A/N: As promised, a new take on the last chapter is here! Let me know what you think! Any suggestions for improvement are very welcome. YOUR opinion of the character arch and development of both Harleen and the Joker in this story is very important to me :)
Hope you'll enjoy this chapter!
"Say it."
The rain fell heavily on Gotham City and its rhythmic thud against the dirty windowpanes seemed to calm her frantic heartbeat.
"Come on, Har-leen. Just say it."
Raising a quivering hand to her head, the doctor smothered back some blonde strands before glancing at the smirking man in front of her.
"Why do you want me to… to say whatever this is all about, Mister J, when you claim you already know?" she tried to challenge him, to mask the dread eating away on her insides but by the twitch of his red lips she suspected it had failed to fool him.
"Why, to help you of course. To help you with your insanity. Because that's what you are, doctor. You are crazy."
Her breathing hitched in her throat as she stared at the green haired man in disbelief.
The Joker slammed his hands against the wooden table with a HA!
"Oh yes! And that's your problem, you see? You're in denial. Acknowledging you have a problem is the first step towards recovery, isn't it doll face?"
Sighing dramatically, he continued: "Let me put it this way for you, Harleen. I've asked you once why you are here. You said something boring, something… predictable - like you want to help me, my poor, lost soul, that you want to understand me and that you care?"
No. No, he cannot know that. He cannot know anything… She did care, she still does! But that's all there was to it, she had been through it all, she had reasoned with herself and she had come to the con-
"Well, those were lies, Doctor," he announced with unwavering certainty that shut her own reasoning. Breathing heavily, she avoided looking back into those bright blue orbs as he eyed her like a shark in shallow waters, but she sensed them running all over her ashen face, her trembling lip and numb fingers.
"Or maybe they weren't," Mister J mused happily, unaffected by the blonde's tense frame. "I guess that's what you really believed in that time. Something you try to tell yourself even now, isn't that right Harleen?"
She couldn't help herself but squeeze her eyes shut when he had leaned forward again.
It was all too much, too much…
"Of course, you know the truth now. Is that why you are so scared? Did you finally figure yourself out and are now afraid to look in the mirror?"
Why? Why must he go on…? If he could just forget, if she could just pretend…
"You crave this, Harleen. The risk, the danger. That's why you're still hangin' around. I make you feel alive."
She couldn't bear it any longer. He was mocking her, laughing in her face. How could he do that to her now? After everything he had said, all their time together… how can he act as if those moments between them had never existed…?
"But I guess you are right about one thing, doll face. The one you won't admit out loud, you know."
Harleen felt she was going to faint. His purring voice was nearly inaudible through the sounds of her own shallow breathing and the blouse that clung to her damp chest chilled her in the drift.
No. No, no, no.
"You are not a very good liar, Harleen. Because I know," he paused, meaningfully glancing at her horrified face, "I know you love me, Doc. You have gone absolutely crazy for me and that's a fact no matter how hard you try to deny it."
This was it. It was over. Tears began to prick in her eyes as she whimpered, silently begging him, begging him to…. What? Stop? She didn't know anymore. The pain in her heart was just too unbearable.
"Or do you? Do you really love me, Harls? In the way you so eloquently described weeks ago?"
She couldn't breathe through her nose, nor from her mouth any longer. The lump in her throat wouldn't allow it and the shiver that began to shake her body made thinking impossible. She stared at his moving mouth, letting herself be blinded by the metallic shine whenever his grill caught the light from their tiny lamp. It felt as if the whole world shrank around them and took place right there and then, by their wooden table in therapy room number 316….
"Would you do anything in the world for me, Harleen? Absolutely anything because we are one and the same?"
It was over. It was all over and she couldn't, she wouldn't do anything about it anymore….she just couldn't, not to d-
"I-I would."
And there it was.
It came out as a croak through the burning tears that streamed down her face, but she couldn't care less.
Despite everything, despite the humiliation and pain, it all felt like an epiphany.
She had said it.
She loved him.
She had finally admitted it, to herself, out load, and she had never felt so lost, so certain and so, so utterly broken at the same time.
