Ballad of a Harlequin

by A.X. Diaz

I've always loved Harley Quinn, but I felt her origin story just wasn't to my liking so I wrote my own! I really wanted to take the readers in a different direction, inside Harleen's mind just before it all goes awry. It's a little out there, but it was a fun experience. This is my first fan fiction piece. Let me know what you folks think!

18

Ballad of a Harlequin

The rain tasted of blood and grime. Doctor Harleen Quinzel opened her eyes to an endless dark, devoid of stars, devoid of hope and she cried and cried.

She rolled over onto her stomach and whimpered; a sharp pain in her ribs, worse than any pain she had memory of tore through her with such intensity that she hardly felt her face grinding against the asphalt. She coughed and choked, spitting out the blood that filled her mouth.

What happened? She thought. Where the hell am I?

Harleen raised her head enough to see she was in a poorly lit parking lot behind a lousy bar that could only be found in an even lousier part of town. The muffled music that seeped through the windowless, asbestos laden walls was of the bad industrial variety, Stabbing Westward.

How do I know that? How did I get here?

~ You make it hard to breathe…it's as if I'm suffocating... ~

She tried to remember walking out of the bar. I was in the bar; I remember that much. Urine. Everything smelled of urine. Even the whiskey had the taste of…was I going to my car?

~…and when you're next to me, I can feel your heartbeat through my skin… ~

Am I drunk? She wondered. Her heart began to race in her chest and her head swam. The stark realization that for even an instant you are not quite sure who you are or what you are doing face down in a dirty parking lot was enough to steal her breath. She looked down at a puddle that had formed beneath her face. She could not see anything in the reflection but the glow of a street lamp several yards away and the swirling colored rings of oil reverberating with every fresh drop of rain.

~…I wish there was a way for you to see inside of me…~

She glanced at her left hand when something unusual caught her attention and she blinked, struggling to focus her eyes. She saw she was wearing black leather gloves with the fingers cut away, the kind a biker would wear. Her fingernails were chipped and broken, but that much was normal, they were always chipped and barely there. I'm a nail biter. At least I remember the important stuff, she thought bitterly. However, now they were painted a garish cherry red color. She never painted her fingernails – ever! A nail biter knows what a poor investment it is to even bother with it. The effort was shameful as well, there was polish on her cuticles and even on her finger tips.

~…and what do I have to do to make you happy…~

"Fuck me," she said, grunting. She looked at her right hand and the quality remarkably was worse! Her nails were painted black as jet with polish running sloppily up to her first finger knuckle. "Nice look, doctor. I wonder what the panties look like?"

Doctor? Yes! I am a doctor! The realization, as ridiculous as it was lifted her spirits slightly.

"Harleen, get up." A voice that was as familiar as it was scathing said from above her. "Harleen Frances, get up I said. You look a mess."

"Dad?" asked Harleen, propping herself up delicately to her knees. "Dad, what are you doing here?"

~…and if I can't make you love me, tell me what do I have to do to make me forget about you? ~

Harleen stood up, her knees buckling even with her father's help. She tried to steady herself on his shoulder, but she missed and fell face first into the hood of a car.

"For Christ's sake, Harleen!" her father said angrily. "How much have you had to drink?"

"I-I don't know. Couldn't have been much."

"Get in the car right now!"

Harleen sat in the passenger seat and adjusted the review mirror towards her. Her eyes were swollen and bloodshot. Had I been crying?

Her father pulled out of the parking lot in a hurry, the rear tire to hit a curb and Harleen slammed into the car door. She thought it wise to put her seatbelt on and she rubbed her shoulder from the impact. Harleen looked at her hand and remembered the messy black finger nail polish on her hand and slid it down between her legs, not wanting her father to see.

"What has gotten into you, Harleen?" her father asked, his eyes never leaving the road. "What devil whispered into your ear to make you think going into a biker bar in the worst part of Gotham at this hour was a good idea?"

"The devil in me, dad," Harleen said, chewing on her thumbnail. "And I'm not a little girl anymore."

"Do you know who feels the need to remind people that they are not little girls anymore?"

"Little girls?" She asked under her breath.

"That's right. And yet here you are, out doing god only knows what, listening to that horrible Stabbing Westward band. You saw them opening for Front 242 and Ethyl Meatplow, and you hated them, remember?"

"Yes."

"It was only that god-awful Gina that loved them. Remember her?"

"Gina Landon," she said softly. "She wasn't so bad."

"She could be a real bitch sometimes."

"So could I, dad." Harleen said reclining her seat a bit. She was vaguely aware that she was starting to fall in and out of consciousness. A horn blast woke her up and she sat upright.

"People driving like maniacs out here!" her father said grumbling.

"I've never heard you talk so much, dad." Harleen said watching the windshield wipers take droplets away in one swipe only to smear them on the next.

"What was there to say?"

"Not a lot, I guess."

"Not a lot that you wanted to hear, you mean? No. You were content enough being a total disappointment to me and your mother. Ever since you were a little girl, you refused to finish anything you started. Sure, the gymnastic scholarship to GCU was nice but it was almost all for nothing. We knew what you were doing to keep yourself from flunking Harleen. We always knew." Her father took a hard-right turn, the wheels screeching against the wet road.

