"You weren't even going to tell me," Damien said after Adriana's second afternoon and recreation hour spent with the Joker. She was in her room at the institution, writing down notes to share with Bruce once she left that evening. He had walked into her room unannounced.

"How did you even know I was here?" she asked, barely looking up from her writing.

"I know everything that goes on in this city," he said. "Especially when some of my guys are being replaced with outside security."

The police's hires for guarding her during her brief interaction with the Joker were not policemen. Bruce had made sure of that for her safety.

"Yeah, I made a decision without telling you," she said rolling her eyes. "We're not exactly married."

"So, they're paying you," he said. "The agreed amount."

"I guess so...eventually," she said, knowing that she already deposited the check before she returned to the institution.

"Who gave you approval to do this? How did you go around me?" he said, not enjoying the feeling of not being in charge.

"Does it matter?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered. "I need to know who is in control here." He thought of the security that he had seen with the Joker before he went to see Adriana. More was going on here than he knew, and he did not like being out of the loop.

"Not you," she answered. "Please go."

"I will figure it out eventually," he said and walked over and touched her hair.

"Great," she said, pulling her hair away from him and flipping over the opposite shoulder from where he stood. He leaned down and kissed her cheek.

"You're leaving soon," he said. "Do you need a ride?"

"Sure," she sighed and could tell he was peering at what she was writing, but the things she was writing didn't seem to make much sense without context. Incomplete sentences and random words. "Come back in a couple hours. I have more work to do."

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After Damien was gone, she changed into her normal clothes and walked to Dr. Andrews office.

"Adriana," he said after she opened the door. He appeared to be rearranging furniture. He was pushing his desk closer to the middle of the room "I hope you got enough information from your-" he stopped talking as she helped him push his desk. "Thank you."

"No problem," she said. "I don't know if I have enough honestly, but I'm not going to stress over it."

"Yes, don't stress yourself," he said and patted her on the shoulder. "You've done well."

"I just stopped in to say goodbye, I'm going to change out of these," she indicated the patient attire she was wearing. "And then I will be on my way out."

"Okay, dear," he said kindly. "Ah, almost forgot I adjusted your prescriptions again for the next month. Here's your new script."

"Awesome," she smiled seeing another reduction in the medicines she had to take after he handed her the handwritten prescription on his desk. "One less pill."

"Yes, well this will be the course you need for at least the next month or two before I will make more adjustments," he said and started moving his couch, Adriana came over and assisted him.

"You're too kind," he said once they successfully moved the couch to the corner.

"So are you," she said before leaving his office.

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Adriana checked her room making sure she left no mess. She sat on the bed in her room in the institution knowing it would likely be the last time she would ever be there. The papers she had scribbled notes on about the Joker were strewn across the bed. The last thing to clean. She gathered them up and put them, folded in half, into the small backpack, which was her only luggage. She looked around for her prescription sheet and couldn't find it even after unpacking and repacking everything. She had already eaten dinner and taken a shower and she knew that well over two hours had passed. Dr. Andrews was probably gone for the night, but she decided to check his office anyway.

When she got there, she discovered that his door was locked. She could see through a tiny space under the closed blinds in the window on the door that the lights were off. He was gone.

She sighed and turned away from the door but froze when she saw who was behind her.

It was the Joker. He looked amused. He also seemed slightly out of breath as if he had been running.

She was more surprised at the fact that she had not seen him coming than the fact that he was there in front of her. Her gift being downsized had it's downsides. She had no warning. He was on the loose and there was not a guard in sight.

It was the first time she was standing face to face with him, and she felt incredibly small. He was close to eight inches taller than she was. Running wasn't an option.

"Check the next hall!" Adriana heard an angry voice shout. It was security. "Clear!" she heard another voice shout along with the sounds of doors opening and shutting. "Clear!"

He glanced around considering the situation and the grabbed her arm. He pulled her along and began to run down another hall of offices. His strides were much bigger than her own, and she almost fell several times trying to keep up.

"Wait!" Adriana said but he kept running until they reached a dead end and an emergency exit that would certainly sound alarms if he opened the door. She could tell by the look on his face that he was having fun. He looked around at the four other doors which led to offices. Immediately he went to the door marked 'Dr. Barillio' and pushed it open and pulled Adriana inside and shut the door.

He immediately went over to the window and looked down.

She turned when she saw the quick flicker of a flashlight through the office windows and the sounds of security coming closer. When she looked back at the Joker, she could see that he didn't have enough time to figure out how to get the locked window open without breaking it, which would cause a lot of noise.

