A.N.: Hello! This story is new…omg I'm not dead. Lol life has been a crazy ride since I last uploaded a story. I moved again, bought a house, got pregnant, had to deal with post partum depression and now my baby is two! I saw the suicide squad movie and for the first time in years I found myself motivated to write again. Now I don't want to discourage anyone by posting this story, I actually have the next chapters for my other stories half done…from blended blood to fire born…does this mean I will be posting them soon? Maybe, honestly I have to go back through my notes, remind myself where I was going and edit some things. But I hope to update my other works soon. I'm getting married in two months so you'll probably see updates after that. I might update this story faster and more often. Because it's fresh and it's new and it motivates me. Lol don't give up on me though. I will continue my other stories! Thanks for reading and thanks to everyone who continued to review my stories…you guys made me come back to writing. So I will definitely reward your faith in me!

Chapter 1~Mad Hatter

"My friends don't walk, they run
Skinny dip in rabbit holes for fun
Popping, popping balloons with guns, getting high off helium" ~Melanie Martinez

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When you're dead trying to keep yourself together is like trying to hold water with your bare hands. The important things go first, the harder you try to keep your memories and your essence the more it hurts. It feels a bit like you're being cut to ribbons; it hurts so much trying to keep anything that part of you wants to just to let it all go but the thought of being put through metaphysical blender and losing everything scares you more. So you hold on to your pieces of self because even if it's painful the thought of being utterly destroyed is more terrifying. Like shattering a mirror and holding the pieces in your bloody hand, trying to stay together without being cut apart is impossible.

Fractured.

One becomes many and then all of you tries to hold onto each other.

Panic.

You look for a way to escape the inescapable.

Death was an absolute. Everything that lives dies, an unavoidable truth, and then a crazy idea streams through the shattered pieces of what once was a person…the only thing that defeats death is life (and vise versa). Joined by the thinnest of threads, memories fading, you see an out and go for it. The pain doesn't go away; the shattered parts can't be fitted back together because parts of you are gone forever. You are no longer one, but many, joined together into something like a person…yet not. The pieces are you, they are your thoughts, your memories, and they should be joined, smooth and not disjointed. You know this, you know that there is something fundamentally wrong with you, but you don't care. All of you agrees, better to be this shattered disjointed thing than to not be a thing at all.

You can't remember the vital essence of you anymore, you can't remember your name, and parts of your life are gone from you as if it never existed leaving only a gaping wound in its wake…only the devastating pain of love lost.

Heartbreak.

There are things you do remember, a smell of a lover…was he a husband…a first love…his memory is gone but it left with such a large piece of you…he must have meant a whole lot. You remember English, reading, writing, speaking, you remember school lessons, and the ache of your feet after working all day. None of it is in order, none of it seems as important as the parts of you that are gone forever. But it is something. At least there is something.

Boom…dun-boom…boom…dun-boom.

You listen to the heartbeats of your new mother as it crashes over you like the waves upon the shore and take comfort in it.

Life.

You're alive, and you made it out of death alive…

Ha ha ha ha ha …ha….

You made it back to life.

All the parts of you agree, even if it's painful, even if you are this broken thing…you are alive and nothing and no one can take this victory from you.

You conquered death.

You faced it, and the pain it gave you head on.

You are a warrior.

You are strong, bleeding thing, broken, but together.

You will never forget this lesson.

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"We paint white roses red,
Each shade from a different person's head
This dream, dream is a killer
Getting drunk with the blue caterpillar"

~Melanie Martinez

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Nick and Sharon Quinzel were not quite sure what to make of their new baby Harleen. She was just so different from their first son Barry that they weren't sure what to make of it and were only too glad to ignore the…oddity. Harleen was just such a good baby, hardly crying, rarely fussy, and so beautiful that they were the envy of every other parent they knew. So Sharon never brought up the way that Harleen seemed to stare and comprehend when you talked to her. Nick just put it down to his beautiful daughter being as intelligent as she was beautiful and took pride in it.

They never talked about how fast she learned to walk and talk.

They especially avoided the way she talked…educated…like an adult in miniature.

