Chapter Text
And now I can't even recognize myself anymore
You turned me into this
“It’s good to see you again, Natalie.”
Dr. Greenburg’s office was stuffier than it usually was. I could tell she was running the heat since the temperatures had dropped the past few days outside. Winter in Gotham was usually a miserable affair for someone like me. It wasn’t like I preferred to be hot, but this kind of heat, dry and pumping unrelenting out of the vents, was not the warmth I preferred.
I smiled and leaned forward to shed my jacket as the woman across from me reached for a small, black box on her desk. With a push of her finger, soft, ambient sounds played out through the speakers and I sat back on the couch to pull my jacket over my lap.
“Are you comfortable?”
“Um, yes, thank you.” I’d been seeing Dr. Greenburg for the past three months and every time, it still felt like I was speaking to my high school counselor. She was older than I was by at least two decades, with graying hair that had once been dark. Her presence was calming and judging by the multiple degrees framed on the wall above her desk, I could tell she was dedicated to her profession.
But that didn’t make it easier for me to talk to her or open up about things.
Especially when the things I was opening up about were things I still wasn’t comfortable talking or thinking about. Of course, I didn’t give her the whole truth, and thankfully, so far, she had been very understanding about that.
What I had given her though, made me feel vulnerable as if I had though. The last few sessions we’d had, I had told her about the man that left me broken and torn, about how the past year, I had struggled just to feel like myself again. Usually, after I finish telling her my feelings from one session to the next, Dr. Greenburg would reassure me, make me feel heard, and remind me that our goal was to help me feel normal.
I was still waiting for that to happen.
I didn’t blame her though. A lot of it was my own issues; my stunted emotions, and my inability to come to terms with my own feelings toward him.
“How has your week been?” Dr. Greenburg started, turning in her chair to face me. She crossed her ankles beneath it and I took a deep breath. This was actually the worst part about therapy. I never knew where to start.
“It’s been alright. Work is fine. A bit busy.”
She nodded and I lifted my eyes to meet hers. The wrinkles in the corners of her eyes creased as she smiled and waited patiently for me to continue. When I didn’t, Dr. Greenburg turned back to her desk and pulled a small notebook onto her lap. It was what she used to keep notes through our sessions and I took another deep breath to prepare myself.
“Last time,” she started, flipping back through the page of notes she kept. “We ended the session by discussing some self-destructive tendencies that you think you should work on. Did you think about any of those since we last spoke?”
And just like in high school, when the counselor would pull me into her office to discuss why I was caught skipping class to smoke cigarettes behind the gym, I could feel myself closing up. I felt guilty before I ever admitted anything. Nervously, I reached up to tuck my hair behind my ear and tried to think back to my week.
I hadn’t really had time to think about anything but work and the usual problems I dealt with. Which, in itself was a self-destructive tendency. Avoiding problems, avoiding thinking about the things that made me miserable was the one I was most familiar with. She seemed to pick up on my hesitation and decided to move on, thankfully.
“How are you sleeping?”
“Fine. Okay, that was a lie. I try to go to sleep when you suggested--around ten o'clock every night. But I just lay there and stare and think."
Dr. Greenburg nodded and made a quick note on the page in her lap. "And what do you think about?"
The voice in the back of my head--the one I loathed to hear from--was quick to answer her in the safe place of my mind. Him .
It had been over a year. When was it ever going to stop? Of course, it was hard to forget him when he sent me gifts every few months. And each time, I would open them to see photos of myself. It was proof that he would never let me go. How long could he keep this up? Was he not busy in prison, or at least drugged up with antipsychotic pills?
I shook my head and shrugged, looking away from her to one of the framed pictures hanging on the wall to my left. Black and white landscape photographs, arranged three across and two down, were placed on the wall. There were beach scenes, forests, a sunset...things to help distract and calm the mind.
