She'd made her way home afterwards. That so called home, walking across the city in the dead of night and in the alleyways to not be noticed. Batman didn't come for her, he took her Joker and left, she wasn't important enough to catch, not even important enough to save. She was in a state of shock, not only was her skin slightly burnt, and her lungs on fire, but everything that was her world was gone. She gave up her life, her friends, her family, her career, for something that was gone. She almost didn't believe it, he's staged his death before, so has Batman, they've died at least three times previously. But before she'd be there, she was told, she'd help drag his living body out of there. This time though, Batman left with it, he took it, he took the body.

There wasn't going to be a funeral, there wasn't going to be a final goodbye. This was the thing that made the tears come.

Never would he laugh again. That wonderful laugh, that laugh only she heard, that laugh of such utter joy, an innocent laugh, a pure laugh.

She crept through the window of their stolen loft, their current home, cold and barren having not lived there for days. She didn't bother to turn on a light but merely sat on the floor for the longest time. She was always a romantic person, a girl believing in that dream that one day you'll find the person you love. You'll be able to depend on them and give them everything you are because they will do the same. Fairy tale love, she still believed in it. Why she fell in love with a psychotic and decided that was how their love was going to be she could never know.

She crawled to a suitcase that was his, where he kept the very little he owned, he didn't believe in materialism, he didn't think it was necessary. He had a few suits and often threw old ones out after one use and simply stole new ones. She found only a suit, and some guns, and some gadgets, and poisons, and she took that suit and she held it, and she could smell him on it. It was soft but worn out and she could smell him, the conditioner he used (which was actually hers), and the lipstick he used, and the poisons he made.

It's a strange thing to have everything you ever loved taken away. She had so solely devoted herself to him, an unconditional love, and unwavering loyalty, despite everything, despite her doubts and her sanity all she really wanted was to be with him. And now, it was gone. She was left with nothing, absolutely nothing. She felt there was nothing she could have done but cry and perhaps die, there was no solution, no way out. There would be no final punch line.

Such hopelessness to want death, to call to it in the tears. But she laid there and cried and was disappointed to find she did not die. Perhaps she wasn't sincere enough, perhaps she even failed at dying, like she had failed to understand him.

It wasn't always that bad she told herself. There were times, those wonderful times, when the world was calm and so he was calm. When Batman had been gone for a while, and for a moment he seemed like he'd forgotten. Those moments when he'd look at her with almost a need for her, when they'd dance, and play, and talk. When she wasn't afraid to be with him, when he wasn't killing someone. It wasn't all bad. There were good times in between it all, and in the end what else could she have expected, what else could she have asked for from him?

The more she thought about it the more she felt that she was the one who being unfair to him, asking so much of him. It was the Joker after all, the Clown Prince of Crime, that guy on the television who had murdered so many the count was lost, that guy she used to attempt to treat. What would he know about love, what would he know about actually feeling something like that? She thought it must have been a struggle for him, even to sit next to her, it must have been a fight for him to allow himself to even have an affection for her.

Or at least that's what she thought.

He said he lied to her about his childhood. That was the main reason they fell in love, or she fell in love. He told her his father hit him all the time, sometimes for no reason at all, and it was a lie. But why did he tell her? Did he somehow know it was coming?

He always knew things like that, like a child he never told her. He often did that, treat her like a child, protect her from things like that.

He never hit that hard, she told herself.

He knew she'd find her way back to him, that's why he didn't come get her at Arkham.

He knew, he knew.

And now he was gone. Nothing, she had nothing, she was nothing. She was nothing but a woman pretending to be crazy for a man who was dead, and who did not have the capacity to really love her. Because of Batman, because of that man in that dumb costume. He did this, he took Joker from her, when he was alive and now when he was dead. If he was gone, if Batman was just gone, Joker, he would've loved her, he would have nothing to distract him. He would have become sane, but no, now he's dead, because of Batman.

She had nothing else to lose.

So she decided she'd kill Batman. She go up to him, right up to him, and shoot him in the head. It lacked theatrics, it lacked that triumph Joker wanted so much, but she realized she was not the Joker, she was not him, and she was not at all like him. She never was, it was all an act, and there was no use trying to kid herself now that he was gone. It'd be quick and simple then she'd leave, she'd go away, leave Gotham.

So that's what she was going to do. Nothing else to lose, no reason she shouldn't.

So she got up and she went to the bathroom with a pair of scissors. She got in a cold shower to wash off the blood and the sweat and the make up. And then she laid her long blonde hair in front of her face, and she began cutting it. She cut it between ear length and shoulder length, it was uneven in places and she didn't care. She butchered her hair, and put it down the drain. And when it was dry she dyed it green. It too was an uneven dye, doing it by herself on the brink of tears caused her to lose focus often. Patches seemed to show her blonde hair, and patches seemed dark green almost black. But she didn't care. She put on that suit that was left over, though a little big for her, she sewed it together so at least she could move around in it. She got the poisons and put them in the bombs, not really sure what she was doing, only remembering how he did it before. And then days later she put white make up on her face, and made a smile with red lipstick.

