Chapter Four

You got to tell me brave captain,
Why are the wicked so strong,
How do the angels get to sleep,
When the devil leaves the porch light on?
-Tom Waits, Mr. Siegal

A day passed in which Stratford would not allow me to see my new patient, and then another. I argued and fought him, but he steadily said that he and some other doctors were examining the footage of my previous session, and until they deemed it wise, I should not return to that room.

During the days, I attended to my usual duties. During my nights alone, I studied the Joker. I pulled some records at Arkham, and what I discovered worried me.

He ate, at most, one meal a day, and often days went by in which he left all his food untouched. He slept even more rarely than he ate, averaging one hour a night. With that marked lack of nutrition and rest, it was a wonder that he was still upright, let alone cutting into his therapists. His willpower must have been extraordinary.

I continued writing in my notebook, often scribbling down my thoughts until my middle finger was bruised from the pressure of the pen. I had a strategy now, at least, though I was no closer to deciphering the Joker's motives than I was to begin with.

I had decided that a conventional line of questioning, such as the ones employed by all of the Joker's previous therapists, would do more harm than good. He seemed to thrive on conversation, give-and-take, a sort of quid pro quo situation. From what I'd seen in the tapes, he was willing to talk only if he was getting something back in return, only if he was getting a good look inside of his examiner's head.

It was the exact opposite of what I'd been planning earlier—but that had been before I had actually met him, actually talked to him. Now, it seemed unlikely that he would share with me if I refused to do the same with him. I thought it was hardly unreasonable to adapt my strategy accordingly, at least until it was proven ineffective.

Or until he reduces you to a heap of emotional rubble, I couldn't help thinking. Whatever happens first.

On the third morning, I was approached by Howard and informed that the Joker was waiting for me in the same examination room as before. I nearly knocked him over in my rush to get to the stairs.

Stratford was standing down the hall from the room, talking to a pair of nurses, and as I reached the door, he caught my eye. I stared at him, silently requesting permission, and he simply gave a grim nod. The orderlies guarding the door made no move to stop me as I twisted the knob and went inside.

He was stretched across the chair this time, his lower back pressed against one arm of his seat, the backs of his thighs pushed against the other arm, hands wedged between his knees to provide some slack on the chain that ran down to his ankles. Otherwise, it was the same setup as it had been before, down to the orderly standing guard over him. His head turned as I entered the room, and he let it loll sideways as I sat down across from him. He said nothing.

"Good morning," I greeted him pleasantly.

The Joker remained silent, just continued to let his eyes burn into mine. I shifted in my seat, feeling a sudden wave of self-consciousness. I'd been so focused on getting back into this room with him that I'd forgotten how intimidating his presence was.

"How—how are you doing?" I asked, well aware that the question was an utterly ridiculous one—but his stare drove all of the half-formed plans I'd made for this session out of my mind. I felt foolish right away, and his face remained expressionless. I cleared my throat and continued, if only to try to get some reaction from him. "Aside from being locked up in a giant cage, I mean. Have you eaten? Have you slept?"

He blinked once, slowly at me, smacked his lips twice, and then let his head hang backwards so that he was staring upside-down at the opposite wall.

I worried my bottom lip as I stared at him. The questions were getting me nowhere, and now that I was free of his stare I realized how utterly stupid I sounded. I glanced at the floor, casting about for the ideas that had deserted me as soon as I'd stepped through the door.

Before I could decide on a course of action, he spoke suddenly, startling me into looking up at him. "You're a schemer, aren't you, Harley?" He turned his head to the side sharply. "You don't mind if I call you Harley, do you? Dr. Quinzel just sounds so frigid, and Harleen is just…" He caught his lower lip between his teeth, squinted, and shook his head in disapproval.

I looked steadily at him, not allowing myself to feel unnerved that he had just deciphered my preferred nickname so easily. Just a coincidence, I told myself. After a moment's pause and some quick thought, I said, "You can call me Harley if you let me call you J."

In one swift, jerky movement, he twisted, slung his legs under the table, and sat up straight. He stretched a hand out towards me as far as he could, wagging his finger. "That's Mister J to you," he said. His tone was playful, which immediately put me on my guard, but I had initiated this game, and I'd be damned if I was going to back out just because I was scared of his rules.

