Jonathan's eyes widen as he takes in the scene.
I'm pacing across the room, unable to look at the corpse on the floor. Phone still in my hands from where I called him. The Joker's sat on the interview table, pretending to smoke a pencil.
"Hey, Doc," the Joker says. "Come join the party."
Jonathan absorbs everything. He's silent. Unreadable. Almost angry. Then he comes to me, takes my face in his hands.
"Sienna, are you alright?"
I shake my head. "I've ruined everything."
"No you haven't."
I look at Jonathan like he's gone mad. "Sweetie, there's no hiding this."
"And why not?" He asks me.
"Because there's... There's CCTV footage."
"There are no cameras in here," he replies evenly.
"There are in the corridor."
Jonathan nods slowly. "We've just been hacked, Sienna. Half our files cleared. We can wipe the footage."
The Joker chooses this moment to laugh maniacally. I raise my eyebrows and gesture. "And there's a witness."
"The Joker will have a price for his silence," Jonathan says, before turning to him. "Won't you?"
The Joker quiets. Grins.
"There's still a freaking body to deal with!" I hiss, placing my hand to my head and pacing once more.
The Joker shrugs. "Unless we say I killed her."
Jonathan and I both pause.
"Think about it," the Joker chuckles. "She came in here completely unauthorised. No cuffs, no procedure. She'll be responsible for that."
"And you'll be charged," Jonathan says.
The Joker rolls his eyes. "Another life sentence. Big whoop."
I shake my head. "No, the cameras will show that I bought the fire extinguisher in."
"Precisely," the Joker grins. "And that's when I chose to attack."
"But we didn't sound the alarm," I point out. Then I still. Smile softly. Regretfully. "Because you wouldn't just attack Rachel Dawes. You'd incapacitate me too."
The Joker's eyes shine with approval. But Jonathan's voice becomes harsh.
"Forget about it, Sienna. I'm not having you harmed."
"How harmed do you think I'd be in jail?" I point out.
He shakes his head. "You're not going to jail. We're deleting the security footage. Rachel will be reported missing, and that'll be that."
"Jonathan, someone let her through here! The DA office had her visit Arkham today. Some member of staff let her through all these doors. We were seen arguing with her just this morning. She gave quote in a fricken newspaper article defaming us, and now she's gone missing, with our CCTV wiped?"
Jonathan blinks. "Precisely. The burden of proof is on the prosecution, Sienna."
"And what about freaking execution by public hanging? The whole of Gotham thinks we're creating a supervillain already. Throw this in there, we'll have to move, which will only make us look guiltier."
"I'm tired of this," the Joker announces with a roll of his eyes.
Then he attacks.
With astounding skill, he snaps my wrist into a handcuff and attaches it to the bar on the table.
And then he plunges the pencil into my neck.
I scream in shock, aware I have a sharp stem of wood protruding from my throat. I bring my fingers to the wound, and scream even louder. Every muscle in my throat is tensed, burning, raw and painful.
Jonathan has the Joker pinned to the wall in a second, choking him to death.
"I can't afford to lose you to jail," the Joker chokes out, eyes locked on me. "I need you, not-a-doc."
"Jonathan. Jonathan. Let him go!" I say, panicked, aware that Jonathan's beyond listening to reason. I thrash around, finally gaining the sense to hit the panic button beneath the table. "Jonathan, look at me! I need to stop the bleeding."
Amazingly, there's no consistent propulsion of blood consistent with damage to a major vein or artery. In fact, there's an amazing skill to the way the Joker stabbed me with the pencil. But the sight of blood flooding from the wound is enough to snap Jonathan out of trying to kill the Joker.
"It's done now," I say. "Punish him later. Don't let this be for nothing. Because it really freaking hurts," I wince.
Jonathan runs to my side and turns my head, inspecting the damage. He removes his blazer and applies pressure to the wound while I wince, feeling like I'm about to throw up from the sensation.
"You're never seeing daylight again," Jonathan vows to the Joker, his skin paler than I've ever seen it.
An orderly and a nurse rush into the room. The orderly yells when he sees Rachel on the floor, and me handcuffed with a pencil sticking out of my neck.
The nurse passes out, sliding down the doorway.
"We need medical attention," Jonathan tells the orderly. "Now!"
He speaks into his radio. "I need an emergency medical team dispatched to Arkham immediately, code three-four-seven-zero." He switches channel. "All units to my location. Requiring sedation and constant surveillance of dangerous patient. We have a code noir, I repeat, a code noir."
My vision spins as people rush into the room. In the chaos, Jonathan's hands never leave me. The Joker is sedated, three full syringes before his head rolls onto his shoulder and he's taken away.
Jonathan kisses my forehead and the paramedics enter, quick to cuff my arm and move me onto a stretcher.
The paramedic frowns at my blood pressure reading. "Have you eaten today?"
Oh, fuck. I've been so good since being pregnant. But I have to smile guiltily in response to Jonathan's glare.
"Not a bad thing for surgery, mind," the paramedic points out. "Come on, we're getting you to hospital. Do you have a next of kin?" She asks me.
"Yes," Jonathan says sharply. "Me. And I'm not leaving her."
***
"I'm not going under," I tell the surgical team.
The room's white. Clinical. Silent yet noisy, with beeps and monitors and the clatter of surgical instruments.
"Miss Moore, given the—"
"I've read your consent form," I say. "I'm not taking the risk of General Anesthesia to my baby. I'll handle the pain."
The surgeon sighs. "Miss Moore, this is not something you want to be awake for."
Jonathan's voice comes from beside me. "And if you don't respect Sienna's wishes, the consequences are something you won't want to be awake for."
I smile gratefully at Jonathan, wearing surgical scrubs, complete with cap and face mask.
"Mr Crane, need I remind you that legally, you're not supposed to even be here."
"And I'll remind you that I've supplied this hospital with almost every psychiatric intern the past five years," Jonathan says calmly. "Now perform the surgery, or I'll ensure you lose your license for malpractice in the form of standing around talking while Sienna bleeds out on your operating table."
The surgeon gets to work pretty quick after that. He numbs the area, but it only takes the edge off — I bite back a whimper at first, and then a scream, as he pulls out the object and immediately packs the wound full of gauze. It's like a red-hot branding iron has been plunged into my throat, ripped out, and then stuffed with tissues. I can't help the sob that escapes me, and Jonathan hushes me and holds my hand in his gloved one, his latex touch feather light across my face. My vision's blurry through tears, my body shaking. I hold back as much as I can. I don't want them to put me under. Only two things keep me going, stop me from begging for the general anaesthesia after all — the guilt that this is my own doing. The drive to keep my baby safe. Words from the consent form swim through my mind once more — risks of impact on fetal oxygenation. Its not worth the risk. I'm putting our shared body through enough already.
The sutures are a different pain. A welcome relief, and a sharp irritant scratching at my skin. It feels like a lifetime later when the dressing's applied, and everything feels neat and held together.
"You're very lucky," the surgeon tells me. "If it had been any deeper, or even slightly to the left or right..."
"Thank you," I say.
He tells Jonathan, "You can take her home. Tylenol as needed. Bring her straight back if anything changes — new bleeding, changes to pain level, or signs of infection."
We walk to the car in silence. "Are you mad?" I ask Jonathan quietly.
He replies, "You have no idea."