Disclaimer: I have nothing to with Batman. Any characters associated with the Batman universe do not belong to me.

This story is set a few years after The Dark Knight and takes place primarily in Arkham Asylum. It incorporates mainly my own characters with the exception of essential main characters from Batman (mainly The Joker). This story will not be suitable for children due to the use of language, violence and possible sexual content. I have an awful lot of ideas for this story so please bear with me.

One more thing, my Joker is Heath Ledger's version…obviously! Hehe, please enjoy….and review!

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The New Kid

"Great," Jess sighed heavily as her eyes made their way over the brown casefile in her hands. "I guess this is what he meant by 'in at the deep end'!"

The young doctor brushed her blonde hair from her eyes and nodded at the guard beside the door. The man smiled at her raising his eyebrows sympathetically as she pushed her way into the room. Closing the door firmly behind her she paused for a moment to take stock of her new patient.

Bound in a straightjacket the man sat perfectly still staring blankly at the desk before him. Jess approached the table slowly and sat down rather uncomfortably in the archetypal waiting room plastic chair. Crossing her legs she placed the brown file infront of her. The man never moved. Sitting for a moment in complete silence she finally sat forward and rested her hands lightly on the table.

"My name is Doctor Cunningham, I am taking over from Doctor Brightside as your psychologist." Again the man didn't move. "I just want to clarify a few things with you before we get started on your therapy if that's ok with you," she added opening the man's notes and scanning through the various drugs he had been administered recently. "This is ridiculous, how in the world do they expect me to treat you if they're going to give you this stuff? When are they going to realise that pumping people full of sedatives does not solve the problem? Damn psychiatrists!"

Finding a blank page in the file she hastily wrote a note of recommendation stating that all medication be withheld from the man until she could properly diagnose him. After signing the paper she once again sat back in her chair and simply watched her patient breathing silently.

Half an hour must have passed before Jess decided that she would have to attend to her other patients and she called the guard. "Hey, can you come in here a minute please?"

"Ma'am?"

"Can you please take him back to his cell and inform the consultant psychiatrist that I wish all medication to be temporarily postponed. Thankyou." She handed the guard the file and left the room.

What the hell was all that about? Jesus, she knew the Chief Medical Officer had said she would be thown in at the deep end but she hadn't quite anticipated that. It was her first day in the job here at Arkham and she had already been allocated as the treating psychologist to one of the most disturbed men in the place. Of course she had known that working here would be hard but she certainly hadn't expected to be given the Joker as one of her patients. She hadn't expected that whatsoever.

Sighing she swiped her keycard allowing her access to the dayroom and made her way to her new office. She smiled at some of the patients and nodded to another guard as she crossed the room.

"Hey there," he smiled, "you're the new kid then?"

She didn't appreciate his words, "Yes I'm the new psychologist, Doctor Cunningham."

"Max," he held out his hand to her. "You're replacing the old guy right? Pity about what happened to him. Did they tell you how he went?"

"I heard he died,"

"Yeah, they found him in one of the segregation cells with his throat…well you get the idea,"

"Really? Who…?"

"Did it? They reckon it was Jimmy Bowe. He's in isolation at the moment for his own protection. If you're taking over from the old fella then he's probably on your list. I'd be careful if I was you."

"Thanks for your concern but I'm more than capable of taking care of myself and I'm sure I'll be fine," she smiled as she walked away from him and closed the door of her office. At this moment in time she didn't really care for horror stories created for her benefit. No, she had bigger things on her mind. How was she going to go about treating the Joker? Since she had been handed his file she had worried about the responsibility she had been given. After all she had only qualified as a fully licensed shrink six months ago, this was a huge case to take on. Not only that but she knew damn well that she was being monitored and assessed on her every decision. God, how she wanted her probationary period to end so that she could stop worrying about what everyone else thought of her.

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The door slammed shut and he heard the hard click of the lock as he was once again left with his thoughts in his own personal padded hospital 'suite'.

"Ahhh," the tightly bound man groaned as his body hit the dirty floor. Although the small room was padded it was surprisingly hard and it never ceased to amaze the Joker just how forceful the orderlies could be in this place. He lay still for a moment before attempting to pull his knees up beneath him so as to eventually sit up. Shuffling across the hard material he wedged himself against the wall and sat rather uncomfortably hunched over himself.

Silently the Joker listened to the screams and cries filtering through the airvent from elsewhere in the hospital. He tried to visualise the people making the desperate noises and what was happening to them. During the three years he had been incarcerated here he had seldom left this room and entertainment was hard to find. Even so most patients had to share a 'cell' and so he felt somewhat privileged to have a whole room to his self. Admittedly it came with too much not-so-soft furnishings but at least he didn't have to put up with some whining schizo claiming the voices made them 'do it'. How he hated people who didn't take responsibility for their own actions.

He had been surprised when the orderlies had dragged him to his feet earlier in the day and strapped him to a wheelchair. It wasn't often he received visitors and since the old git Brightside had been removed from this life the Joker hadn't expected to ever be taken from his dark cell again. After all with no doctor to treat him they had an excuse to just leave him in here to rot away with the furnishings.

Alas, it was not to be and as he had complied to be forced into the chair and firmly strapped down he had wondered what poor soul had been handed his files.

"Pretty," he whispered to himself as he vaguely remembered the new face from the treatment room. He sat for a few minutes attempting to ease an itch on his ear by rubbing it against his shoulder and felt his eyes becoming increasingly intolerant of being awake. He was usually asleep by now and having missed his meds for the day his body was slowly but surely waking to everything around it. The female doctor had said something about stopping his medication; this was her doing and a couple more days like this and he may even be able to string a sentence together. He liked the way she thought, maybe he would be able to work with this one.

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"What the hell do you think you're doing Dr Cunningham?" the door almost came off of its hinges as the Chief Psychiatrist burst through waving a brown file erratically infront of his face. "Are you out of your mind? You've not even been here a day yet and you're advising that we stop medicating the Joker! You should have talked this through with me first!"

"I would have but I had other things to deal with at the time,"

"Really? So when exactly were you going to make time? You are aware that you can't make decisions like that without first consulting me?"

Jess sat back in her chair and threw her pen on the table, "Yes I am aware of that Doctor, and I apologise. But how can you expect me to do my job when the man can't even speak? Just because I deal with mind and not the brain it doesn't mean that I haven't got the medical knowledge that is required of a psychiatrist. I have studied medicine as well as therapy and he doesn't need all of the drugs that he has been prescribed. Infact, I'm surprised he's still breathing considering the pharmaceutical cocktail he been given!"

The superior doctor slammed the file onto the desk and leaned towards her. Sighing heavily he opened the file and began to scan through the list of drugs. After a few moments he nodded slowly and began to make notes beside each of the medicines.

"You better know what you're doing Dr Cunningham. I hope I don't live to regret this, do you understand? If anything goes wrong with him on your head be it, ok?" She watched closely as the ink from him pen quickly formed his signature and he stood upright. "However, we can't just stop his treatment immediately, he'll have to be weaned off it gradually. Do you think you have the patience to wait that long to council him?"

Ignoring the sarcasm in his voice Jess smiled and tilted her head to the side, "It's not as though he's going anywhere is it?"