"Besides, wasn't always enough said in that unspoken silence between your favorite spot on the couch, and my favorite recliner, away from my line of sight."

"I'm a PhD at Arkham." Harleen said wearily.

"Oh, that's right." Her father replied in a snide tone. "The great doctor! How are those lab reports on the Hickman case coming along or your proposition to the board on the addition of a homeopathic and alternative medicine wing for patients dealing with psychosis and temperamental medication levels?"

Harleen sighed. The taste of alcohol mingled on her tongue with the metallic taste of blood. She felt nauseous. "I think I'm going to be sick."

"Oh no," her father said matter-of-factly. "You are not throwing-up in my car."

Harleen looked again at the review mirror and saw her own eyes staring back at her, she wondered why her father never adjusted it. Below the mirror swung the same Joker's Wild Card air freshener she had, it smelled of rain. She glanced down at her thighs. She was wearing fishnets with thigh high boots and a micro mini skirt that was hardly worth the effort. She tugged at her skirt anyway, becoming self-conscious while her father stared out into the night.

"You look like a whore." Her father said, his eyes still fixated on the road.

Harleen said nothing to this. She closed her eyes and felt the pavement run against the tires. Another horn blared and her eyes blinked open.

"Damn foreigners." Her father said beneath his breath. "You are not sixteen anymore, Harleen. Why do you dress like that? You act like it is still 2004. It's not."

"I don't care."

They arrived at her apartment. It was a historic Hummelstown brownstone apartment building with long, narrow windows rising along the façade. Harleen grabbed the railing from her stoop staircase and pulled herself up, one painful step at a time. Her father came around the side of his car and grabbed her by the arm, helping her along.

"You shouldn't park there, dad. It's illegal. There's a hydrant right there." Harleen said.

"I'm not staying long." Her father replied.

Harleen's apartment was on the third floor. She fumbled with her keys a moment and stepped inside. She closed the door behind her and sighed. Her living was dark and begged for her to fall asleep. There was a single light on near her study, she could see her father sitting behind the desk, pouring over her scattered documents.

"Dad, what are you looking for?"

"I want to see your bank statements."

"What? Why?"

"Listen Harleen, your mother and I have decided that if you still require our aid, then we need to see where all of your money is going."

"I don't need your fucking money, dad! I'm a goddamn doctor!"

"Don't you, Pudding? Your car payment is what, two months late and your rent is three months late? Your credit cards are all maxed out. Also, have you forgotten about almost making that call to your mother and I two weeks ago crying? Your life is falling apart, Harleen. You've become obsessed with that…that maniac from the headlines."

"I'm obsessed? I'M OBSESSED?! Look at you! I didn't even invite ya in, but there ya are, going over my private stuff!" she said in her childhood accent.

"There is nothing private between you and I, Harleen Francis! You can lie to the world and keep your little secrets, but you can't lie to yourself!"

II

In her dreams, Harleen was grateful that it was not her alarm going off. She pitied whoever it belonged to and relished the idea of more unapologetic sleep.

There was a loud banging on her door. "Shut off your fucking alarm, Harleen!" a voice snarled from the other side. It was Kellen, her downstairs neighbor and a snobby little shit.

"Alright," Harleen said apologetically. "Sorry."

Her alarm blared from her bedroom. That awful not-quite beep and not-quite buzz designed to irritate the very hardwiring of your brain. She switched off the alarm and looked down at herself. She was naked. At some point in the night she undressed. She had only the vaguest recollection of what she even wore the night before.

It was red and black.

She looked at her fingernails. They were still broken and chewed however, the polish was gone. Her fingers were white and pink and free of any paint. Was there fingernail polish? I don't wear…

It was red and black.

She looked down at ribs and found a large purple contusion that was delicate to the touch. She stood in front of a long, floor length mirror and turned around, looking at her back. Running horizontally across her back was a long angry red and blue bruise that divided her torso as if she were viciously thrown up against something. On her arms, she could see more evidence of violence. Finger shaped bruises lined across her biceps. Harleen felt dizzy. She ran for the bathroom; certain she would throw up.

She turned on the faucet and let the cold water run along her trembling hands. The previous night was complete blur, but the emotions that came with it clung on to her like sweat on a balmy night in the city. It was bad. That was all she could remember. It was bad.

Harleen spit into the sink. It was orange and foul. If Gotham was hell was on earth, her mouth was the dog park. She looked at herself in the mirror. A trickle of blood ran from her smeared, red lips and down to her chin. Her face resembled two large racoon eyes with thin, black tear streaks running down her cheeks.

"…keep your little secrets…" her father's voice said to her.

"But you've been dead five years, dad."

Harleen pushed open the door to her apartment building against the will of a strong spring wind. Against every instinct inside her head, she was heading to the Arkham. She had deadlines to meet and responsibilities to care for. Today was too important a day to forget laying asleep in her bed

She looked for her car. It was gone. She tried to remember how she got home the night before without a car. Splintered fragments of the night before rained down unto her brain, sending a cold shiver of a horror too terrible to accept as reality into her mind's eye.

