VII
Showdown

You want me?
Well, fuckin' come and find me—
I'll be waiting.

-Radiohead, Talk Show Host

The unconsciousness is not complete, but it is persistent. I stir from its grips long enough to see that we're still on the move—I can see the street lights, blurring together in the dark outside of the car window. My head is resting on something warm and alive, I can feel the weight of someone's forearm lying carelessly across my clavicle, and I can smell smoke, can hear his raspy voice humming away close to my ear.

I let out a weak groan of protest and attempt to sit up. The tuneless humming gives way to absent-minded shushing, and a hand appears in my line of vision, the palm folding over my forehead, almost gentle even as it pulls me firmly back into place. The effort of trying to move, small though it was, has worn me out again, and the drugs have reduced the fear of him to a dull ripple, almost comforting in its familiarity.

Strange, I think as I give up and let him pull me back again, strange that it should end this way, me going to sleep with him at my back. That's how this whole mess began.

The darkness overtakes me then, and when I wake next, I can tell I've been in its grips for a long time.

I'm no longer in the car. I can't see very well—the room is dark—but I'm lying on an extremely hard floor and my head is fuzzy. I move slowly, stretching out, instinctively testing for injuries. My back is still sore, and I can feel the crack of dried blood as my skin shifts—certainly the result of the Joker's damaging grip in the jail. My head aches from earlier, but… the rest of me is sound. I can feel no pain anywhere else, and my hair and clothes are undisturbed. I think they just… left me here.

I'm relieved and worried by this development all at once.

Slowly, I sit up. The room is dark, but I can see dim light outlining a door frame across from me. I can't tell if there are any windows, and the sudden paranoid thought that I might not be alone in the room is quickly calmed by the fact that I can hear every little movement I make, and the room is quite silent aside from my own breathing.

That is, until I hear a fuzzy crackle, followed by his voice, obviously transmitted from some sort of electronic device: "Wakey, wakey." As the sound reaches me, I see light that wasn't there before—a dim green glow across the room from me, and as I stir towards it, he goes on: "Oh, good, you're up. Right on schedule."

The new source of light, as dim as it is, helps me see the room more clearly, and I can tell that there's nothing on the floor between it and me, so I go over. I reach down and pick it up, and can tell by the feel of it and the shape of the lights that it's a walkie-talkie. It's the simplest possible design, the plastic kind that kids use, which means he's probably somewhere nearby, as there's no way this signal can reach very far.

I feel along the side for the talk button and hold it down, speaking clearly into the device. "Where are you?"

"You know, it's funny you should ask that," he sing-songs, "because I was about to give you some homework."

My head hurts. I am in no mood for his games—but then, am I ever? Could anyone possibly enjoy being the subject of his attention? I hold the walkie out, using its limited light to look around. I wonder what's outside that door, decide that I'd rather not find out, and start to seek an alternate way out of this room as he rambles on almost absent-mindedly. "Well, not homework. You have to be home for homework, am I right? More like… warehouse work. Remember this, Em?"

Even as he speaks, I finally notice the papers on the floor, the desk and the bundle of blankets rolled together in the corner, and a chill runs up my spine. All at once, I remember my thought in the car minutes ago—hours ago—hell, maybe days ago, who knows?

The point is that I was right. I'm back where this all started. We've come full circle. This means that the game is about to end, that one of us is going to die tonight, and I'm willing to bet it won't be him.

The Joker's voice prods me, exaggeratedly disappointed. "Are you listening, Em?"

I press the talk button. "What do you want me to do?"

He chuckles, hee-hee-hee-hee, and says, "Straight to business. This is gonna be fun."

"I'm sure it'll be a blast," I say bitterly, having revised my stance on disrespect towards the Joker in the few seconds since the realization that good behavior won't keep me alive any longer first started to sink in. "But I still don't know what this is all about."

"Oh, don't worry. I'm filling you in right now." I refrain from pointing out that he's not, actually, as it will only defer his explanation, and after a second, he continues: "You ever play hide 'n seek?"

"Sure," I say, edging to the far wall and checking to see if there are perhaps some boarded-up windows I missed, because I'm damn sure that leaving through the door is a bad idea.

"It's fun, huh?"

