The rain fell in heavy sheets down on Gotham City below her, but she was safe here. She was in the safest place in the entire city, actually. She reached up and placed her fingers to the cool glass, tracing a raindrop down, her thoughts going to dark places. She closed her eyes and saw visions of fire, knives, a ghostly white face and blood red lips.

"Guess who," a low, male voice whispered in her ear.

She gasped and jumped, the images breaking from her mind and turned to see Bruce Wayne standing next to her. She smiled at him apologetically. "Oh, Bruce. Sorry. You, uh, you scared me."

Bruce's lips stiffened into a straight line, his jaw muscles tightening. His brown eyes narrowed on her. He reached out with one hand to move a strand of her black hair out of her face and cradled her cheek in his hand. His voice was soft. "I wish you'd tell me what was bothering you. I can't help you if you don't tell me."

She sighed, placing her hand on top of his. "It's nothing. I'm fine."

He shook his head. "You're not fine."

The truth was she wasn't. She hadn't been completely fine since she had woken up in Gotham General a year ago. She had opened her eyes to a dark empty hospital room with no memory of why she was there or what had happened to her. The doctors had told her she had suffered burns, a significant blow to her head, and countless cuts all over her body. The cuts, burns, and bruises had been nothing though compared to the excruciating pain in her abdomen where the doctors told her she had been pierced by something in the accident. The doctors had told her she had been a victim of some sort of an explosion and the Batman had saved her life and brought her in. She owed her life to him.

It seemed like she had cried for hours lying alone in her hospital bed. Why couldn't she remember what happened? Why had this happened to her? When she was finally able to close her eyes that night, the pain medications taking effect, was when she first started to have the dreams. She vividly saw a man in white face paint, black around his dark eyes, and harsh red paint smeared across his mouth and cheeks where there were bubbled scars extending from his lips up his cheeks in the form of a permanent smile. Not only did she see the painted man, but she saw fire, knives, and bats. She had excused it at the time as being a side effect of her pain medications or the trauma of her accident, but the visions never stopped. Almost every time she closed her eyes she saw them and they were different every time and becoming more clear.

Still, the only memory she had of what had happened to her were the physical scars she would have for the rest of her life. The large pink one that ran down her forehead. The odd one on the right side of her lips that curved ever so slightly upwards on her cheek, like a permanent half grin. Even the little crescent shaped white lines scattered on her face and neck. She had been horrified the first time she looked in a mirror after the accident, but now she felt a completely different emotion when she looked at her scars. Everyone always seemed to let their eyes linger on her for too long and she knew they were looking at her and feeling pity towards her for whatever horrible thing had happened to her to cause her to look the way she did. When she looked at herself she only felt anger. No matter how many times she stared at her reflection, hoping to spark some kind of memory, nothing ever came. The scars were physical evidence of something she could no longer remember and served only to taunt her daily with a memory so close yet so far gone.

When she was finally released from the hospital, she had not returned to her job at the bank, but instead wanted to start over fresh after the accident. She picked up a job as waitress at the restaurant down the street from her apartment complex. One slow evening she had met Bruce who had come in alone for dinner. They had chatted and flirted and he asked her out for a date the following week. Months later here they were, engaged. Still, she couldn't bring herself to tell Bruce entirely about the visions. She just couldn't, not when she knew who the man was in her visions.

It hadn't taken her very long to see him on television or in the papers. Hell, she had had to be moved from the hospital because he had rigged it to blow up. The face she couldn't quit seeing was the face of The Joker; Gotham's most infamous mass murdering psycho. She supposed she wasn't the only woman who dreamed of him, but she knew she was probably the only one who didn't consider the dreams to be nightmares altogether. The visions were terrifying to her, but always felt more like pieces of a puzzle that she had to put together and telling Bruce would only make him worry.

She dismissed her thoughts and smiled at Bruce. She truly loved him. He had been there for her to put most of the pieces of her life back together, but she knew he couldn't put these pieces together. This was something she had to do alone, and Bruce knew all about having some things that had to be done alone. In fact, he might just be the most complicated man in Gotham, yet he was such a good actor nobody knew except her, his trusted butler Alfred, and his business associate Lucius Fox. She was engaged to Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy to the citizens of Gotham. To her, he was something so much more. Bruce was also Batman, the masked vigilante who had saved her life the night of her accident. So, if he could be two people at once, she figured she could deal with being herself while also having visions of a psychotic clown.

"You worry too much, Bruce." She kissed him several times on the lips, wrapping her arms around his strong, toned waist.

Bruce smiled at her and wiped her hair away from her forehead, gently kissing her scar there. "No, I just know you better than you think."

She laughed. "Is that so? Prove it."

