She awoke to a strange room, whitewashed and sterile, which nevertheless seemed familiar. It was a cell in Arkham Asylum, she realized with a slight sense of panic. Panic which only increased as she recognized the voice next to her saying, "Finally awake, are you, Dr. Harleen Quinzel?"

"Tim!" she gasped, her eyes focusing on the man seated by her bed. "Don't you dare…stay away from me!"

Dr. Baker laughed. "Oh, Harley, how can you possibly think I have any interest in you now that you really have become the clown's little slut? I don't know where he's been, and I don't want to take any chances with any diseases he may have given you! Besides, a girl who would sleep with the Joker is obviously beyond easy, and I for one enjoy a challenge. And there's no challenge in sleeping with a patient, as you well know," he added with a smirk.

"I'm not your patient!" snapped Harley. "I'm not insane!"

He laughed. "Yes, that's what you all say," he retorted, leaning forward. "You're one of them now, Harley," he murmured. "A raving lunatic, so blind to your own insanity that you can't even see it's there. So delusional about yourself and your lover that you actually think he loves you, and vice versa. And to think, you thought yourself so much better than the rest of us when you started here. I didn't think you could get any more pathetic. I was wrong."

"There's only one of us who's pathetic here, Tim," retorted Harley, coldly. "And it's not me. Mr. J has set me free."

He laughed again. "Yes," he agreed, smiling smugly as he stood up. "You look it. I'll see you in session, Harley."

He stood up, leaving her alone. The door slammed and Harley was left alone, locked in the small, box-like room. She sat up slowly, trying not to panic. Her chest was bandaged, but at least she could breathe now. She looked around the barren cell for some way out. But there was none. She was trapped.

A sense of claustrophobia set in, and she drew her knees up to her chest, breathing steadily. "M…Mr. J," she stammered, squeezing her eyes shut. "Just think of Mr. J. He promised it would all be ok."

"Harley?" said a familiar voice from the vent next door.

"I…Ivy?" gasped Harley, racing over to the vent. "You're back?"

"Annoyingly, yes," growled Ivy. "After Johnny and me dropped you off, Batman literally flew into the car. I guess we shouldn't have driven to J's hideout first after all."

"Well, thanks for not letting him know where we were, Red," said Harley.

"I don't help Batman," snapped Ivy. "Anyway, it's fine – Johnny and me have been organizing a breakout since we got back, so we won't be in here much longer."

"Can me and Mr. J come with you?" asked Harley, hopefully.

Ivy was silent. "You can come," she agreed at last.

"I ain't going anywhere without Mr. J," said Harley, firmly. "I love him, Red. I ain't leaving him alone in this hellhole. He wouldn't do that to me, and I wouldn't do that to him."

"Wow, you have a lot more faith in him than I do," sighed Ivy. "But fine, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to have J come along with us."

Harley heard a clink, and looked up to see a bunch of keys being tossed through the vent. "I swiped them from a guard," explained Ivy. "We're gonna wait for everyone to leave tonight, and then sneak outta here."

Harley thought for a moment. "Yeah…sneaking isn't really me and Mr. J's style," she murmured. "And it's been done, y'know."

"Well, what do you suggest then?" snapped Ivy.

Harley picked up the keys. "Something a little more…fun," she murmured, smiling.

…

"I don't know why I'm even wasting my time talking to you," sighed Dr. Baker, as he sat across from the Joker, who was handcuffed and seated on the therapy couch. "It's obvious that nothing anyone can say or do can cure you."

"Nope!" chuckled Joker. "Can't fix what ain't broken, Timmy, you know that!"

"Yes, you've infected Harley with your 'insanity is sanity' attitude," retorted Dr. Baker. "Along with a great many other things, I'm sure."

"Oooh, somebody's jealous!" giggled Joker. "I don't blame you, Timmy. Harley is one crazy little minx! And it would have been such a shame to let all that lovely craziness go to waste by keeping her trapped in sanity. It was for the best that I freed her, really."

"You both keep talking about this freedom," snapped Dr. Baker. "But you're both locked up in here. Talk about delusional."

"Well, Arkham's a temporary prison at best," said Joker, shrugging. "We'll both be outta here sooner than you think, Timmy."

"I think not," he replied.

Joker giggled again. "Well, you dunno about our secret weapon!"