Sharon never quite got comfortable around her daughter…it just didn't seem like Harleen needed her and so Sharon left her to her own devices most of the time while Nick was away. Sharon knew she should try harder, should love her more, Harleen tried to show her affection to her mother openly but somehow Sharon just couldn't do it. The sad truth was that Sharon was a little freaked out by her daughter…being comfortable around her seemed to be impossible. Harleen tried on her own, cajoling her mother into piano lessons hoping to bond over a shared passion. However, that just seemed to make it worse because as much as she tried not to envy the ease and skill her daughter picked up her art; Sharon knew in her heart that a large part of her resented her own daughter.

Why did she have to be so prefect?

Beautiful. Smart. Talented.

Sharon wondered if this was how every mother felt when giving birth to their own better versions of themselves.

Nick was as warm as Sharon was distant. Nick doted on his little princess, anything his little girl asked for she got and he was just so proud of her. So when she asked him to only talk to her in Italian when she turned one, he did, happy that she wanted to know his native language. Even though Sharon railed at him for talking to their daughter in their "secret language" and excluding her and Barry, Nick didn't care one whit. Barry was five years older and was a lazy uninterested boy. Nick wanted to love Barry as much as he loved his precious princess but he was just so disappointing next to his little Harley.

Barry didn't want to learn Italian (of course neither did Sharon) and he was slow to understand. Nick could have full discussions with Harley and not be bored or disinterested. She was only two years old and was a better conversationalist than people twenty times her age. And when he took her on his jobs Harley was talented and smart enough to not be a liability on his cons. Harley was everything he could have hoped for in his child. She had this need to learn that couldn't be quenched, she could read and write already. Harley could speak fluent Italian with him now after only a year and she was teaching herself Spanish now.

When she asked for gymnastic lessons Nick was surprised but got her a private instructor right away. Nick had decided a long time ago that Harley was going to be his priority because she needed someone to feed that hunger for life in her. It was the same hunger in him that need, that greed, and in her Nick saw a successor that would be more talented and better suited than him. It excited him; Nick couldn't wait to see how his little girl got world to bow at her dainty feet. When Sharon told him she was pregnant again shortly after Harley's third birthday Nick barely batted an eye at her excitement.

When Sharon found out it was a girl her anticipation could hardly be contained.

Then when the perfectly ordinary baby girl was born, Jolene, Nick was oddly grateful. Jolene was a squalling, normal dim witted baby just like Barry had been and the relief Sharon expressed on that seemed a bit excessive to Nick. Harley didn't pay the new baby much mind and neither did Nick. If anything Nick was grateful that he didn't have two gifted children he had to devote himself to and be completely drained. Harley was enough for him, she needed his undivided attention and he was only too happy to give it. Sharon was utterly disgusted with him, her nose stuck firmly in the air now every time she looked at him.

Nick knew that Sharon was unsuited to him but she had been everything he had wanted. Sharon was a daughter of high society, she had been a budding socialite when he had met her on one of his cons…she had been so…untouchable. Beautiful, the daughter of a wealthy businessman, born with a silver spoon in her mouth Sharon had been showered with everything Nick had always had to struggle to obtain. She was supposed to have been out of his league, son of a garbage man, high school dropout, he had been born in the gutter and she had been born in a penthouse. That was why he had gone after her…why he had wanted her so bad.

Nick had only his charm and his silver tongue to recommend him. He had no money to shower her with courting gifts a girl like her would have expected. He had not been given the Ivy League education that her parents would expect of a future son in law. He was a con-man, he was not someone they had even wanted to lick their boots, but in spite of everything he had won her over. They eloped, had Barry right after and the rest as they say is history. Maybe at one point Sharon had loved him, maybe he had even loved her once, but that love was a pale shadow of the affection he felt for his little princess.

Nick didn't care what Sharon did anymore, didn't care if she spoiled Barry and Jolene rotten. He didn't care if Sharon ruined them like her parents had spoiled and ruined her. Harley was the only one who mattered to him. Nick started to do seduction cons around the time Harley started to go to school, and Sharon started drinking by then as well. Sharon pretended she didn't know Nick was cheating on her and Nick ignored the flask in her pocket and the slur in her words.

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"I'm peeling the skin off my face
'Cause I really hate being safe
The normal's, they make me afraid
The crazies, they make me feel sane"

~Melanie Martinez

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Harleen Quinzel.

Harley Quinn.