"No," she said softly to herself, holding her belted raincoat closed tightly with her hand. "It was stolen. Last night, while I slept it was stolen by hoodlums." She lived on the upper east side, a short commute to the Schwartz Bypass and then onto Arkham, but crime was always spreading across the Gotham. There was little denying that was due in large part to the heavy burden and the desperation placed upon the poor people within the urban areas of Gotham. People too afraid of an easily corruptible police force and the apologists who openly support the criminal vigilantes that plague the city.

She pulled out her phone and opened her GCR App and placed an order for a car. Six minutes until arrival, it said. She looked at the image of the driver on the app. He was a chubby, middle-aged red head named Barry.

Eight minutes later, Harleen was resting her head against the headrest. She closed her eyes and tried to slow her mind down.

"Tired, huh doc?" asked Barry.

Harleen opened her eyes. "How did…I mean how do you know I'm a doctor?"

Barry looked at her from his rearview mirror. "I got a good eye for these things. A nice, professional looking woman like yourself going up to old Arkham. Well, you look the part. Unless you're some kind of a lawyer."

"No, you were right the first time. I am a doctor of psychiatry at Arkham."

"Doctor Quinzel? Doctor at Arkham."

Harleen sat up. "How do you…?"

Barry laughed. "Don't worry doc! It says your name on the Gotham City Rides App. Has your picture on it as well, that way someone can't jump your ride. A new age we live in Doc."

"Yes." Agreed Harleen. She leaned back again and closed her eyes.

Friday August 12th 2:35 pm. Normal Psyche Session:

"You mentioned your father. Can you talk about him?"

"Doctor Quinzel, after having spoken now for several months. Oh, I wish I could remember the number of times. Awfully rude of me, really. However, with the days, the weeks and the tick-tocking of all the seconds, it sort've of all meshes together with the click-clacking of the cockroaches scattering across on the cement floor, you will have to forgive me for forgetting. Yet in all that time, you've never once talked about your own dear ol' dad, Mr. Quinzel."

"That would be against policy. Please, tell me about YOUR father."

"Oh, doctor, you sound like a broken record, and not a very good one, either. Have you ever listened to Herb Albert and his Tijuana Brass on a good turntable? A beautifully terrible album. You are the karaoke of that album…scratched and broken."

"You've never mentioned him by name. Why?"

"Show me yours and I'll show you mine."

"Alright. I'm tired of the games, so I will just come out and tell you if for no reason than to prove you can trust me.

My father was a well-spoken man. However, he was also curt and manipulative. He was a petty criminal who took advantage of insecure women. My mother ignored all of that of course, believing it was the frailty of the women who allowed themselves to be beguiled by his charm and the expected weakness of men."

"She sounds lovely."

"She was cruel. She refused to see her own inability to cope with the failings of my father and projected it on other women because doing so meant it did not reflect on her. It was easier."

"So, she 'projected' on you? Often?"

"Yes…"

"You were the pretty blond she was not. You were the skilled athlete she could never be. You Doctor Quinzel, were the woman your father always wanted, but she could never be."

"…perhaps…"

Harleen opened her eyes when the car stopped. There was a trickle of drool running the corner of her mouth. She wiped it away and looked at Barry. "So how much do I owe you?"

Barry laughed. "Doc, it's already paid for! The app, remember? Have a nice day."

Harley closed the car door and walked up the flight of stairs leading into Arkham Asylum. She did not want to be seen this morning, so she held her head down and tried to move quickly.

"Doctor Quinzel." Said a black woman in a white overcoat. She had been waiting by the door and wasted no time in following Harleen.

"Doctor Leland." Harleen said, pulling her own overcoat on while she walked through the lobby entrance. "What…well, what can I do for you?"

"How are you, Harleen? The last forty-eight hours have been, rough to say the least."

"Oh, you know, I just woke up with a headache that feels like a twenty-pound sledgehammer to the head. Otherwise, peachy."

"I'm sorry."

"Oh well!" laughed Harleen. "Life sucks! I've been watching the news and trying to get this matter all sorted in my head."

"The Joker was your patient, Doctor Quinzel. I know how difficult this must be. If you feel you need time away or you want to talk…"

"Talk?! I've already talked to the police and the board so if you have something you would like to say to me, doctor…I believe, with all due respect, you should get your foot out of your mouth and just say it!"

Doctor Leland raised her hands impatiently. "Harleen, I'm not saying anything. I'm just worried about you. I'm worried you may be taking the Joker's escape too hard."

"I'm a professional, Doctor Leland. The Joker was my patient since Blackgate Penitentiary. More than anyone else, I want him back here and secured where he will actually receive treatment."

"You still believe the Joker's treatable? It's just I've read your dossiers and all the case reports on the most prolific serial killer and criminal master mind in this city's history, and all of it points towards it being a great waste of resources."

"A serial killer?! If you find my patient a serial killer, then you haven't read beyond the title! His psyche profile reads as a highlight reel of this city's complete lack reformatory skills, with a sick and twisted focus on violence to resolve violence!"

"We are still talking about the Joker?"

"Yes! A man who the current system had failed. Yet we don't even flinch while we pound this cycle of brute force on him and wonder without the slightest sense of irony why he has yet to be reformed by an asylum created to reform! Am I the only one taking crazy pills here?!"

