A/N: Usual disclaimer: Own Nothing except a now, hopefully, virus free computer.

PLEASE READ FIRST:

Okayyyyy. Please, please, don't shoot me. It just came out this way and because I'd lost this chapter to a virus I didn't have it in me to re-write a fourth time.

So, here's a huge "Fluffy, pink, OOC alert"; if you don't like saccharine sweet, hit the back button.

It just came out this way and this way it'll stay; though to be utterly honest I didn't see this coming at all. It certainly was never in my original arc of this story, but it won't interrupt the ending, which won't change.

I'm also not certain about how accurate the legalities of this are; I do know it is a real situation because I researched that much, but I'm no lawyer and I'm sure there are ways around it… just not in my universe. ;- )

And now I've completely confused you, it's probably best to read and see what I mean.

Chapter 26

Jane slid from the bed and, realising she had no clean clothes, wrapped the sheet around her and went in search of the Joker. She had no idea what time it was, but judging by the daylight it was now the following day. She reached the bedroom door and went to the bottom of the steps that would take her up onto his floor.

"Joker?" she called softly but there was no reply and she turned to head down to the next level, but that was empty too. Tucking the sheet more firmly around her she made her way to the bottom floor and called again, but there was no reply. She went to the door and opened it a crack against the cold outside; she peered through and saw him stood by the car with Jimmy and Mark talking quietly. He was dressed in his purple topcoat and his face paint was applied; his shoulders were hunched and he didn't look happy.

She opened it slightly more and it caught his attention; he looked over and saw her. He lifted his head in acknowledgement, muttered a few more things to them and then turned to come up to the door. Jane shifted backwards when he came in and she looked up at him.

"Hey," she muttered and shivered with the rush of frigid air that came through the door.

"What are you doing out of bed?" he muttered and turned in the door to whistle loudly. Jane was about to answer when she heard the sound of doggy paws and she gave a squeal of delight as her dogs came through the door and began bumping against her gently. She was all over them, cooing at them, stroking them and laughing happily.

"Thank you, thank you," she beamed at the Joker but he merely rolled his eyes and walked away muttering.

"I've sent Jimmy to get you some clothes," he called over his shoulder.

"Are they hungry? Have they been fed since you rescued them?" With a hand on each dog she followed the Joker up both flights of stairs and into the bedroom. The dogs curled up together at the foot of the bed and Jane slumped onto the bed.

"Janey, you can't stay here," he began with no preamble. "And I'm almost completely fucked as to what to do with you."

"What?" She looked up at him in confusion.

"Every single thing in that apartment is now being analysed by cops; your laptop, all your notes, your clothes, everything. There's nothing left. Every single fucking thing in that place is now in their hands."

Jane stayed quiet as she listened to him, knowing him well enough to just wait till he arrived at where he was going with this.

"There's nothing here and it won't do. The only things to sit on are packing cases or this bed; nothing is going to get finished here for ages and while it's like this I don't even want you here."

"Well, I'm relieved you tagged the 'here' on the end of that last statement," she murmured.

"Janey, there's two ways I can try and make sure you're safe," he muttered ignoring her words. "I can send you away; find you someplace miles out of Gotham. I could maybe come and see you a couple of times a month or so."

"And option number two?" she asked not liking the first one at all.

"I could marry you."

"Huh?" she stared at him not even caring if she did look stupid, she was sure she'd misheard him.

"Adverse Spousal Testimonial Privilege," he muttered. "It means that even if they did get to you it would prove pointless as you could invoke that privilege; nothing they can do about it if they ever got me in a court of law."

"Ok, you wanna run that by me again, this time in English?" she stuttered, more than confused now.

"Fuck, never thought this would happen," he muttered and came across to sit on the bed beside her. "Look, Janey, it makes sense. If you're my legal wife they cannot question you in a criminal case against me. Well, they can question you but you can refuse to answer calling on that privilege and they couldn't hold you in contempt either."

