InsaneJournal

To save a kindred soul.
The Players : Harley Quinn (open)
Where : Metropolis, Kansas. Lois's apartment.
When : February 3rd, 2009.
Rating : PG13.
Notes : Harley hears that the Joker has a new playmate.


Harley sat inside Lois’s apartment and watched television. After getting back from her midnight visit to her mother and sister’s graves, Harley had thought long and hard about what she wanted to do with her life now. And… She was no closer to making a decision that she was when she started.
Days passed and life continued with Lois leaving to do her job and Harley was left behind in the apartment to think and regret.

She had committed crimes while with the Joker and even though she had been heavily drugged and programmed by him she couldn’t just so easily dismiss what she had done. She needed to pay for those crimes but how? Going back to Arkham would be a death sentence for her and even if she were to survive she would probably end up more insane than they already thought she was.

“They call themselves doctors in that place? How come not a single damn one ever noticed I had drugs in my system or recognize the signs of brain washing the Joker put me through?” Harley suddenly said out loud.

Getting up Harley started to pace. “I could go to prison for the crimes but then no one gets helped, I’m locked up for what I did but wasn’t really responsible for.”

Letting out a frustrated groan, Harley sunk to a chair in front of the T.V. “What I need is some way to make amends for what was done by me but things done when I was not in control.” Looking up at the ceiling Harley made a half hearted appeal to God. “How about some kind of sign on what I should do?”

Hearing no grand voice from above or seeing any of the plants in Lois’s apartment burst into flames, Harley sighed and turned her attention to the television.

“This just in from our Chicago affiliate. It would seem the clown menace of Gotham has decided to make the windy city his newest plaything along with his criminal sidekick of Harley Quinn. A series of brutal murders this last week was thought to be the work of the Joker as the victims were found with their faces twisted in a gruesome parody of a smile but police officials were not completely convinced.”

Harley winced remembering those people in the alley she had helped to kill before shaking her head violently. “I was under the Joker’s control. It wasn’t my fault… Entirely.”

Then came security footage from a museum showing the Joker not even attempting to hide his face. Eyewitness reports state that at that time his sidekick Harley Quinn had helped a newspaper reporter to escape from the Joker’s grasp.”

Harley smiled remembering that moment as being the beginning of her breaking the Joker’s control over her.

“But whatever change of heart the murderous partisan of the Joker had must have been short lived because we now have footage of a comic book store massacre that Harley Quinn participated in.”

Harley’s face turned white. She didn’t help kill anyone at a comic book store did she? Sure her memories were a little scattered from the drugs Joker had kept her on but Harley loved comic books, surely she would have remembered having been in one.

“Here is the footage from the security camera that was shot just last night. You can see Harley Quinn has modified her costume and makeup, perhaps in a badly conceived notion of throwing off the authorities? In any case you can clearly see the Joker taking from her several packages and thanking her for suggesting ways of killing innocent patrons of the store. The packages later exploded killing several emergency workers and firemen called to the scene…”

Harley feeling the intense need to throw up turned off the T.V. and stared at the now blank screen.

“That was not me!” She yelled at the off set. “Mr. J. replaced me so quickly?” Harley shook her head. “So not the point! The point is, I’ve stopped being his punching bag and crime accessory and I’m still getting blamed for it.” Harley’s face turned pure white as the implications of the newscast fully set in.

“It also means some poor probably innocent girl is being force feed drugs and brainwashing and is being molded into being the Joker’s newest plaything. I… I… Can’t let that happen. Not again, not to someone else.”

But what could she do? She couldn’t go to the police and tell that that. They would lock her up on sight.

Suddenly Harley remembered that the Joker had kept a ‘safe’ house in Metropolis. He kept such safe places to hide in many major cities in case things got too hot in Gotham and Harley just remembered where the one in Metropolis was located. There she could find some of her old costumes to wear when she confronted him and a cache of money she could use to get back to Chicago.

But first she would need to seek out some of Metropolis’s more criminal members and purchase one last thing. A high powered hand gun. Whatever it took Harley vowed to herself that she wouldn’t let another person suffer at the hands of the Joker like she had. It was time that the clown went down.

Harley paused as she started to rush out of Lois’s apartment and for a brief moment she thought about writing a letter to Lois explaining where she was going and what she had to do and how much Harley appreciated everything the woman reporter had done for her. But Harley knew the letter would be too much like a suicide note because Harley fully expected she probably wouldn’t survive her confrontation with the Joker, but as long as she stopped him permanently that was all that mattered.

“If I leave a letter Lois is bound to come after me to stop me, and I can’t have that.” Harley finally said out loud to herself. Walking to the door she turned to look back at the room. “So I guess this is goodbye. With luck you’ll think I just took off and won’t know where I went till everything is settled.” With a tear in her eye Harley told the empty room. “Goodbye L.L. You were the closest I ever had to having a best friend.”

Quietly Harley turned the knob that would lock the door behind her and leaving the apartment she shut the door.