Note: New chapter finally! Thanks for reading, everyone. ^_^

Disclaimer: I don't own the Joker, but I own the character Sky Mortimer. I also don't won the song "My Immortal". Evanescence does.

To Heal Your Scars

Chapter Eight. Order In Chaos.

We didn't say anything to each other as he drove me back to the abandoned warehouse. It was silent except for the sound of the old van, so I reached to turn the radio on and "My Immortal" by Evanescence was playing. It was my favourite song, and I couldn't help but sing along to it.

"Your voice, it chased away all the sanity in me. These wounds won't seem to heal, This pain is just too real, There's just too much that time cannot erase," I connected so well to those words, and I sang them loudly, forgetting that the Joker was in the car with me. I felt his eyes on me, and I turned to face him and promptly shut my mouth. He was giving me the most confused look, with his mouth slightly open and with his eyebrows raised high on his forehead. "I'm sorry," I said sheepishly and slumped low in my seat. "I love this song."

"It's… nice I suppose," he said. "You, uh, you have a good voice."

"I do?" I asked him, surprised. I knew that my voice wasn't terrible, but I didn't think that it would qualify as being good.

"Yes. It's very, um, ethereal," he complimented me.

"Thank-you. I never thought my voice was good. I mean, I've always enjoyed singing, but never thought I was very talented," I replied to him.

"No one's ever told you?" he asked me.

"No… no one except for my mother," I paused. "But my mother left and my father and brother hated me. And I've never had friends."

"Ah. Neither have I." After he said that, the van descended back into silence but for the radio. Other songs came on – some I liked, some I didn't – but neither of us bothered to change the station. The Joker didn't sing along to any of the music.

We eventually reached the warehouse – a familiar yet wholly unwelcome sight for me. The florescent lights hadn't been turned on, so it was dark when we entered, and the Joker had to find the switch after he closed the door. The gigantic room was suddenly illuminated, and I shut my eyes immediately. I was afraid that there would be another scene like when I had first been in the warehouse, with the man, and the blood, and the horror…

"You can open your eyes, Beautiful. There's no one here except us," the Joker paused. "Dead or alive." So, I opened my eyes a crack, and saw that he had told me the truth. The warehouse was completely empty, but the for some bloodstains on the floor and walls. It smelled musty in the room, with an undertone of death. It disgusted me, but it was better than actually seeing a body. The Joker brushed past me, and walked to the stairs off to our left.

"Let's go," he said, so I followed him up the stairs and we went into my room. He had made two changes: there was a small table, and upon it sat a television. "I wasn't planning on letting you go out for a while just in case we had another little situation, so I figured you'd be bored without anything to do… so I, uh, got you a television," I barely heard what he had to say, for I was staring in sheer amazement at the one other thing he had added to my room: a bookshelf, filled with dozens of books. Adventure, fantasy, mystery, suspense, drama… and, of course, romance.

"My books!" I yelled, running over to the large bookcase and running my fingers over the spines of my friends. "I thought you'd burned them with my apartment."

"No, I got them out," the Joker replied in an obvious tone.

"I don't know how to thank you! I have no idea what I would do without them!" I said, close to tears of happiness. So many of my books, so much of my life… I heard him giggle, and then he spoke again.

"Well, there is one way you could repay me," he said giving me an obvious look. Pervert.
"Um, I think not. I'm actually rather tired," I said and faked a yawn. "So… yeah." I looked at him with raised eyebrows, trying to hint that he could leave. He didn't. "You can leave now?" I said. He looked angry for a second and then regained his slightly amused composure once again.

"I can. But… I think I won't. You see," he smacked his lips, "you see, you could try to escape while I'm gone. And, since none of my team is here, it may be rather easy for you to do. I'm not going to take that chance."

"I need to get changed!" I said, aghast. He merely made a gesture with his arms and raised his eyebrows innocently. A look that basically said, well go ahead, I'm not stopping you. "I am not changing my clothes while you're here. Take me to your room and I'll change in the bathroom. I need to brush my teeth anyway."

"Alright then, follow me Beautiful." So I did, and on the way there I spoke to him.

"You know, it wouldn't kill you to call me by my real name every once and a while."

"You know, Sky, I'll call you what I want." And that was the end of that conversation. He was so unpredictable: one moment he'd be all smiles, a look of constant amusement on his scarred face, and the next moment he'd be abrupt and even frightening – occasionally extremely frightening. We got to his room and he placed the key in the lock, and opened the door to reveal his purple and black room. I turned to the right and entered the bathroom and turned the light on. I got my pajamas on quickly: purple satin pants that were far too long for me, and a black tank top. I washed my face and brushed my teeth, but I decided to leave my hair in the ponytail because there would only be a gigantic bump in my hair if I took it out. I emerged from the bathroom and saw the Joker sitting on the edge of his bed, looking impatient. He saw me, and grinned.

"Even beautiful without all the makeup." I rolled my eyes and quickly walked out of his room. He jumped up and easily caught up with me, even though I thought that I was walking so fast. Stupid long legs. "So eager to go to bed, Girlie? 'Cause you know I'll, uh, I'll be joining you…" he whispered the last part and immediately I stopped walking and regarded him furiously. He had that gleeful look on his face again.

"You will not be sleeping in my bed."

"Oh yes I will, and you will let me," he'd taken his knife out of his coat pocket and flipped it up in the air.

"You're so repulsive!" I yelled and ran into my room and tried to slam the sliding door shut but he stopped it easily.

