Harleen sat on the floor of her bedroom with her back against the bed. Her long, light-blonde hair hung loose around her in waves and she twisted a lock of it around her index finger while staring at the wall.

Since her last session with the Joker she had poured over her notes, scribbling bits and pieces on a separate notepad and not quite making the connections she knew were there.

Not everything he had told her was a lie, she knew that much. It was discerning the truth from the lies and what the lies represented that frustrated her. In his mind, everything he told was the truth, at least at that moment. He'd passed a dozen polygraph tests, each time telling a different story.

The only straight facts he told were the ones which were common knowledge. He couldn't say that he hadn't blown up Gotham General Hospital. In fact, he was proud of it. That and everything else he'd done to drive terror into the citizens of Gotham in order to make them see 'the truth.' Reality as He saw it.

So she had brought him home with her.

Five file boxes worth of 'information' about the Joker. She knew that doing this at Arkham would only produce an exhibit which the staff members would trip over themselves to see. People would talk about it and word would get back to the Joker that Harleen had constructed it. And he would be furious.

To the untrained eye, it looked like a shrine to some pop culture figure that a lovesick teenage girl built in her bedroom. It was nothing different than what other professionals did in their line of work, police had their murder rooms; Harleen had the Joker's mind.

An assortment of photographs, newspaper articles, post-it notes, city maps and push pins adorned the vacant space which greeted her when she woke. She had also used a thin purple yarn to attach key points to one another, creating a web from the facts and his 'truths'. It was a chaotic mess, ever changing as new insights revealed themselves.

Harleen unwound her finger and picked up her cup of coffee. She stood in her pink pajama pants and cami and walked the length of the wall again.

In her time with the Joker, she had conducted a series of interviews with his victims and former associates as well as enemies. These people came crawling from the woodwork once he was caught and everyone assumed he would get the death penalty. No one had expected that he would actually be placed at Arkham. It was theorized that he was merely 'playing the crazy card' to get out of capital punishment.

Harleen suspected as much herself. However, she also realized that the man truly was suffering from severe mental illness no matter how much he cried sane. Harleen knew it was a blow to his ego.

If people thought he was sane, then his actions, He would be taken more seriously. He wanted to make a major social impact and he couldn't do that if people just thought of him as some crazy guy in a clown getup.

Her research had been successful to a point. She had traced him back to when the Joker first appeared in Gotham three years ago, not long before Batman came along. At first he was just some guy with scars on his face and had a different name for every day of the week except that he was also called Joker. His injuries had been new at the time and he began to adopt the clown persona he'd hewn so well in the present.

He had carefully crafted his persona. Joker knew a lot about clowns as he had gone on at length about them in a few of their early sessions. That had been when he'd started calling her Harley, for the bad joke of a name which had haunted her from the cradle.

"Why do you suppose people give their kids stupid, embarrassing names, Harley?" He'd asked her then. She had never been able to give him a good explanation. It was something she planned on bringing up to her parents this Chanukah.

"Harlequin was a man, you know." He'd smirked.

Harleen took a sip of her cold coffee and set it on the dresser before scanning the wall again. She stopped and touched her favored photograph of him.

"Who are you?" She asked quietly, as if reaching out and talking to this image would make him speak.

He was an amalgamation of traditional clown archetypes. He was a trickster and a haunting reflection of the inner darkness of society. He wore a suit complete with topcoat and tie and had a commanding presence; you could not help but notice him.

Yet he had gone by unnoticed for some time. When he staged his crimes he wore his suit and make-up. When he planned them and otherwise went about his business, he was like any other guy. Just a guy with unfortunate scars which people would look away from and allow him to pass by. No one wanted to look at him or know why he had those scars.

As the Joker, he made them look. He told them what they didn't want to hear. He turned their unease into fear and shame. He was as ugly on the outside as they were within to various degrees. Everyone has a little madness inside them.

Harleen picked up a stapled document from the bed and scanned it with her clear blue eyes. It was the most recent test results she'd had performed on him. Hair, blood and urinalysis; she'd wanted the results before her next session with him, which was the following morning.

When the Joker was captured, he'd been as high as a kite. An appreciable amount of cocaine, heroin, THC and alcohol had been in his system. His withdrawal had been horrible, both for himself and the staff. His former doctors had dismissed the drugs as a mere consequence of his criminal lifestyle.

Harleen had seen things differently. His drug abuse had told her a story of a sick man who was self-medicating with what he could get his hands on. Her peers dismissed this theory as well stating that a man who was self-medicating wouldn't flush his medicine the way the Joker did.

They had been wrong.

Once Harleen had taken over his case, she'd begun having him tested on a regular basis. She had been surprised at first and then validated once she looked over his history.

Joker was taking his medication, though not as prescribed.

After two weeks she'd found high levels of a drug he hadn't been given in two months. After that she saw peaks and valleys as well as consistent amounts of medications as she had been prescribing. He was hoarding specific medications while he took others and flushed some altogether. He was still self-medicating, only with better substances than he could obtain on the street.

She hadn't had his cell searched once she discovered what he'd been up to. No doubt he had the pills hidden in there somewhere, but she wasn't going to provoke him in any way which would cause him to stop taking medication altogether. Then he'd be back to square one, and nobody wanted that to happen.

He knew she was on to him. He never said so, but he never resisted testing and would complain about whatever medication he'd eighty-sixed. Otherwise, he was happy with their 'arrangement;' she hadn't reported him or changed how his medication was administered. She would make adjustments accordingly and he would go about his business.

With a final glance at the encircled word at the center of his mind, "Chaos," Harleen switched off the light and tucked herself into bed. The ambient light bathed his mind eerily, but she felt that was just another representation.

Chaos was where she would find him.

A/N: Thank you all for your reviews and readership!