A few days had gone by with me in that silly stupor. But, something had switched back one night, laid on the bed in a crappy little apartment- J said this was only temporarily, that, his Harley deserved better. I had been laying there for a good three hours until I heard him finally settle and drift to sleep, while Harley had crept to the depths of my psyche once more. I don't know what brought me back to my old self, to Harleen, but it happened and I was so thankful for it. I had climbed free of being tangled in the sheets, placing bare feet down onto cold, cement flooring. On my tiptoes I had slowly waltzed around the different discarded clothing items on the floor and to the long, body length mirror that was sat, propped up against the wall. The coldness on my feet sent tingles up my legs and into my spine, and it was the first time that I had truly noticed that.. Well.. I seemed to just be wearing one of his shirts. The fact makes me sick to my stomach. I feel it twisting and turning. I feel like I'm about to cry. There's blood on my discarded clothing, I do not know if it is mine or someone else's. There are cuts on my legs and on my face. I do not remember if it was Joker or someone else. Or myself. I do not remember anything from the moment I disappeared into the vat. That I remember clearly. The sudden notion to cry is welling inside. I haven't cried in a very, very long time. I have not. It is just, not what I do. It was- looked down upon, not only by my father, but my mother too. Of course, Mother was always more lenient with the rule than Father was. Father was a criminal. Father knew I had to be strong to live in this world without getting eaten alive. I can't hold it back this time, though. He's used me. He's turned me into someone- something that I'm not. That I'll never be. He's driven me quite literally out of my own mind and now I'm left pretending to be this insane girl that he wants. That I'm sure he needs.
No more, though, I thought. I'm not doing this anymore. I'm getting help. Though, sprinkles of Harley Quinn still lingered absently in my brain, so, who can you imagine, is the first person I'd want to seek help from? My parents, of course. I had to go to my parents. I had to seek them out. I needed my mothers soft comfort and I needed to know that my dad was ready to bring me back into their home, even with my bleached white skin and my stained blonde hair.. I winced as I touched the locks before, with teary eyes, I whipped around and pulled the pair of jeans that had been tossed to the floor onto my legs, did them up as I got into the stilettos that were, no doubt, mine. Obviously they weren't Jokers. I had to stop for a brief second to giggle at the image of him in heels.. No. Stop that. You gotta move.
So, with one last look I took off. I was stumbling through the streets with Jokers scent wrapped around me. I could feel the fabric of the shirt wrapping around my arms like his hands, could feel it slowly sliding up, up, up.. Further.. Further until I couldn't breathe. My feet were pounding on the ground, the fact that I was wearing heels was what definitely made it more than painful, but I pushed through it. I couldn't breathe and I could feel his slender, cool, rough fingers wrapping around my throat, could hear that cold, dead laughter. Ha. Ha. Ha. My chest heaved and my throat burned with the need to breath, lungs stinging. A sudden echo of a crack bounced and began vibrating through the street as I took a tumble into the hard ground. Between strangled little gasps for air, I managed to look down and see... My heel was broken. Perfect. I shouldn't have put the damn things on in the first place. I felt trapped. I felt like I was drowning. I reached down and quickly moved to begin ripping the heels off, leaving them discarded on the ground as I rolled and pushed myself up off the ground. My knees stung, I probably hurt myself when I fell, but nothing hurt more than knowing that I had.. I had definitely done something really, really, really bad. Something that even I, as a psychiatrist, couldn't get over. I couldn't force my lost thoughts to the surface. I couldn't remember. I couldn't breathe. So I stopped trying. I just ran. Ran around corners and down alleys and through the woods until I had finally found it.
