She had finally become his psychiatrist.
After the Joker had gone through thirteen other applicants, that is.
Arkham really had no other choice.
So Harley was chosen as a last resort.
It hadn't been that Jeremiah Arkham thought Harley unqualified for the job, but that the Joker was highly stressful and she was young and still relatively new.
Harley understood. Besides, she had the chance to observe the other thirteen doctors' mistakes.
Presently, she sat with him in room 45A in Maximum Security.
She was excited. Almost too excited. She had to fight to conceal her smile as the guards brought him in.
He looked fascinating, as usual. Light brown-golden locks and brown eyes.
Normally, he scowled at his new psychiatrist. Occasionally, he would even stare them down or fix them with the most terrifying smile he could muster.
However, today his face was set in disbelief. He looked dumb-founded, pissed, and above all, excited as well.
"Good Morning. I'm Doctor Harleen Quinzel and I'm your new psychiatrist," Harley began. She placed her pencil behind her ear and set her note pad on the table in front of her. Her elbows were perched on top of the desk and her hands held her chin up.
"You're the one that stares," He stated grumpily. He couldn't believe his luck. He went through all of the 'conventional' therapists who thought that they could 'cure' his broken mind. Pfft. Now, he was stuck with a loon. He'd rather have the other crack pots back.
"Correct," She said. She tilted her head to the side and looked him up and down.
The Joker noticed her strange head gesture and decided to ignore it for the time being. "So…Arkham really did have no one else to uh, how does he put it? 'Set me up with'?"
Harley let loose a giggle. "That's what he calls it?"
"Uhh…Yeah." He noticed that her hands were placed on her thighs. Today, they were exposed slightly. Her pencil skirt reached just above her knee standing, but it slid up just enough when she sat down for him to see her lovely tan legs. She wasn't wearing panty hose. He liked that, too.
"It sounds like a date," She stated. She giggled again. Instead of a normal, high-pitched girly-laugh, hers was lower. Almost maniacal. He liked it.
"Hah, now I'm on one with you, sweet cheeks," He chirruped. The Joker grinned at the female and rattled the handcuffs that bound his wrists. He noticed her tilt her head again. This time, she bit her bottom lip as she observed him.
"Hey," He said loudly to break her from her thoughts. Shaking that damn tilting head of hers, she looked at him. "Why do you keep doing that?"
"Doing what?" She asked, innocently. Those impossibly huge blue eyes of hers stared at him again. Dammit. She always made him uncomfortable.
"That thing with your head…the tilting," He queried. "Is there something on my face or what?"
She shook her head and said, "No." Her voice was calm and dreamy. As it was in their last two encounters. She was so fucking weird.
She sat back and looked into his brown orbs. Just staring.
He squinted his eyes. "Do you enjoy being creepy?" It was an honest question actually. He didn't know whether she was attempting to intimidate him or if she was just this odd. If the latter, he certainly liked her. She was different.
"Do you enjoy killing people?" She shot back, still in that damn soft voice. "I would suppose so, since you do it so often. So yes, I do enjoy being creepy, to answer your question."
He chewed the inside of his cheek. Touché, pipsqueak.
"You're still weird," He pressed.
The woman shrugged and glanced at her note pad before grunting and throwing it over her shoulder. She didn't need that.
The Joker saw that she would be using an 'unconventional method' to 'cure' him. Well done. She was one of those people. Good. Now, at least he wouldn't be bored.
"Do you like games?" She asked him, removing her pencil from her ear and placing it between her lips.
Oh, how he wanted to be that pencil. "Love them." He watched her chew it; her straight, white, perfect teeth. Of course.
"Okay, well then how about we play a game called 'Tell-and-Tell'?"
"This isn't some kind of ploy to get me to spill about my abusive father, is it?" He asked. Hopefully not or else his expectations of this girl would drop immediately and then he'd just be bored again.
"Uh-uh. We don't even have to breach the subject." She chewed the eraser. "The game is to ask me a question, whatever you want, and I'll answer, no matter what. Then I ask you a question, whatever I want, and you have to answer, no matter what. Got it?" She raised her brows.