"Super-fun." No windows. Damn. Now that I'm moving, though, I can see a black shape on the floor in the corner closest to the door—a small shape, and hopefully, I move towards it. Maybe it's something I can use as a weapon.

"But it's a kid's game," he says, affecting scorn. "You don't wanna play a kid's game, do you?"

"Well, am I wrong in thinking that a kid's game would be a lot easier than whatever you've got in mind?"

He chuckles. "Here's the deal, Em. You come find me. Hey, I'll time ya, make it interesting."

I don't think for a second that this will be as innocuous as he's making it sound. Doubtless the warehouse is full of tricks and traps meant to torment me while he watches. I'm about to make another flippant remark about the Saw series, but I've reached the corner with the black shape, and I stoop, carefully reaching for it. My fingers close over cool, heavy metal. I find a switch and click it, and I'm rewarded with a powerful beam of light. It's a Maglight, a heavy flashlight like what cops carry.

"And that is a present for you," he says genially. "I didn't have to give you a light, you know."

"Thank you," I say automatically, and without pausing to question whether or not I mean it, I stand again. "Let me just ask you one question, okay?"

"Mmmmmmm… shoot."

"Why the hell are you doing this?"

He sighs on his end, deliberately making the static blare painfully in my ear. "I seem to remember having this conversation at least twice before. Guy like me, you know, he doesn't like repeating himself."

"Yeah, sure, you gave me an answer, but you never convinced me it was the truth."

"Convincing you is… mm, not my job, Em."

"Granted, but humor me. There's no way this is all about me. I'm nothing. I'm nobody."

"Mmm. That's interesting. So was I."

That gives me pause, but I remember the comments he's made about not trying to anchor him to some sob story or some origin legend well enough that I have no intention of dwelling on it. I speak again: "This isn't about me. This is about you, and I think it always has been. I mean, how bored are you now that the Batman's gone underground?" I release the button, but receive no reply, so I figure I might as well go on. "What do you think, huh? That maybe you can lure him out again by stringing the eviscerated corpse of some random girl up over the spotlight that used to be his signal?"

This time, the response is immediate. He tsks into the walkie and says, "Good idea, but vivisection is so much more fun. I could show you. But first, you gotta find me." He pauses, and then coaxingly, he adds, "Come on, Em. Once more, for old time's sake. One last experiment. Survive."

I sigh and rub the Maglight against my forehead distractedly, frowning when it brushes against a tender spot—doubtless a bruise from my collision with the cell bars earlier. He's not willing to be distracted from his goal tonight, not willing to make this about him and the Batman (though I can't help but imagine the vigilante plays at least a small role in his machinations), and for one brief second, I hate Batman more than I've ever hated the Joker, hate him for dropping off of the face of the planet, for killing Harvey Dent and abandoning Gotham and forcing the Joker to look elsewhere for entertainment.

The irrational moment passes. Blaming Batman more than I blame the Joker makes absolutely no sense—after all, he's not the one that shut me up in a warehouse, forcing me to play games I have little hope of surviving. This is the Joker's fault, not Batman's.

I press the walkie button again. "Hypothetically, of course, what happens if I just… sit here and refuse to move?"

"Hypothetically," he says, sounding regretful, "I'd have to bar you in and burn the place down, and where's the fun in that?"

"Where, indeed," I mutter, and clip the walkie onto my belt. I'm aware that it could be most unhelpful if I need to be quiet and the Joker doesn't want me to be quiet, but I might need to get in touch with him. For purely practical reasons, I don't want to throw away my only tie to the games master.

Well. Looks like I'm doing this.

I could make good on my bluff, of course, sit down and resign myself to death by fire (because I'm sure he wasn't bluffing) rather than death by… probably something decidedly less pleasant. However, even though I know the odds are very good that I'm going to die tonight, I still have that stubborn little spark of a survivalist in me, unwilling to just sit back and let it happen. I'm done with being passive. If I die tonight, I'm going to take as much of that bastard's blood with me as I possibly can.

It helps that the torture-porn films of the last thirty, forty years are all wrong. After enough time passes, you stop screaming. After enough time, the fear almost completely burns itself out. I have no doubt that it'll flare back to life at the least convenient moment, but once again, it has evacuated and cold serenity has replaced it. I get my Maglight, which weighs about eight pounds and can be used as a weapon if I need it, and I direct the beam around the room, making sure there's nothing else I can use (there isn't).