"And you feel you have the answer?"

"Yes, Doctor Leland! The work was good! He was responding to me. He was opening up to me and telling me about his inner thoughts and feelings."

"So he found a sympathetic ear? And now you feel he needs a…what?"

"A girlfriend?!" Harleen asked, her eyes flashing. "FUCK YOU! Do you think if I found a boyfriend, that would somehow magically solve all of my fucking problems?! That if I had someone whom actually cared about who I really am and not what the world makes me out to be, that all of a sudden this allusion would make sense?! It's not supposed to make sense, Doctor Leland! When has it ever made sense?!"

"Harleen. The Joker has been recaptured."

"What?! I mean, why wasn't I told?"

"We tried calling you. It was very late last night."

Harleen held her hand over her heart, feeling it race in her chest. "The police caught him?"

Doctor Leland shook her head. "It was the Batman."

"The Batman? Oh, my." Laughed Harleen. "Oh my! I bet that made your fucking panties wet! Didn't it, Joan?!"

"Harleen?!"

"Don't deny that shit, sweetie. I was there, remember? February 7th 1:42pm in the break room. It was Karen's fucking birthday! You whispered to that nut-wrinkle, Miles that the Batman was a gift to our funding! That his methods were excusable considering the fucking vermin he was containing! Why not just authorize a goddamn lynch mob, Doctor Leland?! Maybe then these suspects, who are guilty until proven really fucking guilty might just receive a little goddamn human compassion!"

"Doctor Quinzel, I am speaking to the board about this and the Chief of Medicine…"

"FUCK YOU! Ya fuckin' cunt!" Harleen said covering her mouth. The accent! She thought. That fucking accent.

Wednesday October 12th, 2:22pm. Normal Psyche Session:

"I heard it."

"I'm sorry. What did you hear?"

"That accent. Lower Gotham. It's…endearing."

"What do you mean?"

"Tell me, did that accent give you a hard time growing up in a family that tried so hard to hide what they actually were?"

"I don't know what you mean?"

"You couldn't lose it right away. I know. College was hard. GCU is a surprisingly prestigious school. Did the other girls give you a hard time? All those prim and pretty girls on the gymnastic squad, I mean? Prim and blond like you, except with the right diction and pedigree."

"People are often a victim of their background and the preconceived prejudices associated with them. I was no different. Were you?"

"No. I was what I was destined to become. The running gag chasing even the slightest scraps of pleasure. The world has all the answers; it just likes to take its time to fill you in on what the questions are. We find our happiest moments, it seems, in the gaps."

"Yeah…"

Harleen blinked. "I need to see my patient."

"No. I'm speaking to the board." Doctor Leland said, crossing her arms. "I'm requesting the Joker be transferred to a different psychiatrist, effectively immediately. I suggest, Doctor Quinzel that you take time off and…"

Harleen pushed her way past Leland and walked brusquely down the long corridor that led to the elevator towards the lower levels of Arkham Asylum. She flashed her badge against the security lock and the elevator doors slid open. She stepped inside and her head swam. Harleen pressed her forehead against cold steel of the elevator doors.

"I'm reporting all of this to Chief of Medicine and the board, Harleen!" shouted Joan Leland as the elevator doors began to close. "You're finished here! Do you hear me?!"

"Fuck you!"

The elevator doors opened to a narrow, dimly lit room with a series of barred, steel doors. The smell of urine and semen overpowered Harleen and she had to take a step back. The entire wing had been emptied of patients since the Joker's escape. It was standard practice until it was decided how a someone escaped. Everyone was a suspect and that included the men locked behind the heavy steel doors.

"No one is allowed down here!" a bald six-foot-six prison guard pretending to be an orderly said.

"I'm a doctor here to see my patient." Harleen said calmly.

"There's no patient here for you Doctor Quinzel," the orderly said, sneering. "This is still a crime scene! They're still investigating how or who let the Joker out."

Tuesday November 8th, 2:14 pm, Normal Psyche Session:

"Pressure points. Everyone has them, doctor. You can't be afraid to go after them."

Analyses: To the layman, the Joker is simply exhibiting his tendencies for violence. However, it is my conjecture that this is a deep cognitive metaphor to a metaphysical manifestation of his traumatized psyche.

"The knee; from the side the knees are pretty weak. Strike that just right and I don't care how big he is, he'll fall. That's why the Bat has his inner knee reinforced. Because of me."

The knee is a metaphor for the will that keeps his spirit upright and moving forward.

"When he buckles down and squeals in pain, close your fist and knuckle punch him in the neck."

I believe the strike on an incapacitated victim is a metaphor for the crippling system imposed on the mentally disadvantaged of this city. I have written several congressmen as well as many independent watchdog advocacy groups about the possible inhumane treatment the so-called criminally insane receive here at Arkham Asylum.

Harleen blinked. She drove her own knee into the knee of the orderly.

"Aw fuck!" he screamed, buckling over slowly. "My bad knee!"

Harleen closed her fist and punched him in the neck.

The corridor was long and pinpoint straight, endlessly lined along both sides with six by eight foot cells. She thought of Blackgate Penitentiary.

