Author's Note: This is just a quick aside to say that I did decide to post Leena's story in Unmasked, which is what this chapter is here. But if you hate the Joker, find it confusing, or simply don't like how I'm doing it, you should be able to skip over Leena's chapters and still understand what happens in the main plot. I should also warn here that Leena's story is gonna be a little more intense than Andi's (hey, the girl's going insane); it's still a T rating, but a half step moreso than the rest of the story is.

PART 2
Chapter 9: The Name Game

Something heavy kept swinging into Leena's stomach, almost matched the beat drumming through her head and throbbing face. She tried to move away, but her body didn't respond right. Everything reacted slow—even with her eyes closed she was spinning.

The hits to her gut stopped, replaced by a horrible tearing feeling in her scalp as someone yanked her head up by its hair. "Come on sweetheart, c'mon, it's time to get up."

Leena found herself almost nose to nose with him. Fish and mold breathing into her face. White and red paint, scars almost hidden by her blurry vision. "Jay?" She couldn't—what was—she had been going to work this morning—some sort of fire—"What are you doing Jay?"

"I, uh, I rescued you from that asylum. You know. Where they put all the crazy people."

"Arkham?" Leena slurred—she just couldn't remember—Concussion—Stringing even a simple sentence—took effort. "You're not in Arkham?"

"No duh Harley-Quinn."

Her skull dropped back to the ground, bounced hard. Her face ached—red on her clothes—blood. "Why… why hurt me?"

Laughter. It jaded—sliced. "Why did you hurt me?"

"Didn't. Trying to—to help you."

"Why? Because I'm crrrrrraaa-zy?"

"Because you think—people—life—it's all evil." Why so dizzy—no, this was important—throbbing face—had to explain. "Wanted to show you—it's good."

More laughter. Suddenly his hand stroking her cheek. "The thing is Harl that I, uh, I'm no-t crazy. They made a, um, mistake. Poor little me was locked away, but you… you were the insane one." Voice lilting—hard to understand—harder to speak—

"Not crazy."

"No?" Chewing sound—smacking lips—"Maybe you think you just see the world, uh, differently. But I've got to tell ya, that's what all the crazies think." Giggles. Hand on cheek harder now—fingers prying, digging into her cuts—whimpering, trying to move away—stopped. Whispering in ear.

"Don't worry though. I'll, uh, I'll teach you the truth Harley-Quin."

Leena woke in the dark. The whirling in her head had stopped. Her thoughts were slow. Choppy. But she could connect them again.

Her head ached. Her face was bruised and bloody. The rest of her too. But Jay had paid special attention to the face.

Everything was still blurry in the dark. A careful probing with her finger told her the contacts were in. Must be the knock in the head then. But she thought she was inside. A huge, empty building. A warehouse? The floor was cold and hard underneath. Concrete. Jay wasn't in sight.

Slow, careful movement let her sit. What had happened? Her memory was as sliced apart as her thoughts. She'd left for Arkham… something had exploded… Andi, something about Andi… did Jay have her too? The knock in her head made everything run together. But if she could think at all it probably meant she didn't have a concussion. That was something.

What did he want with her? What did he mean he'd teach her?

Leena couldn't make herself go back to sleep. After several long minutes, she stood carefully. Her coordination wasn't hurt as badly as everything else was. She could walk. Totter at least. It took effort, but after several stumbles she reached a wall. Leena followed that until she came to a corner. She curled up there, holding her knees to her chest, back to the wall, willing her thoughts to clear. Slowly the room was lit by the rising sun through high up windows.

She didn't know how long it was, but finally one of the huge doors pulled up a very little and admitted Jay. He ignored Leena and instead went into another door across the room from her. Leena thought about running for the exit, but she could barely walk. And if Jay caught her trying to escape…

He came and went several more times that day, never glancing in her direction. At first, Leena tried to curl small and avoid him, but as the day went on something else began to push into her thoughts until even Jay became secondary.

Thirst.

It was horrible, a torture that made its way even into her fogged brain. Leena tried to ignore it, but it was like trying to ignore a bee that was stinging you over and over and over again. Even her other injuries soon blended into a single incoherent bundle of misery, and only her fuzzy head and the awful rawness in her throat stood out any more. Her mouth had been scraped dry with steel wool, sandpaper scrubbed her windpipe with each breath. Her tongue was a dead thing, shriveled, yet still weighing heavy and thick in her jaw with a strange bitter tang on it. Leena closed her eyes and tried to endure, tried not to think, not to feel. Everything started to spin again.

When the light in the windows started to turn red from the sunset, Leena knew she couldn't take it any longer. Jay was skipping out of that other room again. If he left her alone for the night with this torment she'd—she'd—

"Jay." A rasp was all she could come up with, but he somehow heard her and walked over. His gait was unsteady, shuffling and wavering like a drunk's. In Arkham it had been a sign of his weakness. Here it held the deadliness of a lion's prowl with none of its grace. He put his hand on her forehead and tipped it back so that Leena had no choice but to look him full in the face, and traced along her stinging cuts with the fingers of his other hand.

