Title: Chelsea Grin – "Got Six Troubles" (5/?)
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: The Dark Knight
Genre: Crime drama
Characters: Jim Gordon, Harlean Quinselle, Batman, and a brief appearance by Pamela Isley.
Summary: "You know, you're the second nonexistent man to sneak up on me tonight." Alternating POVs – Gordon and Harley.
Word count: 3,144
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to DC. I'm just messing around.
Author's Note: This took FOREVER, for which I apologize profusely. I blame school, and Gordon. He led me astray, and I wrote myself into a hole. It was traumatic, but more than that, it was silly. Still, from now on, I'll probably only update once a month, though hopefully the next part will come quicker than that. It'll be better than this one, I promise. :)

On Christmas morning, Jim Gordon expected to wake up to the sound of his drowsy children, to feel his son's persistent pokes or his daughter's small weight crawling up the bed between him and wife and settling there until they woke up.

This Christmas was different. His house was empty. His bed was empty. He slept on the couch, because he was too exhausted to make it past the living room after work. He didn't even put up a Christmas tree this year.

And, this year, his phone woke him up. Not his kids. His cell phone.

Gordon honestly thought that nothing could be worse than this – this feeling of pure emptiness, of cold silence where there should have been shouts of glee, of a life and a family that was no longer within his reach – and then he answered his phone.

In all his life, he'd never felt so small.

Arkham Asylum was a surreal sight that morning, and Gordon sighed as he drove past it. The scene was a cruel irony – the last time so many police cars had congregated in one place had been the day they had caught the Joker.

He parked a few blocks from the building, not because he felt like walking, but because he needed the cold air to clear his head. A tough day lay ahead of him, an impossible day, and he had to be ready for it – not just for himself, but for his men as well. They looked to him for reassurance; he was their last vestige of law and order, their last sanctuary. He wasn't sure if he was up to it today, but that didn't matter. He had to be.

Because of the cold, to walk slowly was to give yourself a long bout of pneumonia – it wasn't an option, and so he arrived at Arkham within minutes. Dodging the press line skillfully, he flashed his badge at a uniformed cop guarding the doors and gave the young officer a grim nod of thanks as he passed into the lobby.

Lieutenant Stephens was standing in the middle of a crowd of detectives, giving them individual orders and holding two cups of coffee. He took a drink between sentences and half-turned his head, looking around. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Gordon walking toward him, turned around, and saluted him with the other coffee cup. "Commissioner," he called hoarsely. "Saved this for you."

"Thanks, Lieutenant," Gordon replied tersely, taking the proffered cup. He took a tentative sip of the coffee and nearly spat it out – that was just what he needed, ice-cold hospital coffee – but even so, he downed the whole cup in a single gulp. He learned a long time ago that sometimes you had to put your gag reflex to the test for the promise of caffeine.

Automatically, he surveyed the lobby over the rim of his cup, and his ever-present frown deepened in disapproval. Strangely luxuriant, Arkham's lobby was more like that of a hotel, and it was large – too large for a private hospital that didn't get much foot traffic, though with the amount of cops combing every corner of the room, it seemed smaller than a matchbox. Gordon grimaced as he drank the dregs of the coffee, cleared his throat, and asked straightforwardly, "Everything's downstairs?"

"Yeah, in the basement," Stephens confirmed, and he nodded to the elevator across the room. Gordon headed towards it, throwing his cup away carelessly as he passed a lonely trashcan, and Stephens followed him. As they crossed the room, the crowd split, making room for their last hope to go through and fix this mess. Gordon didn't have the heart to look them in eye today; instead, he focused on Stephens, listening intently to what he said. "Nothing's been moved, except Dr. Quinselle. The paramedics took her to Wayne Memorial – her leg's pretty much shot to hell. Villaire's with her."

Gordon nodded approvingly. "Good, good – I'm gonna want to talk to her after we finish here." They reached the elevator, and he pushed the down button and glanced at Stephens. "Let's, uh, let's go downstairs, get his over with, huh?"

