Theme: Kaledia - '99 Luftballons'

The Pantomime

14.

Ed pressed the button for the elevator leading into the Sionis family crypt. He'd found it plenty creepy when Roman invited him down there earlier in the evening, giving Ed an opening to betray Harley and the Joker. In return, Roman removed the mask, revealing his identity to show his appreciation. But it wasn't quite as exciting as Ed had hoped or Roman seemed to think it was. Ed already knew Roman was Black Mask thanks to Harley, ruining the surprise. And also… as signs of appreciation went, it was kind of a lame one.

Another letdown.

Roman also did not ask Ed to join the False Face Society, which Ed suspected he had done for the Scarecrow, putting Ed below Crane in the pecking order. And from what he knew about Crane, that was like being forced to sit at the reject table. Or worse than the reject table. Crane was at the reject table, so Ed was eating lunch in the history teacher's classroom.

Well, F you, BM.

Roman.

So when Ed returned to the Sionis crypt, it was to demand some respect, or maybe kill Roman, or maybe just steal something to make him realize Ed was not someone to be treated like trash. He needed to do something to escape the... mehhh.

Ed stepped into the elevator, sighing as he searched for that little wiggle of excitement over doing something naughty, but it wasn't there. There was this kind of… damp feeling. Like soggy toast. Or a squishy candy heart. He couldn't put a name on it, but he just wanted it to stop, and he was pretty sure killing Roman or stealing his stuff would help.

But then the elevator started to descend into the crypt, and Ed started to hear screaming. And it got louder and louder, making that little wiggle of excitement spring free from the dampness, making shivers explode over his back and arms. The thrill that something was going to happen, the anticipation of something new, something interesting.

The elevator doors opened, and Ed's eyes widened at the scene he was greeted with.

On one wall, the Joker was handcuffed to an iron loop sticking out from the ceiling, his feet limp on the stone floor, his ankles bound with rope. His chin was against his bare chest and he was covered in blood… Oh, because he was bleeding from his wrists. Ed's eyes widened when he saw the weak spurts of blood.

Then directly across from the Joker, manacled to the wall, was Harley, the source of the screaming.

"YOU SONOFABITCH! I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!"

Roman was standing in front of her, a knife in his hand, his shirt sleeves rolled up, looking quite fetching actually. But that wasn't important, Ed told himself as he tried to decide what to do.

Then Harley made a really bad sound—like she was dying. Like something was trying to climb out of her, something horrible. She sounded like she was in the most terrible kind of pain. And she was crying. It made Ed shudder. Crying always made him cringe, but when it was paired with this violent, wrathful pain, it really did something to him.

It sure wasn't boring.

Roman said something asinine to her, making her wail again, when Ed spotted a stool beside the Joker. Still unsure what he was doing, he crept toward it, squinting at the Joker's face as he passed him. He was so pale. His skin was almost white.

Oh yeah, he was gonna die if Ed didn't do something.

And a world without the Joker would be super boring.

Ed picked up the stool and stood behind Roman, chewing his bottom lip as he thought about the Scarecrow again.

Ed was not eating lunch with the history teacher.

He swung the stool at the side of Roman's head, sending him careening to the floor.

Harley's screaming stopped, her eyes widening as she stared at Ed. Usually, he would have luxuriated in that surprise, but this time it all felt so unreal. Like he was floating through a moment.

Her eyes darted down to Roman.

"Hit him again!" she squealed, and Ed obediently swung the stool at Roman's head before he could get to his knees. "Again!" Harley screamed, and Ed did it again, feeling like he was an extension of her, like his arms and legs hers to control.

Roman stopped moving, and for a few seconds there was just the sound of Harley panting hysterically.

"Get the keys!" she yelped, and Ed quickly ducked down to palm Roman's pants pockets, rolling him onto his back and finding two sets in his front pocket, one old and creaky looking, the other for modern handcuffs.

His heart pounding in his neck, Ed rushed up to Harley and used the old iron ones to unlock the manacles around her wrists and ankles, which were red and raw from where she'd been trying to get free.

"Hurry, hurry!" she insisted, her voice breaking.

Oh, it sounded so painful.

Once she was free, she bolted across the crypt to the Joker.

