Nightshift 36: Main Hallway, 2-West

[spirit_forge]

[from here]No one else appeared to be in the hallway. It should've been good news, but Archer still found it disconcerting. There were usually other patients around by now, but he couldn't be certain. His sense of time felt off in this place

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[jokers_wildcard]

[from here]

There. Harley reached the final step, but kept her hand against the wall to keep from getting too dizzy. Last thing she needed was to end up falling right back down those stairs. The world was spinning too much to immediately head off so she chose to wait a few minutes, at least long enough to be able to walk again.

Harley turned her gaze back to Crane, who had quietly followed her up. She half wondered how she must look to him, wiped out from climbing a single flight of stairs. She blinked trying to clear her head, when she realized something else this guy had said didn't quite add up.

He had mentioned it before, but she still found it odd how someone could be from Arkham and not have heard of her. Although she supposed she shouldn't really lump herself in with the Joker, even if they were an item.

...Wait! Her eyes suddenly lit up in revelation (or the closest thing to it while half sedated). That was it! Crane here was from Arkham! He could verify she wasn't crazy! Well, more so.

"I... I'm a..." Okay, calm down,

[scaredy_crow]

Her...babies? She certainly didn't look like the motherly sort, but appearances could certainly be deceiving. Still, the word lab had caught his attention. He did want to see what chemicals he could find to remake his fear toxin with, after all. And they were going in the same direction, so it didn't hurt for him to follow her up the stairs and continue asking questions

[jokers_wildcard]

If not for the medication still holding her back, she'd have enthusiastically agreed. She had no intentions of letting anything stop her from finding her two darlings. Harley would fight tooth and nail before letting anything happen to them. That half-handed reassurance Crane had so casually offered actually gave her a sense of peace, a boost in confidence. Funny how the mild support of one other person just made her feel so much more capable

[scaredy_crow]

And there it was.

"Fear toxin, yes. As I thought. Actually, you could say I know Scarecrow fairly intimately," he said, staring back at her with a blank expression. She'd said that this Professor Crane was a friend, so hopefully what he intended to reveal would go over well. He could certainly find some way to use someone like her. "In fact, back in Gotham, I also went by the name Scarecrow."

She was most definitely from a different Gotham than he was. This proved the alternate Gotham theory, so now it was just a matter of explaining it to her.

"Tell me, Ms. Quinn, have you heard any of the rumors since you've been here that relate to alternate realities? It seems that's the problem that we have on our hands, and why I'm not the same Scarecrow you know."

[jokers_wildcard]

"What? ...Wait. Slow down, there, buddy-boy." He had just earned the most dubious expression to cross Harley's face since... well, visiting hours.

If she understood this guy correctly, he was stating that he was also called Scarecrow? Another Jonathan Crane, another Scarecrow? It could have been a twisted nickname to give someone with the same name as the Professor Crane she knew. But that didn't seem to be the point he was trying to make.

Suddenly bringing up alternate realities... Was he actually trying to say he was the Professor Crane from Arkham, but not really? An 'alternate reality' Crane-y? This was nuts and not normal nuts. It was something straight out of those late night sci-fi movies, only this poor guy actually believed it

[scaredy_crow]

Crane was perfectly aware that what was coming out of his mouth sounded absolutely ridiculous, but he'd seen and heard enough about the ridiculous in his life. He lived in a city with a man dressed up as a bat, for the love of God. He still wasn't entirely convinced, of course, but there was evidence here that he just couldn't ignore.

He was glad to hear that it sounded just as strange to her, and that she wasn't entirely ready to buy it. There was hope for her to make a good ally, yet. She was crazy, and she was willing to admit it, but she wasn't entirely stupid, either. It was all down to who was right. Either she was, he was, or they both were, but he was willing to bet that it wasn't solely the first. He was likely a bit crazy, but he knew he wasn't wrong

[jokers_wildcard]

Well... Okay, the guy had a point there. The place definitely wasn't normal by any means. At first she had assumed these nightly things were just blackouts, but who heard of consistent blackouts every single night? The staff seemed to make no attempts to fix the problem as far as she could tell. In fact, at night she didn't see so much as a security guard wandering around, let alone all the nurses that overran the place during the day.

Odd. She hadn't actually stopped to think about it, but it really was like they were all alone at night, alone with giant man-eating bugs and monster cats. So what did that mean exactly? Not that she really felt she should care. She had to escape eventually. And it's not like it was really her place to sit around and try to make sense of what other people do. ...Or should she?

His other point was true, too. Everything he said couldn't be more than just a coincidence, and if he was some kind of delusional nut who only thought he was Professor Crane, well, he wasn't doing a very good job of it at all.

[scaredy_crow]

When she looked up at him that way, Crane knew he was on the right track. She was already scared that he might be right, and he could use that. "You'll what, Miss Quinn? I don't think there's much you could do in this condition if you have to fight, not even with that," he gestured to the bar in her hand before looking back down the hallway, trying not to smile. He'd pegged that one easily, but this was just the start. Now what else could she be afraid of

[jokers_wildcard]

He had hit it right on the money with that word: alone. The thought was utterly unbearable. Even if she was alone now, knowing her darling, her family, and her friends were all out there waiting for her was enough to keep her going through anything. Sedation or no, she would keep moving for their sakes. She didn't like the implications he was trying to drive home here, and it showed on her face.

"Well, yeah but... It's not like they know where I am. Heck, I don't even know where the heck this place is! How could they? So that's why..."

No, wait. That made no sense. Red had obviously found out she was here and had been able to make it. If Ivy was able to track her down, then surely her puddin' would have been able to locate her by now. Harley looked away from Crane, looking lost suddenly. If Red had left her here, then did that mean Mr. J was doing the same, too?

"No. H-he wouldn't. They wouldn't. ...Would they?" If they did leave her, and if it really was two late for her sweethearts, what would she have left? Mister J. If he left

[scaredy_crow]

It might not have been that sort of screaming fear that he so loved, but it was satisfactory enough. Enough that he wanted to drive his message home a bit further before hinting at just why he was doing this.

"I don't know," he replied simply, shrugging and trying to keep from smiling. Her reactions were just far too fascinating, but even if she'd looked away, there was still the chance that she would look back at him. "I'm unfamiliar with your gang. But I've heard it said that we're supposedly in New Jersey. There's only so many other institutions on the eastern coast that could be checked if you were transferred here directly from Arkham."

Of course, fear of abandonment and being alone were nice, but he wanted to move this along to at least glimpse what else she might be afraid of before letting on why he was doing this. If nothing else, she seemed bright enough to recognize that once he discovered her fears, he would hold some power over her. It wasn't always the best way to do things, but he could get her as an ally one way or

[jokers_wildcard]

In New Jersey? That was a pretty random place to stick some giant, psycho mental institution with a massive bug prob--

Okay, maybe not.

But that was far closer to Gotham than she'd expected. With the wacky regulations and the excessive number of Japanese people (who didn't look at all Japanese), it might not have surprised her if she wasn't even in America anymore. ...Though thinking on that, it'd be hard to be anywhere but the east coast, seeing as she'd been transferred in only one night.

If she hadn't been moved far, then surely it wouldn't be difficult to track her to this new location. ...If they really wanted to find her that was.

It all clicked in her mind right then. Nothing made any sense at all if she assumed people were actually looking for her, if people wanted her back. If people needed her. But if they abandoned her, everything fell into place. Even the doctors who'd sworn to help her and the town she'd lived in for so long didn't want her anymore. Why else would she have been transferred. It made sense. It all made