Joan Leland closed the door of her office and dropped the patient files that her assistant had pulled for her onto her desk. She slipped off her shoes and made her way over to the chocolate chaise lounge and picked up the pillow before lying upon it. She squeezed the pillow to her chest and closed her eyes and attempted to will the muscle tension in her neck away.
The chair was well broken in since she had insisted that Jonathan purchase it years before. He'd slept on it on nights he'd stayed at the asylum and on more than one occasion, they had made love there after hours when he was in a 'special' mood.
Joan covered her face with the pillow, her chest aching to release a scream.
It had still smelled like him for a while. Those early days after his incarceration had been very difficult for her. He was there, only a few floors away and she had so many things she wanted to ask him. She wanted to see him, to touch his face again, to kiss him, to punch him in the mouth.
But to do so would be inappropriate and could even cost her the position she had been appointed to. She had taken his job, his office, even his belongings, when it had become clear that he would not return to his home.
Arkham had arranged bi-weekly sessions with her once Jonathan had been admitted. She had talked about her thoughts and feelings. He had given her medication to help ease her anxiety and advice. He'd told her to talk to Jonathan. He had even suggested that they have sessions together with him. Joan had said she would take it under advisement, and had never brought it up again.
On a few rare occasions she would add overtime hours to the guards to keep them quiet while she observed Jonathan while he slept, and had entered his cell when he was away for meals, exercise or therapy. But she had never crossed that fine line between professional and inappropriate behavior.
She still had some of his things at her home, what the police had not taken in their investigation. The rest of his belongings were in a storage locker somewhere to which she had the key since he had no family. It hadn't been until he had left that she realized just how solitary a life he had led.
She had so many questions for him, difficult questions.
Rachel Dawes had paged her the night she and Jonathan were leaving for a trip to Georgia. She had appealed to him for months to go and he had been vehemently opposed to the idea. And then one night he had come home very late, an air of uneasiness about him she had never felt before or since and he had told her he would go.
Then the nightmares had started. She would wake in the dead of night in a state of panic on a few occasions and he had been there, shushing her, asking her what she had dreamt, how she felt. He'd given her comfort and then the dreams had abated.
On that terrible night in the Narrows, Joan had left the airport at Rachel Dawes' insistence that she come to Arkham and evaluate Carmine Falcone. She knew Jonathan would already be there and the meeting would turn ugly when both she and Jonathan missed their flight due to Dawes' unreasonable demands. When she had arrived, the police were everywhere and the bridges to the Narrows had been raised. She had been arguing with an officer when the toxin was released, blowing manhole covers ten feet into the air. Mass panic had ensued, but she had somehow been unaffected.
She had spent a day and a half at MCU after that, answering questions and more questions. She had given the police access to her own and Jonathan's apartments. They had seized everything they thought relevant and then some. They had scrutinized her and had an officer watch her for weeks afterward, hoping they could use her to catch Jonathan.
Joan held the pillow back to her chest and wiped her eyes. She had questions for him, but one always butted its way to the front of her mind.
Had he ever really loved her?
"Have you given any thought to what we discussed?" She asked sitting beside him on the couch in her apartment. Jonathan's chest felt tight and he took a breath. He knew exactly what she was asking.
She had brought up the topic of reproduction a few times and he'd disregarded it soon after the conversation had ended. He had more than enough on his plate than to worry about Joan's biological clock. Later, the thoughts would resurface and he'd become anxious, disturbed.
His grandmother's preaching would fill his head about all things moral and sinful. He could almost hear her screeching that they were living in sin and they were both going to Hell. A child out of wedlock would be equally damned, doomed before its life even began. It would be a bastard like himself.
And then there was Joan, a black woman would be wholly unacceptable to his grandmother.
"We may have even owned her family, stay away from that blackbird," she would have raged and then beat him for even thinking about her and then lock him in the church, with the crows; the blackbirds.
"I find it curious that you only bring up the subject of procreation and not marriage," he said locking his eyes on hers. She looked away and seemed to squirm with unease.
"I didn't think you wanted to get married. Sometimes it's like you're not even involved with this relationship," she'd said wringing her fingers and then meeting his gaze.
He felt like he'd been punched in the stomach. The sting of rejection and white hot rage burned through him. This was why he never got involved with anyone; eventually they would reject him and make a fool of him.
His expression never changing, he patted her hands and then stood and pulled her to her feet. She blinked and looked concerned as he turned away from her and led her to her bedroom. He guided her in front of him and she took a seat at the foot of the bed looking at him quizzically.
"Don't do this!" A young man's voice shouted in his head.
"Just a minute Joanie," he said leaning toward her and kissing her gently.
He turned away and made his way back to the living room where he picked up his briefcase and set it on the table. He unlatched the case and opened it, pulling from it a mask made from burlap, still very stiff as he had just recently made it, and a small aerosol canister. He activated the filter inside the mask and removed his glasses before slipping the mask over his head.
