Hi guys! I'm so sorry! I had so much trouble with this chapter that's why it took so long. Thanks for all your support, I was close to just giving up on the story, but your reviews always brought me back, so thank you!

V

"We'll be Fine"

Give me a sign

Take my hand, we'll be fine

Promise I won't let you down

"Harley! Are you insane?!"

I ignored his loud voice and reached for a leather jacket which had the words Daddy's Girl! sprawled on the back. After a moments study I slipped into it. This is what I had to live with if I wore clothes Mr. J had picked out for me. I was meeting Bruce in an hour and had told Mr. J of my plans.

"Harley!" He yelled again and I flinched.

"Don't." I whispered. "Please don't yell at me."

I turned around to face him. His green hair was an untypical mess, his blue eyes wide with vulnerability.

"What are you doing?" He asked in a more quiet and calmer voice.

"It's his baby." I whispered and put my hand on my lower stomach where the magic of a new life being created was happening right now. "I have to tell him."

The Joker closed his eyes as if he were in pain and sighed deeply. I could feel the hurt radiating off of him and stepped towards him. When my fingertips touched his cheek he opened the again.

"I understand that you can't raise another man's child." I whispered. "Can you understand that I need to tell the father?"

Mr. J stepped back. "Don't let false logic betray you, Harley. There's no happy ending here."

I blinked rapidly, trying to fight my tears.

"You don't know that."

"A genetically mutated monkey knows that!" He yelled. "You cannot tell him the truth, it's suicide!"

"I don't know if I will." I whispered. "But I have to speak to him." I hurried towards him and gripped his shoulders in a desperate attempt to have him understand me. "I don't want him back. I promise, Mr. J."

He scoffed, stepping back from me and I knew my promises meant nothing to him because I'd broken them before.

"I don't." I said clearly. "I want you."

"I never should have helped you." Mr. J muttered and slammed the door on his way out. My hand was still on my stomach.

"Everything will be ok." I whispered. "We'll be fine."

The cafe he had chosen was quiet, romantic. Do you remember, Harleen? I asked myself. Do you remember how happy you were? How much you loved him?

I had loved him, but my love for him had not been enough and then Mr. J and I had happened and...this was all so confusing.

I'd come earlier because I hadn't been able to be inside the Jokers large house any longer. Abortion was murder, I was sure of it.

But I was equally sure that telling Bruce about this baby was a death-wish waiting to happen. For both of us.

Any way I looked at this, this unborn child was going to perish.

"Harleen?"

I looked up at the familiar voice.

The man I had once promised to marry, to love and to honor was standing in front of me. A plea in his eyes, a shell of the man he used to be.

"How are you?" We asked at the same time and then smiled.

Smiling still hurt and I remembered the list Dr. Ehrens had made. One swollen black eye, one split lip, one bruised cheek-bone, two broken ribs, one bruised collarbone.

"I'm ok." I said. "I'm sorry about the party."

There is a guilty look in his eyes, but it vanished. "That's alright." He says. "I told people you were...indisposed."

Of course I was the one who hadn't been there so he had told his colleagues and friends whatever he had deemed fitting.

"I realize now that there are some things that need to change."

These words, spoken by him make me stare at him open-mouthed for a moment. I had wanted them, yes, but I had never dreamed Bruce would actually say them.

"Really?" My voice was barely a whisper and I clutched the mug with steaming tea tightly.

"Yes." He promised and put his hand over mine. I couldn't believe it. If he changed, if he did therapy and anger management courses, then we could have this baby and raise a family...

"Harleen, I think you stop working when we're married."

Wait, what?

I pulled my hand from his and the surprise in his eyes told me that he hadn't expected that.

"What?!" I was surprised that my tone sounded very much like Mr. Js and in that moment I wished more than anything that I had listened to him and stayed put. He was right. It was time to stop trusting logic and to listen to my heart, even if it seemed like it was telling me the wrong thing. Mr. J, the Joker, the mad-man, the murderer was the better man. Despite everything that he had done. He had never hurt me. He had never forced me to become someone I didn't want to be.

