(Extremely long) Author's Notes:
Hey, all my lovely amazing readers Thanks to EVERYONE for the latest reviews and alerts and faves…it encourages me beyond nothing else to know that you're all enjoying my fanfic and the way it's going so far. I have a horrible tendency to start fanfics (like this one) on a whim, and have no idea where I'm going to go with it until the end, or if I'm going to stick with it at all. I would really hate to abandon Dark Humor anytime soon, so I went ahead and took my time to make an outline of all the major plot points to come and I think the updates will come at a solid pace because of it (my first fanfic outline ever, so be proud, because I am..haha). I'm generally really an unorganized person That's just habit, I guess, haha.
ALSO: Sorry if the ending of the last Chapter confused anyone! Let me clarify it here instead of individual reviews (but I'm going to mention it again anyway) because it was vaguely written and I might rewrite it to have it make sense…but the Joker's goading Rachel into killing him was so intense along with her recent trauma from Harvey, Rachel ended up fainting for a minute or two, seeing the image of Harvey dying in her mind. She then woke up, still thinking she was facing the Joker and shooting at Batman instead who had arrived. It's confusing because I wanted to keep it in her perspective since she wouldn't really realize she had fainted in the first place; BUT I will go back and rewrite it if you all feel it needs further clarification just so it makes sense.
I just watched Batman Begins Sunday night! It's REALLY going to help a lot with my characterization of Rachel and even Bruce (with what little time he gets being second to Joker in this fanfic and all…) and I think I'll have to make her even stronger than I did before to make her really true to the movie character…although I prefer the Dark Knight (and, personally, Maggie Gyllenhaal to Katie Holmes as an actress, but that's just my opinion), I feel like they didn't really give much screen time to Rachel in regards to portraying her character as strongly as in Batman Begins. But then again, they had the Joker in the second, who was greedy and stole all the attention anyways…not that we mind that ;
A minor gripe for the first movie was that I thought they didn't give Scarecrow much strength : I liked him, but he went down really easily…I guess he wasn't the main villain in the first place though. Still…I need to go hunting for some decent Scarecrow fics to balance it out I guess. Hehe.
Needless to say, the first movie really inspired me, especially with this fanfic's theme of vengeance vs. justice…I'm really, really glad I watched it because I think I can make this fanfic much more solid and better quality/characterization for everyone reading and my own insanely high standards ; Honestly, as a writer, I have the bad habit of suffering through trying to make each chapter as good or better than the one before it, so sometimes I can be REALLY late with updates because I'm picking apart every sentence and tweaking/erasing large amounts of typed text because I feel it isn't really good enough or doesn't do what I want it to do. It really sucks…and I'm sure a lot of other people know what I'm talking about and have the same problem. So I'm REALLY glad for the inspiration I just got and REALLY genuinely glad that I have all the reviews and encouragement from people to keep me going even when I hit writer's block (over and over again…)
ANYWAYS, enough of my babbling…!
Individual thank-you's and replies:
OpenSoulSurgery: Thank you! : I'm glad you like the way I portray Rachel so far, I wasn't quite sure I did it justice, but it makes me happy to know you think so!
Kits-bunni: Thank you so much, you are too sweet…and yes, I HATE the fangirl syndrome (nice name for it by the way haha) that messes up potentially good stories…no matter how much we are batshit (pun intended?) crazy for the Joker. ; Don't worry, I'm just as much of a frothing fangirl as you are! I'm so glad you like the characterization :D
Kendra Luehr: It makes me giddy that you were giddy! :D Thanks so much, I'm glad you could envision everything…it's really weird when the stuff you write turns out like that, because your fanfiction is really easy to envision as well. And I was mulling over a lot of different ways to wrap that chapter up, but I decided having Batman come in because we NEED to give him SOME action in the fanfic since it's a "Batman" story technically…(I guess pout) Now why couldn't it just be called "Joker" instead? ;
Shiann Reece: Thank you so much! : Your wows make me so happy lol…I really hope I just keep doing the fanfic justice for you!
