"Harleen," he says, his tongue pushing my name into his scars. "Doctor Harleen Quinzel."

"You can call me Harley, if you like."

He cocks his head, looks at me sideways. "I'll call you doc-tor, doctor." He clicks the 't,' like he's just learning the word.

"And what do I call you?"

His head still sideways, he raises an eyebrow. "You don't know?"

"I can't call you Joker, can I?"

"What's stopping you, doc-tor?"

"It's not a name."

His chains rattle when he sits back in his chair, his mocking face aghast. "It's not? Why, I never knew!"

"I need a name for you."

His eyes dart up and to the left, searching for a new lie. Then they fix back on to me, burn into me, while he giggles like a school girl. "You can call me Joe," he says. "Joe Kerr."

I push my seat back. "If you're not going to take this seriously, we don't have to do this. You can stay in your cell, untreated and alone."

"No!" He tries to jolt from his seat, maybe jump across the table, but the chains hold him down. "No no no no no, that just won't work. I need help, you know. I need your help."

"I know that. I fought to get you help."

He leans toward me, close enough that his chains let him put his hand to his heart. "And you don't know how much that means to me."

"After the three before me-"

"Four."

"After the men you murdered, they thought you were too dangerous."

"Do I really look dangerous?" He smiles at me, and, without the make-up, under the scars, I can see a boy, almost handsome. "I just like to play. Do you like to play, doctor?"

"Please call me Harley."

He licks his lips, toys with his scars. "And you," he says, pointing at me like he wants to poke my nose, "can call me Joker."

"Why Joker?"

"What, you don't think I'm funny? You don't like my jokes?"

"I don't think murder is funny."

He rolls his eyes. "No sense of humor, any of you."

"You think what you've done is funny?"

He raises his eyebrows – like I had to ask.

"What makes it funny?"

"What makes it serious, doctor?"

"Is anything serious to you?"

It's a hard question: he has to chew on it, push it around his mouth with his tongue. I lean in. "What matters to you?"

He fixes me, pinning me with his black eyes. Then the cackle escapes, bubbling from his dry lips like an exploration of what a laugh should sound like. I swear he actually says "ha ha ha" as he laughs. I'm not sure what he's laughing about, but the echoing glee builds like panic, like drums inside me. I force it down, keeping the reaction from my eyes.

"Well," he says, leaning to wipe tears of laughter with his chained hands. "I would like my make-up back."

"What?"

"Can you do that?" He smiles at me now, his eyes instantly dry and almost human. "For me?"

When I sit down the next day, my hands are empty.

"No presents for me? I thought we had something."

"You know you can't have anything any more."

"You know, I guess I did know that, doctor."

"Do you remember why you can't have anything?"

He looks back at me like I'm a child. "Did you know that, in my experience, all doctors are cowards?"

"Cowards? Why cowards?"

"Some people, when they die, they get strong. They look you in the eyes, and they just... they just go. Others... well, others squeal. They just squeal and squeal."

"Do you like to hear them squeal?"

"Cowards squeal. Doctors squeal. They go out of their minds! They can't get used to losing control, to plans going wrong."

"Are you in control?"

His chains jangle as he lifts a chiding finger. "Ah ah ah. If I was in con-trol, I'd be in Blackgate with all the scumbags, the trash of Gotham. No," he says, winking as though we're sharing a joke. "I'm mad. A mad dog. Otherwise I wouldn't be here, playing with you."

"We're not playing, Joe."

He giggles at the fake name, like he'd forgotten it. "But you know better, don't you? You know there is no control – that we're all just teetering. Just one bad day away."

"Did you have a bad day?"

"Did I tell you how I got these scars?"

"You told the others. A different story each time."

He runs his tongue through his mouth, looking down for a moment. "Would I lie to you?"

"Can you face the truth?"

His eyes flash. "The truth." He giggles, this time soft. "And I thought my jokes were bad."

"Do you remember?" I say, pushing harder. "Do you remember how you really got those scars?"

"If there has to be a truth," he says, smiling conspiratorially, "I'd prefer it to be multiple-choice."

"Life is not multiple-choice."