He knew that even if this escape didn't work, he would be sent back to the police station which was where he preferred to be. Much easier to get away there.

"In there," he ordered, pointing to the vintage looking sliding door closet.

"I'm not hiding from them," she said rolling her eyes. His thoughts were clear. Her lack of fear was surprising to him.

"Get in," he grunted and pulled her into the dusty closet and slid the door shut quickly. She pulled what felt like the thread of a spider's web from her forehead.

"You're not going to get away," she said in a voice barely above a whisper. "This is stupid."

"Silence," he ordered quietly and pushed her behind him and tried to peer through one of the lines in the sliding door. He could see a security guard at the door. The guard pushed the door open and turned on the light and looked around quickly, glancing behind the desk. It wasn't one of the new guards the Joker had noticed. It was one of the Institution's own who clearly wasn't taking the situation as seriously as the newer guards seemed to be.

"Clear!" the guard shouted and walked out, leaving the door slightly ajar.

The Joker turned around and saw Adriana in the dark, with her arms crossed and her head tilted slightly to one side. He couldn't see her eyes, but he could tell by her posture even in the dark that she was not amused.

He was then distracted by a small movement on the wall behind her. She immediately turned to see what he was looking at and saw an enormous spider dangling very closely to the back wall of the closet. The sliver of light back there made the spider look like it was on stage.

Immediately she turned until she was fully facing the spider and backed away until her back hit the Joker's chest.

"Fuck this," she whispered intensely. "Move."

"It's dead," he said. She carefully tried to see if that was true and saw that the spider was not moving. She exhaled in a bit a relief but still..the thing looked vital, almost shiny and living.

The Joker realized the feeling of being this close to another person was quite unfamiliar. She was shorter than him, the top of her head was below his chin, and he could smell her hair. The smell of the Institution's shampoo which smelled exactly like the same as the tiny blue bars of soap they issued. She was shaking her head as if she was still examining the dangling creature in front of them. She started to blow at it and he resisted laughing. He was beginning to become aware of the fact that close proximity with others wasn't entirely unpleasant. At the same moment they both saw the creature come to life and begin to rapidly ascend the web it was hanging from.

"No!" Adriana screeched and began hyperventilating and flung her arms as she turned around, pushing him. "Fuck this, I'm out!"

"No," the Joker said and clapped a hand over her mouth. He was somewhat confounded by the fact that she didn't fight him or try to claw his hand from her mouth immediately. She was more focused on half turning her head back to the insect. In fact, her breathing slowed a bit, almost as if she was being comforted, until the spider made it to the ceiling of the closet and began to crawl above their heads.

She freed herself from his grasp, surprisingly easily, and began to push him aside and tried to find the door opening. She was small but strong and fast. Her fingertips found a thin slice of light which was just another fold in the door and not the actual opening.

"Let me out!" she said somewhat loudly and pushing around him again. He reached back to where the door opening was and began to push it open, and she looked up and saw that the fast spider had made it to the other side of the closet and was a few inches from her face.

She screeched again and grabbed his free arm and pushed through the small space in the partially opened door. He realized the fear made her incredibly strong. She was gripping his arm hard enough to pull him out of the closet along with her, but as he turned, he hit his toe on something which he imagined was the bottom rim of the opened door. Since he was wearing only socks the pain surprised him and he leapt forward onto the foot that hadn't been injured, bumping into her from behind which sent her forward against the desk.

A scream that he knew the security would hear, if they were still even remotely close by, erupted from her as her left abdomen hit the front of the desk. She crumbled down to the floor clutching her lower left stomach.

"Owww...ahhh," she said with her eyes closed and began to sob. She held her abdomen and rolled from side to side, clearly in a lot of pain.

He looked down at her and tilted his head, standing over her as she curled up on the floor. Slowly he squatted down onto the floor beside her. She looked angry and looked at him like it was his fault. Yes, he had pushed her into the desk, but she had pulled him in her frantic escape from the closet, causing him to hit a toe. He pushed her hands to the side to assess the damage. He lifted her shirt up a few inches and noticed a reddening area where the desk had hit into her hip bone. Very gently he touched the area with his fingertips, and she flinched in pain.

"You're fine," he said in a voice that showed very clearly that he thought she was exaggerating.

"How do you know?" she said painfully still angry. "Are you a doctor?"

"Doctor would tell ya the same thing," he said to her.

He could hear someone coming and knew that he would not be escaping yet.