Warning: my OC in this story is crazy. And please tell me if the Joker is a little OOC, I'll fix it if I write another part. And you don't have to read the long thing she recites from memory, it's Hamlet's soliloquy pondering the purpose of life.
"Listen, O, I just don't think we're good for each other," Michael, a young businessman she'd recently started dating, said as he picked up his briefcase and stood up to leave. "Maybe as friends but. . . "
A false smile stretched across her once fair and aristocratic features. Ophelia was sure that she looked even worse with the fact that she hadn't been getting much sleep lately. She'd stopped taking her anti-depressants weeks ago.
"Is it the scars, Mike?" She found herself asking as he turned his back to her to leave. "I thought that they gave me a bit of mystery, something that makes other people think, 'hey, I wonder where she got those, she looks almost like the Joker.'" She laughed humorlessly. "Don't you want to know where I got them?"
She knew how those words affected people. They made people look at her in fear and think she was in league with the Joker. Wrong, she thought, gathering her blond waves into a ponytail. But Michael didn't know that. She started, "My brother was always a strange kid. He would always sit quietly in the library after school reading books like Catcher in the Rye, have you ever read Catcher in the Rye, Michael?" He didn't answer. He was too busy looking at her in horror. "Guess not. Don't, it's a waste of time. Anyway, one night, when I was eleven I found him sharpening the kitchen knives at three o' clock in the morning. He threatened me not to tell. Then he did this to my face, saying that if I told he'd do something even worse," at this point, she took out the knife that had been concealed in her pocket. "My big brother taught me so much."
Michael snapped out of it then and ran out of the diner.
Figures, she thought, discreetly sliding the knife back into her pocket. He was probably going back to that slut to tell her what she'd told him. She could already hear the slut, one of her best friends, denying it and going on about how sweet and pure Ophelia was.
She'd built that image after years of practice.
She heard the news blaring in the background. The gasps of horror at the news that the Joker had escaped yet again. She frowned as she slipped out of the booth and walked out. When would they ever learn that they couldn't keep Jack contained?
She watched the sky darken in the horizon and felt the exhaustion of the day slip away as excitement took its place. She had plans.
Tonight would finally be the night.
She caught a taxi and took it to her old apartment building. The one she'd had before she met Jack.
When she got there, she made her way quickly up the stairs ignoring the fact that the roof was twenty floors up. Her legs were hurting her terribly but she ignored the pain as she made it to the roof and saw the view of Gotham City, a sea of lights and sound below her. Everyone looked just as small and ugly as she did from that distance. They were all ants.
She danced around the roof feeling as though the world was spinning around her. She'd managed to suppress this part of her when Jack was still around. She'd been somewhat normal, hadn't she? Or maybe he'd caught it from her.
At this thought, she fell to her knees. She let her hair loose and wild as the world still spun around her. Everything was so chaotic, she thought. Hadn't everything been so peaceful and quiet five years ago?
Hadn't Jack stopped the world from spinning out of control?
She smiled humorlessly once more as she tipped her face up towards the sky and recited the lines from memory:
"To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. -"
"Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd," a familiar voice finished from behind her before she heard clapping.
She smiled in pleasant surprise before turning and curtsying. "Why, thank you, kind sir, but I believe that was my line. And may I say that the paint covering your face becomes you."
"Why, thank you, darling," he said, walking closer. "But shouldn't you be reciting Ophelia's lines not Hamlet's?"
"You know I would've been named Hamlet if I'd been born a man."
"Thank God, you aren't a man."
She giggled as she stepped away from him and recited once again.
"To-morrow is Saint Valentine's Day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donn'ed his clothes,
and dupp'd the chamber-door;
let in the maid, that out a maid
never departed more."
"O, can we stop with the Hamlet lines for a sec?"
"Oh, do you prefer Romeo and Juliet?" She grinned mischievously. He hated that play with a passion. "O, Romeo-"
"Shut up for a second, O!" He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her violently.
She paled as she felt the world come to an abrupt stop and she was grounded. She felt her violet eyes fill with tears as the memories of her childhood came crashing back. Her mother slapping her whenever she couldn't remember a line. She was supposed to be an actress right now, instead she was a disappointment that her mother couldn't bear to look at. Her father had looked at her though. He'd looked at her, kissed her, touched her, made love to her-
She shook her head trying to get the images out. She didn't want to remember. She dug through the pockets of her dress for her pills before remembering she'd thrown them away. She covered her face and walked closer to the edge of the building. "What do you want, asshole? You left me."
"I didn't expect to see you here. It's been five years. What were the chances of us running into each other?"
She frowned. "Then what are you doing here?"
"Needed a place to relax. It isn't that easy taking over Gotham."
"I didn't think it would be. But why'd you have to come here of all places? You'd only been here two or three times before we moved in together at your place."
"Does it matter?" He shook his head. "And, news flash, you left me."
She felt the anger boil up inside of her as she yelled. "Well, I wouldn't have had to if you hadn't done that."
He turned her around. "You wanted me to smile, didn't you, babe?"
She pushed him away from her before something occurred to her. The Joker always carried a knife and, if she was lucky, maybe, a gun. She smiled softly, the madness returning to her eyes. "Jack? Do I drive you crazy?"
"What?"
"I mean, I've heard you still tell our story at parties," she laughed. "If that's true it means I can still drive you crazy."
"Yes, you do. You are right now."
"Do you have a gun with you right now, Jack?"
"Yes, but I'm not going to give it to you."
"Why not?" She pouted.
"Because you are just so cute when you don't get what you want."
"Oh, okay, I'll just go back to my original plan then."
"Jumping?"
"Yup," she smiled sweetly.
"Honey, haven't we been over this the night you practically begged that mugger to shoot you?"
"I didn't beg him," she frowned again. "I asked nicely if he was going to before making sure he had a clear shot."
"I won't let you die, honey. Not as long as I'm around. It's too much fun watching you try to live a normal life before screwing it up somehow."
"You've been watching me?"
"No, but my goons have," he pulled her into his embrace before placing a mockingly gentle kiss on her forehead. "I'm not going to kill you. This way, I drive you crazy too."
"Why are you so much nicer to everyone else?"
He laughed. "They don't think it's very nice."
"They're so naive," she mumbled against his chest taking in his distinct scent.
He held her for a few moments longer, savoring the fact that for the moment she was all his. Finally he let her go. "Do you still have the ring?"
"I wear it on a chain around my neck."
"I keep mine in my pocket with my switchblade," he sat down on the edge of the roof.
She sat down next to him and laid her head on his shoulder. "You know, from up here, it feels like we own it all."
"I know," they were silent again, taking in the notices of the city.
"Maybe, I should start taking my meds again."
"Or you could just come with me."
She thought about it for a few seconds. "I'll think about. Give me a few weeks."
"Okay."
Soon he had to leave and she felt the exhaustion fill her once again as the world started spinning around her again. Then, she was running after him, running down the steps until she reached him. She grabbed him by the tie and pressed her lips firmly to his.
As their kiss deepened the world came to a stop once again.
"Make your choice soon," he whispered gruffly before pulling away and leaving her alone again.
Please R&R!
