AN: If you're quarantined and you know it, read a fanfiction! (*clap clap*) Fingers crossed that all this staying home means we'll all get more writing done. Chapter 6 is already outlined. In the meantime, enjoy this one!

5. Protocol

"O make me a mask and a wall to shut from your spies

Of the sharp, enamelled eyes and the spectacled claws

Rape and rebellion in the nurseries of my face..."

- Dylan Thomas, "O Make Me A Mask"

"My money is on five."

"Minutes, or seconds?"

"I dunno, she did okay last night. Decent, in fact. I'm only saying five because Leland will probably pull the plug before things really get going."

"Hey, McKnight – what do you want down for?"

James closed the door of the observation room softly behind him, taking in the conversation he had walked into the middle of. Burton was holding a clipboard and a zip pouch full of cash, the kind you made bank deposits with; Dr. Cassidy was in the process of stuffing a five-dollar bill into its open mouth. James eyed them both darkly.

"So you're taking bets on Harley now?"

"Yup," said Burton neatly, ignoring the condescension in James' question. "How long she makes it in session before she gives up, breaks, sets him off, or Leland yanks her. Manner of ending isn't a salient point. Just time. You in?"

"No thank you," James grumbled. Burton shrugged and went back to his clipboard, recording Dr. Cassidy's bet as James took a seat in front of the window. The chair, like the rest of the observation room, was a muted shade of red-brown that teetered somewhere between neutral and unpleasant. To James, it was pushed more toward the latter by the sheer quantity of it – not just one wall or item but the whole room, carpet, walls, and furnishings all melting into each other in varying tones of the same rusty hue. The only break in the monotony was the tower of recording equipment against the far wall, banks of outdated VHS recorders, dinosaur computer drives, and audio setups that were connected into the therapy room next door through a wall that was probably something akin to Swiss cheese. On the other side, the side the patients saw, every cord and mic and camera lens was carefully hidden to give the illusion of privacy. This side looked like the snake pit from Indiana Jones. And it felt like it, too, in James' opinion. The heat given off by the jungle of electronics was stifling.

On the other side of the glass, he could see Harley pacing nervous circles around the small table that held her notes and the Joker's file. James thought she looked like a freshman waiting backstage at a talent show who knew their senior crush was sitting in the front row. Her eyes were at max dilation from adrenaline, and her cheeks were starting to flush. She was probably regretting the turtleneck she had worn, James mused knowingly. Been there, made that mistake. He'd worn a tie to his own first major session, and by the end of it, he'd been so tense and paranoid about hearing Leland's critique that he'd been ready to tear it off just so he could breathe. He knew why she'd worn it, of course - the way the Joker had been eyeing her last night, full coverage was probably the best option. So she'd come prepared in a dark wine-colored turtleneck and a pair of full-legged, billowy slacks. But while everything was covered, James wasn't so sure she'd made herself any less attractive. The sweater was a soft ribbed fabric that hugged her breasts and hips, and the way the pants dropped away from the curve of her butt— James stopped himself abruptly and forced himself to look down at his notebook. Some nice guy you are, he hissed internally. What's worse, them betting on her or you checking her out when she doesn't even know you're looking? Out of line, James. Come on. Rein it in. He moved restlessly in the seat and hoped Leland would get there soon so they could get started. At least then he'd have something else to focus on.

The window through which James was observing Harley looked like a big mirror from the therapy room side - it had a frame around it and everything to keep up the illusion - but nobody really thought the patients were fooled. Harley took a seat with her back to it, then got up again only a few seconds later. She was too jittery to sit, so she just kept pacing and looking around at walls she had already looked at fifty times that morning. In your average clinic - like the one Harley had worked in at GSU - therapy rooms were set up to look like someone's living room. There were armchairs or couches (although usually not the Freudian variety), a coffee table with maybe some flowers, and if there was an observation room on the other side of the wall - typically the case in a teaching clinic for observed student sessions - the window was disguised to look like an actual mirror, the kind with a decorative scalloped frame that would blend in with the paintings beside it. The therapy rooms here at Arkham, however, were spartan by comparison. They were nicer down on the lower floors, Harley knew, but up here where the more violent patients were housed and treated the options were limited. Pretty much anything could and had been used as a weapon, and any attempt to make the therapy rooms look inviting had to be sacrificed for the doctors' safety. There were no furnishings save the square table and two chairs, and both the table - its edges rounded to ensure they wouldn't be used for stabbing - and the patient chair were bolted to the floor. All the lights were recessed, nothing hung on the walls, and the frame around the mirror window was so utilitarian that nobody would mistake it for anything but what it was. Not exactly the kind of environment that put patients at ease, Harley mused wryly. But then again, the Joker always seemed to be at ease regardless of his environment, so she supposed it was herself she was actually worried about.

She sat down again and this time managed to stay there by flipping absently through her notes. They were sparse, and she'd read them so many times that morning she really didn't need the hard copy in front of her; but somehow having the stack of papers on the table made her look more prepared, or at least she hoped it did. She wanted Leland to know that she had done her due diligence in getting ready for this session, and having notes felt like having evidence. Exhibit A, for the jury's consideration - half a page of purple scribbles and one sentence written on a cough drop wrapper. This last had come to her in the middle of the night; she had awakened from a dream (the contents of which she didn't wish to discuss with herself) and had suddenly remembered the one thing she should have been making notes about the whole time - the tattoo on the outside of the Joker's right forearm. She had first noticed it the day she'd sat across from him in the cafeteria, but she'd never gotten a good enough look at it to see what it said. Last night she had reached over to her bedside table in a sleep-haze, grabbed a pen and a stray Halls wrapper, and written herself a note before she could forget it; that morning she'd gotten up and looked through the file. It was there, of course - had been the whole time, staring at her, waiting for her to find it - a sentence written under "Identifying Features" and a snapshot of his arm among the medical photos. It was a small, unobtrusive tattoo that before his arrest he had nearly always kept covered either with his sleeves or with makeup, three words in a typewriter style font, and Harley had recognized them almost immediately. She had known then how she would begin the session, exactly what she would talk about. She would analyze his tattoo the way he had analyzed the callus on her finger, and there were all sorts of guesses she could make about him based on those three words - about his youth, his likes and dislikes, his self-image… enough to keep the session going much longer than the ten or fifteen minutes Leland was probably expecting. Harley smiled and straightened the stack of papers. Let Leland second guess her. She was ready.

