(Hello, Dear Readers! This update is a bit of a birthday present to a reviewer who asked if I could possibly update another chapter on her birthday. Happy birthday The Amethyst Eyes!

Chapter Fourteen

Close Encounters of the Weird Kind

Someone was going to die. Plain and simple. Someone was going to die. And that someone would be whoever it was that had put her in this predicament.

Amber scowled ahead, refusing to look at the man behind her. She stood with her arms crossed over her chest and her back to him. The man also had his back to her, but there was no frown on his face. Nope. He had a permanent smile. Their backs were touching each other, practically fused together. The reason for their close proximity? They were stuck in a closet. A very small closet.

Amber had been escorting the Joker from Art Therapy to his cell after causing a disturbance.

"What's that?" the Joker had asked, sincerely curious, when he had spotted something dangling from within an open hallway closet.

Amber and the Joker had walked over to the closet and saw a note was hanging on a string from the ceiling. Amber and the clown both stepped inside to read the note.

"Enjoy the privacy?" Amber read with confusion.

SLAM! *click*

Amber and the Joker's backs went stiff at the sound they'd heard come from behind them and the sudden disappearance of light. Amber blinked in the darkness. "Did the door just…"

"Yep."

"Crap."

And of course this particular closet happened to be located in a hall that hardly anyone came by. Amber shuffled around and felt for the door knob. She twisted it around but it remained locked. "Okay, whoever this is, you have about five seconds to open this door! One!… Two!…Three!...Four!…Five!" Amber tried to work the knob again but it still hadn't changed.

"Open the door!"

"Well it could be worse," the Joker chuckled.

Amber froze when she remembered who she was stuck in the closet with. Her eyes widened and she began to bang on the door. "Open up! Open up! Open up!" she cried rapidly.

Outside of the door, three people were snickering as quietly as they possibly could. Katherine and Katlyn 1 watched as The Riddler shook his head and mouthed the word, "No," as an answer to Amber's pleas.

Katherine leaned in to whisper in Katlyn 1's ear. "This should help them see their hidden feelings for each other."

"Denial is a strong thing, but it's bound to be broken eventually," Katlyn 1 whispered back.

"Hey! Get your hands off of me!"

"I didn't mean to grab you; I meant to try finding the door knob!"

"Sure you were."

"I was!"

"And you think you can open the door after I just tried?"

"Well, it's worth a shot, hon. You could just be unable to turn the knob properly."

SMACK!

"Ouch! What was that for?"

"For being you!"

Edward smiled and faced his two girls. "Well," he said in a low voice, "as much as I would love to stick around and see how this turns out, my wiser side tells me to leave while I still have the chance. I suggest you do the same."

The girls nodded and all three turned and ran from the closet.

….

Now it had been ten minutes and the two were facing opposite sides, backs to the other. The Joker had felt along the walls and found the light switch. The single bulb only provided a dim glow in the room, but enough for them to see.

The Joker giggled and tried to crane his neck around to look at the young nurse behind him. "Sooo, uh, I guess you weren't planning for that to happen, hm?"

Amber continued to glare ahead but she stabbed an index finger in the air to emphasize her words. "I swear if you go off on a 'People should never make plans' rant, I will strangle you with my bare hands."

The Joker pursed his lips. "You knooow… if anyone unlocks that door and sees us like this, they could get the wrong impression," he sing-songed.

Amber scoffed. "Riiiiiight. Us facing opposite directions will definitely spark rumors."

"Well then maybe we should do this the right way, huh?" The Joker immediately turned while he was still speaking and placed his hands on Amber's hips, twisting them until her body now faced his. He gave a grin and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"Ew! No!" Amber yelped and beat him on the head. "Sicko!" She yanked his hands off her hips and promptly turned back around to facing the opposite direction.

"You really know how to hurt a guy," the Joker playfully whined, rubbing the top of his head.

"You're a big boy, you can handle it."

The Joker moved to roll his eyes dramatically but paused in mid-motion, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. The ceiling had an unscrewed air duct. He tongued his scars for a moment and then looked at Amber with a calculating gaze. "What size are you?" he asked.

Amber slightly turned her neck to look at him. "What?"

"What size are you?"

"Why do you want to know what size I-?"

"Oh could you just answer a question instead of repeating it for once?" The Joker sighed with frustration and placed his hands around Amber's waist. Once again, Amber began to beat him.

"What are you doing?!"

"Stop that! I'm trying to see if you're the right size!"

"The right size for what?" Amber slapped at his hands.

The Joker growled and tilted her head up to the air duct. "For that."

"Oh."

The Joker placed his hands around Amber's hips once more and whistled. "A few inches thinner and I think my hands could completely encircle your hips, Sweet Heart."

"That's enough talk about my hips."

The Joker did his best to keep the space between his hands the same as he transferred them from Amber's hips to the air duct. It looked like she'd be able to squeeze through. The Joker then did the same to himself and grinned when he also found he could fit.

"Alright, Ambs." He made a cradle with his hands and readied himself to lift Amber to the air duct. "I'll boost ya."

"Uh, no."

"What do you mean no?"

"If I go first, that means you'll be behind me."

"Yeaaaaah. So?"

"I don't want to hear comments about my backside the entire time we follow this thing to wherever it goes."

"Kind of flattering yourself there, aren't you?"

