* J *

Part Fifteen: Chapter 103: Evolution

Several months have passed and Dr. Harleen Quinzel was forever changed. She did her best to hide and masquerade the changes that she had underwent. Life was a completely different prospect for her now than it had previously been. The Joker had changed her outlook on everything. Every. Single. Thing. He hadn't come back for her. Not that he had promised he would or anything. Dr. Quinzel just wanted it so much that the line between her desire and the truth was so skewed that she didn't know the difference anymore.

The only thing Dr. Quinzel was sure of anymore was her irrevocable love for the Joker. Her entire world began and ended with his beautiful pearly smile. His happy laughter filled every one of her dreams. Every night when she slept, she slept in her Mistah J's phantom arms. His ruby lips, merely a pleasing illusion in her head, purr in her ears how much he loves her. For it's only in the deepest recesses of the doctors mind that the Joker is in any way romantically involved with her.

With each passing day the doctors condition only grows. Or perhaps a better way to describe it would be to say that it deteriorates. The doctor tried to resume with her life, but found that she couldn't really concentrate on her patients. They somehow only made Dr. Quinzel think of the Joker even more. Every patient was the Joker to Dr. Quinzel, and she so desperately needed to be at his side.

That's when it dawned on the doctor, the Joker hadn't returned for her because she still wasn't what he was looking for. The Joker needed an equil. He needed a partner, and not just in the bedroom. He needed someone to be at his side for everything. He needed someone who wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger. Someone who was just as crazy as he was. A clown made in his own image.

So the doctor began painting her face white, just like her handsome Mistah J's face. Her lips she would stain bright red. The doctor spent her nights going to places that the Joker might go. She went out looking for trouble, and most nights she found it, but she learned how to take lives. And she did it without having a single ounce of empathy for her unwilling victims. If only the Joker could see how she's changed for him, he would be so proud.

Dr. Quinzel just needed the Joker to accept that she loved him. If he would just accept her love, she could make him so so happy. But if anyone could understand his reluctance to allow love into his heart, it was Dr. Quinzel. She's the only doctor that the Joker had ever revealed his soul to. He had been hurt so deeply by the one he loved the most. That damaged his ability to ever trust another. But Dr. Quinzel had what it took to prove to him that she wouldn't hurt him.

Unfortunately, Dr. Quinzel spent so much time trying to track down the Joker, to prove her love, that she neglected to do her day job as a promising psychiatrist. The day Dr. Arkham decided to approach her, he found her with the white makeup faded and smeared on her face. Blood splatter was on her shoes. It took four guards to escort her from the premises.

So now Dr. Quinzel found herself unemployed. But thankfully the doctor still had attributes that could be exploited for her profit. She had used the same attributes to get herself through college. But to resort back to such a thing made the doctor feel as though she had wasted a perfectly good education by falling in love with a self proclaimed psychopathic clown. So imagine the doctors surprise, on her very first night, in walks the infamous Clown Prince of Crime.

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Joker's POV

I hadn't given one second of thought to my former Arkham psychiatrist, Dr. Harleen Quinzel. I had washed my hands of her when I escaped. I don't know what caused me to spare her life, that normally wasn't my style. I guess somewhere deep inside, I knew she was the only person who really knew me. I can't explain why I never lied to her in our sessions. Maybe I did it because I secretly wanted help. Perhaps I tried accepting help because it was what Bruce had wanted for me.