Chapter 14

One thing J never got tired of was watching his Harley sleep. She was beautiful, even more beautiful when she had her arms wrapped around him. Why couldn't she see that? J sighed; he had a lot of work ahead of him. He managed to get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep, as did Harley. She was actually surprised that he was still there when she woke up.

"You stayed," she whispered. "You really stayed."

"And you got some sleep. A whole four and a half hours. I think that's a record for you since coming home."

"I feel better...I think. Not enough to take over the world like you do but...better than I have been."

"Don't think sweet talking me will get you out of our talk. I told you we were going to talk about your rape. We need to deal with it."

Harley bit her lip. "I know," she admitted. "I don't think it'll change anything though. It still happened. We both know that."

"But we can get you back to where you were before."

Harley shook her head. "I'll never be the same. I don't understand why you're keeping me around. I'm second rate."

"No, you're not. Far from it. Look, I'm trying," he drawled out slowly, holding her face in his hands to hopefully drive the point home. "I need my Harley back. My beautiful, homicidal, bat-wielding, bubble gum popping monster back. Let me show you something. Take off your clothes."

Harley hesitated. Every time she took off her clothes, something bad happened. Rape. Torture. Right now, she couldn't even be sure of J was respect those boundaries. She wasn't ready to have sex. She wanted the Joker but whenever she thought of sex, Griggs or one of his assailants would always came up.

"I'm not going to force you into sex. As...as much as I want it, I know you can't handle it right now."

J wasn't sure if he would ever get sex again to be honest. Maybe he would never get Harley back to where she truly should be. But he had to try. If there was even a remote chance of getting Harley back, he had to take it.

"Okay," she whispered. She got out of bed and mentally braced herself to once again remove her clothing. It shouldn't have bothered her but she wasn't comfortable with her body. How could she be when it betrayed her day after day? She shook her head; delaying this was only making it worse. In less than a minute, Harley had removed her clothes but she still tried to cover herself with her hands. It was almost instinct to her now. J led her to the bathroom and had her stand in front of the mirror.

"I don't wanna see what I look like," Harley softly admitted, looking down with closed eyes. She didn't even want to take the chance of seeing herself.

"Open your eyes."

Again, Harley was hesitant. She felt J entwine his fingers with hers and squeeze them. Not roughly, but enough to let her know he was there and it was okay. She squeezed back before opening her eyes.

"You know who that is right?" J asked.

"It's me."

"It's my monster. My beautiful little monster. Harley, that's never going to change. It won't change how much I love you or care about you."

"You still love me?"

"Let me finish. You infuriate me sometimes but I need you in my life. You have no idea how mad I went when you were gone.

"This," he gestured to her body, "will heal. We can fix all this."

Harley nodded her head in agreement. Some of her bruises were already starting to heal. There were going to be some scars; it was just inevitable. But J was right. They could be fixed. There was makeup and cocoa butter and a bunch of things they could do to minimize and hide the scars.

"But this," he continued, pointing to her head, "this is what isn't so easy to work with. This is taking over your life right now. We can't have that."

"I don't know how to fix it." Belle Reve destroyed her from the inside out. The voices wouldn't let her forget that.

The truth was: J didn't know either. But Harley already felt weak and hopeless and he didn't want her like that. It was bringing her down and that last thing he needed. She deserved so much better than that.

"I've gotta talk about it, huh?" Harley asked. "What if it gets to be too much? What if I can't handle it? I've been trying to and I can't!"

"Then we stop for a little while. We pull you back together. But you need to talk...about everything. No holding anything back. You need to tell me exactly what happened in Belle Reve. What happened with Griggs and everybody. I can't get through all the footage."

"You don't have the time? Because you're taking care of me the entire time?"

"No. I can't stand to watch them hurt you. That's why I'm asking you to tell me."

Could she? Could she really tell the Joker all the horrible atrocities that had been thrust upon her? Would he still look at her the same? Would he still love her?

"You gotta promise you won't hate or care me about less. I didn't want to do it, Puddin'. I wanted to fight back but I couldn't-"

"I know."

"You gotta promise."

"Harley-"

"Promise!" she screamed, tears running down her face as she hit him in the chest.

