Summary: 'The Joker was never going to stay in Arkham long. But I think he waited, and I think he did it for me. I'm a quiet little streak of nothing, but he sees something a little different.' A Joker x Harley fic where Mister J takes his sweet time drawing in his prey, and Harleen Quinzel is the murderous psychopath in the cell opposite.

Author's Note: 6-part story with an open ending. Something a little different. My Joker is mostly Heath Ledger's with a little animated series thrown in. My Harley is a subdued amalgam of Margot Robbie's and from the animated series. Please read and review, I am trying to improve my skills and any feedback is useful to me and kudos are welcome too. Thank you.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Simples.

Warnings: Rated M for violence and adult themes like The Dark Knight, but nothing too grisly or confronting.

"And here, we, go!"

I might very well be in love with the new cleaner, although I can't tell if it's a her or a him. He's got a perfectly sculpted ass I'd kill to have, but if he's a she, then she has very petite boobs and thick eyebrows. He never looks me in the eye, never smiles and always works quickly and efficiently. She has soft cheekbones but aquiline features, all very sexually ambiguous. I've taken to calling her Ashley.

Ashley pays special attention to the plexi-glass that lines one wall of my cell. Boy, does it shine.

I can see my reflection almost as clear as if it were a real mirror, if I'm standing in the right light. We don't get to gaze upon many mirrors. The plastic roundel stuck to the wall above my sink is peeling and we're not allowed real mirror-glass. It's too dangerous.

It's not just his commitment to a streak-free pane that gets me all excited, but Ash also uses lemon pledge. I'd know the smell anywhere because my Mama uses lemon pledge. It brings back all sorts of nostalgic feelings. They say there's a correlation between scents and strong memories, or some crap like that. I might ask my therapist about it. She's full of fun factoids and references studies with such clarity and enthusiasm it's nice to have the spotlight off me for a while. She'll talk for a good five minutes before she goes back to dissecting my brain.

When the lights flicker on, I roll over to see my reflection in the polished glass. Baby blue eyes set in a pale, tired face look back at me. Coupled with my platinum blonde hair, bloodshot eyes with dark circles beneath them and chapped lips that are cracked with dry blood in the centre – I look undead. It's frightening.

Maybe that's why there are no mirrors here. Because there's monsters in them.

Mama once told me my baby blue eyes were her whole world, so I tried to make her proud. After Daddy died, she said they reminded her of death, so…

It's been exhausting living up to her expectations.

I stand to do my morning stretches, all the while eyeballing the guards on the catwalks above. Sometimes they spit down on us. I try my best not to draw attention to myself. I'm not stupid. I know I'm at least fifteen pounds underweight, five foot nothing and unarmed, so pissing off the steroid squad – all decked out in neatly pressed uniforms, Kevlar vests with radios clipped to the collar, batons and spare mags swinging from their belts, Kel-Tec KSG shotguns in hand – no, thank you. I'm not crazy.

That's my point, by the way. I'm not crazy. Crazy people talk to themselves. Crazy people pick fights with security and get spat on. Crazy people get their privileges taken away, like a worn paperback novel, or fresh bar of soap. Crazy people piss off the cleaners and they don't get a lemony-fresh scent in their cell. And most importantly, crazy people don't get to shower first.

But I do.

I hear boots on lino and stand at the ready. Every day is exactly the same and here's how the routine goes.

In the morning the lights come on, and I get summoned to stand against the safety glass with my hands in view. I get frisked for contraband and unsafe objects, my bed is searched, and I get handed a new jumpsuit and underwear and escorted at gunpoint to the shower block. I get to go first because I'm the only girl on this level, and although the logical feminist in me argues that this is not truly reflective of equal rights, I'm willing to keep her bound and gagged because it means I get first dibs in the disinfected cubicle, and my bare feet are the first to touch the scrubbed tiles. Being in cell number nine out of ten, with cell ten is currently unoccupied, I can either go first, or last, and I'd rather go to first, instead of last in line after guys who sweat and piss themselves, who've spent the whole evening masturbating and dribbling in their jumpsuits. Ew.

