A/N: Renee Montoya is based on the likeness of actress Monique Gabriela Curnen.
Harleen stood at the front door, gazing outside through the small window, her hand on the doorknob. Although dressed in her pink pajamas and wearing her hair in pigtails, she was ready to exit at a moments notice when the mail was delivered. She was expecting something special. Eagerness and trepidation filled her and she bobbed on the balls of her feet in anticipation.
"Down boy!" She said swatting at the yellow puppy with his purple spiked collar as he yipped and climbed her leg and then scratched at the door. She smiled at the puppy and reached down to stroke his short fur.
She glimpsed movement outside and stood straight and watched the mail carrier begin to climb the porch stairs. In her excitement, she threw the door open and greeted the man with a smile.
"Afternoon," he said and then looked down as the blonde puppy raced past him and down the sidewalk.
"Jack, no!" Harleen cried as she raced after him.
The puppy reached the street and turned around to look at her, barking happily as she ran toward him. Harleen never even saw the car, only the happy tongue lolling from Jack's mouth. In a moment the puppy lay in the street after shrieking a piercing yelp and lay whining and writhing as he tried to get up. Harleen reached the puppy and gingerly lifted the small bleeding body from the road as another car screeched to a halt and the driver yelled at her.
Carrying the small body in her arms, Harleen ran back to the house and into the living room where she looked at the tall man and petite woman standing there, watching passively.
"Jack's hurt!" She cried and she laid the whining puppy on the floor and sat beside it, stroking his soft fur as his delicate hazel eyes focused on hers.
"I'm so sorry," she cried petting the trembling body. "Why did you have to run?"
She looked up at the man and woman with pleading eyes.
"Help him, please!" Harleen sobbed and the woman touched her shoulder gently.
"There's nothing we can do, Harley." Joan Leland said, her brown eyes filled with sympathy.
"It's just a dog, Harleen. We will get you a new one." Jeremiah Arkham said dismissively as he crossed his arms and turned his back on her before walking away.
James Gordon stood in a conference room at the courthouse, overseeing the investigation while officers continued to process staff and witnesses and forensics processed the courtroom. The Joker and Doctor Quinzel had already been transported to Gotham City Hospital under heavy guard.
"The lawyer and courtroom tapes are being taken back to headquarters." Detective Stephens said entering the room. "Montoya's on her way over to the hospital to talk to Quinzel when she wakes up. Any word on," he paused seeming reluctant to continue "the Joker?" He finished.
"The Joker is in intensive care." Gordon sighed as he looked over the preliminary list of those in attendance. "We're going to need to know who had access to the courtroom prior to the hearing as well."
"I thought the lawyer looked good for this." Stephens said sounding put out.
"The lawyer wasn't in my office this morning." Gordon replied settling his gaze on Stephens.
"So he's not this riddle guy, probably working for him though" Stephens mused. "Even if he'd killed the Joker we'd still be looking into this, huh?"
"Of course we would." Gordon said icily. "Anything less and we would be casting everything that the department and Harvey Dent worked for to the wayside."
"Pretty ironic considering everything the Joker did to Dent, isn't it?" Stephens smirked and then left to join the other officers.
Harleen blinked awake at the prompts of the nurse standing at her bedside. She tried to turn and found herself tangled in assorted wires and IV's.
"Welcome back to the world of the living." The redhead nodded and Harleen shifted her gaze to the brunette entering the room wearing a suit and a serious expression.
"Doctor Quinzel, I am Detective Montoya" she said as she came to a stop beside Harleen. Harleen focused on her, her eyes feeling watery and her lungs sore. She ached all over.
"What happened?" Harleen asked in a small voice, swimming in half-consciousness.
"You have been poisoned." Detective Montoya replied.
"Poisoned?" Harleen asked in a haze. Then an image of the Joker lying on the floor of the courtroom came into sharp focus in her mind.
"Joker!" She gasped trying to sit up. Montoya and the nurse gripped her firmly and laid her back upon her bed.
"Settle down Doctor" the nurse ordered and Montoya indicated that she should leave.
"Your family is waiting outside but I need to ask you a few questions before they come in." Montoya said.
"Where is he? Is he alright?" Harleen begged weakly. Montoya's features set in a confused frown. She eyed Harleen warily.