There was not the usual commotion she had gotten so used when she entered the high security wing of the asylum. The patients found in this wing were some of the most dangerous in the country and Harleen had learned early on that it was not the raucous ones who reached out for her from between their barred windows while she passed, hoping for a squeeze or even the slightest glancing contact that she had to fear, nor was it the men who spewed profanity laden insults at her while they pressed their greasy faces against the bars and masturbated feverishly.

No, it was the doors that stood silent with long looming shadows and a breathing darkness that watched with eyes invisible to light that you had fear – you must fear! What lay in unyielding patience for the smallest of opportunities would not, if they could catch you, beat you nor would they waste time molesting you, no, they would kill you. For those soulless creatures, death was not simply a craving or an urge to be resisted or sated, to them it was the very thirst for existence, a hunger to watch the last flickering of life in terror-shot eyes extinguished forever.

To Harleen's credit, she did not falter while she walked down the now crippling silent corridor where her heels echoed the very heartbeat of a beast that breathed down the nape of her neck.

Harleen followed the single light that lit the Joker's glass cell. He was sitting on the ground, strapped in a straight-jacket with his knees to his chest and his head down.

"Joker?" Harleen asked in a shaky voice.

The Joker raised his head, his eyes were swollen shut and his Glasgow smile faltered for just an instant. "…harley…?"

"YOU FUCKING ANIMALS!"

Thursday, March 2nd, 11:02 a.m. Unscheduled Visit:

"I can't keep seeing you like this. It's becoming a daily thing!"

"Please, Harley. I-I think my medication is bringing me…down. I feel lost and close to the verge of…"

"Stop it! If someone were to hear you talk like that, they would have to restrain you in order to protect you."

"You may not enjoy these conversations, Harley, but I do. I will never grow tired of listening to you struggle to hide that accent of yours."

"Stop it."

"You hide your accent as well as you do that smile."

"I am not smiling."

"Your eyes."

"Are you alright?"

"I've been having those dreams again."

"The Bat, you mean?"

"Yes, the Bat."

"Tell me about it, please."

"I'm walking to get my haircut at this bizarre open air establishment. When I arrive, I think how the front counter looks more like the counter of a maître d than of your typical cut-n-chuck type hair salons."

"I find it very hard to imagine you in one of those places."

"I have never been in one. When I was a child I remember going to a barber shop."

"It doesn't matter. I'm sorry."

"While I'm waiting in line, everyone is staring at me. The old lady in a tuxedo waiting to take my name, a four-hundred-pound man, naked and sitting on a wooden bench and a little boy riding on a mechanical horse backwards eating a snow cone. They're all looking at me and without anyone saying a word, I know why. It's in their eyes, all of them; they know the Batman is looking for me. It's not as if they had Bat's home phone number on them, but I remember being terrified. I remember looking towards the sky behind me and cowering. The fat man rose to his feet, quite nimbly if I might add, and he offered me his seat. I sat down of course. The bench was warm and moist and quite comfortable. The fat man stood in front of me, I thought shielding me from Batman's ever watchful eyes. I remember staring at his massive ass, the long black curling hairs that crept out of his endless ass-crack like the wispy legs of a spider and I felt fine. Safe and secure. But that didn't last."

"It got very cold suddenly. I looked at the little boy and he was wearing a winter coat. The old woman maître d in a tuxedo was lying face down and dead on the counter. The shadow cast by the fat man had snuffed out the sun. We were freezing, cowering once again, only this time it was on the bench. The little boy curled up next to me and I held the dear old dead woman in my arms while the fat man turned around. He was enormous! His girth was something to consider and he stood there, stroking his violently menacing manhood, freezing all of us beneath the indomitable void he cast as a shadow."

"Joker, listen, it's all there – death, innocence, oppression and fear. You have to understand and make a breakthrough with yourself. Forget what you read in the papers or what you see in the eyes of everyone who has ever loathed you. Listen to me carefully… you are NOT a monster."

"Harley, I am exactly what I was meant to be. I am exactly what my father saw."

"Your father? Are you ready to speak about…"

"I can still see him, standing over me. I can still feel him…his hands…his stench."

"Joker, you are a byproduct of an enabled and corrupt system. I mean, all you have to do is look at the numbers! Cities that turn a blind to a vigilante justice system sees not just spikes on the amount of crimes committed but on the very severity of those crimes. It's the costumed demons that poison the very cities they claim to protect."

"Harley, I know what I am. A monster…"

"Aberrant criminal behavior is not some ingrained predestined genetic code! It is the environment that breeds this, the very city itself! You are the oppressed here, WE are the oppressed. Your crimes are just the groans on the shackles of that oppression!"

"Harley."

"No! You listen to me. We're forced to live in fear of some patriarchal demigod who decides for us when and where justice must be dispersed! He's not after those who batter women or molest children, no! He's not after corporations who destroy families and lives with greed and inhuman hearts! Only you! His obsession lies in you! Dammit, he is just as obsessed with you as you are with him!"

"Harley."

"YOU ARE NOT A MONSTER!"

"Harley?"

"What?!"

"Monsters are put in cages."

III

Harleen opened her eyes and gasped. She sat up from her couch, her hands were shaking and she could feel her heart racing in her chest. Her hands hurt. There was blood and scrapes along her knuckles.

