Disclaimer: I make no profit from this. If I did, I wouldn't have to go to work this afternoon.

Relevant Warnings: Just a very bad word.

11 days before T.O.D

She didn't notice that she was cold and wet. Harleen could not help but notice the pain in her wrists. She shrugged it off as she had been sleeping on them. That was all pushed far down the priority pole when her highly violent psychopathic ex-patient was standing mere feet from her.

The room tipped as she staggered out of bed and by some miracle Harleen managed to keep on her feet.

She wouldn't stand a chance if the Joker was alerted. Harleen had to take him out in one surprise shot.

White knuckling the handle of the golf club, she prepared to strike.

The Joker caught her reflection in the vanity mirror in time to get out of the way and the club swiped at the air where his head had been.

The force she exerted caused her to lose her balance. She swung out again in a blind attempt and got him the ribs.

But Harleen never stood a chance.

He grabbed the shaft of the nine iron. Rather then let go and put distance between them, that was almost nonexistent as he put his other hand on the club, Harleen pulled. The Joker was stronger and more sure-footed than her (a advantage that was rare in any fight he got into). A quick push back on the club caused her to fall backwards. He was on her in record time. She did the only thing she could do then and screamed. A reactive hand from the Joker silenced her.

One of her neighbor's banged on the wall. Overshadowing Harleen's muffled cries.

Both of them had acted out of pure instinct. The Joker had snapped out of it. Primal instinctual fear was still in Harleen's eyes.

She doesn't remember what she's done. He thought.

Harleen was understandably terrified and the Joker was doing nothing to lessen her anxiety.

"I ain't gonna hurt ya." He told her.

Harleen responded with a high-pitched squeak, the look of fear on her face increased. Of course she didn't believe him when he was holding her down. But he couldn't simply release her. It had just been proven how thin these walls were, he couldn't risk Harleen making any more noise and alerting someone. The Joker was not going back to Arkham. He would reverse the effort he put in to Harley before that happened.

While he tried to figure out a way to get out of this, Harleen had regained a little strength and futilely tried to fight. Without thinking, the Joker took his hand off her mouth and grabbed her wrist that was closing on his throat, one of her stitched up wrists.

Throbbing pain shot up Harleen's arm, she let out a high pitched yelp, that was met by another knock on the wall. The pain didn't let subside when the Joker let go to recover her mouth. It jogged her short-term memories that had been suppressed by fear.

She brought her wrist up close to her nose and squinted at it. Stitches. In place of her carving was a row of untidy stitches.

Harleen had stopped crying and squirming; she had completely frozen up. The Joker slowly took his hand off her mouth, and the other off her wet shirt collar (the only good idea he had tonight was leaving her clothes on, how many guys could say that?). She didn't move or even notice right away. She was preoccupied trying to comprehend the state of her wrists.

The stitches shouldn't be there. Neither should the wound they were keeping closed, she hadn't meant to. But since she had in fact slit her wrists. Harleen shouldn't be here and neither should the stitches.

Her nails turned inward.

"At ta ta ta taa, don't do that." The Joker intervened. He grabbed her arm instead of her wrist. It wasn't as an effective spot but it didn't hurt her so she kept quiet.

The look she gave him could have almost been defiant, if she didn't look so lost.

Her eyes wandered back to the stitches. But she didn't touch them again.

The Joker was no shrink like Harley here, though he was good at reading people and distress was an all to common display. Maybe she would calm down if she couldn't see the stitches. The whole out of sight, out of mind concept.

"Ok you just stay here and I'll be right back."

With Harleen's thoughts scattered all over the place, it took longer then it should for the Joker's words to register. He had told her not to move, she didn't have anywhere to go. She shouldn't be here. Her mind jumped that track in order to protect her.

She was cold, she had to get out of these damp clothes. The jogging shorts she had discarded hours ago were within arms reach. Somehow she managed to slip out of her wet jeans and into them, each twist of her wrists caused them burn with pain. She grabbed the handle of her top dresser drawer, her pajama drawer, to pull it open and herself up. She succeeded in opening it, pulling the whole drawer out of the dresser.

