He was an obvious ham in his earliest years, always smiling for the camera and pulling a pose. The home in the background of the photos is very bare, but very clean. The couch and easy chair are second hand. In the earliest photos, she can see threadbare patches in the fabric: later, those spots are artfully disguised with patches and doilies. They are poor, but prideful. The apartment is treated as though it contains thousands of dollars in antiques, not pieces of furniture pulled off the sidewalk from parts of the city not yet feeling the worst of the Depression.

His presents at Christmas are few, but beautifully wrapped, and his room is a series of scientific divisions, everything in its proper place. There are few pictures of them together, Harley can only assume it is because his mother is more often behind the camera, but he clings tightly to her in every one: her mirror image in miniature. It is obvious that he is the baby boy, the favored and only child. The album is much like his recollections in the fact that his father is rarely featured. She finds a few photos of a tall, slender man with dark hair and blue eyes, caught at the edges of the frames, but by the time his age is listed as five, his Father is gone entirely.

Now, he has begun school: there are pictures of him climbing on and off the ubiquitous yellow bus with the words 'Gotham City Public Schools' painted across the side in neat, block letters. He looks frustrated initially, but soon there are pictures of him holding up multiplication tables, his tiny cherub's lips pursed in the middle of his recitation. They have given in, allowed him to progress to more advanced work, and he looks calmer, happier for it. She sees what looks like a shelter in a few photos, and then a new apartment, smaller and shabbier than the first.

He grows older, and he does not like the camera so much now: he pulls faces, instead of poses, but his Mother has kept those photos anyway. He's a very happy child, and Harley only needs a single photo to know that his mother thinks the world of him. Instead, there are hundreds.

Harley watches him grow over the years, begins to recognize the wicked gleam in the eyes, the familiar turn of his smirking lips. A new man, unlike his father, is featured prominently in the pictures after the age of 7, along with a black and tan dog that is nearly larger than the skinny child himself.

"Rufus," Harley says, pointing. "His mother remarried and the man had a dog… a Rottweiler named Rufus."

In the years that follow, the dog is his constant companion, present in every photo. By the time he is 9, there is a block of photos of Rufus performing a long series of tricks, Jack leading him through.

"Smart dog," Pam marvels.

"Talented trainer," Harley corrects. "He's a natural. Rottweiler's are very independent, very perceptive of humans. They're often very picky about whom they'll listen to, and this dog had a different owner for years, but just look what he's done! He took right up with him, that's very unusual for the breed."

"You're drooling all over the picture, Harleen."

"Shut up!" she snapped, and shut the book "I can't admire greatness when I see it?"

The second album they open is even earlier, Jack's baby book.

"My god, look how young she was."

"Lucy," Harley supplied. "Was his mother's name… she would have been 16 in that photo… He told me the math. His father would have been 21 at the time of his birth."

"Daddy was robbing the cradle, and the Baby had a baby."

"Well, he wasn't a very moral man. His father was an abusive alcoholic."

"He kind of just disappeared." She gestured at the album they had set aside.

"He died when the Captain was five. It was just him and his mother until she remarried two years later."

"I bet he was glad of it."

Harley laughed, and felt terrible immediately afterward, wincing, resisting the urge to clap a hand over her mouth. "He killed his father, Pam. He was drunk, and trying to strangle his mother, so he stabbed him to death with his mother's switchblade."

The redhead stared at her, unable to believe the bark of laughter that had just escaped her friend's lips. Finally, she shook her head. "Jesus Christ, Harley, this guy's been screwed up from the beginning!"

"He's a borderline psychopath," Harley admitted.

"Borderline!?" Pam shouted.

"Yes. He doesn't feel fear like we do, no concern for himself or others, and he feels no regret, no guilt over his actions, but his pathology is not advanced. He is, for instance, not incapable of forming a meaningful relationship with another being. He's not incapable of feeling… something like love. I'm not certain it's entirely like what we feel as love. That's as far as the emotion extends, however. He seems to consider human life as generally being of little consequence, little worth. He was able to kill indiscriminately as a soldier, and he's made no effort to hide his enjoyment of it from me. He's extremely possessive of those he… cares for, but no one else might even exist to him, not until they cross him. Then he kills with very little provocation, and certainly no hesitation."

"How can you just sit there and read that off like it's a laundry list? He's crazy, Harley, Grade A American Psycho, how are you not entirely terrified by him? They have names for people like him, Harley, they call them serial killers. And talk about enabling somebody! This guy is two steps from starring in Being Ted Bundy, the only difference is he's already getting paid for it."

"Because he's sick, Pam, he needs my help. They should have sent him into therapy; instead they sent him out into battle with a fully-automatic and said 'Here. Have fun! Just don't shoot any of us!' And I… really don't think he would hurt me, Pammy."