"What secret weapon?" demanded Dr. Baker.

He grinned. "Nah uh, can't tell you! It's a secret!"

"Don't make me hit you again, Joker," sighed Dr. Baker.

"Who do you think you are, Timmy? Batman?" chuckled Joker. "He's the only guy who gets a second chance at hitting me. But I'd love for you to try it."

"Don't you ever get sick of talking crap, J?" sighed Dr. Baker.

"I'm the one talking crap?" laughed Joker. "Aw, Timmy, I didn't know you had a sense of humor under that tedious exterior! Though I guess you'd kinda have to, to be you. Gotta smile and laugh at your joke of a life, don't ya?"

"Do you know what the funny thing about you is, J?" asked Dr. Baker. "It's not your jokes, or your routines. In fact, you're incredibly unfunny when you try to be funny. But you're very funny when you open your mouth in general. Because everything you say is so goddamn stupid. People are laughing at you, Joker. You do understand that, don't you? Whenever you say anything, they think 'listen to that poor, pathetic lunatic trying to rationalize his disgusting madness. Trying to defend his insanity by pretending that it makes him better than us. What a sad, small little man he is.' You're not better than us, Joker. You're not special. You're a sick, repulsive monster, and that's all you'll ever be."

Dr. Baker was suddenly punched in the back of the skull. The blow was strong, and knocked him off his chair. He looked up, stunned, to see Harley Quinn standing above him, her eyes blazing in fury. "He's a genius, you moron!" she whispered. "A genius! And you're gonna pay for talking about him like that!"

"How did you get out of your cell?" demanded Dr. Baker. "Guards, get in…"

But his voice was choked in his throat as the Joker threw his handcuffs around his neck, pulling him back and strangling him. "I don't think help's coming, Timmy!" gigged Joker, tightening his grip around his throat. "I guess I can tell ya that secret weapon of mine now, huh? It's insanity. Glorious, inventive, fearless insanity. Oh, I know you think I just babble nonsense, but you'd have to be crazy to stage a breakout from this joint! And Harley and me, we're crazy. And that means no matter how crazy our plan is, it's gonna work. Y'see, insanity is the trump card. It can't be beaten by anything you sane people throw out at us. That's why the Bat's the only guy who can take us down. He's just as crazy as the rest of us. But for the poor, pathetic little drones like you…well, let's just say you've lost this hand, Timmy. And you've lost the game."

Dr. Baker gasped for breath, trying to struggle against the Joker. He looked up at Harley with desperate eyes, and she just glanced down at him coldly.

"Harley…please…help!" he gasped. "You can't let him do this! You can't let him…kill me!"

Harley laughed. "Aw, he sure is pathetic, Mr. J," she agreed. "Flopping around like a fish, gasping out his last breaths…sheesh, he called me pathetic a lotta times, but at least I never begged for mercy from anyone!"

She knelt down next to him, staring straight into his panicked eyes. "Why ain't ya laughing, Tim?" she whispered. "Dying's one big joke, after all. So why don't you laugh?"

She pulled a tiny aerosol can out of her pocket, and sprayed it directly into his mouth. Dr. Baker began convulsing in hysterical laughter, before he stopped being able to breathe. The Joker released the handcuffs from around his throat, letting the body slide to the ground.

"That ain't Joker toxin," he said, nodding at the can.

"Nah uh," she agreed. "Nitrous oxide. Stole it from the infirmary. Not quite the same effect, but you gotta work with what you have. And at least it made him go out on a laugh."

Joker grinned. "Knew you'd make a great little improviser!" he laughed, as she reached for the keys and unlocked his handcuffs. "What's the plan, pumpkin?"

"Fun, fun, and more fun, puddin'," she breathed, smiling at him.

He giggled, and kissed her tenderly. "I like the sound of that!"

…

Dr. Bartholomew didn't realize anything was wrong in the asylum at first. He was still fuming from the meeting he had just attended, the meeting where he was informed that he was being retired as head doctor of Arkham Asylum, to be replaced with, of all people, a woman called Dr. Joan Leland. A woman whose qualifications were clearly inferior to his, and had only been given the job to fill a quota, or so he firmly believed. It wasn't fair. After years of dedicated service, to be drummed out like this by a mere woman was beyond insulting.

He only noticed the screaming when his office door was flung open, and a guard suddenly fell inside, writhing on the ground and shrieking, "Get 'em off me! They're all over me!"