Bruce laughed and kissed her again on her lips. He ran his thumb along the scar extending from her lip and looked into her blue eyes, smiling at her. "Well, I know you well enough to know you aren't going to like what's going on Friday night."

She grabbed his hand and narrowed her eyes on his. "What's going on Friday night?"

"A party. Our engagement party actually."

She groaned heavily and turned back to the window. "Bruce, no. You know I don't like parties. Especially not ones where I'm on display like that."

He brushed her hair away with his hand and kissed the nape of her neck, stopping at her ear. His voice was a whisper. "See? I told you I knew you better than you thought."

She turned to look at him, unable to hide her smile. "Ok, you win. But seriously. No party."

Bruce laughed and smiled warmly at her. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a copy of The Gotham Times and held up the front page for her to see. "I think it might be a little too late for that."

The front page showcased a picture of her and Bruce together and announced their engagement along with the party. She sighed, shaking her head at him. "Obviously. You know, you're lucky I love you."

Bruce smiled and leaned in to kiss her again. "I know. Don't worry about the party. You're beautiful and nobody's going to think otherwise. Nothing's going to go wrong. I promise."

"Well I'd rather see you dead, little girl
Than to be with another man
You better keep your head, little girl
Or you won't know where I am" - "Run For Your Life" by The Beatles

The Joker sat in a plain office waiting for the doctor to come in so he could get his worthless daily session over with. He had already stared at the walls so much he knew every imperfection in the paint, so he let his eyes wander to the mahogany desk in front of him. He spotted The Gotham Times underneath his file. Curious as to what was going on outside of Arkham these days, he stretched his handcuffed hands out to brush his file away and grab the newspaper. He opened it up to the front page and his breath hitched in his throat.

The headline read, "Billionaire Bruce Wayne to Wed Angeline Perkins - Engagement Party to be Held at Wayne Tower Friday." A full color photo of Wayne and his betrothed stared happily back at him.

"No," he whispered. "No, no, no. Can't be. It can't be."

But the more he looked at the photo the more he knew it was her. He didn't know how it was her, but there was no way he could ever forget her face. It was her. He didn't know how, but his Angel was alive.

He put the paper down and spotted a large letter opener on the desk. Oh, big mistake, doc. He grabbed the letter opener and sat back down as the doctor walked into the room to start his session. His last session.

"Good afternoon, Joker. How are we feeling today?"

The Joker cracked his neck and smiled up at the doctor, his hands gripping the letter opening tighter. "I'm, uh, I'm feeling free today, Doc."

The doctor sat down and narrowed his eyes suspiciously at The Joker. "Free? What do you mean by free? Can you elaborate for me?"

The Joker slowly stood from his chair and bent towards the doctor, his hands and the letter opener resting on the desk. "Oh, I can do better than elaborate. I'll show ya, Doc."

Before the doctor could respond, The Joker had thrust the letter opener into his neck, blood spraying out from the wound. He reached down and took the keys from the key ring attached to the doctor's belt loop. He went through several keys until he found the one that unlocked the cuffs from his hands. He ran his hands through his hair, smiled, and laughed.

"As I was saying, Doc. I feel free today. I, uh, I do hope I elaborated enough for you to get the point."

The last thing he saw before leaving the room was the newspaper with Angel's face now covered in blood. He was going to find her. Mr. Wayne was going to have to trade up or die. The Joker was back.

Authors Note -
This is actually an unplanned alternate sequel to "Angel." I got the idea one night after a reader left me a review that just had me thinking kind of a "what if?" So I wrote down the outline and I've had a bit of it written for a little while, but I was afraid to post it before "Arkham Can Wait" is even finished, but I figured, what the heck. Why not? Reminder to those still attached to reading "Arkham Can Wait" - I'm still very much working on it and I promise it will be finished!

Please bear in mind that while I plan to finish what I have started with this and would love to see people reading it, that this isn't the true sequel (the true sequel that has the real events that I see taking place after "Angel" is "Arkham Can Wait") and is really just a happy little experiment.

As with my other sequel I like to think that you can just pick up and read this without having read the original story because I will always explain things. It just leaves it open to be a little bit more mysterious to those who haven't read the original and makes it something neat for the readers of the original to enjoy further.

As far as more inspiration for this story goes...I got the title from an old Beatles song titled "Run For Your Life." (part of the lyrics were used above) The lyrics, to me, just perfectly fit the plot outline for this story and even mood for the story. I can't help but laugh when I hear an upbeat Beatles song where they're singing about how they'd rather see this girl dead than to be with another man and that, to me, fits The Joker.

So, I do hope you enjoy this and I will be sure to continue posting as I go. Sorry again that it's taking so long to post an update to "Arkham Can Wait." I'm working, I promise! However, I hope you enjoy this in the meantime!

Yours Truly,

foxotr