GAAAAAHH!

FINALLY, RIGHT!

Sorry this took SOOOOO long. I've had a very VERY busy week and inspiration was like ZERO. So some of this may be a little forced but... No, actually, I think it's pretty good.

I listened a lot to This Celluloid Dream by AFI. Not perfect but... It has that FEELING, you know?

Thank you SO MUCH for reviews and favs! I love you all! To those who criticized... Thank you very much. Your input was very helpful and I REALLY am working on the things that are a bit weird (especially old Mr. J's character.)

Someone asked how long it took me to think up the name Jesster... Not long, pal. Not long. Why do you think I named her Jess in the first place?

This chapter'll hopefully give a hint to a deeper facet of the Joker... and a bit of the crazies as well... :D

Love you all! REVIEWS, PLEASE! THEY MAKE ME WANT TO WRIIIIIIIIITE!

The Joker pushed his way into the room once Jess had opened the door a crack, followed quickly by the two other members of the Lucky Twenty. She lingered, unsure of herself, by the door. The thought of escape came and flew so quickly she hardly recognized it; but there was no time to decide what this meant before Billy slung an arm over her shoulder and whispered a "Great job, Jess," in her ear.

She smiled tightly, glancing warily at the Joker who was bent over the desk by the window, a small vial of clear fluid in his hand. Dexterously sliding open the lowest drawer, he withdrew a bottle of some kind of light brown alcohol, she thought probably whisky, unscrewed the top and sniffed its contents. He raised the vial in his hand.

Jess frowned, not quite understanding what he was doing.

She was distracted when Billy suddenly kissed her cheek. Inhaling sharply, she turned to look at him with bemusement. He grinned at her cheekily.

"I'm proud of you," he whispered.

"Why?"

"You're doing this," he said. "It really feels like you're on our side. And you're handling it all really well."

Jess opened her mouth, trying to find the words; trying to decide if she wanted to tell him that, no, of course she wasn't with them, she was only doing this to stay alive; or maybe tell him that the Lucky Twenty was all she had in this place, and wherever they went, she would go, too. Even if they were following a psychopathic clown.

But she stayed silent. Truth be told, she wasn't so sure of her convictions anymore. This was wrong. And she wasn't condoning it. But being alone here seemed so much worse than breaking into a building to do… whatever they were doing.

Frowning a little, Jess turned back to the Joker, straining to recognize what he was up to. But he had straightened from the desk, the bottle had disappeared and the little vial seemed to have retreated back up his sleeve. He looked up darkly and nodded towards the door, indicating that they should lead the way out.

The group rushed silently down hall after hall, the Joker fronting the charge with that oddly hunched walk of his, the swishing of their clothes the only sound to break the stillness and shadows.

Jess, scurrying along just behind the Joker, couldn't help but remember that there were still security guards in the building – probably very armed security guards. She clutched the sleeve of Billy's dark jacket and took comfort in the fact that, if they were discovered, the guards' priority would be to put a bullet between the Joker's eyes, not the eyes of the cowering blond girl in the corner. If they were found she, at least, might be safe.

Losing Billy, though…

She didn't know if she'd be able to cope. Billy was her rock in all of this; no matter where his loyalties were or how much he was willing to do for the boss, he had never been anything to her but the Billy she knew. He still managed to make her smile, dry her tears, and help her feel more at home. There was a deep kindness in him that shone through the darkest night, and she admired and adored him for it.

The Joker took a sharp, sudden turn around a corner and Jess had to stop and retrace her steps when she realized the new direction in which they were headed. The Harlequin of Hate wasn't speaking much tonight, and every time she looked at his face he was frowning, concentrated, a little pensive. It was strange, as his mood had been so whimsical earlier. His disposition had, at the drop of a hat, altered drastically. She guessed it might be simply because he was "in the zone" as it was; otherwise, there seemed to be no catalyst for the change.

In the silence, as they made their escape, Jess heard the Joker muttering lowly to himself. Interested, she left Billy to hurry to his side, though he neglected to even spare her a glance. His eyes were removed from this world, narrowed and intense, his mouth set in a sneer, and he was whispering, apparently to no one; whispering words she could scarcely understand. A few seemed to be coming out in a foreign language… French, maybe? She heard only a little of what he said:

"No, but they don't get it, yet… See? We have the… It's not over… Lost? ... No… When we get to the court we'll put it… and then to the monkeys… je pense que… Yeah. Yeah, and when she's dead… We'll have it… il n'a presque pas... We just have to make sure..."

Jess was utterly engrossed in staring at him, wondering what he was saying—what he was thinking—that she forgot to look where she was going.