"She's not ready," Leland said without greeting or preamble as she stalked into the observation room, Dr. Arkham trailing behind her as if it were her name on the building instead of his. "And frankly, neither am I, but Lord help me, I made her a deal." James turned slightly, tugging out another chair and offering it to her. She didn't take it. "McKnight, if this goes the wrong way, I will personally cut you up into pieces and feed you to him." James watched her nails dig into her clipboard and winced.

Beside him, Dr. Arkham wheezed and slid himself into the chair Leland had turned down. "And if it goes the right way, she still might do it just to spite you," he muttered. James pursed his lips.

"Doctor Leland, I think you're wrong. I think Har— uh, Doctor Quinzel… is very well prepared. I have high hopes for this session." He said it with more confidence than he felt. Somebody had to be on Harley's side in this room. As if to punctuate that thought, Dr. Burton leaned in from behind them with his clipboard and pouch.

"The pool is up to thirty-five dollars, ladies and gentlemen. Would anyone like to place a last minute wager?" James put his face in his hands.

"Come on, Burt—"

"Twelve minutes and forty-five seconds," Dr. Arkham grinned, fishing his wallet out of his pocket. James just stared at him.

"You too, Doctor Arkham?"

"Doctor McKnight," Arkham began, "what is the point of being in administration if you can't occasionally play the odds on your employees? Now that is twelve and forty-five seconds precisely, Dr. Burton. That is not the same as twelve minutes even."

"Got you covered, Boss," Burton said obligingly as he tucked Arkham's cash into the pouch. "Twelve forty-five on the nose." He wrote the time on his clipboard, zipped the cash pouch and slipped it into his pocket, and then hung the clipboard on the wall beside the door. "Betting is closed, everybody. Showtime."

Her eyes never leaving the observation window, Leland sighed grimly. "Doctor Cassidy, go tell Cash to bring him in."

Harley was staring at a smudge of purple ink on her notes when she heard the click of the electronic door. A muscle in her right thigh began immediately twitching with nervous energy in spite of how confident she had felt a moment before. She grabbed her pen and began clicking it aggressively as the door swung inward, revealing the huge bulk of Officer Cash. He almost completely filled the doorway, and Harley could see nothing behind him.

"Are you ready for him, Doctor Quinzel?" Cash asked. When Harley nodded, Cash gave her a reassuring smile. "You know where the panic button is; I'll be right outside the door the whole time just in case." As Cash slipped back into the hallway, Harley fingered the small button tucked just under the lip of the table. God, please don't let me need to use this, she thought fervently. If that happened, it would be the last session they would let her have with him. Forget what he might do to her - if he didn't manage to kill her, Leland's debriefing would.

The door swung open again, and this time Cash was pushing the Joker in front of him. Harley choked a little on her breath in spite of herself; as large a man as Cash was, he should have dwarfed the Joker (or anyone else who stood near him). She supposed he did - physically, at least. Yet somehow, in spite of Cash's almost planetary bulk, it was the Joker who seemed to be in charge, who seemed to take up the most space in the room, as though the sheer force of his personality superseded physical size. Harley tried to put a lid on that feeling - she knew it was entirely a product of the Joker's reputation, an effect he had on people that did more toward giving him control over them than his actual threats or actions - but it was a hard thing to suppress. The air around her suddenly felt charged with static as Cash marched the Joker toward the table. Harley took a deep breath and opened her mouth to say one of the sentences she'd practiced for ten minutes in the bathroom that morning.

SMACK.

Harley blinked confusedly at the object that had landed on the table in front of her, the greeting she'd been about to say swallowed like suddenly inhaled gum. Across the table, the Joker seated himself as nonchalantly as if he was meeting a friend for lunch, tucking his hair behind his ears as Cash threaded his handcuff chain through a loop on the chair and locked it in place. Harley looked at him blankly, then back at the book he had tossed at her.

"What's this?" she heard herself say. 'What's this?' Great opening. You're an idiot, she hissed at herself internally. The Joker seemed to agree with her unvoiced thought, because he rolled his eyes to the ceiling like a longsuffering preschool teacher. When he answered, he did so slowly - like he was talking to someone with a head injury.

"Ah, a b o o k."

"Well OBviously," Harley spat, annoyed enough to forget how nervous she had been before. "I meant, What is this book, and why have you plopped it down in front of me instead of letting me begin the session properly?" She crossed her arms and looked at him severely. The Joker lifted his hand and extended a finger, and his other hand followed loosely, compelled by the handcuffs to mirror its partner's movements.

"Well, ah… you can answer that first question by—" he cleared his throat meaningfully "— look-ing at it. And as for why…." He let his gaze dart around the room for a second, pretending to search for the right words. "If that's what you want to know… then… ask. Always ask the question you really mean, Doc. Don't dance your way up to it."

"Because dancers break their ankles. Right?" Harley smirked, recalling the conversation they'd shared in the cafeteria. The Joker smirked back at her, and Harley's shoulders let go of some of their tension. She realized that she'd passed a kind of first layer of security - he was pleased that she remembered, and now she was much more likely to get a semi-natural conversation out of him. He raised his eyebrows expectantly then, so she pressed on. "Okay. Why have you tossed this particular book in my direction today?"

"Because I want you to read it." Slowly, so as not to cause panic among the doctors behind the glass, the Joker reached both hands forward, touched the book with one long index finger, and gently slid it across the table until it touched Harley's stack of notes. The little whispering sound it made against the textured surface made her shiver. Once his hands were safely back in his lap, Harley reached out and picked the book up. It was a paperback that had been slick and white when it was new but was now dingy and scuffed; Arkham's meager library for its patients contained almost exclusively old library books that had been removed from circulation, and this was no different. Harley could see traces of the words Property of Cornelius Tye High School stamped in faded ink on the bottom of the pages. She turned it over and saw a large picture of a lightbulb on the front cover.