"Yours isn't. You... civilized people don't have any choice at all. You work, you go home, you eat, you sleep, you die. It's so... boring."

"Are you different than other people?"

He goes quiet, studying my face, exploring his scars with his tongue. The wounds look old, but he still seems unfamiliar with them. "I'm not a monster."

"No one said you are."

"I'm not crazy."

"Of course not."

He sits back, as if the matter's settled.

"But are you different? Do you think you're alone?" I say.

"I'm not different. You... ordinary people... you're just like me. When it all goes bad, you're all just like me."

"Is that why you kill? Why you threaten and destroy?"

He laughs, loud. I try not to cringe, try not to cover my ears. "What? To make some sort of... point? To feel less alone? I'm not alone."

"You're not?"

"No. I'm not." He taps his fingers on the table in rhythm when he leans forward and says, "I've got the Batman."

"The vigilante?"

He smacks his lips, and I get the feeling he's laughing at me. "Oh, he's so much more than that."

"Why do you say that?"

"He's like me – ahead of the curve. He's not playing your game. The ordinary game. He's not part of the plan. Outside the plan, he's almost... almost free."

"Almost free?"

"He has rules."

"What rules?"

His lip twitches, and he pushes his tongue into it. "You know."

"What makes him different than you?"

He taps the table and cocks his head to watch me. "What do you think, doc-tor? What makes him different?"

"I'd prefer that you say."

"You're not stupid," he says, leaning into his chain so he can scratch his head. "I can see that. You're not like the others, not... empty. The others, I open 'em up, I just find blood and, y'know, guts. You, I wonder what I'd find."

"We were talking about the Batman. What makes him different, why you're still alone."

"And you know, and you won't tell me. How'm I supposed to get better there, doc-tor, if you don't tell me what's wrong with me?"

He blinks at me, like he's only curious. For a moment, innocent.

Finally, I relent. "He won't kill."

"What?"

"He won't kill," I say, louder now.

He has to lean to clap his chained hands for me. "You're learning! You're not like the others, not at all!"

I feel like, in answering this question, I've lost something. His eyes betray his smile, but the smile looks more proud of me than anyone I've seen. "Why did you need me to say it?"

He leans back in his chair. If it weren't for the chains, he'd kick his feet up. "I just need to know you understand. Me, a guy like me, I get used to disappointment. Bats isn't crazy, they say, he's not a criminal, he's not a monster, he only hurts the bad ones. You and I know better, doc. We know he's just... scared. He won't do all it takes to make his mark."

"Is that why you kill? To make your mark?"

He laughs again, this time a giggle. "I just want to have... fun." His dark eyes fix on mine. "Is that so strange?"

"You're talking about murder."

"I'm talking, doc-tor, about freedom. About... forgetting the rules." He leans in, open to my secrets. "Don't you ever get tired of it? All the things they tell you that make you just like anyone else, part of the game, part of the plan? Me, I got a sense of humor, but that's a bad joke."

"What's a bad joke?"

He gives me a smile. "Ordinary life. Civilized life. You and me, we know better, don't we, doc-tor? You spend your time with the crazies, the guys who get the joke, and me, well," he smacks his lips, looking for the words, before he fixes back on me, giggling, "I'm one of 'em."

"You don't want to be normal? Part of society?"

His giggle bursts into a laugh, his chains shaking and rattling like they get the joke. I sit back, waiting for the laughter to stop, but the break doesn't come. Loud and merciless, the laughter burns into me, blocks every thought.

I try to breathe the panic down, but he won't stop.

"Joe?" I say, but the laughter drowns me out. "Joker?"

When I leave, his laughter echoes after me.

Chases me.

When I sit down, he's tenting his fingers on the table in front of me.

"I think we need to talk, doc-tor."

"We've been talking."

"We need to talk about you."

"We're here to talk about you."

"I think you're trying to... fix me, doc. I think you want me... normal."

"I'm trying to help you, Joe. You said you needed help. My help."

His tongue flicks into his scars, then he smiles. "And I do. But maybe you need a little help too?"

"I'm fine."

