Whoo hoo! Happy 10th chapter!

With your permission, romance will happen soon. Not SOON soon, but relatively soon. Next couple of chapters. Tell me if you hate that.

Listen to Creep by Radiohead. My dear friend Dette thought of that song, which pretty much sparked the playlist thing. It's not perfect for his anarchist, evil, "psychopath with zero empathy" self, but I think there must be a sad Joker in there somewhere, right?

Reviews! I love all your reviews! You guys are so amazing! And thanks for the favs! K I love you! Bai!

Jess found Billy as soon as she got up the next morning. She was a little disoriented upon coming out of her room to see sunlight streaming through the high windows along the tops of the walls; she'd woken up yesterday after evening had already fallen, so she wasn't used to the old corridors being so well lit. But she enjoyed being able to see where she walked.

Billy was lounging on the stage, feet dangling over the edge, chatting with Drew. When she approached and plopped down next to him, he glanced at her shiftily, a little guilt in his eyes.

"Hey, Jesster!" Drew exclaimed, grinning widely. "What's up?"

Jess stared at him and Billy came to her defense, shaking his head and casting Drew a stern look.

"Don't call her that," he said softly.

Drew frowned and leaned across Billy, towards her.

"It bothers you?" he asked seriously.

Jess widened her eyes and nodded, as if to say "uh, duh!"

"Sorry," Drew said.

"It's okay," Jess replied. "What happened last night?"

Drew let out a whooping laugh.

"Oh, man!" he said, energized. "You should've been there, Jess! My God. The boss is just… I can't even begin to explain…"

"He's completely insane," Billy said hoarsely. "But, God… Jess… He's a goddamn genius."

"What happened?"

"So we got to Gambol's place…"

"Wait, hold on," Jess said, "Gambol?"

"A boss in Gotham," Drew explained. "Powerful, tough… Not very smart, though. He had a price out on the Joker's head: A million alive, five hundred thousand dead."

"Why?" Jess asked.

"Don't really know," said Billy. "We don't get told much. I think it's a control thing."

"Anyway," Drew took up the narrative again, "we get to Gambol's place and, I shit you not, the boss tells us to wrap him up in garbage bags. Explains the whole thing to us. We've got to pretend we killed him and sneak him past Gambol's men on the pretense that we're collecting our reward. So, we do."

Billy continued from there.

"We set him down on this pool table," he said, "and Gambol was acting like a prick, strutting around all self satisfied. He was like, 'So. Dead? That's five hundred.' And then the boss just pops up and says, 'How about alive?' He's got Gambol by the mouth with his knife and Drew, Laurence and I sort of… keep the other guys in the room calm."

"With guns," Jess said, resigned.

Billy shrugged.

"We didn't kill anybody," Drew muttered.

"So, the boss starts talking to Gambol. He asks him if he wants to know how he got his scars."

Jess leaned forward excitedly.

"Did he tell you guys?" she asked. Her curiosity on the subject was colossal.

"He said…" Billy looked down and shook his head, a little sadly. Was there pity there? Jess frowned.

When he spoke next, his voice was grave.

"He said his dad was a… horrible man. He killed his mom when the boss was a kid, while the boss stood there and watched. Then his dad carved those scars into his face so he'd always be smiling. 'Why so serious?' his dad said, and carved his face."

Jess sat there for a moment, a little stunned.

"That… happened?" she asked softly.

Billy and Drew looked down at their hands and shrugged. Absurdly enough, Jess felt really sad for the Joker; for a child to go through something like that was a horribly cruel trick of fate. No wonder the man was so twisted…

"Jesus," she whispered. "He saw his mom die…?"

"It's weird to feel bad for someone you wanna hate, huh?" Drew said, not as though he empathized, but as though he was delivering a reason for her to reconsider her dislike of their captor. Jess stared at him incredulously.

"I can still manage to hate him," she replied coldly. Then, summoning up an incredible well of disdain, "I suppose he killed Gambol."

"Well, yeah," Billy conceded. "But, if given half a chance, Gambol would've killed us."

"That's the most messed up excuse I've ever heard." Jess's voice was shaking as she said it.

"And that's a preliminary opinion," Drew said. "You'll see what we mean though. When you go out with him in a few days."

Jess snorted.

"I am not going anywhere for him."

Billy smiled sadly.

"Honestly, Jess, I doubt you'll have a choice."

