A/N: Not much to say except dear god orientation is exhausting and I can't believe I found time to write this...Please R&R! =D

The Golden Child

In the darkness, they shone, golden and compelling. In the silence, their voices were upraised in lyrical song. In the stillness, their voices called like silvery bells, and he was captivated…

Brian woke with a groan. His head felt tinny and hollow. He was no longer bound or restrained, but lying in a bed.

"Are you all right, Father?" said an earnest voice, and he rolled over and looked into a face out of Gotham's worst nightmares. The bright green hair over a shockingly white face and crimson lips made Brian start back with a low exclamation.

Serpent, something whispered in the back of his mind, but the voice was informatory, not cautionary. The Joker—whose face he instantly recognized from God knew how many newspapers—was looking at him with a very human expression of confusion. "I'm sorry, Father," he said contritely. "I didn't mean to startle you. I'm a little confused."

"Of course," Brian said, sitting up cautiously. He recognized the basement of the church, but there was now a bed in it (which he was lying on), and the extra prayerbooks that were normally kept down here had disappeared. "I'm…" he chose his words carefully. "…I'm a little confused myself. I don't think that we've met?"

"Sorry about that," the Joker said. "I'm Jack Conrad." He held out a tentative hand, which Brian, just as tentatively, took.

"Father Brian Young."

"Looks like we're in a church," the other man said with a laugh. "You know it?"

"I…am not sure," Brian said carefully.

"I sure don't." 'Jack' stretched. "I'm worried. I was with my wife—and then—I can't really remember. I don't usually have blackouts like this; I'm pretty sure I haven't been drinking."

"Your wife?"

"Harley. Well, Harleen. Everybody calls her Harley, though."

Brian had seen Harleen Quinzel once. She had come in to light a candle for a friend who was going through a rough time. She had been a tall, blonde woman with round glasses and a tiny, hidden smirk. Later he had seen her name crop up in the papers occasionally.

Jack covered his face with hands. "She's so beautiful. I'm—I'm so worried about her. There was an accident. She had a miscarriage. They promised me she'd be all right, but her face was burned and she broke her arm, and—" He put his hands to his head. "My head hurts. They said she'd be all right. They said she'd be…giving birth. They said they'd help me make her whole again."

"Who did?" Brian asked gently.

We did, Adam. The voices chimed sweetly inside his head, like a choir of one thousand angels. It was like standing in the center of an organ as it was played. Brian clutched at his head in pain. Do not fear us, Adam. You are part of God's plan.

"Yes…I—who are you?"

Golden light filled his mind and his thoughts, burning searingly through him. You will come to know us, Adam. You are part of the great plan. You will participate in the cleansing of Eve.

A vision of the earth, glowing bright and golden beneath the powerful light of the sun, came to Brian. Men walked the earth, and the trees stretched out and bore fruit for them, and they halted and ate and the taste of the earth was good. Women walked the earth and they lay beneath man as was intended, and they were clean and shot through with the golden light that pervaded everything—

And then it was gone. Brian gasped. His arms and legs were trembling, and there was sweat dripping down his forehead. He was kneeling on the floor, his knees aching in pain and cold.

"You're awake!" Jack came over and crouched beside him. "You were just kneeling there for—I don't even know how long. Are you okay?"

Brian tried to answer, but had to gasp for breath. The experience had been exquisite, and also exquisitely painful. He tried to get his mind to tell him what had just happened, but it was already slipping away. He staggered to his feet, tripped, and would have fallen back down if Jack hadn't slipped a shoulder under his arm and caught him. "Careful there! You'd better sit down!"

"Thank you," Brian gasped, as he was settled onto the bed.

"Sure. I think maybe something like that happened to me too. Like I said, I feel like I've been having these—blackouts. Do you think there's a virus or something? Maybe an encephalitis…I was reading something about them last weekend…Do you think they've quarantined us here? But they said she'd be giving birth." He began to wring his hands absentmindedly. "I've got to find my wife."

"I'm afraid that we can't leave," Brian said and wondered why he thought that. They weren't ready to leave yet. That had to be it. Why did his thoughts feel so muzzy? He had a headache…

Screams lanced through the air—a woman's voice. Jack started upright. "That's Harley! Oh god, what's wrong?" He ran to the door and rattled unsuccessfully at the lock. The screaming got closer, and suddenly the door opened. A tall man with dark hair holding a screaming, thrashing woman stepped in, deposited her on her feet, and stepped out again. Her legs crumpled beneath her, and she fell to the ground. Brian heard the key turn in the lock before he had a chance to leave.

"Harley!" Jack cried, jumping to her side.

"Mistah J!" the blonde woman panted, then screamed again. "Ow! Ow! Owwwww! I don't wanna have a baby! It HURTS!"

"What are you doing here?" Jack asked. "Why aren't you in a hospital?"

"Because Hush is an asshat! I don't know why they wanted me here!"

"They want the child born on holy ground," Brian said and wondered what had made him say it.

"I don't understand…" Jack murmured. "Harley, honey, can you make it to the bed?"

"NO!" the woman shrieked. "I'M IN LABOR!"

"Yes, Harls, I can tell," Jack said patiently. "I don't think I can lift you, though."

Harley looked up with a blotchy, tear-stained face. "Oh, Mistah J," she said breathlessly. "I'm too young to die!"

"You're not going to die, Harley," Jack said, looking helplessly at Brian, who got totteringly up from the bed and came over.