"You think you're one of them, but you're not. Even if you," he laughs, his eyes darting to some memory, "even if you want to be. You're not here to write a book about me, I can tell. You don't want the souvenirs – 'I survived the Joker, and all I got was this stupid t-shirt.' You're different. Like me."

"I'm not like you."

He shoots back into his seat; the movement scares me back into mine. There's no humor on his face now. Without the make-up, his scarred smile just looks like scars. "Then what use are you?"

I miss the smile. Quietly, I say, "I'm here to help you."

He leans in now, eyes burning mine. Teeth showing in less a smile than a snarl. "And how are you going to help me, doc-tor, if you're nothing like me? A different species? The Bat's a better shrink, and he's," he giggles, "well, he's a bat."

"I can help you."

He narrows his eyes, purses his scarred lips.

"I can."

"Tell me." He leans forward, his chains rattling. "How are you going to help me? What do you know about a guy like me?"

I can't meet his eyes. "I know. I do."

"And?" He blinks at me, slow. "Are you gonna tell me, are you gonna explain yourself, or am I going back to my cell, untreated and alone?"

I sit back: to think, maybe. "I don't like to talk about myself."

He's already smiling. "I need to know I'm not alone here, doc. I need to know we can talk, you and I. That we're not wasting our time here."

"I understand that. You're not."

"So?" He spreads his hands as much as he can, given the chains. "Tell me what makes you different. What makes you think you can understand a guy like me?"

"My father," I say, knowing my choices are gone. "Was never well."

He smiles, leans back in his chair. Without the chains, he'd put his hands behind his head. He looks like he's only missing popcorn. He nods for me to continue, now that he's comfortable.

"He got sad sometimes. Sometimes angry. He'd go into rages, when he fell out of control. After Mom passed... Well, it was just he and I for a while. I studied, so I could help him. I worked and I studied and I spoke with him. But I couldn't calm him down. I couldn't speak his language, couldn't understand him, not then."

"Not an ordinary man, your father? Not a... civilized person?"

"He, one day, he locked himself in the room. We had a room, used to be his office, where he'd go when it got bad. When he lost control. I came home from school, and, well that's where he is. I hear him screaming, and fighting, and breaking things, like he does sometimes. I'm too scared to go in until he's been quiet for a time. A long time. When I go in... When I go in, he's gone. Throat cut. Blood everywhere, more than one man should hold. I don't know how he got the knife, but it's sitting there, in him, and he's just grinning down at it. Like it's a joke."

He leans forward now, his chains rattling. His eyes run over my still face, and I swear I see something like sympathy inside the darkness. "These rages," he says, "these times he loses his mind. Did you ever come to understand them?"

I nod, slowly. I've felt the madness, my father's rage, bubbling up inside me before. I dissect what I find, I study it and myself, and I push it back down. It's just madness; everybody deals with it. Everybody teeters.

"Have you ever... hurt anyone?"

"No," I say. "Never."

"Have you ever hurt yourself?"

"I'm not going to talk about that. We're here to talk about you."

He searches his mouth with his tongue, looks at me sideways. "We are talking about me," he says. "We're talking about us."

He waits for me to sit before he says anything.

"I believe," he says, leaning in and licking his lips, "that we were talking about your father."

"We were talking about the similarities we share. About how I can understand you – if you open up to me."

He spreads his hands until the chains pull tight. "Why, I'm an open book, doc. I tell you everything, and all I get from you is closed lips and frowns."

"I told you about my father. Why don't you tell me about yours?"

"I hated my father."

I nod. "Hated. He's passed, then."

"I don't... hate. Any more." His wink is a parody. "I'm in therapy, you know."

"Why did you hate your father?"

"Same reason you hated yours." He purses his lips, looks at me with maybe pity. "The rages. The loss of control. The... anger."

"Your father was unwell?"

"Oh no no no. I never knew my father."

"You just said you hated him."

"And I just hate the unknown, don't you? It's like... darkness. Where the monsters are. My father was a monster."

"You didn't know him."

"Your father, I meant. He was a monster?"

"My father was a therapist. He worked with children."

"Before the... madness?"

"He always had problems. He kept them to himself..." I stop. "We were talking about your father."

He giggles. "And your mother? What happened after she, ah..." He points a finger at his head and pulls the trigger. His eyes don't leave mine.

