Harley was absently flipping through the television channels when the door to her hospital room flew open. Having seen Bruce Wayne on every newspaper and magazine in Gotham at one time or another, she easily recognized him, but she'd never seen him look so worried.

"Harley!" he said, relief in his eyes as he saw she was alright. "I left in the middle of a board meeting when I got the call you were here. How are you feeling?"

Harley was taken aback and didn't know how to immediately respond. Having someone she didn't know fall all over themselves expressing concern for her wellbeing was bizarre beyond her ability to understand it. She knew they were engaged, provided she wasn't hallucinating...again, but the devoted interest was something new for her. Joker had never been so concerned about her wellbeing that he dropped whatever he was doing a rushed to her side.

A warm feeling about Bruce flickered to life in the back of her mind and was instantly confronted by a screaming accusation of unfaithfulness to the Joker. She didn't know how she could turn her back on Mr. J just because some handsome man showed a modicum of interest.

Harley agreed with the voice in her head; Bruce was handsome. Another voice countered, saying it didn't matter since she wasn't going to abandon Joker. A third voice reminded her Joker was gone and not coming back, so how could she leave the Joker if he had already left, thereby preventing her from leaving the one who couldn't be left because he wasn't there for her to leave in the first place?

"Harley?" Bruce asked, his strong voice cutting through her swirling thoughts.

"Huh?" Harley questioned as her focus snapped back to as close as she could get to reality.

"Are you alright?" Bruce inquired.

"I haven't been alright for years, but that doesn't seem to have bothered you any," Harley answered.

Bruce smiled, taking her hand between both of his and holding it gently but securely. Harley wondered if he could hear her racing heartbeat because it was the only sound in her ears.

"Something wrong?" Bruce asked.

"I'm just having trouble remembering a few things," she answered while multiple voices in her head demanded to know what she was doing and why she was admitting anything. Harley didn't know why, but something inside the tangled recesses of her mind trusted Bruce.

"What can't you remember?" Bruce prompted.

"Us," she admitted.

"Oh," Bruce responded, taking his hands away and clasping them together behind him. "Very well; until you're ready, we'll wait. Don't want a stranger making you uncomfortable."

Harley smiled in gratitude, but it was half forced as she longed for his gentle and reassuring touch. Joker had been caring when it suited his purposes, but he'd never been devoted in the way Bruce was behaving, never put his own needs secondary to her comfort level.

Harley could see how if Joker had died, she could've fallen for Bruce in his absence. She reasoned if Joker was gone, she'd be free to look elsewhere without betraying Mr. J. Harley clamped down on her thoughts when she realized they had migrated back into the same loop where they'd been before.

It seemed the hole in her memory was more of a crater with everything around it being pulled into the hollow abyss in the center. She needed something to plug the hole so her trains of thoughts wouldn't come off the rails any more than they already did.

She thought Batman's gravestone would make an excellent plug. Killing Batman in retribution for the Joker could also serve as her way of saying goodbye to the Clown Prince of Crime. Afterwards, she could get to know Bruce better.

Laying back against the pillows of her hospital bed, Harley closed her eyes, thinking happy thoughts about getting rid of Batman and the life she might have with Bruce in the years following.

***

Harley spent a week in the hospital. Bruce was by her side almost constantly. Several times he received calls and had to quickly depart to take care of business, but he always came back to her.

They spent much of their time talking about the past she couldn't remember, trying to awaken her sleeping memories. Harley didn't think they were asleep; she thought her memories had packed their bags, gone on vacation to Hawaii, and hadn't left a forwarding address.

Because her memories had failed to return, and it didn't seem likely they'd come back any time soon, Harley concentrated on her plot to erase Batman from existence. The day of her release, Harley had her plans well formulated.

Bruce pushed her in a wheelchair from her room to the front door. Although she could walk fine, Bruce had insisted, so she let him while trying to silence the voices in her head saying she'd gone soft. She ignored the accusations since Harley knew what she'd planned in order to catch Batman. Her softness was just a cover, a ruse so no one would be prepared for what she was going to do, not even Batman.

