Professor Fear (the sequel) - Jonathan Crane

Chapter 38

With finger-crimped hair, Daria rushed into the CBT art therapy room where the male therapist was forming a circle of chairs.
"I was beginning to worry you weren't going to be coming," He beamed in her direction. Daria took a sharp breath, hoping her appearance wasn't as messy as she felt.

"There's no one here yet so I'm glad I'm not technically late,"
"You're lucky that's the case, some patients panic if therapists are late – if the 'peace keeper' is not perfectly on time, then they're not really stable either," He almost quote the last part of his sentence as if to portray their thoughts. Daria refused to believe that a whole group would think such a thing. Nevertheless, she empathised with the paranoid thought.

Sometimes, It can be intense to hear the dark corners of other people's minds. Sometimes Daria felt herself relating to it. Sometimes she felt a draw towards a person's thoughts, other times they were shocking to even her. She wondered to what extent Jonathan actually acted as a Psychiatrist. He seemed so enamoured with the subject and analysis of humans (or mammals as his earliest work discussed). However, since living with him, and especially of late, it had been all about his upcoming plan.

In the beginning, she had been fascinated by his intelligence and loyalty to his interests.
Oh, how she had fallen down the rabbit hole into the wonderous chaos of Scarecrow and the Gotham Rogues.

"Welcome everyone, today we have a guest sitting in to see how we run this group, she will be taking the next session," With the cue of the introduction, Daria smiled at the eight women who were now occupying the chairs and introduced herself.

Jonathan, for the first time since Daria knowing him, finished work before her. He even went home before her, of course for another form of work.

The text message Daria received as her shift reached an end asked that she would refrain from returning home for exactly two hours.

Of course, that meant going over to Almasi's place where the two made simple no-effort Spaghetti Bolognese using store-bought sauce.

"And," Almasi abandoned her post by the stove and jogged to the fridge a meter away, "I have a wine I've not tried before; would you like to be the first to comment?"

"Don't mind if I do," Daria smiled. She went to grab two glasses from the cupboard and poured them both a small amount. Taking the stem of her wine glass between her fingers, she began to gently swirl it and took a short deep breath in before both women started giggling at their lack of knowledge of the subject. Daria took a sip, sighing in subtle delight at the taste.

The pasta and the bottle were finished within the hour.

Almasi excused herself to go use the bathroom. Coincidently, Daria's phone started buzzing.

"Hey Handsom," she dragged on the y of 'Hey'.

"Drinking Ms Morrison? With a companion or alone?" Jonathan mused.

"Friend, at her house,"

"When will you be home?"

"When I'm sober enough to walk home,"

"You're not walking around Gotham at night,,"

"I do it all the ti-,"

"I would ask Ivy to walk you home but she's still unwell," He cut her off. "Eddy will do for now, he'll be at your location shortly,"

"How does he -" The call was traced, duh.

Edward arrived merely three minutes later. It had began to rain heavily outside. Almasi and Daria hugged bye and she ran into the passenger seat of the car which she presumed Edward had stolen.

"Not stolen," he corrected as if her thoughts had been loudly projected. "I have a car which is used for non-villainous purposes,"

"like grocery shopping?" Daria giggled trying to imagine it.

"Ah yes, Jonathan said you'd had a drink," he sighed, yet amused.

The car ride home was quick. It was unusually quiet out on the streets of Gotham. Daria stared out of the window which had water cascading down it.

"Alright Ms Daria, go knock, Jonathan should be near the door for you,"

"Thankss Eddy," she still slurred lightly.
Edward offered her a genuine smile and then sent her out into the rain to knock on Jonathan's door.

He didn't warmly welcome her when she came in. She could tell he felt interrupted but was too tipsy to be sympathetic. His mind was full of ideas and he wanted to be in the basement.