AN: Thanks as always for the consistent praise, folks!! For some reason the site won't load my documents today; I dunno what's going on, but I'm trying something different to fix it. Hope this works! This next chapter casts a bit of doubt on . . . well, you'll see. Enjoy!

10: Now.

"Wait—there! Play that part back again." Bruce Wayne's voice was harsh and urgent.

I sat at a wrought iron bench, in the very center of the park at dusk, listening. I disliked doing things this way, prying into the minds of the oblivious men I was stalking from a distance. I had to stretch my abilities to their breaking point to gather the images that they watched on Bruce's security feed, and the pictures I received were rather muddled and unclear. I was much better at listening than watching. But I pieced together their conversation with the shapes in their minds as best I could, and realized what had happened:

Bruce and Lucius Fox, his most trusted counselor, were watching a videotape of our hideaway in the subway. It was a different place from the one I'd told them about before, and they were puzzling over the exact location. This meant that we had not, as we'd intended, destroyed all the existing security cameras in the subway. I would need to report that to The Joker.

But as they watched the feed, Bruce's thoughts shifted rather drastically. He'd seen something that grabbed his undivided attention, and sent him reeling in a direction quite different from simply finding our stakeout. I was the focal point.

Lucius replayed a portion of the tape, as Bruce had requested.

"There!" said Bruce. "Did you see that?"

"Oh my," said Lucius. "That is interesting."

"He's listening to her. He actually trusts her. I'm starting to think that he might actually. . ." He made an exasperated noise. "No—none of this makes any sense."

I realized then what they'd seen, and my nerves rattled: It was me, whispering in my sweetheart's ear, giving him advice. And he, in turn, taking it.

"Since when has The Joker ever made sense?" said Lucius with a glib chuckle.

"I know, but—"

"Well, maybe that's just the point, Mister Wayne. This is the last thing anyone would expect."

"No. As long as he has her, he has something to lose. It's not like him, Lucius. Why would he make himself vulnerable like that?"

"Maybe he isn't. Maybe it just . . . happened. In my experience, matters of the heart are usually inconvenient."

Bruce's thoughts spiraled inward, toward his own past, and I saw the name 'Rachel Dawes' again. "Yeah," he sighed. "They usually are." The name circled and circled, and I sensed a pattern not unlike the one I'd seen in Harvey. "I never should have let her go."

"You didn't," said Lucius. "She escaped. Made a pretty big mess, too."

"Not from the station, I mean before. At the party. I should've kept her there."

Footsteps, and a familiar ticking sound, interrupted my train of thought.

"Well?" he said, sitting down next to me.

"Our hiding place has been compromised," I said.

"Hm." His face was unreadable, as always, but his mind was calm.

"I think The Bat wants to speak to me again," I said.

"Is that bad?"

"They're beginning to believe me. About you. About . . . us."

He raised his eyebrows. "You're not actually surprised, are you? They like you, little lady. They can't get enough of you. They wanna believe they can 'fix' you, like a cat. That's why I chose you! I knew they'd start to show some kind of misguided sympathy for you eventually." He laughed.

I mustered a half-smile, but couldn't meet his eye. Lucius's words rang in my ears. Could he be right? Was I only important to The Joker because his affection for me "didn't make sense?" Was I only alive because he needed something to bargain with? I knew he cared for me – that much was beyond question. But why? Was any of this real, or was I only part of his most recent design to create chaos?