Edited: 09/19/2022

Unfit and Dangerous

No one went through life without scraping against its jagged edges, it was just that some liked to play it safer than others. They keep their head down, walking a road already paved out for them and worn down by the footsteps of those who walked before. Each step measured, plotted, and taken with extra care lest they be torn to shreds.

A cycle of mundane existence.

How could anyone call that living?

Harley's many scars were proof that she was alive, and she treasured every one of them. It was a small price to pay for choosing a path not many dared to go. — One paved red with blood that, admittedly, was not all her own.

"You had your whole life ahead of you."

It was a phrase she'd heard more times than she could count, often said by those who thought they knew better. She'd always found it rather funny… because as much as they tried to understand her, they never really hit the mark. She didn't have a life before this, not one that she'd ever want to go back to.

There were mountains of notes on this very subject and a line of shrinks waiting outside her door to study her. All of them unable to understand how she could go from being a promising up-and-coming psychologist to a lovesick criminal devoted to one, very unstable, man.

No one seemed to get it.

But this was a reality that did not surprise her. After all, she had once been where they were. She knew how they looked at her, because she knew how they thought. Some show her pity… others disgust… but it's all the same, really. She was an Eve who listened to the sweet whispers of the devil and bit into an apple that no one else dared to.

Not that it mattered what they thought.

The Joker was a temptation that was hard to resist. — Her Joker.

Never had she experienced anything quite like him.

Before it all, she lived a boring life in retrospect. Just a good girl with a bright future, hoping for enough degrees and shining recommendations on the wall to make daddy proud, maybe even do some good in the world. Her life had been decent then, or at least that was what everyone kept telling her. Sometimes, occasionally, she let herself believe them... just for fun.

But if she were truly honest with herself, Harley looked back on her time before the Joker with boredom. For her, it had been a bland existence, and the only reason she had lived it was to keep a promise to a dead man whose wife had left long before her daughter could even speak the word "mama".

She realized a long time ago that it had been fate that attracted her to the asylum and in turn to meet The Joker. Each of their sessions had painted her dull world in brilliant colors. The pleasure and pain he gave to her gradually became an addiction she found she could not live without. Every day she saw his face brought her unbridled joy, and every day without him left her depressed and lethargic.

For her, it wasn't hard to care for him and the more sides she saw of him the more in love she couldn't help but fall. There was never a dull day by his side and that in itself was one of the many reasons she kept coming back. He was a dangerous package but he was a complete one and he was all hers.

She felt that she could never love anyone as much as she loved him, that she would have never been able to come close to loving anyone else…

But then she saw the shocked and horrified face of one of the asylum's doctors after a routine check-up, and she'd felt her whole world change.

She would be having a baby. She'd be a mommy.

Funny thing was, the thought had never crossed her mind. Kids had never really seemed to be in her future and she hadn't been all that into the thought of having kids like all the other broads in love seemed to be.

Yet, it still brought tears to her eyes when she'd first heard the news.

After all, it was Jay's baby.

The little thing growing inside of her was part her and part him, and as far as she was concerned it couldn't be anything more than beautiful.

The problem was, that she knew she wouldn't be able to keep it. She was a criminal locked in an insane asylum, which practically screamed unfit mother in the eyes of the law. And if she were honest, Arkham was no place to raise a kid anyway. — Didn't mean the thought of letting the little tike go hurt any less though.

But as the kid grew inside of her, Harley held off the inevitable by imagining a life where she and Joker got to be parents AND rule the criminal underground like the king and queen she knew they were meant to be.

…. What a life that would be.

Sometimes she let herself have a little bit of hope. Maybe there was a chance Jay would break them out before she gave birth. Then she'd be able to tell him the good news. She knew he wasn't what most people would want to see as the father of their child, but she was convinced he'd be a good one. Not conventional in any sense, of course, but when had she ever wanted anything in her life conventional?

It wasn't until her water broke that the full weight of Harley's situation landed on her and the panic set in. With tears in her eyes she struggled against two lug-sized orderlies as they strapped her down to a cold steel table.

