No one would touch him.

He was the leper, the repulsive beast they'd rather see dead, rotting in that uncomfortable cot he was lying in, like a dirty, painted ragdoll, before they'd even dare lay one finger on him. But he was dying…slowly losing self-control, gradually beginning to slip into comatose as blood seeped from his desperate veins. I saw it when I would walk down there out of curiosity, trying to disregard the fact that he was just lying there, his head lolling from side to side like a restless, pacing dog, but he was not fully there…a part of him had already left, and if they didn't tend to him soon, it would be lost from him eternally.

If it wouldn't have been for Batman, another responsible soul, he never would have made it here. They would have left him for dead, another faceless corpse pushed into the gutters of Gotham's finest slums.

I tried to talk some sense into them, tried to get them to heed my heartfelt warning. But no one would listen…they munched on their tasteless salads, sipped their tepid coffee in a tireless battle to stay alive during the crippling hours of service a nurse was expected to fulfill. A city like Gotham never sleeps, never rests its weary head, no matter how awfully tired it really is. The dark part of its being is much too excited, and there is little cause for rest when a mind is whirling with rampant thought.

They all just looked at me, sheer pity in their passive eyes. Couldn't they understand what I saw in them? If they did not show him compassion, why should he show any to the city he mangled with mayhem? It was no wonder the man was a sociopath…if I had been showed such cruelty as he was shown by the world, I would have turned my back on it a long time ago…just like he had already turned his back on the demands of the reasonable, sound mind.

I never told them my intentions…only that their apathy was the reason for his demented endeavors. If there ever was a man that needed sympathy, it was most certainly him. He needed it above all the rest so that he could feel, if only a little, what it was like to be human again. Surely he'd been a simple creature before…all humans, no matter how warped they become in the image of their self-annihilation, start out as mere molds of shapeless, gray clay. It's the colors and forms molds it into its final structure that dominates the person's identity, finalizes their figure and twists their minds into the incentive of what they had become.

He was only the progeny of his broken environment. But it seemed I was the only one that thought he deserved kindness above all the rest. And after an hour of deliberation and much consultant between my conscious and my embittered logical mind, the concerns of the heart mattered more than that of the unfeeling brain. I gathered all the energy that remained of my listless limbs and saddled up my courage like a cowboy on his last cattle run. The clerk at the front desk looked at me as if I were crazy when I asked for his files…perhaps I was, but at least I wouldn't have his death to gnaw at my guilty conscience.

I couldn't just let him die there without any attempt to save him, and I thought he should at least die with dignity, on the streets where he belonged, than in a cold, garish hospital, handicapped in an ugly old bed, and left to die without any loved ones and not a soul out there in the entire world that cared he was gone. No one would ever care, I knew this, but I had to try.

Perhaps I would burn in Hell for helping him…but I would go to Heaven feeling remorseful if I did not.

It was a long walk from the file keeper's desk to where his room was. They shut him up at the very last room of the building, out of sight and out of mind, where no one would have the guts to venture. He was the only one down there, all the other rooms vacant as most had died from fatal injuries, some by his own hand. But I think he liked the silence…perhaps he wanted to die more than I'd thought.

I was nervous, naturally, this being my first time tending to a potentially fatal wounding, and as I walked through the door, finding him with heavily lidded eyes, his painted mouth downcast in a tired frown, though the image was very contradicting to his permanent Cheshire grin. The white sheets were cast over him, coverings that were meant to be a sign of victory over his looming death. But he still had fight in him, and had peeled the white coverlet from his embellished face, some of the mask staining the virginal white of the cloth.

He was watching me, the pure, ominous power of his aura accumulating into that one unfathomable gaze. His eyes were transfixed on me as I sifted through his files, finding them virtually useless with no name, age or certain useful information such as allergies and medical history. But I stared at those empty pages anyway, trying to decide whether he was gazing at me to intimidate, or out of blatant curiosity.

Finally, I looked up, snapping the thin manila folder shut and tossing it on the empty table nearby. He followed my every movement, a predator closely watching his prey…some of it was uncertainty, while more of it was bloodlust surging through his dark, shadowed eyes.

"So…"His lips smacked fervently, that serpentine tongue running across the ragged trail of his scars that traced the inside of his cheek. "You're the only one..hmm? The only one foolish enough to save the useless life of a raging madman?"

I didn't know if it was wise for me to even answer his insulting rhetorical question, or if I was even capable of speech. The room felt like it was closing in around me, slowly melting into a tiny box and leaving me stranded in a breathless area. I tried to breathe normally, feeling unglued around those fixated hollows I could easily have mistaken for pits of extinguished hell than actual orbs of sight.