Jess didn't see the Joker again for nearly a week, largely due to the fact that she avoided wandering aimlessly around the theater. Leaving her room was leaving her breath behind; the harried jogs down the hallways, usually to the rec room, were highly anxious, to the point where she simply held her breath and ran as quietly as she could into another area of light and safety. The thought of encountering his tall shadow at the end of a corridor paralyzed her mind, until there was nothing but her pounding pulse and she had to sit and calm herself down.

Near the end of a mercifully uneventful day, Jess was in the rec room playing Blake at a game of rummy and winning extraordinarily. When the door behind her opened and a small group of men spilled in, talking amongst themselves, she didn't even bother to glance around.

However, when Blake suddenly became deeply involved with the cards in his hands, refusing to look up or even acknowledge that she was there, Jess took notice. Stiffening, her pulse accelerating, she cocked her head and began to turn...

She heard his voice before she saw him, low, almost conversational, talking with the others. The words were ambiguous, but his tone, the strangeness of a voice at once both nasal and throaty, were all too familiar.

Jess turned sharply in her chair and locked her gaze onto the Joker's dangerous form, wanting to keep him in her sights at all times. He was with a few men, leaning casually against the door frame, his arms folded, no real smile lingering around the mangled corners of his lips. Panic was slowly rising the longer she stared at those lips, but when she looked up and found that, suddenly, his onyx gaze was directed, quite solidly, in her direction, that rising panic seized her in its entirety.

Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to sprint as fast as she could away from there. Preservative instincts on over-drive, she dropped her cards and lurched backwards, the legs of her chair dragging unevenly over the thinning carpet. Giving her insufficient time to correct her movements, one of the legs caught an uneven patch of ground and the chair lifted and lurched for half a sickening second before toppling to the floor, its foot catching the ground at a wrong angle.

Jess fell to her haunches beside it, slightly embarrassed that she'd actually fallen out of a chair. But that was hardly the issue to dwell upon now. She was up in a second, hysterically searching for a way out, remembering the feel of the Joker's hands on her, his breath in her ear, his body against hers.

It all sounded sexy now.

It hadn't been.

"Hey, hold on," Blake said quietly, grabbing her wrist as she started away from the table, his hand closing around her skin like a shackle. "He… uh… he wants to talk to you."

Jess jerked her head towards him and stared straight into his eyes, trying to convey just how much he'd fucked up this time. She felt so betrayed! Blake, all the men, knew how much she wanted to avoid something like this! How dare he!

Blake, shying away from the rage in her stare, shrugged his shoulders.

"Sorry," he muttered.

"You should be."

"Good evening, my fine feathered friends," the Joker suddenly hailed the room at large, effectively grabbing the focus of its occupants as he shifted away from the door frame. He loved the spotlight, the complete attention of others; he drew from the energy of those he impressed and terrified, some deep-seated result of who he was as a person. He'd been this flamboyant, this attention-loving since childhood, she knew somehow; the confidence he exuded was of a particular kind—effortless, impressive, manipulative and terrible. People like him were born, not made. To be sure, his mind was inalterably skewed, perhaps the consequence of a terrible tragedy or several.

But before that darkness, the Joker might very well have been a child pulling on his mother's pant leg and proclaiming loudly for attention. Fleetingly, Jess wondered what astrological sign he was. Leo, maybe. Like her.

How stupid. Who cares when he was born? His innocence was gone. Maybe he wasn't even human.

Abruptly back in that dark place of utter odium, Jess stood scowling, arms folded, staring at him with every ounce of loathing she could generate. He glanced momentarily at her but otherwise ignored her glowering expression.

"We have some work to do," he announced to the men. "Y'know, I've been watching you. And I'm very impressed."

Jess wasn't sure whether or not he was being facetious but he didn't look angry. It was safe. She relaxed a little but continued to try to kill him with death rays from her eyes.

"You all seem to know what it takes to get by around here," he went on. "And that's a valuable asset to you. Well done." He clapped his hands slowly, looking around with a grin. Finally, after a minute of his applause, he sighed wistfully. "Well," he said, "time to work. We have… uh…" he cleared his throat, "a guest with us tonight. I need four men to set him up, make him feel… accommodated."

Men immediately raised their hands and the Joker, giggling absurdly at a joke only he understood, pointed to a few of them.

"You'll find him in the security office. His name's Brian. If he gives you trouble… you know what to do."

The men nodded and left. Jess felt nauseated at their level of obedience.

"I helped get him," Blake whispered, almost proudly, to her. "He was dressing up as Batman or something. We went this morning."

"I don't care," Jess said through gritted teeth, closing her eyes.

