Later in the evening, she decided to return home.

She opened the door to her apartment, feeling slightly nauseous for some odd reason. Tottering to her shabby couch, she collapsed on it and turned the television on. As the newscaster's voice droned on, she watched the screen blankly and let her thoughts wander around, before a mental image of him sprung up. She blinked, not wanting to think of him, but somehow, she couldn't help but recall the first day she knew there to be something truly different and wrong about him. It had taken place many years ago. In fact, a few days after his face had been mutilated, but she remembered it like how she would remember there was a small scar on her leg.

It wasn't what occupied her thoughts, but it was always there, and would always be there until her dying day.

-:-

He seemed so lonesome, sitting there all by himself. Freak though he was, she wasn't about to say it in front of him. He knew that well already; the looks coming from random passersby were confirmation enough.

Her mother had taught her to be sympathetic, so sympathetic she would be. Besides, she wanted to reassure herself that he didn't hold anything against her for the completely innocent crime of overhearing his father's drunken rampage. The father had fled right after butchering Jack's face. Maybe she would be lucky; he would assume that she had only seen him in the hospital.

Gearing up her courage, she walked over to the bench where he was sitting, where he always sat.

"Hello," she said awkwardly, but as nicely as she could.

He didn't look up, deeming his pack of cards to be more interesting than her. "Hi," he said in an oddly lighthearted voice.

Eccentric.

She cleared her throat and smiled painfully as she sat down beside him. "Cards are pretty fun. What games do you play?"

His lips twitched in what might have been a smile, but under all those newly stitched cuts, it was hard to tell. "I don't play games. I just like the cards."

"I see…" she was at a loss for words. "And-"

The rest of her words were cut off by a sudden, enthusiastic burst of speech. "I like these pretty little cards…" he gurgled, "But I love… this one." he picked out a card from the pack and held it up.

She squinted against the glaring sunlight and made out the coloured picture on the card. "The Joker card?" she said, bemused.

Oddity.

"Yes…" he made a hacking sound which she supposed was a substitution for laughter. "I've just realized something."

"Yeah?"

"There are only two miserable Joker cards on this deck." he took out another one and shoved it in her face. "Which makes it very… special."

"It? You mean, them? There are two cards, so it should be them, not it. Rules of English, I guess."

Again, the hacking sound. "Ah, but see, I follow different rules than yours." he chuckled. "I make up my own."

Weirdo.

She squirmed inwardly; this boy was strange, to say the least. "That's nice."

"Oh, but it's not," he said, with a straight face. He placed both the cards back into the pack and began to shuffle again, at top speed, so fast that the cards were a blur. "It's not nice. It's never nice. And it will never be nice. Geddit, missy? You get my drift? It's not nice."

She raised her eyebrows, but he barreled on.

"It won't ever be nice because you know what? People aren't nice. They're all just a bunch of sheep. Nice covers an entire spectrum of sycophantic behaviour which is just… phony. It's only a social definition of 'acceptable' behaviour. These, uh, nice people are only, eh… nice cos it's the rule of society. Everyone tries to be nice because of that rule. What if, I wonder, the new rule was to eat grenade pins? What would people do? Eh?"

She stared at him warily. "But I only meant to say-"

He held up a finger. "No, no, missy. This is MY time to talk. You came to hear me talk, didn't you? So that's what you'll do."

"I could just leave," she said very quietly.

"But you wouldn't, see," he said smugly, "Not when you're too, um, nice."

Lunatic.

"I didn't come here for a debate on flattery," she snapped, "I came to ask how you were."

"And why might that be?" he asked innocently, his eyes silently mocking her statement.

"Don't you feel like you're alone?" she asked, "Everyone has a skin, yes, but it'll take an especially thick one to not be affected by all these people."

"What people?"

"Oh, you know," she waved her hand vaguely, "Passersby."

"I don't notice them," he said dismissively. "To them, I'm just a freak. And I'm bettin' that you think so too."

"Bet all you want. I'm more or less broke."

That seemed to jar him. "Which reminds me," he said slowly, "why were you in the hospital that day?"

She blanched. "Hospital? When?"

His eyes narrowed. "You know what I'm talking about."

