Note: This is my first fanfiction I've ever written, and it's about a girl named Sky Mortimer who has always felt alone. She has no family or friends, and lives in a one-room apartment by herself. And then, she is kidnapped by the Joker and her life is changed forever.

Enjoy! ^_^

Disclaimer: I own the character Sky, not the Joker.

To Heal Your Scars

Chapter One. Hello Beautiful.

Ah, Christmas Eve. How… enchanting. The snow falling like iced lace from the pitch-dark sky, the Christmas lights twinkling like millions of tiny stars, and the smiles of everyone as they walked on the snow-covered sidewalks of uptown Gotham. From inside one of the biggest, most expensive stores in the entire city, I watched all of this as people frantically bustled about around me buying last-minute gifts for the loved ones that they had forgotten. Of course I was stared at by these panicking shoppers – I was sitting on one of the display boxes, staring at those around me, with no particular purpose of being there. And then there was the matter of well, me. I had on falling apart black combat boots – three inches high – holey jeans with various designs haphazardly drawn all over them, and my favourite black zip-up sweater – also holey. My makeup was rather theatrical, with gold eye shadow and black eyeliner flaring our from my dark blue eyes like wings, and I had on deep purple lipstick to match the colour of my long, wavy (and somewhat messy) hair. To say the least, I didn't exactly fit in with the rest of the perfect-looking people in the store. So why, you may ask, was I in there? Was I waiting for someone who had gone off to buy me a beautiful present for Christmas? Was I waiting for my mother, who told me to stay there while she took a few minutes (but would really take an hour) to quickly look around? Was I really some rich kid, the daughter of a millionaire, who liked to act and dress like she didn't have enough money to buy a decent sweater and maybe a brush for her hair? No, definitely not, and I seriously wish. I had no one to wait for, not even a mother (mine had taken off when I was twelve years old, thank-you very much. Topic closed). And I had barely enough money to pay for two (on occasion, three) meals a day and the rent on my dingy, cramped apartment in the "slums" of town. So why was I in this store? The answer: I like to watch people. Creepy maybe, but a pastime nonetheless. I like to study everyone, try to figure out if the saying "never judge a book by its cover" is really true. I watch mothers and fathers interact with their children, with each other. How boyfriends act with their girlfriends and vice versa, compared with how they act around their friends. And of course, how people act toward those that they don't know. Are they polite? Are they dismissive, do they ignore them completely? Oh, and I don't only study the upper class. No, I study the people who live in my area too – for example, my neighbours. The husband and wife who throw dishes and other breakable objects at each other every night, their angry screams keeping me awake until the early hours of the morning. Or the single mother who lives in the building across the street from me, her window on the same level as mine. We've talked a few times, the first of which I told her, "I wish I'd had a mother like you when I was little," and her eyes teared up and she said that although she couldn't be my mother, she'd be my friend and look after me. So, she is now my best friend because… she's my only friend.

How depressing. My only friend. My only contact in this ridiculous world other than my hateful landlord and my moronic boss at Starbucks. Yes, that is my job. It's also where I met my latest in a long line of ex-boyfriends. He was smart, funny, a talented singer, and above all, he treated me better than any other guy had. Therefore, I bought him the most expensive Christmas present that I could afford: an iPod. It was one of the old ones, so I got it pretty cheap, and he was about as money-less as I was, so he didn't have one yet. And then, a weak before Christmas, he breaks up with me. He didn't even bother to give the whole "I think we should just be friends" speech. No, he phoned me. Told me that there was no future for him with me. ("Sorry, Sky baby, we had fun but I need to move on to someone else. Someone… with a more promising future that a guy like me can connect to.) Nice, eh? And just before Christmas, the cheap bastard. I was going to burn the iPod that I had bought for him, but decided against it and brought it back to the store to get my money back. Oh and yes, that's my name: Sky. Not a short form for Schuyler or any other name, just Sky because my mother was going through a "dream-like" stage of her life and liked "dreamy" names – apparently my name was classified as one. I like it though. It matches my eyes, she (my mother) told me once when I was really little, and still loved me. A shining, midnight blue, that's how she described the colour. Like sapphires in a field of freshly fallen snow (which was my pale face).

Reminiscing like that deserves a heavy, mournful sigh, I think. Like in the movies when people are remembering old times and just sigh in a sad and heart-broken way, and it reaches your heart and opens a wound that you didn't know existed, and maybe shouldn't even exist but it's there anyway because deep down you feel so alone. A.L.O.N.E. That… would be me in a nutshell. I sometimes doubt that anyone in the world feels as alone as I do sometimes, even though I know that there is. And that makes me feel even sadder, the knowledge that a bunch of poor people in the world feel as lonely as I do. I sometimes thought that I was so pitiful and weak, thinking about myself like that all the time, and then I just thought angrily to myself, you deserve no pity at all, not even from yourself. You see, it's not like I ever did anything to change myself. I liked to be alone, it's who I was – I have terrible trust issues, you see. But every now and then, it just got to me, not being able to rely on anyone except for myself.