"Jonathan?" Joan's voice called, he turned toward it.
"Don't do this!" The voice in his head appealed once again.
He turned off each light that he passed until he was standing in the bedroom doorway, Joan looking up at him wide-eyed.
"Jonathan?" She asked; her voice choked with surprise, fright.
He raised the canister and sprayed the gas within directly into her face. Then he set it aside and climbed on top of her. Her panic-stricken face was close to his as he watched her soft brown eyes and the tears that flowed from them. She screamed and gasped for breath as she tried to push him away. He stroked her hair as she writhed beneath him, clawing at the covers, crying.
"Oh God, no! Harold, please don't kill me, Harold!" She cried and whimpered again and again.
The dose he'd given her hadn't been very strong and she soon tired from her struggling and then lay there, talking to Harold and pleading for her life. Jonathan removed his mask and then returned it to his briefcase along with the canister and locked it up.
He undressed her to her underwear and tucked her into the bed as she usually slept. His anger sated, he undressed as well and joined her beneath the sheets and lay on his side, stroking her hair and soft skin, wondering who Harold was and why he terrified her so much.
"That was a classic dick-move," a disembodied voice scolded him.
"You could never understand," Jonathan thought as he watched Joan's face contort in a nightmare.
"She will leave you, us, if she remembers this," the voice replied and Jonathan caught a shadow in the corner of his eyes. He looked up to see the thin boy sitting on the edge of the bed beside Joan, looking down at her unhappily.
"Don't pretend that you don't enjoy this," Jonathan frowned at the younger version of himself. The boy looked back at him with his own eyes, filled with disapproval.
Forever a child, a young man, Scarecrow looked back at Joan and disappeared. Jonathan felt the surge within as Scarecrow tried to take over. He sat back and breathed deep, focusing hard until the feeling went away. Scarecrow reappeared, glaring at him darkly. Eighteen and dressed as he had been the night Jonathan had first taken a life while donning a scarecrow costume, sans mask. His hair cut close and sharp features which had changed over time as Jonathan had aged.
"Without me, you never would have been together in the first place," Scarecrow spat nastily. "I've always had to step in when you couldn't handle things yourself. I found someone, and this is what you do to her."
Jonathan closed his eyes and shut Scarecrow away, an ability that had taken years to cultivate. He didn't need that damn kid preaching to him about his relationship with Joan. Jonathan opened his eyes and touched Joan's face again, sighing. Their relationship; Scarecrow had taken the initiative to begin this romance. Jonathan had indulged him and then found himself being drawn closer, deeper into this coupling.
He fell asleep holding Joan and woke hours later when she sat up with a start, breathing hard and looking around wildly. He rubbed his eyes and sat up beside her, eager to learn what she had seen and dreamed. He touched her shoulder and she jumped and shrank away from him. He frowned and turned on the light.
"Joan," he said softly with his normal cadence. She hugged herself and then broke down in tears. He pulled her against him and shushed her, stroking her hair. "Are you alright?"
Joan sobbed for a few minutes before regaining her composure somewhat. She looked at him, seemingly embarrassed.
"I'm sorry I woke you," she said and wiped the tears from her cheeks with both hands. "I just had this dream and it seemed so real!" She was trembling and he held her, waiting for her to calm down so she could talk to him. She laid her head against him.
"Who is Harold?" He asked seemingly absently. He looked at her and she wiped away a stray tear.
"Oh, God, was I talking in my sleep? I'm sorry Jon," she lay against him and closed her eyes.
"You had a nightmare, you kept saying that name. Is someone bothering you, Joanie? Tell me what you need from me," he said in a reassuring, therapeutic tone.
"I have a terrible headache," she said. He retrieved her Midrin and some water, both of which she took before sitting cross-legged, holding her head in her hands. Jonathan was growing more impatient and decided to prompt her again. Sitting beside her, he rubbed small circles on her back.
"Joanie, is there something I should know? Who is Harold?" He prodded. She shook her head.
"Oh God, you'll think it's foolish," she said.
"I assure you I won't. Remember, Joan, this sort of thing is my specialty," he placed his hand on her shoulder and she looked up at him, her eyes were red.
"Harold isn't a person," she took a breath, "more of a boogeyman from my childhood. Harold is a Scarecrow."
"It was a pleasure to burn," the voice broke into Jonathan's thoughts as he lay back on his bed in his cell. He looked up at the figure sitting at the foot of his bed, its back against the wall and knees bent. Scarecrow looked back at him.
"It was a pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed," his young face smiled at him, his blue eyes shining from some ethereal light. "I finally touched the sun."
