AN:

Hi everyone! Welcome to my Dark Knight fanfic, "Dark Humor." It's loosely based on the Dark Knight events all the way up to Harvey and Rachel's wiring to explosives…the part where Batman has to choose on whether to save Rachel or Harvey Dent. From that point onward, this fanfic is purely creative speculation, towards the "what-ifs" that COULD have (but probably wouldn't) happened if Batman had chosen to save Harvey Dent rather than Rachel (and therefore, ended up saving Rachel because Joker switched the addresses on him, remember?)

Meaning Harvey Dent is dead, Gotham is in chaos, Rachel is distraught and victimized, and ends up changing dramatically from then on, becoming darker, making choices she never thought she would make to get her own vengeance…but what if the Joker steps in on the aftermath of Harvey's death to intervene and take advantage of her vulnerability?

Yes, this is a JokerxRachel fanfic (or Jokachel for short). There's not many out there, and for some reason I really like extremely unlikely/impossible pairings if following the original storyline of things, and this is obviously one of them. I also love making these pairings as realistic as possible. Obviously Rachel and the Joker will have a very twisted relationship, if even considered one. And obviously it's going to take a lot to put that twisted relationship into realistic proportions.

So I'm going to try and do that within this extremely dark little fanfic that I'm ready to pour my heart and soul into because I love the Joker and I don't like a one-dimensional vulnerable portrayal of Rachel and I like the two of them together. Sound good?

Bear with me. This first chapter is gonna suck…but I promise it will pick up later on! Please read and review because I love and reply to all my feedback…and enjoy.

Dark Humor

One

It had been a day since his death, yet she could mourn forever.

"I'm sorry, Rachel."

It was empty everywhere. Emptiness was inside of her body, cold and pervading and relentless, flowing through her veins like poison. Emptiness filled the air around her with a stale deadness, filled even her 

eyes to the point that it was no longer possible to her to shed the once endless stream of tears. Her mind was empty, devoid of any logic, any reasoning or understanding as to what was happening, who the voice belonged to that spoke to her now in such soothing, desperate tones to comfort her. It was all, for a moment, wonderfully, ecstatically empty, her world for once free of all the chaos and fear and terror that had stricken her daily life, had always enveloped her in the vulnerability of her own humanity. The fact that her life had just been on the line, that she might have been—and very well should have been—the person to have died tonight as Gotham's most recent victim from all that bastard's madness…

"Oh, God," She moaned, her body suddenly convulsing on its own as Rachel found herself falling forward, straight into Bruce Wayne's solid, strong arms.

The tears came then, hot and piercing, a new wave of ferocious pain so strong she was sure the tears would leave scathing burn marks across her red cheeks. She was still unable to register the events in her mind; the feeling of having been restrained, tied to a chair and forced to silently count down, with her lover on the other end, the minutes before her own death. And they had both been so sure of it…both so sure she was going to be the one to die. She had accepted it. She had almost yearned for it, as sickening as it was to contemplate afterwards, because it meant keeping Harvey alive, keeping the fragile hope that had been Gotham's backbone as stable as possible amidst the destruction. Harvey Dent had never deserved to die. If anything, Rachel knew she should have been the next innocent civilian in the trail of a madman's bloody path of massacre if it meant protecting those who truly mattered.

But something had ruined it all, and she was still here. Bruce's hand was pressed against the back of her neck as she sobbed freely into his chest, not caring about her shaken display of human weakness at this very moment. Strong, almost rough fingers—a vigilante's fingers, used more to battering than comforting—tangled in her hair, almost stroking it as she shuddered and eventually calmed, her body heaving against him as if wracking for air. It hurt, this grief, this feeling she had never quite felt before in her life. It was as if Rachel had lost a vital part of herself, as if the fucking murdering bastard that had stolen Harvey's life had torn out her heart and sank his dagger straight into the bleeding, throbbing organ, cutting it away until there was nothing left but crumpled, torn arteries and something that could never possibly function on its own again.

