker was dragged down the hall towards the infirmary and Joan followed them.
An hour later
Harleen was looking through the Joker's files, desperate to find something that would back her up. She was looking though the list of things he's been punished for over his time in Arkham.
Slit a guards throat – 4 days in solitary
Escaped – Found two weeks later
Attacked three doctors with a kitchen knife – 2 days in solitary
Refusing to eat – 4 weeks of nutrition therapy
Strangled the dietary therapist – 7 days in solitary
Started a fight in common room – 5 days in solitary
Solitary, solitary and more solitary, the list had to be about fifty pages long. Who was giving out these punishments anyway? Profiles in Arkham did not just hold the crimes they committed while being held in the asylum, it also held any crimes committed against them and his profile was suspiciously clean of it. She look at every page in detail until she noticed something unusual, the page skipped from page 34 to page 41. There was pages missing, she immediately knew who had the pages, Joan. She walked quickly to Joan's office being careful not to look suspicious. She reached her office, room number 982, she opened the door to see if Joan was in the office but she wasn't there she was at a session with Edward Nygma or The Riddler. She walked into the room and looked through Joan's filing cabinets and there they were the missing pages hidden in the back of the draw with 'The Joker' in big black letters on the front. She opened it up and was shocked by what she read.
Beaten by three guards
Starved by Officer Frank
His right to shower taken away without permission
Beaten by Officer Frank
Returned to Arkham with two broken arms, three broken ribs, cracked skull and multiple lacerations
Tortured by two officers
Harleen was reduced to tears to see the pain and suffering that The Joker was being forced to endure and nothing was being done about it. She couldn't believe that Dr Leland would let this happen. She went back to her office and notices that The Joker's profile wasn't on the same place it was before, she opened it to see it had been updated. At the bottom of the page it said
Acted inappropriately towards a doctor – 14 days in solitary