A/N: When the scene opens on the Joker sitting with his head bowed, you can hear Harley's laugh faintly in the background, like he's hearing her laugh in his head-it helped me write this one shot. Hope you guys enjoy, though it's rather sad.

Johnny Frost entered the elevator and pressed the button that would take him up to the penthouse. He leaned against the wall and took off his sunglasses, staring blankly at the door in front of him as the elevator soundlessly and smoothly moved up floor after floor.

It had been months now since Harley Quinn had disappeared. Frost had sent out the best people he could find to track her down for the Joker but it was as if the woman had disappeared off the face of the earth. There were moments when Frost wondered if the Bat had finally given in to revenge and gotten rid of her, yet the boss hadn't even seemed to entertain the possibility. J had never told him the exact circumstances of Quinn's disappearance, only that the Bat had been involved. At first the Joker had seemed to expect her to reappear on her own-but the longer she was gone the more uncharacteristic and strange (relatively strange) his behavior became. Frost had suspected his boss had never been the same man after meeting the psychiatrist known as Harleen Quinzel at Arkham and bringing her back-with a new name-to rule Gotham next to him. The past few months had only confirmed his suspicion.

No one had seen the Joker for over three days now. Any messages and calls Frost made went unanswered and his instinct told him to stay away from the penthouse. At first he had tried to take care of things himself but people were starting to ask questions he couldn't answer and he knew better than to make any big decisions without J's approval. After a shootout at the club that night, there was nothing else to be done but attempt to talk to the Joker face to face. Frost knew he was the most loyal and competent right hand man J could ever hope to find. Hopefully J remembered that. Johnny hadn't been scared of the boss (for the most part) or death for a long time, but he still enjoyed life. He'd hate to leave it.

The elevator opened on to the small entrance hallway to the penthouse and Frost stepped out. As soon as the elevator doors slid shut behind him, he heard a loud crash behind the door to the penthouse. He paused for a short second before raising his hand and knocking on the door. "Boss?" There was no answer, just another loud crash. He thought he might have heard J's voice as well, or a groan, but he couldn't be sure.

He hesitated for one more second before making up his mind. Frost was not a man who ever waited long before making his decisions. Indecision was never rewarded in his profession.

He reached out and turned the doorknob, intuition telling him it would be unlocked. It opened with a faint creak, revealing the dimly lit front room. Frost entered and stopped on the step, door hanging open behind him, his gaze moving across the room in shock.

The room was trashed. All the furniture lay upended and gutted with what looked like knife slashes to Frost. Drinks from the turned over minibar had stained the floor. Open bottles and broken ones, smashed dishes and wine glasses, and other various litter and glass were scattered across the floor. The grand piano looked as if a bat had been taken to it. There was writing all over the walls.

Frost's eyes fell on a pile of seemingly random objects collected in a pile. Guns, knives, full bottles of alcohol...baby clothes? Most ominous of all, he saw that the paraphernalia in the pile had begun to be arranged in orderly, concentric circles in the middle of the room. The Joker was a man of chaos. If the boss was starting to put things in order, Frost knew something was seriously, dangerously wrong.

He heard another groan, clearly audible this time, and his eyes snapped over to one of the upended couches close to the wall, half hidden by the battered grand piano. He stepped down and crossed the room, glass and paper crunching underneath his shoes. Frost stepped around the couch and looked down at the huddled figure of the Joker lying against it, one hand clutching the torn fabric and the other holding his head.

J looked up at him blearily through bloodshot eyes. The man was drunk-blackout drunk, and Johnny had never seen him even slightly inebriated. The only time he ever saw the boss drink was at the club or discussing business, and even then it was as if J only showed any interest in it for the show. Frost supposed that when you were already crazy and didn't care about anything in the world, you didn't need alcohol to handle it.

"Where is she?" the Joker asked him. Frost had no clue how the boss was still able to talk. His clothes were rumpled and stained, his usually slicked back hair disheveled-yet another sight that Frost had never witnessed before tonight. The Joker might have been a man of chaos, but his living quarters and appearance were always immaculately attended to.

"Where is she?" he asked Frost again. "I want her."

Frost slowly knelt next to him. "We're still looking for her, boss," he said quietly. "We haven't found her yet."

J groaned again and hung his head against the couch, shutting his eyes. "I want her. I want her. Find her. Find her, Frost."

"I will, boss," Frost said. "We're gonna find her." He fell silent, considering the man in front of him.

He watched as J rocked back and forth, twisting and clutching at his green hair. The thought crossed his mind that he had the most powerful and dreaded person in Gotham City at his disposal, at his mercy, if he had had any reason for or interest in taking advantage of it. If he hadn't been sure that the boss was so drunk he wouldn't remember a second of the night in the morning, he would have left for another city now, because he was almost certain that J couldn't let him live after seeing the man like this.

"I want her, I want her...I need her...where is she...where is she..." the boss muttered, still rocking against the couch. He seemed to have already forgotten Frost was there.

"We'll bring her back, boss," Frost said, still kneeling on the ground and waiting for a sign of how to safely handle the situation. "We'll find her."

