A/N: Too lazy to rant as usual. Hope you enjoy the story.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Batman or DC as a whole. They keep hanging up on me every time I ask for the rights for at least one character. It's pretty rude.

Chapter One: Lucidity

What truly defines insanity?

Is it the madness of a man's actions? Or perhaps simply the presence of the strange voices in his head? Either way, a madman is the most liberated of men; he doesn't have to heed the words of others. He does what he does because these things make sense to no one but himself…

I wasn't always mad. But then again, I wasn't always sane either. I have come to realize that what happened to me – what I am – was not merely because I was a victim of circumstance. It was a choice. I embraced my depraved thoughts because I found comfort in them. Solace. Perhaps I am a coward, but I would make the same choice any day.

There are moments, however, that the voices leave me. They give me a small window of clarity to see the world around me as I once could.

To see the things I have done.

Do not misunderstand, I feel no remorse for any of my actions. I doubt I will ever be capable to. But I want you, dear reader, to understand why. In every moment of clarity I am allowed, I will attempt to write the reasons it all came to this. Even if I am given but one sane moment a year, I will give you my story. My life.

I will tell you why.

I wasn't born with a silver spoon. My family was well off, though. Well, as well off as you could be in Gotham. We had enough to keep ourselves warm and our bellies full, most nights. My siblings and I were raised to respect anyone older than us and to never look down on anyone, wretched as they may be. To be specific, mostly our mother raised us so. To our father, we were mistakes. He had never planned on having Eddie, my brother and the eldest. He was born and raised in Gotham while our mother was of British origin, or at least that was what we assumed due to her accent and manner of speech. We never asked. But it would seem our father couldn't run off and leave our mother; whether due to his conscience or if he was threatened, we never knew. But we were bright enough to never ask. My brother had inherited my mother's dirty blonde hair. I always envied him of this; my sister and I had our father's dark brown hair, a similarity we did not take pride in. Eddie seemed to hate my father the most; he certainly took the most beatings. But never once did Eddie raise his hand against me or our little sister, Hailey. He swore that he wouldn't grow up to become a man like Jack. That was one of two things that I always marveled at: His ability to casually call our father by name. He didn't give the man any respect, nor did the man deserve it. This always started off arguments and eventual thrashings but I never ceased to look up to my brother in admiration.

I was a bright boy, already excelling at the nearby elementary school my parents could afford to send me to. Eddie was more of a worker so he declined to go to school; he believed it was appropriate that there would at least be one doctor in the family. I always felt a glow when he'd lay his hand on my head of auburn hair and say, "It'd be great to have one famous person among the Napiers, wouldn't it, Jackie?"

That was the second thing that would often make me wonder. It was ironic that I was named after the man I loathed. I'd sit and mull over the unfairness of it all day in and day out. As a child of eight years, I barely had better things to grumble about. That is, until five years later when I turned thirteen…

My birthday was not a big affair. It rarely ever was. We'd just bake a little cake if we could spare the flour, gather around and sing birthday songs until I blew out the candle. This time, however, the cake was bigger due to the occasion. I was a teenager now. With a little luck, I could find a job in the bakery down the street or the post office to deliver the morning newspaper. I was anxious to bring in my contribution to the family, no matter how little. My brother worked in a warehouse quite the distance from home. I knew I wouldn't be able to join him there anytime soon. It was hard work and he was older than me by four years.

What made this particular birthday even better was the fact that father was out, as he usually was at late hours. He was likely drinking himself to stupor at The Grape's Helper and gambling away the money for tomorrow's dinner, and we couldn't be any happier. Hailey began the singing (she had a marvelous voice and often rubbed it in) and my mother joined in. Eddie didn't join in at first, smiling nervously while mumbling that his voice would ruin it. After some cajoling on my mother's part (and teasing on Hailey's), however, he heartily joined in.

I would have liked to say that this was my happiest memory. In a way, it was. But it was also the worst.

My father barged in, face flushed red from drink. This was not supposed to happen. Whenever he went drinking, he always got back when we were off to sleep. The grandfather clock indicated that was two hours away.

We expected him to yell in rage as he usually did when he saw us celebrating a birthday. He always claimed it was an unnecessary waste. My mother and Eddie had already moved in front of Hailey and I in order to take the brunt of his rage were he to let loose.

But he didn't.

His eyes held a strange somberness to them. He gazed at all of us, at the cake, the decorations we made from cut up newspaper, and back at us. Slowly, he took a seat at the largest wooden chair in the small room and sighed. He hiccupped; clearly the liquor was not yet gone from his system. But something seemed to weigh on him enough to sober him up. Enough to mutter lowly with closed eyes.

