[FLASHBACK] ONE NIGHT AT ARKHAM [Donovan McVane]

[The Joker]

The office was a dark shade of blue, and as the Joker shifted slightly in the chair, trying to adjust his arms, he licked his lips almost boredly as he looked around the room. "Evening Doc." The word clicked off of his tongue slowly. The medications had slowed his mind only slightly, but as always, he was fully aware. His eyes focused on a picture of a orange-haired girl on Donovan's desk. He focused back on the surrounding room. "You know," the Joker said, grimacing slightly as he tried to adjust his arms. "Y'really need some colour in here. I mean, you think you'd go cah-ray-zy in here with all this dark colour." he licked his lips again. "And, you know, as much as I'd like to just sit and stare at you here, I do have more pressing things to be doing in my room. So why don't you tell me why you've brought me here?" he asked, looking at Donovan. "And I know it wasn't to admire your lovely choice of window treatments. Or to admire your lovely little wife and daughter." His eyes fell on the picture once again. "And they are lovely."

Might as well screw with the head-doctor's head for a little while, pass the time, the Joker thought. At least it would be amusing. "You know, I used to have a wife and a daughter. Beautiful, like them. Your wife died, right?" the Joker asked, looking at Donovan. "How about your daughter?" he paused, and then his face twisted up into a smile. She was very much alive. "She is beautiful. Do you want to know how I got these scars, Doc?"

[Donovan McVane]

Some patients were easier than others. It was a simple, recurring truth Donovan encountered with every passing day he put in at Arkham, some of these days a hell of a lot easier than others. Sure, it was what he signed up for when he accepted the position, but it was hard to get completely used to dealing with the criminally insane, and the ones who were willing to work with you at all made Donnie's day that little inkling of a bit brighter.

Enter Jack Napier, better known as The Joker by anyone who had seen those precious news broadcasts in which he had threatened the lives of innocent Gotham citizens in his quest for Batman. Oh, not to mention that whole 'SOCIAL EXPERIMENT TIMEEEEE. I'm taking two ferrys hostage. Yeah, thanks' ordeal. Or the exploding hospital. Hmm hm. Fun- very funny. No wonder they called him the Joker. And of course it was no coincidence that he happened to be one of the biggest fucking head cases he had ever had the pleasure of trying to treat. Another more crazy ambitious psychiatrist might get a kick out of trying to figure him out- especially if that involved getting a nice fat Christmas bonus in the process, but Donnie wasn't exactly on the top of his game lately, courtesy of week after week of sleepless nights.

Tired, brown eyes flitted over the manilla folder on his desk. The one with NAPIER, JACK printed in neat little black letters across the side, that he flipped open. It looked perfectly normal, the patient it detailed aside, and Donnie found it incredibly misleading since you might as well have found pictures of dancing kittens in it, rather than the psychological issues of said lunatic seated in front of him. The lunatic that should have been an interior decorator apparently.

"Y'really need some colour in here. I mean, you think you'd go cah-ray-zy in here with all this dark colour."

"I like blue," Donnie said absently, glancing over the charts that looked a little fuzzy; he recovered a pair of dark rimmed glasses and put them on, remedying his blurry vision as the patient continued to ramble on. One good thing about Napier (if that was really his name) was that he liked to talk. Something they both had in common if you wanted to go that far, and though it might have seemed like he wasn't paying attention, he honestly was listening to every word that came out of Napier's deformed mouth.

His smile drew tighter at the mention of his wife, tighter yet at that of his daughter, but experience had taught him not to feed into it, even if there wasn't one part of his body that didn't want to jump the desk and go for the throat with a ballpoint pen for even thinking about his family. It took a lot of control, but he brushed it off as if Napier had just said that he preffered McDonalds over Burger King. Because he wouldn't have been surprised at all to find out that he was slumming it with Ronald McDonald.

"Tell me how," he said plainly, lacing his fingers and giving Napier his undivided attention. An obvious jump for a different topic, but hey. If he wanted to talk about his scars, then he could talk about his scars. Government money was paying for that much.

[The Joker]

Of course the Joker had heard about how ol' Donnie's wife had died. Arkham had no secrets; there were as many crooked people as straight in the Asylum, and the Joker was simply biding his time, however boring it really was getting.

