About a minute later, Don, Marie, Peter, Alice and Ben returned.
"You mind explaining why the Joker and Adrian just stole my car?" asked Don disapprovingly.
"Mistah J's just gonna teach that slimeball a lesson in a manners, is all," replied Harley, uncaring.
"You mean he's going to kill him?" asked Marie, aghast. "How could you let him do that?"
"Oh no reason, the creep just tried to rape me, no big deal really," said Harley angrily. "He's real wonderful, isn't he? One of a kind, the kind of guy that any woman would kill to have."
"Harleen, we had no idea he would take things that far, honest," insisted Don. "We love you, and if we had known he would do that we never would have asked him to come over. But really Harleen, murder? Murder is never the answer, no matter what the Joker told you."
"Who cares? It's just a joke," shrugged Harley. "I just hope he doesn't decide to leave early because of this, or worse, go and leave me behind."
Marie went over to her daughter and embraced her. "We're very sorry, Harleen, we really are. Would you like to help me get dinner ready?"
Harley nodded her head and stood up to follow her out, but just then they heard a large thud from behind them. They turned and saw a man dressed up as Santa Clause, sitting in their chimney. Don slowly approached the man and pulled down the white beard obscuring his face. The man's face was beaten and bloody, but still recognizable.
"Adrian?" said Don, bewildered by what he saw before him.
"Is he dead?' whispered Marie.
A moan escaped his lips, answering her question.
"He's alive," said Don incredulously. Before they could move to try to help him, the Joker came down the chimney, his purple suit covered in soot. In his hand he held a gas can, and he proceeded to dump gasoline all over Adrian and the walls and furniture.
"What are you doing, you psycho?" shouted Don. "Stop that, right now!"
"You want some too?" asked Joker as he held up the gas can. Don stepped back and Joker poured out the rest of the gas on the Christmas tree.
"Now," said Joker as he threw away the gas can and approached them with a bloody knife. "The entire time I've been here no one has remembered their place, or who I am. Sure, I've been a good boy and it can be easy to forget who you're dealing with sometimes, but that's no excuse for the way I've been treated. I didn't appreciate you trying to trick my little harlequin into leaving me, and I especially didn't appreciate you calling in her wonderful ex-boyfriend to try to get rid of me, you really should have known better. Since none of you seem to remember who I am, let me remind you," said Joker as he pulled out a lighter.
"No you don't, put the lighter down, clown," ordered Alice as she drew her gun and aimed it at him. "Put it down and leave now or I'll shoot."
The Joker smiled and ran at her, barely dodging the bullet she fired at him. He snatched the gun out of her hands and smacked her across the face with it, knocking her to the floor.
"You leave my wife alone!" shouted Peter. He was tired of being afraid of this maniac, and he certainly wasn't going to let him hurt his family. He handed Ben to Marie and helped Alice up as he glared at the clown.
"Looks like Peter Rabbit grew a spine,' said Joker with a dangerous smile. He pointed the gun at Adrian and shot him in the leg, igniting the gasoline he was drenched in and setting the whole room ablaze. Adrian screamed and writhed in agony as he was engulfed in the monstrous flames.
"Mistah J, this is my parent's house, how could you?" yelled Harley angrily. She grabbed the Joker by the wrists and yelled at him, "Why Mistah J? Why didn't you just kill Adrian?"
Everyone fled the house as fast as they could, leaving Joker and Harley to glare at each other as the house burned down around them. The Joker grabbed Harley and smashed her head into the wall, leaving her half-conscious. He then left the house and stood outside with the others to watch it burn.
"Where's Harley?" demanded Don.
"In the house," replied Joker indifferently.
"What is wrong with you?" screamed Don as he ran toward the house, but stopped when Joker pointed the gun at him.
"Stay away," snarled Joker.
"You can't just leave her to die!" screeched Marie.
"Watch me," growled Joker.
Peter watched, horrified, as Joker kept the gun pointed at them. He couldn't believe the Joker's cruelty, and swore right then and there that if he let Harley die he would kill him, somehow. But as he watched him, he saw something change in the Joker's eyes. Peter wasn't sure what to think, but it looked like some kind of internal battle going on inside the Joker's mind. He then turned around and growled quietly, "Bleeding hearts of the world, unite!"