The last few sessions with Dr. Greenburg, I'd focused on the one in the center; a nighttime view of the Gotham city skyline. I looked at each of the buildings with the endless windows and lights and wondered which one was the penthouse I had met him in.
Turning back to look at Dr. Greenburg, I sighed. "I think about the first night I met...J." Just saying that simple letter felt like too much--like somehow she would figure it out and know the truth. The bubble of panic that seemed to lodge in my throat was the same as it was the first time I had uttered the letter out loud. "I just don't want to think about it anymore."
"Walk me through what you feel when you think about that night, Natalie. Do you feel regret or anger?"
"Regret, mostly. I look back at myself and wonder how the hell I let it get as bad as it did. I had hated him from the moment we first met and still...I let him do so much to me." This was the part I hated most. We didn't talk about him every time, maybe three times so far, but every time I said anything about him, I felt sick to the stomach. My body was so used to being on the edge around him or at the mere thought of him that I could feel the adrenaline pumping through me right now.
I wanted more than anything to get up and leave and just bury these thoughts back in the depths of my mind. Out of sight, out of mind was the best policy.
"I hear the blaming words you use about yourself again, Natalie. You say you let him do this to you, but you didn't. Instead of thinking of it that way, start making a habit of recognizing that wording. He did this to you. He was the abusive one. You were the victim, okay?"
A victim that begged for it. A victim that had liked the things he did to me. What kind of victim misses her tormentor?
Tears burned the edges of my eyelids and I blinked them away quickly. This was a reason I hated opening up to people. I was a crier. When I was angry, sad, stressed, you name it, I cried. Or threw up, but I wasn't that bad yet.
Nodding, I looked down at my hands in my lap and tried to rethink the way I spoke about myself. It was easy to say that I would be able to do the things she suggested, that I wouldn't blame myself anymore, but if I wasn’t to blame, then who was? I could tell myself every day that I never wanted what he did to me, that I never wanted more from him and I'd be lying.
Through the haze of tears, I lifted my head and stared at Dr. Greenburg. "I don’t want to think about him anymore. Why can’t I stop?"
"I wish I had an answer for you, but thoughts are complex, Natalie. We can't always explain them or stop them from happening.” God, I wanted nothing more than to stop these thoughts from popping into my head. “But before you can break free of these thoughts, let’s work on the way you think about them. Now, let’s try some thought exercises…”
Winter in Gotham brought piles of dirty snow and slush that clumped along the sidewalks and streets and it was a total nuisance. I wiped the mush from my shoes on the doormat outside my apartment building and hurried inside. The warmth of the lobby wasn’t as sweltering as Dr. Greensburg's office had been earlier.
It was a cozy kind of warm in the apartment building and I blew the hair from my face as I made my way to the mailboxes that lined the wall beside the elevators. Every time I put my key into the door, I held my breath. There was no rhyme or reason to the gifts he sent me and so I never knew if I would be greeted by another box.
This time, I pulled the door open and let out a sigh of relief. Nothing but a beauty magazine and a bill. Thank god.
Bills I could handle. More photos of myself and cryptic messages typed haphazardly on playing cards? My mental state just wasn’t up to handling that today. And besides, I still had all the packages he had sent me over the past year. Every card and photograph, the ribbons that held the boxes together, and even the tissue paper was locked away up in my bedroom.
I hated to admit that I took them out and sorted through them occasionally. I should have burned them.
I turned on my heel with my mail tucked beneath my arm and headed for the elevators across the hall. The doors opened and thankfully, there was no one inside waiting to get off. With a sigh of relief, I stepped in, pressed the button for the fifth floor and leaned back against the wall.
Therapy was always mentally draining--even on the days when I didn’t bring him up. Growing up, talking openly about feelings and emotions just wasn’t something my family and I did. We were private people and I’m pretty sure my father still refuses to believe I’m older than 12.
The day I got my period for the first time, he had left the room with the excuse to go fix the lawnmower...even though it was the middle of December and he hadn’t mowed the grass for months.