How did I get here? She wondered. Everything felt paper thin to her and false, like a cheaply made back-drop set in an under-produced play. Her apartment, her work, her entire life felt like some sort of put-on she had forgotten she was a part of.

"You'll need to hide, Harley." Said a deep voice, gravelly and sharp as a serrated blade. "There's no going back after this."

"Joker?!" Harleen asked, surprised to find the figure of the joker crouched at her open window, his face obscured behind her sheer curtains.

"Don't use that name here!"

"Alright…Mister J."

"That's better. They're looking for you, Harley. Forget who you were and what you did before all this. You'll need to…change. Dye your hair, something not you; like a brown or a black color. Meet me later tonight in the Cauldron at Noonan's bar. It's on the corner of Saint avenue and Peckinpah street."

"I-I know where that is."

"Oh, do you? Well, doctor you are an endless trove of surprises. Be there tonight and don't be you."

Harleen looked away for a moment and he was gone. In her mind's eye, she could see the GCPD running up the stairs of her apartment building, squad cars covering the area for miles. What have I done?

She burst into her bathroom and looked in all her shelves and cubbies for anything she could use as a disguise. "Of course, I don't have brown hair dye!" she said aloud. She ran into the kitchen and grabbed a pair of kitchen shears. She pulled on one side of her long, blond hair and placed it in-between the edges of the blades before stopping. On her counter was a box of Kool-Aid with several single serve packets. One half of the box was red and read black cherry, the other half was blue and read berry blue.

The night was cold and the wind whipped up garbage and the smell of vomit that seemed to permeate along the very bricks and cement of the area of Gotham known as the Cauldron. Harley wore a red halter top with a red leather jacket. She ran black electrical tape in patterns across the sleeves and little black diamonds on the lapels. She wore tiny red shorts with fishnet stockings and her black thigh-high boots. Whores don't feel the cold, she thought giddily to herself.

Harley was alive! The cold, the dark, the stink and even the fear gave her a sense of electricity that seemed to spark from her finger tips.

"What the fuck are you doing here, bitch?" an actual hooker said, stepping out of the shadows. "Hey, Nina! Get a load of this white, blond bitch!"

Harley smiled a gigantic cheshire cat smile, waving emphatically to Nina. "Hiya girls! Just passing through looking for my fella! Not trying to set up shop or nothing."

Nina looked over towards the first hooker and shrugged. Passing headlights caught Nina's eyes, they were dazed and tired. She was coming down from a high, probably crack Harley guessed. Noonan's bar was at the end of the block. Harley skipped the rest of the way, excited to learn how the night would go.

Noonan's Bar had the reputation of being one of Gotham's sleaziest places to regrettably find yourself in. It was the sort of place that if your car had broken down and your cell phone was dead and all you needed was to make a quick call to the nearest tow company, you'd sooner turn right around and exit the way you came and walk right up to the nearest pimp and ask him to borrow his phone, than even dare make eye contact with anyone inside that bar. It was a place for petty criminals and burned out addicts looking to score a bit of cash doing dirty work. It was a place for hitmen and whores, infections and disease. It was the type of place where death would go buy you a drink and still expect a hand-job at the end of the night.

The barroom received all the notoriety from urban legends about Sean Noonan and the various mob dealings and hits that went down from there, but to anyone who truly knew anything about Noonan's knew it was the back storeroom that was the source of so much misery in Gotham. The storeroom, filled with the smell of piss and putrid beer bared witness to all the secrets to the various crimes planned at Noonan's.

"I told ya before, Sugarfoot." A large, slumped shoulder man in a sweat stained wife-beater and a black stocking cap said mulling over a crumpled pile of twenties. He tried flattening out the bills by sliding his hand across it them over the table. He paused and looked at his hand. A red smear ran across his palm. He tasted it. "Fuckin' blood on this one. Anyway, I told you not trust them Armenians. None of them!"

Sugarfoot scratched his crotch enthusiastically. He pulled his pants up over his emaciated hips and grinned a brown smile. "If you'd seen their sister though, you would've done the deal just to hand her the money. Especially you, Mick!"

"You fucked her, didn't ya Sugarfoot." A man in a black wife-beater and a shaved head said coming out of a poorly lit office.

Sugarfoot grinned like a boy caught looking under a girl's skirts in Sunday school.

"Of course he fucked her, Sammy." Mick said shaking his head. "After he shot her in the goddamn head! Sick fuck!"

"She was still warm!" Sugarfoot said, protesting.

"Chrissakes, man! So, while I was loading up the guns and Mick was taking back the money, you was in there fucking a corpse?!"

"He's a goddamn psycho!" Mick said, snarling.

"Hey, I ain't one to judge myself." Sammy said giving Sugarfoot a wink. "I've gotten my fair share of snuggles with a struggle, if ya know what I mean!"

"Hiya!" Harley said with a cheerful wave. "Is this where boy-scout troop 247 meet, or is it just a regular circle jerk?"

"What the hell?" Sammy asked.

"I'm just kidding, boys. I know it'd be more of a right-angle triangle than a circle."

"How did you get in here!?" Mick said, slamming his fist unto the table and causing the knife he had placed by the pile of stacked bills to nearly flip end over end.