"I think the two of us working together can get you to the bed, Eve—I'm sorry. Harley, right?"

The look on her face turned from pained to stricken as he spoke, and she shrank back into the corner. "I'm Harley," she moaned. "Harley! Harleen Quinzel! Stay away from me!"

"Harley…" Jack bent over her. "It's gonna be okay."

She looked up at him, frantically, letting out a little, gasping, pained cry, then gulped. "You're workin' with them, aren't you, Mistah J? You ain't acting like my Mistah J…"

"Harley!" Brian could see the naked shock and pain in the man's face as he knelt in front of the woman he called his wife. He took her face in his hands, and Brian looked away at the gentle intimacy of the gesture. He heard the sound of a soft, chaste kiss, and then Jack spoke, his words tumbling over each other with eagerness.

"I know I haven't always been great to you, Harls. I know that. I'm sorry for everything, but I love you. You gotta believe that."

She sniffled loudly. "Ya mean that, Mistah J?"

"Of course I do."

"Okay. Just don't start callin' me Eve, okay?"

"Of course, Harley." Brian looked back. Jack had gathered her into his arms. "Listen, kid, I gotta get you over to the bed, and Brian's gonna help, okay?"

She shook her head mutely, and to his shock, Brian saw that her lips were bleeding, bitten and raw. She gave another gasp of pain, her hands flying to her stomach, and she moaned.

"Please, kid. I promise he won't hurt you."

Harley still looked fearful, but as pained tears squeezed out of her again, she nodded uncertainly. Brian approached as carefully as he could and tried to alleviate the tension by speaking calmly, as he might approach a stray cat—as he had approached Selina Kyle some few nights before. "I'm just going to help your husband carry you over to the bed, Miss—Harley?" He just stopped himself from saying Quinzel, glancing at Jack as he did so, but if the other had noticed what he might consider a slip of the tongue, he said nothing.

"I think you came into this church once," he continued, as he put a careful arm beneath her shoulder to support her. "You lit a candle for someone. Are you Catholic?"

Between the two of them, they got her into a standing position, at which point, she yelped and started crying in pain again, but answered him, gulping for breath every other word. "Ah! Ow! Ouch! No—I—my dad was Catholic. My mom's Jewish, though, so really I'm Jewish too, I guess. I went to Hebrew school for a while when I was a kid. Owie!" She screamed in real pain again as they tried to get her to the bed. "I can't—agh—I can't control my legs!" she sobbed. Jack was having trouble supporting her from his side, as her arm was bandaged and bound up in a sling.

Somehow, though, together, they got her up and onto the bed as she screamed and sobbed with pain.

"There." Jack knelt beside her, taking her hand in his. "You're gonna be fine, baby-doll."

She screamed again, and Brian saw Jack wince as her nails dug into his hand, but he used his other hand to stroke her hair back from her face. "Hey? Kiddo, it's gonna be fine."

"I'M HAVING A BABY!" she screamed.

"Yeah, can't argue with that."

Brian pursed his lips together. "I'll see if I can get someone to…to…"

Eve's child will cleanse her. If she survives, she may see the new world ushered in. If she does not, there will be more to take her place. The words burned through his mouth and throat with crackling, fiery beauty. He coughed, putting his hands to his throat. "I'm sorry," he rasped. "I don't know what—"

He didn't have a chance to finish before he was pinned to the wall, Jack's thin, long fingers anchored around his throat. "What did you say?" the other man shouted. The fingers flexed, and darkness burst in front of Brian's eyes. A tinny roaring started up in Brian's ears, and the voices chimed painfully through his head again. Adam is important, Serpent. We must not quarrel.

And he was on the ground, massaging his now even-more-painful neck, as Jack looked down at him with a strange expression on his face.

"I'm sorry," he said abruptly. "I don't know know what came over—I'm sorry."

He rushed back to Harley's side.

"I'll see if I can get someone to bring us some supplies or—call the hospital," Brian rasped in a barely audible whisper.

Hammering on the door brought no response, and eventually, he was forced to give up. Jack sat beside Harley, soothing her as best he could as she screamed. The minutes stretched into long hours of solitude, until Brian began to wonder just how long it would be before somebody came. He was vaguely aware that he wasn't aware all the time, but it wasn't sleep that captured his consciousness.

He had the strangest feeling of being enveloped in a golden glow, and at one point, he fell into a deep stupor, until Jack yelled, "I can see the head. Come on, kid, push! You can do this!"

And Harley, with a grunt, screamed, "No I can't! I CAN'T! OW IT HURTS! MISTAH J, MAKE IT STOOOOOP!"

"Just a little longer, hon, you're doing fine. Father—please—"

Brian dragged himself to his feet and over to the bed, where golden light was spilling from somewhere between the woman's legs.

"What in the name of heaven—" he gasped.

"I don't know, Father," Jack said grimly. "All I know is she's my wife and that's my kid."

Harley screamed and gasped, her body and face contorting, and for a long moment, the light was blinding. As the green afterimages began to clear from Brian's vision, he saw that Harley was now sobbing quietly to herself and Jack held in his arms a baby with skin like glass filled with clear yellow light. It made no noise but turned its large, pupil-less eyes on Brian and opened at its back, a pair of wide, angelic wings. Something about them seemed off, and it took Brian's confused brain a moment to recognize that it was the fact that they were fleshly outlines, devoid of feathers or any recognizable texture other than the texture of its skin.