Waking up in a padded cell didn't faze Joker. Swimming in a haze of sedatives he rolled himself to a sitting position and fell heavily back against the wall which supported him.

The straightjacket pulled uncomfortable against him. His shoulders and elbows ached from the strain of constriction and being pulled in so many directions at once. Then there was the whole bladder issue.

Doctor Smith had deduced that Joker's bladder must sit farther forward than average which made him feel like he had to piss constantly when he was in a straightjacket. Depending on who was on staff and what their mood was like was what determined whether he would escorted to the bathroom or left alone to void and sit in his own urine.

He had to go, urgently. He wasn't the type to beg for it though.

"Hey!" He yelled. After a minute or so passed he called out again and saw a face peer in the small window in the door.

"Gotta piss." Joker called out to the guard who made a face. The man disappeared and Joker laid his head against the padding.

He often wondered if it was a shift assignment or if the guards drew straws to see who had to take the prisoners in isolation to the bathroom. It was never a pleasant venture. They only unhooked the bottom strap of the jacket and had to "handle" the mechanics themselves.

Joker realized that had been when he'd gotten himself on Brigg's shit list. He couldn't help himself and loved to fuck with the guards. The look on Brigg's face the first time he'd had to touch Joker's penis had been priceless.

It wasn't long before a guard came to escort Joker to the bathroom and they went through all the indignities of the ritual. This one wasn't one of the 'fun' guards; he was one of the day shift guys so Joker knew he hadn't been out for long.

"You like your job, Woods?" Joker asked passively, focusing on the cracked tile wall and his aching joints. The guard snorted derisively.

"I could think of better ways to pass the time." Woods replied.

"You there this morning?" Joker asked. Woods briefly caught his eye, contempt in his expression.

"Yes." The man said looking away. Joker frowned at the Arkham staff moving this guard from High Max to Isolation just for him. Joker licked his lips and didn't taste her lipstick anymore. He realized his hair was damp and it hung stringy over his face.

Wash him up, wrap him up, and throw him in the pillow room. Joker shook his head and Woods finished buttoning him up before washing his own hands. He pushed Joker lightly and aimed him at the door and then back to his cell.

Joker lay on the thin mattress in the corner of the cell. Why they bothered putting them in padded cells was beyond him. He studied the creases and folds of the material lining the walls and floor of the cell. The ceiling was tiled and Joker chuckled. He supposed of anyone in a straightjacket made it up there, then the Arkham staff had bigger things to worry about.

He moved about in his jacket, trying to get comfortable. He wasn't getting out of this one. The trick to getting out of a straightjacket was all in slack and to get that, you had to be awake in order to create as much slack as possible while they put the jacket on. Forget about dislocating anything, without slack you weren't going anywhere and then you were stuck with a dislocated shoulder to boot.

He closed his eyes and thought of someone he'd rather have his arms around.

"Doctor Arkham!" Harleen called sharply, her heels clicking loudly as she barreled down toward the man. The older man turned his tall, thin frame and quirked a highly arched brow in his lined face.

"Yes, Doctor Quinzel." He said in a kind voice, smiling. Harleen stopped before him and folded her arms indignantly, her fury radiating from her small body.

"There is a matter we need to discuss." Harleen snapped.

"Doctor Arkham," a voice said behind her. She turned to see Commissioner Gordon approach and then the two men looked at her and then one another.

"I believe we are about finished here. I would like to have a word with you before we leave." Gordon said and glanced at Harleen. Arkham nodded and placed a hand on Harleen's shoulder.

"I will see you in a few minutes." Arkham replied and Harleen flushed dark red.

'A few minutes? What were her issues so trivial that the great Jeremiah Arkham could only spend a few minutes of his precious time with her.' She thought as Arkham steered her back into the room she had just vacated.

She wheeled on him when he closed the door, pointing at him and accidentally poking him in the chest. She curled her fingers into her palm and dropped her hand to her side feeling a little foolish.

"What seems to be the problem, Harleen?" He asked softly, trying to defuse her. She sighed heavily.

"Commissioner Gordon seems to know quite a bit about me and Joker, more than he should know based on privacy laws." She said.

"Are you referring to the fact that you were taken hostage by him at Gotham General? That is in the police reports, Harleen, you gave a statement." He replied.

"Gordon implied that I have an inappropriate relationship with Joker." She said. "He also told me that Joker killed Samuel Petersen because Joker told you he was trying to protect me." She snapped. Arkham laughed.

"Harleen, if I felt that anything inappropriate was going on between you and any patient, you would have been fired by now. As for Petersen," he smirked, "the Joker had other reasons for killing him. Gordon was merely manipulating my statement in an attempt to coerce information from you."