Yet as her breathing slowed after what seemed an eternity, the woman's brain began to function again, just slightly enough that she realized Bruce was still holding her, his body still and frigid as a statue. She gave a deep, shuddering sigh that felt as if it wracked her entire body, biting her lip and tasting the own bitter salt of her tears as the very last of them ran down her cheeks in hot daggers. Raising her head hesitantly, she gazed up at Bruce Wayne's face—the face of the second most important man in her life—and saw the hardness of his almost coal-black eyes, realized the conflicting mass of emotions that lay beneath those ruddy irises.

"Bruce," She sighed, her voice shaking with the effort to restrain the emotion from her voice, "What happened? Why…why did you save me?"

Goddamn her voice, she thought, for all its shaking and glaring weakness. Every syllable was an incessant trembling, as she voiced the grim thoughts that had plagued her mind ever since Batman had thrown himself through the endless rows of barrels and almost flown to her, saving her from her would-be inevitable death.

Yet when he had come for her, when she had seen those black eyes, always sharp and resilient against the black of the mask, she had screamed. She had screamed and thrashed against her chair, had begged him to turn back, to go away, to go to Harvey ,to save him, oh god, please save him, I don't deserve this, I don't deserve this please we both know it's Harvey it has to be Harvey let me go please—

And his eyes, the entire time they had found her face, had been uncharacteristically wide with horror. She hadn't been the only one to believe something had gone terribly wrong in those final moments. When the warehouse burst into flames, and she had shut her eyes and prayed that those fires had consumed her in her moment of panic, had even struggled and fought in Bruce's iron grip to reach out for that fire, to somehow make things right and save Harvey in the process—she knew it wasn't supposed to be like this. Her life was an accidental occurrence, and even she had not thought it deserved saving.

Those dark eyes met hers now with the same confusion that she herself felt. Rachel bit her quivering lip and fought back a heavy sigh, knowing they had all been victims yet again. Victims of another trick from the sadist that had thrown them all into the jaws of chaos, had damned them into deserting and causing the deaths of each other through choices only amusing to the insane and unredeemable. Her body, fragile and shaking to the bone, was filled with sudden adrenaline at the thought of the murdering bastard—at the thought of her hands around his neck, the thought of Batman pummeling his face to a pump, and perhaps even herself, turning the knife upon his goddamned smiling face—

"Rachel."

Bruce's voice penetrated her thoughts, brought a wave of sudden, almost alien calm to her frenzied emotions. Rachel saw his face through her blur of fresh tears, blinking them away with an inaudible curse at her damned tear ducts. His gaze was wiped free of the conflicted emotion, now, wrinkled only with a worry that cast an almost sickly pall over his hardened face. She sighed again, before forcing a smile to crack upon unwilling lips,

"Bruce…thank you for saving me. Thank you," The words felt so artificial coming from her lips, yet perhaps she could force herself, or even Bruce, to believe them if they were repeated, "But…I can't think of anything else right now, other than what's going to happen to Gotham…to everyone…because Harvey…"

Damnit, Rachel, get a hold of yourself!

Her foot dug hard into the floor beneath her, fists clenching and biting into skin. Rachel bit her lip and almost tasted blood with the strength of it, turning her head to the side. The guilt washed through her 

like a wave of nausea, guilt so strong she could feel it emanating from Bruce's body and tainting his penthouse.

"Rachel, Gotham will be all right," Bruce replied, gazing not at her, but at the window nearby, his eyes narrowed and turned so she wouldn't be able to see the emotions upon his face, "Harvey…Harvey wouldn't have wanted any of us to give in, and you know that. We all know that. Not one of us is going to back down and give into the Joker's demands. We're going to…"

He hesitated, then, as Rachel felt herself flinch at the murderer's name. Her teeth clenched; her body burned with the sudden onslaught of adrenaline and rage that threatened to consume her at that very moment.

"…We're going to avenge Harvey's murder, and bring the Joker to justice. We'll stop all the chaos. We'll get him, Rachel, I swear to you we will."

