Thanks to all those who favourited this, added it to their story alerts and especially those people who reviewed! I really want some opinions on my portrayal of the Joker and how I write him... do you think there are any ways I could improve him? Oh, and just the way I'm writing this story in general hah. :) Anyways... enjoy.

"Ana! What did you do?" Ana's best friend Lily shouted down the phone as she had just seen the front page of the Daily Gotham. Ana had to admit, she had been sceptical over whether Wayne would actually keep his promise and publish her story at the front, but he was true to his word and all the money she had spent had been worth it.

"I took finding my dad into my own hands," Ana answered, absentmindedly eating a piece of chocolate as she once again read her letter on the front page of the newspaper.

"Well, I wish you'd told me… But I'm proud of you babe," she answered me with a laugh, "So you think he'll answer?"

Ana contemplated this question, reaching towards her bedside table for another piece of chocolate.

"Well… Nearly everyone in this city reads the Daily Gotham, 'cept my aunt of course for whatever reason, and it's a front page story… so chances are if he's alive and in the city, he'll see it. Now whether or not he'll answer is another thing entirely," She replied, her mouth stuffed full of chocolaty goodness. A tremendous weight had been lifted off of her shoulders since she had written the letter. She knew now that she had tried to make contact, tried to do something and not just sat around doing nothing. So since then she had been indulging herself, today's indulgence being a gigantic bar of chocolate.

"He's an idiot if he doesn't, and therefore not worthy of your attention," Her best friend stated, her comment made Ana laugh. Trust Lily to say something like that just to make her feel better.

"Yeah I guess, I just wonder how long it'll take… you know how impatient I get sometimes," Ana complained, laughing as her friend promptly agreed.
"Well I got to go Ana, see you bright and early tomorrow for chemistry."

"Yeah, great," Ana groaned, "Bye Lil."

...

Clara Smith stared at her computer screen in boredom, wishing she was at home watching television with her niece Ana. Working as a secretary for Bruce Wayne seemed like a good enough career, but in actual fact it paid pretty little and required a lot of work – an average job in Gotham.

She sighed as she leaned back against her chair and placed her feet on the little upturned waist paper basket she never used. Business was slow today, leaving her with absolutely nothing to do. She jumped as her boss poked his head out of the door of his office.

"Slacking off?" Bruce teased as she sat up, smoothing her skirt quickly, "Nah, I understand there's nothing to do here today. Hey, why don't you take the rest of the day off? I think I can manage fine on my own today."

Clara hastily thanked him before he had a chance to change his mind and slung her purse over her shoulder. A few minutes later she was waiting for a taxi outside the towering building she called work. Looking up she noticed the dark clouds gathering overhead and managed to opening up an umbrella before it began the rain fell down on the city in bucketfuls.

Finally, she spotted a cab and jumped into it, turning towards the driver who had a black cap on his head. He did not look at her as she recited her address to him, but simply nodded and started the car. Clara was surprised at his silent attitude, most taxi drivers in Gotham were loud and intrusive; asking personal questions as if they were your best friend all of a sudden. She liked the change, but found it slightly disquieting. Deciding to put it out of her mind, she rested her head against the window and watched as rain descended onto the car window and slid slowly down the pane of glass. She was glad when the odd taxi driver turned up the old radio he had in the car, and she closed her eyes as she listened to the evening news.

"Today has been a surprisingly quiet day in Gotham. No news of the Joker's reign of havoc so far."

She smiled to herself as she heard this, loving days when she did not have to hear of her brother in law's psychotic doings.

"And now we turn to the lighter side of the news. It seems a young girl from the outskirts of our city has begun a search for her father. If any of you listening know a Jack Napier, please get in contact with us so we can make this girl's dream come true."

Clara's eyes flew open in shock as the news reporter said this.

Jack Napier? Did Ana do this?

Her hand flew to her cell phone in her purse and she dialled her niece's number in panic. If Ana had done this, she had no idea what she may have started.

"Hallo aunty, aren't you supposed to be working?" she heard her niece's sing song voice greet her.

"Ana? Did you contact the radio about your father?" she accused, not really hiding the panic in her voice. For all she knew, Jack could be heading over to their house as they spoke.

"Are you serious, it's on the radio?" the young girl squealed, oblivious to the danger she was in, "I just thought they'd put it on the newspaper. That was worth every penny I must tell you-"

Clara tuned her out quickly, feeling her heart beating rapidly in her chest as she considered the worst case scenario of all this.

Worst case… Jack heard and is going to come after us. Best case is either he didn't hear or he didn't care.

However, Clara knew that Jack would care. He would care very much.

"You have no idea what you've done," she croaked down the phone, massaging the temples of her head as she formulated a plan of sorts.

"Look, if this is about not telling you then I'm sorry but I want to get to know him."

"Ana, we can talk about going behind my back later, but right now I need you to pack a bag of clothes and head to the police station," she attempted to sound confident, unlike how she really felt basically. She cut Ana off as she began to ask questions.
"Just do it, please," she pleaded, before closing her phone and looking out of the window. She narrowed her eyes as she gazed outside the window and realised that she was not anywhere close to home. With a start, she observed the dilapidated and dirty buildings that inhabited the Narrows.

"Um, driver? We're going the wrong way… I don't live here," she called, tapping him on the shoulder in confusion. He answered by speeding up and heading further into the darkness that was the poverty stricken suburb.

"Hello? What the hell do you think you're doing?" she shouted, as she noticed the doors lock and a small smile creep up the side of the driver's face. It was then when she noticed them – the scars edging up his painted white face.