Unavoidably, Stephens heard the melancholy frustration in Gordon's voice. "You know, Jim," he said under his breath, putting a reassuring hand on Gordon's shoulder, "it was bound to happen sometime."

The elevator dinged, and Gordon stepped forward, giving Stephens a backward look. "Just had to be Christmas, right?"

Stephens grunted and followed him into the elevator. "Yeah. Had to be Christmas."

She awoke, but her eyes remained shut. She sniffed. Stale air. Stale death. A hospital, then. Not Arkham. Arkham's air smelled like insanity. Like him.

She bolted upright. Where was he? Gone now, thanks to Dent. Hopefully not here.

Odd. The lights weren't on. Hospitals only turned off the lights if the patient died. She looked down at herself. She didn't feel dead. Just a little medicated.

Okay, a lot medicated. She couldn't keep both of her eyes open at the same time to save her life, but she could feel the blood pulsing through her wounded ankle, even through the morphine. She raised an arm to scratch an itch on her neck and felt a tug on the inside of her forearm. An IV. Her stomach turned. She hated needles.

Blearily, she looked away from her arm – and Gotham's most wanted vigilante materialized from out of the shadows. She wasn't much of a screamer, so she just gave him a disinterested look and slurred, "You know, you're the second nonexistent man to sneak up on me tonight."

Batman glared at her. Huh. She probably should have been intimidated, but the morphine took care of that for her. She decided that she liked morphine. Or Vicodin. Whatever the hell it was, she liked it.

"Who was it, Quinselle?" Batman growled. Growled! He growled at her. Even her craziest crazies never growled at her. Her jaw slackened at the thought and a slow, painful laugh flew from her lips and sent her backwards into her flat hospital pillows. That was pretty damn funny. "Who was it?" he repeated, fiercer.

She pretended to think for a moment. Who indeed. Her eyes went from one side of the room to the other, blinking each time they from right to left. "Uhh. Who was what? I mean, you're gonna have to be a little more specific – for all I know, you could be asking who wrote East of Eden, or who the lead singer of the Killers is, or even who shot JFK - "

Before she knew it, Batman had her by the neck, holding her inches off the bed. She could smell his breath. Coffee breath? That was unexpected, not to mention weird. "The Joker, Quinselle," he growled quietly. "Who let the Joker out?"

"Ah, right," she said breathlessly. "That would be… me. Sort of. Wasn't my idea, but I helped. But I really didn't have a choice! He had a gun to my head. Uh. Literally. Maybe."

He glared some more. This close, she had to admit, he was pretty intimidating.

"Er, right, this guy, he… he had a big scar on his face. Real ugly. Kinda looked like Sundance, if Butch ever hit him in the face with a coffeepot full of hot coffee, you know?"

His eyes narrowed. They were hazel. She blinked, suddenly grasping that Batman was a real person – he wasn't just some personification of justice, a nameless phantasm feared by all of Gotham's criminals, as she had always thought him to be. A real person, with real eyes. "Tell me who he was," he demanded through clenched teeth. Perfectly white, perfectly straight teeth. A real goddamn person.

This time, she narrowed her eyes. "Interesting question. I can tell you exactly who he was, but I can't tell you who he is. Now. Which would you rather know, is or was?"

"Give me a name," he snarled, and he pulled her higher off the bed. She felt the IV in her forearm tug nauseatingly, and a small whimper escaped her lips.

"F-fine." Her eyes rolled in exaggerated annoyance. "You want it? Fine." She paused, and her eyelashes fluttered involuntarily. Damn drugs. "Calls himself Two-face. That name ring any bells?"

His guard slipped, and for a moment, there was obvious shock in his eyes. He quickly replaced it with – what was that supposed to be, righteous anger? – and dropped her. She made a sound like a wounded kitten, and then, right then, the pain caught up with her. As she bit her lip and held back a powerful groan, he slipped away, silently, furiously, maybe even cowardly.

She giggled deliriously a few times before she passed out. Whatever name he was expecting, it wasn't that one.

