I haven't abandoned this story! University is just sucking the life out of me. I'll try to update more often, I promise!

Even after the Joker had long disappeared, Jeannie could still feel his unnerving presence tainting the air. Lily was quietly sitting in her lap; seemingly thinking hard about something. "How could you love him?" she finally whispered, glancing nervously toward the door as if afraid he was still listening.

Jeannie thought carefully before answering. "…He's gone through a few changes. He wasn't always like this." Although sometimes he was close.

Lily considered that before remarking, "I'm scared of him."

"Everyone is," Jeannie muttered. "Don't worry, honey, you're safe for now." Of course, she couldn't guarantee that, but she didn't want to scare Lily any more than she already was.

The Joker had left the door open, and after they had both calmed down Lily clambered off Jeannie's lap and peered outside. "Can we go out there?" she asked.

On one hand, Jeannie knew the Joker wouldn't be happy if he found them snooping around. But on the other, he wouldn't have left the door open if he wanted them confined. Glancing around her current room, she decided that she couldn't bear to look at the cell-like walls any longer. Standing up, Jeannie tightly grabbed Lily's hand and cautiously led the way out of the room.

They were standing in the middle of another, larger area. There was no furniture in this room either and the only light weakly shone in through a boarded-up window in the far corner. Lily let go of Jeannie's hand and eagerly began to explore her new surroundings. "Careful!" Jeannie called, worried there might be loose nails or needles on the floor.

There was a rickety set of stairs opposite her. Jeannie climbed up them and found herself in another tiny, windowless room. This must be where the Joker had brought Lily. She descended back down the stairs, surveying the scene in front of her. The only other door in sight led to the room they had just come out of, leaving Jeannie momentarily confused. Where was the exit? But after a minute of searching, her eyes landed on a space between several missing floorboards and she tentatively knelt down in front of it, spotting a ladder pushed against the wall. Lily bounded over and Jeannie slowly made her way down rung by rung, reaching out her arms when she reached the bottom so Lily could jump into them.

Placing her daughter back on the ground, Jeannie examined the new floor. It appeared to be exactly the same as the one above it—they were in a musty, abandoned warehouse. There was a front door, but it was boarded up in a similar fashion as the window upstairs was. She wondered how the Joker entered and left.

It wasn't, Jeannie thought, as if he had purposely dragged them into an abandoned warehouse to keep them isolated from the world. It was as if this happened to be the only place available, and he really couldn't care less where they were kept.

"Why does he wear makeup?" Lily asked, sneezing as a puff of dust blew into her face.

Jeannie watched her warily, afraid she was going to somehow injure herself. "It's not makeup, it's paint."

"Same thing!" the little girl protested, and proceeded to fire off another round of questions. "Where's Thumper? Where did Daddy go? How long are we staying here?"

"I don't know," was all Jeannie could say. But that didn't deter Lily.

"Where are Roscoe and Emily?"

"Heaven."

"Really? They're not going to come back like Daddy did?"

"…Daddy was never in heaven."

"Then maybe they aren't either!"

Jeannie let out a sound that was a cross between a laugh and a sob. Lily walked back to her, pouting. "I'm hungry," she complained.

She didn't know how to respond to that. It was impossible to escape the building, and there was no food in sight. She prayed that the Joker would come back, and that there weren't hidden cameras where he would watch them starve to death whilst laughing hysterically. "I'll find you something," Jeannie promised, although, short of eating the walls, she had no idea.

Paolo stood anxiously in the middle of a group of men, wanting to bolt out of the room. But he had no choice—this was his only chance to get some extra money. It had been seven years since he'd worked at the bar—he'd gone through many jobs since then after falling in love during a trip to Italy. His lover had become pregnant and then promptly left him for another man—Paolo came back to Gotham brokenhearted and had been living in poverty since, not even knowing the gender of his child. He was desperately trying to make enough money to return to Italy and find his ex-girlfriend. Since he knew someone who had connections in the mob, he was able to persuade them to disclose the address where the Joker's henchmen supposedly spent most of their time.

The last thing Paolo wanted to do was work for the most infamous criminal in the world, but he was trapped and couldn't back out of it now. Apparently, in order to become a "trusted" member of the Joker's gang, one first had to pass a "test", and word had it that all of his henchmen ended up dying in the end. So Paolo had shown up at a dingy nightclub in the heart of the Narrows and led underground to a chamber where at least twenty other men stood waiting, some muttering to themselves and others who looked like they had just broken out of a maximum-security prison. Swallowing nervously, Paolo turned back to the front and put on his best poker face. It wouldn't do to have the Joker realize he was terrified out of his wits. The man could probably smell fear…if he was even human.

"When is he supposed to show up?" the person on his left asked. There was an answering grunt of, "When he wants to."

Paolo stared fixedly at the ceiling, trying not to betray his crippling fear. He wanted to run away screaming, but it was too late. There were guards armed with rifles standing at the doors—no doubt they had been instructed to shoot anyone who tried to escape.

A voice suddenly issued from the darkness, low and deadly: "I'm glad to see you could all, uh, make it."

Paolo's mouth went dry as a figure emerged from the shadows: tall and lean, the Joker looked every bit as grotesque as the papers made him out to be, with carefully applied face paint and ragged, greasy hair.

But his face paint wasn't what caught Paolo's attention: as he stared at the blood-red scars and the cold, dark eyes, the name "Jack Napier" involuntarily left his lips. This was the boy (but he was no longer a boy) whom Paolo had tried to warn at his wedding almost a decade ago. He was the Joker. But…what had happened to his wife?

The Joker watched them with derisive, mocking amusement, and Paolo shivered when the maniacal clown's gaze met his own. A smirk briefly crossed his lips, but Paolo couldn't tell whether it was out of recognition or an acknowledgement of the terror he knew was plainly outlined on his face.

"Now," the Joker announced, finally tearing his gaze from Paolo's, "I have a…challenge for you all. Whoever manages to get out of this room alive in the next ten seconds will be the lucky ones…or perhaps not." He chuckled in morbid glee, sending shivers down Paolo's spine, and retreated back into the darkness where he had come from.

The men stared at each other, debating, and in one rush they lunged at the door, no one except Paolo noticing there were snipers in the corner. He watched in horror, rooted to the spot, as they all fell down to the ground in a single, bloody heap.