(Stockholm)

Have you ever been so terrified to let yourself experience something for just one last time, or less dramatically so, one more time? Maybe you had to face the fears that kept you awake until the earliest hours of the morning, unable to keep yourself from the recollection that something had chained you into submission and refused to let go? The most painful truth is one that far too many people are willing to admit to, and yet far too few would have the desparity of soul to actually do something about, as within the embrace of fear we can spend countless hours concerning ourselves with the monsters that lie behind the door to change. A woman might trust with far too little discretion, lust too gredily, and love with enough ease to bring in enough lost and wicked souls that the barbed and bloodied gates should be shut to prevent further harm. And after each and every failure to launch herself into a newfound escelon of the theological plain, another bathe of ink adorned to her skin: beginning small and easily covered by the sleeves of her shirt, but soon she demands the sorrow to be brought to light on the wings of civil subtlety and the images of her past are climbing up and around her neck. The heartbreak hadnt done her in, nor had the tattoos as they slowly sank in and drew a poignant picture of her past for all of Gotham to see, but it was the stagnating smile that accompanied her elegant sepiatone and crimson wardrobe that had brought the woman to her knees. More then just a testiment to time and a showcase of teeth, that smile which was just as much a monument to all of the things which she had endured to bring a somewhat normal life to her daughter, with the promise of a tomorrow that today could not scarcely remember on the horizon as she approached adulthood. But now she was finding little to satisfy the sickness in the pit of her stomach as she waited by a narrow window of Arkham Asylum's C-Ward, her own flesh and blood thoroughly restrained by the clasps and buckles of a faded straight jacket.

"Mrs. Quinn, I'm very glad that you could come, I have to speak with you about your daughter. I understand that you havent been able to see her much since she was brought in, however you must understand that it is what's best your own safety, I hope you'll understand." He proclaimed as he tried to express as much sympathy as he could for the girl, without jepordizing the safety of others and forgetting just what she had done.

"Doctor, is all of this...really necessary?" She pleaded, turning her head to face the eyes of the man before her with watery eyes which were begging for her to let herself shed a tear for her sake.

"I don't you understand the gravity of what her daughter has done, mame. She has been deemed a threat to everyone around her, and if a few others would have had their say she would be in dark whole for the rest of her life. Like it or not, your daughter is responsible for the deaths of six people." He explained, leveling the playing field and telling her the truth first and foremost, causing her heart to sink deeper then it ever had before and forcing her to sit down on a nearby bench.

"What is it that you want to know..." She solumnly spat, not even wasting the energy to make eye contact.

"We believe that maybe she went through something that might have triggered some of her...behaviors, and some of the other doctors and I were looking through her file...and it says that she went missing for nearly a week?" He posed the question her way, a soft spoken voice coming directly after the most unenthusiastic of nods.

"It...it was about this time last year, we...we were at Gotham National Bank and...these men came in with guns." She claimed.

And the weapons they carried in hand was the least of her worries, or in the very least they should have been, if only the realm of hindsight were as crystal clear as the statically annoyed expression had been on her daughter that day. Their true purpose for being at the bank that specific day, was to inquire about an extension to her loan which she had taken out some year before, but now was becoming more and more difficult to pay back on a monthly basis. Dressed to impress without a single factor left to fate, she strutted into the branch with a false sense of confidence that she hoped would knock them dead, but unfortunately for her she would be met by a female branch manager. Usually she knew the staff on hand and could guess within a five minute window just how long it would take to get the answer she wanted out of them, but today the meeting wouldn't be as fruitful and her daughter would have to wait outside until she was done, a low huff coming through her pursed lips, not even wanting to have gone with in the first place. Harley had wanted to go and visit her best friend Pamela and see how she was doing, seeing as she had been dealing with some issues of her own at the time which required a helping hand and a willing pair of ears, but since she had failed her drivers test she would need a ride there. In her own mind, the aggressively impassioned blonde hadn't seen the reason behind the delay as anything short of pure nonsense, as all she had done was run a few stop signs and tell the instructor that he needed to get laid. Clearly somebody had overreacted. And now she would stay seated in a chair that was thinner than her mothers bra strap and bored to no end while everyone in the upper east side of Gotham decided to mosey on in and give her a passing glance, their stares further infuriating her as she wondered what they were so taken by.

