Harleen arrived at Arkham the next morning to find the whole place in chaos. "What's happened?" she asked a guard, who was racing his way down the cell block.
"Bronski's dead," retorted the guard.
"Dead?" repeated Harleen, stunned. "How? When?"
"Sometime last night probably, but the guard didn't notice until this morning when he tried to wake him up for breakfast," replied the guard. "He thought he was just sleeping."
"So he died in his sleep?" asked Harleen. "Some kinda heart failure?"
"I don't think so," replied the guard. "It looked deliberate to me. But I gotta go get the medic to do the autopsy – excuse me, Dr. Quinzel," he said, racing off down the hall.
Harleen hurried to the cell, where Dr. Leland and several guards were gathered around Buzz's body, with Chuckie staring on, completely dumbstruck. Harleen froze when she saw the ugly mark around Buzz's neck, and his eyes and tongue bulging from his purple face – he had clearly been strangled. Her eyes drifted from the body up to Jack, who was lounging on the top bunk with his usual, unconcerned expression. He noticed her and winked, smiling casually as if finding a dead body in a cell was the most natural thing in the world.
"It doesn't make any sense for him to have killed himself," Dr. Leland was saying. "First of all, he didn't give any indication of wanting to commit suicide, and second of all, these bruises on his arms weren't self-inflicted. They were probably inflicted by struggling with someone against the bars," she said, glancing up at Jack. "And third of all, if he was going to try to hang himself, I would have hoped his cellmate would have talked him out of it, or at least informed the guards if he found him dead after the fact."
"None of my business, is it?" asked Jack. "He was a grown man who could make his own decisions, and if he wanted to kill himself, who am I to stand in his way? And maybe I knew this would be a huge hullabaloo, and I wanted a good night's sleep before facing it."
"Or maybe you killed him," retorted Dr. Leland. "Why, Jack? Why would you do a thing like that? Dr. Quinzel told me she thought you were making real progress in your therapy together, and I thought you and Mr. Bronski were friends. Why would you murder your friend?"
"Oh, you know," sighed Jack, shrugging. "Sometimes you get these irresistible urges and you just wanna kill something, and Buzz was right there. You take a look at his rap sheet – a good lawyer would say I did the world a favor," he chuckled.
"Do you have any idea how much trouble you've caused?" asked Dr. Leland. "Not just for yourself, but for everyone in here. There's gonna be all kinds of questions about why we let you two share a cell if one of you was potentially unstable, I'm gonna have to testify that we didn't think you were, Dr. Quinzel's gonna have to testify, and you're probably going to be taken back to Blackgate at the end of it all to face a life sentence if you're lucky."
"You don't think killing my cellmate qualifies me as crazy enough to be stuck in here forever?" chuckled Jack.
"It won't be up to me – it'll be up to a court," replied Dr. Leland. "And Dr. Quinzel is going to have to be the one to give them her opinion on your sanity, being your doctor. I hope you're happy about putting her through the inevitable media circus. And I hope you're prepared, Harleen – this is going to be a nightmare."
Harleen nodded slowly, trying to process the situation. "Well…we'd better start our therapy first thing this morning, hadn't we, Mr. Napier?" she asked. "I think we both need it. Bring him please," she said, heading toward their usual therapy room.
"Nobody touch anything – just wait for the police to get here," Dr. Leland was saying as Harleen headed off. "This is a crime scene."
"You want him chained up today, right?" asked the guard, as they entered the room with Jack in tow.
"No, thank you," said Harleen. "Just leave us."
"If you insist," said the guard, shrugging as he shut the door. Harleen slowly removed her glasses, rubbing her eyes.
"Why?" she demanded, glaring up at him. "Why did you do it, Jack? I want the truth."
"I told you – I felt like killing someone," he replied.
"You expect me to believe that, do you?" demanded Harleen. "You're not that crazy, Jack. He must have said or done something to provoke you. What was it?"
Jack shrugged. "I dunno – I was just sick of his whining over still being stuck in here. I wanted some goddamn peace and quiet for once."
"Why are you lying to me?" she demanded. "You think I can't tell when you're being deceptive?"
"No, I don't think you can," he replied, coolly.
She glared at him. "And what do you expect me to say when this comes to trial?" she demanded. "You expect me to lie about your sanity so you can stay here?"
"I don't want you to do anything that would go against your ethics," he replied. "If you think I'm sane, you tell the court that. It doesn't matter what happens to me."
"Doesn't it?" she demanded. "You've suddenly become apathetic about your own survival, have you? That isn't like you, Jack. First you murder a man for no reason, and then you pretend like you don't care if you live or die…"
"I don't," he interrupted. "Not anymore."
She studied him. "Why are you acting like this?" she whispered. "What's changed since last night?"
"Everything," he replied. "Everything has changed."
Harleen sat down slowly, burying her face in her hands. "What do you expect me to do, Jack?" she whispered, feeling tears come to her eyes. "You expect me to tell everyone that you're sane, and sentence you to the chair? You think I could do that to you, after what we've shared?"
