A/N: I kept you waiting long enough. Enjoy the beginning of Eternal Flame. You really thought I'd resolve the proposal thing that quickly? Think again. Sorry in advance. Enjoy, my loves.

Chapter 2: All You Sinners Stand Up

Then the time for being sad is over

And you miss him like you miss no other

And being blue is better than being over

All you sinners stand up singing hallelujah

Show praise with your body, stand up singing hallelujah

"Hallelujah", Panic! at the Disco

The Joker was still on his knees in front of me, a position I certainly was not used to. It felt like a thousand years had gone by in two seconds, waiting for an answer.

"Harley, my face hurts from smiling. What are you going to say?" he said through gritted teeth.

"I think you should stand up. We are talking about this." I replied.

He exhaled deeply, closing the ring box. His knees cracked uncomfortable as he stood up. I wanted to make an 'old man' comment but figured it probably wasn't the best time for that.

He sat down on the edge of the bed, looking at all the roses strewn about.

"What about this is turning you off, exactly?" he asked.

"The whole thing, really." I admitted, "You know I'm not a romantic."

"Yeah, maybe this was a little over the top."

"I appreciate the effort." I offered, trying to be supportive.

"So, you're saying no, then?"

"Not exactly."

"Harley, this is not a 'maybe' moment. This is a 'yes' or 'no' moment."

"Right now I can't definitively say yes." I said, "But I know that's not helpful."

"Then it's a NO." he snapped. He made a move with his arm as if he was about to throw the ring against the wall, but he restrained himself.

"Can I see the ring again?" I asked.

His nostrils were flaring, "I'm going to kill you."

"Please?"

He thrust the box into my hand. I opened it, staring down at the glittery demon. It was a beautiful ring. That much was true. He had clearly spent a lot of money on it. It was cut in the typical diamond shape, reminiscent of my costume I had worn as Harley Quinn. The diamond was flawless, not too big, the band a shiny silver.

I put it on my ring finger, staring at it, feeling it. It felt sort of right being there. I remembered not really loving the ring Bruce had given me, considering it was a ring from like the 70's, but in his proposal, it was the thought that mattered, that it had been a family heirloom. It was much more sentimental. I couldn't totally remember what my ring from John-Marcus-whoever the con artist looked like; it had been a generic ring, silver with a small diamond, I think. I didn't have the image engrained in my mind. Now I had pretty much tried to forget everything about him, about that whole period of my life.

All along I realized I had been a fool, just trying to cling on to whatever guy had shown me any attention. I had been so desperate for love that I had blindly loved whoever had come along, the Joker being one of them, of course. But he was different. He had been through everything with me; things had changed. I had to admit that. This was the real thing. He wouldn't be standing here still with me if he didn't truly love me.

I looked at him, and then down at the ring.

"You look pensive." He observed.

"I am. I just have to think really hard about this."

"Harley, the best decisions you've made have been impulsive ones. Don't overthink it anymore. Can't you just say yes? What are we waiting for? We have a child together, we have a life together. It's a fucked up life, but it's ours. I don't see any reason you can say no anymore."

"Pressure me, why don't you." I said absent-mindedly, still staring at the ring.

That ring was more than a ring. It symbolized a commitment I would have to make.

I looked at him. The tension hung in the air like a knife.

I opened my mouth, and suddenly there was a loud banging at the door.

"What the hell?" the Joker jumped up.

I felt my heart freeze up in my chest, looking around the room for a blunt object, a gun. He usually had one somewhere. He always carried something.

He opened the door, and got a swift punch in the face, falling to the ground.

I ran to the suitcase, throwing clothes out of it as the man entered the room. He was a big dude; 6 foot or above, muscular. FUCK ME, FUCK ME, FUCK ME. This was not happening right now. I dug in the side pockets with haste, trying not to panic. The baby started wailing in her crib, and the Joker started to get up, distracting the intruder. I ran to the bedside table, digging in the drawer.

"Hey, asshole!" he yelled groggily.

The man turned, and I hit him solidly in the back of the head with a King James Holy Bible. Never thought that would come in handy. The man went cross-eyed (or at least I think he did, considering he was wearing a face mask), and slumped to the ground.

The Joker stared at me, breathing heavily. Everything was silent for a moment, other than Olivia whimpering in her crib.

"Quick thinking, Princess." He said.

I couldn't even muster the energy to be pissed about him calling me that.

"We need to get the fuck out of here. Someone knows who we are, why we're here. This is not good." I was doing everything I could to not start hyperventilating.

