Author's Note: Here's the revamped version of Chapter Seven. Enjoy everyone! Snow days force me to be productive, hahah.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Dark Knight and I do not own any of the characters.


Rachel tugged Aubrey backwards by the elbow and pulled her to her as the Batman began to fight the Joker. Aubrey leaned in and whispered to her, "Sorry I pulled your hair."

"Well thank you for pulling me away. Even if you did pull out some of my hair."

Aubrey winced, looking back towards the fight.

Batman hurled the Joker towards another side of the room and as one of the Joker's henchmen attacked him, the Joker gave another a hand signal and he moved towards Aubrey's side. Aubrey, distracted, looked over at the man curiously before she noticed it was a fake out and the Joker had Rachel once more and this time he held a gun to her head.

"Drop the gun," Batman growled out. Aubrey was puzzled for a moment. Had Bruce taken up smoking?
"Sure," the Joker's voice was high pitched with excitement, "And you just take off your mask and show us all who you are."

Rachel shook her head no and Aubrey stared, eyes wide. The Joker raised his shotgun behind his head and blew the window out. Rachel cried out at the same time Aubrey did.

Aubrey's heart was racing as Bruce told the Joker to let her go.

"Very poor choice of words," he began laughing hysterically.

"No!" Aubrey screamed out, leaping at the same time Batman did to save Rachel. Aubrey felt the cool rush of air from the open window before feeling a pain in her abdomen. She felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her and she realized that she never made it out the window, but heard Rachel screaming in the back of her head. She opened her eyes and saw Batman sliding down the roof after her.

Why had he made it? she wondered. She looked down and noticed arms around her waist. Arms that were covered by a purple suit. Aubrey groaned inwardly, noting that the Joker had grabbed her just as she'd almost been out the window.

The other thing she noticed when she looked down, was that there was absolutely no floor beneath her feet. Aubrey squeaked and shut her eyes.

"Not so uh, brave now…are you?" he whispered in her ears. He was thrilled. He'd found something to threaten the girl with. Heights. "Now uh, you don't want to fall…do you?"

She heard a crash below and opened one eye. Peering down she noticed that Bruce had landed on a car with Rachel on top of him. She saw them roll off and stand up.

Aubrey calmed down after a moment. She spoke firmly, "No."

"Do you want me to drop you?"

She closed her eyes and spoke calmly again, "No."

"You want me to save your life?" he whispered in her ear. She cringed at the hot breath on the side of her face along with the scent of his breath.

She took a deep breath and mustered up all the courage that she could to speak, "Yes."

His low chuckle filled her ears and she felt him move backwards, lifting her up so that he could move her with him. She felt her feet on the ground and lifted her head backwards, connecting it with his jaw at the same time she twisted one of his arms off of her, and kicked backwards into his shin. He laughed, falling away from her as she spun around and moved to the side, away from the open window.

"Is that any way to thank me? I just saved your life!" he chuckled, his voice high pitched.

She glared at him, seething, "No, you just saved me from your own threat."

He giggled now, "Oh-ho-ho-ho! Look at you," he stepped towards her, "Now, I would love to stand here and argue with you all day, but! You are really underestimating how much time I have to waste on you."

He grabbed her around the waist and threw her over his shoulder. She cried out at the impact of his shoulder into her stomach before her eyes bulged out of their sockets. "What are you doing?" she asked him, keeping her voice at a calm level.

He giggled, "What? You can't be telling me that with all the knowledge in your little noggin, you can't tell what I'm doing."

"You're…taking…me?" she lifted her head up off of his back, eyebrows furrowed together. The way she had spoken made him giggle and as she saw the elevator floor beneath the Joker's feet, she slammed her face into his back, groaning.

"What?" he faked sounding hurt, "You don't want to go home with me? And I thought you liked bad boys. What with Jonathan Crane and all."

Aubrey screeched, flailing her limbs out to try and twist herself off of him. He was unprepared for this movement and let out a yelp as she smacked him in the back of the head and managed to twist out of his grip. She sat on the floor of the elevator, seething.

The Joker was completely taken aback at this. He looked at her, confused for a moment before putting a finger up and opening his mouth to speak. After nothing came out, he closed his mouth and let his hand fall to his side. What had just happened?