He was a man of few words and had no time for discussions about mental states or feelings. My mother was no different so it wasn’t surprising I grew up to be so private with my thoughts.
Thinking about my family only made me groan. Christmas was coming up in a few weeks and I’m sure they’d be inviting me back home to celebrate. I had put it off so many times it was going to be hard to think of an excuse this time.
From my purse hanging at my side, I heard the familiar ringtone and I dipped my hand inside for my cell phone. The name on the screen made me smile and I answered the call.
“What happened this time?”
“Why do you always assume something happened?” Abby huffed on the other end. “I don’t only call you when I’m having Brad trouble, you know.”
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry for assuming. So, what’s up?”
She hesitated to answer, making my smile widen as the doors of the elevator slid open. I stepped out onto the fifth floor and turned to the left. My apartment was the last one on this side of the hallway, tucked away in the corner.
“Well, I must admit that I did call to ask you a favor and it does have to do with Brad.”
I scoffed as I slid my key into the lock and twisted it. “As long as I don’t have to work catering anymore, I’m down for favors.”
Abby laughed and I reached for the light switch inside the door. Even after living here for over a year, I still had barely decorated the place. It felt strange to, like I knew it was only temporary. I had the basic pieces of furniture--a couch, bed, tables and chairs--but not much hung on the walls.
Each time Abby came over, she brought a little piece to hang up or decorate and I didn’t stop her. It was because of her that I actually had curtains over my windows and not sheets I had hung up.
“Well, I know you’ve been seeing that cutie from your work the past few weeks and I thought it would be a ton of fun to go on a double date!” Of course she thought it would be fun. It sounded like a nightmare to me.
I had been seeing a guy from work, but he wasn’t my coworker. Matthew Hawthorne was in Gotham on business with his father. They were both real estate investors that were checking out some areas in the city and the firm I worked for just happened to be the lucky ones picked.
We had met one another by literally running into each other. I had been running rather late one morning and threw the door to the office open as Matt was coming out, nearly slamming it into his face in the process. He had been smitten, despite nearly needing a nose job, and I had been wary to let him in.
It took a few days, but he finally convinced me to go out with him and it's been...fine.
“A double date?” I hoped she couldn’t hear the uncertainty in my voice. “Where would we go?”
“Oh, just for dinner and drinks somewhere! I’m dying to meet your new beau and this would be a perfect time.”
Translation: she wanted to assess Matthew to make sure he was good enough. I loved her for it, but I wasn’t sure I even wanted to see this guy long-term yet. He didn’t even live in the city.
“I mean...He mentioned something about taking me to see an opera or something--”
“Oh my god, are you serious? That’s so classy!”
I laughed and moved into the kitchen, dropping the mail and my purse onto the counter. After being in the cold for the past several blocks, I was dying for a hot shower--or maybe a bath. Relaxing in the tub with bubbles and a glass of wine would be a perfect way to unwind after therapy.
The thought made me frown. Wasn’t therapy supposed to make me feel lighter and more relaxed?
“I don’t know,” I admitted, cradling the phone to my ear. “I’m not really the kind of person that goes to an opera.”
“Oh, hush. You once told me you wanted to snag a millionaire, didn’t you? Well this is what millionaires do. They go to the theatre, they attend fundraisers and benefit galas.”
Except, Matthew wasn’t a millionaire. His father was, but I wasn’t dating his father. The thought made me wrinkle my nose and I stood inside the bathroom, kicking my shoes off. Who would have thought that my ultimate, teenage fantasy was finally somewhat playing out and I was left feeling so...bored with it.
“I guess. I’ve only been seeing him for a few weeks, you know?”
“Have you slept with him?” Abby asked. I rolled my eyes at her question. She was so blunt and to the point it nearly made me laugh.
“Um, not exactly. The timing hasn’t really been right.”
