"Peter Piper." Harley was mumbling to herself incoherently as she drew, her face scrunched as she held it close to the wood of the coffee table while she scribbled with colored pen. Her blue eyes went cross eyed as she giggled to herself. Joker had no idea what she was talking about.

"Hmm?" he grumbled.

"Ya ever heard of Peter Piper, Mister?"

"Who?" he hissed in annoyance.

Already, it was irritating. Joker had only been sitting with his long legs splayed out beneath the coffee table for less than fifteen minutes while throwing random strokes of green pen into Harley's 'picture' and already, he was tiring of it. He felt like hitting his head against the wood savagely. He just wanted his normal Harley back, not this one that seemed... strange.

"Ya know." Inhaling in deeply, Harley let out in a whooshed murmur, "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers; A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked; If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?" At the end of her nonsensical rambling, she giggled again girlishly. "Mommy taught me that one," she added proudly, lifting her blue eyes up to look at him slowly, groggily. Her blinking was slow, the spark to her eyes dull. Then she lifted a hand, covering her mouth, stifling a loud yawn. She asked through a palm muffling her voice, "What's the time, Mr. Wolf?"

Joker clenched the green pen between his fingers tight, willing it to snap. "Hmm?"

"The time? When's my Mommy pickin' me up, huh? 'Cause I gotta go to bed?"

Maybe Jonny was onto something after all? Maybe the Bat did do something to his girl's brain? Brain damage? Memory loss? He wasn't sure what it was.

Harley certainly wasn't acting like her usual self. For one thing, she couldn't seem to remember Joker. She couldn't seem to remember she was a grown woman who didn't rely on Mommy and Daddy anymore.

Joker didn't know how to respond at all. This entire situation, it felt like one huge joke. His patience was wearing thin, and patience had never been his strongest point. "What ya mean?" he demanded in confusion. "Mommy's not coming to pick ya up."

"Huh?" Harley moved her hand slowly from her mouth, blinking at him heavily. It was as if she could barely keep her eyes open. "What ya mean, Mommy's not pickin' me up?" Her voice cracked, as if she was scared. "Mommy's leaving me here, ya mean?" Joker watched as she stared at him, her eyes wide.

Harley always had a way that seemed so seductively innocent. Often, she played on that to get what she wanted, especially when it came to their games. But now? There was nothing seductive about the way she looked. Her nose started running again as she stared into his eyes sadly, her eyes welling over, shining with unshed tears. Tragic. It was tragic, as if she truly was a child.

"Ya live here," he explained bluntly and he gripped the end of the green pen with his other hand, grunting under his breath in happiness as it made a cracking noise as he snapped it easily in both hands. "This is ya home." He chucked the two halves of the pen at the table, and he watched Harley flinch and recoil back as the pieces ricocheted to the floor. "Ya live here with me. Ya don't live with Mommy anymore." He probably should have been more tactful, more kinder, but he couldn't help it. The way she was being, it was frustrating.

Harley's mouth opened and closed as she moved her eyes slowly around the room, her shoulders trembling slightly. Joker could almost sense her brain working over time as she processed that information in. "Ya mean I don't live with Mommy anymore?" she asked in a small voice once her eyes focused on him again. "I live with you? This is my house?"

"Yeah, this is ya house. There's no Mommy or Daddy anymore."

Sniffling loudly, snot trickling down her upper lip, Harley eyed the room again. Her chin wobbled, as though she was on the verge of crying. Joker hoped she wouldn't; He was never good with all that hormonal girly stuff, especially not the comforting sweet chit-chat whenever Harley was upset when she was her normal self.

When Harley met his gaze again, she cocked her head to the side. She seemed suddenly both teary and shy like a vulnerable, nervous girl.

"Ya gonna put me to bed then?" It was a soft question escaping her lips. "I mean, ya gonna tuck me into bed? My Mommy always does?"

The idea of doing something so banal in tucking Harley into bed, it grated on him. But seeing as she wasn't herself and it would probably make her feel better, whatever it was she was going through, Joker nodded with a reluctant sigh. He stood from the coffee table and after watching him wearily, Harley followed slowly behind him as he showed her to where their bedroom was. Just as she had left it last night and that morning, the blinds were still drawn. The bed was still messy and unmade, pillows and sheets strewn everywhere.

Unsure of what to do, Joker waved towards the bed awkwardly. "Well, there's ya bed."

He watched Harley rock back and forth on her bare feet as an excited noise escaped her throat. She clasped both hands together in front of her, twisting her wrists like an overexcited girl for candy. "Oh, wow," she very nearly shouted. "That's my bed? All for me?"

Before Joker could actually clarify that it was his bed as well that they shared together, he startled and stepped back when Harley suddenly made a loud squealing noise again, jumping up and down on her feet. She shoved past him, prancing towards their double-bed. He watched, grumbling under his breath in annoyance at how his ears were still hurting from her idiotic screaming as she leaped up, diving belly first onto the bed, kicking the mattress with her slender legs akimbo and flying everywhere.

