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When the guards had to restrain me and pull me from the room, it wasn't as humiliating as you'd think it would be. Jack would have been proud of me. Or, would The Joker?

Finally, I saw Jack. He looked lifeless, laying in a hospital bed with tubes and I.V.'s everywhere. It was like I was standing from a distance, watching myself watch Jack. It was like a horrible dream. This time, the black circles around his eyes, was not makeup. This can't be happening.

Suddenly, it all became terrifyingly real, everything around me hit me like a ton of bricks. The horrible stench of disinfectant, crying kids, the oppressive heat and sterility of the hospital, the cries of a woman whose husband wasn't as lucky as Jack…I couldn't take it, I ran from Jack's hospital room, and outside.

Outside, I noticed just how late it was. Stars blanketed the black sky as rain pummeled the earth bellow. I stood under a canopy as shelter from the rain until I was able to face the unconscious Jack.

I walked as slowly as I could back to Jack's room. When I finally did arrive, I saw a nurse checking up on him. If only she knew who he used to be, I know she wouldn't have bothered.

"Are you his wife?" She asked. She was an older woman, portly, like a grandmother. Just her warm presence there made me feel calm.

"Yes."

"He'll be fine, don't worry." She said with a kind smile, as she replaced the fluids linked to Jack's iv's. Probably pain meds.

"Why are machines breathing for him then?" I asked.

"Oh, those. It's nothing serious. He can breathe fine on his own. We're just letting his lungs rest while his body focuses on healing. He'll be off it in tomorrow afternoon at the latest." The nurse reassured me.

"When will he wake up?"

"When the sedatives from his surgery wear off. Probably in the morning." She walked up to me and squeezed my shoulder, smiling. "Be strong. For him. Healing just takes time and patience." With that she left the room.

I like her.

I settled into a chair by Jack's bed, ready for a long night.

Around five in the morning, the sound of a beeping alarm woke me from a light sleep. The crick in my neck was killing me until I realized that the machines hooked to Jack were making that noise. Jack was in some kind of distress. He tossed his head back and forth with his eyes squeezed shut. His chest seized almost violently. I pressed the call bottom on his bed repeatedly until nurses and the doctor I spoke to last night came rushing in.

"It's nothing to worry about. He just woke up and needs to be taken off the ventilator." The doctor said as the nurses started to disassemble the machine. I never felt so helpless or out of control of the situation I found myself in. Jack gagged and coughed when they pulled the tube from his throat.

"I feel like shit…"He said with a raspy, tired voice.

The doctor chuckled, "Yeah you probably will for awhile. You'll be ok." He checked everything connected to Jack, upped is pain meds, and left the room, shutting the door behind him and the nurses.

I grasped Jack's hand and he squeezed mine, giving me a reassuring grin. "I'll be ok."

"How'd it happen?" I asked.

"He was there waiting for me when I left the chemical plant. He didn't say anything, he just shot me in the shoulder. I mean, when I was like that, I was nice enough to say a few words before I killed my victims." Jack said in annoyance, then his voice dropped several octaves, to the voice The Joker used to get attention or a point across. "I will not let that bastard get away with this."

"No…Jack. Not again." I said, closing my eyes and shaking my head.

"Yes. Again! Gen, when I'm The Joker, I'm…I'm invincible!" Jack exclaimed insanely. "I don't feel pain and I have no fears! Death, it means nothing to me!"

"It should!"

"Well, it doesn't." The Joker said stubbornly. Jack had become The Joker once again. I could tell by the voice he used. It was his insane voice and slightly higher than his Jack voice and much higher than his attention grabbing voice. I also noticed that his grammar changed when he was The Joker. He used words like gonna more.

"The shooter knows who you are. He wants money and if he doesn't get it, he'll tell everybody."

"Well, now that's he drug my family into it, he really isn't gonna get away with it." He said, and the tone of his voice left no room for discussion.

He opened his arms to me. "C'mere. I haven't held ya or seen ya in what feels like forever."

I smiled despite myself and climbed into the hospital bed with him, laying my head on his uninjured shoulder. His arms wrapped around protectively. Soon, we both fell asleep.

Whoever my husband decided to be, Jack Napier or The Joker, no matter what, he was still my husband, and I loved him just as much.