The panic crawls up into my throat: it tastes like fear, like loneliness, like being a child again. "I never said she killed herself."

He smiles at me, almost winning despite the mad eyes, the boiling scars. "I'm right though, aren't I? She couldn't take it. She wasn't strong enough, she fell behind."

I choke, and he hears me choke. "We're not talking about this."

"How do you think that felt? Right at the end, when the chips came down and she had to make the choice? I bet it felt like falling. Like freedom."

"I'll leave," I say. "I'll leave you here."

I can't move, though. My legs won't stand, not without shaking. He's looking at me, and he knows how my mother looked, how she bled, how my father cried. And he's laughing.

"That is," he says, "if she made the choice. If she wasn't... killed. Like a dog." He tilts his head, the smile evaporated.

My tongue boils in my head. My mother's blood drips over the hardwood floor before me."What are you saying?"

"See, me, I hear the name Quinzel, I'm thinking I heard it before. I'm thinking, remembering, and you know memory's an awful thing, I'm remembering a Doctor Quinzel. Remembering a Missus Quinzel too. A suicide."

My father's there, crying. He tried to stop the blood, but it only painted his suit. I'm cold, tingling, and I want to scream. I whisper instead. "What do you know?"

He leans in, hands on the table. His tongue runs under his lips. "Did I ever tell you how I got these scars?"

"Not the truth. Never the truth."

"The truth now," he says, crossing his heart, chains rattling. "You have my word."

He searches his mouth for the words, pushing his tongue into his scars like they might trigger the memories. He sits forward, then leans back, then latches his dark eyes to mine. I feel dizzy watching him move.

Finally, he settles.

"When I was young, real young, I never had anyone. No family, no one. I go place to place, no one wants me, I'm not like the others. Not cute. I guess, I guess they're a little scared. Well, one guy, one guy, he works with me, he takes me seriously. One of the therapists. A real nice guy."

"My father."

He smiles at me, nods like a proud uncle. "Your dear dad. Sweet man, so patient. So good with the children, even the... difficult ones. The freaks. Like me. He gets in with me, works with me a long time, and soon, well, soon he and I are friends. On the same level. Like you and me, we can talk."

"How old were you?"

He looks me over, exploring my face. My guards have broken, the panic's almost inside me. I might be crying, I don't know. There's a noise, like a drumbeat, as he talks. I know where he's going, what he's going to say, what I've guessed, and I still have to hear it, to know it.

"Old enough," he says. "I was quite mature, you know. Or maybe never quite a child... So when your dad, when he comes to me and he talks about his madness, he knows he can trust me. He knows I'm a boy of my word. Knows I'm not going to tell anyone about what he did."

"What he did?" I ask. He leans in, putting a sympathetic hand toward me, and I almost let him touch mine. I stop in time, move back in my chair. "What did he do?"

"Sometimes, when you get mad, you don't know what you're doing. You go out of your mind, and you just... react. All the civilization, all the plans, all the rules, they give way to chaos. I should know."

He's not looking at me, but the drums, they're still going. "What did he do?"

"I don't want there to be any hard feelings between us, doc," he tells the floor.

The panic's flowing through me, painting my eyes, coloring my voice. I hit the table. "Look at me!"

Something flashes in his eyes when he looks up. A little giggle, then he continues. "When he found himself, she's just there in front of him. Lying, bleeding and screaming. He's got the knife, and he doesn't know why."

I scream and I scream, like how you scream at nightmares, but he keeps talking.

"Now, he can't go to his therapist, and he can't go to his daughter, and he sure can't go to the police. So who's he tell? Some little freak boy, a liar and a monster, who no one's going to believe. Suicide, that they can believe. A hard life, and a troubled family, and a housewife grows the balls to make the choice. To cut herself up."

"No," I say, once I can make words. "No."

He smiles, pushes his tongue against his scar. "But I still didn't tell you how I got these."

"No."