I stood there for a moment, kind of just staring up at the little house tucked away in the middle of a silly suburban street. It was a cute, small, red house. There were blue curtains in the windows and the grass was neatly trimmed, my mothers favorite garden gnome sat out front, a silly little man with a long white beard with fishermans clothes on. It looked like someone had broken the fishing rod that he would hold between his hard, fake hands. My mother called him Ronnie. No one, was suppose to touch Ronnie. I could only imagine the whiplash that the person who broke Ronnies rod had gotten. Then, in the window, the sight of my mother, a short little blonde lady with the prettiest complexion stood with her hair up in a bun on the top of her head. A smile on her lips. For some reason, the image made me realize why I was there again. Joker. Once more his scent had wafted into my nostrils and I felt herself let out a little sob. I didn't want to smell him anymore. To feel his hands. My hands started to work the buttons of the shirt, tugging the buttons off until it was left open. I hadn't even realized that I had started walking towards the door, every step reminding me that I had ran all the way across Gotham in my.. Bare feet. Which ached beyond comprehension which is probably why I refused to even so much as give Harley, wherever she was in the back of my broken mind, the satisfaction of looking down and seeing it. By the time I reached the door, I had pushed the white fabric off my shoulders and let it pool at my feet, raised a dainty little hand, and knocked.
The one who came to the door had been my mother, mid giggle as she opened, a smile had spread itself across her lips, but then, she was.. Looking at me, and.. The smile faltered, the giggle froze, morphed into that of a overly concerned gasp, her hands had dropped the cloth that she was drying them with, let the door slowly glide open to reveal me to the rest of the house as I stood there with a broken looking face, teary eyes and a cut up, bruised bare body. Clad in jeans and a bra. I, for a moment, felt my lip quiver, and felt my pale cheeks burn with shame from how she must have been feeling. But she didn't look ashamed, she looked.. She looked horrified. I had to pause to remind myself that my hair was stained pink and blue and that my skin was bleached white from the chemicals I had willingly jumped into during my mental break. "Mom," I croaked the word weakly, my throat became a wild fire at the action, my voice no longer sounded like my own, but it sounded dead and forced.. Probably from the fact that I felt like I had been choking the entire time. What, what on earth did I get myself into?
"Harleen.." My mother had cooed back in a sympathetic, terrified manner that gave away that she thought I'd just escaped being captured since I left for university, and in a sense, she was right. I had been captured since then. I had gone to university in hopes that one day I would get to pick apart the mind of the criminally insane Joker, and then I went to Arkham, where he trapped me and imprisoned me, and turned.. Turned me into Harley.. I fell blank again and I guess that my knees weren't as strong as they held up to be the entire ride there, because my mother had to catch me in her arms. She brought me inside, helped me up over the steps, ignoring my fathers protests to know what was happening. I didn't really know what to tell him, so I didn't bother stopping her. Hell, the women even put me into a tub and.. Well, she helped me scrub off the blood and dirt. And him. Then, she'd given me my old clothes, and wrapped me in a fluffy blanket. My father carried me down the steps and put me on the couch, where my mother had pushed a steaming cup of homemade cocoa in my hands. Guess mom remembered exactly how to comfort me. This always worked when I was a kid. Across from me on the flower dotted loveseat, my parents sat patiently waiting as I sipped the hot cocoa, felt it burn off my tastebuds. I knew I wouldn't taste anything the next few days.
"Well.." My mother urged, and I felt like crying when she did.
"I met a man," I started, because I wholeheartedly believe that I did love Joker, some sense of me did anyway, and maybe it wasn't that I loved him as a whole, I loved the him that dotted on me and treated me like a princess - no.. Like his Queen. "And.. It was at work.. And.." I paused to suck in a breath. "He's a very, very bad man.. He was my patient.. You.. You heard about the break out from Arkham, didn't you?" I whispered, fiddling with the cup. "Of course we did, that Joker nearly killed his psychiatrist. Poor girl.." My dad had mumbled, and I couldn't help but agree. Poor girl. Poor me. "That was me.." I mumbled, not daring to look up, especially not after Mom let out the loudest, most shocked gasp that I'd ever heard anyone ever make, ever. "And.. he drove me outta my mind, ma, he really did." The accent was coming again, the one that came with Harley, but I didn't pay mind. "He broke me. Yknow? He ruined me. I feel.. Like I need t'get some help. Professional, help. Theres this uh, voice, in my head and she.. Well her name is Harley, n he created her durin' our sessions together, urged her out I guess and the electroshock therapy really.. Really dragged her outta the depths of hell up there and she kinda took over and it was, for a long time, a battle between me wanting to do the sane thing and her wanting to go batshit crazy, ya know?" I was rambling. My father was red in the face, my mother, well, she had no color. She looked as white as I did with the worry lines practically appearing with each time I spoke. I started fidgeting. "I didn't want any of it. Any of it. But I wasn't there no more after that but.. I remember chasin him down sometimes, during his heists and I remember following him to the vat that he fell into as a kid and I remember.. Sayin these vows.." My father seemed to lose it at that.