The Joker heard the thunk, he listened intently for a few seconds. Dead silence. He didn't find any band-aids. He would have to innovate again, with paper towel and scotch tape.

Harleen had just enough time to put on a dry t-shirt before he came back into the room.

Without asking because he really didn't know how to word it, the Joker took one of her wrists and wrapped the paper towel around it, careful to avoid putting any pressure on her tender skin. When he was done, Harleen actually meekly offered her other wrist.

You've done more then enough. Now leave her self-mutilating ass.

Like the last time he didn't listen to himself.

"Easy now, doc"

The Joker put an arm around her shoulders and hooked the other one under her knees. He couldn't leave her on the floor.

Ten bucks says she starts kicking and screaming.

She didn't. Instead she did something unsettling; she wrapped her arms around him, grabbing on the back of his shirt.

Apparently Harleen would cut herself but she drew the line at being dropped.

If the Joker thought holding this woman was awkward before. Awkwardness had reached a whole new level now that she was conscious and compliant, not to mention the direct skin-on-skin contact between his arm and the back of her knees.

Thankfully it was only two steps to her bed. He put her down as nicely as he could in a rushed fashion. Harleen, however, did not want to let him go. He intertwined their fingers and broke her hold on his collar; she then refused to let go of his hand. Her grip was surprisingly strong.

If he had been dead set on leaving, the Joker could easily break Harleen's determined hold on him. He was not dead set on leaving and sat down on the edge of the bed, allowing Harleen to keep holding his hand. (There is a reason that sounds extremely bizarre, because it is extremely bizarre.)

It was one of the rare moments in the pair's history where neither of them talked.

Their feelings were mutual confusion; each one was trying figure out not only the other but also themselves.

The fresh air was holding a potential migraine at bay while the Joker tried to wrap his head around what happened on the walk back, well let's just not add anymore confusion and call it home.

He had gone over to Harley's to kill her and ended up saving her life.

The water being as cool as it was probably saved her life. The Joker tried to console himself. There was no denying he had definitely helped though. Harley had been pretty spry when she came too. His ribs were smarting from where she got him with the golf club.

He had killed for so much less then that and that fight should have triggered that murdering impulse of his. And it hadn't even crossed his mind.

That was disturbing.

The next person he laid eyes on he was going to kill.

(It had been noted a couple of times in his Arkham file, that the Joker did not deal well with frustration.)

The Joker shouldn't feel the need to prove anything to himself and feeling that need now had him seeing red.

A lady of the night stood on duty as he got in to the Narrow's.

Perfect.

He kept his focus purely on the unfortunate slut, his gait had quickened from leisurely to dead set determined. He could pretend to be a customer to get her somewhere secluded. Forgoing his makeup and usual attire this evening, the only thing that would give him away would be the scars.

Screw it he was just going to knife her where she stood without even a hello. Sure she'd scream, hell he hoped she would. This was the Narrows, no one would dare get involved, the Joker didn't need to worry about keeping her quiet like he had with –

Don't go there. He warned himself, shaking the rest of that off.

As the Joker closed in on his prey, he started to measure her up, almost literally as he noticed how big her heels were.

Did hookers always wear their patented boots to further advertise their scantily clad derrières?

That odd thought stopped him like he had run into wall. Some retarded hooker saving force field.

He tried to break the connection between the two but it only strengthened as he watched her snuff out her cigarette under her boot and run her fingers through her no doubt bleached blonde hair. Two traits that reminded him of another two cent whore (inside joke).

And this one would be spared as Harley was.

The switchblades weight in his pocket was an aggravating reminder of what the Joker had failed to do. Again. There was a diagnosis, a spine-chilling word, for his reoccurring failure to performance, impotency. Never did he think he would suffer, and he was suffering, from this dysfunction

From here on out, no matter what he heard, the Joker would not be tempted to go near her again.