Xheartxcorex: Thank you! Yes, I agree, that part does seem like something Joker would do, I'm most proud of that part in the entire chapter actually lol, I'm glad you singled it out because it's my favorite part! : And yes, we all know the Joker can be such a bastard sometimes…but if he wasn't, would we love him as much? ;x
MizzStarlight: Thank you so very much, I'm glad to know your jaw dropped, hehe. I'm sorry about the confusingness of the last chapter…again, if you think it's not properly explained here or it just hinders the story in general, let me know and I'll rewrite that part. Thanks again for your advice.
OKAY, extremely long author notes aside…here's Chapter 3! As always, please please review and tell me what you think…and ENJOY! :
Love you all.
Dark Humor
Three
Justice is balance.
--Ra's Al Ghul
Morning came, a bleeding womb against the horizon of Gotham, penetrating Rachel's eyelids with its pulsing, silent scream and beckoning her into reality.
Morning in Gotham was always a blessing and a curse. A blessing for its people, because the criminals and fear-mongering crooked emptied the streets for a chance to live a fearless day; a curse, because those very same people were doomed to repeat the cycle another day. It wasn't the same for her, though—it was never the same, now that Harvey was gone. Rachel didn't have fear anymore, that same mortal fear that accompanied the feeling of weakness when overshadowed by one's enemy; she had emptiness, she had desperation.
Anger was stronger than fear. And sometimes, anger could eradicate it completely.
It was the first emotion that filled her as she woke up; mainly because, despite the grogginess and the temporary peaceful null that had invaded her mind in her dreamless slumber, she came to a rude awakening. Stretching sore muscles nimbly against her creaking mattress, she pulled herself to sitting position and groaned slightly as she readjusted the jagged-toothed blinds that assaulted her with rays of dawn's burning light to shut completely again, rendering her room a dim cradle of comfort, if just for a few minutes more.
She smoothed back her disheveled locks, feeling a bit dirty now that her mind was cleared from the other night's panic that she hadn't taken her nightly shower. As the girl hoisted herself from her creaking bed, with its groan of protest mirroring her own, she hopped surprisingly nimbly towards her bathroom, lathering and scrubbing and cleaning away as much of the week's filth and grime and sickness as she could. Rachel spent a long hour against the penetrating heat of the shower as it poured upon her bare skin, rubbing the soap so forcefully against her porcelain flesh that it caused her pain, her limbs pink and softened and nearly bruised when she was finished with her savage routine and reduced the scalding water to a lazy drip. No doubt a few bruises would form upon her delicate frame; she welcomed it, really, because she felt much, much cleaner now she had washed away any trace of the recent past.
Surveying her raw fingers quickly as she threw a towel about her slight frame and went to scour her closet for a black ensemble, Rachel was satisfied to see her turned palms a bright, beet red—not from blood, but from innocence, from purity. She almost felt completely clean, as if she had never imagined them just as red with another's blood.
Almost.
Satisfied with a simple black knee-length dress and heels, Rachel watched herself briefly in the mirror, at the reflection she had not seen since the incidents that had passed. Harvey's funeral was today—yet as she gazed at her own image, she felt as if they had missed another corpse in all the District Attorney's importance. She had gotten thinner these past few days—her cheeks were sunken, her eyes thick with bags that carried the weight of what she had just suffered through, her exposed collarbones sharp and laced with an age that did not come with physical passing, but the anguish and wearing of the mind. She still looked substantially the same, of course; no bruises or scars on her face, no burn marks to mar her delicate, easy breakable skin, nothing to show the telltale signs of loss, assault, nearly dying countless times within a devastatingly short time frame.
But who needed telltale signs when the most vital were in the most important part of her body itself—her mind?
For an instant, she envisioned herself as Harvey would have been, her face mangled and disfigured beyond recognition; muscles exposed and ugly in their burnt, oozing hideousness, bleeding red and purple and puss across the garbled flesh, the protruding bones from beneath the singed black layers of skin that were once so pristine and pretty, sharp and almost monstrous as they stuck from her cheeks, her arms, her constantly smiling, burned away face—
Let's put a smile on that face!