She looked away. "I think I do," she said quietly, relieved that he didn't know about her eavesdropping.

"You know how I got these cuts, don't you?"

"I-I have an idea," she muttered, afraid to meet his eye.

"Look at me," he said.

She refused.

"Just look at me," he said, this time more forcefully.

She obeyed, feeling as though she was being intrusive on something he probably wanted kept quiet.

His eyes, she noticed, were black and cold. The upper half of his face seemed normal enough, but the nasty deep cuts on either side of his mouth were extremely distracting. She couldn't help but glance at those two jagged lacerations, and think that they were bound to scar…

"You know how I got these cuts." It was a statement.

Forcing herself to look away from the stitched up wounds, she met his gaze and nodded.

She was expecting him to demand that she keep quiet about it, that if she ever told anyone that his father had sliced up his face (and his mother's), he would come slicing up hers. She almost expected him to produce a knife out of nowhere, and slash her throat.

But he didn't.

Instead, he laughed.

He didn't just laugh. He cackled, rolled on his side, gulped in air and choked on it, giggled, guffawed, and generally displayed a highly alarming level of gleeful hysteria.

"Well, that's too bad-" he choked out, "Too bad- I can't- ask you how I got 'em, can I? The fun's ruined. It's gone, forever."

"Well, that's very upsetting, I'm sure, but-"

"No, no, you miss the point," he said, still giggling. "The point is, that's what a person like you would say. You idiots always find an excuse not to laugh. It's disturbing, really. But I'm different."

Her face paled slightly.

"I know, that all these rules in the rulebook are useless. You've gotta live without rules, if you wanna make full use of your life. It's fun, you know. You should try it."

"I thought you said that you make up your own rules?"

"I did?" he frowned. "Maybe."

Crazy bastard.

She cocked her head to one side. "Well, this is all very entertaining and such," she said, "you seem fine to me. It's been ni- I mean, interesting talking to you, but I think I'd better go now."

His eyes glittered. "Why, scared talking to a freak like me?" he said innocently.

She looked at him coldly. "I firmly believe," she said mildly, "that I do not have the right to judge you in that manner. But if you continue talking that way, I may change my mind." her hands shook slightly.

He cackled. "Always the fickle one eh? Well, it's too bad… been fun talking to you, missy."

She stood up and inclined her head. "See you around, Jack."

As she made to leave, she noticed a card on the ground beside him. Bending to pick it up, she noticed it was the red Joker card. "Is this yours?" she held it out to him.

He grinned, making the stitches on either side of his face bleed. "I dunno, is it?"

Blood made a thin trail down both sides of his face. He made no effort to wipe it off, giggling when he saw her shudder. "Well then, missy," he cackled, "Off you go."

She forced a smile and walked off, repressing the urge to run away as fast as possible. When she was a safe distance away, she looked back and gave a start.

He was still sitting there at the bench, quietly muttering to himself. His hands moved deftly, but he wasn't shuffling his cards this time. He had taken a card with black designs on it, the ace of spades she thought, and was steadily gouging a neat hole through the centre.

He didn't notice her stare. Didn't notice her shudder. Didn't notice her walk off hurriedly. The task which he had occupied himself with was far too engrossing.

So… the boy was as crazy as his father. Maybe crazy, she reasoned with herself, but not a murderer. Not a face cutter. But doubts remained. Then she suddenly remembered that she hadn't brought up the subject of his father at all. What would his reaction be, she wondered… her face hardened.

As she hurried off, a single thought crossed her mind. A word, repeated again and again, floated across her mind, making her a little frightened.

Freak.

-:-

"And that's all for the news tonight," the newscaster finished.

She started. It was only 10 o'clock, but she needed to sleep; the strange exhaustion was too much to bear.

Walking slowly to her room, she plonked down onto her bed without even bothering to change and waited for her two way ticket to Dreamland.

Review reply to Jokerswild02: Thanks for the review:) haha, I suppose...

A/N: Lisa is supposed to be a nosy kid. Hmm. I suppose the Joker was a psychopath when he was a kid, the insanity does seem kinda deep-rooted. Please review:)

Thanks to Dr . Pepper . 19 for looking through and editing this chapter.