The front doors of the hospital opened automatically at their approach, and Bruce guided Harley outside to where a gleaming black car was waiting at the curb. A man stood beside the rear door of the car, holding it open for them. Dressed in a dark suit and cap, Harley thought the white haired man looked like an undertaker.

"Good to have you well again, Miss Quinn," the man said in a British accent.

"Thanks," Harley replied, still in the dark as to the identity of the man holding the door.

Bruce scooped Harley out of the wheelchair and transferred her to the cushioned luxury of the car. He moved her so effortlessly, Harley guessed Bruce must work out, and she wondered when he ever found the time with all the business stuff he was doing and also the parties where cameras always managed to capture him for magazines and newspapers the next day.

After Bruce returned the wheelchair, he came back to the car and climbed in beside her.

"Head to Harley's place, Alfred," Bruce instructed the mortician.

"Very good, Master Bruce," the man replied, closing the door and heading back around to the driver's side.

Harley fidgeted with the sleeve of her red and black leather jacket. The hospital had returned what she'd been wearing when she'd arrived after the car crash, and although glad to be out of the hospital gown she'd been forced to wear, Harley didn't think she'd ever get the bloodstains out of the leather. She thought the dried blood gave her look a tougher, more dangerous edge, but it wasn't as bright as the leather itself, appearing brown by comparison. Harley considered having it professionally cleaned before adding some dye or fake blood of the appropriate color from a costume shop to recreate the look.

***

Alfred parked the car in a private garage, and Bruce helped Harley out. She could stand without his assistance, but when he put his arm around her, she couldn't think of a good reason to change things. If Joker was gone, it didn't matter if she enjoyed being with Bruce, but if Harley was hallucinating, nothing she did here mattered, so she saw no reason not to savor Bruce's close proximity.

The elevator from the garage to the top floor opened into a room Harley knew instantly couldn't be hers. The black and red color scheme made it feel like home, but the size of the place was extreme. A sofa and matching chairs in her favorite colors flanked a black coffee table on a rug of red. The massive window running the length of the apartment looked out onto a deck, complete with swimming pool. Even with Gotham's nearly perpetually gray sky, Harley thought the view spectacular.

Harley was quite overwhelmed. She'd never seen such a great apartment, let alone lived in one.

"I live here?" Harley asked, wanting official confirmation.

"Yes," Bruce stated. "After we got engaged, you needed a better place than that hole where you were living, so I got you this. Even though Wayne Manor has enough rooms, propriety required separate accommodations."

"You're probably the only one in Gotham who cares about my reputation," Harley remarked.

"If you're starting a new life, I want you to start it off right," Bruce told her.

"You're always putting me first, why?" Harley asked. His selfless behavior was something she'd never encountered before, especially when it was directed toward her.

"I love you," Bruce whispered to her. "And, I want the best for you. Maybe you need more convincing."

Bruce whistled a single note, loud and piercing. A skittering of claws against the tile floor in the kitchen was Harley's only warning before a pair of hairy creatures came bounding toward her at full speed, nearly knocking her down.

"Babies!" Harley shrieked in delight, opening her arms wide to embrace her brown hyenas. "Did you miss me?"

"They've been rather out of sorts since you've been in the hospital," Bruce told her. "Looks like they'll be fine and so will you."

Bruce headed for the door.

"I'll come back tomorrow and see how you're doing," Bruce said.

"Maybe the old place will jog a few memories," Harley suggested.

"I hope so," Bruce agreed. "See you tomorrow."

"Bye," Harley said, picking up one of her hyena's paws and waving with it.

Harley watched out the window for Bruce's car to drive away. After seeing it depart, she waited ten minutes to be sure it wouldn't come back unexpectedly. Going into the kitchen, she found two large cuts of meat in the fridge and left them in metal bowls on the floor for her pets.

"Be good while I'm gone," Harley told the two hyenas.

Locking the door behind her, she went downstairs and hailed a cab. She needed to kill Batman, and she knew of an old friend who could help.