Her toe suddenly snagged the carpet and she tripped forward, flailing. The Joker's arm was out in a flash and she crashed against it, but he tightened his muscles to keep her from going down. She regained her balance as quickly as she could, unable to help the gasp that escaped from her mouth, but the Joker's next movements were too rapid to register. He turned, ripped his arm away from her gripping fingers and grabbed her shoulders roughly, pushing her back into the wall.

The group stopped. The men stood frozen, not wanting to interfere, as that course of action could easily turn out badly for all of them. Silence stretched on for a long time.

The Joker, fire in his eyes, stared angrily at Jess, the knife which had suddenly appeared in his hand pressed roughly against her cheek. It was like she had woken him from a dream when she'd tripped, but his reflexes to catch and then trap her were rather impeccable. After a moment, the Joker growled lowly and stepped away, running a hand through his greasy hair.

"Expendable…" he said.

Jess couldn't be sure if this was a continuation of his self-conversation from earlier or a warning to her personally.

"Sorry," she whispered, fear growing in her chest as he continued to stare murderously at her. The Joker's dark eyes were still intense, angered, but something told her that her tripping wasn't the only reason for his foul mood.

"Careful, Jesster," he warned. "You can't make mistakes like that if you wanna survive…"

The hand that still pinned her shoulder to the wall drummed its fingers rapidly for a moment, then he let her go and continued on as though nothing had happened. Jess stood there for a moment, breathing heavily, and turned to catch up, heart pounding like it always did when the Joker turned his attention to her.

She fell into step just behind him again, glancing sheepishly at Billy, who graced her with a bracing smile.

Then a noise from the Joker distracted her. She heard him whisper one last thing before they reached the door at the end of the hall.

"You say so… but listen. Is she?... Of course she is…"

The cold night air ripped through Jess's lungs, burning like a flame, and her heart pounded with exhilaration as she sprinted down the road towards the vans. Cars went by in a blur of lights and squealing wheels, and she dizzily felt her own hair whipping her in the face. Only Billy's jacket, a corner of which she held tightly in her hand, was constant as he helped to pull her into a more rapid pace.

It had all happened so fast.

After the Joker had finished his business in the courthouse—he'd stuck a playing card into the center of a certain folder sitting on the desk in the office at the end of the hall—they'd made their hasty yet stealthy escape, weaving back through the labyrinth of corridors and out the way they had come with not even one security scare. Jess was relieved but a little skeptical of just how poorly Gotham's legal houses were kept protected. It was like they had been asking for a break in.

Billy had explained in the van on the way to the news station that doubtless the mob had something to do with the lack of security that night. Maroni's men had infiltrated almost every possible department of Gotham's law and police division, so it wouldn't have been too difficult to clear that area of the building that night.

Their next destination was on the other side of town – a little news station a few side-streets away from the main arterial. As a precaution, the vans were parked two blocks away from the building and they walked to it, Blake and Tim once again waiting behind to stand guard.

They'd gone to the front doors, Jess pulling her hood up in case there were any security cameras out there. The Joker had pulled a blank VHS tape, the likes of which you hardly saw anymore, from his jacket. He'd dropped it carelessly into a plastic bag, threw in a joker card, and tied on a note in classic ransom letters, cut out from a newspaper.

No one said the Joker didn't like to do things the good old fashioned way.

Jess didn't get chance to read what his note said before he'd tucked it all up and set it on the mat in front of the door, muttering "Just in case." She'd been curious, but she wasn't sure she wanted to know what was on that tape or why he wanted the news station to have it.

The Joker had turned around and smiled at the three of them, then shrugged and started to lead the way back to the vans.

As they had passed an alley to their left, a sudden whooshing sound had been heard, followed by a loud crash as something slammed into the lid of a dumpster only ten yards from where they stood... something that had just dropped from the rooftop above. The Joker had stopped on a dime. Tilting his head, he looked curiously down the dark lane.

There was silence for a moment, and then Jess had gasped as the thing crumpled on the bent dumpster lid started to moan. A person!

A person had fallen, or been thrown, from the roof onto a dumpster.

As one, the group raised their eyes to the building above, where a dark shape stood, looking down pensively on the man he had just tossed casually off a roof. He was masked and cloaked and simply enormous, at least six foot five, completely rock-solid.

Jess could tell even at this distance who he was. She felt her heart leap and her breath quicken.

There was no mistaking it: this was the Batman! She gazed at him, trying to pick out his specific features but finding it difficult given the distance and the darkness. He didn't seem aware of them. He stayed utterly still, apart from lifting his chin a little and gazing off across the rooftops of Gotham. Jess's breath had left her.

Not more than a few seconds had passed but Jess had felt as though time slowed down to give her years to look at him. It was utterly surreal.

The Joker broke the spell, of course, by letting out a delighted giggle and taking off down the street, whooping in exhilaration as he did so. The rest of the gang had immediately started after him, leaving Jess behind to continue staring at the pensive masked crusader on the rooftop. He'd obviously not noticed them or he would've moved. After only a second, Billy was back, grabbing Jess by the wrist and pulling her down the street.