"It's too much stress." Bruce continued. "It puts stress on you, on us and on our relationship and I mean..." A smile crossed his face. "Especially now we don't want to put you under any stress, do we?"

I felt bile rising in my throat and swallowed hard. "What?!"

"I figured it out" He admitted. "I mean it was only a matter of time." He flashed me a grin that had once stopped my heart. "I swapped your pill with placebos a while ago."

I stood up suddenly. "I'm leaving."

My reaction wasn't fast or sudden enough. His hand shot out, encircling my wrist easily.

"Stop." I whispered. "We're in public."

"You're carrying my child." He hissed and there was a hardness in his eyes that I had thought I'd escaped. "And this will keep us tied together forever, do you understand?"

I fell back into the seat as I realized he was right.

"It's very simple, Darling." He flashed me smile. "We either get married or I will sue you for full custody."

I shook my head no. I knew I had no power, I knew he was the one who had everything at his mercy, but I couldn't let him do this to a child.

"Think about it." He said with a small chuckle because he knew all too well what I thought about abortion, how the mere idea of it tore me apart.

When I stood up to leave a second time he didn't stop me. He thought he had won. Outside as I walked aimlessly I put my hand on my stomach.

"We'll be fine." I said. "We'll be fine."

And I knew I was lying.

It took 20 minutes, but it felt like an eternity. Mr. J had been happy. It was the only sensible thing to do and we both knew it.

If my last tie to Bruce was severed I would be free.

Who cared about my sanity? My complete and utter sense of injustice and wrong doing. As the doctor sucked the cells out of my body that would have been a human being in a relatively small amount of time something inside of me shattered and I felt like it was my life he was sucking out of me.

Bruce Wayne wanted to control me. He wanted to exercise power over me and he would have done the same thing to this baby.

But now the baby was dead.

The doctor who resembled the father of my dead baby and my abuser explained that I was to explain some bleeding and pain.

Pain sounded good in that moment because all I could feel was a black hole of emptiness that was slowly encircling me and pulling me down deeper and deeper.

Regret. I thought. This is what regret feels like.

There had to have been another way. Any other solution.

"Harley?"

The better man who looked and moved like some supernatural being stood beside me. His hand that had been smeared with blood of his victims many times before reached out to cup my hurt cheek. I didn't understand how he could be so gentle and how the hero of this town was so violent.

"Come on." He whispered. "Let's get you out of this thing."

This thing was a chair like the ones in a gynecologists office. I wasn't sure why the Joker had such a device, but it didn't matter now.

Nothing mattered anymore.

He helped me out of it, taking both of my small hands in his hand and leading me out of this section of the house.

It was quiet and I wondered if he had sent his henchmen home.

Mr. J led me up the stairs and into his bedroom. As soon as I was on the bed I burst into tears. I expected him to leave. I would have. The sobs that shook my body were violent and the sounds coming from me sounded like more like screaming than anything else.

But Mr. J didn't leave.

He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me against his strong chest as I sobbed and sobbed as if there was no tomorrow.

"You did so well, Harls." He muttered into my ear. "I'm so proud of you."

"I want to die."

"Hush." He said this lovingly. "It was the right thing, you'll see. Now you're safe and we can be together."

I realized it then. That was the lie I'd been telling myself all of this time. We couldn't be together and we wouldn't be fine. He was better, he could treat me better and yes I loved him. But it was not going to work out. I sobbed even louder as this realization hit and the Joker pulled me closer, cradling me in his arms, stroking my hair, kissing my face gently, because he knew I was sore all over.

I let him hold me, let him kiss me and knew that he was the best of us all, because if Bruce had truly changed, I would have chosen him. Not out of love, we were way past that, but because it would have made sense.

No, Mr. J had been right, there was no happy ending here.

I was selfish enough to stay with him that night and to enjoy being held and comforted by him. It was bad enough that I knew it would be the last time. That when he awoke tomorrow morning I would be gone.

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