Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or settings depicted; they belong to Warner Brothers.

Notes: This is the first in a series of three unconnected short stories in which I am hoping to build experience in writing romantic relationships. This is, admittedly, the weakest of the three but I'd still appreciate constructive criticism and feedback.

As for the continuity, it is my own; borrowing from a variety of sources (comic, cartoon and movie versions).

…

Gotham at night; a sight to behold, with lights all over the city, some on, some off and others flashing away ready to die. Screams of pain and grief came and went almost as quickly as the blaring of police sirens faded in and out.

The Joker, with that inhuman grin never leaving his face, lowered one foot over the rooftop. The thought of it, his life being so easily ended according to the nature of the wind, excited him. He leant over, as far as he could without falling, and began to cackle.

Jason Todd, the Red Hood, walked towards him. "This is the end." He offered an assessment of the clown's fate without any outward display of all the anger and hatred he'd been storing up over the years. He kept a tight grip on the crow bar in his right hand.

"You really think it's going to be that easy, don't you?" The Joker pulled himself back from the rooftop's edge but didn't turn to face his pursuer. "Don't you think I've got a trick or two up my sleeve?"

That was when the first blow came, across his back. Jason could've killed him then and there; let him fall to his death. Instead, he grabbed at the Joker's long purple coat and dragged him to the centre of the rooftop.

As the rain started falling, a voice came crying from bellow them. Jason had bolted the door to the roof shut and the woman banged against it ferociously between screams.

The Joker, reeling from the blow to his spine, had a hopeful tone. "Harley, dear… is that you? Oh, do come up and join me, won't you?" This was the trick up his sleeve, his last line of defence; the girl he'd infatuated.

The second blow was to his left knee. He sputtered out a hysterical cry of pain but turned it into laughter. Falling to the ground, he lashed out at his assailant with a wild flurry of undirected punches.

Jason kept his distance until the clown had exhausted himself. He said nothing, through all this.

The third blow was to the side of the Joker's head. It left him, face down in a newly formed puddle, shaking and giggling uncontrollably.

When the fourth blow came and the giggling stopped, Quinn renewed her frantic efforts to knock the door down. By the time of the sixth blow, it was almost broken in half.

The door, finally, came down in time for the blonde girl to see the tenth blow. Jason left it at that and walked away as the devastated girl rushed over to her lover's lifeless body.

Gotham was immediately filled with howls of grief. She rocked the Joker in her arms, becoming drenched in blood.

It was morning and all the make-up had washed from her face before she considered leaving. Hours of relentless attempts to bring him back to life had left Harley with the understanding that, now, he was gone forever.

Her heart, broken some time ago, no longer even existed. She felt nothing but an ache in her stomach and a burning sensation at the back of her throat. She rolled the corpse of her lover off her knees and into the puddle. She got up, ignoring the deadness in her legs.

In silence and sadness, she made her way down the apartment building, long abandoned. She, eventually, found a back-alley where she could fall to her knees and sleep against a filthy, dilapidated building's wall.

…

The Bat-Cave was almost crowded. Stephanie Brown, the Batgirl, was training alongside her comrades. With Bruce sparring with Dick off down the hall, Stephanie was engaged in a three-way with Tim and Damian.

The latter, younger of the two, Damian was using his size to his advantage. He was able to duck either two's punches with ease and deliver kicks to the gut that they should, otherwise, have been able to block.

Without their costumes, each hit was felt a little harder. An unspoken truce had sprung up between Stephanie and Tim as they focused on dealing with their junior.

After Tim got lucky and caught one of Damian's high kicks, he was able to deliver an almost savage blow to the boy's waist and put him out of action for a few moments.

The truce was instantly broken as Stephanie, with the advantage over a distracted Tim, let loose on the Red Robin and connected as many free jabs as she could with the man's torso.

Losing herself in the fight, Stephanie was blind to the younger Robin, recovered from his winding, coming at her from the side. Damian kicked at her side and, with the girl turning away from him; Tim paid her back for the flurry of punch with a horrendous right hook.

Knocked on her arse, and exhausted, she held her hands up in surrender and removed herself from the fight. She wandered over to the makeshift watching area, a collection of office chairs, to catch her breath.

She kept an eye on how both fights were going, Damian was winning his and Bruce was winning his.

She adjusted her halter top and fingered a fresh bruise on her right side; she winced at the pain and wished that, like Cassie had when she had been there, the boys would've pulled their punches.

Thinking of the girl, Stephanie called over to Barbara, sat at the nearby computer terminal. "Hey, Barb, do you when Cassie's getting back from Europe?"

The red-haired girl shook her head. "No, sorry…"

Stephanie sighed.

After a little while, she noticed Alfred come into the room. He looked unusually sombre and, after he offered her a look of deep sympathy; she suddenly became interested in what he had come to say.

The butler walked over to the Batman, waited for him to finish sparring and, then, whispered something in his ear. Bruce immediately looked over to Stephanie, frowned and then turned back to Alfred.

After a short, silent, conversation, they started walking over to the blonde girl. They asked her to come with them to the main floor and she complied immediately, intrigued and scared at the same time.

