GAILLARD 002
"Don't wander far, Léa," Marc warns you, his solemn expression almost foreign. He looks old, today, older than his years would suggest – there's a tiredness to his eyes, to the faint, frowning wrinkles there, and you ache for him, for the way his lips tug downwards into a frown. "We shouldn't be long."
He shuts the door to your father's room behind him, the sound of the latch clicking into place, and you are left alone in the wide, dirty-white halls of the asylum, You realize your legs are trembling, and you take a few unsteady steps towards the elevator in an effort to shake it off. It works surprisingly well; with each stride, you feel a little less out-of-sorts. It's easier to concentrate on the lift and drop of your feet than it is on your father's outrageous situation.
Without thinking, you press the 'down' button on the elevator. It's metallic doors slide open silently, suggesting that no one has used it since you and Marc had ridden it a half-hour prior. Strange, you think. The whole floor seems quiet, devoid of any real activity.
You drift into the elevator and press the button for the ground floor. It's descent is smooth, but the quick ride is momentarily disorienting. You pause for a moment to collect yourself before wandering out into yet another broad hallway you remember leading up to the entrance of the hospital.
This hallway is considerably more populated. Nurses, doctors – they all wear suits or white coats, bustling around you with little more than the occasional curious glance. Civilians in Arkham are uncommon, but you aren't a civilian. Not really.
You wander into what passes as a waiting room and fall into a seat, elbows on your knees, hands clinging to your shoulders. The room is pristine, the magazines on the table beside you virtually untouched and stacked atop one another in a fashion that suggests an almost OCD level of attention. They're dated from what seems to be a year ago. You puzzle at them without touching, gaze darting about the vacant room. The criminally insane, you think, must not often get visitors. It was difficult enough for Marc to motivate you to visit your father in the first place, and while you suspect your father probably suffers a number of personality disorders, you know he is not actually insane.
Still, you'd never expected the deal Falcone had arranged with Arkham's administrator would find your father as it's second beneficiary. Childishly, you'd never assumed your father would be caught, though you'd certainly and spitefully wished for it more than a few times.
In the end, of course, Marcel hadn't even really been properly 'caught'. It had been your brother, Marc, who had slipped up in a botched assassination case – but your father had taken the blame and the fall for him when the cops had come sniffing. He'd been saved prison time by a pair of slashed wrists and the good word of Arkham's own administrator. Your father, the doctor had testified in court, was a danger to himself and others in a prison setting. His mental state was fast declining and he needed to be somewhere where he could be treated for his deficiencies.
You'd have been touched by your father's generosity if it hadn't been the obvious choice. Your brother could not operate as a hitman in a mental institution. Your father, however, could advise Falcone from it just fine, swaddled up in his white hospital gown and tucked tight into the plush bed his own private room afforded him.
Still, the sight of his wrists had made you queasy with an empathy you couldn't deny. Your hands found your own wrists, rubbing idly through your long sleeves at the scarred skin there.
A buzzing sound – the same noise that had signaled you and your brother's admittance into the heavily fortified hospital – jars you from your distraction. Lifting your gaze from your hands, you fix it instead on the door, fascinated by the low shrill of metal sliding over metal. Slowly, the doors open, creaking and heavy on their mechanical hinges, allowing entrance for two men.
You recognize Falcone immediately. Short and thick in his suit, his face is pinched in an expression of distaste that your own immediately mirrors. You cannot not stand him, and avoid him as fastidiously as one might the plague. He has been a point of contention between yourself and James as of late; James is fascinated with the man, with his stories. You fear you are losing him more and more every day.
The second man – his companion – seems familiar in some way. He is tall and almost slender in a way that reminds you of Marc, his long, brown hair curling gently at the nape of his neck. Despite the elegant mess of his locks, he seems quite professional. His suit is well cut, his glasses neat; from here, you can make out the peek of a sweater beneath his jacket.
Falcone turns to address him, obviously agitated. The man looks on, his expression one of very obvious boredom, hands working to pull the soft leather gloves from his long fingers.
Gloves.
Recognition dawns suddenly, and you place the man as the one in your foyer some three months back. Falcone. Arkham. That deal. You frown, studying him. Is this man the administrator?
He's older than you, of course, but he's young, younger than you would expect the administrator of an insane asylum to be. Early-thirties, maybe – but maybe older? It's hard to tell because his face is free of wrinkles, of lines, of any mark of discomposure that might give away his age. He's all high-cheekbones and full lips and wild, boyish hair.
