Harley skipped into their apartment with hand fulls of grocery bags, "We're home Mistah J," she called happily.
Jonathan sat down the bag he carried in the kitchen, "Do you need any help putting things away?" he offered.
"No, I got it. You've been so much help already. Sorry I upset you back there," she said placing a few of the newly purchased items into the fridge.
"You did not upset me," protested Jonathan, "I just didn't want to get caught. That's all,"
Harley chuckled and shook her head, "Sorry I don't believe ya Jonny. Ya seemed pret-ty upset ta me," she sat on the counter top putting groceries into the cabinets.
"I wasn't," he sighed, " Anyway, I had better go before someone sees me like this,"
"Aw that's no fun," she hopped off and gave him a squeeze,"Love ya," she said in a cheery sing-song voice.
He felt his face grow warm again. He hated that feeling. His body seemed to betray him right when he was trying hardest to control it. Jonathan carefully slid his arms upward to hug her back. The fact that Joker was probably lurking in the apartment some where crossed his mind. He wondered if the situation would make him mad or if he really didn't care like Harley had said. Jonathan pulled away just in case the clown was the jealous type and stumbled on his high heels out the door.
Harley laughed at his clumsy exit and decided to check on Mr. J. If he was there, after all, he had not responded to her arrival.
"Oh puddin," she called again heading toward the bedroom, "Your Harley Quinn is home,"
She placed her ear against the door. She could hear a voice inside, but it wasn't Joker's. Harley assumed it must have been the television since they were discussing someone named Dr. Strange, saying he was going to take the late Dr. Leeland's place as head of Arkham Asylum.
Harley opened the door a crack and peaked into the room. All the blinds were drawn in the room, closing out most of the light. The glow of the television cast a blueish color across the walls and bed. Which appeared to be rather disheveled. Harley opened the door wider letting light spill in. She soon found that disheveled was a bit of an understatement. The mattress was littered with holes and splashed with fresh spots of red blood. The walls were equally messy. Joker had decorated one with bloody hand prints and made long cuts in the decaying drywall of the apartment.
Harley stepped inside and looked around. She approached the wall to examine the painting Joker had made. Slowly running a finger down one of the hand prints she found it to be still somewhat wet, leaving a red stain across her skin. Then she noticed something odd about the prints. Their size, they were small. To small to belong to Mr. J.
She glanced around the room and saw an outline of line shining out of the bathroom, which was joined onto the dark room she stood in.
"Mistah J," she said quietly, feeling a little bit frightened.
Slowly she grasped the knob and turned it pushing open the bathroom door. There was more blood inside, on the walls, on the floor and the shower curtain. Harley stepped in the room for a closer look. Something about the stained shower curtain had attracted her attention. Upon approaching it she did find a faint shape of a person through its thin material. So with morbid curiosity, Harley Quinn pulled back the curtain.
The silhouette belonged to a brunette woman, maybe in her late twenties. She lay in the bathtub with her head leaning on the tub's rim, her arms wrapped around herself as if she had either been trying to stop some bleeding or she was covering herself. Harley could not discern if the girl was still living since a puddle of blood had formed beneath her. The dark, red liquid stained her skin, it seeped from several deep cuts across her body and what appeared to be a bullet hole in her thigh.
Harley Quinn stood still, unmoving, unfeeling. She did not scream or run away, instead she just watched with a strange fascination, unsure of what to think. After a few moments she bent down to her knees, closer to the Joker's most recent victim. Slowly Harley reached a shaky hand toward the woman's neck, curious to see if there was still a pulse. Her bloodstained flesh was icy cold beneath her fingertips, she quickly withdrew them as if any moment she'd awake. Harley knew she wasn't going to though, by now she was pretty sure the body before her was a dead one. She gently touched again, she had never really touched a dead body. At least not like this. Not someone who was murdered and bleeding out in a bathtub. A strange feeling of fear, nausea and excitement welled inside her.
She moved her other hand to the woman's face and lifted a heavily painted eyelid. Her eyes were bright green, she had expected them to be brown. It was odd, looking at a dead person. She had seen many before. On television, in pictures, funerals and of course people Mr. J had killed. She had even killed a man. But she never approached a lifeless body. Something that once walked and talked and now could only lay uselessly, a shell of something someone had been once. The young woman was as real as Harley and yet she looked so unreal. Like a doll, staring at her with those eyes. Which despite their bright, vibrant color, now seemed so dull. Harley had never noticed that about dead people, how the life in their eyes just goes away. She let the girl's eyelid go shut again.
She took a moment to look at the corpse's face. Some blood leaked out of her mouth, from being dead and not from a wound. Joker had not cut open her mouth, his usually method of killing. Harley assumed he used other methods at times so that his "permenant smiles" didn't get boring. Mr. J would hate to be predictable. As she looked at the dead face she noticed red make up smeared across her mouth, not painted on though. It trailed down the girl's neck and across her cleavage occasionally blending with small patches of white greasepaint. Harley looked confused and then her heart sank realizing where the streaks of greasepaint were from.
"Having fun?" A voice behind her caused her to jump.
She looked behind her, though it was unmistakably Mr. J. He stood in the doorway with his shirt off and his suspenders hanging across his legs. There was a lot of blood on him as well, smeared across his body and staining spots on his purple pants.
