Oh I could throw you in the lake

Or feed you poisoned birthday cake

I wont deny I'm gonna miss you when you're gone

Oh I could bury you alive

But you might crawl out with a knife

And kill me when I'm sleeping

That's why:

I can't decide

Whether you should live or die

Oh, you'll probably go to heaven

Please don't hang your head and cry

No wonder why

My heart feels dead inside

It's cold and hard and petrified

Lock the doors and close the blinds

We're going for a ride

-- Scissor Sisters, "I Can't Decide"

Four days and five interviews later, I'm staring at the well-done remains of two clowns that have been found in a smoldering warehouse with its back half blown apart. One has a knife, the other a chain, and the police suspect that these two were just a little too close to the oil when I threw my burning fuses. I myself can find no other reason for it, unless the Joker pushed them in–– but what evidence do I have of that? Everything else burned to a crisp, including the truck, which obviously caused the explosion that blew the back wall off. Does this mean that the Joker is dead? Does that make my action one of manslaughter, accidental homicide––?

The newspapers heralding the Joker's disappearance as a symbol of what an ordinary person's bravery can do are silent.

I'm being called a Batman follower, a sign of the spread of vigilantism–– some are even saying that Batman appearing just as I jumped with the boy could be no coincidence, and that he and I had laid some sort of trap for Joker. Their corroborative evidence is one: the razor blade pendent with the icon cut out of it, which, for Bruce's sake, I'm not giving any explanation for; and two: my apparent intimacy with Batman, as captured when I leaned in to tell him my theory about the Joker's gadget envy. Farfetched, of course, but it garnered me the new suspicion of premeditated, malicious crime.

It doesn't help that the only other witnesses are missing and presumed dead, not to mention being my enemies and supposed victims.

But I can't help feeling rather blasé about it. "This turn of events really doesn't surprise me," I tell Bruce. "I guess I feel that no matter what I do, my encounter with the Joker will find a way of offing me. Like Oedipus having to face his fate no matter how he tried to escape it–– though I doubt I'll be killing my dad and sleeping with my mother." I pull a face and Bruce laughs, but follows this with a bear hug that lasts, without interruption, for twenty minutes.

The tabloids are calling us "lovers" and me, the "future Mrs. Wayne," though they all are at a lost to know why. I do not suit his known tastes at all, and have such a lack of poise and femininity (see: klutziness and habit of belching like a man in public) that they are only fain to recognize me as his prospective wife by my constant presence in his penthouse. But I know they have nothing to worry about. It is not I who receives his love, but a woman very previously engaged: Rachel Dawes, his beautiful childhood friend, Harvey Dent's girlfriend. I see it in the wistful way he looks at her, his pointed introduction of me to her, his antagonism towards Dent. He loves her in a way that is painful to watch, and even more painful not to know.

Everything is hollow nowadays.

Harvey Dent. Harvey, Harvey, Harvey. Now there is a man who will never cease to amaze me.

When I return to the penthouse on Sunday night, spent from a day of identifying clown corpses, reporting, and avoiding others' pity, I want nothing but to sleep–– my skull feels like lead. But as the elevator doors open, I have a dress box and a pair of shoes thrust in my face. "Wha––?"

"Get dressed, Harry, you have a fundraiser to go to!" It's Mr. Dent himself, along with Bruce, who looks fairly disgruntled. I wonder what it means to be unfairly gruntled? I look the grinning DA in the eye and purposefully drop the clothing at his shiny-shoed feet, walking away before he can say, "Now, don't be like that–– you have a party to go to!"

"Yeah, and it's in my bed." I pause, turn around, and start grinning at their confusion. "Not like that." Bruce chortles and throws me an energy drink. I roll my eyes. "Thanks a lot, Bruce. Now I'll go to the party and be a hyperactive happy drunk!" I stand there for a second, staring around at their expectant expressions. Finally I sigh and jerk the dress box out of Dent's hands. He crows like a little boy and pushes me into the master bedroom. I trip, falling onto the bed and he slams the door behind me. "Can't I just wear a tuxedo or something?" I yell at the locked door. "A sports jacket and trousers?"

"No!" He yells back, and I hear them both laugh. They only ally when they torment me, the bastards.

Finally, after being all fixed up by Alfred, who has an odd ––shall I say suspicious––knowledge of make-up and hairstyling, I step out of Bruce's oak bedroom, heels sinking right into the carpet and wobbling slightly. "Why must you do this to me, Harvey Dent? I look like a goddamn diva!" The two of them turn around from their place at the kitchen counter and their mouths drop open. I roll my eyes, pose and say, "See? I look like a back-up singer for–– for Diana Ross. I mean, like––" I start doing the dance from Dreamgirls. "'We're your dreamgirls / Boys, we'll make ya happy, yeah-yeah-yeah! / We're your dreamgirls /Boys, we'll always care!'" Someone–– I suspect it's Bruce–– lobs an apple at my head. It misses by an inch, hitting the wall and splattering a little, to Alfred's pursed-mouth displeasure.

"Save it for the party!" Bruce shouts happily and grabs the keys to the Lamborghini, ignoring the withering look I'm shooting his way. "Let's head out!" And he dances by in his black sports jacket, letting my look burn a hole in the wall. I huff a little, picking up my bag, only to feel a hand catch my elbow.

"Hey." It's Dent. He smiles–– genuinely, I think. "You look beautiful." I blush fiercely, feeling the heat spreading through my body like wildfire.

"T-thank you," I stammer, shocked. His smiles widens, dimpling his cheeks.

"Bruce Wayne is a lucky bastard, is all I can say." Now I'm utterly bewildered. What's going on here?

"Wh-what?"

