Disclaimer: I do not own the Batman franchise or any related characters. I own only the remnants of the Jester.

Heavy footfalls echoed through Arkham Asylum. In some cells, more lucid prisoners shrank back from the figure that strode through their halls.

The Batman was coming.

As he neared his destination, the hero's steps slowed. A slouching security guard straightened up hurriedly. "He's in there," the guard explained helpfully, pointing to the door on his right.

Batman nodded a silent acknowledgement. Though he had already known where to go, dismissing the guard's assistance would only heighten the sense of fear and awe that the man already felt. There was no need for fear any more.

Entering the room, the hero shut the door carefully, examining the room's occupant as he did so. The bone-white inmate looked up and smiled half-heartedly.

"You came," the sitting man whispered. "I-I wasn't sure that you would…" His voice trailed off as his eyes lost their focus.

Batman slowly approached the chair across from the Joker—No, he realized, not the Joker. This sad, slumping body was not the lithe, grinning maniac that had terrorized Gotham for almost as long as Batman had been defending the city. Something was different. The expression on his face, the way that his hair fell—his entire posture was radically new to the eyes of the Dark Knight. The light in his eyes was dulled. Batman cleared his throat to speak, and the man looked up again.

"Oh," he stammered, "I almost f-forgot. Here." He reached into his pockets and carefully offered the hero a few wrinkled pieces of paper, covered in a shaky but legible scrawl. "It's…the cure. For the venom addiction." Some sort of animation returned to the clouded eyes as he continued. "You see, I found the…Jester's notes on his new venom in the sewer. They were just…sitting there. So I took them with me before I…oh God. Before I…killed him." The figure took a deep, wracked breath, and then continued. "After I brought you back and turned myself in, I got to work reverse-engineering an antidote. It will take some time to manufacture, but…it should work."

Batman carefully put the slips of paper in his utility belt, and then looked directly into the faded green eyes. "Tell me what happened."

"What do you mean?" the chalky figured replied, trying to laugh before lapsing back into his gloom. "Nothing…nothing happened. You saw. You were there."

Batman sat down slowly. "Yes, I was there," he said slowly. "But I didn't see. I was knocked out." His companion opened his mouth to speak, but the hero raised a hand to silence him. "I know that something must have happened to you. You aren't the Joker any more. I don't know what to call you, but I know that you are not 'the Joker' any more."

The man sat in silence, his eyes looking through Batman. Not a muscle twitched on his alabaster frame as he stared into nothingness. After a few minutes, Batman wondered if his presence had been forgotten. He was about to speak, when the inmate broke his silence. "Jack," he whispered. "My…my name is Jack."

"Jack," the crime fighter repeated to himself. "Do you have a last name?"

"No," Jack replied quickly, looking up. Batman noticed tears beginning to collect in the corner of his emerald eyes. "Well, not any more. I did before I became…this thing, but…"

"But you forgot it?"

"No, I remember it perfectly." The eyes misted over once more. "I can even remember the voice of the priest as he declared us Mr. and Mrs. Jack…no!" The eyes shot open, a hint of terror darkening the smaragdine depths. "I…I can't tell you. I know who I was, but I don't want to hurt those who knew me. I don't want them to know what I became. I don't want to taint her memory…"

"Her memory?"

"My wife…April." Jack closed his eyes and sighed, then opened them and focused on Batman. His breathing was careful, regulated, and the hero could tell that he was trying to reign in his emotions. "Down in the sewer, the…Jester guy…he stabbed me with something. Some sort of poison. Enough of it to affect even me, in my…altered state. Affect, yes, but…not kill. God, I wish it had. I wish it had." Jack began to weep, the droplets running down his face looking like rain dripping off of a marble statue. "I…remembered who I was. I came back to myself. Only…I remembered everything that I had done. Everything! I even saw some things that I hadn't done, but I could still tell that I was enjoying them. Oh, yes. That was the most damning part. I enjoyed it all." The tears were falling with a steady pitter-patter against the floor of the holding cell. "And as I saw myself, what kind of monster I had become…I remembered April. God, she would have hated what I was…what I am. And I remembered the last time that I saw her…we fought. We fought! The last time that I saw her before her accident, and we fought! Oh, God, if I could do it all over again…I wouldn't have said what I did. I wouldn't have made the stupid decisions that I did. I wouldn't have taken that job with those thugs…" A huge sob worked its way out of his chest and he buried his head in his hands.

