A/N: I saw my main character as Nathalie Emmanuel and her sister as Louise Emmanuel.

Music and smoke; they intertwined in the air as if one couldn't exist without the other, giving Saxon her nicotine fix without her ever needing to light a cigarette of her own. She had been dragged from her home by her younger sister, Sarai, to celebrate her third year of sobriety.

Saxon appreciated the sentiment. She honestly did. It wasn't often that someone's older sister stopped smoking pot and snorting a line of coke every morning before breakfast, but her sister's thought process was a little off. Saxon had quit doing drugs… and to celebrate her sister was taking her to a club. Not just any club, but a club on the south side, where she could easily get a fix if she really wanted to… not that she wanted to of course.

She'd slightly brushed her rather large, curly black hair and applied a little eyeliner over the ambiguous looking skin she could thank her lovely mother for. She'd pulled on a red dress with matching heels and let her sister take her out despite her slight reservations.

The two of them were close, extremely so, and Saxon would never pass up a chance to spend time with Sarai. They hadn't spent as much time together as they both would have liked. Saxon was beginning an accounting job at a firm and Sarai was getting her degree in Addiction Studies .in a semester. They were aware that their lives were taking them in different directions, not because there was anything drastic going on with their lives, but simply because their respective homes were on separate sides of the city and work and school were both proving to be demanding.

Their entire family was close. Their mother wrote for the newspaper while their father worked for the hospital. They were the proud parents of three children: Sabastian, Saxon and Sarai, in order from eldest to youngest.

Sabastian was a boxer, a pretty good one at that and was in the process of traveling and continuing to be undefeated. They didn't see much of him either.

She took in her younger sister as Sarai danced in front of her, a beer in one hand and the other raised in the air. She wasn't drunk, not in the slightest and Saxon was beyond amused to say the least at the way Sarai was gyrating her hips.

Saxon was seated at the bar, her legs crossed at the ankle, a drink in her hand. She moved her head slightly with the beat. Dancing was not her forte. She laughed anyway when her sister fell in to her purposely and set her drink on the bar.

"Why are you not having fun?" Sarai hugged her sister around the neck and Saxon laughed.

Her sister was not drunk, no, but tipsy she may have been.

"I am having fun," she argued.

"You are three years clean. You've just gotten a bachelors in accounting and you have a pretty amazing man on your arm."

"Jared is not my man," Saxon clarified, taking a drink from her cup.

Sarai laughed.

"Is that all you got from what I said?"

"No," Saxon chuckled, "No," she repeated, "and I appreciate you dragging me out of my hermit hole, but I don't dance. I've never danced."

"You're dancing," Sarai shrugged and plucked the glass out of her sister's hand.

She reached over and set it on the bar before standing up straight and grabbing Sarai's hands in hers and pulling her up. Saxon groaned, but didn't necessarily fight the way her sister pulled her through the crowd and to the dance floor.

X

J stood on the second floor of his club, leaned forward on the railing. The top floor was a circle, allowing anyone on it the ability to look down the center and see what the people on the lower floor was doing; a donut of sort. He had been standing there for a while. He wasn't sure how long exactly. He had come to his club in order to meet with someone about a business deal. He always met on his own turf. It was easier. It was safer. It was closer to home and allowed him the privilege to do whatever the hell he wanted.

Black Mask was moving against him and he needed to suffocate the little flame of hope he had before it turned in to a full blown out wildfire. Eventually he was going to have to kill him, but the more time he had him alive, the better. He didn't need a full-fledged war on his hands.

While the lower floor of his club was more of a bar feel with a dancefloor that took up a majority of the space and a few small tables hugging the walls, the upper floor was more of a calm feel. It was made up of several different areas that were available for purchase, where J knew for a fact people took meeting. Waiters ran around the upper floor bringing drinks to the different tables and the dancing done there was different. It wasn't a large group of people dancing. It was more of a woman atop a table in the center of each booth. J was quite proud of his place. He'd built it up on his own and the best part is, it was perfectly legal. It was the constant flow of cash that allowed him to research whatever new gadget he felt he wanted. It was the income that allowed him to get private planes and pay off people that needed to be paid off. He had a few other ventures, two restaurants scatter around the city, and Harley's little makeup line, but this club was his baby. It was his best accomplishment… after Harleen of course.

He scanned the crowd again and he noticed her for the third time since her entrance, the little short girl with the curly hair. She peaked his interest and that in itself said enough.

He ran a hand through his slicked back green hair and he whistled, three short whistles. The girl he was looking at was walking through the crowd, being dragged along by the same person she'd entered with.

J rested his elbows on the railing and he felt Harley closing in on him before he saw her. She stood beside him and looked out over the crowd.

"Puddin?" she checked and J turned his head to take her in.

Her hair was plain blonde and he would have been shocked if he didn't know that was going to dye it as soon as she got the chance. She was wearing a glittery silver dress with heels on that were just as shiny. Even her makeup seemed holographic and he resisted the urge to roll his eyes. She was like a child… but she was who she was and she had been around him long enough to get under his skin whether he wanted to admit it or not.

Harley was a nuisance, but she was his nuisance and he would kill any person that said otherwise. She had made herself an asset to his life and he both loved and hated her for it, one more than the other. He didn't understand how she had decided to stand beside him and do whatever it was he needed. He didn't understand where she got the nerve to make herself a fixture in his life.

He watched her run her tongue over her bright red lipstick. He plucked a glass from the tray of a waiter walking by and then turned back towards the railing gesturing with his glass.

"Do you see that girl?" he took a drink from his glass, "in the center, red dress, short curly hair."

Harley stood still, her arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes darted over everyone in attendance.

