On the Sunny Side of the Street

(for Marianne)

by Thyme In Her Eyes

Author's Note: My second Harley-centric 'fic, and I hope it's an improvement. It's set during her time as Dr. Harleen Quinzel and explores the beginning of her fall into the criminal lifestyle and her feelings whilst the Joker has escaped once again, with her help. I don't own any of the characters, or any quotes, or the song On the Sunny Side of the Street, or any lyrics incorporated into this fanfic. Enjoy!

Dedication: A birthday gift, dedicated to my lovely new friend TheMadPuppy, whose own Joker/Harley fanfics are filled with inspirational goodness (seriously, check her out). Thank you for sharing your words and your thoughts (baby, you're the greatest!). Happy Birthday! ;)

-- ON THE SUNNY SIDE OF THE STREET --

IDENTITY UNKNOWN – 0801. It always makes her heart skip.

Tentatively, she touches the cool glass with her hands. First she presses her fingertips with only the lightest, most delicate pressure, imprinting her touch; then slowly the entire palm follows. The sensation sends a shiver through her. The cold of the glass brings a physical relief she understands, although she tells herself that she doesn't. Standing there, hands to the glass like an orphan looking in on a happy family, she tries to collect her thoughts. It's almost as if she's reaching out for something on the other side. If she were bolder, she'd follow her body's needs and press her face and her entire form against it, as if trying to absorb something from within. But she knows better: she knows that she has to break the contact and walk away, before anyone notices.

Also, the cell is empty. There's no-one on the inside to reach out to or to long for. Only emptiness. He's gone again, and all she can hear are songs about the break-up-blues playing in her head.

She moves on, and continues her daily routine. She works with other cases now, but also writes reports on her own special patient, as if she could call him back to her. She works, she moves, she watches, she listens, she helps, she interacts, she goes through the motions of a normal life, but feels her thoughts tugged back to that cell, and its emptiness.

She remembers the first time she walked past this cell. She recalls how her eyes were fixed dead ahead on her supervisor; she was so fixated on taking in her every word, so eager to impress. She remembers walking past and hearing a low chuckle, and spinning quickly to face the Plexiglas, gasping softly. She remembers how the two sounds – his laughter and her gasp – intermingled, as so little time separated them. It was almost as if his laughter leapt through the glass and touched her mouth, drawing out her reaction, her startled, passionate exhale. Like a kiss, she thinks, and considers this again and again. She instantly knew who was residing in that cell, and just as instantly felt drawn by the pull of fascination. It's no surprise that she fell for him so hard.

Now he's not there, and it feels like her life has stopped. She's long forgotten the moment when their sessions became the high point of her days, the thing her life came to revolve around.

It's her own fault he isn't there, she admits. She never could resist his charm, his logic, his optimistic evaluation of how their sessions were going, and how the thought of him locked up and miserable made her so angry, so disillusioned with the industry.

She returns to her apartment after each day's work and feels blue. She's got it real bad. She misses feeling like the sun is shining on her, which is how she always feels whenever they're together. She takes his laughter home with her, and lets it echo in her mind. She let him into her imagination a long time ago, and now she moves in there with him, now that he's removed from her life.

She tries to stay away from torch songs, and tries to stay peppy. She wants him to find her laughing and grinning, not sobbing her heart out. All the while she fills her head with sentiments about how it isn't right to keep brilliant, beautiful birds in cages (she relishes the obligatory lune joke, giggles, and cuddles it to her heart). She reminds herself that it's only natural to feel down without them around, but that it was still right to let them go free. If you love someone, let them go – the phrase twists and turns in her brain, and she smiles broadly and knows it's right.

These days she's more worried that he isn't happy out there than concerned that he's had a relapse. The newspapers become her holy grail. She tears through them half-blindly, scouring for an article on him, some news about how he is. She's starving for any information, desperate just to see his name printed. These papers eventually give her what she wants, and deliver him to her. They tell her he's suffered a relapse, and he's started killing again. Her heart bypasses the recently deceased and their grieving family and friends, and goes straight like an arrow to him. Her heart bleeds in sympathy. He needs someone with him. Then, she hears the latest news is that the First Bank of Gotham was hit. Ohh…retail therapy! She thinks this to herself, and reads some progress between the lines.