I go to the door and slowly pull it open.

One dim light is on in the hallway outside. I recognize it vaguely from my time here a month ago, from the transfer from conference room to Joker's makeshift bedroom. I never got a look at the main part of the building, the warehouse part, as I was blindfolded on the way through, but I've seen warehouses before. A lot of them have roof access, and considering that I'm almost certainly barred in, I imagine it's likely that my only chance of escape is from up top.

All I can do is try to get a look. I try to ignore the fact that I can smell gasoline and press forward.

The flashlight definitely does me good, but it's still insufficient. How am I supposed to watch my path when I'm trying to keep my eyes ahead to identify any waiting henchmen? This is a problem I really start taking seriously when I round the first corner and my toes brushing against something cold and metal is the only warning I have to jump back before the bear trap lying directly in my path snaps shut with such force that it actually jumps off of the ground.

"A fucking bear trap?!" I howl to nobody in particular.

Wild cackling erupts from the device at my hip. "Watch out for that first step, Em. It's a doozy!"

"Oh, great, he can drop Groundhog Day references but mention Saw and I get nothing but crickets," I growl, nudging the now locked trap roughly out of my way. After this, I think it's probably wisest to check the floor all the way along my path before shining the beam up to examine everything at eye level.

This works for the hallway, but once I emerge into the warehouse, things get complicated.

For one thing, the warehouse is… vast. Granted, I have more illumination, since the sparse, narrow windows along the tops of the walls let in some of the light from the surrounding city, but let's face it—as far as major cities go, Gotham City is pretty dark. There are thousands of little corners where anyone could hide, and it doesn't help that the place is packed with full shelves and storage units.

I have to find the doors. I have to check and make sure they're locked before I risk trying to find a way to the roof.

I don't feel good about waltzing right into this dark warehouse, though. Right now, the door's at my back, so I'm in a good position to hunt for traps. I stand still as I sweep my beam slowly over everything in sight.

The light actually goes past him at first, because I'm not expecting him to be so close. I have to sweep quickly back to the stack closest to me to confirm that I saw what I saw—a tall figure, just standing there, shoulders slightly hunched, wearing a vivid red, white, and green clown mask.

I stare for a second, waiting for the fear, but I only feel the barest flicker. This isn't the Joker, after all, and isn't he determined to kill me himself? "Holy shit," I blurt out finally when the henchman's shoulders slowly rise as he breathes, "it's like a fucking horror movie."

This seems to break some kind of spell. He lunges at me, and I instinctively recoil, but he doesn't need an accurate collision so much as just a heavy hit. He gets me around the waist and takes me down to the floor. I bring my hand up and around, swinging with my Maglight, aiming for his head, but he catches my wrist before it can make contact and jerks it forcefully. I lose my grip on the flashlight, and it slides across the floor, out of my reach.

The light stays on, but the beam is pointing uselessly in the opposite direction. I'm alone in the dark, and as a stinging backhand connects with my face and I taste blood, the thought strikes me that maybe the Joker's not so attached to the idea of killing me personally after all. The thought incites panic, and I lash out with my unrestrained arm, aiming roughly for my attacker's face. My hand makes contact, but I'm too panicked to have made a proper fist, and the mask he's wearing doubtless pads the blow so much that it's mostly ineffective.

I receive another blow, this one a punch that makes my jaw explode in pain, and I scrabble at the mask, ripping the rubber with the force of my grip and prying it off before going at him with my fingernails. I hear a muffled roar as my lashing hand makes contact, cutting deep into his cheek, and suddenly I receive a blow to the temple that makes the world spin and reduces my control over my body.

I'm still fully conscious, but my hands are no longer obeying me, falling limply to the floor. No, no, no, get up, get up, I think fiercely as my eyelids flutter, as if threatening to seal shut on me, but my body doesn't listen. All this head trauma cannot be good.

He seems encouraged by my lack of response. The hand clamped around my wrist lets go, and I can feel him shifting above me. I groan lightly, still dazed, but the dizziness dries up when I feel his fingers at my jeans, unfastening the button scary-fast and jerking down the zipper.