"Well, aren't you engaged?" I turn an even deeper crimson and shake my head, stammering in the negative and starting to worry that Dent's new elastic mouth will suddenly snap. "Stupid tabloids, eh?" He chortles and offers me his arm, and, seriously confused and wondering anxiously if Harvey Dent is abusing his happy meds, I accept it.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

We finally arrive at Wayne Tower, where, by the station that so recently became the epicenter of all my worst fears, a large banner hangs. It says, in giant gold letters, SAVE HARRIET VINCE! I glare at Harvey and Bruce, who are grinning like hyenas. "What am I, an endangered species?" Bruce nods solemnly, clasping me to his side.

"A precious specimen of journalist minimus, a rare and lovely creature that is only found on the east coast of North America." I grin up him, bad humor quickly dissolving. How could anyone hate this guy? "She resides in shark-infested swamps––"

"Shark-infested swamps?" I laugh, and snort. He continues, unabashed.

"––Spreading light, beauty, and the essence of humor––"

"And mooching off of goldfish." He looks down at me, shocked. I edit. "Big goldfish. Who like to squander their shiny scales on little journalists." I look around at all the big names and wealthy investors gathered to help my plight. "Honestly, you guys, you shouldn't do this! You shouldn't associate yourselves with me–– especially you, Harvey." He looks pleasantly surprised that I'm calling him by his first name, but still waves off my concerns.

"Hush. You should've heard what we had planned!"

"Harriet!" I am distracted by a little boy in a white tuxedo who runs up to hug my midriff. I smile down at him, recognizing little Johnny.

"Hello! How are you, Jon?" He beams up at me and nods his good health, giving my stomach a squeeze and running off again to see his parents, who wave and smile. Good people on the whole, do their best, you know. I return to my more urgent conversation with Harvey.

"Your original plan–– what was it?"

"To buy ourselves places on your jury!" I facepalm, not wanting to look at their irritating, shiny enamel any longer.

"That's illegal, isn't it?"

"Yes!" I glare at Harvey, who looks like he has a Botox injection. "Which is why I'm going to be defending you instead!" I groan. This is hopeless. He's going to ruin his reputation by defending a clearly guilty murderer, for no other reason than the fact that she's his friend. I lead him away by the arm, visibly distraught, and when we finally halt by the entrance, he's become serious enough to listen to me. I take a deep breath, fidgeting like an unhappy child.

"Look–– look, you just can't do this. You're Gotham's White Knight, for God's sake, you can't just throw away all those peoples' hopes on a bad pony! Harvey, I am a bad pony, and no one should bet on me! Ever! I am pursued by bad luck like a piece of meat is pursued by flies! It will consume me, and so will my big fat mouth, because, you see, here I go again talking nonstop because–– because you Harvey Dent–– you––I do believe in you, Harvey, a lot more than I believe in myself on any level, and if we're fighting for anything here its for your success as the city's protector! Not mine!" I stop, heaving slightly. Harvey looks taken aback. I nod firmly. "And that's final. No more protecting me from my own actions." I turn to go, when, yet again, I feel his hand upon my arm.

"Harriet." I around curtly, then stop. The atmosphere's suddenly changed. I'm staring into a pair of brown eyes full of indescribable anguish, along something else–– something that scares me. His voice is hoarse, shaking. "I can't lose you. Especially not to this." I'm about to answer frantically, terrified out of my wits, when I hear, in the distance, Bruce calling me to the microphone for a speech. Hardly knowing what I'm doing, I wrench my arm from his grasp and, stagger, in a haze, to the stage. I'm exhausted and lovesick and in pain–– I shouldn't have to be dealing with what appears to be the disintegration of Harvey Dent's mental health.

I trip a little on my way up the stairs and, saying something like "Oh––!" flail my arms wildly. The entire crowd gasps. I balance myself. The crowd applauds. I then walk up the remaining stairs, stumble on a loose wire, and do a faceplant. The crowd "ooohs!" sympathetically and Bruce helps me up. The crowd applauds. Moving more carefully, I make it to the microphone, and attempt to adjust the mouthpiece to my pathetic height. It sinks. I raise it a little higher than my mouth. It sinks. I look around at Bruce, who is trying not to laugh, and raise it above my head. It stays. The entire audience laughs, and I roll my eyes and walk out from behind the podium. "Thank you, that was the, um, physical comedy portion of our show––" The crowd applauds. This is almost farcical. "And now for something, um, completely different. They laugh, and I'm about to begin apologizing for the idiotic party when I hear it.

By the entrance.

The clapping of a lone man.

He's leaning on the pillars of the station room, applause slow, sinister. "Wel-ll, Miss Vince, I wouldn't go that far." The room is held perfectly silent and still, fear scrawled across every face. He lopes forward, casually grabbing a drink from a waiter, still not taking those terrifying eyes off of my face. "You certainly exceeded my, ah, ex-pectations." That sinister, high-pitched drawl crawls over my skin. "And I don't mean in terms of the boy–– no, I always knew you were going to save him, he he he! No… no… I mean, as in your clever little, ah, fire escape!" The Joker purrs, slowly moving forward into the light, letting it slide over his ravaged features. "Such ingenuity–– such a deadly streak–– in one so young and––" he giggles wildly––"and beautiful. Makes me s-s-shiver!" He cackles, running his tongue around the circuit of his blood-red mouth. I see his eyes rake my body and flush as he bares his yellowing teeth in a perverse grin. "I really can't bear to part with you!" As he announces this, he pulls out a gun, and, without so much as a glance, lifts it straight out and points it at Jonathon Tambling, who cowers at his mother's side.

"No!" I scream, jolting forward. "You said you'd leave him if I saved him! You said you'd leave us! Those were your terms!" Horrified, I see him cock the weapon, shrugging.

"Who said that you only had to save him from the train?" The Joker pulls the trigger, and the entire room erupts.