(Author's Note: This chapter is short, but it is one that should have been written, with a bit of a tease at the story's subplot, which many of you are likely aware of anyway. I always envisioned this chapter's events happening, but never actually made a chapter of it, and felt that the jump between chapter 1 and 2 was abrupt. There will likely be another chapter between chapters 1 and 2 (Now 3), and I will be slightly adjusting the other chapters as well. Then, what will be chapter 7 will be written. Thank you for your patience.)


"So… let me get this straight." Jack's silky voice spoke out, the two of them facing off in the foggy domain that served as Harry's mind.

"Boy wizard grows up ignorant of who he truly was, suffers and fights against his foes just to try and live a normal life. Has almost everyone that loves him die to try and get him there, only for it all to be pointless… Is that right Potter?" Jack asked with a dark smile, enjoying every moment of grief as Jack pulled each and every painful memory out of Harry's mind.

"You shouldn't be able to be here. We assimilated, you should be gone, just a memory, a stain on my mind..." Harry shot back, the two of them staring off as the pressure around them began to burn with the fire of their wills, the darkness of Death's domain shimmering to existence as the fabric of Harry's reality began to appear between them.

"You've said that… and yet, I'm still here. You're not alone in this devilishly handsome sack of crap." Jack said with that same damn smile of his, coming closer to Harry as he found himself unable to move, as chill spreading through his bones.

"Way I see it Potter, we're both in it deep, so move aside roomy." The pale man said with twisted joy, his hand coming up to pat Harry on the cheek, who only could grit his teeth as a light began to grow through the fog.

"Seems we're waking up… I just can't wait for breakfast, can you?"


"Psych evaluation number four, dated September fifth, nineteen ninety-seven." Harleen Quinzel said into the handheld recorder, the light flickering as her words were saved for later review, her eyes fluttering as exhaustion began to set in.

She'd worked harder in her brief time at Arkham than she ever had in her life, and her assigned patient made that no easier.

"Patient, Jack Henry Napier. Beginning session." She said stately before turning to the emerald eyed man, a smile spread across his face as usual as she tried to get him to pay attention.

Yet another session where he'd say nothing conclusive, she thought to herself, figuring that he would once again spin some fractured backstory.

It was almost a waste of time.

"How are you today Jack?" She asked him warmly, watching him closely, and subtly noticing a difference in his posture.

The man simply stretched on the therapy couch, his piercing eyes falling to hers as his grin fell to a lazy smile.

"I'm well enough Doc, as much as I could be expected to be, considering I'm here in sunny ol' paradise after all." He said while raising his arms for example, just as an inmate wailed out in wild screams, cruel insanity plain to hear as it echoed across the island.

"Yes… I can see your point there." Harleen said with a frown, as the screams did tend to put a damper on even the staff's moods. Let it be known that Arkham was not a dream job, yet she had still found herself working there, the allure of helping those trapped by their own minds too tempting to resist.

She had always found sympathy for those so damaged, so… sad, that she had grown up with the goal of helping those poor souls.

And she had found her dream patient, Jack Napier, a man so far gone that most of the staff had simply given up on him.

"Now then, would you like to tell me anything Jack?" She asked him patiently, the same way she always did, hoping that he would talk to her about himself besides the twisted mess of a history that he always gave. "I find talking of one's childhood is a good start, and I would ask that you try and avoid telling of multiple ones."

Jack began to smile wider then, his eyes almost lighting up at the opportunity, before something odd happened…

His smile flickered then, as his face fell to a flat frown, his thoughts likely overwhelming him as a silence stretched onwards.

"I… was an orphan. Growing up with my aunt and uncle, a sad excuse for a family, who didn't even deserve the title. They always insisted I was a freak beyond caring for, beyond love… I grew up hated and alone, and all I knew was hate and spite for years of my life..." He said slowly and sadly, as she swore he almost became a different person as he refused to look at her, the air around them chilling and tragic.

"What happened to your parents Jack? If you don't mind me asking that is." She almost begged him, watching in interest as he flinched at the request.

She didn't expect him to answer, as she expected him to shutter himself once more, but she was happy enough with he had given. It was more than he had given about himself in years.

"A madman killed them, just because they wouldn't help him… He wanted to kill those he deemed weaker than him… My parents fought him three times and lived to tell about it. He was furious, and because of that, he broke into their home and slaughtered them in the dark." Jack said to her in this broken, hollow tone that she swore she would always remember, purely because it broke her so horribly just from hearing hearing him.