"Ya married that freak?!" His anger was evident. Did he not listen to a word I had just said about not wantin to be that way? Obviously not! His own accent was coming out, almost like he was challenging me with it as the stood from the seat, moms dainty fingers reaching to hold his shirt at the elbow. "Richard, calm down," She tried to soothe. "Let the girl finish-" "Shut up, Mary!" He snapped and I winced, quickly standing from my spot, fluffy blanket falling to pool at my feet. I felt cold. Inside and out. "Yeah, I mean, I guess I kinda did but it wasn't me! I didn't want nothin to do with him, I just wanted t'pick apart his mind n stuff and I ended up being driven out of mine and now he's callin me his Queen and I think I hurt some people real bad and I dunno if I did this to me or if he did and I dunno how long its gonna be until I have another episode and Harley comes out and-"
Smack.
I didn't know what had happened, but suddenly my stomach had felt like it was on fire. The blossoming pain began to throb, my mouth opened and I looked down with shaky breaths, my father had knocked the cup of hot cocoa on me, and it was burning through my shirt. It seemed to be the last straw, the frustration, the pain, the terror, it was too much. My cheeks burned and my throat ached, screamed at me to scream. My cheeks suddenly were flooded with hot liquid, like I'd poured the hot cocoa all over my face. I was crying. Of course I was crying. I'd gone through so much at this point in time that I - I deserved to cry.
"Richard!" I heard my mother shout, her voice sounded distant as she shot up from the seat. Father ignored her.
"I didn't want any of this!" I screamed at him, my voice quaking as I started to shake with my sobs, my hands moving to pull the shirt off my belly so it wouldn't burn and leave a nasty wound. I had enough of those already.. But it didn't seem to take any affect on my father. "Of course ya did! Ya saw what was happenin' in that god damn room and yet ya still let yourself return and get deeper involved with him! For God's sake, Harleen, ya married the bastard!" He was getting closer to me every time that he spoke, yelling and screaming in my face by the time he was done. "Now look at ya! Weak as a god damn baby and you came 'ere lookin for some kind of solution? Well ya ain't gonna get one when y'standing there blabberin about how ya married him!" "I didn't WANT TO!" I yelled back, my hands shaking in front of my stomach, my body shaking.
Everything felt like it was in slow motion. I saw Richard start to move. I heard distantly the sound of my mother screaming at him to stop it. To back away. I saw the anger in his eyes, I felt sting of his hand colliding so roughly with my cheek that I had physically been knocked down from it. I also felt the snap that accompanied it in the back of my brain where Harley started to creep in through the back door, sniffling and crying with me. She was shaking too. I could see her back there with her pink n blue themeed out fits and her teary eyes. Big baby blues on display. We gotta return to him. He's the only one whose gonna love us. He understands us. He'll help us. Protect us.. You're.. Right.. All rational thoughts aside, my so called father had just hit me. I was literally laying on the ground where I had grew up running into his arms calling out for my daddy, in the living room where I had taken my first steps running into his arms, where I thought no one would ever hurt me. In the house where, when, Jack Robinson, my school crush, had stood me up on a date only to tell everyone about it and turn me into the laughing stock of the school, I had come home and curled up on the couch with him, and watched cheesy videos until I fell asleep, where he tucked me in and where he had played barbies with me, even when his criminal friends didn't look too highly about it, where he had told a man that he'd paint his nails pink if it made me happy. Where he told me he loved me time and time before. And I was lying there, tears streaming down over my cheeks in silent pain, with a bruising cheek, a burn that was searing its memory permanently into my skin. And then came the kicking. The vicious kicking. I felt the air in my lungs leave, I felt the incapability to never take air in again. I felt the bruise forming on my side, felt the pressure nearly breaking my ribs. He was yelling still, obscenities flying out of his mouth like it was the only thing that he could ever say. My eyes were starting to go black, I couldn't breathe right, my throat was dry. I hadn't even realized that I was letting out choked little screams, couldn't hear my mothers over the sound of him yelling, over the sound of my screaming. Over the sound of the faint laughter that began to be choked out of me. "Filth!" He yelled. "Disgusting, fucking, filth!" Another kick. "Worthless piece of shit!" He was finally, finally done when my mom grabbed his arm and ripped him away from me.