"I had a wife once. Beautiful, like yours. Her father, however," The Joker scoffed, eyes heavenward as he tried to both remember and make up the lie. "Well, her father, he was a drinker, and thought I was--I was useless. He didn't like me, Not one bit. She was nearly due, and after the baby...after the baby, it just wasn't the same. He twisted and turned her---she never smiled anymore! She couldn't stand the sight of me anymore, I made her so unhappy. So...so one day, I come home...and there's just the sound of the tap running. I go in...and there's red water coming out of the bathroom. She had the baby with her. By the time the cops got there...we were all smiling."

He couldn't even remember how he truely got the scars anymore. He couldn't remember if his wife's name was Rebecca or Judith or if he even had a wife at all. He couldn't remember if somewhere, there was a child that was his. All he remembered, was the present. He did know, however, about Donovan's wife. How he had found her in the bathroom, dead...accident, so they said. The Joker didn't care either way. It was about getting to Donovan, getting a rise out of the man. That was the point of this little outing out of his room. To amuse himself, he thought silently. It was, of course, completely and utterly boring in Arkham.

"You know what it's like, don't you? To see that? To watch as your entire life goes down the drain, just like that red water. You think we're different, doc, you and me. And maybe...maybe we just a little bit are. Inside everyone, doc, there's me. Waiting. Begging to come out and play." he paused, tilting his head slightly. "Where's your's, doc? What makes you come out and play? Could it be that pretty little daughter of yours? Oh yes. Pretty little girl." The Joker clicked his tongue, shaking his head slightly as he brought his legs up on the chair, the straight-jacket hindering much other movement. "You know, if she was here right now..." he gritted his teeth in a grin, shaking his head. "There'd be problems, doc, there really would. 'Cause she's just...she's the sorta pretty that you just want to...mangle, y'know? You want to turn it upside down... You don't get along with her, do you? My dad was a drinke, toor, I never got on with him, either. Tell you what," he scooted to the end of the seat, as if telling a secret to a very close friend. "Tell you what...when I get out of here?" he asked in almost a whisper, his tongue darting out to lick his scarred lips.

"I'll make sure she says she loves you before I rip her throat out. Okay? I'll do that for you. I'll make sure she SCREAMS it."

[Donovan McVane]

It didn't take a NASA scientist, much less an educated psychiatrist (though it did help that it was part of the job description to figure out what kind of birds flew around the cuckoo's head) to know what Napier wanted: a reaction. It was akin to a kid bringing a dead cat inside to freak the shit out of his mother- and Donovan wouldn't have been remotely surprised if this had been the case once or twice for the highly disturbed man during his childhood. No matter how difficult it was to imagine that one minute they're playing with crayolas and the next it's machine guns and the general welfare of a city.

All of this running through his mind at an accelerated pace to keep the toxic images painted by Napier's reptilian tongue at bay. Because he wasn't going to lose respect by giving Napier what he wanted most. No, he planned on doing his job to the best of his ability, unhindered by his own past. This wasn't about Donovan McVane. This was about the tentatively titled Jack Napier and his own issues. And it most certainly wasn't about reliving that day over again, remembering the steady drip drop of the faucet, Angelene's eyes wide and glazed over, the way his own breath caught in his throat long after she had stopped breathing...getting the focus back now.

A shake of the head, and he was fine, devoting all of his clinical attention back to the patient. All he had to do was ignore the burn in the back of his throat and pretend that Jack was really talking about someone else- after all, Angelene hadn't been the first to die that way had she? Maybe he was telling the truth. And maybe Donnie would do a pirouette before he left the room. Right.

Still, he continued to listen, not interrupting once as Napier went on and on and on. Oh, if he could get his hands on the guys who gave this particular psycho a crash course in the details of his life he would see to it personally that they had their heads smashed against the side of the gossip well and then toss them down altogether.

Donnie tried to behave like most of what 'The Joker' was spewing was nothing more than hot air- easy enough for the most part, what with all the 'there's a little bit of me inside everyone, even you' crap. Wasn't that Barney's motto? Or something like that? Freaky, freaky, freaky, crazy. That was the non-professional, uneducated opinion of Napier sported by most people who weren't paid to analyze his behavior, and it would have been Donnie's too, if he didn't know that he was supposed to know better. Again, some days were harder than others. Every patient was a different kind of crazy, but it was safe to say that Napier was one of the worst Donnie had seen in a long time.

"I'll make sure she says she loves you before I rip her throat out. Okay? I'll do that for you. I'll make sure she SCREAMS it."