"Now," the Joker went on, "some of you might know we've been hired…" he licked his lips and said the next words lowly, a little dangerously, "by the mob." The sound stretched on a little longer than usual and a few men snickered. The Joker cast them significant looks. "So, we're gonna have to be taking orders but we do it our way. No rules. No regulations. We're getting rid of the Bat according to how we think it should be done. And that begins…" he grinned, "tonight."

He paused and looked around, then pointed at few people, including Billy and Blake. "I need you, you, you and… you to make a few special little deliveries with me. Once I'm done with Brian. Should be about an hour and I'll be ready."

He turned and started to walk towards the door. Jess, hardly believing her luck, let out the breath she'd been holding. Perhaps Blake had been wrong…

Just as she allowed that warm rush of relief to hit her system, the Joker turned around.

"Oh, uh, Jesster?" he said, grinning when her face fell and cold dread made her go pale. "You oughta come along, too. See how things are done around here."

He waited for a response. When none came from her but shocked, horrified silence, he chuckled lowly and walked out the door.

Two hours later, Jess was riding in a van driven by Billy (secured safely in the passenger's seat, thank God). Her arms were folded tightly across her chest, firm in her determination not to do anything illegal… or, given the situation, as little as she could. She was relatively sure simply being with these men made her an accomplice, but there was not much to be done about that at the moment.

Blake had instructed her to dress all in black and they had finally given her some makeup to work with, so her eyes were lined darkly. Everyone had eyeliner on, tonight. It disguised you, in a subtle way—so subtle it often wasn't noticed, and therein lied its greatest strength. If a man was asked to identify a criminal he'd seen wearing eyeliner at the scene, the crook's eyes would not look the same without makeup and it would be enough to confuse any witness. Coupled with dark hoods and gloves, identification was made much harder

The Joker—God knew what he was up to—was supposedly meeting them outside their destination: the Gotham City Courthouse. Jess hadn't had to deal with the boss since the rec room earlier, and she was hoping against hope that he wouldn't show.

He did.

He was waiting in the shadows around the back of the building when their van pulled up, dressed magnificently in his dirty purple trench coat. He seemed positively giddy as they hopped out of the vehicle, bouncing with every step he took towards them, his jaw working loosely. Staring at him with utter revulsion, Jess slowly slid from her seat and stood stiffly by the van, arms still crossed protectively. The four men gathered around their boss immediately, two of them holding large black duffle bags, probably packed with supplies, perhaps some weapons. Not particularly keen on hearing the Joker's orders, Jess stood away from the group. His voice was so hushed that she didn't catch a word, but he kept making gestures up to one of the windows of the courthouse. One of the men asked a question in a slightly louder tone, which she caught.

"How are we gonna get her, boss?"

The Joker shrugged.

"I'll figure something out," he replied.

Jess, not wanting to know what he'd meant by "get her," turned away and went back to trying not to listen.

After only a moment or two more of conference, suddenly the men were very busy. Billy and Tim, the men with the bags, dropped to their knees and withdrew from them a few choice items, small pieces that Jess couldn't really see, concealed as they were in their palms. She found out relatively quickly that they were lock picks, as Billy jumped up to start working at the doors. Jess wondered where the hell he had learned to pick a lock. He seemed to have had a lot of practice, because the sturdy door easily creaked inward after only a moment.

Jess squeezed her eyes shut, knowing, just knowing, that there would be an alarm.

There was nothing. One of the men held a small device to an electrical box on the wall.

"Nothing's going out," he said. "No silent alarm, either."

The Joker whooped with laughter.

"Y'see?" he said, skipping as he made his way towards the open door. "These old buildings are easier to break into than you'd think."

Jess crept towards the door, coming to stand next to Billy as he pocketed the lock picks, concentrated lines creasing his brow.

"Courthouse like this, you'd think there'd be more security," he whispered, peering into the darkness beyond the door.

"Sure there is," the Joker said. "We just have to be quiet."

With absolutely no warning, the boss spun on his heel and grabbed Jess's wrist, pulling her into the building after him. She twisted silently, trying in vain to break free, but he was much stronger than she was and the attempts were futile. He didn't even glance at her as she fought his grip, and after a moment she merely sighed and gave up, resigned to the vice-like feel of purple leather on her wrist. The door shut quietly behind them once the group was in the building— excluding Blake and Tim, who stood outside to keep watch.

They made their way stealthily up flight after flight of stairs, checking around corners, keeping their footsteps hushed and light. Any consideration Jess gave to yelling or screaming for the attention of a security guard flew away when the Joker removed his little knife from an inside pocket, as though knowing what she was thinking. His firm grip transferred to her waist, the knife pressing promisingly into her side. He was a little awkward, pulling her along as he walked, his arm wrapped rather intimately around her. He grasped her too close often and she stumbled.