The Joker dashed back into the house and found Harley on the floor where he had left her. He then scooped her limp body up in his arms and said, "This is the last time I save your blonde butt, Harley."
He was about to leave the house but stopped and turned around and went back to give Adrian's burning body a good kick before he ran out of the house, coughing and gasping for air. Once outside, he dropped Harley's body on the ground and greedily sucked in air.
Her family rushed over to her to see if she was okay. "Harleen?" said Don, his voice shaking with fear. He put his head to her chest and then started pumping her heart. He then gave her mouth-to-mouth while Marie cried and kept saying, "She's dead! She's dead!"
Just as Don was about to give up hope, Harley began to cough and breathe again. Don and Marie held her in their arms and cried tears of relief. They all froze when they heard the sound of a gun being cocked.
Joker got down on his knees to face Harley, his body trembling with anger and his eyes blazing. "Listen Harl, I'll be back in an hour or so, and then I'm going back to Gotham. You can either come with me or stay here, I couldn't care less which." He then handed her a crumpled up piece of paper and pulled a small metal object out of one of his pockets. He pushed a button on it and tossed it to Don and said, "I had some of my boys come here to Metropolis just to rig this up." He then stalked off. A taxi drove by, but instead of hailing it, he got in Don's car again and drove off. Alice pulled out her cell phone and dialed 911.
"Hello? Our house is on fire, we need help," she said into the phone.
"I wonder why the bomb didn't go off," said Don as he held up the metal object, which was obviously a detonator.
"Who cares, as long as it didn't go off," said Marie as she stood up. Peter and Alice helped Harley to her feet, she was still wobbly but could stand.
"What? You can't be serious," said Alice as she closed her phone. "Apparently the firemen can't come because someone blew up the bank a few blocks from here."
"He blew up the bank!" said Don as he pulled at his hair his face beet red with anger. "Not only did he burn our house to the ground, he destroyed the bank, too! All of our money, gone! I swear, I'll kill him!"
"No you won't!" said Harley, her voice raspy from the smoke. "He just saved my life and you want to kill him anyway?"
"It's his fault you almost died!" shouted Marie.
"And he didn't have to save me, but he did!" argued Harley. "He could have let me die in there, but he didn't! You guys are always saying that he doesn't love me, would he have saved me if he didn't?"
"He's a sick man, who knows why he does anything," said Don. "Peter, do you mind if we stay at your house for a while?"
Peter and Alice looked like they did mind, but complied anyway. Peter, Harley, Alice and Ben took one car while Don, Marie and Nana took Marie's car.
While they were driving, Peter thought about what had happened with the Joker. He wasn't sure why the Joker had pretended to be nice and sweet, other than to lull them into a fall sense of security or just to amuse himself. The man might not have any super-powers, but with his intelligence combined with his ability to put on deceptive masks, he was more than a match for even the most powerful of superheroes. He could make you see him however he wanted you to see him, and he had chosen to come off as the type of misunderstood, slow, trouble-making brother-in-law from the movies when really he was anything but. It was too easy to forget who he was despite his appearance, which made him all the more powerful, especially when wooing doctors.
Harley cheered herself up a bit by playing with Ben in the back seat. While she was playing peek-a-boo with him, she suddenly remembered the crumpled up piece of paper the Joker had given her. She pulled it out of her pocket and carefully smoothed it out.
"What! She screamed once she had read it, making Ben cry and almost making Peter run off the road. "How could they do that?"
"Who did what, Harley?" asked Alice as she gently rubbed the bruise beginning to form on her face.
"My parents! Listen to this, "Harleen Francis Quinzel, age twenty-one, was murdered several nights ago. A psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum in Gotham city, she was murdered by the Joker, the patient she was treating. While no body has been found, the Joker admitted to killing her when he was brought in by the Batman." There's more, but can you believe they would do something like that? Peter, did you know about this?"
"I, well, yes," he admitted.
"Why didn't you tell me?" she said, sounding hurt and betrayed.
"I felt sorry for you. Mom and Dad did it before I could stop them, and I didn't want to make things worse for you by telling you."