"No; it's just the sort of thing you'd do."

"Well how do I know you won't do the same if I go first, hm?"

"Oh please."

"Hey, I happen to be rather fetchy."

They argued back and forth until finally it was decided that Amber would go first anyway. Amber stepped into the foothold the Joker made with his hands and used the momentum he gave her to pull herself into the air duct.

The Joker giggled. "Well your hips don't lie," he snickered, seeing that his measuring had been correct. He used a rickety shelf as a ladder and squeezed in behind Amber. "Okaie-dokie. Onward!" he said, dramatically.

Amber and the Joker crawled practically on their bellies in the narrow passage and were about two minutes in when the Joker opened his mouth. "You know, Amber… maybe you should flatter yourself a little more often."

SMACK!

"Geez!"

Amber smirked. There was an upside to being in front. She could kick the Joker's face if he got too fresh.

….

"Could you speed up? You're blocking traffic," the Joker complained.

Amber grunted and held her tongue. They had been crawling for thirty minutes and she was getting tired of dragging herself at the fast pace the Joker was forcing her to do. If she slowed down, she had the unpleasant feeling of the Joker trying to crawl over her.

"Just let me rest for a second, okay. Some of us haven't escaped from Arkham by the air ventilation before and aren't used to it."

"Hey I only did that a couple of times."

"Whatever."

Amber paused to catch her breath and laid her head down on the metal. The Joker was strangely quiet. Amber tiredly shifted to be on her side and look at him. "You still back there?"

He was. But he didn't answer. He was staring at her. He was staring at her in a way that she couldn't read and that wasn't good news. "Uh… Joker?" Still nothing.

"Have you ever had a boyfriend, Nurse Amber?" he asked suddenly.

Amber literally leaned her head back in surprise at his question. This made her slightly resemble 'The Dramatic Hamster'. "Why are you asking me that?"

"That's a 'no' then."

"I didn't say that."

"No but your body did."

Amber glared and pointed a finger at him. "I told you to leave my body out of this."

"No, you said 'hips'." The Joker grinned cheesily and then went serious again. "You flinch every time I touch your hips and it's not just because it's me that's touching you, it's because you're not used to that kind of touching."

Amber blinked at the Joker's correct deduction. He figured that out and he was insane? Amber narrowed her eyes at the clown. "Are you sure you're crazy or are you putting on a show?" she asked. The Joker let out a series of wild laughs that echoed throughout the air duct. Amber winced at the volume and sighed. "Nope. He's just crazy and smart," she mumbled and continued to drag herself through the passage.

….

"So this Nurse Amber Johnson is new here?" Dr. Fitz asked Dr. Arkham.

"Fairly new. She's been here for about a year now."

"And would you say that she's a valued staff member?"

"Yes, I would."

"How so?"

"She's … she's very unique. I can honestly say that we've never had someone like Amber work here before."

"She's memorable?"

"Oh yes indeed," Arkham chuckled mysteriously.

Dr. Fitz opened his mouth to ask another question when a rumbling noise was heard coming from the Break Room's air duct. Both doctors looked up at the ceiling and frowned.

"What the bloody-?"

CRASH!

A force collided with the screen and sprang it open as two bodies fell to the floor in a heap. Dr. Fitz and Dr. Arkham both stood to their feet in surprise. Amber groaned and tried to breathe but found it difficult to do with the Joker lying on top of her.

"Apparently not all the air ducts stay in the horizontal position," the Joker chuckled and then moaned.

Amber and the clown were oblivious to their surroundings at the moment. She lifted her head and glared at the Joker. "Would you kindly remove your skinny carcass off of my crushed carcass?"

"But I just got comfortable," the Joker whined.

"Joker!"

"Alright, fine."

The Joker stood to his feet with a huff and Amber sat up, drawing in a deep breath of air and finally noticing where she was. Her green eyes landed on the two doctors. Dr. Fitz stared at her with wide eyes and Dr. Arkham calmly sipped at his coffee. "Yep. Very memorable."

Amber got up from the floor and dusted herself off. "I want the feedback of any security cameras that's placed in the Western Hall Section Eight. I want their heads!"

"Watch out boys, she's out for blood," the Joker snickered.

Amber whirled around and jabbed her index finger close to his face. "And youuuuuu!" she continued threateningly. "If you ever tell the others about this, I promise there will be an unpleasant surprise in store for you! Mark my words!"

The Joker licked his lips and smiled. "Consider them marked, Sweet Heart."

"Ugh!"

Amber stomped out of the break room.

"Hey hoooooneeeeeey!" the Joker called.

"WHAT?!"

"Forgetting something?"

Amber grudgingly stomped back into the room, grabbed the Joker by his shirt sleeve and dragged him with her so she could finish the job she'd set out to do in the first place; deliver the Joker to his cell. Dr. Fitz watched all this in silence and blinked rapidly once Amber was gone. He looked at the open air duct, the screen that had come unhinged and fallen on the floor, the door where the duo had left by, and then finally at Dr. Arkham.

He pointed at the air duct and tried to form words. "Wha…? Ho…? What just…?"

"Some things concerning Nurse Amber are just better left unexplained," Arkham replied, calmly.

(I know it was short but it was all I could get in such a short time. I hope this pleased you Amethyst! Happy Birthday again!
Readers; please review!)