The next time Joker was pulled from his cell and taken down the hallway to a session with Harleen, a smirk remained settled on his face at the lack of restraint system. Catching the smirk from the corner of his eye, the guard turned and glared.

"Don't be so smug, clown. The ONLY reason you're not in that jacket is because of Dr. Quinzel. Don't think for a second I won't put you back in it if you piss me off."

"You should really know better than to threaten me, by now."

Pulling open the large door that opened up into the cavernous, white-lit room, the guard simply made the 'go in' gesture with his hand. Giving another unnerving smile, the green-haired man did just that, sitting down in his chair and crossing his arms. Closing his eyes as he heard the door slide shut again, it was a good ten minutes before an announcement was made in the room.

"Dr. Quinzel is running a bit behind schedule, Joker, so just sit tight and stay quiet."

Snorting to himself, it was another five minutes before the door opened and he heard the click of heels on the concrete. Only opening his eyes when he heard the metal chair across the table scrape on the floor as she pulled it back to sit down, did he notice the somewhat frazzled expression on her face.

"Sorry I'm late, Mr. J. Things got a bit…intense with one of my other patients."

"Intense, huh?"

Ignoring his questioning tone, she started to pull things from her bag, dropping a very sharp pencil in the process. The pencil rolled across the floor and hit his foot, where he bent down and picked it up. Seeing her getting his file situated on the table along with her recorder, and then hearing her grumble in frustration about the missing pencil, he reached over and laid it on the table on top of her folder.

"Looking for this?"

"Oh! Uhm, yes. Thank you, Mr. J…"

"Not a problem…before you start asking me all kindsa silly questions…mind if I ask you one?"

"I…suppose not. Go ahead."

"What's got you so rattled? I thought shrinks were trained to deal with just about anything."

"I'm afraid I can't discuss other patients with you. You know that. Lets just say, one of them got a bit riled up at a question I asked and leave it at that, alright?"

A grunt and him leaning back in his chair were her only answers. Noting that he was without the straight jacket, as she'd specified the previous week, caused a small smile to bloom on her lips.

"You look much more comfortable today, without that straight jacket confining your arms."

"Aren't you worried about what I could do to you?"

"I think if you'd wanted to hurt me, you would have already. You had a perfect weapon in your hand earlier, and you just handed it to me, when I'm sure you could have killed me with just that pencil."

Blinking, Joker watched her for a few moments, meeting her eyes when she looked up. Eyeing the pencil now gripped between her fingers, he smiled.

"You're right, I could have. Would be so simple to do, too…and so many ways. I could have just stabbed you in the throat with it, or possibly in the temple…maybe just removed an eye if I wanted to be particularly evil…"

Seeing that his description of how he could have taken her life, or at least hurt her, with a simple No. 2 pencil had NO effect on her whatsoever, he let out a low laugh. Pushing her glasses up her nose a bit, Harleen simply shook her head and looked down at his file.

"But, you didn't do any of those things. Why is that, Mr. J?"

"Well…y`see, Harley, I actually find myself liking talking to you. You listen, unlike any of the other shrinks I've had, and you're not too hard on the eyes, either."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Has anyone ever told you that your eyes are simply captivating, Dr. Quinzel?"

Blinking away the disbelief, she looked down to hide the slight blush that had colored her cheeks at his words.

"Well, thank you. I appreciate the compliment…"

Settling back in his chair, Joker gave a low sigh as the session officially started. She would ask him questions about his past, to which he would either snort or purposefully avoid answering. Harleen wasn't sure if it was because he truly didn't remember his past, or if he just didn't want to go into it because of painful memories. Not wanting to lose what trust she'd gained from the crime boss, she didn't pry too much, and the topic soon turned to his tattoos.

"Did they hurt?"

"Hm?"

"The tattoos, did they hurt? Do they have any meaning?"

"All my ink has meaning, doc, but just to me. Anyone else wouldn't understand, and no, none of them hurt."

"NONE of them?"

"Well, lemme take that back…this one and this one hurt like a bitch."

Watching as he pointed to the J situated on his cheekbone, at the corner of his left eye, and the Damaged scrawled across his forehead.

"Why 'Damaged', Mr. J? Why not a different word?"

"It's what I am, Harley, damaged."

Brushing a stray strand of hair behind her ear, her eyes caught on the tip of another of his tattoos peeking out from the neck of his Arkham shirt. Sensing her curiosity, he leaned forward and put his hands on the metal table.

"You wanna see em?"

"I must admit, I am curious as to how many you actually have."

Standing up, the man lifted the dark blue scrub shirt from his body and laid it on the table before him. Harleen's eyes widened a bit as she saw, indeed, how many tattoos the pale man had adorned his skin with. Her eyes traveled over his deceptively small frame, noting that he was pretty much all muscle. When they landed on the word JOKER across his stomach, and the large smile peeking out of the waist of his pants, she cleared her throat. Turning, he let her see his back, which had a few tattoos as well, before settling himself in his chair again.

"Well?"

"That's…a LOT of tattoos, Mr. J."

"How about you, doc? Got any ink hidden under those professional clothes of yours?"

"Ah, no. I don't have any…"

"Mmm, pitty. You'd be even hotter with tattoos."

Clearing her throat, Harleen looked at her watch and closed his file before looking up at him again, their eyes meeting. She felt color rise to her cheeks before looking away and grabbing her bag from the floor, collecting all of her papers, pencils and recorder from the table.

"Well…that's all the time we have today. I'm going to see about increasing your sessions from once to maybe twice a week, see what more time will do."

"I look forward to seeing you again, Dr. Quinzel."

The man shot her a dazzling silver smile, which was returned, though not near as wide. Pulling his shirt back on as a guard entered the room to return him to his cell, Joker reached out and caught Harleen's wrist for a split second.

"And by the way…I find out who's responsible for that split lip, and he's a dead man."

Freezing, she turned her head to look at Joker, the split lip he was speaking of barely visible to normal people.

"Mr. J?"

"You didn't think I saw it, did you?"

"No…I didn't. Don't worry about it, though. It's being taken care of."

"Good…I really don't wanna have to figure out a way to take someone out from in here."

Releasing her arm, he watched as she scurried down the hallway, his little observation and threat seeming to have rattled the normally unflappable doctor. With a smirk, he followed the guard back to his room, and sat down on the cot situated on one wall. Staring up at the ceiling for a bit, the clown continued to mull random thoughts around in his head, finally deciding to open up to the woman about his past. If his plan was going to work, she had to trust him, and then fall in love with him. The latter was proving easier than he'd thought, as she already seemed somewhat affected by his compliments.

"This is going to be easier than I thought…"

AN: Chapter two guys! These chapters are going to be significantly shorter than the ones in Finally Home, as will the story itself. I don't know how short, yet, but I hope you enjoyed this chapter!