But why won't he call? She's distant, adrift. It feels like they've been apart forever. She feels so lonely. He promised this time that if she'd help him out, he'd get in touch. She feels desperate, edgy, frantic. She waits and waits for a phone call, a letter, a visit. She waits faithfully for him to come for her. She looks round her apartment, her block, the entire building for any hidden coded messages he might've left for her. She becomes frantic. Why doesn't he call? How can she attend to his needs if they're not together? She feels fear hook her. She paces around her apartment. She checks and re-checks her phone-line. She's used to this, but it still stings. She wants him so badly, and it's as if he's forgotten all about her now that he's out of Arkham.

Without him, she does all she can do and perfects him in her mind during his absence. She reads papers and watches the news religiously. She steals files, photographs, samples from psychological interviews and previous sessions with other doctors. There are papers and pictures strewn all over her room. She breathes him in every time she comes home. She runs her fingers longingly across pictures of his face, and tries to imagine the flesh. She serenades these images, singing ebullient I love yous to them, and sighs dramatically over them. She makes copies of her own recorded sessions with him, and plays them over and over again, to recreate his presence, to fill the ache of his absence from her life. Sometimes, she just plays a single moment over and over – a joke he once told her, a rare moment of insight she treasures, or just the sound of his laughter, or the sound of his voice saying her name, the adorable nickname he christened her with. Harley Quinn…

She starts to try and predict his next crime, what spot he'll hit next. She makes a guess, and goes there, hoping he'll be there, that she'll catch a glimpse of him, see if he's alright. Every elaborate crime is just a cry for help, a cry out to her. And it pierces. She wishes she could be with him, that she could give her unfailing support and devotion.

She passes a dime store one day, and on impulse buys a black domino mask. She knows why she's so drawn to it. She takes it home and stares at it, her fingers gliding over its surface, as if flirting with a possibility. Some nights, she sits in front of her mirror and lifts it to her face, and takes in the sight of herself. She wears it and wonders what it would be like to follow him, to run with him. As she looks into her mirror, she sees him shining through the look in her eyes, feels him leave a mark on her that could very well endure forever.

She senses herself dancing on the outskirts of a dangerous land, and doesn't care. She's grateful that when he feels he needs to go, he at least leaves her this much love.

Another day meets her and she stumbles out of bed and follows her morning routine, and is almost out the door before she realises she's done her hair all wrong. She's a mess.

But the minute she walks into Arkham and sees a colleague approach her with a certain look in their eyes, feels herself tremble like a jellyfish and fight against making her smile too obvious, she knows he's here again. She can tell instantly – the whole building is changed. She changes, too. She's not a sad mess anymore, she's his Harley, and great energy fills her. The world changes and Arkham isn't just bricks and mortar anymore, but the place that houses the Joker. Her Puddin'.

He's back. She's several things at once – overjoyed, worried about his condition, betrayed on account of how quick his relapse into crime was, and angry and upset for having been so neglected. But the fact that he's so keen to resume their sessions thaws her annoyance and her reserve, and the smile he shoots at her as he walks into her office completely obliterates any doubts. Her knees turn to butter and she surrenders. A single look makes her come apart, and back into his arms she goes, feeling humbled by the honour.

– Say Harl, how about you and I skip the therapy for today and…

– I thought you'd never ask.

With a cry of pure delight, she darts at him, jumps, wraps her arms and legs around him. She crumbles and melts, ready to sail on his smile again. She feels swept off her feet. All traces of Harleen dissolve in her fever, in the love she's been deprived of. All is forgiven. After all, Love means never having to say you're sorry. She appreciates him more than ever now, and wonders if the prints of her palms are still on the glass of his cell, and if he'll see them and take comfort from them.

In contrast, she's the one who's really sorry for not being able to find him, to help him and provide him with whatever he needs. Perhaps next time she ought to give him some money, so he doesn't have to kill for it.

She's also sorry for being such a bad shrink. He always tells her she's doing a fantastic job, that he's a lucky man to have a psychotherapist who understands him so, but sometimes…sometimes she knows she's stupid, she knows that she's let him down and made him angry. Like when she doesn't understand his most recent caper, and needs the joke explained to her. She never feels more low, more rotten, than in these moments when she knows she's failed to meet his expectations, when she can't quite grasp his genius. It makes her work extra hard to please him, to convince him anew that they do share an understanding. He's the perfect patient, she knows, and the idea that she's not capable enough of helping him rattles her to the core. She can't run the risk of losing what they have; she'll do anything to prevent that. She knows a word of displeasure from him to the higher-ups could end their sessions altogether, and she feels terrified.