Although they were initially curious, the boys dismissed the occurrence and went back to their training. Tim and Damian continued their fight and Dick wandered over to his girlfriend.

Feeling his hand in her hair, Barbara leaned back into his touch. He leant down over her and offered a simple smile which she, instantly, returned. They shared a short, sweet, kiss.

Motioning over to the door Stephanie had just been led out off, Barbara piped up. "What's happened?"

Dick shrugged. "I don't know."

"Your father's been hospitalised." Alfred placed a reassuring hand on the blonde girl's shoulder.

She was stunned and unable to verbalise her thoughts. She opened her mouth but shut it after a moment of silence.

Alfred went on, presuming to know what her questions would have been if she could have asked them. "He was caught up in a prison riot, stabbed by a fellow inmate during the confusion."

Her face twitched at the details.

"It was a while before he received treatment; the inmates had to be pacified before medical staff could be let in."

"Is he…" Stephanie couldn't finish her question. "Will he…" She stopped trying after the second failed attempt.

"The damage to his body was severe. The doctors don't hold out much hope for his survival."

She felt a shiver travel up her spine. She didn't want to hear the truth. Before the first tear could fall, the old man had pulled her into a hug.

"He's asked for you… but you don't have to go, if you don't want to."

Stephanie considered everything. She'd spent the last few years of her life trying to block out all memory of her father and, now, it had all come flooding back to her; the good and bad at equal pace.

A part of her, terrified by the prospect, was begging to refuse to go. She shook her head, dismissing the thought. She pulled away from Alfred and looked up into his tired blue-grey eyes. "I want to go… I have to go."

Each second she spent, in Alfred's Bentley, on route to Gotham General increased her nervousness a thousand fold. Her breathing started to become unsteady and panic set in as things she was unwilling and unequipped, to deal with raced through her mind.

Bruce, in the backseat with her, calmed her down with as warm an embrace as he could offer. Careful to keep his head held high, he let the girl he'd once called Robin cry into his chest.

Alfred and Stephanie were greeted by a grim-faced doctor once they'd made their way to Arthur Brown's floor. Gripping to the butler as tightly as she could, expecting the worst, the girl's immediate fears were confirmed.

"Mister Brown died about seven minutes ago."

Alfred sat with her on the waiting room bench. He said nothing, he just let her cry and eventually, when she was able to, speak her mind. "On the ride over here, I was going through the worst case scenario. I imagined him brining me here just to dig the knife in; screaming at me, shouting at me, calling me names, accusing me of betrayal."

She looked up, red eyed, at the haggard old gentleman. "But this is even worse… Now, I can't know how he felt in the end… I can't know whether or not he'd have forgiven me… I can't know if he'd have regretted his past… I can't know if he'd have let me in… I just can't know…"

Alfred considered that for a second. He couldn't know either. Instead of giving her answers to unanswerable questions, he offered her a warm and comforting hand.

She closed her eyes, soaking in the moment, and let her mind believe, if only for a fleeting moment, that Alfred's hand was her father's and that he had, in his final hour, forgiven his daughter for thwarting his plans all those years ago.

…

"THE JOKER IS DEAD!" The eye-catching headline of the Gotham Gazette that Stephanie had laid out on the table made her think.

She didn't think so but it was entirely possible that the Joker was somebody's father. She supposed that, on any other day, she wouldn't have even considered contemplating the idea and would, quite simply, have revelled in the news.

The Batgirl looked away from the paper and off to the entrance of the small, out-of-the-way, Café she'd returned to after nearly twenty years. When she'd turned three, the first birthday her father was out of prison to see, he'd taken her there and bought her a big home-baked cookie.

The establishment had changed hands a few times since those days and no longer served sweet food. That didn't matter, however, as all she really wanted was to be there. She took a few sips of her coffee and watched as the owner tussled with someone at the door.

The unwanted customer, from what she could see, was much smaller than the man so there was no danger of a fight. Listening in she picked up on the customer's voice, it was a woman with a slightly tired New York accent.

"I've got money!" The man pushed her away and a few old, dirty, notes fell to the floor. He took a step back and let her pick them up.

It was only as she came back up from the floor, stuffing ten dollars worth of paper money, into an oversized trench coat, that Stephanie caught a glimpse of her face.

Though their eyes only met for a brief second, they immediately recognised each other. Harley, from that one time, so long ago, she'd managed to tear Batgirl's mask from her face and Stephanie from that one time, even longer ago, that they'd been fighting in the rain and Harley's face-paint had been washed away.

The villainess, or what remained of her, bolted as soon as it had clicked. Stephanie, however, sat in shock for a moment; taking in all of the hurt and desperation that she'd seen plastered over Harley's face.

Remembering herself, she set her half-finished coffee down, pulled her coat on and made swiftly after her. She got out of the shop just fast enough to see Harley taking off around the corner.

She picked up her pace as soon as she'd left and burst into a run. They ran for what felt like miles, going deeper and deeper into Gotham's underbelly. Just as her breathing was starting to become laboured, Stephanie cornered Harley in the dead end of a back-alley.

