And scene, lol! Here is your epilogue! Thank you for reading and thank you: Anonymous Rex, EthanFlux, Han, Nicky, guest, Nibbythehedgehog, The Mad Fiddler, and kendramccormick… for reviewing the last chapter! You guys are fantastic!

Please enjoy, and please let me know if you are interested in a sequel!

"Remember? Oh, I wouldn't do that! Remembering's dangerous. I find the past such a worrying, anxious place…the past tense I suppose, you'd call it. Memory's so treacherous, one moment you're lost in a carnival of delights with poignant childhood aromas, the flashing neon of puberty, all that sentimental candy-floss… the next, it leads you somewhere you don't want to go… somewhere dark and cold, filled with the damp, ambiguous shapes of things you'd hoped were forgotten. Memories can be vile, repulsive little brutes. Like children, I suppose. But can we live without them? Memories are what our reason is based upon. If we can't face them, we deny reason itself! Although, why not? We aren't contractually tied down to rationality! There is no Sanity Clause. So, when you find yourself locked onto an unpleasant train of thought, heading for the places in your past where the screaming is unbearable, remember there's always madness. Madness is the emergency exit… you can just step outside and close the door on all those dreadful things that happened. You can lock them away… forever."

-The Joker, The Killing Joke-

Epilogue: Folie à deux

Waking is an almost fetal state. You surface with no past… no history, then spend the blinks and yawns reassembling your memory, shuffling the shards into a spotty chronological order before fortifying yourself against the present and whatever horrors it might bring.

He spent a full minute drifting in the warm, ambiguous blanket of semi-consciousness. In that moment he was young again, in his early twenties, living in a shitty apartment, in an even shittier neighborhood. He had a girlfriend- a lithe young woman with curly blonde hair and willowy figure, who made love to him readily and liked to smoke expensive cigarettes while she listened to him yarn on about his day. He imagined that she lied there with him; her naked young body was curled up next to his, or maybe she was sitting on the front stoop of their building drinking coffee.

This was a cruel joke of the mind, yes, but one that he had long ago accepted the logic of.

What was far crueler were the ways in which a seemingly illogical list of objects could trigger memories of a life, long past lived, that would lodge itself in his brain like a lit match and burn him to his core. He could never predict what one of the objects would be or what recollections it could evoke: a salt shaker, the sway of the hips of a strange woman on a crowded street, a carnival poster, a smudge of lipstick on a glass, a throw pillow, a child's doll.

And, she would show up eagerly, as if she were knocking on the flood gates in his brain, begging for him to let her in. Pleading for him to crack the doors just wide enough for her to stick her foot in and force him to look at her. She would manifest in different forms, sometimes she would be an angel. The sweetest, most supportive woman on earth. She loved him despite his shortcomings. She supported him no matter what. She held him up when he quit his good paying job to be a pitiful standup comedian- he lost her. Other times she belonged to someone else- a mentor that would speak about her with the milky eyes of nostalgia. Sometimes she was a girlfriend, who died the day before their wedding. Then at times she would appear to him with a mutilated face after she'd gambled her way into disfigurement.

Then there was the sorrowful ballerina that he had just allowed the seep into his thoughts. Of course, he knew that she could have been a phantom fashioned in the dark corners of his mind, but, in the same token, she could have been real. SHE COULD HAVE BEEN! And, the mere prospects, that a creature such as her could have existed and could have belonged to him was enough to cause him such stress and grief that the idea of leaving her behind in his memory was almost unbearable. He would will his eyes to stay closed. Just to smell her. To imagine her. To feel her. To create her in his mind and hold her there.

But, remembering her was just as traumatic. He would've preferred to do just about anything than think of Jeannie Dupree-Napier, or the facts that surrounded her being on this earth for thirty-one years and then ceasing to be. Just like that. There when he left for work that morning. Gone by the afternoon. God, she was magnificent. Her beauty, her touch. How was his heart supposed to beat without her? She brought out the best and worst of him. A side of himself that he had never seen… and that he wasn't even sure really existed.

No matter what form she took on, she always had the same infectious smile and laugh that would crescendo into a snort after she indulged his bad jokes…

But, she was gone…

Nothing more than faded scraps.