"Anthem, Ayn Rand," she read aloud. "Ayn Rand… I've heard of her. That's the Atlas lady, right?" She looked up to find that the Joker had settled back comfortably in his seat, his hands folded just below his sternum, in an attitude that said he would have been leaning the chair up onto its back legs if they weren't bolted down. His eyes half closed, and he looked at her dreamily from under his thick lashes.

"Here's the deal," he rumbled, ignoring her question. "If we're going to keep going on these dates—" Harley gave him a reproving look at that word, but he was unaffected "—we're going to haaave to talk about some-thing besides hands and the Olympic medal count. So… I'm giving you… homework."

"Homework," Harley repeated blandly, dropping her eyelids to match his.

"Home-work," the Joker agreed. "Every time we meet, I'm going to give you an assignment. A book to read. A movie to watch. A ...philosophical question to ponder. How long it takes you to watch it, or read it, or come up with an answer… determines how long we go between dates. You agree to give me your honest reaction to it... and I agree to give you mine." He sat up then, and cocked his head to one side as he regarded her. Harley crossed her arms.

"This isn't therapy, then - it's an exchange of ideas."

"Pre-CISE-ly."

"You don't believe you need therapy?" Harley replied. She was actually interested to see how he answered this one, and she knew the audience behind the glass would be too. The Joker tilted his head back, his eyes still half-lidded but flickering in various directions as he calculated his answer. Harley had enough time to start accidentally staring at the angle of his jaw before he snapped his gaze back to her. He leaned closer over the table, and his cuffs clinked against the fastenings they were threaded through.

"I believe… that what most people call therapy… is just slapping a coat of paint on top of rotten boards."

Harley gave him a slight nod - enough to tell him she understood his point without seeming to agree with him. Then she crossed her own hands over the book in front of her and leaned forward herself, mirroring him. "Okay, but see… they—" she indicated the glass behind her "—expect a therapy session. A real one. With… you know… psychology."

The Joker snorted dismissively, and they were close enough that Harley could feel the outflow of his breath against the tops of her hands. "And you, ah… you care more about what they want, what they expect… than you do about advancing our… DOCtor-patient re-LA-tionship? Hmm?"

"I—" Harley began, then stopped. There was no good way to answer that without either upsetting her supervisors or breaking her connection with him. The Joker obviously realized this, and his eyes danced with suppressed laughter. Then, surprisingly, he rescued her from the question himself by continuing.

"ExpecTAtions are what kills everybody in the end, Doc. The things you'll do to live up to them. The things they do to you if you don't. Buuuut, if that's what you want—"

"What I want is mutual profit," Harley interrupted, surprising herself. It must have caught the Joker off guard too, because instead of talking over her (as he usually did if he was cut off), he stopped abruptly. He watched her in silence for a few seconds, chewing the scar tissue inside his right cheek; then one of his eyebrows crept slowly upward, and he tilted his head almost imperceptibly toward her. Go on, the look seemed to say. So she did. "You'll be getting a lot out of me when we talk about these books and movies and whatever," she started, rifling the edges of her notes with her thumb as she chose her words. "All of my responses will be fresh, and therefore probably quite revealing. Meanwhile, you'll have had all kinds of time to think about your own position and gather your thoughts into something very neat - and very calculated. So if you're going to be getting so much raw information out of me… then I want something from you in return. So here's my deal. I read your books, and I respond each session, like you said. We discuss them, and I give you my honest opinions. Then, at the end of each session, I get to ask you one question. About yourself. And I expect a real answer."

The Joker continued to look at her through his eyelashes, chewing his scars pensively, for a few quiet moments. Then he lifted his eyes to her slowly, raising the lashes like a curtain in a theatre. "A question for a question?" he said softly.

"Tit for tat," Harley replied, the corner of her mouth twitching in a hidden smile that he could see and the doctors behind her could not.

"Intellectual symbiOsis?" he asked.

"If you want to call it that," she nodded.

"Ah… what if I lie?"

"What if I do?"

"Aha...ha," the Joker chuckled gently, "I'll know… if you do."

"And maybe I will too," Harley countered. In the silence that followed, she could actually hear the Joker drawing in a long, slow breath, holding it for a moment, then letting it back out just as slowly. She heard the shuffle of nurses walking down the hallway outside, the faint noise of traffic crossing the Narrows Bridge in the far distance outside the window. She heard the unassuming whisper of fabric as his hospital jumpsuit moved across the skin of his expanding and contracting chest. There was a brief panicked moment in which she thought he wasn't going to answer her at all. Then he came suddenly back to life, leaning over the table and propping his arms up on his elbows. One cuffed hand lifted one long finger.

"One question… one answer." His finger moved from one side to the other as he spoke like the hand on a metronome. Harley picked up the book and laid it on top of her stack of notes decisively, sealing the agreement as if she had shaken his hand.

"Deal."

Harley and the Joker regarded each other mutely for another few seconds; then the Joker relaxed back into his chair, his fingers laced over his stomach. There was a comfortable silence between the two of them; but behind her, Harley could feel a palpable tension emanating from behind the observation room glass. This must be what food feels like in the microwave, she thought randomly. She knew that Doctor Leland was probably about to give the order to terminate the session before their good luck ran out, so one of them was going to have to say something else soon if she wanted to keep it going. Harley thumbed the edge of her notes again, wondering if she should try to segue the conversation into what she had actually prepared for, to continue their discussion from the previous night about hands. But when she looked back up at the Joker, she realized that if she did that, her luck really would run out. For him, the real session with her was over - she had passed his test, and an arrangement had been agreed upon. Everything that happened from this point forward would be fluff. But, Harley also realized… he would want the session to go on longer than the other doctors' expectations, because he wanted her to be kept on his case… and therefore he would probably be willing to play along with the fluff anyway. She cleared her throat.

