Epilogue

So that's how it went for us. There were good times, there were bad times. There were times when things were blissfully wonderful and times when we made each other miserable. There were times he'd smack me around and times when I'd beat the snot out of him instead. Sometimes I'd get mad and leave and sometimes I'd come home to discover he had moved to a new hideout without telling me how to find him. Sometimes I'd have to seek him out and other times he'd come get me and drag me back home. There were times when we made love every day and times that weeks or months would pass and he wouldn't touch me. Those were the times I would practically have to beg to get him to sleep with me. He was like an addiction, no matter how hard I tried I couldn't go too long without having my fix. But one thing was consistent. We always ended up back together. His crazy fit together with my crazy. We were two pieces of the same whole. Two of a kind he had said.

Until I went too far. It was one of the times when he ignored me for months, too busy working on a new plan to battle the Batman to be bothered with me. I got jealous, I couldn't help it, so I tried to take Batsy down by myself. If there were no B-man I'd have my Joker all to myself. I almost accomplished it too. I had him tied up over a tank full of hungry piranhas and was ready to drop him in. I underestimated him though and he tricked me into calling Mistah J which was the worst thing I could have done. Joker was in a rage unlike anything I'd ever seen once he got there and I paid for my mistake.

He threw me out of a third story window and left me for dead.

Miraculously I survived and once I was out of the ICU at Gotham Mercy West I was transferred to Arkham to serve my first stint as a patient. They had to keep me in the infirmary for over a month before I could be transferred to a cell. I had a broken arm, a broken leg, three broken ribs, a punctured lung and a ruptured spleen. I was lucky to be alive even if I wished I were dead.

As they wheeled me to my cell I made a decision. I was done. Never again. No more obsession, no more craziness, no more Joker. I could finally see that slime for what he really is. An emotionless, evil, irredeemable monster.

I was placed in the cell across the hall from his empty one. My shrink was Joan Leland, my old friend and mentor. She came to visit me as the orderlies transferred me from the gurney to my cot.

"Well Harley I hope you learned your lesson, but probably not. And to think you were once so strong, so sure of yourself. So, tell me Harley, how did it feel to be so dependent on a man, that you'd give up everything for him, gaining nothing in return?"

"It felt like…"

I turned to look at her and noticed a small vase with a single red rose and a note attached to it sitting next to my cot and my heart soared! It said, "Feel better soon. -J". Under my breath I answered Joan's question.

"It felt like a kiss."

-Fin.

A/N – Thanks again to all of my readers. You guys make writing these stories so worthwhile. I love all of you, you totally rawk my socks! I hope you enjoyed my version of Harley and Joker's origin story. I have started my outline for my next J+HQ story. It's called Legacy and I will hopefully have the first chapter out sometime this week. It takes place much later in the relationship as J and Harls are trying to finally get pregnant, but there's a bit of a twist that I think you'll find amusing.

Adendum – I recently updated the entire story to clean up typos, missing punctuation etc and realized that I inadvertently deleted all of my author notes since I did not save those to the hard copies of the story on my PC. So I apologize to the people I gave shout outs too, that is why they're missing now. Oops.