The Dark Knight

[boo radley]

The man with no name sat up - or rather, tried to sit up. There were bruises on his back, and his arm was broken.

He did not know where he was, or how he got there, or what had happened right before...only that he was in some sort of cell, in a stony, cold place. He shivered.

He saw others. They wore lab coats. Ha, ha, ha, he thought. They looked like children playing dress up in his mind.

He saw a young woman walk by. "My sister's expecting," said the young woman. "I've gotta go."

"Kay," said another lab coat.

The man with no name realized tears were falling out of his eyes. Expecting... just like she was...

A tear hit one of his scars on the right side of his face.

[Nikki]

Even surrounded by coworkers, I feel exposed to the broken man in the cell beside me.
In fact I'm so unsettled it's difficult to remain focused on the paperwork in my hands. . . not that there were many existing records of this guy anyway, but what little information there was blurred before my eyes. I kept glancing over at him sitting against the wall, noticed the pain he kept inside, and oddly found myself sympathizing with him.
He favored his left arm, adjusting his position with careful movements.
"Shouldn't someone call a medic for him?" I asked the doctor beside me, a tall young lady whom I wasn't familiar with.
She regarded me with some annoyance. "We tried," she replied in a voice riddled with sarcasm, as if I was wasting her time. "He sent the first nurse home with a broken jaw. After that, the second orderly refused to treat him. It's his own fault."
I could have pressed the argument further, but I was too busy staring at him intently.
"Harleen, dear, if you want this case, it's all yours. I don't know if anyone else here is willing to take it."
The inflection in her words was obvious. What she'd really meant to say was: I don't know if anyone else here is crazy enough to take it.

[boo radley]

I still don't know how long I've been here. I stopped counting seconds, minutes, hours...
I remembered her. I remembered her face, her sobbing face. I remembered that we had no money.

I remembered that I was gonna be a father. A father! A son or a daughter? I don't know. I lifted my right arm - OW! I looked back down. It was bent out of shape.

I looked up - and there was a young woman. Kind of pretty, but it pained me to think of beautiful when I didn't know where the mother of my child (was it a child yet? I wouldn't know...) was. She seemed... she seemed different.

I know. I can't love anyone, ever, anymore.
Not after I lost everything. If you love someone, you have something to lose. I have nothing. I can't love anyone. Then I won't have anything to lose.

A man in a suit.

I squinted my eyes to see the tiny writing on the badge that sat on his collar. Dr. Johnathon Crane. I saw his face before. It was handsome, somehow. I knew that face. I could see it. But where? I remember... I remember fear, a lot of fear, then blackness. Then waking up here. I don't know much. I can only remember the little things, like my wife. My baby. Everything, shattered. Where are they now? Where have they been?

Are they alive?

I hear the beautiful young woman talking about taking me as her "case." Case. Yeah, they think I'm a nutjob, here, don't they?

[Nikki]

I'm glad for the abrupt departure of my coworker. It's easier to think, semi-alone in a crowded room.
I say 'semi' because I'm not really alone. The man in the makeup makes eye contact with me; normally I would have looked away, embarrassed, but instead I hold his gaze. Those dark eyes like inkwells see me, see through me. There's nothing in them. No flicker of emotion whatsoever. They were the kind of eyes you saw a lot working around here; eyes devoid of sanity, eyes devoid of caring, like their soul had been stolen, or perhaps they had never been born with one at all.
My job is an effortless one- no matter how long I sit and talk with a patient, I've never seen one the better for it. Most of them are silent toward me, and some of them are crude. It will be interesting to see which category this man falls into.
It's hard to think of him as human, but whatever he is, he looks seriously hurt. And I want- no, I need- to help him.
I wait awhile until the room clears out, thankful for the useless paperwork to seem like I'm busy with, and then quietly grab the attention of a guard.
"Look, I know they've attempted to medically assist this man, but he needs to be treated before we can move him to a permanent holding cell. . ." The one he's in right now has nothing but an old wooden bench to sit on. I expect he'd feel better with at least a cot to sleep on.
"I wouldn't advise approaching him unarmed, ma'am," the officer said.
"That would, however, be entirely my choice, wouldn't it? I'm a doctor here. I think I know a little bit about how the criminal mind works." I was fibbing my way in. New for me.
The man sighed, reaching for a keyring hooked around his belt loop. "It's your hospital bill, lady."
The door squeaked open, and my heart skipped a few wild beats as I entered.
Why? I'd dealt with people like this so often in my career. . .
No, blind intuition reasoned wth me. Don't deny it. No matter what you've dealt with, you haven't ever seen anything quite like him before.
I stood next to him in an uncomfortable moment of silence, alone with my thoughts. Trying to think of something to say to him that would sum up my crazy concern.
Finally, I thought of something.
"How badly are you hurting?" I asked quietly.

[boo radley]

My eyes flew open. Was someone talking to me?
"How badly are you hurting?"
I felt like I wanted to scream, like I wanted to take my bench from the floor and break it on her - or someone's - head - I wanted to cry like a child. But no, I couldn't.
Because then I would be holding onto something. I wanted to beat the hell out of her, just like I did with everyone else here. I'd gone through enough. These people... these people...

