AN: I think this one deserves sort of an explanation. Anyone who's seen Book of Circus has surely wished that the first-tier members had lived, and I especially have spent probably hours wondering what would have happened if they had known about the workhouse. So... this is that. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Workhouse

"Father I thought I would go to the workhouse." Joker could count on one hand the number of times he had said this, and he knew the answer even before his Father said it. Memorized it by heart.

"I don't think that's such a good idea. It'll only bring back terrible memories. I forbid you to go."

Joker couldn't help but mouth the words this time. Right along with his Father as he said them, knowing he couldn't see him as he turned to go, "Very well Father."

He wrapped his scarf tighter around him as he left the mansion, even though it was mid day. He rarely visited during daylight, and only ever to inquire about the workhouse he and the other first tiers of Noah's Ark Circus had lived in for a short time. One of the few places they were shown kindness. It wasn't ideal but it was enough.

Joker closed his eyes briefly. It was for those children that other children had to suffer. Whisked away in the night in a cloud of dreams, only to wake up and realize they're in hell, just so another child could wake with enough to eat. It wasn't ideal and it wasn't fair, but it was also enough.

And yet, Father had never let him visit the workhouse. Joker never went against his Father's wishes, but once, just this once… Who was Father to say he couldn't go where he pleased? What if Joker happened to pass by, just to see how it was fairing? Besides, hadn't they begun the circus to make children smile? Should he not make those children smile too?

Mind made up, Joker turned away from the circus grounds and in the direction of the workhouse, a good few miles away. It would be a day's trip, but the others didn't expect him back until late anyway, and he'd waste time if he went back to ask them to come along. So he didn't.

The last time Joker had been on these streets he'd been a penniless orphan, a gutter rat. He had been the second oldest boy in a misfit family, settling disputes, soothing cuts and bruises, entertaining with stories, and trying to scrape enough money to get by doing menial tasks and occasionally stealing, which they had never been good at. Now they were professionals in the worst kind of stealing. He remembered the day Father had found them, huddled under a tarp in the rain, and invited them home with him. Sometimes he thought of that day as the best in his life. Other times, it was the worst.

He reached the train station that took him out to the countryside, where the workhouse resided. Not much had changed in the ten years since he'd left it. Same shops, same people, same dynamic. Joker rounded the corner of another street and looked up to the lane that led back a ways to the workhouse. Except, the lane was overgrown with weeds. As long as he'd known it, there had never been weeds.

The farther he traveled down the lane, the worse he felt. He refused to look up, but kept his eyes on the ground, and was so preoccupied he nearly missed when the crumbling sidewalk became grass, just grass.

His head snapped up and he stared forward, to the rolling hills that turned into the country, the backdrop to the yard they would play in. The bench was still there, falling apart and blackened. And yet he hadn't walked through the workhouse, so how on earth had he reached the yard?

Spinning on his heel, Joker took it in with horrified astonishment. The entire left side was nearly gone, with only pieces of the sides and no back at all. The right was falling apart, windoes blown out, shattered and warped and blackened. The remains of the walls were crumbling, covered in ivy and shrouded in overgrown grass. From what he could see of the inside of the remaining building, it was empty, burned out; an empty hollow shell. There was no door, no floor, no stairs, no walls…

No children.

Something caught his eye and he turned, stooping to scoop up the stuffed bear, dirty and faded from being at the mercy of the elements, seams ripping and ears charred. What had happened? This couldn't be the same workhouse, it couldn't! Father had said it was doing fine. Father had said…

Father had lied.

Joker took a step back and something crunched under his heel, and for the first time in a very long time, he was afraid, afraid to look down and see what he knew it must be. He hadn't even fully processed the crushed skull before he was retching on the ground. He stumbled away from the workhouse, back to the overgrown lane and tripping onto his backside as he stared at the ruins. A fire had destroyed this place, and it had killed all the children in it some time ago. Months ago, maybe even years ago. And Father had lied to them, so they would keep kidnapping for him, to ensure the safety of the children at the workhouse. The children who were long gone.

Joker felt hurt and angry and sick all at once, and wasn't sure which to act on. His revulsion won out and he was sick again in the grass, leaving him trembling and weak. Tears pricked his eyes, and for years he had held them down, knowing that whatever was making him cry was something that had to be done but now he realized it NEVER had to be done, and the tears broke through and washed away the makeup on his face, smearing his eyeliner and making the painted-on-teardrop run. He couldn't help it. He cried for the children of the workhouse and for the children he had kidnapped, the lives he had ruined for the lives that were beyond saving.