"Well," she began, and she shuffled her notes in front of her for emphasis. "Now that we've gotten the housekeeping out of the way, how about we actually talk about something important?"

"Trying to get in a free QUEStion before your first homework assignment is done?" the Joker smirked, but his eyes were playful.

"No," Harley responded, "but everything up to now has been setup, and I'd like to spend at least a few moments having a real conversation. Talk about something besides ...rules."

The Joker raised an eyebrow in appreciation, and there was a ghost of a grin beginning to pluck at the corner of his scarred lips. He glanced from side to side - as though the room was full of people who might eavesdrop - licked his lips, and leaned over the table again. "...You wanna know how I got these scars?" he rumbled, and there was something about the way he said it, about the quality of his voice, that seized Harley by the diaphragm and made it hard for her to breathe. It was abrupt and unexpected, and she had to fight to hold her composure.

"Ooh, not in the first session," she managed to say, and felt the pressure on her lungs ease a little. She had almost said not on the first date - it would have mirrored his own language from the beginning of the conversation - but that would have been a death sentence on the other side of the glass. Him saying it was one thing; her playing along would be quite another. Leland would only put up with so much before she pulled the plug on the whole experiment. The Joker was watching her as if he could read this entire thought process and was quite amused by it, so she returned his smirk, glad her back was to the observation room. "Save that one for later," she said. "We have to leave something to the imagination."The Joker wrinkled his nose at her.

"Ah, well, then ...what exACtly do you suggest we talk about?" He was keeping his face easy for the benefit of everyone behind the glass, but Harley was suddenly aware of a change in his eyes. She saw something flicker through them - not danger, exactly, but an acute awareness or appraisement. She realized then that the next words out of her mouth would be crucial. The test wasn't over after all. Harley took a deep breath and decided it was time to show her hand - to show it, but not yet play it. She made full eye contact with him then, long enough and steady enough to make sure she had his attention.

Then she lowered her eyes to his left hand.

She kept her gaze there for only a few moments - not even long enough for those behind the glass to register the pause. But it was long enough for him. When she lifted her eyes back to his face, Harley saw that the calculation in the Joker's eyes had changed to a sharp, bright tension. Her whole body went hot and cold at the same time under that glare, and she suddenly understood why animals froze in headlights instead of running to safety. He knew now that she had seen it, and he was waiting to see if she would mention it, or if she preferred to stay breathing. Harley kept her face still until she saw the tension begin to seep down into his shoulders and arms. Then she switched abruptly into a smile.

"Doctor McKnight tells me you're a fan of Shakespeare," she said pleasantly. The Joker's lips twitched almost imperceptibly; she had used his own trick on him, the abrupt switch from a dead face into full animation, and it had come close to rattling him. As Harley watched him, his dark eyes narrowed, and she mirrored the look - anything you can do, I can do sassier, her face said. But below that, she was also saying something far more important. I know your secret, she said with her eyes. I know it, and I can keep it - for a price. The Joker didn't blink, sizing her up, looking like he was doing complex math. Then, slowly and meticulously, he tucked a strand of hair behind his ear and leaned across the table again.

"In ...NAture's infinite book of se-cre-cy ...a little I can read."

Harley smiled at what she assumed was a Shakespeare quote and settled back in her chair, the tension broken. Now the filler part of the conversation could begin in earnest. Now the test was over - and she had passed.

"Mmm - mmm - mmm," Dr. Leland muttered, shaking her head. Dr. Burton's face was pressed almost to the glass as he nodded.

"I don't believe it."

"See?" James sighed, feeling vindicated. Burton nodded vacantly again.

"I see it, but I don't believe it."

On the other side of the glass, Harley was gathering her papers into her folder and smiling at Officer Cash, who was exchanging pleasantries with her as he unlocked the Joker's chain from the chair fastenings. The session had gone on for more than half an hour after Shakespeare had been brought up, with the Joker waxing lyrical about the unappreciated merits of Antony and Cleopatra and Harley asking him questions about a GSU production of King Lear she had seen that had gone right over her head. He had spoken at greater length and with greater lucidity than he had ever done in a session before, and he'd behaved himself like a model patient the entire time. Dr. Burton looked down at the stopwatch in his hand, completely nonplussed. Forty-five minutes. Burton puffed his cheeks full of air and then puffed the air back out again through tight lips.

"So much for your pool, eh, Burton?" Dr. Arkham grunted as he heaved himself up out of his chair. "Nobody will have bet on a time even remotely close to this." Burton stuffed the stopwatch back into his coat pocket and grimaced.

"Yup," he sighed, and headed for the hook by the door to retrieve the now-useless clipboard of wagers. "I guess we could just award it to whoever guessed the longest ti—" Burton froze abruptly in the middle of scanning the names on the sheet. His face went through a rapid cycle of expressions - confusion followed by shock followed by manic calculation followed by dumbfounded pique - and when he turned back to the others, his cheeks were turning red.

"What is it now, Burt?" Leland asked, sounding like she cared very little what it actually was. Burton shook the clipboard.

"Who the HELL signed him up?"

"Him who?" James asked, although he had a feeling he knew. All three of them gathered around the clipboard in Burton's hand, and all three of their faces cycled through the same series of expressions. At the bottom of the clipboard, written in Sharpie, was the following entry: JOKER - 45m/13s.

"Who… the hell?" Burton repeated, gripping the clipboard tight enough to wrinkle the paper. James eased it out of his hand before he could break it.

"It was hanging by the door the whole time, Burton - anybody in the building could have eased that door open a couple of inches, slipped their hand in to grab it, and put it back on the hook without us noticing."

"Okay, but who the hell would?"

"Oh, I agree," Dr. Leland muttered darkly. "I want that handwriting compared with all the doctors on the forensic floor, all the nurses, orderlies, everybody. And I want to know if it was a prank, or…." She didn't finish, but they all understood. If it wasn't a prank, then somebody was taking orders from the Joker, and that would be Leland's worst nightmare.

