The Joker returned his attention to Harley, smacking her cheek harder in an attempt to stir her to consciousness. "Harley... c'mon, Harley..."

"Is Mommy hurt, Daddy?" A soft, hesitant voice broke through the tense silence once again. The Joker frowned: the little brat was just like her mother, she just never knew when to shut up.

"Back up!" He snapped, realizing that the child was approaching him cautiously. Melody recoiled as if she'd been slapped, curling in on herself in the corner. Returning his attention to Harley, he purred, "C'mon, baby... you know that Daddy didn't mean those nasty things he said..."

"Mmm..." Harley moaned as her head lolled to the side, reluctant to be called back into the land of the living.

"That's it, baby. Open those pretty little eyes so ya can see what I'm gonna do to ya for pulling that little stunt, ya dumb blonde." He growled.

Harley tensed in his arms, swallowing hard. "I'm s-sorry, Mistah J."

"Sorry?" The Joker's smirk was deadly as he dropped her limp body back into the tub, her body making a sick thump against the porcelain. "I'll show ya sorry, little girl. I'll make ya wish ya actually managaed to do something right and ended your miserable excuse for a life."

Melody mewled, flinching when the Joker drew his hand back and landed an open-handed slap on her mother's cheek. Harley's body lurched from the force of the blow, contorting awkwardly before slipping under the surface of the pinkish water. When she didn't resurface, the Joker grabbed her and yanked her back up, screaming at her to open her eyes and take her punishment like a good little girl. For the second time that night, Harley disobeyed him.

With a grunt, the Joker scooped her up out of the water and carried her into their bedroom, carelessly tossing her onto the bed. He looked back, acknowledging the little girl curled in the corner with a roll of his eyes, before storming over to the bed and roughly shaking Harley's motionless, pliant body. She was bleeding all over the rich, deep purple duvet. The Joker made a mental note to have her clean the mess when she finally came around.

"Melody." The little girl peered around the corner, afraid of getting her head bitten off again. "Princess, would you bring Daddy one of the towels from the bathroom?" Melody hesitated a moment, eyeing him suspiciously. The Joker scowled, "Don't make me ask again, little girl."

Suddenly, she was up on her feet and grabbing one of the many towels, hurrying to the Joker's side. "The towel you wanted, Daddy."

He took the towel from her and bound Harley's arm, using his belt as a make-shift tourniquet to try and staunch the flow of blood. He let the child watch for a few minutes, before he grew tired by her continued presence. "Leave. Now."

"But Mommy is still hurt -," she didn't get to finish that thought, cut off by the Joker's massive hand colliding with the side of her face.

"Did you just talk back to me, you little brat?" Her tiny body hit the ground with an audible thump, before she lay there, perfectly still and completely silent.

After several seconds, she struggled to her feet and raced out of the room as fast as her little legs would carry her. Something knotted in the Joker's chest, his mind reeling with the realization that feeling the fear radiating off of the child didn't make him feel powerful - it just made him feel small. Smacking her hadn't resolved the whirlwind of emotions within him, and that only made him angrier.

Grabbing the med kit from underneath the bed, he sterilized a needle and set to work stitching Harley's wounded arm. He didn't bother numbing the area first, angrily jabbing the needle into the skin, enjoying her moans of discomfort and using them to drown out that annoying little whimper that Melody had made when he smacked her, which repeated on a sick loop in the back of his head.

He cleaned the blood from her arm and placed a kiss on the rather sad-looking stitches, before pulling the blankets up over her body and tucking her in. She looked so peaceful, lying there, that he was almost able to forget how angry he'd been at her earlier. She still bore the wounds from his earlier fit - her shoulder was swollen and bruised, still positioned slightly out of the socket, her throat tender from the texture of the coat.

Reaching into the med kit, he pulled out a cold pack and set it on her chest, right over her aching ribs. After that, he snapped her shoulder back into place, making sure that it would heal properly. After all, playing with a broken doll wasn't any fun.

Just as he was about to leave, he found his jacket resting carefully on the back of Harley's vanity chair, looking worse than it had when he'd originally left it with her - if that was even possible. "Figures, she couldn't even do that right."

She would fix his jacket... right after she washed the blood stains out of the duvet.


He didn't want to do this.

