Chapter Eleven

Angel threw me like a rubber man, aiming for the ground
Why amuse yourself in such a way?
-Blonde Redhead, Elephant Girl

He pulled me out into the hallway, which was completely empty. I could hear distant noises, though—thumping, men shouting, the distant sound of a woman's scream. The Joker seemed to anticipate the noise. Without breaking stride, he careened around a corner, taking me with him.

"Where are we going?" I demanded, having to almost run in order to keep up with his long strides. There was something on his hand that was getting into my cut. It burned, and I tried not to think about it too much.

"To Banbury Cross," he replied absently—I was swiftly getting the impression that I was by no means his priority right now. At most, I was just a convenient hostage, and I honestly had no idea if that was a good or bad thing.

Banbury Cross? What the—?

I had a sudden flashback to my childhood, to the nursery rhymes taught vigilantly by my mother.

Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross
to see a fine lady upon a white horse
With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes
She shall have music wherever she goes

He was resuming old habits, screwing around with my head. I felt the last of my tears dry up in light of this familiar development just as he stopped and turned abruptly, bursting through the door to the stairwell.

"I gotta say," he said, taking the stairs two at a time and jerking me along with him. "I'm surprised at you."

"Slow down," I cried plaintively. My legs were much shorter than his and he was taking two steps at once, and with the way he was dragging me along I feared falling. I did not want him pulling me bodily up the stairs. He cast me a mocking look over his shoulder.

"Ya forgot to say please," he said, and jerked me forward, throwing me onto the stairwell in front of him. I stumbled and fell onto my hands and knees, right hand slippery with blood, making it difficult to gain any traction. I climbed to my feet rapidly, unwilling to remain at such an obvious disadvantage.

Just a slightly less obvious one, then, I couldn't help thinking, but shoved the idea away immediately. It wasn't helpful. "Please," I huffed, feeling my wrist burn still more, despite being freed from contact with whatever caustic agent he wore on his hands.

He gestured to the remaining stairs lining the walls above us with the hand that held the knife. "Ladies first, but, uh… pick up the pace."

I eyed the stairs, then eyed him, and then turned and started hiking up the stairs, taking them at a jog. He loped one pace behind me, still taking them two at a time but slower now.

"As I was saying before I was so, ah, rudely interrupted," he continued. "I'm surprised at you."

"Surprised at what?" I demanded shortly, saving my breath. I had an idea of where we were going now, and figured I'd probably need it.

"Back there," he said, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. "In Stuh-ratford's office. You fell apart, like a little girl," he sang. I glared briefly at him. "Kind of cowardly. What happened?"

I felt my gag reflex jump to life again at the reminder. As long as I could pretend that it didn't happen, as long as I could keep my focus on the fact that I was in serious danger and needed to get out of it, then I wouldn't throw up. Otherwise, I might just, and I got the feeling he wouldn't react well to that.

"I'm sorry," I said sarcastically, "but you killed a man in front of me."

"Ohhhh," he said, some neuron making some jump over some synapse in his brain as he finally forged the connection. His voice jumped just a touch higher as he steadily climbed, breathy and full of false sympathy: "Is thatchyour first time?"

"First time witnessing a murder? Yeah, thanks for asking," I said, my slight breathlessness due to the three flights of stairs and counting taking the edge off of my sarcasm. "It was a real experience."

"You just wait till ya kill a man for the first time," he said matter-of-factly. "It's a doozy."

"I have no intentions of killing anyone."

"Buuut you think it's my purpose."

"I never said that!" I snapped hotly.

"Oh, really?" He sounded so questioning, so eager to please… so full of shit. "Well, then… what does 'what you do serves a purpose' mean, then?"

I was silent. There's a difference between saying evil has a purpose theoretically and actually witnessing evil carrying out that purpose. The Joker giggled behind me.

The door to the stairwell just ahead of us burst open, and two men came rushing out. Please, God—I thought blindly, but then I recognized the orange jumpsuits and with a rush of horror realized that they were inmates, not orderlies. One of them was the schizophrenic family-killer, Ortega, and the other one was a heavily tattooed man that I didn't recognize. They looked our way, saw me first, and Ortega muttered in recognition. He started towards me, and I froze in fear.

Then my companion stepped onto the stair beside me, and Ortega stopped dead. I shot a wide-eyed look at the Joker, but he didn't even spare me a glance, instead watching the two men in the doorway steadily, completely deadpan.

Ortega looked from him to me and back again, and then put a hand out, halting his tattooed companion. He took a step back, then another, and then turned and disappeared swiftly through the door again, followed by Tattoos.

The Joker raised his eyebrows, shrugged, and put a hand on my shoulder, pushing me forward again. I obeyed, but kept glancing back at him with mingled horror and curiosity. "The inmates are loose."

"I noticed," he said.