I get five minutes under the water. It means there's not enough time to wash my hair properly, so I make do with what time I have. They give me a plastic disposable cup of depilation cream, which I apply to my underarms and legs, before I soap up the rest of my body and work my long tresses into a foam, rinsing it out before it feels properly clean, and applying a conditioner cream to try and tame the mess. I've been counting the seconds. With fifteen seconds to spare, I use the plastic spatula to scrape the cream off my body, washing it free from the intense chemical, and rinsing the area just as the water cuts off.

When the sound of the water jets ceases, I can hear shouting somewhere nearby. And laughing, a terrible, high pitched, throaty, spine-shivering cackle that echoes through the sublevels.

That's new.

I step out of the shower cubicle with a towel wrapped around me, and an orderly in white scrubs with emotionless eyes and a clean-cut brunette bob steps forward, holding out her hand expectantly. I hand her the cup and spatula. She turns to go, and I reach for her arm to get her attention. Click, click, thump, thump. The sound of safeties coming off rifles and boots on tiles. My fingertips barely graze her arm, but I've got black barrels in my face, ready to blow my head off. The nurse looks up at me fearfully. Her brow is furrowed, and she suddenly looks decades older, with grey streaks in her hair and crow's feet wrinkles stretch from her eyes. I wonder idly, if she would look at me with the same fear, had the guards not stepped in, assuming the worst of me.

I put my hands up in surrender and take a step back. The towel I've wrapped around myself is threatening to fall, but I don't dare reach down to secure it. I don't want to die, and I know these girls behind the tactical vests and visors are butch and trigger-happy.

"What is it, Miss Quinzel?" The nurse asks.

I move my hands slightly and look at the guards.

"Please lower your weapons," she asks, and guards comply, but not without a swift kick to the back of my knees that brings me to the cold tiled floor, along with my towel, and dignity – as if I had any when I woke up this morning.

"Freak," one of them spits.

I look up at the nurse, who regards me with a moment of pity, before she crosses her arms. "Well?"

I grab a lock of my hair and make a scissor-motion with my fingers.

"Yes, it is getting a bit long. We'll do it tomorrow before your shower, I'll make arrangements."

I give her a nod, before standing and, slowly, making my way to the vanity. There's a mirror there, and I'm positive it's not glass, but it sure looks like authentic. It's institution-level perfection and shows the world for what it really is. Fucking horrible.

That zombie looks back at me. There's dark circles beneath them and they're slightly bloodshot from lack of sleep. I brush my teeth and hair, before handing the utensils back to my nurse, who stows them in a plastic container marked 'Quinzel 0-800'.

Then, I'm dressed in a fresh off-white jumpsuit and escorted back to my cell.

Something's different.

The other guards are tense and alert.

There's blood smears and scuff marks on the floor.

And someone is laughing, but softer now, subdued.

I step back into my cell, and roll onto my bed, to try and drown out the groaning and cackling from the new neighbour across the hall.

"They finally caught the Joker," I hear Doctor Crane say monotonously from next door.

I look up to the now occupied cell ten, to give its occupant a brief appraisal, wondering if I know him at all. It's a small world, anything is possible, but alas – he doesn't look at all familiar.

He's on the floor, beaten and bloodied, arms bound in a straitjacket, and he's looking straight up at the ceiling, and laughing. That's frustrating. He'd better not giggle all day and all night. It would upset Darnell, which would make Doctor Crane yell, which would irritate the psycho in number eight which means I'll get no sleep.

All I want is a little peace and quiet in my own special hell.

Is that too much to ask?

"Harleen," I hear from next door. God damn it!

It's been weeks since they moved me down to the basement and I've been blessed enough to have escaped the notice of my former psychiatrist. There is a concrete wall between us, after all. But he must have seen me on my return trip from the showers yesterday, when he, like the rest of them, had their greasy noses pressed to the safety glass, watching the Joker's arrival.

I guess I couldn't have evaded him forever, but still.