"Mmm. That's nice," he said plainly, giving Napier a beat or two to allow him to think that his plan wasn't being dismissed, though of course Donnie had no choice but to dismiss it because if he didn't he was going to lose his cool. And he refused to do that. So he sat coolly, his hands folded together, expression betraying nothing.

"And I'm flattered that you take such interest in my personal life Jack, but if you mention my daughter like that one more time I'm afraid I'm going to have to have you transferred to another Dr.," in the same breath, he reached out and casually flipped over the pictures on his desk.

It was stupid to keep them there anyway- it was just asking for the patients to find an excuse to start making comments in a desperate attempt to shift the focus of the session from themselves to 'Hey I wonder how many wife/daughter jokes it takes before Dr. McVane cracks. That sounds fun.' He made a mental note to move them somewhere at the end of Napier's time. Not that the damage hadn't already been done.

"But hey- I'm a generous guy. If you'd like to start over and quit lying, I'll pretend like you never said anything at all. A do-over. What do you say?"

[The Joker]

"Oh, now, there's no need to get offended, doc."

The smile couldn't be kept from the Joker's face as Donovan flipped through the pages, and then threatened to transfer him to another doctor. One shoulder lifted up in as much of a shrug as he could do with a straight jacket on. "Man, woman, it doesn't matter to me, doc. You really think it matters who I sit here with? Sure, it's amusing to sit here and have these little midnight therapy sessions with you, but I could easily get another doctor and have another story at my finger tips. So by all means, if you don't feel comfortable...feel free to shop around. I'll be right here."

As Donovan spoke about his daughter, the Joker tilted his head, almost reguarding the man's speech, about never speaking about his daughter again, about do-overs and lying, and he looked to the ceiling for a moment before smacking his lips. "Right. You know...no. How about this? How about...you stop lying. How did your wife really die?" He asked, lifting his legs up, resting his chin on his knees as if they were two boys talking about secret club house rituals. "Did you kill her? Did she splash and thrash and scream under the water? Did you pull her out and shove her back down?" he asked, watching him with a smile. "Or...or did you not even know at all? Did she do it herself?" He bit his bottom lip in thought, the grin overpowering it. "Did you really make her that miserable that she just laid under the water and...exhaled?" He sighed out himself, and closed his eyes. "What sounds worse? The fact that she was so helpless that she couldn't fight back against you...or she was so desperate to get away from you that she would take that last, shuttering breath under dirty bathwater?"

He bent his head down, scratching an itch on his cheek on the course material of the straight-jacket. "Y'know, y'should be very, very worried about that little pretty girl of yours. She may decide to take a dip in the swimming pool to get away from you and you'd be all alone. Or maybe she's the one that should be afraid. Daddy's hands can be death-grips, can't they, doc?"

[Donovan McVane]

McVane only bristled slightly as Napier breezed over his suggestions, shooting them down one right after the other. He honestly didn't believe passing him off to another Dr. would do any good, and didn't need to have it explained to him why, though there was a cold truth to Napier's words seeing as that was the exactly the case. It didn't matter which psychiatrist spoke to him, because unless they were psychic or somehow able to fully comprehend the way Napier's brain operated, Donnie couldn't see any headway to be made. Unlike with other patients, there was no breakthrough to be had, no hope for progress. He could only hope to contain Napier, maybe learn more about the actuality of his upbringing and diagnose some of his symptoms. Passing him off to another psychiatrist would just be moving the burden to the other side of someone else's desk. So he let that one drop. He wouldn't get rid of Jack unless it was him who personally asked for a transfer, so that he wouldn't have to deal with giving up on a patient. He would grin, bear it, and hope for the best.

"Right. You know...no. How about this? How about...you stop lying. How did your wife really die?"

Donnie folded his hands, his eyes finding their way to the ceiling as he collected himself. Because at that point there was nothing more he could do since Napier was pulling out all the stops trying to get him to crack, to give way to his Achilles heel- his family. He was playing dirty, that much was clear, seeing as he seemed to be doing everything he can to rub Angelene's death in his face, to force him to recall that horrible memory, and all the pain associated with it. Did he know why she did it any more than the psycho sitting in front of him? No. Donovan had no fucking clue what the series of events leading to that fateful dip in the bathtub had been, and whether or not he was the reason she chose to end her life.