In the silence that followed Leland's hanging sentence, all four doctors in the observation room turned back to look through the glass. Harley had gathered up her notes into her portfolio and now held the folder against her chest as she watched Cash prepare the Joker for his walk back to his cell. As the big guard transferred the handcuff chain from the chair to the designated loop on his own belt, the Joker stood quietly staring at the wall, apparently deep in thought. Then, slowly and deliberately, he rolled his head toward the mirrored glass, and his eyes met those of the four doctors just as precisely as if he could see each of them through a clear and paneless window. He held their gazes until Cash finished locking his chain into place.

Then he winked at them, and a grin creased his scarred cheeks. A second later he was led out the door.

"Debrief. Now. My office."

It was all Leland said to Harley as she came out into the hallway, her face still flushed with her success. Leland didn't even stop as she spoke, but simply marched past Harley briskly enough that the breeze lifted some strands of Harley's hair off her temples. Her heels clacked on the corridor tile like gunshots. Harley looked over at James, who had come to stand beside her.

"What's eating her? Other than the usual, I mean. Did I d—"

"It wasn't something you did," James reassured. "But she's going to want to talk to you about this." He handed her the clipboard as they started to walk down the hall after Leland. Harley scanned the page, her brows pinching together in irritation.

"You were all betting on my session time?"

"Hey," James protested, "take note that you will not find my name anywhere on that page." He tapped the clipboard with one finger. "I told Burton it was a sh— ...a crappy idea. The last thing you need is senior doctors treating this like a game. But that's not the point right now. Look at the last line." Harley obeyed. Her eyes widened three sizes.

"That's not—" She had started to say, That's not his handwriting, and then she remembered that James didn't know about the scribbled J that had accompanied the rose in her office - or the rose itself, for that matter. She hastily amended to, "That's not possible. At least… not for him. He was in the room with me the whole time."

"I know," James sighed, missing the pause completely. They turned the corner toward the office corridor. "So either someone was playing a really dangerous prank, or—"

"Or he convinced someone to write it for him," Harley finished. "And she's going to interrogate me about it. Great." James grimaced at her as they passed through the metal detectors.

"Just thought you deserved a warning."

Dr. Leland was already seated when they got to her office, and Harley immediately wished they'd walked faster. If they'd gotten there right on her heels, they might have felt a little less at a disadvantage. As it was, Leland had had time to get herself comfortably settled in the big leather chair and assume the James Bond Villain pose for which she was so feared. She didn't even look up when they came in, but kept scrawling rapid notes on a weathered legal pad.

"Shut the door," she barked, and James obliged so rapidly that it closed with a loud enough report that she finally looked up. "Clipboard," was all she said to him, and held out her hand. James handed it over like it was a tarantula he wanted to be rid of.

While Leland glared at the clipboard, James edged himself around her desk toward the table at the back of the office; Doctors Arkham and Burton were already seated there, the former surprisingly calm and the latter angrily chomping on a PayDay to avoid speaking. James pulled out two chairs, and Harley moved to follow him. Leland's hand shot out toward her, one mauve fingernail aimed at the single chair in front of her desk.

"Front and center, Quinzel. I want you where I can see your face at all times." Harley blanched and shot James a pleading look, but all he could do was shrug and sit down beside Dr. Arkham, hoping Leland didn't see him and start in on him, too. He figured she was like a T-Rex - if you held really still, she couldn't see you. Probably. Harley stuck her tongue out at him briefly before taking the seat. There was a minute or two of tense quiet broken only by the sound of Leland's pen scratching on her notepad. When she finally finished whatever she'd been scribbling, she snapped the pen down on the desk and glared at Harley over folded hands. "Okay. Talk to me, Quinzel."

"I'd love to, Doctor Leland," Harley said, sitting up as straight as she could manage. Her voice sounded shaky to her own ears, but she was confident in what she had to say even if she wasn't confident in her own delivery. "I think the session went extremely well, much better than anticipated. In fact, it looks like the only problems we experienced today were caused by someone outside the therapy room." She shifted her eyes to the clipboard beside Leland's right hand before meeting her supervisor's gaze. Leland pursed her lips and shot an accusatory glance at Dr. McKnight that said Did you coach her? without words. James sat up ramrod straight and shook his head in a Don't look at me! gesture. Leland's nostrils flared with irritation as she turned back to Harley - but Harley was ready for her, and she went on talking before Leland could load a missile. "I know what happened with that clipboard is a major issue, so I'm prepared to address that before we move on to debriefing about the content of my session."

"Oh, you're prepared, are you?" Leland snapped as Dr. Arkham chuckled softly, impressed with the intern's audacity. Leland all but growled at him.

"Doctor Leland," James started. "If I may—"

"I'd say 'you may not,' but I have a feeling you'd go on anyway."

"Doctor Leland, let's start by being very clear on the fact that Harley isn't to blame for what's on that clipboard. That was clearly somebody outside of today's session. So as we address what is definitely a problem, let's be sure not to direct our discomfort or frustration at her, okay?" He looked over at Harley sympathetically, and she gave him a twitch of a smile. Leland wasn't mollified.

"At this point in my life, McKnight, the only emotions I have left are discomfort and frustration, so you better find me somebody to direct them at, or they are going to blow this room up and take all of you with them."

"Well, we know it wasn't any of us," James offered, glancing around the room. "We were all clearly visible to each other the whole time."

"And we know it wasn't the Joker," Harley said firmly. "He never left the chair in front of me." Like a T-Rex attracted by movement, Leland whipped her head back around to look at Harley.

"No, but he knew about it, Quinzel. Or did you not see him wink at us as he was being led out?"

"That's possible," Harley conceded. "It's possible he could have convinced someone to write it for him. But it's also equally possible that he would have winked at you regardless just to get under your skin, and that whoever wrote on the clipboard did it independently of him, as a joke."

"Some joke," Burton muttered around his candy bar. "Who's going to risk Leland's wrath just for a prank?"

