Flashback Chapter 28 The Joke

Gordon sprawled forward, wanting nothing more than to wake up from this nightmare. Instead of naught but a collar and leash, he'd be wearing his pajamas. Instead of a dilapidated circus, he'd be in his bedroom at home. Instead of freakshow headlines, he'd be in the company of his beautiful, strong, intelligent daughter…

Who wouldn't be bleeding out on the living room floor.

Gordon tried to lever himself up, only to be whacked back down by a cattleprod. "Uuuugh," he grunted. "Somebody…please…tell me what I'm doing here."

"Doing? You're doing what any sane man in your appalling circumstances would do. You're going mad."

"You," Gordon gasped, staring at Joker, knowing with a terrible certainty that this wasn't a dream.

Joker droned on, something about treacherous memory and madness being the emergency exit. Gordon wasn't really listening. Being dragged to and into a ghost train was a little distracting.

The ghost train ran past a series of screens featuring Joker singing, then… pictures. Of a girl. Naked. Bloody. In pain.

"Barbaraaaaaa!"

Batman was, in equal measure, furious and terrified. There were no leads. No-one had seen anything. If anyone in Arkham knew anything, they were doing an unusually good job at hiding it. Nothing.

After nearly an hour, the Bat-signal lit up the sky. Batman nearly left Robin behind in the headlong dash for the GCPD HQ.

"What is that?" Robin said, gasping slightly and nodding at the envelope marked with a bat that Batman had just opened. He stood on tiptoe to see a single carnival ticket, and a business card with the Joker's face and the legend 'With Compliments'.

Batman bolted, and Robin followed.

The Batmobile charged into the dilapidated circus field. A collection of physically deformed people fled, leaving Joker standing alone. Batman jumped on Joker.

Joker hit the ground as Batman landed on top of him. A burst of acid hit the vigilante's arm, giving the crazed clown a chance to escape. Batman started after him.

"Batman! Over here!"

Batman turned, and saw Robin picking at a lock on a cage containing…"Jim? Jim, are you…are you still okay?"

The battered, traumatised police commissioner fell out of the cage into Batman's arms. "He…he shot Barbara," he spluttered. "Showed me photographs…he tried to drive me mad."

"The police are following right behind me," he explained. "We'll stay here with you until they arrive."

"No! No, you have to bring him in," Gordon insisted. "And I want him brought in by the book!"

"I'll do my best. Robin, stay here," Batman instructed.

"By the book, you hear?" Gordon yelled. "We have to show him that our way works!"

Batman pelted through the House of Fun, ignoring the gruesome images in the twisted paintings and mostly ignoring Joker's monologue. It was a twisted logic; one bad day reduces the sane to lunacy. That's what had happened to Joker; that's what he'd tried to do to Gordon. A pit of poison-tipped spikes unfortunately coincided with Joker's theory that he, Batman, had also had a bad day, which drove him crazy, and all that was left was pretending life made sense.

"Something like that happened to me," the intercom confessed. "I…I'm not exactly sure what it was. Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes another…If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice! Ha ha ha!"

Batman gritted his teeth and kept running. Whether the world was a joke or not, then at least people could make as much sense of it as possible, and that struggle was the end goal in itself.

He smashed into the Hall of Mirrors, and threw Joker through the thin, rotted wall. Smirking inwardly, he revelled in revealing to Joker his plan failed. The fight was short, and vicious, and Batman finally finished it. Remembering the conversation he'd attempted to have, he tried again.

"We could work together," he finished. "I could rehabilitate you. You needn't be out there on the edge any more. You needn't be alone. We don't have to kill each other. What do you say?"

Joker didn't look at him. "No. I'm sorry, but…No. It's too late for that. Far too late." He chuckled. "Y'know, it's funny…this situation. It reminds me of a joke. See, there's these two guys in a lunatic asylum…and one night, they decide they don't like living in an asylum any more. They decide they're going to escape. So, they get up onto the roof and there, just across this narrow gap, they see the rooftops of the town, stretching away in the moonlight, stretching away to freedom. Now, the first guy, he jumps right across with no problem. But his friend daren't make the leap. Y'see, he's afraid of falling. So then, the first guy has an idea. He says 'Hey! I have my flashlight with me! I'll shine it across the gap between the buildings You can walk along the beam and join me!' But the second guy just shakes his head. He says 'What do you think I am? Crazy? You'd turn it off when I was half way across!'"

AN: Hey. Long time, no write. Hopefully more soon.

Also, Black and Red chapter up now.

Please review.

Katara