PART V.
You Taste Like Coffee

It was 1 o'clock by the time Harley decided to go back into work. Her boss had made sure she went to see a nurse about her eye, much to her dislike. She'd tried to shake him off, telling him she'd applied a cold pressure to it blah blah blah, but he wouldn't listen.

So there she was, sitting on the little leather bed in the medical room, while the nurse examined her eye.

"Can you see out of it, Dr Quinzel?" The nurse asked as he shone a little light in her eye, her pupil constricting.

"Yes." Harley answered impatiently, drumming her fingernails on the leather bed.

"Well, it seems to be okay. I just want to check one more thing." The nurse said, smiling at her. That was it, Harley couldn't take this any more. She dropped down off the bed, her stilettos making a harsh clink on the concrete flooring.

"I don't have time for this." Harley said, picking up her briefcase and pushing past the man who tried to protest her leaving.

"Look, I'm leaving right now whether you tell me to or not." Harley said irritably, giving him a cold stare before turning on her heel and marching out of the room.

The Joker had certainly begun to change her, much to her delight. She relished being a bitch, having a backbone, she felt so superior she felt like she could rule the world. She was so tired of being sad quiet spineless Harleen, the girl who was so controlled by her ex boyfriend that she couldn't think for herself. She knew that wasn't true, but still, she couldn't help but feel hurt all over again when she thought of what she'd heard the other staff whispering about her. They won't be saying that now, she thought darkly. They're all probably in the canteen, shit scared that I'll walk in any moment.

She hoped nobody else had noticed she'd only been like this since her sessions with the Joker. Harley nibbled her lip as she made her way down to the canteen to pick up a coffee.

Harley was right, of course, when she entered the threshold of the canteen. Everyone stopped what they were doing, staring at her with curious eyes. Everyone thought she looked different. Apart from her black eye, they couldn't pin point what it was exactly, but her once approachable self wasn't one they wanted to approach any more.

Harley sat down on her own at a table after picking up a cup of coffee and five lumps of sugar. She opened up the lid and dropped the sugar cubes in there, counting them as she did. She stirred for a very long time, her eyes glued to the warm mixture in front of her. Finally she put the lid back on and took a long sip, glancing around the room.

Lowering her cup with calm hands, she looked at everyone.

"What the hell are you all staring at?" She hissed, hard to keep calm once she'd opened her mouth. Everyone stared for a brief second before chatter broke out and the scraping of plates, like someone had hit the play button after a very long pause.

Harley ran her fingers through her hair before picking up her briefcase and coffee and exited the canteen. She desperately wanted to go to the Joker, but something held her back. She wasn't sure what it was, but she was sure something between them had changed in the great chasm that was between them. He might tell her things, when he was in the mood, and she might have told him things, and they might be close, one could even say, but there was still a great big gulf between them. Despite that, there was something. It felt something like hope, Harley realised.

They were on opposing ends of a tide. The tide would push the other further away from them. She always felt she was reaching out to him. She knew he found it hard to accept emotions and feelings, she knew that without him telling her, but would he really not accept her?

Harley sighed and walked down to the Joker's room anyway. She disposed of her coffee in the nearest bin, her appetite disappearing rapidly. She gestured to the guards to move along down the corridor a bit.

"But Miss, we have strict orders to guard this door." One said. Harley looked him in the eye, a dangerous glint in her own, one that very much resembled the one the Joker's eyes homed.

"Well, I am ordering you, as charge of the Joker's case, that you remove yourself immediately."

"But Miss you were socked one in the eye!" The other guard sounded shocked.

"And it's fine, it happens all the time in this field of work. Now, move out of my way." She said, using the retina scan and swiping the card.

The guards moved down the corridor a bit.

"Further." They obliged, moving to the very end of the corridor. She sighed in relief and entered the Joker's room.

For a moment, she panicked. She couldn't see him. Then she heard his breathing from underneath the bed.

Harley left her briefcase by the door, which had slid shut. She kicked off her heels and removed her lab coat. Sitting down on the floor beside the bed, she simply said;

"Joker?" Harley didn't look under the bed, feeling like if she did she'd invade on his personal space and privacy. He didn't reply for a moment or two, then he reached a hand out to find hers which was flat on the floor. She jumped for a moment at his touch, then smiled to herself.