"See, he's put a lot on my young shoulders. A lot for a boy to handle. I mean, he showed me pictures. The blood, and what am I, a priest? I'm not equipped for this, and, well, when I grow up, when I learn a little more about how the world works, I still can't get this man out of my head. A mad man, kills his wife, and smiles at everybody like it's all some kinda joke? It could make you crazy. But me, I'm a serious boy, and I don't got a roof, and it's a rainy night, so I go see the man. Your father."

"No." The drums beat louder.

"Now, I've got a knife with me, just because a boy gotta carry a knife, and, well, the door's locked, it's locked, so I come in the window. Into his office."

"No." I'm teetering.

"He's trashing the place, wild, in a rage, and when he sees me, well, he thinks I'm the angel of death. Me, an angel! Imagine that. He thinks I come years later to punish him. Me, I'm a boy, I never fought much but to stay alive, and now he's coming at me, practically frothing. Grinning like a madman, like he does when he's mad, you know?"

"No." The panic beats in me where blood should flow. My vision starts to blur and vibrate, no matter how I push it down.

"He gets the knife from me, right, and he thinks he's saving his life. I'm screaming, I'm a boy, come to face my fears, and he's jamming the knife in my cheek. He's swearing at me, he's telling me to laugh, so I laugh, and he pulls the blade through." He stops, exploring his left cheek with his tongue.

"No," I say, jumping on my fear, my rage, pushing it into its hole. "That's not how he was."

"No? He didn't pull the knife free, didn't cut the other cheek?" He pushes into these scars. "He didn't scream at me, yell at me, struggle with me, until finally I spit blood in his face. Until finally, I, small boy, never fought before, I get my knife back and I put it in his throat. Until I pull it across, giving him a second smile to match my new grin. Until I hear the girl downstairs and leave the way I came."

He looks at me, studying me. He leans in, licks his lips, and puts out a hand.

"It wasn't personal," he says. "It was a bad accident, a bad night, and it took... it took my mind. Never been the same, since. Never could be like one of you."

"You killed my father."

He nods, slowly, sympathy in his pit eyes. He doesn't grin now, doesn't smile.

"My father killed my mother."

He nods, puts a hand out for me. This time, I give him mine, and he doesn't break my fingers. He pets me, uncomfortably, like a small child petting a large dog.

"It's all been lies," I say. "Everything."

I feel the panic in me, not rising, but waiting.

I see his eyes, and, just as I think he might be human, he starts to laugh. It bursts from him like a volcano. The splinter of light I found in his eyes falls into his teeth, flashing as he giggles, guffaws, chortles, convulses, crows, howls.

The sound, the mad energy, it pours over me, flows under and inside me, until, finally, it finds my panic.

I haven't slept.

When I sit down, the drums are still beating. His laugh still echoes in me, and, when I see him, I swear he's still laughing. He's not, of course. He's watching me though, narrowing his eyes.

Only the scars smile.

"You, uh, you all right there, doc-tor?"

When I look at him, his head's thrown back, laughing as my father dies. But it's not, he's not. His eyes meet mine and they sparkle, maybe. Maybe they flash black, pure black, deep and empty. Maybe they drop out, maybe I've put my thumbs through them.

"I'm well," I say. "How are you?"

"You look - now, don't take this the wrong way, but you look awful. Just awful."

I can hardly hear him over the laughter, over the drums. "Let's talk about you."

He spreads his hands and the chains snap. No, they don't. He's still chained, the chains shake, that's all. "Let's talk about me. Let's talk, you know, I got it, let's talk about my childhood."

"Yes," I say. How'd he get his make-up? Red like blood around his lips and scars. I never got him the make-up. I need to sleep, I need the drums gone, I need the panic down, buried. I breathe in, then out. "Your childhood."

"My childhood. The knife in my hands. The man, man I... admired, the man, the only man who ever trusted me, who ever meant anything to me. Dead, and at my hands!" He shows me his hands, shaking, and I see my father's blood there. Is it my father's blood that paints his lips, his scars?

"I went out of my mind!" he says. The black grease-paint grows from his eyes, pouring out, and I'm getting to know what he means.