"I thought it was meaningless," he replied. "It should have been meaningless. You should be able to condemn me with a clear conscience, because that's the right thing to do. I don't want you to feel conflicted because of me. I want you to do the right thing."
"And let them kill you?" she whispered, gazing up at him with tears trickling down her face.
"That would be the right thing to do, wouldn't it?" he asked. "I've done bad things, a lotta bad things. This is just the latest in a series. I deserve to die, you know that. Objectively I'm a horrible person who's spent my life destroying other people's. If there was any sort of justice in the world, I would have died already. You're just gonna be giving me the sentence I deserve. It's right and it's just, and you shouldn't feel bad about it."
"But I do," she murmured. "I do. You can appeal to my rational side all you want, but…it doesn't matter. The thought of hurting you is more than I can bear."
"So…you do care about me a little bit?" he asked.
She choked out a laugh between her tears. "Yeah, I guess I do," she murmured, smiling at him. "Just a little bit."
He came over to her, cupping her face in his hands and bringing it up to look at him. He gently wiped her tears away with his thumbs, whispering, "You know I care about you too. More than a little bit. Do you believe that?"
She nodded slowly. "I do. And maybe…I care about you more than a little bit too," she replied, pressing her lips tenderly against his.
He returned the kiss with passion, breaking away at last with a sob of relief. "I thought you'd hate me," he whispered. "I thought you'd be shocked and horrified and scared off."
"For killing Buzz?" asked Harleen with a small grin. "You can't say he didn't have it coming. I'm not gonna shed any tears for him, I'm afraid."
"I just thought…you deserve better than a murderer," he murmured.
"I probably do," she agreed. "But that didn't stop me before, did it? I mean, maybe that makes me crazy, but…I was a little crazy to have gotten involved with you in the first place. I think you're worth going a little crazy for."
He beamed at her. "I'm gonna be tried for murder, and yet I couldn't be happier," he murmured, kissing her again.
"We need to figure out what we're gonna do about that," said Harleen. "I don't think we can wait and let things go to trial and hope that I can lie convincingly about your sanity. I know Dr. Leland thinks you don't belong here in the first place, and I'm sure there's a lotta people on the jury who would agree with her. So I think we need to get you outta here ASAP, before it comes to that."
He grinned. "So my plan did work out after all. I got a shrink on my side, and she's gonna bust me outta here."
"I think it's the only choice we've got left," said Harleen. "You have to escape from here, and you'll need my help to do it."
"But if you're caught helping me escape, you'll probably get in even more trouble than if we're caught sleeping together," said Jack. "Unless you come with me, of course."
"I told you, I'm not throwing away my career like that," said Harleen. "Especially now that it's finally going well. But if we're careful, I won't get caught helping you escape. Nobody's caught us sleeping together, after all. We just have to be as discreet with this breakout as we are with that."
Jack considered telling her the truth, that he had killed Buzz because he had found out about them sleeping together, but thought better of it. She didn't need more to worry about right now. "But…Harley, if I bust outta here and you don't come with me…I'm never gonna see you again."
"Now who's being melodramatic?" she asked. "If we're careful, we can meet up once you're outta here, Jack. We just won't see each other in therapy anymore."
"But if someone sees us together, they'll know you helped me escape," he said. "You could get dragged in as an accessory to a crime. I couldn't do that to you."
Harleen kissed him firmly. "Why don't you let me worry about me?" she murmured. "Anyway, this is all hypothetical – there's no point making plans to meet up after you're out until you're actually out."
"What about Chuckie?" asked Jack. "I think he'd be plenty happy staying in here with you as his shrink, but I'd feel bad busting out and leaving him behind."
"Ideally we should ask him what he wants to do," sighed Harleen. "But if we do that, we have to tell him that we're planning on breaking you out, and the fewer people who know that, the better. Do you think he'd be happier out there or in here?"
"You're his shrink – you tell me," retorted Jack.
Harleen was silent. "I think out there he'll have no choice but to return to the life of a criminal," she murmured. "While in here, if he keeps at his therapy…he could eventually become someone better. I'd like to give him that chance."
Jack nodded slowly. "Maybe…if I could have kept at my therapy, I could have become someone better too," he murmured, taking her hand. "Someone worthy of you."
"Well, I'm kinda fond of my smooth criminal, you know," she murmured, stroking his hair back. "Anyway, maybe you can be someone better one day. But first we gotta get you outta here, while you still have a future."
Jack nodded. "Ok, let's make a plan," he said. "What are you thinking?"
"Nothing yet," she replied. "But you know what helps me think, don't you?" she asked with a grin as she let down her hair.
"I'm getting an idea," he murmured, grinning back. "God, I don't know what I did to deserve you," he said, pulling her into his arms.
"Well, I gotta thank you properly for killing Buzz, after all," purred Harleen. "Someone should, anyway."
"I was right, you know," murmured Jack. "Getting in the mood over a murder – there is a bad girl inside of you after all."
"Oh, I've always known that, Jack," replied Harleen, smiling and kissing him. "Her name is Harley Quinn."