Chapter Nine: The Sitcom's Joke

Strawberry: Eh, I don't like Fana in this chapter. I usually think of her as a strong person in a small frame, but here, it almost screams that the Joker has somewhat of an effect on her. Generally, I wouldn't have her thinking about the memories of her family so much, but I like tying that in with her current…predicament, if you will. But I like her much better when she's kind of… "I am woman, fear me." Even though…she's never really THAT extreme xD But she has her moments of strength. Anyway, that was too much of a tangent, so read and review s'il vous plait. :P

Three days had passed since he had taken Fana from Harvey's little shindig…and nothing. There had been no sign of Harvey Dent. He scowled as he lounged in the center of the evergreen couch, sinking into the soft cushions as the woman on Gotham Tonight droned on about…nothing interesting. He did fight a smile though when she mentioned the kidnapping of five prisoners from Arkham Asylum. They were "conducting search and doing everything they could to find their whereabouts."

"You're not doing a very good job," he said, raising his eyebrows as if thinking the woman on TV could see or hear him. But it was true that they weren't making much progress. How hard was it to find an icehouse? Not as if he wanted to be caught, but it would certainly be interesting if they found out where he was. But he shook his head. He knew all too well that people were too unobservant. They'd never find him there; never find Mark Edinburgh or Thomas Schiff or Randy Pierce or Langston Waters or Charlie Fetter…or Fana Williams. "Looks like you were right, doll face," he said to himself. "No one out there wants to save you."

With a sigh, he let his eyes fall shut. He couldn't really complain, at least about his intellect when he thought of what the day had held. By that morning, every Arkham patient was completely on his side—even Randy was agreeing with him. They were all completely safe at this point; not one of them was still left in their handcuffs. This meant that the next part of the plan was ready to commence. So that day he could have been found journeying to a white-bricked series of apartments in the city. Having done his research, concocted a means of testing his enemies' intellect, he there murdered two policemen: Patrick Harvey and Richard Dent. He then printed an advanced copy of the newspaper dated for the following day, announcing the mayor's ceremony. With a black-inked pen and a red, permanent marker, he had given the photographed mayor a makeover to match his own. He snickered. He remembered having painted the faces of the two men dead, cutting their mouths upward as his own signature. Even as he did it with a smile, the reminder of it was disturbing in a way that he could not deny.

There was nothing on the news about it, as of yet at least. He had sent in an audio recording, noting the location of the two men and saying warning, "You'll find 'Harvey Dent' there." He giggled over the way he knew they would all be frantically pooling to the area, waiting to see their beloved district attorney marred. But he wasn't. He just wanted to give them a little scare, and a clue, of course. Tomorrow was the day they were going to kill the mayor. Maybe that would teach them all that he did indeed mean business. Maybe someone would finally come to their senses and hand over Dent…

In the back of his mind, he was doubting it.

"What are you watching?" He turned around, his arm draped over the back of the couch lazily. Fana was standing there, looking intently at the television screen. He vaguely wondered why she was not trying for the door—had she tried for it even once in the time he had taken her captive? He couldn't recall, but then again, he hadn't been around her the whole time. He hadn't instructed anyone to watch her. She was nothing to particularly worry about.

"Ah, making yourself at home?" He clicked his teeth and winked. He patted the couch loudly. "Have a seat." Making a sniffling nose as if to say she didn't need to, but would, she walked around the end of the couch and sat down awkwardly against the arm. He stretched his mouth back, starting to say something, but ignoring his desire to feed the fire that was womanhood. He instead stared blankly at the fluorescent television and left her to herself. He tapped his foot against the floor, hardly containing himself as he leaked excitement at what the day to come would bring. Though it was not on the news, he wondered just how insane everyone was going over what might have been an important death. Else, they were fretting over the following day's ceremony, wondering if he'd stay true to his word. Of course he would. It was almost asking too little to even have any hopes that he wouldn't do what he'd promised. Oh, they knew he would. He vaguely thought of them tightening security but…hell. What good would it do if he himself would be donning security gear? How would they expect security to be able to offer any protection when he and his men were the security?