Parenting was Harley's domain. He tried to have as little to do with his daughter as possible, despite the fact that the four-year-old practically worshipped the ground that he walked on and was desperate to find a way to make him happy. She loved him in a way that he could never hope to reciprocate, and it made him hate himself for wanting to hurt her. And hurting her... was never as gratifying as he'd imagined it would be.

He could hear her sobbing from the doorway - he could barely see her, curled up in a little ball in the middle of her canopy bed, wrapped up around her sound therapy pillow. The Joker could hear the sound of crashing waves and see the gentle pulse of light coming from the pillow, and felt that knot re-emerge when he realized she was probably seeking comfort for the pillow because of what happened. Like he noted earlier, parenting was Harley's domain.

"Mel," he stifled the discomfort he felt, "What have we talked about? Crying is for babies, and you're no baby."

"'M sorry, Daddy." She sat up, rubbing her eyes with her tiny fists. She clutched the pillow so tightly her knuckles turned white, her face scrunching up in an effort to avoid crying again. "Mel is a big girl. Mel won't cry no more."

The Joker rolled his eyes, "Big girls don't refer to themselves in the third person, either."

She sniffled, fighting a losing battle with the tears. She was dealing with an emotional overload and being yelled at certainly wasn't helping anything. "Daddy?"

The Joker came over and sat down at the foot of her bed, yanking the pillow from her arms and tossing it on the ground. The light inside spluttered and died. "Listen, kiddo. Your mom? She's hurt. Bad. So I'm gonna need ya to do me a favor and leave her alone for awhile."

Reaching out, he took the child's chin in hand and tilted her head back so that he could look at the damage he'd done to her cheek. She sniffled and put on a brave face, barely even flinching when the Joker traced the bruise with one of his cold, ornate golden rings. The Joker stared at her for a moment... she had her mother's eyes. Empathetic, understanding... hurt.

"Do you hate me, Daddy?" She asked, flinching when the hand stopped on a particularly sensitive part of the bruise.

Well, that was a loaded question if he ever heard one. "Nah, I don't hate ya." God, why did he come in here again? Could Harley's suicide attempt have thrown him off so much that he was trying to empathize with a four-year-old?

Mel swallowed hard, "I love you."

Even at four-years-old, it couldn't have escaped her notice that she had never heard those three words from her father. And even saying it now, he could see in her eyes that she knew this time would be no different. Instead of responding, he reached out and lightly tugged on one of her pigtails. It was an immature move and just a tad painful, but when he did it again... and then a third time... she suddenly broke into a huge grin and started giggling.

She closed her tiny hands around his bigger one, smiling brightly, "Daddy silly."

The Joker matched her smile with one of his own, "Hey, I've an idea." Melody's blue eyes widened and she listened intently as the Joker continued, "How'd ya like to help Daddy catch a bat?"

With Harley temporarily out of commission, all of his plans would be blown to hell. Even with their little setback, she was still his most trusted hench person, and the only one he deemed worth of handling a plot of this magnitude. But Melody... the wheels in his head were turning, a new plot forming, this one perhaps better than the last. Melody had an appeal that even his darling Harley didn't - a helpless, innocent child. It was perfect.

The Joker knew from experience that his kid was obedient to a fault, and she loved him almost as much as she feared him. She'd do whatever he asked, if she thought that it would make him happy. It wasn't a healthy kind of love, but what about their relationship could truthfully be described as 'healthy'? His girlfriend... she just tried to... tried to... Well, he wouldn't think about that. The point was, about seventy-five percent of the time, their dynamic worked.

Mel nodded hurriedly. Mommy never let her have any fun with Daddy - she said that Daddy's kind of 'fun' was too dangerous for little girls. And normally, the Joker didn't have any time for her anyway. She was more than willing to do anything he wanted, if it meant spending time with him. "Whatcha wanna do, Daddy?"

"Here's the plan, kiddo..."


"Mistah..?" Very real tears coursed down the little girl's cheeks, her body practically shaking with fear. "Mistah? I can't find my Daddy."

The man - a rugged, blond-haired, blue-eyed security guard - bent down to her level and ruffled her hair a little. "Well, that's not good, is it? Don't you worry, princess. I'll help you find your Daddy." He handed her a tissue, "Now... where did you last see your Daddy?"