"I, uh… think that I'm taking a step towards getting back what's rightfully mine," the all too familiar voice laughed as her eyes widened in shock. There, sitting in the uniform of a cab driver was the Joker in all his glory, dressed up as a taxi driver.

"J-Jack," she stammered, her mouth dropping open in shock. If there was ever a face she had hoped she would never see again, it would definitely be his.

"C-Clara," he imitated her scared voice as he turned a sharp corner in a rush, she slammed into the car side and let out a groan of pain. Suddenly the car come to a halt and no sooner had she gotten up from her side did the door right next to her burst open. The madman clamped his hands over her wrists and dragged her out of the taxi cab.

"I can't tell you my dear Clara… what a delight it is to see you," his voice had changed a lot, it now carried a slightly higher pitch and was much more threatening, "I always said it would be terribly fun to, uh, catch up… and now we can do just that."

He pulled her into the nearest broken down building, kicking open the door and dragging her into the front room by her hands. Here, he dumped her on a chair and turned to lock her only way of escape. She gazed around the dimly lit room, spying greying walls and matching floors. The only piece of furniture that inhabited the room was the wooden chair she was seated in.

"Well, well well," The joker's voice resounded across the room as he took confident steps towards her, his black shoes making light sounds on the wood flooring, "Lookie who decided to pay me a visit… after all these years."

A shiver crept through her as she took note at his painted face… the white paint covering most of it, red lipstick highlighting his scars and black paint encircling his already dark eyes. Clara gazed at him, comparing his features now to what they had been all those years before. Of course, now he bore the more obvious scars, but his face was also more lined and his once blonde hair now a dirty shade of green.

"So please-uh, tell me… dearest sister-in-law," he was right in front of her now, and bent his tall frame so that she had to gaze up to look him in the eyes, "When you were going to enlighten me with the knowledge that my daughter…my, ah, next of kin… was alive all this time?"

He shouted the last part, bearing his yellowed teeth at her in a deep growl that escaped from his chest. Clara could not help but cower before him, wishing to see the kind hearted person she had once known him to be.

"You had lost it, Jack," she muttered, shaking her head as she recalled many memories she had attempted to suppress, "You killed Susan, I couldn't let Ana stay there. I thought you would kill her as well."
The Joker's hand smashed into her face as he backhanded her, sending her sprawling onto the floor. She grabbed her cheek in pain, squealing as she felt him grab hold of her hair and pull it so she had to stare right into his scarred face.

"I. Did. Not. Kill. Susan," he enunciated, his face screwed up in anger as he tugged even harder at her hair, "They did it… Because I would not do what they wanted me to do. Just because I would not conform to their, uh, evil ways."

"Who's 'they'?" she breathed a sigh of relief as he let go of her hair and stalked off, muttering under his breath about his late wife.

"Maroni's… men, silly," he turned to face her once more, a smile replacing the scowl that had adorned it just seconds before, "They wanted to teach me a-uh, lesson for ratting them out to the men-in-blue."

Clara's eyes widened in fright as she spied a switch blade placed precariously in his hands. He used it to punctuated his rant as he continued.

"I was so… self righteous back then… I wouldn't harm a man with a gun. They're disgusting, guns are. Just black pieces of shiny metal that cowards hide behind. Not me though. Nope," he leaned down, grabbing her chin in his hand and holding the knife in his left, "Give me a knife and I will sculpt the world."

She gulped as he stroked her face with the blade, sweat gleaming on her forehead as he smiled at her cruelly.

"B-but," she stammered, moving her face away from the knife, "There were witnesses placing you at the scene, they saw you stab her."

"It's called a-uh… set up, Claire-a," he stretched out her name and furrowed his eyebrows in anger, "They did this, to me."

He pointed to the grotesque scars with his knife, then brought his face even closer to hers.

"Then they beat me, made sure to make me scream. So that the wounds on my-uh pretty face would be sure to put me in agony," once again he placed the blade against her skin, but held her head in place with his other hand so she would not be able to move away, "Finally, to add to my punishment, as they called it, they brought out dear Susan. She, of course, told me she was proud of me. Said it was a brave thing I did, going to the cops with what I knew. They, though, did not really share her thoughts. I had to watch as they raped her, and then stabbed her to death. Finally, they let me go. Told me that I had three days to leave Gotham for-e-ver."

"You're lying," she screamed as he cut into her skin slowly with the knife.

"Na-ah," he laughed like a child as she squirmed "I don't lie. But I haven't finished ye-t. Because… you know what the worst part was? When I got home, I found my dearest little daughter, my precious little jewel... gone."

"You say you don't lie, and that you didn't kill her. Yet here you are, the most notorious psychopathic killer in Gotham," she accused him, which only earned her a painful punch to her stomach.
"I thought that they had killed Ana as well, and I must uh… admit, that my thought patters have changed. I changed my identity that night… sewed my face up and just left. I had to take revenge on my family's killers. They would not die in vain," he paused, licking his red lips as he thought for a second, "But that was when I discovered the beauty of chaos… and Knives. As I carved into their murderers I realised that life... Is. Not. Fair, and that I would make sure everyone in this hell-hole got to know that. One way or another."

He plunged the switch blade deep into his ex sister in law's neck and watched as she screamed in agony. Finally, as she was just about to lose consciousness, he bent down and pulled the blade out of her bleeding body.

"I'm getting back what's rightfully mine, Claire-a… and you're not going to stop me."