I've stopped counting my sessions with Patient J. However, I can say that this is the very first time I've ever seen him so enthused. It's almost like watching a hyena behind glass bars, taunted by a slab of deliciously thick filet mignon. He jitters in the meager chair bolted to the floor, his leg going thirty miles a minute.

"So, how's my—uh, little Harv-uh-ee?"

The legs of the metal folding chair scrape against the floor with the most horrid sound I have ever heard. It's almost as bad as nails on a chalkboard, "Patient confidentiality."

He snorts, grins so wide the corners of his mouth explode into a million little creases, "I believe you're avoiding the subject, doc-a-roonie."

I flinch irritably, but don't show it all over my face like I know he wants. Harvey's relationship with him, I can tell, is tricky and ill comprehensive. It's filled with ins and outs that neither party can well describe. The way her declaration of feeling for him came out clearly proved some sustenance of emotional trauma—the statement of love for Poison Ivy was unwavering and completely solid. It is unlike Harvey to be emoti—

And my thoughts are interrupted by what sounds like an unpleasantly nasal voice humming the Jeopardy theme song.

Loudly.

"Two timin' bitch is giving you trouble, isn't she?" The expression is outright malicious, this time. I can tell because it's accompanied with a glint in his impossibly green eyes. I shift uncomfortably, irritated because I know I've been found out and nothing could possibly bother me more. He reclines a little, pushing notably against the chair in a failed attempt to lean it back. Being it's bolted down, he can't, so he settles for going limp in almost every muscle in his body, "She's easier'n ya think to take care of, though. Just—ah, act bigger than she is. She's kind of a scayurrrrrrd little pup."

I can definitely say he's correct on that. 0264 is no simple creature to deal with, but she's nothing to be intimidated by.

"I think this is your therapy session, if I recall correctly, Mister Punsworth."

He giggles, stifling it, almost snorting on it, "That's the very first time you've used my name. Good job, doc!"

Red at the tips of my ears, I give him a necessary once-over. He's frustrating me to the point where I can feel the tension in my wrists, the veins pulled tight like cords. I can't slip my hands out of the fists they're so harshly pulled into. By this point, my vision paints over with harsh sparks of glowing white just at the corners of my vision. I'm too angry to stop squinting, and too frustrated for this. I have been looking after three very difficult patients for a span of two weeks already and I'm getting dangerously close to my snapping point. So I push off my hands and turn down the hallway, the only sound left the click-clack-clop of my heels.

"Uh—hold up, Ayf-ton, one more thing."

My shoulders square off, my entire body tight. I don't look back but I stand there, listening.

"Shouldn't get so…ah—upset. You look real little when you're mad. It's those frrrrrrrreckles."

- - - - - - - - - -

Even though my boiling frustration with 0801 has bubbled over enough to make me intensely unable to continue that day's session, it doesn't mean my paperwork has ended. There's a pile of the stuff heaped atop my desk (in an office I've recently become all too accustomed with) as high as Mount Everest. And I've carefully mapped this out.

Patient number 0264 has been placed next to Patient 0265 upon my request. I want to monitor how the two behave with each other and, hopefully, it will be therapeutic to keep them together. Harvey sometimes cries late at night, hassled by what I'm not yet sure, but there's no actual record of past occurrences. It's as though she never existed. You can hear Miss Isley whispering her to calm, sometimes. The two truly do function well together. When Miss Isley's voice is audible to Harvey, she almost immediately relaxes.

"Hey, Harvey?" There's silence, and I watch the tiny 'villain' turn her head toward the wall. They both sit there, back-to-back, nothing between them but a foot or so of almost impenetrable concrete. I've been watching them like this for a solid two hours, glancing out the window to my office and listening.

Patient 0264 has a genuine sense of affection and trust for Patient 0265. The two interact closely and, I can dare say, sincerely love each other. Harvey makes a small sound of admittance in the dark and Ivy speaks again, "With…him being here, you're not going to…shrug me off, are you?"

The air is thick when the little 'Harlequin' speaks. First, there's indecision, then there's the sound of full certainty in her tone, "I love you, Pam."

"But I know you, Harvey, and I know how you get. He's got some sort of ragingly unfair grip over you and—"

"And nothing. I love you, Pam." Ivy's taken aback by the statement almost completely. I question how long it took the both of them to get where they are now, to this place where there's a notable, amorous feeling to their quiet. Love is never feeling as though the silence is awkward.

"…You mean that statement truthfully, don't you, Harvey?"

I watch Harvey trace an absent heart in the dust on the floor beside her and murmur gently, "Y-Yes, Pam."

"I apologize for getting us into this situation. It was petty of me, I should have trusted you."

"'S'okay, I-I don't trust me, either."

I'm not sure how comfortable or comprehensive I feel on the concept that a relationship like this can exist between two convicted felons behind the walls of a notorious asylum. In some ways, the thought is double-edged. It is almost a comfort that two people, even two people who've evidently killed a few other people, can find comfort in each other. By the same token, it just sort of makes you wonder. How can two people in this situation create this kind of affection toward one another when normal people can't stop getting divorced?

I sigh into my cup of coffee. It's swimming with sugar cubes and more milk than I usually put. For a brief moment I catch a glimpse of my own caramel reflection, and realize how deathly tired I look.

You're letting them all get to you. This cavalcade of psychotics is driving you off the deep end, Afton, and it hasn't even been too long since you got your PhD.

"You feeling okay?"

I'm focusing entirely on the washed-out fluorescent lights glowing blankly outside the window. The blinds aren't shut, and instinctively I open my mouth to say something along the lines of fine, but I realize the question was (obviously) not directed toward me.

"I cannot stand confinement. It does nothing for my complexion. I cannot wait until I manage some form of allowance for the outside world, no matter how meager. I need at least some sliver of sunlight."

I hear Harvey's silence like it's a sound in of itself. It's customary—it may just be that I've given it some kind of noise. It's ultimately non-existent.

"You are accustomed to appearing deceased, Harvey-flower, I, however, am not."

For a moment, I believe that Harvey sounds genuinely hurt. It's not in any sort of response, no, it's in just the opposite way. It's all in the way she doesn't say a single word when Ivy says this, and the way Ivy picks up her own slack.

"I always thought you were pretty, Harvey, from the moment I first met you. Albeit, I won't deny that a small bit of height would do you well."

Harvey snickers quietly at the short joke, It's the only sound of humor I've heard her make in my past few weeks worth of sessions with her. But, somehow, I think it is a noise of progress.