Hey everyone. Sorry you've had to wait, I didn't have computer access for a few days. Besides, NaNo is already trying to claim my brainmeats. Stop it, NaNo! I need those meats for writing fanfic! You can have the brain on October 31st, and not before!

cough

Yeah, things are getting a bit more difficult story-wise. This chapter isn't really my best, although it has its moments. There's a paragraph that I spent about 15 minutes going over and over, trying to get it right. It's still not right. Staring at a microsoft word document and willing it to materialise in an elegant fashion just hasn't worked, so it will have to be as is.

I have now run out of previously-written chapters so it may take a few more days to update than it has been taking. However, I fully intend to finish the fic. November will be a month full of novel-writing, so I want the fic to be finished by then. If it isn't, then it will be updated rarely, as I'll only be writing it when my novel is causing me grief and I need some time off from it. Just a warning!

Disclaimer still applies!

Harley woke the next morning with a headache and eyes reddened from crying. She had hardly moved from where she had collapsed there the night before. She sat up with a groan, clutching at her head with one hand. She briefly considered calling in sick to work, but realised that would mean she didn't get to see the Joker.

You don't have a session with him today, she reminded herself. You won't get to see him anyway.

But really, what was stopping her visiting his cell? Or observing the videos at the day room guard station? And she hadn't written up her report yet; it would be easier to do so at Arkham, without any distractions.

She rolled out of bed and stumbled out of her room. She turned on the coffee machine – she had developed a caffeine addiction in med school – and made herself a triple-strength latte.

Somehow, she found herself in her study, sitting on her desk and touching the delicate petals of her dried rose with gentle fingers, her other hand wrapped around her warm coffee mug.

Coffee really was the elixir of life. It rejuvenated Harley, sharpened her mind to something approaching normal.

She rang work, telling them she had overslept and that she would be in a bit late. A quick, hot shower washed the tear-stains from her face and eased the aching muscles in her neck and shoulders. Then she went back to her bedroom and opened her closet.

Blouses, in various dark or dull colours. Ties. High heels. Harley massaged a temple with one hand as she took stock. She really wasn't in the mood for that sort of thing this morning.

At last she crossed to her dresser and pulled a black t-shirt out of a drawer. A blouse from her closet went over the top, buttoned halfway until her head started to ache and she gave up the buttoning process.

Again she stared into the depths of her closet, vaguely willing something comfortable to materialise. Ah, there – a pair of smart black dress pants. She used to wear the like to the lab all the time, until Marvon mentioned how much he liked those skirts. Professional, but comfortable. Much better. She should wear this sort of thing more often.

Harley made her way back into the bathroom and rooted around in her medicine cabinet until she found some paracetamol. That, coupled with the caffeine she had ingested earlier, would ease her headache.

Harley's apartment, a graduation gift from her father, had a spectacular view of Gotham city. The man was rarely free with praise or gifts, despite all his daughter had accomplished, and the apartment was particularly special for Harley for this reason. This morning, gazing out over the sunlit city from her large living-room window, she inwardly thanked her father. The sun's warmth was soothing.

She made herself some breakfast, and munched away on her toast as she went over the notes she had made the night before. She was amazed at how messy and incoherent her writing was. Flicking through the notepad, she tore out page after page, tossing them over her shoulder. She left only the notes she had made during the session itself, unable to even look at them.

Breakfast finished, she made her way back to her bedroom to finish getting ready for work. She wore a little extra make-up today, to hide the dark circles under her eyes, and brushed out her long blonde hair. She swept it up into her usual bun. A stray lock slipped out at her right temple, but she wasn't in the mood for perfection today and couldn't be bothered fixing it.

She pulled on some dress boots with fairly low heels that lengthened her legs and complemented the dress pants she was wearing. Looking herself over in her full-length mirror, she was rather pleased with the results. For the first time she realised that the blouse she had grabbed from her closet was a dark shade of purple, and couldn't resist comparing it to the Joker's favourite attire. She caught herself wondering whether he would notice. She discarded the idea of a necktie altogether: the thought of something that tight about her throat today made her swallow heavily.

Something was missing. Her glasses.

She spent twenty minutes in a fruitless search through living room, bedroom, and study. She hadn't dropped them in her path from door to bed the night before. They must be at Arkham, either in her office or the session room.

She would find them later. Grabbing her bag, she headed for the door.

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The Joker hummed cheerfully to himself as he toyed with the object in his hands. If only his cell had a window to the outside: he might be able to start a fire. If, that is, the impenetrable clouds that seemed to hang constantly over Arkham actually parted enough to let the sunshine through.

He wondered, in an offhand way, what his intern had decided to do with the information he had given her. The story was a sob-fest, with just enough fun in it to keep the Joker interested. For Harley, with her daddy issues and her soft heart, it was perfect. It had leapt instantly to his mind in the session the day before, just more proof that he was, in fact, a total genius. Plus, his delivery had been first-rate.

Footsteps echoed down the hallway, slowed, and stopped. The Joker looked up.

"Why, Doc, what a nice surprise!" he said, bounding to his feet. She was wearing purple. The very sight of her – in purple, shirt unbuttoned, hair ever so slightly out of place – made his lips curl up into a smile. "My, don't we look pretty? You should wear that sort of thing more often."