"No, no!" she pleaded, hyperventilating as she wished and hoped that maybe just maybe Jay would come and save her before they took their child away. — She could imagine him vividly: purple coat fluttering and a wide grin on his face as he busted in through the metal doors, spraying the room with lead before stealing her away.

…. But no matter how long she stared at those double doors, he didn't come, and so she was made to push.

Waves of pain hit her as the baby inched out of her.

Her baby.

She screamed through gritted teeth, willing and wishing for the child to stay inside of her just a bit longer. Stay inside where they couldn't take it away. Just stay.

"Push," the doctor told her and, even though she didn't want to, the action came naturally.

Push.

Tears started to stream down Harley's cheeks as she did as instructed. She couldn't stop the baby from coming… and to be honest part of her didn't want to. If it was only for a moment, she wanted to hold her baby in her arms. She wanted to lay eyes on the little person who'd occupied her womb for the last nine months.

Push.

One last scream from Harley and a young, watery cry broke through, young healthy lungs filling with air as the baby's vocal cords got their first uses.

The new mother watched through a dazed vision as the small thing was wrapped in a dull blanket, small tufts of blonde poking out from atop its round pink head.

"It's a girl," the doctor announced, and Harley found herself releasing a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding.

A girl. A baby girl.

Her baby girl.

Sweat dripping down her brow, Harley smiled through tears, unable to hold back this overwhelming happiness that was beginning to flower within her. Ignoring the restraints cutting into her wrists, she sat up slightly and strained her neck to try and get a glimpse of her baby's face.

"Can I hold her?" the blonde questioned, her voice sounding so soft and genuine that it even caught herself off guard.

The nurse holding her daughter stared at her both startled and hesitant before turning to the higher authority in the room. The doctor shook his head solemnly, refusing to speak a word as he motioned for the nurse to give him the baby.

Harley felt her heart drop into her stomach at the gesture, and despite being in pain she sat up as fully and abruptly as possible. "Just- just for a little while, huh? Please just let me hold her before you take her away."

The nurse and doctor ignored her words and moved to leave as the orderlies stepped toward her growing hysteria.

Harley began to feel as if the world was falling from beneath her. She had known they would take her daughter… but she hadn't realized that they would rob her of a chance to at least hold the baby in her arms. "Wait! Let me hold her!" She yanked against her restraints as she watched the doctor and nurse continue to exit the room without another look in her direction.

"PLEASE!" She screamed as the door opened, struggling against the rough hands of an orderly as he tried to get her to lay back down. "PLEASE!"

No one in the room gave her any sympathy. She may have been a new mother who'd just given birth, but she was also a criminal. They had often called her unstable and delusional, and as someone who once worked in this very place she should have known better than to get her hopes up and believe that they would trust her enough to allow her to hold her own daughter.

In their eyes, she was unfit and dangerous.

She had understood that much… She had prepared herself for that much… but that baby… her and joker's baby…. Did she not still have a right to hold her? To name her at the very least?

Did the hours she had just spent in labor mean nothing? Did the months she had to carry the girl around inside her mean nothing?

Harley had cooperated to make sure that her baby was born healthily. From the moment she found out about the baby's existence she had been the picture of a perfect inmate. She had eaten what they'd told her to eat and took anything they had prescribed. She had made an active effort to be good for her child's sake.

All that she was asking for in return as one simple thing.

"JUST LET ME HOLD HER!" she pleaded to a closed door, the doctor and nurse having already disappeared from sight.

Hot tears flooded her vision as the restraints around her wrists drew blood. She flailed against the steel slab with all the frustration and anger that came from forcefully losing a child, the pain of labor feeling like nothing compared to the pain in her heart at that moment.

They forced her down, a raw cry escaping her lips as she tried to push against the orderlies to no avail. She sobbed, her fists clenching as she refused to give up. If she didn't get to touch her child now, she knew that she would never get another chance again.

She tried to ask again, the words hard to form between her panicked breaths, "P-please... just let me... hold… my daughter-"

The sharp prick of a syringe digging into her neck cut Harley off, her mind fogging as a strong sedative entered her system, turning her world black.