I'm Glad I Crashed the Wedding

Bang. Everyone's attention was averted from the babbling bride to the man in the purple pimp suit with the green hair and makeup. For once a real smile spread across my face. He came. My father jumped up onto the podium to guard Bruce and my lives. I knew for sure that The Joker or Jack would never hurt me. Maybe Bruce but now that's not my problem, is it? So I am a smiling fool while all the attendees of the wedding are screaming and crying. I don't know what was happening to me. Maybe it was the old connection between Jack and I that was causing it. Although, you can give a million reasons as to why it was happening but it doesn't matter. I can give you two hundred and forty-two million, eight hundred and ninety-eight thousand, two hundred and two reasons but it won't change the fact that inside, I had a small inkling to start laughing at the people I've know most of my life as they faced death, danger, and fear. He laughed at them. I held my laughter back. He opened his arms as if expecting a hug. A hug I was willing to give. My brain told me to stay back. Stay back. He's not the old Jack anymore. He's a parasitic psycho now. The Joker. But my heart told me to go. Somewhere deep inside his heart, or locked away in the depths of his brains, there's the old Jack. My Jack. And that part of him, the Jack part, would never let any part of him hurt me. At least that's what I continued to tell myself. I took one small step forward. It didn't matter what my brain, mind, or conscious told me. I have lived a boring, numb life since that day in eighth grade. The day I lost him and discovered feelings I didn't know I had for him. I missed him and now I had a chance to be with him. I don't know a single person that would give up a chance to be with the person they really truly loved. The person they've loved since before eighth grade, even if it took until eighth grade to realize. Sometimes it take separation to realize just how important someone is. Nobody noticed my first small step that boosted my confidence and led to the second bigger step. Jack noticed. His smile grew. My smile grew. I took a large step towards him. Step number three. Bruce noticed and gave me a questioning look. Jack gave me a reassuring look. I continued to smile. Step number four caused my dad, Commissioner James Gordon, to notice and send a look of discombobulation toward me. Jack laughed at my dad and Bruce. I took another step. My dad stepped in front of me in what looked like, from the outside, an act of protection. I knew better. Jack knew better. My father was stepping between us once again. Getting in the way. Jack's smile faded. My dad asked why he was here? Why couldn't he just leave us alone on the day that was supposed to be the best ever? Jack's answer was the best. He said, "Looks to me that she wasn't all that happy until I showed up." Everyone was quiet. They heard me go babbling bride. They saw the non-existent smile beneath the veil. They saw the smile grow as the time passed that the dangerous Joker was in my presence. I took a few steps to get around my father. He grabbed my arm to hold me back. "Who do you think you are Joker to trick my daughter into coming with you?" He's slow. How is it possible for my dad, the person that was bound to have heard about or witnessed Jack's arrest, not to notice to connection between Jack and Joker? I mean, how many people have smiley scars? "You could say I'm an old friend," he responded. I tried to go towards him. Dad held me back. My smile started to fade. There's always something messing with my happiness. Jack frowned too. I sent a looked that screamed help. I needed to be with him. I wanted happiness. Oh how I longed for it. Jack stepped forward with his knife. "You want to know what makes my mind tick in a way that makes it okay for me to 'take' your daughter? It's something you lack. You won't like the answer though. Love. I love your daughter. You don't know who I am so obviously you don't understand why you and your buddies have been major targets. You know, you and your buddies in the station are really slow. Stupid even. I love your daughter and the sudden realization of the feeling hit when I sat in that jail cell. It grew when I sat in Arkham. And I tried forgetting it for years but seeing that wedding announcement." He paused to smack his lips. "Seeing that wedding announcement triggered those feelings and made them flood my mind like a clogged toilet!" He had started yelling about half way through his rant. But the word love stuck in my head. He loves me. I knew I loved him but him loving me was.... it was awesome. I found strength I didn't know I had. I broke away from my dad, pushed through Bruce, who had stepped forward into my path, and ran across the room to Jack. Gasps escaped many attendees' mouths. Surprise filled every person in the room. I was surprised I had found the strength and acted without a second thought. Jack was surprised that I made it through two men while wearing a dress or maybe he was surprised I could run across the room to him while wearing heels. Who knows. But it happened so fast. I hid behind Jack as Bruce asked "What do you mean you love her? You're the Joker! You