And that in itself was horrible enough- he called himself her husband, and he didn't have any idea what could have been going through her head whatsoever in those final moments. He had beaten himself over that fact alone over and over and over again, but still he had no answer. No idea. That's what hurt most of all. If she had been mugged on the street, or died in a car accident he might have been able to find a way to get to sleep at night, rather than tossing and turning for the truth. Instead of vague understanding, questions, and a daughter who wondered what the hell her father was doing trying to raise her on his own he would know. In his heart, he knew that would be better than this hell. Anything was.

"Y'know, y'should be very, very worried about that little pretty girl of yours."

"Skip it," Donnie cut in when Napier gave him the chance, "Skip the bullshit. I'm not buying it- I'm not afraid of you Jack, so let's move past the bit where you try to worm your way into my head and get to what we're here to do. Talk about you. Tell me Jack, how do you like it in your cell?"

He held his gaze steady with the man in the straight jacket, his expression inquisitive, yet detached; not entirely there. Because (he had come to the conclusion) it was impossible to allow yourself to be in Napier's presence completely since he had a talent for playing off of emotions like a wolf hunting prey.

"Do you feel lonely in there?" he asked, with theatrical hesitation, "Is that why you feel the need to make up all of these...stories?"

[The Joker]

"Tell me, Jack. How do you like it in your cell?"

"Oh, it's wonderful." the Joker seethed, a smile spreading on his face. "It's that nice, quiet little space that I've wanted all these years. It's the one place that I can actually get to know myself, y'know?" he asked, and then the smile dropped. "How do you think I like it?" he said blandly. "I don't need to tell you how that padded room is. Not to mention the person in the next cell; can you PLEASE tell him to Shut. Up?" he asked. "Tell him that the voices wont kill him, I will. I'll sever his vocal cords. I was trying to get some sleep the other day, and all I could hear him wailing on about is how the cheese never talks to him anymore and how it ran off with his underwear. It's enough to make a man go insane, doc, I tell ya."

However, when Donovan spoke, asking if he felt lonely and if it was the reason why he made up stories, he growled out an annoyed groan, lulling his head back in obveious frustration. It wasn't like he could do much else. "All of that schooling, doc, and you STILL don't see the big picture. You think that some sort of thing happened in the womb, something strange and unusual happened while I was growin' inside, that when I came out and was able to handle a knife, well it made me go murder some four-legged creature in some back alley. You think that I spent my youth killing rodents and mice and cats and that's the reason I turned out like this?!" he asked, laughing through his frustration. "Why does it have to be when I was a child, hmm? I've heard you and your little companions. All twittering about 'cause I'm the 'next big case'. I'm the code they can't crack. Truth is, doc, is that everyone looks at me and sees a monster. I'm not a monster, doc. I'm ahead of the curve. I'm just a guy...who wants change. I'm willin' to do anything to see that change comin'. And see," The Joker broke out in a smile. "See, the funny thing is...is that I take off this paint, this--this mask, and suddenlly...I'm just like you. I could walk up to you on the street and you wouldn't have known. No one knows the difference, the only reason why people know me is because my mask just happens to be a little colourful. We're all wearing masks, doc. You're wearing one right now. Sure, yours may not be as noticible as mine, but it's still there, I can see it. And all you have to do is just rub and rub and rub and sooner or later, that mask is gonna come off. And then we get to see who's really under there."

"My stories, as you call them...my stories are far more interesting than the truth. People wanna hear that daddy took a hand to me when I was a kid. People wanna hear that Uncle Jimmy just--just had to have his way with me in my own bed. Because then---then they'd have something to shift the blame to. Because then they'd have a reason to say no, he's not normal, but that poor, poor man. He was made into a monster." The Joker clicked his tongue, shaking his head. "No, no, I'm not a monster. I'm just a normal guy. A normal man without a plan. I'm a man who got pushed...and I liked where I got pushed to, is all. I do it for the chaos, doc. I don't do it 'cause I'm lonely, I don't do it 'cause I'm sick. I do it because it's fun. Some people collect stamps, I collect a body count." He paused for a moment, licking his lips. "You should try it sometime, might loosen you up. There's nothing more liberating than feeling someone die under your fingertips."

He paused, biting his bottom lip slightly as he watched Donovan. "Now, that, I suppose. That would make me a little sick, huh? Funny thing is, though, doc...anyone can be like me. All they need is that little push, and that's what people can't accept."