She's so terrified that she brings her domino mask to Arkham, concealed in her handbag. She touches it, feels it between her fingers, and finds comfort. She feels resolve again to prove herself to him. To prove herself worthy.

As luck would have it, he finds her little secret. He takes one look at it and she has never felt so exposed and so thrilled at the same time. The domino mask puts a smile on his face and when he looks at her, she's startled by what she sees. Anyone else would've assumed that she had the mask for some party or for some deviant sexual purpose but he takes one look and knows. He knows what she does with it, what it does for her – that she sits in front of her mirror some nights, wears it, and fantasises about another life. He reads her mind and sees straight to the quick. He strips away all her secrets in an instant. He sees the real her, and then he understands.

Yes, he understands her. He reads her like a book and enjoys the contents, the story's flavour. She could squeal and cartwheel about with joy. Instead, she talks. She can't stop talking, can't stop telling him all her secrets, her history. She wants him to know everything about her because she doesn't want there to be anything between them. She doesn't feel like a dull, pathetic shrink with a messed-up little life and dirty secrets; she feels as though she's made for fun and exuberance. As if her mouth is made for laughs. She gives him the key to her mind, and the fun he has exploring it becomes her fun too.

It's wonderful again. He makes her all starry-eyed. She's back in the sun, with gold dust at her feet. She can pass that cell and hear his laughter, his whistles, his eerie silences, or catch a wink or a smile or a look she hasn't learnt how to read yet. She does this and thinks that she still has him.

That's not the way it works, of course. While he's locked up in his cell, it's still him that owns her. She isn't the one with a life and world outside of that cell – her universe is concentrated solely within that small space. Everything in her life begins and ends there.

Inevitably, it all plays out again.

– Y'know what I could really do with, Dr. Quinn? A little more time on the outside to get my head together. Think you could set it up, Doc?

– Aww…you had me at hello…

She takes it for granted that he'll kill again, and doesn't feel as bothered by it as she used to. He tells her stories about his crimes, and she enjoys them. She's learnt that she'd rather make him happy than make him better, and she knows that her Puddin's happiness is worth all the lives in Gotham, hers included. So she happily dances at the end of his strings, and does him this harmless little favour. She's dying to seal the deal with a kiss, and he lets her. She wavers on the brink, but so long as his eyes are on her, she can't pull back.

The first night is always the toughest. The morning is just as rough; the first morning when she remembers that she doesn't have him to look forward to anymore.

Again, she only feels like half a person without him. There's a hole in her heart, she thinks, and the empty space is very light and still. He takes all of her when he escapes, and leaves her with nothing. But how can she ever have it any other way? She thinks of how much happier he must be out there with all of her with him, and she smiles. He needs to take all of her with him, he needs that. He deserves all the happiness in the world, hers included, and she's determined to make him happy, no matter what it takes. Who is she to deny him? She knows whose girl she is.

He'll call her this time; keep her posted. He promised. So she waits again. It's a hard way to live, and the sun is always on her when he pays attention to her. She misses his perfection. Now she feels like the clouds have settled in again, that she walks with her blues on parade. She repeats words like unconditional love to herself, to try and warm her soul with their magic.

She waits and she waits, and she goes through all the motions of her obsession again, feeling lost and frantic, but she eventually realises that he's forgotten all about her. She drops off his world. She never blames him, she knows it's not his fault, that he can't help it. She knows he wants to remember her, deep down.

The notion hits her not like a tidal wave or a ton of bricks, but like a constant rat-tat-tapping. She comes to understand the truth of their relationship, why Harleen Quinzel will never help him and will never be enough. Inside and outside Arkham are completely different worlds for him, with no point of contact. Arkham is just a state he falls into when his real life is on hold. The real life, the real world, is the one he occupies outside of Arkham. She sees his world of colourful crimes and her own of staid white walls, and realizes their incompatibility. They meet but never mingle. The life of crime and killing and deadly jokes and fighting Batman…that is his reality. Inside Arkham, she matters…but once he's out he's too caught-up in his life to even remember her. She knows all this. She belongs to one world. She'll always be looking in on an empty cell. She knows that he's always waiting for a chance to leave, so he can be back in his own element, back in his own world where he can have real fun.