"If you're Mister J, then I'm Doctor Harley," I said with a casual shrug.

The Joker studied me, his head cocked slightly sideways, his face creased in an unreadable smile that didn't reach his eyes. After a moment, he laced his fingers together and pointed both index fingers at me. "Well, Harley, you're avoiding my original question."

I blinked at him for a second before my mind caught up. "You asked if I was a schemer?"

"Mm-hmm." He gave a single, exaggerated nod.

I rested my eyes on the stretch of wall showing just above his left shoulder, plotting out my answer. His method of thinking before he spoke was a wise one and I couldn't afford to let him get the advantage, couldn't afford to let anything slip. I decided to emulate him, even at the risk of making my caution obvious.

Finally, I nodded. "Yes. I am, I think, insofar as anyone is a schemer."

He raised his eyebrows, making his forehead dive into a series of sharp furrows. "Not better than anyone else? Not worse?"

"Well, we're all out for our own good, aren't we? Everyone's got motive behind what they do, and I'd say ninety-nine percent of the time that motive is selfish." I paused again, thinking some more as I chewed on my bottom lip absently. I found that averting my eyes from him when I spoke or thought helped some; it helped me retain some clarity so that I wasn't scared witless. I could almost pretend that he wasn't there. "It's—it's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. We look out for ourselves because no one else will, but no on else looks after us because they're busy looking after themselves, and so on."

"Do ya think that's wrong?" he asked softly. When I looked back at him, his eyes were still fixed on me.

I got the uncomfortable feeling that I had switched roles with my patient, and I immediately set about trying to get back on track. I gave him an uncomfortable smile. "Well, do you?"

"Ah, ah, ah," he said, shaking his finger at me. "I wanna hear about you now."

"But I'm not interesting," I protested, feeling whatever sense of imagined control I'd had before now slipping from just beneath my fingertips.

He lifted his eyebrows, simultaneously tilting his head sideways. His lips moved silently for a second as though he was grasping for something to say, and then he asked, "Says who?"

"Says me," I replied firmly. "I'm the shrink. I'm just kind of a… wax tablet for you to leave impressions in."

"So—so essentially," he said, lowering his eyes in thought, "you're here to help me."

It was the simple obviousness of the statement that kept me from agreeing and shooting myself in the foot. I watched him uncertainly, feeling rather like a mouse unsure whether the cat across the yard was happy lying in the sun or whether it would want to play.

He raised his eyes to me again. "Huh?" he asked softly, prodding me for an answer.

I shook my head, at a loss. "The general consensus is that you're crazy. I'm here to see if that's the truth." He screwed his eyes shut, pursed his lips, and shook his head as though the suggestion pained him. I pursued it. "You would disagree with the suggestion that you're crazy?" I asked, leaning forward just a little bit.

"Labels," he snapped suddenly, his eyes shooting open. His hands flailed about as much as they were able as he snapped, "Labels, labels. We're back to that again!"

"People like their labels," I said softly, watching his long fingers as they curled and flexed as though he'd like to get them around someone's throat. Around my throat.

"Ya know, they really need to learn to live without 'em," he said matter-of-factly. "I can see that. It's one of the reasons they think I'm ca-razy. It scares 'em. It scares 'em that I can see all these things… that they've missed."

"You don't think that's kind of an egotistical perspective?"

He looked at me out of his left eye, grinning sarcastically. "False modesty, Harley. It doesn't become anyone."

This line of discussion was good. I wanted to pursue it, but his left index finger shot into the air, though, stopping me before I could ask anything else. "Back to my, uh, original topic, though…"

My shoulders slumped microscopically as I resigned myself to the fact that I wasn't going to be able to dissuade him. He stared at me, the flicker of something that may have been triumph showing in his eyes, and went on:

"Is that selfishness you see in your fellow humans a bad thing?" He was crooning at me, his voice higher and softer than his normal near-croak.

I crossed my arms and leaned back, pointing my toe towards the wall. I looked at the patch of wall above his left shoulder again. "Not up to a certain point," I said carefully, feeling as though I was being tested. "We need to survive, after all. That survival instinct is important; if we didn't have it then the human race would die out. But it escalates beyond that. It gets to a point where you're carelessly hurting other people with every choice you make. I think that's wrong."

