This is my first attempt at a serious story....not a joke, which is usually my forte'. I figured, after making the other story about him and Batman so stupid and funny, I owed it to the Joker to give him a serious story....about his inner demons, his love for Harley, and how he got his damn scars!

Please lemme know if it's good or bad!

Chapter 1

Honey, I'm Home!

I lay in the bed watching TV. It was the "Maury" show, or some stupid shit like that. I wasn't really watching it, it was just on. I was more just laying in bed spacing out, staring at the wall. This was a typical day in my life anymore. I pretty much just got drunk or stoned beyond belief every day. I knew I was wallowing in self pity, but what did I have to live for? My family was gone forever. Every day when I went to sleep in my drug induced haze, I prayed I'd never wake up. But I always did.

It had been like this for years. Five years, to be exact. Ever since my babies had been gone. I couldn't allow myself to think of them. The pain was like a knife in my heart. I buried it, soaked it in alcohol and drugs. It was too much to bear. I hated God for what had happened.

The house was filthy. Clothes and stale food lay around. It hadn't always been filthy. I remembered a time when it was filled with the laughter of my little girl. A time of happiness, hope, and love. I remembered Christmases, birthdays, and watching movies. Her friends visiting, their little play dates. I remembered my husband. I remembered the baby inside of me, that never got a chance to live. It didn't matter that the house was trashed. The only one who ever saw the inside of it was my drug dealer. I didn't give a shit what he thought.

I tried to remember what it was like to feel something other than misery and rage. But I couldn't. They were all I had left. I lay in the bed I had once shared with my husband, tears running down my face. I wished I would die, and leave this hell behind. And then, I heard it! My front door being beaten down. Maybe someone had finally come to kill me.

I heard a voice I hadn't heard in over two years....my husband's! "Hoooneeyyy! I'm hoooome!" he screamed. I felt a new emotion. Terror.

Chapter 2

A Visit!

I tried to think what to do, where to hide. I didn't have time to do anything. He knew where I was, and he was coming up the stairs two at a time. It sounded like there were more people with him. Who knew what the hell he was up to. I'd seen he'd been making the news a bit lately. I wondered what the hell he wanted with me. The last I knew, he'd been in an insane asylum. I understood. What had happened to our family was enough to make anyone nuts.

The bedroom door flew open, and there he was! He was larger than life, tall and wild looking. His eyes met mine and he grinned at me. I tried to get off the bed, but I wasn't fast enough. In a second, he was lying on top of me, pinning me. His cohorts laughed. I squirmed, but couldn't get out from beneath him. He weighed a ton, and he had hold of both my wrists.

"Where you going, sweetie-pie?" he asked innocently.

"What do you want?" I cried.

"Well, you aren't being very receptive," he said. "Didn't you miss me?" He ground against me a little, and said, "I've missed you!!!" He grinned a sick smile. "I'm sure you can feel that!"

He was right, I could. It grossed me out a little, but at the same time, it didn't. I HAD missed him. I'd missed him, our little girl, and our little baby that never had a chance.

"What do you want?" I repeated, through clenched teeth.

"Well.....," he said, rolling his eyes around and licking his top lip, "I need some help. But now, I'm thinkin' I need some other stuff, too!" He tried to kiss me, but I turned away. This pissed him off, I could tell. He turned around and glared at his buddies, and pointed a gun at them. "Can I have some privacy, with my wife, please?" he asked. "The mother of my dead children?" The guys backed off, and he shot a hole in the wall. I almost jumped out of my skin. "Shut the mother-fucking door!" he screamed at them. They complied with this request.

"Where were we.....?," he continued.

"You need help," I started.

"Yeah," he said. "I need LOTS of help." Then he started laughing hysterically. I turned my head to the side. I needed to get away. He grabbed my face and pulled it around so we were staring at each other.

"Look at ME!" he screamed. "LOOK! Or do I repulse you that much?"

I sighed. I knew he should, but he didn't. I couldn't forget who he was.

"No, Jack," I said, caressing his cheek. "You could never repulse me."

He looked surprised. Then his eyes caught the glimmer on my left hand. I still had my wedding set on. He glared at it. "Why do you keep wearing that piece of shit?" he asked. "I got it out of a gumball machine!" (This was a lie, as I'd been with him to the jeweler to pick it out.)

"I dunno," I said, truthfully.

"Well, take it off!" he screamed. "Before I CUT it off!"

His distraction at the ring was all I needed to get an advantage on him. I flipped him over so he was on his back and I was sitting on top of him. He snickered.