I returned my attention to the stairs as I thought hard. Of course the inmates were out—whoever he had conned into helping him (and he had somebody, I was sure of it now) would have opened as many doors as possible during the five-second power-outage… and possibly could have found the control rooms and screwed something up so that all the doors were unlocked.

I looked over my shoulder at him again. "They're scared of you."

He shrugged. "Well," he said, running his tongue over his lips briefly, "it happens. I try not to take it too… personally."

I looked back at the stairs. The bad guy that all the other bad guys were scared of—that was him, all right. Inexplicably, I felt a smile tugging hard at my mouth, and fought it with everything in me. I didn't need to get lost in hysteria, not right now.

Seconds later, I felt a hand on the small of my back, but before I could worry about what it meant, I was victim to a rather sharp shove that threw me off-balance. I was obviously being told to go faster. I couldn't suppress a quick roll of the eyes—after all, he could just ask—though I made sure he couldn't see, and I picked up the pace.

It struck me that he was being rather… quiet. The two of us weren't exactly strangers to one another, and he wasn't the quiet type. He enjoyed talking. He enjoyed airing his views to an audience. The silence now felt a bit awkward—

—but, reality check, I'm being forced up to the roof by an escaped mass-murdering clown. I doubt I'm supposed to feel comfortable.

His mind was on his escape. I couldn't exactly fault him for that. He wasn't home free yet, after all, though I honestly doubted he was going to get caught, what with the chaos raging inside of Arkham and the director of the asylum laying dead several floors below. As bizarre as the idea was, I suddenly realized that I was likely more safe with him than I would have been anywhere else. With escaped prisoners swarming the floors below and obviously teaming up to wreak havoc, I wouldn't have stood a chance. With him to disparage any prisoners that might just have a grudge against little blonde Dr. Quinzel, the only danger I really faced at the moment came from… well, him.

Not that that was anything to sneeze at.

We reached the final flight of stairs, and he took the lead once again, grabbing me by the elbow as he swooped past me and jerking me along behind him, faster than before. I stumbled and lost my balance, and with a strangled, annoyed "Aghh," he pulled me up, set me back on my feet, and finished scaling the stairs.

We burst through the door out onto the roof, immediately met by a freezing sheet of rain. I gasped at the cold, but he seemed far from discomfited. He let go of my arm as the door swung closed behind us, walking out further onto the roof and turning his face up to the sky, eyes shut. He stretched out his hands and stood, stark-still, quite obviously enjoying the feel of the freezing drops as they shattered against his painted skin.

He didn't seem worried that I would take it into my head to run, and I have to admit, the idea scarcely crossed my mind as I stood there and stared, utterly transfixed. This was his first exposure to fresh air—as fresh as you could get in Gotham City, at any rate—in months, and he had missed it. Oh, it was too obvious that he had missed it.

For a moment, everything he had done, everything he would do—I remembered none of it. He was here, now, and he was absolutely beautiful.

I found myself moving towards him as if pulled, as if I had no volition of my own, and I halted just shy of him, unwilling to pull his attention away. The rain was powerful enough to draw streaks even in the greasepaint and his skin was showing through, though the makeup was stubbornly hanging on in most places.

Then, he opened his eyes, cocked his head, and said, "Ahhh. So glad you could join the party."

I realized that something had changed abruptly as he rocketed towards me, closing the short inches of empty space between us and getting an arm around my neck as he stepped swiftly behind me. I gasped as his arm tightened against my throat, coming back to reality with the realization that I had been an idiot, that I should have run when I'd had the chance (though in my defense, there wasn't really anywhere to go—even if the door had opened from the outside, how was I supposed to safely navigate the chaos downstairs?).

I had no idea what was happening till a guttural growl issued from one of the shadows on the roof, cluing me in to the presence of the visitor that the Joker had already seen (or sensed).

"Are you ever going to get tired of hiding behind women?" Batman stepped into view, out of the shadows where he'd presumably just arrived.

The Joker leaned forward to address his nemesis like a child assured enough of his safety to taunt a peer, the side of his face brushing the side of mine. "Well, they make such fantastic shields; wouldn't you agree, Batty?" I felt the touch of slick, cold steel on the underside of my jaw, just above his arm, and I drew in a strangled breath.

Batman stood motionless, watching us. I got the feeling that the first chance he got, he'd attack, and I suddenly realized that I didn't want that.

I mean, sure, I'd be thrilled to be set free at this point—I had no assurance that the Joker gave a damn if I lived or died, after all, and I was far from suicidal. But I didn't want the Joker beaten to a pulp by this man, either. I'd seen what he'd done to Jonathan so many times, and it pained me to imagine the same injuries inflicted on the Joker.