Jane blinked and stared at the hardboard flooring around the bed.

"I'd still have to find someplace decent for you, better than here, but it would mean the heat would be taken off you."

"Are you serious?" She looked at him sideways and for some reason something deeply hidden in the corners of her heart started to shrivel.

"Absolutely," he muttered and nodded his head, slapping his lips together. "Loverboy is the only fucking fly in this ointment anyway. Once he's out of the picture, the Batman and the Commissioner will know that I'm serious; I think they already do. They'll leave you alone, especially if they know they can't use you anyway."

"Are you sure they couldn't use me if I was your legal wife?" she frowned.

"In theory they could apply to the Supreme Court; but they already know you won't grass me up willingly and they know what'll happen to them if they come for you again; but I don't intend on getting caught anyway, and in the highly unlikely event I do, they'll just bang me up in Arkham again.."

Jane shivered and pulled the sheet tighter around her. "Don't say that," she murmured.

"So, how about it then? Gonna marry me or what?"

Jane blinked at and looked at him; he was looking at her sideways, his head tilted downwards slightly, hair hanging across his face slightly as he sucked on his scars, watching her closely.

"I'm confused," she admitted. "How can you get married? You can't just walk into a church somewhere, or kidnap a JP, don't you need to have blood tests and that sort of thing first?"

"Not in Vegas," he replied and folded his arms over his chest bulking him out even more. "We don't need anything except my birth certificate and your passport. I've got both of those. We just nip down there, apply for a licence, we get it straight away, we go to one of them chapel things and get married; it's legal in every country around the world. You'd be…"

"Mrs Joker," she mumbled and shook her head in amazement.

"No, stupid, you'd be Mrs Napier," he snorted and suddenly jumped up to shed his topcoat. He stripped off his jacket and threw them both down on the bed beside her. "But that's not what I was going to say; I was going to say that you'd be safer than you are now."

She looked up and realised that he was wearing his black shirt because she still had the blue one on; it was so surreal and Jane didn't know what to make of it all.

"Fuck, Janey, it's not rocket science; just a yes or no is all that's required from you, girl; I'll sort the rest of it out. I don't know what else to do at the moment; give me a few days and I can probably come up with something. I got the idea from Sal Maroni; I remembered he told me it was why he married his missus, that and the fact that if the IRS ever caught up with him it was all in her name anyway. That was his legit businesses though; I don't have anything that's legit."

She looked up and plunged even deeper into surrealism when she realised he was as close to babbling as she'd ever seen him; and his words were less than comforting.

"You want to marry me?" It was the only thing that entered her head and it made him snort as he threw his arms out to the sides quickly.

"Well, I just fucking said it, didn't I?" he snapped and rotated his head making his neck crack as he slapped his lips together.

"Well, I…" Jane blinked again and nodded. "Yes, I'll marry you."

He blinked slowly, licked his lips and then nodded.

"Okay," he muttered and without another word he left the room.

Jane took a deep breath and let it out slowly, not at all sure how she felt. She was going to marry him, or at least she was pretty sure that was what it was all about. Jane had gone through so many proposals in her life and none of them had ever happened to her; they'd all happened to her heroines in her stories. And none of them had ever included the reasons of avoiding testimony and evading the IRS.

She shivered and slumped back onto the bed staring up at the ceiling.

Of course she loved him and she was fairly confident that he loved her in his own weird and slightly peculiar way. He certainly looked after her as if he loved her, but at the same time it was disconcerting to realise that it wasn't because he loved her that he wanted to marry her. Well, at least he wasn't using her as a human shield for the IRS; if anything he was marrying her in order to protect her; it made her smile as she rolled over onto the bed and kicked her feet up tapping them back and forth. If she really thought about it, and she was, then it was good enough for her; she just hoped she wasn't trapping him into something that he would later regret.

A noise from the doorway made her turn her head to see him leaning in the door way, arms folded over his chest and his head downwards as he watched her.

"That didn't happen quite the way I'd figure it would," he muttered.