Batman felt a twinge of pity for the poor wretch, disenfranchised even of his mind. Still, there was a question that he had to ask. So much hinged upon the answer. "Are you..." the hero began, "are you cured? I mean, are you sane again?"

Jack tried to stifle his tears, but he did not raise his head from his hands. "We don't know. The workers here aren't sure. I'm not sure. We don't even know what sort of chemicals the Jester gave me to put me in this state…they flushed through my system so quickly, and my blood is already chemically…inventive…as it is. It could be permanent. It could end as soon as I go to sleep." The former clown managed a brief, humorless laugh. "Hell, this might not be sanity that we're looking at. I could just be hallucinating that I'm sane." After a thoughtful pause, he continued. "I think that I am, though. Sane, that is. At least, I hope so. I feel…so much regret. Isn't that the mark of a sane and compassionate man? Regret, guilt for one's actions? I don't know. I just want to undo all that I've done. If this state continues, I won't be doing any killing any time soon…unless my target is myself. There ought to be justice…"

"Death isn't justice," Batman cut in. "Justice is penance or punishment, but never death."

Jack shook his head slowly. "For me? For me, the only penance can be death." He looked up with bloodshot eyes. "I have killed hundreds, thousands of people with my own hands and ruined countless more lives. All those souls are riding me to hell, and they deserve the blood that they cry out for. My only hope is that the thing killing them wasn't me. But what else could it be?" His tears resumed. "What if that thing is the real me? A more real me than I was before my acid bath? What if my mind wasn't destroyed, but the pretences that I clung to were washed away, revealing my true personality? What if I am a killer? What if I am a monster?" He waved weakly at Batman. "You."

"Me?" Batman asked. "I am not a monster."

Jack chuckled, then coughed. "No, not a monster. You aren't that. You are…a hero, one who fights monsters, but…but you are Batman. Whoever you are under that cowl…the real you is Batman. With your identity hidden, you can act as you wish to, act on the impulses that drive you. What if I'm the same way? The chemicals bleached my face and hid me from sight. Am I acting as I truly wish to? Did the freedom of anonymity birth a monster from my flesh?"

"No," Batman replied calmly. "The monster was created by the effects of those chemicals on your brain. People are inherently good…they are just driven off course on occasion." He gestured to the asylum around them. "These people…are anomalies. They are humans who have lost their touch with humanity, but I believe that it can be restored. They can be made good again."

Jack waved his hand to one side, as though batting the hero's argument to the side. "How can you say that? How can you, of all people, claim that people are inherently good? You deal with the lowest kind of scum on a daily basis, but you pretend that all humans are good beneath the grime? No. Maybe, beneath it all, some people are good, but not all. Perhaps everyone is either you or me beneath all of their rules and repression. You or me. Of course, based on the state of Gotham, the balance tends to shift towards…me. Towards evil." He sighed. "Maybe the Jester had the right idea with his perfect society."

Batman stood and grabbed Jack by the shoulders. "Don't say that," the hero commanded. "Don't even think it. By your reasoning, he was going to make everyone like you were…like the Joker. He was going to make a society of monsters."

"If it would be so easy for him to do," Jack shot back, "perhaps that's what the world needs. Freedom. Madness at first, yes, but…eventually…"

"Think of all the deaths," Batman growled. "All of the rapes, the thefts…in the first month alone…"

Jack held up his hands in a gesture of submission. "You're right, you're right," he stated softly. "But, perhaps, if it could be done without awakening only the basest instincts…if the higher impulses could be tapped…"

Batman shook his head. "You wouldn't be dealing with people any more. Only the ideal of people. A whole society of dolls."