That wakes me right up. A jolt of adrenaline has my eyes snapping open, and I jerk my knee upwards. The blow to his groin is solid, and he bellows, getting another slap in before keeling over with the pain, falling practically on top of me. I feel at his waist for something, anything that I can use, and when I feel cold metal—gun handle—I unsnap the holster faster than I would have thought possible and jerk it out.

I squeeze the trigger right away, as the gun comes out of the holster pointed towards his torso, but the gun just makes a disappointing click. Safety, it's always the safety in the movies, I think, and thinking fast, trying to remember what I know of the movies, I run my fingers along the side of the gun. By this point, he realizes what I'm doing, and though he's still mostly incapacitated, he reaches up and grabs the barrel of the gun, trying to wrest it out of my hands.

His mistake is that he tries this right as I find a little square jutting out from the side of the gun, and, all in what feels like one motion, I push on it, it slides in with a neat little click, and I pull the trigger. Twice.

I can't see, but I can feel the spatter of blood, and I imagine the first would have taken off his fingers, while the second would have entered his gut. He lets loose an awful sound and throws himself backwards, away from me, and, holding on to the gun for dear life, I drag myself upright, shuffling backwards as quickly as I can, getting some distance between us before I get to my feet and run for the flashlight.

I shine it immediately on my assailant, and some part of my mind is totally unsurprised to find Eli there, cheek gaping open from the bloody scratches I inflicted on him, clutching his blood-soaked stomach and moaning. I shake my head. The temptation to shoot him again, this time in the head, enters my mind again, but I immediately decide against it—not for any moral reason, but because I doubt he's much of a threat with a stomach wound and I need to save these bullets. Who knows how many more of them there will be?

"Serves you right, asshole," I snarl, nestling the flashlight beneath my chin and keeping the gun in hand as I reach down to zip up my pants.

The walkie at my waist crackles to life. "Hey, 'member what I said about sexual violation, Em?"

I press the talk button. "Yeah," I snap, "we're just stumbling upon all kinds of neat little parallels tonight, aren't we?" I've got too much on my plate to think about this right now, though. I move past Eli and keep going.

This time I hold the flashlight close to eye level, bringing the gun up to match it, like I've seen on every cop show I've ever watched (which probably means it's totally the wrong thing to do, but it makes me feel safer, so I'll stick with it). I head to the nearest warehouse wall without incident, and I follow it along, searching for a door.

I find one. Unfortunately, it's locked, and I don't feel like testing its strength with my shoulders, which still ache from the glass. I keep walking, trying to ignore the noises I think I hear from behind me, and when they get a little too worrying, I swing around and fling my flashlight beam all over the visible space.

Nothing.

I turn back slowly, still following the wall. If Eli was here, that probably means Rodriguez is around, too, and who knows how many more anonymous Joker henchmen might be on the grounds? So far, though, I haven't found evidence of anyone but Eli, even if those noises are unsettling. I focus on moving quickly, on finding a way out.

The front door is locked, too. I've got one more wall to search before I'll be driven into finding a way up, which I don't want to do—I have no idea if there will be any real way down from the roof, and once I'm up there, I could well be stuck—but it's the only option I can think of aside from using myself as a human battering ram.

Halfway along the last wall, my beam comes to rest on a red gasoline can. I stare at it, trying to think if I've got any use for it, before becoming aware to the fact that there are footsteps creeping up behind me—quietly, as if he's trying to sneak up, but quickly. I wheel around to find that a clown I suspect must be Rodriguez is almost upon me, and I pull the trigger, but despite the close range, I'm still not comfortable with guns and the shot goes wide.

He collides with me and takes me down, but even as he gropes for my wrist, I re-orient the gun and pull the trigger again.

This one doesn't go wide. This one tears through the mask and goes in through his right eye socket, and as he falls on top of me, his blood spatters from the hole in the mask onto my face. I shove him off fast, but the blood is already there, and it feels like it's burning into my skin.

I stagger to my feet and look back at him. There's no way he's still alive—he's lying facedown, blood already beginning to seep out of the bottom of his mask and settling in a pool around his throat. Head wounds bleed a lot, I tell myself mechanically, reciting some random piece of trivia I'd picked up somewhere.

It was him or me, comes the next thought, brutally.