Mom was small, but she was strong. Capable.
While my mother and Richard got into a screaming match, I had crawled myself up to the chair, used it to push myself into a bit of a standing stance, one hand falling to hold the side that had just taken the bouquet of attacks, and limped out of the house, down the path to the road and paused to look back. Tears were thundering down my cheeks, staring up at the house that I remembered as my childhood haven. I had wanted to come here, to get away, to get help, to be safe, and look at where I was left now? You're all.. Broken now. Aren't ya? We gotta get back to him. Gotta get his help.. Ya right.. I had spent a good four hours getting back to the apartment, stumbling and coughing, wheezing a little. Joker was stood there, shirtless and looking like a cornered animal. He was snapping and snarling at goons that stood around. "Where IS she?" He snapped at one, who held his hands up in fear, stumbling back, while the other kind of cleared his throat. "Uh, boss," Jonny had started. "She's, over there." He murmured, gesturing over to me. I had winced, hoping that I could've just gone over and curled up somewhere, got healed up so that he wouldn't have noticed that I got hurt.
He whipped around to me, stared me down for a moment and for a second, a brief second, I watched his face soften, going so incredibly gentle as he came over towards me, his hands out to touch my cheek. I winced, the bruise had blossomed enough into a deep purple, taking up the entirety of my cheek. His fingers brushed it and I winced a little, gripping tighter at my side. He seemed to notice it after a moment and lowered his hands, caressing my neck, my shoulders, trailing those cool, gentle fingers down over my arms until he could gently brush my hands away from my bruising, throbbing side, pulled the shirt up slowly and gently until he could see the blistering red on my stomach from the burn, and the large purple bruise on my side from the vicious kicking. "Oh kitten..." He started out in the gentlest purr, his voice deep and melodic, soothing. I felt like puddy in his hands, like I was finally safe. I was shaking a little under his touch, but I let him touch me, let him check to see if there were more cuts. He noticed too, the lack of shoes, the bloody scratched up feet.. Suddenly, it was like the devil himself had been implanted in him. His red lips curled back over metal grills in an aggressive snarl. "Do none of you.. Useless goons.. See that my lady here, ain't got no shoes?" He snapped. "And look at the poor gals feet! They're all cut up and uh, probably, pretty sore. Do ya know what that means?" He growled, a few of them coming over with a chair so I could sit, and I did. J had dropped to his knees before me, one of his long, strong hands caressing my knee, rubbing back and forth. "Don't you worry your pretty little head, Harley-girl, Daddy's gonna take real good care of ya, alright?" He cooed quietly, before it seemed to properly dawn on him. "Who did this to you? Who?" He growled the words, and I couldn't help but marvel in his attention, his affections.
"I went t'say goodbye to my, uh, parents.." I started the lie smoothly, knowing if Puddin' knew that I wasn't plannin on stayin with him in the first place that he'd get mad. At me. "And I was tellin em about us, bout how I was happy and my dad..." I winced. "He poured my cocoa over me and slapped me.. Beat me up a little bit.." A dark part of my mind realized that, I had the power right now, to get Richard beaten up pretty bad. I let the tears come back, building up as I looked at him with the best doe eyes that I could muster. "He did this to me Puddin, he hurt me real bad.. I don't think I can walk.." Oh, he was fallin for it too. His face twisted with anger and he stood abruptly off his knees, whipped around to rip his custom made handgun from his pants, pulled back and smacked a goon with the handle when he had opened his mouth to talk. "Someone get me my jacket. Jonny, bring the car around. Get me some weapons. Bring my toys. Actually, bring the van, Jonny. Bring the van around." The van, I already knew about the van. He had his custommade funhouse in there. Lots of his toys. Jonny, knowing that he'd probably be in for a punishment if he didn't, went off to grab the van with a sigh, while the goons scattered off to get the things he had requested of him. "Oh, and bring Harlykins some shoes!" He yelled out after one. Two minutes and they were back. J was on his knees again, gently sliding the shoe on. Or as gently as J could, you know. He stood then and walked away. When I stood and let a breath of pain go, he paused. A goon had just about had me picked up when he whipped around with his gun pointed at him.
