You could run from someone you feared,

you could try to fight someone you hated.

All my reactions were geared toward those kinds of killers-

the monsters, the enemies.

When you loved the one who was killing you, it left you no options.

How could you run,

how could you fight,

when doing so would hurt that beloved one?

If your life was all you had to give your beloved. . .

how could you not give it?

-Breaking Dawn.

We are at the stake.

And bayed about with many enemies.

And some that smile have in their hearts, I fear

Millions of mischiefs.

-Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene I

PART I: WHEN SHE WAS GOOD, SHE WAS VERY, VERY GOOD

"I'm Mike Engle, with Gotham City Tonight."

I straightened in my chair, searching for the remote to turn the volume up in the dark. I'd been sitting on it, of course.

"Bruce Wayne's enthusiasm for charity has made itself apparent again, as this afternoon the billionaire offered Gotham General four point five million dollars to fund its need for new surgical equipment. The hospital has had to have twice the number of doctors, nurses, and surgeons on call in response to the recent multitude of mob shootings."

I tuned Mike out while he droned on and on about Bruce Wayne's kindness of heart. The mob was getting angry, but no authority or politician knew why.

I did. They didn't know that what had been stirring the boys in suits up lately was something more dangerous than they could ever aspire to be, even as a weaponized unit. They hadn't seen it all first hand.

There was never rest for me.. No calming, sane comfort. Only the Joker, and darkness, and my surrender to his chaotic whims.

Angered, madness began to insist, pulling up an image of a young homeless woman cowering in a dim alleyway. Several overturned trash bins displayed their filth behind her, and the sludge had seeped into her hair and clothes. She knelt like a sacrifice before a group of big, frightening-looking men.

"What's your name, doll?" they taunt, closed around her small form in a menacing circle.

"Chelsea," she breathes, most likely wondering if her punishment will prove worse than death.

All of them at once erupt into a chorus of sinister-sounding laughter. "Chelsea," one of the mob repeats, producing a switchblade from somewhere in the depths of his suit. "Chelsea, smile!" The man takes her chin between thumb and forefinger, holding her still as she makes a visible struggle.

I cringed where I lay safe in my apartment, wishing the Joker had come just a few seconds earlier; then my mind wouldn't have been forced to hear Chelsea's screams as the mobster drew her a smile of her own, a Glasgow grin.

But when he did arrive, he hadn't been happy. I winced at that night's memory of two newly created smiles.

These remembrances were not enough to chase away thoughts of my own story. The single candle stretched its tiny beams outward, attempting to fill the room with brightness, but the shadowed corners remained untouched. These were the corners I was most afraid of. The darkest places held him as their companion.

Think of this:

You are eight years old, and you have always hated standing in line at the bank.. You fidget and sigh, gazing a mile up at your father. He smells of liquor per usual, and your mother is pulling her long sleeves down over her arms to hide the bruises. Nice guy he is, he never hits her anywhere that can't be hidden.

But you're eight, and this is a typical day. The whiskey is making Daddy's hands shake something awful, but you're just glad to be in a public place; he never lays a finger on you when other people are there.

Little beknownst to you, your not so quiet world is about to change forever. But what interrupts the uncomfortable silence, what is this thing you have been so long wishing for?

It comes eventually in the form of shouting and loud noises. And there are men with circus masks, men with guns, and everyone in this bank hits the floor. Everyone's smart. Everyone values their life, except you and your parents.
Your father neglects to protect himself because he's had a lot to drink today, and this makes him agitated. He's yelling senselessly at one of the masked men, nonsense about right and wrong, as if he, with the heavy scent of alcohol on his breath, and his beaten wife beside him, might know the difference. Your mother doesn't make herself safe because the man, suddenly hell bent on justice, has shot Daddy, and she's rushing toward him. You never understood why she cared about him, and find yourself wondering idly in your shock why you had never asked.

But you should have. Because years later, you'll find yourself in a situation much the same. And you'll discover that love isn't as easy as it appears to your eight-year-old eyes. Love's a strange thing.

As your mother nears him, another shell tings against the marble. All it takes is one bullet- a neat man, meticulous, if not insane to the core. You make this assessment and begin crying, but quietly; you're nothing if not clever for your age. You know that when an already angry man hears the keening of a sad child, it does not drive him to sympathy. It only encourages an act of violence in order the make the sobbing stop.

The robber steps over your parents' bodies and makes his way to you. Despite his silence, your hear his words in the tilt of his head- Why hello, little girl!

It's then that you realize he's not wearing a mask at all; white make up is smeared all over his face, his eyes are darkened rings, and a red, exaggerated smile is painted across his cheeks. He reminds you of a carnival, a big, twisted guess-who's-who game, but his magic tricks don't seem fun. There is nothing in his eyes. They are absolutely starved of feeling.

He reminds you a little of yourself.

As he pulls back the hammer, you notice that the smile is made of scars; deep, silky-looking gashes of color. You want to touch them, but instead think of the time your father swung the kitchen knife and you tried to duck, and move back the hair that covers the right side of your forehead to show him the ugly gash there.

The clown pauses, and as you study his face, you see that he can be no older than sixteen. Little more than a boy, then. One long finger hovers over the trigger, deciding.

You're braced for the bullet, but it doesn't come; the man seems to be struggling with something at which you can't really guess. But it couldn't be a moral battle, could it? What could he possibly be conflicted about now, after he has just murdered two people in cold blood, and probably many more before that? Here is this little girl with a scar on her forehead, and already she has him wrapped around her finger. Observe love. See through its sweetness to its insanity.

I beg of you.

The rest of the masked men have retreated behind the teller's desks, scrounging for cash, and when he sees that none of them are watching, he places a hand over your mouth so you don't scream, picks you up easily, and carries you out onto the street, where he tosses you in the back seat of a school bus parked nearby. The whole time, you've had your arms locked around his neck, seeking comfort in the warmth of his body. He's handsome under his hurt, even you can see that.

It's a little like hugging the monster under your bed. You know he wasn't born a monster; someone had to make him that way. There was always room for forgiveness.

Everyone has bad days.

You try to keep your sobbing to a minimum, and you can see that he greatly appreciates this. Besides, it's not difficult, after all: how many times have you wished to be someone else entirely, to escape the screaming and the yelling and the beatings every night? And this man, well, he hadn't shot you. He had, in a guilty sort of way, alleviated the problem.

He watches you intently with those night-dark eyes, showing no reaction to your silent tears. If it weren't for the smile, he would have a very serious look on his face.

He studies you, young and vulnerable, as if he sees something he wants in you. And by accident, he likes what he sees. You click into his mind and stay, as does he in yours.

Love and pain.

It seems the two walk hand in hand through darkness.

I'd never resurfaced.

What a dark little thing I had been and what a horrible thing I had become.

I often wondered if it would be any different if the young Joker hadn't decided to pay a visit to the Gotham National Bank that day. If I would have turned out to be any less, or any more, than what I am. To this day I'm certain that my father would have beaten me more slowly, more surely, more painfully than the Joker could ever dream. I surely would have been dead before my sixteenth birthday; all it would take was one wrong blow to end me, and judging by the way it had been going, he would have had a fair many chances at a bull's eye.