Inside her head all the parts of her were laughing, Harley knew her future and it was so funny that this should be her new life. Harley wondered if you could escape destiny. Could you change your fate? Harley decided to try it even if in the end she ended up where she knew her path was going. It started with school, of course, she was determined to finish high school as soon as she was able and with any luck she would be done by the time she was ten…hopefully. Then she would do the first change, oh, she would still be a doctor but this time Harley thought being a trauma surgeon could be more useful in the long run.

After all, this world was one with flying god-like men, and a million more ways to die.

Harley giggled and thought to herself that this must be how Deadpool felt breaking the fourth wall…knowing you're technically a fictional character and living life anyways.

She had never forgotten what she had defeated to come into being, what she had endured; nothing would stop her from enjoying the bounty life had to offer because she knew the pain of death.

That pain had never left her, constantly in pain, pain twisted in her head until it was pleasure because it was proof.

Pain meant she was alive.

Pain meant she had endured, been broken but not beaten because she had stood up again. Harley would always stand up again.

Harley knew the path she was supposed to walk, knew what it would bring down upon her and she laughed. Because wasn't her life a joke, she went skinny dipping into a rabbit hole covered in razor blades and wasn't that just hilarious? Wasn't this life a laugh? Her father certainly thought so; he showed her the tricks of his trade, and really, wasn't his art so…useful. In the end a con man was only a charmer, a seducer, and wasn't that what Harley Quinn wanted to be? She couldn't remember but her last life left with a bland after taste of a life well spent on boring normal pursuits.

Harley was Harley, there was not another name that she remembered and not another one she wanted. Her mind was amazing, learning had never been so easy and there was just so much to learn. There was so much she wanted to know and her handsome, talented, con man of a father was only too happy to oblige her. Gymnastic lessons started when she was three and she was happy to find she was naturally very talented in it. By the time Harley was five they had moved four times to four different cities and by then her education had become more…diverse. Her father seemed to be of the mind that she was going to follow him into the underworld as his princess and come out the other side the queen.

By the time they moved to Gotham she had learned a variety of skills that were unbelievably useful. How to pick a lock (handcuffs especially). How to throw a knife so it hit what you were aiming for (though that was still a work in progress). Nick had her training with a combat associate of his so she knew how to take down men ten times as big as she was and all of this without her ever having to ask for it.

She still pursued things on her own, piano and then violin lessons. There was a voice in her head that was constantly singing her favorite songs from the before and nine times out of ten she sang along. So her father got her a vocal couch too. In fact as far as her father and Harley went, they were remarkable aligned in the pursuit of the things she wanted. Her mother and siblings were just sort of there in the background for Harley…she didn't care much for them. As for her father the rest of her family were like accessories to him, things he used when he needed to show the world what an upstanding citizen he was and how normal.

The two of them were peas in a pod, but eventually Harley found out this easy life she had been living had a punch line. It happened when her mother registered her for school and Harley actually wanted to go. Her father didn't like that one bit. See, he had a plan for Harley, she was his investment into the future and that future didn't include anything as normal as a formal education. Boy had Sharon been surprised at his blow up because now that she was registered she had to show up some of the time at least.

Course he hadn't really lost it until Harley had stated that she wanted to see about testing out of some grade levels and accelerating her education to a fast track to college and then medical school. That wasn't in his plans, that wasn't what he had been training her for and that was the first time Nick had struck her across the face. Harley hadn't been expecting it so all her training went out the window and her body flew into the wall like a puppet without its strings. As she was lying there dizzy from the hit and fall Harley felt a laugh bubbling up her throat even as he kicked her and then stormed out the door.

She giggled.

She chuckled.

She laughed until tears gathered at the corners of her eyes.

Because wasn't it funny wasn't it hilarious that in both of her lives her father was the kind of guy that beat on little girls. Oh she didn't remember much from before she was Harley, not much at all, but she remembered being hit, being beaten, because pain seemed to be the only thing death had left on her when she clawed her way back into life. She didn't remember softness, didn't remember the gentle embrace of love or the warmth of her mother's hands….but she remember the bite of his fits. So she laughed.

She laughed because what a joke. The father she loved, yes she loved him now, how could she not after five loving years of pampering tenderness, she loved him and he slapped her around anyway. It was even funnier because she knew what came next, was anticipating it even. She sat on the couch waiting for him, the mother who disliked her fluttering around her not sure what to do. The better you than me was stamped onto her face.

Wasn't that ironic?