"Why would they do this?" asked Harley as she shoved the paper back into her pocket. "Why would they lie like this and tell everyone I was dead?"
"It was the only way they could cope with what happened, I suppose," said Peter grimly. "They didn't want anyone to find out the truth so they created a huge lie. I guess it was easier for them to pretend you were dead than to accept what you had become. They invited you back here because they wanted to try one last time to get you to leave the Joker."
"And so now they'll just give up on me completely and pretend they never had a daughter," said Harley miserably.
When they arrived at the house, which was smaller than Don and Marie's but still quite nice, almost an hour later, Harley leapt out of the car and marched up to her parents and shoved the obituary page in their faces. "It must be so hard for you to have to put up with a daughter come back from the dead, huh?"
When they saw the newspaper clipping, their faces paled. "You weren't supposed to see that."
"How could you? Apparently in this family, if you don't fall in love with the right person ya get disowned! I thought you loved me but you obviously don't!"
"We do love you, Harleen!" protested Marie. "But what we're we supposed to do? People kept asking questions and we couldn't just keep making up excuses. What would people think, if they knew you were the Joker's hench-girl? It would have disgraced you and everyone else in this family."
"I understand now," said Harley, fighting tears. "You don't hate the Joker, you hate what he's done to your reputation, or what he would have done if you hadn't lied to everyone about me. You wanna know why I wanted to come here for Chrismas? Sure, I wanted to see you guys, but that's not why we came. Y'see, I couldn't decide what to get Mistah J for Christmas. I mean, what do you get a guy who can get himself whatever he wants? So I got to thinking about what I could get him that he couldn't get himself. And I realized that for a long time now I've been the only family he has, and that as long as I've known him he's never had a normal, traditional, family Christmas. I know he doesn't care for that kind of Christmas, but I figured that he might appreciate it. Once, just once, I wanted him to give him a family, something he's not had in a long time, if ever. That's why I brought him here, it was for him, not me."
"Does the Joker know about this," asked Alice, surprised by what Harley had just said.
"No, and you'd better not tell him. If he found out he'd, well, I don't know what he would do, but I think it's for the best that he never find out. Even if I didn't have to worry about what he would do, I don't want him to know this was for him, I just want to make him happy."
"Why didn't you tell us this before?" asked Don incredulously.
"Because I had hoped I wouldn't have to, I assumed that my family could act civil, if only for my sake, but apparently I was wrong. Mistah J has behaved himself all week, and you guys have acted like animals, especially you, Mom and Dad. I'm sorry I ruined everyone's Christmas, I really am, and when Mistah J comes back I'm gonna go back home with him to Gotham and we'll spend Christmas by ourselves with the Babies."
"Babies? You told me you didn't have any children!" Marie exclaimed.
"HYENAS, MOTHER!" screamed Harley. "The Babies are our pet hyenas!" Harley wiped away a tear and ran to the door, but it was locked.
"I have a key, Harley," said Peter as he made his way to the door, but Harley wasn't interested in waiting for him. She found a rock and used it to break a window and climbed inside. Once inside, she wanted to be alone so she locked herself in the bathroom and finally let herself cry. She didn't want the Joker to see her this way, so didn't even try to stop the tears, didn't try to get a hold of herself, so that hopefully by the time he returned she would have no tears left to be shed, and she would be able to be strong for him. Today had been the worst day she had had in a very long time. Not only had her ex tried to force himself on her, not only had she been almost killed, not only had she found out that she had been disowned by her parents for loving the wrong person, but she had singlehandedly ruined Christmas for nearly everyone she cared about, especially the Joker. She should have known this wouldn't work, Joker and her family hated each other too much, and she had been a fool to think they could get along, if only for a few days. She wondered what he was doing right then, if he was thinking about her. She almost couldn't believe he had saved her twice in one day, just before she had lost consciousness completely in the flames she had seen him come back for her. But would he come back for her now, even though he said he would, or had she done too much damage? If there was one thing she had learned from all this, it was that she needed to stop doubting him. Even when it seemed like he wouldn't save her or just didn't care, she needed to trust him, regardless. He wouldn't let her down, of this she was sure.