Silence hung over Arkham as Cassidy walked the halls. She walked and walked, but the chill in the air followed.

Every move the guards made, every one of the inmates restrained, drugged, dragged off, she viewed through suffering eyes. Barbaric.

Only the chill wasn't in the air. It was inside her. And it wouldn't go away.

///

Diary: Jeremiah Arkham

12/12/1975

How blind have I been? God, some of the staff, my own staff, the things they've been doing to the patients...

These people... They aren't animals... They need help! Not our contempt!

The inquest is ongoing. I will see everyone responsible brought to account.

No one will get away with this. I won't let them.

///

Cassidy stood outside a solitary confinement cell. Padded with a large hospital bed, hooked on wires and drips of various painkillers.

Joker lay there in a motionless body cast, unable to move.

Tears threatened to spill out of Cassidy as she walked away. She didn't want to cry in front of him, at least.

"... Is that you?" A small voice called out, hardly recognizable.

"J!"

Joker's laughter was faint as she rushed back.

"I knew someone was tiptoeing around here! And to think... you came all this way just to see little ol' me! I'm flattered!"

He coughed himself into a fit, wheezing with every breath. Cassidy could only watch, helpless, keeping her hand on the glass.

"Who did this to you?"

"Oh, this?" Joker giggled faintly "Who knows? Maybe it was Santa Claus!"

"Please... I'm serious..."

Joker's laugh died out as he struggled for breath, his chest rising and falling in heavy succession.

"Sorry Pumpkin, it's... Well... When you get knocked around so often, it's hard to remember things... 'Brain fog'... The kids call it..." Joker continued "It's funny... Memories... Places... They just... Become a blur..."

Joker's voice lowered, nothing jolly about it. His smile faded. Gaunt.

"They blur, until in the end- you don't even remember why they were there... Why they were important..."

Her heart broke as she heard him say it.

"Well... None of that matters anyway... Not anymore..."

"It does to me" Cassidy insisted, getting as close to the glass as she could. "J- Please... Who hurt you?"

Joker returned an empty smile, nothing like his usual self.

"Oh kiddo... Even if I could remember, it wouldn't change anything. There's nothing left out there- this... This is all we have. Besides, no one cares what happens here... Not to me..."

Cassidy's lip trembled as she refused to take in what he was saying.

Unexpectedly, Joker began to laugh.

"Y'know... This reminds me of a joke I heard once..." Joker began. "A man goes to the doctor- he says life seems cruel. He's alone and feels there's no point to anything. Now, the Doctor says 'Here's what to do; the great clown Pagliacci is in town. Go and see him! That should pick you up!'"

Joker's grin betrayed himself, as he edged for the punchline.

"But the man... he bursts into tears. 'But Doctor' He says- 'I am Pagliacci!'"

Joker's laugh erupted into another painful coughing fit, until he realized that Cassidy didn't get the joke.

To her, it was as if he had put all his pain on a whoopee cushion, just to sit on it.

"Ehh... that joke's an acquired taste, I'll admit"

There was a brief silence between them, until Joker lit up like a lightbulb.

"Why don't you tell me one!"

"Uh... I don't know many-"

"A story, then- make it up! I'll need something to help me sleep when the morphine wears off!"

Joker laughed again in pain, and Cassidy turned, fidgeting with her arms as she tried to think of ideas.

"Once..." Cassidy began, taking a sharp breath before continuing. "Once... A kingdom... A kingdom was cursed with dark magic so great, that its people were stuck in a war that wouldn't end..."

It was trite, but a bedtime story was enough to make the starting point.

Cassidy never expected how far it would go.

"... For years nothing had been able to stop it, until a prophecy was discovered, saying that if a knight and a prince- born on the same day- fought in battle, then whoever should kill the other would free the kingdom, and the war would be over"

Months, in fact, had passed, and she found herself back, adding more to the story, more so like King Arthur and the Round Table- but it would do. And Joker's rehabilitation was going well- barely needing help with the walking bars. Cassidy often brought him pillows and water, but that didn't seem to be necessary anymore.

"Then, one day... the prophecy came to pass..."

Then Christmas flew by.

Cassidy spent most of it distracted, researching Batman, Joker- well, both of them together. She could have well described them as 'star-crossed' although that was much too romantic.

Observers at the asylum noticed her habits, but their concerns didn't matter. Only Henry, her father's unanswered texts and calls, weighed on her.

There were times she would respond. Other times, it still felt raw.

"The prince wanted to rule the people for his own amusement. However, the knight was tired of war, and vowed to end it.

The knight begged the prince to call off the war, but the prince just sent more of his men onto the battlefield, entertained by his opponent.

Then, during the battle over Red Ravine, the knight gained the upper hand, and knocked the prince into the murky depths, but the knight dove in to save the prince, and brought him back to shore.

More battles followed, neither the knight or the prince had perished, even though their fights were long, and the prince, daring the knight to kill him, would often allow him the chance to do so".

Little by little- all the research she had done had slipped into the story she wove, like a well-fitting shoe.

Not that it was her intention at first. It just turned out that way.

Joker had finally gotten better enough to go back to Maximum Security. They sat, both leaning against the glass as she continued. He focused more on the story each time, with a stern expression, as if something about it was troubling him.

"Eventually, the prince no longer wanted to rule the kingdom, for his battles with the knight would end, and there was no one that could match him the way the knight did- and he knew that, in his heart, the knight could never bring himself to kill the prince"

Joker's eyes lit up.

He lifted his head with a wild expression as Cassidy kept her back to him, oblivious.

"But the knight lived in hope that one day, the war would end, and that they could all live in peace"

Cassidy finished the story, giving a minute's pause, and stood up.

"Hold on!"

She turned around to see Joker, kneeling on the floor with childish fascination.

"So? How does it end?"

Cassidy looked down for a moment, thinking, and shook her head.

"... It doesn't".

A/N: Favorite bedtime story as a kid? Mine's Peter Pan- though he is kind of an asshole...