So as I sat there, thinking depressing thoughts, there was a commotion at the front of the store at the large, clear glass doors. It made me jump and I fell behind the display boxes that I had perched on for my people watching. There was yelling, banging, crashing, and then a terrible silence except for John Lennon's "So This Is Christmas" being played over the speakers, which was ceased after a couple of seconds. I rubbed my knee as it throbbed painfully at the place where I fell on it and I realized that all was still silent as people stared at the cause of the commotion with absolute terror. What had happened? Did someone drive through the glass doors or something? For a couple of seconds I pondered the various situations that could have happened and then the deadly silence was broken.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen." Oh no. I looked up over the stacks of boxes that concealed me, and saw him. The Joker, standing not 10 feet away from me. His face paint was applied like he was in a terrible rush when he put it on, his green-tinged hair was pushed back from his forehead, and his yellow teeth gleamed as he grinned at the panicked faces of the customers and workers in the rest of the store. He was tall, I noticed, and leaned over to meet the face of a petrified old woman. "Oh dear, are you afraid?" he spoke in an excited whisper that somehow everyone managed to hear very clearly. One of his clown faced followers bellowed out a laugh, which made everyone jump, and he was promptly shot in the chest by his unamused boss. Huh, I thought, it seems that The Joker isn't happy unless he's the only one who's having fun. I stared at the body and I felt my stomach twist sickeningly. I had never been one to have a weak stomach, but as I saw the dark crimson blood pooling around the dead man, I thought I was going to scream. I'd never seen anyone die before. As it happens, some people did scream. A few fainted. The Joker looked gleeful at this, and spoke again, this time addressing everyone. "I am only here for some things that I need. Like… this," he grabbed a deep purple dress shirt, stepping closer to my hiding place. "And… this," A purple necktie. Another step closer. "And maybe… these," a couple pairs of purple socks. He was now standing above me, and I crouched lower, hoping, praying that I would not be seen. No such luck. "Oh! Why, hello there Sweetheart," I looked up to meet his charcoal-smeared eyes, and I looked down and shrank away from him. "Oh no no no, that won't do!" He clicked his tongue. "Stand up!" I didn't have to, he grabbed me by the shoulders and easily lifted me up off the ground – I was only 95 pounds. My feet were still dangling in the air when he said, "Well aren't you beautiful."

"P-please put me d-down," I stammered. He did and then slapped me across the face, which knocked me down of the floor again.

"I like you," he grinned. And then I thought, what did I have to be afraid of? What could he take me away from? No loving parents, no sweet pets that needed my care, no friends that enjoyed my company (except Maria, sort-of, the woman who lived across my street and had her son to look after). All I had was my apartment. No, I was alone. Once again, that word. Alone, I'm so alone. So what did my life matter to anyone, even me? Why didn't I just give up and let the Joker kill me right then and there with his shining switchblade? It may not be painless, but it would probably be quick. I smiled up at him, blood running down my chin from my broken bottom lip.

"Do you now?" I asked, still smiling. He didn't like this very much, as I had found out before. I licked the blood trailing from my mouth and laughed. He raised his eyebrows, apparently surprised at my actions. People were staring at me with a mixture of confusion and fear, probably thinking Oh God, she isn't insane like him, is she? No, I'm not, but I figured that he'd probably kill me more quickly the more he disliked me. However, he didn't react the way I wanted him to.

"Yes, Gorgeous, I do! Now, you are coming with me. Stand up," he spoke childishly, then giggled and once again lifted me up, only this time throwing my over his shoulder. "My, you are small, aren't you?"

"Put me down!" I ignored his rhetorical question and yelled like an idiot. Like he would listen to me.

"I don't think so, Girlie." We reached the doors to the store when he asked, "Do you have a coat? It is rather cold out there, wouldn't want you getting sick now, would we?"

"No," I answered. He turned around and walked into an aisle of very expensive-looking coats.

"Excuse me," he said smiling evilly to a man around my age, 21, standing in front of a rack of coats. The Joker roughly pushed him out of the way and onto the ground, where the terrified man scrambled away on all fours, making the Joker giggle like a little kid. He grabbled a small purple coat off the hanger, put me back on the ground, and shoved my arms through the sleeves and did up the zipper – I felt like a doll. He slung me over his shoulder and waked toward the glass doors at the front of the store again. As he left, he fired a bunch of shots into the air just to scare the hell out of everyone inside and outside, who, screaming, ran for cover. "Isn't it the night just… beautiful? Like you, Sweetheart," he said to me. "Just… like… you." He began humming a song and skipping along to it, which was rather painful for me. I shifted on his shoulder uncomfortably. "Oh I'm sorry, am I hurting you?" he asked laughing, not bothering to stop jolting me around. I refused to give in.

"No, not at all," I replied, not easily as I was upside down and being bounced around every step. He laughed and said something like, of course, of course. We finally reached his van, and he opened the passenger side door and tossed me in.

"Wouldn't want you to have to stay in the back with my team," he grinned. I'd forgotten about them; I turned around to see five of them pile into the back and then sit down and stare at me. Even through those masks I could feel them looking me up and down like an object. Ugh. I turned around and faced the front and the Joker jumped in his side and started the van, which sounded, looked, and smelled too old to drive. To drive? Sorry, I meant to race. 90 miles an hour on city streets was a death wish in my mind, and he looked like he was having the time of his life. He ran stop signs, red lights, passed on the right, and I believe that he didn't slow down once. "This is fun, isn't it, Beautiful?" he asked me, laughing hysterically. All I could do was shut my eyes and cling to the sides of the seat, which were… sticky. Oh, gross.

After about 15 minutes of pure terror, we reached whatever our destination was. Ah, this was the place that he lived, an abandoned warehouse. It was even worse than my apartment. He opened the rusting doors, and said "After you, Princess," and smiled. I cautiously took a few steps into the warehouse and he came in after me, shutting the doors behind him. After a second he turned the light on and leaned down and his lips moved against my ear. "Home. Sweet. Home."

I realized that until that moment, I had no idea what pure terror really was.