Then, the Joker hadn't hit me yet. He had never laid a hand on me. And I knew that he wouldn't, not unless he felt I absolutely deserved it. Sure, he'd yelled, he'd screamed, he'd laughed, he'd threatened. But from the moment I brushed back my hair to show him my own scar, I saw his decision. I knew how he thought.

To him, the rest of the world hadn't been through pain. And they were always doing everything they could to cheat fate. In his eyes, they had to suffer for that. He wanted to show them that it was pointless to try to control things.

He saw that I had already suffered, that there was something alike in us, and he had spared me.

Rather than the terror he inspired in so many of his victims, I remained intrigued from the start.

And I believe he was intrigued by me, also.

Lightly, I traced the scar that had saved my life, studying the scorched bodies behind my eyelids. It was nothing I'd seen, but my psyche insisted. When you know someone well, your mind becomes one with theirs; almost as if, in a way, you are them. This thought didn't belong to me- it was something he would think of. I had no taste for bloodshed.

When the disturbing image finally disappeared, it was replaced with a different picture. My heaviest burden: a secret.

Because I was in love with the man and his scars. I was in so deep I couldn't see the surface.

He had the power to take my life, and he'd lowered his gun. It's not that I saw goodness or mercy in him, or that there ever would be, but he was a catalyst of my fate.

I thought about him slowly on that night, chewed him over in my head as he would a carefully planned murder, but I could never digest.

The face that all hated brought me mingled fear and pleasure. I thought about it long and hard. I considered his evil, and it didn't matter a bit right now- how many lives he'd ended didn't compare to the one he saved, because that life was mine, and I would do anything he requested of me to thank him for it, no matter how ruthless.

He'd raised me, in an odd sort of way. I already knew how to take care of myself, much more than a child my age normally would. I'd had to do it at home, learning everything the hard way (like running with scissors; I had a different scar to show for that one), so this was not much of a change.

But never had I seen him as a father. He was always the man that had saved my life and stolen it, that strangely cuddly closet monster I looked forward to seeing at the end of every day.

He hid me out in various associates' homes, some shadier than others, but there was always somewhat of a meal to be found, always an extra pillow or blanket to be salvaged.

On some nights I sorely missed my mother, hating the Joker for what he had done. But the more I thought it over, the more I realized that she could have saved herself if she so chose, and protecting her abusive husband had been clearly more important than shielding her daughter.

I remember two nights in particular when I missed her most. One was a few short months after the robbery, and the Joker had been late in getting "home". Secretly, I always worried that one day, the law would find a loophole in his planning and catch him out, and he would never come back to me. These worries strengthened when I found myself in a particularly filthy apartment waiting for him, and that day, I was in one of the worst I'd ever seen. I was tucked into a back bedroom, curled up in the corner, sobbing more loudly than I had ever allowed myself. When he finally found me, I feared him. I had never been a bother before now.

"What's up with you, kid?" he asked in a soft voice, crouching down beside me. The day must have gone well; previously when I had shown small signs of sadness, he either ignored me or lashed out. I think he couldn't get his head around the idea that he was actually beginning to care for someone. His mind handled it with vicious mood swings, unable to settle on the correct emotion. I forgave him every quirk and accepted his brokenness as only a child could.

"Nothing." I let out a sob, unable to control myself. Something in the back of my mind screamed a warning, but my own emotions won over. I reached out and took his hand in mine, a warm hand that reminded me of the way he had carried me out of the bank: as if I was his and he had known me all of my life, not as though he had been just about to shoot me and, through some moral fluke, decided better of it. "I keep thinking they got you." My voice was not quiet at all, like most children are when they are sad. It was confident and clear, daring. Even then I was in love. He was so crazy and so beautiful; I had never seen anything like him, not even in my wildest imaginings.

His other hand fell over mine, confusion scrawled across his broad, handsome face. I imagined no one else had ever been concerned for his well-being, and that I was puzzling him as no one had managed to do so before. No witty comment followed. Just silence as I watched his brow furrow. After a moment, an awkward reply was chosen.

"Heh. I guess I should try and get some sleep."

My tears had dried for now, and I sighed. "Yeah. 'Night."

I expected him to seek out another room in the house, but instead he stretched his skinny form out on the floor a few feet away from my corner. "Don't trust the guy that lives here," he mumbled, but I knew he wouldn't have left me here if that had been true.

For a while, I observed him. He lay staring at the ceiling for some time, his hands trapped behind his head, and I watched the rise and fall of his chest until his eyes began to close. Slowly, his breathing steadied, and when I was sure he was asleep, I covered him in the thin blanket he had given me. I sat at his side for hours, memorizing his face, until the sun touched the city skyline and he stirred with the dawn.

The second night I remember almost more vividly than the first, mostly for the terror, and the embarrassment I would endure later on. Not that he would ever bring it up again, but it stuck fast in my memory and wouldn't let go.

This time I'd been hidden in a nicer apartment; the carpet was still white, it was fairly clean, and I took to dozing contentedly on the floor in an upstairs bedroom. Use of the bed always felt wrong to me. . .it seemed exclusively someone else's. The Joker, however, had no problem with this. The world remained his for the taking.

I was twelve. It was a lovely, sunny late afternoon in Gotham, and as I awoke, I stretched like a cat, flexing the strange angles of my growing body. I'd reached that awkward stage where most girls begin to resent the existence of their parents and gain a taste for rebellion. In the boys, this stage never seemed to end.

At least in the boy I knew.

As I stretched, I roused myself out of my sleeping position, sitting up straight and trying to overcome the stiffness that sleeping on the floor often brought.

That was about the time I noticed I was sitting in a small pool of blood. It stained the brilliant white carpet, my yellow dress, and as I'd slept with them to my sides, my hands.

I examined my fingertips in blatant shock. Too scared to move, I stayed where I was, fighting back tears.

Was I dying? How? How could there be so much blood, and yet no pain at all? So many questions circled in my head, but I couldn't bring myself to ask any of them to the empty room.

No one had ever told me anything about it. Later, I would thank my parents profoundly for teaching me so much: their lack of support had turned my monthly bleeding into a horror show.

I sat shaking on the floor for perhaps another ten minutes. If there was a God, he must have favored me, because the Joker came back early that day, deciding to check on me before heading out to see if there was any more havoc he could wreak upon Gotham's unsuspecting citizens. You had to love the guy; he was pretty much the laughing stock of his criminal company by now. The idea that the city's most wanted super-villain had a hindrance of any sort puzzled them.

When he saw me shaking in the corner, my red palms extended in front of me, I don't think it registered at first. He just stared, his head cocked to one side, arms hanging limply at his hips.

"What the hell, Harleen?"

My voice shook. "I'm sorry," I said, gazing up at him with pleading eyes. "Am I dying?"

He let out a small groan when he saw the carpeting; something had clicked.