"I never figured it would happen at all," she replied and decided to be honest with him; it was the least he deserved. "Listen, you don't have to do this just to try and protect me. After last night I really don't think they'll come after me again. And to be honest, they didn't come after me yesterday; I kinda invited them to lock me up by running into it. They're going to be so mad with you after blowing their nice new precinct up; they aren't going to give me another thought."

"They might, they might not," he murmured and shrugged. "I'm not exactly sacrificing myself on some altar by marrying you. You make it sound painful like pulling teeth or something; it's just a fucking piece of paper, Janey."

"Yeah, but it's like its permanent then," she said quietly and watched him frown darkly at her.

"It's permanent anyway," he said firmly. "I don't need a bit of paper to tell me your mine or that the kid in your belly is mine. Janey, just exactly how long did you think we'd last?"

She flushed slightly and shrugged awkwardly; he pushed himself away from the door and loomed over her.

"Janey, sometimes…"

"I know," she mumbled. "Sometimes I'm dumb. I love you, I want to marry you, I just don't want you to marry me out of some misguided…"

"Shut up," he chuckled. "You're more insane than I am. If I didn't want to marry you, do you honestly think I'd have asked?"

"No," she admitted and he sat on the bed beside her and rolled his eyes.

"You're weird, Janey, totally cracked, aren't you?"

"No, I am not," she denied and sat up to glare at him. "You be honest. I bet if I hadn't got caught by the police, it would never have even entered your head about marrying me."

"Well, no, probably not, but that's not what it's all about. You can marry someone and divorce then a month later, or you can stay with someone for an entire lifetime. It's not what's on a bit of paper; it's what's inside. I realised you were mine a long time ago; right around the time I realised I'd not be able to let you go, ever. Ah, for fuck's sake, don't cry!"

"I'm not," Janey muttered and her voice cracked as she hastily wiped at her eyes. "You just… well, you just… you make it all right. I just thought you wanted to marry me because of the cops and the courts and that testimony thing. Which would be fine, is fine, really; but it was, I don't know, it felt a little…"

"Ah, shit, I forgot you live those books you write, don't you? Or at least that's how you think life should be."

"No, I don't," she denied and he chuckled loudly.

"Sure you do, sugar. I'll bet at the end of each and every one of those books you pen there's a nice little romantic scene where the bloke gets down on his knee and, with a rose between his teeth, asks for her hand in marriage."

"No," she denied and flushed looking away from him. "He does not have a rose between his teeth, that would be, well, it would be silly," she muttered.

He roared with laughter and looked around him, before moving to drag his top coat off the bed. He riffled in his pockets and brought out a closed switch blade, letting the coat drop to the floor.

"It's ok, really, we don't have to share blood or anything," Jane muttered eyeing the blade edgily.

"Ah, don't be such a fucking girl," he chuckled and scooted across towards her. "It's not a rose, but it's close," he added and stuck the blade between his teeth making her laugh. "'aney, 'ill you 'arry 'e?" He mangled the words around the blade making her really giggle.

He let the blade drop from his mouth as he raised his eyebrows at her and tilted his head. "Well? This is the bit where you're supposed to respond with a "Oh, my god, of course I'll marry you, I adore you, worship the ground you walk on," His highly pitched falsetto voice made her giggle again.

"Yes," she giggled and lifted a hand to trace his scars. "Yes, yes, yes!"

He growled and pounced on her sending her backwards with a squeal of delighted laughter. He pinned her arms above her head and started kissing her; a snuffling noise made him raise his head. Tiny and Fifi were regarding them out of intelligent brown eyes as they sat on the floor motionlessly.

"Send them out, Janey," the Joker muttered and rolled off her. "I can't do this with them looking at me."

Jane giggled and sat up, calling the dogs to her. She stroked them and sent them out; they went out and sat down in the corridor, still looking into the room. The Joker jumped up from the bed and kicked the door shut on them and then locked it.

