Pamela sits in the sterile white of the emergency room. Harley's skin is the color of the walls. Her hands and feet are sewn shut, stitches on the inside and outside, bound in bandages, but she cannot see those beneath the warmed hospital blanket, white, too. She is a mass of stitches, all across her body. Her cheek has been stitched shut, a long curled incision. The doctor calls it half of a Glasgow smile, though Pamela has never heard the term. The machines beep, measuring Harley's heartbeat, blood pressure, and oxygen. They have given her two blood transfusions. The doctor tells her another few minutes of it, and she would have been dead. He speaks of her body and not of her mind, and Pamela thinks the change there is more important than what has happened to her body.

She remembers her from earlier in the night (it is early morning now), foaming red at the mouth as she fought the EMT's, tried to get up and run after the freak. The cops never find him, and the red truck is gone by the time they make it back down the stairs. They report the plates to the media, and the truck is found within an hour, abandoned at a gas station. The attendant reports seeing a tall, thin man in what looked like bloody hospital pajamas.

Within another three hours, another car is reported stolen at a motel, one with a bag full of clothes inside. He has had four hours of good driving on the interstate. He is miles away now, and while Pamela feels relief for Harley's safety, she cannot stop the anger that he is either so fucking smart, or so fucking lucky, that they just can't find him. An APB has been put out, but they have nothing but black and white security footage, and the meager information that Pamela knows: his name.

Harley is pumped with so many painkillers that she does not even make a sound as she sleeps. Her head lolls to the side, and Pamela thinks she is a broken doll; soft, blonde hair spread out upon the pillow, lips swollen and red from the injury to her mouth.

It took hundreds of stitches to put her back together: her mouth, her hands, her feet, her legs and arms, her torso, every bit of her torn to shreds and cut down to the bone. There is an old scar between her breasts that Pamela has never seen before, the letter J, for Jack, she thinks, and a scrawled 'MINE' across her stomach that was brand new and gushing blood, almost deep enough to enter her abdominal cavity, the doctor said.

How could anyone come through this in one piece? What if she ended up just like the freak: completely out of her mind and raving mad? What if she was already? The doctors have told her that she can stay as long as she wants, they won't be taking her away until they trust that she is stable. She is filing papers in the morning, to keep her in the hospital. Maybe they can fix her, drive her out of this obsession with a madman, bring her back to reality, or maybe just hold her together, like the stitches do.

Her eyes flutter, and Pamela's attention is on her again. She breathes deep, whimpers, opens her eyes fully and speaks with a cracked voice.

"I hurt," she mumbles, impaired by the stitches.

Pamela knows she does, but does not call for a nurse yet.

"Do you know why you're here, Harley?"

She grunts as she tries to move her body, face wrinkled in anguish.

"Daddy wanted to play," she whispers, and Pamela closes her eyes, cannot stop the tears building behind them. "But I didn't play right. He left me behind. We were supposed to go together."

Pamela seizes upon the moment, even as the tears streak down her face.

"Where were you going, Harley?"

"It's a secret," she says, and smiles despite the stitches, giving a tiny cry afterwards. "I'll never tell."

Pamela can take no more, and exits the room with her things.

"She's awake, and in pain," she says to a nurse as she passes by, tears streaming down her face despite her best efforts.

She winds her way out of the emergency room, and crawls into her corvette.

She might as well be dead, she thinks. There's nothing inside anymore. Only a twisted, hacked up remnant of what she was before.

They'll never put her back together.

OOO

3 Months Later

It is visiting day. Pamela comes here twice a week and sees the same scene. The stitches are gone, but the scars are there. Her head lolls, she is nearly drooling. She is in a padded room, in a straitjacket for 'her' safety. Pamela knows why she is: she has attacked the staff twice, succeeding in stabbing one orderly in the throat with her group therapist's pen.

"Hello, Miss Isley." It is a smooth and cultured voice, and Pamela knows who it belongs to without turning to see the face.

"Dr. Leland."

"I know this is hard for you to see, but she is a danger to herself and others."

Pamela finds it hard to believe someone so small could be a danger to anyone.