Dusty bones in a box…

In the seven years since he had taken a nosedive into a batch of toxic chemicals, the ballerina, had only shown herself three times. Once in the first few weeks of his new life. He was by the docks and his eyes focused on a yellowed scrap of newspaper that had been trampled over and left to rot in a sodden crevasse in the street.

Suburban Mother of Three, Kills Children

The headline hit him head-on and with such gut-wrenching force, that he woke three days later in the back of an abandoned dock house, curled into a fetal position and surrounded by a pool of his own vomit.

Then she ebbed into a shadowy place in his subconscious that he feared and vowed to never open the gates upon again. But, he couldn't hold her back…he tried but he couldn't… not when that girl-that girl clad in black and red, whose name seemed as feasible to recall as climbing Everest- came to him with trembling hands and watery eyes. She splayed out a magazine in front of him and with a squeaking voice asked, "Is…is this true, Puddin'?"

His eyes glossed over the words, but the name of the reporter stuck out, Gwen Importico… then the neighbors, Todd and Jane Willis… Jeannie Napier... Jack Napier….

Heather…

Sullivan…

Maggie…

…The Joker…

It felt like a saw blade was being raked across his brain.

Maybe it was the way her voice shook and her blue eyes filled with tears...

Maybe it was the way she dropped the "g" at the end of her word...

But, before he could stop himself, his hands were around her little throat. He held her down in a death grip until she stopped struggling against him.

He wondered briefly if she was dead as he let go of her and listened to her body hit the ground with a small, tragic thud. He gave the back of her head a little kick, then listened as she took in a sputtering gasp of air.

Then his vision went black.

It cleared sometime later, and he found himself in a grimy bed, in an abandoned building in The Bowery, clutching a pillow between his boney fingers, with a sore throat and dried, cracked lips.

She told him she loved him….

If she loved him...why'd she leave him?

He hated, yet longed for this version of his wife the most…

This was the account of her that left him the most shaken… the most destroyed.

And, he had hoped that she would be forever gone. Or, maybe, just maybe, the white skin and green hair was just the dream… the nightmare…

…and he would wake to find her still his young girlfriend, or the supportive wife of a failing comedian… or the mother of his children.

But that wasn't to be…

This time it was the feeling of tiny house-fly legs, tickling across the bridge of his nose that roused him from his sedation and reminded him that she was not within arm's reach. He tried to lift his hands to slap it away, but was met with the hard, cold steel of shackles slamming against his skin, and holding him in place. Cascading light, that he at first thought was morning sun shining through the curtains of his apartment, began to take shape, as his eyelids fluttered open, into the round, eclipsing starkness of exam room lamps.

An electric surge of panic assaulted every nerve ending in his body, and he sat forward with a jolt, blurting out, "Where is she?!"

His frantic eyes swept through the room, to find a small girl, who looked to be about nineteen, standing at the door, frozen in terror. As she became rigid, he had a moment to read her name tag: Stephanie Brown, Registered Nursing Student. Poor kid… how did she get the luck to have a psychiatric clinical rotation on the day that he would be captured?

She stood there for another beat- with a scream pulsating in her throat, just waiting for her to open her mouth and let it out- before she slammed through the door, and began to shout for help.

"Oh, don't be afraid of him… he is sedated. And, if he wakes we will give him another dose… plus he is restrained," they surely said to her as she protested with, "but, I am just a student."

He shut his eyes and resigned himself to the fact that she wasn't there. Suddenly, he felt terrible, as if he had been drug behind a vehicle… or thrown from a building… or beaten by a bat. Even breathing seemed impossible, as with every breath he took, hot strips of pain would sear across his chest and down to his abdomen.

He ran his tongue across his lips and let out a dissatisfied grunt as he settled his head back against the bed. He was dressed in the standard Arkham Inmate- no, Arkham Patient- grey uniform. He was manacled at the wrists and ankles with thick steel cuffs, and two leather straps cinched across his chest kept his torso immobile. This was not an unfamiliar set of circumstances for him. He surmised quickly that he must have been pretty roughed up by the Bat- also not unfamiliar- and bought into the Arkham's medical facility where they would poke and jab at him for a few days before they happily shipped him over to the Intensive Treatment Ward.