"Why did you tell him what Joker said at all?" She asked bewildered. "And why would he make up such a story as that?"

"Oh, Petersen did tell the Joker he was planning to do…disturbing things to you. We have Jonathan Crane's statement to corroborate that." He replied.

"Crane?" She frowned. "I was not aware that he had any interaction with Crane."

"There are a lot of things the Joker doesn't tell you." Arkham replied. Harleen flushed.

"Have you been treating my patient?" She said accusingly.

"I have been having sessions with the Joker the entire time he's been at Arkham. I do run this facility." He said sharply.

"But withholding that information from his primary psychiatrist is not going to help with his treatment. You're keeping his secrets, facts which could be key to discovering the root of his psychosis and his true identity." She replied. Arkham shook his head.

"Do you really think the knowledge that he wants to sleep with you would help his treatment and the progress you've made with him?" He asked. Harleen's eyes went wide and her face paled.

"I periodically review your sessions with the Joker." He said. "It's quite obvious that he has kept those, thoughts to himself when talking to you. I had my concerns that his attraction would compromise his treatment. However it seems to have built the foundation of a trusting doctor/patient relationship."

Harleen was speechless. She felt numb and looked at her fingers which she played with nervously. In her mind she saw them in his cell together and how he would draw away from her when she touched him. She felt his face pressed against her neck and shoulder, the way he'd stroked her hair and her hands the night before. His breath on her skin, his lips pressed momentarily against it.

"Has he spoken with you about that night at the Pruitt Building?" She heard herself ask. She looked at Arkham who made a sympathetic face.

"He doesn't remember you Harleen." He replied.

Deciding they were finished, Arkham stepped out of the room and left Harleen there, bewildered. She slipped her hand into her pocket and felt the objects she had retrieved from Joker's cell. She drew a settling breath and then left the room as well and made her way to the isolation ward all the while feeling numb and slightly unsettled.

Once she had entered the ward, she stood quietly in front of Joker's cell for a few minutes while the guards did their shift change. She glanced in the window and saw Joker lying on the thin mattress on the floor, bound in his straightjacket and staring at the ceiling.

A guard and a nurse approached her and Harleen took the syringes from the nurse and sent her away and then entered the cell, leaving the guard outside the door he closed behind her.

Joker glanced at her lazily and then rolled to his side and moved himself into a sitting position. He looked at her quietly and tilted his head, studying her.

"You look ugly." He said without mirth.

"Thanks, you too" she said looking at the fresh bruises he bore as well. He snorted and a small smile crept across his lips, but didn't stretch his scars. It was a pleasant smile to look at and one she wished she'd seen more often, it did make him more attractive than the usual theatrical expressions he usually made. It was in his eyes.

She approached him and knelt beside him, revealing the syringes, he made a face that ruined his smile.

"What's that, Antifreeze?" He asked sarcastically. Harleen looked at the floor and his bare feet, the long nails on his toes.

"No, I think we're beyond that." She said and looked at him. "I need to remove your jacket."

"Shouldn't you have a guard do that?" He asked looking away.

"I know you're not comfortable in that." She said noting how he shifted in his constraints which were fastened tighter than was necessary.

"What makes you think that once I'm out of this jacket I won't grab those needles and chase you around the room with them?" He said looking at her seriously.

The image of him doing so popped into her mind and instead of being horrified she found it hilarious. She started laughing. A moment later he joined her. She moved close to him and he sat forward, still laughing as she began releasing the straps. In a couple of minutes he was out of the jacket and he grabbed it and whipped it across the room.

"I hate those damned things." He said glaring at it.

He rolled his arm over and held it out to her while she donned latex gloves and wiped his skin with an alcohol swab. She made the injections quickly and then capped the syringes and handed him a piece of gauze as she took the syringes out of the room. Upon her return she saw him pressing the gauze against his skin.

"What did they use on me" he asked casually looking at her curiously, "this morning when they took me down."

"A taser" she replied as casually. He raised his brows.

"Hmm, I'd never been tased before." He said and looked amused.

"I don't think I've ever met someone before who made that a goal in life." She replied. He shrugged.

"Now you have. So let's cut through the bullshit, hmm?" He said breaking the tension they had been dancing through.

Harleen removed the small wired device from her pocket and approached him, holding it out for him to see.

"What is this? Is this what you used to get out of your cell last night?" She asked studying his face. He chuckled.

"Bingo," he smirked and quirked a brow at her. "You don't know what it is?"

"No. Enlighten me if you would." She replied sitting on the floor.

"It's an electromagnet," he said as if explaining it to a child. "The locks here are electronic; do I have to explain the rest to you?"

She was momentarily surprised and then remembered that Jack Napier was an engineer. She wondered how long he had been slipping out of his cell.

