Eighteen years previously….

"Well? How did it go? Did they like your act?"

John Kerr was really starting to dread those words. He sucked in a brave breath as he shrugged off his coat, careful not to set off his twirling bow tie—one of the many props that had been heckled in his act that evening. "Where ya think ya are, mac, Vaudeville? Enougha da corn, give us some damn jokes!"

John—called Jack since his early infancy, first by a crooning mother and then by a drunkard, mobster father—winced at the memory of his most recent failure.

"Jack?"

He finally looked up. Jeannie was waiting for an answer.

She looked at him expectantly from her chair at the kitchen table, leaving off of the spuds she'd been peeling. Her face wore the usual mix of tenderness and frankness in its expression. I love you dearly, more than anything, that look always said, but don't give me no bullshit.

That look was one of the many reasons he'd fallen in love with this sandy-haired, wisecracking chick, and married her. Probably married her too young.

"Umm…" he began, carelessly throwing his jacket on the back of a chair, again avoiding his wife's dark blue gaze. "They said they might call me…I dunno, I, I got nervous and messed up a punch line." And I might have also started some shit with a heckler, but you don't need to know that, baby.

"…Oh."

Jack whipped around and the look on his face made Jeannie suck in a preparatory breath of her own. Oh, God, not his temper right now….

"What do you mean, 'oh?'" The gritted teeth, the piercing eyes, and the tight voice were beyond Jack's control. He'd tried, tried so freakin' hard, and he couldn't…couldn't keep it in…

"I…I didn't mean anything." Usually Jeannie was better at calming Jack down, would simply laugh him off or blow a raspberry in his face. But she'd been caught off guard this time, lost in her own pensive thoughts.

Her stammering only further frustrated Jack. "Yes, you did. By the way you said it. 'Oh.' Like that." He spat the word 'that' out venomously, hard as he was trying to keep it keep it together no I'm not my father I'M NOT

"Jesus, all I said was—"

His voice boomed, even though he still spoke through clenched teeth. "You said, OH. As in, 'OH, so you didn't get a job.' As in, 'OH, so how are we going to feed the baby?'" He stared pointedly at her six-month pregnant stomach. The only reason Jeannie didn't shrink from his glare was that behind the anger and the frenzy, she could see the fear and sadness in those beloved dark eyes of his. Those eyes stared pleadingly at her now, though still brimming with that monster anger he always battled against. "What, you think I'm not worried about that?"

He shut his eyes and turned away, Jeannie rising out of her chair to stand behind him. His teeth were shut so tightly she could barely make out what he was saying. "You think, you think I don't care, that it's all just a big joke to me or something. Jeez, I have to go, I have to go and stand up there, and nobody laughs, and you think…you think I"-

Jeannie gasped softly as Jack collapsed to his knees, clasping her around her thickening waist. She fell back gently into her chair, cradling her husband's subdued head in her lap. "Oh, God," he moaned into her cotton gown.

"Oh, baby," she responded, smoothing his auburn curls. She'd always known Jack was more vulnerable than the cocky, funny face he put on, but he very rarely was so demonstrative. Her heart ached for him.

"Oh, God, I'm sorry," he whispered. He breathed in the faint, detergent scent wafting from her light gown, and from the bathrobe she wore…Jeannie. He was with Jeannie, it was okay now, she understands, don't be angry, Jack, Jack, keep it together, Jeannie girl….

Calmer now, he choked words out through his tears. "I didn't mean to take it out on you. You're suh-suffering enough, being married to a loser."

The "no bull-shit" vibe edged back into her fiercely loyal voice. "Honey, that's not"—

"No, it's true! I can't support you. Oh, Jeannie, what are we gonna do?" His desperate eyes sought hers, and his anger briefly re-surged as he detected the growing circles around his girl's eyes, how drawn the features in her long, tired face looked. When he first saw her Senior year, that face had been so fresh and cloudless, the smart-aleck glint in her eyes separating her from the vapid cheerleaders and future gangster molls that filled the halls of North Gotham High, that sewer pit of public schools. He…he married her to protect her, to keep her safe and sound, away from the mob crap his mother had been forced to deal with. God, if he had joined up with the gang as his father had wanted, at least they wouldn't be stuck in this damn dump! Bad plumbing, peeling floor tiles, cramped space…what a place to raise a baby! Now it was too late, his old man had died last year. 'Course, Finny and Benny were always trying to wrangle him in…who knows, maybe just one big job, and then…

Then he saw that warm, sassy glint in Jeannie's loving eyes and he knew he couldn't expose her to that sordid life. As long as she still had that light in her eyes, he'd do anything to keep her away from that sleazy lifestyle.

"It'll be okay," she shrugged. She patted her stomach. "Junior won't be here for another three months, and I think Mrs. Burkiss will let the rent go a little longer. She feels sorry for me."

Jack snorted when he remembered that old hag landlady staring at Jeannie in pity and shock the first time they met, when Jeannie confessed to never having learned to sew, and barely knowing how to cook. They certainly made an atypical newly-wed couple: Jack, the nineteen-year old boy genius, who had given up a job as a lab assistant at the lucrative Gotham Chemical facility to become a stand-up comedian, and the youngest son of Walter "Krazy" Kerr to boot; and Jeannie, not yet eighteen, ignorant of almost all things housekeeping related, yet with a look and manner far older than her years. Despite her pity and disgust, Mrs. Burkiss had warmed quickly to Jeannie's soothing and laid-back ways, but still distrusted the son of Krazy Kerr. The old landlady had been around long enough to recognize when something wasn't quite right, and the gleam that leapt into that boy's eyes sometimes….

"She hates me," Jack said bitterly, bringing himself back to the present. "She comes out to scowl at me every time I go upstairs." Restless, he left the shelter of Jeannie's lap to lean against the windowsill. He stared out the window, watching the rain and their miserable view of a brick wall. "This place reeks of cat litter and old people. I have got to get you out of here before the baby comes," he rasped. He winced as a siren wailed somewhere in the not so distant distance. "All I want is enough money to set us up in a decent neighborhood." He smirked darkly. "There are girls out there on the street who earn that in a weekend without having to tell a single joke."

Jeannie laughed, killing something harsh in him right then and there. He turned back sheepishly, to contemplate her beaming face. She looked so youthful and bright as she said, "Honey, don't worry! Not about any of it. I still love you, y'know? Job or no job, you're good in the sack…." She reached out her hand to his. "…And you know how to make me laugh."


Joker stared at his outstretched hand, extended toward the empty grin on Hazel's metal face. He blinked. Wuh? Huh. Where did…where did he just go? Hm. He felt for a second like he'd been somewhere else entirely…ha ha…whoop, guess that's the risk of being CRAZY.

He straightened the lapels of his lavender jacket, returning his thoughts to the problem at hand. Somehow, in some way, ol' Salvatore had taken something from him, destroying him in the process, or something. So, he'd have to go bye-bye. But what about Guano Man? Had Joker's favorite playmate really gone loopy? Hmm…Joker's crimson mouth smeared into a grizzly grin. Why not kill two birds with one stone, eh?