"Oooh, Harley! I LIKE it!" He grinned at me. "You're so forceful! It's really turning me on!"

Since I was basically straddling him, I could tell he wasn't lying about that.

I grabbed the glove on his left hand and pulled it off, exposing the wedding band he still had on. I crammed his left hand in his face, the ring right in front of his eyes.

"Okay, okay, busted," he said. "You made your point. Gimme back my glove."

I sat on top of him, staring into his eyes. Neither of us blinked. I couldn't see him in there any more. I wondered if he could see me. I wondered if I even existed anymore.

He'd lost weight, in fact, he was downright thin; I could feel his ribs and hipbones through his clothes. I wondered when he had eaten last. I felt pity for him. He must be hungry, probably sick as well. Poor thing.

"You've lost weight," I said.

He slapped me on the ass. "And you've found it!" he said giggling. Even though my ass stung a little and it kind of turned me on, I smacked him in the mouth.

"Fuck you!"

"God, I wish you would," he said. "It's been years! And you are just so damn sexy, as always!"

I couldn't resist him. Even now, I loved him so much. He was still my husband. The one I'd married, the only one I ever would. He pushed up my t-shirt and caressed my stomach. He traced the scar on my stomach with a finger, and a look of sadness passed over him. The scar was horrible. It went all the way across my stomach. The butcher who had made it didn't care what it would look like. I'm sure they expected me to die. They hadn't cared what his scars would look like, either. We weren't supposed to survive. It was a cruel joke that we had. It was, you might say, the biggest joke of all.

The look of sadness was replaced by one of lust. He pulled me to him, and we kissed deeply. We'd obviously both missed each other's touch. Our lovemaking was crazy, and wild, and sad, and yet familiar. We both remembered just how the other liked it, after all these years. It was like coming home.

Chapter 3

Remembering

I sat on the edge of the bed, looking out the window. I really needed to move somewhere far away. Somewhere that held no memories for me. I wrapped the sheet tightly around myself, got up, and lit a cigarette. I looked at my crazy, mixed-up husband dozing in the bed. I thought about blowing his brains out and putting him out of his misery. He must have sensed me looking at him, because he opened his eyes and gave me a messed-up smile.

"What ya thinkin?" he asked.

"Nothing," I replied. "Just remembering."

"Remembering what?" he asked.

"You know damn good and well what!" I cried.

"Oh, yeah," he said. "Well, stop it! It isn't gonna do any good!" He lit one of my cigarettes and took a deep drag off it, blowing the smoke out his nose.

"I know that," I said, tears running down my cheek.

He got up and got dressed. "If you really wanna help me, you can help me find out who Batman is," he replied.

"What good is that going to do?" I responded.

"Because," he said, getting about an inch away from me. "I'm gonna fucking kill him!"

"Why? What does he have to do with anything? Why do you even care?"

"WHY?" he screamed. "WHY? Are you fucking retarded? This is HIS fault!" He started jumping around and getting worked up. "Where the fuck was he when THIS happened?" he pointed to the scar on his mouth with a knife. "Or THIS?" he touched my stomach. "Where was he when Zoe was getting her throat slit?" He choked a little on that one. "Maybe there IS still a little of you in there," I thought.

He continued to pace around. "No, no, no! He wasn't worried about US. The LITTLE people. You only matter if you have MONEY! Well, he's going to learn that money doesn't mean SHIT!"

I was sorry I had asked. He stomped out the door, and yelled, "You know where to find me, if you wanna help! Or if you want some more....he he...action!" He giggled at his little joke. "I know ya liked it! Pretty sure the neighbors knew, too!" Apparently, his pals were still downstairs. "Come on, bitches!" he yelled at them, and they all took off.

Pretty soon, I was alone in the house. I pulled on a pair of sweatpants, and went downstairs to pour myself a drink. I walked through the house, reliving all the memories it held. The kitchen. I remembered making Christmas cookies with Zoe and Jack; remembering their laughter over dyeing the frosting goofy colors and making Santa blue and the reindeer green....stupid shit like that. I remembered cooking so many meals. I remembered how Jack used to make peanut butter and jelly or grilled cheese sandwiches for Zoe and cut them to look like hearts. "Because you're my little heart," he'd tell her.....and she'd giggle. "You're MY heart, daddy!" I choked back tears. The living room. Our wedding picture still hung on the wall. Zoe's pictures from kindergarten and first grade. So many pictures, of what had been a normal family. Now a dead family, gone all wrong. The grandfather clock that had been a wedding gift from Jack's parents...it sat still and silent. It hadn't been wound in years. I took another sip of my whiskey, relishing the burn as it went down.