He nodded, grinning. Ask her whatever he wants, eh?
"Oh, and we go back and forth. I ask you a question, you answer. You ask me, I answer. Capiche?" She leaned forward in her chair. "I'll go first."
He nodded and leaned forward as well, placing his elbows on the table.
"Where is your favorite place in Gotham?"
He thought for a moment. He didn't really have many favorites of Gotham. "The harbor. Especially at night."
Harley nodded and bit the pencil hard, producing a cracking sound.
"My turn," He said triumphantly, "What's your favorite color?"
"Red," She answered. "My turn. When's your birthday?"
He was almost not going to answer, but then he decided that she wouldn't know if he gave her his real birth date or not. "July fourteenth. When's yours?" He crossed his ankles and drummed his fingers on the table top.
"June seventeenth." She answered. "How old are you?"
At this point, he just didn't care. "Twenty-eight. You?" He figured his age or younger. She couldn't be older than thirty.
"Twenty-seven and one-quarter." She answered. She yawned before asking her next question, "How tall are you?"
"It's in my file." He watched her yawn. For a moment, he thought she was showing boredom. But then he had noticed the small bags under her eyes. Hmm. The little bunny had been staying up late. Possibly going over his file. How intriguing.
"I didn't bother to look. I figured I'd ask you," she said.
"Six feet and two inches. Would you like my shoe size as well?" He asked.
She chuckled and replied, "Why not?"
"Ten and a half. Any other measurements?"
She shook her head, smiling.
"Good. Now that was two question so I get to ask you two."
"What? Unfair! You asked me the second question-"
"Do you have a boyfriend?" The Joker waggled his eyebrows at her. He honestly wanted to know. She better not. He was starting to like this strange woman.
He expected her to blush or to at least stumble on her words, but she answered him, perfectly and calmly, "No."
"Why not? Too busy?" He queried.
"Exactly. And I just haven't felt like it." She honestly wasn't uneasy about the question. She hadn't had a significant other in a long time. The normal man became boring and she found no one else that really 'connected' with her. Not many people understood Harley which led to the reason why she didn't have many friends either.
"Ahh. Don't you miss physical contact?"
"Of course, don't you?" She did so much. Sometimes she would date them just to be touched.
He looked at her darkly, with a smile that made her shiver. "Mmhmm. Verrrry much."
She swallowed and hoped he hadn't seen it. She loved it when he looked at her that way. That smile always achieved in making her flustered.
He, of course, had seen her swallow. Haha. He had made her uncomfortable. Score: Joker 1/ Harley 0
He quickly thought of another question that would make her face turn red. "Miss Quinzel, can I ask you something personal?"
"Haven't you already?" She reasoned. She had an idea of where his question was headed.
He nodded and smacked his lips. "Do you enjoy having sex?"
He had expected her to fluster. To get red. Blush. Stutter. Something.
Instead, she answered the question coolly, "Yes, immensely so." Harley had answered truthfully. Another reason why she dated those boring men. Sometimes she went to those galas and dinners just to sleep with them. Then she'd throw away their numbers and forget about them. Simple.
She smiled devilishly at him. "You thought you could get me on that one, huh? Haha." She chuckled and tilted her head at him again. "Are you always trying to fluster me, Mister J?" He was too cute.
He smiled before answering, "I love seeing your face blushed."
She leaned back and nodded her head at him. "Is that why you kissed me last week?"
He grinned as he remembered. "Ahhh, yes. That. When I kissed you…" It had been wonderful. The Joker hadn't kissed a woman in so long- and Harley had been perfect. Pfft. Everything was perfect about her.
"Yes?"
"You tasted like coffee," He stated, licking his lips in remembrance. He loved that taste. In the asylum they never gave him coffee. He would have to kiss her more often.
"I enjoy coffee," She stated, nodding absentmindedly.
"As much as you enjoy sex?" He was still trying to see that blush. He hadn't even gotten one when he kissed her. She was impossible.