The father, who loved her, hit her, because he felt enough for her to want to control her. The wife, he at best tolerated, was safe from his fists because he didn't care enough to hit her. What a joke. What a laugh. So she giggled and waited.

Her cheek swelled up, her ribs felt tender as she giggled and sat back into the couch. Sure enough, a few hours later, he was back, smelling of liquor with tears in his eyes, an apology on his lips and a dozen roses in his hand.

He was so sorry.

He hadn't meant to hurt her.

You just made Daddy so angry princess.

He loved her.

He promised not to do it again.

Harley giggled.

She laughed. The Voices in her head, all the shattered parts inside her talked and sang.

You know this story.

You know the lines.

And the joke.

~like rain on your wedding day~

*You know how to make this work*

The voices in her head and scattered parts of her all agreed, Harley smiled sweetly at her father on side of her mouth frozen from the swelling making her grin crooked and slightly demented. Harley knew all the lines, of course dad, you didn't want to hurt your Harley, of course I forgive you, but you need to let me do what I want to do. She watched the tensing of his jaw and the tightening of his fist with an amused eye. Then she twisted his views around, won't it be a great cover? Who would suspect a doctor? The sweet innocent child prodigy with too much intellect and not enough street smarts of doing any crime?

Wasn't it smart to set up an out for them?

Didn't father want to set up his princess with the best?

Suddenly it was her father's idea to get school out of the way as fast as possible. Tutors and tests were arranged without her ever having to lift a finger. Of course her extracurricular education was amped up as well. A personal gymnastic couch whose idea of a break was forced Parkour through the city, a combat trainer that was as merciless as her father in one of his newly discovered moods. It was painful and her time was packed leaving little for anything besides learning. But Harley made her own fun, her own games, singing, dancing through her training graceful as a bird in the sky.

She sang.

She danced.

She made the pain a game, a pleasure, but she never let them know she enjoyed it. That her father's backhand was more likely to bring a giggle than a cry because then they would know the power was not with them…that they had no control over her. That this was her choice and that all his carefully laid plans were going to blow up in his face. Harley giggled alone in her room at night body deliciously aching as her mother drank herself to death down the hall and her father thought out his small minded schemes. All her father was doing was giving her a skill set she was sure to come in handy one day; especially in Gotham.

Harley wasn't sure what her future was going to be, but she knew what was coming and oh how exciting it was going to be.

Batman.

Joker.

Superman.

Heros vs Villians.

Her new life was going to be anything but boring that was for sure. Harley was going to take everything she could out of life because she knew only pain was waiting in death. So she laughed, she giggled, and she waited.

Waited to see if fate could be changed.

Waited to see what she would become, what side would tip her scales, light and dark were balancing on a tightrope inside of her. Harley wondered where she was going to fall and what was going to push her off.

The years passed in a blur of awards and record breaking. Goals were met and new ones formed. She finished high school early, at eight, and then went straight to college on a collection of scholarships with a fast track to medical school. She played at recitals, becoming known in certain circles as a musical prodigy an exceptional pianist and violinist. Harley giggled whenever she saw her mother's envious glare. Her life seemed to stretch out before her and seemed to be going just the way she had wanted it to.

Then her father crossed the wrong mob boss and was shot down in the middle of the restaurant he had taken her to in order to celebrate her getting into medical school. The blood rained down over her staining half of her crimson, half her hair, half her face, down half her dress and leaving the other half blue. She was twelve years old and standing in a puddle of her father's blood in the middle of their favorite restaurant. Harley put her head in her hands as the people around her screamed because it wouldn't be good for them to see her laugh. There was a flash of a camera going off as her shoulders shook from her silent giggles and what a joke.

She loved her father.

She hated her father.

Harley wondered if he would have the guts to claw his way back into life like she had but somehow she knew he would never have the strength.

So she giggled.

She laughed.

She hid her face in her hands because it wouldn't do for the normals to know she wasn't crying.

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"I'm nuts, baby, I'm mad,
The craziest friend that you've ever had
You think I'm psycho, you think I'm gone
Tell the psychiatrist something is wrong"

~Melanie Martinez

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Sharon Quinzel stared in resignation at the creature that was supposed to be her daughter and sipped at her bourbon hoping to drown her melancholy with more liquor. Harley was spinning around the kitchen humming under her breath as she made chocolate pudding, her hair was up in two perky pig tails that were shaped to look like bows and her clothes left much to be desired. Her shirt was hanging off her shoulders and cropped just below her belly button. Her shorts were small and Sharon barely considered them more than underwear. She was wearing leg warmers at least but it was odd to see since Sharon hadn't seen leg warmers like that since her own youth.