"We've been working with her medication. We hope to find a medication that will stabilize her moods, and decrease her aggression."

"You mean dope her up till she's not a threat anymore."

The good doctor sighs.

"That is not what I meant. We are trying to wean her off of the benzodiazepines. She isn't responding very well to traditional therapy."

"Why would she?" Pamela whispers. "She knows all your tricks."

"Yes, I know that she was a psychiatrist prior to the incident."

"The attack." Pamela spits, bitterly.

"Yes," the doctor says again.

"I want to talk to her. I want you to let me in there and let me talk to her."

"I don't think that's a very good idea."

"I think it's a fine idea. I want to know what you people have been doing to her."

"You don't understand, Miss Isley. She hasn't spoken a word since she's arrived here. She hisses, and growls, and screams, like a wild cat. Even before the incident in group therapy, she has shown no interest in socializing with the other patients. What makes you think she'll talk to you?"

"Because I'm not a stranger," she hisses, and the older woman flinches for a moment.

"Alright. Saturday, we will forgo the thorazine. You'll be allowed thirty minutes, under guard. We will not remove the jacket, and she does not leave her room. You understand?"

OOO

Her eyes are still blurry as Pamela kneels beside her. She lolls her head, looks at the ceiling, the floor, the walls. She feels like she's living in a marshmallow. Everything is squishy, and sometimes she bounces off the walls when she knows they're not looking.

She licks her lips often now, drives her tongue into the corner of her mouth, where it starts, the beautiful mark he left behind. Had he done it as a gift, or was it a punishment? He had told her what he would do if someone ever touched her, but he had told her that he wanted to leave her with a gift.

He had not intended to leave her alive, she knows this, but it does not decrease her feelings for him. She loves him fiercely, to the death, and she will never stop until she finds him again.

She rolls her eyes back to Pamela, finds the redhead on her knees, an arms-length away if she could move her arms.

"Pammy," she whispers, and she finds it strange that she still knows names and words and funny little things that happen when her tongue and her breath move together. "You look pretty today."

"Thank you," Pamela whispers. It is a child's voice that speaks to her, high and lilting. "How are you, Harley?"

"They keep me locked up here, like I'm a bad girl. I want my Daddy," she whimpers.

Pamela knows the truth. She is shattered, gone forever, beyond repair.

She leaves the room after a few more minutes of juvenile conversation, and tries not to think of her in the nine months after. She tries, until she receives a phone call. It is the good doctor.

"Miss Isley. I've called with good news. I believe we've gotten her medication right. She is participating in group therapy, with guards, of course, but she speaks to them, to the staff, to the other patients. She is not ready to leave yet, but she's made amazing progress in the last month. You should come and see her. I think it would do her good."

"No," Pamela says quietly. "It won't do me any good. I can't stand seeing her like that."

She hangs the phone up, and walks away from it.

OOO

One Year Later

They all look like toys to her. Like marionettes, she only has to make the right moves and they respond just as she wants them to. She smiles to herself, feels the smile take up her whole face. He is coming tonight, she knows he is. He cannot resist. Soon, something moves beyond the glass and wire, and his face appears, as much of it as shows through the little window.

She giggles, and presses a sloppy kiss against the glass, and she laughs, and he's just so stupid Harley wants to rip his throat out, but that comes later.

"Baby, baby, oh baby. I missed you. Why leave me alone for so long?" She says, voice high and silvery.

"You know why, I can't see you all the time. They'd catch on. I've missed you," he says, and his breath fogs the glass.

"Let me out, Gary, let me out or come in and see me. I've waited for so long. I love you," she whimpers, tears glittering in her pale blue eyes, and isn't he just a sucker for it.

"I can't do that. You know it."

"But how will we ever be together, if you never come in, never let me out? We could be together, Gary, you could let me out of here, you could tell them I slipped out during cell check. You could say I knocked you out, they'd believe that. We can sneak away together." She whispers, fast and soft, and he is leaning close to the glass to hear her.