"Somebody who might want to sabotage my session," returned Harley. She turned in her chair to look at the doctors at the table. "Perhaps one of the many people who thought so little of what I was doing today that they decided to put money on my odds. Clearly they already see me as a joke." As she glared at Burton, he inhaled too sharply and accidentally swallowed a clump of his PayDay. Across the table, Dr. Arkham stifled a giggle behind his hand - but he didn't venture to look over and make eye contact with her. Leland got up and walked around her desk, tapping the clipboard against her thigh.

"Oh, trust me, that's the next thing on my list. Once this is dealt with, believe me, we are gonna talk about the unprofessional decision to bet on your colleagues' therapy outcomes." She pointed at Burton with the clipboard, and he suddenly became very preoccupied with dusting peanut crumbs off the table. Leland massaged her temples. "I don't blame you, Doctor Quinzel. Lord knows at least you're trying to do the job you were put here for, unlike some people. But whoever is behind this needs to be ferreted out." She tossed the clipboard back onto her desk. Harley nodded.

"I agree, Doctor Leland. If they're playing jokes like this, then they're undermining those of us who take our roles as caregivers seriously. And if they're taking bribes or letting themselves be swayed to carry out patients' demands secretly - which I doubt - then they're creating potential dangers for both patients and staff. Either way, they need to be stopped."

"I am glad we agree on something," Leland sighed. "Alright. Here's what we do. Arkham and I between us have samples of all of the doctors' handwriting in the notes they submit to us. We'll compare the writing on the clipboard to those. McKnight, you have the best rapport with the nurses and orderlies. After lunch, I want you to call every single one of them into your office one at a time and have them write the alphabet in capital letters with a marker. Don't tell them why, just tell them… I don't know… tell them it's an experiment we're doing."

"Everybody?" James gulped. Leland waved at him tiredly.

"Everybody who works on this floor, at least. I think if anybody had wandered up here from the other teams, somebody would have noticed them and said something."

"What about my—"

"I'll put some of the other doctors on your patients for the afternoon. Don't worry." Leland checked her watch. "For now, we've got about ten minutes or so until you usually have lunch, so let's all try to calm down about it and discuss the session." She walked back to her chair, contemplated sitting, and then went back to standing by the desk instead, and Harley bit her lip to keep from pointing out that the only one who seemed to need to calm down was Leland.

"Well," Harley began tentatively, "like I said earlier, I think the session went pretty well."

"In terms of you not being maimed or killed, I suppose so," Leland grimaced. "In terms of actual therapy—"

"Doctor Leland, it was our first session," Harley placated. "The Joker isn't exactly a temporary resident. He'll be here probably for years, so I think we can afford to spend some time building rapport before we begin any active therapy."

Leland raised an eyebrow. "Maybe. But rapport or not, I don't like the notion of him giving you homework. It leaves him in control of the session."

"It's just a book at this point," James put in helpfully. "Later we may want to move away from allowing him so much deciding power, but to start off with, I don't see a problem with him suggesting books he'd like to discuss."

"We need to have commonalities," Harley agreed. "It gives me a place from which I can start getting some perspective on how he thinks. The books we read, especially the ones we revisit, have a lot of influence on how we see the world. I'm actually interested to see what sorts of things he deems important enough to suggest to me. I think that will give us at least a little insight into his view of the world."

"And you think he's actually going to give you valid answers to the questions you ask him at the end?" Burton asked. Harley shrugged.

"Probably not," she admitted, smiling wryly. "There's a chance that every so often he may give me an honest answer if the question surprises him enough. But I'm fully prepared for him to lie to me the majority of the time. The point of the questions, whether he lies or tells the truth, is to look for patterns in his answers. Even when people lie, the type of lie they tell can be very revealing."

"And you want to keep track of all his lies and look for scraps of information in them?" Leland quizzed. Harley nodded.

"That's the plan."

"May I offer a thought, Doctors?" Arkham said pensively, and they all turned to regard him. He was rubbing his double chin slowly as he thought, and Harley wished he wouldn't. The jiggle of the fat made her queasy. "I wonder," he said slowly, "whether we should be basing the sessions around discussion at all, regardless of who selects the topic."

"Why not?" asked James. Dr. Arkham held out his hand, palm up, as if the idea he wanted to convey were sitting on it. He left it there for a moment before rubbing his fingers together and continuing.

"The Joker is a manipulative patient. Manipulative personalities tend to take any conversation, any interpersonal interactions, and shape them to have the outcome they want instead of the outcome we want. I have always found the best practice when dealing with manipulators to be a shift in focus - off of the therapist and onto a project of some sort."

"Doesn't the book count as a project?" James asked. Arkham repeated the hand gesture.

"For her, not for him. I mean a project that focuses the patient's attention onto the task at hand instead of on the doctor - which would, of course, preclude the type of discussion the Joker is trying to elicit."

"What do you want them to do, play Scrabble? Or make lanyards?" Burton smirked.

"Perhaps," Arkham said, returning Burton's smirk intentionally. "Perhaps not. All I'm saying is that introducing an active project would remove much of the Joker's opportunity to be manipulative."

"And it would remove his motivation to talk to me," Harley said firmly. Arkham opened his mouth to retort, but Harley went on before he could get anything started. "No one has made this suggestion to any other doctor who has worked on the Joker's case. What that tells me is that you don't think I can identify his manipulative behavior well enough to safeguard myself against it. You want me to do coloring pages and make duct tape wallets with him instead of establishing a working relationship. In short, you think of me as a substitute teacher - one who can't handle the regular lesson plan, so you'd better leave a craft for the kids to work on. With safety scissors."

"Doctor Quinzel," Arkham sighed, but Harley stood up, turned her back to him, and spoke to Dr. Leland as if Arkham wasn't even there.

"I'm not going to be handed only safety scissors, Doctor Leland. I may not be the lead on the Joker's case, but these are my therapy sessions. What any other doctor chooses to do or not do with him on their time is their decision, but during my allotted time with him, I will be conducting real discussions and building rapport. I will not be braiding friendship bracelets."

