I was inspired to combine two of my favorite movies.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters and most of the dialogue is not even mine.
Cast:
The Joker….Rick Blaine
Harley Quinn….Ilsa Lund
Sam…..Sam
"Boss"
He was sitting at the table. For the most part, a silhouette, a silhouette with slouched posture.
"Boss?"
"Yeah"
"Boss, ain't you going to bed?"
"Not right now."
"Ain't you planning on going to bed in the near future?"
"No." his voice was lowering to a growl
"You ever going to bed?"
"No."
The henchman, Sam, was extremely lucky to be alive after that conversation. Being legitimately insane though he couldn't help it. Changes in routine upset him. It wasn't normal for the Joker to even be at dismal hide out, an old bar turned house to some henchmen, not normal for him to be around when Sam came down for his late night snack. It made him shaky.
"You look nervous." The Joker remarked, watching Sam open and close the fridge a couple of times without taking anything out of it.
"No, not me boss," lied Sam.
It wasn't completely silent as Sam went through the pantry, trying to pretend that that everything was as it usually was. The absence of conversation was not awkward.
"Is there anything to drink in there?" asked the Joker, "I'm waiting for a lady."
Sam looked up on the top self and found a bottle of whiskey. He brought it and two dusty glasses over to the Joker, who nodded.
"She'll come. I know she'll come," he muttered, mostly to himself.
No sooner had he said that did Harley Quinn walk through the door. Her wide eyes on seeing him sitting there so expectantly had the same striking effect as the Joker's greasepaint.
Hesitantly she came over to the table, taking a seat across from the Joker without shifting her gaze off of him. Unscrewing the cap he poured the whiskey in to the glasses and pushed one over to her. The Joker sniggered as Harley whipped the rim with bottom of her shirt. They both took a mouthful of whiskey before continuing to stare at each other.
"Why'd you come here?" the Joker broke the silence.
"I don't know. I wanted so much for you to be out of my life after how it ended. I tried to stay away. But then I couldn't forget this story "
He didn't say anything. Harley took another small sip before continuing.
"It's about a girl who had just come to Gotham from her home in Brooklyn. At a house for the insane she met a man. He opened up for her a whole beautiful world of knowledge and thoughts and ideals. Everything she knew or ever became was because of him. And she looked up to him and worshipped him with a feeling she supposed was love."
"Yes, that's very pretty" the Joker snapped. "I heard a story once, as a matter of fact, that same one. Only in the end that adoring girl turned nasty and betrayed the man she claimed to love. Leading him in to a trap and back to the house for the insane."
Remembering that night at the tracks, the SWAT unit set up and waiting for him. The Joker bolted from his seat, Harley did the same in response, she didn't run though. Not even when he advanced.
"Oh J. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that's a part of our story but it is not the end of it"
Harley was within inches of him. How he had thought about having it that way after she committed mutiny, seething over it in his cell at Arkham.
"The day I left, if you knew what I went through! If you knew how much I loved you. How much I still love you!" she said.
These weren't the pleas he had imagined. They weren't pleas at all. They were stubborn statements. Harley wasn't saying them to bargain for her life, she was telling the truth.
"At the beginning of the story, I was lonely. I had nothing. Not even hope. Then I met you. I went back to that after I left" she said softly to fill the silence.
"Huh. But it's still a story without an ending." In the right tone, that could have been a threat but surprisingly the Joker didn't say that way.
"You know we can't know that right now" Harley closed the remaining inches, hugging him. " I can't fight it anymore. I ran away from you once. I can't do it again."
Harley came out of her fantasy.
It would never happen like that. Not only because she wasn't Ingrid Bergman and the Joker wasn't Humphrey Bogart, although to her, he was just as classy and handsome. But also because it would never be as easy, well written lines would not fix what she did. He'd never listen to her.
Forgiveness was so easy to achieve in the movies.
The Joker would never forgive her. This one bad call, her mistake of going out for revenge would keep her from being able to go back to him.
To get her through the nights, Harley had to hope though.
Hope that one day, fate would bring them back together.
"I wish I didn't love you so much." She whispered.
