A/N: So yesterday I actually got hold of a copy of Mad Love to read, meaning that instead of using Wikipedia as the source for Harley's origin, I actually got to read the origin. I still think it's got a few problems-well, not problems so much as I'd like to see it done a different way. Because either it appears to be implying that she just has a college degree, or that she slept her way to a higher degree, like an M.D. or a master's. Because in order to be a practicing psychologist/psychiatrist you need at least a master's (granted, I know that this is Gotham but it is still part of the U.S.!) I just don't think somebody could sleep her way to a degree higher than a college degree (particularly in this day & age). Also I just kind of like the idea of Harley starting out as a really good person. So take this is an AU exploration of a different before Harleen who somehow ends up as the same after Harleen.

Part II: Interview with a Madman

The Joker was bored. Really, stupendously, awfully bored. He'd spent the morning devising a formula for a poison gas that would kill everyone within a five-mile radius and then decided it was dull. If everybody died, who'd be around to appreciate all the work? Besides, it wasn't funny.

It was just getting stale inside Arkham. Batman never paid him visits anymore, and all his psychiatrists were grouchy old men without the humor to laugh at somebody slipping on a banana peel. It was getting about time for him to break out. At least then he'd have a direct line to ol' Batsy.

Goodbye to his home comforts. Ah, well. He spent the next couple of hours planning how he would get past the dividing wall separating him from his interrogator, with a little time devoted to putting together a serviceable knife. This should be a good one.

One o' clock. Voices outside the cell. Excellent. He ran his tongue carefully over his lips, chuckling inside at the joke he was going to play on—who was he supposed to be seeing today? He couldn't remember. Oh, well. They were all the same anyways.

The door began to open and he moved toward it, even as he felt the sinking feeling of disappointment deep in his stomach. It wasn't fair! They hadn't even put up the glass wall! He'd looked forward to talking the man into putting it down himself, or maybe just deactivating it from range and seeing the shocked look on his face as the Joker bore down on him. Oh, well. Served him right for having expectations. With a sigh of boredom, he reached out and grabbed the person who had walked through the door, meaning to slit his throat and have done with it.

The arm he threw across the person's torso landed on something soft and squishy. Surprised, he let the knife waver as he squeezed it. Instantly, she turned around and slapped him hard across the mouth.

"Mr.—" she consulted her clipboard. "—Joker! That was quite uncalled for! And you shouldn't have a knife! Who gave that to you? It's completely against regulations! Someone could get hurt!"

He gaped at her. She was about five-feet-two-inches of female wrath. She had slapped him! No one slapped the Joker! He took an angry step toward her, meeting, for the first time, her two large blue eyes. Startled, unnerved, but not fearful. Blue eyes in a pale face beneath neatly pinned blond hair that was now attempting to escape from its pins. For a moment, his heart stopped and—he was holding her close, whispering sweet nothings in her ear, stroking her pregnant stomach—then he realized several things. One, this appeared to be his psychiatrist for the day, and she was neither male nor old. Two, she did not appear frightened of him. The Joker chortled to himself. This held the potential to be a very entertaining situation. Not to mention—the joke was on him! He began to laugh. Things were looking up.

By all rights, Harleen should have been terrified. In some vague, distant corner of her mind, she knew that objectively, facing down a madman brandishing a knife was supposed to be terrifying. But that meek, sensible part of her was overwhelmed by an angry voice shouting in her head that Sterling set this up, the bastard! and Never let them see you afraid! and the not-quite-so-angry voice that whispered, What if I can help? Between all of those voices, the scared voice simply wasn't loud enough for her to pay attention to.

She took a deep breath. "I think we'd better start over," she said to the man who was now slumped over, giggling, on the floor. "Hand me the knife, if you please."

He looked up at her, a dangerous glitter in his eyes. "The knife," she said again, putting out her hand, and he meekly handed it to her, just clumsily enough that a little line of red opened up beneath the base of her thumb and bled a few drops.

"Oops," he said. "Sorry."

"Thank you," she said, looking for a place to put it down and realizing that there really wasn't a way for her to do that, since she didn't want him to pick it up. "Now. First things first. I know this isn't exactly the thing for a doctor to say to her patient, but I'd really appreciate it if you'd keep your hands to yourself. I've had more than enough pawing from people in this asylum; I don't need the inmates to start as well."

The Joker's face darkened. They'd been touching her, then. Those boring, grubby old men. And someone had sent her in here without setting the glass wall up in advance. And suddenly, he felt his usual manic grin spreading over his face. Oh, what a joke it would be, against those supercilious old snobs! The Clown Prince of Crime was back in business, and he had a lovely new angel. No, a lovely new angle.