Jonathan shook his head, tired of his alters' propensity to quote literature and misinterpret mythology. Some days he wished he could shut out that voice, pull the curtain closed on that face and be left alone. He'd been humiliated by Scarecrow after he'd been institutionalized and been questioned in therapy by Ruth Adams about what he'd meant when he'd called himself 'the all-terrible God of Fear.'
Jonathan had made Ruth cry that day but hadn't found it very rewarding. Another psychiatrist had shown him the surveillance footage of his intake at Arkham. He'd sat close to the screen and seen her come to him, speak to him. He remembered none of this. His mind was in a fugue state and he knew it would take time before the reverse memories came to him. But in that time he had to tolerate the daily barrage of stares and whispers and ridiculous questions.
Joan refused to see him, and he only had Scarecrow to keep him company.
"What did she mean by the obelisk and the ferry?" Scarecrow had asked when Jonathan had gained enough wherewithal to process daily life in the asylum. Once he had put together the intake tape and Scarecrow's question they had left him cold inside.
"In Greek Mythology, the family of the dead placed an obolus, a coin, on the mouth of the departed. The soul of the dead would then give the obolus to Charon, the ferryman who would then take the soul across the river Acheron to Hades," Jonathan said in a quiet voice, deciding that no one was listening to him.
"So you have to pay to get into Hell," Scarecrow opined. "What if you didn't have this coin?" Jonathan shook his head.
"Then your soul was forced to wander the shore of Acheron for one hundred years," Jonathan replied. Scarecrow remained quiet for a time.
"I had some change on me when they caught us," Scarecrow said and laughed at himself. "I get it now. So what do you think she thought when I didn't know what to say to her?" Jonathan did not reply.
"We're never going to see her again, are we?" Scarecrow asked.
Jonathan and Scarecrow had spent the next year and a half in a bitter stalemate with the rest of Arkham. Jonathan didn't want to have anything to do with the staff as they just reminded him of everything he had lost both personally and professionally. His work had defined him. Without it, he was just another homeless criminal in the darkness of Gotham's alleys with an imaginary friend to boot. He'd continued his studies in the streets and had come across the Joker, who then became the only ally he had in Arkham; which said a lot about his life.
One afternoon he had been playing a game of chess against Scarecrow in the rec room and growing increasingly frustrated with him.
"I'm getting better at this!" Scarecrow congratulated himself before Jonathan beat him in the match. Scarecrow hadn't uttered any of his disparaging remarks which he typically did and Jonathan was stilled with the silence.
"I call winner," a nasal voice said as a figure in Arkham red took a seat across from him. Jonathan looked up to see the man with curly blonde-green hair and scars emanating from the corners of his mouth. He frowned as he caught then man's dark eyes with his gaze. The other man frowned back.
"What's the matter, Scary? You don't think I can play?" The man teased and Jonathan realized who the other man was. He'd only ever seen him in make-up and cheap suits before.
The two men arranged the pieces and played every afternoon that the Joker didn't get himself locked up for some infraction. Jonathan continued to play and converse with the Joker as he was his only real peer in the asylum. Even if it did frustrate him to no end that the Joker never lost.
Scarecrow had mixed feelings on the Joker, but that was more or less due to the fact that he was a separate personality trapped within Jonathan. The two occasionally fought over control and sometimes Scarecrow won. Those were not good days.
Jonathan studied the Joker while they interacted or by the interactions he had with others. He kept notes tucked away in his books and would write up case notes on some evenings. What he didn't realize was that the Joker had been studying him as well.
"How long have you been fucking her?" Joker asked casually one day. The question had caught Jonathan completely off-guard and he nearly dropped the rook he held in his hand.
"Excuse me?" Jonathan frowned. Joker chuckled and it threatened to become a full out guffaw the longer he looked at Jonathan's face. He nodded toward the nurses' station and Jonathan's eyes followed. He saw Joan standing there, reading a form on a clipboard and rubbing her neck. He turned back to the Joker and frowned.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he spat looking at the pieces and noticed that the Joker had moved a few around. "Sad way to cheat, Joker, even for you," Jonathan said as he returned the pieces to their prior locations.
"Then why did you look?" Joker asked leaning toward him. Jonathan pushed his glasses up his nose and Joker chuckled.
"It would be a conflict of interest for a doctor to be sleeping with their patients," Jonathan moved his knight.
"Yet it happens all the time," the Joker leered at him.
"Shove that knight up his nose!" Scarecrow chimed in his head.
"I don't know how Doctor Quinzel treats her patients, but then again I didn't hire her either," Jonathan replied.
"But you hired Ruth Adams," the Joker implored. Jonathan sat back and stared at him.
"Go ahead and have your little say," Jonathan gestured with his right hand before folding his arms across his chest. Joker snorted and Jonathan guessed it was because he was ruining his game. Joker arranged some pieces on the board and Jonathan sighed realizing there was going to be a 'puppet show' involved.
