18. Everything Will be Fine

Disclaimer: I apologize if this chapter gets kind mushy—I promise it won't stay mushy for long! Thank you again all of you for reading and reviewing!!

Harvey Dent flipped the coin and caught it in his hand. Lying in the Joker's arms, I half expected to see him smile at the chaos in having probability determine the course of someone's life—but he didn't. He didn't look up at Harvey until the coin was in mid air. Harvey caught the coin on his hand.

"Tell her it's going to be alright, Joker," Harvey coaxed, as he covered the coin, not knowing whether it was heads or tails. The Joker looked down at me again. I don't think he knew what to say.

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I had no idea what to say! Giada just gazed up at me, speechless…I was um, well, speechless too. See, having Harvey standing over there…telling me I had to tell Giada that everything was going be okay, just wasn't going to…work for me—but I thought I'd give it a try.

"Um, Giada," I said, then cleared my throat and licked my lips, "well…things are going to work out…as they always do,"

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Wow, he was really going to tell me it was going to be okay. I couldn't believe it. The Joker backed down to Harvey Two-Face Dent! I didn't care if I was going to die—the Joker backed down to Harvey Dent!

"It takes just a simple push to make someone cross over into madness, as you can tell from our good friend Harvey Dent—but you…you Giada, you're going to be just fine—because…well…I won't let you die—not unless I'm the one pointing that gun at you," the Joker stated, unsure of what he was saying. It was clear he wanted to laugh, like he always does, but couldn't find it within him to do so.

Wow, that was romantic. I was so glad that those were going to be the last words I heard in this life.

"Thanks, Joker. Those were nice words to hear right before I die," I said sarcastically as I rolled my eyes at him. It was very apparent he had no idea how to tell me everything was going to be okay.

"No, no no no, Giada, you don't understand," the Joker said suddenly, as he looked over at Harvey who was pointing the gun at me, "I'm not going to let you…die—because, well—I just can't let that happen,"

"And why not, Joker? Why should she not die? Why can't you let her die like so many of the other innocent people you've killed?" Harvey angrily asked.

The Joker licked his lips, cleared his throat and bit his lip. What was this feeling? Why couldn't he let me die?

"Go on! Enlighten us with your psychotic cognition—how can the Joker not want one person to die, but has no remorse in killing thousands?" Harvey asked, waving the gun about.

"I…think…I love her?" he garbled. Two-Face heard exactly what he wanted to hear and turned to the Joker as an evil grin formed on his lips.

"Bingo," he said under his breath as he cocked the gun, "then it seems to me this will be more painful to you that I had anticipated," he said as he showed us the coin, "tails," he said as he pointed the gun at me. I closed my eyes tightly, not knowing what to expect. As I heard the gun shot go off, the Joker jumped from the ground at Harvey and the Batman, who had appeared behind Harvey, grabbed his arms, making him miss me in the gun fire.

I opened my eyes to see the Batman, the Joker and Two-Face in a brawl for the gun, which had fallen from Harvey's hand when Batman grabbed him. I finally was able to raise myself to my knees, when all over a sudden the bullet ricocheted off the metal fire escape and landed itself into my right shoulder. I screamed out in agony as I fell back to the pavement. This was really not my day.

"And in the end, the odds are always fair!" Two-Face exclaimed as he saw me hit the pavement.

"Harvey, how could you do this to Giada?" Batman growled as he grabbed Harvey's arms and twisted them behind his back.

"Because she is the one weak spot the Joker has—I had to get him where it hurts the most—where I hurt the most!" Two-Face exclaimed as he wriggled within Batman's grasp.

"The Joker has no weak spot for anyone," Batman snarled.

"Yes! He loves her—in some sick and deranged way—but he loves her," Two-Face said as he motioned his head towards me and the Joker, still struggling within Batman's grasp.

After the Joker heard me fall to the ground, he ran back to me and knelt down beside me.

"Now Giada, you're not going to die—we'll fix you up—I've got some tweezers here that can pull this bullet right out…" the Joker explained quickly as he took the tweezers from his bag.

"Joker! I'll take her to the hospital—she needs medical attention—real medical attention," the Batman stated.

"Since when did I ever take advice from…the Batman? She stays with me!" The Joker exclaimed in return.

I shook my head as I gazed up at the Joker. Things were starting to look a bit fuzzy for me and I knew I must be losing consciousness soon.

"Thank you, Mr. J, but the Batman is right—I need to go to a hospital. If you really don't want to lose me, let me go with him. If what you said is true—let him take me to the hospital. If it's not, then by all means, treat me here," I said, my voice strained.