The Joker's voice comes from the walkie at my waist, this time with considerably less static. "Hey, you know, you're good at this. Look at you, you're not even puking your guts out. Ever killed a man before?"

Since he can obviously see me, I shake my head. "Hmm," he says. "You wanna job?"

I press the talk button. "Will it help me live longer?"

"Probably not. The life expectancy of my employees is… brief."

"Color me surprised," I say dryly, but I'm only half-focused on the discussion. The walkie-talkie… the fact that his voice is coming through loud and clear means that the signal is strong, which in turn must mean that he's somewhere nearby, a lot closer than he was before. If I had to guess, I'd say he's in some kind of surveillance room, somewhere where he can watch the screens. How else could he offer a running commentary on everything I do?

I start to move along the wall again, but think twice and go back to kick over the can of gasoline. The stuff starts pulsing out onto the floor, immediately filling my nose with its pungent smell, and I find a box of matches on some nearby shelves. It's like he set me up for this, I think, but rather than worry about whether or not I'm falling into his plan as usual, I make sure my feet are well away from the growing pool of gasoline—which is starting to creep around Rodriguez's prone body—and then light a match and toss it.

The gas goes up immediately, so fast and bright that I flinch away, jumping back and covering my face. There, I think, lowering my hands. Maybe that'll smoke him out. At the very least, it'll be easier for me to see my way and harder for him to see me. The thought that I might be torching my own path out of here does cross my mind, but I don't dwell on it. My odds of survival aren't so great anyway, and the way I see it, setting the place on fire has more advantages than disadvantages.

"Ooh, a steel stomach and pyromania," the Joker sings out. "You sure you don't want a job?"

"Why don't we discuss it in person?"

"Good idea. Come on, Em. You're getting warmer. Uh, no pun intended."

"Oh, good. Fun," I mutter. I figure I should just keep following along this wall, since it's the only part of the perimeter of the warehouse I haven't seen and I'd really like to avoid going into the center. It's too cluttered, too full of product-slammed stacks and there could be any number of potential traps waiting for me there. I'll see what I can find along the edge first.

About halfway to the back of the penthouse, I find a door. This door, unlike the others, is unlocked, and swings silently open to reveal a staircase—a long staircase, hemmed in narrowly by two solid walls.

I stare at it for a second, and something in me whispers stairs + dark = creepy, bad news, whatever. I actually take a step back from the door before the Joker's voice stops me.

"Ooh, colder."

I pause, then step forward.

"Warmer again."

Damn it.

I take a deep breath. The fear flares up again, but it's nowhere near as cripplingly potent as it was the first time I was stuck in this warehouse with him. I plunge forward and start taking the stairs in long lopes, two at a time, which, considering my less-than-impressive height, takes some doing.

"Warmer. Warmer. Hot. Oh, you're doing great, Em. You're burning up."

At these last two words, I reach the door at the top of the long staircase, and I can hear him talking on the other side. I inhale sharply, then twist the knob and push the door open.

I was right. It's a surveillance room, and the opposite wall is lit up entirely with screens, turned green with the cameras' night vision. The Joker is sitting slouched in a swivel chair in front of them, and at the creaky sound the door makes as it opens, he spins the chair around and leans back in it, looking very satisfied with himself, fingers steepled together in his lap. The screens provide the only light in the room, reflecting off the white face paint and turning his face a ghoulish green.

"Aaaaaand… you're on fire."

Neither of us says anything for a second after that. I'm waiting for some indication as to how this is supposed to go down, while I imagine he just enjoys the tension, the little ripples of fear that must be emanating from me.

I become aware that my breathing is picking up, and I make a conscious effort to slow it down. This is not like any of the times before it, I tell myself in an effort to stay calm. This is the end of the game, and this time, you've got the gun.

At the memory, I lift the gun slightly, but he may as well not see it for all the reaction I get. He just stays sitting uncharacteristically still, eyes fixed on me.

"Well," he drawls finally, "are you… happy with the results of our little test?"

"Are you?" I fire back immediately, unblinking.

There's a slight squelching sound as he lifts his top lip from his teeth for a second—acknowledgement or a threat or… hell, I don't know. I'm starting to think twice about this whole gun thing. It was a lot easier to pull the trigger when it was all so immediate, do or die, no planning involved.