"What, do you think he cares for you?" Her tone was derisive.

Harley's face twisted in a grimace. "I don't suppose I would take it to that extreme, but… he has an interest in me, yes. I don't think it's entirely physical. For a man his age, he demonstrates an abnormally low libido. The machines recorded very little physical response during his sexuality questionnaire. Were it not for… certain incidents… I wouldn't hesitate to call him largely asexual."

"Certain incidents?" Pam questioned, but she was already shaking her head disdainfully.

"A certain conversation," Harley tried, voice high-pitched and weak. Pam glared harder, unsatisfied. "Does it count as phone sex when there's no phone involved?"

"HARLEEN!"

"I know!" she screamed back. "There's… there's no saying no to him, though, not when he sets his mind to something! He's like a damned pit bull!"

"This just keeps sounding worse and worse, Harley. This guy is really smart, yeah, but he's playing you like a fiddle. You think you can use his interest in you to gain power over him, but I think he's already used it on you!"

"No, he hasn't. I'm prepared for that eventuality; I've heard from his former doctors just how manipulative he can be."

"Then open your eyes! He's already got you backed into the corner, Harley, how do you know he's not going to try and blackmail you or something?"

"You really are paranoid, you know that? And besides… he just doesn't seem the type. Now you might be right, he might be scheming, but I don't imagine it's so different from what any other man his age is plotting."

"You think he's just trying to get in your pants!? I think it's a hell of a lot different. Why you, Harley, why did he talk to you and none of the others? Maybe it's because you're different."

Harley froze at the word.

"Maybe it's because you're a lot more vulnerable than they were. Let's face facts, Harls, I know you're a sucker for a sweet smile and a hard-luck story… and if he's such a genius, how do you know he didn't have you pegged for a rube the minute he walked in your door?"

Harley looked crushed. Pam sighed, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. "God, Harley, please, you've gotta see what's going on here. Do you know what counter-transference means?"

"Don't talk to me like I'm a child, Pamela." She growled. "Of course, I know what it means. That's not what's going on here."

"Then wake up! There's more going on here than you'll admit, Harley. I see the look in your eye. You used to look like that when you talked about Chad. You're falling in love with him, Harley."

"No, I'm not," she said, just a little too quickly, and slammed the book shut, grabbing for another one almost desperately.

"Harl—"

"That's the end of the conversation, Pamela. I won't even honor it with my attention. It's absurd. I'm… I'm hurt that you would even think that about me."

It was indeed the end of the conversation: Pam tried again several times as they flipped through a book of his teenage years, graduating high school, entering University, but Harley brushed her off again and again.

Even so, Pam did not miss just how her fingertips unconsciously lingered over his image, almost longingly as she turned each page.

OOO

The photos end after he is 17. They end with a single picture, this one with an inscription in a different hand, a hospital room, filled with Get Well balloons and flowers. The small blonde is in bed, smiling weakly, displaying a beautiful handmade birthday card with the number 33 on the front. He clings to her and looks more like her now than ever, much the same as any photo from his childhood years, but now she is tiny, thin, almost transparent with long illness and it looks more as though he is cradling her now.

She knows that is exactly how his mother would have died, in the arms of the person she loved more than anything or anyone else in the world, her beloved only son. He would have stayed until every light had left her eyes, until she drew her last, tired breath against his chest and let it all go.

She wiped quickly at her eyes, heart breaking for the both of them. The rest of the third book is blank, so she grabbed for the fourth, opening to find it full with far more recent pictures. There were no inscriptions in this one at all.

"Who took these?" Pam asked, leaning over, unable to keep herself uninterested.

"I don't know… it wasn't the Captain, he's in every picture." Her voice sounded watery, even to her own ears.

"Well, who isn't in every picture?" They flip through, studying the faces of eleven separate soldiers until the pattern appears. She points finally at a short, stocky brunette with unmistakably blue eyes.

"It's him. He's taking the pictures. He's missing out of almost every photo, except when he's," she pointed at a soldier with glasses, "not in the picture."

"They looked like they were really close."

It's true; the men all appear to be the best of friends. There are pictures of them at shooting ranges, in the field holding scores of scrawny dead rabbits in one hand, some of them holding rifles, every one of them bearded and scraggly, the Captain holding the weapon of the hour in the foreground, a silenced Mark 25 pistol. Later, there are pictures of them eating those rabbits, camp and fires made in the middle of nowhere, pressed close to a rocky ridge in some unnamed portion of the desert. There is one of the Captain on the hood of a transport truck, the rest gathered around him. There are pictures from the heat of battle, one of a huge explosion, a multi-storied building crumbling to the ground in clouds of dust and debris, even a rather gruesome photo of the Captain picking through the pockets of a man with little more than pulp and shards of bone left for a face, an ecstatic smile stretched across his own, caught open-mouthed in laughter.