"Um, no," she spoke quietly in response to Joker as she turned back to the bloody, paint smeared girl.
He sat down beside her, leaning against the dirty bathtub. He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one with some matches found in his other pocket.
"Want one?" he offered the pack to Harley Quinn.
She shook her head no.
"Found em' in Missss Con-genial-ity's purse over there," he gestured towards the body as he took a drag.
Harley didn't look at him, she just continued staring at the girl. Joker noticed her fixation.
"Sooo," he began, "I uh, hope you weren't looking for a friend. Uh, she's dead ya know," he tilted his head back and blew some smoke upward, watching it float above him.
Harley nodded, "I know,"
Joker rolled his eyes, frustrated he was not getting anything out of her. Where was the usual cheery, excited, stupid Harley Quinn he wanted?
"You're blond again?" he wound a fake blond lock of hair in his fingers.
She pulled off the wig and tossed it on the floor. Now an angry expression on her flushed face.
Joker sucked the inside of his scarred cheek, "O-kay, what the hell is wrong with you?"
Harley bit her lip, feeling a lump rise in her throat, "She's got your face paint on her," tears blurred her vision.
"So," he blew smoke out his nose.
"You, you slept with her," her voice cracked, "Didn't you,"
"No," Joker shook his head, "No, there was no sleeping involved," he licked his lips.
Tears fell from her eyes, messing up her thick line of eyeliner. But she didn't feel like she was crying, just leaking. She didn't sob or make any sound at all. She just let the tears escaped her big blue eyes, taking in what Mr, J just said. It hurt. It hurt more than when he hit her or when he cut her. This was a different kind of pain, she didn't know how to relieve it.
Harley could not look toward him. It made her sick to see his indifference, he didn't care at all. There had been several times in their relationship where she overlooked his lack of empathy and instead felt pity for the Joker. This was to much. She felt betrayed and used. She had given everything to him and obviously she still was not good enough.
The fact that there was a dead body, murdered brutally by him didn't bother her much. Slowly she was becoming desensitized to death, it was a common occurrence when it came to living with Mr. J.
With anger rising in her she finally looked at him. He sat there carelessly, cigarette smoke floating around him like a demented halo. And without thinking Harley smacked him, hard, in the face. Then she sat back on her knees glaring at him.
Joker stiffened, surprised at Harley's actions. It took him a moment to comprehend what she just did. But when it sunk in, he made Harley regret hitting him.
He pushed her backwards into the wall, pinning her shoulders back he held her still, "Don't ev-er do that again," he said in a surprisingly calm voice.
He had a tendency to do that, he would sound unusually calm or happy despite a situation that contradicted his voice tone. It was almost more frightening then when he did sound angry.
"You cheated... on me," Harley choked out, crying now.
She knew that Joker's way of life was about breaking rules. She knew that he murdered and stole on a daily basis and that something like adultery would not be beneath him. But she had thought that she meant more to him. In the mind of Harley Quinn he would never do any of those things to her, only to other people. She thought she was above that because she thought he loved her.
"You weren't here," he replied.
"What kind of excuse is that?" Harley sobbed.
Joker slammed her head against the wall, causing her vision to swim a little bit, "What makes you think you're sooo important, hm?" Harley didn't respond, "Answer me," he growled, gripping her messy hair and shoving her towards the wall once again.
She saw stars when her head collided with the bathroom's wall, she blinked them away, "Because," she cried, "I don't work for you and I ain't like her," she pointed to the bathtub, "I love you," she said through gritted teeth.
BAM! He slammed her head again before standing up. Joker turned his back on the sobbing clown girl, inhaling more cigarette smoke. He could not understand why she was bawling like she was. What did she expect from him? If anything Harley Quinn should have been happy. She should be thankful she was still here with him, she should be thankful for her life. God knows Joker wanted to kill her on more than one occasion. And who did she think she was anyway? She had left him alone almost all day. Even if he told her she could did not mean that she should. What happened to her obsession with him, sure Harley was still pretty clingy but she ventured out into Gotham with out him today. Joker did not like that.
Worst of all, it confused him more, he didn't understand why she suddenly felt comfortable apart from her Mr. J. Had he given her any reason to believe that she was in a normal, healthy relationship that she dreamed about? Perhaps he had. After all his current perplexity with Harley may have given her the wrong idea.
He should have gotten rid of her before now. Joker had thought he would kill her after his first scheme involving her, it was the only reason he had her move in. But for some reason he didn't, Joker could not even explain why he had spared her life up to this point. She was just so damn irresistible and she was becoming harder and harder not to kiss and touch. He didn't like that, having even a hint of weakness, it didn't feel right. He was the Joker, he was supposed to be above weaknesses.
"I thought you loved me to," she finally said after a few moments of silence.
Her voice sounded as pathetic as she looked right now. She sat broken-hearted on the filthy floor holding her head. Her make up was steadily running down her cheeks with a flood of tears spilling from her now puffy, red eyes. Joker stared down at her biting the inside of his scars.
She breathed a deep shaky sigh, "I never heard ya say it... but I didn't mind. Ya didn't need to cuz I just knew it. I knew ya loved me, but now..." she sniffed, "Now I wanna hear ya say it. I need ta know... Mistah J, tell me ya love me,"
Ooooo cliffhanger... what will he say.....