"Yup," she said finally.

"Herd her to me, will you dollface?"

"Sure," Harley shrugged and took J's glass, tilting her head back and drinking the rest quickly.

She turned, a surprisingly graceful move considering the height of her heels and started towards the stairs, setting the glass on a random table as she walked, sashaying her hips as she went.

J licked his lips as he watched Harley dance in to the bustling crowd. She was blending in extremely well. He chalked it up to the fact that her hair wasn't dyed and he turned away from the railing and started his own trek toward the staircase.

X

Saxon moved a little, side to side, to the beat as her sister twirled in a circle, her arms above her head. She was barely doing anything and she was sure that she was sweating. She was not a fan of clubs… at least not sober anyway. She tried to get in to the rhythm of the music. She tried to let the beat wash over her. She closed her eyes, and moved a little more. She closed her eyes and she caught the beat. She owed it to herself to at least actively try to unwind and have fun. She found herself dancing with a little more enthusiasm and when she opened her eyes there was no Sarai to speak of.

Saxon scanned the crowd and saw her, at the bar, leaning over it and talking to the bartender and she rolled her eyes. But, that was Sarai, always the social butterfly. Saxon didn't chase after her. She continued to dance idly, in a mass of people that could care less if she was on beat or not.

She started to feel as if she was being closed in, the area between her and everyone else getting significantly smaller. A blonde girl in tall silver heels spun and then began to move her entire body as if she was belly dancer and Saxon took a step back as she continued her own dancing. The girl shouted woo and did a similar move again and Saxon took yet another step back and then cursed when she ran in to someone. She spun around an apology already on her lips and it instantly died when her eyes landed on electric green hair. She looked over her shoulder. No one else in the crowd seemed to notice and the blonde girl was instantly gone.

"I'm sorry," Saxon said instantly, "Sorry," she repeated.

She watched him, look down at the bottom of his white shirt where a small amount of his red drink had splashed when she'd carelessly backed in to him.

"Don't worry about it," he switched his drink to the other hand and wiped the wet one on his black pants.

"I'm really sorry," Saxon said it one more time, just for her own sanity and he looked up from his shirt and at her and she instantly shut her mouth.

"Don't say you're sorry again," he snapped, "Are you always such a swell speaker, sweetheart?"

"Yes," Saxon was almost defensive, "Nothing is wrong with my speaking skills, but you're," she gestured towards him and took a partial step back, "You're the- the."

"The Joker," he finished with a bored tone.

He tilted his head back and finished his drink letting his arm fall to his side with the glass still held in his clutches. Saxon was very aware of the way he was looked her up and down and she partially wanted to pull her dress down.

She was face to face with Killer Clown of Gotham for heaven's sake.

"You would be correct," a grin crossed his face, his silver teeth being hit by the strobe lights of the club as he took a step towards her and Saxon found herself unable to move out of pure fear, "And you are?"

"Saxon," she blurted.

He was crazy. She knew that he was crazy and she knew that he was unpredictable. She knew that he killed people. If he asked her a question she was going to answer it.

"From Gotham?"

"From Gotham," she nodded once,

"What do you do for a living?"

"Accounting."

"Accounting huh?" J stored that away for later.

"Do you want something from me?" Saxon decided the straightforward approach was the best.

"You," he took another step towards her and she realized there was no where for her to go, closed in between him and everyone else.

She took him in, really took him in. She noted his tangled electric green hair and extremely red lips. She took in his skin that was so pale it almost looked translucent beneath the lights of the club. Stray tattoos peaked out from the collar of his shirt and his eerie blue eyes made her feel like he could see directly in to her soul. She took a deep shaky breath. He was looking at her in a way that made her stomach knot.

He grabbed her chin in his free hand and he leaned down and in to her.

"Relax," he smiled, a bright smile that allowed her to see all of the silver in his mouth, cap after cap after cap, "I just want to pick at your brain, sweetheart."

He wasn't lying. It had been a while since he'd just been drawn to someone, the last person being Harley.

Saxon opened her mouth and then closed it again. She had no idea what to say to that. She caught sight of her sister making a beeline towards her out of the corner of her eyes and made a split decision. She pretended to get pushed from behind and crashed in to the Joker causing his glass to shatter to the ground. He looked down and Saxon shook her head sideways at her sister as quickly as she could while his gaze wasn't burning through her soul.

"I don't know what's wrong with me," she blurted, "I- I'm not usually this horrible at… existing," Saxon scoffed.

"Horrible at existing, huh?" J shook his foot and the glass atop of it caught his eye, "Aren't we all?"

X

Sarai headed towards the stairs at the far end of the club, still holding the two drinks in her hand. She set one of them down on the floor, against the wall discreetly and made her way behind the stair case. She looked around the building at the array of people dancing, laughing and drinking. No one seemed to be looking at her. She licked her lips and then pulled the fire alarm and quickly walked away, tilting her glass to her mouth and stepping in to the array of guest that were now making their way towards the exit.

X

The sprinklers came to life and water fell upon J like the screams of his unsuspecting guest. He clenched his teeth and he looked around the building, his eyes immediately going to one of the five places he knew fire alarms to be. He scanned the five areas quickly before turning back to… no one. He clenched his fist. She was smart. He had to give her that much. She'd ducked in to the crowd as soon as he'd turned his head.

He felt two hands land on each of his shoulders and they slid from his shoulders, down to his chest.

"What happened with that cute little thing you were talking to?" Harley kissed him right beneath his ear.

"She vanished," J said simply.

"The one that got away," Harley sighed.

"They never get away," he said dryly.

And then he titled his head back and he laughed, a laugh that sent chills straight up spines.