Help, please {Jim}

[Harleen Quinzel]

It had been just over a week, maybe two, after she had spent the night with Joker. He told her to think over if she was going to move in with him. However, since then, she had been spending nights at the office, sleeping at her desk, the one place Joker would never tread. Now, now though, now she needed help. What was she going to do? When she woke up this morning at her desk she saw a rose, with her name on it. Just like when they were first together. Harley walked into Jim’s officer and closed the door behind her.

She sniffled and looked up at the only other man she trusted with her life. “Jim?” She asked softly as she moved towards him. The young woman didn’t bother sitting across from him. She just took one of the chairs and pulled it all the way around the desk. She took his hands in hers, just automatically, like he had spoken with her in the past when she was upset. “I need to talk to you.” She said before several tears started to fall.

There was a moment, just a long moment where all Harley could do is cry some in front of him. “Joker was outside my apartment.” She said after a long moment. Her arms wrapped around him. She was actually trembling like a leaf as she pulled him in closer. She needed his protection, she needed to feel safe. She just, needed him. “I talked to him, he came up into my apartment, and we had dinner.” She nodded several times. He didn’t need to know they had sex right? Right! Well, might talk about that later, but for now, this was the right way to handle it.

“He said that people might come after me, that I wasn’t safe in my apartment. He wants me to go back with him to the hide out. He wants me to be with him again. He said we were a family, that you didn’t care about our family. He said that.. He said you didn’t really care what happened to me.” She pulled away from him and looked at the ground. She wanted him to care, he was like a father figure to her, but what if he didn’t?

[Jim Gordon]

Harley had been acting a little distant lately, so in a way Jim wasn't surprised when she entered his office. He looked up from the paperwork he'd been looking over. "Harleen." Commissioner Gordon invited her in. He rubbed his eyes, blinking several times before turning in his chair to look at her as she pulled up another chair.

He held her hands gently in his, looking into her eyes, she was upset about something. He was pretty sure he already knew why. Then the tears started falling and Jim moved closer, putting his arms around her. He held her as she cried softly, only a little surprised when her arms wrapped around him. He rubbed her back gently listening as she spoke. He bit his lip at the name 'Joker".

He was afraid that she'd go back to the way she was before, he didn't want that for her, she was so much better then just the Joker's manipulated love. She deserved better then that, but of course she didn't know that. She hadn't lived any life other then the one with the Joker, and now her she was talking to Jim, the man who she - once upon a time - would have shot without a second thought, about the Joker and how she needed help.

At her next set of words Jim began to shake his head. "Harleen, I don't know how to say this, but Joker...he was wrong, I care. I do care about you. You know that, don't you?" His eyes settled on hers just as she looked at the ground. He gently lifted her chin so their eyes met. "Harleen, everyone here at the station is family to me, I care about everyone here, but these past few weeks, to be honest, you felt more like a daughter then just another worker of the Gotham police district. Of course, I care about you." He hoped he would be able to get through to her.

[Harleen Quinzel]

Jim cared? It was still hard for Harleen to swallow completely. However, she didn’t let go of him. She did feel like he was a father to her. She could come to him for anything, and honestly she needed that type of relationship with someone. Her own father, well he was likely locked up again. After all, three months was his shortest time on the other side. He had been in more than out, a couple of times he told Harley he would rather be in there than out in the real world. He didn’t know how to live outside of the cage.

“You’ve been a good dad Jim.” She said softly gripping his shirt a little. “He told me that I wasn’t safe in my apartment. That someone might come to kill me.” She knew that Joker was not threatening her, he loved her all. Why would he threaten to take her life? Sure, he had said some things in the past but he never meant it as he was going to hurt her. Right? “He wants me to come home. To be with him. He still has the babies, and the goons, and he’s at the warehouse waiting for me…”

She looked up at his eyes biting her lower lip. Slowly she pulled back to just hold his hands, her body still shaking a little. There was so much more, so many more details to talk to him about. However, where did she honestly start with what was really bothering her? Well, she might as well keep the way she’s going she would get there eventually. “That man that was killed near my apartment. Puddin’ he shot him.” Calling him by his pet names was something she was suppose to avoid. However, sadly the look in her eyes and the way she smiled when she said that. It was all signs that she was slowly losing her grip with reality again. “I have a month to figure out if I want to be with him again. After that month he’s moving the gang and I will either never see him again,” Doubtful but still the threat was there, “Or I will never see you again.”