As she passes that empty cell day after day, other thoughts start to tap at her and play knock-knock jokes on her imagination. What she has isn't enough. She can't fully help him, and give him everything he needs like this. She also wants to be with him all the time, to help him all the time. She wants to do everything he wants her to, be everything he wants her to be.

She wonders what it'd be like to cross over, to just step out of her world and into his and stay there forever. Out of Arkham and into his life of fun and games and excitement. How can she fulfil his needs when they don't share the same world? How can she make this relationship really work if she isn't willing to give her all? She sobs at how mean sanity is, how it tries to split them up.

With each of his comings and goings, the longing grows stronger and more pressing. It double-dares her to follow through. She wonders and wonders. What would life be like for them? She thinks about all the fun they have in their sessions and wonders how much more fun they could have on the outside. All she wants is to be real to him, to be part of his real world. She wants to be caught in the whirl of his life too. She imagines that the glass she so often touches in his absence is in fact liquid, that she can step through it into an alternate dimension, that crossing from one world to the next could be as simple as that. She imagines him calling her, needing her, beckoning her. Tempting her. She giggles at the thought.

She craves the ability to leave all her worries on the doorstep and waltz over to the other side of the street, where her Puddin' must be waiting for her. Nothing else matters. She feels her sense of reality becoming increasingly infused with his, and embraces it gladly. Anything to walk in the sun.

She knows sanity and safety are the pillars of her world, but all the same she wonders what life would be like without them. She imagines how it might be better. After all, as her Joker keeps telling her, she isn't contractually tied down to reason. Why the need to be sane? What does it really offer? His ideas liberate her, and he always seems so jubilant and gratified when she responds to them, and that in itself is enough to keep her responding.

The more she thinks about their opposing worlds, the less she thinks about her own desires and the more she thinks about his. She thinks about him being in his own world of madness and colour and laughter and it hurts her. She starts to want to cross over just so that he won't be alone there, that he'll always have his Harley-girl.

Two worlds. One choice. No going back.

Duality. She comes close to trying for a session with Harvey Dent just so she can talk at great length about it.

She wonders what it would be like to extricate herself from society once and for all. All he'd need do is ask, or even need. She'll be the shadow of his shadow. All that matters is him, everything else fades to shades of grey. If they joined forces, they could invent their own codes of conduct, live out a classic romance in a savage life and play out their own private jokes on the world.

She briefly touches the glass of her favourite cell as she passes down that familiar corridors, and starts to hum one of her favourite songs, and finds in it a new appeal:

Life can be so sweet…

She touches glass one more time.

Not the same glass, not the glass of her favourite cell. This time it's the Plexiglas of her own cell under her fingertips, and she touches it and looks out into the hall in curiosity. She touches the cool glass and remembers faintly when she was on the other side, and it was her Puddin's cell she was touching, how she used to touch the glass of his cell to try and get a little closer to him. She sighs dreamily thinking of him, and how sweet life is without the annoyance of Arkham.

She still has the blues rather bad since she misses her Puddin' so, and knows that he needs her with him, but that's another day's escape plan. She knows this place like the back of her hand, and she knows that glass is only glass.

She smiles mischievously and a particularly funny song strikes her, and she thinks: This rover's crossed over.

This time when she touches the glass, she doesn't want it to turn to liquid and let her out – instead, she touches it to make sure it's real and solid and won't expel her in her sleep. Every time she comes back to Arkham, she's always offered a ticket back into the world she fell out of a long time ago.

The price: love.

No way. Not in a million years. That's the magic of her cell, she knows, that the two of them are in this together. Happy in their cells. Two of a kind, and never really alone. Living on the sunny side, living in the disturbed world she's crossed into, she knows she's made the right choice. Life is complete. She's a happy, happy girl.

She doesn't pace anymore – she hops, she skips, she jumps, she dances, she does gym routines, she does anything cheery, and can easily hear the pitter-pat of the happy tune in her step. She touches the glass to make sure she stays inside, free in her cell. She relishes the world within, the world her Puddin' made for her, where the sun always shines, even when it seems like it isn't, even when her Puddin' makes her worry and fret. Thinking of him, she traces a pattern on the glass, trying to draw his face.

She'll never forget whose girl she is, she thinks, as she fixes up her pigtails nicely and coos lovingly over her effigy. And what a lucky girl she is.

She wonders if maybe, just maybe, she'll get the chance to pass his cell today.

Life can be so sweet, she sings to herself, On the sunny side of the street…

FIN