- -This is what happens when I go see the Dark Knight, fall completely and totally in love with Heath Ledger's performance of the Joker - who is already a huge love interest of mine - and then my friend decides to remind me of Miss Harley Quinn. This is pretty much just my take on what happened with her and what she would be like in this particular Batman universe, and what future movies could have possibly been like. I'm trying to stay true to both characters, while trying to take Harley's past the cartoon. Forgive any fuck-ups please. Writing criminally insane psycopaths is totally fun, but unbelievably challenging at the same time. I've never attempted anything like this before, so . . . yikes!

.warnings. everything. violence, murder, language, torture, rape, abuse, sexual situations, and anything else that is needed for a good psyco story.

.disclaimers. hey! no OC's for once! Orginal concepts belong to DC and their respective writters. However, this is straight out of Christopher Nolan's universe.

A Harlequin Romance

- Prologue -

She was a fool. She never should have told him that lie. That awful, disgusting lie. It seemed like the only path she could really take at the time; if she were ever to learn the real truth behind all that he'd ever said and done. It was pride that had done it to her, a desperate pride that she could not seem to barricade from entering her heart and soul, no matter how hard she tried.

All she wanted to know was how far this man's mind could be pushed before beginning to unravel, a harmless game, where she'd no doubt be punished for it later, but not as greatly as she would be rewarded. She had pushed too far, pushed him over the edge into unbound insanity, and now the punishment was almost too much for her to bear. The one and only man she claimed to love – this sweet, loving person – had been mutilated into something so horrendous . . . And it was all her fault.

So she ran. To save him. To salvage him. To help him in whatever way she could, and hopefully begin to rectify all of her latest mistakes.

The burning in legs only intensified as she ran, her body cruelly testing her mental limits, even though she knew that she could not stop, not for the world. It was only fair, she had made him suffer with her foolish experiments, and now some strange karma was doing the same to her. She tried to ignore it, she tried to push further, tried to find him. She didn't even know where he was, or what he would do. He had simply run out his apartment door shortly after producing a pistol from one of his drawers, proclaiming that he would set everything right for her, and that she needn't worry about a thing. He was clearly not in his right mind while he was saying that, it would have been obvious to her even if she hadn't been a psychology major.

Guy Kopski was perfection in her mind. Of course, he had his flaws, but who didn't? They had met in their sophomore year at Gotham University, shortly after she had decided to pursue her studies in human psychology. Many of their classes were the same, and often they would make small talk, flirt a little, and then go their separate ways. It wasn't until they had worked on a thesis together, that they began dating. Their minds had worked so beautifully together; they had thought so alike, and yet so differently at the same time. Together, they had developed some of the best ideas of their year.

As a couple, they were everything that everyone else wanted to be. Happy, romantic, joyful, and completely in love. There were, of course, their small little arguments, as any other couple had. However, because of their intense understanding of human nature as well as each other, these small conflicts were often quickly resolved. She remained in her dorm room, the same as any other good little university girl, sometimes visiting him at his apartment for a few hours, or even a few nights.

The months passed, and so did their education. She so desperately wanted to accepted into Gotham U's Graduate program, but it was a highly competitive goal; one of which every other psychology major – including Guy – wanted to be accepted into. It was blatantly obvious that she would have to come up with some profound idea to be distinguished from all the rest. So, once again, she turned to Guy, seeking his help once more.

That was when the lie came. If he had loved so much, as much as he said he did, then it would not have mattered in the slightest, and if it really did matter for whatever reason, then her experiment would have turned out to be more interesting that she likely could have anticipated.

It also had come down to her own personal interests that this experiment was so crucial, although she would never allow herself to admit to such a thing. He was so perfect, in her mind, and she was so not perfect. It was incredible to her that he would even waste a single moment on her, when he – with his incredible looks – could have had any girl he wanted at Gotham State. Why he chose her was suspicious in its own right, and she wanted to make sure that his words and actions were genuine.