"What is it Harley-Quin?" His nasally voice somehow missed being comical. Eerie somehow.

"Water."

Leena had promised herself she wouldn't beg, but when he quirked an eyebrow she added, "Please Jay. I need water."

He pursed his lips, which twisted his scars sickeningly. Leena had always ignored them when she'd worked with him, but with the paint back on his face it was much harder. She fought down fear. Andi and Pam had been right. He was too dangerous for her to handle. All she could do now was try to survive. That and pray that she had gotten through to him in some way, that what she had tried to show him about mercy might have affected him somehow.

"Why do you call me that?"

"What?"

"Why-y. Do. You. Call. Me. Jay?"

What does that have to do with anything? But Leena was desperate. She'd play his game if she must.

"You needed a… a name," she explained, "I wanted to help you realize that not everything has to be like you think it is. Ugly and dark and chaotic. Jay was the name I gave to the… the person I wanted you to become."

Jay stared at her for a second, until his shoulders started to shake. A small snort broke past his nose and he released her head to grab at his sides. Then he was howling with laughter, rolling on the floor, nearly hysterical. Leena shrank away.

"You—you really thought you could save me? That I was just another person. Like—like you? Hehheeheeoohoohahah." One of his flailing feet connected with Leena's gut and she doubled over, gasping for air, vision doubling again.

In a second he had hopped back up, yanked her straight again by her hair, pulled until he was almost lifting her from the floor. He was toying with her cuts again, but this time his touch was harder, bruising. "You're a good jokester ya know, little Harley."

"Jay—Jay please—can't breathe."

He paid no attention. "Sweet—little—innocent—Dr. Leena." He gave her head a hard shake with each word. Her scalp was peeling from her skull, her throat tearing apart from the strain. "Always wants to, um, help people. Even if she's the crazy one."

"Jay." Leena was choking and crying all at once, and the salt sent channels of fire along her open wounds. "I'm sorry Jay. Just please, please, please stop."

He released her so suddenly that she collapsed onto her hands and knees, head down, sucking in air with rattling, pained breaths. Jay stood above her, tsk-ing at her of all things, as if she was a badly behaved child. "I really shouldn't be this nice to you Harley-Quin. But I think you mean it. And so ya know what? I'm gonna do ya a favor." Leena risked a glance up and saw him nodding wisely to himself, as satisfied as a cat that had caught a mouse. She stayed quiet, afraid of provoking him somehow.

"C'mon, aren'cha even gonna ask what it is? It's a great, uh, present from your Mr. J."

Leena started to shake again. There was more pain coming. She could hear it in his voice. "What—what is it Jay?" Her raspy whisper was nearly inaudible.

"I—haha—this is really too good—I'm gonna be your psy-chi-a-trist." He popped the final t like a teenager popped bubblegum.

"What?"

"Ya see little Harley, you're so… so naïve that it's like you're crazy. And I wanna, um, help you like you tried to help me." He bent down and tapped a finger against Leena's nose. She made herself stay still. "So I'm gonna teach you every-thing-I-know about being me. And when I'm done, you—oh ho ho no, you won't be crazy anymore, no matter what they say."

He turned away, heading for the door, and somehow Leena summoned up the courage and desperation to call after him. "Jay."

The Joker spun back to look at her. "That's Mr. J to you." But he tipped her an outrageous wink as he said it rather than coming back over to abuse her. Leena tried to pretend that was a good thing.

"Water. Please."

"Hmmm… hmmm… water for lit-tle Leena." Jay pretended to consider it, then shook his head. "No. Leena doesn't get water. Only Harley-Quin does."

Warning bells went off in her mind but she wasn't thinking straight enough to really understand him. "What… do you want?"

"Well, we'll start at the, uh, beginning. Say 'My name is Harley-Quin.' C'mon Harls."

He's doing what I tried to do to him. The thought somehow pierced through her pain induced haze. Make me into his idea of a human by giving me a label he invented for me. No. I can't do that. NO!

"Jay—"

"Sorry that's, uh, one of my names; you can't use it. See you in the morning Harley."

He loped back out, leaving Leena alone with the pain and thirst.

Leena didn't know how long it was after he left that she finally pulled together the strength to try the exits. The main doors were huge roll up affairs, probably built to allow a semi-truck to drive in and unload. Even in full health Leena would have had trouble moving one. She tried pushing anyways but, whether because they were locked down or simply too heavy, they didn't budge for her. The other doors—a couple of side ones and the one Jay kept going into whenever he came in—were more manageable in size, but firmly locked. The windows were far too high to reach and she remembered from when it was daytime that there were lattices of metal over each. A gigantic prison, but effective.

By the time Leena admitted defeat, her head was spinning worse than ever. For no particular reason she staggered back to the corner she'd stayed in before and curled up there. At least no one could sneak up behind her here. Not that it would make much of a difference. If Jay wanted to hurt her he would.

Think. Leena tried, but her latest beating had made coherency and planning harder than ever. What would Pam or Andi do?