He turned towards her, suddenly, his tall frame almost towering over her, his eyes pleading now, with some other look upon his face…something all too familiar from the days when Rachel had just met Harvey, had just gotten to know the man she had so loved after Bruce himself. It was the longing in his eyes, amidst the death and destruction that they had just survived through, the longing that struck Rachel as the most disgusting thing to have happened within the hour.

"Bruce," She hissed, and then it, too, became an exhausted sigh, "Bruce…I just…"

She pressed her hands against the glass of the window before them, gazing out across the towering buildings of Gotham, reduced to almost menacingly black figures under the brilliant gold and jasper of the setting sun. Her stomach heaved again with the nauseous, contorted waves of emotion; the horrific guilt, the aching grief, the agonizing weakness, the unrestrained rage…

Rachel didn't realize her fingers had been trembling violently against the glass until Bruce's warm hand pressed against her own. How strange and cold her hand had felt just then, as stiff and dead as a corpse's. A grim, dark humor bubbled within her mind at the thought; perhaps she hadn't made it out alive, after all. Perhaps she really had died back there, and this was her ghost, speaking to Batman, grieving over the loss of her loved one. She entertained the thought for awhile until she realized the absurdity of it, and her mind struggled to focus again on the here and now, on what she would do next with her life, what she could do while Gotham was mourning the death of its one, true hero for decades and decades to come.

"Rachel, please, please get some rest here for the night. After what happened…after almost losing you, and after…after everything else, I…"

She shut her eyes, not wanting to see the look on Bruce's face as he spoke, not wanting to see his own trembling fingers upon her own. Not while they weren't Harvey's—not while Harvey's voice hadn't been her last. How unfair it was, that her voice was his finality, and his had not been the same for her…how cruel and sick it was, like a joke. Like a damned joke. God, could the rage get any worse? It twisted inside 

of her like a worm, as if it were eating away at all that remained of her feeble composition, nagging and horrific…

"Bruce, it's okay," She replied mechanically, snapping her eyes opened again, "Really…I'll be okay. I can't…thank you enough for helping me, really. But…"

Forcibly, Rachel pressed her other hand over his own, the dead coldness swallowing up his warm skin like a silent finality,

"I need to be alone. I need…to think, and to deal with things. And I need…"

She took in a deep, hard breath, so rapidly her lungs burned with the effort,

"I need to go back to headquarters right now. I need to think about my job. To think about Gotham, and so should you."

Bruce's eyes hardened in protest; he jerked his hand away from hers, his brows knitting over his darkened gaze, walking slightly towards her as he spoke,

"Rachel, I don't want to leave you by yourself, unprotected and hurt. The Joker just captured and tried to kill you, and who knows how long he's going to stay pent up in his little prison cell? I can't let that happen to you…not again! You need to stay here tonight, where you can fully recover, and I'm sure Harvey wanted that too, I'm sure he would want you to be taken care of!"

God, he has to be joking.

Rachel's eyes shut again, if only to control the sudden wave of fresh anger, stronger than ever before. Her emotions had been turbulent, unpredictable, raging like a storm since her near-death incident, and now she was fighting as hard as she could to keep it at bay, if only to keep herself from lashing out regrettably against her savior.

"Bruce, please," She replied in a near-hiss, her teeth clenched tight against tongue, "Please don't act like Harvey right now, not when no one can ever replace him. I don't really care about my safety anymore, and I doubt the Joker will be bothering me anytime soon since he's locked away."

For a moment, she almost regretted the words that came so harshly from her mouth—Bruce's gaze seemed hurt, yet a sickening sense of smugness filled her at her retaliation,

"Now…please, just let me go to headquarters. Alfred can drive me, if you want…but I need to take care of myself. I'm a big girl. I've been through hell tonight, and really, this is where I have to go back to doing my job. Hell, maybe I'll even have a chat with the Joker while I'm down there."