He looked up as his room door opened and Stephanie Brown- RN student, reappeared, flanked by another nurse who had treated him several times before, named Cheryl McNeil, who had shoulders broad enough to put a linebacker to shame and a scowl that would have sent shivers down the spine of even the saltiest of sailors. "You scared my student, pretty badly. What did you say to her?" she asked as she walked up to him and put an intrusive hand against his carotid to check his pulse.

"I'm hurt; you think I would say something inappropriate to a youngster like her? What do you think I am… some kind of sicko?"

"He asked, 'where is she?'" Stephanie squeaked.

Cheryl looked back to him and gave him a half-cocked grin. "Who? Harley? She's been back with us for three weeks. The muscles and ligaments in her neck are healing nicely. She should be off the vent soon. She was lucky this time. How very gallant of you to ask about her, for once. One might even mistake you for someone who cares."

Stephanie Brown watched the muscles in his face twitch as his armor faltered for a split second. She took a wavering step forward and folded her arms across her chest. "That's not the she he was asking about?"

Cheryl gave him a quick glance, then lifted his shirt and sent her fingertips straight into his left side. "Oh…. Well, you were pretty restless in your sleep. Saying things like: I love you, please don't go. Laughing and even crying… I thought you were just having nightmares again. But, you've got another girl now…"

"Oh, Ms. McNeil, don't you know my heart only beats for you," he said, as he held back a grunt of pain and closed his eyes tightly. "Especially, with your magic fingers."

"This isn't getting better," she said pressing a little harder. "I've palpated your side several times while you've been sedated and you've grimaced and groaned…each time worse than the last. The doctor will be in to discuss the results of your x-rays."

His eyes slowly opened and he gave her a mocking shocked expression. "Palpating an unconscious man? And, I've always thought you were a lady. I will presume it was also you who took off my clothes and redressed me… I feel violated. You owe me dinner now."

She scribbled down a few notes on a chart, then looked up and gave him a smile that could have been mistaken as friendly. "Always a charmer. Doctor Langham will be in soon." She made a quick gesture to the nursing student, then they both disappeared through the door.

As the door swung backwards, his eyes focused through the small vertical strip of glass in the door, across the hall, and into the next room.

And, every muscle in his body went taut...

A blonde woman, beautiful, her face blemished by dark rings under the eyes. The eyes themselves were too wide, as if something hot were prodding them from inside her head. She was looking in his direction, but not actually at him, more through him. She wasn't seeing him at all… he simply faded into the wall, in her line of vision. Her face was twisted in grief and soul crushing terror. Whatever she was seeing beyond the door of her room, beyond the hallway, beyond him, beyond the wall at his back…

…beyond anything in the known world probably…

…wasn't fit to be seen.

There was something uncomfortably, undeniably familiar about her, and then he made the connection- the woman who lived so uninhibitedly in his memory- the ballerina, the day she went into labor with the boy, on the car ride to the hospital she laid her head against the headrest in the car, taking in the April sun, with the same look of alarm in her eyes.

His chest tightened as the realization took him over that this was her…

This was her… the ghost who haunted his dreams… here she was, in the flesh, just a few feet away.

He could then remember what started his mind off on the hellacious train of thought that brought about a wife that he thought he murdered… dead children that she did murder…

He was thrashing around as they brought him on a stretcher into the medical facility. His body was overridden with pain. Angry streams of black, bloody vomit spewed from his mouth and over his clothing as each of his limbs were grabbed and shackled down.

"Where is this blood coming from?" A worried, shrill voice rang in his ears.

"I…I don't know. He must… he must have some kind internal bleeding."

"Sedate him until we can examine him more thoroughly… begin lightly, then up the dose if he continues to fight."

"GET THOSE CHEST STRAPS OVER HIM!"

He was lying there fighting against the hands of sleep when he first caught sight of her. Her frightened eyes grabbed his attention first. Those eyes, he thought. Even from a room away, they howled. Then, as he looked at her bony, gaunt frame, and her filthy hair matted against her face, he felt something that he didn't even know he could feel… compassion. Actual, sympathy for another human being. He wanted to crawl to her and hold her hand, press her against his chest and say, "No, no, no. It's okay. Sssh." He wanted to hold her until the shakes stopped, tell her that everything would be alright.

