AN - Ok my first story, please review, if you think its bad then thats fine but please let me know what you don't like and how I can improve it, constructive criticism is appreciated. thank you :)

Chapter 1

Harley watched to bleed seeping out of the cracks in the skull, bludgeoned beyond repair, it was difficult to make out facial features anymore. She had kept smashing with the baseball bat long after he was dead. Hatred for the lowlife scum still burned in her, glaring at the dead man, she viciously kicked his side, the corpse heaving to the side before falling back to its original position. She scowled, he had died too quickly; it was no fun hurting a meat sack.

With an angry yell she threw the baseball bat at the wall across her watching it bounce off and roll to a stop. Slowly the fire inside her started to die down and she heard whimpering sniffles coming from across the room. Her eyes darted up quickly to see the small form huddled against the wall looking at her in horror, tears streaming down her puffy face with her hands clamped over her mouth.

Regret and worry filled her but that was pushed aside when she saw the fresh bruises forming on Ellie's face and arms. Anger rose up again but she forced it down in favour of helping her friend. She started forward, but Ellie flinched back from her, breathing hard and terrified eyes looking at the corpse at Harley's feet before back to Harley and slowly inching back.

"Its ok now" Harley said lamely, clenching her fists, unsure how to proceed now.

"He can't hurt you anymore, its ok now"

Stepping forward again, to reach for her, Ellie shrank back, squeezing her red eyes shut covering her head with her hands.

"Please don't hurt me," she blurted out.

Harley froze. A sick feeling in her stomach, seeing her friend flinch away from her in fear, looking at her like she was a monster. Pain and hurt bubbled up inside her as she drew back trying to find words to say to reconcile the situation, but anger reared its head again.

"He was hurting you, he was going to rape you, I saved you!" she burst out. Instantly regretting it when she saw Ellie wordless shake her head in denial.

"He loved me, we were together, he wouldn't do that"

Harley stared at her incredulously. Speechless, she knew Ellie was infatuated with him, but couldn't she see what was happening? He was abusing her and Harley hadn't acted before because Ellie had begged her not to, but when she had come over tonight and seen Matt holding Ellie down by her throat, choking her while trying to get his belt off, something inside Harley had snapped.

"He was a monster" Harley bit out.

"No you're a monster, you killed him, we were in love and you killed him." Ellie whispered. Her wild eyes darted up to look at Harley before flickering back to Matt's body.

"Murderer, you murdered him" Ellie's voice getting higher and louder before something inside her broke, and she launched herself at Harley, uncoordinated arms swinging wildly, while she screamed and cried. Tears streaming down her face as she bawled, unintelligible sounds pouring from her mouth. Harley held her wrists and let Ellie punch and slap her.

Almost numb inside, she watched Ellie exhaust herself, hits getting weaker before she slid to the floor and just cried, loud and ugly, red faced with fat tears streaming down her face.

Harley stood there. Staring at her friend, oddly no sympathy forthcoming, she waited for a feeling of empathy but nothing came. Only a strange feeling of emptiness and loss filled her now.

Calmly she walked over to the phone and called 911, Ellie's parents were away for the weekend so no one would come otherwise.

She didn't remember anything of what was said, but soon the sounds of sirens in the distance came closer with red and blue flashing lights before cars parked in front of the house.

Everything was a blur as she watched people lead Ellie away and setting up markings around the body. A police officer stood in front of her and after a moment she realised he had been talking to her.

"I'm sorry can you repeat that please?" Harleen said, firmly back in control.

Blinking the cop repeated.

"I'm officer Robertson, are you the one who called 911?"

"Yes" she said, calm rational settling over her before she took in the officer; he was fairly plain, with earnest brown eyes.

"Please come with me, there's some questions I'd like to ask you"

She sat waiting in the police station; she hadn't seen Ellie again and doubted she ever would again. Ellie would never forgive her now, not that it would have changed anything.

The doors burst open and Harleys mother burst through the doors.