She had had time to wonder exactly why she was chasing the other woman down. She certainly looked harmless, as though she could be left to a short and quiet life to never bother anyone again. However, it was for precisely that reason that Stephanie had to chase her.

"Get away from me, bitch!" Harley's voice had lost its oddly charming but annoying tone. There was no colour in her language; only anger and fear.

Stephanie stopped a few metres away, in compliance. She raised her hands. "I'm not here to fight."

Harley gave her a vicious glare. "Then, why are you here?"

"I…" Stephanie choked; she'd started to speak before she'd full-formed an answer. "I just wanted to talk."

Harley let her guard down, if only a little, eyeing the younger woman up and down in suspicion. "What've we got to talk about?"

Stephanie tried to walk a little closer but Harley shook her head. "I just lost someone, too."

Harley grimaced. She didn't want that conversation; not one bit. But something, an unspeakable something, kept her just a little curious. Casting glances about her position, making sure it really was a dead end and that she couldn't slip away, she humoured the girl. "Who was it?"

"My dad…"

Harley considered trusting the girl, it seemed absurd that she would be lying, and felt a pang of sympathy from some rarely active part of her mind.

Before she could properly address her old adversary, a group of strangers started to come down the alley way. The natural leader of the group, a little taller and smarter than his friends, spoke with a boisterous and threatening voice.

"Hey, ladies… are we all alone tonight?"

Stephanie became offended. How dare a pack of common thugs try something on with the Batgirl? It was then, after looking down at her clothes (a cream jacket, lilac sweater and grey jeans), that she realised. They weren't trying something on with the Batgirl, or Harley Quinn; they were trying something on with the vulnerable daughter of a convict and the disgraced former psychologist living on the streets.

The man passed her by and went straight for Harley; he put a hand through her dirty, loose, hair and she jerked back. "Hey…" He cooed to her before pulling her towards him violently.

"Get your hands off her!" Stephanie kept her voice from slipping into a scream.

He shot her back a contemptuous glare and spat at her.

She flipped and, costume or no costume, Batgirl let loose. She flew towards him, dragging him to the ground, straddling him and driving punch after punch into his face.

Harley stepped into gear, grabbing a nearby iron bar, and scaring the rest of the gang away with a few wild strikes in their direction.

Stephanie let her emotions pour out of her, concentrated in her fists; she worked out all the grief, fear, pain and frustration that she'd been feeling on the thug's broken face.

She grew tired after a while and, as she sat back up, the Batgirl was caught in a fit of uncontrollable, relieving, laughter.

Seeing the girl, Harley let a smile, that she hadn't had in days, creep over her mouth. "So… you wanted to talk?"

Stephanie got up, calming herself down. She turned to the dishevelled harlequin and offered her a smile. "You got a place to stay?"

The homeless girl responded with a shrug.

Stephanie extended her hand. "How'd you like to stay with me?" At any other time in her life, she'd never have offered and, at any other time in her life, Harley would never have accepted.

Harley dropped the iron bar she was holding, instinctively, without even contemplating how well it could be used to beat the other girl into a pulp. She took Stephanie's hand and was dragged away.

They ran to Stephanie's apartment, somewhere on the other side of town, and, somewhere along the way, they started giggling; their giddiness at running away from a man who was in no state to have ever given chase overcame them.

It was only once they'd got to Stephanie's apartment that what had, clearly, passed between, was able to be vocalised.

Harley surveyed the room; it was much nicer, warmer and cleaner than her previous night's abode. "So, you haven't called the cops? What does that mean?"

Stephanie shrugged; she hadn't really thought any of it through. "I don't know. I just thought you might need a friend."

Harley didn't reply.

"I guess if Batman knew, he'd say I was being stupid or reckless or both."

Harley came closer to the blonde than she ever had before, apart from when they were fighting. She cupped the girl's face and forced eye contact. "You are."

She left it at that and went on through to the bathroom, having been offered the chance to get rid of a few days worth of muck.

Stephanie watched Harley walk away; there was no bounce in her step, no whimsical tune, no improvised wise-cracks. Everything about the girl, she'd been in a near-fatal scrap with only a few months ago, caused Stephanie to pity her rather than to fear her.

She waited patiently for her new roommate to emerge from the bathroom. Wrapped up in a towel, she looked radiant and the yellow was back in her hair; her eyes, however, looked dead.

"You can pick out what you like from my wardrobe." She motioned to behind her, the monolithic pale pink thing she called a wardrobe. Picking out a set of sky blue pyjamas, Harley disrobed and got dressed into them quickly.

Stephanie averted her eyes, in respect, before watching the sullen girl clamber into the double bed; the old Harley might've made a rude joke but the new Harley simply accepted her reality with tiredness.

By the time Stephanie was showered and dressed for bed, the other girl was already fast asleep. Stephanie eased herself into the bed, careful not wake her, and stared in silence for a little while at the girl's gaunt face; she was still pretty but she, obviously, hadn't eaten in days.

Stephanie brushed a loose hair away from the sleeping girl's face and tucked it behind her ear. She let out a sigh, feeling an anxious sensation build up in her belly as she continued staring.

Getting to sleep was much harder for Stephanie that it had been for Harley but she eventually managed.