"Fuck." I watched as his tongue flicked out of his mouth, watched as he grimaced at me. I found this odd, sure he had seen so much blood before. "You don't know what's going on, do you?"

At the sound of his voice, a sudden wave of nausea had me doubling over. My stomach felt like it had turned against me, twisting, pulling, cramping.

"Why did I ever?" he muttered to himself, rolling up his sleeves and bending to pick me up. I was a little heavier than the last time he had done this, so he stumbled as he straightened. The blood was on his arms, now, too, and I saw him noticeably flinch at the feeling of it.

"Is there something wrong with my blood?" I asked him curiously, feeling somewhat offended. As a rule, the Joker enjoyed the sight of blood, he didn't flinch away from it.

"Not your blood, Harley. . ..this blood," he explained shortly. I could have sworn I saw crimson flush his pale cheeks. Ashamed, I refrained from touching him as much as I could, but it was hard to stop the flow of questions.

"You hate me now, don't you?"

He stared straight ahead, concentrating on keeping his footing on the staircase, and took a long time answering.

"I think I hate everything, kid. But I hate you a little less."

I smiled. In a twisted sort of way, that was enough.

Thankfully, the wife of his acquaintance was downstairs, standing in the sunlit kitchen and washing dishes. It was all very out of place, but some of the men who worked for him had homes just like this. You really never know what awful secrets people are hiding until you're sleeping in their guest bedrooms all day long.

"God in Heaven, what did you do to the poor child?" She was a mildly pretty African American woman that seemed to enjoy hearing herself speak. I warmed to her personality very quickly.

"Very funny, Lucinda. Y'know, if I had two free hands right now, you might, uh, be kissing my favorite knife."

Any other time, his voice in my ear would have sounded wonderful, but instead it accelerated my heartbeat, bringing on another wave of nausea with the excitement. Lucinda saw me holding my stomach, and instead of reacting the way he had, she began to laugh, glancing back and forth between the both of us like there was something incredibly funny happening.

"You sure is lucky I'm here, Mistah J, or you woulda had to tell a true life story, for once. Bring her into the washroom and I'll get her cleaned up." She paused for a moment, considering. "Looks as if the joke's on you this time."

Grumbling, he set me down in a small, cheery room with flowered wallpaper, and I looked down at the floor to hide my shame. There was a sickening red trail leading from underneath my dress to my ankle.

"Don't move, kid. You'll bleed yourself dry and then Lucinda here will have to scrub the floor twice."

"Get outta here," she frowned at him. "The poor thing's already scared enough."

"Relax," he assured her. He was rinsing my blood from his hands in the sink, smoothing back his hair and checking himself out in the mirror. I sensed this was a daily routine after returning from a day's work. My stomach gave another involuntary lurch. "I've already done this once today. I'm practically a pro at it."

When he was done, he winked in my direction and then kicked the door closed behind him.

One word shook me out of the memory:

"Up next: can Gotham sleep sage? We ask citizens whether they believe the Batman's vigilante schemes make them feel secure, or whether they think they are more harm than help."

This was the segment I'd been looking for. Anything that might contain information about. . .

Harley, don't you realize that when he wants you for a job he'll call?

But why? I shook my head absentmindedly at the thought. He'd take me on bank robberies, but wouldn't let me anywhere near the mob or Batman. Did he want all the glory of bringing down the Bat to himself?

Or, a small voice of reason suggested, he's just concerned for your safety.

You just miss hearing his voice.

My twenty-year-old self stirred in my chair, memories on the verge of morphing into dreams. His laugh began again in my head- first slow, then furious and maniacal. It was so real, so startling, that I could believe he was in the room.

This thought snapped me out of my reverie.

Something infuriating had changed here. And I was not imagining that bone-chilling laugh.

My cheeks flushed scarlet as I sat straight up in the recliner, covering my skimpy grey nightgown with a blanket.

"Don't you ever knock?" I made an effort to sound ice cool and slightly annoyed. This proved difficult, since my mood at the moment was far from either. I could only hope he resigned the pink of my cheeks to the sweltering heat, or to makeup I'd forgotten to remove.

"Now, Harley, you know me too well for that," he offered, stepping halfway into the light. "Not a wise thought."

"Don't you ever go away?" In the next year after that little incident, I'd distanced myself from him, refusing help for anything, and this way I'd grown into a passable woman. By the time I was fifteen, I had almost perfected the art of remaining collected in his presence, but when he took me by surprise, and especially at a time like this, the effort proved useless. It was a daring thing to look into those dark eyes, feeling what I did, and lie. Because that was our game- to hide from each other.

When he didn't answer, I pulled the blanket tighter around me. "What do you want?" I asked, my voice wavering slightly.

"You look nervous." He offered me a smile, vacating his corner to stand near the arm of my chair.

"I wasn't expecting you so late." There it was: that angry edge of disapproval I had spent so long working on. It made me feel a little more comfortable.

He thought before he spoke, his liquid gaze directed toward the ceiling, tongue flicking in and out of his mouth like a serpent tasting the air. A very attractive serpent. I felt a slow burn begin inside me, and my face twisted in agony. "Actually," he voiced, ". . . .I just want to use your shower."

The burn was all over now, consuming from the inside out. "You think you'd get a place of your own, instead of giving me one."

"We've been through this, dear heart. I am the most wanted man in this city. It would be simp-ly impossible for me to stay in one place for long."

"Whatever. . .fine. Help yourself." This was not the smartest adage to grant a man like the Joker. He would take heaping portions of the thing he wanted regardless, but should one really feed the monster? I feigned disinterest at his request.

The next half hour proved to be agonizing. My mind took a turn from the early visions of carnage into something more torturous; his wet skin beneath my hands, imagined his makeup running in rivulets down his face, the shape of his full lips, his perfect fingers combing through his curly, dirty-blonde hair. Twice I almost got up, and twice I forced myself back down.

I listened to the sound of water running, clenching my teeth together, biting my tongue and biting back laughter. I'd heard his laugh so often that when I was in pain, it was the first reaction I had. To giggle. If I went to him now, I was fairly certain he would take me.

My only concern was how much of me there would be left after he'd had his fill. There was no such thing as love to him- but maybe it was because he'd never been shown love. No one but me was crazy enough to love him.

I gripped the arms of the chair until the effort proved painful, dug my nails into the leather until they bled.

"It's going to be a bloodbath," I whispered, but in the throes of unconsciousness, I never saw him leave.

In the morning I awoke fumbling for my cell as its shrill alarm throbbed in my head. The text showed a time and an address.

"Why didn't you just tell me last night?" I grumbled while I took a shower, much more irked that I'd missed his departure than his message. I rarely saw him anymore.

My mind chased itself in circles as it registered the fact that he'd been the last one standing in this room, and I cut the relaxation time short in order to preserve what little sanity I retained. If he had planned to drive me out of my wits, it wasn't going to be in the way he'd intended.