"Well," I coughed softly, a nervous habit. "Let's see the damage, shall we?"

I stepped forward a little too quickly for his taste. His lethargic hand crept from beneath the covers, and I saw that in his quivering hand there was a knife, the tip dipped in scarlet red. My stomach turned, frightened by the speechless warning.

"I have to look," I whispered, swallowing hard against the growing lump in my throat. "I can't help you if I don't know what I'm dealing with."

He eyed me suspiciously, his tongue darting out from between those gaudily decorated lips of his, smearing the scarlet spread over the ashen face paint. That hand never really lowered, but I was allowed to advance and lift the bloodied sheet and dig through the many layers of his purple and green array of clothes, finding a rather nasty gash slitting the skin in a diagonal fashion from his hip to where his ribs began. It was bleeding ferociously, an explanation for his trembling and inconsistent fatigue, and appeared to be deeper than one could tell at first glance. I prodded gently around the wound, feeling for any splintered bones or possible problems with internal bleeding. While I couldn't exactly tell the latter, the first possibility was put to rest as I prodded around the gaping slash.

But I had to hurry…he was losing blood, and quickly. All that wasted time I'd spent on trying to persuade careless nurses had been unwise on my part; I had to stitch him up quickly if I was to save his life.

"Stay here, don't try to get up and go anywhere because you won't get far. I'll be back to stitch you up, and some sedatives so you can sleep."

"Well, I suh-ppose I should ah – listen to ya," He leered at me, his face contorted with the stitched etches of a sardonic grin. "Doctor always knows best. Isn't that right uhh – Chel-sea?"

I had forgotten I had been wearing my nametag on my scrubs, and looked down at the label with an almost resentful pause.

"Is that what I'm sah-pposed to do, doc? Listen to you? And what are ya gonna say that's worth my time, to hang around here and wait for you to save my lee-ttle life, hummm? Because, ya know, I have this hearing problem – nee-arly deaf, really. Especially when it comes to hearing the society gospel. Must've been all the uh – all the explosives and gunfire I've been exposed to – that or my selective hearing."

"I don't…I don't understand what you're getting at here."

Despite his growing pallor and the diminishing weakness in his empty black eyes, he wriggled upwards in his cot, his tongue flickering from within his cavernous mouth. "Well, ya see, I've already got ya uh – pinned down. That's what I'm uh - getting at. I'm getting at you."

"And what have you gotten so far?" I looked up at him from behind a veil of fear, fishing the point of the needle into his hand. He seemed not to notice, too caught up in his web of manipulation to take heed of the prodding little thing.

"Well, ah - you've got this little guilty conscience rattling in the back of your head telling you to do this, save that and oh! Well, if you save the Joker than you'll get a nice gold star. Here's the thing, toots - I don't give gold stars. No. No, no no. Just ah - silver bullets. And I don't think that's what ya want…is it?"

"I don't want a gold star, Mr. uh…Mister Joker. I just want...nothing." And the words came like a repressed sigh. They weren't very true and he knew it.

He cocked one inquisitive brow.

"Not from where I'm standing, girly. From where I am, I see that I stand for nothing. You. For. Everything." He licked his lips, languidly now as his body drifted off into a comatose state. "You have ever-ee-thing to lose."

"I have nothing to lose. I live in a shit apartment and all I have to my name is this dead-end job. You have nothing to take from me, I assure you." I snorted a little, biting back a laugh.

He continued on, despite his gradual slackening of consciousness. "Or do I? Do I have anything to take from you but a burden?" He cocked his head to the side, his black eyes never faltering from their accusatory gaze. His tongue wandered over the raised thread of scars, almost as if tracing their existence."This whole hero complex you've got going on here – is this…your mask? We all wear our masks, girllyyy, some less con-spic-uous than mine. But it ah - doesn't take paint or a cowl to make 'em any less…de-cee-ving."

I looked away, feeling my breath hitch in my throat. He was getting to me…I couldn't let him win. Not so early in the game, not now.

"Isn't that right, Chel-see? And allll it takes is a little pressure..." He reached up and tapped my cheek hard with his hand, and I looked straight at him as he grinned mischievously at me. "To make them fall."

I rose from my seat, clearing my throat and straightening the front of my scurbs. The only sound was his tongue as it worked the tattered edges of his scars.

I left for supplies, not bothering to allow a physical response to his mind games and the unease that had begun to eat away at my resolve.

