AN: Well, gang, here we are. The conclusion of a long, angsty, and hopefully enjoyable ride. Thanks everyone for the continued support and wonderful reviews. It's been fun! And do let me know if you want to see the Harley Quinn story; it'll be uploading on LJ very soon.

11

"Well?"

It was mid-morning the day after my last meeting with The Joker. The two fugitives had been found on the street corner I'd named, at dawn just as I'd predicted, but The Joker was still at large. The deed earned me another portion of Gotham's trust, but not all.

The excuse I'd given them was blackmail. I knew so many of The Joker's secrets, the real ones that he did not want told, it wasn't hard to make them believe that he was forced to bend to my will. I knew secrets about everyone. They still feared me, but they gave me my chance.

I didn't sleep. I was in the library again, by the window, when Bruce put the question to me. I glanced at him, and knew he hadn't slept either. His alter ego had been hard at work getting Geoffrey Mason and Colin Wittrock to safety some hours ago.

"He doesn't know," I said. "To him, you're just another of Batman's mysterious, high-profile allies. No more of a threat than Gordon. Less of a threat than Gordon, actually," I added with a giggle.

He nodded. "Good. Thank you."

"Thank you for not attempting to stop me."

He tensed and cleared his throat. "You're not still—"

"Yes, I am still in love with him. What I did last night was one of the most agonizingly difficult things I have ever had to face."

"But he lied to you, he tried to kill you!"

"Bruce, have you ever lied to someone who loves you?"

He glared at me, then gave me a shaky half-smile. "All right," he said. "Point taken. Actually," he sat down in a leather chair across from me, his tone shifting, "I wanted to ask you something. When you . . . go on to your next life, do you see people? I mean the—"

"I cannot take a message to Rachel for you," I said, sensing the direction his thoughts were taking. "Even if I could, is that what you'd really want? No – I will not disrupt her peace. And neither should you." I reached out and put my hand on his arm. "It's time to let her go, Bruce. For your own sake."

He sighed. "Right. But thanks, all the same."

I smiled. "You were right, by the way. Some men can change. I won't assume otherwise again." I stood up. "Thank you for being so kind to me. I'm glad to have known you, Bruce Wayne."

He nodded slowly; I was glad he could sense what I could not say aloud. "Take care of yourself, Porphyria," he said.

"You do the same." I pressed my hand to his shoulder as I passed. I did not look back.

I wondered which way was harder. Leaving a sweetheart behind by choice, or having them taken from you by death or circumstance. I'd experienced both, in my own way. The pain of the most recent loss was always the most poignant. Still, there had been none quite like The Joker. I hated hurting him, but he would survive. He would forget me, as he had once threatened to. It had already begun. He was rewriting my part in his checkered, bloody history, and soon I would be nothing more than a caricatured footnote in one of his stories. The ones that began with "You wanna know how I got these scars?" and ended with death and a smile. It had taken him far too long to see me clearly in the museum last night. It wouldn't be long before I disappeared completely. I envied that, his imaginative delusions and 'multiple choice' past. In my hundred lifetimes, I never forgot a moment. I remembered everything.

I tied my hair up and strapped my sword across my back. I took nothing else with me but the clothes I wore. And my name, of course. The dawn rose like mist between the blackened buildings and alleyways. I looked neither left nor right, and kept moving. My path was empty now. I thought about going to Main and 32nd to witness the final motions of the plan I'd helped concoct, but no. My work here was finished. The city could sleep for at least one night in peace.

I didn't expect Gotham to ever reach the redemption that people like Commissioner Gordon and Bruce Wayne hoped for it. But I preferred it this way, watching the light play endlessly against the shadows, staring in wonder at the rapture and despair that kept such close company in this place. And at the very center of its dark heart was my Harlequin of Hate, my Clown Prince of Crime, my Joker. Ecstasy, madness, danger, and delight took up common residence in him. One thing I realized only after I had left him behind forever: he had found a way to break me. Not like the scattered glass of a painted window, or even the fragments of a building destroyed by a bomb. I had fallen apart gracefully, giving myself to him and leaving my own heart in his wake. The mistake he made was assuming he wouldn't fall too.

Perhaps he would never recollect what had passed between us. Perhaps he would. He was the only person whom I had given my name freely, without reason or thought of consequence. And he had not used it against me. I could only hope that, in some other life, maybe a hundred or a thousand years from now, that might count for something.

THE END.