The petite brunette stood up in the corner where she had fallen, glaring at the man with makeup all over his face, "I don't care about anything that comes out of that mouth," she hissed out, "But if you ever say anything about Jonathan Crane ever again, I will give you more scars to talk about. Especially if you're insinuating that there was something between he and I."

The Joker finally beamed, letting out a noise of delight, "Oh, I knew you were going to be fun," he grabbed her by the hair and yanked her up and out of the elevator, nearly dragging her behind him as he made his way to the van waiting for him outside. He threw her inside, almost casually. She bit her tongue to keep from shouting out as the back of her head hit the cool metal of the van's interior wall. She heard him climb up inside the van as well and as he began to talk, her head began to swim. She tried to shake off the aching pain in the back of her skull, but it just caused it to hurt more. When she blinked, she saw spots, so she let out a deep breath and closed her eyes, enjoying the darkness of her eyelids. Soon, all she saw was darkness.


"Oh good," a nasally voice filled her ears as she began to come to. A snicker followed the statement. Her eyes opened and tried to adjust to the light, "And here I thought you were broken for a minute."

The florescent lights above them were crackling -no, that wasn't the right word…they were cackling, laughing at her as they flickered dangerously. She sat up in her spot on the floor and rubbed her temple, "What a shame that would have been."

He giggled, amused, "Oh, but it would be! You'd never fetch..uh full value price if you were uh broken."

"So that's what this is all about?" she asked, slightly confused as she adjusted her position on the floor to be more comfortable, "Ransom?"

"Uhh, no," he almost guffawed at her. "You're worth much more than money."

"So what then?" she asked, eyebrows furrowed together in the middle of her forehead, "What is taking me going to do exactly?"

He giggled, "You know I'm surprised with you, Aubrey Wayne. Even with your smarts and your wealth. You picked out the cream of the crop…so to say, to befriend only the good in Gotham. Especially with all of the corruption in this city. I mean there was Jonathan Crane…but we all have uh bad days." He noticed a flash of anger in her eyes as he mentioned Crane and smirked a bit wider. "But the only good cop this city has? The D.A and his girlfriend? You've got quite the social life, Ms. Wayne."

"This is about Harvey," she whispered, connecting the dots in her mind.

The Joker shrugged, "Uh, yes and no. This is about chaos."

"Chaos?" she asked incredulously, "You honestly believe that by taking me, you're going to cause chaos in Gotham?"

He nodded, "Uh, yeah." She nodded as well, not believing him. He could tell that -and he hated that, so he continued speaking, "See, by taking you -I'm upsetting the established order," he used finger quotes as he said those two words, "No one would ever expect me to take you - out of everything they would never expect it to be you! Because you don't have anything to do with anyone, but at the same time you do! You link all of them together, but you're just so random! Imagine Rachel Dawes…angry and uncensored, your brother - willing to throw money at anybody just to have you back! Harvey Dent's campaign face will fall and Jim Gordon can't come and save you due to conflict of uh personal interest."

Aubrey nodded again, not speaking as she though the situation over. The Joker did the same thing. She wasn't afraid of him, not yet at least. She remained silent for a moment longer before speaking up. "Okay."

He blinked. Okay? Okay? After all of that, all she had to say to him was okay? He narrowed his eyes, "What? Do you think the Bat will come and save you? Because you're no Ms. Dawes, dear."

No, but I am Ms. Wayne, she thought. "Yes."

"Even if he has to take off his mask?" he teased her.

She knew Bruce would take off his mask for her, but she couldn't let the Joker know that. He would wonder why she believed that and he might be able to piece together who was Batman. She shook her head, "Then no, I do not. But it's okay. Because with all of the things you said I'll cause, all of the chaos," he smiled at the word coming from her lips, "It makes me highly indispensable."

He was in shock as the last part of her sentence hit him. The smirk, still in place from her saying the word chaos, fell immediately. None of his hostages (if you could call them that…they never lasted very long) had ever even listened to what he said; they were always too scared. But she was different. She hadn't flinched at him, or shook in fear. She hadn't even cried - yet.

"You continue to surprise me, Ms. Wayne."

"I tend to do that," she smirked.