That was when a gaggle of medical students crowded in front of her door, and the shiny bald head of the chief doctor of the medical facility, Herman Langham, obstructed his view. Dr. Langham's voice rose to a loving, almost prideful timbre as he began to present her case as if he were telling a ghost story to a bunch of school children around a campfire.

"This is patient number AA00171", he began," Jeannine Napier. She has been a patient here at Arkham Asylum for seven years. She is thirty-eight years old, and suffering from schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, and psychotic tendencies. Many of you may remember what brought her here, as it was a very high profile case. She asphyxiated her three children in her suburban home, then after the deed was done she became lucid, and tried to commit suicide by throwing herself over the second story landing. She lied there for several hours before she was discovered by a neighbor. She was pregnant at the time, and subsequently suffered a miscarriage. She also suffered three crushed vertebra, a broken femur, a broken arm, and head trauma."

"What about her husband?" The boisterous voice of a young man interrupted.

"He's whereabouts are unknown."

"Are they? An article just came out a few weeks ago connecting her to one of the more notable patients in the Asylum. It also accused him of pushing her, rather than her jumping."

Dr. Langham's brow dropped. "Uh… that publication is simply a tabloid… the information can't be trusted."

"The information came from the neighbor that discovered her."

"We won't be discussing it."

"But, he has used the name Jack Napier as an alias many times…"

"He has also used a variety of other aliases as well. Let me remind you that this was a very highly publicized case. The name Jack Napier was published multiple times and part of public record. We won't be discussing it any further." His voice was authoritative and stark. "Let's move on, please. Use extreme caution when interacting with her. She is violent both to staff and herself, thus we keep her heavily sedated. We have made multiple attempts to discontinue sedation, but every time we do, she relapses. She begins lucid, even cooperative, then she begins to stare into corners for days at a time, then she starts having nightmares about her children, then she becomes a safety risk. She has blinded an orderly by scratching their eyes and she has broken the bones of numerous staff members. To herself, she has bitten chunks out of her wrists, tried to hang herself, and she has only partial vision in her left eye after she attempted to claw her eyes out. She is now being treated in the medical facility because her psychiatrist, Dr. Bartlett, is attempting to." Here he let out a cynical laugh. "To once again wean her from her sedatives. This time, she tried to cut her throat with a shard of glass she smuggled into her cell."

"Can you tell us about Dr. Bartlett?"

"Uh, yes." Dr. Langham began wearily. "He is new to the facility. He has had experience with mothers who have committed filicide before, most notably the case of a mother in Texas who drowned her five children. He came here specifically for this patient. He hopes to rehabilitate her." The laugh was evident in his expression. He looked as if he were holding it in his mouth and tasting it before letting it go.

"And, you don't think that is possible."

"I think he, Dr. Bartlett, is young and idealistic, and has not accepted that some patients are just unreachable."

"What is your recommendation for this patient, Dr. Langham?"

"I will be making a recommendation for a lobotomy to the Asylum board. She is a liability to the staff of this facility."

"And, other patients are not?"

"Those other patients are not in vegetative states…. Let's move on to our next patient. Number AA00243 Harleen Quinzel. She has been in the medical ward for twenty-one days, currently intubated and breathing with the assistance of a ventilator…." His voice trailed off as the entire crowd shuffled away.

This is where he gave into the IV full of sedatives and he allowed his eyes to shut as he drifted into a not so restful sleep...

...and he remember...

her...

...

...

And now, in full alertness and wakefulness, here she was again.

No sedatives to fog his mind.

Was this really her?

Was this pitiful creature his?

The thing that took his soul and history, and wiped it clean. The manifestation of his greatest achievements and most horrendous failures…

Was this his Jeannie… his wife… the catalyst to make his heart beat and his blood flow?

Or…

Did he just, as the good doctor said, read the name and insert himself into a memory of a man he had never met. Was he remembering a life that in no way belonged to him? Jeannie… Patrick… Heather… Sullivan… Maggie… their unborn child…

Who did they belong to?

Was this all just a delusion?

His insides began to turn and he didn't know if he were about to cry, or laugh, or scream….