"Christ. They were a hardcore bunch, weren't they?"

"They were all Special Forces. He was there are as their leader, their teacher, if you will."

"They're all just as crazy as he is." Pam spat, but Harley only shot her a dark look.

These photos end abruptly, as well, an image of the Captain behind the wheel of the truck that Harley is sure would have led the maintenance convoy, eyes straight ahead but giving the cameraman a one-fingered salute, grinning as always.

"He could have printed that photo sometime that night, March the 29th, or maybe the next morning."

"What happens after that?"

"After that, they're captured and tortured for four or five days before the others are executed, and the Captain is left simply to bleed to death. He's picked up by a Marine Search and Rescue mission on the seventh day, and… fast forward to the present. He's here at Hines, and I'm his psychiatrist. I imagine this was given to me to satisfy my curiosity, but it only gave me more questions to ask him…"

"Yeah, well," Pam muttered. "You know what they say about curiosity…"

OOO

She has not felt this excited since the early days of their sessions, when she was only beginning to learn about him. Now, two weeks have passed, she has been forced to waste three of her sixteen sessions, and now she has only 2 weeks more. Walking into her office at 7 am on Monday morning, she goes over her notes at least five times before she can convince herself that she remembers the questions she wants answered, and tries to force her mind onto her other patients of the day (she reads through the notes three more times without realizing it).

He is exactly on time (in fact, 45 seconds till 8: Harley has been staring at the clock.)

"Captain," she says quickly as he enters the room, and the solemn turn of his mouth suddenly throws her off. It actually takes a full minute of him sitting silently before her before she finally catches on. She had threatened him to be on his best behavior, how could she have forgotten so quickly? She had been agonizing about the situation for days.

Have I really gotten that scatter-brained?

"I opened your gift, Jack," she says quietly, leaning forward a bit in her chair.

There is no change in his facial expression, but she thinks she sees something like surprise at her affability, then a new sort of glint in his eyes.

"Did you enjoy my gift, Dr. Quinzel?" His voice is perfectly modulated, even, serene. He is the picture of calm.

It's scaring the hell out of her.

"Yes, I did." She licks her lips nervously, glancing down at her notes. God, what had she written down? "I'm… somewhat confused. I don't know why you would give me something so personal. We barely know one another, and while I find it clear that you understand what a tremendous insight you are giving me into your character, I'm not certain why you would be inclined to be so… gracious…"

"So cooperative?" He supplies and finally she sees the corners of his mouth stirring just a bit, the scars there dipping inward as he fights the smile. Docile does not suit him in the least.

"Yes," she says, frankly.

"I told you, you're far more interested in my past than I am. The longer I stare at these walls, every moment they keep me under lock and key, I find that I become increasingly aware that there is nothing but today. Everyday is a new day, as the saying goes. The past is irrelevant, a curious fact best forgotten in favor of more constructive endeavors. They are what remain of my former life… I might have destroyed them. However, they might still serve a purpose. I shall forget them. My memories will become yours instead." His hands are folded harmlessly in his lap, but she finds herself eyeing them almost compulsively.

"I don't understand what you mean by your former life… and those albums…Your mother made those."

"Ah." He shakes his head, interrupting. "No. I made the albums. She took the pictures, she filled the books."

"You sew?" she asks, unable to keep the incredulity from her face and voice. The passive mask cracks and he laughs softly.

"You look amazed. It's very soothing actually. You can lose yourself in the rhythm of the stitches, sometimes it's just the thing to calm a racing mind, and I love working with skin…" she blanches, and he snorts. "Leather, pumpkin, animal skin. I've never tried the other sort, unless you count emergency sutures." Despite his words, his voice is still very calm, and despite her best efforts she finds herself being soothed by their rhythm, following the beat of her heart exactly.

"I'm sure you have questions. Did you look at them all?"

"Yes," she says, nodding, pen poised over the blank paper eagerly. He raises his eyebrows, surprise again making its presence known briefly upon his features, flitting away just as quickly, fading back into his perpetual smile.

"You certainly are an eager student. I'm impressed. There are hundreds of photos."

She has no control of the blush that rises in her cheeks. He probably thinks I'm obsessed… "It… only took a few hours." That only makes it sound worse… dear god, she really was obsessed. Was Pam right?

"You look distressed, beautiful, have I said something wrong?" For all of the anxiety in his voice, his face is completely impassive. She does not miss this.

"No, that's not it. You've done nothing wrong. You've done exactly as I asked."

"Asked? I rather took it as a demand," he says, chidingly, "you didn't even say please."

"I'm trying to be serious."

"As am I. I was hurt." He splays his hand over his heart.

"You're teasing me… and if you want to talk about getting hurt—"

"I could have done worse," he says, lowly, but Harley catches every word. He stares back at her plainly, steeples his fingertips together in front of him.

