Dark Waters

"Let's go on a trip into town," the Joker had said to Annie, lightly, as if it was something they did every day.

But in fact, she hadn't been back into Gotham for two months, and spring had given way to summer. The leaves of the large trees camouflaged the house, and what they didn't cover, the weeds and vines took over, so that it was well-hidden from the road. She had grown used to the solitude, making the house a little more hospitable and cleaning the dusty floors. She found a store of flower pots in the broken-down shed outside, and had brought in plants she had found, those with flowers or unique leaves, anything that she decided she liked. She had a small jungle growing there in the alcove of windows, on makeshift shelves the carpenters had used when they completed the partial repairs of the house.

Though there were stretches of time in solitude without him there, he came to see her faithfully, surprising her with the regularity of his visits. He had many moods; sometimes he came stealthily like a cat, and she would find him there, suddenly beside her. Once when she was outside sitting on old paving stones, gazing down at Gotham, wondering where he was in the dark, sprawling city, she looked up to find him there next to her. At other times he made his arrival obvious, carelessly shifting bowls and pans in the kitchen, looking for something to eat.

Now they were far from the security of that place, careening through the streets of Gotham in the evening. So much had changed in those weeks she was absent. The influx of guns into the hands of the city's gangs, along with Dent's continued efforts to stamp out the criminal influence in Lower Gotham with harsh, unrelenting restrictions on travel between the two halves of the city, had created an explosive atmosphere of instability.

She had purposely avoided the news, even though she could have listened to the small radio in the isolated house. But she could see it now - the increased police presence, protesters near the checkpoints, abandoned cars that had been burnt up, and little corner shops with their windows broken out.

It was a war scene, and the central force behind it was here beside her, driving the car with reckless abandon through the heart of the city while somehow skillfully avoiding the checkpoints. He had a calm, almost amused look on his face.

Though he had taken off the garish makeup he usually wore, to avoid detection on the journey, he never did a good job of washing away the black paint around his eyes. Some residue of it remained, giving him a sinister look there behind the wheel.

Despite the warm summer weather, he wore a black jacket over his simple button-down shirt. It was the jacket she remembered from their meeting on the seawall, watching the waves, so long ago. A thin fabric scarf was tucked loosely into his pocket, she assumed for disguising his face.

She had sadness in her eyes as she looked at him there, knowing there was an impassable gulf between them. She couldn't fully understand him, his motivations, his obsession with causing the violence she saw. And yet she loved him with a fierce loyalty. He had rescued her when no one else was there to help her, he had seen something in her to love, and they were tied together despite the fact that his world rotated around a different axis than hers.

Would she do it again? she asked herself. Would she give him the information he needed to steal the guns and ammunition from the Church, the isolated religious cult she had grown up in, knowing what havoc it would cause in Gotham? It was very true, how she had answered him when he asked why she had helped him - she did do it just to make him smile. Her breath caught in her throat as she realized, deep down, that she would do the same thing again, despite the consequences - she would do anything for him.

Her love for him and her lack of understanding of his actions were like a mathematical equation she couldn't solve. The more she worked at it in her thoughts, the more it felt as if her mind was simply broken in that place, and she couldn't logically puzzle it out. He noticed her melancholy gaze and gave her an easy smile, out of keeping with the wasteland of violence she saw outside the car windows. "We'll be there soon, kitten."

His smile faded as he turned to look out the window and then back at her. "You know, Annie, it was always like this. You just didn't see it before. But you felt it - in those nights you worked, in the bills you couldn't pay. It was always hiding there. The truth. The truth comes out when people are pushed far enough. I just take care of a few little details, to give them that… opportunity." He smiled again, as if satisfied with the bleakness that surrounded them.

His words weighed on her. In a way he was right - she had been harshly treated by the system, the way things operated in Gotham. She had submitted herself to be crushed by the wheel of her circumstances, every day, never securing enough to quite get by in the city. He had taken that wheel and turned it on its head, broken it, disrupting the usual flow of power.

But she didn't want to face the harsh reality of human nature, stripped bare like this. She realized that she had gained strength from those little illusions of life in an orderly city - the neat streets, the apparent safety. Her mind fell back on itself, hovering somewhere between her world and his.

She didn't have long to consider it, because they were arriving at their mysterious destination.

What errand were they on? He had refused to tell her, and she hadn't pressed him. All she knew was that he had brought a small case, similar to a briefcase, with them, and had thrown his purple jacket in the back seat before he herded her into the car to drive to Gotham. He made a few more turns, navigating through the narrow alleyways, and then parked. The evening light was fading as he led the way to the back door of the building in front of them, using a keypad to unlock it. She had given up guessing what they were doing and simply fell in behind him, following him down a neatly tiled hallway.

They got on the first elevator they came to, and he pressed the button for the basement level. Her nerves kept her from talking, and he seemed to be enjoying keeping her in silent suspense. They stepped out into a wide hallway, where large metal carts were parked, reminding her of the industrial kitchens where she had prepared meals in the past.

They made their way to another set of sturdy metal doors. When he opened them, she felt a rush of cold air, and the smell that escaped, of blood and flesh, raw meat, was sickening. She looked around to see animal carcasses hanging everywhere, close together, only a small pathway in the middle of this large refrigerated room providing a break from the walls of red and pink on either side of them.

She felt a wave of nausea hit her but managed to choke it down, taking deep breaths despite the smell and making an effort to look only at the crinkled texture of the Joker's hair, a sight she was so used to, up in front of her, instead of the dead animals hanging all around her. She wasn't dressed for the cold with her tank top and jeans, but she was thankful that the chill air helped her control her nausea.

He turned around, a mocking smile raising his lips as he regarded her. "It's just a meat locker," he said with false innocence.

They moved toward the center of the room, where she was relieved to see a wider swath of empty space, giving them an area where they could breath a little further from the hanging carcasses. A metal table stood there, and he set the small briefcase on it with a dull thud that echoed in the large room. He opened it, revealing an array of wicked looking knives. Some were long and thin, others short but double-sided, cruel instruments that were clearly not meant for cooking, but for killing.

She halted for a second, not breathing, looking up at him with frightened eyes. She trusted him absolutely. But the atmosphere of gore around them and the sinister-looking knives began to play in her imagination. Had the violent side of him come out now, no longer hidden? Why had he brought her to this horrible place?

He looked carefully at the case of knives and took, it seemed to her, several long minutes to choose one, feeling its heft and weight in his hand. His eyes shot up then and caught her panicked gaze. He smiled widely and shifted the knife with a little flourish of his fingers, so that he held the dull edge of the blade and made the handle available to her. She took it as he offered it to her - it was a long knife, thin and sharp, easy to maneuver.

"Your eyes were so big just then, so scared. What did you think I was going to do?" he asked. His tongue flicked down to the corner of his mouth, giving her an unsettling chill, despite the fact that she was used to his mannerisms. He stepped back and took another knife from the case, this one shorter, more like his switchblade.

"Why are we here?" she asked, still confused.

"Isn't it obvious?" he replied. "This is a lesson. You're going to learn how to use a knife."

He waved his arms toward the butchered bodies that surrounded them. "These are pigs, they're perfect for this kind of practice."

He seemed excited to be here, while she felt only dread.

"I don't need to learn how to use a knife. I don't want to do this," she said, stepping back and holding the blade low, as if taking it out of her field of vision would make it go away.

"But you have a talent. A talent should never go to waste," he said, taking a step toward her.

"I don't have a talent, I was just angry," she replied quickly.

"Well, you should learn the skill. After all, you might need to attack me again. What if I've really been lying to you this whole time?" he drawled, lingering on each word, reminding her of her actions in her first days in the house. She looked away, flushed with embarrassment, as she remembered how she had doubted him. She had convinced herself that he had betrayed her, and she had surprised him, attempting to strike him with a knife there in the kitchen.

"You're lucky I was so quick to stop you, kitten, or I might not be here to help you learn this… skill." He took off the black jacket and threw it over a chair by the table.

"That's enough reminiscing," he said, making it clear their talk was over. He lifted the knife he had chosen, suddenly stooping behind it, his whole body changing, adopting a fighting stance. He was facing her, and her immediate reaction was one of panic. She raised her weapon automatically, in defense.

"That's good, but you don't need to fight me. We're not uh… evenly matched."

"You're small, you're weak. You need the knife to be your strength. Always hold it in front of you, keep it between you and your opponent. Your arms are going to be the easiest target, in a real fight, if you both know what you're doing. Keep your arms drawn in, don't give the other person an easy place to strike."

He turned away from her, moving instead toward one of the pig carcasses hanging there nearby. His tall form almost seemed to melt behind the knife, and he led with it, moving forward stealthily. He didn't look like the Joker she knew at all, with his usual stilted but graceful movements. He looked instead like some treacherous animal, searching for a weakness in its prey. He was a killer in this moment, and even though it was all in play, in practice, it terrified her, and reminded her of who he really was.

He stopped talking, his eyes focused on the body hanging in front of him. He lunged forward, absolute viciousness on his face. He put his whole force behind the knife, so that it wasn't what she expected, a quick jab of the hand outward. No, his shoulder and side moved too, and the knife penetrated through skin, muscle, sinew. He moved his arm outward using the angle of his body as leverage, and slashed through the pig's flesh, cutting it in a smooth line, before withdrawing the knife with equal vehemence, as if the withdrawal was as lethal as the cut. It all took place in a moment, a flash, as quickly as the strike of a snake.

She was taking brief, rushed breaths, recoiling from the violence, even though it was an already-dead animal hanging there. It was as if she could see the blood rushing from the wound - it was clear that he had delivered what would have been a lethal blow to its body. The man who had just held her in the same arms so tenderly the night before, transformed into a killer in front of her.

At the same time, there was a horrifying beauty to it, just watching the deadly skill play out before her eyes.

"Ok, your turn," he was telling her, bringing her out of her stunned state.

He had returned to his usual demeanor, putting down the knife on the table and walking behind her. She was staring forward, focused on getting her breathing to slow down and return to normal.

"Oh, did I scare the kitten?" he asked with a light tone, coming close behind her. He brought his hand around to settle just under her neck, and she felt the warmth of it there on her skin, at the top of her chest.

"You're breathing so fast, I did scare you."

The feeling of his hand, the hand that had just made such a decisive strike, now here on her chest - at first it frightened her, like she would have expected. But then, she was surprised - she felt a strange exhilaration with this killer's hand on her skin. A kind of electricity ran through her, a thrill at living so close to the edges of life and death. His hand was so, so warm, as if it was heating her very soul, and she was coming back from that lost place of fear and cold, coming back to be more fully present in this world.

Her breathing slowed and the trembling that she had felt in her hands disappeared.

"That's good," she heard him say. He took his free hand and placed it over hers on the knife, repositioning her fingers on the handle.

"Now, go," he said, obviously expecting her to mirror his actions and stab the lifeless carcass hanging there.

She felt completely at a loss - she had gotten some control over her fear, but she still felt strange here in this uncomfortable place, preparing to sink a knife into a pig's corpse. He had moved to stand at a short distance, leaning against a pillar, arms folded in front of him, as if he was going to dispassionately judge her efforts. His stern gaze let her know that she wasn't going to be able to just bow out and refuse. She did the only thing she could do in this moment. She held the knife in front of her, trying to hide her body behind it like he had, and she moved toward the carcass and stabbed it, attempting to mirror the way he had thrown his body into the motion of his arm. Instead of gliding smoothly into the pink flesh, though, the blade instead glanced off of one of the pig's ribs and bent her hand back awkwardly, almost injuring her wrist.

He didn't comment on her effort and instead gave her the same dead-eyed stare. "Again," he said, and she looked at him in disbelief. How long would he expect her to keep attacking the remains of this animal? But his command was clear and she knew she should simply continue. She took a deep breath and positioned the knife, coming at the pig with a clearer intention, and this time, the blade went in. She struggled to remember exactly what he had done. He had slashed to the side, before he pulled out the knife. She tried to do the same, but had lost her momentum and could barely drag it through the tough muscle between the ribs. She withdrew it, already exhausted.

"Again," he said, with the same unperturbed look. Now anger had begun to gather in her mind, animating her features. She decided to just get it done and over with, to satisfy him, so that they could leave as soon as possible. She let out a grunt of effort as she plunged the knife into the carcass, and this time she was too close to the bone and the knife stopped dead. The force she put into the stab, though, continued to push her hand forward, right over the back of the blade. She cried out as the sharp edges sliced through her skin, seemingly much more easily than they had sliced through the pig's flesh. She sat down on the floor, crying with frustration and the pain running through her nerves. He walked over to her, still calm, as if he had expected this. He took her hand in his and she allowed him to open it to look over the gashes on her palm and at the bottom of her fingers.

