Run.

Run.

Just run.

Keep running.

Until you heave in death.

And your legs stop moving.

And your vision goes dim.

Just keep running.

She ran, and ran, and ran, and ran. She kept running until the surroundings became unfamiliar and the common scent of a home had left her. She had jumped on rooftops until she could no longer, and continued on the ground running. She ran and ran past the night owls and the men and women finishing up their partying nights. She ran past the clubs of the youth in love, and the drunk and sinful.

She ran and heard past her people scream "The Joker!" If only, she thought, if only, if only, if only…

She didn't know if he had followed her this entire time, and she didn't know how long she had been running anyway. She only knew to go to run. She didn't know entirely why, but just run. And then the day was coming, and you could see the sun rising. Only then did she stop. There she climbed a fire escape and broke into an apartment. There a man laid sleeping, he screamed when he saw her. She pointed the gun at him and an hour later she had tied him up in the kitchen and given him sleeping drugs her Joker had left behind and never used.

She slept in his bed, and when he awoke the next day she was gone, make up merely smeared on his sheets and bathroom counter.

She refused to take off his clothes, so long as they kept his smell she couldn't bear to leave them in some dumpster. So she walked the back alleys unsure of where to go from there, clutching onto his purple jacket as if she were really clutching onto him.

She had him, Batman, and she couldn't do it. She looked down at those lifeless eyes, and knew behind them was merely a man. A man who had love and pain and desires. Just a man. Just a man. Killing was so much easier when Joker was with her. But with her, just her and Batman. She couldn't do it. Perhaps the sanity in her knew the world was better with him, perhaps there was a part of her thankful for what she had taken from her. With Joker gone she was free, and yet so very trapped.

She found it strange how no one knew yet. True it had been merely two days, but the death of the Joker, the clown prince of crime, would be advertised. It would be shown, Batman finally defeats this madman, this killer of men, women, and children alike, this thing that was dragged out of hell into this city. There would be celebrations she thought. Even in his death it would be a party, it would be huge, all the attention of the city would be on him, even in death. And yet there was nothing. Perhaps the Joker and she were wrong. Perhaps the world did not know him as well as they thought.

Then she shuddered on the idea that Batman had not told anyone yet. She shuddered at the idea of what he was doing to the body, if not advertising. She didn't think anything too terrible, she didn't think that was an option, but then she couldn't imagine. Was her Joker hung on a wall as some trophy? Other villains, like Ivy, used to tell her about that so called Bat Cave. Where the defeated of their kind were shown as trophies to Batman, as a reminder of his accomplishments. Like animals their failures were put up as trophies.

A desire to kill him rose and fell.

She was too tired to kill anyone. Too emotionally exhausted.

She failed. All she did was fail.

She began to believe it was somehow her fault he was dead. It was her fault she didn't get his body. It was her fault his killer went on. It was her fault she didn't have a proper plan to kill that Bat. It was her fault, it was always going to be her fault.

She heard sirens and she ran.

Arkham, if they caught her they'd take her there. She hated that place. She hated it so much her gut turned inside her when she thought she was going there for that one moment. Joker, he'd laugh at her, her fear, he said he used Arkham as downtime. Sometimes after a defeat, he'd smile and say, "Vacation time!" meaning all along some time to go spend at Arkham, to plan, to think. She hated everything about that place. She couldn't go see Joker, for one because of all the security around him. She herself over time gained more and more security, she could no longer run around. Not only that but whenever he'd escape, whenever Joker would get out, he'd just leave her behind.

But worst of all, hearing those people scream at night, those madmen. She could still diagnose them. She could tell them apart by their times of screams, like appointments. They went on and on, and she knew they weren't getting properly treated, when she could have fixed them, and helped them so easily. There in Arkham, all alone, she was herself again.

She was disgusted whenever that happened. She wasn't supposed to be that way anymore. That was the problem she was never supposed to be that way anymore. She was supposed to be like him. All she ever wanted was to be like him. He'd love her, he'd love her, she knew it, she knew it.

She didn't eat, she didn't stop. She just kept going aimlessly, hoping a train of thought would come to her. But she kept self diagnosing herself, lecturing herself on what went wrong, but was not focused on the current, on what she could do now. She thought of her family and her life that she left behind.

She thought of him.