"Get him down!" she shrieked to Ed, who staggered after her and reached up to unlock the handcuffs as she threw herself at the Joker's feet.

She pulled a knife out of his ribs—which Ed hadn't even noticed until then—and she started sawing through the rope binding his feet to the floor, her breath hitching with the occasional sob. She cut the rope just as Ed got the handcuffs unlocked, and without his arms bound above his head, the Joker slumped down. Ed caught him under the armpits and lowered him to the stone floor, then stepped back, out of Harley's way as she clambered on top of him, patting his face as his head lolled back on the rocky floor.

"J," she hiccupped, her voice watery. She held the Joker's face in her hands and slapped him, hard. "J, wake up!" she demanded, a sob getting stuck in her throat. "Jack!"

… Jack?

Ed stood back, blinking stupidly, that dampness roaring back in, making his brain feel mushy as he watched Harley break down into sobs as she tried to wake the Joker up. Calling him J and Jack and getting progressively more desperate.

She whipped around to look up at Ed, her face red and blotchy.

"Give me your belt!" she screeched, and Ed quickly yanked his belt off, seeing she'd already tied the Joker's around one of his arms like a tourniquet.

His tongue like lead in his mouth, Ed offered her his belt. She ripped it out of his hands, sniffing and panting and trying to hold it together as she secured it around the Joker's bloodied bicep.

There was so much blood. Ed had never stabbed a person before, only shot them, and strangled them two or three times. He wasn't a big fan of blood. It was messy and ruined things—it took so much dry cleaning to get it out—and torture seemed kind of excessive when you could just pay people. But right now, he found himself fascinated by it. How could that much blood come out of one man?

The Joker was just a man, after all.

A man named Jack, apparently.

Oooooh, boy.

Harley hauled the Joker up to sitting and looped one of his arms over her shoulders. Ed could see his eyelids were fluttering, not quite dead yet though he seemed to be struggling to speak or keep his head up. His face was white, and black circles were forming around his eyes. Not good.

Harley looked up at Ed, her blue eyes wide and afraid.

"Help me!" she pleaded, her voice cracking, tears running down her cheeks, and after stalling a moment, his brain filled with nothing but white noise, Ed jumped to action, bowing down to grab the Joker's other arm and hauling him up.

They carried him to the elevator, Harley panting and fighting back sobs, making awful, painful sounds. Sounds Ed had never heard a person make before. Sounds that scared him and made his bowels clench.

As they staggered into the elevator, Ed took one last look at Roman, lying prone on the floor. Not dead, not done.

F you BM, he thought, and jabbed the button to make the doors close.

The elevator shot upwards, and Harley started heaving desperately to stave off sobs, trying to pull herself together so she could get through this and save the man she quite obviously loved. She was crying into the Joker's bare, blood-streaked shoulder, palming his face and trying to hold his head up—calling him J and Jack in this watery sobby voice.

He wasn't unconscious, but he was close to it.

Ed wondered if he was only staying awake for her.

They burst out of the elevator and stumbled out of the mausoleum and through the cemetery, Harley wheezing as they headed for the main road. Ed had no idea what she was planning on doing. They couldn't exactly call an Uber, and even with the makeshift tourniquets, the Joker was still bleeding. Ed's jacket was nearly soaked through on one side. How long could a person bleed like this before they died?

"I need—I need—I need," Harley panted, her voice shaking as she frantically looked up and down the country road. To the right was Wayne Manor, its lights shining in the darkness. To the left, the lights of Gotham City. "A knife, a gun, I need…"

Ed stared at her, his arms straining with the Joker's weight sagging between them. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do, how he was supposed to react. He just knew he couldn't leave her, even if this was futile, and the Joker was probably going to die. Ed also knew this could end badly for him, but he couldn't leave her.

Then a car was coming up the road toward them, a Mercedes Sedan—S Class, bulky and expensive, not very chic—its headlights glowing in the darkness.

"Hold him!" Harley shrieked at Ed, her eyes wild.

She shrugged off the Joker, letting him sway into Ed's arms, his face flopping forward against Ed's shoulder.