"Harleen are you alright?" she cried hugging her before drawing back to look into her eyes, relief at seeing she was ok.

From there everything went quickly, she had already answered all their questions and had a medical check up to make sure she was fine.

Her mother drove her home in silence, parking the car they got out and walked up to the front door. It wasn't a fancy neighbourhood, but wasn't terrible either. Harleen focused on the curling paint on the door flaking off while her mother struggled with the keys. Finally it opened and they both walked in.

Harleen calmly walked into the kitchen and started making hot chocolate, she had already showered and been given spare clothes by the police since hers had been splattered in blood.

Her mother watched from the door before reaching forward to grab her wrist. Eyes meeting she begged her.

"Please Harleen, these things cant keep happening, this time its ok, it counts as self defence and no one is going to blame a 14 year old girl for defending her friend from rape by a 17 year old line-backer. But this isn't the first time you've had violent outbursts. Sooner or later someone will connect the dots and you won't be seen as a victim anymore. Do you understand Harleen?"

Her tearful eyes bored into her and she froze staring at her distraught mother. She took a deep breath before continuing.

"Harleen, I love you but you need to stop this, you need to learn to control yourself, I know sometimes, you have…. moments… when you change…"

She made a frustrated sound " I don't know, I don't understand you but Harleen please, please they will take you away and lock you up, please for me, please try."

Pleading watery blue eyes bored into her as her mother begged.

"Please this needs to stop, promise me, there wont be a next time, no more fights, no more beating people up, no stealing, and don't deny it, I find stuff in your room, please, I love you and I don't want to see you get locked up."

"I want what's best for you, please do this for me, no more, ok? Can you promise me that Harleen?"

She was torn, she looking into her mothers eyes she could tell, she had pushed it too far this time, they both knew she got into fights and stole stuff sometimes, but she never got caught and rarely lost a fight. But this was the final step; she had never killed anyone before.

They could argue that it was self-defence, she was helping her friend, but unspoken, they both knew she had enjoyed it. Her mother wouldn't accept it, or ever even say it out loud, but she knew. Harley like doing whatever she wanted, she had her own idea of right and wrong, which rarely matched up with the laws definition.

But now was time to choose, she had felt it coming for a while. To be Harley or Harleen.

Harleen opened her eyes to the alarm beeping. The blaring noise overpowering the music from her headphones. She sighed and slowly lowered her legs from the handstand, in in a fluid controlled movement stood up, and walked over to turn the alarm off.

She left her headphones and iPod on the table before stretching and grabbing a water bottle. She always spent an hour each morning doing gymnastics before work, she had taken up gymnastics after that day when she was 14 and had trained hard ever since. She had thrown her self into the tough regime to find an outlet for her pent up energy and violent tenancies, channelling it into something more productive.

Since that day when she was 14, she had supressed Harley in favour of Harleen, working night an day on building a perfect mask of respectability. Harley locked up tight in the back of her mind, and every time she threatened to escape, Harleen had thrown herself into gymnastics until it became a meditative, almost therapeutic ritual for her. Nowadays, Harley rarely made a peep; she had successful brought Harleen to the front and embraced the life that came with it. Calm, successful, law-abiding and boring.

Harleen walked over to the bathroom from the living room she had converted into a gymnastics room to take a shower. Her residency at the Gotham general hospital was coming to a close and she was beginning to think about what her next step should be. She had specialised in forensic psychiatry, finding it ironic, a sort of personal joke that she was helping criminals with mental illnesses.

Closing her eyes she let the warm water beat down on her aching muscles. The pleasant burn of stretched muscles from her workout soothed under the spray. Then she heard it, the unmistakable laughter of unadulterated glee in her head. The uninhibited manic laughter rolling over her as her eyes snapped open and she shivered. There was something about that laughter that spoke to her; it was free. Her heart sped up and she waited as it slowly faded away again.