"I'm sorry," he said contritely. "I wasn't aware you were female—it was an unfortunate accident. Please accept my sincerest apologies."

Harleen, surprised, pulled out her reading glasses to check his file—and then remembered that she didn't have it. Well—never mind, carry on then.

"Apology accepted," she said smoothly. "What say we take this little chat over to the couch?"

Somebody knocked on the door. "Miss?" called the security guard who had let her in. "Are you all right in there?"

"Just fine, thank you!" she called sweetly. "Everything is fine! If you please, Mr. Joker," she said, gesturing toward the couch on the other side of the room.

"Of course," he responded agreeably. As they crossed the room, he paused to pull out the chair in front of the desk for her. She looked at him, startled again, and then sat.

"Thank you," she said.

He nodded and crossed the room to the couch upholstered in purple leather, then seated himself on it.

Harleen waited until he looked comfortable, then pulled out her notebook and tried to pull out her pencil. She nearly dropped it when her hands abruptly started shaking. "First day jitters," she said apologetically. "Now. Mr…Joker, it says here?" She made a show of checking her nonexistent file. His eyes seemed to follow her uncomfortably closely, and she got the sense that he wasn't fooled.

But he didn't call her on it. He leaned back. "That's right," he said comfortably.

"Do you prefer to go by your alias, then?"

"Oh…names." The Joker waved a long-fingered hand. "Who needs 'em?"

"It's just that…I feel we would talk better if we could come up with something a little less…impersonal. I want you to feel that you can confide in me, after all."

"What's your name?" the Joker asked. "Fair's fair, after all."

"Oh! Excuse me. I'm Doctor Harleen Quinzel. If you prefer, you may call me Harleen."

"Well, Doctor Quinzel, I don't know that we're quite on first name terms yet…"

"Of course, if you feel that way…"

"Still, I wouldn't like you to feel uncomfortable. How about Doctor Q?"

Harleen allowed herself a small smile. Kind of cute. "Can I call you Mister J, then?"

He chuckled. "All right, why not?"

"All right, Mister J. Now then. Why don't you tell me why you're in here?"

He smiled at her. "I'm here because I like it. It's homey."

She fielded her brief flash of surprise. "Yes, of course. I'm…glad you feel that way. In…that case, is there anything you'd like to talk about? What does home mean to you?"

The Joker smiled and reached into the filing cabinets of his mind for something suitably heartwrenching, then began to talk in great detail about his sadly abused childhood. God, he was good at this. He almost felt sorry for the little bugger. And who knew, it might be true.

Harleen watched the relaxed posture, the glibness of his words, the set of his eyes on her face—the perfect picture of truth. He's lying.

At the end of the hour, she put a stop to his verbiage. "Thank you for that, Mister J. I hope it made you feel better. And I hope that maybe another day you'll feel comfortable enough with me to tell me the truth."

The Joker felt rage coursing up through his veins. Supercilious little minx! How dare she! He wanted to take her by the arms and wipe that superior little smile right off her face! But—if he did that—he'd be stuck with a grouchy old man to look at. Even from an aesthetic point of view, that just didn't appeal. And then she paused at the door. "That probably sounded glib," she said. "I didn't really mean it to. I really do want to help." She smiled at him, a nervous little smile, and he simply stared after her as the door closed behind her. He had a very strong impulse to slam his head against the wall until the sight of those blue eyes was blotted out beneath the fierce pain. He didn't know why.

Harleen exited the cell, slightly at war with herself. Probably sociopathic, she sighed. It would be nigh-impossible to rehabilitate a sociopath. But she had to try. It was her job, and more than that, it was her calling.

"Doctor Quinzel, what were you doing in there?"

She looked up, bewildered, into a livid face she only recognized because she had taken care that she would know the face of the head of Arkham Asylum, Doctor Jeremiah Arkham. She managed a little choking noise before collecting herself.

"I…beg your pardon, Doctor?" she asked.

"Who authorized you to interview the Joker?"

"I…I was told that I was supposed to be interviewing someone in this room…" she said weakly. Already she was realizing that Sterling had set her up to get into trouble.

"The Joker is Arkham Asylum's most well-known and baffling patient, Doctor Quinzel. If you think that a half-rate little newcomer will be able to add anything to our current theories, you are much mistaken. And I assure you that if you are trying to pad your resume, it has not gone as you desired. I am putting you on indeterminate suspension. Don't bother to come in tomorrow."

"Y-yes, sir, I'm sorry, sir," Harleen gulped, and then she fled, tears springing to her eyes as she wondered how she had managed (again, screamed a little voice in her brain) to screw up all her hopes and dreams.