"What are you doing under there?" She asked.

"Thinking." Joker replied, staring at the bed above him.

"About?"

"Alot of things." Harley knew she wasn't going to be able to ease anything out of him right now.

"I thought you were claustrophobic?" She said suddenly, remembering that she'd noted it down in one of their sessions. The Joker froze.

"How do you know that?" He asked.

"I-I uh, observed it."

"What do you mean, you observed it?" The Joker asked, not moving his eyes from the bed.

"Well." Harley breathed, staring at the wall beside her, stretching her legs out. "One day you seemed very..agitated, your hands were sweating and your eyes kept darting everywhere. You kept tugging at your collar, and you always seem to take an item of clothing off when we have sessions."

"So." Joker said, defiantly.

"Common signs of claustrophobia." She concluded. Damn, she was good. More than he'd anticipated, actually. "Removal of clothing to relieve the stress of feeling enclosed."

The Joker was silent for a moment.

"Why?"

"Why what?" He snapped.

"Why, if you're claustrophobic are you under a bed?" She asked, finally lying down on the floor next to him. She scrutinized him. He screwed his eyes shut.

"I fucking told you Harl, I'm thinking." He snarled.

"How did it happen?" She asked, mildly curious.

"What happen?" He was getting annoyed now.

"Your claustrophobia?"

"Alot of reasons, Harl." Joker replied through gritted teeth.

"Well consider this a session." Harley said.

Joker turned around to look at her then, a hint of confusion on his face. He sighed.

"My father tried to suffocate me with a plastic bag." Joker said simply. Harley lay rooted to the floor in horror, and also amazed that he'd opened up a little bit more about himself to her.

"Why would he do that to you?"

"Because he hates me?"

There was a long silence.

"I don't understand, you seem to like the straight jacket.."

"Don't you get it? I'm a psycho, my problems aren't supposed to make sense."

"Why don't you come out from under the bed?" She said, attempting to shift over so he could get out, but his hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. Her chest thumped painfully.

"I like it under here." Joker said. Now he'd totally confused her.

"I'm confused-"

"Look, I'm thinking and talking to you, so I'm not thinking about the fact that I could loose oxygen under here."

Joker had a weird way of looking at things, she said. The only way to cure something was to give it a dose of itself.

"So you want to just stay like this and talk?" Joker didn't reply. He felt different, all wrong! He wasn't snapping like he normally does, he didn't even want to vent. Joker didn't feel like killing, or being verbally abusive, ironic, sarcastic, narcissistic, all the things that made him, him. In fact, he felt quite serene under the bed, his fingers locked around Harley's wrist. She kept him grounded. He was the boat, rising above the water and she was his anchor.

"I don't know what I want." He replied, eventually, honestly.

"Me either." She whispered. "Some days I feel like I know what I want, the next I have no idea." The Joker nodded his head slightly, knowing exactly what she meant.

"I feel different." She said, looking down at her hands. Joker twisted his head to look at her, curious. He noticed the bruising around her eye."I feel more violent."

Joker felt a pang in his chest, finally realising he was changing her just as much as she was changing him. He shrugged.

"People need violence in their life. Helps bring them to reality. Life isn't roses and rainbows you know." That was something, no matter how much Harley Quinn changed him, that he would always believe.

They were silent again for a long moment, Harley contemplating the fact that the Joker practically thrived off violence, Joker contemplating the fact that Harley literally saw life as 'roses and rainbows'.

"Do you ever.." Harley trailed off. "Regret what you have done?" She finished simply. Joker felt a strange lurch in his stomach.

"I don't feel Harley." He answered, lying.

"Everybody feels. Everybody feels emotions, everybody drowns in them." Harley said, making the Joker realise with a strange feeling that she was reminding him he was human.

"I haven't considered myself human for a long time." She smiled to herself. He had found her hidden meaning.

"Everyone is human, no matter what they've done."

"Even if they've taken another humans life?" He asked.

"Even if they've taken another humans life." She stated.

"You have a strange way of looking at things."