"Yes," she acknowledges, unconscious of the drop in her own voice. "Yes, you could have, but you did not. Why?"

"Isn't it obvious?" He tilts his head. Her pen has been forgotten on the desktop for some time. She draws her hands into her lap almost reflexively, looking back to him quickly.

"I think you're trying to manipulate me, Captain, in what direction I'm not yet certain."

He gives her a particularly toothy grin. "Smart girl. But does the ulterior motive alter the primary objective? You'll have to answer that for yourself before this can progress any farther."

"This?"

He mouths an 'Ah', raising an eyebrow. "The most immediate question. What do you want this to be?"

"Captain," she says, and actually manages to sound forceful. "That is inappropriate."

"You keep telling me that, Harley, does it seem to be doing you any good?"

She opens her mouth to speak; all that comes out is a frustrated noise. "No, it doesn't seem to be getting through to you at all," she mutters, disgusted. He smirks.

"So is it you or I who is not taking the hint? I'll not stop because no matter how many lies spill past your lips, your eyes tell the truth." A beat. "Don't you want to know the truth, Harley?"

"No," she says quickly, "I don't think I like your version of the truth. I think we have gone off on a tangent. I'd like to ask you some questions about the last photo album."

"No, not a tangent, we are perfectly on course, Doctor, you just haven't been looking at the right map." His tongue mops the corners of his mouth, darts back inside, clicks three times, a disappointed sound. "Children are so impressionable. You're trained so easily. That isn't a problem unto itself, if only you had the right trainer… someone with the proper… mastery of the craft, hmm?"

"And what craft is that, Captain?" His words have raised more than one alarm of outrage, but she can ask only one question at a time.

"The molding of suggestible minds, Harley. A subtle touch is needed. I'm a bold sort of guy, but I'm patient when I must be. If it is worth it."

"I don't think I like your implication."

"Touchy," he frowns at her, the expression absurd as always. "Everything can be altered, you just have to find your way to the inside. Are you going to let me inside, Harley?"

"Your flirtations are growing old, Captain," she says, wearily.

"My thoughts exactly. There's something wrong when my overtures begin to sound tedious to my own ears. When are you going to answer them?"

"Jack, you already know my answer."

"No, I do not." He says, harshly enough to bring her to attention, the final word clipped into two sharp syllables. "You are reciting an entry in an ethics manual, Harleen, you're not telling me what you want. Why are you choosing to remain bound by their rules?"

"That is simply the nature of the beast, Captain. I am your doctor, and you are my patient. It is very easy to confuse the intimacy of the relationship with something… deeper… but that is not the case."

He looks utterly amused and unconvinced. "Yes, I'm confused. I suppose I must have imagined how I could have had you coming with just a flick of my tongue the other day, in more than one way in fact, hmm?"

The blush deepens. Her fingers pluck nervously at her collar.

"You're being vulgar, Captain."

"Mm, but not a liar. That happy little title goes to you. You're living a fantasy… and not even an interesting one. I could change that, you see, if you would only let me. And I've asked ever so politely, Doctor, ever so many times."

"The photo album, Jack," she blurts the words out, almost desperate to fill her mind with something other than his voice.

He sighs, eyes rolling, looking very annoyed, the set of his teeth together almost animal as he turns his eyes back to her. "Yes, Private Quinn, what about it?"

"Lieutenant Quinzel," she's gritting her own teeth now, and the smile tugs at his mouth again.

"Ah, yes! I outrank you, you know, and you're not following my commands at all. That, I'm afraid, is grounds for insubordination. I wonder what I should do with you. I suppose I could send you to the mess hall to peel potatoes, that'd be a thorn in your working woman side, hmm, kitchen work? But you're a little testy today, and you'd be amazed the damage you can do with those potato peelers-"

"CAPTAIN!" She screams, unable to reign in her anger enough to check the volume of her voice. "You will stop this at once! We have 30 minutes left, and you are wasting our time together. I would remind you that there are only two weeks left in your evaluation before the Lieutenant-Colonel decides whether you're worthy to even see the light of day again. I would have your focus, please, placed where it is desperately needed: your own wellbeing."

His lips twist, looking supremely aggravated, but another sigh tears from between his teeth.

"I suppose you want to know about the last book."

"Yes, Captain, I do. You have refused to share any information in regard to that time, until now."

"Presumptuous, aren't we?" Harleen is exasperated that he cannot resist the urge to taunt her when the clock is rapidly chipping away at their time. He laughs, satisfied to again have the upper hand before he continues. "His name was Marcus Owen. He was a sharpshooter; the Project was interested in him for reasons of their own I'm sure. He was the reason they sent me to Iraq. But he wasn't the reason I chose to stay."