But you see, it was at about that time that things would seem to tilt in her favor and become a bit more interesting overall, as the pair of revolving doors leading into the branch swung around wildly and a group of five men came storming in with clown masks of a faded white color veiling their true identity. Each of their costumes were unique in their own way and most hadn't kept to a certain dress code besides the disguises, each with an inhuman color of fake hair coming off from the top in shades of green or blue or purple. Hardly wasting any time at all to get started and state their true intentions, each of them raising a gun at about shoulder height and pointing at either one of the tellers or any one of the dozens of now terrified customers. One of them began unloading a small cache of grenades from his pocket and was handing them out to the regulars, forcing their hands around the explosive and removing the pin so that they now stood seconds away from killing themselves or others around them. One of the managers was panning their head and eyes from one end of the lobby to the other, and once they had thought the coast was clear and that the gunmen weren't watching him had began to reach under the desk to get to the silent alarm, a very unwise decision as the but of a rifle collided against their right eye. It wasn't certain to her at this point, but between the overly gelled hairstyle and cheeky grin he had been sporting before they came in, his own pain had brought a smile to her face.

"Bad move, pretty boy, anybody else want to be a hero?" One of the masked men offered to the crowd, all shaking inside and out as he let off a round into the tile floor and commanded the other tellers to start unloading their money into a series of unmarked bags.

"Wait! Wait! Take me with you!" Harley pleaded, calling as much attention to herself as possible, the words flowing out of her mouth and causing her to falter as she understood just what she was saying...and just what that meant.

"Shut up, bitch!" The very same man who had struck the manager screamed at her to remain silent, although in response to his disrespectful tone another came up beside him, shaking his end before raising the gun to the side of his head and pulling the trigger. She nearly jumped out of her skin as the bullet pierced through his skull and came flying out the other side, the body falling to the floor in lifeless ragdoll fashion, the man's killer removing his own mask to see her completely through his own two eyes.

"Now, now, that...is no way...to talk to a lady, Especially one as...beautiful...as you." Without the mask Harley could see a mane of blonde hair which had been lazily doused in a bathe of green hair dye, splotches of it seeming to have faded by varying degrees in random places, a full face of makeup with blackened raccoon eyes and a base coat of white with a bright red pair of lips. "Boys, we don't have time to...play with the locals, take the money and...load it up in the car. Make papa proud."

"Yes...uh...yes, boss." One of the surviving men spoke out, stuttering all the way out the door with the cumbersome money bags in tow as the others left with much of the same luggage in a frightful silence.

"Oh...it's so hard to get good help these days...now, I...have done this...for a long time...and I have never had a volunteer. Do you...want to...elaborate, my dear?" The ghoulish man questioned her with the most gleefully demonic and high pitched laughter, smiling with a fiendish flow in his step as he approached her, his teeth of a slightly yellowed hue in comparison to the white of his cheeks calling to her as much as his eyes.

"It's my motha...I can't stand her, and right about now...i'd be better off anywhere else then with her." She didn't wish to show weakness, but the dead body just within the corner of her eye was making it nearly impossible, the man taking an unprecedented amount of joy out of hearing the subtle hints of her accent coming through as she spoke. "You're...you're him, aren't ya? You're the joka, right? I've heard about you on the news...I don't think you're the monsta they think you are."

"Well, well, well, i'm glad to have a fan club. But I cant just pass up an...open invitation to the fun house. If you'd like to...I would be...honored to give you a tour. Show you who I truly am." He was gliding ever closer as the words were being spoken into her eardrums from inches away, his hand extending towards her to invite her to take his own. "What's your name, beautiful?"

"Harley...Harley Quinn." She commanded while taking his hand and grasping it firmly, her chest pushed outward towards the Joker as he bent over slightly to let out an unrestrained fit of maniacal laughter.

"Mrs. Quinn, do you know what exactly happened to you're daughter? Did she ever mention to you...where she was that week?" The doctor inquired, prodding for anything that might help the situation.

"Doctor...I...I don't think that my daughter ever really came back..." She confessed, returning to sight of her darling child, who now was matching eyes with her through the window and giggling at the sight of her mother on the other side of the glass.