"Your funny looking bartender introduced himself to me and let me in here."

"Baytor, that fucking mook."

Harley leaned on Mick's table and craned her neck around him to find the silhouette of the man she had been searching for in the faint light of the next room. "I need to speak to your boss, sweetie. He's expecting me."

Mick's eyes flashed. "I'll tell you what, sweetie." He said, smirking at her breasts. "You either have to be the dumbest bitch I have ever had the pleasure of meeting, or you just want to get fucked."

"Why can't it be both?" Sugarfoot said tittering.

Harley glanced again at the silhouette in the back room. He was now sitting up, as if listening attentively. "Seems like everyone wants a statement these days." She said sighing. "No more cold open greetings!"

Harley snatched Mick's knife from the table and in a blur of red and black and blond, the steel point was driven through the soft bones on Mick's hand and through the cheap wood of his desk. Mick screamed in pain and tried to remove the blade, but his attempt blinded him in agony.

Harley leapt over the desk and caught Sugarfoot's hand as he readied his aim with his 9mm. He fired once, but missed wide. Harley drove the heel of her boot into the side of his knee and he buckled over in pain, cursing wildly. She pulled the gun from his hand and spied Sammy lunging towards her. An assault rifle leaned against the wall next to her and she realized that was Sammy's target. Harley threw herself towards the rifle, dropping Sugarfoot's gun on the floor. She raised the rifle as Sammy fell atop her and she squeezed the trigger. The roar of the rifle was deafening in the small room and the impact from the bullets launched Sammy away in the opposite direction.

"Chrissakes, lady!" Mick said, his face pale and tears welling in his eyes. "What's the matter with you?!"

"Oh no!" Harley said, a look of concern spreading across her blood-flecked face. "Please don't be upset with me." She walked the length of the desk, her fingers gliding against the scattered red-stained twenty dollar bills. She leaned the assault rifle against the wall and caressed the handle of a nearby twenty-pound sledgehammer. "The only thing you need to concern yourself is, do you still wanna to fuck me?"

"What?" Mick asked looking up at her, furrowing his brow.

Harley slid both hands along the long handle of the sledgehammer. "I said, do you still wanna fuck ME?!" The head of the sledgehammer arced over her head, nearly hitting the low hanging lightbulb and smashed unto the crown of Mick's head. "Do ya?! Do you still wanna fuck me?!" She repeated again and again, each time slamming the head of the hammer unto the ruin of Mick's skull.

"DO YOU WANNA FUCK ME?! DO YOU WANNA FUCK ME?! FUCK ME! FUCK ME! FUCK MEEE!"

"Shit lady!" Screamed Sugarfoot.

"Aw." Harley said, purring. "Is that for me?" She gushed over the heart shaped splatter of brains and skull on Mick's desk. She leaned in and pouted her lips, gently kissing a red bubble that appeared where Mick's lips might have once been. "Aren't you precious?" She looked back towards the back room. The lights were now dark. Gone again?

Sugarfoot looked around for his gun. He slid across the blood splattered ground reaching for it.

"Nah-ah." Harley said, shaking her finger, the assault rifle tucked firmly under the other arm and pointed at Sugarfoot's head. "Now my little teeny-weenie string-beanie, you're gonna tell me where the Joker just went."

"The Joker?" Sugarfoot asked, his throat going dry. He knew he had to think fast and use his wits if he was going to get out of this one. He was lucky though, he had always been lucky. "Yeah, sure. I know where the Joker went. I got a few friends in his crew. They owe me some favors and I guess they'll be cashing those in tonight, huh?" He said smiling.

Harley kneeled in front of him, tilting her head sympathetically.

"R-right. Anyway, they're at Ace Chemical. Joker goes there from time to time to collect ingredients and shit for…for whatever it is he's doing. You know that guy, amirite?!"

"Thank you, babe." Harley considered Sugarfoot for a moment. "You know, there's ugly and then there's 'HOLY SHIT SHOOT EM IN THE NUTS NASTY'! Do you know where you fall in, sweetie?"

"Wha…?"

The room thundered and flashed with the roar of the assault rifle. Sugarfoot's crotch exploded in lightning and gore. He screamed in agony curled into a ball.

"Oh damn." Harley said, dropping the assault rifle and covering her mouth. She crept towards the red wound between Sugarfoot's legs and shook her head. "I'm sorry, baby. So very, very, very….oh wait!" Harley sat up and blinked. "Oh, you're up there! I'm soooo embarrassed!" Harley said laughing. "Oh sweetie, you know you've been dealt a bad hand when ya get yer face confused for a ruptured ball-sack!" Harley jumped to her feet and waved to Sugarfoot. He tried to mouth something back to her, but his refused to cooperate and he simply muttered incoherently and shrieked before finally collapsing.

"Buh-bye sweet prince." Harley said, blowing him a kiss. She walked to the exit and opened the door, a cold rush of night air blew past her. Her head swam for a moment and she braced herself against the door frame.

IV

Harleen was lost.

There was neither up nor down, not forward or backwards, there was simply nothing. Am I falling or am I standing? Where am I?