"I would. Y-you know I would… J! Please…"
He observed her in silence, seemingly above her greedy gasps for air and hysterical sobs. After what felt like an eternity, he lowered his voice, leaning in to get a better look at the blonde's crimson, swollen face. "Yes. I suppose you mean it now. You must feel it too, Harleen. You must know that we were born to tether on the brink of insanity together."
She attempted to dry her eyes with the back of her sleeve, tainting the white fabric with black smears of her mascara. It felt as if she had glass in her eyes but it didn't matter because when he talked like that, everything in the world made perfect sense…
They were meant to be. There was simply no other explanation why her so beautifully uncomplicated life would suddenly come crumbling down in a turmoil like this… She was meant to meet him. He was meant to be part of her life, just like she was destined to be in his…
"And there is only one thing we can do about it, Harls," he continued in a serious tone, eyes never letting go of her anxious face, "what you must do, doll face."
"Anything, Mister J," she half-whispered into the silence. It still felt like a secret, she still couldn't -
"I need a machine gun."
The room froze.
"A ma- machine gun?" She had misheard surely. He couldn't be asking for that, he couldn't mean to… "Mister J, wha-, why would y-?"
"I have changed for you, Harleen. Or did you forget? All those medications, therapies, best behaviour…that was all for you, doll face. I have changed for you. I did that one thing, that one impossible thing you could have asked of me. Isn't that what love is all about, huh? Isn't that what you had said?"
She must had gone mad.
She must be hearing things because what he had just said was just too good to be true. Yet, the earnest, soul-searching look in his pale eyes mirrored the deepest emotion she had ever witnessed…. And with every ticking second he remained so focused on her, she began to feel the warmth return to her body.
"You, y-you love me, Mister J?" It was only a whisper of disbelief but it felt as if she had shouted it from across the room.
So she had been right before. About Mister J, about everything. He was not a hopeless case. They…this was not hopeless! None of it was! And if he wasn't… diagnosed with that, then she couldn't be either and her world, her normal world may not fall apart after all. Only if he would-
The buzzer went off, making her painfully twitch in her seat, but it had brought her back to reality. She knew they only had a few seconds before the wardens marched in and took him away. And she had to know. She had to know the answer right then and there. She couldn't wait for a week. She wouldn't live through it…
"Mister J, do you love m-"
But hearing the approaching footsteps and raised voices behind the locked doors, the Joker pressed on: "Will you do it, Harleen? Will you do it for me? For us?"
"I-"
"You have to get the gun, Harleen!"
"N-no! No, I can't!" There was another way, she knew there had to be another way as she frantically reached for his pale, motionless hand resting against the table.
"Listen J, if you could just stay here, you could stay and get better! I will help you, I would finish the job, you can recover fully, I swear. We could make it work then, we c-"
And then she hit the cold tiles with a bang.
The world spun around her. Her head felt like it would split into two and it took her several seconds to realize she was sprawled on the floor next to her chair. Something warm was trickling down the side of her face but she didn't want to look down on the linoleum where the puddle grew larger and larger with every new drop like a blossoming red flower.
Dazed, she could vaguely make out the agitated shouts of the six wardens that currently occupied the therapy room, attempting to restrain a trashing, white body in navy blue slacks.
He had hit her.
He'd hit her with such a force that the blow knocked her off her chair.
Harleen let out a strangled moan, trying and failing to prop herself up on her elbows. She could hear some female voices calling out her name, felt their gentle, reassuring hands on her shaking shoulders but their pity and concern counted for nothing. They didn't know what had just happened. They had no idea.
Another warm liquid found its way down her ashen face. She tasted the salt in the corner of her lips and knew they were tears even before her tired, reddened eyes began to prick and clouded her view on the laughing, green haired man pressed on the floor…
It felt good.
It felt so good he wished he could relive the moment when his fist connected with her soft jaw a thousand times over.
The girl was just so naïve.
He knew it, of course. He could tell from day one that his beautiful new psychiatrist was the epitome of a suicide blonde…
The Joker watched with great satisfaction as the crying doctor was escorted out of the room by three elderly nurses.
He barely even paid attention to the uniformed men above him struggling to put him back into the dirty straight jacket.
His impeding restriction of movement was irrelevant.
What mattered was that he had Harleen Quinzel exactly where he wanted.
All he needed was to make a phone call.