"Such a child," he said, and trailed the knife softly down the side of my face, over my chin, and down my throat – not once breaking the skin, but I didn't dare move. He stopped when he got to the top of my shirt and put the knife back in his pocket. I didn't move, only stared up at his terrifying face as he towered over me. He looked down at me, an expression of amusement on his face as he reached down to touch my face with his gloved hand. "So much fear…"

"I-I'm not afraid of you," I stuttered, and he laughed hysterically.

"I can see it in your eyes, Sweetheart. You're terrified. You hate me, you're afraid to die. Why? What's the point of being afraid to die?" he smacked his lips and continued. "You see, I do people a favour in killing them. I'm just, as you said earlier, speeding up the process. No more of their life will be wasted, because it's over! They won't have to go through any more pain, suffering, sadness… they won't have to worry about that anymore. I'm an agent of chaos, I say, but I'm really not. My mind is much more rational than most. Yes, I create chaos, but only in the minds of the irrational, which is everyone. I'm just ahead of the curve. In my world, there's order. In their world, there's chaos. Do you understand? That's why I'm an agent of chaos – I only am in their already chaotic little world. If they had minds of true chaos, like mine, then I would be an agent of order."

"It… doesn't exactly have the same ring to it," I said, and he laughed hysterically again. Once he had stopped, he spoke to me again.

"And that is why I like you, Sky. You're strange, like me. Because deep down, I think that you think the same way I do. Like no one else does." I didn't respond at first. There was no way I was like him, I may have thought strangely, but I was not completely insane. I wasn't evil. I didn't find joy in other people's pain, I didn't have some sick compulsion to scare the hell out of common people, and I didn't ever want to kill anyone. I stayed silent, and he stepped away from me and swept gallantly toward my bed and threw the covers back. "Coming, Sweetheart?" he asked and I regarded him stupidly. But I knew that I'd probably regret it if I refused.

"You aren't going to…" I couldn't even voice my words, I was too embarrassed. I took a deep breath and spoke again. "Um… you aren't going to uh, take advantage of me, are you?" I asked him sheepishly and he grinned.

"Not unless you want me to, Girlie."

"No!" I yelled loudly.

"Then I won't. I wouldn't do that," he said simply, and a wave of relief washed over me. At least he wasn't that evil. I grabbed a book from my cramped bookshelf and climbed into the large bed. He climbed in the other side, and asked me to read aloud.

"I don't know if you'll like it though," I said. "It's kind of girly. And romantic."

"Just read," he commanded, and I didn't argue. I flipped to the first page and began reading. After a few minutes I sneaked a look at him and saw that he was lying on his back with his hands behind his head and his eyes were closed. There was a small smile on his painted red lips. I looked back at my book, a smile upon my own lips, and read for another half of an hour before I heard him breathing evenly to let me know that he was asleep. I stopped reading, put the book beside the bed, and turned the light off. Pulling the blankets up to my chin, I snuggled deep in the covers and quickly fell asleep.

-----

The next morning I awoke to soft chuckling. I didn't want to wake up yet, so I buried my head further into my pillow and realized that the fabric that my face was pressed against was far too rough to be a pillow. I pulled back and realized that my face had been buried in the Joker's chest. In fact, my entire body was pressed up against his. I yelled and pushed backwards, and fell hard onto the floor.

"What the hell?!" I yelled as I jumped up, regarding him absolutely furiously. He simply looked amused. I noticed that a lot of his makeup and rubbed off, and much more of his face was visible.

"Look at me, Sky, do I look like I'm on your side of the bed?" I looked at him and realized that he was in the exact place that he had fallen asleep in. "It was you who came over to my side. What's wrong? Are you, uh, lonely, Sweetheart?" I stood still for a moment, not being able to comprehend the fact that I had latched onto the Joker of my own accord, and then I spun around on my heel and stomped toward the door and tried to yank it open. It didn't budge. "It's locked," I could hear the smirk in his voice. Angrily, I kicked the door hard and yelled out in pain.

"Ah, hell!" I could hear him laughing behind me but I didn't care. I was furious, mostly at myself. I collapsed onto the floor, feeling defeated, still clutching my throbbing foot.

"It couldn't have hurt that much, could it?" he asked me, still laughing, and that angered me even more.

"Yeah, well you try it."

"Uh, no." I heard him get up from the bed and he walked over to the door, put the key in the lock, and opened the door. "Coming?" he asked, and I glared at him. "Breakfast," he stated, so I got up and hobbled out the door as fast as I could. He caught up with me and scooped me up in his arms like a child.

"Put me down. I can walk fine by myself, you know," I protested as I struggled in his grip, but I just heard him click his tongue.

"Didn't look that way to me," he said, so I stopped squirming around and I let him carry me into a room at the end of the hall. When we got there, he dropped be very ungracefully into a chair and went to the fridge and pulled something out of the bottom of it. I realized that it was a freezer, and what he brought over to be was a container of strawberry ice cream. I looked up questioningly at him, and he looked back at me, equally confused. "What?" he asked. "Eat it."

"Ice cream? For breakfast?" I asked him and he rolled his eyes impatiently. "It's not exactly a healthy thing to have first thing in the day. And what about a spoon?" I continued. "If you really want me to eat this it might be a little difficult without a utensil of some kind…" I trailed off as he strode purposefully across the room, yanked open a drawer, grabbed a metal spoon, and hurled it at me. Fortunately, it missed me by about half an inch. "Are you insane?!" I jumped up and screamed at him. I ignored the pain that shot through my foot. He'd thrown the spoon so hard it had left a dent in the wall behind me.

"Well it didn't hit you, did it? Get over it, Princess. Just eat your damned ice cream." And with that, he stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind him. I heard him lock it and then walk away, and I sat back down in my seat and bitterly started eating the ice cream. Vaguely, I wondered to myself how long I'd be stuck in that room before he came back to let me out.