My mind raced through the situation. The Joker stood behind me, his chest pressed against my back, arms looped over my shoulders, and so, as subtly as I could, I relaxed, hoping he would feel the lessened tension and understand that I had no intention of fighting him, at least not as long as the vigilante was on the roof. I smeared a look of panic over my face for the Batman's sake, though it might have been hindered by my wet hair, which was plastered to my face. I brought my hands up and locked them around the Joker's forearm, trying to give the impression that I was attempting to pry him away.

Batman deigned to speak again. "Leave her out of this. This is between you and me."

I could feel muscles twitching in my captor's arm, and I could feel his jaw shift, pressing into mine. I swear, he was all but trembling—with what? Excitement? Fear? I was fairly sure he was immune to the latter sensation, so excitement it was. He was burning up behind me, an impossible source of feverish heat in the freezing cold.

There was a mechanical humming noise coming from… somewhere. I tried turning my head to see its source, but the knife pressed into my throat and I immediately obeyed the silent order.

The Joker spoke, his voice growling in my ear. "You play chess, right?" The question was obviously rhetorical, since the Batman showed no indication that he was willing to answer. "The game's essentially down to the two kings, buuut…" I felt a gust of warm, stale breath on my cheek as he presumably turned to look at me, and then a soft huffing growl as he turned back to Batman. "…pawns have their uses."

I felt an angry snarl distort my face. I was trying to help him out here. I didn't appreciate being called a pawn. I poked him in the stomach with my elbow, and was rewarded with a burning nick on the neck.

"Shhhh," the Joker hissed. "Behave."

Batman took a step forward, and the Joker tightened his grip, choking me. I coughed and gasped, causing the vigilante to halt sharply.

"I can cut deeper," the Joker said encouragingly. "All you have to do is keep going." Batman remained still, eyes fixed on us. "No?" the Joker whined in disappointment. "Then it looks like we're at a stalemate."

The mechanical humming had morphed into a whine, a whirring, and as we stood fixed on the roof, the source of the noise showed up suddenly.

It was a helicopter. A freaking helicopter.

It shone spotlights on us, illuminating the dark tableau suddenly. The Joker started backing up rapidly, dragging me with him, and I stumbled and would have slipped in the cold rain had it not been for his arm around me, holding me upright. As we moved, Batman followed, his steps in perfect unison with ours.

A sudden thought struck me—is he taking us off the edge?

Before I could consider panicking, we stopped. I turned my head carefully, and this time, the Joker allowed me to. We were right on the edge of the roof. It was a very, very long way down. I swallowed hard and looked away immediately, my hands tightening instinctively on his forearm. Not that that'll do any good if he jumps.

"Don't make this harder on yourself," growled Batman. "Let her go and this'll be easy."

"Ooh," purred the Joker. "Strong words from a man who's out of moves, really. But, as always, you face that horrible choice. Let the innocent die, or let the bad guy go free?"

Oh, shit. This wasn't what I had signed up for. I started struggling for real this time, frantic to escape his grip, but this wasn't like the confrontation in his cell months before. This time, he had a knife to my throat, and even if he hadn't, his enthusiasm for his favorite hobby gave him an inhuman strength.

His voice picked up, a sudden current of excitement running through it like so much electricity. "Hey! You remember this game, don't you?"

Then, his arm was around my waist, and I was off my feet. He was my only anchor as we spun. I turned my head sharply and caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye. He was laughing.

Then… the fall.

I found myself plunging, hurtling towards the ground headfirst, too fast, too alone. I couldn't think, I couldn't scream—I couldn't even close my eyes.

I couldn't think.

I couldn't think.

And then—rough arms around my waist. I was being pressed into what felt like rock and screwed my eyes shut as I heard a whine. The thought I'm going to die finally broke through into my consciousness.

A sudden very-physical jerk stopped my mind from repeating the thought. My eyes flew open, despite my very fervent desire to keep them shut.

We were still moving very fast, but… forward instead of straight down, and we definitely didn't seem to be dying. I looked up. Batman's jaw was grim, clenched so tight that I thought dazedly that it was a wonder he wasn't cracking some teeth.

We were headed rapidly for a much shorter, very close rooftop, and as we whooshed over it he let go of me. I shrieked and tried to cling to him, but my hands slipped on the wet armor and I dropped, hitting the rooftop hard.

I'm alive. I'm alive.

I felt the sudden absurd urge to kiss the roof, but was distracted by the sight of Batman landing mere feet away. He straightened up and his face tilted immediately towards the sky.

I followed his gaze as well. The helicopter was zooming away from Arkham's rooftop, presumably with my darling, traitorous clown within. I clenched my teeth in anger—that bastard—and looked back at my unwilling rescuer.

He was hustling to the edge of the roof, and I stretched out a hand. "Wait—wait!" I cried out desperately. I couldn't explain it, but I did not want to be left alone just then.

He didn't even pause to look at me. With an almighty leap, he flung himself from the edge of the roof, presumably to chase after the now at-large Joker. I sat there, soaking wet and trembling, for a few more minutes. Then, I stumbled to my feet and headed for the fire escape.