"The pain," he says. "You can't imagine the pain. Cheeks split, pouring blood, and that's not even the worst of it! The one man to ever show me kindness, to ever find me... human... He's a monster! A freak! And I'm alone, really alone, and now his daughter's screaming in the room and I'm alone. Nowhere to go that rainy night, nowhere to hide from what I'd done. Just reflections in the puddles, reflections of my new... smile. Well, I'll tell you, I did what any sane person in my appalling circumstances would do. I went mad."

He guffaws, and, unbidden, I laugh with him. My hand shoots to my mouth, but he's heard me. He grins at me. I can't look at him; red smile, white face, black eyes. Bloody hands rustle chains when he reaches for me.

"It's okay," he tells me. Drums beat under the gravel of his voice. "You can laugh. I laughed. You get where I got, you start to see the funny side. You start to get the joke."

"The joke? You keep talking about a joke. What's the joke?"

He smiles, winks, wags his finger. The drums beat faster, stronger, and he says, he drips, "That would be telling."

"You can tell me."

"It can't be, ah, told. Not just told." The drums beat faster, faster, feverish.

"If you have to explain a joke, there is no joke! It's just words, it's just noises. No," he says, pushing his tongue through his mouth, splitting his scars, pouring blood over the table. I look away, but the blood's there too, on my hands, on the floor. "A joke has to be felt. You see it, you get it, you laugh. End of joke. Look at me."

He sounds almost sweet, almost loving; I look up.

I never got him the make-up, but he's white, pale white, his lips blood red, his grin impossibly wide. His eyes infinite and dark and laughing.

No, not laughing. Eyes can't laugh, not when they're empty, when they're burning empty pits.

The flecks of flesh that shine through the paint look transplanted, torn from another's face. The white, the black, the red, it's what's real. It's his face.

The panic runs through me, the drums beat, the laughter rises but floats away.

I can't push it down, any of it, I can't find a place to put it, I am the madness, I am the rage, I am the cold night. I look at him the way a wild animal sees a poacher, and he only grins.

"You get it," he says. The drums beat faster, faster, faster. "It's in your eyes, your wild eyes, you've... got the joke. And I haven't even told the punch-line."

"Punch-line?" Drums beat faster, panic running from me, out of me, over me.

He bangs the table suddenly, and he laughs when I shriek and recoil. Blood falls from his hands, my mother's blood, my father's blood, my blood, his blood.

His blood, his his his.

He bangs the table again, laughing, and I recognize the rhythm. I know the rhythm: the drums, beating faster and faster.

His hands bang the table as he throws his head back, finally, really laughing, blood spilling from his lips, and I look down, under the table. His feet beat too, have been beating all along. The sound echoes through the metal room, fills my ears, slamming into me as he laughs and laughs and leaks.

The beat, faster, faster, faster, faster, and it was never in my head.

It was always him.

When he stops, it's sudden.

His laughter stops too, drops from the room. He's silent now, I know he's silent, but I'm still laughing, and I still hear the drums.

By God, I still hear drums.

I still haven't slept.

I haven't seen anyone. The drums haven't stopped, and he's still laughing, even when he's gone.

Maybe it's me laughing. Maybe it's always been me.

I've turned the cameras off, and I know it'll mean my career. I know they'll know it was me, but it won't matter much more. Nothing matters now, now that I've seen the joke.

He smiles when he sees me. Of course he smiles. He's a madman, and I am madness. He's an agent of chaos: I am chaos.

I am his mistress and his master, and I have the knife.

They didn't even search me, they don't search me any more. Maybe they did search me, maybe I killed them for it. I don't remember. Memories can be vile, repulsive little brutes. There's no blood on the knife, though. Maybe I licked it clean, I don't know.

The drums still beat, and it's not him, not now. It's me, it's always been me.

I put the knife on the table. He giggles down at it, like it's an old friend.

"You gonna put that in me?" he says.

The drums beat faster, the panic burns sharper, the madness bubbles and grows. I've locked the door behind me.

"Anybody gets close to you," I say, "they get killed, they get their own knives in their throats, and you laugh and you laugh and you walk away."

He turns his palms upward, shrugs against the chains. "I'm sitting in chains."

I breathe in fear, breathe out madness, breathe out panic, breathe out rage.

"Put your left hand out."

He looks at me sideways, narrows his eyes. His make-up's gone, it was never there. He gives me his hand, he runs his tongue against his scars.