If he did love her, then he wouldn't care that she had lied to him, when he found out. If he loved her, then it wouldn't matter to him that she had said that she had committed a crime. It would not matter that she had supposedly almost taken someone's life, it wouldn't matter that she had stolen and vandalized and set fire to an entire building. And above all, it would matter that she had almost died in the process of it all, that someone had almost taken her life in return. He would be shocked, reasonably, he would be angry at first, but then that would dissipate, and he would love her again. He would cry with her, and hold her, and tell her that everything would be alright, that it didn't matter that she was a criminal, that he would still always love her. And when she would tell him that it was a lie, and none of that had happened, that she only needed to judge his reaction, then he would be upset again, but he would still love her. He would not speak to her for a day or more, but he would still love her, and he would break, and call her and come to her and hold her, telling her that he loved her, and that he understood and that it would still be alright.

That was what was supposed to happen, and it was also what did not happen. Instead, when she had told him these things, he had stopped, his eyes had suddenly become glazed over, and they had both stood there for what must have been hours, unmoving, she staring at him, and he, staring at nothing. She was certain that in that time frame, she had seen his mind begin to unravel, the barriers between reality and imaginary crumble, and his consciousness break.

Without warning, he started laughing, right there in the small kitchen of his modest apartment. A shrill, maniacal laugh, not at all like the one she so desired to hear from him. He rambled, telling her in short snippets of words that nothing bad was going to come of this situation, that he would make everything right again. He mentioned how it was in his fault anyway, that she had acted out of such desperation, instead of going to him, like she should have if he had been there properly from the beginning. It must have been his fault, because she was such a good person to have gone so wrong.

The gun had been hidden in one of the smaller drawers where a person would not normally go. He held it in his hand to make sure that it was loaded, and she was almost sure that he was going to turn it on her. Instead, he showed it to her, showed her that it was loaded, and then promised again to make everything right. Nothing bad would come of what she had done, no one but him would ever know of what she had done, and that the man who had almost killed her would be brought to justice.

She had been brought to such a complete shock, that she didn't even think to tell him then that it was all a lie. She hadn't thought to try and stop him at first. She only sat there, in his apartment, as she watched him rush out the door, not even bothering to close it behind him. She closed it for him, and then stood there, barefoot, on the cold linoleum floor of the kitchen, as her mind struggled to grasp at what had happened.

A sudden panic had then exploded in her chest, and she made no hesitation to rush out the door after him. Though she did not know where he could have gone, or what he was currently capable of, she knew that she had to find him, and tell him the truth, before something even worse happened. It never crossed her mind where she was going, even though her legs pumped down relentlessly onto the cold, dark pavement, urging her forward in her hectic chase.

She was hardly surprised when she noticed that her chase had led her to run down part of the city, where most of the buildings were either demolished, or condemned to meet the same fate shortly. A charred structure soon came into sight, one that had been on the news this morning. An old bank, apparently, which police had thought that desolate teenagers had set blaze to in their boredom. It was the building in which she had earlier used as the setting for her elaborate story. A strong feeling in her gut told her that this is where she would find her beloved Guy.

She stopped on the block across from the boarded entrance to catch her breath. She was scared to move any closer. She didn't want to know what she would find in there. One of the doors had been forced open slightly, and she instantly knew that her gut had guided her accurately.

Her footsteps echoed loudly when she stepped onto the stone stairs leading up to the once grand, oaken doors, resonating deeply off the walls of the surrounding buildings. The gap provided in the door was more than enough for her to fit her slim form through. There was little, if any, light coming through into the abandoned building, and she had to stop for a moment to let her eyes adjust slightly.

The large foyer now laid in shambles, the rafters collapsing in, mortar, bricks and plaster lying in piles all around her. She cautiously moved forward, foolishly unafraid of falling through the creaking floor.

"Guy . . . ?" she called out for him weakly, most of her hoping that he was not, in fact, present. She called out a little louder. "Guy?"

She found him passed the first wall, and she stopped dead when he came into her sight. He was simply standing there, his arms and head limp. She tried not to notice the pistol he still brandished in his right hand. His hair hung lamely from his head, clearly damp from the humidity and his own perspiration, the same as his t-shirt.

"Guy . . ." She barely made a noise at all.

He turned to her then, and she saw the craziness in his eye. The break that she had so unnecessarily caused. The smile on his lips was misplaced, and the bags under his eyes were so unlike him. His stance and expression unnerved her. This was so much worse than anything she could have ever forseen.