"He is in intensive care." She replied. "He was poisoned and suffered a heart attack. You were poisoned as well in the course of performing rescue breathing. Do you remember this?"
"Yes" Harleen nodded. "What was he, were we poisoned with?"
"Cyanide" Montoya replied. Harleen nodded.
"He was drinking a lot of water and then he started showing signs of a heart attack." Harleen said ticking off details on her fingers. "Cyanide works fast."
"Have you received any death threats?" Montoya asked and Harleen chuckled. "Let me rephrase that, have you received any ominous messages, framed as questions?"
"Questions?" Harleen frowned in thought. "Just things like, 'how could you treat that monster' and 'how do you live with yourself.'" Montoya mused.
"Has the Joker received any correspondence of the sort?" Montoya asked.
"All of his correspondence goes through Doctor Arkham and myself. He hasn't had any letters like what you're asking. He also had never received any personal correspondence." Harleen replied.
"Nothing from any family, his mother, or anyone close?" Montoya frowned.
"No. I've always thought that was sad." Harleen replied. Montoya nodded.
"Call me if you think of anything, I'll be in touch. Take care Doctor Quinzel." Montoya said briskly, laying a business card on a tray table and exiting the room. Harleen closed her eyes and laid her head back against her pillow.
"Harleen!" Her mother's voice cried as the older woman entered the room followed by Judy. Harleen managed a weak smile as her mind whirred around the word, 'poisoned.'
"Mom" she said taking her mother's thin hand.
Her eyes were blue grey and creased with crows feet. Her blonde hair was accented with silver strands and hung around her shoulders in not quite disarray. She had been playing with it in worry, something Harleen had gotten from her. Her mother began crying and she wrapped her arms around her daughter as best as she could, kissing her on the forehead and nuzzling against her.
"Dad is on his way from Metropolis. Sara and Peter are coming too." Judith said and Harleen saw her wringing her fingers. Harleen nodded and held her mother who stroked her hair.
"I can't believe that horrible man keeps hurting you." Her mother said in a broken voice. Harleen sighed.
That horrible man needed her now more than ever. Somehow she needed to see him.
Joker felt like someone had kicked him in the chest. His head ached and he felt weak. Being tied down to the bed didn't help either but he wasn't ready to put up a fight. The last thing he remembered was Harley's eyes on him as she said she had been one of his hostages and that he had broken her fingers.
He closed his eyes and replayed the scene in his mind again. The sneaky bastard lawyer had known. And she had never told him. He felt a twinge and shook it off. He tried to conjure her from that night so long ago but only came up with the Bat. They had pumped him full of so many drugs in Arkham that it had affected his memories of the events leading to his capture. Let alone the one's he had already tried to forget.
He wanted to remember her and the fact that he couldn't pick out one little face frustrated him. She was just a hostage, like all the others. The only one he remembered clearly was Engel, pompous even when he was pissing in fear. Audacity in his tone as he told Joker he would not help him send his message. The sleazy newsman had hours before made a media sensation out of a lawyer who thought he knew who Batman was and he wouldn't read a few pieces of paper to the camera for Joker.
Joker heard the heart monitor making noises and craned his neck to see spikes racing across the screen in neat little rows. A nurse flanked by two Police officers came in to check him, her hair pulled into a tight bun. Joker blinked.
The blonde.
The nurse injected something into his IV and he felt release as the drug coursed through his veins. He closed his eyes and savored the sensation. In more than a year he hadn't felt this sweet intoxication. He didn't notice when they left the room.
He saw her holding her hand as she stared at him guilelessly from her seat on the bus. She stared at him like he was some sort of attraction, not a merciless killer who could end her life in a moment. It had pissed him off.
He'd gone for the blonde because he had wanted to impress upon her and Engel that they would do what he wanted and not because he would make promises for their personal safety. They would do it because he would hurt them anyway. People in that situation are so baffled by the concept that they go along with what they are told because in the back of their minds they think there's an inkling of hope that everything will be okay.
Blondie had known better. So he had made the small reassurance that perhaps she would be lucky if only to fuck with her.
He had greatly underestimated her.
Harleen lay staring at the television while her mind raced. It was well past visiting hours and her mother had been reluctantly dragged away by her father. In the morning her other sister and brother and their respective children would come to visit 'Aunt Harley.' She wished that she could think about them and not about Him and what she had to do.