And when the night came, he came. She heard the sound of thunder in her ears, the sound of bat wings flapping. She screamed as she looked up to see nothing but the dark. She looked and looked, but starving does not help one's eyes. Finally she saw those glowing white eyes and she ran again. Always running, always running. She wasn't going to fight him, she wasn't going to kill him. But he was going to fight her, he was going to take her to Arkham, and this time she'd never get out. Joker wouldn't be there, he wouldn't cause enough chaos to help her escape. She'll be left alone with the madmen and her sanity haunting her.

The buildings lessened, and Batman was being forced to join her on the ground. She ran into a fence, and easily climbed and jumped over it. Apparently she was running into some closed off factory, and she watched as this darkness surrounded the fence. The Batman. He was like a humanoid shape night, darkness running along the ground, chasing her. A monster.

A horror came upon her, that she was not going to be able to outrun him.

She'd hide.

Yeah, that's what she'd do, she'll hide. She and the Joker use to play that.

So she ran into that factory, and found it surprisingly unattended, rather men were replaced by machines. Easily she bounced off the walls past any security, as the darkness known as Batman silently followed her with ease. She tried so hard, ever acrobatic move she knew to get away she used. She had always been stretchy, she had always been able to do flips. But when he met her, the Joker, he'd hit her until she got better. She was on a gymnastics team, but found that gymnastic routines were not the same as kicking someone in the jaw as she flipped.

He'd hit her, because he wanted her to get better, so she could defend herself.

He did it cause he cared about her.

Finally she looked back and she found no one following her. She gasped as she heard the sound of fluttering bat wings behind her. She turned but saw nothing. He was above her, that was it, he was sending echoes through out the metal walls above her, swinging on the above pipes. Must have been up at least a hundred feet.

The Factory was making chemicals and it was making her eyes burn.

The fluttering of wings. And then an awful laugh.

That voice, actually laughing, a horrible deep thing. She almost didn't recognize it as a laugh.

"Poor little thing." The Batman said. "You just don't know what to do with yourself with out him do you?"

Laughter.

"He wasn't dead." Batman continued. "He coughed and he gagged up blood for at least an hour. I laid him on the ground amongst the rats. And I watched for another three hours as he died."

"Shut up!" She screamed.

"His white flesh was so burnt."

"Shut up!"

"He told me your name…"

"STOP IT!" Tears strolled down her face.

"He screamed it. He wanted you."

"I said STOP IT!"

"Harley…Harley…he called. 'Where's Harley?' He'd ask me. 'She is gone.' I'd tell him. 'But where has she gone?' He'd ask me."

She was shaking her head, and she felt to her knees.

"Please, please just stop it." She cried.

"He had lost so much blood he was delusional. 'She must come back.' He said. 'I want to see her, she must come back.'"

"Please…"

"Her name puts a smile on my face, he said."

Her Joker. Joker, he had called to her in those final moments. She was so stupid she couldn't even tell that he wasn't dead. She could have fought for him, she could have taken him a way. God she could have saved him. He called to her and she wasn't there. He wanted her and she just wasn't there.

"And then the rats began to eat at him." The Batman laughed.

"MONSTER!"

She fired her gun at darkness, achieving nothing, and only making Batman laugh harder. His laugh more terrifying than the Joker's. Men like him, creatures like him are not meant to laugh. They should never laugh. His laugh made her freeze up, his horrible laugh. He just wouldn't stop.

She could not stand. She could not fight. Pathetically, all she could do was cry. There was never any other man in her life. There was never any other person in her life that made her feel like he did. Despite all of it, there was no one else that made her feel as special, or as warm.

"He did not even die laughing." Batman said. "How anticlimactic."

Then Batman landed before her. The monster, the dark landed before her. No more bullets left in her gun, and no bazooka in sight. She crawled on the floor backwards, as this darkness seem to glide over the floor, Batman came towards her still.

Screaming, she finally ran and climbed up a ladder trying to escape. She turned to run but found she was on the rim of an open chemical vat.

And Batman had already gotten in front of her.

"If you want to bleach your skin, my dear, that will do it." Batman told her. "And then some."

Neither of them moved for a moment. Then he slightly arched forward, sending Harley jumping a step back closer to the chemical vat below. She looked down below her, and then up at Batman.

"So, are you gonna do it?" He asked her.

She didn't even move.

Then Batman began to laugh.

But it wasn't horrible. It was utter joy, it was innocent, it was pure. The darkness arched its head and out came a laughter she thought she'd never hear again.

"SURPRISE!" The Joker yelled.

And she screamed.

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Next and Final Chapter Coming Soon.