"Ohhh…" Ed murmured, not sure what else to do but pat the Joker's back hesitantly, a show of comfort for a dying man. His skin was getting cold. "Shh," Ed whispered, watching Harley duck down, and pick up something then sprint out into the road, waving her arms as the car approached, her fancy blood-soaked dress making it screech to a stop before the driver jumped out.

"Help me! Help me!" Harley wailed, staggering up to the man.

"Oh my God!" the man gasped, shocked by her. "What happened? Do you—"

Harley launched herself at him with an animalistic roar, and there was a CRACK through the darkness. Ed realized she'd hit the man over the head with a rock. He stumbled against the car and she hit him again, and again, until he was on his back on the street, twitching. Then she hit him three more times, screaming in wild abandon, screaming out her grief and desperation before she jumped up and ran back to Ed, pulling the Joker's arm back around her neck and leading them over to the car.

She threw open one of the backdoors and they lowered the Joker in, then Ed ran around to the other side and pulled him across the back seat, his body completely limp now. It didn't look like he was awake anymore. Once his feet were in, Harley climbed on top of him.

"Give me your jacket!" she screeched at Ed, who quickly shucked his jacket and handed it to her so she could try to staunch the bleeding, keeping the Joker's arms over his head. "Close the door - get in the front seat - DRIVE!" she instructed, hysterical even though she was trying to keep it together.

Ed obediently did everything she told him, jumping behind the wheel, turning the car around to head back to Gotham, running over the car's owner twice in the process, killing him if he wasn't already dead from the head trauma.

"Jack," Harley whined. "Jack, please."

"Um," Ed managed to find his voice as he sped down the country road, heading for the bridge back to Gotham. "Um, where am I going?"

"Do you have a phone?" Harley gasped, her voice hitching, and when Ed confirmed he did, she recited a number to him twice, and he had to ask her for it a third time before it started ringing.

"Who's this," a sullen voice demanded, a video game making pew! pew! pew! sounds in the background.

"Uhhh…" Ed faltered.

Harley had picked up screaming 'J' and 'Jack' and pleading with him to stay awake, her voice making Ed's ears ring.

"What the fuck!" the sullen voice snapped, obviously hearing her. "Who is this?"

"Um, hey, my name's Ed," Ed said awkwardly, trying to block out Harley's screams so he could concentrate. "I'm um, with Harley and well, the Joker and uh… he's in pretty bad shape."

"Bad shape?" the voice demanded, obviously concerned. "What kinda bad shape?"

"Like uh… the bleeding to death kind," Ed chuckled weakly, wincing. "So, Harley seemed to think—"

"Lee Thompkins!" Harley screamed from the backseat. "Find Lee Thompkins!"

"Uh… Harley seems to think we need someone called Lee Thompkins?" Ed cringed. "I mean I think we need a doctor, probably—"

"She is a fucking doctor!" Harley raged, her voice inhuman before she wailed miserably.

"Oh, Lee Thompkins is a doctor, I guess, and she…"

Over the phone, Ed could hear computer keys clacking, and the sullen voice breathing shakily, trying to keep calm, Ed guessed. He wasn't doing a very good job of himself, his heart hammering a million miles an hour. He couldn't remember feeling this way before—feeling so much before—like the dampness was spreading and mutating the longer he listened to Harley's painful screams.

It was too much.

"Alright, I'm texting you Thompkins' cell and her home address," the sullen voice announced shakily. "And Ed, if you let him fucking die, I swear to God, I'm gonna come for you. You hear me? I will fuck you up myself, got it!"

Ed's phone beeped with a text, and he quickly hung up on the sullen person and called the number blinking on his phone.

This time, a sleepy woman answered.

"Oh, um, hi there!" Ed tried for friendly and casual. "Is this Dr Thompkins?"

"Yes," she replied warily, sounding more alert.

"Oh, great," Ed gushed, beaming at the road in front of him to help him sound happy. "So, I'm with Harley Quinn at the moment, and I'm assuming you uh, have some kind of relationship with her because she seems to think you can help us…"

Harley screamed in the backseat, a horrible, blood-curdling scream like she was being ripped in half.

"Is she—is she okay?" Thompkins asked, concerned and confused.

"Uh, well, she's fine, but um, her boyfriend's not in great shape," Ed explained awkwardly, pulling onto the freeway and laying his foot down on the gas again. "See uh, he's kinda… bleeding to death at the moment…"

"You have to go to a hospital," Thompkins said firmly, fully awake. "Right now."