"Nothing serious" he said, "the one on the palm needs a few stitches, I can take care of it after we're done here." He wrapped her hand carefully in the scarf he had in his pocket, slowing the bleeding. He stood and went back to the pillar. "Again," he said in the same dispassionate tone.

She looked up at him with her tear-streaked face as if he was from some other planet. He expected her to keep practicing this nonsense, with her hand cut up like this?

Yes, he did, he clearly did.

Anger rose in her chest and she picked up the knife from the floor. She grasped it tightly in her injured hand, watching the blood soak through the scarf in spots until it reached the surface of the handle. She ran at the pig this time, taking a wild stab at it, sliding the blade in easily but still having trouble slashing to the side and withdrawing it.

She stepped back to her starting point, not waiting for his inevitable "Again." She simply started the process over, coming at the body hanging there with all her pent up anger and watching the blade go in, pulling it over and out again, with a strength she didn't know she had. She did it time after time, with varying rates of success, finally falling to the floor, utterly exhausted, holding her face in her bloody hands.

She felt his presence beside her. "Now, do it, but don't think. You can feel it - there is a line from your hand to where the knife will go in. Just follow the line." He spoke softly, almost in a whisper.

She didn't really think logically about any of it anymore, she just tried to do what he had instructed. All of the failed attempts had exhausted her to such a degree that it wasn't that hard to let her mind go blank. She rushed forward just like she had before, but with a relaxed, steely expression instead of the look of frustration. The knife slid in neatly, as if the spot had been made for it. She spun her body to the right to pull the blade through the flesh and out again, in one smooth motion. She collapsed, knowing that she had just used the last of her strength.

She heard his soft footfalls, and then felt him there sitting close beside her. He didn't seem to notice her sweat-soaked shirt or the smears of blood on her face.

"Let's have a visit to the casino, I'll fix up your hand, we'll eat something." He was touching her face with his fingertips, making delicate swirls from her temple down to her cheek, the gentleness of it contrasting so deeply with the viciousness of what he had just made her do. The sweet touch healed her somehow, making the raw experience she had gone through feel less sharp.

"Come on," he said, helping her up off the cement floor.

He drew his collar around his face to conceal some of the scars, and held her injured hand carefully in front of them, as they exited the building together and walked to the car.

She remembered seeing this large warehouse he called the "casino" from the van before, when she had remained cowered under the seats, hoping to be forgotten there. Now she was inside, seated next to the Joker at a long table in a huge, dimly lit room. But it was far from quiet and solitary - the Joker's men were talking, eating, laughing and yelling to one another throughout the space. One group of men was moving the boxes and crates that lined the walls, seeming to be relocating some of them to a door, maybe for some kind of delivery. Another group played cards in the corner, smoking and drinking. It was a strange but jovial atmosphere in the barren building. She would have felt out of place, but the Joker sitting beside her took care of those worries in her mind. The loud activity surrounding them was refreshing to her after the long solitude of her new home, the isolated house overlooking the city.

Where the food exactly came from, she didn't know, but it seemed that they had come just in time for a late- night meal. She and the Joker were eating the bread and roasted chicken near them on the table. The food warmed her and helped her recover from the frigid temperature of the meat locker.

Her hand was neatly bandaged now. He had carefully tended to it when they arrived at the building, using a kit he had grabbed from a room that looked like a makeshift clinic. She had asked him how he learned to do stitches like this, and he had given her a wistful look, telling her, "a long time ago." She knew better than to pursue her line of questioning, since it touched on his past, and sat silently as he finished suturing the wound.

She smiled, feeling comfortable now and protected absolutely by the intimidating figure beside her. He had reapplied the face paint in the car and donned the purple jacket, looking every bit the part as he sat there eating, surveying what his men were doing and occasionally glancing over at her.

She turned back toward the door to the complex as she heard a commotion there. The men were clearing out in front of a newcomer, an older man in a smart suit, his perfectly kept appearance in stark contrast to the Joker's disheveled and somewhat dirty jacket. She gasped as she recognized him, as most Gothamites would - it was Maroni, an infamous mobster and father of a huge criminal enterprise. He must be working with the Joker - all the gangsters in Gotham did now. And yet there was a friction she noticed between them as the Joker stood to go meet him.

They spoke in hushed tones, the demeanor of Maroni giving her a slight chill, despite the warm atmosphere of this busy place. The Joker seemed to take it all in stride, though, coming back to sit beside her after their conversation. Maroni left as quickly as he had come.

She watched him, as he took his next bite, the way he chewed it heavily and popped his cheek out against his teeth. She could see something had happened. He looked over at her knowingly.

"Well, kitten, Dent decided to make the final move - he's called in the feds," he said in a low tone.

"The feds?" she asked, trying to grasp what he was saying.

"That means the big guns, the army and all its equipment, whatever it takes to 'restore order.' That's the end of our little party in Gotham. No one can fight that organization. I thought it might come to this, sooner or later."

He looked from one side of the room to the other, as if he was viewing the entirety of Gotham instead of just the interior of the warehouse.

"But we'll bow out with a show, kitten, a show they'll remember." He put his arm around her, hugging her close to his side for a moment and then letting her go. He picked up the bottle of whiskey from the table and poured some into the two old coffee mugs in front of them, and hit his cup against hers so that he nearly broke it. "To the show," he said loudly, the men around him laughing, seemingly ready for anything he assigned them to do.

She was overwhelmed and uncertain, watching him taking in this news that must be devastating to his enterprise, already seeming to be weaving plans around it, his toe tapping nervously. She wondered if he had really comprehended it so quickly, or if it was all just an act. She couldn't know now, in this public place. But later, when they were together in bed, just the two of them, looking at the cracked ceiling - then she might be able to get something sincere out of him, when she ran her fingers through his hair and settled her head on his chest. Then he might tell her something genuine. But not here, with his men around him, and a part to play.

"But there's good news, too," he said, turning to her suddenly with a wild look in his eyes. "Let's go," he commanded, grabbing her uninjured hand and pulling her up quickly to stand beside him. She had to jog to keep up with his long strides as they headed toward a stairwell in the corner of the warehouse. They took the steps quickly and ended up on the wide concrete roof. A warm wind blew through the city on this summer night, bringing a feeling of change and motion with it. She could hear the purple jacket whipping around his legs in the sudden gust that rushed over the roof.

She followed his gaze upward and saw it, there in the cloudy sky above Gotham. The jagged outline of a dark creature in the sky, surrounded by a diffuse circle of light. It was the bat signal there above them, an image that had been absent for nearly a year, since Dent had become the mayor. The clouds must have been low tonight, or maybe it was just her fatigue that made it seem this way, but the darkness cast by the outline of the bat seemed to loom large in the sky, inescapable. It made her feel solemn, and brought her out of the relaxed state she had felt in the busy warehouse. She stood there, feeling her long, messy hair blow loosely around her face, and shifted her gaze to the Joker.

"Yes, good news," he purred. "The Bat-Man. He's come back to see us. Or maybe he didn't leave after all."

Author's note: Sorry, I know it's a bit gruesome! But I felt like using a knife as a weapon is a truly vicious thing, and wanted to get that across.

Annie loved the time in the car, the Joker beside her, speeding through the winding streets. A light mist clouded the windows as they left the skyscrapers of Upper Gotham behind, and she felt the fear and stress she had experienced when navigating the interactions between the Joker's men and the Church members upstate begin to fade away. She wished they would never stop driving.

With so much of the city around them obscured, she could see very little as they drove through the early morning fog - a bench here, a streetlight there. Somehow having her range of vision so clouded helped her limit her thoughts about the future and the wider context of her relationship with him, the man beside her. She liked focusing on the immediate moment, riding in this car that was cutting through the mist to a location only he knew.

If it could only be like this all the time, without worrying about the risks of his obsession with destroying Dent. And now she had a new concern, the price on her own head that would certainly be coming if the Church discovered who had betrayed them. But in this moment, they were both free, isolated from the outside world.

She remembered how careful she had been when she had stolen glances of him in the car headed to the news station so long ago. Now, she was able to memorize the exaggerated lines of his face, his posture, his clothing, at her ease as she sat beside him.

They were climbing now, going uphill as they reached the outskirts of the city, an area where wealthier Gothamites had once built palatial homes to escape the dirt and grime of downtown. Most of the houses had been abandoned over the years as the cost to maintain them went up and their residents migrated to newer neighborhoods.

They must have finally reached their destination. He parked behind an abandoned and collapsing shed, positioning the car so that it was hidden from the road. It seemed that their goal was a dilapidated Victorian style home nearby. In the summer when the leaves were back on the trees and the vines flourished, it looked like the house would be almost invisible.

She wondered if this was some kind of a hideout for him. If so, she understood why he had chosen this location. It was tucked away, and the driveway was almost impossibly pockmarked with holes, making it look as if nothing had been touched here in years.

She liked the overgrown plants and the out-of-the-way location. Somehow it felt like they were hiding from everything here. As she opened the car door, she noticed the deep silence, broken only by the early morning songs of birds. It had been a long time since she was outside the range of the discordant sounds of the city.

As they walked toward it on the overgrown footpath, she noticed that even though the house itself looked abandoned, some of the cracked and peeling paint on the outside had been refreshed. And a beautiful two-story turret window looked brand-new, as if the glass had just been replaced and resealed.

She followed him, not completely sure what they were doing here. But as long as he was with her, she was willing to suspend her questions and worries. He didn't seem to want to break the silence of this spring morning. They reached the front door. He unlocked it but then had to throw his shoulder into the aged paneling to get it to finally budge and open.

She felt the sudden warmth of his hand over hers as he reached back to lead her inside. The large room was open and she could see a kitchen on the other side of the house. A curved stairway led to the second story, and an ornate fireplace adorned the opposite wall. Just like outside, the appearance was a mix of old and new. A beautiful antique sofa sat in front of the fireplace, looking clean and fresh, while the fireplace itself was boarded off and the decorative tiles chipped and covered in dust. The flooring seemed to have been sanded and refreshed near the kitchen, but the boards covering the steps on the stairs looked like they must have been there since the house was built.

She wanted to go see the turret windows from the inside - they had looked so beautiful from outside the house. The alcove of windows was on the way to the kitchen, and she went there and turned around, looking up at the high ceilings and then back out at the spring buds on the shrubs and plants surrounding the house.

She stood simply enjoying the light filtering through the windows. He certainly was being mysterious about why they were here. She turned back to look at him. He was leaning on the opposite wall, seeming to enjoy watching her here in this particular spot. It was surreal to see his purple-clad form here in this quiet old house, but somehow he still seemed to make it his own with his laid-back ease.

"Is this where you live?" she asked.

"No, I just sleep in the van," he answered nonchalantly.

"Why are we here? What's the surprise?" she smiled curiously, wondering why he was being so coy.

"Kitten, this is the surprise," he said impatiently, stepping forward with a flourish of his arms that highlighted the space around them. "This is your new place."

"What?" She turned, looking around her. Just this one room seemed immense compared to her cramped apartment. "How…?"

"I've been having it repaired for a while now - in case they figured out who you were after the hospital, or if things got out of hand in Lower Gotham. I didn't think you'd need it so soon, but with your little gift yesterday… you definitely need it." He walked over to her, reaching behind her back to touch the new seal surrounding the window.

"I've had work done on a few different houses around here. I want it to be hard to spot the one that's being lived in. But the projects aren't exactly done yet."

He walked over to the side of the room, rummaging in one of the boxes stacked there. "Here it is." He pulled what looked like a folded square of red fabric from the box. He returned to stand in front of her.

"The heat is out so I thought you might need something." He let the fabric unfold between them and she realized it was a long red women's dress jacket, the bottom half flared out like a skirt.

She had trouble comprehending his generosity. He must have been planning this for months.

"Well, put it on…" he said, snapping her out of her confused reverie. She slipped her arms through the sleeves and then folded them around herself, enjoying the luxurious warmth.

I sent the guys to your apartment last night to get your things. He motioned to the other boxes and trash bags scattered near the wall. "That's it. It's better for you not to go back there, just in case."

She looked down at the floor for a moment, knowing that he was right, she should be cautious. She shook off the momentary concerns and focused back on the present.

"I have something better now," she said, stepping forward and embracing him, wrapping her arms around his neck and lifting her face toward his. He seemed to have been waiting for her reaction. He raised his hands and ran them over her cheeks and back into her hair, supporting her head as they kissed there in the dappled morning light.