And so here they were, running as fast as they could towards the vans at the end of the block. Jess couldn't help shooting bewildered glances over her shoulder towards where she'd seen her very first real-live super hero, wondering if, hoping that he'd follow them. But he didn't. They had done nothing to attract his attention, after all, besides the Joker's whoops of ecstasy as they started to race away.

But of course, how could Batman have known that the man whose laughter carried down the streets of Gotham that night would very soon become his arch nemesis?

It was all greatly exciting!

They reached the vans quickly. Billy jumped in the driver's side and Jess climbed into the passenger seat, but was immediately pushed towards the middle by someone behind her. Looking to her right she saw, much to her chagrin, that the Joker had chosen to ride in their van this time. He now sat in the passenger's seat and Jess was squished between the two men, on one side smelling Billy's deodorant, on the other the strange, masculine, indefinable scent of the Joker.

He was still grinning ear to ear as Billy sped off down the streets and his hands, resting on his legs, drummed random, agitated sequences. He was once again in a whimsical mood.

"Did you see how far the Bat let Dumpster Boy fall?" the Joker intoned giddily, his voice jumping up and down between octaves. Billy laughed and nodded. "Ruthless," the Joker said, a little growl to the word as he grinned at the passing buildings outside. "Juuuust ruthless."

"You itchin' for a fight with him, sir?" Billy asked, with way more bravado than Jess could have possibly conjured. The men were scared of him, but they were infinitely more comfortable in his presence than she was. Billy's tone was almost casual, but his nuances were guarded and reverent.

"Sure," the Joker hissed, running a hand through his hair. "Sure I am. You can't have victory without opposition. I wanna see how far he can stretch before he breaks."

Jess clenched her fists tightly. Batman was her favorite hero. She realized she probably knew more about him than the Joker did himself. That was a little ironic, seeing how important the two were to each other. But here was this crazy guy talking about how he'd like to torture and kill the most honorable person in the city, probably one of the few last good heroes in the world of comic books!

"That's hideous," Jess muttered, stiffening as soon as the words left her mouth.

She'd meant for it to be a harmless thought, but somehow her tongue had formed the words. Once realization struck, she turned slowly, fearfully, to the Joker.

A sneer painted his features but he didn't look at her; he just watched the street outside. Once again, his dark, deep eyes grew so intense it was a wonder they didn't glow. This, she was coming to realize, was the Joker at his most dangerous, his most unpredictable.

When he went back into his head like that, you never knew what he would do.

And she, Jess grasped with a jolt, had been the one to force him into that mood this time.

"Y'think so?" he asked after a second, his voice high, almost breaking.

He still wouldn't look at her, but his hand moved over to rest on her knee. She didn't dare attempt to shake him off, and his fingers began to clench, harder and harder, until the pressure he was exerting actually began to hurt. She gasped and bit her lip to keep from making any sounds as his long fingers gripped her knee hard, like he had this huge rage in him but he was forcing himself to release it in increments, finger by finger. His nails dug into her flesh.

She suddenly thought, absurdly relieved, that he was so annoyed with her that he'd never ask her to come with them on a job again.

She closed her eyes as his knuckles went white with the amount of force he was exerting on her knee. It wasn't even that it really hurt that badly. The thing that scared he was what he'd do when the van stopped. She'd finally done it. She'd made him snap. She wondered what irritated him most: that she was resisting him or if she'd unknowingly said something that struck him as personal. Whatever it was, she'd made a mistake in voicing her opinion and she knew he'd probably kill her when they got back to the theater.

That thought brought tears to her eyes, and they escaped past her eyelids, down her cheeks. This man would be the end of her. She understood that now in a way she hadn't before.

Suddenly, the Joker's hand had retreated. Her eyes flew open and she looked over to find him staring at her with an incredibly bemused expression on his face, as though he couldn't even begin to work out what was going through her head. She'd never seen him wear an expression like this. It was akin to the one she wore when she looked at him.

It only lasted a moment. When he noticed he'd gotten her attention, he immediately cleared himself and smiled maliciously. But the look was enough to tell Jess that she wasn't going to die tonight. Somehow, she knew that by interesting him she had secured her own safety.

Jess felt so relieved that, without realizing it, she smiled back. This threw the Joker off guard once more, if only for a second, and he looked away and sat back in his seat, chuckling lowly to himself.

"Jesster, Jesster, Jesster," he said. "Not as easy as I thought."

Jess wasn't sure what to make of that, but she knew enough not to ask him any questions. She sat in silence the rest of the way back to the theater.

The night was over. She'd survived her first criminal outing.

And, looking back on it now…

She realized she'd sort of enjoyed some of it.

Funny.