He almost wanted them to discover his plan so that there would be at least something interesting…other than the mayor being killed, of course. Shaking his head, he leaned against the arm of the couch and redirected his attentions to the news channel.

They were sitting on opposite sides of his couch, his fingers running along his temple as if he had a headache. Fana thought briefly to ask him if he did, but decided against it, given the way he was so frivolously pretending she didn't exist. She was not at all interested in watching the news; from the corner of her eye, she could see that he barely looked interested either. "Do you…" She paused and he looked at her, just as uninterestedly as he looked at the TV. "Do you want to change the channel…or something?"

"'Or something?'" he repeated. She sighed. Of course. "What's the 'or something'? I like to weigh my options…" Before she answered, he beckoned for her to sit at his side. She simply stared at him. "Why so far away, Fana banana?" he asked, giving a dry laugh at her contorting expression. "It's an icehouse; you get closer…for warmth. Not all distant…no, no, no, you…huddle…hm?" He waved his hand again, but she seemed to have frozen on the spot. This time his laugh was loud and carrying, strong and chest-borne. "Come on…a'right, so, listen…I know…that you and I, we've had some rough times." He grabbed her arm and jerked her in a way that sent her off the couch and on her feet, lest she fall backward. He knew her well enough to assume that she wouldn't have liked looking the fool. He pulled her towards him, looking up at her through her frame of sloppy hair. "But you see, you gotta work past all the…mess-ups…and the bad parts. Come on, sit down…" She did. He could feel her hipbone prodding against his waist. Something in his chest moved in an unordinary fashion. He rolled his eyes at his God-forsaken humanity. "See…" he cooed at the side of her face. "Now was that so hard?"

He threw his arm roughly around her neck, the inside of his elbow cradling her chin. She made a noise of displeasure, but otherwise, did not protest. He wasn't doing anything wrong, she told herself. What could she say? She managed to focus almost all of her attention on the television as he flipped through the channels, resting upon the first one that showed signs of a studio audience laughing. He leaned back, looking pleased, and rummaged for something in his pocket. She could hear the crinkling of a bag. He chuckled at something on the TV that she had not noticed and pulled something like a melted stick from his pocket. Once finished laughing, he put part of it in his mouth and chewed loudly, obviously having to avoid hitting the scars the wrong way.

She felt sorry for him. Sorry enough to allow him to have her in a chokehold as he giggled over a sitcom and stuffed whatever he was eating obnoxiously into his mouth. He was such an indescribable sort of person… The sort of indescribable person who never even wanted to be called a person at all. Her questions about him were beginning to surface quickly: who was he? Who was his mother? Had it been she who'd made him turn out the way he was?

What was his name?

"Jeff, that girl's evil," a blond woman on the TV was saying to a man who had neglected shaving for several days. He asked what she meant, and she went into a long rendition of events that all led to, "I don't know what to do." Over on her right, the Joker was smirking. His jacket sleeve was not completely covering his wrists. The skin of his arm casually brushed across her neck as he fidgeted. "Who are you talking about?" asked the man on TV.

"My daughter," said the woman. The audience laughed. He didn't. "She just doesn't appreciate me at all—well, unless of course she wants to go to the mall with her little boyfriend." The conversation continued.

Daughter of mine whom appreciates me not…

"No," she said aloud, stopping her thoughts from surfacing. Distracting herself, she got to her feet, forcing his arm from her, and said, "I'm hungry." He didn't believe her for an instant. She cringed when she noticed him following. She was twisting her neck in different directions, trying to shake her brain free of what she did not want to hear until it all but overwhelmed her:

I am going away for a little while…I want you to stay with your father. Don't tell him where I've gone. I've hurt him enough.

