Ying and Yang

15 0 2
                                    

"Are you finally ready to speak?" Harleen asked. She was taking notes about her patient. Her eyes were glued to the notepad, only looking up briefly to ask the ex-heroine a question.

Barbara didn't say anything. She had nothing to say. Joey's words just kept repeating in her mind, the only thing she was paying attention to. She couldn't listen to Harleen. None of this was real. It was a trap, a trick to break her psyche. She was prepared for anything. Nobody was going to break her.

But then Harleen said something that broke Barbara away from her thoughts. "I was quite like you when I was younger," Harleen said. "I was very different from my classmates. I worked harder than them," Harleen pushed up her glasses, as they were beginning to fall off her face. "I strived for something more ambitious, I strived to understand people."

Barbara looked up at the doctor. She had heard Harleen's story countless other times before. It was a case that was very confusing, a case that even Bruce couldn't quite understand. Nobody was able to understand it. How a doctor was easily corrupted by The Joker to become his loyal follower was unbelievable, it was ludicrous. And yet it happened.

Harleen continued. "I admit that it has been troubling at times. There is the occasional person that can't be helped, even if you give them the best treatment, the best attention, there are some people that can't be cured. However, that's just part of the job, it's part of the program. But I don't want you to be one of those patients, I want you to open up to me." Barbara looked up. "I want to help you."

"You want to help me?" The ex-heroine asked.

Harleen nodded her head, smiling. "Yes, that is my end goal. I want to fix you, make you better. I want to make you an individual that society can be proud of, somebody I can be proud of." She looked down at her notepad. "So, tell me your story. Can you do that for me?"

She didn't expect to hear that. Typically a psychiatrist keeps everything behind closed doors. Very few would get down on your level and try to relate. At least at a mental institution because it was company policy. There was something strange about this because a normal doctor wouldn't say anything like that. It just further enforced the idea that none of this was real.

Baraba wasn't going to fold. Just like Bruce, Tim, Drake, and Jason, she was relentless. She was hard to break. Jonathan Crane would need to try harder than this to even hope to make a dent in her psyche and break her emotionally and psychologically. She wasn't one of the many doctors he has broken down, imprisoned beyond these walls.

"You want a story?" Barbara asked.

"Mhmm." Harleen nodded her head. "Start whenever you're ready, but if you are not comfortable, we can try this at a later date."

If Harleen didn't open her mouth, Barbara would probably choose the latter option, but if she wanted a tale then she would weave her one. It would be a tale that was going to show Harleen's true colors. That was one-hundred percent guaranteed.

"Okay, I'll tell you a story. This story happened long ago, eight years ago." Barbara said.

Harleen was jotting notes down. "Childhood memory?" She asked, her face buried in her notepad.

"No," Barbara replied.

"School or job memory?" Harleen asked, trying to guess what it was that Barbara wanted to say to her. "Is it perhaps something deep?"

"Not exactly, but it is something deep." Barbara told Harleen.

The doctor looked up for a second and then went back to her notepad to jot down notes. Barbara began speaking. "There was this girl that truly did work harder than everyone else. She got good grades and had good friends, or maybe it was zero friends. Anyway, this girl finally landed a job, an internship at a local asylum." Harleen stopped writing down notes. "Now, she could've had any patient she wanted, but she chose the most dangerous one, the one that smiles. It was the only patient that made smiling foreboding and dreadful. He was the kind of man that everyone avoided. But the girl couldn't keep her eyes off him. Something about this man gave off a presence, an inner desire." Barbara explained.

You've reached the end of published parts.

⏰ Last updated: 5 days ago ⏰

Add this story to your Library to get notified about new parts!

Rise of Harley Quinn Jr.Where stories live. Discover now