"They can't open the door, Joker, you're quite safe," Jane giggled as he jumped back onto the bed beside her.

"Shut up, Janey," he muttered and began kissing her ear.

Jimmy passed the bag to the Joker and stepped back slightly.

"You got everything," the Joker asked and looked at him with a sardonic smirk on his face.

"Yeah," Jimmy replied and watched as the Joker went up the stairs to the floor above and slammed the trap door shut.

"How did it go?" Mark asked not even trying to stop the amusement in his voice.

"How the devil do you think it went?" Jimmy snorted and threw himself down onto the couch next to his brother, smacking him upside the head as he went. "I thought at one point I was going to get caught, just for the sheer fact that I couldn't keep a fucking straight face!"

Mark snorted and finished the crossword he was doing in the newspaper.

"I mean let's face it, I'm not new to shoplifting, but I have never nicked women's underwear before!"

"Yeah? Well, as long as you didn't try it on first," Mark sniggered and just avoided another slapping.

Jane watched the Joker dump the clothes onto the bed beside her and then begin pacing. He'd been talking about places to stay before he'd answered the phone telling him that Jimmy had returned with some clothes for her.

"Janey, I have a lot of places around Gotham; to only have one safe house would be stupid, but I have to admit that most of them are not fit for you."

"What about the printers?" she asked him. "They've never found that one, have they?"

The Joker shrugged and paced back and forth. "That was only compromised with Crane, not the cops and no one was left alive there. Are you sure? It's not that great, Janey."

"I learnt my lesson," she replied. "It would do just for awhile, until this place was a bit better kitted out. I know you said you'd have to find somewhere else, but this place isn't that bad. It's safe, and I can fiddle if you'll let me."

"Fiddle?" he arched an eyebrow and she realised he didn't know what she meant.

"Yeah, you know, get a little garden growing, a kennel for the dogs when it's cold, that kind of thing."

"Sweetheart, you can do what you want," he shrugged and turned to face her properly. "This is the safest place I have."

Jane grinned and stood up; the pain was sudden and intense and brought her straight back down, her arms going around her middle. A sudden as it came it had passed; but the fear it left showed clearly.

"What?" He was on her quickly, his hands on her shoulders and he hunched over her.

"A pain, it's gone now," she whispered and looked up at him. "Should it do that?"

"How the fuck should I know?" he grunted and peered at her. "I should have got you checked sooner." He stood up straight and motioned her to stand up.

Jane stood and closed her eyes as a cramping pain clenched her lower stomach. It felt like the bottom of her stomach was dropping out and it filled her with icy fear.

"Where is the doctor?" she asked and looked at him with fear filled eyes. "It doesn't feel right."

"Fuck the doc; you need to get checked by someone that knows what they're looking at." She looked at him but he was staring at the sheets; she turned and gasped when she saw the blood staining the sheet she'd been sat on. Her heart dropped into her stomach as her world began to crash around her

"I don't want to loose the baby," she said suddenly and gripped his hand with hers. He looked at her with his head tilted and his face covered in paint; but he said nothing.

Jane lay on the bed staring up at the ceiling. Four hours had passed since she'd seen the blood on the bed. She'd never really seen the Joker move so fast. He had Jimmy get the car ready as he bundled her up in the sheets and carried her down to the car. He'd ordered Mark to remain behind and then they'd left the warehouse with Jimmy driving as fast as he could in the freshly fallen snow. They couldn't risk a hospital in Gotham, so Jimmy had taken the R.K. Bridge out of state and onto the next major city sixty miles away.

But now the Joker was stood behind her, rendered speechless for once by the examination they were giving Jane.

"Baby's fine," came a voice that had Jane melting into the sheets and beaming at the same time.

"Really?" she squeaked and looked up at where the Joker. His face was emotionless as he studied the black screen to one side.

"See for yourself," the doctor replied and he stood up. She looked at the screen and watched as he pointed out where her baby lay, formed formed and tiny still.