"Why?" he asked softly. "They would do the same to you."

I switched my gaze, meeting his eyes head-on. I stared at him for a moment before shaking my head. "That doesn't make it right," I said quietly.

"Oh, I would disagree," he contradicted, twisting his head almost completely sideways and staring at the ceiling as though it would give way to some entity that could offer a definitive ruling on who had the better argument. "Who really decides right and wrong?"

I shook my head. "No—you're operating on the assumption that it's a subjective thing," I argued. "You don't believe in universal right or universal wrong?"

Of course he doesn't. Look who you're talking to, Harley.

He blinked deliberately at me. "I believe," he hummed, "that morality… is fiction."

I leaned back just a little bit. Of course, I had anticipated it. I'd read Nietzsche, I'd studied and debated nihilism, the idea that humanity had no purpose and therefore morality was simple vanity, but I'd never bought into it. Still, it made sense for him to subscribe to the idea. What did the Joker gain by believing in morality? Absolutely nothing. On the other hand, he had everything to gain if he decided that the whole thing was just a farce made up to keep the good little humans in check.

I watched him and could see his tongue tracing the scars on the inside of his mouth. I nearly flinched, but restrained myself just in time. He continued, a glint to his eyes that hadn't been there before. "Oh, sure, it's necessary for your average majority. Ya don't have some kinda governing code, everyone dies. At least, that's what… they… fear." He tipped his head sideways, resting his temple on the tip of his index finger.

"You disagree?" I was distantly aware that I should feel elated that I was the one asking questions again, but I was too captivated by the discussion to care much.

He inhaled deeply through his nose, closing his eyes and straightening up, as though drawn up towards the roof by an invisible cable. "Chaos is the only way," he said, eyes still closed. "Mankind…" He opened his eyes and shook his head at me, pulling a disapproving expression as his words sped up. "Uh, mankind is just trying to delay the inevitable. Putting up governments, labeling and locking away people they find threatening—" here, he gestured around at the room we were in to drive his point home.

"It's not the natural order of things. The current generation is only interested in its safety," he pointed out, returning his gaze to me. "It doesn't care that when things inevitably crumble, when things finally go to hell, its children… or its children's children…" He leaned back, crossing his wrists in a satisfied way.

I waited. He seemed to be lost in thought, so I leaned forward a little more, encouragingly. "Yes?"

"What?" His gaze had wandered, but it snapped back to me now. "Oh—um, they're done for."

I suddenly realized how we were positioned. He was leaning back, arms languidly half-crossed, while I leaned partially over the table, from the looks of it totally hanging on his words. I practically shot back into my chair as soon as the realization hit me, getting a chortle from him.

I took a second to recover myself, to dismiss the slightly disgruntled feelings that were flooding in as a result of the little body language gaffe, and then I said, "I disagree."

"Oh, do ya, now?"

"I think the reason the world is going to hell isn't because hell is its natural state. I think the reason for all the turmoil is that people are getting worse—but they can get better, too. Human nature is selfish, it's difficult, but I think there are a lot of people working to counteract it and make the world a better place."

He snorted loudly, and I stared at him in surprise. He widened his eyes in innocence, as if to ask who, me?, but before I could point out that I was right in front of him and there was no way he could pretend he hadn't just made that noise, his gaze began darting around the room and he started humming to himself. I resigned myself to patient waiting, not sure if he was going to drop the argument or come up with a rebuttal but begrudgingly intrigued either way.

He cut himself off mid-note and focused his energy towards me again, extending a cautionary finger. "Think about this. If this little…" he gestured around—"world… of ours… if it's supposed to be some kinduva haven… then why is it so hard to make it that way? Why have things just gotten worse and worse instead of any… better?"

"Who says the world is worse?" I countered swiftly. "There's always been warfare and disease and death—the way I see it, the world isn't any worse than it's always been. It's just changed."

There was a squelching sound as he pulled his upper lip back from his teeth momentarily, studying me, and then he held out a hand, index finger extended, and said, "The world is worse because there are more people on it now than ever before. You're the one who said human nature is selfish—how is a planet swarming with seven billion people who are all out for themselves not worse than one with only, say, uhh, one billion?"