I found it difficult to focus, and I needed all of my mind, all of my body to concentrate. His plans didn't come as naturally to me as they did to the others- I was smart, but failed to see the funny side behind most of the cruelty. I did what I did only in my twisted gratitude for him, my blind devotion, my senseless love.

And therein lie the punch line: all of this made me entirely more insane than him.

There is nothing crazier, nothing stranger than love.

Afterwards I left my apartment, locking the door behind me, an action of habit I found amusing; anything one really had to worry about in this city was unlikely to be discouraged by a lock.

Casually, I approached the yellow bus parked across the street, shivering at a memory, and boarded it. Another common, strange courtesy. Everyone else drove to meet here, hiding cars on different streets so as not to warrant any suspicion, while I had only to walk a mere twenty feet from my door to get where I was going. I don't even think he was conscious of his caring; he had everyone convinced that this was only for convenience's sake. We had to meet somewhere, so why not here?

Unfortunately enough for me, all twenty men sat with masks in their lap, meaning I had to avoid seeking out his face. It was due more the fact that I found it nearly impossible to look him in the eye after last night. Something had changed between us, I was certain, and this made me unsure whether it was for the better.

Sensing his presence, I tried to pick a seat in the back, but he was too quick. He grabbed my arm as I walked past and roughly pulled me down next to him.

"Good morning, Harleen." He fixed me with a double smile and a steady gaze, and my insides clenched with fear, nausea, and something that could only politely be called animal attraction. It was torturous, this inability to hide my feelings. I wondered idly if I would explode from the stress.

"Wow," I mumbled under my breath, thinking aloud. He shot me a questioning look, one eyebrow arched through his makeup.

Awkwardly, I fished for a cover. "It's just that I've never seen you so clean!" It was true. His hair was more blond tinted than green, his eyes brighter, and I was sure his skin clearer underneath the makeup.

"Very funny, dear." He shot a glance into his lap, where his hand was folded tightly around his favorite knife, and I saw his knuckles pale with the firmness of his grasp.

"You smell like cherries," I prodded further, feigning lightheartedness.

A couple men in the seat across from us began to chuckle; his features tightened in stress, and I heard one of his knuckles pop with the force of gripping the handle.

Before I realized what was happening, he reached over with his free hand and pulled my fingers into his grasp. His hands were warm, and I suffered quietly while he held my gaze.

"I forgot to thank you for your hospitality." His voice was on the edge of breaking into a laugh. "Where have my manners gone?"

"Let go," I whispered viciously. Could he see the hurt, the longing, the embarrassment in my eyes? I could only hope he wasn't taking it the wrong way, interpreting my love for that cold fear his victims experienced.

"What's the magic word, Harley?" he asked, giggling at my obvious discomfort. It was a rare thing that he caught me off guard.

"Let go of me, goddamnit," I hissed, panic flooding my expression. But it only served to excite him more.

He pressed the tip of the blade to my fingertip; my nerve endings seemed to flinch with anticipation. "Fine, have it your way," he surrendered, and slowly twisted the sharp blade until I grimaced in pain.

Something had definitely changed. As I yanked my hand away from him, staring in disbelief at the bubble of blood that rose from my fingertip, I wondered what kind of hell on earth I was trapped in. What must I have done in a past life to deserve this torture? I knew I could ask no mercy from a kind God. The Joker had just proved that He didn't exist.

A shocked groan forced its way from my throat, and I watched the crimson life begin to trickle down my finger. One second later, his hand was wrapped around my wrist again. He drew the wound to his lips, lapping up the blood like a sharp-toothed kitten would a saucer of milk.

My heart screamed questions at him. I'd gone from hurt and shocked to completely infatuated in the space of ten seconds. Someone who could do this to me must be a truly dangerous person.

I'd never seen him in this light. That haunting, possessive look in his eyes frightened me into a sort of awed silence.

"Lesson number one, Harley," he giggled, his tongue flicking out to catch a drop he'd missed on his lower lip. "Always give 'em a show- but never forget to destroy the evidence."

And he stood, hopping over my lap into the aisle while I sat motionless, staring.

I hadn't realized the bus had stopped.

As robberies go, this wasn't the most exciting of days. We were in and out within the hour, having made off with close to seventy million dollars (which none of us needed). It wasn't about the money. It was about sending a message.

Everything burns.

Life is funny in that way: we think we have everything managed. We think we can control things, make some sense out of the madness. But it's not meant to be that way. Nothing good ever stays. We scheme, we make plans, we live our lives, and when it's our time, we're gone. And nothing, in the big picture, is different from our being here. Our plans bear no fruit.

All it takes is one bad day.

"We just do things," he'd told me. "Because. There's no purpose. There's no nothing. Life is crazy. . .like you and me."

If I thought too much about it, it made no sense; therefore, I had a habit of shutting off all emotional connections while the crime was being committed. I think part of me loved that delicious thought, that combination of our names as a duo, as a pair. An inseparable unit.

I sat alone in my empty apartment that evening and remembered just how hard it had been to go through with the day. It had been one of those occasions he'd chosen to show off a bit, to make himself known, and there had been plenty of theatrics to accompany this mood. He struck something in me when he asserted himself in this way. . .like he was running a business, and his business was chaos. I liked a man in charge, since I had never seen my father do so honorably, with that twisted sense of valor the Joker was so famous for.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to reopen my heart and mind after this change. The puncture wound in my fingertip throbbed and stung: I found the funny side of his little maneuver after attempting feebly to wrap a Band-Aid around the cut. There was no way I could cover it comfortably.

Looks like the joke's back on you, Harl.

For a while I sat curled in my favorite chair, examining my finger and trying to unwind. My thoughts, if they could be put into words, were a little something like a psychotic diary entry.

He's hardly ever touched me before I can't believe it his hands it was only a tiny cut why does it hurt so much he should have killed me he could have why didn't he I'm such a fool I'm such a joke oh God the look in his eyes as he carved my skin a first kiss his first kiss it tasted like blood he loves me he's in love with me I think he always has been in his sick little way dangerously in love.

Dangerous.

"Don't think too hard, Harley. You're head might just, uh. . ."

I whirled, almost tipping the chair backward. He was standing over my shoulder, watching me contentedly. Probably had been the whole time.

"Explode? Wow, uh. . .nice little. . .reaction, there. If you'd give me another minute, I bet my sudden appearance could make you die. Not that I'm aiming for that, no. No, not. . .at all." He flashed me a sudden grin. "Surprise!"

What do you want from me? I wanted to say, but since I had nothing to give him, I didn't ask. Suddenly the small wound on my finger seemed terribly interesting. "Do you remember that day you came home and found me sitting in a puddle of blood?" I said instead, not looking at him, studying his kiss like a promise. He didn't reply, and I hadn't expected him to. "That's what I was thinking about last night when you came here."

His silence was unnerving.

"I should have been wondering what kind of man would tell a scared little girl she was bleeding to death when she wasn't. But I didn't wonder that. I was just thankful you didn't leave me on the floor."

"You know what your problem is, Harl? You need to lighten up a little. Smile every once in awhile."