"You're right about that." He dug in the guy's pockets, locating a small handgun.

"Cover Olivia's eyes." He said grimly. I picked her up out of her portable crib and held her tight to my chest. I squeezed my own eyes shut as I heard the small pop of the gun against the man's temple.

"Jesus Christ." I whispered.

"Apt choice of words, considering he saved us for once."

I glared at him, "Really? Are we making jokes right now? You just killed a man in front of our baby."

"It was going to happen eventually."

"We are all sorts of fucked up."

"Excellent observation." He looked around the room, "Ok, we need to pack up and get the hell out of Dodge."

"Omaha." I said dryly.

"Seriously, Harley, you know what I meant."

"What, I can't make jokes, too?" I snapped.

"Come on, let's get our shit together." He started shoving our clothes into our suitcase.

"You can't even fold them?" I asked irritably.

"Ah yes, dear, we totally have time for proper folding!" the veins were starting to throb in his forehead, so I figured I would stop dicking around.

I put Olivia down, and started gathering all of our stuff. Thankfully we hadn't completely unpacked other than our clothes for the wedding and our pajamas for that evening. We had planned on leaving around noon the next day anyway. Our flight to Washington was at 6 PM tomorrow; we had decided to stop in and see Pam before heading off to our next destination, still sort of undetermined. We had considered going to New Zealand before ending up in London. It was nice to have unlimited money, huh? Again, not the time to be thinking about this crap.

I helped him clean up and we zipped our suitcases with some difficulty.

"Ok, now what do we do?" I asked, "If we check out now, where will we go?"

"We just go to the airport, see if we can get an earlier flight. I am not staying here. Someone must have a tab on us."

"Very reassuring." I said, glancing at the dead body on our floor, "And what do we do with him?"

"Well, with the price of meat what it is, if you get it."

I stared at him deadpan, "We are making Sweeney Todd references now. Has that become a thing?"

"I thought it was appropriate."

I held up my hand, "Ok, you get a high-five for your trouble."

His hand made contact with mine with a resounding smack, and I whipped my hand away, "God damn!"

"Quit being a baby." He rolled his eyes, "We throw the body out the window. He'll land in the bushes, they'll think he fell for the time being."

"Alright."

We lifted him with some effort, considering he was definitely heavier than both of us combined, and shoved him out the third story window, his body landing with a 'thump' in the bushes outside. He shut the window and locked it.

He looked at me, "Wanna make out?"

"Absolutely not."

"It was worth a shot. Let's go to the lobby and check out."

"Won't that look suspicious? It's like midnight. We're basically screaming that we're murderers."

"We'll just tell them we had an emergency and have to catch the next flight out. It happens all the time." He said calmly.

"I'm glad you think fast because I am basically having a complete nervous breakdown right now."

"Get it together, woman. We can't afford any mistakes." He shot back at me as we heaved our suitcases plus our child and all her belongings out of the room.

We peered into the hallway. Silent as the grave. Poor choice of words, considering. I've never much been one for tact.

Olivia whimpered a bit in my arms, and I shushed her, "Go to sleep, babe."

She buried her face in the crook of my arm.

We got into the elevator, staring at each other, anxiety clearly marked on my face. He rubbed my forearm, "It's going to be fine. We've done this before."

"That's not reassuring. And really speaks volumes about this relationship, now that I think about it."

"Oh come on, I know you're going to say yes to me eventually."

"I still don't see why we have to put a label on it. We have a child together for God sakes."

He merely rolled his eyes, "If you say something about a wild horse that can't be tamed or whatever like that lame-ass Carrie Bradshaw, I will punch you in the throat."

"I was not going to say that."

Shit. I totally was about to reference that exact episode. Sorry not sorry for being basic.

The elevator doors opened to the lobby, and it was dead silent in there. Just a bored-looking attendant was sitting in a chair behind the front desk. We were about to make his life a little less boring.

We approached the desk, and he stood slowly, "Can I help you?"

"We need to check out." The Joker said authoritatively, handing him our room key.

He raised an eyebrow as he looked up our room number in his computer, "It's like one in the morning. You guys are still booked until tomorrow at noon."

"Emergency situation." I said, "We got the red-eye flight out of here at like 4. So, we'll also need a cab to the airport, please."

"Alright, alright," he said, typing the information into the computer, "So, you two owe 250 dollars for the room."

The Joker got out his wallet and gave him cash. We still were careful about documenting our whereabouts. And I guess we should be, considering what had just transpired.

