Chapter Three

After spending the night wallowing in pizza, wine, rocky road ice cream, and crappy reality show reruns, Skyler went to work the next day in a bit of a haze. Charlotte had assured her that everything had turned out fine the day before, but she still had a lump in her throat.

Dorian Gray had been strangely absent on the morning train. This had been the first time in almost a year that he wasn't on it. Everything just felt… weird. She also couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched. The entire morning she had found herself looking behind her back and feeling this on edge certainly didn't help her mood.

The school newsroom had its usual five people typing away at various desks when she made it to Gotham University mid-afternoon. She made her way over to an empty desk, grateful that Professor Harrington had given them an extra day to finish up the article that was assigned to them. It was a fairly easy introductory assignment where they were to pick a professor from the university and detail all the good they'd done in their lives. Snore.

Her hand fished around her backpack for a pencil but it instead closed around the paper that Dorian Gray had given her the previous morning. Pulling it out she stared at the line of perfectly written words. A smile cracked onto her face. If she had had any doubts about going out that night they were all whisked away in a moment. She knew that she needed a change of scenery, something positive to lift her mood after her shitty day yesterday. So it was settled. She'd go. It would be fun.

She printed out her article to proofread it, and as she gathered her papers from the printer in the center of the room, she could hear audio from a news clip coming from Dylan's desk. She drifted over to stand behind his chair.

Tara Hanks, a channel four news anchor, was on the screen with "Cara the Clown" a semi-popular and incredibly rich up-and-coming pop star. Skyler could feel her eyes roll in their sockets at the sight of Cara in heavily exaggerated makeup on the screen. Everything about her screamed fake. She reminded Skyler of just about every person she had been forced to go to private school with in California.

"- and you're going to be kicking off your Carnevil concert tour right here in Gotham?"

Cara smiled, her cat eyes twinkling with sexuality, "That's right. It's going to be like nothing you've ever seen my little dearies." She let out an excited giggle that made Skyler want to gag, and Cara's perfectly manicured hands turned into spirit fingers, splayed out on either side of her body. She stared straight into the camera and said, "Bring in the clowns."

Skyler's eyes grew wide with disbelief. "Wow."

Dylan glanced up at her from his seat, "Its disgusting right?"

Skyler nodded still staring at the screen which had frozen on Cara's face.

"Bring in the clowns? Seriously!?... as if Gotham didn't have enough of a clown problem without her encouraging it."

Dylan grinned a little, "Do you think he'll show up?"

She knew by the tone of his voice exactly who he was referring to and she shook her head.

"Even the Joker has to have standards. Her so blatantly wanting him there will probably pique his interest but…" she trailed off. Maybe the Joker would be there. No one ever really knew what was taking place inside his crazy mind.

He nodded, interest still showing in his eyes, "She had to have paid the city a hell of a lot of money to allow her to do a tour like this in Gotham with everything that's been happening… it'd make for one great headline though... If the 'clown prince of crime' did show up." He paused, and a smile crept onto his face.

"I might just show up and see how the whole thing plays out."

Skyler's mind kept reeling, playing and replaying Cara's voice saying "Bring in the clowns!" Although she had always found the Joker to be fascinating, a journalist's wet dream really, a voice spoke from deep inside her.

"You do that. I wouldn't risk touching the Joker with a ten-foot pole. I like being alive."

He laughed, "You're in the wrong field if you aren't willing to take risks Skyler." he let out before swiveling back to his desk.

She couldn't help but feel slightly irritated and… oddly amused as she had walked away from his desk. Her mind was filled with ideas of what an interview with the Joker would be like.