He struggled to breathe against the constriction in his chest and throat as the burning vomit fought its way out of his stomach. Lights flashed around him and the only sound was his strangled gags.

He felt like he was dying, drowning on the cold hard cement floor of his cell.

This was not how the Joker had planned to die. He'd wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, flames and screams that were not his own. A death people would see when they closed their eyes, in their memories and nightmares.

Not this pathetic seizure, 'killed by kindness' at the hand of his doctor.

All at once the stranglehold subsided and he drew a deep breath and choked on his own vomit. He rolled onto his side and coughed and spat the acidic fluid out of his mouth.

Then he could breathe, the effort its own reward and punishment from his body's war against itself.

He lay like that for a while, knowing the guards had either not seen the seizure, or were laughing their asses off at him. He preferred the former; he didn't like it when people saw him when he was vulnerable.

Weak.

Only twice before had anyone seen him so completely exposed. The first had been when that bastard had torn his face open, laughing at him while his wife lay dead on their bed and their baby screamed in the next room.

Now when he heard a baby crying he saw her face, her vacant eyes staring at him, telling him he was a failure.

Then there was Batman and his magic grappling hook. Joker had been laughing happily as he rapidly approached his end, his blaze of glory. Then his leg had exploded with pain and shattered bone and blood as the hook caught it and jolted him to a stop.

He hung there, suspended by a bolt on a wire and watched the upside-down world spin around him. His glory denied, he laughed and laughed at each wrenching pull and yank of that bolt in his flesh. He held out a small hope that it would tear loose and he would fall again.

Fall into the madness awaiting him below as the people of Gotham writhed in fear and chaos. Fall into her arms if she would still have him.

He touched his sore throat gingerly and remembered the faces of the SWAT team training their guns on him, as if he could do anything hanging from that wire. He laughed at the absurdity of their logic.

He remembered the faces of the EMT staff who worked on him and the doctors at City Hospital. Some of them had suggested giving him a shot, a little too much pain medication and he would be out of their lives forever. They were Batman's good people.

"Get up, Chuckles." A voice called from the wall. Joker craned his neck to see the small square in the door and the guard's face on the other side of the glass.

"Who, me?" Joker pointed at his chest, indicating himself.

"Can it, wiseass." The voice replied.

Joker rolled to his knees and slowly stood and walked unsteadily to his bunk and flopped down upon it. If anything, he covered a lot of distance when he seized.

The door opened and two guards entered, followed by Doctor Harley. Joker smiled when he saw her face, so stoic and serious like nothing ever happened last night. He giggled to himself. One of the guards, Briggs, glared at him.

"Where'd you get the lipstick?" He said incredulously, before setting his face in the scowl he usually wore. Joker glanced at Harley as saw the panicked expression she wore.

"Your mother" Joker replied. "She wanted me to be all pretty when I go down on her boy." Joker fluttered his lashes and licked his lips suggestively. He got the desired response.

Briggs pulled his baton without a second thought and cracked Joker across the head and neck with it.

"Shut it, you queer, faggot boy, motherfucker." Briggs spewed a litany of curses as he wailed away at Joker and the other guard tried to stop him.

"Hey, knock it off Briggs, goddammit!" The other guard shoved Briggs hard and Joker laughed and put a hand up.

"Oh help me, save me!" Joker said in a feminine voice and giggled as he saw Harley move in the corner of his eye. Before he got out another word or gesture she made her move.

"Stop it!" She cried and grasped at Briggs arm.

The rest played in slow motion as Briggs yanked his arm forward, pulling Harley off-center. He turned slightly and rammed his arm backward and caught her across the face with his elbow. Harley dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes.

Joker lost the ability to think.

He was on his feet and on Briggs in a second. He shoved the man against the cinder block wall. He twisted Brigg's arm until the man screamed and he let go of his baton.

Joker went to work, hammering away at the man with the wooden implement, snarling like a dog and barking like a hyena.

Screams and shouting filled the air around him but all Joker saw was a faceless man, laughing and laughing at him.

I love it more when they scream.