She wanted them both, why couldn’t she just have them both? Why was this so hard?

[Jim Gordon]

Jim frowned, biting his lip. "Harleen, I can't make the choice for you, I can't tell you what to do. I can only give you advice. It's up to you if you wish to listen.." He didn't know what he was going to say, or how he was going to say it, but he had to say something, had to get into her mind. She had been doing so good, he couldn't let her throw that away. "I know what I have to say probably won't be the easiest to listen to, but please, try to understand, for my sake."

"The Joker, you and I both know he hasn't made the...er..." Jim struggled for the right word, "best choices. And frankly, nether have you, but people can change, Harleen. Officer Blake - Amelia - was once a killer, but she changed. So can you, because I believe in you. I believe that there's a life for you...without the Joker..." He looked down at her, gently thumbing away the tears she'd cried.

"You know," he started, pausing and sighing, letting the truth sink into his bones, "if you do....go back....I couldn't ever pull the trigger...." He met her eyes then, his filled with not the judgement and hatred that might have been in the eyes of others but instead with a gentle glaze of kindness. He knew that if he was asked to shoot Harleen Quinzel he would refuse. He wouldn't be able to, not after this.

[Harleen Quinzel]

Harley just looked up at him. There was something in his eyes. Yes, he was her father she saw that no matter what he wood be her dad and she would be his little girl. A smile crossed her lips some as he spoke about the joker and choices. "If I can change then maybe he can too right? Maybe we can fix him? No one thought I would get better and I did" She knew that the Joker would never change. Though she hoped he would.

He would never shoot at her? Why? She deserved to be shot at if she was... she would never shoot at him. she could never risk hurting him. What would Jim think? What about his kids and wife? No they needed him she could never hurt him or anyone else. No, if she went back... "I'd never shoot at you either. I love you Jim... I wish you had been my dad... then perhaps I wouldnt be so trapped..." She looked at the door and the officer standing there with a look of concern and Harley pulled away. "I'll talk to you more after work.. " Since she loved a few blocks from him she assumed he'd give her a ride like normal. Though she went to the door she stopped froze in place and looked back to Jim. She had to tell someone.

She locked the door, making the officer outside turn from worried to scared as he checked the door Harley slowly pulled something from her pocket as she walked back her eyes down cast. "I slept with him. We made love when I saw him."[/b] She set the item down before him and looked in his eyes. "I'm pregnant...." and scared. However the look in her eyes showed him that.[/color]

[Jim Gordon]

Jim didn't comment on her words about the Joker changing. He knew that they both knew that the Joker was the Joker and he wouldn't change. Pieces and parts weren't connected right and that alone was a reason why he couldn't change. But then maybe it wasn't that he couldn't, it was that he wouldn't. He made it quite clear that he liked the way he lived. He wouldn't change for anyone, Jim knew that. He just hoped that Harley would realize it and make the right choice.

He doubted that as well, as much as he hated to say it, but he doubted that she'd do the right thing and step out of the Joker's life for her own good.

He nodded slightly at her words. Part of him wished that too, as hard as it was to believe but it was the truth. If Harley had been his own daughter she never would have turned out like this. That sounded bad didn't it? It's not like she wasn't a good person, she'd just made quite a few wrong choices. Jim didn't believe anyone was strictly good or bad, they just had to choice which side they wanted to act from. Either way one would make mistakes no matter who raised them, but perhaps the mistakes would have been fewer with Harley had Jim Gordon been her father. Of course they would have been fewer...that was the obvious truth.

"Whatever you do, I trust you to make the decision that's right," he told her, his eyes following her as she got up. He nodded and was about to go back to his paperwork when he heard the lock click and he looked up, a questioning look in his brown eyes. At first, he sighed, he didn't know what to say about Harley having sex with the Joker, and anyways it wasn't his place to comment on. But the last two words caught him completely off guard. For a moment he struggled for the right words, shocked and at the same time almost appalled. Personally, Gordon couldn't image finding the Joker even at least bit attractive, but then this was Harley Quinn and no one really knew what went on in her head, and then he managed to stutter out, "Harley, I don't know what to say, that's...." he paused, searching for the suitable word, "wonderful." There was no way he was going to say what he was thinking, that would hurt her and that was something he didn't want to do no matter how many of his team she'd killed. There was a part of her that could survive without the Joker; the part he was relaying on to make the better choice and perhaps this child was her second chance.

