I know. Long wait. And I apologize, but this will be worth it. It's the last chapter and it's super long!

My friend asked me after reading the last chapter (TEN) how I was going to end this. More specifically, she asked if it was going to be a happy ending. I can't say that I believe in happy endings, or sad ones for that matter. I believe in endings – whether they're sad or happy all depends on if it's appropriate for the story. So, here's the ending, happy or sad. You can be the judge.

ELEVEN

She knew it was silly, and she knew it was very unlikely, but the only real dream she'd ever had in her life was to become a member of the Olympic gymnastics team. And if that dream panned out (like she knew so well that it would), a gold medal would be a nice touch. But she didn't care too much about receiving a medal – really. She only wanted to be there; to show the world that Harley Quinzel could carry out her impeccable routines on the vault, bars, balance beam, and floor.

But of course, as most of these stories go, others became jealous of her natural talent and intense motivation. They tore her (one and only) dream down with just one push of an uneven bar. Her shattered leg did not repair itself until long after her (one and only) chance had passed before her glassy eyes.

She only wanted to prove that she had more to offer this world than just a good laugh at her ridiculous joke of a name. Maybe she still could.

When she receives the call that morning, it only takes Harley about twenty minutes to get down to the Gotham City Police Department.

"Doctor Quinzel, is it?" Harley examines the man addressing her. Graying hair and a mustache resembling a caterpillar tell her that he spends too many hours in a job that is much too big for him. She can relate. "Commissioner Jim Gordon," he introduces. His hand is firm and frantic in hers. "I'm sorry to have to bring you down here like this with no explanation, but we received a call from the Joker demanding that he speak with you." Harley tries, with difficulty, to look surprised. "Said it was something about a nervous breakdown." Now, she tries hard not to laugh.

"Did he leave a number – or anything?"

"No." Well, of course not. "We aren't sure how to contact him." With one sudden ring, he excuses himself to answer his cell phone. He sees from the caller ID that it is one of his field agents. "Did you get anything yet?"

"Good morning, Commissioner." Harley can hear his erratic voice from where she stood. She tries again to stifle her laughter at the sight of Gordon's face. "Would you please be so kind as to pass the phone to Miss Quinzel?" She watches the lump in his throat grow noticeably larger as he debates his decisions.

"Hello?" Harley asks the speaker after a stony faced Gordon hands her the cell and bursts into his police-like action.

"First," Joker begins with a breath, "tell the coppers that are listening in on this call to stop listening and trying to trace it." She eyes the policemen and nods to them. They drop their equipment.

"Anything else?"

"Meet me in room two hundred twelve at Gotham High School."

She waits for him to continue, and when he doesn't she says, "Or…?

"Or nothing. Just come in sixty minutes. And without clothes."

Harley can't keep her jaw from dropping at that. "I'm sorry?"

"Naked, please. Oh! And tell your friends over there what our plans are, I'll blow up the school."

The almost silent, high pitched tone of the dead line reminds her that he's hung up on her. She hands the phone back to the Commissioner, telling him not to worry about anything; she just needed to consol him for a bit. But all she can think about are his somewhat horrifying instructions.

If Harley has to choose, the only decision she regrets making in the past two months is putting on that leopard print bra this morning. Not even coming here, to face her pretty imminent death. Oh, how mad! love is.

But people have done madder things for love. Maybe. She supposes people die for others that they love quite frequently. Then again, she isn't dying for him. She doesn't even know why she is dying; all that she knows for certain is that she's here – now – because she doesn't have a better alternative. Love is mad. Or maybe it's she that is mad.

Room two hundred twelve just so happens to be the farthest classroom from the base of the school; up one flight of stairs and down two separate halls. When Harley's hand finally reaches the doorknob, she is almost certain that Joker is directly on the other side, waiting to jump at her. But of course, only the eyes of fairly confused teenagers meet her.

That is curveball in itself. Students. She hadn't been expecting there to be any kids in the room of their meeting. But of course, she wasn't really expecting anything in particular – just going with the flow of things… for once.

"I thought," came his voice (accompanied by an array of frightened gasps), "that my directions were pretty clear."

