A/N: Thanks to all of the people mentioned in previous chapters as well as DarkFoxPristess, moloko.plus, applegate17, Passionate-HighFive, tigerlvr94 and FoxDemon303. You're all amazing!

Disclaimer: I still do not own any Batman characters. I own Jessica Wayne, any original characters and the plot.

Pain; that was the first word that came to my head as I slowly came back into consciousness. I opened my eyes and allowed them to adjust to the dim light that filled the room. I looked around at my surroundings. I was laying in a king sized bed with a soft, navy blue comforter and cotton sheets covering me. It looked it was the master bedroom due to the size. There was a beautiful, expensive looking Tiffany lamp letting off a soft glow. A large television displaying a muted news station was a few feet in front of the bed.

Before I was able to absorb the rest of the spacious room, a door opened to my right. Angela was standing in the doorway with an unreadable expression. She stared at me for a few more seconds before closing the door and walking over to the bed.

"Look, I don't know what you were trying to pull last night, but I don't need your help with anything," she said matter-of-factly. She crossed her arms in defiance as she waited for my response.

I stared at her in genuine confusion. "What?"

She rolled her eyes. "I'll give you a minute to gather your thoughts," she said sarcastically as she sat down on the side of the bed.

Memories from last night slowly started to come back to me; everything from defending Angela to blacking out. My leg…

I grabbed the covers and hurled them to the right to reveal my thigh. There was a crimson stained bandage wrap covering my thigh. My head started to pound as I wondered what damage rested beneath it.

"Consider that my returned favor," I heard Angela say.

I looked up at her. "You did this?" I asked in complete disbelief as I indicated the bandage. That was very un-Angela like.

"Don't mention it," she said and looked up from her nails which she'd been staring at intently. "I just have one question," she said with slightly narrowed eyes.

I simply nodded in response.

"Why did you yell at J to get away from me last night? It's not like we're friends. We don't even like each other." She sounded more curious than annoyed for once.

I looked down at my hands and thought back to the way I felt while the Joker was hurting her. The look of love and devotion that adorned her face while enduring the beating without a sound haunted my mind.

"I guess I couldn't stand to see him hurt you like that when I know how much you…love him. I don't mean this in a harsh way, but it was sad to see," I explained to her truthfully. I looked up cautiously to see her reaction and saw she was wearing a blank expression. I thought for sure she was going to either yell or laugh in my face. To my surprise, she did neither.

Instead, she let out a sigh and started explaining it from her point of view. "He doesn't mean to get angry with me like that. I blatantly disobeyed an order. It was nothing harmful or cruel," she said, sounding like she honestly believed those words. It also seemed like she'd used that excuse more than once in her lifetime.

I decided to take advantage of her vulnerable state and talk some sense into her. "Not harmful? Look, I know you care about him, but no one deserves to be treated-"

"Just but out, okay?" she said angrily and met my eyes again. "I don't need a little therapy session from a Dr. Phil wannabe teenager."

I sighed in frustration, but nodded none-the-less. I still needed some answers of my own. Hopefully she wouldn't go back to her hostile ways until after I got them.

After a moment of awkward silence I asked, "Whose house is this?"

"It was my parent's place," she said with a smirk.

"Was?" That meant they were gone in one way or another. The smirk on her face made it hard to distinguish if that was a permanent gone or not.

"Yeah. When I told J about it, he decided to come and finish the bastards off so we could use this place as a hide-out."

My mouth dropped. "And you let him do that?" I asked in both shock and anger. How could someone let a psychopath kill their parents?!

"Duh. Look kid, my parents were scum. They kicked me out when I was sixteen, because I told them I didn't wanna go to college. J was gracious enough to let me join the crew when I was on the streets without any money or anyone. Not like this is any of your business," she said and stood up. "We're even now, alright? End of story." With that she walked out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

That definitely could have gone a bit better. I looked back down at my leg; am I stable enough to look at what's under there and not pass out again? I seemed to be very good at that lately.

The pounding in my head subsided and, while my heart was racing, I felt strong and confident enough that I would be able to stay conscious through this one.

I took the end of the bandage and started to undo it. When it was fully off I let out a horrified gasp. There was a large 'J' carved into my flesh. A little bit of blood was still coming out of it at certain places and it looked a little infected. Thank God Angela had treated it after it had happened, otherwise, it would look a lot worse than this.

With one last gaze at the damage, I covered my thigh back up with the blood-soaked fabric.

I let out a shaky breath as the door opened yet again. I expected to see Angela again, but, instead, saw a shy looking Nick with a blue ice-pack in his hand.

"I brought this for your cheek," he said quietly, his face a slight shade of pink.

As he said it, a pain filled the left side of my face. I'd been so focused on my leg and Angela I hadn't even noticed the place the Joker had punched me the previous night.