J quickly wrapped his arms around Harley in an effort to calm her down. She was still unpredictable when she was hysterical. After the gun incident the other night, he wasn't taking any chances with her.

"I would not be putting either of us through this if it wasn't necessary. Now, I want to pull yourself together, get dressed, and meet me in my office in five minutes. Understand?"

Harley nodded her head as J wiped away the tears that had stained her face.

"Five minutes," he reminded her. "I will come looking for you if you're late."

"Yes, sir."

When Harley entered J's office, she didn't expect to see a table with two foldout chairs taking center stage. It was almost as if he was trying to recreate the space where they originally connected: Arkham Asylum. Only this time, the tables would be turned. He would be the one analyzing her.

"Have a seat," he told her.

She sat down, clearly uneasy by the idea of having therapy. J wasn't the least bit qualified to be giving therapy, let alone for the situation they were in.

"How are you feeling?" he asked. "About having to talk about it?"

"Don't go playing psychiatrist with me."

"Harley, at this point, I'm desperate to try anything to get you back."

"This is crazy. You realize that, right?"

"You would know. It's one of the ways you treated me."

"And that went over well. What's next? ECT?"

"If it'll get you back to yourself, then yes, I'll add it to the list."

"Because that went over so well with you! You know what? This is stupid!"

She shoved her chair back and proceeded to the door. She was not going to let J treat her like a patient.

"SIT BACK DOWN!" he shouted.

"Why?!"

"BECAUSE I FUCKING SAID SO!"

"You're a fucking asshole!"

J stood up and flipped his chair over, livid. He marched over to where Harley was standing in front of the door, each step louder than the last. He placed a hand on each side of her on the door and leaned in, ready to make his point loud and clear.

"Fully aware of it! Look! I don't want this to be difficult for either of us. Don't make it. You're already not functioning and I'm barely holding myself together with all this shit going on. I know you don't like what happened and I don't like it but we're fucking talking about it! Now, go sit DOWN!"

It took everything J had to not put his hands literally on Harley and knock some common sense into her. He pointed the chair.

"NOW, Harley. I got everyone but Frost out of this penthouse for you. Go sit your ass down!"

Harley sulked back to the chair. J was ready to punch something. If Harley hadn't tested him before, she sure was now.

"I will put you in a straitjacket if you don't start cooperating," he warned her when she sat back down. "This isn't optional for you."

"This is a joke."

"I'm trying to take this seriously!"

"You're the Joker. You don't take anything seriously."

"I take you seriously. I take what happened to you very seriously and I'm still pissed as fuck about it!"

"Join the club," she mumbled, crossing her arms across her chest.

J groaned. He needed Harley to realize how serious this was to him.

"Harley, who's Niko?"

Harley's eyes went wide. Talking about it was going to be bad enough so why did J have to bring up one of the worst parts of it? "How do you know about Niko?"

"You get mumbling his name in your sleep," he said. He didn't tell her she was also whimpering and crying when she did.

"It's nothing."

"Bullshit. He hurt you, don't he?"

Tell him. Tell him how Niko was even more sadistic than Griggs.

"Don't listen to them, Harley. I know they're in your head but don't listen to them. You listen to me."

Tell him how Niko cut into your flesh, made you his little bitch. How there's no place on your body that he hasn't touched, hasn't hurt, hasn't been inside of.

"Is Niko the third person that I need to look for?"

You know that if Niko ever gets his hands on you again, he'll do more than just rape you. He'll destroy. He's already started to anyway.

"Hey, talk to me Harls," J said softly. He took her hands in his, trying to bring her back to reality.

Why? Face it: he'll never truly understand what happened. He acts like he cares about you but in reality, he's only feeding off your misery.

"Shut up!" Harley screamed, yanking her hands away and holding them up to her ears in an attempt to drown out the voices. "Just shut up!"

J could only look on helplessly as a war progressed in Harley's head. He couldn't stop the voices. He couldn't even tell what they were saying although from past experiences, he knew it couldn't be good.

He's never going to be able to fix you. You're better off dead and you both know it.

"That's not true!" Harley shouted. She turned to J. "You can fix me, right? Make the voices go away? Right? Right?!"

"They're not real. Whatever they're saying, it's not true. It's not real."