"I recall reading some papers a guy wrote about electromagnetism and radiation, but honestly it's a little out of my field." She replied. He laughed.

"A physics joke out of you, who would have thought" he shook his head, she looked perplexed and he laughed harder knowing she didn't understand what he meant. She was starting to feel stupid again.

"You wanna know how Crane did it?" He asked, his laughter sputtering out.

"Oh yes, I heard the two of you were friends." She replied. He frowned and she swallowed hard.

"I was informed this morning about your motive behind killing Samuel Petersen." She said. He grunted and looked unhappy.

"That guy was the lowest form of garbage there is. If I hadn't done it, inevitably someone else would have. Do you know why he was here?" He peered at her. She shook her head. He pursed his lips.

"I don't like people who rape and murder ladies and little kids." He said choosing his words carefully.

Harleen's interest was piqued; they had never discussed rape before because to their knowledge he hadn't committed the act. Even when he had her and the others captive, he never made a move on any of the women and…discouraged the thugs in his crew who had.

"So it had nothing to do with me?" She prodded. He looked at her, chewing the scars on the inside of his mouth.

"I was having a bad day." He replied and looked away. "We're not discussing this anymore."

"How did Crane do it? Well, what did he do and how did he do it?" She asked. He mused not seeming as excited as he had been moments before. She could blame the medication but she knew that she'd said something to upset him. Something about the Petersen situation had struck a nerve which ran deep.

"Fear night." He replied. She sighed and frowned at him.

"He was dumping fear toxin into the water main under Arkham for months and then," she paused trying to find the right word, "dispersed it." He looked at her with a glint of amusement again.

"Do you know how he dispersed it?" He asked. She knitted her brow and thought about it. Nothing had been officially released about how Crane had actually aerosolized the toxin. Only that a train was somehow involved.

"Were you helping him?" She asked. Joker shook his head.

"No, no. We traveled in the same circles but we never met until I was brought here." He replied.

"And you became such good buddies that he told you how he did that?" She asked sarcastically. He shook his head grinning maniacally.

"He didn't have to. You see, he used a device called a Microwave Emitter. It was originally designed for desert warfare to vaporize the enemy water supply." He beamed. The magnitude of such a weapon hit Harleen, it was monstrous; it would create so much suffering.

"God, like some kind of awful Doomsday Machine," she said shaking her head with amazement.

"God had nothing to do with it," he smirked. "I invented it."

"What?" She stared incredulously. He laughed his insane cackle and grinned at her.

"I lied." He said, suddenly serious.

"About what?" She asked. He shrugged.

"Nothing, everything," he gave her that small smile again.

She was mystified. She put the electromagnet which she had clutched in her hand back in her pocket and moved to sit beside him, watching his reaction. His expression remained unchanged and she studied his features. His soft dark eyes and long stringy hair, nearly half of it blonde and the rest a faded green. His fingernails were too long. She could hear Selina's voice in her head.

"Tell him you want to run your fingers through his nasty green hair."

"You're not ugly." He said quietly.

"Hmm?" She snapped out of her thoughts.

"You're not ugly." He replied. "In fact you're…quite pleasing to look at."

"Thank you," she said unable to come up with anything else. "You look like the Wild Man of Borneo."

He laughed and she realized he was the only man who would take that as a compliment. The 'Wild Man' being a street performer, a clown like him.

Out of nowhere he had placed both hands on the floor on either side of her and his face close to hers, his nose brushing against hers. His eyes were half-open and looking into her surprised ones. He leaned closer and pressed his lips against hers.

The kiss was brief and chaste and as quickly as he had come at her, he returned to his former place wearing an unreadable expression as he watched her. She stared back at him, surprised and a little frazzled. She coughed and rubbed the back of her neck with her hand and thought about how Arkham said that Joker wanted to sleep with her and how Selina said he decided it was finally time he made his move.

"I'll bet it was like sex for him."

"Harley?" His voice broke into her thoughts.

"I can't find my cell phone." She returned. He frowned. "I would have been here last night, earlier yesterday but I can't find my phone. I'm sorry."

"Don't think that what happened this morning was your fault." He mused and shook his head. "Don't do that. In a couple days this will all be over and you'll never have to see me again."

She nodded quickly and stood and made a hasty retreat from the cell without looking back at him. Not that he called her back or gave her any indication that he wanted her to stay. She hurried out of the isolation ward trying not to be obvious and retreated to her office. What used to be her safe haven in this place; she laid her head on her desk in her curled arms and started crying.

A/N: Thank you to everyone who has been reading! Thank you for your wonderful reviews! I am quite far behind on responses and plan to catch up on them soon.

Not being one for self-promotion, but I have posted another story called "Say That We're Sweethearts Again." It was the original idea for this story. I hope you enjoy it.