When they broke away from their embrace, he took her hand and pulled her toward a door on the back wall of the house.

"Come here, there's a pretty good view." He took her outside onto a small porch. The decking was decayed and looked like it was one of those things that had stayed beyond the range of the recent renovations. She picked her steps carefully to avoid the most rotted-out boards, and immediately saw what he was talking about. The city stretched out in the distance below them, the fog hanging over it so that she could see the lights still on there, even though the sun was shining around them. It was as if Gotham was always enshrouded in night.

The city was much further beneath them than she had realized, and seeing the lights would be beautiful at night. "It's amazing," she said. "So I can watch you, in the city, from here?"

"Yeah, you'll always know where I am." She looked at him and smiled, but her expression also held a hint of sadness, knowing that she couldn't control what he would do there, what risks he would take.

They turned and walked back inside. "Kitten, I have to leave, I'm going to have to check on things, especially with the guns coming in now. There's the food from your apartment over there, and I'll try to come back tomorrow with some more."

"Go," she said. She let his hand slide slowly out of her grasp and then he was gone. She was left there alone in the strange, half-finished house.

Her first thought when he had gone was simply, sleep. Her body and mind craved rest after the overwhelming events of the morning. He hadn't really given her a tour of the upstairs, but she assumed there would be at least one bedroom in working order. She walked slowly up the stairs, looking back at the open space below as she rose toward the second floor.

She found a simple hallway there, and tried all the doors before settling on the bedroom that had obviously had the most work done. It was a lovely room, but with some of the same faults of the rest of the house - the ceiling was peeling with age. But the floor had obviously been redone and the freshly polished hardwood shone under her feet.

She finally lay back with relief on the bed, letting out a breath and feeling the stress she had gone through in the early morning hours leaving her and giving way to a pleasant fatigue. It was early afternoon, but she didn't mind going to sleep now. He wouldn't be back until tomorrow - as tired as she was, she thought she might just sleep until then. She would have scarcely pictured herself here, in a run down but beautiful old home on the outskirts of Gotham, her whereabouts known only by the Joker. But here she was.

The unlikely nature of her new situation settled in her thoughts as she felt herself begin to fall asleep, and she noticed something there in the back of her mind. She couldn't pinpoint it. There was an unfamiliar shape there, something hiding - something unpleasant. She just couldn't put her finger on it somehow.

She sat up in bed, becoming alert. She focused on bringing this dark feeling from the depths of her mind up to the surface.

She remembered the words of the police officer she had spoken to so long ago, "Why would the Joker be interested in someone like you?" She hadn't thought about it for a long time, but now the words began to echo through her mind. It was very strange, that he had chosen her, so unlikely. What was special about her? She knew that he could have had any number of women from the dark underside of Gotham's nightclubs and gathering places, considering the power and sway he held in the city.

A thought, like a winding snake, slipped through the depths of her unrealized thoughts and showed itself suddenly at the forefront of her mind. There was one thing that was unique about her… her expertise on the Church. Her knowledge of where the guns were. What if that explained everything? His pursuit of her, his curiosity about her past…

Even the way he had wasted away after Dent's seizure of his weapons - was it all a rouse, just a game he was playing with her? Contrasting thoughts did occur to her. The fact that he didn't have any shortage of weapons when he first met her, and how he likely would have killed her already on the journey to this remote location if she had outlived her purpose, for example, did run through her mind. But somehow logic couldn't stop the freight train of humiliation and hurt that came to her once she accepted the possibility that he had just chosen her because of her utility to his operations.

The self-doubt and neglect she had suffered throughout her life somehow prepared her to accept the sneaking suspicion once it had crept out of its hiding place. And soon it had taken over like a parasite, not allowing her room for any conflicting thoughts.

It seemed clear to her now that he had manipulated her into giving him the information. And she had certainly given it to him. She suddenly felt embarrassed at how she had even dressed for him, the red lipstick - she had wrapped herself up into a neat package that he had already determined he would have, just short of a year ago now, when he first discovered her. But it was even more than that. He owned her body and soul now - he was everything to her. But now it looked like she was nothing to him. How could she have been so stupid, to have so eagerly given herself to him?

The lonely solitude of the house allowed her thoughts to cascade down further and further, following the outline of this new reality, and darkness surrounded her. She no longer thought about sleep, and she instead started pacing through the house, her feet covered in dust from the unfinished floors. Her emptiness and sadness at the perceived betrayal began to transform into a rage that she couldn't control.

She forgot about sleep, forgot about time. She only noticed night had fallen when she ran her foot into the bottom step of the stairs because she could no longer see the floor. She felt for the paneling and ran her hands along the old wallpaper until she found a switch. Turning it on resulted in a dull light, since most of the bulbs in the fixture had been removed.

She made her way back to the kitchen, pulling out the drawers one at a time. Most of them were empty, but then she found one with a few kitchen utensils. And then the next drawer above it yielded what she was looking for - a set of cooking knives. She sorted through them, her anger and shame guiding her, even though she didn't have a distinct plan. She finally settled on one and placed it on top of the counter. She walked over to the light switch, flipping it off, letting the darkness take over the room. She felt her way back to the kitchen and began pacing again, bitter tears trailing down her face.

It was late morning when she heard the creak and slam of the front door. He must be here, earlier than she had thought. She made a snap decision, grabbing the knife she had set out and dropping down to the floor, hiding herself behind the counter. She grabbed onto a cabinet handle to help stabilize herself and tried to breath as quietly as possible.

She crawled silently closer to where he would first turn the corner to enter the kitchen.

"Hey kitten, I brought some food, so you can fill up these cabinets a little. Where are you?"

She could hear him setting bags down on the other side of the counter. Every detail was etched in her mind as she concentrated on her goal. She could hear his footsteps - he was so close now.

She knew he'd see her just a moment before he rounded the corner, and she sprang up suddenly as he reached that point.

In one smooth motion she was up and bringing the knife down toward the side of his neck with significant force. She must have looked terrifying with the lack of sleep and the contorted face of anger she had when she faced him.

Was he very quick to recognize the danger and caught her before she could cut too deeply? Or did she hesitate for just a moment, and he took advantage of that split second of opportunity? Either way, he had her wrists trapped in his hands before the knife had a chance to do more than graze his skin.

"What the fuck, Annie?" he shouted. He paused, catching his breath and glaring at her with a furrowed brow.

"You're not too bad with a knife," he remarked more quietly. Not letting go of her wrist, he reached up to the base of his neck, bringing her hand with his, touching the small wound and bringing back his hand to see blood on his fingers. But he could tell it was an insignificant cut.

"You don't quite know what you're doing, do you? But you're a natural."

She was breathing heavily, struggling to hold onto the knife and pull away from him.

His practiced calm contrasted with her frantic movements as she tried to remove her wrists from his grasp. She still had the knife in her hand and began to try to kick with her legs, despite her range of motion being limited by the counter close behind her.

"So you don't like the furniture or something?" he asked lightly.

Despite his patience, he realized that she still posed a danger - her wriggling form was getting harder and harder to control.

"Ok, playtime is over. One more move and I'll call my men in here, and we'll give you some of that happy coffee you had a long time ago. I bet you'd have a lot to say, if I gave that to you."

His words subdued her immediately. She remembered the hallucinations she experienced when she had unknowingly drunk his homemade concoction long ago. She stopped struggling and he pried apart her fingers so that the knife dropped to the floor. He kicked it a short distance away.

"Ok," he said, letting her go and taking a step back. "Now, would you like to talk about something? Or, we could fight if you want, that would be fun. But you can't have the knife."

She stood catching her breath, looking at the floor, her hair hanging messily. She didn't want to talk to him, but she knew she wouldn't win any fights. He would always be able to overpower her. Always calm, always in control, he trained his calculating stare onto her disheveled form.

"You knew," she said, supporting herself with the counter and facing him.

"Mm hmm, that's good kitten, talk. I knew what?"

"You knew how I got out of the Church, didn't you? You knew I had the location of the guns. And you took me, all of me, just to get them. I wish you had just killed me before I ever figured it out." She looked down, watching her tears make perfect little circles as they hit the dusty counter. She didn't really care what he did to her now. If revenge wasn't possible, she didn't have interest in much else.

His expression turned quickly from amusement to rage as he took a step toward her. She looked up, alarmed despite herself, backing out of the kitchen until she found herself blocked by the hallway wall.

He had a murderous look. He covered the distance between them with a few strides and wrapped a gloved hand around her neck, pushing her back and pinning her to the wall.

"No, kitten, I didn't know," he growled. "If I had wanted information from you, I would have gotten it a long time ago. How I treated you, when we, uh, got acquainted - it was child's play."

His voice reverted to his usual tone. "But what about you? What if I was your target? Maybe you just wanted someone to help you get revenge on that Church of yours, huh? Could that be it?"

His hand was wrapped too tightly around her neck for her to speak, but she mouthed "No," her eyes wide.

But he knew what he had said wasn't true already - he had understood her feelings and watched them grow since the first moment he saw her fascinated gaze following him there in the ballroom.

He looked at her, his eyes flickering between rage and a deep warmth. There was something in his gaze that was more intense than anger.

"Can't you tell that I love you, Annie? Don't you know?"

He loosened his grip and let her go, leaving her coughing to regain her breath. She had barely recovered when he was back, holding her upright on the wall, his hands on either side of her head this time. His face was there in front of her, almost touching hers, the paint smeared from their struggle.

All the web of suspicion and betrayal that had been spun in her mind suddenly disappeared, like a black vail blown away in the wind, and the darkness was gone. She tried to take in what he had said.

"You… love me?" she asked quietly, her voice hoarse from her irritated throat, her lips brushing across his as she said it.

"Yeah, Annie, fuck, why don't you see that?"

He locked his eyes onto hers, not allowing her to look away.

"What's your problem? You can't believe that someone can love you just because of how you think, how your body moves, how beautiful you are? That's not enough?"

Despite her immense relief that her suspicions had been untrue, she could barely process his words.

Besides her own self-doubt, she also had trouble understanding how a man like this could do something as mundane as love her. She had known for a long time now that she loved him, but hearing the words from his mouth was something she never expected. She loved him like you love a force of nature, you don't expect the wind or the ocean to come back and tell you it loves you. It can take you and toss you to your death or curl around you with delicious warmth, but it is unaffected by your feelings.

Their lips met and it was as if he thought he could convince her of his feelings with just this one kiss.

He finally pulled away, a smile coming to his face. She watched him as he bent down and carefully picked up the knife. He studied it as he flipped the handle around so that it faced her, offering it to her, nodding his head to make it clear that she should take it.

She accepted it, hesitating, the weight of the weapon seeming heavier than before when her anger had fueled her, but the handle feeling strangely comfortable as she grasped it.

"You like it, don't you?" He looked at her quizzically, as if she was going to explain how she felt with it in her hand. But of course she was silent, her thoughts hidden as usual. She didn't know how to express what she felt, exactly, in words.

He held her shoulders, guiding her away from the wall, and he took her place there, facing her.

He tried a different angle. "Tell me why you chose the neck." He took her hand and gently guided it upward so that the blade rested there on his shoulder.

"I don't know," she said, not wanting to put herself back into the enraged mindset she had earlier that day.

"No, you chose where to strike. Tell me," he said in a more commanding tone.

She thought for a moment, seeming to need to travel though some kind of barrier to get to the point where she could answer him. "I had to hit you somewhere… where I couldn't save you, because I knew I would try to save you after. And your neck is exposed - I thought your clothes would be hard to get through with this knife."

She talked in a monotone, as if she was tapping into some subconscious layer of her mind. Her eyes were focused elsewhere. He reached out his hand and tilted her chin up so that her gaze settled on him.

He let out a sigh and a solemn look fell over his face. He raised his arms to the wall behind them, bending his elbows and letting his hands relax, as if in surrender. She stood frozen, holding the knife there on his shoulder. The only thought that was processing through her brain was how beautiful he looked there. His messy hair and the clashing colors of his clothes, the makeup that looked like it was melting from his face - all of it was haphazard, but he looked absolutely perfect to her.

He closed and then slowly opened his eyes. "What do you want to do?" he asked.

She opened her mouth, wanting to answer but confused about her feelings. What did she want? The question wrapped itself around her, his honeyed voice so familiar to her now, so inviting. She had no desire to hurt him now. All the doubt had been erased from her mind.

She wanted him, but she was unsure of what to do in the moment. After all, he usually led her, and she took her cues from him.

