FIVE

"Let's get straight down to the basics." She closes the door behind her. No Hank today. Was her not black and white trust beginning to fade one way or the other (depending which was black and which was white)?

Joker rocks back and forth on his chains and folds his shackled hands on the table. They rattle and clank. "All righty then. The basics."

Harley swallows. Why was it so hard to talk to this man? But, then again, she's never found it easier to have a real conversation with anyone but him. "Let's say you see a pretty girl walking down the street."

He licks his lips. Then puts on a slightly confused face. "How exactly do you define 'basic'?"

She smiles. "Just go with me here." Joker shrugs and nods. He enjoys her attitude. Is it different? He wouldn't be surprised. "So you see this pretty girl walking along, just minding her own business – What do you do?"

The corner of his mouth twitches. "That depends. Am I normal in this scenario?"

"You're yourself." Which is normal.

"Then I'd give her my number." Joker smiles to himself. Harley isn't as amused and lowers her eyelids. "Why is this relevant?"

She licks the corners of her mouth. Joker finds this rather interesting. "I want to know how you react around women."

Joker raises an eyebrow. Why? But he doesn't dare ask. No. He wants to find out on his own. Because that's half the fun! "I'm not what you'd call…" his eyes dart across the ceiling, as if the words he wants to say might be written there, "a 'set in stone' kind of guy." Harley nods, agreeing completely with his reasoning. Reasonable reasoning, she reasons. "You see, it all depends on my mood. I might kill her. I might kiss her." He shrugs again. Indifferent. "It depends," again.

She is doodling in the corners of his manila file. Is she even listening? A bizarre surge of anger and frustration bubbles to the top of his skin and he wiggles his fingers to try and release it. He knows how people are. They're predictable. They're easy to read. But this girl, since the moment she walked in, is nowhere near predictable. Nowhere near easily read. And it entirely, absolutely, annoys him.

"What are you doing?" he snarls.

She looks up at his coal eyes, confused, not alarmed. Not afraid at all. Again, an unexpected move. "Uh… drawing." She says it like a question.

"Are you paying attention?" A snarl again.

Looking from side to side (as if he is joking!), she says, "Of course. I wanted to know, didn't I?" He supposes her point is valid. "Would you like me to stop drawing?"

Joker doesn't want to, but he mutters a, "Yes," and Harley puts down her pencil (possibly too close to him). Maybe it's a test. Maybe it's a fluke.

"You certainly do get jealous easily, don't you?"

Does she fear him at all? "Jealous?" Was that even the right word? "Jealous!" And despite his anger, despite his sudden hatred, he laughs. She's right! He does get jealous easily. When the Batman fights other criminals, he gets jealous. When another robber beats him to the punch, he gets jealous. When the mob has a greater advantage over Gotham than he does, he gets jealous. When his (so far) favorite person doesn't focus all her attention on his (if he does say so himself) intriguing answer to her very own question, oh! he gets jealous. And now he laughs. He laughs! How funny realization is! "You're good!"

And Harley wonders if that is a real complement.

She figures she might as well change the subject while she's "on a roll": "So Mister Joker, I know you don't intend on spend the rest of your life locked up in a padded cell, talking to me."

He lets out another small spell of laughter. She really should stop. His stomach was beginning to hurt. "What makes you say that? I'm having the time of my life."

Harley stops. She stares deep into Joker's imperfect face. From ear to ear, a smile is carved. But on his lips, there is no true smile. Just illegitimate laughter. Can someone, someone sane (and Harley knows full well that Joker is indeed sane) really switch from rage to a blasé manner so quickly? She refused to think otherwise. "But you have plans that go outside these walls."

"Psh, plans!" He smiles crookedly, trying with difficulty to keep from laughing. His stomach really was beginning to hurt him. "Me and plans do not mix, Yolanda." Harley shakes her head. "Like oil and vinegar." Then he looks deeply into her eyes. So deeply, Harley feels the inexpressible urge to close them, just for some false sense of escape. "I would think you of all people would've grasped that."

"Yeah, well." She turns away to regain her confidence. "Everyone slips." She almost forgets what she's trying to say. "The point is," she throws him a very quick glare (so quick that Joker almost misses it) instructing him to remain focused, "you don't want to stay here for the rest of your life. How could you? You've got goals outside of here. Don't you want to accomplish them?"

"That's incredibly easy for a person who actually has accomplished their goals to say."

"Who, me?" Well, who else? "What do you mean? This," she wags her finger between Joker and herself, "wasn't a lifelong dream of mine. I didn't just wake up one morning when I was a kid and say, 'I want to evaluate criminals when I grow up!'"

"Then why are you here?" Joker asks seriously. Why so serious?

Harley gets up from her chair, in her black pencil skirt and too-tight (too sexy for Arkham) blouse and throws one last glance his way for the day. "You tell me."