Suddenly, the voices went quiet. Harley didn't understand but she certainly wasn't going to question it. It was the first time in a long time where there wasn't something rattling in her head.

"Harley? Harley, what happened?" J asked, noticing how quiet she was. It wasn't like her at all.

"They stopped," she whispered, almost as if she was afraid to talk louder, that it would bring the voices back. "It's quiet. I don't think it's forever but it's quiet. I can't hear them."

"That's good. Really good, Harls," he said softly, matching her tone. It certainly wasn't what he expected to happen but he could tell it made Harley feel better. He hated that he had to push her to the edge of distress but it helped her, if only for a little while. "What else can I do to make this process easier for you? Name it."

"Anything?" she asked.

"Anything. If you want to get out of Gotham or you want me to paint the town red, consider it done."

Harley stared at him for a good minute, trying to figure out if he was actually being sincere with his request. Maybe he did want to help.

"I want a hyena," she finally said.

J half expected her to tell him to kill Griggs. A hyena? Even in his wildest imagination, he couldn't fathom Harley coming up with a hyena.

"Where am I supposed to get a hyena?"

"You're the Joker. Figure it out. Just...just help me, okay?"

By the end of the night, Harley had delivered J with a list of requests.

Some were reasonable: pillows and blankets, for instance. J could deal with that. Even after today, he could tell this was going to wear Harley out. He might as well make her comfortable. The more comfortable she was, the more relaxed she would be. The more relaxed she was, the easier it would be to coax information out of her.

She had also made it clear that having a table in his office with the two chairs like he had done today was completely out of the question. She felt like she was being interrogated and she didn't like it. She needed to feel like she was safe and being treated like a crazy patient was not going to do that.

J looked down at the last one. "Batman's head on a pike?"

"I just put it there to make you laugh. I noticed you haven't been smiling a lot since you found out about me."

"I'm very angry about it. Not at you," he reiterated. "It."

"I know but I miss your maniacal laughter...and your smile...and your macabre sense of humor. You haven't really been yourself since I came home," she admitted. "I miss it. It's comforting to me."

"Make you a deal: you work on getting better with me and I'll work on finding the humor in things again. Deal?"

Harley nodded her head, curled up closer to the Joker, and laid her head on his chest. J rested his head on top of hers and rubbed her arm with his knuckle until she fell asleep. Her recovery was going to be rough on both of them; there was no doubt about that.

Frost entered J's office an hour later. He was the only henchman allowed to enter J's office without knocking. He looked over to see Harley wrapped tightly against her boyfriend. "Doesn't want to leave your side?"

Joker shook his head as he pushed some of her hair from her eyes, only to see tear tracks. He hadn't realized she had been crying. He probably shouldn't have been such a jerk today but he needed to get his point across.

"You know you can't leave her anymore. Not right now at least."

"Don't you dare tell me how to deal with Harley and what happened to her. It's my decision on how I handle it," J seethed.

"Boss, with all due respect, you need to take care of Miss Quinn first. You might be able to see the footage, but only she can really tell you what happened. She lived through it. I get that you want revenge but you do realize how fragile of a state she's in, don't you? I mean, the videos-"

"I've seen bits of it," J admitted softly, looking down at Harley. She had her nails digging into his flesh but since it kept her calm, J let her. She was clearly exhausted. This therapy idea J had come up with was either going to help immensely or make things a hell of a lot worse than they already were. "I can't bring myself to watch it all."

"I'm still working through some of it myself. What they did to her...it's inexcusable. I'm actually surprised she's held up as much as she has. You taught her well."

Had he? He had never taken the time to teach Harley survival techniques, mainly because she was rarely ever apart from him. Maybe she picked them up over time. Harley was stronger than she seemed and it was high time she learned that. J just needed to figure out how to make that happen.

"Let me know if you need something," Frost said as J scooped Harley up to put her to bed. Now would be a good time for him to get some sleep while he had the chance. All bets were off if Harley was awake.

"Any idea on where to get a hyena?" he asked. "Harley asked for one."

At this point, J was willing to do anything to get Harley back. Whatever Harley needed that might help in her recovery, J would do it...even if it meant Batman's head on a pike.