"Harley! Please come down from there!" called Jervis Tetch, as he and Two-Face stood by the railings of Gotham Bridge.

"No!" shouted Harley Quinn, who had managed to climb to the top of the bridge. She stood high above them, on the ledge facing the water a good hundred feet below her. "I have nothing to come down for! This is the end of Harley Quinn! I have nothing left to live for anymore, so I might as well jump!"

"I've called Pammie – she's on her way," muttered Two-Face. "Maybe she can talk some sense into her."

"I've called Jonathan – here's hoping he can do the same," said Tetch. "Harley, please come down before the police or Batman come and we all get hauled back to Arkham!"

"They ain't hauling me back anywhere!" shouted Harley. "No cop or Bat is preventing me from jumping! And if Mr. J asks, you tell him why I jumped! Not that he'll care, because he'll be off somewhere with his new girlfriend because…because he doesn't love me!" she sobbed.

"Harley, I've been rejected in love. Please believe me, it does get better!" called up Tetch.

"Does it?" asked Two-Face.

"No, of course not, but I'm trying to talk her down!" snapped Tetch.

"Harley, if Pammie were here, I'm sure she'd say you can be perfectly happy as a strong, independent woman without any kinda man in your life!" called up Two-Face.

"Maybe Red can, Harvey, but I can't!" sobbed Harley. "I ain't as strong as her! And I can't live without my Mr. J! Even if he can live without me, the ungrateful creep! But I still love him, and without him, life's not worth living!"

"Harley, there are plenty of fish in the sea, or so they tell me!" called Tetch.

"I hate fish!" sobbed Harley. "So I don't care how many fish there are in the sea!"

"Well, if you kill yourself by jumping off a bridge, you're gonna make yourself sleep with the fishes," said Two-Face. "So if you hate fish, you'll wanna reconsider that."

"Yeah…maybe," said Harley, tentatively looking over the edge. Then she shrugged. "I'll be dead on impact, so I won't even have to deal with any fish."

"Oh my God, she's really going to jump!" exclaimed Jonathan Crane, who had arrived on the scene suddenly. "Harley, please don't! There are people who love you!"

"Mr. J doesn't!" sobbed Harley. "And he's the only one that matters!"

"Harley, I won't let you kill yourself because of some man!" shrieked Poison Ivy, who suddenly pulled up in her car. "It's insulting to feminism, and it's such a waste! You have so much to live for!"

"No, I don't!" sobbed Harley. "I brought this on myself! Mr. J's right – I was acting ungrateful! I shoulda just been his doormat as usual and done everything for him! Putting up with all that is better than feeling like this!"

"Harley, I promise you, you can be a happy, strong, independent woman without any kinda man in your life!" called Ivy.

"See? I told you she'd say that!" exclaimed Two-Face. "Do I know my not-girlfriend or what?"

"And I know it hurts now, but you'll be better off in the long run!" continued Ivy, ignoring him. "It does get better!"

"I've already told her that lie," snapped Tetch. "She saw right through it."

"Harley, you're worth so much more than the clown!" called Crane. "If he doesn't appreciate that, there are others who do!"

"Johnny, now's not the time for your love confession!" snapped Ivy. "We've gotta get her down from there!"

"What do you suggest?" asked Crane. "Should one of us climb up there?"

"No, if she thinks we're going to drag her down, that might only encourage her to jump," replied Tetch. "We have to help her come to the realization that she wants to live on her own."

"But she doesn't," pointed out Two-Face.

"Hey, just because you can't change your mind without a coin flip doesn't mean someone else can't, Harvey!" snapped Ivy. "Harley! Please just try to be reasonable…"

"I ain't reasonable!" sobbed Harley. "I'm in mad love!"

"Harley, you can't do this to your friends and the people who care about you!" shouted Crane. "We're all here because we don't want you to do this! There is something worth living for, and your friends will help you find it!"

"I'm sorry, Johnny!" replied Harley. "But I have to do what I feel is right! And this feels right to me!"

"Aw, Christ, not what we need!" hissed Two-Face, as they suddenly heard the noise of sirens and saw the flashing lights of police cars approaching the bridge.

The police cars screeched to a halt, and several policemen got out of them, staring up at the situation on the top of the bridge and looking nervously at the group of supercriminals below, while several more pulled out searchlights and lit them, shining them up at Harley. "Harleen Quinzel, this is the police!" shouted one through a megaphone. "Come down at once, and the law will be merciful!"