I smiled lightly at him as he walked over and sat down on the edge of the bed. He handed me the ice-pack and I looked down at it in my hands.

"I'm sorry," I confessed softly, but loud enough for him to hear.

"For what?" he asked in confusion. I looked up and saw him looking at me curiously.

"For running away last time and making you take the fall for it," I replied sadly. The look on his face had been engraved in my mind since I'd turned away from the window at Tyler's place. After all, this was a boy no more than a year older than me and he was already in ranks with the biggest criminal in Gotham.

"Oh," he said with a shrug. "Don't worry about that…Can I tell you something?"

"Sure, anything," I said, remembering I'd considered him a trusted ally that day in the van.

"I…um…I actually wanted you to get away. I made sure the back door was unlocked before we got in that day. I knew you were smart enough to figure it out," he revealed to me.

I stared at him for a few more seconds, a mix of guilt and gratitude filling up inside of me for this person. "Wow, Nick. That's…wow. Thank you," I said genuinely. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to actually stay away, though," I said sadly. This statement was followed by a few minutes of silence. Unlike the silence with Angela, though, this was a comfortable silence

"Here," Nick said. He lifted up the ice-pack and set it against my cheek. I flinched back involuntarily with a hiss at the harshness of the cold. One of Nick's hands wrapped around the back of my head gently as the other held the ice-pack on my face.

I felt a sense of wariness as I stared into his eyes which were so close to my own now. He was, after all, technically one of my captors. He did let me go last time, though…

I was about to pull away from him when I heard the door open and slam against the wall. I looked over and saw the Joker towering in the doorway, his back slightly hunched. He was smiling widely with a deadly look in his eye.

"Look what we have here," he said menacingly.

Before I knew it he'd sped quickly towards the bed and picked Nick up by his collar.

"What did I tell you? HUH?! I gave you your chance," he said and threw him down on the ground. He flicked the blade up on his knife and headed for the terrified boy on the ground.

"NO!" I yelled and grabbed the back of the Joker's purple coat. I scurried out of the bed as quickly as I could, my thigh protesting painfully the whole time. I limped as quickly as I could to stand in between the Joker and Nick.

"Please, don't. He didn't do anything wrong," I said pleadingly, tears filling my eyes. I would probably die a lot faster without the one person here who was on my side.

The Joker pushed me out of the way without a second glance and I fell on the floor. I gripped my right wrist which felt sprained now.

"I'm sorry, boss. I just gave her an ice-pack for her face. I swear, boss. That's all I was doin'," Nick said hurriedly.

He continued to stare down at him. I silently prayed he would show him mercy, but even I knew the Joker showed no one mercy. He was a cold blooded killer without rhyme or reason.

The Joker bent down and grasped Nick's face roughly. "You're lucky I'm feeling so jolly right now," he told him. "But you know I will kill you if you touch one of my belongings ever again," he warned.

Did he just refer to me as his 'belonging'?

He stood up and turned to face me. "Don't you look beautiful," he said before laughing inhumanly. I glared up at him from where I was sitting on the ground, still holding my hurt wrist.

"Leave," he said to Angela and Nick, though he was still staring at me.

The two stepped out slowly, both looking back in the room one last time before they shut the door obediently. "Ah, now it's just you and me," he said and started walking towards me.

I felt more and more fear overtake my body with every step he took. Nothing good ever came from us being alone together; nothing.

Gotham Police Department

The reporters were clicking away madly at their cameras, flashes of light going everywhere.

"Mr. Wayne? Mr. Wayne?"

"How do you feel now that your goddaughter's been taken a second time?"

"Is there any lead yet on why she's a target?"

"Has Batman shown any cooperation in the case?"

Bruce Wayne moved through the crowd of reporters as quickly as he could. When he got into the building he walked up the stairs towards Gordon's office with a determined stance. He hadn't bothered to call; the information he'd retrieved just hours before was much too important to wait.

He opened the door to the office and saw Gordon on the phone.

"I'll have to call you back Mayor," he said before hanging up the phone.

"What have you got there?" Gordon asked as he stood up and walked over to him. Bruce had a manila envelope in his hands.

"I found this at the warehouse in the 57th street alleyway," he said urgently, a look of frustration on his face.

"The Joker's former hideout," Gordon said more to himself than to his companion.

Bruce nodded and walked over to the detective's desk where he emptied the contents of the envelope.

Gordon walked over to look at the papers. His eyes bulged out in shock. "What? How?" he asked in disbelief as he picked up one of the many documents.

Bruce shook his head. "I don't know. I'm leaving today to figure out how this stuff got in his hands," he said angrily.

The detective put down the document he had in his hand and selected another one. "You know what this tells us, don't you?" he asked him softly.

Bruce nodded, though he wished it wasn't true. "The motive."