Harvey Dent will always smile, now.
"No!" She hissed, and before she knew it she was doubled over, clutching at her bent body as if something had impaled her, sharp and relentless, straight through the chest to her heart.
Rachel forcefully straightened her scrunched-up face, the unmistakable fear in her eyes that had never died away from the days prior. She wouldn't harbor that fear anymore—she couldn't. She would bury it. She would destroy it, just as everything dear to her had been destroyed. It was time to move on. It was time for Gotham to move on.
With a last, apathetic stare into the gleaming mirror, Rachel turned on her heel and began to clean the mess upon her floor, strewn carelessly across the carpet—across her conscience. Layers of clothing and files she smoothed and separated, discarding the former for cleaning, the latter for the soon-to-be newly rebuilt headquarters. It was an empty distraction, for a few solid minutes of drowning out the world—bringing back the humdrum order of placement, logic, organization.
Then she found the curled playing card that nearly formed a paper-cut along her trembling hand.
Murderer.
With a sudden, shuddering gasp, her eyes widened at the single accusing word—jaggedly written, its scarlet, caked appearance obviously the product of dried blood. The Joker leered at her from its black-faced portrait, inanimate, unmoving, inhuman. Bile tickled her throat and the haze of remaining fatigue upon her body seemed to melt away, replacing itself with the dormant anger she had momentarily been able to fight down with the normalcy of her morning routine.
Normalcy. What a fleeting fantasy.
But no…she couldn't let this get to her. She just couldn't. Sharp tears pricked at the corner of her eyes, her emotions spilling to life through the medium of her stunned body. She wiped them away with so much force her eyes felt raw as she rubbed them, flicking the card against the tabletop and fumbling angrily across the floor, to her kitchen countertop, through the disheveled cabinets for an ashtray.
Pulling a lighter in tow, she threw the ashtray down so forcefully her shaking hands nearly chipped at the delicate glass, and thrust the card rapidly against the tray's hollow surface.
Without a second thought, she flipped the lighter on and set the corner of the card on fire, watching it curl up as the flames spread to lick its dirtied surface, strong and hungry and devouring. A sick pleasure bubbled within her as she watched the Joker's face alight with flames, black and crisp and melting away as the entire card slowly burned, slowly yet surely curled in on itself like a withering leaf.
Burning, just like Harvey burned.
She watched the Joker burn into nothing on the papery surface, and for a quick moment, her aching heart soared.
It was then that the doorbell rang.
As Rachel watched the lower half of the card begin to slowly dissolve into an ashy nothingness, the ringing continued, loud and shrill and demanding. Her eyes widened as she heard the familiar voice outside her apartment door, wrought with what could only be worry—a constant tone of voice whenever he spoke to her now, it seemed. Bruce was practically pounding on the door, now, and Rachel noticed the sharp, almost overpowering smell of smoke coming from her tray was enough to pervade the doorway and attract the attention of others.
Fuck.
"Bruce?!"
"Rachel! Rachel, what's happening?"
"Ah—nothing, nothing! I was just…um…smoking…"
She winced at her excuse, having never picked up a cigarette in her short years of life and finding it a poor thing to say in her defense. Quickly, she pulled herself to her feet and threw the ashtray off the table, watching with a silent curse as it, and the burning card, skidded to the floor to shatter and ignite a corner of her carpet in miniature flames. Rachel stomped out the remainders of the fire with her heel, yet the broken glass covered the now ugly black mark that charred her white carpet. She winced as the pounding continued.
"Okay, okay! I'm coming!"
Practically running to her door for fear it would collapse, Rachel threw the bolt aside and leapt out of the way as it flew open, her childhood friend standing on the other end, his eyes hard with panic which he now frantically struggled to cover with the tightest smile he could offer her.
"Since when did you smoke, Rachel? Even I can't stand the stuff."
Rachel mirrored his tight smile with one of her own, though naturally more relaxed. She always thought she had been the more demure and subtle of the two,
"Ever since this week turned into a living hell and insisted I be the constant plaything of the Devil himself, that's when. What brings you to my apartment?"