She had stepped back as they were talking, but now she came close to him, keeping the knife there against him. It seemed that he liked it there, and she felt some kind of power as she rested it on his shoulder near his neck, an intoxicating control. He was so much larger than her, so much stronger - but the sharp edge of the knife was her advantage.

She drug the flat of the blade slowly, carefully, up over his neck, onto his cheek. It followed the divots and textures of his scars and she changed the angle to trace the sharp point over his bottom lip until she found the edge of the scar at its base. She turned the point around it there, so delicately. She was mesmerized with the sweet red of his lips and the contrast of the cold steel blade. His breaths were coming more quickly now, but he stayed perfectly still for her. She brought the knife back down to his neck to rest it on his shoulder.

She focused, keeping her eyes locked on his even though the intensity of his gaze was almost unbearable. She brought her knee up between his legs, bracing herself with her arm on the wall behind him, rubbing it over him gently. His head fell back and he closed his eyes, making a sound in his throat that she wanted to hear again. She continued, with a little more force this time, the effort of keeping her balance making her begin to breath more deeply.

She changed her tactic and planted her feet firmly on the floor. She kept the knife in her hand but pointed the blade out away from him, letting him feel the hardness of its dull edge as she drug it down the side of his body. She was now on her knees in front of him, pushing aside his open jacket and endeavoring to unfasten his belt with one hand.

He let out a sound of frustration but kept his hands obediently resting on the wall, his fingers sometimes flexing with the stress he felt but never moving from their spot, as if an invisible restraint kept him there.

She felt it was almost cruel, but she knew him, knew he liked extremes. She hoped she was guessing correctly. She slowed down to half the speed, taking her time to feel his belt and the zipper under it. She refused to rush, she lingered on every action. He could feel each tooth of the zipper as she pulled it down, one little tick at a time.

Something like a growl came from his throat with the excruciating slowness, but all was silent after she pulled the pants and underwear down to his ankles and drug the pointed tip of the knife slowly up the muscled lines of his thigh, carefully leaving nothing but the slightest scratch behind.

She took the blade away and held it firmly on his hip while she followed the thin line with her mouth, kissing him in a slow trail. She heard him inhale sharply when she moved upward and took him into her mouth. He lost control for a moment, moving his hips out slightly, perhaps hoping that she would take more of him. But she was too quick for him, moving to the side and just letting her lips glide over him as he moved. She couldn't believe she was saying these words, but she reprimanded him. "No, no, you're not allowed to do that." He obediently brought himself back and clenched his teeth with the strain of waiting.

"That's better," she murmured. She stroked him with her tongue, bracing him with one hand at times, but still not giving him a home yet, denying him. She took him into her mouth, to her throat, but then let him go before he could gain any satisfaction. He cried out, and the sound was too much for her.

She relaxed her hand with the knife and released it to the floor. She was hurrying now, frantic. They could hear each other's deep breaths as they stood there in the silence of the empty house. She undid the buttons of her jacket as quickly as she could. He was still waiting there in the same position, chest heaving. She didn't have time to take it all off, just what she had to, and she ran her hands over his arms to bring him off the wall. She lifted herself toward him, telling him softly that he could take her now.

He came to her, kissing her relentlessly so that she could barely breath, pulling her down with him as he fell to his knees on the floor, like a wave crashing over her. She laid down in front of him and he came after her, spreading her legs apart and finally letting himself find his rhythm inside of her. She let him have relief, not minding how very hard the floor was under her back.

Her mind was still reeling from everything that had happened but he made her forget it, like always. She could only think about how wonderful he felt. It seemed like he couldn't cover enough of her, as if in his frantic caresses he wanted to take every inch of her now that he had her. He brought his arm behind her shoulders and lifted her toward him, bringing his mouth close to her ear. "Thank you," he said between deep breaths. He uttered it with such sincerity and such sweet seductiveness, he made the reward more than worth her efforts. He laid her back again and she gave him everything, taken away in the moment and letting the movements of her body feed his desires.

They were lying on the bed the next day, in the early morning hours, looking up at the cracked and peeling paint on the ceiling. Somewhere in the house there were crickets chirping, seemingly confused about the time of day.

"Why did you leak the audio of Dent?" she asked, breaking the silence.

"What? Oh, you mean the 'rats in Lower Gotham.'" he smiled, turning his head to look over at her. "I didn't. I don't know who did that. That's the beauty of chaos, once it starts it just keeps going, branching out - you never know what may happen."

She didn't share his enthusiasm. "He'll never stop. Dent will never stop looking for you…"

"I know," he said impatiently. "That's why I didn't leak that audio. No one like him would ever let that go. I wanted to bring him down, but I didn't want to have him on my back like this."

His calm demeanor returned. "But you're right, kitten," he said.

He turned to her, moving his hand up to her hair and running his fingers through the loose strands that fell down over her shoulders. "And the Church, those people will never stop looking for you, either."

They both turned to look up at the ceiling again, recognizing the danger surrounding them but relishing the isolated moment together in this protective cocoon of a house, so far above the harsh, unforgiving edges of Gotham.

Author's note: [Spoilers] He is so sweet here, I know. I couldn't help it.

I think I will be taking a break before working through the next chapter, and I may not be following my regular schedule. But I have lots of material written for a couple of future chapters that follow the next one, so Annie and the Joker are returning!

And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go. John 11:43-44

Annie woke up knowing what she would do. It might be her last act, but in the end, the decision was simple. She wanted to give the Joker a good show - that was all that mattered to her now.

She remembered the warmth of his body from the night before. He had been so accommodating, so sensitive with her. His gentle manner stood in stark contrast to the day he had confronted her about her past and hit her with such force. That was almost two weeks ago now. Even that night, it was hard for her to believe that the same man who had hurt her was the one who was sleeping with her.

He seemed simultaneously fascinated with her having a secret she held from him and frustrated that she wouldn't reveal everything. He worked her over thoroughly when they were together, as if he could find the information she refused to share somewhere hidden in the curves of her body.

It is true that he had let his hands wander to her throat more often than usual, as if he wanted to remind her how he could hurt her if he wanted to, like he was toying with her. But she had called his bluff and instead of shying away in alarm, stretched her neck out in front of him, throwing her head back. He had smiled, pausing for a moment, perhaps to make her nervous, and then he loosened his grip and ran his fingers up to the soft outline of her lips.

But something else was also motivating her to take action, something that weighed heavily on her mind. She had already seen him begin to deteriorate with the first winning play by Mayor Dent. But now, each day she saw him, he was worse. When he would first arrive, he was often distracted and mumbling to himself - she would have to pull him out of his reveries with her presence and her calming words.

He rarely took off his makeup, but when she caught him without it, his face was alarming. Hollow circles had formed under his eyes, and the color seemed drained away. He barely ate, seemingly uninterested in food, and the already apparent structure of his cheeks and the bubbled lines of his scars were now exaggerated. She had taken his head in her hands when she saw him like that and kissed him, as if her sweetness would restore the vibrancy back to him.

This had led her to her decision, one that would certainly put her in danger. But many women who have loved a man have given up much more for much less. And many women will do the same in the future. The love a person has for another - what else would cause someone to make such a rash decision? Above all, she had a simple desire. She wanted to make him happy.

She went to the closet, populated with clothes that were not her own. She could choose this sparkly tank top, but no - she realized she wanted to shock. She instead selected one of the most adventurous garments there, a short black dress that looked like it barely passed for clothing and was much more like lingerie. She paused briefly at the bathroom mirror. Her hair was unbelievably messy, the tangles creating puffy cascades of hair. That was fine, she thought - it matched the dress somehow. But her face needed something. Somewhere in the disarray of the makeup on the floor she found the brightest red she could and applied the lipstick generously. She glanced back at the mirror. Yes, that was it, perfect.

She usually avoided the heels that had appeared in her closet in favor of the more practical boots, but now she chose shoes that matched the tone of her clothes. She chose a red pair, complementing her lips instead of her dress. She thought he would like it.

Unused to the awkwardness of the unnaturally high heel, she practiced walking in them for some time, confirming that she could make the impression she wanted.

She opened the door, looking for the Joker's men, who she usually avoided. "Hello? Can you come here?" she called out. They avoided commenting on her appearance, looking at each other instead of at her.

"I want you to take me to the Joker," she said in her most business-like tone. "What?" one of the men said in surprise. "I think you heard me," she said simply.

"How do we know we are supposed to do that? What if he doesn't want to be interrupted? He's having a… talk with his contacts right now."

She came up closer to the man, looking him straight in the eye. She knew her gaze could be unnerving, and she decided to use that discomfort.

"Well, what if he told me to come to see him today, and you don't take me?"

The men seemed to weigh their options, looking at each other again.

"Ok, we'll take you. But if he doesn't want you there, this falls on you. I don't want to get into trouble with him," one of them finally said.

"All right, I'll be the one to get into trouble with him. Let's go."

"Do you have anything you want to take with you?"

"No," she said, smiling as she left the apartment.

They locked the door after her and walked quickly to catch up with her purposeful steps, telling her where the car was.

They arrived at the nondescript building, and she soon realized it was one of the event venues she had worked before. The men led her to the catering kitchen. It was eerie to see the space without any of the usual frenetic activity that went along with cooking for an event. It was largely silent. And being here in such a different role from the server and dishwasher she had been in the past added a layer of strangeness to the already surreal atmosphere.

She could hear the Joker's voice, easily carrying in the quiet space. "These shortages have really put the pinch on us. We have a problem, a big problem."

The men stayed outside and motioned to her to enter. She knew they preferred to stay out of sight.

She strode into the room without hesitation. What must have been all of Gotham's still operating gangsters were gathered around a large folding table, a motley crowd that was bigger than she had planned. She went ahead, though, seemingly unfazed.

"Well kitten, you're a sight for sore eyes," the Joker said casually, as if she strode into these meetings every day.

He got up and offered her his seat, motioning to it with an overly generous wave of his gloved hand. She walked up to him, saying "You can sit" with a blank expression.

In contrast to the Joker, the other men in the room were obviously aggravated with her intrusion. They were already on an unpleasant topic, and then this distraction was interrupting their discussion on what to do about it. "Get the fuck out of here," one of them jeered, and the others echoed him.

"Stop!" the Joker's fist hit the table, the deep resonance of his voice demanding obedience. "She's with me. We'll hear whatever she has to say. I imagine she came here for a reason."

His eyes darted to the side. She knew what he was thinking - he could feel the tension and impatience from the men in the room, and he was planning, deciding what to do next.

His voice returned to its usual cloying tone. "Ok kitten, don't keep us in suspense. What did you come to… tell us about today?"

She strode to where he sat on the neat upholstered chair and lifted herself over his lap, straddling his leg, facing him. Her lips parted with a sigh as she felt the rough material of his pants. She looked up at him with teasing eyes.

"Well kitten, you're just so much fun. You know, I'd like to play too - I could show you off, show how good we are together, hmm? It doesn't bother me, other people seeing us." He slid his hand over her leg, pushing up the dress and ending where her waist met her hips, revealing even more of her body than she already had with her choice of clothes. He placed his hand on hers possessively.

The first look of concern passed over her face. She would be incredibly embarrassed to show everything in front of this group of men. She should have known he would beat her at her own game.

He caught the worry that had momentarily shown itself and saved her from the escalating moment.

"But I think the gentlemen here may get… distracted." He released his grip and she slid backwards out of his grasp, standing again. She walked a few steps away, her heels clicking on the concrete floor, the sound echoing oddly in the empty kitchen.

"I escaped from the Church five years ago. If any of you are familiar with that… group, you know getting away is nearly impossible, especially for a woman. But I had a deal to make with the DA, because I had information - information about the Church's logistics." For someone who spoke so rarely, her voice carried with surprising clarity.

"What? We don't care about your past with whatever little cult upstate, get out of here," shouted one of the men, evidently reaching his boiling point. "Shut up," said the Joker impatiently, standing and walking toward her. He sat on the table near where she stood, looking up at her and then around at the group. "For the Church, their kind of logistics means munitions. They have the second largest stash of weapons in the state, next to the police. Munitions means guns and bullets. She knows where the guns are." The men were silent.

He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer. "I know what you just did, kitten. You signed your own death warrant. Don't you know I like having you around?" He looked up at her accusingly, his eyes burning intensely. Her face fell. She hadn't counted on him worrying for her safety. She had only focused on giving him a good show.

"Never mind. We'll figure out how to hide you," he said, smiling again.

One of the men finally broke the silence. "What do we have to worry about from this 'Church?' It's just a bunch of religious nuts."