Harley can't help herself from staring at the man who now grasps the back of her head and thrusts her face close to his own. His dark eyes appear darker with unfamiliar black smeared sloppily around them and his scars that had been practically unnoticeable prior are now impossible to ignore when slathered in red. Harley can't help the first thought that pops into her clouded mind: how easy it must be to apply makeup in such a fashion. She smiles to herself at the thought of a simpler life such as that.

"Take the shirt off, beautiful."

His demand brings Harley back to what little amount of reality she's still consciously grasping onto. Squirming out of his hold, she glowers at him wordlessly.

"Many things I've been called, Harley Quinn. Rapist is not one of them." He gestures emotionlessly again for her to remove her top.

Why? she wants to ask. There are many things she would like to ask, but can't stop her fingers from unbuttoning the black satin of her blouse. And her face turns a milk white shade when she recalls the bra she clipped on that morning. Leopard print. Red lace. Almost transparent. And now she is cold. Of all the lingerie…

Joker's eyebrows shoot up and he suppresses a laughing fit with a small smirk. "You didn't dress up for me, did you?" Harley barely has any time to reply with another glare as his arms grip around her small frame. She can feel the cold blade of his dagger against her bare clavicle.

"Hello there," he whispers into the side of her face.

"What are you doing?" she breathes while he traces the tip of the knife along her bone.

"I could ask you the same thing." Harley opens her mouth to reply, but shuts it soon after she realizes she has none. "Ah." She can't see his face, but can hear the smile on it. "You don't know, do you? Well – here's a little clue." Joker's lips are warm against her freezing neck. "You. Love. Me."

"Even if I did," she can sense his mouth stretch into a sly smile on his skin with her lack of denial, "that still doesn't explain why I'm in my underwear right now." Because she doesn't know herself.

"Not completely in your underwear," he reminds her cunningly. "And, it does too." Harley turns her head now to face him for the first time. "You see, because you love me, you're willing to come down to my level. And seeing as how that's impossible for… well, anyone but me to do without losing their minds, you're losing yours. It's as simple as that." He laughs and a student whimpers, bringing their audience to his attention for (seemingly) the first time. Smiling to himself, he digs the knife into her shoulder, strategically missing the left common carotid but still leaving a decent enough gash to instill fear in the hearts of the people in front of them (if fear didn't exist already). Harley gasps at the sudden pain, but stifles the intense desire to cry out.

"So here's the lesson for the morning," Joker begins, suddenly freeing Harley from his grasp and starting for the class of kids who couldn't have been much older than fifteen. She tries to feel some sort of remorse for them; tries to muster the words to tell him to leave them alone, but no such words exist. Her ethics are indeed slipping away.

He claps his hands together. A few kids jump. "Why you? I mean, you're innocent kids. Aren't you?" He looks quickly back to Harley and throws her a small expression of mock disappointment. "Right. Of course you are." He swings his knife, now dripping her blood, in front of each face. "How many of you have smoked pot?" While trying to keep the blood from pouring out of her fresh wound, Harley knows that she isn't the only one taken aback by his question. No one says a word. "Come on; what am I going to do? Tell on you?" She laughs. "How many of you have smoked pot?" he repeats, slower.

A few bold teenagers raise their hands hesitantly. "Leave," Joker instructs to them. They remain wary. "Leave!" They leave quickly. "How many of you have been drunk?" More hands rise now, and again he tells the non-innocent to go free. "How many of you have cheated on a test?" He asks the remainder. Many hands reach out in the air confidently and, like the groups before, leave the room.

"And the rest of you," Joker says to the ten or so left. "You are either liars or are just too proud to lie." There is a glint in his eye that Harley has never known before: satisfied and pleased sorrow. "Leave." The remnants get up tentatively and do as they're told.

A small puddle of blood is forming under his shoes from the drenched knife. He spends a moment enjoying the scene. But he stops without warning and turns about to face her. "Here," he tosses Harley a handgun from his jacket pocket.

She turns it over in her hand. "What am I supposed to do with this?" Joker hauls her to her feet and pushes her out the door.

"Shoot it."

"At who?"

Joker snickers. "Anyone but us. Unless, of course, you feel so compelled. But something tells me if you wanted either of us dead you would have done it by now."