It was a lie. He was clearly interested and god knows I needed to get laid but there was just some weird block in my mind. I panicked at the mere thought of bringing him back to my place, of being alone and naked with someone else. He would see my body, see the places that had once been bruised and cut--the J shaped scar that still lingered on my flesh.
“But you like the guy right?” Her question pulled me out of my thoughts and I swallowed.
“Y-yeah. He’s nice and has been pretty great so far.”
“So, what’s the hold up?”
I turned to the mirror above the sink and stared at myself. So much was different now. I was a different person. The pieces of my life were finally starting to click back into place. And yet, my head still felt as if it was stuck in the past.
What was I waiting for? I had no idea.
Ducking my head, I squeezed my eyes shut and knew that I couldn’t hesitate answering her much longer. She was annoyingly astute and picked up on things like that quickly.
“Yeah, you’re right. I need to get laid.”
Abby laughed and I breathed a bit easier. “Yeah, you really do, Nat. So, this double date. You free this Friday?”
We agreed that we would plan to meet up for dinner and drinks on Friday--the four of us. It gave me five days to figure out if I actually wanted to go through with it. Having my friends meet Matthew seemed like a big deal, but I knew it wasn’t. A double date didn’t mean we had to get married or even sleep together. It was just a date.
I gave Abby the excuse of needing a shower and she told me goodbye, but made me promise not to cancel on her. I promised and hung up the phone, setting it down on the edge of the sink. For a few minutes, I stood there and stared down at my hands on the white porcelain.
The bright red polish on my fingernails was too much of a contrast against the bright white, too much of a reminder of that red-painted, Glasgow smile that I wanted to forget. I squeezed my eyes shut and recalled the last time I had seen it in person.
He had wiped the blood from my face after shooting Daryl in the head. He had looked in my eyes and called me sweetheart. And even now, over a year later, the memory of his voice made my stomach flutter.
I put a hand to my stomach, my palm pressing into the scar he left on me, and took a deep breath. The bath could wait. I needed to do something else.
Turning on my heel, I hurried to my bedroom and shut the door behind me, though there was no one else here to see what I was about to do. Outside, police sirens made chills roll down my spine but they raced on down the street. I crossed to my bed and knelt down to the floor, bending to reach for the box I kept hidden in the shadows.
It slid across the floor and I took the lid off, tossing it onto the mattress. Within the box, I saw my own face in the photos he sent me. Black and white photographs, at least fifty of them now, were stacked to one corner but I ignored them. He sent me a new package every few months and they barely even phased me now.
I knew he was watching me. Even before he had been captured and arrested and thrown in Arkham, he’d been watching me. And I’d be lying if I said knowing he was still watching me hadn’t been a factor into why I agreed to go out with Matt in the first place. I wanted Joker’s henchmen to take photos of us, to send them back to him. I wanted him to see that I moved on and I hoped he’d do the same..
My fingers dipped past the folded tissue paper and the assortment of ribbons he had sent. The silk against my fingertips made me shiver and I pulled one out, staring at the rich hues as the fabric caught the light.
Though it was pointless, though I knew there’d be nothing there, I brought it to my face and inhaled. It didn’t smell like him--no burnt matches, no gasoline fumes. I wondered if he smelled different now. I wondered if he smelled like the inside of a prison.
It wasn’t often that I did this--took little trips down my fucked up memory lane--but when I did, I knew it was better with wine. Alcohol dulled the pain, made the guilt and angst fade and left me with nothing but the raw thoughts that I wouldn’t remember the next day.
I didn’t bother with a glass. I hurried to the kitchen, grabbed the bottle from the fridge, and made my way back to the bedroom, the ribbon still tangled in my fingers. I sat on the floor for the next hour or so, drowning the thoughts I was afraid to face and the only comfort I had was knowing that he was locked up, deep within Arkham and he could no longer reach me.