J moved his hand away and looked at him again. The man didn't look like he'd slept at all the past few nights either-yet the usually insane look in his eyes had been replaced by a dead, hopeless one.

"I left her," J said to him. "I left her...I thought she'd be fine...I thought she'd be fine, Frost...I thought she'd come back..."

Johnny had no idea what J was talking about. He stayed silent, waiting. "She can't swim...I knew she couldn't swim...why'd I do that, Frost...why'd I leave her..."

"I don't know," Frost answered, hoping it was an acceptable answer because it was the only one he could give.

"She was scared...she was scared...she's never scared..." J's words became unintelligible for a moment before Frost could hear them again. "Is she dead Frost...did I kill her...is that why she's haunting me...tell me..."

"No, boss. I don't think she's dead," Johnny said, and he wasn't lying. He didn't believe that Quinn was dead. Even though he had wondered if the Bat had gotten rid of her, he didn't really believe it. If Quinn was dead, they would have found out about it by now. J stared at him before leaning against the couch again, shivering.

Frost was not a man of many emotions. It was probably why he and the boss got along so well. Yet as he looked down at the huddled heap of the Joker in front of him, he became aware of feeling something he couldn't really remember ever feeling-pity. Pity for the pale king who had lost his queen.

"Why don't we get you up and in bed, boss?" Frost asked. "You look like you could use some sleep."

J flinched and grimaced, holding his hand up in front of his face again. "Not in that room...not in that bed where we...where we..." J stopped and bowed his head, shuddering. "It's hell in there without her...don't take me in there..."

Frost felt the pity again. "Alright. Gimme a sec." He stood up and walked over to the other couch, what was left of its legs sticking up in the air. He turned it back over and considered the slashed cushions, deciding they would be comfortable enough for a drunk man who had no idea where he was. He walked back over to J, who looked up at him helplessly.

He knelt back down again to put his hands under the boss's arms to lift him up when J started and looked around wildly, grabbing his arm. "Did you hear that, Frost? Did you hear her? I heard her laughing..."

"No, J," Johnny said quietly, moving the boss's hand from his arm. "I can't hear her."

The Joker's face fell. "I can hear her laughing...I keep hearing her laughing...all the time." He paused and stared up at Frost. "That's right...it's only in my head...it's not real..." He went even more limp as Frost tried to lift him. "I just want to hear her laugh again," Frost heard him say faintly.

Frost couldn't take the feeling of pity anymore. "C'mon, boss. I'm gonna help you up and you're gonna get some rest." He finally managed to pull J up from the floor. Frost was much taller and heavier than his boss, but the boss was more muscular and heavier than he looked, especially when dead weight.

J leaned limply against him and stumbled as Frost dragged him across the room, lowering him as carefully as he could on to the couch (a difficult task) so J was lying on his stomach, head turned towards the room. Frost pulled over an empty wastebasket and stuck it beside the couch-if the boss ended up puking, Johnny would probably be the one cleaning it in the morning-before looking around for a blanket. He was sure J wouldn't know the difference, but the nagging pity in his chest as he looked down at the shaking figure made him do this one last thing for his boss.

He walked to the door on the other side of the front room, the one that led to the Joker and Harley Quinn's bedroom. It had been a while since the last rare occasion he'd been inside, and whenever he was it was brief. He stepped inside and turned on the light. Once more that night, he stopped in surprise.

Clothes and shoes and jewelry were piled throughout the room, pulled from the closet and left on the floor, draped messily over the unmade bed. They were all Harley's clothes-clothes Frost had seen her wear while dancing at the club and clothes she'd worn in the middle of run-ins with the law or the Bat. His eyes also fell on pajamas and negligees and other clothes he hadn't seen, clothes that in any other circumstances would have left him both intrigued and uncomfortable. He stepped over to the bed and tried to find a loose blanket, pushing aside the piles of clothes, when his eye caught the brightly colored make-up streaks all over them. At first he thought it was left over from whenever Harley had last worn them-until he remembered that she hadn't been here to wear them in months, until he realized that the make-up was still fresh. He closed his eyes, the pity washing over him again, as the embarrassingly private image of J kneeling by the bed trying to catch Harley's scent flashed into his mind.

Frost finally found a musty blanket folded in the closet and went back out to the front room. J's eyes were closed as Frost unfolded the blanket and tossed it over him, looking down at him for a few more moments and around the room before starting to walk towards the door.

"Find her, Frost," he heard J murmur. When he looked behind him he saw a desperate look in J's eyes before they closed again.

"I will, boss," Frost said. "I promise." J didn't answer but Frost was sure he'd heard. Not that he would remember in the morning.

Frost walked out the still open front door and shut it quietly behind him before getting back on the elevator. I'll close down the club for a few days while I find someone else to supervise, he thought.

The elevator opened, dropping him off on his hall, and he walked towards his room to get started on finding the Joker's girl. The next time J asked "Where is she?" Frost was going to have an answer-if only to stop that horrible feeling of pity in his chest.