"You have a lot to fear from them. They aren't motivated by money, or power, like you," the Joker explained. "They are following… God - that's a much more powerful draw than your little obsessions. Never underestimate someone acting on something they feel is beyond themselves, beyond this world. They'll easily give up their lives, and that makes them very dangerous."

He stood up, appearing to have come to a decision on how to proceed.

"Ok, everyone, we're taking all the phones. I don't want anyone spilling the beans and getting my little kitten into trouble." He motioned to his goons, and they began collecting devices. His voice became gravelly, threatening. "If I find a phone on you later, I will fucking disembowel you." The men piled the phones in front of him.

His manner changed again as he took a seat in his chair and patted his lap, inviting her. She smiled and walked over, sitting on his knee. "Why don't you tell us the rest of your story, kitten?"

"In the Church, they commit the locations of the weapons to memory, it's not written down anywhere. They chose a few of us, usually women, to memorize the verses. Some of the men knew how to interpret the book and verse numbers to find the locations. They move the guns regularly, but they always use the same sequence of verses. I guess they didn't think that any of us were smart enough to figure it out.

"I took long walks. I watched them moving the boxes, and once I figured out part of it, I could guess the rest.

"Some of us were able to escape to the local police, and we asked for protection from the group. But I could see the case was falling apart because of the Church's contacts in the local government. That's when I told the DA I knew the locations. I had my story and it got me out - the government was willing to release a Church member in exchange for my freedom. The others, they disappeared back into the group or they ended up dead." She looked at the floor with a furrowed brow, obviously disturbed by the memory.

"If you gave the locations to the police, then they have the guns. Why is your information any good?" said one of the men in a whining voice.

"The only reason I wasn't assassinated by the Church is that I gave them the wrong information. I said that they must have changed their pattern. That's why the DA didn't support me when I left for Gotham and saddled me with debt. They decided to kill me slowly…" She stared blankly into the distance.

The Joker squeezed her arm, bringing her back into the present.

"So where are the guns? Do they hide them in their churches?" one of the men asked, while a few others chuckled.

"No, they're buried in boxes in the ground, under the old fencerows, between fields. I'll have to tell whoever goes the number of steps it takes from the road to each location." She was deadly serious, and the men started to understand that she was talking about something real.

"Here's what we're going to do." The Joker stood up and began to pace around the room. "We're going to hit these locations in kitten's head, in the morning, before any word of this gets out. I have men on the borders of Gotham, they can leave now. We'll have them disguised as ditchers or utility workers, I'll figure it out based on the locations. We're only going to hit a few locations, not all of them.

"Everyone stays here without communications until it's done. So get all settled in for the night. Tomorrow once it's over, each of you is going to share the information about the locations with your organizations - we're going to yell it so everyone can hear it, we'll print it in the papers. Everyone will know, and the Church won't be able to track where it came from.

"If anyone in this room says a word about this woman," he gestured to Annie. "You'll find out there are fates worse than death. I'll come for your family first, and then I'll come to you, and you'll beg for me to kill you by the end."

His tone changed abruptly. "But let's not be so glum, it's time to celebrate. Kitten got us everything we needed."

He turned with a flourish of his arms and reached out to twirl Annie around in a silent dance. She smiled, happy to see him in action and the gears of his mind busy making scenarios and plans.

He faced himself away from the men and pulled her toward him, like they were having a secret conference. "Why did you do this, kitten, really? I know you don't like my uh… work, even though you never say anything."

"I just did it to make you smile," she said, reaching up and gently cradling his face in her hand for a moment.

He looked at her, some emotion that was hard to pinpoint flowing through his eyes. He seemed to shake it off and returned to his cheery demeanor.

"Well, it worked. Now, what do you want? I'll give you anything. You name it. Do you want money? Do you want me to set you… free?" he asked, his fingers gliding over her eyebrow and then pushing her messy hair behind her ear. She stood still, tracing the collar of his shirt with her finger. "Run away with me," she said. "Leave all this behind."

"You know I can't do that, silly. This is who I am. The Joker belongs in Gotham."

She looked at him, her eyes beginning to swim with the rising tears. She stood as tall as she could, on tiptoes with her hands bracing herself softly on his arms. He slumped down a bit so that she could reach his ear. She felt his rough cheek brush against hers as she raised herself up beside him.

Her voice came in a commanding hiss that took him by surprise. "Lie to me," she whispered. "Tell me that we'll go somewhere. Tell me that we will be together, that we will be happy." He bent forward and placed his hands behind her legs, picking her up and letting her rest her head on his shoulder. He spoke to her as he slowly carried her back to one of the storage pantries scattered on the edges of the large room.

"We'll go somewhere on the water, where it's warm all the time. We'll live there on the beach, we'll sleep there, eat there, fuck there. We'll go swimming at night, naked, we'll just feel the water around us. I'll throw you into the waves - you won't know if it's me or the water holding you, kitten. No one will bother us."

He came down to his knees and placed her on the floor gently. He dropped down to sit beside her.

She looked at him, her silent tears falling now. "Why are you wasting such sweet tears, kitten?" he said, wiping them away with his gloved hand. "Did you know I have a surprise for you? I've been working on it for a while - I'll show you tomorrow."

"A… surprise?"

"Mm hmm," he replied.

She smiled despite herself. Hearing those words come from the mouth of the Joker would normally be interpreted as a very unpleasant surprise indeed, maybe a box full of live hand grenades, or some other terrible fate. But it was clear in the way he said it that he actually meant it as it sounded, something nice for her.

Her manner changed, becoming more decisive. "I'd like to… be with you, more. Can I stay with you, sometimes?"

"You just want to come to work with me? Well, that's a win-win for both of us then. But you're talking like we have such limited time, Annie. Don't worry, I'll protect you."

"I know," she said. "I just… feel something coming." The faraway look on her face when she said it was alarming, as if her strange eyes really could see into the future. Even the Joker had a slight chill hearing her words, but he hid the ominous feeling.

"Don't say that," he said, wiping a smudge of makeup off her face. "Why don't you give me a kiss with those lovely red lips? Did you do that just for me?"

She smiled and kissed him softly. He took off her shoes, seeming to appreciate her choice, and carefully set them near the wall.

"Now, you stay here and rest, I'll have my men get some blankets. I'm going to make some calls and get the crew started up to your little town to take those guns. I'll come back to you to get the details on the locations in a little while." He noticed the coldness of the room and took off his jacket, pulling it around her before he left.

She woke in the cold pantry to an unfamiliar hand on her arm, shaking her, and a voice saying "Uh, he said he needs your help. Quickly." She was shocked into alertness, realizing one of his men was standing there awkwardly in front of her. She had been sleeping on the makeshift pile of blankets on the floor.

She was fully awake in seconds, recognizing the danger of the situation. She got up, wrapping the purple coat around herself and holding it with one hand, running out of the room to the main floor where she saw him, his back to her in the chair at the head of the table, wearing headphones fitted with a mic. His men surrounded him anxiously. He seemed to sense her there as she ran up to the table.

"Someone spotted the third team. It looks like - a farmer and his son on a tractor."

"Are they still digging? Are they over the site?" she asked, the concern apparent in her voice.

"No, they left that spot - they are at the head of the field getting ready to pull back onto the road."

"Ok, there's some hope then." She took a deep breath like a runner getting ready for a championship sprint. "Give me the headphones, I'll tell them what to say."

"Do exactly what she says. Don't hesitate," he said into the microphone before he handed it to Annie.

"You're on, kitten," he said, pointing to her, his yellow teeth glistening with his wide smile. He seemed to thrive on the risk inherent in their task.

His men had never seen him happier than he was now, watching her sitting there. He saw her alert and ready, with all her attention centered on what she was hearing in the earphones, his jacket wrapped around her.

There was a focus and a desire there he had not seen before, a desire to win. What had the Church done to her that had awoken that kind of dedicated hatred? He didn't know, but he liked this new facet of her personality. He hadn't seen her like this before.

"Ok, what are you doing now?" she said assertively into the mic. "No, no, don't just pull out onto the road and try to leave. That will never work, that will make them suspicious. They'll have their allies in the police department pull you over before you leave the county, and it will all be over.

"Stop and turn the vehicle toward them. Wait for them to come to you. Then get out of the truck. They'll get out of the tractor too - meet them there. Do either of you smoke? Ok, start smoking right now. Be relaxed. Be slow, talk slowly, act slowly. How you act is going to be more important than what you say.

"Wait for them to talk first. Then I'll tell you how to reply."

The morning dew was thick on the new leaves of spring by the road as the men exited the truck and the tractor. They stepped out into the half-light of early morning, striding slowly away from the powerful vehicles behind them. The sound of the tractor engine gave a regular rhythm to the quiet of the early spring day.

"The county send you out here?" the older man said by way of greeting to the intruders.

"Yeah. We're surveying for some ditching work," the Joker's man replied.

"Ditching work? Here? We do our own ditching here. We know some people down in the county, we'll have to straighten that out with them," the farmer replied, seeming to carefully measure his words.

"Hey, that sounds good to us, less work. Those idiots at the courthouse can just send us somewhere else. It looks like it'd be tough to dig here, looks like rocky soil."

"It's rocky for sure, we're the only people willing to farm it."

An awkward silence followed, but the Joker's men did a good job of covering up their nervousness. They smoked leisurely, waiting for the farmer to make his next move.

"Well, we best get to work, and you better get back to the county, right?"

"Yep." With that, both pairs of men returned to their vehicles. The truck pulled out slowly onto the road and began the long trip back to Gotham.

They heard the demanding voice in their earpieces, giving one more command. "Go slowly, until you get to the highway. Then you drive as fast as you can back to Gotham. You and the guns are safer the further away you get from that field."

With that, she removed the headphones and mic, and held her face in her hands, taking deep breaths.

"Well?" asked the Joker.

She revealed her wide smile as she lifted her head. "They got away with it, the farmer didn't know. But you'd better have everyone share the information right away and get rid of that truck when they get back."

"Bien sûr, madame," the Joker said, spinning around to face the group. He pushed the pile of phones so that they scattered along the table. "Gentlemen, make your calls. Share the locations, have your guys up there as soon as possible."

"Now, I have somewhere to go with the kitten," he announced abruptly to the group, dismissing the chaos of the many simultaneous calls happening around them.

"Let's go see that surprise," he said, taking her hand roughly in his. He walked quickly, pulling her arm playfully and making her jog after him, a difficult task considering her footwear. They left the kitchen behind. They exited the building, entering the early morning drizzle and fog of Gotham in the spring. He took her to one of the cars parked on the street outside and opened the door for her.

"So you're driving?" she said.

"Yeah. Where we're going - I don't want anyone to know where it is," he said. He closed the door and got in the driver's seat, the smile he directed at her once he sat down decidedly unsettling. But Annie had grown used to the toothy broadness of his expression and she soon had a sly smile of her own. She put her hand on his as he reached for the gear shift and leaned forward. Their lips met there inside the car, on this dreary morning in Gotham.

The Gotham Gazette Vol LXVIII, No. 40

It was a bloodbath upstate yesterday when armed groups, likely funded by Gotham's gang organizations, descended on Warren County, desperate for guns and ammunition. Backhoes and trucks were scattered over the farmland when police arrived, and the carnage had already begun. It has become apparent that residents of the small town, most of them members of the radical religious sect calling itself the "Church," were ready to protect their stash of weapons. Police arrived to find a gunfight already in progress between Church members and the invading Gothamites. Though it's difficult to know the full extent of the Church's store of weapons, it appears that it was quite extensive. Large empty holes dug into field borders show that some of the thieves must have made off with the weapons. The bodies of gangsters and Church members alike litter the ground, and police say the investigation and clean-up will take days if not weeks.

The sudden invasion brought to light the large weapons stash of this radical group and has drawn the attention of state and federal authorities. The Church, operating on the edges of rural society upstate, has long been known to be extremely militant, but the authorities seem to have turned a blind eye to their activities - until now.

A Church member, an elderly man who had been shooting at police but finally surrendered, was heard giving his statement to the authorities. "Whoever gave these heathens the locations of our goods, that person had rather burn in hell than face the wrath of the Church." Reporters on the scene heard him yelling incoherently as he was placed in the squad car.

Whatever happens, now that the state government and FBI are involved, it's unlikely that the closed rural community will ever be the same again…

Author's note: I knew I wanted to start this chapter with the story of Lazarus, and at first I had thought of her being like Lazarus and sort of coming back from the dead. But then now that it's all together, it could be that he is like Lazarus and she brought him back to life. I love the ambiguity, either of them might be the one brought to mind by the verse.