He's attractive, you realize, gut twisting. It's the second time you've observed this. You'd thought the same when you'd bent to retrieve his gloves all those many nights ago. It had been, ultimately, what kept the real vehemence from your choice of wording.
He'd flustered your otherwise impressive resolve.
The man waves his hand at Falcone as if to dismiss him, and you expect Falcone's typical casual anger. Surprisingly, Falcone turns from him and instead makes his way without fuss towards the elevator. It occurs to you abruptly that Falcone is here to see not only your father, but Marc as well. You surmise you are going to be here for a long time, and you sink further in on yourself, sighing inwardly.
Pulling your gaze reluctantly from the elevator, you return it instead to the second man – jumping a bit when you realize he is staring straight at you.
When your eyes connect, he smiles. It's wide smile that doesn't reach his eyes, as empty as the waiting room, and a chill sets itself along the slumped arch of your spine. When he approaches, you straighten in your seat, unhooking your arms from yourself to take hold of the arm rests beside you.
"Miss Gaillard," he greets you, stopping a foot or so from you. "How nice to find a bit of color in these joyless halls."
It's his voice, you realize; it's his voice that sets you on edge. His words are careful – polite, even. There's none of a mobster's vulgarity to him, no roughness to him. His edges are soft, refined, so perfectly controlled. His cheekbones are high and graceful, his eyes a regal ice-blue. He holds his hand out for you to shake, ever the gentleman.
But there's something there, still, something you can't quite place. His politeness is suspect, and it's an effort to force yourself to take his hand.
His palm against your own is warm, his grip firm but oddly gentle. His fingers linger a split-second too long at the back of your wrist, tucked just under your sleeve. For one awful moment, you're frightened he's going to take hold of your sleeve; his eyes hold yours in a way that makes you uncomfortable, that makes you tense involuntarily in your chair. You're about to pull away, but he releases you before you have the chance. The relief is instantaneous, and you find yourself releasing a breathe you weren't aware you were holding.
"We have not," you point out, "Been properly introduced."
"Ah," he remarks, eyes narrowing as his lips peak at the corners again. "I suppose we haven't. I beg your pardon, Miss Gaillard; you may call me Dr. Crane. It is, of course, a pleasure."
The name rings a bell to a conversation with Marc earlier on the drive over, and you realize that your assumption was correct – he is the administrator.
It never ceases to amaze you just how deep this river of corruption runs. You expect it now in places you feel you shouldn't – in the police force, in the DA's office, in the politicians. Falcone runs a tight ship. That the medical profession could prove yet another risk is an avenue you have never stopped to consider, and you stare up at this man, revulsion winning out over his obvious attractiveness. Money, you think darkly, buys everything. "Of course," you answer tightly. "A pleasure."
His eyebrows raise, though that hint of a smile doesn't fade. You're aware, suddenly, of how quickly he has picked up on your aversion. It's a strange experience; your distaste usually goes unnoticed. You're usually more careful, of course, out of love for your brothers – out of an awkward, begrudging love for your father, even – but you don't ever have to really try. No one cares enough to notice. No one is astute enough to come close. They take your reticence as teenage drama; what use would a now-fifteen-year old girl have for the vulgarities and horror of crime life, after all?
But your loathing is certainly not lost to Dr. Crane if the subtle tilt of his head as he considers you gives any indication.
"Are you a habitual liar, Miss Gaillard?" The question is surprisingly direct, though that smirk still plays at his lips.
It agitates you how well he can pronounce your last name, how easily he manages it with the same flair as your father. It's often butchered by his associates, but Dr. Crane's tongue is quick, and his perfect articulation strikes you almost as a taunt.
"Is it fair to consider it lying when politeness is not only expected, Dr. Crane, but demanded?" You try his name on for size and hope it sounds as condescending as it does when he uses your own.
"So you admit both that you were lying and that your obligation to address me with respect is enough to keep your tongue in line?" He makes a tsking sound with his mouth, and you are suddenly very angry. "I'm disappointed."
His frankness is unsettling. He speaks to you both as one might to an adult and a child, and the duality of it is hard to comprehend. It has been a dream of yours to argue with one of your father's associates, but where you are normally clever you recognize that Dr. Crane is leagues ahead of typical mobster fare.
"In what?" You try, because you're struggling to decide where you want to take this conversation.
"In you," he says, as if this is the obvious answer. "Where's your backbone, Miss Gaillard?"
You find it in your growing anger. "You have no right to condescend to me."
