AN: So this was inspired by the song "My Last Breath" by Evanescence, which you can find on Youtube under the following address: /watch?v=dNMAeya8Zu0. The lyrics are in the description. I've used basically all of them in the story somewhere.
Disclaimer: Neither Batman nor the Joker or Harley Quinn belong to me, and nobody in their right mind would even remotely believe otherwise anyway so I don't know why I even bother mentioning it.
She is on her knees before she even realizes what's going on. Just moments ago she'd been laughing gleefully, throwing one explosive wind-up toy after the other at the Bat (who, spoilsport that he is, of course dodged all of them), her Puddin' just a little distance away, cackling manically and taunting his favourite vigilante. And then the Bat had knocked out the last of their little unimportant exchangeable henchclowns, and there was a bang as said henchclown's finger slipped and a last uncontrolled bullet flew from his stupid gun's barrel (really – an ordinary gun? These people had no class), and now she's on the floor with the breath knocked from her lungs. What happened?
She tries to push herself up again. There are still some dollies left to explode, she has promised to blow them all up, she has promised him. He doesn't like it when she doesn't keep her promises. It would make him unhappy, and she wants noting more than for him to be happy.
She manages to look up with strange difficulty. Henchmen lying all around. Where is Batsy? Ah, there. Why is he just standing there, frozen to the spot? Taking turns looking at her, and looking at something, someone, else... what is he – where is her Puddin'? Where – there he is. But why has he stopped fighting, why are they both looking like that?
Oh, she has done it wrong, she has disappointed him, she has ruined the whole thing by falling down like that. Clumsy little Harley, always ruining everything. Tears spring to her eyes. I'm sorry,she thinks, but somehow her lips and tongue refuse to form the words.
The pain kicks in the moment the Joker starts to move towards her, and she can't see him anymore. Her arms have given way beneath her, and she can barely see any more than the dirty street she is lying on, and the Batmobile in a distance. A small voice is telling her that maybe she should be worried about the whereabouts of its owner, but she ignores it in favour of trying to breathe against the pain that burns in her chest and rapidly spreads through her whole body. The screams that are ripped from her throat hold no power, transformed to barely audible moans.
Still she only realizes she is dying when her body turns without her doing, causing another wave of agony to crash against her, and she stares into that beautiful white face that now seems strangely grey. But maybe her vision is failing her.
But no, it isn't. Her eyes are working just fine, as if to make up for the failing of whatever organ is currently quitting its job. Her heart, or her lungs perhaps? It's hard to tell while her whole body is on fire. But her eyes are still working.
"Don't you dare." She can see his lips moving, his crimson red lips that she so loves to kiss, but the words seem to take forever to register in her brain that is blurry with pain. He is shouting at her, yelling that she should stop doing this, that he won't allow it, and she is so sorry, but he cannot hear the words her mind is screaming at him. She needs him to calm down. His voice is beautiful like always, but right now it's not soothing like it can be at times. It's too loud, and it makes her head hurt.
His lips close when her hand brushes his cheek. It's hard, so hard to lift her arm when all her limbs feel the same, when everything feels like liquid fire, and it's even harder to leave her hand in the air above her, but he catches it and holds it before it can fall back as the strength leaves her again. She thinks she's smiling at him, and then she realizes the bullet must have left her heart intact, for now she can feel it break as she watches the angry expression on his face fade into one of helpless fear. She has never seen him look like this, and knowing it is her fault now almost pains her more than the actual injury.
"Don't you dare leave now," he whispers again, but it doesn't sound angry this time. He squeezes her hand, and then bends down and gathers her in his arms, carefully, as if she's a china porcelain doll. No, not like that. He would break a porcelain doll and be amused about it, but he doesn't break her. He never broke her. He just holds her, mumbling words that stay incoherent to her ears, and his strong white arms around her seem to chase away the pain, to keep it at bay. It's still there, but she can ignore it if she concentrates on him, on his voice, his face, on the fact that he is holding her, holding her more tenderly than he ever did before, and still tight enough for her to realize that he's trying to hold on to her, to hold her in this world, to not let her go. He wants her to stay, and she wants to stay too, but she knows that she is going, and they both know that she cannot stay for long anymore.
But still he tries, still he holds her.
If she only could make her lips obey her will. She cannot go yet, she can't leave him without letting him know that she still loves him, that she has loved him all along, even when she was angry, even when he hurt her. I love you, Puddin'. I always loved you. Please don't doubt that when I'm gone.
He squeezes her hand. Does he know? I'm not afraid. Just stay with me, and I won't be afraid. You always taught me that there's nothing to fear about death. I know. You showed me so much truth, and now I'm not afraid.
Her lips are moving, but she doubts that her words are coherent. The pain can be ignored, but it still makes her body too weak to obey. Or maybe it isn't the pain but the blood loss. When he lifts his hand to either brush a strand of hair from her face or to slap her – she cannot distinguish anymore – she can see red colour on his pale fingers. He must have shed his gloves. Why? She is thankful for it. She thinks she can feel his touch on her burning skin, cooling, soothing. She wonders if he can hear her, if he can hear the words that don't make it past her lips. She wonders if he can feel her lying in his arms. She can feel it. She never wants to lose that feeling.
She's pretty sure by now that the bullet must have ripped part of her lungs to shreds. Breathing was getting increasingly difficult, and she senses her body jerking with racking coughs from time to time, sprinkling her dry lips with warm wetness.