I throw my softball at the concrete wall that separates us. It's one of my few freedoms. You can't do much damage with a soft ball. It's not even an adult league softball, just the kiddie's version. It's white with pink stitching. I wish I could say it was a kindly gift from my doctor, but it's just a therapeutic tool.

"Harleen," he says again.

I throw the ball again. Thump. It bounds off the wall and back into my open hands. I've been practising a while.

I don't speak. I haven't spoken to anyone in years. Not a peep. I didn't speak to him when he was my doctor, and I was his subject of study. And I won't speak to him now just because we're locked in the basement together.

"Who's your therapist now?" he asks. "Is it Wright?"

I'm feeling puckish so I try something new. I throw the ball again, twice against the wall in quick succession. Thump, thump.

"Is that a no?"

Thump.

"Okay so once is yes and twice is no?"

Thump.

"Is it Esposito?"

Thump, thump.

"God, it's not Jeremiah Arkham, is it?"

Thump, thump.

"Leland?"

Thump.

Yeah, I got tired of the guessing game. I have a short attention span.

"What about you, Joker, who'd you get?"

I freeze. I thought he'd been jacketed and sedated, but thirty-six hours later, there he is, in his off-white jumpsuit. He looks so… human without his makeup. His hair is freshly washed and hangs in limp curls which he pushes back with his hands, as he stands and walks towards the glass.

"And who might you be?" he asks in a little sing-song voice.

"Doctor Jonathon Crane," he answers bluntly. "Who did they assign to you?"

"Ahhh," the Joker drawls, and a tongue flicks out to moisten his lips. "Scaaarrrreeecrow."

No response.

"You don't look so scary to me," he continues. "I'm hardly shiiiivering in my boots." He glances down. "Slippers."

"You're a fascinating enigma, Joker," Crane continues unperturbed. "I worked with these vultures for years. They'll be scrambling to get inside your head. To say, 'I treated the madman known as the Joker' and write books about it."

"Is THAT what he was trying to do?" the Joker reaches for his face, running a hand over his scars thoughtfully.

"So you got Arkham, then?" Crane asks.

"I had Arkham," is his mysterious reply. "I think I'll have someone different tomorrow."

Crane chuckles. "What did you do?"

"Ah pssh," the Joker dismisses him with a nuisance wave, "poor guy can't take a joke, stormed out after minutes, I didn't even get to tell him about my scars," he looks up and smiles for effect. "But that's not the most interesting-uh… thing, is it? No, no, no, Scarecrow, the most interesting thing at the moment," he licks his lips with a light chuckle, "is the little blonde thing over there."

I've been trying to appear completely not-interesting for the last several years. Don't attract attention. Be silent. Be still. It's basically my mantra. The last time Arkham rioted, I hid unnoticed under the bed in my cell, and no one came looking for me. It's a mighty fine way for a girl to avoid a shiv or a gang raping.

I'd been cradling my ball for the last few minutes, listening intently to the conversation whilst pretending to be incredibly fascinated by the pink stitching on my softball. My eyes flick to cell ten.

He's standing there, taller than I remember him being, with dark obsidian eyes and puckered scars that run from the corners of his mouth half way along his cheeks. His head is bowed a little and he stares squarely at me, his arms reached upwards, palms planted on the surface of the glass. I can see his pinkies fingering the little holes in the glass. I know because I do it often, out of boredom. His breath comes in slow pants, creating a tiny huff of fog on the glass near his face.

"That's Harleen," Doctor Crane explains. "She has elective mutism."

"Mute?" he mouths to me, mockingly. Fuck this. I grab my novel, Pride and Prejudice, worn, torn and dogeared, and head for the toilet. I don't need to use it, I just want to be away from his prying eyes. I close the lid and perch upon it, opening my book.

"Harleeeeeen," I hear him call. "Don't be boring!"

I reach beyond the privacy screen and extend my middle finger towards him, making sure it's in full view. He erupts into cacophonous laughter and I retreat back to the toilet with Jane Austen, trying my hardest to concentrate through his incessant cackling.

After a while, as I predicted, Darnell starts whimpering in cell five. Great, thanks, new guy.

It's going to be a long night.