"Not everyone is just out for themselves," I said. "Even selfish people usually care about someone."

"If you say so, Doc," he said, looking at me with a doubtful slant to his eyebrows that let me know he wasn't buying into it, was just saying that to humor me.

"Look, nobody said life was easy—" I began.

"Nah," he interrupted right away, scrunching up his nose. "But it could be." He sighed, let his shoulder slump, and tsked lightly. "Those pesky morals."

He was wrong. He was wrong and I wanted to tell him exactly why, wanted to bring up all the times that the world and civilization had reinvented themselves and survived and move forward, but the door burst open before I could organize my thoughts and come back with a good argument, and the two outside orderlies came swarming in again.

"Time to go," one announced unnecessarily. I sighed sharply, slumping in my chair, folding my arms almost sulkily.

The Joker stood and half-bowed with a very credible flourish, considering the fact that his hands were chained to his feet. "'Till we meet again," he said, his voice breaking off into a surprised bar of laughter as he was seized and muscled from the room.

I sat there, staring at the table, until Dr. Stratford came into the room and took the seat that the Joker had been occupying. I shifted my eyes then to him.

He laced his fingers together and rested them on the table, staring at his hands for a moment before he lifted his eyes up to me. "Quinzel… what was that?"

"What do you mean?" I asked, working to keep my face immobile. He was upset, I could tell, and I had a good idea as to why, but my policy was to never admit to guilt until I knew exactly what I was being accused of.

He gestured towards the door, through which the villain of the scene had just made his exit. "That," he practically snarled. "What, you've got… nicknames for each other now? You're sitting there discussing worldview?"

"Yes. So? A patient's ideology can tell us a lot about the nature of his mind," I said, shaking my head, not understanding. I failed to see why he considered this a problem.

"So," Stratford said, his voice lifting just a bit, "this is your second session with him and it's already taking an unhealthy turn."

"Unhealthy?" I demanded incredulously.

"What would you call it? It's completely unconventional, this method that you're using, and he's going to take advantage of it."

I was getting angry by then. My voice rose above his, unbidden, acerbic—and entirely too lacking in respect considering that I was a brand new psychologist speaking to my superior. "Unconventional. That's really rich, coming from you. If I remember correctly, when you took a more conventional line of questioning with him, he shut you down so thoroughly that you wouldn't go anywhere near him."

Stratford's eyes turned to ice. "You think he hasn't done the same to you because he can't?"

"No! No, I'm not that arrogant!" I refuted vehemently. That seemed to calm him down a bit. He quit glaring and just looked intently at me. I took a couple of deep breaths, regaining my hold on my temper. I was on thin ice here, and I knew it—if I yelled again, I might as well start packing up my desk.

"I know what he could do, Doctor. I look into that man's eyes, and…" I shook my head, unable to explain exactly what I felt, what I saw, but willing to try. "I know he could reach down inside of me, pluck out my deepest, darkest secrets, and use them against me, tear me apart. But he hasn't."

"And why do you think that is?" Stratford asked steadily.

"He's got an agenda," I answered with relative certainty.

"And do you really want to play into his hands like that?" he demanded.

"Look, it's not about that!" I exclaimed, exasperated. "This was never about me or how I personally felt about this! It's about him. It's about getting a closer look at him. For some reason, he'll talk to me, and this is an opportunity you haven't been able to get with other therapists. Maybe it's not stories about his traumatic childhood, but…" I shook my head. "It's something. It's a little window inside of that mind of his."

"It's dangerous," Stratford said, very clearly.

"It would be dangerous no matter who he was talking to. Or would you prefer a big strong man went in?" I asked, trying to keep the bitterness at bay but not quite able, the Joker's opinion as to why I had been assigned to him ringing unbidden in my head. "Maybe we should get in touch with Batman. Who knows? He could have a degree in psychology."

"Quinzel, the fact that you're a woman has nothing to do with this," Stratford said sharply.

"Then what?"

"You have relatively little experience. You came here fresh out of your internship. Your mind is still very impressionable."

"What, you didn't think about this before?" I demanded, bypassing the insult.

"I did. I did, but I figured we'd see how it went."