As she said the last sentence, she knew it had been originally intended as a joke, perhaps to lighten the mood—yet both she and Bruce's bodies grew tense at the name, and her teeth clenched again, her blood hot and sharp with the violent images in her mind. Was it possible to be so sickeningly, wantonly chaotic in her almost lusty desires to enact pain upon another human being? She would have thought it 

impossible before, but now, as she suddenly stared down at her hands, Rachel could only see them reddened with blood.

Stop it, you're being delirious, you've just been through extreme trauma and you're thinking of revenge. It's a normal reaction, your anger…you just need to sleep through the night, and you need to get yourself back together. You need to fix yourself again, put things back to normal.

Nothing would ever be normal anymore.

"Rachel, please. I can tell by your expression, you're not okay. You're not going to be okay for awhile, just let me…"

She cut off the pleading of his voice automatically, her tone curt and sharp,

"Let you what? Comfort me? Return to how things were before Harvey? Please, Bruce. There's no going back. I was going to marry him, and I wasn't going to look back…not even for you."

Rachel turned on her heel, then, her head hanging slightly; she knew the surprise that would be etched upon his face, surmising that perhaps he hadn't read her letter yet after all. Her body lurched with uncomfortable pain at the thought of her old friend's sadness—but at the same time she also felt that horrific smugness intensify, as if she were enforcing her own strength through playing at his weakness.

None of it made sense. But she was so sick now, so sick and tired…she just needed to sleep. She just needed to press rewind, to wake up, to make this all go away.

"Rachel."

The attorney turned on her heel and summoned up the remainder of her shaky, convoluted strength to propel her legs forward through the room, towards the nearest exit. Bruce's last word had been more of a submission, of a grim farewell than anything else, and she knew it. As her heels clacked in a soft staccato against the tiled floor, she welcomed the continued rage that rippled throughout her body and bloomed in her heart, gazing out at the final tendrils of the setting sun through the penthouse window.

There was nothing but smeared blood across the sky.

oOo

"Where to, dear? Your apartment?"

Alfred's cheery voice seemed constantly unaffected by the happenings around it, as if the only reliable thing in Gotham city. His constant calm was almost comforting to Rachel as she mentally staggered through the overwhelming changes, the tragedy, and the pain. A small, genuine smile almost prickled across her face as she replied, as smoothly as possible,

"Not this evening, Alfred. I'll be going to headquarters. I have some work to do before the day is over."

A long pause came from the front seat, where Alfred had been driving. She nestled her body against the comfortably cushioned backseat, wanting with an overwhelming urge to curl her arms around her knees and lay her head upon them in the fetal position. Like a child. Like an animal, even…so desperate for comfort amidst fear. Disgust wracked her nerves at that thought, at being so pathetically weak, and she wiped away the images, replaced them only with cold determination.

Alfred replied, then, his voice still as cheery as before, though considerably lower,

"Are you sure that's the best course of action for the night? Master Wayne said you were going there, of course, but you do need rest and recovery for the morning. Gotham needs you more than ever since the other day's events…and so do we. Even Batman needs time to recover."

But what I want to do…is get justice the fastest way possible. Get some retribution for the dead. Something for…for Harvey.

Rachel's eyes closed for what seemed to be the umpteenth time that evening; it was a habit she was getting, perhaps to escape from a stressful situation.

But there's never any escape. Didn't you learn that only yesterday? It follows you, it haunts you, it hunts you…the memory, for the rest of your life. Or at least until you can do something about it.

"Ms. Dawes?"

Rachel took a breath and opened her eyes, gazing into Alfred's own worried pair through the rear-view mirror. Her fingers clenched and unclenched against her lap.

"Alfred, thank you for the concern. But Batman overtaxes himself…and I know how much I can handle. I'm not going to do anything…just talk. Nothing more."