I woke several hours later on my bed, face down in my pillows with the box of twisted momentos laying next to me. The room was dark and I narrowed my eyes on the window. It must have been late and I wasn't sure what had woken me up. A noise…
Groaning, I buried my face back into the pillows and pulled my arm out from beneath me. My fingers tingled and I flexed them a few times to get the feeling back into them. As I flopped onto my back and decided to go back to sleep, I heard the noise once more.
Something was rumbling in the other room and a soft, little chime would follow. My phone.
I sat up and rubbed my eyes. I must have left it in the bathroom.
Pushing the box aside, I stood up and left my bedroom. The lights were still on in the living room and I winced at the brightness. The bathroom was even worse. White tile and light blue walls reflected the overhead light, making me wince.
With a hand shading my eyes, I found my phone exactly where I had left it on the sink. I turned it over and blinked down at the screen. Three missed calls and seven text messages?
What the hell?
They were all from Abby. I hurried back out into the hall, reaching up to slap the light switch on my way out and pulled up her texts.
Abby: Nat, are you awake?
Abby: turn on the news
Abby: please answer your phone.
Abby: Natalie, I know you didn't fall asleep this early.
Abby: call me when you get this
Abby: are you watching this???
Abby: call me in the morning as soon as you wake up
My heart was thundering in my chest as I hurried into the living room and snatched the television remote off the arm of the couch. Whatever channel I had left it on last night was playing an old black and white movie and I quickly flipped to the local news stations.
The scrolling text at the bottom had "breaking news" in all caps. An anchorwoman was speaking and I pressed a shaking finger over the volume button.
"...aren't certain how the prisoners gained access to the materials used to make the explosives. Police are urging citizens to stay inside, lock your doors, and do not attempt to apprehend any of the escaped convicts. Again, if you're just tuning in, three maximum security inmates at Arkham Asylum have escaped."
Her image switched to an overhead view of the asylum. A helicopter flew over, shining a spotlight down on the prison grounds. The police presence was massive and I could only stand there, in the middle of my living room and stare at the television. I wasn’t even sure I was breathing.
My body didn't react. I had no thoughts. I kept listening to the report, waiting for the anchorwoman to confirm what I already knew.
"Police are on the scene and have told us here at Channel 6 that an explosive device was used to blow a hole in the side of the asylum. We have that image for you now."
Something bubbled in my chest at the sight of the crumbling brick of the building on tv. A fire was burning from within and firefighters were blasting it with water. The image switched back to the aerial view and I shook my head in disbelief. This wasn't real.
I had fallen asleep earlier and this was just a nightmare--one of many that I'd had the past year and a half.
Again, that same bubble in my chest popped up and I let out a small peal of laughter. It was a quick sound, barely a giggle but echoed in the momentary quiet from the television. The screen switched back to the anchorwoman. She had a finger to her ear and was nodding. At the bottom of the screen, the rolling text gave a brief summary of what she’d already said.
It wasn't until she spoke again that my eyes widened.
"Okay, we just received confirmation that one of the inmates that has escaped was the Joker. Again, if you are out, get back to your homes and lock the doors. These men are armed and dangerous and--"
I pressed the mute button on the remote and let it slip out of my hands. It hit the floor and I reached up to rake my fingers through my hair. With tears burning my eyes, I leaned my head back and stared up at the ceiling. Another strange bubble of laughter rose in the back of my throat and I had no choice but to let it out. It sounded hysterical and startled me, as if it wasn’t actually coming from my own mouth.
"Fuck you," I whispered, half sobbing and half laughing, as if he could actually hear me. "You fucking prick."
My hands fell to my sides and I choked back a sob that ached my chest to be free. There was nothing else I could do but stand there and stare at the ceiling. No amount of crying could help me. There was nothing left to do but wait.
After all, he had told me all along that he would come find me again. In his cryptic notes, in the typed, uneven letters on the playing cards. He had told me that he would see me soon, that he hadn't forgotten about me, and would find me again.
And I had been so naive to think they could keep him locked up. He had been a caged animal, trapped and chained, and now that he was free, I knew he would stop at nothing to finish what he'd started.