When Commissioner Gordon and some lieutenant came in later to question her, he asked for the truth, and Harlean agreed to give it, but she lied. Part of her wanted to tell him the truth, tell him exactly who freed the Joker, but another newer part of her decided that the truth was even more boring than this hospital, and that was a feat in and of itself. All she wanted was a little stimulation, so she lied. Plain and simple.

Ever the gentleman, the Commissioner kindly asked her what had happened this morning, and she told him the truth – a slightly altered version of the truth, of course, but the truth nonetheless. Really, she only changed two itty-bitty, practically insignificant details: the how and the who. It was almost too easy.

The how? Well, according to Harlean, she and Pascal - may that lovely man rest in peace, he was such a wonderful director – were forced against their will to turn off the security cameras and to lead the perp directly to the Joker. It was incredibly traumatizing, she told them – he had pointed a gun at her and everything. (For that, she had even made her voice tremble. In her mind, she was just as good as Jean Harlow ever was.)

And the who?

Batman, of course.

At that, Gordon froze and gave her a long, scrutinizing stare, and the lieutenant coughed quietly. "Batman," the Commissioner said skeptically. "Really."

"Oh, yeah, it was definitely the Batman," she continued helpfully. "He's got brown eyes – more like hazel, actually – and these really, really white teeth. And there's that ridiculous growl, you know, like he's coughing up a fur ball all the time. I bet he gets laryngitis a lot." And she winked. Probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but it was completely involuntary. She had a hard time controlling herself these days.

Despite whatever damage that wink might have done to her credibility, she could tell that Gordon believed her. Not willingly, of course, but he believed her – she had given him enough facts that he had to believe her, even though it was obvious he didn't want to. He walked over to the window, disbelief and betrayal both apparent on his face. It was almost sad, how crushed he looked. Almost. Today, Harlean didn't feel very sympathetic.

When Gordon continued to stare out the window, morose and silent, the lieutenant took over for him. "Uh, Dr. Quinselle," he coughed awkwardly, "just one more question. Is there, ah, anyone we can call for you before we leave?"

Harlean thought for a moment. "Well. There's my friend Pam – her number's in my cell phone, though, which I'm pretty sure I left in my car. I can't remember the number off the top of my head." Lies, both of them. Dent had thrown her phone out the window on the way back to Arkham, and she had Pam's phone numbers memorized – all four of them.

"What make and model, and your friend's full name, please?" The detective had his pen poised and ready, which Harlean thought looked ridiculous. She struggled not to laugh as she said, "It's an '01 Honda Civic. Bright red, not that burgundy shit. And my friend, that's Pam, uh, Beesley – she teaches… art over at Gotham High. Shouldn't be too hard to find her." More lies. Pam's last name was Isley, and she taught botany at Gotham University. Harlean liked this game. It was so easy to lie to the police when your leg was bandaged like a mummy on its way to Osiris.

"Mmhm," the detective murmured as he shorthanded the information. Gordon turned around, hands on hips and eyebrows furrowed, and the two policemen exchanged significant looks. Harlean was smart enough to know what that meant. As soon as she got out of the hospital, she was going to have to get a new car. How annoying.

Resigned, they both thanked her for her cooperation and left quickly. She heard the detective say under his breath, "Well, at least we know how he got away so fast, right?" Gordon merely nodded, and they disappeared into the hospital's busy hallways.

Oddly, Harlean felt both satisfied and disgusted with herself. Though really, it wasn't so odd – these days, her mental state was almost weather-like in its instability. One minute, she was a cheery spring day, a little chilly but generally decent, and the next, she was a hurricane, unmerciful and unstoppable. Her weatherman wasn't any help, either. Even though he had the radar in front of him, he didn't bother with the forecast - he just let her tempestuous mood swings destroy what was left of her sanity, grinning through it all.

The thought of him made Harlean shiver, though from what, she wasn't sure. Fear, glee, fascination – it was all the same to her now. And more than anything, she knew that she needed to get out of this hospital before he was tempted to find her, or before she was tempted to find him. Tempted, ha – she was already tempted; she needed to get out before she acted on those temptations, and she needed someone to stop her if she did.