"What…" began Dr. Bartholomew, coming over to examine the man. He coughed suddenly, and his eyes narrowed in surprise when he saw that there was nothing on the man.

And then he fell backward in horror as what he saw as two huge snakes, but which were actually plant vines, suddenly slithered into the room, wrapping themselves around his arms and pinning him to his chair. He began panicking, struggling against the vines as they coiled around him, and he swore he could hear the snakes hiss in his ear.

His heart nearly stopped as he suddenly saw two figures standing in the doorway. Two figures who appeared to be dressed as clowns – a man in a purple suit, and a woman in a red and black jester outfit.

As they approached him, his horror grew when he saw their faces. To his fear-infected mind, they weren't human faces at all, but white skull faces drawn tightly over ravaged flesh, diseased lips twisted upward in horrible, mirthless smiles.

"No…no!" he gasped. "Stay away! Stay away from me!"

The creatures laughed, a terrible, mocking laugh, like the souls of the damned. "What's the matter, Doc?" whispered the woman, grinning horribly. "You ain't afraid of a little girl like me, are ya?"

"I do believe he is, Harley," said another voice, as another female figure entered the room. This woman was tall and beautiful, but her face was made of green ivy, which slithered up and down it, concealing and revealing it in equal measures. "A big man like him, scared of us little girls. It's pathetic, isn't it?"

"Who…who are you people?" demanded Dr. Bartholomew, trying unsuccessfully to control his fear.

"Why Doc, doncha recognize your own patients?" chuckled the male clown. "Y'see, now the inmates are running the asylum!"

"And your services are terminated," rasped a dry voice from behind him. "Permanently."

Dr. Bartholomew glanced behind him and screamed to see a living scarecrow, with blazing eyes, raising a scythe. The blade came down, and the horrible creatures all swarmed him, tearing him to pieces and laughing.

…

"Gotta say, Johnny, your little fear toxin takes all the fun outta killing a guy!" sighed Joker, as they emerged from Dr. Bartholomew's office. "He just broke his own mind – we didn't even touch him! Where's the fun in that kinda torture?"

"I assure you, Joker, it is most excruciating for the victim," replied Jonathan Crane. "The mind is capable of inflicting tortures the body is completely unable to comprehend."

"Well, next time I wanna kill a guy, I ain't taking you along," snapped Joker.

"Guess they're gonna have to hire a whole new staff here," commented Poison Ivy, looking around at the carnage left in the asylum.

"Yep, out with the old and in with the new!" chuckled Joker. "Can't be any worse than what they had! Anyway, as fun as this whole murderous rampage has been, we'd better beat it before the Bat arrives," he said, glancing at his watch. "They'll have activated some sorta alarm before they all got frightened to death."

"We're taking separate cars this time," said Ivy as they headed outside. "That way maybe the Bat'll chase you."

"Well, he certainly loves doing that, the big tease!" giggled Joker. "And that makes two of us!"

Ivy rolled her eyes, heading for a car. "See you around, J. Harley, thanks for the fun!"

"Yes, we must do this again sometime," agreed Crane, climbing into another car. "Though I hope not to be back here for a little while at least. But it's pleasing to know that I was able to complete that experiment in mass terror after all. Thank you for letting me do that this time, Harley."

"Anytime, Johnny," replied Harley, smiling at him as she climbed into a separate car with the Joker. "See you soon!"

"I'm proud of you, kid," said Joker, as they drove back to his hideout. "You did a great job today."

"You mean it, Mr. J?" asked Harley, hopefully

"Do I look like I'm joking?" he chuckled. "Yeah, of course I mean it! It's only been a few short weeks, but you've gone from some pathetic prisoner of sanity into a strong, confident, gloriously insane gal who drives me absolutely crazy! Why wouldn't I be proud of that?" he asked, kissing her.

"It's all because of you, Mr. J," she murmured, taking his hand. "You set me free. I owe everything to you."

"And don't you ever forget it, you little brat," he said, grinning at her. "But I like you this way, Harley. I really do."

"Yeah?" she asked, grinning. "I like me this way too."

He pinched her cheek. "Don't ever change, my little Harley Quinn," he murmured.

"Never, Mr. J," she breathed, squeezing his hand and smiling. "Never."

The End