Chapter Text
The metallic stench of congealing blood resonates of the grimy walls. 'They were white once' he thinks, ‘maybe’. A scream rings out from the patient beside him. That's what they are, patients, or so they were told. Told everything they needed to know – independent thought prohibited. He was not allowed to think here, no one was, but he does so anyways, never much of a stickler for rules. A melodious gurgle – someone was choking on blood. Once music to his ears, not this time. She didn't deserve it. An electric hum buzzes to life and a Nazi with the biggest tool he's ever seen (and wasn't that a lovely pun) jams him in the ribs with a modified cattle probe. Jack bites through his ball gag. Tastes piss. Everything tastes like piss around here, smells like it to – except her.
She smells lovely. Sometimes she lets him rest his head in her lap and strokes those sweet scented fingers through his hair. She never complains about the stench or the food. Didn’t even frown when they booked her in his cell. Never cried. Never begged for mercy. Not once did her spirit succumb to the nightly beatings of overzealous guards, or the initiation rape by her fellow inmates to joyous hoots of perverted orderlies. Things designed to drive you mad – to justify the treatment.
Another scream. Softer this time. Giving up. Like everyone else did. A vivisection. Now that was cruel. Crueler than anything he's ever done to a woman. Ladies were delicate, should be treated with some suave. Not butchered on camera without a drop of anesthesia. She deserved better. They all did. But they could all burn in hell. He only ever cared about her. The only one who did. He attempts to sigh through his gag while simultaneously swallow down a glob of spit. The cattle probe announces itself functional again and charges for his ribs.
"What is that?" Kat tapped him playfully on the head.
"My baby."
" Baby?"
"Yes my baby girl Emma."
"Why Em-ma?" She shrugged.
"Mother's name." Joker stifled a yawn and turned his head in her lap, gently pressing his nose against the inside of her thigh. She giggled, which came out surprisingly melodic given that they've been denied water for three days straight. Some new experiment requiring them to be severely dehydrated, aka "dry as a sac of hair". Jack gave the ultrasound scan another neutral look.
"What was your mother's name?" she asked.
"BBB."
"BBB?"
"Biggest Bitch Betty."
"Oh." Joker liked that 'Oh' about as much as he liked talking about his mother. Time for a subject change.
"Where is she?"
"Emma?" Another tap on the head with the photograph. Kat bit her bottom lip and raked blunt nails down the bottom of his scalp, tugging gently at the knotting there. "I…I don't know. They took her from me, before she was born. I was eight month along and Emma was due in four weeks time. Some one ordered pizza in 217 and the elderly woman who lived there was deaf, so I buzzed the guy up for her. Next thing I remember, a man was standing in my bedroom when I stepped out of the shower. He stuck me with something and I went into labor. I remember hearing her screaming, and I knew she was calling for me to help her but I couldn't even move a finger. By the time I was found, he was in the wind and two days later at the hospital I was arrested and sent here for a psych evaluation. Apparently I aborted my own baby by inducing labor then sliced her to pieces when she was born alive." She paused to wipe away a lone tear traveling crookedly down her cheek, "If I couldn't remember what really happed I would have killed myself long ago."
Joker frowned, strangely sympathetic. Love – no such thing. But what if? Still how can she love something she never saw, never held, never used, never bounced on the pavement or drove down the street? Maybe a woman thing. Or a baby thing. Then again why did people make such a big deal about babies? Wasn't that hard to make one. Why go all out to steal someone else’s? Crazy folk no doubt. Crazy soon to be dead folk. Arching his neck in her lap Jack gave her an upside down frown. 'Need to say something,’ he thinks. ‘Cut the power before she floods the cell.'
"I'll break you out of here sweet cheeks." Kat smiled. Fat tears rolled loose and dripped off of her chin. Leaning down she pressed a gentle kiss to the top of his nose.
"Time for bed Jay."
"Come on mommy, we gotta hurry or eh... we might get stuck here," Jack gestures at the ten or so orderlies attempting to break free from the rubber cement on the floor. The foaming liquid inches closer to his hunched over cellmate.
"I can't. Ah! It hurts Jay. I can't walk!" Jack ran over and, easily lifting her bridle style, rushes for the exit. Half way to the main road he knows something's wrong. Arms that were so tightly woven around his neck when they ran through the door, now hung loose with barely any strength behind them. Stopping short of the bushes where he knew his lackeys hid the truck, Jack gently lowers Kat to the ground; unable to look away from her perspiring, yellow face and dull, glassy eyes.
"Where does it hurt?" he says. She gestured in the general vicinity of her privates. "Oh boy," he sighs, scratching the nape of his neck with one purple clad hand, "or girl, definitely girl. Ok…girl, let's have a…look-see shall we." He bravely tugs her shirt up at the same time he tears her pants down a few inches. A black bruise roughly the size of a dinner plate floats menacingly atop her naval. Around it puffy stitches ooze infected, purple pus. 'Damn' and he really loved that color. "Ah... I think you're…gonna be ok. We just need to get you in the car and then I'll get a doctor to…"
"No."
"Wh-"
"No Jack. I'm dying. I know that. I can feel it." She strains for a moment, reaching up to brush his cheek with one shaking hand. "Promise me…promise me you'll find my baby?" Joker nervously glances away. "Promise me" she insists.
"Ok, I promise, but I don't even know where to start looking and really you’ve got me confused with a good guy like Batman, or that detective in ultra nerd specks…" He looks back but it is to late. Sighing hard Jack lowers her lids. A sign of respect he wouldn't be caught dead showing anyone else. "Peace baby girl," he mutters, rises and walks away while the beat of police helicopters, wailing sirens, and frantic, desperate, screams play her funeral march.