AN: Oh my god is it an update? Yes it is! Chapter 8 is finally here. I would have had it up earlier but... Yeah my Gotham fic kinda took over my life. And anyways, Lucy is very heavily medicated in this chapter, which is why she isn't more crazy. Thank you to everyone who reviewed and favorited and followed. Tell me what you think, any comments/questions/reviews you have. Happy reading!

Chapter 8

Darkness, light. Silence, beeping. Pain, numbness.

I didn't quite understand where I was. My eyelids wouldn't work properly. They wouldn't open when I wanted to, which should have been absurd. I'm clearly in control of my body. Finally, they did open. White walls, a big window, and an empty gurney next to me. A hospital? Slowly my hands crept up to the right side of my face, where all my pain was located. I felt dried blood and were those stitches?!

I fumbled around for anything, my left hand finally resting on a handheld mirror. Slowly I lifted it up to my face, point towards my right cheek. The entire right side of my cheek was split, only being held in place by the stitches. Dried blood had cracked the edges. Every little movement hurt and even thinking about opening my mouth was absurd. I wished they weren't there, but the dark blue stitches contrasted the paleness of my face and the red of the wound.

Setting the mirror down, I noticed I was shaking. Not good. My knees folded towards my chest, I wrapped my arms around them. The previous night (or rather several nights ago, seeing as the stitches weren't bleeding anymore) was documented in freeze frames in my mind.

I was the child of the two most dangerous and psychotic super villains in Gotham. My parents were the anti-Batman. They stood against everything that was good and innocent in the world. They stood against people like Jay and creatures like Felix. I had no idea to react to this. Every time that I tried to make a connection, the thought died in a sizzle. To cope, I tried to compartmentalize.

My parents were Harley Quinn and the Joker. That went into its own little box. The lack of balloons and flowers in my room meant that no one had come to visit me. That I didn't need to box up, I had already known I would be lonely. The handmade card from Jay made me happy however, he had tried (and failed) to draw Felix surrounded by crayon balloons. The last box in my mind was reserved for Aunt Marilyn's death. Killed by my own mother. I wasn't sure what to think, I hated the woman but she had raised me... I began to giggle deputy the pain. The absurdity of everything that had transpired.

A knock was at my hospital door before being opened. Jonathan Crane opened the door, a bouquet of red and purple roses in hand. The irony of the colors amused me. As the door was closing I caught sight of two GCPD officers, Commissioner Gordon himself, and Bruce Wayne. Of course they had placed a detail on me. To them, I'm nothing more than a ticking time bomb. Or possibly bait for a certain criminal clown couple. Either way, it was idiotic of me to believe that they wouldn't be watching me like a hawk.

"Bruce Wayne sends his regards," Jonathan stated, placing the bouquet on the side table.

"You've known me one day, why are you here?" I tried to ask, but it came out as a jumble of sounds with more pain shooting through my cheek.

Fortunately, he got the gist of what I was trying to say. "Honestly, I have no idea. Wayne wanted me to come. I could have declined if I wanted to. I could kill you right now, without anyone noticing. End that despicable man's bloodline right now." He paused. "I'm not killing you out of respect of the friendship I had with your mother."

I nodded. How could I forget that everyone on this side of Central City knew my mother somehow? Including the age regressed man in front of me. It was strange thinking of Jonathan as Dr Crane or even the Scarecrow as I was taught to associate him with. He was simply Jonathan, a brilliant ex-criminal. Despite him threatening to kill me, it felt empty. He wouldn't do it, he wasn't as crazy as he once was. I don't know if that's due to the body or time spent along the Wayne brood.

"Also, your cousin wanted to give you this," he sighed, pulling out a furry lump from a hidden pocket in his jacket.

A happy bark came from the lump, revealing Felix. I took my hyena pup from him, holding the little fluff ball close to my face. He licked the uninjured side of my face. Jonathan looked on in repulsion. It was clear he had never owned a pet before. Felix crawled into my lap, curling into a ball. I petted his head, scratching right behind his left ear.

"Thank you," I said, those two words coming out clear as day.

The former criminal just nodded, walking towards the door. "Heal quickly, Ms Quinzel," he said before walking out.

I nodded, burrowing deeper under the blankets. The hospital room was too cold, too white. I needed color to thrive. I felt like my personality was being stifled under all this sterile harshness. Quickly, I grabbed the bouquet, holding on to the one source of color in this dull room. I was being drowned in a sea of dull, I needed color like plants need water. I simply ducked under the covers, tracing the petals of the darkest purple rose in the bunch.

•••

He had really tried not to look at Lucy's stitches. It was tempting, harder than it should have been. She looked so much like her wretched father, with that permanent red smile. But the other side of her face was just like Harleen's. Perfect, innocent, and gorgeous. Anyone who had seen the harlequin with her cowl off would know how breathtaking she was. And Lucy was twice that, without the harsh lines of age or the unforgiving cage of insanity. Strange, yes, but not insane. At least not yet.

As Jonathan stepped out of the hospital room, both security guards eyed him suspiciously. Not everyone knew about his less than clean past, but anyone could tell about the drug use from his irises. Even though the drug that caused the blending of his Iris and sclera was actually the one he didn't have to go through a withdrawal for. The other ones... Well that was a very bad day in Jonathan's life. Goddamn drugs and their goddamm side effects.

Bruce Wayne led the way out of the hospital, gaining stares from the many patients. Jonathan assumed that once they got back to the manor, he would make a considerable donation to hospital. Jonathan ran his hand along the wall. Before, he had placed fear gas capsules in all the air ducts. That was a fun time, ironic to the extreme as well.

It was hard for Jonathan to think of the man standing beside him as "Bruce". Before, the man was simply a fairytale, something that really shouldn't have been worried about. Then he was the Batman, or the Dark Knight as Jonathan's goons had preferred to call him. Even then, the man in the public eye was Bruce Wayne, both first and surname said in awe. The man behind the mask. Jonathan wondered how much his fellow rogues would pay for this information. Millions of dollars, maybe even a few extremities as well. You could never know with Gothamites.

Alfred picked them up as usual. Climbing into the limo, Jonathan never really would get used to the luxury being an adopted Wayne child- even though he clearly wasn't a child, just age-regressed- afforded them. His childhood had been spent wondering if dinner was a possibility, not even caring what it was. That was ages ago, but things hadn't changed much in his neighborhood.

"You care for her, don't you, Crane?" Wayne asked. "She's over twenty years your junior..."

"You don't think I don't know that?" Jonathan snapped. "I'm doing it out of respect for Harleen. I was the only one she told when she was pregnant. Not even Isley knew."

Wayne smiled. "I was just saying, be careful. Her father is the Joker. But thank you, for that bit of information."

"How could I forget that?" Jonathan muttered, pointedly staring out the window and signaling an end to the conversation.