Exhaling a breath she didn't know she was holding she hung head and braced her arms against the shower walls to get her bearing again. That was all she ever heard and felt from him. Other people felt a range of emotions and heard the significant other talk or say things, but all she ever got was laughter, always the same. Ever since she had been woken up on the night of her 18th birthday to hear him for the first time.

She supposed that meant he was older than her, you could only hear your partner after you both turned 18, but that's about all she knew. That and he liked to laugh a lot, so he was probably a happy guy.

She shook the thoughts from her head, no point in wasting time thinking about that now, it wouldn't help her find him and she wasn't even sure she wanted to. She had spent the every moment since she was 14 crafting a perfect Harleen; cool, calm, collected, tough at the workplace, friendly but not approachable in order to keep people at a distance. She had no close friends, no one came to her apartment, if she had a fling, it was always at their place, never at hers; this was her sanctuary.

She stepped out of the shower, grabbing a towel, she dried herself and started applying makeup before walking into her bedroom, rifling through her clothes, she found a white blouse, a pencil skirt with heels and a blazer. A standard work outfit.

She grabbed her glasses and walked into the kitchen, turning on the TV to listen to the news, she started making coffee. While it brewed she picked up her letters and started sorting through them, half listening to the news. She grabbed her coffee and started sipping it, terrified yelling bringing her out of her stupor.

Glancing up, attention on the TV, she saw the reporters screaming in terror and diving for cover while machinegun fire tore through the news room. Gaping at the destruction, she watched it calm down and distinctly heard begging.

"Please I'm just the cameraman, please you can ha-"

The sound was cut off with a single shot and she wasn't sure if she imagined the sound of the body hitting the floor. Silence reigned for a moment before the camera was grabbed and flipped around to show the close up of a face with garish makeup and vibrant green hair.

"Hello" the almost cartoonish man said, turning his head back and forth in the camera, slicking his hair back with exaggerated carefulness.

"I'm on TV, gotta look good for the camera" then he burst out giggling. A sinking feeling formed in the pit of Harleen stomach. He turned and asked one of the bleeding figures on the floor:

"What do you think, do I look presentable for the camera?"

The man clutching his leg went pale staring at the Joker before stuttering.

"I can't hear you," he sang before shooting him in the head and laughing outright before swinging around to look into the camera gain, his face filling the whole screen.

"Hello Gotham city" he started laughing again and Harleen came out of her shock when her coffee mug shattered on the floor. Cursing she immediately grabbed the remote and turned the TV off.

Taking deep breaths she closed her eyes and leaned on the kitchen counter, coffee spreading over the floor and her heels. Moving on autopilot she started cleaning up the ceramic shards and coffee.

When she was done, she stood and leaned back against the kitchen counter, coming out of shock, Harleen calmed and took control. The laughter was unmistakable; she had been hearing it for years now. But this was insane, it had to be wrong, the Joker couldn't be her match.

She knew who he was of course, had read about him in the news, but she had never paid much attention, this was the first time seeing him on the TV. But was it possible? Remembering the face with tattoos and makeup with green hair, no she had spent most of her life trying to become a respectable law-abiding citizen; this couldn't be what life had in store.

She needed to make sure; she grabbed her laptop and looked up the Joker laughing on YouTube. Clicking on the first thing that came up, she waited for it to load, tensing with her heart rate accelerating, when suddenly familiar laughing filled the room. She leaned back listening to the sound, occasionally it was interrupted by gunfire but she noticed whoever had posted it, had taken a snippet of him laughing and repeated it to make a 5min video. She sat there the whole time listening until it came to an end.

Harley was surprising quiet in the back of her head, oddly she had expected her to come bursting out but nothing. There was no point in being in denial, she could waste her time but it was better if she faced this head on: the Joker was her fated partner.

She glanced at her watch; almost time to go to work. Well no point in skipping work, this would still be here tonight. She closed the laptop and grabbed her bag, she think this over later. Taking a deep breath she tried to purge thoughts of the Joker from her mind before stepping forward to leave her apartment and go to work.