Harley wants to come to grips with what is happening before her, but is finding rather difficult to do so at the pace they were moving. "Mister J, wait." And almost too easily, Joker stops pushing her and waits for her words. "What's going on?"

"Come on, Harley. You're a smart girl. Use those P.H.D. brains."

"Well let's say for argument's sake that I'm not a smart girl; that my brain isn't completely here at the moment." He leers slightly, but keeps his eyes locked into her cerulean ones. "What's going on?"

Joker's hand clutches her waist and he forces her to move with him as he speaks. "We're doing what we were born to do." Born to create anarchy, you silly, silly girl. "Will you hurry up? He'll be here soon and I don't want to miss the entrance."

Her feet obey with his demands but she scoffs. "You're kidding."

"Do I kid?" Joker's face is serious for a moment before releasing a single Ha!

"How do you know he'll come?"

"He always comes." He has a point there.

Before Harley has time to prepare herself properly, Joker slams her against the stucco wall, pinning his body against her. "This is a nice look for you – blood and bra." Although she wants to, she can't bring herself to scowl back at him.

When he plunges down at her, it is noticeably different from how it had been at Arkham. Harley can feel his freedom swallow her in the kiss. He breathes down on her neck harshly, saying, "That's much better without a straight jacket."

"Let her go."

"I always miss the entrance," Joker smiles, as if speaking only to Harley. He spins around, his violet trench coat swinging around his legs. "How are you, Bats? I haven't seen you in a while now, have I?"

"Let the girl go."

Girl?

But Joker only frowns and skips away from Harley, closer to the Batman. "Well I can honestly say I don't know what you're talking about. This isn't a kidnapping." Except from the way she appears, it's easy to make that assumption. "She doesn't want to go." The Batman is so obviously bewildered, Harley finds it cute. "Is it so hard," Joker continues in a loud whisper, leaning into his masked face, "to believe that someone can actually love me?"

Understandably, the Batman is tired of Joker's games and lunges forward at him, knocking him against the wall and creating a dent in the process. "Is this how you solve all your problems? Maybe you should consider some anger management? Ha ha!"

As the two continue to fight, Harley is faced with an extreme moral dilemma she never thought she would think twice about. The Batman or the Joker. Batman or Joker. Bat or Joke. Good or evil. Evil or good. Is the line dividing the two really all that distinct?

Bang!

The masked vigilante and the mad clown both stop and stare at the half naked woman before them, aiming the smoking gun just beyond their heads. A SWAT member lies on the concrete with a single bullet wound directly between the eyes.

The Batman is too stunned to notice Joker's maniacal laughter and the sudden stab in his side (courtesy of his handy-dandy shoes). He staggers to stand on his feet again, but when he does, the barrel of Joker's gun is pointed at Harley's temple.

"Whose side is she on?"

Joker only laughs. "Good question." He looks down at her face, as if the answer were written on her forehead. "But I do believe she's already answered that." An explosion of glass bursts behind them as a horn sounds. "Our cue," Joker says simply after shooting the second story window open.

They came crashing down onto the semi truck before Harley even registered they were falling. How disappointing. That's half the fun, isn't it? Probably all of it, actually.

"This is the life," Joker sighs in his face paint war paint and his ridiculously purple suit. And all Harley can do is laugh along with him. This is the life. So, her first life had failed (the second she missed the uneven bar). The life where she clung so strongly to what was right and just. If you're successful, sure, that life works. But what if you're not? Where do you go from there?

The answer had been black and white all along.

Well, I hope that wasn't a totally lame ending. It was an ending. Happy? Sad? Horrible? Wonderful? Somewhere in the between? Let me know! I'm just super stoked it's finished.

And if, for some reason, you are sad that this story has come to an end or, for an even weirder reason, you liked my writing or, for the weirdest reason, both, I'm not done with Batman (ahem, Joker moreover) fanfiction. Wow, big fragment. Anyways, I have another idea up my sleeve for a Joker story. Sorry, you haven't heard the last from me.

Thanks to all those people who've read, reviewed, and/or favorite-ed this story. It's meant the world to little-old-me.