The Joker came to see Annie often now. Sometimes he came and took her immediately, entering the apartment and bringing her into his embrace so quickly she could feel the cool night air clinging to his purple jacket. At other times he would come in, eat whatever he found on the counter, and talk to her about something he'd seen that day, or lightly interrogate her about her experiences in Gotham.

Sooner or later, they always ended up in each other's arms. He seemed to study her, learning every little reaction from the surfaces of her body. His attention was an unusual luxury, a precious thing that she treasured. But as a person used to finding protection in hiding from the outside world, she was also a little unnerved by his level of understanding of her thoughts and desires.

He was more difficult to understand - so much of him was hidden from her. But anything she noticed that made him call out or catch his breath, she would remember it for him. There was always the possibility he was leading her in the wrong direction on purpose, with his gift for deceit, but generally she felt that he was very straightforward with physical intimacy, almost as if it made more sense to him than other everyday interactions. Maybe because it was more direct, more genuine, more natural.

As the time passed, Annie seemed to adjust to her new reality, balancing out some of the habits of her old self and the newfound freedom she felt when she was with him. He was able to coax her into speaking more often, and she took on the daily tasks that were required to provide life's necessities.

After their first nights together, he had quickly overhauled her limited wardrobe. He must have waited until she was sleeping and then removed every scrap of clothing from her closet. In their place in the morning she found a hodgepodge collection of short skirts, heels, and strappy things - halter tops and backless shirts. Her new underwear seemed to provide decoration more than concealment. Though he wouldn't tell her anything about it, she strongly suspected that his friend Genevieve was somehow behind the choice of clothes. Annie was really quite lost with it all but obediently wore whatever she found there. She had her jacket for going outside, so it didn't matter too much to her what she wore inside. And he seemed to delight in it, finding a hundred ways to take the scant clothing off of her when he visited.

On the day it happened, he walked into the apartment with a distracted look and drew out his knife, alarming her. He extended his arm into the air and then brought the knife down into the cheap countertop, puncturing the poorly made plastic laminate. The force of it caused his hand to slide down the blade, giving him a terrible cut over his palm. He didn't cry out but simply pulled up his arm and looked at the blood oozing from the wound, until she brought a towel and wrapped it around his hand.

She had a hard time staying calm and figuring out what to say, but she finally came out with a shaky "What happened?" as she held the towel firmly over the cut. He looked up at her and then dug into his pocket, bringing out a roughly torn piece of newspaper. She unfolded it as best she could with her free hand and read through the beginning of the article.

The Gotham Gazette Vol LXVIII, No. 23

Mayor Harvey Dent finally scored a victory against the infamous Joker today when the largest arms seizure in Gotham history resulted in the confiscation of six freight cars worth of weapons this morning. Everything from ordinary pistols to military-grade weapons and grenades were found.

Since the food crisis and supply chain disruptions, a nationwide shortage of weapons has been an issue for police and criminals alike, so this large-scale seizure puts the odds back in favor of the Gotham authorities…

She sat by him that evening, making sure his hand stopped bleeding and quietly comforting him, knowing it must have been a devastating blow by his unusual silence. Secretly she hoped that fewer weapons might mean less violence - his obsession with fighting the authorities and tearing down the rules of society was not a passion she shared. But in a world where the backbone of the community - the police, the government, and the law - had largely abandoned her, she didn't feel any sense of guilt or a moral dilemma in comforting him after his loss. This was something about her conservative rural upbringing that did stay with her. The focus on one's own family and the disregard for the outside world, for good or for ill, made her well-suited to be the Joker's companion. Although the hesitation of the women of her isolated community to question the men's actions had often infuriated Annie when she was growing up, that habit had also ingrained itself into her personality and probably contributed to her acceptance of his position as the head of Gotham's criminal empire.

The next day they were on the bed and he was absentmindedly stroking her cheek with his fingertips. She moved to get up and he pulled her back immediately, returning her to exactly the same position, and he continued his repetitive caress. She was probably wise to decide to simply stay where he placed her. He did this more and more often after the weapons raid, seemingly distracted, his eyes focused far away. Sometimes while he was sleeping she washed his shirt and pants by hand, hanging them up to dry in the shower, to maintain some level of cleanliness, as he seemed to be letting himself go much more than usual. But his energy and passion for Annie, if anything, grew stronger, and it felt like he must be escaping from the frustrations of his days in her embrace.

Now he entered the apartment like any other day, but she soon noticed that something was off. He was preoccupied, agitated. He hung up the purple jacket and took off the gloves deliberately, with much more care than usual. She wondered if there was some new development in the shortage of firearms. She had heard his men talking in low voices about their growing weakness in the face of the police and the rival gangs of Gotham.

But when he walked toward her with his jaw clenched and his mouth curved into a subtle smile, she knew that it must be about her.

"It turns out that my kitten has been very bad," he began ominously. "I found out she wasn't the only one who wanted to leave her Church. There were others, but they didn't get out. Kitten did. She left them all behind without a backward glance." He said it in a sing-song voice that contrasted with his menacing expression. "How did she do that?" He wagged his finger at her, a half smile raising one side of his messily painted mouth.

"You know, it's so unusual for someone to be able to escape from the Church. And a woman leaving, no one ever heard of it before you, Annie."

As soon as he had mentioned her past, she stood unmoving, not appearing to even breath. She just stared at him with wide eyes. "I was suspicious early on, when you first told me about it, and I sent one of my men up there to your little town to investigate you. I almost forgot about it, but he got back to me today."

He came closer, close enough for her to feel his breath on her face. "I can't find anything else out about you and your deal. It looks like all the officers and lawyers who worked with you ran away or seem to have been assassinated by your little organization up there," he said, tilting his head to look at her with a sidelong stare.

"I have a theory. I think maybe she spread her sweet little legs for that upstate DA." He put his knee between her legs suddenly, forcing them apart, almost making her fall. "Why don't you tell me about it?" He paused, regarding her terrified face.

"I don't mind, you know. You understand what it takes to survive. I respect that. He was a young man - but maybe not as pretty as Mayor Dent, hmm? Was he a nice lay?"

When he was met with only silence again, he moved over to hiss into her ear, "Tell me about it."

Her mind was racing. She wanted to forget all about that time, and to have him bring it up now brought back her pain, her guilt after taking the deal and leaving the others trapped there.

"Yes, he was a nice lay," she said, the words feeling foreign in her mouth.

He had been running a hand through his disheveled hair but paused immediately when he heard her words. There was a shift in the room. She felt like a hiding animal whose camouflage had suddenly disappeared.

"He was a nice lay? Oh kitten, you're lying," he said, rolling the words slowly in his mouth so they fell with a deadly weight.

He nodded his head, stepping back and surveying her with his merciless eyes. He drew his arm back and slapped her, hard. She hadn't had time to shield herself, and the blow landed squarely on the side of her face. The sound of it echoed in the sparse room. She collapsed to the floor, holding her mouth and tasting blood.

He took a step toward her and grabbed her hair, intertwining it messily in his fingers and using it to pull her to her feet. She cried out from the sudden pain. She still had her eyes closed, trying to keep her head from spinning after the sudden impact of the slap, when she heard the sound of the blade extending from the knife. Her eyes snapped open and her focus stayed on it as he dragged the flat of the cold metal blade lightly over her shoulder and settled the sharp point in the hollow where her neck met her chest.

"Your heart is beating so fast, kitten - I can see it here."

He had miscalculated if he thought a threat of force like the knife was something that would make her share her secret. But maybe he wasn't threatening her as much as he just wanted to see the sharp blade on the soft skin of her neck. Maybe he didn't really know what he wanted at that moment.

In the flurry of thoughts running through her mind, she suddenly realized that holding something away from him like this gave her a rush of pleasure. He knew everything about her: how she thought, the dynamics of her body, what every touch would do to her. But here was something he didn't know.

He used his grip on her hair to tilt her head up to face him. A slow smile formed on her lips. She had some scrap of her life that was hidden - it seemed to give her a small amount of control, and that little bit was intoxicating to her.

"I thought I just found a little fallen angel there on the ballroom floor, but you're much more than that, aren't you?" he said, regarding her strange smile and the remoteness of her icy stare. "I should have known, with the way you looked at me. Those sparkling eyes. You couldn't stop looking at me, could you?"

He retracted the knife and turned his hand to let it drop to the floor. Holding her head steady with his grip on her hair, he pressed his lips to hers. The movement of his tongue mingled with the blood in her mouth in a luxurious warmth as she returned his kiss. Her dizziness after the jolting slap only made it more mesmerizing - she felt she was floating. He drug his hand around her hips to the front of her thighs and pushed up the short skirt she was wearing.

The shock of what had happened made her feel unsteady, but her body adapted to him, listened to him.

"Ok, I'll let you keep your secrets, kitten," he murmured in her ear. She leaned on him for support and he held her securely.

"I'm feeling so generous today," he said, a lustful tremor beginning to show itself in his voice. He let go of her hair and she heard the gentle ting of his belt buckle hitting the long watch chain. He brought his hands behind her and pulled her close.

Author's note: [spoilers!] Don't be mad! Forgive me, remember he is the Joker. You have to give him a little bit of a break, Dent took away all his toys.

It is probably a little bit messed up that if I could ask Heath Ledger's Joker to say any of the lines of the story so far, it would be "Oh kitten, you're lying." :)

When Annie was young, perhaps only six or seven years old, she joined her family in a familiar yearly routine for many in her small rural community. In the early spring, they walked to one of the patches of forest scattered between fields, on a search for edible mushrooms. It was one of the earliest, and most enjoyable, memories of her childhood. The adults took sticks they found on the ground, and broke off the unnecessary twigs, using them to push aside old leaves from fall and the newly sprouted wildflowers and nettles on the forest floor. They wanted to see the ground clearly to spot the brown and tan morels that were so delicious after they were cleaned and fried.

Annie walked slowly in the woods, afraid that she might step on one of the precious mushrooms after she had been cautioned by the adults to be careful where her feet fell. She had an immediate love for the forest in spring - the new buds on the trees made a variegated canopy above her, still letting the blue sky shine through. In many areas, she delighted in the tiny white blooms of wildflowers carpeting the ground, like a fairy wonderland. She imagined it must be what heaven looked like.

The delicate purple of woodland phlox, the luxurious red curves of prairie trillium, the surprising yellow of the wood sorrel, all of them could be found on the forest floor. Beautiful and unique shapes that only appeared in the forest in spring, quick to be overtaken by aggressive weeds in June and July.

But there were also places in the woods she feared. As a little girl, her shorter height made patches of mayapples quite terrifying. Their leaves spread out like small umbrellas on the ground, and their height sometimes came up above her knees. She was always afraid there might be something underneath them, as their spreading canopy created an impenetrable surface she couldn't see through.

And as she followed the adults on their search, the sticks they held pushed back the rotting leaves of fall, sometimes uncovering new flowers or the leaves of small plants, but also sometimes bizarre things - things that looked like they came from another planet. Toadstools, mounds of mica caps, the intricate branching white of coral fungi, the bright red of scarlet cup. She didn't like the strange surfaces and bizarre colors of them and the way they appeared out of nowhere when the leaves were moved aside.

Annie didn't know enough about what was happening in Gotham to have made the comparison, but the city that spring was much like the forest floor of her memories. With their routines changed and the grind of work removed for many people, there were lovely things - newfound pleasures and time together with family. There was young love, like Annie's growing affection for the Joker, which at its root was sweet and pure, like wildflowers. But there were other things growing unseen under the rotten leaves of fall, foul things, ugly things, misshapen souls and violent desires. Especially for the young men of Lower Gotham, the disappearance of any regular occupation and their constant harassment at the checkpoints led to growing gangs, some wearing clown masks, some not; some angry at the injustice of the passport system, some simply angry at anything that got in their way. The contrast of darkness and light couldn't have been more pronounced. It was exceptional, that spring in Gotham.

Annie lived like someone suspended, walking on a thin wire between two realities. Her previous existence in Gotham, full of work, self-denial, and control was now gone. There was no job that kept her up late, no commutes through the city, no juggling of bills to pay. In front of her, there was an uncertain future. She didn't feel ready to commit herself to whatever world she was now in - so much was unknown to her. And she still feared discovery, if somehow the police figured out her real identity.

She hovered on the wire, unable to go back, and unsure about moving forward, with a black abyss stretching out below her.