Her face lit up, and she blushed very slightly. "Thank you," she said warmly.

He leaned closer to the glass, peering at her. "You're looking tired, though, sweets. Your eyes are all red. Have trouble sleeping?" He smirked.

Her smile wavered. "Kind of."

"Aww, poor girl."

"Nothing another cup of coffee won't fix." Harley hesitated, shifting slightly. "Uh… Have you seen my glasses?" she asked, her eyes downcast. "They're not in my office, or in the session room, and no one's seen them. They're… they were expensive. I really would like to find them."

"You mean, these glasses?" the Joker purred. He held up the thing he had been toying with, letting the spectacles dangle in front of her face.

Harley brightened, pressing her palms up against the glass between them, as if somehow she could step through and seize her prize. Her eyes refocused on the barrier, and she seemed to be thinking about something.

"I'll get them back from you later, when you're in the day room," she suggested.

The idea set the Joker to chuckling. Doctors very rarely visited the day room; the room had a high guard-to-inmate ratio and several cameras, and inmates rarely sacrificed the precious time they had there by causing unnecessary trouble, but even so the psychiatrists tended to give the place a wide berth. Dr. Harlequin's suggestion was either particularly brave or very foolhardy. The Joker recalled her actions the day before, when she had grabbed his arm to defuse his anger, and decided it could well be the former.

"Sounds good to me, Doc," he said with a smirk. "It'll give me the chance to show you off."

The pretty blonde's face lit up again, like a child hanging on a parent's praise.

"You shouldn't say things like that," she said, looking down the hall to ensure that no one had heard him.

"Why not?" the Joker asked, dropping his voice to a low, seductive tone. "Everyone in these cells watches when you walk past. Have you noticed?"

"N-no."

The Joker leant closer, till the tip of his nose was touching the glass. "It's not like giving a pretty girl a compliment is anything out of the ordinary. Don't worry, no one will suspect anything."

He hadn't voiced any real acknowledgement of her feelings towards him before, and the suggestion caught Harley off-guard. She stared at him like a deer caught in the headlights, eyes wide with disbelief, fear, and something the Joker decided was awe. He held her eyes, smile widening slowly.

She swallowed. "Suspect what?" she asked, as if she didn't know.

The Joker held her gaze for another heartbeat before he broke eye contact, grinning easily and waving a hand in explanation.

"You know. The trust we have." He winked. "The fact that you let me waltz around the room yesterday without even noticing when I picked up these." He slipped her glasses onto his nose and grinned at her through the lenses.

His Dr. Harlequin couldn't resist a giggle, and held a hand up in front of her mouth to hide her grin from prying eyes. The Joker pushed the specs onto his forehead so that he could enjoy her sense of mischief without the lenses distorting his view.

"Don't make me laugh," she scolded softly. "I'm supposed to be your doctor."

He scoffed. "Where does it say that a doctor can't have a little fun?"

She raised a brow. "With a patient? I'm pretty sure that's on page one of the rulebook, right under 'do no harm'."

The Joker cackled in appreciation of the jest. "Yeah, but no one in here pays much attention to the first rule, so you should be allowed to ignore the second." He leered suggestively at her, but she had dropped her head again, her forehead furrowed in some sort of distress.

"Doc? You're supposed to be smiling, not frowning!"

"Oh… I know, I was just… thinking about something." She looked up, and the sharpness in her eyes impressed him. "I… I really hate the way the doctors here think about you. And the others, as well." She gestured down the hall, indicating his neighbours. "Sometimes…" She trailed off, lost in her own thoughts.

He probed at her a little, testing. "Harley?"

She looked up at him again, and gave him a smile. "I'll see you later. Don't forget to take my glasses with you to the day room."

He watched her walk off down the hallway, a slight frown curving his lips. Well now, that was interesting.

The Joker sat back on his bed, leaning against the wall. He took his doctor's glasses from his forehead and toyed with them as he thought.

Sometimes his little intern seemed so intelligent. Other times, the Joker wondered if she really was a fool. A pretty fool, an entertaining fool, a fool with the sort of spirit one rarely came upon… but a fool, nonetheless. Take this, for example. Only a fool would leave the Joker with any form of metal or glass for even the shortest length of time, let alone suggest that he hang onto them for a while and then take them into a public area.

Unless she really did trust him…

The idea struck the Joker as incredibly funny, and he laughed manically. People up and down the hall started screaming at him to shut up, and when the guard's voice rang out, threatening sedation, he dropped his voice to giggle quietly to himself. Jeez, some people had no sense of humour.

The Joker slipped the glasses back onto his long nose, squinting through them. The prescription was, as his Dr. Harlequin had mentioned, a fairly mild one, but it still distorted his vision enough to make his head feel a little funny. He giggled and took them off, turning them over and over in his hands.

He had taken them simply because he could. Now, he imagined twisting the metal in his hands, forming a weapon or an amusing shape. If he broke them, Harley Quinn would never be able to wear them again. That alone was ample reason to smash them. Besides, the damage he could do with even a small shard of glass was tantalizing…

Don't ask me where that idea came from. It just appeared. It's not exactly ideal, but it does provide a good excuse for Harley to go wandering about in the day room...