I push the blade into his palm until it hits wood. He grabs for it despite what must be impossible pain, but I kick him in the chained knee before he can take it. I pull it free, and he pulls his hand back.

I take the knife, and I put it in my right cheek.

"Do you want to know how I got these scars?" I ask.

He's laughing. "Now you're talking!"

"The Joker," I say, pulling the knife across and up. I don't feel the pain, I don't remember pain, but I can hear my words slurring. "He, he jumped at me. He wanted to make me like him. He wanted us to match. I don't know where he got the knife, I don't, but look at what he's done to me! Right hand."

Still laughing, giggling at the ceiling, enjoying the ride, he offers his right hand.

I pull the knife, now sticky and dripping, from my cheek, and slam it into the back of his palm. Fast, almost too fast, he grabs at it with his other hand. I press into his cut, and he lets go and I pull the blade free. It goes in my other cheek.

"He was obsessed with me. In love. Can you believe it?! The Joker in some kind of mad love? It was my name, I think, Harleen Quinzel. Harley Quinn, he called me, like a child's joke. 'Harlequin and the Joker,' he said, sticking the blade in my mouth. 'It won't hurt,' he said. 'Let's put a smile on that face of yours.'"

I wrench the knife from my cheek, and he's laughing, rolling in his chains, like he's never heard a better joke. He shows me his hands, both pierced, near useless, before he claps for me. He's laughing and cheering and the room echoes with it and the drums beat and the panic fills the room. I'm laughing too.

"He pulls the knife from me, and I get my hand on it," I say, laughing or crying but spitting tears. "His chains, see, they tied him up good. I get him in his hand, right through the palm. He's laughing, it was horrifying, officer, but he's laughing when I stab his hands. I just want him harmless, not dead, but he's still struggling, still coming for me. He's insane, poor thing, just a crazy. And I couldn't help him."

I laugh now, my own high giggle mingling with his infinite laugh.

"You are," he breathes, barely speaking through the howling laughter. "You're going to kill me!"

"I had to do it, he wanted to kill me. He wanted me with him, and he just kept laughing, and I was so... scared."

I put the knife in his throat and it sticks there while he laughs, giggling around it. Blood gurgles around the edge, into his mouth. I throw my head back, laughing as his flopping hands reach for it.

"You see, Joe? I get it now. I get the joke – me, my father, my mother, the scared little boy. I get it all. The bad joke, the rules, the madness, the drums, the drums, and the rage."

His hands, slippery with blood, can't get a grip on the knife at first. Blood drips from his teeth, coats his lips and scars, and he laughs and he laughs. His eyes, still cold, almost hopeful, watch me. Somewhere, under his laughter, I think he actually means it.

"Yes," he says. "Tell me. Tell me the joke."

"You never knew my father."

The laughter bubbles through him.

"He never killed my mother."

The laughter bursts, howls like sobs at the ceiling.

"You always had those scars."

He tries to slap his knee, but chains pull tight and blood pours across the knife.

"You never lied..."

"Never!" he yowls.

"You were never born. I was never born, and there is no Batman, and there's no joke, and nothing's serious, and nothing matters, and you, you... You were the one, the only one, who never lied to me."

"What can I say?" he says. He's not laughing, suddenly he's not laughing at all. "I'm a man of my word."

His hands close around the knife, and, giggling, he draws it across his throat.

I can see the laughter through the wound, I can feel the laughter inside me, burning me, beating with the drum and pouring out. Blood flows down my face, my father's blood, my mother's blood, my blood, the Joker's blood, and, soon, the Batman's blood. I lean forward, looking at my Joker's grin, his laughter, his blood across his chest.

His second smile, the one across his throat, spits blood like laughter. He's still giggling when he dies.

His eyes still watch me, pinning me, dissecting me, and I stay with him there, forever.

All my panic, the drums, my family and my career, it stays there with him, with his hole eyes and his broken hands, and I know I can never leave. I'll be there with him, sitting with him, even as his blood congeals like pudding into the floor.

I pour myself into him, me his, he mine.

I stay here, safe, no longer alone.

Only the Harlequin leaves the room.