A/N: To those who reviewed, thank you, along with my anonymous reviewers! You are all honestly the best! This chapter, you'll get to see the night he slashed himself. I know it's long, but please read and review!

Disclaimer: I don't own Batman.

Enjoy!

She blinked rapidly, glimmering spots floating across her vision.

The beginnings of a royal migraine churned within her temples, sudden yellow light lancing the back of her eyes. Forcing them to remain open, she glanced blearily around the room, studiously avoiding his oddly still form. Peculiar shadows stretched across the floor, light flung needlessly upwards and outwards without the usual shade.

Shakily taking a breath, Anna steeled herself and looked instead to her husband.

Her lungs quickly released it.

His body posture – the slight raise of one shoulder, weight back on one leg – seemed to imply a sort of pensiveness, if one ignored the uncanny grin slowly stretching across his features. Usual suit jacket firmly in place, she couldn't help but think what a mockery he had made of his old life in wearing it, a slap in the face to the normality he had hid behind for years. A hint of a tie and vest poked out from beneath, and distantly she could remember picking out a similar one for his Christmas gift one year.

Bound and stunned, and all she could think about was how he had disliked her taste in ties.

It was a shock nonetheless to see the mirror of her own scars on another after so many years, not merely on the television but here, before her. She had seen them only twice – the night they were formed, bloody and jagged, and a few months later in her lawyer's office, not fully healed. Tongue darting out unconsciously to sweep across, she followed its path, a part of her wondering how they would feel beneath her fingertips.

Chalking that last thought up to the escalating concussion, Anna brushed it aside, worry coiling like live wires within her stomach. Taking a chance, she leapt to his eyes.

His gaze contained a smoldering glow, whether from insanity, fury, or something else she could not fathom, boring its way craftily into her mind. She struggled to return it, stare for stare, but found herself instead sinking gradually into his noose, drawn further into the abyss like a traveler within quicksand. Gasping, she tore her eyes away, wondering why he had not said a word as the moments dragged on. Three years and he didn't have anything to say?

"Cat… got… your tongue?" Or that's what she would have said, if she could feel hers. As it was, she found if she spoke slowly enough, her brain and lips could work together to produce something like it.

He didn't respond, only waving his hand to dismiss his remaining thugs, smacking his lips as the door slammed shut. Running a hand casually through his oily hair, he took a step forward, enjoying it immensely when she flinched.

"So darling…. have ya missed me? Because I missed you terribly. Seems you ah, slun-k off somewhere when I wasn't watching." He tsked her disapprovingly, the bed shaking as he fell nonchalantly beside her. Leaning on his elbow, he supported his head with one fist, a mocking expression of sorrow exaggerated on his features.

"Three years. Three. But you…." He reached out to lightly ruffle her hair, chuckling as she tried to rip away. "Haven't. Changed. A. Bit. I don't think I can say the same for me."

His jovial calm dissolving into hysterics, Anna was distinctly reminded of watching a dam break.

Unable to control himself, he rolled onto his back, cackling and whooping hysterically, practically holding his sides to contain the sick mirth flowing through his chaotic brain. Anna shied away as much as she could, the monster before her almost completely unrecognizable as the man she had once married.

If I didn't laugh, I'd cry.

It flashed through her depleted mind without warning, something she used to say to him when he asked crossly how she could take everything so lightly. Watching him shake in hysterical amusement, she could only marvel at how he had taken it so literally to heart.

His hilarity waning after a few moments, he flipped over to face her once more, still chuckling, half-smile further twisting his already twisted features. It faded quickly and conveniently, replaced by oh so innocent concern. "You look a little pale there, darling. Am I scaring you?" He gestured towards his face, clown greasepaint freshly applied. "Tell me, is it the scars?"

One gloved hand reached for her then, grasping her chin before she could turn away. His thumb lightly traced the wings of her Glasgow smile, no doubt savoring the pain and tears they brought for company. His finger dwarfed each silver line as it made its travels; they were thinner, cleaner cuts compared to his rather jagged lacerations.

A whisper now, his gaze jumping to her own. "Want to know how I got 'em?"

He had her on her back before she could react, a knife leaping to his hand and pressed against her mouth in a flash. Pinning her beneath his body, he giggled, laying his arm across her throat and coming near to crushing her windpipe. "Now, now, darling… you never minded me being on top before."

Struggling to breathe as he methodically diminished her air, she couldn't ignore the darkness encroaching on her field of vision, the sound of blood in her ears reaching a painful crescendo. Her body searched wildly for air, chest heaving as she attempted in vain to throw him off, the metal of the knife nicking her lips as she tossed.

Falling away into the blackness, she remembered exactly why she had left him in the first place.

"For the love of God, lighten up, will you? I was having a gr-great time, and you spoiled my fun."