One could always be optimistic...right?

[Harleen Quinzel]

Joker would never change. Harley knew that. She knew that more than anyone else. He was set in his ways, he loved it, he enjoyed the chaos, the danger, the excitement, the death, the burning, the fires. He loved it all, he liked watching the city burn. Harley never enjoyed that before, however, for now, she did. She liked the idea of it, the simple facts that.. It didn’t matter, she liked watching the people run in panic. Harleen didn’t. She wanted to help them all. Now, well now she was having a hard time. Harleen had been hidden for so long, that now she didn’t want to go back. She didn’t want to give way to Harley, to her insanity. She didn’t want to, not for anything, she didn’t want to lose her child.

The child, what would it be a boy? Girl? A clown? No, never a clown, Harleen never would go back she wouldn’t let it. However, Harley was louder, screaming she needed her Puddin. Demanding to go to him, that he’d know what to do. Harleen, well Harleen clung to Jim. He had to be the right person to talk to. “Right…”

She didn’t know if she could make the decision. There was something so, rugged and handsome about the Joker. He had such a soft touch, he could be tender, loving, romantic in his own way. He could also be rough, demanding, and abusive. It was all in his moods, and Harley almost always brought him in a good mood. It was, it was worth it. Harley loved his scars. The feel of the bumps against her finger tips, the way it tugged on his lips when they kissed. The way his lips felt against her, even the makeup didn’t bother her anymore. Sure, she was one of the few that got to see him without his makeup often, but she almost preferred him with his clown face on. The texture against her hands, the dark depths of his eyes. There was just something about him that made her body quiver.

“I’m glad one of us thinks so.” Harley sunk down into the chair across from Jim her hands on her stomach. The young woman looked down at them and rubbed gently, she was going to become bigger, she was going to have a child. What would happen after? She didn’t know. “Should I tell him? Should I tell my father? He was arrested yesterday for theft again. My brothers? I haven’t spoken to them in years, and I already know that I won’t be talking to Mom. I just… Jim I don’t know what to do. I have never…” She was scared and her eyes looked up at him, the young woman had a look as though she was expecting him to reach over the table and start beating on her. “What if they find out? What will they think?” She asked looking over at the police just outside of his office door.

Her eyes looked back to Jim. “What if Mr. J finds out? What if he doesn’t want me to have it? Should I have it?” She had so many questions. “I called a doctor… They want me to come in today… Will you come?”

[Jim Gordon]

Jim sighed. He didn't know what Harley was thinking about, about the mental war that she was having with herself. He only knew that this wasn't the Harley they knew any more, if anything this was Harleen Quinzel and Jim was going to try and help her stay this way if it was the last thing he ever did, little did he know that it almost would be. He was going to make sure that no matter what, somehow her child wouldn't be harmed. Truthfully, he didn't know how he'd pull that off but he had to think of something. It meant something to Harleen so he was going to try and help her keep it. He also didn't want to know what Joker would do to it if he found out.

The commissioner didn't know what he was expecting out of this child, but he was hoping, for its sake, that it wouldn't end up like the Joker. If it did...he knew he would be unable to point a gun at it. It was Harleen's child as much as it was the Joker's. He wouldn't do that to the kid or to Harleen. He bit his lip.

The older man sighed, looking at her worriedly. He put a hand on her leg, moving his eyes to hers gently. "I don't think it would be the best idea to tell the Joker...at least not yet...you never know what he might want you to do with it..." his voice held a low warning, but it was spoken with concern. He frowned in thought for a moment. "Your family has a right to know, yes? But it's up to you whether or not you tell them." He moved his chair closer to hers with a sigh. He moved his hands to her shoulders. "Harleen, it'll be okay, I'll be right there to help you with anything you need." He glanced up at the police just outside of his door. "It doesn't matter what they think, as long as Amelia and I are around they won't do anything to you." He trusted Amelia to make sure that no one bothered Harleen about anything.

Jim nodded, "No matter what he thinks, I think you should have it. You can always put it up for adoption if need be, but he shouldn't be able to tell you what to do with it, it's as much your child as it is his. More yours if anything." He nodded again, "Of course I will."