She bawled up the tissue in her hand, looking around and trying to remember where she'd last seen him. When she couldn't remember, it only seemed to make her more upset. "I don't... I don't know! I want my Daddy!"

"Shh... shh, it's okay princess." He looked frazzled, clearly not knowing how to handle a terrified child. "Hey, can you tell me your name?"

She sniffled, "Mel-Melody Quinzel."

Quinzel... Quinzel... Something about that name sounded oddly familiar, but for the life of him he couldn't place it. And those eyes... They were swollen and red-rimmed with tears, but they too were familiar. It was like looking at sleet, they were a kind of metallic blue that was hard as steel and cold as dry ice. They were unnerving to look at - it almost felt as if he was falling into a bottomless pit, sinking further and further down into nothingness.

He took her hand, muttering about how he was going to take her to the security office, where she would be safe while they waited for her Daddy. He couldn't manage to procure any more information from her, so he'd make a generic announcement over the loudspeaker once they arrived at the office. Melody kept looking around, like she thought her father might pop out like a Jack-in-the-Box and save the day.

As soon as they entered the office, the security guard motioned for her to take a seat while he made the announcement. His back was turned to Melody, so he missed the way that her tears suddenly dried and her smile grew wide as the Joker slowly emerged from the shadows and cut the lights. "What the -,"

The back-up generator kicked on, casting an eerie purplish glow throughout the small office. "Mel, princess, what do ya call a babboon with an all-access security pass, a taser, and a badge?"

"I dunno, Daddy." She beamed at him, unsure of where he was going with the joke and not wanting to ruin the punchline.

The Joker grinned darkly, "Live bait," before pulling a needle out of his pocket and jamming it into the officer's neck. He hit the ground with a thump, and once he was sure he was out, the Joker began undressing him.

"What's the plan now, Daddy?" She asked, just barely catching the unconscious security guard's keys when the Joker tossed them to her.

"Now?" He put the guard's hat on his head, before slipping into the uniform. "Now, we're gonna have some fun, baby girl."


When Harley awoke, it was to pain. Her entire body throbbed with white hot pain, so terrible that she wished she hadn't woken up at all. It seemed to radiate from her destroyed arm, starting in the shoulder and reaching its apex where she'd cut herself open. Her skin was stuck to the sheets where her blood had dried, and she looked at the mess with a hint of fear and disgust. Her Mistah J was probably furious with her...

Slowly, she forced herself to sit up, groaning as her shoulder popped. She bit down on her bottom lip hard enough to taste blood, trying to stifle her scream as the shoulder went out of the socket again. Mistah J had really done a number on her, it would seem. Not that she didn't deserve it after what she'd done. But maybe... maybe she didn't deserve it. Maybe... Maybe he'd taken things too far this time.

She looked down at her arm, remembering how low she'd felt when she'd taken the Joker's favorite switchblade to her wrist. He was the reason she'd tried to kill herself, and he didn't care at all. It was like finding her in that tub had been a giant inconvinience for him. Or worse... it was like he didn't even care. The idea that her love didn't care whether she lived or died made her chest ache, her eyes blurring with tears.

"If Mistah J wanted me gone so bad, why didn't he just let me die?" She mumbled, large, fat tears finally falling down her cheeks.

Forcing herself out of bed, she started toward the door, shuffling into the hallway. Her free arm was wrapped around her aching ribs, suddenly scarcely able to bear the pain now that she was standing upright. Turning to head down the hall, she stopped outside of Melody's bedroom. It was late, almost 3 AM, so Melody was most likely asleep. Watching the little girl sleep always helped her to relax...

She didn't expect to open the door and find the room abandoned. Her heart stopped when she found the bed completely abandoned, her child missing. "Rocco!"

The goon took the stairs two at a time, huffing desperately in an attempt to catch his breath as he skidded to a halt beside her. "What's the problem, Miss Harley?"

"Where is my daughter?" Harley snapped. She wasn't in the mood to play games anymore. She was in unimaginable pain, her lover didn't care about her, and now her daughter was missing - could this day get any better?

"Didn't he tell ya? The boss took her on a heist with him." Rocco answered, his tone matter-of-fact. He looked confused when all of the color drained out of Harley's face, her already pain-wracked body tensing.

"He what?"