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Day 47: Recreational Field [Second Shift]
Scott wasn't really what one would call the sporty type, at least not currently. In the past, maybe. He could have called himself a hockey player at one point - in grade two (it totally counted). And he had been a jock in high school, hadn't he (he had at least played a lot of Track & Field for the NES, anyway)? Regardless of what his athletic
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In any case, there was only one way to find out. At least the man hadn't immediately established himself as a pain.
"Not much for sports, huh?" he asked. "It's Harvey Dent, by the way." He'd made a habit of withholding his name when he'd first arrived here, but it had become obvious by now that the amount of Gothamites in this place wasn't much of an amount of all. There was himself, Jason, Tim, and Batman that he knew of, and one had been MIA from what Harvey could tell. Which was a problem, but he wasn't going to accepted that the vigilante had vanished just yet.
Come to think of it, there was also that person who had posted to the board with the bat signal, but that might have been Tim. He made a mental note to ask Jason about that the next chance he got.
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He turned his attention to the other man again, trying to read him. "You been here long?"
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"Well, it's a way to make us feel like we've got a little bit of freedom. If you don't work off that excess energy it'd just make you more crazy," Harvey pointed out. He got more than enough action just with his nights, but maybe that wasn't the case for others.
When the question about his time here got brought up, Harvey sighed and shrugged his shoulders. He'd started to think less and less about the passing days, mainly to not depress himself. "Week and a half, maybe? What about you?"
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"I have this condition," he said, opening his eyes to the field again, squinting as the light erased the image of his wife from his mind's eye. "I can't make new memories. I don't know how long I've been here or what I've done today, and if this conversation lasts too long, I won't remember how it started."
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Short-term memory loss, huh? It was supposed to be rare (he'd read up on a few court cases involving it, if he remembered correctly), but Landel's seemed to be a place that collected off-center people. Harvey found it hard to imagine living like that, but apparently Leonard was managing. Still, his head was just spinning with the thought of it. "You mean you won't remember me at all," he clarified.
"How did it happen?" It seemed like the obvious question, and Harvey wasn't one to beat around the bush. Though his next question was definitely going to be about how Leonard even coped.
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"Burglary," he said, eyes still on his hand. "Two guys broke into my house in the night. I had a gun- shot one of them. The other guy came from behind me, hit me hard." He touched his head, feeling the wound that was no longer there. "That's the last thing I remember. That, and my wife."
He paused, trying to swallow those feelings of ire, isolation, and grief that stemmed from those events. "I pulled through. She didn't." He shook his head- he was wasting time being stuck in an institution. He didn't know how long he'd been there, but every passing hour was another hour her killer was free. I don't belong here. Sammy didn't have a system. He deserved what he got, but I can manage.
"So yeah, I can promise you I won't remember you if we meet again later," he said, reaching to his side and flipping open his camera. "I use this to know who I'm connected to. You mind?"
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But what Leonard mentioned last -- his wife -- was what really gave Harvey some pause. In a situation like that, he couldn't imagine it was a good memory that Leonard had of his loved one, and he almost considered asking (the guy wouldn't remember his rudeness, anyway)...
Then, Leonard answered his question before he could even ask it. She'd died, then. Harvey quickly looked away (usually he could be smooth about these things, but now now) and let out a breath. "I'm..."
He heard a strange noise and looked back to see Leonard holding a Polaroid camera. A photo? Oh, so he could know who he'd met? It made sense, actually. The guy obviously knew what he was doing. Harvey didn't particularly like the idea of being photographed, not anymore, but it seemed like a dick move to not agree. Besides, they had a few things in common.
"Go ahead," he said, turning himself so that he was facing Leonard head-on. "How the hell do the nurses let you carry that thing around, anyway?" Harvey had never known them to be reasonable when it came to personal belongings here. He had his coin, but that was something he could easily store in his pocket, away from prying eyes. A Polaroid camera? Not so much.
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"I guess they know about my system," he said, closing his camera and returning his pen to his pocket. "To be able to function like this, you've got to have a system. They probably pity me. They don't need to. The system works. You just have to be organized, disciplined. Structure your life around habit and routine. You need to have a reason to live and make it work."
He retrieved the other photographs from his pocket, adding Dent's to the pile. The man seemed to understand where he was coming from, or maybe he just didn't like to ask a lot of questions. Maybe he'd lost someone as well, or maybe whatever was wrong with half his face distanced him from people in the way his own condition did. Whatever it was, it helped save time- Leonard was sure he spent a lot of time explaining himself to people.
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Having a reason to live was something Harvey could definitely relate to, even if all it boiled down to was revenge at this point. He didn't mind. He wasn't entirely sure what he'd do once everyone responsible had paid for their crimes, but he got the feeling he'd be busy for a while. Especially with this place slowing him down.
He glanced over at Leonard, his one visible eye narrowed. "So what's your reason? I guess right now all you're focused on is getting out of here, right?" But what happened after that? How did someone like Leonard function in the normal world? While Harvey's accident and injury had changed his life, at least he could still manage for the most part. It was difficult to eat and the pain never really went away, but his thoughts were in order and that was the most important thing.
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He had no need to look through his notes or examine his tattoos to know what he had to do, what he lived for. It was scarred into his mind, a new layer burned when he saw the face of his wife before him, struggling for her last breaths. "I'm going to find the bastard who did this, the guy who destroyed everything I had: my wife, my memory, my ability to live. I'm going to find him and kill him."
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When Leonard first started talking about finding the person who had landed him with his condition and murdered his wife, Harvey had figured he'd end it all by saying that he planned to get the guy convicted. That was, after all, what normal people would have done. It was human nature to want justice after having something so terrible done to you, but then those last words came through loud and clear: I'm going to find him and kill him.
The words could have easily come out of Harvey's mouth (with the caveat that he gave them a fifty-percent chance of living, anyway), and he was genuinely shocked to have found someone who shared so much in common with him. Almost seemed planned, and he'd been getting that feeling more and more lately.
At this point, Harvey couldn't keep his thoughts to himself. He looked away, staring at the opposite wall across the field. "Looks like we're a matched pair, then." It could easily stay his secret if Leonard forgot.
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He turned his head toward Dent, curious. "What do you mean by that?"
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"She wasn't my wife, but I lost someone very close to me." Rachel had even said she'd wanted to get married, but that had been in those last moments where she'd probably just wanted to say something that would last, that would stick in his memory. He couldn't know for sure how things would have turned out if she'd lived, which made the whole thing painful rather than relieving.
"No, I didn't lose her," he corrected himself. "She was taken from me." Harvey still didn't make any attempt at eye contact. Not now.
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"Did he do that to your face, too?" Leonard asked, his curiosity itching as he inferred some key points from Dent's words. If that was the case, then Dent was right- they really were two of a kind, both wronged men with lives were ruined physically, mentally, and emotionally in one fell swoop.
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The words were already out. If he really wanted to get that secret back, he'd just have to steal the photo.
Leonard's question was expected after Harvey had already revealed so much, and he nodded in response. "Getting rigged to a barrel of gasoline will do that to you," he forced out bitterly.
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