He had dragged her back from the poker bar, laughing and tripping, too drunk to see straight. Carried, jerked her through the door, putting her down as softly as possible on the bed, ignoring her giggling as he pulls the blankets over her. She was only ever happy when away from him. Only ever happy with a beer and a deck of cards, and not even then.

He sits with his head in his hands at the end of the bed, hair balled into his fists, knuckles ashen. He had found her with another man.

Again.

She looks up, swallowing, groggy, the vestiges of laughter still in her throat. "Jen told me… she said you uh… threatened Kyle. Said you were going to stab him. I thought we… we went over this. You can't go threatening to kill my friend's husbands."

He doesn't even bother looking up. "You're drunk, Anna. Just… go to sleep."

Her brows furrowing, she pushes the blankets off of herself, putting her feet on the floor and slowly making her way towards him. The laughter is gone; her head feels like someone took a jackhammer to her temple. "Don't tell me when… when to sleep. Don't tell me what to do."

She pushes him lightly, hitting his shoulder. "Look at me." He doesn't move. "I said look at me, idiot. Or is it the scars?"

His head snaps up, an unreadable emotion in his reddened eyes. His voice is dangerously calm. "This has nothing to do with them, and you know that, Anna. How many times do I… do I have to tell you, I don't care about the scars?"

"Lies, lies, that's all I get –"

He stands up suddenly, seizing her arms and forcing her to look at him, grip bruising her skin. "You're more beautiful to me than to that bastard I found you with. He probably had to get shitfaced before he'd even loo-k at you."

"Let go of me, freak." She rips herself away, barely casting him a scathing glance before his arms encircle her, grabbing her, squeezing her as she struggles to free herself. He picks her up, kicking and screaming, heading for the bed. Legs flailing, arms thrashing, she catches him fiercely in the face, stumbling from his grasp before he can recover and heading for the kitchen.

She can hear him coming after her, his footsteps light on the carpeted floors. He is right behind her, outstretched, fingers just missing her as she swings into the kitchen. Without thinking, she makes for the knives, ripping one from its wooden block and whirling to face him. He stops in front of her, surprise, not fear, in his eyes.

"You think you can insult me in my home? Haven't I been through enough?" He doesn't say anything, only continues to stare. "Haven't I?"

"You're drunk. Put the knife down before you hurt yourself." He seems oddly transfixed by the blade, his eyes greedily taking in the sight of it.

"I am not drunk. So what, I have a drink now and then. You'd drink too if you looked like this." She raises the knife to his face, his eyes following it zealously. Dimly she notes that he followed it like her own eyes followed a shot glass when she'd been sober too long.

She sneers in disgust. "Look at you; you look like you want me to slash you." His tongue darts over his lips, as if excited at the prospect of it. Anna didn't know whether to laugh or to cry, wondering how she ever wound up with him. She honestly thought his awkwardness was attractive? "My god, you really are insane…. Why did I ever marry you? Why did I have to marry the freak?"

There was something about that word. She could almost remember him saying something about his father.

He suddenly snatches her hand, forcing the knife nearer until it kisses his skin. His voice drops to a growl, one she has never heard from him before. "Go ahead then, slash me. Put a smile on the freak you married." He starts to laugh then, a terrible laugh, one that starts deep in his throat only to shake his shoulders as his body expels its sick cargo. She looks into his eyes, seeing that something had broken within him, a man on the edge of a cliff pushed one step too far.

Sighing, she realizes she doesn't want to do this right now.

This was just one more of his games. If he wasn't asking her to hurt him, he was provoking her into it.

And in a moment, it's over.

Letting go of the knife, she backs away, suddenly exhausted. Holding a hand to the pain in her head, she found she didn't want to play anymore, didn't want to play with a broken toy. "You know what, whatever. I need to sleep. Go find your own bed, cause you ain't sleeping in mine."

She turns and trudges back down the hallway, leaving him silently standing in the dim light of the kitchen. She doesn't even bother to get changed before falling on the rumpled mattress.

Serves him right, the creep, telling her how to live her life. He didn't know half of what she had to go through every day. Maybe she had a drinking problem, perhaps a gambling problem, but it was nothing on him. That man's been screwed up for years, if anyone needed the help, it was him. Hair-trigger temper, constant baiting, a chronic worrier. He was a ticking time bomb of a man. Treated her like a possession, something to collect when he thought time. And what was he talking about, all high and mighty - so what, she was with another guy. Damn masochist, she had no idea how to please him, unable to accept the idea of hurting her husband. So, he was dissatisfied and therefore she was dissatisfied… was it any surprise she went drunkenly to others?

Why the hell did he want her anyway? She wouldn't want her.

Random thoughts spin round and round in her head, yet all come back to him.

After some minutes, she can hear the door to the bathroom close down the hall. Eerie silence reigns, broken suddenly by the sound of running water traveling to the bedroom. Furious, she stuffs her head beneath a pillow, trying to forget both him and her headache. The way that he had looked at that knife…

The bathroom door opens a while later, squeaking, and his padded footsteps are audible in the hall. The door to the bedroom creaks open, and as she whips around with the pillow to tell him to shove off, she stops dead in her tracks.