Well, Pam would probably have tried to ambush the Joker when he came in the next morning. As athletic as she was, and with that year of varsity kickboxing in college, she might even have had a shot to at least get past him long enough to find help or something. But even if Leena hadn't been small and battered, she wouldn't do it. She was a pacifist. No violence. Not even for Jay. Especially not for Jay. He wanted to deprive and abuse her into being like him and Leena wasn't going to let him do it. He wouldn't change her name and certainly not her beliefs. There had to be another way.

What about Andi then? Leena frowned. Andi would probably have figured out a way to escape. Something clever, probably involving those chemicals she knew so much about. Or, if she thought there was no way to get free herself, she would have figured out what else Jay was up to and sabotaged it somehow. If Pam was the tough one, Andi was the stubborn one. She would have broken loose by sheer force of will if she had to.

But Leena? Leena's strength was wholly unlike those of her friends. She had always relied on others' goodness, always believed that there was no one who was so fully evil that they couldn't return to what was right. And while she still believed that that was a remote possibility for Jay, she was also smart enough to know that it would only work with the right therapies and environment. Out here, where he knew he was in charge, she was as likely to talk him into letting her go as a mouse would a cat… there had to be another way out… had to be a way out… had to…

Everything was hazy. By the light, she guessed it was nearly noon but Jay was nowhere in sight. Either he hadn't come in or he was already hidden in one of the other rooms. She tried to push herself up, but a wave of dizziness and nausea convinced her that that was the wrong idea.

She was so thirsty.

So thirsty.

She saw Jay pass her by once or twice, but her voice stuck in her throat. Eventually Leena couldn't even remember why she wanted to talk to him. She hovered in a daze that briefly drifted off into sleep only to jerk back to semi-awareness before she could get any real rest. Thirst was all that mattered any more. Water. Heat. So thirsty.

Darkness. Jay crouched over her. He had something in his hands… it splashed… sloshed… beautiful sound. Leena reached for it and he teasingly held it just out of her reach. "You've gotta say your name first, Harley."

"Please." It was no more than a loud breath with consonants formed around it. Jay ran a hand through his hair and started to click his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

"Oh no no no no no. You're gonna have to play my game if you wanna win the prize."

"Jay…"

"Say it—" Leena twisted away and he jerked her up to face him, pulled her head into his lap. She should have found it terrifying, but her mind couldn't focus on him. Water. He had water. "Anh-tuh-tuh-tuh-tah. You're…" he licked his lips and Leena stared at the glistening wetness on his tongue. "You're Harley… If you wanna get my water, you've gotta be mine first. Hmm?"

Leena stayed quiet.

"So how 'bout it?"

Just a name. So thirsty…

Jay smacked his lips eagerly, swirled the water in his hands. Doesn't have to mean anything. Let him think what he wants.

"Harley?"

Don't do it, don't do it, don't… "Yes," Leena breathed, "Harley."

It splashed over her face, cold and wet and pure. Leena closed her eyes, opened her mouth to it like a baby bird. Jay giggled and swished the stream around so that Leena had to chase it with her mouth. All too soon it was gone again and Jay left her in the dark. Leena barely kept herself from calling after him, begging for more.

It didn't mean anything. Really, it didn't. She was still Leena. Really.

Author's Note: Ok. The Leena chapters. Originally I was writing these separately from Andi's. I think they do fit better together, but that means a couple of small issues will come up:

1. Leena's timeline and Andi's might be off. I've organized the two stories to be mostly sequential, but the edges are rough; every now and then the two of them have scenes that overlap into the same timeframe, so there might be a few hours difference between the two POVs. If something needs clarification please tell me!
2. Leena's POV is written in a somewhat different style than Andi's. With Andi, her whole story is a lot of action, a lot of choices and sudden plot twists. Leena's is more a story of her slowly losing herself, getting pushed closer and closer to the edge until... well you don't want me to spoil it do you? Her writing also includes a bit more experimenting with style and trying to get creative with my words, where Andi's story is being told in a straight-to-the-point manner. Anyways, the long and short of it is that there will be some differences reading the two.

Which brings me to my other thing about Leena's story. As you can probably tell reading this post, this is NOT going to be a normal Joker and Harley love story. There are some amazing ones out there (Bad Jokes anyone?), but I don't think I could ever adequately explain how a sane woman falls in love with someone like the Joker and only then goes crazy. Instead, I'm trying out switching the order. 'Jay' is attempting to drive Leena insane, and only after that would any sorts of fireworks kick in.

Anyways. Long winded explanation (no one actually read all that did they?). On to the thank-yous! Merci undeaddestroyer, mop-n-bucket, Lessien Lossehelin (wow, that's a mouthful) and Demon Child Leelian for story alerting, to 13krirla, Lumihiutale89, and Thedarkknight17 for favoriting, and Melancholy Symphony for adding me to author alert! Most of all, thanks to my wonderful reviewers for your criticism, feedback, etc. and GO IRISH!