Chapter One: Boom

"You truly feel that there's some patients who can't be helped?" Joan asked, blowing gently over her steaming coffee mug.

Her companion sipped from her cup, taking a moment before answering. "It's not so much that they can't be helped but that they don't want to be helped and will sabotage every attempt to progress in therapy. So in a sense, nothing will ever make them better."

"Interesting. When I first hired you, I didn't expect you'd be so cynical, so early in your career."

With a tiny shake of her blond head, Harleen smiled. "I'm not cynical. Just realistic. There is a reason long-term care exists, and why our violent criminal ward is populated by the same faces year in and year out. Can you recall the last time someone from that ward was released, ready to be a healthy, productive member of society? It hasn't happened since I've been here."

"Which has only been one year," Joan pointed out.

Another pause. Joan had gotten rather used to the silence during each conversation. Dr. Harleen Quinzel was known amongst her colleagues as an introverted woman, the very essence of control, one who always thought before she spoke. Sitting in Dr. Joan Leland's office for their weekly reconnection meeting, the two women seemed at ease around one another, professional, yet friendly.

"I've looked over the files. In that time, four patients were scheduled to be released per their original sentencing. All four are still sitting in their rooms, completely unchanged from the day they arrived, at least, if the attending physician's notes are an accurate account."

Joan nodded. "Point taken. We've had the courts reconsider many of our patient's initial terms from the maximum security ward." Putting down the mug, she tilted her head slightly and watched Harleen's reaction as she asked the next question. "Given your opinion, why do you still work here at Arkham?"

No pause this time. "Because I have to try, even if it won't help."

"Why do you feel morals are the problem?" asked the attending psychiatrist, Dr. Parker, from off camera, as the screen came to life.

Harleen leaned back in her office chair, turned slightly so her elbow could rest on the desk, as she watched the video play. She was mildly surprised that a high profile case such as the Joker's would land in her lap so quickly. At thirty years old, she was young and inexperienced for her profession, but she had earned the respect of highly influential people for her research in repression therapy. Dr. Leland was obviously impressed enough to give her a job. And even though she had been somewhat successful in her repression therapy with the milder cases, none of that experience would help with someone like the Joker.

Maybe it doesn't matter, she mused to herself, as she watched the snippet of video for the fourth time in a row. Maybe Joan is just desperate enough to try anything.

Dr. Quinzel was to be the fourth psychiatrist in six months to treat the Joker. A record, even for Arkham. Each psychiatrist had left Arkham soon after working with the Joker, for a variety of reasons. After reading the various notes from her former co-workers, and watching the many recorded sessions, Harleen was starting to piece together the truth of why each of them left. And she was determined not to follow in their footsteps.

In the video, the focus was on the Joker, framed center on the camera. The makeup that the public knew him for was gone. His hair still held green highlights but it was washing out slowly over his incarceration. And while the deep, raised scars were the most noticeable aspect of his face, Harleen felt herself drawn to his eyes and their intensity as they focused off screen at his doctor.

"You're simplifying the problem, doc," the Joker said, wiggling a little underneath his straight jacket. "It's not really about the morals. It's about society's views. If I sent you a box with a remote trigger to a bomb and told you that you'd receive enough money to live the rest of your boring life comfortably, but you'd have to kill a random stranger by pressing the trigger, would you do it?"

"No."

"And that's the problem, doc. You're giving me the standard moral answer. Because you know you'd be judged for it by society. That's where the ferry experiment went wrong. Too many witnesses. But if I tell you that you would have no consequences for pressing that trigger, most people would let their morals fly out of the window, and then..." He laughed, a strangely gleeful sound.

It cut off abruptly when a knock was heard at the door. "Excuse me, doctor," a female voice said off camera. "It's an emergency."

"Of course."

There were sounds of shuffling in the background, as the Joker's head tracked the movement of the doctor until the door closed and then glanced around his surroundings. After a couple of minutes, he turned back to the camera and gave his brightest smile, exaggerated by the scars. His eyes pierced through the camera, boring into Harleen, as if he knew she was watching his every movement, tongue darting out for a moment to lick at his scars.

"Boom," he said suddenly to the camera.

A moment later, the shuffling sounds returned and the female voice instructed someone to take the Joker back to his room. As he was dragged off, Harleen could hear the Joker, laughing softly to himself before the screen went to black.

She paused the video again and looked back to the many notes she had made while going through the files. Dr. Parker's wife died last week in an accidental gas leak, so the authorities said. Judging by the date and time of the session, and the nature of the conversation, especially that final "boom", Harleen was becoming convinced that somehow the Joker had performed the experiment he described in the video. And Mrs. Parker was the unfortunate random stranger. It was both disturbing and clever.

For his first two psychiatrists, Harleen had watched their videos only once, but it was enough to know that they were never in control. The Joker spent the sessions locating their weaknesses and needling at them until they couldn't stand to be in the same facility as him. He was good. Very good.

Harleen knew she would have to better.