It was odd the entire picture of her daughter seemed like a ditzy normal teenager that had more looks than brains. Sharon drained her glass of bourbon in one long swallow and then poured herself another with unsteady hands. Harley was anything but normal. Sharon knew better, her daughter was a monster wearing her beauty like a suit and deceiving everyone around her. All they saw when they looked at Harley was the genius, the child prodigy, the musical virtuoso, the beauty and the talent giving her an unreal perfection that was almost angelic.

Sharon knew better.

Sharon saw the devil hiding behind those angelic eyes.

Sharon knew the girl that took a beating from her father with a tiny smile at the corner of her mouth that her husband never saw but she couldn't look away from. She had witnessed the way Harley had laughed, full belly deep laughs, the day her husband had been killed and the police had dropped her off at her house. Blood flaking off her face and matted in her hair. Dressed in a child's scrubs from the hospital, she had waited until she was inside her room before doubling over and laughing that crazed laugh as Sharon had watched in horror from the door.

Sharon had seen the razor intelligence in her eyes when Harley had coldly informed her that her husband's life insurance policy had named her sole beneficiary and that she had signed off on it while she had been on a bender. That she was seeking emancipation because the funds couldn't be touched until she had been granted legal adult status.

Sharon had been living under her rule since that day. So here she was drinking as much as she could every day to forget the fact that her sixteen year old daughter owned everything and that she lived off of what her daughter saw fit to give her. Sharon comforted herself in the thought that she was graduating from medical school soon and taking up a residency with Gotham general in the E.R. Hopefully this meant that Harley would spend less and less time in her house.

Tired of watching Harley dancing around Sharon stumbled her way to her bedroom, the master bedroom had been taken over by Harley the week after her husband had died but Sharon preferred the closer smaller bedroom on the first floor anyway. The bourbon bottle clinked against the doorway as she stumbled in and collapsed on her bed. Jolene came in after her timid as a mouse and Sharon offered her a shot of Bourbon that Jolene took with a wrinkle on her nose.

Harley was exceptional.

Her family was not. Sharon knew this but hoped she might drink enough one day to be able to finally ignore that fact. Her life was a wasted dream, her musical talent had rusted and faded over time. Her life was not anything close to what she had imagined as a child, no glory for her, no fame, no loving husband…nothing but two normal children and one monster. Her precious baby boy was a fat lump of a man now whose greatest ambition was to smoke enough weed to be able to eat ten pizzas. Her youngest was a girl starved for attention that drank and smoked at thirteen. Sharon fully expected that if Harley hadn't forced her on the shot that Jolene would have been pregnant by now. While nowhere near the beauty that was her older sister, Jolene was still very pretty and Sharon expected it was only a matter of time before that happened.

Jolene was too much like her mother.

Harley was too much like her husband, a monster incased in a beautiful package waiting to tempt you into ruin. Just as her husband had ruined her. The worst part was that Sharon still missed her husband, as cold as he had been, as disinterested as he had been, at least he had been there, but now Sharon was left alone. Looks ruined from three children and heavy drinking.

Harley broke out in loud giggles down the hall and Sharon for an insane moment thought she must have heard her thoughts and was laughing at her.

Harley giggled again.

Sharon shivered.

Jolene tossed back another shot.

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"Over the bend, entirely bonkers
You like me best when I'm off my rocker
Tell you a secret, I'm not alarmed
So what if I'm crazy? The best people are
All the best people are crazy, all the best people are"

~Melanie Martinez

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Harley was bored.

Her life was going exactly how she had planned and that was horrible.

She had expected some difficulties, maybe the joker would pop up at her hospital dressed as a female nurse and somehow she would get in the cross hairs of something exciting.

That never happened.

Instead her life was exactly how she had planned it. Becoming a surgeon at 16 had not been easy, but all things considered it was straightforward. She had been working at Gotham General for five years now and was currently the head of the E.R. department. On weekends and after work she still kept up her rigorous training schedule with her various tutors. Though she did gymnastics and Parkour on her own now.