can't love! And what's with this bullshit about you being an old friend? And how does he, her own father, lack love for his daughter? He seems to me to be one of the most loving father's around!" Bruce was mad. But that's understandable seeing how Jack, The Joker, a villain/criminal was taking one of the richest men alive and the secret Batman's fiance on the wedding day. Kind of funny if you think about it. My dad pointed the barrel of his gun at Jack. I froze. He wouldn't really shoot Jack would he? My dad asked again who he was. Who are you? Who are you? God my dad was stupid. I never watched the news, read the paper, or paid attention to the news articles posted on my yahoo page and yet I saw that one picture of the Joker and automatically made the connection. Maybe my dad has lied about his age all his life. Maybe instead of forty-three/forty-four he's really fifty-three/fifty-four and now he's got Alzheimer's disease. I could feel Jack's frustration boiling the blood in his veins. "Jack. Let's just go. I don't want to stay here." I whispered where only he could hear. A few of my dad's buddies were at the wedding and neither I nor Jack noticed them creeping up from behind until it was too late. I was pulled away. Jack was handcuffed and shoved into a small crammed police trooper car to be 'taken downtown', as they say in all the movies, for questioning. We decided the wedding would have to wait until things settled. I was led to my dad's car because I needed to be questioned too about my 'stupid' decision to go to the Joker. The entire ride to the station my dad drilled me with questions on why I did what I did and I knew that none of the questions were really meant to be answered. Then he lectured. Why'd we decide to get married on a Saturday around the time everyone was getting off of work? The traffic was horrible and lengthening my lecture. A drive that normally took ten minutes was taking over thirty. I was to the point where I was about to start repeatedly banging my forehead against the passenger window. Then we got to the station. As I walked in, mind you I was still in my wedding dress, my dad led me to the one way mirror where he left me to go into the room I was looking into. Jack was in there. My dad was yelling. Jack laughed. I watched. My dad left the room and came over to me. Standing next to me in his suit from the wedding with his hands in his pockets and his lips pressed together forming a straight horizontal line across his face. I continued watching Jack. It was dark in the room but he seemed relaxed. Batman was in the room. I could see. Dad could see. The other officers could see but Jack couldn't see. It was like a dramatic irony. I knew what was about to happen to him and I just wanted to shout out and warn him just like you want to yell at Romeo and tell him the Juliet isn't died, just sleeping. I wanted to protect him. Batman's just going off on him, letting out every ounce of built up frustration and anger on Jack. He was throwing him against the walls and yelling at him. I understand that Jack is better known as the Joker and the Joker is a mass murderer and bomber and shit like that but he's still a person, Batman is still abusing him, and these stupid cops aren't doing a thing to stop him and I know this has got to be breaking some law. I was pounding the one way window as my dad and his co-workers watched in silence. That unknown strength from earlier came back and within seconds I had my dad's baton bar thing at hand and I was pounding against the aged one way window causing cracks to burst across the screen after the second hit. I guess all those softball years in high school are coming in handy. The cops tried to pull me away but I wasn't having it. I wanted to save the villain. I wanted to be with him. And I wanted to either bust out of here with him or be stuck in here with him. I bashed the window in and hit the officers that tried to stop me. I climbed through the broken and fragmented window in my elegant long wedding gown that was getting tattered and torn as I was getting cut up and bruised. I ran to Jack and he laid on the ground by the wall he had been thrown at. Police officers piled into the dinky interrogation room armed and dangerous and Batman, somehow, disappeared from the crowd. My dad's face held great disappointment and anger. Jack and I were escorted to two different cells by many officers. Of course the cells had ended up next to each other and I sat on the right side of my cell while Jack sat on the left side of his. We didn't touch or have a conversation. We didn't even look at each other. I wanted to ask if he had some way to get out of here. I wanted to ask if he ever missed me. I wanted to ask him if he really meant it when he said he loved me. I wanted to ask him several things but those were the three major ones. As if he were reading my mind he whispered "I meant it. I meant it all. I've missed you so much and I'm going to get us out of here. Don't worry. We're going to run away into the sunset together like all the fairy tales and we're going to have a happily ever after. It'll be the best damn fairy tale ever. There will be killing and stealing and much much blood spilling but it will be the best."