We couldn't hear what he was saying. "What did you say, Jack?" My brother still held no fear in spite of our father's strange behavior. Stranger still, our father did not react as usual to his son calling him so casually. The Napier patriarch repeated himself, but we still couldn't hear him as he was muttering under his breath.

My mother stepped closer to him and, laying a hand on his bowed head, she coaxed him to speak louder. And he did. This time, we all heard him clearly.

"I lost the house, Lora."

From this point on, my life was ruined. My education was a forgotten affair. My hopes for the future, for a normal life; these were things of the past. This was when I truly faced Gotham City. When I knew the city as I never had before, and it knew me in turn. Our father lost the papers to our home in a gambling debt and we were left with nothing but the clothes on our back and the few supplies we could take with us. We were thrown into the street with nowhere to go and no idea what to do. Our neighbors suddenly didn't recognize us and wouldn't let us into any of their homes. I didn't blame them. Gotham isn't known for its generosity. Our father would curse them and spit on their doors, but it didn't change the fact that we were homeless. In retrospect, I suppose it made it worse.

He was known in the neighborhood as a lousy drunk who couldn't keep one job for a month. Our mother helped our finances with her handmade scarves, mittens and wool hats. As Gotham tended to get cold at night, this business was lucrative enough to keep us going. But now she had nothing, no wool, not enough money, and no home. We were depressed. Hailey seemed on the verge of crying most days; she was only nine after all.

Eddie took us to the warehouse he worked at night when no one was up and about. We would sneak inside and find a good spot to rest our heads for the night and then be gone by morning early enough for no one to notice. This worked for the first two weeks since we were kicked out. But then, as all things go, it couldn't last very long.

We were spotted one morning by one of the workers. His reasons for being there so early were quite suspicious as well, but he stated that he had an inkling people would try to steal some of the goods when there was no one guarding them. It wasn't too hard to break into the building and leave everything good as new, he reasoned. We were smart enough to realize the man was a thief, stealing from his own workplace for a little money on the side. But if he brought the matter up to the GCPD, it would be his word against ours, a bunch of homeless people. We weren't willing to risk that. So we kept our mouths shut on the matter and left, as did he. Back on the merciless streets, we searched for a new shelter. The darker elements of Gotham seemed familiar enough with us to know that mugging us would be a waste of effort; we were literally dirt poor. Soon we were eating only one meal a day, if we were fortunate. Our father was a selfish man, another point I might add. Whatever we managed to scrounge up, he would eat the lion's share of it. Which wasn't much though, but still…

We discovered that living under bridges was our best bet at the present. It kept us sheltered from the rain. We weren't the only ones there of course, but everyone kept to themselves and no one bothered the other. Eddie and mother often spoke to each other in hushed whispers when father slept. They would plan where they could likely find food the next day, or if there was a better place to shield us from the rain. Or… what to do about Jack.

It was in one of these situations that I mustered the courage to mutter to Eddie, "Why don't we just leave him?"

Mother heard and, quickly sparing a glance at my father's sleeping form, said, "He is your father, Jackie." Then she muttered under her breath, more to herself than to me, "For better or for worse." Eddie was pleased I seemed to be speaking more. I was always the calm observer in the family. Spoke only when spoken to. This often led to my classmates at school thinking I was an idiot. And I couldn't care less. I never felt the need to prove myself to anyone but my family. The other people in the world were merely additional characters to flesh out my life, nothing more, nothing less. I never told this to my brother of course, he would think it was rather dark for a 'little boy' to think like that. But it was true. No one could help us out of our situation. We only had ourselves. To everyone else, we didn't matter. And they didn't matter to me.

However, Hailey, who we thought to be asleep, sat up from the cold ground and asked a little too loudly, "But why not? He scares me, momma!"

Father stirred and grunted, Hailey's voice almost waking him. Mother shushed her and lulled her back to sleep. But what I (and Hailey) had said didn't leave her mind. Eddie seemed just as contemplative, then he and mother resumed their hushed discussions. I went to sleep then, glad that I had made my point.

I would never have dreamed I would be taken so seriously, so soon.

A/N: First chapter done. This story is a side project I thought about some day and it kept hounding me until I wrote it down. I kept it short 'cause my muse seems to have either been kidnapped or gone on an exceptionally long holiday. In case anyone asks, I'm having serious writer's block for The Power Of Perspective, so, yeah.

As you can see, Jack is quite literate (as obvious from his writing) and may seem OOC. That's because he is. It's his Jack Napier persona, not the Joker. Although I will be introducing the Clown Prince of Crime soon enough…

Hope you guys like it. Reviews are definitely appreciated :)

Rhylan Writer,

*insert badass signature*