Everywhere around me were memories.....of what we'd had, of death, of what would never be again. Now, the hard part. I climbed the stairs. Our bedroom, well, that wasn't so hard. After all, that's where I spent most of my time, usually drunk or high. I did remember sleeping with my husband there.....but that had sort of happened again recently...ha ha! I also had fucked my drug dealer there when I hadn't had the money for my next fix. So it was kind of a place of mixed emotions. I recalled the joy of telling my husband I was pregnant as I came out of the adjacent bathroom holding my test....he was so happy! I recalled sucking my drug dealer's dick for an eight-ball of meth there, too. Ugh. Disgusting.

The nursery was the next stop.....my baby had never slept there, though. She had been ripped from me. Ripped out by an evil man, who didn't care. Who had killed my other child, as well. Who thought he had killed me. I hoped he burned in Hell forever. I glared at the ultrasound picture which lay on the dresser. The picture of my dead little girl. One of my dead little girls. The nursery was adorable.....pale pink, with a Winnie the Pooh theme. One wall had letters across it.....HAILEY, they spelled out. That would have been her name. She'd be five years old now. If she'd have been allowed to live. And Zoe.....she'd be thirteen now. Oh, Zoe.

I went to Zoe's room next. It felt like a knife was being stabbed through my heart. Her walls were lavender....."You were always daddy's girl," I thought, smiling. Her little stuffed animals were everywhere, her barbies, her doll house. A fine layer of dust covered everything. Posters of dogs covered the walls; she had loved dogs! A picture on the wall proclaimed, 'Jesus Loves Me'. I sat on her bed and cried silently. Then I lay back on her pillow. I held her stuffed dog (Snoopy had been his name) to my nose, and tried vainly to catch a bit of her sweet smell. It was long gone. Everything was gone. Everything but me. I shut my eyes and remembered the night our world ended.

Chapter 4

2003—Harley Remembers

It was the same as any other night. We'd had supper, watched some television, read a story to Zoe, and went to bed. It was about two in the morning. We'd been asleep for several hours. Suddenly, I awoke to several people in our room!

There was a man on each side of the bed! The one on my side was big! He had a gun pointed at my head. "Scream and you die, bitch!" he exclaimed.

The man on Jack's side of the bed had him shoved up into the headboard. He was trying to sit up and get away, but the guy was a lot bigger than him, and he had a knife on his throat. Jack's eyes were wild.

"Who are you?!" he screamed. "What do you want? We don't have any money!"

"No, but you have something I DO want," the man replied. "Aren't you a fucking chemist or biologist or something? Don't you work at the chemical plant?"

"Yeah.....so what?" Jack responded, still trying to figure out what they wanted. "I'm not anything important there!"

"No?" said the man. "Well.....you're important enough your fingerprints will unlock the door!"

"What do you want there?" Jack asked. "There's nothing there!"

"Well," the man said wickedly, "You probably just aren't important enough to know. But, you're getting us in! Or else momma and the baby are going to die!"

"Mommy?!" called Zoe from her room. "Daddy?"

The evil man laughed. "We just got MORE bargaining power!"

The next thing I knew, two of the men dragged Jack off to do God knows what to him. I sat on the bed holding Zoe in my lap, as she cried in terror. I had to be strong for her.

Finally, after an eternity, the man received a phone call. "Okay, good," he said. "Yeah, it's taken care of." I wondered if it meant we would be let go. He grabbed Zoe by the arm and said, "I need to talk to your mom." "Great," I thought. "I'm gonna get raped." Oh well, as long as Zoe was safe, I didn't care. But instead of letting her walk past, he spun her around so her back was turned to him, and slit her throat! Zoe fell to the floor lifeless, in a pool of blood. I hesitated briefly from shock, and then rage overtook me. I swan dived the man, knocking him to the floor.

"You mother-fucking son of a bitch!" I screamed. "Fuck you! Fuck you! I'm going to KILL you!" I punched him repeatedly in the head, and attempted to get his knife away from him, but only managed to get my hands sliced open in the process. It was pretty hopeless anyway. He was very tall and at least 300#. He flipped me over easily and sat on top of me.

"I'm giving you a C-section, bitch," he sneered. He cut me across the stomach, deep. Oh, God. He really WAS giving me a C-section! The pain was absolutely incredible. The knife felt like it was ripping out my insides, and blood gushed everywhere. I felt myself blacking out, and just before I went under, I heard him say, "Your husband is a dead mother-fucker, too!" Then he laughed.