He felt a jolt tear through him like fire and he fell backward and dropped to his knees and then his side, trembling uncontrollably. Not a seizure. The jolt stopped but sharp pains shot through his body. He saw shadows moving around him, but heard one voice clearly.

"Stop!" Harley cried out and hands were on his shoulders and turning him.

"Son of a bitch! He killed Briggs!" A man yelled.

"Step away from him, Doctor Quinzel." Another voice called.

He saw her face, her expression was concerned and she pushed hair back from his forehead and shined a light in his eyes.

"Joker?" She asked. He blinked at her as the shocks began to subside.

She sat back on her haunches and pulled two syringes from her pocket. She uncapped them quickly and looked him in the eyes as she injected him with God knew what. She set the syringes aside and grabbed one of his hands, he tried to pull away but suddenly felt…

Weak.

Harley was the only one clear to him as the shadows moved about the room. He saw blood smeared on the wall and on Harley's face. She leaned closer and squeezed his hand. He squeezed hers back, falling into oblivion.

Harleen watched the consciousness drift away from the Joker's eyes as the lids closed and he went limp on the floor. She cast a glance at the nurses who were working on Briggs to their right but knew there was little they could do for him.

Joker had killed the man with the second or third blow of the baton.

They lifted Briggs' body onto a gurney and wheeled it from the room, leaving her with the other guard and the Joker. The sight was a chilling reminder of what could have happened to her the night before. Her eyes met the guards.

"I want him taken to the showers. Clean him up and put him in a padded cell in a straightjacket." She stated matter of fact. The guard nodded and she stood.

She watched quietly as they loaded Joker onto a gurney and took him away. Then she glanced around the cell, and began to walk around the small space.

The bloody baton and smears on the wall spoke of the violence which had just occurred. She toed a pill on the floor and glimpsed something plastic on the floor by the sink. She walked over and picked up the plastic zip bag, with a pill still caught inside.

She nodded to herself that she'd found what he'd been keeping his pills in. Now where had he been keeping them?

She knelt and felt around the cracks between the toilet and sink and the wall. There wasn't enough space there to squeeze a bag of pills. She found two more pills lying beside the toilet.

That morning she had heard all the messages on her answering machine. She had been so frazzled the night before that she had not caught sight of the blinking light as she fled to her bedroom. When she woke she heard Dr. Smiths' messages with increased urgency in his voice in each one.

That had led to a frantic search for her cell phone, to no avail. A chill ran down her spine as she remembered the last person who'd been near her purse. She'd shaken that alarm off; she should have heard her phone ringing hours before Joker had gone through her purse.

She had called her cell and no one had answered. She had half-expected to hear Joker answer with a string of giggling and laughter.

She'd dressed quickly and headed to the Asylum to see to her patient's needs. Joker hadn't bothered to tell her that he'd been having seizures, but that he had been having them explained the menace he'd shown toward her. She'd made him sick and he was pissed off about it, as well he should have been.

Harleen had lain awake a long time, thinking about what she'd done to him and what he'd said. He'd said her job would be threatened and that had struck her as odd. Of all the things he could do to hurt her, getting her fired was what he'd taunted her with.

He knew it was important to her; that was why he'd said it. His game was manipulation and he was great at it.

She'd acquired a sedative and anti-seizure medication from the pharmacy and then headed to Joker's cell to administer them. And she wanted to apologize to him.

It wouldn't mean anything to him, she knew that. But she desired a clear conscious, something he would call selfish but then who wasn't selfish? To him, everyone was.

She walked over to his bunk and knelt, looking beneath it and then ran her fingers over the top and bottom of the thin mattress. It smelled of urine which she'd expected from the seizures he'd been having. Then he'd been forced to lie in his own filth by the staff. Say what they may about him, but Harleen didn't think he would choose to live this way on the outside.

She felt along the side of the mattress, along the wall and her fingers found a crevice. She dipped her fingers inside and then leaned across the mattress and dug within the hole. Her fingers found a couple of objects which she retrieved. One was a makeshift shiv, the other was some sort of device constructed from a battery some wire a couple of screws and a piece of metal.

She frowned at the weird little device and then pocketed it and the shiv then left the cell to allow the orderlies to clean it out. The Joker would not be returning to this room.