I began rushing down the secluded halls until I reached the bustling hub, not bothering to look behind me. He seemed a ghost, omnipresent in the way that his voice followed me everywhere; there was no escaping him.

Apparently, I was not applauded for my charity service toward the delusional madcap I was devoting my time and efforts to. Some had even known that I had made my decision to aid him before I did, and hid some of the necessary tools for the small-time operation. I could only guess that they'd seen it in my eyes, that drive to help the helpless. It was time wasted that I spent looking for the missing tools, and time I had to make up by running as fast as was possible for a girl with sharp tools underneath her arm toward his room, barging through the door to find him pleasantly humming to himself an out of key tune, completely unfazed by his injuries.

He said nothing as I sat down with the tools and began working on his wound.

He didn't seem to like being ignored, with me being so focused on my attempt to save his unvalued life. Apparently, to him, life was just a game, another format of amusement that he could bend to his will and create into any shape he liked. He preferred chaos, everyone knew that. Naturally a man so used to being on the evening news would be unaccustomed to being ignored.

"My, my, aren't we just the picture of focus?" His eyes were sinking further into their somber coma now, as I took a moment to glance up at his face. One swipe of his tongue glazed the length of his scarlet lips; a nervous tic, undoubtedly. "Why the silence, hmm? Is it weary res-ee-gnation that makes you cringe or uh - do ya just not like clowns?"

He let out a wheezing chuckle, and his body shook with the pathetic laugh as I tried to stick the needle into his hand. I tried to catch his hand, but it suddenly evaded me, and his laughter stopped short.

"I need to sedate you so I can sew you up properly without pain." I explained, trying to catch his hand again.

"Now why on earth would you do something so dreadful as that?"

He shared another lecherous grin, but I ignored it, reaching swiftly for the needle.

"So you won't feel pain, I assure you sir."

"Listen, sweets. My father was Sir. And as we can both see. I'm. Not. My. Father," he stared almost blankly at me, rolling his eyes as a sudden thought came to him. "Or is it just that the little part of you here that can manage to sew me up just can't measure up to the even bigger part of you, the ah, the formal no ah, frigid part – that wants me dead?"

"What are you getting at?" I asked, bringing a hot rag to the bloody wound and pressing it softly to the split flesh. "What are you trying to exhume from me?"

"Exhume? This isn't a graveyard," he clicked his tongue. "No, I'm uh - just trying to figure you out, girly. But yoouu – you're a tough little book to read."

I disregarded his probing statements and continued with my task, dabbing carefully at the seams of his wound until there was not a drop of blood left on the surrounding skin of his injury. Then, I reached for the needle…I could just barely see his eyes glitter with excitement as I picked up that glittering little object and forced it through the primordial film of tattered skin. He sighed with pleasure, then proceeded to chortle darkly with glee, a low, abiding sound that sent chills down my rigid spine.

He certainly wasn't a comfortable person to be around…an interesting specimen like one to be measured and inspected in a laboratory, to say the least, but not good company at all.

When I had cleanly stitched the wound and sealed it completely shut, I clipped the wire from the needle and placed lubricated gauze over the freshly sewn gash, so as to ward off any bacterial infections that would make him stay even longer in my care.

"There. All done," I reached for the I.V. once again, this time catching his hand without any trouble and feeding the pinpoint of the needle into his dusty skin, putting two thin slices of medical tape over it and securing it in its place. He might have been an easily excitable character, but like all human beings, he wanted sleep more than ever…another human characteristic that made him a little less monstrous and a little more human in my eyes.

"Humm," His tongue flickered out between his lips again, catching onto those terribly disguised scars as he emitted a small unimpressed grunt. "Well, if it wasn't the little doctor that could – but I ah…I don't wanna see what ya could do. What I already know you do, day in, day out, bored of your ah - your little routine. I wanna see what ya can do, out of the bounds of ethics and society. A little anarchy goes a long way, Chel-see."

I made no reply to his mocking statement, merely injected the sedatives into his exhausted veins. His eyes, already heavily lidded with weakness from his loss of blood, drooped and dipped low over his glassy eyes over and over for a few minutes, battling sleep like a stubborn child. But finally, his head drifted to the side, and not another movement erupted from those usually twitchy, agitated features. For once, he looked peaceful…not at all like the senseless lunatic I'd seen on the news, that same depraved, lurking figure I'd find myself hoping to avoid when I couldn't find a cab ride home.

He was only human in sleep.