The front desk worker printed our receipt and handed it to us, "Thanks for staying. Hope everything is ok. I'll call a cab around right now."

"Thank you." I said, and we waited on the couch for our cab to pull in.

He looked at me, "I'm impressed that you held it together."

"Me too." I said, sighing deeply, "This day has been a whirlwind of emotions. I'm exhausted."

"You'd better call Pam and tell her it will be an early arrival."

"Right, right." I pulled out my cell and called Pam. She answered on the first ring.

"Hello?"

"Geez, you're awake." I replied.

"I'm bored out of my fucking mind. I sleep all day out of boredom, so I'm up late. What's up? You sound…something."

"We have a situation. Can't explain right now, but we're taking the 4 AM flight out of Omaha so we should be in Seattle around like 9. Will you be able to pick us up?"

"Of course." She said, sounding more alert, "Is everything alright?"

"Yes, yes. Well, not really. Whatever. Like I said, I'll explain when we get there. See you in a few hours."

"Sounds good. Ok, text me when you land, bye."

"Will do. Bye." I hung up.

The Joker looked at me expectantly.

"She's good to get us. Did you change the flights?" I asked as he was typing furiously on his phone.

"Yeah, one of my contacts took care of it. I mean, not many people are on a red-eye flight out of Omaha fucking Nebraska."

"Yeah, I figured that, but I'm just making sure."

The cab pulled around and we jumped up, rolling our suitcases with us.

We hopped in, and sped off towards the airport, which was about 20 miles from the hotel. We passed basically just a bunch of creepy cornfields, and I was reminded vaguely of In Cold Blood. Yes, I know that was Kansas, not Nebraska. But, I mean, really, weren't they the exact same? I'm sorry if I'm insulting people from the flyover states. I never said I was a nice person.

We got to the airport, and it was basically dead. Just a few tired looking people, probably businessmen, waiting to get on early flights like us.

"I'm stressed as fuck." I sighed, "Can you get me fries?"

"Yes, dear." He said, heading toward the nearest open fast food establishment.

I felt a little less nervous as I munched on my salty fries and watched him doze off in the seat next to me in the waiting area, Olivia on his lap doing the same thing.

"Babe?" I asked.

"Yes?" he opened one eye.

"I really hate to ask because I honestly don't want to know the answer, but why did that guy come to our hotel room obviously meaning to kill us?"

"Are you asking me in this an airport, in plain sight and earshot of people?"

"Yes because like…I need to know. Who the hell is really paying attention to us right now? Half the airport is asleep." I said.

"You're really not going to like the answer I have to give you."

"I figured that." I exhaled deeply, "Just tell me. I don't want to wait around, wondering. I need some time to process this before we meet up with Pam."

"So…" he leaned back against the stiff leather chair, "Obviously, you remember when we were in Italy and I was planning to blow up Wayne Enterprises."

"Oh, yes, naturally." I said, dead-pan.

"Right. Thanks for not being bitter about it or anything. Anyway, when I was working on that plan, I hired an outside collective to do the job."

"A 'collective'?" I snorted derisively, "You weren't even having your own guys do it?"

"They were all in hiding too. I have to think about the welfare of my employees too, Harley, geez! You're so thoughtless."

"I'm going to punch you."

"Ok, ok, I hired this outside group. I had heard that they got the job done discreetly and without muss and fuss."

"And who did you hear this from?"

"Me and Bane chat about it sometimes."

"…I think we can table that topic for another time. Please continue."

"Yes, let's continue. I hired them to – can I not say blow up in an airport? I hired them to eliminate your former paramour and all his minions. Until you had to ruin it all by coming here and spilling the beans. Good call."

"I was not going to let innocent people die. At this point, I do wish that Bruce had actually gone up in flames. Dickhead. Asshole. Prickface. BLARGH."

"You're spiraling." He pointed out.

"Yeah, sorry."

"Ok, so this collective – can't name names because again, airport – gave me a contract for the job and I signed up. But here's the little bitty problem with the scenario. They didn't go through with the job because I never gave them the go-ahead to do so because I was dealing with your dumb ass coming here to save the day. So, herein lies the issue. I kinda…never paid them, so I'm guessing that's why they sent that big gorilla to confiscate us from the hotel."

"Never paid them." I repeated.

"Yup."

"How much do you owe these people?"

"Three million dollars."

"Three million dollars." I said, feeling a bitter taste in my mouth.

"Each."

"EACH." I repeated with a higher intonation, "How many are there?"