I sit on the toilet right up until Lydia runs off with Mr. Wickham, when the dinner bell sounds. And by dinner bell, I mean guards rapping on my cell door with their nightsticks.

I retreat from my little paradise, dogear the page and place my book on the little shelf near my bed, before making my way to the window, where I stand looking out, sighing with the disappointment of monotony, and position myself for a frisking.

I look up, and the Joker, having since abandoned his pursuit of conversation with me, gets up out of his bed, to see what the commotion is in my cell. I'm basically a whore in a shop window, the way he looks at me, seeing me full frontal for the first time. The jumpsuit and slippers aren't nearly enough, I still feel naked beneath his intense gaze. It's only because he wants to kill me. Schizo in cell eight wants to rape me in every orifice and staple me to a wall. Doctor in cell seven wants to pull my brain apart, figure out how it works and publish a paper on it. It's nice to have someone who's just happy to end me with a knife – he likes knives, I heard him telling Crane about it earlier.

Before long he's mirroring my position, and I just stare blankly. I'm good with resting bitch-face, they keep asking me questions trying to figure out who I am and what makes Harleen Quinzel tick, like I'm some complex algorithm with hidden values. My perfectly functioning brain is the least complicated in the whole of Arkham, but still they keep pestering me. It's a bad joke.

I'm lost in my own little world for a moment, before he leans down, trying to catch my gaze, as I stare off into nothingness. I'm brought sharply back into the real world when my frisker gets a little frisky. They usually feel around my breasts, but this new guy is getting a bit fresh, and I cringe when his gloved hands give my left nipple a playful pinch. I wriggle away from him and try to swat his filthy hands away. They must see this as a threat, because next thing they hit me with a nightstick and I'm on the floor with the barrel of a gun in my face and a heavy boot on my chest.

I look up at Mr. Groper, and he's got green eyes and the designation SL-17 on his uniform. Sub level guard number seventeen. I'll remember him. I've got a murder list, you see, of people whom I might kill if I so had the opportunity, inclination, low risk of getting shot and a fire axe on hand. He's the second person on that list in my long years here, along with the trigger-happy butch chick from the shower block.

I'll be the first to admit, I'm not very ambitious.

I can't breathe. I'm a tad fragile, not as lithe as I used to be. If he pushes at all harder, I'm going to break. I feebly grab at the soles of his boot compressing my ribcage. Black spots cloud my vision and I can't… can't…

That the well-lit room is becoming darker should have been a clue. I realise far too late that I think he's trying to kill me.

He gets shouted at from the orderlies, and he releases me. I gasp and gulp in air, rolling onto my side, trying to breathe, breathe, breathe, but the air can't come quick enough. I feel cold fingers at my neck. "She's fine," someone says. Fuck you.

The Joker's crouched down to my level now, still staring from across the void between us. I don't know why. There's something in his eyes, anger? Because they didn't crush me to his satisfaction? Was it not amusing enough?

They leave me on the floor. I can see steam rising from a tray on my desk. Dinner has been served. I don't know what it is, and I have little desire to get up off the floor to find out.

They must have started with me, because next Doctor Crane in seven gets his dinner, then Darnell in five, then whoever's in cells three and one.

Then they start the other side, two, four, six, Schitzo eight, and finally the Joker.

He smiles at me and gives me a wink.

Huh? What?

I'm still on the floor, and barely paying attention, it happens all so fast that I miss most of it.

The sound of a tray hitting the floor, guards shouting, orderlies screaming, someone laughing.

It's all a bit of a blur, and the Joker's bleeding and sedated on the floor by the end of it.

And guard SL-17's body is being dragged from the ward, leaving a trail of blood.

The Joker spends two weeks in isolation before returning to the sub-levels. I see the door of his cell swing towards me as they open it to deposit him back inside. The outside of the door reads SL 1, Cell 10, Inmate 0-801. He's one up on me, and that's just funny in all sorts of ways.

He's in a straitjacket and mostly sedated for the following three days, but when he's finally aware enough to notice me across the hallway, I give him a smile.

He laughs, and silently, I laugh with him.