As I studied him with a soft curiosity, my eyes caught sight of the knife he'd threatened me with. Gently, out of respectful fear than actual trepidation of him waking under such heavy sedatives, I slid the weapon from his hand and stuffed it into my pocket, knowing he probably had more stashed on his person, but I was satisfied enough with finding one at the moment.

I quickly pulled his shirt closed and threw the covers over his gangly form before frantically bustling out of the room , my dirtied tools under my arm as I made a mad dash toward the livelier parts of the hospital, where all the activity was…away from the manipulative loon I'd only just left behind. I'd hardly dared to breathe in that smothering room, and now that I was free of his frightening power I could breathe easier, let my lungs glide and respire freely without fear to incapacitate their ability. I closed my eyes briefly as I tried to regain my composure, feeling my hands shake, those same hands that had nimbly worked the needle through his deviant flesh.

I received many glares as I walked down the hall. They were hoping I wouldn't go through with my plan, that I'd just let him lay there and die. Some shook their heads, others turned away, shameful to even breathe the same air as someone so low enough to tend to the monster that had killed their loved ones, their friends. They figured, since I hadn't lost any of my loved ones by his hand, that I didn't understand their vindictive whim for his rightful punishment. They were right…I didn't. But that didn't make me any more regretful that I had done my duty, and saved my own selfish conscious from feeling what they would certainly have felt later if I'd left him to wither in his bloodstained cot.

Still, I was shaken by our encounter, and I ducked from my unwanted attention into the staff room where I snatched a Styrofoam cup from the stack by the softly thrumming refrigerator and poured the stale, brown liquid into the makeshift mug. There was no cream around, as it had all been used up during the last shift, so I settled myself with the leftover sugar, left in a messy pile within the confines of a tiny wicker basket.

A knock resounded across the small room as I contently poured my sugar, my trembling spell already beginning to dissipate as his formidable presence began to disintegrate from my person. I turned to find one of the higher doctor's standing there, his white coat blanched to a perfect, starchy white color. His countenance was flaccid, extremely tired from the long years of overtime and solitude.

"Chelsea, might I have a word with you?"

"Of course, doctor." I sipped at my coffee, grimacing at the bitter taste. But I figured it would be better than my current stupor, and bit back the urge to spit it out across the recently mopped tile floor.

He coughed nervously, his eyes lowered as he fiddled with the pocket protector stuffed into his breast pocket, the name tag beneath hanging motionlessly, the boldfaced words spelling out the name Jonathon Smithland in boring, black font.

"So, how's your patient?"

"He's doing well," I ignored the evident sneer in his voice, shrugging lightly as I spoke. "I gave him sedatives to let him sleep. He suffered a large amount of blood loss, so I'll have to do a blood transfusion to pump him back up. In short, he'll live, I succeeded, and I don't need you ragging on me about something you know you should have done the minute he got here."

It was around this time that all sense of propriety melted away from his voice, and hysteria followed soon after.

"Are you crazy, Chelsea? He's the Joker…he doesn't deserve to live. He's the one responsible for Gotham's havoc, for all of its problems. Why couldn't you have let him just die there? Are you…are you even human?"

I narrowed my eyes, searching for humanity behind the doctor's guise. "I think the question is sir…are you?"

"Why'd you do it? That's all I wanna know…so I can better understand why one of my best nurses risked her own life to save a madman."

"Because, sir, I believe that everyone deserves the chance to live if they're given it. I don't think it would've been right just to leave him there. After all, he's human, and deserves," I enunciated the word sarcastically. "To live, just like the rest of us. Now, he's not the reason for all of our problems, Gregory. He's just been responsible for the recent ones. Some of Gotham's problems are self made, doctor. Perhaps you should remember that he's just a man, and that he needs the same compassion that you are shown just for being a human being."

I walked out of the staff room in an angry rush, brushing past the tall, haggard man without another look his way. More scornful looks came my way, and I tried to discount them as I sipped absently at my cold, repulsive coffee.

It was going to be a long shift.

Author's Note:

This was an idea I had after trying to find something interesting for you all to read. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy planning and writing it!

Disclaimer:The Joker belongs to DC Comics. Chelsea Grant belongs to me.

(7/4/09 - Hello! This is the revamped version of SAHS. I'm currently rewriting the dialogue for the Joker after finding that I have a much better grasp on his character than I did when I wrote this. If you're a new reader, then I hope you'll enjoy the story. If you're a returning reader then - I hope you'll notice the changes! I completely altered the dialogue for Chapter One and I will be doing the same for the next installment. Enjoy!)