Alfred's eyes hardened, if that were at all possible for his gentle features. Rachel knew he could read her even better than Bruce, perhaps because of his years of experience, encompassing hardships and moments of perseverance that she would be unable to even think of, yet alone see herself experiencing in her near future. He would know she was seeking an encounter with the Joker, some interrogation time alone while he was imprisoned, and she didn't even need to voice her intent. Alfred could see it all in her expression, her demeanor, as if she were a book to be consistently laid open for his reading pleasure.

Again, the thought of her own horrific vulnerability; of being physically, mentally weak, surrounded by almost supernaturally strong criminals and vigilantes…it brought back the nausea in her gut, the sickening sensation of guilt that was so strong it could only be accompanied by a jarring pain. Always the mouse amidst the hungry cats. The prey. The bait.

"Keep in mind, if it is the Joker you seek to interrogate, to even get a scrap of information out of…he will be unyielding. He is a man out only for seeing others suffer, Ms. Dawes, just as you were recently 

subject to. I believe only encountering him again will lead to frustration, anger…anything but what you may wish for."

"I just want to talk to him, Alfred…just…"

Her words trailed; she clenched the soft leather cushioning of the backseat, her nails scraping against its surface, unable to decipher any logic in her intentions or compulsion to interrogate the criminal who Batman couldn't even truly crack. All Rachel knew was that her emotions; her raw, hurt, ravaged emotions, were possessing her, pushing her forward to this madman, to see how he really played with his victims, to get into his mind. It was seemingly impossible, yet…God, if she could look into the eyes of Harvey's killer, to know he would be locked up in his little cell forever, suffering solitude, that the horror was finally over, that Harvey was the last person he managed to…

As if he could read her mind, Alfred nodded, nothing but sympathy and understanding in his almost heavy voice,

"Of course, Rachel. I understand completely."

oOo

She had Alfred drop her off a few blocks before the station; she needed the walk, and she needed it badly. Rachel hadn't been in fresh, actual air of the outside world since the incident yesterday night—well, not mentally, at least, not amidst her horror and panicked state of mind as Batman had pulled her out of harm's way and taken her directly to the hospital, and then, ignoring any arguments on her part, straight to his penthouse for complete recovery. It was a sick joke, the way Bruce thought he could still command certain aspects of her life—they way he would hoist her around at times, like she was some delicate little china doll, something of glass in a world of hard, unforgiving surfaces, waiting to be shattered the moment he'd turn his head in the opposite direction.

But she wasn't so completely helpless. She was still on her two feet at this moment, still standing, still walking resolutely forward (and quite literally) since the death of her lover. Of course, it still stung; of course, her mind was reduced to shambles at the moment, and she was being pulled towards the police station just for the sake of relishing those sweet victorious emotions that would come with seeing the Joker imprisoned…but it would only help. It would only get better, wouldn't it, now that the greatest tragedy that could have possibly hit Gotham had indeed happened, and anything more was unimaginable?

It could only get better after things got worse. Alfred had said something like that to her before, and she was repeating it now as a silent mantra in her head. The station would be coming up soon, and she raised her head at the thought; she couldn't let them see her weak, vulnerable, not for one moment. Not when she wanted to interrogate the Joker. They would think she'd be incapable of it, still recovering, her mind still in the throes of chaos and panic from losing him…

Shut the fuck up and concentrate. You're at the doors.

Yes, she would be fine. She would be completely—

"Oh my fucking God."

Everything was burning.

The police headquarters was reduced to a mass of rubble and debris, as if it had imploded in on itself, the rustic building a hilltop of brick in uneven places, traces of roaring, seething fire and destruction still raging in others. Her knees buckled beneath her slacks, her hand clutched toward the nearest rail of the stairway before the crumbling building, breath short and frantic in utter disbelief. What had happened? What was going on? What…

A shower of paper fluttered amidst the debris before her—and as she bent forward, she recognized them as cards. Countless cards buried amidst brick and rubble, imbued with the face she so despised, the face she hated, the face that made bile rise to her throat and that murderous instinct pump in her veins yet again. Pushing away her nausea, her trembling, she made her way across the stairs and through the nearly unhinged doors.