"I did it, Harleen," the voice was recognizably his, but just barely. There was something so utterly changed about it, like some foreign part of his mind had suddenly decided to show up. The sound forced a shiver down her spine. "I took care of it . . . Just like I promised."

She shook her head, trembling in fright as she did so. "Wh-what . . .? Guy, what are you . . .?"

She then spotted it, what he was standing over, subconsciously pointing at with the small gun. A man's corpse, at his feet, the gunshot wound in both his stomach and where his heart would be. He was homeless, dressed in tattered and layered clothing, trying to seek shelter from the elements in this abandoned building, on a simple piece of cardboard.

Harleen screamed then. She couldn't help it.

An innocent man lay dead at her beloved's feet, by his own doing. In any clear reality, it was only her fault, really. Her experiment, her story, her fucking lie! She desperately hoped at this moment, that the man had, in any life, been a real crook. That he had murdered someone, raped someone, even petty thievery. She irrationally begged in her mind that this man be guilty of something, if only it hadn't been that Guy had killed a completely innocent man.

"What's wrong, sweet? He tried to kill you." Guy said this with a hint of demented glee in his voice, "I took care of it. It's alright now. No one's gonna know what you did, and the scum that almost stole you from me is gone. We can move on from this, just as we were before this all interrupted our lives."

He held out his arms and took a step towards her when she only continued to stare down at the dead man in horror. She instantly jumped back, not wanting to taint her beloved any more than she already had. She was afraid of what he had done, afraid of what she had made him do. Her horror was more directed at herself than at him.

She jumped when she felt her back hit the wall. He stepped still toward her, wanting to wrap her in his warm and firm embrace. She couldn't let him, she didn't deserve it. She began shaking her head, jerkily, as her eyes darted frantically from Guy to the poor homeless man who lay dead on the floor.

"No . . . Guy, no . . ." she moaned weakly, "It never happened." Her confession came out from the pure horror of the situation. "He . . .never hurt me . . .no one did . . . I never stole. . .Nothing ever happened . . ." She choked back a sob as she finally realized that tears were streaming steadily down her face. "None of it happened . . . It was all a lie."

The cry of anguish that ripped from his throat was an unearthly cry, tearing a hole through her very soul. It weakened her knees, made her collapse to the floor, made her breath stop . . .

"It . . . never . . . happened. . . ." he repeated weakly, as if the concept were to much for him to handle, "It . . .never . . . . WHAT HAVE I DONE?!" His hands flew up into his hair in his sorrow, and the madness in his eye increased tenfold. "I KILLED HIM! INNOCENT! I FUCKING KILLED HIM!"

Harleen could not have brought herself to stop his screaming if she wanted to. She stayed where she was, pathetically on the floor, trying her best to keep herself as numb and detached as she could. It no longer mattered that a man lay dead on the ground, that her boyfriend was experiencing unbelievable pain. No, none of it mattered. Not enough for her to comfort him, not enough for her to leave, not even enough for her to even move . . .

Guy's screaming suddenly stopped, and she looked up to see him collapse to his knees, his torso hanging limp, head hanging in despair. He brought his gaze up to meet hers. "Harleen . . . . why . . . .?"

She took in a sob, the pain of what she had done momentarily getting to her. "I needed to know . . . ."

He took the answer as if it had physically stuck him. His arms moved twitchily, the pistol clacking lazily against the stone floor. His head shook weakly as the crippling reality of the entire situation suddenly suck deep into his soul. He looked up at her once more, the insanity finally cleansed from his eyes. He was in control once more, but that light spark was no longer present either. It was pure despair now.

"I'm sorry, Harleen . . ." he uttered the sentiment so lightly, she wasn't even sure if she had heard correctly.

She squeezed her eyes shut tightly, shaking her head weakly. "No, no, no . . . It's not. . . "

"No," he interrupted her, "No . . ."

Her eyes were only open in time for her to see him stick the end of the pistol up into his mouth. The panic once again ripped through her chest, just as before, but disappeared just as fleetingly as the gunshot rang throughout the room.

Hope you liked it. More to come soon, I'm on a bit of a role here.

- k a t