"So you have these candidates for this position; Larry, Curly, Moe, Ruth and Joan. Each has a-maz-ing qualifications, but only one position is available. So you hire Ruth and two days later Joan shows up in your office…" Joker moved the black queen next to the white king.
"Aaaaaannnd, she slaps you and throws a chair across the room," he said hitting the king with the queen.
"So you want to know what exactly?" Jonathan took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"What happened?" Joker asked holding his hands up innocently. Jonathan looked back at Joan and caught her looking at him and then she retreated to the office.
"You two do this little dance around each other and it's quite sad, really," Joker said and Jonathan turned back to him, feeling embarrassed, furious at the clown.
"I didn't know you were an expert on relationship advice," Jonathan replied.
"I just want to know what happened. Did she catch you screwing Ruth for the job? I know there is a lot of resentment between them. Or was Joan the other woman?" Joker asked. Jonathan shook his head.
"If you've been really paying attention to the gossip then you already know what happened," Jonathan replied growing frustrated. Joker shook his head.
"People say a lot of things about me and virtually none of it is true, well, anything that isn't public record," Joker said. "I'm just giving you the opportunity to get the truth out in the open."
"Fuck you," Scarecrow sneered leaning forward and pointing at the Joker, nearly poking him. Joker's eyes widened and he grinned.
"Ready to talk?" Joker asked. Scarecrow slumped in his seat and looked back at the nurses' station.
"Joan and I were together for a while," Scarecrow said. "I never did anything with Ruth. Joan was pissed off that she didn't get the job, but I didn't want her to get in the way of our plans."
"The plans to disperse the fear toxin in the city water supply," Joker said nodding. Scarecrow nodded with agreement.
Months later Jonathan looked at his alter at the end of the bed.
"What did you tell him?" Jonathan asked as the partial memory cleared.
"Nothing important," Scarecrow shrugged. Jonathan got to his feet and began pacing the cell and ran his fingers through his hair while Scarecrow watched.
"You likened yourself to Icarus, like a moth to a flame," Jonathan said. "But you didn't think that someone could snuff that flame out."
"What are you talking about?" The young man narrowed his eyes at him.
Jonathan knew that there were things that even with his life experience that Scarecrow would not understand, knowledge he didn't retain. Maturity was something that he would never have and Jonathan was trapped with the equivalent of a horny 18 year-old in his head. He could glean things that Jonathan had learned, or learn what he paid attention to through Jonathan's eyes. That was what made it so important that Jonathan retain control over his body, his mind.
Scarecrow had played into the Joker's hands.
Had he been there when Scarecrow was loose for six months, he would have done things a lot differently. He had always made discretion key in his relationship with Joan. When he had started working with Ra's al Ghul he had tried to even more.
So that she would never become a target.
Jonathan slumped back down on the bed and wouldn't look at Scarecrow. Eddie Nigma had targeted the Joker and himself. Then he had gone after the Joker and gotten Harleen Quinzel as collateral damage. Anyone who didn't see something between the two of them was living life blind.
It was only a matter of time before someone with an ax to grind against him would go after Joan.
The pounding was what woke Joan, and she sat up with a start and looked across the dimly-lit room to the door. She slipped off the chair she had been sleeping in and carefully made her way across the room. She winced as she turned on the lights and opened the door to find Ruth Adams standing there.
"Hey," Ruth said as Joan blinked at her and then held the door open for her to enter.
"I heard you had a rough morning," Ruth said sympathetically, nicotine strong on her breath.
She had been angry when Jonathan had hired Ruth instead of herself and had even gone so far as to accuse him of cheating. However, after getting to know Ruth she had learned her fears were misplaced as there were obvious personality clashes. And Ruth's smoking. Jonathan disliked being in the same room with someone who was smoking, let alone have sex with them.
"Yeah," Joan replied, smoothing at wrinkles in her clothes that would not disappear so easily.
"So things went well?" Ruth asked while she absently winding a lock of brown hair around her finger.
"What's up?" Joan asked cautiously. Ruth blew out a long breath.
"The guys in max security are saying that he wants to talk to you," Ruth replied. Joan looked at the clock and shook her head.
"He'll have to wait it out until Monday," Joan said grabbing her purse.
"I'll let them know," Ruth nodded in agreement.
Joan locked her office door behind her and she and Ruth parted ways. Joan hummed to herself to distract herself from the empty hallways and thoughts of the man downstairs who wanted to see her. She reached her car without incident and slipped inside. She set her purse on the passenger seat and then turned the key in the ignition.
A/N: "Harold" is an urban legend and featured in the book; "Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones" by Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell.
"It was a pleasure to burn, it was a pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed." Is the opening sentence of the book; "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury.
I didn't invent Greek Mythology.
Thanks everyone for reading and reviewing. There is more to come.