It was then that the door swung open and he was met with Dr. Langham being trailed by fifteen medical students piling into his room and squeezing shoulder to shoulder as they rocked onto their toes to get a better look at him.

Freak…

Sideshow clown…

Monster…

Disgusting…

"This is patient number AA00214, The Joker, identity UNKNOWN. We believe him to be between the ages of thirty-nine and forty-two. He is both a sociopath and a psychopath. He is, needless to say, extremely dangerous. Patient is highly intelligent and highly delusional. Known for his proclivity for violence. Continuously shows extreme agitation. Does not respond to treatment of any kind. Shows no remorse for his crimes. Patient has also erected a series of highly developed and highly fantastical narratives for his life prior to his disfigurement to garner both sympathy and followers. It is believed that he doesn't even know the truth of his origins, and his delusions preclude, at this time, his facing the magnitude of his actions. He is being treated in the medical facility today because six weeks ago he escaped with the assistance of Harleen Quinzel, he was apprehended today by the vigilante, Batman. After a struggle he was returned to our care with severe lacerations to the head and neck, as well as, numerous internal injuries. His left abdomen is distended and very painful to the touch."Dr. Langham then shifted slightly to his left, allowing for the woman across the hall to come into view.

Her expression hadn't changed. The hollow, black horror still seeping from her every orifice. Christ, why didn't somebody do something for her? Put her out of her misery… something to make her stop looking towards him with such pleading, mournful eyes.

And, he could stop caring.

Dr. Langham then shuffled through the medical chart and took on a domineering, almost sardonic stature before he strolled to the side of the bed. "Well, from looking at your x-rays, it looks like you may have a ruptured spleen. I will be taking you to surgery within the hour. You've had a bad day, haven't you Joker?"

His eyes were cemented to patient AA00171 and it took a moment to realize the Dr. Langham was speaking to him and not one of the medical students ready to cage fight for the opportunity to take care of him. He blinked then focused on Langham as he took in a deep, shaking breath and grimaced as his expanding lungs sent a rod of pain exploding through his side. He then smiled, a smile that would have been beautiful and exceedingly joyous, had it not been on such an off-putting face.

"Bad day? This? Oh, Doc…"His eyes then moved for a fraction of second back to the most beautiful thing that he had ever seen, lying filthy and alone across the hall, then back to Langham."…believe me… I've had far worse."

So, this is the bitter end. So very sad, indeed! Now the question… Do you want a sequel? Do you want to explore the asylum and the woman, who may or may not be the Joker's wife, within it? Or, do you want it to be a mystery? I am leaving that up to you. So please let me know your thoughts.

If I do write a sequel it will be a few months from now. I need to take some time to step away from Jack Napier and get into the Joker! I also need to flesh out my outline and give it some more life! If I do write a sequel it will be titled: Folie à deux. Which in French mean, "a madness shared by two." It is also the official name of a psychiatric disorder, which will play of big part of said hypothetical sequel.

Now, that this housekeeping is out of the way… I want to say thank you! Thank you to every single, solitary person who took the time to read this story. And, especially to those of you who took the time to review! You guys are amazing, and I would have never finished if it weren't for you! I want to say a huge, resounding thank you to Anonymous Rex! You have read been there reviewing since chapter one! There were times that you were my only reviewer and if it had not been for you, this fan fiction would have died on the vine long, long ago! I also need to say a big thank you EthanFlux who has become a friend, and someone who I can talk about fictional characters with as if they were real, and he doesn't think I am crazy! He is also an exceptional writer and inspiration! Thank you, my Aussie friend!

This story has been a labor of love. I love DC comics! They are something that I loved throughout my childhood and still love in adulthood! I have always wanted to write a Joker origin, but I didn't want to beat a dead horse. I do take fan fiction seriously; I believe that if you are going to use someone else's characters that you should try to do your best work. I have tried to give my best work to this character that was around long before me, and will still be around long after me!

The House That Jack Built, has introduced me to people I would have never gotten to know had I not taken the time to write it. I will always be grateful! I have made wonderful friends through this experience… and I can't wait to make more in future endeavors!

I have dedicated this story to you, the reader! I love you all! And, thank you, in advance!

I will now be changing the status of this story to complete!