"Geez, you got a great way of talking people outta committing suicide!" snapped Two-Face. "What do the people of Gotham pay your salary for?"

"That's it – I'm going up there to get her!" snapped Ivy, grabbing ahold of the handholds which led to the top of the bridge. "Harley, stay right there!" she called. "Don't make a scene for the cops – that's what they want!"

"Harley, you little idiot!" shouted a voice. "Look what you've done!"

Everyone turned to see that the Joker had just arrived on the scene. He snatched the megaphone out of the hands of the police officer and raised it to his own lips. "Harley, you useless, attention-seeking waste of space, stop wasting everyone's time and get the hell down here!"

"Mr. J?" gasped Harley, hopefully. Then she frowned. "No!" she shouted, stamping her feet. "I ain't coming down, no matter how you beg me! This is the end, Mr. J, and it's all your fault!"

"It's not the end until I say it's the end, you dumb blonde!" said Joker.

"You did say it was the end!" shrieked Harley. "You kicked me out and replaced me!"

"Only because you baited me!" shouted Joker. "But I shouldn't have taken the bait! It's not meant to end like this, Harley, and I won't let you end it like this! There's no joke in suicide, and I'm not gonna let you waste yourself on an unfunny death! Now get your worthless ass down here and stop being a drama queen!"

"No!" shrieked Harley. "You deserve this for the way you've treated me, Mr. J! Maybe you'll finally miss me when I'm gone! Maybe then you'll realize how great you had it!"

"Maybe I will, but you won't be there to see it!" snapped Joker. "What's the point of teaching someone a lesson if you ain't around to watch them suffer? It's a waste of pain, and I hate wasting pain! If you just think about this for a moment, you'll realize how stupid you're being!"

"I ain't stupid!" shrieked Harley. "I won't let you think that about me, when I know everyone else already thinks it! If you came here to encourage me to jump, Mr. J, you're doing a great job!"

"So go ahead and do it, if you got the guts!" snapped Joker. "Quit drawing it out! I just think you like the attention and you ain't really serious about killing yourself! Put up or shut up, Harley!"

"Joker, that's not helping!" shouted Crane, grabbing the megaphone away from him. "Why don't you tell her something that will actually encourage her to come down?! That you love her and want her back!"

"What are you, nuts?" demanded Joker. "I ain't announcing that over a megaphone to half of Gotham!" he said, gesturing around to the crowd that had gathered on the bridge. "Anyway, talking never helps – violence, as usual, is the only answer. I'm gonna go up there and drag her down by her pigtails!" he growled. "Out of my way, Weed Lady!" he snapped, shoving Ivy off the handholds.

"You son of a bitch!" shouted Ivy. "If she jumps, you better jump too, because if you come back down here without her, I'll kill you!"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm real scared," muttered Joker, climbing up to the top of the bridge. Harley was still standing on the ledge, tears trickling down her cheeks as she sniffled, looking down into the water below.

"Harley!" snapped Joker, pulling himself up onto the ledge with her. "Come down before I have to drag you down!"

"Why?" demanded Harley, rounding on him angrily. "So I can put up with more of your crap? So I can tolerate you, the way you tolerated me?"

"Harley, I was angry, and you put me in an uncomfortable position in front of the guys!" snapped Joker. "Of course I was going to say and do something rash!"

"So it's my fault you dumped me?" demanded Harley.

"Well…yeah!" he snapped. "If you had just caved as usual, none of this would have happened!"

"You just don't get it, do you, creep?" she demanded. "You don't get why I started trying to make you jealous?"

"Of course I do!" he snapped. "I ain't an idiot! You think I don't appreciate you because I ain't fawning over you every minute of every day! You think…because I don't worship you the way you worship me, that my feelings for you ain't as deep as your feelings for me!"

"Well, they aren't!" snapped Harley. "You don't feel anything more for me than you do for anyone else! I ain't special to you, if you can replace me just like that with Janey!"

"Don't you dare tell me how I feel!" snapped Joker. "I won't have you making assumptions about me, you little brat! And if those are the kinda assumptions you make, you're a crap shrink who doesn't know me as well as you think!"

"So you're saying you do feel deeply about me?" asked Harley. "That you do love me?"

"I ain't saying nothing of the kind!" snapped Joker. "I'm just saying you need to stop assuming things about the way I feel about you! How can you possibly know when I don't even know myself? But I do know one thing – I want you around. If you jumped…I'd miss you. And not even Janey could fill the hole you left. She ain't as crazy about me as you are, not by a long shot, which is why she can't replace you. You're unique and special, and…one of a kind. That's why you're my Harley Quinn. You're the only woman in the world who could be completely crazy for a clown like me. And you don't have the right to take my Harley Quinn away from me over some stupid bust-up. So come down, come back to the hideout, and we'll talk."