I finally notice the second door, beside the wall of screens, slightly ajar. I gesture towards it with my gun. "Does that lead to the roof?"

"Yep."

"So you're between me and the way out."

"Looks like it."

I twitch my hand, making a sharp, short motion with the gun. "Move."

He blinks, but aside from that remains perfectly still. We stare at one another, and finally, he speaks up again. "You're a strange sort of person, Em, you know that? Ya thought you were giving up your life for those nice people on the train, but when it comes to.. uh… knockin' off a coupla cops, you don't even flinch."

"Those weren't cops. Those were minions, and they'd have raped and killed me given half the chance."

"So that makes it… okay?"

"You're damn right, it does. I look like a martyr to you?"

"No," he says slowly, drawing the word out, relishing it, which makes me rethink that question, wondering if it had some sort of hidden meaning that I neglected to notice before speaking it. "No," he says again, words suddenly coming out all at once, all but tripping over each other, "which is why that little scene on the train puzzles me so much. You know, I was thinking about it, Em. Why would a woman who's worked so hard to survive just… give up all of a sudden?"

I watch him, waiting for the slightest movement that might have the benefit of scaring me into pulling the trigger, but he remains totally motionless—except for his face, the muscles knitting and contorting themselves into a taunting expression, eyebrows raised, mouth folded almost playfully.

"Go on," I say, just to make him wipe that look off of his face. "Tell me."

The expression melts, leaving his eyes curiously empty, lips pulled into a natural resting frown that entirely contrasts with the upwards curve of his scars. Suddenly eerily calm, he says, "I think you knew the station was rigged. I think you figured it out and you sent those folks to their dismal deaths so you could go on living, just for one more day."

I don't even blink. "That's bullshit."

He suddenly doubles over, laughing, a loud cackle that makes me jump, but my finger is steady on the trigger. "Oh—oh," he says, pulling in large gulps of air, "but is it? I mean, you watch the news, right? You've heard about my little switcheroos. Some part of you had to know. Even if you didn't think it, deep down, part of you put the stories together with the things you've heard me say… and you offered them up. Lambs to the slaughter."

"That isn't fucking true," I spit out.

It's not.

"Oh, come on, Em. It's okay if you admit to it; we're all killers here. If it makes you feel any better, it's much less boring this way."

"I'm not admitting to it because it isn't true."

He swivels sideways in his chair and then and rolls his eyes back over to rest on me, giving me a look that says bullshit as clearly as if he'd spoken it. "Then why dontchya tell me what anyone's ever done for you that makes you wanna give up your life to save someone else."

I hesitate. I can't figure out where he's going with this, what he's doing. Why isn't he trying to kill me?

As if he heard the thought, he stands abruptly—one second he's in the chair, the next he's out of it, and before I quite have time to adjust, he's taken the first step towards me.

"Don't even think about it," I snarl, hefting the gun threateningly and bringing him to a stop.

"Too late," he says, and gives me another one of those bullshit looks. "What, Em, are you gonna shoot me?"

"That's the idea."

"No, you're not," he says resolutely, "and I'll tell you why." He pauses, and the skin around his eyes crinkles, reflecting his amusement as he adds, "Actually, it's related to my previous point. Funny how things work out, isn't it?"

He takes another step forward, and I breathe in sharply through my nose, but he's talking again as he approaches, and I can't seem to make my damn finger squeeze the trigger. "You're a loner, Em. A true loner. I don't know if it's… ahhhh… your choice, or if you just really don't like people, but what I do know is that aside from misguided gestures towards the police department, you haven't called for help from anyone. In fact, almost all of the inter-personal contact you've had with anyone in the last couple a' weeks has been with… well, me."

He's close now, just inches away from the barrel of the gun. Shoot him, I will myself, shoot him or he'll get it away and then he'll kill you, just like he promised, but I'm watching his mad eyes as they roll in his head and I feel paralyzed, like I'm no longer in control of my body, like his words are some sort of voodoo binding me.

He looks straight down into my eyes, blinks almost sarcastically, and licks his lips. "You're not a hero, Em. You never have been. You sabotaged the test results from the start. Diverting my attention from, uh, from that little girl? You weren't saving her. No, no, no, no—you wanted my attention."

"No," I whisper.

He leans into my face and snarls, "Yes."

I recoil, and my back hits the door.

