Disclaimer: I don't own Batman.

Summary: Even when she's completely alone, she can still hear his laugh - crazed and wild and uncaring - echoing around her. JokerRachel, post-movie, AU, oneshot

Um, yeah. I had the oddest urge to finally write for Jokachel. I am super nervous about writing for this pair, but I kind of figured why not? That's usually how I am when writing fics, lol. I do hope that everyone enjoys this little ficlet of mine. Not very long. Kind of drabbly, to be honest. Just me dipping my toes into the Jokachel fandom. This obviously is AU in the fact that Rachel is alive after the events of the film. Thanks for reading!

Mirth

As soon as the sound reaches her ears, Rachel Dawes thinks herself insane.

There's nothing around her but the quiet of her own room. Nothing to stare at her but the pictures she has framed on the wall. Nothing to make any noise except the open window next to her bed. Nothing at all.

And yet she still hears him.

The Joker is gone and yet she can hear him exactly as if he were right next to her, cackling in her ear with warped pleasure, asking her if she wants to know how I got these scars?

Her heart is thundering in her chest, similar to the night in which she was flung from a window by the city's most feared criminal. She can feel her pulse bounding in her neck, in her wrists, and wonders if this is completely nonsensical. There is no reason for this reaction to be occurring. There is no reason for her mind to be racing and for chills to be prickling along her spine. There is no reason for her breath to be quickening and her pupils dilating and her mouth drying up.

But these things happen, all the same.

She finds herself wishing that Bruce were here. He always knows what to do, it seems. But a part of her is stubborn and she knows that she can handle herself, especially in a situation such as this. Rachel knows there is nothing to really be frightened of, and yet she finds herself having the classic fight-or-flight set of responses.

Rachel tries to put this from her mind, tries to delve back into the book she was reading - a silly little novel of no intellectual value whatsoever - but she's read the same line at least seven times, and then -

The laugh, again.

She tenses, every muscle in her body locking up. Despite herself, she looks around her bedroom, finding nothing.

Because that's all there is - nothing.

Rachel closes her eyes, presses her lips together as if in deep thought, and shuts the book. She breathes - in and out, in and out - and tries to focus on the very motion of it. The way her chest rises and falls, the way the air feels as if moves in through her nose and out through her mouth -

"Well, hello, beautiful..."

The next breath is a strangled gasp. She opens her eyes, looks around in horror. The voice was so close, she could practically feel his breath curling around the shell of her ear. Her heart beats a nervous, frantic tattoo against her chest.

"You look nervous. Is it the scars? You want to know how I got 'em - "

It is then she screams. Not out of fear, but out of frustration, out of anger. She hurls her book at the wall and it falls thickly to the floor.

"A little fight in you. I like that."

And as Rachel curls up in her bed, clenching her hands over her ears and squeezing her eyes shut, desperate to block out the cackling laughter that seems to invade her very being, she wonders if this is how the Joker felt, right before he lost his mind.

End.