FOUR

Her phone rings. It wants to make sure she's still alive. Harley tells her friend in a monotone that everything was fine, and no she was not injured severely. Or at all. Her friend is amazed. She thought for sure Joker would kill her. Confidence is a funny thing.

While the woman on the other end continues to babble on, Harley makes some guacamole and hardly says a word throughout the conversation. Scuffling back to her bedroom, she mutters the occasional "Mm hmm" so the other line knows she's listening. At the foot of her bed, she feels his Polaroid with her toes. She bites down hard on a Mexican tortilla chip. And her heart skips a beat.

"Good day to you, Mister Joker."

As far as the past few visits have gone, Joker has noticed a pattern with his new and improved doctor (although he always notices patterns). This doctor always had Joker make the first move. Never had she come in with something to say. Or rather, something to teach. But now she's throwing him another curve ball. Maybe he should try to expect the unexpected from now on. "Good day, Louise."

"Nope." His face twinges with disappointment. "So I hear you've been having fun in the cafeteria."

"Ah…" Now his faces lights up. It's Christmas for all he knows. "I was thinking about you the whole time."

Harley raises her eyebrows. "Oh goody. An attempt to kill Jeremiah Arkham with a can of peas, dedicated just to me."

"Oh, come on Carrie." Harley shakes her head: No. "Even you, the good guy, can see how sadistic he is."

"And you aren't sadistic?"

"Is that what I said?" he asks genuinely. "See, I'm the bad guy. It's perfectly acceptable."

"Just the same, if you're going to try and kill anyone here, kill me okay?"

Nobility? "Kill you? Why would I want to kill you? What would I do without you? You may be my doctor, and I tend to…" He struggles to find the appropriate words, "enjoy 'firing' my doctors myself, if you will. But you see, you aren't the typical, 'Let's talk about your feelings' shrinky-dink. No… no. No! No, you – you are something else entirely. You see, the last person I would kill in the sadistic hell hole, would be you."

As much as Harley hated to admit it, this was extraordinarily mitigating to hear. He wasn't going to kill her. Or at least, he wasn't planning on it. But something told Harley that Joker wasn't much the guy for plans.

"Did I try Anne yet?" he asks now.

"You didn't." Joker waits for her answer, and she shakes her head. "You're going to have to get more creative than that."

"Rumplestiltskin," he says, confident now. But she shakes her head, laughing. "Creativity is so uncreative, you know," he begins and Harley readies herself for another philosophy lesson, provided by probably one of the world's greatest philosophers. "See, most of the time, it's just people trying to be smart; trying to be cute."

"Tell me about it," Harley mutters, more to herself than to Joker.

"Is your name cute, Clarissa?"

"Incredibly cute. And not Clarissa."