"Put. Her. Down." He snarled through clenched teeth. The goon did it, shaking, his hands slipped off and I was left shaking on my own.
Bang.
Well, that one was dead now. Perfect. J stalked back over to me, a noise leaving him that sounded like a jaguar as he rolled his head back to show off the veins and muscle in his neck, before he scooped me up. "Don't you worry, my little.. Harlequin.. Daddy's gonna.. Take real good.. Care.. Of ya.." His voice was dark, so dark that I almost felt scared. Almost. I was scared for Richard. Kind of.
The drive was quiet, but J was the first one out, sent me to the door first, J lingering back in the van, wanting to make a grandiose entrance of course. When Richard opened the door, I could hear my mother sobbing on the couch. His moderately calm face twisted into anger once again, and he had been about to reach and push me back. I could tell, and I stumbled back from him, almost falling when Jonny had darted from the side knowing if I fell J would have all their asses and caught me, the other goons simply forming a crowd around. "Uh, Dad, I'd like ya to meet-" I'd been about to look for him but he had the crowd part like the red sea. And there he was. Gorgeous, oh so gorgeous in every single way as he stalked, slowly down the isle that had been created. His eyes dark and dancing with all the dark thoughts, hair slicked back and tattoos screaming all the stories they had to tell. His jacket flapped around him in a way that made it impossible to look away - what was I saying? J was what made it impossible to look away. His body moved in a manner that screamed violence. He was violence. A hurricane. "The boyfriiiieeend.." J trailed off for me, voice an octave lower than I had ever heard him use.
Briefly, I remembered how he had killed Emily to get me back on his case. Emily did nothing wrong to me.
Richard was frozen in spot, staring with what seemed to be a mixture of disgust and horror as J crept up like a lion behind me, an arm pushing Jonny out of the way to take his place at my side, hand raising to caress the unbruised side of my face. "Ya see here, Mister Quinzel, my little Harlequin here is the only one of us with parents," He started, pretending to be casual. "And I thought, since, ya know, I'm a decent fella, that I'd come get the grand face of the family to give me some permission to be with his little Princess, ya see, I wanna turn her into a Queen." He explained, hands flittering about in front of him now as he spoke. The man reminded me of a performer. He was one. "But then, I noticed somethin." He started, voice getting deeper, darker as he turned to take my chin in his fingertips. "Harley, baby, wontcha show him what you came home like?" He cooed, voice as sweet as sugar. I turned my head, showing off the bright bruise, and lifted my shirt a bit. The wounds there coming into view too. "Now, now now.. Look at all this damage? I hear it came from you," J was surprisingly calm, it was terrifying how calm he was. "So I'd like to have a calm friendly little chitchat with ya, about how you're suppose to be treatin, my little harlequin when she comes to ya like that." It seemed to set off Richard, as he narrowed his eyes. "Neither of you are gonna set a foot inside my house." He shot back.
J sighed, almost like he'd been dealing with this for too long. "My my my, we really got an issue then don't we? Did I ask to come in?" He questioned, the anger he was really feeling starting to shine through. "Cause I don't think that I did. It's not an option, Mister Quinzel. It's a demand." He snapped and gestured for Jonny to bring him inside. With the help of some goons, they overpowered Richard and had brought him in, strapped him down to a chair, and left him there. J took my hand, dainty like he was escorting a Queen already, and lead me over to sit me with my mother, who had a matching bruise on her cheek now too. "Now now now, Ladies. Sit and enjoy the show!" He laughed. Ha. Ha. Ha. Oh god. He only laughed when bad things happened, Harleen knew that, Harley knew that. We knew that. I reached out to lightly hold my mothers hand, she gave a brief squeeze, an attempt at an apology. The squeeze I gave in return, was acceptance.
