Falling Apart

They arrived at the huge house a while later, and Adelaide's eyes went wide at the sight of it.

"Are you sure I live here?" she asked Anthony, and he nodded and led her around the back of the house to where the garage was. He pressed a code into the keypad lock and the door rose. Instantly, Adelaide saw her motorcycle parked in the corner and went to it.

"This is mine," she said, running her hands over the length of it.

"Sure is, ma'am," Rory said, opening the door that led inside for her.

They showed her all around the house, and for the most part she didn't see anything she recognized. They showed her into this Mister J's bedroom and it was a pretty standard bedroom, other than the fact that the walls were absolutely lined with weapons of all sorts. She quietly wondered just what kind of person this man was. Finally, they took her into her bedroom. She didn't recognize the room itself, but she did see a lot of things in there that she knew were hers. She recognized all of the nick knacks on the shelves, the art on the walls, and most of the clothes in the closet as hers. Even the sheets on the bed were the ones she remembered being on her bed in the apartment, though the bed was much fancier and more luxurious than the one she'd had before. The head and foot-boards were intricate brushed metal.

"This is yours, ma'am," Anthony said, handing her a cell phone off of the dresser. "Mister J said you'd leave them here when you went on your little excursion," he said, and she could tell he was holding back from telling her something.

She took the phone from him carefully, clicking it open with the same pass-code she'd always used for everything. She raised an eyebrow at Anthony and Rory when it unlocked. Apparently it was hers. She flipped through the pages of apps, taking note of them all. Then she opened the 'photos' app and started flipping through them. The first few were normal; pictures of pretty scenery, a picture of her motorcycle, a picture of herself smiling at whoever was taking the photo. The next one, however, made her gasp out loud. It was a picture of her, for sure, but it was the person sitting next to her that she couldn't believe. He was smiling widely, his metal teeth glinting in the low light of the room they were in. His bright green hair was slicked back smoothly onto his head except for a few pieces that strayed down and dangled near his eyes. His face was covered in smeared white face makeup and bright red lipstick. It was... The Joker. Like, the Joker. The one the papers always wrote about. The one who was a heartless killing machine. The Joker.

"No..." she whispered, looking up at Anthony and Rory. Of course. The 'Mister J' they kept referring to. Of course it was the Joker. Who else would it have been? "I'm... with the Joker?" she asked them, and they both nodded.

"Yes, ma'am. You're quite happy actually," Rory said, and Anthony nodded beside him.

"I'm gonna need you to tell me everything you know," she said to them, not really caring which one of them spoke as long as one did.

They told her the entire history of her and the Joker as they knew it. From her stealing money from him and killing one of his guys, to him trying to find a way to punish her and ultimately getting too smitten with her and offering her a job instead, to her getting shot in a nightclub with a glowing green bullet that had almost killed her, to them falling in love, to her getting shot again and then beheaded and eventually brought back to life by her sister and her facility, just to end up with her sister on a warpath determined to kill the Joker.

"...Wow..." she said when they were done talking, staring at them both with wide eyes. "I would say I don't believe you, but that's way too much shit for you to be making it up," she told them, and they both nodded.

"The proof is on your neck, Miss A," Rory said, pointing at the turtleneck sweater her sister had given her to wear. Of course. She'd known the sweater definitely wasn't hers. She got up out of the chair she was sitting in and made her way over to the mirror above the dresser. She pulled the collar of the sweater down and sure enough, there was a rough ugly scar all the way around her neck. She leaned forward and touched it lightly with two fingers and was almost knocked down by the rush of feelings the touch gave her. She felt... pain. Pain and sadness and something else... love? Strong images of the Joker's face flashed through her mind the longer she held her fingers on the gnarled skin. Him laughing crazily, him staring at her with wide eyes, him leaning in to kiss her, him offering her a much less sinister smile.

"Miss Adelaide, I know you're adjusting and I know you may not even fully believe us, but we need your help, ma'am," Anthony said, snapping her out of her reverie.

"My help?" she asked, turning back towards him.

"You see, we don't exactly know where they've taken Mister J. He was at the same facility you were, but two of our guys broke in yesterday in disguises and came up completely empty. He's not there and they have no record on him. Your sister kept saying she wanted to kill him, but we know he's still alive somewhere," Anthony told her, a very serious look on his face.

"How could you possibly know that he's alive?" she asked, and Anthony hesitated before answering.

"You see, I have powers like you. Mine are a bit different from yours, though. It was pointless, really, until I met Mister J and he offered me a position on his team. He doesn't like me to talk about it unless it's necessary but I can see people's locations in my mind if I'm touching something that's important to them. I've tried it with just about everything around the house, and all I've been able to get are images of his face. They're essentially real-time so I know he's alive somewhere. Nothing in the house has been able to give me his location though," Anthony told her, looking at her intently.

"And you think... you think I'm that thing that he cares about that will give you his location?" she asked, and he nodded and held out his hand to her.

"Please, ma'am?" he asked, waving his fingers slightly, motioning for her to take his hand. She hesitated, thinking about all the things that were cemented in her memory. She didn't know why or how, but she had no recollection of anything these two men were saying to her and it scared her. It wasn't necessarily that she didn't believe them, she mostly was just frustrated that she couldn't remember anything. Then she thought about all of the emotions and images that had flashed through her head when she'd touched the scar on her neck. Even if they weren't telling the whole truth, something inside her told her she needed to help them. She needed to rescue the Joker. She reached her hand out to Anthony and his eyes closed as her fingers touched his.