Leland had been regarding Harley with lowered eyes and crossed arms through the whole exchange; now she let her eyebrows settle back into their normal curves, and the barest hint of a smile plucked at her lower lip. "No, you won't," she said, in the calmest voice they had heard from her all day. "Doctor Quinzel, you know I have just as many reservations about putting you in a room with that man as everybody else does - but you've got a backbone on you, and if you remember to bring it to work every day, you might have a promising career ahead of you. The Joker is manipulative, but I think you're right—" here she held out a hand to stifle Arkham's protests "—if we stop him talking, he'll shut down on you like he has on everybody else. And I also think you're fully capable of sorting out when he's manipulating you. You sifted through Doctor Arkham's bullshit just now, and pretty admirably at that." This time it was Burton who had to smother chuckles, and Dr. Arkham glared at him across the table. Leland ignored both of them. "I am still going to sit here with you and debrief after every session, in case there's something you missed. I am still going to keep a close eye on your mental state. But I'll be damned if I'm gonna be the one to send you in with a coloring book and safety scissors. Lord knows I had it done to me enough times to remember what it was like." She fully met Harley's eyes then, and Harley saw a momentary glimpse of a Joan Leland from a decade and a half ago - young, female, black, treading water in a sea of old white men, being sent to get coffee and assigned to type up somebody else's notes, being allowed one session with the easiest patient in the building and expected to be grateful for it.

She nodded her understanding, and Leland nodded back.

"Thank you, Dr. Leland."

"Mm-hmm," was all she got in response, but it was a little softer than usual. "Alright, go on. Quinzel, get some lunch. McKnight, go with her, and then get started on the mass interrogations. Arkham, go get your note submissions. Burton, just ...get out." She didn't wait to see if they all followed her orders, but simply turned to her bookshelf and began pulling large binders full of notes. Harley picked up her stack of papers and the book that lay on top of them, sharing a wry smile with James as they went out the office door.

"Keep that up, and they're going to start calling you the Dragon Whisperer," James muttered as they went down the hall toward their own offices. Harley chuckled.

"Frankly, I'd rather be the Clown Whisperer, but I'll take what I can get." They shared a grin, and then the subject changed to what they were going to get for lunch. Under her notes, Harley's fingers brushed contemplatively back and forth over the edges of the book's pages. Inside those covers was one piece of the Joker's puzzle, she mused. And I'm going to find where it goes, even if I have to shove every doctor in this building out of my way to get there.

He had handled it. But oh, oh-hooh, it had been close.

The Joker sat hunched over his lunch tray, mixing items indiscriminately with his spork and eating only the barest minimum that he could get away with. If you just sat and played with your food, the orderlies came and took it away - and took you away, too, back to your cell. He'd learned that from experience early on. If you did it often enough, they held your nose and squirted meal-replacement shakes down your throat. The Joker didn't know about anyone else, but eating chalk wasn't his idea of a good time. So, he put the occasional bite in his mouth - just enough to show them he was eating, like a good boy, and keep them at a distance. But he wasn't tasting any of it. He was too preoccupied with things that mattered.

Like a certain Doc-tor, and how close she had come to getting her throat gouged out with her own pen.

He hadn't thought she would go there. Really, he hadn't expected her to notice, much less have the balls to let him know that she'd noticed; but she had, and it had almost thrown him. The Joker scowled, flicking peas out of the path of his spork from long-ingrained habit and not even noticing when one of them crossed the gap between tables and bounced off Jonathan Crane's ear. Crane shot him a poisonous look, and he didn't see that either. All he could see in front of him was the image of Dr. Quinzel across the table, her arms crossed and pushing up her breasts, her eyes pointing down at his left ring finger like floodlights.

If she had been facing the observation window instead of him, if the docs had been able to see her face, he might have killed her anyway. Just on principle. Just to be safe.

That was what was really eating at him, he thought darkly. The fact that he was having to think about doing anything just to be safe. "Just to be safe" was something worried people said, and he hadn't been worried in… well… he couldn't reMEMber the last time. He wasn't worried now. (oh really?) But the fact was that in the weeks he'd been here, not a single one of the Whitecoats had noticed that mark on his finger, and he'd been content to keep it that way - and then She had waltzed in and just ...saw it the first time she got up close to him - saw it, and understood it for what it was.

(maybe that's because you invited her to play PATty-cake, you idiot)

The Joker sucked at his lower lip in irritation. No… no, no, that wasn't the problem. It had been a necessary tac-tic, after all - the Doc was attracted to him, and if he wanted to use it to his adVANtage he'd have to fan the flames whenever he got the chance, and in ways that wouldn't send her CHAPerones into an UP-roar. The gentle touch of their palms, that sort of contact that was sustained but maddeningly soft and without any escalation…. The Joker chuckled around his mashed potatoes. To a woman like Doc Quinzel who was getting hot for someone she wasn't supposed to be… that kind of touching was like heroin. And he needed her addicted. He had known it was a risk, of course - wasn't everything? - but he had expected her to be so enveloped in the latent sexual chemistry that she wouldn't take in too many details. And just in case she had, well… that was what the book was for.

He polished off his carton of milk in one long swallow, grimacing at the few slivers of ice that floated in it. The texture brought up unpleasant and unbidden memories of school cafeterias, and he nearly gagged - on the memory more than taste itself. He kicked at the nostalgia angrily until it retreated, whimpering, and then he stared at the blank table surface beyond his tray, imagining the book he'd sent home with the Doc, remembering the sound as it had smacked into the observation room table in front of her. He'd done it that way on purpose, of course. He'd engineered it to be abrupt, to unbalance her and (hopefully) distract her from whatever she had been planning to talk about. Naturally, he hadn't really thought she'd bring it up - even IF she'd seen it, and that was a big IF, she'd be an idiot to mention it in front of the other docs. But it paid to cover your bases.

(then why did you want her to see it in the first place?)