"That's why you're not gonna shoot me," he says, and at this, his hand lashes up like a striking cobra, taking the gun out of my hand with a powerful wrench. I feel the strength leaving my knees, my shoulders, deflating as he examines the gun with feigned interest before tossing it aside, again completely neglecting his gun safety. It clatters to the floor across the room and lies there uselessly.

Having discarded the gun, the Joker turns back to me. He lunges for me, and I have nowhere to go. He gets one hand around my throat and produces a knife out of nowhere with the other, but finally, finally, that need to struggle for my survival has vanished without a trace, and the feeling of relief and being unburdened by it is dizzying. Almost in celebration of this, I find myself ignoring the knife at my throat, lifting my hands up within the imprisoning bars formed by his arms and reaching up to touch him. These movements make perfect sense to me at the moment, and he tolerates them even as he rests the blade against my skin, waiting patiently and watching me with a flicker of curiosity as I brush my fingertips against the sticky greasepaint below his eyes, then lower my hands to lightly touch the rough skin of the red scars.

No, I think, and drop my hands lower, fingers resting along the sides of his unpainted throat. There. I can feel the heat rolling off of him, just like it did on that first day when it kept me warm, and beneath my fingertips, I can feel the quick beat of his pulse. My lips part, I exhale slowly, and I close my eyes, just for a second. "You really are human," I whisper. He cocks his head a little, and I shake mine. "How?"

"Oh, Em," he says, and I open my eyes to see him looking at me with the closest thing to genuine pity I've ever seen from him. "I am the embodiment of humanity. Everyone else is just lying. And that includes you."

I stare at him and slowly drop my hands, pressing them against the door behind me, slouching bonelessly against it. He goes on in a sibilant hiss. "You're lying to yourself most of all, you know that? You may be a loner, Em, but everyone's got that one person—that single person whose attention they just… oh, they need it."

Since I'm going to die anyway, I think, and, looking him in the eyes, I ask, "Who's yours?"

"Don't change the subject," he says reprovingly, but I know already. Everyone knows. He feeds off of the Batman. I don't think he meant to be quite so forthcoming—but "they need it;" it's tipped his hand, not that I can do anything with the knowledge that he has practically admitted his dependence on Batman.

"Ah… where was I?" he muses now, looking a bit lost.

I swallow, feeling his rough palm scraping against my throat. "Everyone has a single person."

"Right, right, right, right. You're totally alone in this city, Em, then suddenly you're the focus of—ahem—the most dangerous man here." He pauses and tilts his head, raising his eyebrows meaningfully. "Don't tell me you weren't flattered."

Tears are pushing their way out of my eyes, but I feel strangely calm, feel completely unconnected to the crying. It's a weird sensation. Steadily, I ask him, "Are you gonna kill me now?"

"Oh, no, no, why would I want to kill you? That was the end to a different game than the one you've been playing, Em. Silly me—I didn't realize you'd switched on me. Now that we're on the same page, we can really get started, and given that I'm not exactly strapped for time, well—I'm willing to give you plenty of my attention."

I stare at him. I say, "The last two days—and the two events before it—have been a living hell. You made me a prisoner inside of this city." He nods, looking thoughtfully up at the ceiling. "You turned the police against me."

"Yeah," he agrees with another nod.

"You violated my home. You threatened to sexually assault me. You tried to make me responsible for the deaths of ten people." Each new accusation is met with a nod, and my voice rises in response to his calm acceptance. "You ripped me from a police station, you drugged me, you put me in your little funhouse and set your sick rapist minions on me, you made me shoot men—tell me, Joker, why exactly do you think that would promote any sort of need or desire for your attention?"

He pulls a thoughtful face, nodding a little bit as he watches the ceiling as if it can give him the answer, then with a flick of the eyes his attention is focused unswervingly on me, and he leans in, voice dropping to a guttural growl as he says, "Because I'm the only friend you've got."

I stare at him, looking from eye to eye for a second before relaxing my gaze. Finally, softly, I say, "I think he might have something to say about that."

I don't think many people have seen the look of sheer surprise I now see flashing across his face for a split second, right before he twists around and receives a granite fist to the face. His hands slip away from me as he goes flying, and I scramble in the other direction, sticking close to the wall and away from the massive black shadow filling up the room.