She understood now, why he was as he was.

It was common that when someone was hurt so cruelly by another, that they would stoop their level just to get revenge, often becoming worse in comparison.

A madman took Jack's parents, and he obviously became like him in order to get back at him, to feel something.

Harleen surprisingly found herself wanting to comfort the man, his eyes so terribly sad that she could almost feel her heart breaking in two.

"What happened after all of that Jack?"

At that, a small smile began to form on his face, his eyes warming as he turned to her, the cold around them rising to a warm serenity.

"Now then, I can't tell you everything, can I doc? If I tell you all my secrets, you'd get bored."

She returned his smile then.

She liked this Jack a lot more than the one she had met before.

Perhaps she didn't need to transfer out of Arkham.

Perhaps things were looking up.

She could only hope.


(10th, September, 1997)


"Tell me Potter… what makes you special?" Jack asked of Harry, the two of them floating within the void as their shared body slept, the two arguing as they often did.

It was inevitable of course, with two conflicting souls trapped within a body, neither willing to step aside for the other to walk free.

"I mean, from what I've seen from your tasty memories, you've been wandering around, taking lives from innocent people. You've stolen so many lives and names, you might as well be a parasite. So answer me this… what gives you the right!" Jack asked him, his tone beginning so cold and smoothly only to erupt into an unholy scream as a great flame began to burn through the darkness.

Harry didn't even flinch.

He had seen and faced demons worse than Jack Napier.

"I never asked for this."

"Oh, I know Harrikins! You just wanted to settle down with that bookworm and grow old, but guess what sport? EVERYONE HAS BAD DAYS!" Jack screamed out in pure rage, the two now face to face as Jack poured out his volatile fury onto the pseudo-immortal.

From being locked away in his own mind, to watching as a foreign entity tried to take over the life that Jack was given, to change his destiny.

Jack was sick and tired of this mental cat and mouse.

He was done, but so was Harry.

"Do you think you're special Jack? You're just a madman in a sea of insanity. I have seen mad kings and titans beyond your understanding… I have seen things you would never understand... I have stood on the verge of death itself, seen the fires of life and love, and seen them extinguished in a heartbeat." Harry muttered silently, his years catching up to him as he remembered all the blood that had been shed. Even the blood that rested on his own hands, blood which shone with the light of innocents who had their own stolen from them.

He knew there would be more, and many more lives would be taken in the pointless assault on his morals.

"You are nothing but another shadow Napier, longing to take form in another's body, to drag them into damnation so you can feel something in the cold husk that you call a soul... I could destroy you where you stand, but I won't, because I'm not a parasite like you claim. I haven't given into the darkness yet, no matter all I have seen and done Jack, and I won't now." Harry said with a small, but brave smile, as he began to walk away from Jack, the void seeming to consume him where he strode.

Jack only watched as he disappeared, and the pale man was alone once more.

The cold began to sink in then.

He had always been alone.


(Metropolis)


"You know the old saying, don't you?" An aged voice spoke out to her, a smell of smoke filling her lungs as they stood before a burning home, all its memories and secrets alight in a glorious blaze.

She merely frowned as she made plans for the future, to run once more, and to never stop lest she let them find her.

She had never stopped before, and yet she… she didn't know what was wrong with her.

Call it nostalgia, perhaps, but she felt a longing overcome her.

She had traveled the world, ran so far away that she would have never been found… and yet, she was only coming closer to where she had started.

An odd compulsion to be sure, but the fear she had long felt was almost becoming a burden.

What could go so wrong, if she finally gave in, let the light in once more?

If she let him back in, give one more chance to prove himself?

To give them a chance?

She looked down then, at what precious memory she had held on for so many years, an aged polaroid that she had treasured for so long.

His stupid little face, so innocent and unaware.

He deserved better than what fate had given him.

He deserved better than her, yet she longed to see him once more.

She smiled then, one matching his of long ago, of hope and happiness.

And yet, when she had felt the spark within her, a wave of reality and grief began to set in.

She would not let anyone see her cry, not when she was so close.

She turned to the man she had considered a father for so very long, and let all her fears float away into the nights lonesome breeze.

Lena whispered then, as the long lost light flickered inside her soul.

"Ghosts never stay in the dark."