The Joker unintentionally bent his spork handle as his fist clenched in reflex. "I… didn't," he murmured to his tray. That was a dangerous thought-track, and he was going to nip it in the bud.

(you sure? you sure you didn't play patty-cake last night because you wanted it to finally—)

"NO," the Joker spat, shoving his tray and dropping the maimed utensil on top of the drifts of potato. At the next table, Arnold Wesker jumped nervously at the sound and scooted himself further down the bench, grasping at Crane's sleeve (and being quickly shaken off). An orderly took a few preliminary steps toward the Joker's table.

"We all done here?" the orderly asked in a tone of automaticity. The Joker realized then that he'd spoken aloud, tried to cross his arms, remembered he was cuffed, and hissed through his nose in frustration. Talking to himself. In pub-lic. Like a crazy person. What was she doing to him? Had she rattled him more than he'd thought?

"No," he muttered aloud, answering both the orderly and himself. The orderly eyed him, unconvinced, so he reached out and dragged the food back toward himself with one finger. "Need a new spork, though," he mumbled grudgingly. He didn't want to go back to his cell yet, not until he was done sifting through this particular thought-pile, so he supposed he'd have to keep eating. He flicked the bent spork off the tray in the orderly's direction.

"Hmm," the orderly responded, but he took it and walked off toward the kitchen, tossing it in a trash can as he passed. The Joker watched him until he was fully across the room, then picked up the dinner roll from the corner of the tray. He began peeling the layers of bread absently as he directed himself back to his original line of thought.

He wasn't rattled. Couldn't afford to be rattled. She was just a tiiiiiiny bit less predictable than he'd pegged her for, that was all. Well. In that case, he just had to make some adJUSTments to his initial evaluations. Small. Little ones. Barely, ah… statistically significant. No reason to trigger the alarms, at least not yet. He just had to be prepared for her to take steps he hadn't initially thought she would. He—

Across the room the glass doors clicked open, and Harley and Dr. McKnight walked in, heading for the soda machines beside the kitchen entrance. The Joker unintentionally squeezed the piece of roll in his right hand into a tiny tortilla. At the same time, every muscle between his ribs and his knees seized violently and then immediately turned to lava.

(oh, ah… is that what you call "barely statistically significant"?)

The Joker growled at himself and jerked his eyes down to his Salisbury steak. He kept them there until his gut was holding still again and he could move his thighs without a tsunami of nerve impulses. "Stop ...it," he spat under his breath. "Stop it stop it stopIT." Oh, the miscalculation, that was an inconVEnience, but this… this was dangerous. This had to be squashed - immediately. Bad enough he had made any sort of tactical underestimation in the first place, but now to have this getting in the way? "Noooo, ...no, no, no…," he muttered to his tray. "Gotta stop that." He shoved some of the shredded roll into his mouth and chewed on it simply to have somewhere to put his irritation. He shouldn't be surprised, of course - after all, a man in prison with no sexual outlet tended to develop a hair-trigger response to even the most basically attractive woman, and Doc Quinzel's legs (stop THINKING about them you idiot) were certainly more than basic. It was textbook. But the fact that it was such a ...classic trope... made him hate it even more. And dammit, he hadn't even been in prison that long. And even before they'd locked him up... hell, he could have had every hooker in Gotham more than once if he'd been interested. Could have spent the mob's bank account on it. But he hadn't wanted it. He hadn't wanted sex since

(shut up shut up don't go there don't think about it)

since before he put on the purple suit. He'd even tested it to be sure he wasn't just lying to himself, picking up prostitutes on more than one occasion only to send each of them away confused and more than a little unnerved. Sex had just ...ceased to be important to him, it seemed. And that was fine. Juuuust fine. More than fine. Sex was a dangerous urge to have in his line of work, and besides - it made you ...feel things. The Joker pulled a disgusted face and swallowed the last of the dinner roll, wiggling his shoulders as a shudder rolled over him. He preferred to feel as little as POSSible. Thinking was fine; feeling got you in trouble.

(speaking of trouble….)

In the far corner, Harley and Dr. McKnight emerged from the alcove carrying sodas. The Joker watched them, swallowing the dry bread with a lot more effort than should have been necessary. He clenched his teeth to stem the surge of sensations that threatened to roll over him again. The Good Doctor was deep in conversation with Jamie-O and wasn't looking in his direction, which was probably a good thing.

(except you're disappointed she's not looking over here)

The Joker dropped the rest of the dinner roll crumbs on top of his mashed potatoes and glared, both at her and at the voice in his own head. He didn't care what she looked at. He already had his teeth in her, and he didn't need her to look over at him to know that. In fact, he didn't even need to look at her himself. He nodded at his Salisbury steak in agreement with his own decision. He told himself he wasn't going to watch her walk out - and then noticed the way her wide-legged slacks draped down from the curve of her hips. He commanded himself to look anywhere but at her, and then caught a glimpse of the smooth slope of her abdomen under her sweater.

(stop that right NOW)

He did his best to listen to his own inner monologue. He fully intended to turn his attention to the orderly who was coming back from the kitchen with his new spork. But just when he thought he was safe, just as Dr. McKnight unlocked the glass doors and exited into the corridor, Dr. Quinzel turned and made eye contact with him across the cafeteria. He felt his stomach muscles clench in protest at the unaccustomed surges of ...feelings… and then she gave him a slow smile before following McKnight into the hallway. It caught him full in the face and knocked him sideways like a rogue baseball.

The Joker told himself he was not going to think about that smile as he picked up the spork the orderly had tossed onto his tray.

He reminded himself that he wasn't going to think about it as he was led back to his cell after lunch.

He assured himself that he wasn't going to think about it as he went through his group session that afternoon, and as he picked at his dinner that evening.

And he decided confidently that he still wasn't thinking about it as he left the rec room that night, that aaaall he was going to think about was the Good Doctor sitting in her apartment somewhere across the city, reading the book he'd given her, and definitely NOT about the pair of legs that would be curled up under her on her couch.

He simply wouldn't let himself. He knew what his priorities were.