Still standing in the doorway, the unmasked vigilante stood still for a moment, holding out his hands and furrowing his thick brows incredulously,
"What, and you aren't even going to invite me in to sit down? Coffee, even?"
Despite the recent emotional turbulence her body had been subjugated to, Rachel still found it difficult to fight back a grin. She forcefully blocked out the memories of the night before as she gazed up at Bruce's familiar, comforting frame, numbing her pain away with their timeless banter,
"You know I don't have my very own Alfred installed here. I make even instant inedible…you should know, after all, you've tried it before."
As she walked across the room, motioning for him to sit at the kitchen table, Bruce nodded in silent agreement, a grin playing on his own lips which she saw from her corner of her eye. She skirted the table with carefully concealed skittishness, hoping he wouldn't notice the very recent char marks against her once immaculate carpet—yet he did anyway, God damn him and his microscopic vision.
"Since when did you add the interpretive glass sculpture over there?" He asked smoothly, pointing at the broken remnants of the ashtray, "Or did you not know how to properly extinguish your first cigarette?"
Rachel bit her lip. She pulled herself dismissively into a seat, resting her weary head on her hands, elbows grinding against the surface of the table,
"It was an accident. You startled me when you were pounding on the door like a madman at approximately eight thirty in the morning, you know."
This was enough to draw the billionaire's prying eyes from the charred card to her own, his gaze creased with remorse,
"You had me worried for a second when you weren't answering. I…I've been worrying a lot lately, you know that."
Rachel studied him for a moment, surveying the hardened man that was the mirror image of her once-childhood friend and love. She gazed at his statuesque frame, his dark eyes set so perfectly within the sockets that they, too, would have appeared emotionless, frigid, if it weren't for the constant burning sentiments that always gushed out at her whenever he gazed straight at her own eyes. There was no doubt at all that he still harbored feelings for her, though all hers had dwindled, died out as soon as
Harvey had. And so she found she couldn't blame him for all the troubles she had caused him in living, after all, and the ensuing bitterness of the situation made her sigh and pat the nearby chair to invite him to take a seat.
"It's been a long, long week, Bruce. Believe me…I know all too well now how much Gotham and its people can worry."
Bruce nodded at her words, sitting obligingly near her hunched frame, his eyes desperately piercing her own again that heavy morning. It was funny how in the daylight Rachel could see nothing of Batman in that gaze—no familiar hardness, no extreme apathy to the point of being cold and cruel. It was only in his poise, in his practiced, stiff posture, that the true inert, hardened nature of the Batman was evident without the mask and the night to guard him, shift him like clay into a vicious, intimidating creature. She could see, for once, how his criminals, how everyday people would be capable of fearing him…yet for her to have such fear was in itself completely impossible. Especially with the undiluted caring in his eyes as she saw them now.
"Rachel. Are you…"
Bruce shifted almost uncomfortably in his seat, then, his frigid body coming for a moment to life as he fought for the words,
"…Are you alright? Really? This week has been so much to handle, especially for you. And with the likelihood that you'll be the head D.A. now, having been second-best…"
Rachel cut off his words, then, feeling the vicious urge to bite back any attempted reference by Bruce to Harvey. She didn't want that ache in her heart right now; she didn't want that dormant pain to rattle her nerves. Not yet.
"Bruce, it's okay. I've got my sleep, my rest…and we all go on, as does Gotham. The funeral's this evening; after all of it, after everything's wrapped up and over with…I'll be okay, too. I have to be Gotham now, don't I, now that I'll probably be D.A.? I have to be in touch with it, I have to be…a little more like Batman. So I can't let these emotions get the best of me, right?"
As she spoke, her voice gave more guilelessness to her words than her actual thoughts. She doubted she could ever heal from the events that had scarred her beyond repair; disfigured her, just as the Joker's leering, hideously torn grin, looking back at her even now when she struggled to have a normal conversation with her not-so-normal friend. Forcefully, she gazed into Bruce's eyes as he contemplated her words, seeming to try and analyze her with his own iron stare as if to see the truth within her soul, as if convinced that she was more hurt than she let on…which he would be completely right in thinking, anyway.