His head switches from side to side, he is thinking hard about it, and Harley's heart rises in her throat. She is taut as a string and nearly snaps as the lock turns in the door, and it swings open. He enters, and Harley draws him into a kiss, one he has been craving for so long. His eyes close, and he does not see her hand moving behind her back. She pulls from the back of her pants a toothbrush, one that has taken her months to sharpen against the one bare concrete wall in the TV room. She thinks it's there to make them realize what a prison they are in, and stabs it swiftly behind his larynx, jerks outward. It is not a blade, it does not come through smoothly, and his windpipe, soft and pink, rips through his skin before the shaft of the brush makes it all the way through. There is no scream, and she throws herself atop him, stabbing swift into his abdomen, over and over again. He gurgles beneath her, clutching at his throat, his stomach. He cannot think what hurts more, she knows, for she has known pain like that.

She keeps stabbing until she hears no rushing air from his opened windpipe. Her hospital pajamas are covered in blood, and she grabs his only weapon as she slips silently out of her door, and pushes it shut. She crouches, moves fast along the wall, sees her target just before her. A quick peek tells her the night nurse is making her rounds, not at her desk, and she stands, slipping behind her and pressing the stun gun to her back.

The guard goes down, twitching, and Harley grunts as she drags her quickly back into her cell. She keeps her away from the blood-soaked padding, and strips her quickly. Her shoes are too small, but the uniform fits perfectly, and she uses her hairband to curl her hair into a bun, tucks it into the cap, and uses her key card to open the door, her keys to open her Honda and she is gone.

She knows where she is going.

OOO

There is a frantic phone call that brings her here. She has not been here in months, has not heard from the good doctor for another two.

There is police tape in the doorway of Harley's cell, fresh bloodstains on the floor, and a shivering female covered with a blanket sitting in the nurse's station.

Pamela cannot believe what she is seeing.

"She's escaped," Joan Leland rushes forward. "She's killed a guard, and she's escaped."

"What has she been doing?"

The doctor stares at her in disbelief.

"What?"

"What has she been doing lately?"

The doctor shakes her head for a moment, unable to follow the tangent.

"She's.. she's been spending most of her time out of session in the TV room. She was there this evening, before bed check."

Pamela walks to the room, empty folding chairs and a single small TV, the only objects in the room. She presses the on button, and it springs to life, the pictures on it a whirl of footage of explosions, and a mug shot spread across the screen. The TV speaks, but Pamela cannot hear it, because she recognizes the face on the screen, even beneath the makeup.

Him.

She was going to him.

"I know where she's going." Pamela whispered.

"Where?"

She does not answer her, runs from the room and forces her way past policemen to exit the ward.

She races from the hospital and to her car, speeding all the way back to her home.

It takes a moment to realize her home has been broken into, that there is a strange car in her driveway, that her truck is missing, and a moment longer to figure out who did it. She sprints inside, finds the steps down and leading up into the attic. She climbs them quickly. The light is still on, and she knows what she is after, because the books are gone, the files and the notebook full of formulas are all gone.

She packs a bag with just enough, and makes her way to the airport. They ask her where she is going.

"Gotham City," is her answer.

OOO

They lust after her, and she makes just enough money from a convenience store job to keep them happy enough not to act on it. She keeps them in line by shooting the first one to question her, and the others don't open their mouths anymore. They pull a few more jobs together, her little bunch, and she has just enough money to pay off the right people. She hears chatter about the Batman, but no one has seen him for months, and Harley Quinn has never seen him at all.

The big job she has been planning for months. She has the uniforms, the papers, and tomorrow they will make the big move, steal an ambulance and make her way across the bridge to where he is. Arkham Asylum.

Today is the day, and she covers her face carefully with a coating of latex and foundation, and you can barely see the scar at all.

She hates it, and sticks her tongue out at the mirror as she powders her face.

She dresses in her suit, crisp and clean, and settles her CDC name tag against her breast, straightening David's as he walks into the room, tie crooked, and buttons slanted to the side.

He is not the smartest, but he's the smartest she's got, and besides, Jerry is behind the wheel tonight and of little use to her inside.