But this discomfort was nowhere near the fear she felt at his subtle threat. He was keeping her close so that she wouldn't be tempted to cause any trouble, but Jess knew how it would look if they were found. Fear of going to jail, of not being believed if she told the police her story, kept her from attracting attention to them, too.

There was that stupid survival instinct again.

The Joker halted suddenly at a door halfway down the fifth floor hall and regarded it for a moment, grinning. Billy immediately stepped forward to try the handle. The latch turned with the knob, but there seemed to be a chain keeping it barred from the inside, one that probably couldn't be unlocked with a pick. Jess sighed in relief.

"Loeb likes his privacy," the Joker mused. He glanced quickly up at the wall. Jess could almost watch an idea form in his mind.

"You want us to go back down for the bolt cutters?" Billy asked, examining the side of the door carefully. The Joker shook his head.

"No. That's what Jesster's here for."

Jess broke away from him.

"Me?" she whispered. "What?"

"Yeah," the Joker said, leaning down to her. "Listen. Uh… You're the smallest one here. Think you can fit through that air vent up there? Hmm?" He pointed high on the wall, where he had been looking not moments before.

Jess stared up at the thin black opening. She was relatively sure she could fit but no way was she going to do that for him.

"No," she said, shaking her head frantically.

The Joker rolled his eyes, seeing right through her ruse, licked his lips and started pushing her towards it. Jess struggled, but unfortunately his efforts were helped by the two other men there. A screwdriver was slapped in her palm to remove the grate and suddenly three pairs of hands were gripping different parts of her body—two around her hips, two on her upper thighs, and two cupped beneath her feet so that she could use them as a temporary step.

As they lifted her up to the little hole, Jess turned back and glared down at Billy. He smiled apologetically and she whispered, "We are so not friends after this." Billy laughed, knowing that she was kind of joking—even though she really wanted to be serious. But what else could he do?—and pushed her butt over their heads. She leaned forward, giving up, quickly twisting her tool and loosening each screw from their positions at the vent's corners, dropping them one by one on the heads of the men below.

When the cover came away from the wall she had to swallow the urge to throw it into the Joker's face, handing it instead to Billy. Then, sighing, she slid into the air vent.

The tunnel was dusty and cold, and her free skin snagged on the metal, giving her little burns up her arms. She couldn't really breathe in there as her ribs were squished between two walls of steel and her neck throbbed from hunching her head forward to keep it from hitting the top of the shaft.

She wondered how the Joker could stand it, in the posture he always assumed. Didn't he get terrible neck aches? He was always slumped over, shoulders bent, on guard for something. Did it simply not bother him anymore, he was so used to standing like that?

Jess blinked.

What?

Had she seriously just been thinking something as arbitrary about him as whether or not his neck hurt from his abysmal posture?

When someone doesn't kill you long enough, you learn to kind of treat them as a person, no matter who they are.

Funny, huh?

This wasn't to say that Jess was used to the Joker (not even) or to say that she was starting to like him (nothing resembling anything close to "like" formed when she thought of the man) but she was starting to see where the others were coming from.

The simple fact was that he hadn't tried to kill her yet—besides the night he'd found her in his basement—nor even really harmed her. It made her feel… Well, not safe. She knew she wasn't safe. She simply wasn't as on edge at all times anymore. He certainly inspired fear, vigilance, but she felt she was at least a little more special to him than anyone else.

She was sure he'd killed that Brian guy. Why not her? Why not the others? He must have felt they were special somehow. And that was good, right?

The sad thing was, Jess wanted to be special to him, and not just so that he wouldn't kill her. Maybe it was some sort of sick Stockholm Syndrome thing, but all of them, including her, were starting to vie for his attention. She hated him, but she wanted him to—if not respect her—at least tolerate her.

What was going on?

Why was she so cool with army crawling through an air vent to unlock the door of Commissioner Loeb's office?

She supposed anyone could get used to a lifestyle after a while.

All of these thoughts went quickly through her mind so that by the time she was done thinking she had arrived at the end of the tunnel. She slid out of the wall and dropped clumsily into the office, landing hands-first, arms outstretched, into a soft armchair placed just beneath the vent. Then, without hesitation, went over and unlocked the door.

Mmmm... This chapter ends a little abruptly, I know, but it was getting long and I didn't want to make it unreadable. More to come soon. Review!