"Fourteen weeks and perfectly happy."

"So what caused the bleeding?" grunted the Joker. She looked up again, his face was hastily wiped clean of paint and his green hair was scraped under a black skull cap. He was unable to do anything about the purple pin stripe trouser he wore, but this was another city, another state and they had their own problems.

"It could be anything, some women experience 'breakthrough' bleeding from where the hormones don't fully appreciate the change and sometimes we can never really know. Your placenta, however, is very low," the doctor said. "I can't actually see any signs of where the bleeding is coming from, but it might be caused by how low the placenta is. This won't cause any problems unless the placenta covers the birth canal and then we'd have to perform a C-section. But that may not happen, only time and regular scans will tell. Your blood pressure is up and you will have to take it easy. But baby is doing fine and is in no danger."

"Oh, thank you," Jane said with feeling.

"Any questions about your pregnanct in general?" asked the doctor kindly.

"What about these," Jane mumbled and indicated her scars. "Will they stretch ok?"

The doctor examined them and then nodded. "They may bleed a little towards the end of term, but they should stretch without too many problems, they are deep but it shouldn't be too much of a problem. Keep your skin well moisturised and things should be fine."

"Thank you," she sighed and let her head fall back. Relief so strong filled her; she glanced up again at the Joker but his eyes were still glued to the image of the tiny baby with the frantically beating heart and curled limbs.

"I want to keep you in tonight, just to monitor your blood pressure," the doctor said and it was enough to snap the Joker's attention back to him.

"Stay in?" he queried.

"Purely precautionary," he said kindly. "I expect your blood pressure is high due to the worry but it is very high and I just to want to monitor it tonight."

Jane nodded jerkily and let the Joker pull her to her feet now the exam and scan were finished.

They left the small exam room with the doctor behind him. Jimmy was hovering by the nurses' station, trying to chat up a blonde nurse. The moment he saw them come out he came straight over, leaving the nurse to watch him with an amused smile.

Jane looked at Jimmy and beamed at him and before he knew it he was beaming back at her and reaching out to catch her into a hug. He caught the look in the Joker's eyes and hastily let her go, clearing his throat.

"I'm pleased for you," he caught Jane's eyes again and ended up grinning stupidly at her. "Ah, for you both," he added when the Joker cleared his throat and grunted in response.

"I've got to stay in for tonight; my blood pressure is a little high."

Jimmy looked at the Joker and the concern was clear to see. The Joker frowned at him, threw his arms out to the sides and sighed in exasperation.

"Like stopping the tide, isn't it?" he grunted. "Look after her, I'm gonna call Mark, sort some things out." He threw them both a disgusted face and, slightly hunched, went off to the entrance way.

"Well…" Jane blew out her breath and blinked rapidly. "He'll come around eventually."

"To the baby?" asked Jimmy with surprise.

"No, not the baby," she replied but didn't add any more as she smirked at him. Everything was just fine in her world again and for all it made her selfish, nothing else mattered.

A/N: Okay, so if you've made it this far and you haven't thrown up, well done. Seriously though, the whole baby thing had to be done, after all she's been through something had to upset her. I had bad bleeds through both of my pregnancies and neither time could they tell me for definite what it was. My husband just says I'm weird that way!

As for the whole marriage thing…. Hope you aren't all in sugar overload.

Thank you for keeping with me so far and I hope you continue.

Someone asked for a Crane/Oc fic…. I might just at that, even if to say sorry for killing him off! I've read a few Red Eye/Scarecrow fics and while the premise is great I haven't read any that I've wanted to read, if you know what I mean. But the thought of Jonathon Crane and Jackson Rippner being twins does make me think. Also, I've read a few fics of them and the Joker as children, again, not reading what I want to read. I don't know; I'll have to think about it. I have two kids, my eldest is home schooled because that's what works for her; my youngest is ASD and so time is not plentiful here. But it is my way of de-stressing.

Ok, rambling, big time. Sorry! Have a great weekend wherever you are!