I see another odd look on his face as he recovers somewhat, twisting around to face the shadow descending on him. It's only there for a second before he gets punched again, but it's easily identifiable—rapture. I don't even figure anymore now that the Batman's here. I was Candyland. Batman is Risk.

Still, I'm not taking any chances. I keep the entire room between them and me, and as Batman hoists the Joker into the air and flings him into the opposite wall, close to me, I scurry across the room to recover the space. I may not be tempting as a toy anymore, but I probably have some value as a hostage.

"Ohhhh," croons the Joker, sounding pained and overjoyed all at once. "Where have you been? Brooding away as your own guano piles up around you?" Batman swings at him; he dodges left and flips the knife around in his grip, but his attempt to jam it between Batman's armor plates is fruitless—the blade cracks against the armor as Batman shifts just in time.

"You know," the Joker sings, whooping with laughter as he dances across the room (and I keep moving away from them), "it took you a while to find her. Getting rusty in your retirement? Harvey woulda been flattered."

Batman roars and brings a fierce fist down on the Joker's shoulder, knocking him to his knees before following up with a kick to the stomach.

I realize as I watch that there is no contest. The Joker has no henchmen to assist him, and as far as I can tell, he didn't plan for this, didn't think Batman would actually show up for just a kidnapped girl. Physically, Batman is superior, and he will win. That's all. This fight is already over, and… oddly enough, I don't want to stick around to watch it.

I don't need to see the Joker beaten and incarcerated. It's strange, but I don't. It might be worth sticking around to say thank you to my unexpected savior, but rumor has it he doesn't hang around any longer than he has to, either. This is over for me.

I edge my way around the raging fight and reach the slightly-open door to the roof, doubtless Batman's means of entry. I don't look back at the two of them. I take the stairs up to the roof, then find the fire escapes along the side and somehow find the energy to climb down to the outside street. The warehouse is boarded up, but it's already starting to smoke. Almost absently, I hope that Batman is able to take the Joker out quickly so he doesn't have to worry about the floor caving in on him.

My fear is gone. I'm alive, and even if by some miracle the Joker escapes this fight, I don't think he's going to be too concerned with hunting me down again, not now that his long-beloved nemesis has reappeared and is paying attention to him again. Even if he did come after me again, he doesn't seem interested in killing me anymore.

And I don't give a shit if he is the only person I have in this world. Next time he turns up in my house, he'd better hope I don't have a gun on hand. Next time, I won't let any qualms get in the way—I will shoot him.

With any luck, though, he'll be committed to Arkham and kept there this time. With any luck, he'll forget all about this, now that his obsession with the Batman has been reignited.

The police might come looking for me now, but as I walk to the road, for once not taking the slightest notice of potential muggers or murderers, I find I don't care. Let them come for me if they have to.

I'm alive, and the sun is coming up.

Fin

Final Notes - Shh, don't kill me. I know it feels abrupt, but even from the start, this is how I always intended for it to end—with Emma walking away from the titans as they fight it out, the Joker's interest in her evaporating as quickly as it flared up. And this was meant to be the definitive ending, because I figured Emma's been through more than enough and deserves some peace, but the Joker doesn't ever listen to me. He surprised me in the ending of this chapter, and his line about the ending of the old game just leading to the beginning of a new one was particularly telling.

Essentially, what I'm left with is this—Emma's story is not over. Oh, this installment of it certainly is, the sort of last dying gasp of Emma as she was before things change irrevocably (as they must after such an ordeal), and anyway, I figure she deserves a break for now, as do all of you (I recommend going to listen to "When the Night Comes" by Dan Auerbach for some post-story catharsis. It'll help, I promise).

When you're ready to revisit Emma, you can find her in the second book in this series, Strategy.

You guys are the absolute best readers a girl could ask for, and many of you have stuck with this story for years, which totally overwhelms me. The response to this story has been amazing, and because I'm greedy, I encourage you to drop me a line now that it's over, even if you've never reviewed before, just to leave overall impressions. Regardless of whether you chime in or not, though, I'm grateful to you for having taken the time to read the story and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it (and I'm aware that the fact that I did enjoy it says a lot about me as a person; I've come to accept that I'm an awful person). Thank you, everyone, and I hope I'll see you next time.