"I don't know who you are anymore, Harley. This job, that maniac has changed you." Brian had said angrily as he stuffed his belongings into bags as she stood over him in her bedroom.
"That doesn't excuse your behavior. People change, it doesn't mean you fuck other women in their beds while they are at work." She spat crossing her arms.
Brian had married Caitlyn three weeks ago. Harleen wondered if he was cheating on her yet.
Harleen had never told Joker about her former fiancé, just as she hadn't told him that she had once been his prisoner. Perhaps at one point she had thought about revenge against the man but as she had spent more time with him, things had changed.
And she had changed.
Harleen rose from her bed and turned off the IV machine and carefully unhooked it from her arm, capping the port in her elbow so that it wouldn't leak. She padded quietly across the cold floor and watched the quiet hallway while she wrapped another gown around her back. Satisfied that the evening staff had settled in, she quickly made her way down the hallway to the stairs.
She had worked here briefly following the destruction of Gotham General Hospital and knew how to get what and where she wanted. She exited the stairwell two floors down and made her way to the locker room. Once inside she shed her gowns and donned a pair of scrubs and slippers with sanitary coverings on her feet. She pulled her hair up and tucked it beneath a cap. She then donned a white jacket and a mask over her mouth.
Then she returned to the hall and made her way to the intensive care ward. She glanced at the whiteboard listing the room numbers and patient names and strode to the nurses station from which she retrieved Joker's chart. She flipped the folder open and casually glanced at it and then closed it as she strode toward his room with authority.
The guards nodded to her and one followed her inside. She saw Joker look up, blinking and he tried to shift beneath his restraints. A flood of excitement washed over her as she saw he had a healthy color, and he was alive! Seeing him was what made it all real to her. She smiled beneath her mask.
She stepped forward and gently picked up the edge of the blanket and then looked at the officer.
"If you don't mind giving me a few minutes, I need to check his catheter." She said and the officer made a disgusted face and left the room.
She looked back at the Joker who was giving her a shit-eating grin and she whipped back the sheet and blanket. She grabbed the end of the catheter and yanked it out. Joker gasped and then closed his eyes tightly and gnashed his teeth. When he reopened his eyes they were narrowed at her, his mouth pulled into a distorted grimace.
"What the hell was that, Harley?" He snarled.
"That was for hurting me." She said plainly and then removed her mask as her eyes wandered over his body and restraints. He took a few breaths to ease himself before speaking again.
"Harley, I…" he began.
"No!" She hissed quietly. "You're going to shut up and listen for once in your life."
He chuckled quietly and looked at her bemused.
"Someone poisoned you. You had a heart attack because of it." She said.
"Yeah, I heard that." He said mockingly.
"Shut. Up." She hissed. "You need medical attention, I can't stress that enough. As soon as you are stabilized to their satisfaction, you are going to be hauled back to Arkham." She drew a breath and placed her hands on the restraint on his right wrist. He looked at her curiously.
"This guy, I don't know who he is, but he tried to kill you and he almost got me too." She said and choked back a small sob. "You're not safe here, or Arkham and most definitely not at Blackgate." She looked at him and he nodded, staring at her. She began to loosen the restraint.
"The police said that he sent a message, a death threat in the form of a question. Like a riddle." She said as she freed his hand and then moved around the bed to the other side and began working on his other one. He followed her with his eyes.
"I thought you should know that." She said quietly and a tear rolled down her face and landed on his forearm. He looked at his arm and then at her and raised his right hand to her face, wiping her cheek with his thumb. She drew away slightly and then leaned into his touch.
"I don't know who you people see, but you need a doctor, and to stay out of trouble. Otherwise you're just going to kill yourself and you and I both know you don't want that." She said as she freed his other hand.
They worked quickly at removing the rest of the restraints and Joker sat up, catching her around the waist and pulling her against him.
"Harley, you're the greatest." He said and pressed his lips against her cheek in a sloppy kiss. She ran her fingers through his soft, short blonde curls and then drew away, looking at his face for a moment. He looked at her quietly with that winsome expression she adored.
She pulled the mask back over her face and turned her back to him, leaving him behind.
A/N: Thank you for all of your wonderful reveiws!