"Yeah… I don't think Harley's gonna go for that," Ed sighed, and he paused to let Thompkins hear Harley's howling—"Jack!... Jack!... JACK!"—"She seems to think you're the one to fix him up and I'm pretty sure if you don't help us and he dies, well, ya know she's probably gonna do something real bad." He winced at the pathetic threat. "And you know, you're a doctor so you're sort of supposed to help."

"I… well… what exactly does she want me to do?" Thompkins demanded.

"Um, I've got your address sooooo maybe we could like, swing by?" Ed tried.

"Swing by?" Thompkins snapped incredulously. "He's bleeding to death and you want to swing by my apartment? I can't stop blood loss with a needle and thread, Ed, you need plasma, adrenaline, medical supplies…"

"Harley, she says we need medical supplies," Ed called into the back seat.

"Texas Joe's. Under—under the east side of the Downtown bridge," Harley sobbed weakly. "He'll have everything."

"So, good news," Ed relayed to Thompkins in a little sing-song voice, trying to stay upbeat when Harley sounded like the world was ending. "Sounds like we can pick up some stuff from a guy Harley knows. Sooooo wanna like, text me a grocery list and then we'll head over your way? Haha… uh… yeah... so is that okay? Sorry, this is soooo awkward..."

There was a long pause, and then Thompkins said, "Yes. Hurry up."

"Good news," Ed called to Harley, who didn't respond.

Then he heard it.

"Shh… shh… shh…," the Joker's raspy voice so quiet and weak it was almost inaudible over the sound of the car's engine while Harley sniffled and hiccupped.

"Please," she whined quietly, her voice cracking like her heart was breaking. "Stay with me, please."

Ed's throat felt thick as he laid his foot down on the gas, the arrow on the speedometer swinging up as he headed Downtown.

He was pretty sure Harley would tell him if the Joker died back there, or maybe she would just explode, but she spent the next ten minutes sniffing and pleading quietly, murmuring instead of screaming. Maybe because she'd screamed herself hoarse, maybe because she was giving up. Who could say? But when they reached Texas Joe's, Ed stomped down on the brake, so the car squealed to a stop, and she was panting throatily like she was building herself up for something.

Thompkins texted Ed a list, a long list of stuff he'd never heard of before, and Harley sent him into the body shop, entrusting him to get the supplies needed to save the Joker's life. There was a man with rosy cheeks and a long white beard, who kind of looked like a dirty Coca-Cola Santa Claus. His eyes widened when he saw Ed, who was covered in the Joker's blood. It was smeared down his cheek and covering his hands, his Armani suit and Helmut Lang shirt ruined, his hair a mess.

Texas Joe pulled a pistol, prompting Ed to throw his hands up.

"Hey there! Sorry for the intrusion, don't mind me," he chirped, trying to be nice and friendly and disarming which wasn't really working. "So, I've kinda got a medical emergency on my hands," he explained awkwardly, edging closer to the Santa man, who was probably Texas Joe. "And I heard you could help me…"

Santa-man/Texas Joe pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes, so Ed went all in. For Harley's sake.

"Please help me," he begged, letting his eyes fill with tears, playing the empathy card. The tears felt foreign in his eyes, but they felt good too, like releasing the pressure that had been building since he stepped foot in that crypt to Harley's screaming. "Please," he croaked, imitating Harley's voice and the way she'd been pleading with the Joker. "I can't lose them," he added, sniffling as tears started running down his cheeks.

Texas Joe hesitated, then set his pistol on a workbench, nodding.

"Okay," he agreed. "What do you need?"

It took about ten minutes for Texas Joe to pull everything together into a big duffle bag. Add that onto the twenty minutes it took to get to the body shop once they jacked the car, and the five to get through the cemetery, plus at least another five of the Joker bleeding before Ed had stepped in… they were edging onto forty-or-so minutes of him bleeding out. Ed didn't know how long it took to bleed to death, but he was pretty sure the Joker didn't have much longer.