"There's about 6 guys."

"So, you owe these guys 18 million dollars."

"I'm proud of your simple math skills."

"Shut the fuck up. You owe 18 million dollars to this group. Do you have 18 million dollars?"

"I do not."

"Then that might be kind of a huge problem, babe." I breathed in and out a couple times, trying to get some oxygen, "Holy fuck." I put my head in between my legs and just sat there for a while.

"You ok?" he inquired.

"Goddamn it, no!" I sat up sharply, feeling the blood rush immediately to my head, "No, I am not ok. How the hell are we going to get 18 million dollars?"

"This is the part you're not going to like."

"And what is that?"

"We're going to have to go back into business."

"As in…?"

"As in stealing, robbing, general mayhem." He finished.

"Dear Jesus God." I said under my breath.

"Yeah, you better keep praying because this is looking pretty bad." He sighed, "I'm such a fucking idiot."

"Yes, yes, you are."

He glared at me, "Ok, I am admitting that this is totally my fault here, you don't need to rub it in. I am trying to figure out what we're going to do."

"We can't go back to that life, babe. We already are done with that life. You said we were done. I don't have it in me anymore to live like that, from shitty apartment to even shittier apartment with no working cable, eating Easy Mac to sustain myself. We have a child now, responsibilities. You told me that when we went to Italy that we were going to start over and have a real relationship. Yes, I screwed up because I panicked and thought I wanted something more but this is what I want. I want us and Olivia, normal, happy, in England in a cute little cottage with maybe a dog or something. I don't want this anymore."

"Yeah, see, that's the other part you're not going to like."

"What?!" I asked with consternation.

"If we do this, we cannot have Olivia with us." He said, looking down at her, "It's way too dangerous."

"What are you saying?"

"That we're going to have to leave her with someone until we take care of all of this."

I looked at my peacefully sleeping child, wondering if this was the end for us as a family unit. What if we died? She wouldn't even remember us at all.

"We can't do that." I said stubbornly, "We can't abandon our child."

"We are not abandoning her. We are only going to leave her with someone we can trust for a couple of months. That's all."

"Someone we can trust? Those are in short supply." I snapped.

"I was thinking your sister would do nicely." He suggested.

"My sister. My sister who just got freaking married TODAY and went on her honeymoon?! Now I am going to ask her to take care of my child for two months?" I nearly yelped, "You've got to be out of your mind. She's going to kill me."

"It's the only way. I guess we could leave her with Pam, but that's not the best idea. Her mental stability has to be called into question."

"We are so not leaving her with Pam." I said firmly, "I'm kinda concerned she may abduct our child so yeah, no, let's not do that."

"Good call."

"Ugh." I groaned, "Maggie is going to freak."

"Well, it's our only option."

"Abandoning our daughter is our only option."

"Don't make it sound like that." He snapped, "You really think I want to do this?"

"Ok, bud, listen up." I whispered harshly, "This is not my motherfucking problem. You decided to get back into the crime game and that is your deal, not mine. I walked away from you when you wanted to have Wayne Enterprises along with that douchenozzle Bruce Wayne go up in smoke. I didn't want to be associated with all of that shit. Now here we are, stuck again because you can't help yourself. You want to be a criminal. It's part of your DNA."

"Then it's definitely part of yours. Our child is screwed." He exhaled deeply, "Ok, I'm not going to sit here and say I haven't made a mistake. I thought I could fix something in our relationship by eliminating the Bat. That was stupid of me. I should have known that you would have gone crawling back to him like you always do. He's like your dumb-ass brooding security blanket. But we're in this together now. You promised me that."

"YOU promised me that you would stop being such a psychopath. I thought you would change. Yes, I freaked out a little in Italy because I thought being domestic wasn't for me, but I'm over that now. I want to be normal for once. Normal. Just freaking normal like everyone else in this whole goddamn world."

"Well obviously I haven't!" he retorted, "You know I care about you, and that's why I did it. I didn't want you dealing with that asshole anymore and you know me, killing is my only answer to my problems. I find that it's the most effective. And, to your other point, this is no way that either of us will ever be normal. That ship sailed a long-ass time ago."

"You're an idiot sometimes."

"Sometimes being the operative word." He grinned.

"God, you're the worst. Why am I with you?"

"My stunning good looks and charming personality."

"Try again."

"No one else will take you."

"That's probably more accurate." I said. I rolled my eyes skyward, "Here we go again. The Joker and Harley, committing atrocities all over the globe."

"I don't think I'd have it any other way."