Annie's situation was unique, of course, but many others around her in Lower Gotham also found themselves suspended in their lives in different ways. Many of them had lost their jobs due to the difficulty of the commute to Upper Gotham, too, and they also didn't know what the future brought. The general atmosphere was one of uncertainty, in a way exciting due to the strange emptiness of the streets and the promise of something new and unexpected in the absence of the everyday drudgery of work. But it was also disconcerting, as people waited to see what this new world would bring.

Thankfully, the past public relations disaster of Dent's comment about the food shipments to Lower Gotham meant that there was an overabundance of food deliveries from Upper Gotham, Annie noticing that at least one drop point was located on the street below her window. She would walk past the boxes every day when she went out for walks. She always went out in the early morning hours when there were few people on the streets. She was beginning to run low on food, but she still had some time before she would have to ask the Joker's men, stationed near her door, for help getting more. She was nervous about approaching them, but she would do it when she had to.

She often stopped in the apartment building's lobby to gather more information about what was happening in Gotham from the small TV there. She was especially interested, of course, in what kind of search they were mounting for her, and how careful she should be. She had been mentioned in the news, a mysterious woman the Joker had deposited at the hospital. But her story was one among many others about Dent's checkpoints, thankfully. And by some stroke of luck, probably because she had not yet been placed under arrest, no one had taken her photo in the hospital. The only images shared on the news were sketches, all of them hopelessly inaccurate. The only feature they seemed to get right was her unusually blue eyes.

As the weeks passed by, Annie's health returned. Her recovery was slow and the changes imperceptible at first, as recovery from a long illness often is, but soon enough her face was filling out again into its usual form, erasing the hollowness of her cheeks. The youthful bloom of color on her face came back, making it hard to tell that she wasn't just a normal young woman who hadn't gone through trauma and illness. Her walks brought back her strength, and though the burden of uncertainty always weighed heavily on her, she did thrive on the freedom to shape her days and roam as she wished.

With her newfound time, her mind wandered back to things she had enjoyed in her childhood. She had loved music, but of course all the music in her small community centered around hymns sung in a religious setting. She could still sing them, all of them, but she could no longer get enjoyment out of them. Everything from her past in the Church was tarnished beyond repair. She gave up on trying to pursue music as a hobby, the sadness of her personal history still hanging over her.

Her thoughts most often found a way to wander to him, to the Joker. In a way, she was more afraid of meeting him again now than she ever had been before. She understood her feelings better now, but she felt completely unsure of what would happen when they met. She often found herself dwelling on the kiss they had shared, hoping just the memory could give her some satisfaction and perhaps allow her a break from her thoughts of him. But the kiss was not just a kiss - whether it was real or just a show by the Joker, she didn't know, but despite its generous sweetness, his kiss had a hunger in it. She could feel that he wanted more. And examining herself, she realized that she had responded to him with a lustful desire too. She was surprised at the strength of her own feelings and reactions. The memories of him had helped get her through her time in the hospital, but now the memories were not enough. Now she could feel a need for him in a way she had never experienced.

Of course she had been with someone before, but it was as far from this as night from day. She was so young, she had barely even thought of the opposite sex, and then a marriage was thrust upon her and consummated as a matter of course, without any consideration for her inexperience. Her body grew accustomed to the way her husband came to her and the shock wore off, but nothing like love or even attraction ever developed for her. When she had escaped to Gotham, one of her chief victories was simply to have power over her own body again. And she left it in peace, not wanting to stir anything that would lead to being involved with anyone again. She had assumed she would keep that pledge with herself for the rest of her life, but now everything was different. She still felt some anger toward the Joker for having woken up all these complexities in her, for pursuing her like this. But even with his seeming dedication to getting her out of the hospital, she also didn't really know anything about him. Would she even see him again? She admitted to herself that she wasn't sure. Maybe he did this kind of thing all the time, with many women…

The Joker opened the door and walked in with barely a glance at her, his long strides cutting across the room to the kitchen. This was the first time she had seen him since he had brought her back from the hospital. She was standing behind the counter, but he ignored her, silently opening each cabinet door and slamming it again, then ending with the refrigerator. He was a flurry of motion, his open purple coat flying out behind him each time he turned. The anger was clear on his painted face.

He whipped past her and left the kitchen, standing in front of her on the other side of the counter. "Every cabinet is empty. What's wrong with you, Annie? I told you to tell my men whenever you needed anything. It's been weeks, and they said they haven't heard a word from you." His loud, accusing voice rang through the cramped apartment.

But Annie barely heard him. She forgave him inwardly for his outburst. She was used to rationing, she'd been doing it her whole life. He didn't understand that. And something about the way his anger animated him today, it highlighted the strange grace in the way he moved. The strength apparent in his body even under the layers of clothing, the way he spun around almost like he was dancing instead of reprimanding her, it all struck her with far more force than his words.

He opened his eyes wide, seeing that she was not reacting with the fear he expected. He thought she must be off in one of her other worlds again, with her faraway look. "You know, I even have the food drops from Upper Gotham set up right here, right under your window. You could ask my men, or you could go down yourself, and just take something." He took a seat in the lone chair in the room, leaning his head down and raising his hand to his forehead to push his hair back in frustration.

She had moved out from behind the counter, walking toward him, not really knowing what she was doing. She came closer, hardly daring to touch this tornado, this force of nature.

She remembered her last thoughts, how they all centered around him, when she was on her journey into the snow. He had destroyed the life she had, but the swath of color he left in his wake dazzled her eyes. She knew she was stepping off the wire now, letting herself fall. With him here in front of her, though, it was easy - so easy.

"What can I do to get you to understand, when you want something, take it?" he muttered, more talking to himself now than to her. With his head down, he hadn't noticed how close she was. A calm came over her and she knelt down in front of him, putting her hands on the sleeves of his coat, the texture scratching her skin as she slid them down the purple fabric and lifted her eyes to meet his. She felt very much like she was playing with fire, and the flames might stretch one way or the other.

He raised his head to meet her gaze. "Just take it" he said slowly. His eyes were softened but still shone intensely, like burning embers before the flames break out. He brought his hands up to either side of her face, guiding her chin upward. He had been so wrapped up in his frustration that he hadn't noticed how the color had returned to her face, but now he could see the youthful glow there again and knew that her health had come back to her.

He had wanted to make her wait, he had wanted to make her suffer like he had suffered, waiting for her. But the look on her face, almost like her feelings gave her pain, melted those plans away. He brought their lips together, the sweetness of the kiss spreading down her neck and warming her body.

He broke away from the kiss, standing up abruptly and bringing her up with him. He could feel the refreshed strength in her body. He pushed her backward, making her stumble, but by now he had his arms around her, supporting her until she found her back against the wall. "I wanted to do this before," he said. He bent down to slowly kiss her neck, his tongue caressing her skin.

"I thought you wanted to kill me." she murmured.

"No, remember, I wanted to save you," he sighed, pressing his hand onto the middle of her chest until she could not draw a breath. But she didn't care. Her eyes were glazed over with desire. His lips met hers and he was quickly inside her mouth, pushing her head back, and he relaxed the pressure on her chest as if he was too distracted to maintain it. She gasped involuntarily and the sound only made him more desperate. His earnestness and focus made him seem almost innocent, wholesome.

He broke away from the kiss and pushed her back against the wall again, looking at her searchingly. He already knew the answer, but he wanted to hear her say it. "Do you want me to take off the paint?" His tone was completely changed from a moment earlier. It was light and inquisitive, as if they were just chatting about the weather. Her eyes dwelled on the exquisite textures and garish colors running across his face.

"No," she shook her head slowly, mesmerized by him. "I like it." He rolled his eyes down to her, giving her a knowing stare.

"The police were right, you do belong in Arkham - you're fucking crazy" he said distractedly, as he brought his body close to hers again.

[] (Explicit portion removed)

Link to ao3 for full version, note the warnings/tags there: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60435238/chapters/158405293

The night stretched out before them. She sometimes felt she was above the sparkling waves and completely free, and at other times like she was deep under the dark currents. But when she reached too high or too low, his voice came back to her and tethered her to reality. He molded her into a thousand forms and then drew her back with a raspy order.

She woke up in the morning to his fingers lightly dragging along her neck from her ear to her collarbone, and back again. His side was propped against the wall, giving her his chest to lean against as her eyes opened and she surveyed the room. She was in her simple box of an apartment, but somehow she now felt unimaginably wealthy. His strong body behind her and the luxurious strokes of his fingers on her neck could have been a queen's throne and the most expensive of necklaces - she felt surrounded by opulence as she turned the soles of her feet back to feel his legs behind her.

"Kitten, go to sleep. I have to get back to my work."

"No," she said, but she already felt her eyelids drooping lazily. The hypnotizing strokes of his fingers hastened her return to sleep, and she was soon dreaming again.

He waited until she was sleeping deeply, then left the bed and took his clothes from the floor, dressing slowly and deliberately. He put his head out the door and asked his men for a cigarette and a light. Because he didn't often smoke, they weren't prepared, but luckily they found one of them had a cigarette leftover from their long night of keeping watch. He drew in a deep drag and went back into the room. He sat in the one wooden chair, looking at her on the bed, as if he was enjoying her unmoving, unconscious state. He starred out of the window at the city, surprisingly bright this morning with rare sun reflecting from the buildings' shiny facades. He found his eyes traveling up and down her legs as he finished the cigarette and looked down at the burning ember left in his hand. He seemed to tear his gaze away with some effort. He stepped into the hallway, dropped the small remains of the cigarette on the floor, and snuffed it out with a few purposeful turns of his foot.

The men stationed at her door called him, interrupting his conversation with one of the GCPD officers he had bankrolled. "It's been almost a day now since you… visited, Boss, and we haven't heard anything from inside the apartment. No water on, no footsteps. We thought you should know."

"I'll be there," he responded, and hastily put away his phone. He left the scene without another word, swiftly walking back to the car. As soon as it was parked on the street outside her building, he was taking the stairs to her apartment two at a time. He felt frustrated - this was the second time he hadn't been able to predict her actions, the second time he was rushing to her apartment - how could she be so uncontrollable? A prickle of fear now began to rise up his spine. He hadn't thought she would take any drastic actions, he thought he had left her happy. He knew a lot of what made Annie tick, but at the same time, she had a certain remoteness that was hard to read. There was a silence to her that he couldn't decipher.

He quickly opened the door without a glance at his men and was immediately relieved to see her sitting up on the far edge of the bed, her back toward him. She was completely naked, as he had left her, and the blankets and items thrown off the bed were still strewn over the floor. He closed the door behind him and walked toward her. He moved more slowly as he came closer, coming around the bed to face her. She sat with her hands to her sides as if to get up, but she was completely motionless. He bent down on his knees to get a clear look at her face. Her eyes were focused far away, her expression blank.

Despite her vacant stare, his eyes lingered on the perfect curve of her lips. He took her face in his hands, kissing her deeply.

She seemed to stir and begin to return from whatever far away journey her mind had been on. He felt the pressure on his lips as she responded to his kiss. She pulled away, focusing her gaze back into the present and studying his face quietly. She reached up and traced her fingers over his scar, from his ear to the corner of his mouth. She kept tracing the imaginary line and found the indentation of the cut in his lower lip. She touched it delicately, taking her time to feel the ripple in his smooth skin. She began to speak, her voice raspy: "My lover is handsome and strong; he is one in ten thousand. His cheeks are a bed of spices, as sweet flowers: his lips like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh… His mouth is most sweet…"

He didn't like for anyone to touch his scars, but the gentle way her fingers glided over them and the strange poetry falling from her lips would not allow him to protest.

Her words hung eerily in the dim room. He brought her toward him, holding the back of her neck and kissing her, this time messily dragging his lips from her mouth to her neck.

[] (Explicit portion removed)

The men outside shrugged. They were never surprised by the Joker's erratic behavior. They returned to their game of cards in the hallway.

"Ok, upsy daisy, kitten." They had woken up together in the morning, and he had decided it would be best to take her outside with him. Maybe the fresh air would snap her back into her usual self. Though, if he was being honest, he liked his kitten being so dedicated to him. He really was a selfish man. She seemed to only breath when he told her to, her body only moving when his hands were on her. But he knew it wasn't sustainable - she needed to take care of herself. He wondered what had happened in that faraway mind of hers.

First, he would have to get them cleaned up. She was a disaster and he assumed he probably looked no better. She smiled at his efforts to pull her out of bed, making it difficult for him to get her up and into the bathroom. But she eventually relented, and once he turned on the water to the shower, she seemed to perk up a bit and reached her hand in to splash him with the water.