"Batman's only human, Rachel. And so are you. So was…"
He tensed, correcting himself before he could emit the blow,
"…So were all the other D.A.s before you. We're all humans trying to fight the ideal of crime. But that doesn't mean that we can just let ourselves get hurt and not confide in anyone. That we can just…walk away, crippled, and let no one help us while we recover."
Rachel fought the urge to roll her eyes as her frustration grew. For a horrifying moment, the anger rose within her again; but not for the Joker himself, but towards Bruce, towards Batman—why should he care when he wanted me dead in the first place? Why does he treat me like this, when he intended to leave me there to explode like—like…
"Bait."
The voice in her mind, the high-pitched squeal hissed as if haunting her, possessing her. She squeezed her lids shut and gave a deep, shuddering groan; one that she was sure would come off to Bruce as annoyance, exasperation.
"Listen, Bruce…"
Rachel gazed down at the glossy tabletop, watching her eyes in its pristine surface. They looked so heavy, so weighed down and worn…had she always looked this way, worn by work, weighed down by Gotham's troubles? When did it begin to take its toll on her? When would people notice her burden, want to label her as weak?
She shifted her fingers, watched them twitch against the tabletop unsteadily as they knitted together, broke apart, drummed across the table's surface,
"I know you think I'm weaker than the rest. Because…because we were friends for so long. You can see all my flaws; you can see all my setbacks. But from now on you have to see me as an associate, as someone like Harvey was, as Batman's friend as well as your own. We have to work together to ensure Gotham is safe, and no matter how much anything may hurt me, you have to let me stand on my own two feet for once."
She raised her head and met his gaze again, sucking in a deep breath to meet his unconvinced expression; his brows still knitted, his lips taut in a hard line against his stone-like face.
"Rachel, what did the Joker do to you last night?"
The unexpected question caught her off guard; she felt her eyes widen automatically, her hands dropping from the counter to fiddle distractedly across her lap, soothe her suddenly frayed nerves. Everything grew tense, then; her breath hitched, her body uncomfortably taut against her seat.
"He…he didn't do anything," She replied, keeping her voice as level and honest as it could possibly sound, because that part was true in a way, "We just…we just talked."
She knew as she spoke that he would be unconvinced. The vigilante didn't disappoint; he raised a brow, crossing his arms before his chest in what she knew to be his defensive posture,
"Talked? Rachel, when I saw you, you had fainted, and you were lying across the floor completely helpless while he was dragging you on the ground, laughing. He attacked you at least. And you had a gun in your hands and nearly shot me when you came to. You should have seen yourself, Rachel…you looked hysterical. You looked…"
Like the day before, when he scooped me up into his arms instead of Harvey, and I begged him to let me go and burn and die instead.
As she mentally finished his words, her stomach twisted at the memory. Rachel found herself staring at Bruce's form, lowered in a heavy tangle of thoughts, wondering what he could possibly be thinking at this point in their uncomfortable conversation. He was worried for her, of course, but at the same time she wondered if he still felt that gnawing, pervading guilt that nipped at her heels, threatened to devour her if she wanted for one moment to forget, to push it aside—the guilt that came with his failure to save Harvey, having brought her out of the building instead. And then he had nearly come too late again, when she had encountered the Joker…
But would he care if the Joker had somehow ended up turning my gun on me last night, and taking my life? Would he relish the balance, knowing that I was gone as well as Harvey, and he failed to save both lives instead of sacrificing one for the other?
Her mind rushed through the dark, pervading thoughts with reckless abandon, careless as to how it pierced and struck her heart, caused her chest to swell and ache. Bruce could be wishing she had died at that very moment, and she would never know—he could be wishing Gotham was still stronger with Harvey's survival, just as the Joker had told her, just as he had reasoned with her the night before—
No. Shut up! The man's crazy, he was trying to manipulate you into thinking this way. And here you are, letting him win. Don't let him win!
She bit her lip so hard she tasted blood as she pushed her thoughts away for her friend's sake. Rachel brought her hand against Bruce's again—still cold, yet heated by the warmth of his strong, firm skin. The heavy eyes looked up at hers, and she could see the weariness in them, the fatigue beyond sleeplessness that only the Batman himself could suffer.
"Bruce. We got through it, okay? We made it through the night, and it's another day. I…I don't remember what happened after I pointed the gun at him, and I don't want to. I want to move on. I want…"
She turned her head away, keeping the thought only in her head rather than foolishly spilling from her lips.
Vengeance. Justice. Retribution.
"…a new beginning. I was hysterical last night, yes, and I wasn't thinking when I barged in and saw him, I was just…angry. But it's gone now, it's okay. We made it out fine, and now we can fix everything."
Bruce watched her with a strange new emotion behind his black irises; Rachel couldn't quite read it, yet as he nodded slightly, she saw the gleam and realized it was the strangeness of recognition, as if he had truly seen her for the first time after years upon years of friendship.
"Do you remember…when we were younger, and Chill was shot?"
His gaze was unfaltering, adamant. She swallowed the lump in her throat as she felt him stare with such solid desperation it was as if they were in the interrogation room; her, the criminal, him the relentless questioner. Without another moment's hesitation, she nodded in response, wanting him to stop, to stop making such stupid, foolish comparisons to his own life, to his own past.
"Do you remember what you told me, when we were in the car together, and you…you slapped me when I showed you my own pistol, after wanting to have shot him out of vengeance?"
She nodded again, sudden anger blooming in her veins at his continued comparison of the two of them. Rachel had been younger, hadn't lived through the death of the man she had no doubt in her mind she had truly loved—what had she known about vengeance, then; let alone loss, grief, anger? She was a young D.A. all those years ago, naïve and stupid, driven by ideals that had burned days ago and collapsed in on themselves in the aftermath of devastation. Her throat burned as she swallowed, pushing back the outrage that balled like a solid mass within her.
"What did you say then?"
Bruce asked her after what seemed to be a long pause, having been made short by her own turbulent thoughts. Her eyes met his and she prayed he was shielded from the searing, terrifying rage within her. She licked her suddenly dry lips quickly, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear,
"I…I said that justice was about harmony. I said revenge was selfish, only about making yourself feel better. That our system was…impartial."
The words burned as they slid from her tongue; for every syllable, for every slur of her lips, she knew them now to be a lie. The system could be corrupt, she had been taught that through years of fighting the mob in desperate court battles, suffering the mob's corruption of the police force, and justice was a twisted notion. Why else would they have to rely on a masked vigilante for the city's welfare? Why else would Harvey have died and left this place defenseless?
Bruce seemed satisfied by her words, a small grin playing on his lips,
"I took what you said to heart. I realized that vengeance was no way to ensure the safety of Gotham and of its people—we needed impartial justice. That's why the Joker's death last night wouldn't have solved anything, Rachel. We need him alive to put on trial and lock away in Arkham, not dead so we would end up on his level. "
Her lip was quivering. She felt it so strongly she knew it was impossible to stop now that Bruce had undoubtedly seen it; squeezing her eyes shut so tightly that multicolored lights danced before her eyes, Rachel buried her face in her hands and drew in a deep, shuddering breath.
"Rachel?" Bruce murmured quietly, his voice almost pleading with her like a silent prayer, "Rachel, what's…"
"So what's going to happen if we don't kill him, hmm?"
Her voice was surprisingly strong, the strongest it had been in a very long time, almost a shout when it came from her previously pursed lips, the black anger kindling within her and ready to burst,
"The Joker escaped before, and with it he left countless bodies in his wake. Are we just going to keep locking him up again and again with him coming back stronger every time? Is the body count going to skyrocket even more? Don't treat me like an idiot, Bruce. You wouldn't be lecturing Harvey on the principles of morality if he was still alive, and I'm not a child to be lectured to. I know what it's like to lose someone close to me—to talk to him before he died. And you want us to just sit back and lose more and more people we care about? Is that what you want, Bruce?! Because I'm not letting it happen any more!"
She was shouting, then, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, her brain pounding against her skull with the exertion of every word that poured through her lips like fluid acid to sting and burn and damage the man before her. Bruce stared at her with a look that was indescribable; he pulled himself to his feet, straightening his crisp jacket and tie, and after a short, tense silence, began to walk towards the door,
"I'm sorry you feel that way, Rachel. I'm sorry that Batman failed you."
Rachel sat there, inert and still, her lips pursed, immense guilt weighing heavily on her shoulders like lead despite the sickening satisfaction that pulsed inside of her like a living, purring animal. Both fought for control, the living, thriving smugness and heavy, suffocating guilt, so overwhelming at that moment she felt as if she were being torn apart with every passing second. As Bruce pulled the door opened, and began to walk across the threshold from her apartment to the outside world, Rachel felt as if he were tearing himself away from her forever.
"Bruce…" She whispered dryly to the air, yet he slammed the door behind her with such force she doubted he had even heard the silent plea from within her.
oOo
The phone was ringing.
Rachel had drifted at some point in time, had succumbed to a mid-morning nap; she knew this when she pulled herself heavily from the darkness of her couch and felt across the wooden desk nearby for the shrill, leaping cell phone at her side. Judging by the light that still drenched the floor gratuitously through the blinded windows, it was mid-afternoon, still a good hour before Harvey's funeral. Her head pounded as if she had knocked out with illegal drugs to her system, her mind still groggy as she picked up the persistent phone and pulled it to her face, fighting back a yawn. She didn't even care if it was Bruce on the other line; she just wanted the damn phone to shut up and let her sleep a little longer.
The name that flashed at her across the screen made her heart drop and her fatigue die away.
Harvey Dent.
Her breath caught in her throat as the phone continued to ring, persistently, adamantly, its screaming voice jarring her aching brain, winding chills through her twisting spine, reducing her stomach to liquid in all her horrified panic. Was she dreaming? Was this a sick joke?
The dread settled in a knot along the pit of her stomach as she pushed any tempting thoughts away—that it really was the man whose funeral was in mere hours, whose name blinked rapidly across the screen, causing her cell to vibrate and scream and shudder as if possessed. It seemed as if it would never stop unless she answered. She had frozen still for at least a solid minute, the name boring into her sight and dizzying her with all its implications.
It was only when Rachel pulled the phone to her ear that she realized she had been violently shaking.
"Hello?"
Her voice was scratchy, quivering.
She didn't expect the shrill, piercing laughter on the other end.
"Good morning, sleeee-ping beyooo-ty! I thought you'd never answer your goddamn phone—I would have had to pay you a visit myself!"
Her heart sank; she felt her knees turn to liquid, dragging her body down into the couch. For a moment Rachel's eyes flicked from the wall before her towards the door of her apartment, as if the voice on the other end would barge through at any moment, as if he were watching her through the peephole, waiting for his chance to invade and attack. The thought caused her to shudder, though the dormant hatred pricked at the edges of her flesh in needles as the Joker taunted her.
Bracing herself, she dug her free fingers into her palm, the force biting through skin and leaving crescent-shaped marks red with blood that sent adrenaline through her system,
"I see you're not only a murderer, but a thief too."
An amused chuckle on the other line, followed rapidly by a high-pitched response,
"Well then, a murderer? I guess that makes the two of us."
The anger that bubbled against her spine and ran along the back of her neck felt as if it would tear her apart as she pressed the phone hard against her ear,
"I don't understand what the fuck you're talking about. I told you, your mind-games don't work with me."
An exaggerated pause, only to be followed by a whistle of mock awe,
"Ooh, and you're just as feisty and violent as you are in person! But I guess you'd have to be, seeing as how vicious you really are underneath that pretty exterior. Why, you almost blew me apart the other night—and you would have succeeded, too, if it wasn't for the Bat having rudely interrupted us! Well, and your teeny little fainting spell as well…"
Rachel could hear the sarcasm dripping with each word he spoke through his cracked, scarred lips; she could imagine him now, his reptilian tongue snaking through his red maw in animalistic hunger for her retort, his eyes burning with savage amusement at her expense. She could tear the phone apart with the strength in which she gripped it, could even hang up and fling it into the wall—yet a part of her didn't want to budge, not in the slightest. A part of her wanted to talk to the sick bastard.
"To think," He continued mercilessly, his voice lower in an almost conspiratorial whisper, "If Batman knew how you never seem to keep yourself composed around me! Tied up, fainting…I must really know how to please a woman, don't I? Maybe even better than your precious little Harvey, I'm sure he was too self-absorbed to give you any fun in the first place…"
"Shut up and tell me what you want!" She hissed, her voice so loud she was sure those on the street through her window could hear her.
A loud, satisfied cackle and whooping burst from the other end of the phone, so intense she could hear crackling on the other end,
"I just wanted to continue our enchanting little conversation the night before. You know, our little bond session, our heart-to-heart. To think we were making some progress in being good friends before the Batman showed up and wanted you all to himself! Now that's just rude, and I feel cheated. I want us to… talk some more, one-on-one, somewhere where we can't be disturbed."
Rachel wanted to scream. She wanted to pull the bastard through the phone itself (if it were at all possible) and kill him right there. Did he think her that stupid? His mockery made her seethe as she retorted sharply,
"And what if I don't want to?"
A quick pause, then, as if she had managed to unnerve him; he spoke casually, confidently, completely unfazed by her words of defiance,
"Well then, I'll just have to drop by a certain dearly beloved's sending off and look for you myself. And to think you were over him so fast, with that man in your apartment earlier today…"
She actually gasped; a chill ran down her spine as she pulled herself to her feet, at a loss for words. He knew where she lived. He had been watching her! A hideously excited cackle burst from the other end of the line, strong and forceful in all its vicious mirth,
"Don't worry, there's no fun in ending our little friendship too soon! I won't violate you…well, at least your home."
Rachel could feel him smiling, the slippery red grin oozing into her body as if penetrating her,
"You're a sick bastard. Leave Bruce out of this."
The clicking of a tongue in a "tsk-tsk" noise, as if he were scolding her,
"Ah-ah-ah, you are a naughty girl, aren't you? Entertaining a guest in the middle of the morning and then telling me who not to play with?! Why I think I have to play with him now, just because you don't want me to…and I can think of some very fun games to play."
She couldn't take this anymore. Rachel leapt to her feet, staring wildly about her once-peaceful living room, her body tense as she ran to the door and checked the locks again and again,
"Damn it, if you want to talk to me, then talk to me, just don't hurt Bruce! Do whatever you want to me, not him!"
A low chuckle; suggestive, now, dripping with perversion. The high-pitched voice was overly husky, almost rasping,
"Whatever I want? I like the sound of that, I like it…alo-tuh. Oh, but don't worry! I'll be seeing you very soon, in less than…oh, an hour now—and then we can all play! Until then, beautiful!"
Sadistic laughter tore at her eardrums, caused her to wince as the line suddenly shut, the hollow noise ringing through her head as she pressed her cellular snug against her hip, allowing it to dig into her flesh. For a moment the dread took hold of her, and she panicked; her fingers swiftly dialed Bruce's number, tongue held between teeth, fists clutched.
One ring, two…
No one answered.
Rachel swore and shut it quickly, struggling to regain her composure and think.
After a moment, she knew what she had to do. She couldn't tell Bruce—she wouldn't let his absence from the funeral and Batman's sudden appearance cause the Joker to deduce his identity, but what if the Joker did try to hurt him, or had gotten to him already—? Swearing frantically, Rachel ran to retrieve her keys, stowing them away in the pocket of an overcoat she swung rapidly about her shoulders. She couldn't just sit here, not when the funeral was suddenly so close, not when she knew it would be ravaged by the loss of lives again…because of her own stupidity.
Without another thought, she forced her door open and shut it quickly, knowing she would be at least an hour early for her late fiancée's funeral—but in her mind, it could already be an hour too late.