"No, sex is better." She said. "Coffee tastes great, but sex has so much more to offer." She waggled her eyebrows at him this time.
He shifted. Did she just…was that…? Now he was the flustered one. Although, he didn't let it show. Or at least tried to.
She let loose an array of giggles. "Hah! Now who's flustered?" She placed her hand to her lips to stifle some of her escaping laughter. She didn't want him angry, but she hated it when people one-upped her. Especially a mass-murdering psychotic clown. Score: Joker 1/ Harley 1
Instead of lashing out, he clapped his hands together-slowly and mockingly.
"Well done, princess," He said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "You stare at me, creep on me, and you finally get to be my doctor. Then we play the 'question game' and you find some things out about me-and I find things out about you." He raised his brows. "This week it was my age and height, for you it was boyfriends and sex. What's next week, hmm? My awful childhood and name? And after that, hmm..… lemme see…since you're so sexually deprived then why don't we just fuck after talking about my daddy issues?" He wasn't smiling anymore. He was pissed. He had crossed his arms and glared at her. Waiting for an answer, a comeback, anything.
Harley was stunned. His mood had changed so quickly. She had an idea why. She seemed perfect, she knew that. But she wasn't. Maybe on the outside, but inside, she was just like him. Almost a replication. No, next week they would chat about her flaws and his chaos. He apparently needed to hear that.
Getting no reply, he continued on, "You're fucking perfect, huh?" Yepp. She predicted it. "No flaws princess? Well, you definitely have a few. Do you have daddy issues, too? Is that where the sex addiction came from? Huh?" He had begun to stand up and started towards her. "What about your mother? Were you not able to talk to her? Siblings? No?" He cracked his neck and gripped her shoulders. "Well?"
She stared at him again. Those god damn fucking perfect blue eyes of hers. He had had enough.
He pulled her up and, ignoring the hand cuffs, raised his hand to slap her.
She moved so quickly it shocked him. Her tiny hand held his fist in an iron grip. They were frozen.
"I can understand where you are coming from and apparently you do have issues of some sort or else you wouldn't be so outrageously jealous or do 'what you do'. But I will not be beaten by a crazed lunatic or for that matter by anyone. Do you understand me?" Harley seethed, fixing her cerulean orbs on his brown ones. "How dare you touch me? Threaten to beat me? You will not ever do this again or so help me I will not be your doctor and I will make sure you rot because I am trying to help you, god dammit! I know that Iwill never cure you, and neither will anyone else. But that doesn't mean that I'm just going to say, 'Well, fuck it! He's too fucking crazy! Send him to electro shock!' No! I'm still here and I want to talk to you." She shook his shoulder with her other small hand. Those eyes off hers stared at him again. He saw tears glistening in them. She really did mean what she said. This woman was tough, he could tell, and he had a feeling that she didn't cry easy.
She released her hold on him and he dropped his arm. "Now, sit down."
And he did. He sat there and this time, stared at her. He respected her completely now. Shockingly, he trusted her somewhat as well. The Joker rarely trusted others. Only two people in his life had he ever trusted. And they were both dead. Now this little firecracker comes along. No one had ever spoken to him that way before and he admired her for that. He would listen to her.
She was breathing heavy from her rage, and he was stunned.
Her hair was disheveled. Strands hung from her elastic and she took it out. Harley flipped her blonde locks behind her and pushed in her chair. She picked up her fallen note pad and stuck her pencil behind her ear.
"I haven't given up on you, rebel," She said to him in a soft voice. She walked over to where he sat, her heels echoing.
"Next week. Same time, same place." He looked at her and nodded. He was happy.
Then, she did something he didn't expect her to at all.
She kissed him.
Harley tasted like coffee again.
This time their lip lock lasted longer. He was happy about that too.
She then stared at him one last time before walking to the door and pushing the small red button next to it to signal the guards.
The door buzzed opened almost immediately and he watched her go.
He was glad that he finally had someone who could understand his insane, chaotic mind. And that was Harleen Quinzel.