She keeps breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Every new breath feels like yet another bullet, but every new breath means that she has not breathed her last yet. She will hold her last breath inside for as long as she can, because she knows that when she leaves, a part of him will leave with her. All of her thoughts will vanish, but so much of him exists inside her thoughts. As long as she is alive tonight, that part of him will stay alive. And still she knows that tonight, all her memories of him will end together with her, no matter how much she wants to keep them.
She wonders, vaguely, if there is any kind of afterlife, and if memories exist there. She doesn't care for an afterlife without them. She wants to always see him before her, like she does now: the perfect pale face with the sharp nose gazing down at her, a hint of what she decides is love in his bright green eyes, the hair, just as green, tousled and messy from the latest prank. Just his lips... his lips are supposed to be smiling, that beautiful grin that she loves so much, the grin she would kill for. The grin she would have died for. The grin she will now lose forever. Like so many things. Her memories of him. Her future with him...
Harley shivers. Her body is on fire, but she hadn't known that fire can make a person feel so cold. Too cold for autumn, but she will miss the winter. She had planned so much for this winter. A Christmas heist she had wanted to suggest, the arsenic cookies she had wanted to bake and donate anonymously to the hard-working neighbours who have no time to bake with their kids. The snowball fights with her Puddin', and the explosive snowballs he had constructed mere days ago, for snowball fights with the Batman. There is so much fun to have in the snow, in this bright winter wonderworld of pretty and fragile things that can be treasured or broken, pretty and white and fragile like she is, but he always breaks the icicles and he treasures her, he never breaks her, not that.
But now she is broken, and cannot be fixed, and she'll miss the winter and won't play hide and seek with him, in the forest that is white with ice and snow, like they did last year. Will you look for me, Mistah J? Maybe they can still play. Will you? She hopes so. She hopes that they will keep playing. That he will keep playing. I will hide there from you, Mistah J. Like I did last year. Do you remember that hollow tree we saw? I will hide in there. I will wait for you there, until you come and find me. I will keep playing, with you.
He can hear her. She knows now that he can hear her, he can hear her unspoken words. She can taste it, in the two lonely tears that have fallen from his eyes before he could stop them, and they taste like fury, and like pain, and like loss. Like lost times. He grips her harder, holds her tighter, he can hear her. He does not break her. But when he never broke her, no one else is ever allowed to break her either, and now that someone has, it seems that he cannot bear to see her broken. His beautiful eyes have closed, his lips are moving, whispering, growling, words she can't make out, convincing her to stay, and she would, she would, but she can't.
She wants to see his eyes again before she has to close her own. She wants to see them, she wants to imagine that it isn't over, she wants to dream together with him and to stay inside the dream forever. But when she falls asleep now, she won't ever dream again, and when he falls asleep, he will dream, but he will wake again and know the truth, know it wasn't real, know that she was not there anymore.
And for the first time she knows that he will mind. She means something to him. How can she leave him like that?
But she is. She is leaving, against her will, but leaving nonetheless. But not – – not like this. She can't leave him like this, with his eyes closed and a frown on his face.
She stops trying to speak, it's futile anyway. Instead she concentrates on her left arm, placing all the strength she has left into moving it, freeing her hand from his – he is still holding her hand! – and lifting it to his face, touching his pale, hollow cheek and caressing his sharp chin.
Don't be afraid. She is not afraid. She is merely sad. What about him? Is he afraid, for once? She doesn't know. She cannot breathe, she cannot think. Don't be afraid. She's like a child that doesn't want to go to bed just yet. Trying to keep her eyes open, but the pull of sleep is stronger than she is. But she needs to see him. She needs him to see her, to see her broken body, to know that he has not broken her, that she loves him, that she's sorry, but she's tired. We gotta say goodnight, Puddin'. I can't stay awake for much longer. I'm sorry for ruining our night.
He has opened his eyes again. His lips are forming her name. Her ears only register a faint sort of white noise, and her vision is starting to get blurry at the edges, but she can see that he's saying her name. She just doesn't know if he's yelling at her or whispering. It doesn't matter. He's calling her.
Goodnight, Mistah J. I love you. I'll play hide and seek with you again. You never broke me. I always loved you. Goodnight. It's getting dark. She feels something touching her forehead, and then his lips again. Harley. She misses his voice, but even more she misses his face. His face. His smile. She would have savoured it longer this afternoon had she known it would end for her tonight. Now he isn't smiling, and his lips are blurring and fading. Everything is fading, everything is going black. Black is boring.
Harley knows her hand has fallen back down, limp, she knows her body is coughing, her lungs trying and failing, too slow, to expel the liquid filling them over and over again, but she can't feel it anymore. She can't feel the Joker's arms holding her, she can't feel the pain signals her nerve ends try to forward to her brain, she can't see him anymore. But still she's breathing, uneven and laboured, but breathing, and still she's thinking, recalling all the memories of him, of him, him, nobody else has a place in her life, because the Joker is Harley Quinn's life, it makes only sense that he is all that flashes in front of her eyes as she closes them for the last time, and she wants to see nothing and no one else too. And as long as she can, she will keep breathing, keeping her last breath safely inside, so she will still see him smiling in front of her.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
But Harley Quinn could not hold her breath forever. And when the last small amount of air rushed past her lips, together with a little bit of crimson liquid, the Joker laughed. He laughed through his tears, he laughed despite the agony he felt, or maybe because of it, because that was what he always did and that was what he knew how to do and he didn't see the Batman, who had watched silently without having the heart to intervene, finally coming up behind him, and he didn't feel the Batman's hand on his shoulder. He laughed as the lifeless corpse was pried from his hands, and he still laughed when he was alone in his cell in Arkham, although his voice had become hoarse by then and it did not sound like laughter anymore.