"I wasn't done," I objected crossly. "And then there was that night you came back and I was crying-"
"There weren't a lot of those nights. You were a strong little girl, which is one of the reasons you're alive today."

I decided to ignore that comment. "So you remember which one, then? Tell me."

He conspicuously crossed to the kitchen; I heard him set something down on the table; then followed the sound of glasses clinking.

"Don't mess with my shit!" I called, reaching for the lever on the recliner and cussing as I stumbled through the dark. My hands felt for a light switch, and I squinted in the brightness. "The hell are you doing, J?"

"You and I are going to celebrate," he explained grandly. I watched him pour a glass of merlot with my jaw unhinged.

"Celebrate? What?" What in this world could there possibly be to rejoice for? I felt the dark circles under my eyes become heavier.

"Our, uh. . .victory." There was the taste of a lie.

I eyed him suspiciously.

"Now now now, Harleen. You know I don't play that way!" He handed me a glass. "Cheers, beaut-iful. You're the best sidekick a homicidal maniac ever had."

I glanced down as he clinked our glasses together, realizing I was wearing a shameful red variation of last night's sleepwear. "You're going to hell," I muttered, taking a gulp of wine and storming angrily back into the living room.

"Nobody can ever say I didn't have fun getting there." He'd brought the bottle in with him. I eyed the white carpet with a certain disdain.

"You're avoiding my question," I pointed out, resting my back against the couch arm so I could face him, one leg tucked underneath me and the other bent straight out. It was going to be a leggy exit.

"Oh, yes." He took a seat next to me. I found it funny that we were both leaving lipstick marks on the glass. "That night. Suppose you missed your mommy?"

"Wrong. I missed you." I reached to refill my glass, feeling a little more open to telling him things. "Remember me saying that? And then you slept in the room with me? That was. . . oddly sweet."

"I slept in the room because the guy who lived there was a real nut job, and I wanted to be as far away from him as humanly possible."

"And you were protecting me."

"You could've taken care of yourself."

"I was ten."

"Well, you survived that long with your father breaking bottles over your head whenever it so puh-leased him. I had you figured for a diehard."

"True. But I wouldn't have lived much longer if you hadn't have-"

What? Slaughtered your family like pigs?

The answer hung in the air, but he didn't say it. I started drinking a little faster. The buzz softened the edges, made the fact that I loved him so much not feel like it cut as deep as it really did.

"I don't know how long I can stand this." Third glass. The drink kept going down faster with every sip.

"Heh?"

"Don't know. This. You know what I'm talking about."

He eyed my bare leg with a spark in his eye.

"All I know is you're definitely not as drunk as I'm planning on getting! I have to sincerely thank you for this, you know that? I don't know how I would have stood sitting here all night, listening to you laughing in my head. . ." Sharp tears stung my eyes. I frowned as he tried to snatch the glass from me.

"You're one of those bitter drunks, aren't you?" This time he looked at my face, and I found myself wondering why I couldn't see any humor in his expression. "And a lightweight, I see. You're too much fun, Harley."

I closed my mouth. A tear fell into the almost-empty glass, prolonging the silence for another awkward beat. It hurt so much that I'd been rendered speechless.

The palm of his hand found my bare leg, the part of me most within reach. As much as I wanted to cringe away, as much as I wanted to move closer, I stayed perfectly still. A quiet sob fought its way out from somewhere deep inside me.

He licked his lips, considering my behavior. "It isn't just the wine, is it? No, no, it's a little something. . .more."

A shiver started in my muscles as his warm fingers traced my skin. "Oh, God," I choked, the glass slipping from my hand and spilling the deep red drink all over the floor. He could hear my heartbeat, I was sure of it, so loud and painful in my chest. The damn thing would give me away.

His movements were as smooth and quick as lightning. I thought he had been lunging for my throat, but his hands forced my shoulders down to the hard arm of the couch, his weight covering me along with his soft, full lips. I grimaced at the taste of his makeup mixed with the seductive shading of the alcohol, but it was him, and I could not remember how long I'd wanted this- probably since the night when I had watched him as he slept. The feeling had always been there, changing with the years as I'd grown into a woman; at first, his company was enough to satisfy me, but now, it only tortured.

He had me in a strong hold, his hands squeezing my wrists, and pinned me forcefully where I lay. I could feel bruises forming where my pulse beat underneath those two tender, thinly-protected places.

But, as sadistic as it sounds, nothing could out-rule the feeling of his lips on mine, his tongue flicking against my teeth; that taste brought clarity to the night- I thought my heart would burst from my chest. The world spun. Every sound of the city below reached my ears in an unreal, explicit way – car horns below, the rush of traffic in the dark, vagrants settling down on a corner until morning. The moment he loosened his hold, I struggled against him, the shock of his kiss having startled my tears away.

"You've been waiting for this for a long time, haven't you? Haven't you?" I wished then that he knew how to translate his emotions into something other than violence. This was good, I felt sure of it. But all the same, it came across as anger.

"Just about as long as you've been waiting for it," I countered softly, drawing my hands back to my sides while I had him distracted.

A smile tugged at his lips. The makeup had worn into itself through the day, cracking so it looked almost natural, fit to his face. "Well. You've always been able to see right through me, Harl."

In a sudden rush of heat, my insides began to melt into a pool of hot liquid, and I sighed uncomfortably at the change. His half-smile blossomed into a full-fledged grin. "And. . .the other way around. Ta da! Tonight's magic trick. Can't you feel it?"

Embarrassed, I struggled to free myself from the cave his body made over me. He held me down. My body kept melting, more ready to let him make his home inside me than my mind would ever be. "You're not going to rape me," I said. It wasn't a question; more of a startling accusation.

"No, you're right, no I'm not. Wanna know why?" He leaned in close, breathing the answer into my ear. "They have this little, uh, thing they say, about the willing."

"What makes you think-"

As if he knew this was a waste of breath, he pulled me roughly to him midsentence. . .not so much that it hurt me in any physical way. But I felt that stab of pain in my heart simply from holding it back so long, and I knew it ached worse than any beating he could dish out.

His lips were my lips, and his scars were my scars, and as he pulled away to look at me with midnight eyes, I traced his permanent grin with two shaking fingertips. "I can't breathe," I said, and it wasn't because of his weight compressing the air from my lungs, holding them two starving prisoners.

I watched my trembling hands begin to slowly unbutton the front of his green vest. "Promise me one thing," I said, and it fell on my ears as a plea.

"Hm?"

"Promise me that I'll live through this."

He cocked his head to one side like a curious dog. "I can't promise you anything, kiddo. Cuz then I'd have to keep it. I'm a man of my woorrrd. And you're so. . ." His hand cupped the side of my face, his fingernails curving into my skin, digging in farther as they trailed toward my exposed neck. Soon they would draw blood. "Harley. You little punkish minion o' mine." An eerie giggle filled the silence, and I shivered beneath his stare.

He must have seen the effect he had on me; either absolutely nothing escaped his watchful eye, or I was being careless again.

"Now now, it's just a little game. No reason to be afraid."