"Why?" He asks, tone mild – almost bored. "Because I realize that polite chitchat isn't worth the effort expended? Because you are the daughter of a powerful man?"
"No," you say, coldly, fingers curled into tight fists. "Because you are terrible."
His shoulder shake once with the illusion of a chuckle. "Terrible? I was a talented student who graduated top of my class. I am the administrator of a very important hospital."
You roll your eyes, pleased with the way his eyes narrow in response. "You misunderstand me, Dr. Crane," you say, pointedly, carefully, folding your wrists delicately over your crossed knees. "I did not say you were not accomplished. I only said that you were a monster."
He stares down you for a moment, and his expression is entirely unreadable. The perpetual smirk at the corners of his lips is gone now, bright eyes boring into your own. You want to look away; the indistinct nature of his sudden silence is frightening, and his gaze seems to pierce right through you.
Still, you refuse to drop your eyes from his own.
"And to what nefarious deed do I owe my thanks for that keen observation?"
His voice is considerably more careful than your own. His control is perfect. You would admire him, envy him, if your blood was not on fire.
You give a cursory glance around the room to verify its continued vacancy before rising to your feet in an attempt to bridge the distance between his face and your own. It's wasted effort; he's so much taller than you that you regret your decision immediately.
To his credit, he does not leer at the way your head tilts back to keep his gaze. You had expected as much, and are relieved to find otherwise. "You are a medical professional with a duty to your patients to be both honest and entirely vested in their recovery." You take a deep breath, exhaling both it and the last part of your thought at once. "I find it difficult to believe that you can be either when you are taking bribes from the mob to get murderers and con-men out of well-deserved jail time."
"Murderers and con-men that include your father and brother?" It would be a slap in the face if you weren't expecting it, but you are, and you do not even flinch.
"Both my father and brother are of stable mind and understand the gravity of the lives they have chosen. To not expect retribution – to not comprehend it's purpose – that would be true insanity. They both know the wrongness inherent in their decisions and made them regardless. It was their choice to gamble with those odds, and it is only right that they face the consequences of their actions."
"And yet your father allowed Falcone to arrange for his posh quarters in my asylum rather than accept his just rewards," Dr. Crane says delicately. You think it would be less mocking if he were screaming. "Your brother allowed your father to take his fall, when, by your call, you would have them both face jail time."
"Of course he allowed Falcone to arrange it!" You bite off each one of the words with a bitterness that surprises you. "Of course he would, because he is greedy – because how can you ever learn from your mistakes if you are never properly punished for them?"
"Do you think your father would forgo his life of crime if he were to serve a prison sentence, Miss Gaillard?"
The question stirs nausea in the pit of your stomach. You realize your eyes are burning, suddenly, stinging with indignant, desperate tears.
"I - "
"Do you think hard time would rehabilitate him when a purportedly beautiful and saintly wife could not?"
How does he know about that? "How – how dare you - "
"Do you think that the prison system could reform him into the kind-hearted and morally upright father you have always wanted him to be where the perpetually broken heart of his lovely daughter failed to motivate him?"
You aren't thinking when you push yourself into him, when your hands connect with his chest. You aren't thinking, you aren't thinking, you're just so angry – at your life, at your father, at this man for being so smug and so right –
He catches your wrists and pulls your arms out of the equation of your attempted aggression,your shoulder slamming into him clumsily and ineffectually. He stands, sturdy and straight, your body slumping against him and his stupid, perfect suit.
Your breathing is ragged and his grip on your wrists hurt. You cannot look at him, and your head falls against his chest roughly, forehead knocking against his ribs. You only hope that it hurts.
"Come now, Miss Gaillard," he says, his voice as smooth as velvet and somewhere just above the top of her head. "Violence is not the path you should pursue with this little flare of anger."
"Fuck you." You don't generally curse, and the words are jagged and foreign and inelegant on your tongue. Your cheeks are burning, your eyes are burning, and you can't stop shaking - "Fuck you. I wasn't talking about my family, I was talking about you."
He releases one of your wrists and catches your chin instead, forcing you to look up at him. "What right have you to judge, Miss Gaillard, when you are afforded the life of luxury on the bankroll of thieves and murderers?"
His question stabs at an old guilty wound you are already well-acquainted with, at a guilt Marc told you your own mother suffered under. "Do you think I have a choice, Dr. Crane?" You close your eyes against the too-blue sheen of his gaze, hating yourself for the tear that trails its way down your cheek. "My mother was unable to escape. How can I hope to succeed where she failed spectacularly?"
