"A what?"

Alfred repeated his statement.

"You've gotta be kidding me. No way!"

"It is a custom, Master Wayne. The guests will be expecting-"

"I don't care, it's stupid!"

Casey wandered into the room in her bare feet with a bottle of nail polish in one hand.

"What's stupid?" She asked as she sat down.

Bruce spun around melodramatically. "Apparently it's tradition for a costume party to be held at Halloween! For adults! How ridiculous is that?"

Casey put her toes on the coffee table and started to paint her nails bright red. "It's okay, Alfred. I'll take care of this."

"As you wish, Miss Williams." He said with a nod and walked out.

"Bruce, come here."

The young man walked over and sat down beside her with a disgruntled sigh.

"Is a costume party really such a bad idea? Think of how creative some people could be with their costumes."

"But-"

"How creative." She said slowly and deliberately, looking him straight in the eyes.

His eyes lit up as they travelled up her legs.

"I'll be right back."

He got up and strode away and she heard him calling to Alfred to get the car ready.

After the nail painting was done, Casey laid down on the red velvet couch, stretching out on the cushions, and soon fell asleep.

She found herself thrown against a wall. She groaned and pushed herself to her feet and found a gun in one hand and a needle filled with a dark orangey substance in the other.

She jumped and threw the needle down. The gun still remained in her grasp and she gripped it with both hands; the hard metal felt so strong and familiar in her hands, made her feel powerful again. She hadn't felt powerful in so long. Not since she'd first met Jack and she'd beaten up those guards in front of him and the look in his eyes, of alarmed fascination, had made her smile.

Then suddenly, she winced as her back hit the ground and her head hit the wall, and this time looked to see who had pushed her. She blinked to clear her vision, the gun falling from her hands and saw The Joker standing in front of her in all his glory, almost taking her breath away. He looked older, his white makeup caked in lines on his forehead and under his eyes.

"You thought you could just leave... and that would be it?"

His voice sounded different, the pitch was a lot more varied. Casey thought it made him sound unstable.

"Jack-"

"Don't call me that!" He growled, and fired a handgun at her. The bullet went into the wall beside her head, just missing the top of her ear. "I am not that anymore after what you did."

"What are you then?" She asked, her voice sounding cocky, confident. She didn't feel scared, she didn't care about any threats made against her life. The only thing she cared about was her Jack, her Joker, wild as he may be.

He tossed a card down onto the ground and she grabbed it. It was a joker card.

"Ah, you're a wild card. Unpredictable, uncontrollable."

"You see, I... I lost control when you picked up and left me there, and I just never quite managed to get it back. So, now I am going to make... you... pay."

He stepped forward, leaned down and grabbed her by her throat in one swift motion. The knife played along her collarbone.

"Do it." Casey whispered. "Just fucking do it."

Blood dripped from a cut in her chest, she gasped as the incision was made. She reached for the gun she'd had, and held it in her right hand. She put it to his head and cocked it.

He looked at her, "Aren't you gonna do it?"

She swallowed. "I'd rather die."

The gun hit the ground yet again.

"You're so weak." His laugh echoed against the dark walls of the small room and made the tiny hairs on the back of Casey's neck stand on end, her pulse racing. "You always were..."

The cold metal pressed against her neck, but she pushed herself away from the wall with her one free hand, until her forehead rested against his. Glaring, he closed the distance between them. As she lost herself in the moment, he moved the knife and drove it into her stomach.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

And as the blood spilled from her abdomen and pooled onto the ground below and choked up in her throat, she woke up, gasping for breath, and reaching out for someone that wasn't there.

"Casey!"

She followed the voice, to Bruce's room, one of the biggest bedrooms with a walk-in closet and chandelier.

"Happy Halloween."

He handed her a black bag.

"Thank you...?" She said, confused.

She opened it and threw the tissue paper aside. Then she pulled out the outfit that was inside.

"Oh my god..."

"There's going to be quite a few people there unfortunately. You don't have to come down, you can just stay up here if you want." Bruce watched as Casey walked into the closet and disappeared from view. "Most of them are completely harmless. You need to be careful who you talk to though. A lot of them tend to be very judgemental and will question you like cops. We might have to pretend your someone's niece or something because God knows what rumours they will come up with. After one round of champagne you will be my mail order bride from Mexico or something."

"Mexico? Why Mexico?"

Casey walked back into the room. Bruce stumbled over his words, staring.

Because of the ridiculousness of women's Halloween costumes, Casey's costume resembled lingerie. It was supposed to be a cat but it was barely recognisable apart from the ears and tail.

In one stride Bruce had crossed the room and was kissing her. The thought of Jack made guilt swirl in her stomach as she responded but it had been such a long time.

He lay her down on the huge king size bed and soon her costume was lying in different pieces all over the room.

Hours later, she sighed. "Now, I'm gonna have to go and buy a new costume."

"More fabric on this next one please." Bruce panted.

"Don't worry, I'll search far and wide to find one that isn't underwear."

He gave a little laugh, turned over onto his side and kissed her again.

"How lucky was I, out of all of the gardens to pass out in, you picked mine."

"Yeah..." Casey looked past him out of the window, to the darkening skyline of Gotham outside. "How lucky."

He'd been drinking. All he could think about was how angry he was, and how many weapons were at his disposal. And who to take his anger out on? There was no one else in his house, not even a rat to step on. It wasn't the sort of area where kids would come around knocking on doors trick-or-treating. They'd be too scared of being shot at.

Jack put down his glass and reached around for the bottle, accidentally knocking a book and some papers off of his desk. He sighed and reached down to pick it up.

The book fell open on his lap and it was full of drawings and notes, some disturbed, some poignant and thoughtful, even beautiful. When he reached the drawings from the past few months, it felt like a knot made of poisonous lead formed in his stomach. There were so many of Casey. Some he'd had to use his imagination for, some had actually happened. Casey lying on her stomach, kicking her legs behind her; sunbathing by a beach in California, in the shower, the water hiding most of her body except for a shock of red hair being held up with both hands as she washed it.

Swallowing down a shot of anger and misery, he threw the book down and walked out, to his weapons storage. He grabbed every gun he could easily find and loaded them all up. On his way back to his desk, his foot came in contact with a newspaper on the ground. On page 5, there was an article about the local billionaire Bruce Wayne.

"The Wayne kid drops out of Princeton for a mysterious woman, and holds huge Halloween party, but sorry folks, it's invitation only! Costume required."

"My invite must've got lost in the mail..." Jack said to his reflection in the bathroom mirror. "I'm sure they won't mind, as long as I come in costume."

He found himself laughing as he put on his makeup with his fingers, in a way he hadn't laughed since he'd blown up that nightclub with his favourite partner in crime by his side.