"Well, we must get you out of this little…predicament, don't we?" he asked with a laugh, ignoring everything I had said. He went into his bag, licked his lips and searched for a few medical tools to stitch me up. Well, there was my answer. What he had said earlier wasn't true. I should have known—he only said it because it was what Harvey wanted to hear. He wanted the Joker to feel the pain he felt, so the Joker lied and pretended he did.

"Joker, I'm taking her to a hospital," Batman growled, after he finally punched Harvey hard enough that he was knocked out cold.

"I'm doing something!" the Joker exclaimed as he threaded a needle.

"You're just going to make it worse—she's going to die," the Batman explained.

"She's going to die if I don't temporarily close this wound," the Joker replied, staring up at Batman in the first real serious moment I'd see in a while.

"How do you know?" he asked.

"Because I've seen these wounds before," the Joker replied, "now this is going to hurt Giada—just…hurt me if I hurt you too bad,"

I nodded my head and closed my eyes as I felt the needled pierce my skin. I had no idea the Joker knew anything about wounds and medicine. He really was a brilliant all-around psychopath. I assumed he learned these things from being in the military. As he sewed up my wound, the pain was so unbearable that I couldn't help but punch him in the face.

"Woo! Better punch me when I'm not in the middle of sewing up your shoulder," the Joker laughed as he shook his head from the blow. He finally finished and put the needle down.

"There we go, Giada, my girl," he giggled as he stood to his feet, closed up his bag and lifted it from the ground.

"Well…?" the Joker asked finally, as he looked at Batman and then back down at me.

"Well what, Joker? You sewed her up, now what do you expect of me?" Batman asked.

"Are you taking her or not?" he asked, "you better take her soon before I…change my mind,"

In my last few moments of what I could remember, my heart jumped at that. Maybe he hadn't been lying when he said he thought he might love me. I never thought I'd see the day when he might say those words. Maybe it never happened. Maybe it was all a hallucination from the agonizing pain I had been in for what seemed like days. The last I remember was the Batman lifting me from the ground and as I got higher and higher into the air, I could see the Joker looking back up at me. I saw him reach down and picked up the gun that Harvey had threatened me with. He pointed the gun at Harvey, who was lying unconscious on the ground for the second time that evening. Then there was the sound of a gunshot. The Joker put a bullet through Harvey Dent's head. He was finally at rest.

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"We have a 25 year old female here with a gunshot wound to her right shoulder, lacerations on her upper left chest and glass wounds in her left hand," I heard the nurse explain to the on-call ER resident.

"Call the OR stat—she needs that gunshot wound out right away," the resident responded.

"Right away, doctor," the nurse replied.

"Miss DiMarco, is it?" one of the nurses asked me. All I could do was nod my head 'yes'.

"You've got some pretty bad wounds here on your hand—we're just going to give you some Novocain and pull out the glass shards. You'll only feel the pinch of the needle," the nurse explained. Again, all I could do was nod my head 'yes'. The pinch from the needle was the least of my pain and worries at the moment. I was actually relieved once the Novocain set in so I could no longer feel the throbbing pain in my hand as she plucked out the remaining pieces of glass.

I then remembered vaguely being rushed down the hall to the OR. The nurses surrounded me and they were all assuring me that I'd be just fine. Where was the Joker when you needed him to tell you that you were going to be just fine? I couldn't help but laugh inside my head at that one. Or maybe it was the laughing gas they were giving me. Yeah, I think it was that.

"Just count backwards from 100, Miss DiMarco," I remember the surgeon telling me once I was in the OR. He placed the mask over my face.

"100, 99, 98…" and I was out cold.

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I opened my eyes and all was still dark in the ICU. Why was I in the ICU? Oh, I had surgery, that's right. All I could hear was the steady beeping from the hospital machines.

My head ached.

I looked down and saw that my left hand was all bandaged. Oh right, I punched a window. What an idiot I was! I took in a deep breath. It really hurt to breathe. I lifted my right hand and felt the pain from my shoulder. Oh right—the gun wound. Jesus! I was just falling apart! It was then that I noticed the bandages over my chest, covering where my scars had been. Yup, and that'd be from the window I punched earlier. I was batting a thousand today. I couldn't believe it was still the same day—it had to have been the longest day ever. I wondered what time it was. Maybe 4:00 am? 5:00 am? The sun had to be rising soon. I just wanted this horrible day to end—I felt a tear trickle down my cheek. I hadn't cried this whole day—not even when a gun was pointed directly at me.

I lifted my left hand and wiped away the tear with the bandages. Face paint covered the bandage as I brought my arm back down to my side. I had forgotten I was wearing face paint. They didn't remove it for surgery? Maybe they removed most of it. I let my eyes close. I just wanted to be asleep and forget everything that had happened. I wondered where the Joker was. I wondered if he missed me. He told me it would be just fine—would it?