A/N: So FoxBourne basically harassed me (not really) into updating this chapter. :P I'm doing this for you, dear. APPRECIATE. XD

Disclaimer: blah blah, he's not mine, guess who is. :P

The next morning found Sakura whimpering in her bed, nursing a massive headache. There was no light in her room, thanks to the lack of windows, so she knew it wasn't a migraine, but it sure as hell felt like one, that oh-so-familiar feeling of having been shot in the head. Her thoughts were fuzzy and she was having a hard time making sense of any of them as she lay curled up under her comforter. But something was off.

Oh, she remembered. She couldn't remember exactly what had happened, but when she'd lost consciousness one way or the other, she hadn't been in bed.

Crap. She hadn't been in bed because the Joker had choked her until she'd passed out as he straddled her back. Son of a….

The sound of the door to her bedroom creaking open and then closed caused her to freeze. Who in the hell was there and why? A cold surge of fear flooded her belly, making her curl in to a tighter ball. Flashes of the Joker's face invaded her mind: that cold, hard smirk, the arrogant twist to his lips, and the dangerous sheen he had in his dark eyes that told her that he knew exactly what he was doing.

Curiously enough, the light flicked on in the bathroom and even from under the blankets, Sakura could hear the water running in the sink. Nobody but the Joker had the key to her room, and why would he want to use her bathroom anyway? He had his own. So she very cautiously peeked over the edge of her comforter.

The door was mostly closed; she could only see a sliver of light between the aged white wood and the jamb. There had to be somebody there. Doors didn't just open and close on their own and sinks didn't just turn on at a whim. So very cautiously, careful not to move her head or neck too much or make too much noise, she gingerly made her way out from under her covers and off the bed.

Her chains clinked together lightly as she crawled on her hands and knees towards her bathroom. She kept her eyes trained on the door, just in case of any sudden movement from inside. She knew she was too far to get back to her bed in time without getting noticed, but all the same, it was simply an instinctual thing. She didn't want to draw any attention to herself.

She was close enough then to be able to peep through the crack and look inside. Inside stood the Joker, but there was something shockingly different about him.

He wasn't wearing his makeup. And he was shaving.

It made no difference to her that he wore nothing but a towel draped loosely about his waist, or that his hair was really a dusty shade of gold without the green dye. Her attention was solely on his face. Without the garish white and red, his skin was a lovely olive sort of color that caught the light in the bathroom quite nicely. He had a strong chin and sturdy line to his jaw as well as high cheekbones, which she had never noticed before; the greasepaint took away from that. And he looked so much younger than he did when he wore his mask.

He was working his razor over the side of his neck she couldn't see, so she was free to admire him without the barrier of shaving cream. He really was quite attractive for such a cold-hearted killer.

And then it struck her.

He's just a man.

Such a revelation had her gaping, sitting back on her ankles, staring. He killed for fun, he was insane, and he could bring Gotham to its knees and was well on his way to doing so, and yet beneath that hardened exterior, he was just a man. He was human like the rest of them.

However, she was jolted out of her musings when his dark eyes, oddly sunken in without his makeup, suddenly landed on her. Gasping, she quickly stumbled backwards, tangling in her chains a little, and slipped back into her bed, her heart pounding. God only knew what he would do to her now….



But nothing happened. He didn't come storming out with a knife in his hand, demanding to know why she was spying on him. The door shut and the lock clicked and that was it. She never did get to see him come out, his makeup fresh, and come over to examine her, his face tight with a mix of irritation and mild confusion, as the pain from her headache quickly drove her under the black veil of unconsciousness as soon as her head hit the pillow.