Death's a Joke.

Ace’s expression changed to one of confusion as she noticed dim grey smoke entwine down the corridor and through the doorframe into the room which she was located in. In a mere second the roar of fire ripped the bottom of the corridor, the amber flames licking the enclosed space drawing closer to where she lay – too weak to escape. The deafening noise of an explosion pierced Ace’s ears as she tightened her eyes closed while protecting herself with her arm from the rubble.

“What the hell is going on?” Muttered Ace as her eyes opened with a sting as the dust sprinkled them.

The roof to the hospital room now had a gaping hole giving the smoke a place to escape leaving the clearer vision of destroyed debris and simmering flames. Ace began to brush the larger pieces of cement of her bed sheets as her eyes scanned the night sky that was now visible in the corner near the doorframe that led down the now blackened corridor to the spark emitting elevator.

“Why the bloody hell can’t you just die, angel? It’s just a simple request,” Cackled the voice that unnerved most of Gotham, even the people who worked for him.

The Joker swayed over to the bed she lay in like a drunken man, and to anyone who witnessed it they would believe he was, but Ace knew that he was just in one of his self-conceited moods. The Joker perched at the end of the hospital bed and surveyed her while occasionally lapping his lips in his usual matter. His eyes wandered her flesh to try and find the newly given scar from the bullet but she had many fresh markings to had to her battle wounds, she seemed own several scars that ranged from tiny pinpricks to ones that looked like they had healed wrong and left raw, raised skin.

“I guess you’re gonna die of hypothermia then,” Rambled the Joker as he pointed to the ceiling which was now the passage for the night’s icy winds that clung to Ace’s bed sheets making them so frozen they felt almost damp.

Ace rolled onto her left side, her back to the Joker as her breath began to turn visible; her body shaking involuntary. The Joker seemed taken back by her silence; he had grown quite fond of her comebacks. As she let her breath dance across her numbing hands, her lips fading in colour the Joker began to shuffle uncomfortably. After a few moments he kicked his worn shoes off and pulled the covers over his suit, he wrapped his arm around her so he could pull her close. The Joker pressed his lips against her hair for just a moment as he looked out at the thousands of stars against the royal blue night.

“You’re one in a million, Ace, completely insane, but one in a million,” Muttered the Joker more to himself than her, not realising that she had drifted to sleep and had turned so that instead of the pure white pillow she rested her head against his chest.

As the hospital began to burn its hazardous blaze deep into the night and people laid lifeless on the ground Batman received the message of the attack but simply told them to put the fire out and he will search later as the person would of escaped by now; leaving him time to finally sleep after what seemed days of fighting only to come home to a screaming child.