"I suppose that you're right," Jack sighed. "It's just been weighing on my mind."

Batman released Jack, and then moved towards the door. After a few steps, he paused. "Why did you save me?" he asked, without turning around.

"I told you about my…epiphany," Jack began. "I saw what you are. A paragon of justice, a true hero. You have kept me…or my Mr. Hyde, as the case may be…from greater atrocities than I managed to commit under your watch." Batman turned and found Jack looking directly into his eyes. "In truth," Jack continued, "you protected, you saved me. Not the Joker, but me, Jack. You kept me in check and, I suppose, I kept you busy and in form. We had a relationship. Perhaps not a close one, nor a healthy one, but we interacted. You are Gotham, Batman. Without you, the city…well, I would be Gotham." He lapsed into silence.

Batman waited, and then cleared his throat. "Well," he began, "are we done here?"

Jack looked up and nodded slowly. Batman walked over and held his hand out. "Well, then…goodbye."

Jack looked at the hand as though he had no idea what to do with it, and then grasped it in a handshake. He pulled Batman to him and the hero was startled by how wide the poor man's eyes had become. "I…just want to say," Jack whispered, "that this…thing…it isn't human. Do you understand? The thing that wears this skin…it isn't human. It has no compassion, no mercy. But it's fascinated by you. It's obsessed with you. It…covets you. It…loves you. But it's evil. It loves you and wants you, but it's evil. Kill it if you must, but don't let it get you. If it gets you, all is lost. Don't think that this human frame makes it human. It has no rules, no morals. If you have to kill me to get rid of it, fine. Do it. But don't let it…don't let it…" Jack released his grip and fell, sobbing, to his knees. "Don't let it…don't let it…go! Leave!" he screeched.

Batman approached Jack in order to help him with his fit, but the man slapped him away.

"Go! Leave! Don't let it…don't let it get you!"

Summoned by the inmate's raving, a nurse entered the room. "I think that it's best that you leave," she instructed Batman firmly. "Now."

Filled with a sense of disquiet, Batman left the room and its sobbing inmate. He was met at the door by Dr. Cavendish. "It won't last long," the doctor sighed.

"What?" Batman asked, his mind still on the screams of Jack.

"His…sanity, if you want to call it that. From what I've been able to tell from the lab work, it's a mild contradiction of his brain patterns, perhaps a less powerful version of the trauma that brought him to madness in the first place. But it won't last."

"Can you replicate the effects?" Batman inquired, hoping for the answer that he knew would not come.

"No," Cavendish replied, seeming to age visibly with the response. "We aren't sure what kind of cocktail the Je—Katoves pumped into him, but we can't experiment with those sorts of chemicals. One misstep, and—"

"You'd kill him?"

"No. Worse. We could make it worse."

"Well, thank you for your work, Doctor," Batman said, calmly detaching himself from the conversation, "but I can't spend all my time here. There is work to be done."

Cavendish watched the hero walk down the halls of Arkham Asylum. "If you ask me," Cavendish snorted to himself, "you could benefit from some time here.

Back in his cell, the body of the Joker lay on the ground. His hideous crimes had finally been punished. His glazed eyes stared inwards, into the darkness of his soul.

Many apologies for the lateness of this one. Many apologies. Hell, I feel like I should be begging for forgiveness. I wish that I had some sort of credible reason for being this late, but I don't. I just got distracted by a bunch of things, and, for that, I apologize.

I was planning to do a massive re-write on this story, and I still plan to, but I have no idea how soon it will be. I want to fix a few things, such as the anachronism of Harley Quinn's presence and the complete and total lack of realistic motivation. Think of this as a sort of rough draft for the story.

God only knows when I'll get to the task of revising it.

Live long and prosper.

Dracheheim