For a moment, I didn't care about his motivations. I couldn't even stop to ponder whether he was telling the truth or not, whether he was after flesh or soul, or some strange combination of both.

But I have reason to believe that he did try not to kill me. Something inside him must have wanted badly to keep me alive, to see me still breathing after he had taken everything he wanted. It was why I asked him that bizarre question, for I knew that he cared much more than it seemed he did. And I was never quite sure how his actions would interpret his emotions.

So in short, what I was expecting was a severe beating. And it turned out to be just what I received.

By the time he'd finished talking, every button on him was undone except one. My fingers hovered indecisively over the button in question, whilst the rest of my body screamed consent.

"And what if I choose not to play the game?"

I tried to toy with him, to make it seem as if I had some advantage, but we both knew I had none. I could refuse him if I wished and he would not lay a hand on me as long as I lived; he was too honorable for that. A better class of criminal. But he would surely make the rest of my life hell if I did not go through with it. In his eyes, I had already teased him long enough.

"Sweetheart! Don't waste your time denying truths. Haven't I taught you anything?"

"The only thing you've ever taught me is how nothing in this world matters." Daringly I stared into those eyes like inkwells, and for the first time I saw something in them. It was buried deep beneath the surface, but it was all for me. Me, the only person he had ever hated just a little less than everyone else, and it was surely enough to show he cared. "But you matter to me. It's funny, isn't it?"

His unbuttoned shirts fell to the floor, a heap of useless cloth. The combination of his bare skin and his made up face should have looked silly, but as with everything concerning him, the sight proved itself oddly attractive. "Ooooh, you shouldn't have said that! Listen- now I have the power to break you. But I have a feeling that I always have." He punctuated his words by shaking me like a ragdoll.

In the silence, I tried to remember to breathe.

"Always, always, always. . ." he chanted quietly. It made me want to cry, as if he were taunting our pain, and I stopped him the only way that seemed to make sense at the time- I pulled him under in a furious kiss, my hands roaming where they pleased, aware that everywhere his lips touched my skin, they left a smear of red and white paint.

Later, I would not be able to distinguish between the blood and the lipstick. I would also realize that by stopping him with that kiss, I had fallen right into his trap. Of course. . .just what he wanted. He knew how to manipulate me like no other, but it didn't matter. He was my whole world. There was nothing else to live for but his sick pleasure.

Maybe I had known that the entire time, somewhere deep inside me, and that was why hiding it had been so hard all these years. My feeble attempt at self-preservation wasn't what fate had had in store. It felt a lot like swimming upstream against the current, with no real destination to reach, no real goal to attain.

"Silly Harley," he murmured as my shaking fingers undid that last button. "I don't wanna kill you! What would I do without you?. . . C'mere, look at me." His tongue flicked out of his mouth again, this time slowly tracing his silky scars. A frustrated, pathetic whimper escaped my lips unchecked; I knew that I could no longer deny him the slightest thing. Whatever he wanted from me, it had always been his. "You. . .complete. . .me."

He pulled me under, into that black well that was his body, and held me prisoner there. I should have said no, but my heart still beat a little out of rhythm in my chest at the thought of it. I should have denied him and taken whatever punishment he chose for me, but I didn't.

Looking back on it now, I suppose that I would have suffered just as equally if he hadn't broken me that night. I won't deny it- at that moment, the ruining of Harleen Quinzel seemed a delicious idea, even to me, though by the time it was over he'd morphed me into someone I wasn't sure I wanted to become.

And just how did he break that wall that I'd so carefully built? How did he get into my mind and take insufferable control of my entire being?

Well,

think about him.

Explosives, of course.

There's something in the way a person makes love to you that explains their personality completely. The Joker proved no different, in this case, than any other man.

After the last button had been successfully undone by my obliging hand, he took the liberty of sliding the nightgown off over my head in one swift movement. It happened so fast that I had no time to be embarrassed, to worry about the way my body appeared to him, and in any case, it wouldn't have mattered. He flashed me the widest smile I think I have ever seen on him, his eyes wandering up and down my pale frame. It was enough to ease any preconceived fears I had on the subject.

My control floundered completely as he pressed against me, his hardness a vivid presence against my thigh, his hand sliding down to find a desirable spot in between my legs. I whimpered as he touched me there, gasped as two of his fingers located a place they felt they were welcome, and winced because it hurt, and he wouldn't slow down for the world.

The Joker is very good at sensing when another human being is in pain, especially when he is the cause of it. I couldn't hide the fact that he was practically carving out my insides, that I felt it, but it hardly felt good. When he saw this, his curled his fingers ever so slightly into one side, and then. . .

Well, then I didn't care that I was probably bleeding. He chuckled as I made the appropriate reaction, groping at his belt loops and attempting to force his pants down over his hips without much luck. As this registered, he seemed to get a kick out of the realization that if anyone was going to be forceful here, it was him.

"Oh, Harley. You sure amuse me," he chuckled. At this point, I think he paused for effect, looking at me as if he were anticipating something. It worked; I took to gaping with a passion at him. Again, his twisted beauty astonished me. How could someone so inherently warped attract me like this? How did his features please me so thoroughly that it actually hurt to look at him? It was a question that I had no time to answer.

"Now, since I'm faaaairly sure this is the first time you have ever-" he inserted air quotes here, as if he weren't sexually starved by now, as if it were all just good fun- "'done it', and since I'm such a nice guy, I'm going to have to warn you that this might hurt. . . just a teeny bit. A lot."

I don't remember much after this- only that he made good on his fair warning. Angled perfectly, he forced himself into me so hard that red spots burst before my eyes, and by his second eager thrust I was sure I felt something break inside me.

A horrible, agonizing sound filled the silence. It took me a few moments to recognize it.

It was me. Me making that awful noise.

But if he had wanted to stop at this point, I knew that he couldn't; naturally, other people's pain remained his pleasure. And while he was pleasurably causing me pain, I almost couldn't blame him for thinking that I enjoyed it, or for delighting in my brilliant caterwauling. The sounds of torture probably fell on his ears like music.

"Stop it, please, STOP IT!" I yelled, tears streaming down my face. My fingernails dug eight bloody half moons into the tender skin of his back. I tried desperately to maintain consciousness, but periodically, blackness filled my mind.

In one of my conscious moments, the glimmer of a blade flashed before my eyes; somehow, he had palmed his favorite knife from his suit pocket. "Harley," he growled at me, taking tiny nicks out of my flesh, little bites of hell in my holocaust.

Go away, I sobbed at him from the corner of my mind to which I had retreated. I wished I had never known him, had never invited his company. Just let me die. Just let it be over soon.

I let my body fall slack in his arms, thinking he couldn't possibly keep going if he knew he had knocked me out, but I was horribly wrong. Whichever hand he'd raised to backhand me made vicious contact with the side of my face, and I felt it bruise immediately.

You can't do this to me. I love you! I thought, but nothing made sense anymore. Not space or time- nor could I find a reason for life. Nothing. My sanity snapped with this one false rationalization, and I was glad for it. It lessened the pain.