"Have you ever actually tried?" His voice is both gentle and heavy with condescension, and you hate the dissemblance of it. You wrench both your jaw and your remaining wrist from his grip, resisting the urge to spit in his face.
"Of course I've tried!" It comes out as a strangled, furious cry, teeth barred behind the snarl of your twisting lips. "But where can I go when they can track me down – when any friend who might offer me shelter will meet with mob retribution for sheltering me?"
He regards you for a long moment with that same unreadable expression from earlier, eyes tracing the path of your single, errant tear.
"Why is it so hard?" You continue, doggedly, "To abide by even a little decency?"
"Life does not award the morally upright or the just, Miss Gaillard."
You look up at him, mouth pressed tight on any further retort.
"Power is an easy prize for those willing to bend the rules. It comes in many forms – wealth, fame, fear. Hard-work and perseverance might occasionally net you some small modicum of a reward, but there is a reason criminals are rarely rehabilitated. Why break your back, your mind, your heart when you can take what you want with little to no consequence?"
"You are a medical professional - "
He cuts you off. "What does my profession have to do with moral standing or an ethical code of honor? I have an intimate knowledge of how the mind works, a deep understanding, an undeniable respect for its power. That does not excuse me from your dreaded 'corruption'. If anything, it only further reinforces the logic of my decision. Your father is an intelligent man; your brother, Marc, the same, but the fact remains that neither of them have the life skills required to make as generous a living as they do now via a more 'respectable' occupation. What even is a respectable occupation, Miss Gaillard? 'Respectable' is subjective; criminals do not always operate without a personal code of conduct. You cannot neatly fit everyone into perfect columns of black and white. I assure you I operate productively as a psychiatrist and as an administrator to the asylum both in spite of and because of the deals I have made with the dog who holds your father's leash."
You cast your eyes downward, to your feet, to his – anything but up at his face. He is having none of it, though, and he takes you by your chin again, this time with a single finger. You could pull away, but you let him tilt your head back even as you refuse to meet his gaze. You're suddenly very tired.
"Do you think that Gotham has either the ability or the desire to fund this asylum?" He asks you.
You know that it doesn't. You know because it's another dirty mess swept under the rug, tucked stubbornly out of sight. Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane is a place that garners no sympathy from any citizen. It is admittedly something you yourself have never considered before.
"Answer me."
You raise your eyes to his. "No," you say, finally. "No, it doesn't."
"You are, of course, entirely correct." The way he pronounces his final 't' is so sharp you think it could cut you. He drops his hand from your chin and adjusts his collar, his gaze never quite leaving you face. "Falcone's deal and the business surrounding it provides some much needed life blood for my operation, and the morality lost in locking a few criminals in padded cells versus barred ones is a small sacrifice to pay for progress."
"Do you think less of me because I favor the moderate rewards of morality then?" The question is past your lips before you realize you are asking it. It's the question you've always wanted to ask your father – your brother. It's the question you've always been too afraid to broach.
He studies you carefully, eyes narrowing slightly. "Your tenacity," he says, eventually, "Is admirable given the nature of your life, but I am more inclined to attribute that to the naive idealism of youth than to any proper thought on the matter. You are a child, Miss Gaillard. Sharper than your peers, perhaps; willing to look beyond the life you've been raised to lead, even, which is more than I can say for the majority of the population. But you allow dreams and what ifs to dull your edge, and that is ultimately a child's folly - perhaps even a fatal one considering our unforgiving city."
"That's a lot of words to not answer my question."
You think the smile he gives you then may be the first and only genuine one he's offered you in your short acquaintance. It's gone as quickly as it comes, though, and you're left doubting it was there in the first place. "That's a lot of words to say that yes, I do think less of you. You are sacrificing an intelligent choice to prove a fruitless point. Morality, Miss Gaillard, is a restraint. It will get you nowhere."
"A clean conscience is worth whatever wealth or fame or power I'd sacrifice," you mumble. You can't quite place why his honesty stings. Why should you care what he thinks?
"Ah, but misplaced guilt takes such a heavy toll on the young." He sounds sympathetic, but you don't trust the way his mouth quirks. "Lucky for you that's something that both age and proper psychiatry can address."
"How?" There's a bitterness to your tone that succeeds only in encouraging his lips into a full-blown grin. "Will my morality falter as I become old and disillusioned? Will psychiatry pull the metaphorical wool down over my eyes and offer me a sense of ignorant bliss?"
