Author's Note: Hey everyone, I'm back! I missed you all so much … look, I'm really sorry I haven't update in such a long time. I just got really busy with school. However, I have a little time between now and when my summer class starts and I will try and update as often as possible. Hope y'all are still on board for the ride!
Surrender
It happens when she is ready to fall into the abyss – as if, in death, this is his one final gift to her, reaching from the grave to pull her back to the sane, the real. She's in that pleasant, not-quite-awake state in which you are vaguely aware of your physical surroundings but are still trying to cling to threads of dreams in which being able to fly somehow makes a bizarre kind of sense. Of course, her dreams feature something even more impossible these days – or rather, someone. She doesn't know which she should feel guiltier about: the contents of her dreams, which are rapidly becoming X-rated (though she does have an annoying habit of waking up just before things really get good) or her real-life actions, which are so far beyond the bounds of professionalism that she knows she's driving right into crazy-town. She's been trying very hard to make herself care, to hold herself accountable, but all she can manage is a vague sort of guilt, a dim awareness of her actions being inappropriate. It's like every other rational feeling takes a backseat to this heady, thrilling glee. If she could just stay here for a moment, in her dreams, in a place without the consequences of reality, in a place where she and her Mr. J can –
The sharp sound of the telephone ringing jolts her fully awake. Groaning, she utters a curse. She was so close … in more ways than one. Reality is increasingly seeming like an intrusion, filled with dull paperwork and uninteresting patients, peppered by sometimes-stimulating conversations with Joan, but otherwise counting the tedious minutes until her next session with –
Harleen stumbles gracelessly out of bed, still bleary-eyed, gropes for the phone, and answers in a voice still thick with sleep. "Hello?"
What she hears on the other end of the phone brings her back to reality – and then sends that reality crashing down.
For much as it seems like it right now, the Joker is not the only man in her life who matters.
*Session Nine*
For perhaps the first time, she doesn't want to see him.
She just … she just can't face him, not today. Joan was right, she came back to work too early.
But she insisted she was ready, even argued with Dr. Arkham about it, and now she has to do her job.
She clears her throat. "Hello again, Mr. J."
Silence.
Oh great. She's gone for a few weeks, and there goes all the progress (if you can call it that) she's made. No more hints about himself, no more flashes of humanity, no more flirtation, no more laughter…
She'll lose him forever now…
"Not talking to me?" She keeps her voice from breaking, but only just. She can feel her Brooklyn accent coming out, like it does when she's upset. "Well, that's fine. I get paid either way."
She picks up the file and begins to read. The minutes tick away, her vision blurs… god, she needs to get more sleep…
"You left." His tone is unmistakably accusatory.
Oh, of course that's it. He pissed that he wasn't the center of her universe for a few weeks.
"Yeah, and now I'm back."
"No one would tell me where you went, or why."
"Well, of course not." She sighs. "I had some personal business to attend to." She clears her throat. "Now, I understand that in your sessions with Dr. Leland, you were uncommunicative, so I guess we can start from where we left off. We were talking about these multiple pasts you've created for yourself –"
"Where'd you go, doc?"
"We're not discussing that. Now –"
"Oh, I know what it is. Your boyfriend's jealous you've been spending so much time with me."
Harley froze. Any other day she could have handled it, but today … she told herself to get up, walk out the door.
But she didn't.
Instead, she put her pen down, closed her file, took her glasses off, and rubbed her face tiredly.
"Look," she said, "I get that this whole little flirtation thing we do is amusing to you, and I get that you're figuring out a way to use me." This was her realistic nature reasserting itself, even as he tried to interrupt. "No, no, I get that, okay? But I have had a really shitty few weeks, and I have to say that right now, Mr. J, your particular brand of charm and humor is not amusing."
She half-expected him to be mad – she hadn't spoken to him that way in a long time – and if fact, she kind of welcomed his rage. She needed to yell at somebody, and while a psychotic clown would not have been the wisest choice for this, since when had she been known for making sensible choices?
Not since she had been under his wing …
But he doesn't get mad.
He actually seems … concerned.
"Harley, what's wrong?"
She tells herself that sociopaths don't feel things like this: concern, empathy, sympathy. She tells herself that sociopaths are charming and highly adept at mimicking these types of emotions, but they can't actually feel them.
She tells herself all that, but it does no good.
So she breaks down, crying. She has not been able to do so for the longest time. She's longed for the relief of it, knowing even pain would be better than this dull, hollow ache where her heart used to be…
In between sobs, she tells him that Eric, her mentor, has died, and that she was out of town a few weeks because she was attending his funeral.
"Did you love him?" The Joker asks, seeming strangely serious for once.
"Yeah, of course, but … not like that. He was like … like a dad, you know? Someone who taught me, someone who had my back, someone who always …" She takes a breath, trying to compose herself. "It's not fair," she continues, with more bitterness than sorrow in her voice. "Why do people like my father and Eric die and people like my stepfather are still alive somewhere? Why can't the right people die for once?"
His voice is like silk. "That can be arranged."
She sniffles. "Not funny."
"For once, I wasn't joking."
When she looks up, she is greeted by his enigmatic grin. Despite it, she wonders just what exactly he could arrange, even from behind the bars of Arkham Asylum…
But what frightens her is not what he can do. What frightens her is that the thought of what he could do excites her.
She wipes her eyes. "Don't tease me. Not now."
"I wasn't. I'm sorry about your friend, Harley. It must be hard when someone that you care about dies. Not that I would know."
Harley leans in then. "You wouldn't? You know, sometimes I think you're not as sociopathic as your criminal activities would seem to indicate."
"Aww, that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said about me." She does laugh at that, weakly. She leans further him and lets him kiss her, not caring if he tastes her tears. He has seen her professional and cool, he has seen her angry and aggressive, he has seen her flirtatious and passionate, and now he has seen her break down and cry…
She wonders if he will ever return the favor. She wonders if she will ever see him cry, ever taste his tears, glimpse his humanity, and comfort him in his hour of need.
"This is very unprofessional," she sniffles as he wipes away a tear.
"I won't tell if you won't. Professional's boring anyway."
"Yeah. And we're many things, but never boring."
"Many things?" He cocks his head, intrigued.
"Things I haven't quite worked out yet," she tells him.
"I can help you work them out…"
"Oh, I just bet you can, puddin'. But I'd like to pull myself together before you break me down."
"I'd never break you down. I'd set you free."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
She leans in for more kisses, eager to lose herself in his touch, eager for a distraction from loss and grief. Eric's death grounded her back in reality, but it also reinforced how unpleasant, arbitrary, and unfair reality can be. The Joke's mind, his world, is infinitely more entertaining. Can she blamed for returning to it so quickly, for wanting to immerse herself in it so completely?
"Puddin'… I think our time is up."
"Already?" A sigh, a roll of the shoulders, his eyes closed. Somehow, he manages to make his movements graceful, even in the confines of a strait jacket. For one thrilling moment, she imagines herself removing the restraints, freeing him, letting him hold her, embrace her…
Then reality tugs back at her again, and the moment passes.
"Can't you find a way to make these sessions longer?"
"I'll work on that?" Why not? She's sure she can justify it somehow…
"Hurry back, Harley. Promise."
"I promise, puddin'." She cups his face briefly and kisses him again. Reality, fantasy. Personal, professional. The lines are way beyond blurring … and she finds that she doesn't care. Eric is gone. She has no one else left.
He is now what he was perhaps always destined to become: her everything.