She went to the rooftop and launched a rocket she'd found, a little firework that hardly lit up the sky, but at least got her some attention. She started firing her guns and what was left of her bazooka. She let out little bombs all around and then she simply waited. No one was in real danger, she didn't care for other people, she was only going to kill one man that night.

He came hours later, as if she were a mere after thought. He went to the source of the bombs where she hid from him in the shadows, so like Batman did. Batman crept along as this hideous black figure in the night, she stared at him for a good long time, wanting to get a good look at him, to see him, to remember this night.

She fired a gun at him, scraping his arm and causing him to scream only slightly.

"Joker…?" He asked for a moment.

But then she jumped and kicked him in the face.

"You know I'm not him!" She screamed.

In his suit, with green hair, a red smile, and a look of utter hate, she looked so much like him.

"You know I was never him!" She put her knee into his ribs.

Ideally she mused, she was to break his ribs and stab them into his lungs so he'd suffocate all on his own. Then shoot him in the head. Shoot him in the face until he no longer had a face. So no one in the world would know who he was. So forever would this man that stood before her only be Batman. In the quiet times, she'd wonder about this man, why he was so devoted to stopping people like her, people like the man she loved. She was not like the Joker. She did not believe this man only fought others, and stopped crimes. She believed that behind those white and soulless eyes was a man with a past and a future. She believed he was a man with desires and longings. The way her Joker spoke of him it was like he was speaking about a God, and intangible being that only he deserved to kill, that it was his destiny, his purpose to follow and to kill. Batman was his white whale, and she wondered sometimes, if it was the same the other way around.

But she knew, she knew he was but a man under it all. Under that black mask, and cape that could have been the very night, she knew he was but a man. And under those white eyes she stared into was pain as she punched him in the jaw. And because she knew he was but a man, with love, and pain, she could not understand why he could hurt her so much as he did.

He finally punched at her, swinging her back just from his might. Her jaw swung and she knew she had probably cracked a tooth. But as she laid on the ground, rising to look up at him, neither of them moved. He did not speak to her, he never spoke, she hardly could recall the sound of his voice. All she knew of him were screams and grunts, and whenever he screamed at her Joker it was all drowned out by Joker's laughter. He only stared, this terrible thing looking down at her.

What must you be thinking, she wondered, as you look at me. As he looked at her, looking so much like the Joker. A painted on smile hiding her frown. She wondered for a moment if he even knew what he had done, what he had taken from her, all these years.

She was not the one Joker loved. He loved Batman.

He did not devote all he was to her, but to Batman.

She made the next move, spinning on her hands, to kick him in the face. He grabbed at her legs and swung her to the ground. She jumped and uselessly punched him in the chest. He grabbed her fist and began to squeeze it until she screamed. She spat in his face as he stared at her. He threw her to the ground again, as if hoping she'd stop all this. But she went and she grabbed at his cape, she pulled at it and swung around to his front, blinding him. She laughed a laugh so similar to his as she watched Batman run around, blinded by his own cape. He finally tackled her in his blindness, and rose with her on his shoulders, pull at his mask. He pulled back and she could not ripped it off. So she kicked him in the head before jumping off.

The fight was not pretty. Not pretty at all. All those times she had watched Joker and Batman fight, it was more like a ballet. Like a twisted dance when they fought, when toys and gadgets were put aside and the two men only used there hands. There was an elegance to it that she did not have. This fight they had now, was rotten and dirty, bloody, clumsy, nothing like she had seen.

"Stop this." He said.

His voice sent chills down her spine. How could her Joker stand right in front of him and laugh at his face without becoming terrified she wondered. But then it struck her, maybe he was afraid, maybe he was always afraid.

His voice was deep, and gurgled, she could tell he was putting up a front. But still, that terrible voice, almost inhuman.

But then she merely took a vile from the jacket pocket and threw it at his face. He screamed and she knew he had been cut, but as soon as the vile broke a gas came from it. Not a laughing gas, she honestly hated that gas, she hated hearing people laugh themselves to death, and not that smiling one either, she hated that one too. This one, he never used, a simple stunning gas that would paralyze once inhaled.

And so after a coughing fit he fell over and did not move.

She circled around him, looking down at him, the helpless bat, she must have torn off his wings. She bent down and touched that face with her gloves, and she kissed him on the cheek.

Joker had loved him, loved him so much he wanted to kill him. And so she kissed him, like it would bring her closer to Joker.

Then she took out her gun and pointed it at his face.

But she didn't shoot him.

She ran away, crying.

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Next Chapter coming soon: The Day She Screamed