The next thing I knew, Jack was lying beside me, trying frantically to wake me up. He couldn't talk very well, he was cut up in the face badly. His t-shirt was soaked in blood.

"The ambulance is coming," he slurred. Blood dripped out of his mouth onto my face and in my hair. My stomach was a world of pain.

"Zoe....?" I whispered. He shook his head sadly, tears streaming down his face.

Chapter 5

2003--Joker Remembers

Joker and his men headed back off to the shithole he called "home" for now. Not that he really had a home. He'd just left the last place he'd ever known as home.

He hadn't seen Harley in two, maybe three years. He didn't realize seeing her was going to bring back so many emotions in him. Emotions pissed him off. He decided to get drunk. The men knew that it was probably a good time to leave him alone if they didn't want shot at.

He sat down in a recliner and started drinking Jack Daniel's straight from the bottle. It tasted like shit at first, but he got used to it. God, he felt like crying. He hadn't thought about Zoe or the baby in years, either. He should have just had one of the men go in and talk to her. Of course, they wouldn't have the same effect on her that he would. He probably shouldn't have fucked her, either, but she was so damn pretty, and it had been so long. That was really stupid, regardless. It made him feel so sad. He was really pissed off about being sad.

Finally, he got drunk enough to pass out....and then, he was a captive to his memories.

He remembered the men dragging him out of bed, guns and knives pointed at him. He would have tried to make a run for it, if it hadn't been for Harley and Zoe. And the yet unborn Hailey.

He'd never seen the men before, had no idea how they knew who he was, no idea what they wanted. All he knew was, he was a captive in their little plan, and he'd better play along if he didn't want his wife and kids to die.

They took him to the plant where he worked and used his fingerprints to gain access to the lab. He had no idea what they wanted there, and he didn't care. He thought maybe (stupidly) that they'd let him go, but of course, that wasn't happening. As the others went into the lab, the guy holding the knife on him decided to get a little sadistic with him. "You wanna know how I got these scars?" he thought, in his dream, giggling. "That's how!" The pain had been exquisite. The man had practically cut his lower jaw off. Jack had passed out from agony, and had awoken to find the bastard still carving on him. Unbelievable. He had lay there in a daze, and surely, they had thought he would die. He had been stabbed and sliced nearly thirty times....who would live?

Well, they got whatever they wanted in the lab, and left him lying on the ground in a huge pool of blood. When he was sure they were gone, he stumbled to his feet, woozy from pain and blood loss. He leaned against the wall and slowly made his way to the side door, leaving streaks of blood on the wall. He had to get home and make sure Harley and the kids were okay. He hurt so bad. His face felt on fire. He couldn't hold his mouth shut.....his jaw muscles were cut in two. Blood and drool ran down the side of his face. He had to hold his ruined mouth shut with one hand, because letting it hang like that was pure misery. His side hurt from a stab wound.....either his lung had been punctured or a rib had been broken. He bled from too many cuts to count, and ached from the places they had beat on him. How had he lived? He didn't know. But he was on a mission.....and that was to get home and check on his family.

He heard some commotion outside, and peered out the window....it seemed Batman had arrived. "Where were you an hour ago?" thought Jack, giggling. "Oh, that's right. Why would you help little ol' me? Now a big lab....with a lot of money....that was one thing. That was something that would matter. Fuck you, Batman!"

He finally made it home....thank God it was only a half a mile. Of course, no one would stop and help him.....apparently no one wanted a bloody mess in their car. He'd tried to get people to stop. But no one gave a fuck. By the time he got home, he wasn't feeling the pain so much anymore. He was mostly feeling rage, and worry about his family. Rage at the bastards who'd done this. Rage at how no one would help him. Rage at Batman, who showed up to prevent the lab from being robbed, but not when he was getting sliced and diced.

When he made it in the house, his rage and pain went through the roof. They were lying on the floor of the bedroom. They appeared to be dead. Blood was everywhere. He picked up Zoe. She was limp and lifeless. His heart shattered in a million pieces. He sobbed into his dead daughter's hair. He grabbed his wife's hand, and was shocked when she stirred a bit and opened her eyes. He struggled to his feet and called an ambulance. Then he came back and lay beside her on the floor, holding her tightly. They lay in a pool of blood, crying softly together, until the ambulance came.

They both knew their lives were forever ruined.

Joker sobbed in his sleep. Tears ran down his face, smearing his makeup. He was drunk, and the men knew, in this mood, terribly dangerous. He was liable to do anything. No one wanted to be around when he woke up.