"You too."

Harley closed her eyes, not quite believing she was having an actual conversation with the Joker. This was the kind of information Arkham wanted, the kind of information straight from his heart, but she refused to write it down on her sheets. This was between him and her, Joker and Harley.

"I feel like I've changed overnight." Joker whispered. Harley opened her eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know!" He almost yelled, his fist meeting the bed. A moment of..ugh he didn't know what, just that fuzzy feeling he got whenever he lashed out washed over him. Then in a heartbeat, it was gone.

"Is it a good thing?"

"I don't know. I never thought I'd change, I never really wanted to."

"Everybody changes. It's inevitable." She reminded him. He looked at her, eventually shifting his position.

"I want to get out." He said, as she moved over and he shuffled out, hoisting himself up onto the bed. Harley sat on the floor for a moment before getting up and sitting next to him.

"Why do you tell me so much?" She asked.

"Do you not want me to?"

"I do! I like that you do, it's just.."

"What?"

"You don't seem very open."

"I was beaten to the point where I shut off to everyone else. My father, was a right arsehole, he beat me black and blue. He beat my mother too. How do you expect me to be able to trust anyone when that was my childhood?" She noticed his fists were starting to clench. She put her hand over his clenched fists and smiled at him.

"You trust me." She paused before whispering; "You don't have to tell me this, you know." Melancholy clutched at her heart.

"I know!" He screamed, standing up, looking more like the Joker now than ever before. His eyes got that dangerous glint again, his hands twisting with each other. He looked away from her, punching the soft padding of the room. Harley didn't have the heart to tell him to stop.

"You've changed me Harley, and I can't decide if I like it or not." Joker finally faced her again. Shaking, Harley stood up off the bed and walked over to stand in front of him. She looked up at him, at his tired face. She ran her delicate fingertips over his scars, carefully lingering over each one. Joker closed his eyes. No one had ever touched his scars before.

"You've changed me too." Harley whispered. Joker desperately wanted to kiss her, but every nerve in his body was on edge, he wasn't sure if he could do that yet. If he was stable enough.

He opened his eyes, to find she was ever so close to him. His claustrophobic instincts kicked in, he wanted to push her away, she was sucking up his oxygen. But at the same time, he wanted her to stay there, he kind of...liked how close she was, while hating it too. Joker could feel her breath on his lips, hot and demanding. He knew she was waiting for it. He wanted it.

Joker wrapped a hand around her neck and with a moments hesitation and a very, very deep breath, he leant down close and kissed her, his lips brushing against hers. Joker felt that feeling suddenly rise and boil over, finally crawling up out of him. She felt it too, crawling up from the pit of her stomach with such eagerness. She wrapped her arms around his neck, as his hands moved hesitantly to her hips. She pulled away slightly.

"It's okay." Harley whispered reassuringly, sensing it's uncertainty. Joker rested his head on hers for a moment, not sure he could do it again. It completely messed him up, that feeling had finally reached it's peak and was filling every crevice and dark corner of his body, of his soul. He felt strangely clean, like she had purified him in a space of a minute.

Harley was surprised, she half expected him to throw her up against a wall, or be violent in any kind of way. Then she realised with a warm heart that she'd changed him. She changed the Joker.

Harley kissed him again, the energy between them shocking her lips, as she moved them against his. He was quite frozen, not quite sure whether to respond or not. She tugged lightly at his lips, parting her own, trying to force a response. He did, after a moments thought. He moved his lips against hers, tasting her lips. Sliding his tongue in her mouth he tasted her own tongue, the inside of her cheek as he walked her backwards into the wall. Harley slid her hand through his greasy green hair as he stroked her hips, absent-mindedly.

Joker pulled away, leaving them gasping for breath, their own coming out in short hot bursts. She smiled at him, as he smiled at her. Softly, he whispered; "You taste like coffee."

I was going to put 'The End' but it doesn't feel right.
I don't think I'm going to write any more, I like the ambiguity of the final part.
You can either conclude he remains in Arkham, or that they somehow break out together.
(I personally like to think he remains in there)
Either way, I hope you enjoyed, thank you for reading and please R&R! :)