"I'm the luckiest girl in the world!" He heard her laugh gleefully as she flopped over onto her back, kicking the sheets around, her long blonde, red and blue-tipped hair coming loose in wayward strands around her. "I bet nobody at school has their very own big, big bed like a big girl does, Mister! I'm a princess!"

Joker stood around uncertainly in the center of the room until Harley's childish excitement over the bed seemed to have died down. She yawned again tiredly, her legs still from their frenetic movement on the mattress. He tongued around his grill when she stared at him, blowing out a breath through her lips, making her cheeks puff out.

"Well, ya gonna tuck me in or what?"

"Ah..." He moaned out reluctantly, then he slowly came closer.

She laid back against the pillow, watching him expectantly as she shoved the blankets down away from her body with her feet. Trying to ignore the impulse he had to smash his head against hers in the hope that it would bring her out of it, Joker gripped the bottom of the sheet and pulled it up, yanking it over her body length-ways. She huffed loudly in what seemed to be a content mood over the warmth. He could feel her eyes digging holes into his head.

It was unbearable, everything Harley was making him do. But he knew she was not quite herself. Hopefully once she did return to herself again, all memories of this would be magically erased so she wouldn't know about it. The things he did only for her. It was embarrassing.

"There we go," he said softly, purposefully avoiding her gaze.

"So this is my house now, huh?" Her voice was so low, so quiet, Joker almost wondered if he was imagining her saying it. But she was saying it, and her eyes flew around the ceiling, a puzzled expression on her face. "I live here and I don't live with Mommy anymore? Why I live here with you and not Mommy?"

Because your my girl, he wanted to snap at her. You live with me now because you're my girl.

Only when he risked a look up at her face, the way she looked, so curious, so harmless, it made his heart ache. He hated how she was capable of making him feel. He didn't understand it half the time and yet, somehow, Harley was capable of making him feel the most strangest, sickest, tenderest feelings.

He tongued around his metal teeth again. "'Cause ya just do," he settled on.

"Has Mommy gone some place or somethin'?"

He really wished she would stop talking about 'Mommy'. He felt inept with how to deal with it.

A flicker of irritation coursed through him, but he tried to keep his voice one level, "Ya just live with me."

"How long I been livin' here for?"

He sighed through his nostrils, gritting his teeth. How long had it been now? "Five years."

Harley's forehead creased as she seemed to think that heavily through. Then she yawned again loudly.

"Are you my babysitter or somethin'?"

Babysitter!

When all she did was blink at him, her eyelids growing heavy, Joker finally left the room, feeling useless and unsure of what to do with himself. Usually, he slept in the same bed as Harley, but that was probably out of the question with how she was being now.

In all his pent-up confusion and rage, he did the only thing he could do as a coping strategy. He found a wall in the room, and he jerked his head forward, a thud sounding as he hit himself squarely in the forehead with it. The pain that tore through him over it was so good, so relieving, all he could do was laugh.

He really didn't know how to handle this situation at all.

LHLHLH

He sat on the floor, staring up at the random space on the wall; the same space the Joker had been staring at for a countless amount of time now. He could feel his body shutting down, the hours turning late into the morning. His eyes grew heavy, blurry from tiredness. The carpet was not the most comfortable place to sit on. He could feel his back beginning to ache already.

Half-drunk with sleep, he forgot himself. Staggering to his feet clumsily, he kicked off his shoes, padding into the bedroom in his socks. His groggy brain processed that Harley was sleeping in bed; He could see the faint outline of her body beneath the sheets.

Dead tired and incoherent, he pulled back the sheets and sat at the corner of the mattress, yanking his tuxedo jacket off. A sigh left his mouth in happiness as he shoved himself under the sheets, the immediate warmth filling his bones. He turned on his side, leaning against Harley's back, nuzzling his nose into the strands of her hair resting against his pillow.

Then it happened. It happened so suddenly, it immediately roused him out of his half-asleep stupor, startling him. Harley made a loud, uncomfortable noise as she jerked awake, sitting up. He could hardly see her through the dark shadows in the bedroom as she shivered, hugging herself tightly in her small T-shirt with her arms.

"Eww," he heard her exclaim loudly in distaste. "Gross, Mister! What ya doin' in my big bed?"

Blinking sleepily, his mind put two and two together then. Oh, of course. Harley wasn't herself right now.

"Ya can't sleep in bed with me, Mister! Boys have cooties! Don't ya know that? Gross!"

Grumbling loudly, he climbed out of bed hastily, ignoring the aching twang in his back from being on the carpet before.

What he'd give to have his Harley back again.

Hope this was okay? Too silly? Hope it amuses you anyway.