I'm not quite sure what made him realize exactly what he had been doing to me, but whatever it was, I am alive today because of it. That mad light in his eyes softened, warmed, made them seem almost brown. "Harleen," he breathed, blissfully slowing his movement. "Why so serious?"

Now I could look at him again, could study him as the agony subsided; perhaps I'd already forgotten how much he'd hurt me. After I was broken, details like that seemed to escape my mind, irrelevant to the strength of my insane devotion.

Even weak and beaten, a grin twitched at the edge of my mouth. "I know how to make some smiles," I coaxed after wincing obviously. My whole body felt a bruise and an open wound. "But you gotta. . .oww. . .but you gotta take it easy, alright?"

His own body began to shake with the effort of keeping still. I was so lost in him I barely even noticed. The way his hair fell over his face as he hovered over me, the grunge of him, the sweat of him, the heat of him. It was enough to die for.

"What's the magic word, Harley?" he said in response. I recalled him saying this on the bus, when my punishment was only a prick of the finger. What had happened, between then and now?

"Please," I whispered feebly, knowing I had learned my lesson.

"Good, good, good girl." He slid his hips back, and I actually sighed in contentment. The pain was beginning to subside a bit, enough so that I could feel every part of my body clearly. It's not so bad, I kept telling myself. He's still here. Everything is okay.

There was that handsome, double smile lingering above me, and his fingers knotted in my hair, pulling gently. The devil had left for now, and the angel in his place wanted to love me. I could only let him.

"Please," I repeated again, my voice coming in sharp gasps.

"Please wha-t?" he teased. My lips found his neck, and I felt his rhythm increase, the sounds of pleasure I made falling muffled against his skin.

A pathetic whimper caught itself there, held in suspension between his throat and his shoulder blade. There wasn't a possible way to answer his jesting inquiry. There wasn't a word for how much I wanted him.

Every tiny little sound I made drove him faster, harder, until the pain he caused began to feel even more wonderful than it hurt. I wrapped my legs tighter around his waist, knowing how close he was to the edge, and how little it would take to throw him over. His lips located mine again, searching, devouring. I'd look back on this moment later in life and a sadness for which I had no name would fill me. This was his love, the tenderness he could show. The disappointing part proved to be how seldom he chose to portray it.

Soon the friction, the space he filled inside me, became too much to handle. His one moment of weakness, his absolute gentle yearning, had made life, the moment explosively sweeter. I trembled violently beneath him, and when he saw what he'd done, he made a sound that both delighted and chilled me to the bone. A moan and a giggle, a dark carnival pet growling in its cage.

"Oh, shh-shh-shh-shh-shh. It's alright." Breathing heavily, but still more in control than I was, he held his hands over my body, trying to get me to settle down. "My, are we sensitive!"

"Fuck!" I struggled to pull in a breath. There were my hands, my arms, my legs, my eyes, my teeth. I'd found them again. As the immense pleasure ebbed away, I noticed that everything stung, everything ached.

He flopped down beside me as best as he could in the limited space, his chest heaving. Really, I wondered, how long would he be here? When the wounds he'd inflicted had healed, how much more time would it take to heal on the inside?

I lay there thinking a long time, listening to the comforting sound of his breath until it evened out, until I knew he slept and was no longer burdened with any thought of me. To him, no situation existed, nothing to puzzle through. Even I, as in love as I was, could see that. There might have been some strange part of him which screamed affection toward me, but it made no difference; my entire being yearned for his attention. Every cell. It didn't matter if he cared a little. I was made of this caring.

He couldn't love me wholeheartedly, because it wasn't in his nature. All I could do was love him.

I drifted off to sleep beside him, content for the moment, happy that he was there, happy that I was still alive. . . no matter how broken.

"Two men entered and I thought I was dreaming.
I heard the sounds of muffled laughter, and expected the door to slam off the hinges.
The dark initiates my fear and I tell myself nothing can hurt me.
Nothing can hurt me.
The blanket weighs 300 pounds, pinning me on my stomach.
Although my eyes are open, I see nothing but a spiraling glow that radiates from the alarm clock on the night stand.
Hands are gripping me.
The sheets are twisted.
I'm suffocating, I smell nail polish.
I picture my mother out in the garden on a spring day planting new strawberry seeds. The earth aroma as she turns the soil lingers.
I imagine my life as a princess.
Nothing can hurt me.
Nothing can hurt me.
It's 5:47 a.m. and the sun looks as if it's about to defeat the night sky.
A battle between good and evil that rages on through the centuries unnoticed.
My night gown is tangled above my hips.
I went to sleep with panties on and I smell blood.
My breasts are exposed and sore. One of them has bite marks.
Blinding light from the bathroom crushes my eyes.
I try to stand up and the weight of the world buckles my knees.
Nothing can hurt me.
Nothing can hurt me.
The dawn breaks and this veil of secrecy I carry around is about to melt.
Something within my being explodes. And I realize I'm not looking at a portrait now.
We are all living in it."
- Aiden

The first I knew in the morning was that the pain inside finally wasn't great enough to numb the pain outside. And it hurt, in a different, but equal way to my internal suffering. Somehow, it was more immediate, more demanding.

And when I figured out where I was- lying on my own bathroom floor, the tears came fast and hard.

The tile felt cold against my bruises and scrapes. Just several more kisses offered in passing. A ticking valentine.

That's all he knows about life.

How to break things that are beautiful.

I drug my aching body to the edge of the bath tub, trying not to cry out in case he was near, and pulled my weight painfully over and in, leaving a smear of blood and fluids on the white porcelain.

The world shook. I hugged my knees to my chest as I turned on the tap.

And with eyes fluttering shut, I wished for death.

The clock ticked along like someone's rigged insides; a second, a minute.

This, the water, the voices.

We're not going to talk about what happened to you, Harleen. It was my father. I could smell his stinking breath, whiskey and cigarettes. He held me hard by the arm. His thumb would leave a bruise, but what was one more, by now?

You're crazy. Not for letting him do what he did. . .

I scrubbed vigorously at my hair. It wasn't even blonde anymore, there was so much blood. He must have bashed my head in on the floor when he dumped me here.

No. Not for letting him break you, Harley. Is that what they call you now?

For liking it.

He was right.

I tore at my hair, a scream rising in my throat.

Ladies and gentlemen, step right up! See the murderous, psychotic clown tame the ignorant, young blonde!

Yes, he was right, and still at it. My hand closed around something plastic- a bottle of shower gel- and hurled it at the opposite wall. The action pulled at my broken ribs, making me hunch over with tears streaming from my eyes.

Here it came, the sum of all my agony, a tortured scream that no words could express. I opened my mouth to release it, but in the silence, heard something that made me pause again.

Daddy was gone. No voices whispered in my head, none but the Joker's which never ceased, even with sanity.

He sang to the tune of a popular song, stretching the words out so that it sounded almost menacing, and he was very close. Pathetically, I balled my fist up and crammed it in my mouth as far as I could to keep from whimpering like the simple prey that I was.