She had a weapons master, a combat trainer, and a language tutor. Currently she spoke eleven languages and could at least partly understand three more. Harley was also on her fourth instrument, already having become fairly competent in piano, violin, and guitar; she was making her way to conquering the cello.

Everything was going her way.

And it was so freaking tedious that she wasn't entirely sure she could honestly say she was enjoying it anymore.

Maybe it was because she came into this life preparing to be a villain. To be a part of the crazy world where people flew and bad guys dressed up as clowns. Somehow it felt like she was on hold getting ready for her real life that never seemed to show up.

If Harley wasn't enjoying life then something would have to change because this shit was getting old.

Of course there had been a few bright spots. Batman had made his debut a little over 2 years ago and already making waves in Gotham. The mob bosses were getting anxious and there was talk on the streets of him. Saying he was more creature than man and he was becoming something of a boogey man. Not that Harley cared much since she knew Bruce Wayne would have even less interest in her than Batman would at this point.

Though she was totally noteworthy (not that he would know of course); Harley had set up a little underground clinic last year to avoid dying of boredom by offering her services to the criminal underbelly of Gotham. The clinic was her only relief these days and even that was getting tedious. Sure she dealt with 'dangerous criminals' more but it was getting a little monotonous now. Harley didn't charge outrageous prices, just enough to cover expenses and a little on the side, what she had really wanted out the whole thing was connections underground. There was only three rules for her clinic, rule one: it was neutral territory, no one was allowed to pop anyone while they were there (it was a respect thing). Rule two: no one was allowed to mess with her or anyone under her protection. Doing so would bar you from ever getting help from her again. Rule Three: if someone was idiotic enough to break rule one or two anyone who wanted to be in her tender care ever again had to make sure that the offending party went bye-bye screaming.

So far only one idiot had broken one of her rules and the result kept everyone else from trying it since.

Of course her Clinic also catered to the down and out poverty stricken in the city. The people that couldn't go anywhere else and Harley thought it was so funny that the criminal underworld was funding her charity clinic that took care of a lot more people than the so called 'free clinics' run by others in Gotham.

Harley decided that if she was this bored now, she didn't want to see what the next couple years would bring, and so she did what she did best. Harley plotted to make her life a little more…exciting…and decided to go back to school to get another doctorate (she had three doctorates already getting one more would be so easy) in psychiatry. Maybe it was time to face this Joker thing head on and see what was on the other side of the rabbit hole. A giggle bubbled up in her throat and the voices of every part of her clamored to be heard at once.

You know where this road leads.

But maybe since you're different the outcome could be different.

Do you really want to dance with the devil?

~I need a gangsta to love me better…~

*You could always just go get laid*

But how boring would that be, beside sex wasn't all that earth shattering the last life we tried it. Why waste it on some dipshit?

You just want to see if you can twist the Joker before he can twist you.

Now THAT is an exciting game!

~I'm fucked up black and blue…built for the abuse~

*How do you know if you won though?*

Harley laughed, this was going to be a very dangerous game and if she walked down this road devils and angels were going to take notice of her. Once they saw her, Harley knew there was no going back. Good.

Did she want to play that game?

A devilish little smirk bloomed on her mouth and she hummed, yes, yes she did.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~X~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Where is my prescription?
Doctor, doctor please listen
My brain is scattered
You can be Alice,
I'll be the mad hatter."

~Melanie Martinez

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Arkham Asylum was a little disappointing, it was a very old building, Victorian in style and while it was slightly menacing when one was driving through its old iron gates that feeling went away very quickly. Up close the stonework was in a definite need of repair and the lawn around it was dead. Getting the job here had been pathetically easy as well even as a freshly minted psychiatrist, of course that could be her reputation preceding her. It wasn't like she was going to give up being a surgeon just to be a psychiatrist and was quite happy to be able to pull off doing both at the tender age of twenty three.

Harley had been very disappointed to have missed out on the Joker blowing up half of Gotham General because she had been in class. Harley wondered which incarnation of the Joker would she be meeting, there were so many to choose from and while she had been keeping an 'ear to the ground' about the whole thing Harley had never actually picked up a paper or cruised the internet for pictures of the Joker. It was more exciting that way.

After all who knew what world she was in; there were so many comics, film adaptations, cartoons and animations about the DC world that Harley was enjoying a certain amount of uncertainty. Sure some things never changed, Bruce Wayne was Batman, Clark Kent was Superman, but the elements around them certainly varied. It left her feeling very excited for the future because who knew what was going to happen?