I walked home completely alone. I thought the cold and the rain might at least have the beneficial effect of driving away the dangerous numbness I had been feeling ever since Batman had left me on that roof. It did nothing but make me tremble harder.

My mind was moving in slow motion, so much so that I didn't even think about going back to the asylum for my car. Instead, I decided to walk home alone, in the cold rain, through the Narrows.

Yeah.

I was having trouble comprehending what had just happened. I kept going through it in my mind… over… and over… and over.

Stratford dead. Stairs. Roof, rain. Batman. Him there, using me as a shield… helicopter, and then… the fall.

He threw me off of the fucking roof.

I couldn't quite comprehend it. My brain was on lockdown, totally uncooperative. I forced myself to focus, tried to sort out how angry I was on a scale of one to ten.

I was surprised when the answer came back as a three. Maybe a four. I mean, Batman was there, and his whole shtick was saving the innocent, right? I mean, sure, there was a pretty hefty risk involved, but the Joker usually planned things out beautifully. He had almost as much at stake as I did. If I died, then he'd go back to Arkham, probably transferred within days, probably somewhere with fewer crooked employees, where escaping would be much more difficult.

Being locked up in an asylum for the rest of his life probably rated the same as death in his eyes.

You're justifying him, Harley. Why are you justifying him?

I shook my head. I'd been defending him for a while now. I had to quit asking myself why. The answer was becoming clear, especially now that a near-death experience had thrown things into perspective, but… my mind was too dead to think about it now.

He's gone. He's gone, and I don't know if I'll ever see him again.

The thought depressed me immensely. It also pissed me off.

He threw me off a roof. I think I deserve an explanation. Maybe even an apology.

I slowly came to the realization that I was walking on a road where the street lamps had been smashed out—every last one of them. The sky was that sickly, dusky pink that came alongside thunderstorms in the city, and there was ambient light from windows and the occasional car, but for the most part, it was dark.

Too dark. And there were footsteps behind me.

You know, you'd think I'd be scared. I should have been—footsteps in the dark in the Narrows were never a good thing. I sometimes felt scared just driving home through this neighborhood, and until now, I had never been crazy enough to walk.

But, like I said, being thrown off of a roof throws some things into perspective.

They were getting closer, and picking up the pace. I heard muttering and catcalls behind me. Of course. A tiny blonde with a nice ass and rain-soaked clothes? I was a perfect target.

I didn't want it. I didn't want any part of it. I had just spent however many sessions with the most dangerous man in Gotham City, possibly the most dangerous man in the world, and these punks expected me to cower in fear?

Never mind that I was unarmed. Never mind that martial arts weren't my forte. Experiencing one of my ever-more-frequent moments of temporary insanity, I whirled around and glared.

My pursuers stopped short. I didn't expect that this was usual behavior from their targets. There were three of them—one big, two short and slim, and they wore baggy pants and hoodies. Recovering a little, one whistled shrilly and the other two laughed. The big guy brought two fingers up in a V and thrust his tongue between them.

Nuh-uh. I lost it.

"YOU THINK YOU'RE DANGEROUS?" I screamed, making one of the smaller ones jump. "YOU THINK YOU'RE SCARY? DO YOU ACTUALLY THINK YOU'RE BADASS? YOU HAVE NO IDEA!"

I actually stalked towards them, like I was going to do something. My anger made me invincible. "You. All of you. You're filthy pieces of SHIT. You can't even compare to him, so if you don't get off the streets and stop trying, I will show you scary. I WILL SHOW YOU SCARY!"

They looked ready to pee themselves, but the big one at least was trying to put on a display of bravado. He stepped forward, flicking out a switchblade.

I sucked in a deep breath and screamed.

This wasn't your average terrified, I'm-about-to-be-raped-in-the-Narrows scream. This was pure insanity in female vocal form. Hearing the sound ripping from my mouth almost scared me.

The three lost face. "Crazy bitch!" one of them cursed, and the two little ones bolted. Without his entourage, the big one folded. Muttering something about PMS, he turned and scuttled off, resembling nothing so much as a huge cockroach.

I surveyed the empty street and felt a surreal surge of self-satisfaction. That… that had been one of the biggest thrills I'd had since coming to Gotham, my sessions with the Joker excepted. I guess you could say one of my biggest self-inflicted thrills.

It was incredible. The headrush was beyond anything I'd ever felt, including my high school trials with marijuana.

I started to giggle. Once I started giggling, it was hard to stop. It felt good—it felt really good. So I opened up and started laughing. I laughed hard. I laughed until my stomach cramped up and tears were running down my face.

I stumbled towards home, laughing and laughing until finally, I couldn't tell if I was still laughing or if, somewhere along the way, the laughter had turned into sobs.