"And?"

"And these two brief sessions alone are incredibly… unsettling. He's bending you, Quinzel. You're talking to him as though this brutal, sociopathic ideology of his is valid."

"You think adopting a holier-than-thou stance in this situation would be appropriate?" I demanded. "He's made it clear, sir. If we don't play by his rules, then he's not playing."

"A game with this man usually ends up with blood on the floor."

"Oh, what's he going to do to me?" I demanded in exasperation. "Every time I see him, he's chained up within an inch of his life, surrounded by orderlies. He only once made a threatening move, and he knew nothing would come of it!"

"Once out of the two times you've seen him?" Stratford asked pointedly.

"Look, I'm not going to fight with you over this anymore," I said, putting up my hands. "You assigned me to analyze him, and that's what I'm trying to do. If you've decided that you don't want me talking with him anymore, then there's not a thing I can do about it. But think about what's already happened. He talks to me. I'm not positive he'll do that for anybody else."

Stratford worked his jaw. "He doesn't scare you?"

"He terrifies me," I tell him bluntly. "I can barely think straight when I'm looking right at him. But what he has to say is interesting enough to outweigh it."

"Huh." He worked his jaw some more. "I'll think about it," he said finally. "But I'm still not convinced that this really is the right course of action."

I gave him a slow nod. "All right," I said, refraining from pointing out that it might just be his only course of action, and he stood up. I cocked my head back and fixed him with a stare before he could leave. "But, Doctor Stratford, if you send me in there again, you'd better be prepared to quit fighting me and stop pulling me out after little ten-minute sessions. You'd better be prepared to do things my way. I can't do this with everyone breathing down my neck and telling me exactly how these encounters need to go."

He stared at me for a second, and seemed on the verge of saying something, of telling me just how arrogant it was that a puny rube was making demands of him. In the end, though, he just nodded and left the room.

The moment I got home, I brewed some coffee and went straight for my notebook. I had some theories I was dying to get out on paper, dying to organize and see written down. Maybe I could make some sense of them.

His view of human nature is very negative, very cynical. It's as though he believes that deep down, everyone is utterly wicked. He believes that the only thing keeping that deep dark evil suppressed is society and society's rules, and that without those rules, everyone would unleash their inner demons.

What if he's right? It's a terrifying thought.

He's not right, though. He can't be. If people are evil, then why are the rules in place to begin with? Wouldn't it benefit an evil species more to have no rules? That way, we could just indulge in anarchy and nihilism, function in a dog-eat-dog type of world.

No, that didn't work. Even as I wrote it down, my mind started coming up with ways to prove itself wrong, and I let my pen wander, scratching down the arguments as they came into my mind.

But, then again, humans have an instinct for self-preservation that is usually stronger than anything else, even our ideas of good or evil, and we must realize than an anarchistic society would kill off all but the very strongest. The majority would understand that this would be a bad thing for them, and so they would conspire to create a society that would allow them to live, even if it meant repressing their purported evil instincts. Majority rules, after all.

The Joker is a strong being, so it makes sense that he wishes to create a society that has no rules, as he would probably be at the top of the food chain in said society. Other, weaker people will not go for his ideas, because they know that they would be the ones that would be stepped on and slaughtered.

Ah. Now, that made more sense. I was getting a good look at the situation now; I was understanding how he thought (in this case, at least) and why it didn't fly with everyone else.

It isn't just the murder and the stealing. It's the fact that people are scared of him and his ideas. If anyone paid attention to his method of thinking, the world could spiral down into an utter and complete wasteland.

But his ideas of human nature are utterly wrong, so there's no reason to be afraid, right? There's no reason to think that he'll get a big enough following to make a real difference. People aren't innately evil—so why is everyone so scared of his influence?

People aren't evil.

The tip of my pen paused on the period. There were too many unanswered questions about his ideology, and I hadn't spoken to him long enough to answer all of them. If I thought too much about them right now, when I had no way of solving them, they would drive me insane.

I put up the pen and the binder. I needed something to distract me, and I figured I knew just the thing. Ten minutes later, dressed in gym shorts and a tank top, hair properly ponytailed, I headed out to the Y, intending to dispel all this nervous energy with a decent workout.