Disclaimer: Characters are property of D.C. Comics; I receive no financial gain from writing this.

Harleen Quinzel, Doctor of Medicine, Would Have Been Olympic Gymnast, Queen of the Nuthouse.

She scribbles these words on her notes as the Joker tells her yet another story of how he got his scars. She had been 'treating' him for five months and had heard forty-seven different versions of the truth.

She heaved a heavy sigh and looked him squarely in the eye when he'd finished.

"Why won't you let me help you?" She asked, exasperated. He frowned.

"I don't need any help. Well, except for getting out of this place. That would be nice." He fixed a smug grin on her and she clicked her pen closed.

"Why? Don't you like it here?" She asked sarcastically. He leaned back in his chair.

"Not really. The food is bad. They always leave the lights on. There is zero privacy and they make me talk to you." He replied tilting his head and waiting for her reaction.

She shook her head and glanced at her notes. His little insults hadn't bothered her for a long time. Once the staff at Arkham realized that she was the only doctor he would talk to, that little barb hadn't stung any longer.

"Besides, what does my past have to do with anything?" He began and Harleen flipped back to the top page again.

This again. Of course his past wasn't important. It had absolutely nothing to do with why he was the man he is today. After all, Jokers hatch from seeds or bulbs like flowers and just appear as they are. Or wink in from some alternate dimension where everyone dresses badly and explosives grow on trees.

Harleen Quinzel, Joker Wrangler.

She smiled at this last one and brushed a stray blonde lock behind her ear.

"What?" She heard him snap at her. She looked bemused by his expression of annoyance.

"You're not listening to me." He narrowed his eyes at her. She smiled back.

"Wake me up when it's something I haven't heard before." She replied.

"When did I become so predictable?" He mumbled.

He looked away from her and chewed the inside of his cheek. For a moment a look of sadness flickered in his eyes and was gone. It was something she'd seen before, albeit rarely. The effect was always the same. She wanted to reach out to him. Touch his hand, his face. Tell him it was okay.

But he'd probably just try to rip her arm off and beat her with it, so that wasn't an option.

He hadn't acted violently toward her since their first session, but the threat was always there. He'd established himself as the dominant one. He was the one who laid down the rules which was so funny since he hated rules. But, he was a Joker.

"I know you don't want to acknowledge it, but who you were does have something to do with who you are. If we find that thing in your past life that…" She began and his eyes snapped back at her and he nearly snarled when he spoke.

"That you can find one little thing that broke and fix it and I'll be cured?" He forced a laugh. "How are you going to do that, Harley? Do you have a time machine hidden here somewhere? Are you going to go back and save 'little Joker' so he can't grow up to be me? I'm happy with who I am, How I am! I don't need to justify myself to you or any of your little 'shrink' friends. I don't have to answer for or apologize for who and what I am."

Harleen nodded and Joker chewed at his cheek again.

"So you should like it here." She replied. "This," she gestured about the room, "is the end result of your actions which you are clearly not sorry for."

"You don't get it." He said and lowered his gaze to the table. She lifted her notes so he couldn't read them, as he had in the past.

Harleen glanced at her watch and saw that they still had quite a bit of time left which was bad since he had already finished with the session. Now they would sit in silence until the guards came. She never ended the sessions early, even when he did this. She held out a little hope that maybe she could get him to talk again, or that waiting him out would prove something to him. His silent treatment wasn't going to wear her down and make her quit.

"What is that on your blouse?" His voice made her start and her mouth moved wordlessly as she looked down at her shirt. For a moment she felt anger well within her for falling for one of his juvenile 'made you look' jokes until she saw the spots of red.

"Damn it!" She said and wiped at dried spots on her blouse. She licked a fingertip and rubbed at them only accomplishing smearing the spots a little more. She sighed and stopped her fruitless efforts and returned her gaze to the Joker's amused one.

"So, what is it?" He asked.

"Pizza sauce or grease," she said and wondered if she could find the same blouse on clearance again.

"Well, we didn't have that today, or this month for that matter. So it's either frozen or delivery." He said.

She arched a brow at him. Pizza? Really? He wanted to talk about pizza?

"Delivery," she replied wondering where she could go with this. You could learn a lot about people from their eating preferences. He rolled his eyes.

"From one of those mass marketed nationwide places that all taste the same no doubt. So vanilla, like you." He snorted.

"Actually," Harleen sat forward in her seat, leaning a bit over the table toward him. "It was from DiSalvo's." He made a face.

"Not as good as Moretti's." He scoffed. She smiled.

"Really? I never liked the crust on Moretti's, way too soft. But not as bad as Mario's." She prodded. He nodded.

"Never done in the middle," he replied.

They conversed about pizza, glorious pizza for the rest of the session. By the end, Harleen's stomach was growling and she'd almost forgotten about the mess it had made of her shirt.

And she got a brand new scar story out of him.

"Pizza cutter, huh? And after that you still like Moretti's." She laughed.

"I don't hold a grudge." He shrugged and chuckled as the guard knocked and opened the door. In the way only he could do, Joker composed himself and glared at the guard who began escorting him from the room.

He stopped just before the door and glanced back at her.

"You can't save me, Harley." He said in his serious manner.

"Move it, Chuckles." The guard barked and then he and the Joker were gone.

She stood and exited the room behind them, glancing down the hall to watch the guard and Joker as they retreated. She still marveled at how slim he was and how, tall as he was, it made him seem even taller.

She returned to her office and tore the page from her notes with all her silly titles, balled it up and unceremoniously dropped it in the trash. She took a seat and opened his sizable file and retrieved the various images she had collected of him and flipped through them until she found the two she was looking for.

She sat back in her seat and held them side by side.

One was of him in an interrogation room, dressed in his suit and make-up and the other he wore his standard issue red Arkham jumpsuit. In both he bore the same wistful expression she'd seen flicker across his features.

He was the man she wanted to save.

A/N: The image I reference can be found at http:// jokerxharley. net/gallery/displayimage .php?pid =810&fullsize=1

Harleen Quinzel is based on the likeness of actress Abbie Cornish.