There was no delicate way to say it.

Harley had fucked him up.

Despite being hung over, Harleen snapped awake quickly when she recalled the previous night.

In sober state it didn't seem like it could have actually happened. The evidence that it had was hidden under paper towel, the paper towel itself was verification that the bits and pieces she could remember and those she couldn't had really happened.

A joker playing was enclosed in her left hand, somehow she had held on to it all night. The sight of it sent a cold sense of dread down her back.

Why would he do this? She asked looking at it, before throwing it as if it was hot into the drawer in her nightstand.

Don't get her wrong, Harleen wasn't ungrateful she was alive. She hadn't wanted to die and had made the big irrational decision to do so on a hope-abandoned heart full of wine. A fatal combination if it weren't for the Joker.

That didn't make sense at all.

He wasn't her patient anymore and she was still trying to figure out the Joker's behavior. She didn't have answers to that before and this was something completely different, the polar opposite of the behavior she had tried to analyze in Arkham. Harleen wasn't going to make any headway in her state so she wasn't even going to try.

With no job, Harleen had no reason at all to get out of bed, that didn't feel as depressing as it sounded. She kept the aspirin within arms reach so on mornings like today she wouldn't have to.

Another thing in reach (barely) was Nicolas Sparks' The Lucky One. Stretching herself more then halfway out of bed, making the mistaking of using one hand to support her when her waist hung off the edge, attached to that hand was a sore wrist. Her arm buckled but Harleen snagged the book without falling and retreated back to the comfort and warmth, escaping into another world.

Her stomach growling brought her back. If only she was really was a witch and could summon food. Giggling at her foolishness, She waved her bookmark. She couldn't remember the spell, looks like Harleen had to get up.

It was the middle of the afternoon but she had skipped breakfast and the only thing she wanted to eat was mini wheat's. Of course she didn't have any.

Couldn't anything go right?

The initial burning of tears forming stung her eyes.

It was remarkable how the smallest of things could push her over the edge. Harleen hadn't known how unstable she was.

She caught her breath. She was not going to cry over cereal. She was going to go to the store.

It would do her some good to get out. She told herself, trying to deny the premonition of leaving the apartment.

Before she went out, Harleen would have to clean herself up.

Her hair was matted, her skin was pale and her arms had an unhealthy amount of blood on them. Harleen looked like a character in a horror movie. Considering a psychopath knew where she lived, Harleen could be in a horror movie.

Then again, it appeared she was in more danger in her own company than in his.

The bath water was still in the tub. Another frightening proof of last night. She pulled the plug and watched it drain away. There was oddity in the movement of the water, she reached in and scooped up a piece of glass. This diamond fragment was her strongest memory. Harleen put it in the medicine cabinet. Deranged as it was to keep it, she couldn't throw it out and she didn't have the will to try.

Harleen was dogged with glares at the grocery store.

Consciously she walked through the aisles, avoiding ones with people in them.

Unfortunately there only one till open so there was no avoiding the other patrons at the check out.

The whispers, those were the worst.

"Have a good night, Harleen?" Her neighbor, Cynthia asked her when she returned to the complex "You know some of us have to work in the morning, so if you could control the volume during your nightly escapades for the next two weeks that would be appreciated."

Cynthia didn't give her the chance to respond, Harleen was too stunned to have a response anyway.

Two weeks? Puzzled Harleen. She didn't get it until the third floor stairwell. When she did, she knew before she got to her apartment what was there waiting for her.

She was being cast out, not just by the landlord, but also by the whole city. Treated like she had some infectious disease.

Harleen was quarantined.

It wasn't just an eviction notice. It was a red X they put on her door.

Author's Note: Thank you for reading, subscribing and faving.

PorterJ, Thank you for the movie recommendation, don't worry all will be explained in time.

Not much for me to say, only things are rough for all our main characters.