You're either here or you're there. A familiar voice said from the darkness. It was the deep gravelly voice that was sharp as a serrated blade. It was His voice. You're either are or you're not.

Where are you? Harleen said in a voice she couldn't hear. Where am I?

What shadows breathe in the dark, doctor? None, save the phantoms lurking in the depths of the corridors of your twisted mind.

Help me.

V

Spotlights shone brightly against the large Ace Chemical sign. Purple smoke poured out from the large smoke stacks and several lights flickered from the windows of its large and looming edifices. Yet the structure seemed to call out to Harley as she walked towards the security gate. She felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz as she approached the Emerald City. Yet this Emerald City was made of coal and cancer and was far more beautiful than any gem could ever hope to be.

"Who the hell are you supposed to be?" Asked a burly night watchman chomping down on a large, cheap cigar.

"Call me Harley, sugar-pop. Everyone does!"

"Who the hell is everyone?"

Harley placed her hands on her hips and pouted. "I'm here to see you-know-who, he's expecting me."

The watchman rolled the cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other. "Well, I don't-know-who that is." He said mimicking her.

"Aw geeze mista, I thought maybe the get-up and the razzle-dazzle might be enough to light a spark in that big, juicy chess club brain of yours, but maybe you got into GCU on ballet scholarship?"

"Very funny, doll face. But, anyway you put it there ain't anyone inside here waiting on y…". It was more the sound of the gun cocked than the sight of the actual barrel pointed at his face that seized the watchman's heart. He raised his hands slowly and allowed the cigar to fall from his mouth.

"I'm here to see the Joker. I ain't asking you, mista. I'm done askin'".

"The Joker?" The watchman asked, taking a few steps back slowly. "I-I heard he was locked up at Black-"

"GET THE FUCK OUTTA MY WAY!" Screamed Harley.

The night watchman didn't need to hear another word. He turned and ran down the road towards the industrial park.

Inside Ace Chemical was every bit she imagined it would be. Dark and metallic with rust runoff from the steel beams above dressing every wall like fine art and tapestries. Chipped paint patterned every railing and worn depressions adorned every stair step. The flickering bulbs that hung low glowed the faint orange of a dying nations of stars, ready to swallow all of existence into eternal darkness forever and ever.

Harley felt as though she had been here before. It felt familiar and a little like home, but she had no idea why. The only thing missing is the picket fence, she thought wistfully.

She walked up a flight stairs towards a catwalk. There were several stairs and many catwalks that intersected one another, so her choice seemed arbitrary, but deep down she knew it wasn't. She skipped along the catwalk, humming a Stabbing Westward song and running her middle finger along the rough and chipped railing. She didn't realize how rough the railing was, nor did she notice the bright red streak her middle finger left behind. Nothing mattered anymore.

He's here!

Harley leaned over the railing and could feel the warmth and humidity from the open vat of green goop down below. It was nice and soothing. She closed her eyes and laughed out loud. "I'm home!"

"Yes you are." Said the serrated voice.

"Mista J?" Harley asked, spinning on her heels. Her face beamed a smile that rivaled the Joker's.

"What are you doing here, Harley? Don't you have a proposition for the Homeopathic…"

"Oh puddin!" Harley said wrapping her arms around his neck.

"Pudding?" asked the Joker.

"I'm done with all that. None of it matters anymore. Just this, just now."

"Oh Harley, Harley, Harley. Nothing that matters, does and everything that does, doesn't." The Joker said, squeezing her arms painfully and holding her back.

"What? What do ya mean?"

"Do you really want to roll with the big dogs, Harley? If so, I'm afraid you're gonna have to prove it, darling."

"What? How can you ask me that? I've done everything, everything you've asked for!"

"Not everything."

"What then? What more do you want?!"

"I want you to kill someone for me."

"Who?"

"Doctor Harleen Quinzel. Oh, she's a real uptight, phony bitch and I'm afraid she's gotten a little batty as of late! Trust me Harley, you'd be doing that one a real favor! She's in the medical field so I believe it counts as euthanasia." The Joker said laughing.

"No!" Harley shouted. "I did everything!"

"It will be easy, trust me." The Joker said, still gripping her arms and squeezing them tighter. He backed her up against the railing, pressing her painfully on the rough steel. He then released her and winked. The Joker slid an arm gently across her back and smiled genially. "All you have to do is walk right up to her and say 'Hey! I know you! Didn't we share a room in college? Hell of a view we had!' Then you just walk up to her casually, like this…"

His laughter cut into the air, sharp and cold as the serrated knife he pulled from her ribs. Harley glanced down and could see her abdomen weep, yet she could hardly feel it. She could hardly feel anything.

"You're not the same as I remember," was all Harley could say.

"None of us are. Remember Harley, you can lie to the world and keep your little secrets, but you can't lie to yourself!"

Harley could feel herself falling over the railing. With one hand, she held the wound against her ribs and just above her, she could see the knife spinning clumsily in the air. The Joker's laugh still echoed in her head. She could sense the open vat of chemicals closing in on her and for an instant, the smell reminded her of rain.

The rain tasted of blood and grime. Harley Quinn opened her eyes to an endless dark, devoid of stars, devoid of hope and she laughed and laughed.

Fin.