Body Count

Shane lingered at the edge of the forest, peering through the thick foliage at the dark pavement beyond. The sun had hardly risen yet, tinging the horizon fiery pink and orange. No cars passed her, in this early morning chill, and the stillness threatened to engulf her. It pounded on her ears, pushing her into herself, making her whimper and sob pathetically.

Time passed in strange, liquid dollops. One minute, she had been fleeing blindly through the trees from The Joker and his teasing; the next, she was crouched under a tree crying loudly. And, almost before she could blink, she had wandered still further away from the campsite and was now meandering aimlessly along the very edge of the forest.

No sense of need to go back overcame her, as she'd expected it might at some point, so she wandered on and on. She felt the heat of the sun on her back quite a while later, and blew a gust of breath up towards her glistening brow. She kept walking.

Truthfully, Shane had expected herself to pale at the sight of the rest of the world and return, tail between her legs, to The Joker. She'd even had a vision of herself apologizing to him profusely for running away, for leaving him when he'd rescued her and taken care of her all this time. Even with the anger at him running through her system, she could see herself doing these things, because that was her flaw. She'd seen it coming a mile away, and she'd embraced it. Maybe not happily; no, but willingly.

Stockholm Syndrome. A quickly developing sense of need for her captor - and savior, she couldn't help adding - promptly and effectively consumed her until she could no longer tell the difference between violent abuse and a caring embrace.

Her nose wrinkled at the word love, though. What she felt for him could not be defined as love; that, she was sure of. No, as she always repeated to herself, it was a need. She needed him, for many reasons she could name and many more she couldn't.

Survival, for instance. He was undoubtedly good at staying alive in the cold and cruel wilderness of the forest, and he kept her alive, too. Somehow, he always managed to spot a rabbit or a squirrel, whip his knife out quick as a flash, and have it skewered on a tree next instant. He always provided enough food for the both of them. Without him, Shane surely would have died of starvation by now. She was certainly no seasoned woods-person. A city girl like her would have awful chances of pulling through this ordeal - except, of course, for the aid of The Joker.

Company was another reason to stay with him. Like any other teen-aged girl Shane's age, she craved the company of others - usually. Even if his company was not always fun - her sprained wrist twitched unpleasantly - it was something. Somebody to aim her words at. Somebody she could listen to, even if most of the words out of his mouth were put downs to her.

The last reason, though, frightened even Shane. It was the reason of sanity, and without The Joker, she would have lost it by now ... if she hadn't before.

For her mind still had a slight issue with comprehending the fact that The Joker was real. Yes, she'd always wished he was real, reading about him in her comic books and watching him in cartoons at home or at the theater on the big screen, but when he had actually walked into her life, her heart had skipped so many beats she thought she'd died. Because fictional, made-up characters didn't just pop out of books every other day and break you out of jail. They just didn't.

A shudder ran down her spine, and she glanced around herself. Without realizing, she'd walked herself back into the middle of the forest, though nothing familiar could be seen. No blood-stained trees from dinner last night, no fire pit, no Joker. She was in the middle of the forest again, yes ... but she was further than ever from camp.

Panic started to rise in her gut, making her clutch at her stomach, sickened. Loneliness also reared its' ugly head, doubling her grief, sending wave after wave of fear to her brain.

She was alone. Utterly alone. What if she'd wandered right out of a hallucination? What if her secret suspicions had been right, and The Joker wasn't real? What if her steady pacing had brought her right out of a dream, and back into the real world?

These thoughts screamed at her, making her ears ring, making her throat dry. She resumed her walking; but now, she was going much faster. She stumbled over weeds and dirt-covered tree roots, frightened tears pouring down her Earth-crusted cheeks.

The anger from this morning had boiled down to nothing, dwarfed by the panic of leaving The Joker behind. Thoughts of her father, no longer angering her, made her heart beat ever more painfully in her chest.

She'd always known she was close to insanity - this sudden isolation seemed to be the push she needed. She started to shout random nothings, bashing into trees and falling into the shrubs. The third time this happened, she remained on the ground, kicking and flailing her arms at the air, wailing.

"Daddy!" she screamed, seeing her father's face floating before her. "Daddy, please, help me! I need you!" A strangled sob ripped out of her throat, as the pain of her stitches ripping along her shoulder was added to her miseries. "DADDY!"

A pair of arms pushed under her body, and she was lifted swiftly into the air. Her eyes rolled wildly in her head, searching for her new torturer, her new kidnapper.

"You're not in very good shape," The Joker commented mildly, looking down on her.

The Joker. He had come for her. In her momentary madness, she had grabbed his shirt and sobbed a single, tearful, "Daddy?" before she understood that The Joker and her father, a blond lawyer, were two completely different people.

A chuckle came from above her head. "No, Shaney, not really."

He strode purposefully through the trees, ducking under branches and skipping over thistles and low-slung roots. Silence drifted around the two of them while he walked, and Shane allowed herself to relax a bit. Her eyelids drooped, and her throat burned from screaming. The old wound on her shoulder, nearly healed with the help of the stitches, dripped a few drops of blood down her arm.

After nearly three quarters of an hour walking, with Shane drifting in and out of sleep, the smell of smoke reached her nostrils. Her eyes opened, searching, resting upon the little fire pit and a guttering fire at the center. Wisps of smoke swirled about her head. The Joker sat down in the shadow of a tree.

"So," he said, in a business-like tone. "Hit a nerve, did I?"

She shrugged, squirming a bit to get comfortable. He hadn't relinquished his hold on her.

His eyes, as always, were wandering ceaselessly as he spoke. "I was just telling the truth, Shane. You know I'm not a liar."

"A deceiver, but not a liar," she argued peaceably.

A smile wrinkled his features. She noticed that his face paint was running and faded. "Two very different things."

"Nonetheless," she replied.

He sighed. "Oh, you," he gasped, squeezing her face in one hand - ungloved, for once. "Running off like that. Had old Joker a little concerned."

She raised her eyebrows up at him. "Concerned? You? Say it ain't so."

He smacked her cheek lightly, gently. "Just because I'm insane," His voice warbled high and higher rapidly, as he gestured with one hand at his face. "Insane, and angry, well. That doesn't mean I can't have a little worry once in a while."

"I won't tell anybody," she smiled, rubbing her eyes.

"No you won't. You won't," he said, exaggerating the 'tuh' at the end.

They sat there for a while, The Joker picking leaves and twigs out of her hair - not very roughly - and Shane dropping off into an exhausted sleep.

Just as Shane was fairly sure she was falling asleep, and she had entered the state where she was aware of her surroundings, but she could see nothing but black, she thought she heard him speak. When she thought back on it in future, she told herself constantly that it had been her imagination going in overdrive, and she was foolish for even thinking up such things.

Despite that, though, she always remembered the words that drifted to her from far away, through red-stained lips with blackened eyes gazing down upon her.

"Nothing is going to touch my Shaney. Nothing. Don't worry."