Harley sniffed again. "Talk," she murmured. "Talking never does any good. You talked to me a lot back at the beginning, told me all about your pain…told me I was the only one who could understand it. I don't believe all your talk anymore, Mr. J. I think you can lie to people just as easily as tell them the truth – I think you probably don't know one from the other sometimes. I'm sick of talking. It doesn't make things better – it just makes things worse when you pile lie on top of lie. You could tell me you love me, and I wouldn't even know if that was true anymore. You could just be saying it to get me to come down, so you can walk all over me as usual. You're a smart, manipulative guy like that."

She took a step toward the edge. "I'm sorry I gotta do this, but I just don't see any other way," she whispered. "I can't trust you again, despite all your talk. You're the Joker, after all – you could say anything and not mean it. You could say you love me, and it could all be a joke."

"Harley, you step away from the edge right now!" snapped Joker.

"Goodbye, Mr. J," she whispered. "I'll always love you."

"Harley…Harley, don't you dare…Harley!" shouted Joker, as she stepped backward and plummeted off the bridge. And without thinking, without wasting a moment, Joker jumped right after her.

There were screams from below as the crowd watched them plummet together…suddenly replaced with sighs of relief when a familiar figure in black swung across the bridge, catching them before they hit the water. The crowd rushed to the railing to see Batman pulling them up with his grappling hook. He pulled himself onto the bridge and put down Joker, who had Harley clutched tightly and protectively in his arms, his body curled around her to shield her from the impact. Harley's eyes opened when she realized she hadn't hit the water, and she stared up in astonishment at Joker.

"Mr. J?" she whispered, incredulous.

"What?" he muttered.

"You…you jumped after me," she murmured. "We…we both coulda been killed, but you…jumped after me, and caught me, and...protected me. You wanted to…to sacrifice your life for mine."

"Well…no, I didn't really think about that," said Joker, hastily. "I didn't really think about anything – I mean, I knew Batsy was gonna save us before we hit the water – he's always around when you need him!" he said, beaming at Batman. "Like the great pal he is!"

"Oh, Mr. J!" shrieked Harley, throwing her arms around his neck and climbing on top of him to cover him with kisses. "You do love me!"

"Get…offa me!" gasped Joker, trying to pry her away. "Jesus, you dumb broad, can't a guy have time to recover from a near-death experience without some greedy dame pawing all over him?!"

"Say what you wanna about me, Mr. J, I know the truth!" exclaimed Harley, relentless in her kisses. "You love me! You've proved it by your actions in front of all of Gotham, and Batsy! See that, Bats?" she said, smiling triumphantly at him. "He loves me! I told you so! Who's the World's Greatest Detective now?"

"Still me," muttered Batman.

"Nah, you can't see that he loves me, and it's right in front of your pointy nose!" retorted Harley. "Red, he loves me! I told you he loves me!"

"Yeah, if only he could show that by treating you decently, rather than driving you to attempted suicide and changing his mind at the last minute," sighed Ivy.

"Well, why fix what ain't broken?" asked Harley, smiling. "And I ain't broken, thanks to Mr. J jumping after me!"

"No, I was the one who saved both of your lives," said Batman. "Without me, you would have both plummeted to your death."

"At least we would have died together!" purred Harley. "And ain't that just the most romantic death in the world, Mr. J?"

"I hope not, because that's what I've got planned for Bats and me!" chuckled Joker. "Don't want people talking!"

"Well, they won't after you've proved your love for me like this," sighed Harley. "Where are all the reporters?" she asked, looking around. "This is front page news stuff!"

"Actually, suicide attempts aren't front page news in Gotham," said Batman. "Not even for supercriminals. Anyway, I suspect the reporters are off covering the mayoral debates. They're taking place in City Hall tonight."

"Are they?" asked Joker, interested. He grinned at Harley. "Fancy a little make-up murder to get us in the mood, Harley girl?"

"Politician murder? You bet!" exclaimed Harley. "That's my favorite!"

"Nobody is murdering anyone!" snapped Batman. "I'm here, and the police are here, and we're all taking you back to Arkham!"

"Okay, Bats," sighed Joker. He shared a grin with Harley. "But the night is still young, after all."