I remembered the song now, and held my breath to keep from retching. His voice became louder as he got closer to the room. All eyes on me in the center of the ring just like a ciiiircus. . .

I felt caged, my heart thundering loudly again. What more could he take?

The door swung back on its hinges, colliding deafeningly with the wall.

"Haaarley! Good morning, doll."
I didn't overreact, but slowly lowered my fist and turned sideways, aching, dark circles under my eyes, to face him. He looked fresh and bright, wide awake, and had repainted his face. I recalled how his worn in make up had looked last night, gazing at me, hovering over me, and bit down hard on my tongue. Those night-dark eyes blinked in my direction.

How humiliating would this have been, had I cared at all anymore what he thought of me? Since I was a child, I had spent nights watching his chest rise and fall in sleep, wondering if under all that shit and horror, there was an inkling of good hidden down deep, where only my eyes could see. I had watched, and studied, and waited, and now, after all that digging, I had learned a sad truth; the only thing underneath that darkness was the spark of hope that there was light.

A flicker of emotion touched his face- as though he knew a secret, and it was good, and he was never going to tell. I cowered no longer in fear as he approached where I sat, only fixed him with a tearful, blank stare.

And I allowed him to lift me from that filthy water into his arms.

One more whisper echoed in the cave of my mind; something I'd thought of on the night this all started:

It's going to be a bloodbath.

"I love you," I whispered into the hollow of his throat. Ruined, broken, still bleeding.

I love you.

He looked at me very carefully for a moment, as if I were out of my mind, his mouth twisted in confusion, eyes narrowed to slits.

A wheezing sort of giggle began in his throat, and crescendoed into a wicked cacophony that echoed in the small, enclosed space. He dropped me from his arms onto the floor, and I gasped again in pain, curled up on my side.

Do you still love him, Harley?

"Shut up!" I shrieked, clawing at my face, on hands and knees in front of him.

Broken,

your servant,

I kneel.

"Now, now, Harley." The Joker's degrading laughter had subsided, and he quietly offered me a clean towel. "All of this crying and carrying on. . .it's not going to get you anywhere. I think you'll find after awhile that insanity isn't so bad. No, it's just. . ." His bottom lip trembled, as though he were putting up a tremendous effort not to giggle at the sight of me. "It's just the sane ones that make you crazy!"

I stood slowly at his words, my legs wobbling beneath me like a newborn foal's, and realized that maybe my dignity wasn't a lost cause after all.

Just my sanity.

"So." He clapped his hands together theatrically, as if nothing had ever happened. "Who's up for a job today?! I've got a special treat for you."

I could barely draw myself to full height without sobbing, the towel closed around me so he could not see my emaciated body. I knew he would have enjoyed the sight of it.

And staring at him then, something happened inside me. A further dilution of the mind- interminable obsession.

It had always been there in some forms, yes, but contained and reasoned with. This new state of being held no logic whatever- only the broken, nauseating emotions of the deranged.

I retched as quietly as I could into the sink.

He left me that morning without another word, but I knew what he was after- someone who threatened to realign the established order, someone psychologically fit to be turned to our side, which was no side, which was nothing at all. . .this masked vigilante who had appeared countless times on the GCN in the past couple of months, alongside the annoying reports of billionaire Bruce Wayne's return to Gotham.

And I could easily guess his plan- the bigger bang he made, the more the Batman would be tempted to put a stop to it. Bait the so-called "hero" and turn him into one of us. Brilliant.

Except, after he was done with the winged rodent, I would be the only one left to smack around.

I dressed slowly and carefully, hoping blood from some of the deeper wounds wouldn't seep through clothing, and sat staring at the wall for a very long time.

For once, it was silent in my head. I missed the company of the voices, missed his voice there, telling me about our fucked up world and what we could do to fix it, to make it ours. I missed a time when I could imagine whispers of a different nature; loving promises that I would always be safe and warm and cared for, but I knew better. There would be no hot meal, only stale crumbs for Harley. No loving touch at the end of the day, but stinging bruises forced to greet a sharp edge.

No, it would not be alright. It wouldn't have been if my parents were still alive, and it wasn't now, as I hugged my knees to my chest as my eyes glazed over the window's view of the city I loved so much.

The light was beginning to turn orange around me when the door burst open. Forgetting my state after having sat still for so long, I sprang to my feet and recoiled immediately from the stiff ache. In bare feet, I turned around to see Schiff hanging nervously in the doorway, a sense of urgency about him.

"What's wrong?" I asked, my eyes widening. Please don't let it be what I know it is, I pled. Please don't let him be dead.

"It's Mistah J.," he said, short of breath.

He made me think of Lucinda, the woman who had washed the blood off of me all those years ago, when I was little and worthy of being taken care of, when I wasn't capable of being used as an instrument of destruction.

You sure is lucky I'm here, Mistah J, or you woulda had to tell a true life story, for once.

I wished I had Lucinda when I woke up this morning, covered in my own blood without knowing why again. I wondered idly how she would have explained that one away to me.

Happens all the time, darlin'. Women wakin' up beaten half to death by their psychopathic boyfriends. Wouldn't worry too much about it.

Mistah J. has your best interests at heart.

"Thomas," I said, to distract me from those horrible

(true)

thoughts.
It was always a barrage of surnames in his little theatre troupe, so calling Schiff in this way was sure to startle him.

"Calm down, and tell me what happened." My voice rose into a panic, and I had to bite my lip to hear him out.

"He's still alive. But we brought him here. Cuz. There was. . .nowhere else safe to go. I mean, we couldn't take him to a hospital. . ."

A few familiar faces flanked Schiff, supporting dead weight between the six of them.

All

that

blood.

I'd thought I'd seen a lot this morning, caked on my hands, my face, my body. But somehow, seeing it on him, soaked through those brand new clothes. . .it seemed like so much more.

I didn't care about me.

Me alive and him dead was just as good as both of us dead.

Don't cry, Harl.

If they sense your weakness, they'll take advantage of it.

Just like he did.

"Set him down on the floor," I demanded.

They all seemed surprised I hadn't lost it yet, but surely there was some hint, something. . .off about me. The way that tears came despite my conscience's warning, and yet there was only the presence of delirium. None of them advanced to sniff out the prey.

I realized I looked dangerous to those grown men. Harley Quinn, the Joker's pet- at long last, that spark of insanity they'd been searching for had finally appeared.

"What are you gonna do, Harley?" Every one of them was looking at me with desperate eyes. They had nowhere else to go, most of them Arkham escapees, lost without their leader's direction. "He might die. He's lost a lot of blood," someone whispered.

I fell to my knees beside the Joker, wishing I had some other name to call him by. He was not a joke to me. In fact, there was nothing less funny; to note his shallow breath, his bloodstained clothes.

"I'd rather it be me on the floor again," I murmured. "Thought you should know that, J Man."

His bottom lip twitched in response to the sound of my voice.

Ha.
I knew you cared.

I smiled at stiff, sharp pains as I rose to my feet.

I knew it all along.