Fana spun herself around and rocked on her toes, unable to walk forward anymore. She tried to think of something different but found nothing else to think of. Behind her, he grabbed her by the wrist suddenly, to even his surprise. He stared at his own hand, enclosed around her arm, wondering what had made him hold her back.

He looked at the door. Was he…afraid that she might leave? He made to let go of her, to assure himself that he certainly was not concerned with whether or not she left, but the part of him that wanted to hold on was dominating. He could sense her beginning to panic over her own thoughts. He tried to think of what might have jogged her memory of something unpleasant: something on the TV, something he had said. All he knew was that she was in distress as she thought of something she was not up for sharing with him. She was struggling, frantically trying to escape his grip, but secretly wishing for him to hold on to her with knowledge that he would be the only thing around to save her from her thoughts. They continued to bite at her, and she simply could not push away the words that daunted her being. She hated herself in that very moment, unable to pretend she was satisfied. She looked behind her, her breathing heavily controlling her body. His red smile masked a harsh frown below a furrowed brow as he restrained her with certain ease.

You've hated the world as long as you've been alive. Your gray behavior is killing me inside, and I wonder if there's anything else I can do but try to omit anything that may be distressing you. I don't think I ever did love you. You never loved me either, so we may as well call ourselves strangers…

His grip loosened, but she chose to stay within his grasp pathetically.

We're enemies, I see. I'm too young, too immature. And you, only, what, thirteen? You're more mature than I am. There's something wrong. You are a monster. I am a monster, as is your father and any human being.

Sick, masochistic monsters.

Her face was burning with heat, not from embarrassment but from such harsh emotion. She wondered if he could understand at all. He merely stood cautiously at her side, wading in the pool that was her fit of emotion. His mind was racing and pounding as if he knew just what she was thinking. He had to remind himself that even if he did know what she was thinking, it was of no importance.

In the next instant, she was plastered against his side, breathing heavily as if she had almost died. She was banging her head against his shoulder as if to punish herself for even thinking at all. He stared at the top of her head, feeling no sympathy or any emotion at all for that matter. He wondered what suddenly made her think it was acceptable for her to go to him—for what, comfort? She must have legitimately, wholly and fully lost her mind…

"What?" he hissed, the scent of her hair wafting to his nostrils. "What?" He hatched an idea. "You wanna tell me another story…" All he had to do was say this and reach in his pocket before she had grabbed a fistful of his jacket and shouted a firm, "No." He took a chunk of her hair in his fist and tilted her head back slightly so that she was looking up at him. She was a pathetic mess of blotchy cheeks and watery eyes. "You are who you are," he said simply, massaging her head forcefully with his thumb. She winced. "What's done is done. The only sensible way to live in this world is with a smile." Relinquishing his grip on her hair, he smacked her face lightly and said, "Gimme a smile." Her mouth was agape, eyeing him with suspicion as she tried her best to frantically interpret what he was saying. When she did not heed his words, he sighed, peeling her off of him and turning her so that she was facing him. "How do you scrawny little humans survive like that?" he said, beckoning for her to look at him. "You all get shocked when you see a glimpse of something ugly in the world, like you're surprised…that it exists at all. Of course it exists. And that's what's funny. The fact that the world is only ugly because of people, who are afraid of an ugly world. Funny. Hiiiiiiiiiiiilarious!" He chuckled and pressed the bottle of water he'd intended for himself into her hands. "Can you smile now?" he asked again.

Half-heartedly, she smiled falsely, just to get him off her case. "What makes you care?" she muttered.

In a flash he was backing away from her. "Oh, I don't," he assured her. "In fact, it makes me all giddy inside when people forget that the world isn't going to change for their tears. I love it." He reached in his pocket for the remote he'd stored there and extracted it. "Now. I'm going upstairs to plan my debut in the newspaper. Would you like to join or bask in your sorrows?" Delicately offended, she shook her head to both options and opened the bottle of water he had given to her. "Suit yourself," he said submissively. "Have fun."

He cares, she said, deciding for him absent-mindedly. He just wants to say he doesn't.