It was something beautiful to see her like this, seemingly without any inhibitions and allowing herself to act like a child. Growing up the way she had, so quickly being saddled with the responsibilities of adulthood in a community that trained girls to take on the housework and care of younger siblings so early, she had never really gotten to be a child. The Joker's life was a mystery, but maybe his childhood had been taken away from him too. The way they giggled as they bumped against each other getting into the shower, the way he laughed at the pitiful stream of water streaming from the showerhead in the cheap apartment, it seemed like two people living a late moment of thoughtless fun, like children again for this short time.

The small shower of a compact apartment didn't allow them much room, especially for his tall form. But they made it work, laughing as they grabbed the shampoo. They fought over it first, but then he relented and let her take some. He had to bend down for her to reach him as she washed his hair, slowly working the foam into his scalp with her fingertips. He washed hers next, enjoying the slippery feel of her wet hair.

She set her eyes on his face, seeing that their night together and the shower had taken off a great deal of his makeup. She decided to work on removing the rest, grabbing a cloth and rubbing it over the remaining paint gently, patiently. It was stubborn but finally relented, staining the cloth with its colors.

With the makeup mostly off now, only a trace of the black eyeshadow left and a little embedded red in the creases of his scars, he looked suddenly so young and so simple. As she worked on removing the last traces of the paint, she wondered what he was before he was the Joker. The naked skin of his body and now his face too made him seem suddenly vulnerable, and she knew he could see the question in her eyes. He put an arm around her to draw her closer, saying, "Annie, don't ask me about my past, please." She was taken aback. The way he said please with such a supplicating tone, as if he was afraid of her - as if she could hurt him. She had never heard him speak like that before. She looked up at him with concern. "Ok," she said, reaching her hand up to his face and cradling his cheek there. He took her face in his hands, bringing their lips together and kissing her deeply. The taste of the water was so different from the smooth waxy flavor she was used to. His lips offered more resistance now, giving her a better grip as she drug her mouth over his. It was a desperate kiss, a wonderful kiss.

[] (Explicit portion removed)

"Annie, these clothes are horrible. You only have your work clothes?" He was trying to find something for her to wear. He didn't wait for an answer from her. He went to the door, poking his head out and addressing his men. "Go get the red dress from the van, it's still in the box. And get me that bag under the seat."

He had handed her a hairbrush and told her to use it, and when he checked on her, she seemed to be complying. His men soon returned with the items he had requested. He lifted the red dress out of the box, the same one she had worn to the news station months ago. She looked at it with some hesitation, revealing the Annie the Joker was accustomed to. "I should get some underwear," she said. "No, kitten, this dress doesn't need it," he said, and hastily lifted it over her head. She allowed him to pull it over her obediently. "Now finish with your hair," he said, handing the brush back to her. She struggled with it for a bit and finally gave up, letting some of the tangles remain.

She entered the main room of the apartment, where he was sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed and wearing a brown sweater, the makeup still absent and his hair pulled back again, like it had been in the hospital. She was struck with the rich color of the sweater and how it complemented his eyes. It took some effort to stop looking at him. "Genevieve said you'd like it," he said as a matter of course, as if Genevieve was some old friend of them both. He got up and came closer to Annie, speaking into her ear, "She said you'd want to eat me, if I wore this. I think she was right." Annie knew her deep breaths betrayed her, but she decided not to give him the satisfaction of telling him that his friend had guessed correctly.

"When was the last time you had a meal," he asked her, and she looked up to the ceiling as if she would find the answer there. "I don't know," she responded, seeming to truly not know. "Ok, kitten, that's what I thought. I've got some food on the way."

Soon, a feast was arriving through her door. Fresh fruit, breads, cheese, fragrant soups, more meat than she had ever had in her apartment at one time. Her eyes were wide, just taking it in. She really was very hungry, now that she saw the food there. She began to take bits of it, enjoying the incredible variety he had brought. She was more than unaccustomed to this kind of luxury. She looked over at him. He was eating too, but she could tell from his sly smile, he was watching to see what she'd do. Maybe he was wondering if her long history of poverty and scarcity would show itself, and she would try to save anything that they couldn't eat. He had certainly gotten far more than was needed for two people.

She thwarted his plan, opening the door to her apartment and finding three of his men there, as she expected. She invited them in to eat - "The Joker wanted you to come and eat too," she said, motioning to the food.

The Joker rolled his eyes at her, now eating his fill before his men took it all.

They departed from the steps at the foot of her apartment building, making their way to one of the main thoroughfares of Lower Gotham. "Where are we going?" she said, wondering what the purpose of this outing was.

"Just on a walk, kitten, I thought you liked walks."

"These are strange walking clothes," she said, looking over at him and then down at the ornate embroidery and sequins on the form-fitting red dress.

"Nothing is strange in Gotham now," he said with a smile.

He took her arm in his and they walked onward, mostly ignored by passers by, though some eyes lingered on her overly formal dress. The weather was unusually warm for spring in Gotham, and neither of them required a jacket. He had tossed a light scarf on, presumably to disguise his scars. The weather had lured out many of the residents of Lower Gotham - the streets were busier than she had seen them since the food crisis. She began to feel nervous, knowing from the trajectory of the events she had seen on the news in the hospital that large gatherings in Lower Gotham might not have positive results.

They seemed to be coming upon more and more people as they neared the entrance to one of the bridges, and she soon saw why. Makeshift scaffolding was set up, blocking the roadway, a man on top gesticulating and speaking to the crowd. Chaos surrounded them, some people obviously rushing away from the scene to avoid being drawn up in the mob and others rushing toward it, cheering after each statement he made. He seemed to be voicing complaints about the passport system, pointing out the injustice inherent in it. "Upper Gotham gentlemen and ladies," he said mockingly, "don't need to prove their identity to cross over to our side of the city, but us Lower Gotham 'rats' have to show this special ID and explain why we are crossing to the other side of our own city!" The crowd cheered when he said 'rats,' clearly understanding his reference to Dent's disparaging comment in the leaked audio that came out months ago.

The Joker had grabbed her hand and was leading them closer and closer to the base of the scaffolding, past even the crowd that had gathered in the front row of spectators. "What are you doing?" she asked, concerned. He turned to look back at her and had a wild grin on his face. He had obviously come up with some kind of plan, whether simply mischievous or murderous, she didn't know. "Did you know this was here?" she asked, looking up at the rickety platform as they stepped under it. "No, the people of Gotham did this all by themselves, kitten," he said with excitement in his voice.

The man who had been speaking came down the ladder on the side of the scaffolding, and the Joker strode up to him, somehow hiding the perverse excitement on his face and changing his expression to one of earnestness. She was disconcerted by how quickly he pulled off the transition. Could he always change his personality on command like this?

"That was amazing," he said to the man, as if he was completely taken aback by his eloquence on the platform. "So inspiring. My girlfriend here, her father was killed by the GCPD just two weeks ago. She's been so distraught. She'd really like to say a few words to the crowd." He pulled Annie up beside him, jerking her arm with more than a little strength due to her reticence to come any closer. She simply stood there, wide-eyed.

The man's face was confused but then melted into a generous expression, matching the Joker's feigned earnestness. "Of course. Everyone is welcome here. Go on up."

The Joker turned to her. The light scarf, which wasn't really disguising much anyway, fell down to his chin. "Go on up, sweety. Tell them all about it. I know you have a lot to get off your chest about this." As he ended his words to her, a toothy grin slowly took over the false sincerity of his face. No one could see his expression but her from this angle.

He had seen an opportunity to cause trouble, something irresistible to the Joker, but also, he had been looking for something exactly like this on their walk, some situation he could put her in that would help snap her out of her trance-like state. Being on stage seemed uncomfortable enough to force her to think again, to craft something that would get her out of it.

She stood there, still stunned. "Ok, honey," he said, irritation beginning to edge into his voice. "Up you go!"

He lifted her onto the ladder, placing her hands and feet on the rungs so that she was starting to climb to the to the plywood platform above. She looked back down at him with accusing eyes as she grabbed one rung after the other, the whole structure swaying slightly as she reached the top. It must have been just about one story tall, not a massive height for onlookers, but once she was on top looking down, it seemed quite tall indeed. She had no idea what to say, finding herself standing there on the platform, looking out at the large crowd below. She knew their anger wasn't directed at her, but her ridiculous dress and the seriousness of their faces did not help calm her worries.

The Joker was below chatting with the previous speaker. "Just stage fright, she'll snap out of it."

As she sometimes did in moments of panic, her mind retreated to the words imprinted there since childhood. Her terrified expression turned to one of blank calm, and the murmurs from the crowd began to quiet in expectation. Something about the figure in the red dress seemed like an omen to them. She was a strange vision, like some kind of avenging angel that had appeared there.

Her voice rang out, surprising both for how well it carried and for its femininity in the male-dominated crowd.

"Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places a plain.

"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword…"

The simple words seemed to strike a deep chord with the crowd, and they began to cheer with a volume and intensity that not only alarmed Annie, but also caused the Joker to take action. Someone had a gun and a shot rang out into the sky, the mass of people so riled up that they just cheered more with the sound instead of cowering at it.

His tone completely changed from his mischievous teasing earlier as he yelled up to her, "Stop, kitten, get down, now." She obeyed, crawling on her hands and knees to the edge of the platform and endeavoring to get her grasp on the ladder again. She managed to climb halfway down, even with the difficult dress, and then she felt his arms grabbing her from behind and taking her the rest of the way. He set her feet on the ground and grabbed her hand as they looked for a way out. People were rushing underneath the scaffolding, heading toward the central checkpoint on the other side of the bridge. The plywood platform began to teeter and shake with the rushing bodies.

The Joker took her hand and at first ran with the crowd, because there really was no other option. Once the mass of people spread out on the bridge, there was more room to maneuver, and he was able to weave them in and out of the streams of people. He moved so fast, she had trouble keeping up, but he kept a secure grasp on her hand that she knew wouldn't waver. Finally they were out of the rush of people and could turn back to her apartment. They began to walk at a normal pace again, and he swung their hands back and forth like they were on the most lighthearted of strolls. He wore a sly smile, while she had a fearful expression from what she had just witnessed.

"Well, that was very interesting…" he said. She didn't know how to respond, still processing what had happened. When they passed the next alleyway, he suddenly slid off the main street into it, taking her with him. He pulled her close, his hands finding easy purchase on her waist and her thigh under the high slit of the dress. "You were so beautiful there, looking up at that platform with those scared eyes."

[] (Explicit portion removed)

He smiled and took her hand, straightening her dress over the mess he had made of her, and they both ran back in the direction of her building. A smile spread across her face and he could hear her laugh trying to keep up with him, as they ran together down the street, drunk with each other.

Late into the night, the van arrived near Annie's building to take the Joker on a special patrol he had wanted to complete, checking on key locations in the city. This had been a long day for the driver, and he didn't have a lot of patience for the Joker's antics. He headed inside to see what was going on. He soon found himself in the hallway outside her apartment, and not hearing anything from inside, ignored the warnings from the two men stationed there and took matters into his own hands, opening the door. He walked in and called, "Hey, the van…" He immediately regretted it.

The moonlight was the only illumination in the room, but he could easily see the details of their bodies, intertwined and naked. The paint was nearly gone from the Joker's face and it instead marked their bodies like some kind of jungle camouflage, smudges and splashes of it glowing everywhere on their skin in the half-light. They looked over at the intruder at the same time - the Joker with his eyes alert and fiery like a lion on top of its prey, her eyes dazed and misty and her lips parted with heavy breaths. Fear rooted the driver to the spot.

"I'm. Not. Done," the Joker growled darkly, fixing him in his gaze and slowly enunciating every word. The driver shook off the terror that held him and turned quickly, running from the room and into the hallway, sprinting away without a backward glance. He kept running into the streets of Gotham, abandoning the van. He likely left Gotham that night, knowing that the best way to escape the Joker's wrath would be to leave the city.

[] (Explicit portion removed)

Author's note: [spoilers!] I hope I didn't disturb anyone too much with the speed of their relationship development - I just really felt that once Annie's hesitation was gone, the floodgates would open. It made sense to me. Though the Joker here is pretty chatty lol, I thought they would both express themselves better physically than verbally. I apologize if any of this is rough around the edges - it's a new type of writing for me. I think some portions are special and hope at least those came across well.

This is fanfic, so of course I don't own any characters from The Dark Knight (Joker, Batman, etc.). The main female character is original.

Image attributions:

Forest Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons / “Haltern am See, Hohe Mark -- 2020 -- 6883” / CC BY-SA 4.0

Woodland phlox Jay Sturner from USA, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Prairie trillium USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab from Beltsville, Maryland, USA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons