A/N: This is another old story I've 'rebooted' & re-written from scratch — just a little something to give me a break from editing the Harlequin.

Check out Kaleida's cover of '99 Luftballons' to get yourself in the mood.

It may take a few chapters to get going so stick with it!

Weightless Spaces

1. The Joker

Harley hadn't slept in days. Not real sleep. A few hours on the couch in her office, or a sleeping pill-induced coma that left her feeling drugged and sluggish the next day didn't really count. She hadn't even tried to sleep the night before when the GCPD announced they'd caught the Joker. She sat up watching the rolling coverage on the news, hoping to catch a glimpse of him, something other than the horrible stills from CCTV cameras. She wanted to see his real face, not the sinister, preening clown.

It started with a bank robbery - of course, it did - and one of those CCTV stills circulating with a headline claiming a villain called the Joker was behind it. Harley had stared hard at the images, trying to find Jack beneath the face paint, but all she could see were the scars. If it weren't for the scars, she would have written it off as a coincidence. A bank robber called the Joker. Okay, a strong coincidence, but how could that deranged-looking man dressed like a clown be Jack?

Then he roped the media into his plot, getting them to do his dirty work by spreading his propaganda as he killed and kidnapped indiscriminately.

Jack had always been too smart for the life he led.

Then he blew up a hospital.

He always did have a flair for the dramatic.

Threatened to burn the whole city to the ground...

He had a history of surprising her in the worst possible ways.

The Joker might not have looked like Jack, but there was a particular... Jack flavor to everything the Joker did. Sneaky, teasing, dark, playful, always testing the boundaries. All of it tasted like Jack. The cruelty, less so, but he'd always hidden that side of himself from Harley, even when she asked him not to. He never wanted her to see the bad side, keeping her at arm's length even if it meant losing her. In the end, that was the choice he'd made. Not a choice between Harley and the job, a choice between Harley and showing her what the job really was. He'd rather lose her than show her. Over and over again.

But she always took him back.

But this. This incarnation of the Joker. Not just a criminal but a domestic terrorist. This was something completely different from what he'd hidden from her back then.

He was showing her this.

He was showing everyone this.

Eighty-three people were dead, and Harley couldn't help but wonder how much of the blame could be laid at her feet. She had been the last thing tethering him to the earth, and without her, he'd evolved into a force of nature that couldn't be stopped. A force that continued to grow and spread, whipping up chaos and destruction, feeding off fear.

Limitless.

Harley had always known he could do whatever wanted if he put his mind to it.

Harley rubbed her hands over her face, trying to move past her exhaustion and thoughts of Jack to concentrate on the work in front of her. Ironically, her work was focused on a treatment program for young psychopaths, getting to them early before they started committing anti-social acts. Sitting in her office, far away from Gotham, a year and a half removed from Jack, it only occurred to Harley then how ironic it was that this was the research project she'd chosen over him.

"Dr Quinzel?"

Harley looked up to see one of her PhD candidates had poked their head into her office.

"Hey, Beth, what's up?" Harley forced a smile, but she knew it looked strained.

"I just wanted to make sure you're okay," Beth admitted. "You're from Gotham, and there's all this wild stuff happening there right now."

Harley nodded and forced another smile. "It's pretty wild."

"But they caught him, so it's over now," Beth continued, grinning. "I bet every first-year psych student is gonna jump all over this."

"What do you mean?" Harley frowned.

"Well, the Joker," Beth shrugged. "The guy's obviously insane but what are the chances he'll be institutionalized? Zero. Someone is going to use the Joker to build on Dr Klein's criminal justice research, I guarantee it."

"Yeah," Harley agreed faintly.

Insanity. It wasn't obvious, not to Harley because she'd known the man behind the Joker for almost a decade. But to Beth and everyone else, he was a madman. The death penalty didn't exist in New Jersey, so prosecutors would make sure Jack had enough life sentences to keep him locked up until he died - they always did - but it was up to a jury to decide if he was insane.

"Did you see Nathaniel Moon's tweets this morning?" Beth continued eagerly. "He's already saying he'll write the definitive book about the Joker. It's kind of genius since no one knows his name or where he came from or anything. Of course, all the big pop-psych people are gonna try to get access to him."

"Mmhmm," Harley agreed, thinking how bizarre that Jack, her Jack, was about to become the subject of numerous pop psychology books. Psychopath porn for the masses. Books with his face on the cover - which face? - wrapped up under Christmas trees. Eventually, there would be stickers advertising discounts in red stuck to those covers. Some day there would be chapters in textbooks and sections in lesson plans devoted to him.

Beth disappeared down the hall, probably to gossip with her fellow grad students about the Joker, and Harley teepeed her hands in front of her face, trying to decide what to do.

This could be her opportunity to finally do something.

A/N: Hope you enjoy :)