Would she fall for that deluded psychopath?

Did she want to fall in love with anyone?

Harley was still in the mind that nothing changed a person more than love; love could destroy you as easily as it saved you. Love was one thing she never underestimated because it was the pure essence of chaos. You couldn't choose who you fell for otherwise there would be a whole lot more happiness in the world.

She did know one thing though; she certainly wasn't going to have the Joker be her first patient because even she wasn't that arrogant. Instead Harley had focused her attention on another steady element in the DC comics/movie universe, Pamela Isley, aka Poison Ivy, because what better way to dip her toes in the waters of fate than to test herself with her? Some worlds her lover, some worlds her friend, but in every incarnation Harley could think of they were close. The jester and the flower, queens of the underworld, and Harley wanted to see for herself if maybe fate could be tweaked using Ivy as a testing rod.

Besides no point in going after the big fish first when you could easily reel in the guppies.

Harley giggled.

The receptionist gave her a strange look but Harley ignored her to make her way to the director's office. Her first day here and she was already making friends.

How nice.

She giggled into her hand and breezed into the office making Director Arkham look up at her as he wrapped up his phone conversation.

"Dr. Quinzel! I wasn't expecting you until this afternoon?" Dr. Arkham said as he hung up the phone and quickly swiped the loose papers off his desk in a fluster.

"Well, the hospital didn't need me this morning and my schedule was free so I thought I'd come down for the tour and get my patient's folder. Best to be prepared to meet her and start off our dialogue on the right foot," Harley said a beautiful smile lightening up her face. She watched him melt a little with some amusement. Harley used her beauty as a tool, just like she used her intelligence, and like any tool she made sure both were as sharp as they could be.

She constantly tested her mind, learning new and challenging things every day.

She kept her body fit and decked out in clothes that while technically professional also amplified her best features. Her silk blouse was a stunning blue that emphasized her blue eyes, her hair was in a loose French braid with her bangs framing her face and her black slacks were form fitting making her legs look amazing. Her ballet flats were practical and made her feet look dainty. All in all she looked like a small curvy little doll and it seemed to bring out the protector in people.

It was hilarious and made her laugh inside at the thought. Also made it very easy for everyone to write her off as a non-threat, a very dangerous mistake that Harley loved to take advantage of whenever she had the chance.

"Of course, first why don't you take a seat while I get Ms. Isley's files and your security badge." Dr. Arkham said as he hustled out the door.

When he came back it was a quick and generic tour that Harley struggled to pay attention to since Dr. Arkham's voice took on a droning monotone after they had been at it a while. Finally he took her to her new office and inside there was a box with a patient number scribbled on top and high security stamped in red over it. Harley smiled as she sat at her new desk and pulled the box to her opening the lid.

It had taken two years to get here since she had decided to go back to school to become a psychiatrist. Harley had specialized in extreme personalities (of course) with an emphasis on the criminal aspect. After all if she was going to jump down that rabbit hole she might as well do it well armed. Batman had made his debut five years ago by her count; of course he had only been a rumor until four years ago when someone got a picture. The first Robin had joined him three years ago but she hadn't paid that much mind.

Batgirl had yet to show up but Harley was expecting that to come around soon.

The criminal aspect had broadened in that time, Poison Ivy, Deadshot, Riddler, Scarecrow, Penguin, the Joker and many others had taken to running about. Superman had shown up in Metropolis as a rumor a little over two years ago but only as a blur. He had yet to make a full debut. Harley was expecting that to be soon.

All in all, it was a crazy world she had landed herself in and she couldn't wait to jump on in.

In what capacity, on which side, Harley wasn't sure but she thought she might as well go big or go home.

When she made her way to the dark depressing room that Poison Ivy was being held in Harley couldn't help feeling a little underwhelmed by it all. Arkham was certainly living up to its reputation and not in a good way. She entered Pamela's cell with a breezy smile on her face, "Hello Pamela, mind if I call you Pam? I'm Dr. Harleen Quinzel, you can call me Harley or Dr. Quinn, from now on I'm going to be your Doctor."

Pamela Isley just stared at Harley sullenly from her cot refusing to speak a word. Harley just smiled wider, "I can tell we are going to have lots of fun together, you and I!" Harley grinned as she shut the door. Time for her work to begin.