Ed slung the duffle bag over his shoulder and headed back to the car with Texas Joe on his heels when Harley appeared in their path. Her eyes were red and swollen—wild. She looked like the humanity had been drained out of her, leaving an animal or just a killer behind. She had the revolver Texas Joe set aside in her hand, and without blinking she shot Joe in the head then pivoted to Ed, who threw up his hands.

"Wait, I wanna help!" he insisted. "You can't carry him on your own."

Her shoulders heaved for a moment as she considered what he was saying.

"Your phone," she snapped raggedly. "Throw it on the floor."

Ed fumbled to get his phone out of his pocket—a Vertu Signature Touch, very expensive, very ugly, very covered in the Joker's blood—and tossed it on the floor. To Ed's surprise she shot the phone twice, then spun on her heel and stormed back to the car, throwing herself into the back, clambering on top of the Joker again.

He had to assume it was something to do with not being tracked, which made Ed feel really good because that meant she trusted him. He dove behind the wheel, tossing the duffle bag of supplies in the passenger seat, feeling a sense of purpose and urgency as he listened to Harley whisper the Joker's name—his real name.

Wow.

She was the only one who knew his name. The only one close enough to the monster to know the truth.

And now Ed knew it too.

He headed Uptown, trying to be careful and not draw attention, but Harley's whimpering in the back started up again, and soon she broke down into sobs, long, breathless, painful sobs.

"Is he okay?" Ed demanded, not wanting to speed because if they got pulled over, that was definitely the end of this rescue mission.

"He's not waking up," Harley croaked despondently. "His heartbeat is so slow."

"Well, do you wanna like, stab him with an adrenaline needle or something?" Ed suggested, trying to be helpful. "You know, like in Pulp Fiction?"

But she didn't answer. She just kept crying quietly and murmuring soft things Ed couldn't make out. So, he sighed heavily and concentrated on driving, trying to focus on the urgency and a sense of purpose instead of the horrible dampness.

He wondered if he would ever feel the way Harley felt about the Joker about someone.

Maybe it was only reserved for them.

"Just keep talking to him," he suggested. "We're Uptown, we're almost there."

She sucked in a shuddering breath.

Lee Thompkins lived in a townhouse around the corner from the nice side of Robinson Park, where it was all clean and classy and full of doctors and lawyers. The townhouses had been split into apartments, and hers was on the top floor. She was waiting outside with a sheet when they pulled up. She was probably fifty, with warm brown eyes and thick black hair, a fashionable grey streak running through the front, wearing athleisure-wear and no makeup.

Ed wondered what one was supposed to wear for moments like this. When terrorists showed up on your doorstep in need of medical assistance. Athleisure-wear seemed appropriate, he decided.

It was only then that he had the foresight to wonder who this woman was, and how Harley knew her. How the hell could they trust that the cops weren't right around the corner? Ready to pounce once the Joker was stabilized, if not sooner. And all of this made Ed hesitate to get out of the car as Harley scrambled out and exchanged a few sharp words with Thompkins.

Ed considered taking off, getting the hell out of there before he could get sucked into something awful, and really, really boring.

Like prison.

"Ed!" Harley hissed.

But Ed already knew he was going to help. He wanted to stick around. How weird.

So, he got out of the car and helped Harley and Thompkins hoist the Joker onto the sheet, a makeshift gurney so they could get him up the front steps, Ed doing the brunt of the carrying because he was the strongest. There was a small elevator, only big enough for a wheelchair, which they packed the Joker into with Harley, while Ed and Thompkins raced up two flights of stairs, waiting for them at the top.

When the elevator doors opened, Harley looked up at them, her eyes wide and horrified.

"I don't think he's breathing," she gasped, fat tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Get him in here," Thompkins snapped, her voice more authoritative now. "Come on, Harley, get up!"

Harley struggled to her feet and they dragged the Joker into the apartment, leaving two long streaks of blood on the carpet outside the front door. It was all happening so fast and so slow at the same time, Ed could hardly keep up.

It was a small apartment, but he couldn't see any of the details. It was like a black hole with a kitchen table in the center of it, which Thompkins instructed them to hoist the Joker up onto, her voice strong and confident.

She ripped into Texas Joe's bag of medical supplies, laying them out on her kitchen counter, plastic bags of clear liquid and blood and needles and tubes and all kinds of other things. She snapped on a pair of purple latex gloves, glancing at Harley, who was at the head of the table beside the Joker, her bloodied hands pulling his hair as she squatted down to rub her face against his, and started sobbing all over again.