In a rare moment of lucidity, she frantically grabbed the hospital phone by her bed and dialed Pam's number – not her cell number, not her home number, but her private number, which she was certain only two people in the entire world knew. Harlean closed her eyes in relief when Pam answered on the second ring. "Al, why the fuck haven't you called me for two weeks, and why the fuck are you calling me at eight in the goddamn morning on fucking Christmas?!"

"Hey, Red," Harlean breathed. "I need a huge favor."

The line was silent for a moment. "Harley, if you ask me for weed, I swear to God I'll stuff it down your throat."

Harlean rolled her eyes. "Pam, when was the last time I asked you for weed?"

"Right, stupid question. So. What's this favor?"

"I need you to get me out of Wayne Memorial. Um. Quick-like."

Pam laughed, clear and bright. "Sure, let me just put on my fucking Batman suit, and I'll be right down, okay?" And she hung up.

Harlean smiled.

As soon as they left the hospital, Stephens put out an APB on Quinselle's car, but the car had already been found - or rather, the car had found them.

Eerily reminiscent of Arkham Asylum earlier this morning, the scene in front of City Hall was one of unmitigated chaos. There were dozens of photographers and the flashing lights and incessant cries that came with them, and even more policemen attempting to herd the photographers to the other side of the street where they belonged. As soon as Gordon stepped out of his car and slammed the door, Detective Murphy ran up to him, looking unnerved and shaken. "What happened?" Gordon snapped over the noise.

"That Honda you were looking for? Ten minutes ago, it crashed through the front doors of City Hall," Murphy shouted, "right under Dent's old office, if you can believe it." He scoffed humorlessly. "This guy really has no shame."

"Was anybody hurt?" Stephens yelled from behind them.

"Nah, everybody's either at home with their kids or at MCU trying to sort out this mess," Murphy replied over his shoulder, leading them through the crowd. "Just lucky, I guess."

They made it through without much hassle, and the closer they got to the wreckage, the quieter the atmosphere became. Gordon exhaled sharply as he caught sight of the car – it was bright red, just like Quinselle said, and parked right where the revolving glass door had been twenty minutes ago. He ran a hand through his hair and asked exasperatedly, "Do we know who was driving?"

Murphy sniffed and shrugged. "Some homeless guy. Doesn't matter – before the paramedics took him away, he told us that a guy in clown makeup paid him two hundred bucks to crash the car into City Hall. I think we know who the culprit is."

Stephens shook his head and snarled, "Damn clown. He's not gonna get away with this."

"Let's hope so," Gordon murmured, soft and solemn. And then he squinted. "What's that on the trunk?"

"Paint," Murphy said quickly, avoiding eye contact. "Green and white. It's all over the car."

Gordon glanced quickly back and forth between Murphy and the car. He had a feeling he knew what was painted on the car, judging from Murphy's behavior, but he needed to see for himself. "We're going to need a full work-up of this car," he ordered at once, and he walked toward the car to get a closer look. "Paint analysis, fingerprints, everything!"

"You got it, Commissioner," Stephens replied firmly, while Murphy shifted and gave a small nod.

Stepping carefully over broken glass and mangled steel, Gordon came upon the car faster than he thought he would – one second, he was avoiding a particularly nasty piece of glass, and the next, there was the car. And there was the graffiti.

Scrawled all over the car were the words, "MERRY XMAS, COMMISSIONER!" in alternating green and white. The sickeningly familiar scribble covered almost every inch of the car, in all sizes and varying degrees of neatness and spelling. It almost looked like a child's Christmas card, sloppy yet obviously done with great care. The interior of the car was similarly affected – it was slashed and painted, vandalized with the Joker's faceless grin, his calling card. There was even a tidy bow, purple and orange and clashing mightily with the rest of the decorations, tied to the steering wheel.

Gift-wrapped. The Joker had literally gift-wrapped the car for him, the bastard.

Gordon set his jaw, turned around, and walked away, muttering bitterly, "Had to be Christmas, and it had to be Christmas colors." He shook his head. Even he couldn't deny the irony.