She is quick on her feet, and quick with her words, and the germaphobe behind the counter believes her instantly when she says newly arrived patient Eddie Blake has been working with a terrorist, and is himself infected with a biological weapon. He doesn't even ask for the papers.

They try to lead her down the hallway, but she stops and puts on a biohazard suit, and David remains behind to tell them the carefully rehearsed words she prepared for him. She turns the corner toward Blake's cell with a stretcher, a dome of thick plastic over it, but goes farther, to 243, that's what the man from the kitchen told her.

Her heart skips a beat as she looks through the window. He is there, just like she was a few months ago, strapped and lolling and drooling. She opens the room with the master key Mack stole off the head guard a week ago, and he is tied to two concrete blocks and at the bottom of the bay now.

She opens the door, crosses the room silently, and kneels beside him, lifting his head in her hands, peering into his dull and drugged eyes.

He giggles as he looks at her.

"It's you," he slurs, head rocking backward. "You're not real."

"I am real."

"I'm just dreaming." His head slips forward, a rivulet of saliva leaking from his lips. Her heart breaks for him and she wipes at his mouth with her suit jacket.

"You've dreamed about me."

"Yeah," he laughs again. "I never got to finish. I dream all the time. This is a dream."

"It's not a dream," she whispers, and slips a syringe from her pocket, popping the cap off, tapping it, and removing the air bubbles from it. She presses his head back into the padding and slips the needle into his carotid, injecting quickly.

He jerks, goes rigid, respiration increasing, sweat popping out on his forehead.

"It's going to hurt for a moment, Daddy. It's pushing all the drugs out of your system, a one day detox. We have twenty minutes till you hit the withdrawal stage, twenty minutes to get you out of here."

He looks at her, clearly for the first time since she has entered the room.

"Put this on," she whispers to him, and he deigns to obey, lifting himself up to his full height and undressing, removing the jacket all by himsef. She cannot resist running her hands up his stomach to his chest, tracing the old scars that she remembers.

"You've lost weight," she says with a pout, wrapping her arms around him as he pulls on the white button-down. "Nobody's been taking care of you, Daddy."

He shoves her away and she giggles, and he grins at her for a moment and slips on the pants. The biohazard suit is next, the face mask covering the lower part of his face, just like hers.

"We've got one quick stop."

She returns to Blake's room, Mister J pushing the stretcher ahead of him.

She unlocks his door, catches him at the door and punches a quick hole through his trachea with a pen. He goes down choking, and Mister J is behind her, already catching on, wrenching the man off the ground and unzipping the dome. He throws the man atop it, zips it shut, watches it splatter with red as he sputters, and tries to breath.

He wheels it quickly down the hallway, Harley sprinting to keep up. David sees them coming, and pushes the gathered back with one massive arm.

"Get out of the way. He's contagious now. The bleeding's started."

The nurses and guards scatter at that declaration, and the three of them rush down the hallway, out of the door, and into the waiting ambulance. Jerry throws on the sirens just for fun, and they move swiftly through traffic, changing lanes erratically, and pushing cars out of their way.

It is setting in quicker than she calculated. He is showing the tremors now, his breathing fast and unsteady.

"Just hold on, baby. We're gonna be home soon."

OOO

He had never thought he would be here, never thought he would wear this suit again, but he'd heard it on the news, and slipped in through the kitchen's back door.

Cops are scattered throughout the area, searching frantically in two of the open cells.

"Gordon," he growls, and the man spins on him, looking as though he's near a stroke.

"You shouldn't be here," are his first words, and Bruce nods in return.

"How did it happen?" He says, voice low and gruff.

They slip away, Gordon leading him into an empty room, marked 'Security.'

"I want you to watch this footage. They come in with two, they separate, and she goes into two separate cells. I give you one guess who the first one is."

"Who is she?"

"We don't know. She didn't leave anything behind, she was wearing that suit."

He points to the screen again.

"They walk in with two, and they leave with four."

Gordon shakes his head, one hand clenched into a fist.

"Public Enemy Number One, the most dangerous man in Gotham… and he walks right out the front fucking door."