I held a hand to my face - there was makeup. What had happened? I so yearned to know. I'd give anything to leave this place, to learn about my past - no, not my past. About what happened. I just wanted to know that much. All that runs through my mind are little flashes of memory. My mother. My father. My expecting wife. The scarecrow. And....this place. It seemed like a prison, but more. Like... I was a prisoner in my own mind.
That was probably true.
I am a prisoner in my own mind. I'm stuck. I need someone like me to get me out... and then I started thinking. What if this young lady here could get me out? She had that sort of look... the look of an innocent person. Innocent, like I was. Just because I'm poor, they think they can stick me in this place.
No, no, no, no. Innocence will help me get out. "I'm dying," I responded. She looked at me with a curious face. "I have little flashbacks. That's all." Should I have let out more? Well, I did. Not too much, but just enough to make her...linger. Lingering is good.
Lingering gets you where you want to be. The mind is an easy thing to bend.
"I don't know... where I am, how I got here... This," he pointed at his makeup. "No, not yet. There isn't much I want to remember..."
I shook my head. My lips were dry. Chapped. I licked them. They tasted funny... like lipstick. I had another memory.

My beautiful wife. A dark, reddish-brown hair color, so soft, so delicate. White skin, like ivory. A blue dress on. The only dress we could afford for her. After we got married, but before she got pregnant. Her lips were so red... like blood. I kissed her. It tasted funny, the lipstick. But I was the happiest man on earth.

I looked up. I realized that a tear was coming out of my eye. Again. I needed to stop crying. I can't cry. If I cry, I'm holding on. I'm holding on. I'm holding...
"What do I look like to you?" I asked her. I didn't know what she would say back. I had no idea myself.

[Nikki]

(Awww. . .you look like you need a HUG!!! :hug2: Gawd.)

His question made me want to laugh. I might've if I hadn't been so close to tears.
I'd seen many men in here, a lot of senseless tears. The tears of the deranged. But these seemed to hold the meaning of something lost.
"I've seen a lot of pain in my line of work, sir. But I don't think I've ever seen something remotely close to you. So you have. . ." God, he was so unsettling. It hurt to look at him. ". . .a few options. You can sit here in tremendous pain all night long, in which case I sit here with you to make sure you don't stop breathing in the middle of the night. Or you can let someone set your arm, clean yourself up a little, and get moved to a room with a comfortable bed, in which case I can go home and sleep easy."
I knew that was a lie; I'd be up all night wondering about him, eager to begin sessions.
"No doubt you'll be suffering tremendous emotional turmoil whatever you do, but if you give it a chance I think you'll find it might help. It's your choice."

[boo radley]

That was a lot to take in. I don't think I've ever seen something remotely close to you. Something. Not someone. Maybe she meant some sort of... I don't know, case, related to me. "You didn't answer my question," I responded. I don't know why. I actually didn't want to know. Then again, who could care? She looked downcast.
Why should she sleep easy when I've gone through all this? Why should anyone here? And besides, I think I deserved to suffer more. Especially since I felt so guilty. My wife was probably out there, with or without the baby born, alone, and I was sitting here. This was probably more comfortable than she was. This was enough. "I'm staying."

But I still wanted to know some things. For example, how I got here in the first place. And what happened to my wife. And how long I've been here... but I realized that asking her this right then would make me more depressed than I already was. I wanted pills. For some reason, anything and everything could work a placebo effect on me and take my headaches away.

I looked up. The young woman was watching me curiously, still. "If I didn't already make this clear, I'm staying here. Do what you want." Maybe then she'd get the idea. Then again, she said she'd stay the whole night. What does she want to do, watch me sleep? I... don't sleep. I wouldn't be able to. The nightmares keep me up all night. Besides, I think I enjoy the feeling of watching other men scream during their sessions with the big guy. Jonathon Crane. Because I can feel myself screaming with them, in my mind, and it lets out a little bit of my pain.

I heard my stomach growl. I looked up. She heard it too.

(Haha is it convincing? lol I've gone through a lot of similar things in life that make me think like him, which freaks some people out, because they don't know why I'm such a "freak" haha That's why I love writing as the Joker. I let myself out. lol I love hugs, Nikki!)

[Nikki]

(hugs for both of you, then! and don't worry- I know what you mean about the mindset. When I watch TDK I laugh at everything he does. . .everyone else is like, "Wow, he's so f*cked up and mean and scary!" And I go. . .O.o "No. . .that is HAWT ")

It's going to be a long night.
"If I get you something to eat, do you think you can keep it down?" I ask again, unwilling to answer his question. Because I know what he looks like to me. . .I just can't describe it. Or I don't want to.
Handsome. Handsome and broken, that's what you look like to me. And you're scaring me. You're scaring me to death.

[boo radley]

I looked at her, for a long time. Then I slowly nodded. She seemed to be nice. So did that other Doctor, before she made me beat her senseless. But I hoped that maybe she would help me.... help me to escape, maybe.
But that would be a task far off. I'd have to wait for something. Of course, something was missing.
I did not know her.
"What's your name?"
She pointed at her badge. Harleen Quinzel.
I began to laugh. "Ha, ha..." Harleen Quinzel... sounded like "harlequin." Hah. Harlequin. Harlequin Jesters.
I looked up. She looked hurt. "Sorry," I said, shrugging. It felt weird apologizing.
It felt weird hearing my voice. I was trying not to show the monstrous voice I was feeling. I think she caught onto that. That's probably why my voice was so stringy. "It just reminded me of...ha, ha, ha..."

(lol that makes me laugh. Yeah, my friends think I'm destined to become a psychopath or something lol)

[Nikki]

His laugh chilled me to the bone. I'd been ready for dinner until now; it was late. The clock's hands pointed straight up in a tired sort of gesture.
My stomach turned over. "What sounds edible?" I asked, glad he hadn't hurt me yet. I might come out of this unbruised after all.