"Don't be so dramatic," he scolds you, but there's laughter behind his words. You feel that he is laughing at you, rather than with you. "It's not anything quite so scandalous as that."
"You can't expect me to assume anything less than scandal." You stare up at him. "You're a corrupt administrator of an asylum for the criminally insane. You are scandal incarnate."
"Touche, Miss Gaillard. I will give you that." You're surprised by how easily he brushes off your accusation. "But I did mention earlier that I function quite well in the capacity of a psychiatrist, shady deals with mafioso aside."
He retrieves a wallet from the back pocket of his pants and a capped fountain pen from an inner pocket in his jacket. From his wallet he procures a single card that he flips over, jotting down something along the back. When the pen is recapped and returned to his jacket, he holds the card out to you.
"What's this?" You cannot keep the distrust from your voice, but his hand is steady, the card brushing against the backs of your fingers.
"My card," he says, as you take it from him slowly. It's heavy ivory card stock, and you stare at the front of it. 'Dr. Jonathan Crane,' it reads in a neat and no-nonsense black font. Beneath his name it clarifies him as both the administrator and a practicing psychiatrist of the asylum. It includes the asylum's address and a collection of general phone numbers along with his direct business line.
You flip the card over and find another number hand-written there in similar black ink. His hand-writing is so precise that you might have believed it was typed had you not watched him write it yourself.
"And what's this?" You ask again, for lack of anything else to say. The number is different from any on the front.
"My personal number," he says. You look up at him with poorly concealed incredulity, but his face is a mask again.
"But," you say, and pause, floundering. "Why?"
"Because you are a girl lost amid a sea of festering future psychoses. Daddy issues, morality issues – and that is to say nothing of your guilt complex. Guilt can take quite a toll on a young and developing mind, Miss Gaillard. Consider me concerned."
You scowl at him. "I doubt that entirely."
He chuckles. "Then let us rephrase and say instead that I'm interested."
You're not sure why he would be, and you're not sure you have the gall to ask why. You decide to approach the situation from another angle. "Why on earth would I seek you out with any issue voluntarily, Dr. Crane?"
You don't expect him to have such a ready answer. "Because you are a friendless girl alienated from her peers by the actions of a family she cannot relate to. Because the world you inhabit is based on ideologies you cannot condone. Because you are lost and lonely. Because your heart aches to spill to whoever will give pause long enough to listen."
The assuredness with which he recounts this borders on arrogance. It isn't that that stings, however; it's the truth behind it that does.
He is, of course, one-hundred-and-fucking-percent correct. Your teeth grind together in a pronounced and helpless sort frustration. "Fuck you," you manage, but there's no fire behind the words anymore.
"Unfortunately I don't have the time as of this moment to stay and chit-chat with you about your regrettable situation, Miss Gaillard," he says, willfully choosing to ignore your faltering wrath. "I have quite the long list of appointments to keep. That said, I tend to be free after eight." He takes your hand and shakes it, fingers curled tight around your own. You don't like how he's robbed you of your choice to decline it, don't like his confidence – don't like anything about him. "Do keep in touch, mm?"
Before you can come up with a proper smart retort, he's off across the lobby. At the door you expect him to turn and look – almost find yourself wishing he would – but he doesn't, and then he's gone and you are once again alone.
The room is empty again, yawning wide. The silence is unbearable, and you fall back in the chair, staring down at the card in your fingers.
Personal number. You frown down at the digits. What's he playing at here? Does he really expect you to call him? As if you would indulge that pompous ass any more than you already had to?
But even as you're building up this fantasy of tearing the card to a million pieces and leaving it to whatever OCD janitor keeps the lobby as barren and pristine as a long-pilfered tomb, you realize with a creeping sense of loss that you can't.
Your fingers move to the edge of the card, and you try – you try so hard to will yourself to tear it. Just in half. Just a little. Just one little piece.
But your hands won't obey you. His number is there, black on white, a lifeline. It's been so long since you've spoken to anyone outside of James or Marc. The only friends you've managed to make are those online where you are free to be someone else than yourself, free to be someone unaffected by your father's reputation.
And all the hate you felt for Dr. Crane only moments ago is there, again, poignant and sharp in the pounding of your heart. But it's not for him anymore – it was never really there for him in the first place.
It's yourself you hate. It's yourself you hate, because you're too weak to change anything about your life, because you're too afraid, because you're so damned lonely.
Silently you slip the card into the pocket of your pants and draw your knees up to your chest, closing your eyes against the emptiness of the room.
You wonder what time it is, and then -
You wonder how far away 8 pm is.