Then he was angry, white hot anger coursing through him as he still clutched the bear in his skeletal hand-

Joker shot up out of the grass, his gaze going to his arm. The arm Doctor had given him, told him was of an extremely hard to get material, and very hard to make. The arm he had had for years now, even before they had started kidnapping children, but not before he knew what his father was doing with children he lured.

An extremely hard to get material.

Joker thought he might be sick all over, as he stared at the stark white… thing acting as his arm, as white and bleached as the skull he'd accidentally crushed, as stark white as bone. He knew it was attached to the nerves, he knew it would hurt like hell, he knew he may very well bleed to death, but Joker didn't care.

He ripped the hand from him, revealing a dagger hidden inside, and with this he fairly ripped the rest of the arm from his body, flinging it as far as he could. It did hurt, and perhaps he was crazy to do it, but it felt so much better to be rid of it. As though he had always known, and the burden weighed him down.

Fath- Baron Kelvin had lied to them, cheated them, turned them into monsters by gaining their trust and treating them nicely. Obsessed with Ciel Phantomhive. How could Joker not have seen this sooner? Beast had seen it. Not all of it, but enough to be wary.

God above how could this have happened? How could he let it happen? And the others, they didn't know.

Joker forced himself to his feet and away from the skeleton of the workhouse, racing down the streets, ignoring several disgruntled pedestrians he nearly ran into, just to get back to the circus as soon as he could.

The other first tier members were in his tent when he arrived out of breath, waiting for him before they went on to kidnap more children- but they didn't! Not anymore! What was the point?

Barely able to stand, he brushed off Beast's worry and batted away Doll's helping hands, ignoring Peter and Wendy's questions about his bleeding arm.

"Where were you?" Dagger demanded and Joker snapped to attention, tossing the bear he had held the whole way home to the floor, "Workhouse. S'Gone."

"Wh-Whadya mean 'gone?'" Doll stammered and Joker nearly broke down in fresh tears, telling them everything. The Baron's refusal to let him go, how he went anyway, and what he found. What he learned. And what it meant.

"He's been playin' us this whole time?!" Peter demanded and Joker nodded sadly. He had always been fiercely loyal to the man they once called "Father" so for him to renounce it, there was not a doubt in any of their minds it was the right thing to do.

Beast and Dagger had removed their own prosthetic legs, flinging them as far as they could away from them as Beast sobbed into her hands, "How could anyone do sucha thing?"

Joker shook his head, "Doesn' matter. What matters is we're gettin' out of 'ere. Tonight. Pack yer things, meet me 'ere as fast as ya can. An' someone tell Snake, so 'e can cone with us."

Weeks later, Joker would pause as he rushed down the streets of New York City in America, as he heard a group reading the paper exclaim over the death and exposure of Baron Kelvin and Doctor. And Joker smiled to himself before continuing on, hopping a trolley to take him to his destination. It was difficult one-armed but he managed, as he always did.

He took the steps of the building two at a time and burst through the door, where he was attacked by at least ten small bodies, all chanting his name.

"Joker Joker! Didja get us anything?"

"Who said you were gettin' something?" He teased, walking down the hall with the kids still clinging to his legs, "Beast did."

"Oh she did did she? Hmmm. We'll see."

Beast was in the kitchen, and the kids released his legs in favor of the cookies she was removing from the oven, "Hot hot hot! No touching til they cool!"

"Awhhh," rang from the room and Beast shooed them with her towel. Joker set down his package, "You promised 'em sweets."

"I promised 'em somethin'," She grinned and Joker chuckled, "Where're the others?"

"Jumbo took some of the kids to the park, and Peter and Wendy tagged along. Doll's outside in the garden and Dagger's tellin' 'em stories with Snake."

"Usual then," Joker quipped and Beast only smiled in return, using the various things around the room to pull herself along to the wheelchair by the door. The two left the kitchen to go outside, where Dagger was seated in the grass with a dozen enthralled children before him, Snake at his side with one of his snakes coiled around his arm and Doll was giving each little girl surrounding her a flower. She gave them a dazzling smile and Joker smirked in return.

"Heard the Baron and Doctor are dead and their game exposed," he murmured and Beast was silent a moment, "Can't see why that matters here."

Joker smiled as one of the children ran up to him, begging him to come play, and he grinned at the dark-haired beauty, "Aye, neither can I."

Noah's Ark Circus would never be the same to them. Joker wasn't sure what happened to the circus when they left, but the funds they'd saved and collected were enough to get this place, and continued donations kept it up and running, not to mention their jobs on the side. Joker made sure of it. It didn't make up for the wrongs they had committed, and it never would, but if they could no longer protect the children of the workhouse, they would protect the children here, in America, the children of the Noah's Ark Orphanage.