Joker was slowly trailing around Richard, who was throwing obscenities again. See, Richard didn't know who Joker actually was. Knew he killed some people and robbed some banks. Knew basic things that wouldn't really make a man like him, too afraid, of Joker. But that was where his fault was, he didn't fear Joker. Everybody, even me, should fear Joker. J didn't take very kindly to the verbal assault, roughly clamping his finger covered hands down on his shoulders, squeezing it so hard that I could definitely feel it from the other side of the room. "Careful," Joker purred, almost like a kitten, as he leaned down by his ear. "All that chitchat is gonna getcha hurt." He snarled that part, an animal caged and ready to be free. Joker sauntered over in front of him, holding a switchblade out in display. "See, the way my Harley tells me, is that she came to you to say her final goodbyes, and then you, your closeminded self, went on and, uh, hurt her. Ya see, as her boyfriend, her King, I can't just let people go around hurtin her like that. Not to mention she's Joker Property now and nobody, I mean, nobody touches my property, other than me. So can ya see where I'm all riled up now?" He was sat on his knee, trailing the knife down but when Richard wasn't giving any responses, J shot the knife across the room with a vicious scream. The knife shattered a picture, stuck into richards face in it.
He seemed to be frustrated, he slipped the jacket off, came over, draped it over me, and then returned to just result to brutal force. His hand had curled into a fist, he hit Richard in the nose, once, twice... Five times, blood was flying, no laughter was present in the air, J was silent aside from snarls and growls. The sound of Richards screams echoed and he tried to fight back, I could see him struggling against his restraints, I saw him tip the chair purposely to get away, but it did nothing to stop J. It was kind of arousing, watching as he kicked viciously, kicked and kicked and kicked at his chest and his stomach, the sound of bones cracking being the only noise loud enough to comprehend. It was hot, watching him work like that. It was.. Oh so romantic.. Ten minutes later and Joker was looking around the room. Found a picture of me and my father and promptly smashed it over his head before he had gripped him by the hair on his head, the dark locks ripping against his scalp as J moved him not so gently, to be positioned on the glass, before he started to stamp roughly down onto Richards head. The sounds were amazing. I couldn't help the little chorus of giggles that I started letting out, J even joined in after a moment or two of reveling in my noise.
By the time he was done, my mother was frozen in shock next to me, and Richard was a puddle of brain matter on the new carpet. J was coated in blood, chest heaving, muscles bulging. He turned to me and almost looked sympathetic. "Misses Quinzel, I'm terribly sorry for your lost and the mess I've made on your floor, but you see, I just had to avenge my Harley." He explained simply as he came over, pulled me to my feet, and put the jacket on me, before holding me up under his arm.
"I.. I understand that you'll take good care of her.." My mother whispered as she stood. "Only the best, for her." He stated, almost proudly as he squeezed me, a bit too roughly, into his side. I brushed it off. My mother looked to me. "And he makes you happy?" I pondered that question. I looked up to J, sweaty and bloody with his normally perfect hair down in his face, breath heavy and lipstick smudged, tattoos on his face.. I smiled. Reaching up I carefully slicked his hair back in place. "Yeah, yeah he does, ma." "Than.. I wish you a happy life," She murmured lightly, and simply.. Left. She left the room. "I'll send the cleaners over!" J called out. "See ya later, Momma Quinn!" He called again, laughter piercing the house as we all headed out.
The rest of that night, he spent it patching up my wounds, taking pretty good care of me. I didn't think he was capable of it. I didn't think being with the Joker would involve being cared for when I was injured.. I didn't even know the half of it. He'd laid me in the bed, climbed in with me, wrapped his strong body around me, and cooed softly into my ear.
"Don't worry, Harls. You wont be havin no more daddy issues."