Only in My Dreams

The city smolders around her. Nothing but empty blackened buildings and shattered glass. Fires still flickering in the alleyways. Joker's dream. Burned city.

Harley pushes open the door to the old familiar hotel. What she expects is the usual dirty floor and the filthy walls…

But instead it is a rather nice contemporary beige walls, and a geometric patterned floor. It could be classified as four-star….and…the serious face of a gentleman. A light smile crosses his face, and gold-brown eyes sparkle in the lamplight. His eyes light up in recognition, and he offers his hand.

Harley brushes her fingertips against his hand. "Do I know you?" she asks. "You feel so…"

"Familiar?" He asks, as his real smile spreads wider, dimples accentuating an all-to-familiar smile…

"What's your name?" she asks, hoping against all hope he won't pull away, reatreat into his normal monstrous self… And why were the scars not on his face? The smile was reaching his eyes, lighting them with sparkling glitter…

"Jack," he says, his eyes still twinkling, his smile still gentle.

Harley suddenly wants desperately to cry, to hug him, to kiss him, to make him feel loved…forever…

He angles his gaze to look at her. "Is this my dream, or yours?"

She draws back. He doesn't know? Suddenly a rush of happiness went through Harley's heart.

He bends down and kisses her on the cheek, and whispers in her ear, tickling her with his breath. "What, you don't know either, do you?"

"What happened to you?" she asks, tracing a line where the scars used to be with a fingertip – noting how really beautiful he was with his blonde curls and dimpled smile…

"Torture," he answered simply, shadows passing across his gaze. "Five years of it."

"Jack, I.."

He places his finger over her lips, suddenly he wants to tell his story, wants someone to know. "Worse was my wife, my son, my baby…all gone. Nothing left."

"Jack…"

"The heart has to go on, one way or another, even if it creates a monster to protect itself, erase one's own existence…" He stares into the distance, almost apologetic…

"Why did you delete your file?" The question slipped out without her meaning to.

He meets her eyes yet again, and this time they are filled with a secret pain of the realization of failure. "Do you have to ask?" His eyes are dark again, not dark with anger, but their familiar dark just the same, the dark Harley knows all to well.

"No, I don't have to ask," she says, kissing the corner of his mouth, "I know why you did it."

Harley opened her eyes to complete blackness, except for the flickering street light. Just a dream, she thinks with disappointment as she breathes carefully to quiet her beating heart.

"So, why did I do it, Harley?"

The voice spooked her for a minute before she swallowed, and answered slowly, "You told me, Jack. Your heart had to manage one way or another; your mind couldn't take the strain. You didn't want to go on, but you had to make them pay first."

She heard nothing but his ragged breathing for the longest time. Finally he mumbled and rolled over. She felt him sit up, and grumble as he walked into the washroom. "What's wrong…Puddin'?" she stopped herself, from saying his name, suddenly longing she could say it. It was so common, so ordinary, and yet so right.

"Got a headache. Where's that stuff you gave me the other night?" His voice was strangely quiet, not rough and rock-solid as it had been.

"You mean the Dipthodryn?" she asks timidly, throwing off the covers, yet not daring to hope that some miracle had occurred.

"I don't know," he said, leaning over the sink, his eyes dull and bloodshot, the wounds from the beating ugly purple. He wasn't harsh, which was what she expected. Just in pain. He stares at her through squinting blackened eyes, looking more like the person she knows deep down who he really is: hurt and broken…