He wasn't moving at all, not responding. His face was whiter than it had been earlier, chalky and bloodless, his eyes two black circles, Harley's bloody handprints smeared over his scars. Just like his warpaint but somehow much more human.

Wasn't that funny? That he was most human as he was about to die?

I have no end

I am the end of all that begins

What am I?

Thompkins looked at Ed, her expression grim.

"Let me see your hands," she demanded.

Ed held up his hands, which were remarkably stable considering his heart was thundering a thousand miles a minute, and his head was spinning, dizzy from adrenaline and the draining sounds of Harley's grief.

Thompkins shoved a pair of latex gloves at him, announced that he was assisting her, and told him to grab things and hold things as she marched up to the Joker and pulled his arms up over his head.

"Hold them up," she instructed Harley, who did as she was told, but buried her face in the Joker's hair and cried quietly.

Thompkins took the Joker's pulse at his throat, her expression hardening before she started moving fast.

"He's in hypovolemic shock," she announced, ripping the packaging off a big plastic syringe filled with yellow liquid and shoving it at Ed. "And his heart is going to give out soon," she added, ripping into more packaging, producing a silver coil and a giant needle and other mean-looking things.

Harley sobbed weakly. Like she couldn't carry on.

Maybe she thought she couldn't without him.

Thompkins did some kind of medical trickery, inserting a big needle then the coil and then tubes straight into the Joker's chest, like an IV but bigger and scarier, straight into one of the arteries connected to his heart.

"Ed," she snapped, prompting Ed to pass her the syringe of yellow liquid, entranced, and having no idea what was going to happen next.

She plunged the syrupy substance into the Joker's chest, and Ed guessed this was probably what the writers of Pulp Fiction had been going for, something that should have been exciting to see in real life, but he was too drained by now.

Also, the Joker didn't jump off the table and run around the room, screaming like Uma Thurman.

Let down.

Like so many things in life.

"Ed, grab me two bags of blood," Thompkins instructed as she taped off the IV.

Ed quickly did what he was told while Thompkins whispered something kind to Harley, lowering the Joker's arms back down to his sides and removing the belts. Ed helped her get an IV in each of his arms at the elbow, his forearms still bleeding from deep, clean cuts.

How much blood could one person lose?

"He's breathing," Harley whispered as Thompkins instructed Ed to hold the bags up before she started on his arms, suturing them shut.

"Whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing," she said, more to herself than them. "The arteries are lacerated but not severed."

"What does that mean?" Ed frowned, his eyes drifting to Harley, who was swaying weakly like she was going to pass out.

"It means they wanted him to die slowly," Thompkins explained. "But it also means I might be able to save him."

"Might?" Ed's eyebrows rose. "I mean, didn't you already do that?"

Thompkins glanced at Ed and inclined her head toward Harley, whose eyes were rolling as she cried brokenly. When Ed looked at Thompkins again, they silently agreed that Harley was probably not in any state to hear the truth about how likely the Joker was to survive this.

"Maybe," Thompkins admitted, her voice low so only Ed could hear her. "We'll get some blood and fluids into him and wrap him up, so he doesn't get hypothermia, and see how he's doing in a few hours. It depends on how long he stopped breathing; how long oxygen wasn't getting to his brain..."

"So, he could be like…" Ed looked at the Joker's white face, his eyes widening. "He could be like, brain dead?" he hissed at Thompkins.

She shot him a warning look and inclined her head to Harley again.

Ed tried to get Harley to drink some water while Thompkins continued to work, but she shoved him away, returning to her earlier position of pressing her face against the Joker's cheek while she pulled his hair, one of her hands lying flat against his neck, feeling his pulse, and Ed could hear her whispering again.

"Jack…"

Ed took a step back, not having anything else to contribute as Thompkins worked on the Joker's arms and then the stab wound. It was all so messy.