The explosion had been recent; perhaps an hour ago, perhaps even less. She was coughing against an onslaught of thick, churning smoke and stepping across more and more fallen brick and wood and debris, making her way through what used to be the solid remnants of headquarters, traversing across vacated jail cells, some smattered with rapidly drying blood. She wondered, her heart pulsing heavily against her ears, whether the bastard was still here, whether he had escaped, whether this had all been his doing in the first place.

Yet she knew it was. Who else would be so disgusting, so heartless? Forcing back another potentially loud cough against the smoke, Rachel stalked across a pathway of familiar bodies tangled beneath her—officers caught in the explosion, their faces mangled and frozen still in death; some wide-eyed, some as if they were sleeping, some wounded and disfigured. The source of the explosion came up soon enough—she bit her lip and covered her mouth, fighting the fresh wave of bile and nausea at the sight of the bloated-looking former prisoner, his stomach torn completely open, innards on display and slashed in a bloody red, dripping mess for all the world to see. God, the smell, the thickness of his blood…could a human actually bleed so much?

Her heels were slick against the ever-growing red pool of the man's insides, and at first she was afraid she would slip into the sea of bloody red, struggle and drown in it all. A dark, humorous streak followed that thought, and she had the sickening urge to laugh—desperation against her situation, which only seemed to grow worse and worse. If he was still here…

If he's still here, I'm going to see him. And maybe he can finish the job he had intended by wiring me up in the first place. The job that ended the way it wasn't supposed to end. Maybe then it will be fair this way. Or maybe…maybe I could avenge Harvey…

That thought seemed funnier than that of drowning. She actually fought the conscious urge to laugh; yet it was a bitter chuckle, knowing her efforts would be futile.

But how could she live with herself not even trying?

How could she live with herself at all anymore?

Rachel pushed all thoughts aside at the sight of a familiar desk nearby—her desk, where she knew some of Harvey's possessions had been stored before…the incident. She quickly ran towards it, a sense of relief flooding her veins for once in these past two horrific days. With a jerk of the cabinet, Rachel rummaged through desperately, hissing rapid expletives beneath her breath in frustration as she searched, and finally pulled out one of Harvey's pistols, which she knew to still be loaded.

At least I'll be armed before I die.

But there could be no one here. The building was relatively empty, and she knew the firemen and hospital trucks would arrive soon enough. A destroyed headquarters would not go unnoticed, and the bastard would have run like a dog with his tail between his legs, slobbering his filth all over anyone who crossed his path. She turned on her heel, knowing the silence could only mean that he was not there after all—

And then a hideously familiar cackle rang just behind her tensed body, and Rachel stood frozen in place.

There was a scream—a man's scream, also familiar, yet contorted, twisted in what could only be incredible pain…

No. Not again. This needs to stop!

Without thinking, her feet sprang forward, lunging for the nearest room in which the incessant, high-pitched, shrieking laughter ensued. Rachel had no time to consider what she was getting herself into, what she would find, what her chances even were of coming out of this alive.

The door to the interrogation room was wide open, and it was waiting for her.

She stepped through.

Again, I know…not the best first chapter, I apologize. By the way, I realize Joker's escape from jail in the movie went on the same time Rachel and Harvey were kidnapped, yet I guess I decided to take creative liberties in my own hands and use this as the opportune moment for their first encounter. His escape is still within a short amount of time since then, anyways. I just got the inspiration for this 'fic after reading some really amazingly good Jokachel fanfics earlier in the day and now I'm writing this all night because I think I am in love with the Dark Knight and if I could marry a movie we would be stepping down the aisle right now…haha. Anyway, reviews are appreciated and vital to my updating…and if I want to continue this or not. Oh, there WILL be a Chapter 2 very very soon, because that's where Joker comes in, and I really am eager to write and portray him…like, craaaaaaazy eager. But now I have to sleep because it's 6 a.m. and I just finished typing this out and ahhhh sleep!! 'Til next chapter, everyone!