So that little pest known as writers block visited me these past few weeks. I had just started writing this and then suddenly, I couldn't think what to put down – I knew what I wanted to write, but the words just didn't come. I owe a lot to my friend Yvette, who beta'd this and gave me a lot of help to kick start my brain in gear to finish this – it's not perfect, but I came to a natural stop after weeks of standstill and well… I don't like forcing something. It's short and not so sweet, but hopefully it gives a new light to the story and you pick up on some of the ironic humor stashed away nice and neat.

If you see any spelling errors or typos or missing words, let me know! I'm infamous for not somehow always missing something.

Thanks to those who reviewed last chapter and again to Yvette!

The Laughing Clown

Intermission 01

The Joker.

In Arkham Asylum, there are fifty-two white ceiling tiles and sixty-five grey. The Joker knows this because he's spent night after night counting them while thinking that the cleaning staffs are in dire need of a name change.

In the past, counting tiles had been a lowly pass time of his while he lay alone in his padded cell, staring upwards, unblinking, thinking of new games to play with the Batman when he got out. After all, he's starting to feel that he's outstayed his welcome if the cringing looks and scathing whispers are anything to go by. The Joker has learned not to take to it heart, because when he's leaving his temporary home he'll make sure that every single one of these good people have a lovely little smile on their face - he isn't one to hold a grudge you see - and it will brighten his little heart to show them the light.

He has long given up on the hope that anything at all entertaining will happen in this, his happy little house, his home away from home. Batman never calls and never visits (and after all those oh so amazing nights they spent together, too!) and the staff are so skittish around him that he thinks teasing the never-used mop he sees so rarely around here will give him more of a reaction.

And then it's suddenly like someone up in the sky (or down below – the Joker doesn't believe in favoritism except when it comes to the Batman - and where he buys his suits) is smiling down on (or up at him, whichever direction his luck comes from) him because low and behold he has a brand new, shiny blond doctor with the biggest blue eyes he ever did see. She's a pretty one, he thinks with glee at the prospect of a new friend (or victim – he doesn't bother to draw a line between the two unless they're part of a mob, why quibble over trivial little things like word choice).

He notices the little laughter lines at the corners of her mouth and thinks with renewed inspiration that perhaps there is hope for this dreary loony farm yet. He's looking at her from under his hair (he really needs a haircut , this asylum staff really is so neglectful), she doesn't notice and he has to hold in a chuckle as she looks him over. He thinks they're really overreacting with his restraints – what's he going to do, kill his new friend with her clipboard? Actually, he thinks, licking his lip, that could be quite interesting. How would you kill someone with a clipboard? Bashing their head in is far too obvious, maybe if he could try- oh, she's walking over now. He lets his eyes cast downwards and she sits in front of him and he can feel her eyes looking at him quite intently. He likes this one; she isn't scared like the others – but give him a week, he has been out of the game a little longer than he'd prefer.

There's conversation that he doesn't much care for but it still raises a good few laughs from him until he looks at her, right square in the eye. He can see the faint little flicker of surprise in her eyes, the way they widen barely even a millimeter and he notices with confusion the look on her face that almost looks like familiarity.

By the end of the session, the Joker is keen to find out all he can about his sweet new doctor Quinzel with her forced professional voice and knowing eyes. The Joker likes a challenge and he thinks if he's going to crack this one he'll have to observe her for a while before he begins to make his move. He likes a challenge and Dr. Quinzel looks like she might even have secrets to rival the Batman's.


He is an observant man and what he has noticed most of all about Dr. Quinzel is that she never says his name. She addresses him with questions and he accepts, for a while at least, that maybe this is just how she is with her patients.

Until, that is, he overhears that she is also treating Jonathon Crane. Not only that, but she calls him Jonathon. He is more than a little insulted by this and he stubbornly does not speak to her for three days in retaliation. She was his first, even if she doesn't know it. He watches her silently, eyes cold, in hope she will say his name if only to coax him into speech. When she doesn't, he can't help but wonder why and if she knows who exactly she is dealing with. But then again, restraints such as his would give someone as sweet looking as doctor Quinzel and sense of security.

But when he sulks, punishing her with his silence, he sees that knowing look in her eyes again, and something that he recognizes as pain, even if he doesn't understand what kind or why. What exactly is going through this woman's head?

The Joker has secrets that he keeps close to the heart, like a ticking time bomb slowly, slowly ticking away until his final moment. Even then he doesn't know if that bomb will go off. He knows that the explosion will be magnificent but sometimes he thinks that one day it will just stop.

No fireworks.

No noise.

Just complete desolation.

If he has to admit one secret, it's that he is afraid he won't go out with a bang by Batman's hand. God forbid he dies by the hand of some two-bit mob lackey.

He doesn't much like secrets either. He hates his own secrets because they give him a past, an identity. The prospect of such things contradicts all that he embodies.

He hates Batman's secrets; but he doesn't think he would like him as much without them. Complicated thing, these secrets.

Secrets can ruin a man in an instant or they can shape him.

There are secrets in her eyes; he can see them tucked away all carefully like a child's play box. He is certain his bomb won't be going off for a while, but hers? He is certain he can let loose the fireworks in doctor Quinzels mind real soon. It will be a spectacular show, he assures himself with blackened glee. It's been a while but he has an objective again. There are plans; fragments of ideas and strokes of brilliance, of madness all fitting together like a bizarre jigsaw puzzle.

It's the beginning of something – of what is unclear, but he feels a delightful tingle in his spine, in his bones and blood, he feels excited for this new game he is starting.

He isn't sure how this will end, but he can see those fireworks in his head clear as day; colors of purple and green and red and he can see a smile so big and bright that he has to grin himself, teeth bared and he laughs.

And so it starts.

The Joker always finishes what he starts.