Then Harley got shakily to her feet and staggered past Ed into a small kitchen, which he was able to take note of then, a counter separating it from the living room and a dining table. It was a nice little apartment. Cute and homey. A pale blue crocheted blanket on the couch, a few ferns, quite a lot of Ikea, and more throw pillows than you could shake a stick at. Now would be the time to take off, Ed realized, unsure what else he was supposed to do, but he could still feel himself lingering.

Then he heard a sound behind him in the kitchen and turned around to see Harley standing there, her expression so dark he took a step back. She had a skillet in her hand—Le Creuset, cast iron, Marseille blue enamel, very expensive, very chic—and Ed's eyes widened as she swung it at his head.

And then it all went dark.

Lonnie wasn't sure what the fuck he was supposed to do, but hours after he spoke to 'Ed,' he could still hear Harley screaming in his ear.

She'd sounded like someone was dying. Like J was dying. Bleeding to death if this Ed dude was to be believed.

So, what the fuck was Lonnie supposed to do about it?

He sat at his desk, staring blindly at the game paused on his monitor, and eventually plucked up the energy to roll a joint. He fell on one of the couches in the living room and got stoned, which helped quiet the memory of Harley's panicked shrieking. He shuffled into the kitchen, snacking and picking at leftovers, helping himself to a soda. He sat back down at his desk, did a line of BO, tried to play his game, lost interest and started pacing, smoked another joint.

Then finally, with the blue light of dawn approaching, Lonnie got a text from Harley. Thank fuck.

Warehouse ASAP was all it read.

J had been very, very clear that Lonnie wasn't to leave the honeymoon suite— not for anything. He didn't tell Lonnie why, and Lonnie didn't care enough to guess. He just did what he was told.

But if J was hurt and needed him, Lonnie sure as shit wasn't going to say no or sit on his ass.

He took the private elevator down to the garage and considered the purple Lamborghini he'd purchased himself for the sake of blending in. It was a grotesque homage to late-stage capitalism, perfect for zipping around Midtown and running errands alongside all the rich assholes. But Harley wanted Lonnie to meet them at the Narrows warehouse where they'd been keeping Crane, which made this a trip for his well-loved 2004 Honda Civic.

Lonnie smoked another joint on the drive, trying to stay calm. He could only hope Harley had calmed the fuck down so he wouldn't have to deal with her whining on top of whatever else was going down.

When he reached the warehouse they'd been keeping Crane at, he parked out front and raced up the stairs to the loft.

But once Lonnie threw open the loft's sliding steel door, he immediately knew he'd fucked up—that he'd been played.

Crane was there, waiting on the other side of the door, that fucking traitor. He was wearing the Scarecrow mask, and beside him stood a man in a suit, with a black mask wrapping around his entire head like a skull.

Lonnie looked between them, then made to bolt, but two massive thugs appeared behind him, blocking his path.

"Hello, Lonnie," the black mask said in a low electronic purr, his voice modified. "Or should I call you… Anarky."

Then the Scarecrow lifted his arm, wielding the canister Lonnie helped that back-stabbing motherfucker reconstruct, and gassed Lonnie right in the face.

The Scarecrow mask contorted into a horrifying face from hell, and Lonnie started to scream.

A/N: *hides under the bed*

That's the shortest chapter I've ever published, and it has almost zero resolution after last week's dire ending. I'm sorry.

To make it up to you, I'll post some fluffy stuff on my Tumblr this week. You can already find Harley & the Joker's first couple attempts at phone sex on there. I've got some other domestic-ness coming like 'Harley & the Joker go Through US Cusoms' and prompts other prompts.

It felt like a risk to let Harley call the Joker 'Jack' here, but she knows that's his given name, and she's desperate to keep him awake… it's what she would do and speaks to her desperation. But it almost feels like by putting it in writing, I've peeled some profound layer away from him, and it's satisfying? I don't know. She isn't gonna start calling him Jack though, that's not happening.

Disclaimer: it is far easier to research how to run the mob than how to treat or recover from hypovolemic shock. I think it's sellable, which is better than what Hollywood aims for sometimes. If there are any medical professionals reading and I got it wrong… Sorry, I tried!

Next week: The Joker recovers at Lee Thompkins' apartment, and Harley learns Black Mask has taken Lonnie.

We are gonna get to see a whole new side of Harley & J over the coming chapters.

Please review or comment! I personally find this chapter more upsetting than last week...

xo