Rivulets of blood gush from the mutilated skin, cascading down the slope of his cheeks to spatter his shirt, the razor still clutched within one scarlet fist. The look in his eyes is positively insane, almost inhuman, blood slipping between his lips to color his teeth crimson when he smiled.

And smile, he does.

"Anna… why so serious, darling?" The gurgle of blood that follows is like a man drowning.

He comes close to kiss her, but she is already out the door and into the hallway. Only later would she realize that the screaming in her ears was hers.

Soft plumes of light waved lazily in front of her eyelids, a concentration of black moving in the illumination. Her first thought was of the sea on the Jersey shore; underwater grass undulating in the current, the roar of the surf high overhead, drifting calmly and quietly in the deep.

Leaving the darkness behind, she kicked off the sea floor and floated to the surface.

She cracked open her eyes with agonizing sluggishness. The sea grass of her dreamland is only greasy, lanky hair, fluttering back and forth as a face from her nightmares leers over her. The roar of the surf was naught but the throb of blood in her ears.

Her heart sinks, almost begging to be allowed to return to that hellish night. At least she knew that that time, she escaped the apartment in one piece. Now, taking note of the way his head cocked in amusement as she discovered her feet were also tied, she couldn't be so sure it would happen again.

"Well, well, you just passed clean out there, didn't ya?" Her captor and former husband – no longer so much the masochist, her brain noted – lay sprawled out to the side of her, propped up against the headboard as she was. It seemed perfectly planned, mocking those long talks they would have when they were first married, as if she wasn't bound and he wasn't masked in smearing greasepaint.

All part of his agenda to rip down, block by block, the marriage that they both had soured. If there was one thing that had not changed about him, it was his habit of mocking what he did not understand.

"We haven't gotten to talk in some time… why don't we play catch-up. So darling, when you… left, where'd you hide?"

"Chicago." She could barely force the name out, the stench of dirt and decay coming from his jacket almost overwhelming her.

"Not with ole mom and ah, da-d?" The last word emerged in a snarl.

She shook her head, shoulder starting to ache from the way the board pressed against it.

"You sure? Because you know, I got the feeling that, well…." He leaned in closer to her, sarcastically dropping his voice as if to share a secret. "That they never really liked me very much. They didn't want their lit-tle girl with a… a guy like me, did they?"

Actually, that was an understatement. Fearing the worst, however, she shook her head, noting as his gaze grew hard.

"Come to think of it… you didn't want to be with a… guy like me, did ya?"

No matter that his tone seemed cheerful enough, she could sense the perilous undercurrents running beneath. Seeing his fingers fluttering near the entrance to his pocket, Anna weighed her answer carefully. Say no, and she would be tortured. Say yes, and he would know she was lying, and she would be tortured. Faced with such options, she stayed silent, remained still.

"No answer? I think that's the first time you didn't have something to say. Well let me ha, show you something then." He flipped elegantly off the bed, kneeling beside it and searching for something beneath. "You're just going to love this, darling."

Apparently finding what he wanted, his face lit up with manic anticipation, the greasepaint making him look almost comical in the eerie light. Hands returned from the dark grotto, a worn and crumpled stack of papers their intended prey.

Holding them up to the light, he sardonically held up one finger and cleared his throat, checking that he had her attention. His voice high and officious, he began to read, eyes moving over the words with the speed born of countless readings.

"'Summons from the Supreme Court of the City of Gotham. Subject… complaint for divorce. The Plaintiff, one Anna Napier, does hereby serve one Jack Napier with a suit for divorce on grounds of' – oh this always makes me laugh – 'irreconcilable differences and ah, intolerable cruelty. The Defendant is not to approach the Plaintiff and is hereby served with a restraining order. The Defendent is due in court –'"

He paused, looking over to her from where he knelt, gaze searing its way into her soul.

"Sound familiar? Want me to go on? No? You're a real… joker, darling. I mean, intolerable cruelty, hmm?" Papers clutched in one hand, he crawled onto the bed once more, face halting only centimeters from her own. His voice dropped to a growl, lips ghosting over hers in a mockery of affection even as his eyes blazed with fever-bright intensity.

"But don't worry… Anna…" The way he breathed her name sent gooseflesh rippling over her skin, though her brain wisely chose not to think why. "You're going to see how in-toler-ably cruel… I can be."

This was only the beginning - block by block, he would take her down.

A/N: Wow, sorry that was so long! I hope you enjoyed the flashback, as that's just how I see it possibly happening. And also, she obviously didn't leave him because of how the scars looked... it just proved to be too much in what had already been an unhealthy marriage. My take on his psyche is that everything is now funny and a mockery, because he is mocking his old sort of life, of the time when he lived within rules.

Please review!