Author's note: Hi all! Thanks for joining me in my own take on the manipulation and seduction of Dr. Harleen Quinzel by The Joker. It's a popular story to tell and there've been a few really awesome takes on it. But I guess I always felt there was something missing that I wanted to see and so I decided to do my own version. For a long time I struggled against it and now I've finally relented.

But it has been done before, so why should you read it?

It's quite different, for a start. This is told from both Harley AND Joker's perspectives, in alternating chapters.

Also, the entire narrative will take place just before, within or after a session.

The reason for this is I really wanted to focus on the psychology between them - what actually happened in their meetings to shape their relationship. Through depicting the events of the session, you are able to imagine for yourselves what went through Harley's mind once she got back home, or what Joker was planning from his cell. I think it's really important to remember the seduction took place within sessions. Sure, Harley would've built on everything in her own time, but their primary interaction happened during therapy. Doing it this way I hope will capture a sense of claustrophobia and segregation from the outside world I imagine would be felt in that little room together, and along with it the gradual detachment from reality.

On that, I don't cover ever single session. A certain amount of time passes between each one. What I've tried to do, instead, is give you enough information and subtle clues in each chapter for you to piece together the progress and the sort of things happening between them as time passes.

Finally, this is set in the mainstream universe.

This fic will be updated twice a week until complete. Each chapter will be short, rarely more than 2000 words.

Enjoy! And if you do - please review! Gushing praise is welcomed, but constructive criticism is craved!

ooooo

PROLOGUE

Arkham Asylum stands just outside the city of Gotham, off a lonely stretch of road.

Cars unwittingly speed up as they pass by its private road, leading up through several miles of fenced in parkland to its main gates.

There are very few visitors.

Inside, its barren halls echo with the screams and shrieks of its residents and even the brightest room seems overcome with shadows. The walls themselves seem to breathe, slowly draining the air until everyone inside becomes grey and drawn.

Sometimes a Doctor will stand in their office, throw their heads back and scream, secure in the knowledge no one will notice.

Most Doctors do not last more than three years and those who do no longer have any hope of leaving. The asylum becomes a part of them, its horrors etched into their faces. Sometimes the Doctors are as crazy as the inmates, hiding in plain sight.

The only ones who thrive are those inmates in the High Risk Ward. Known to the guards as "The Zoo".

Somewhere, deep in the Asylum's scarred belly, a small therapy room was waiting. The overhead light was a forty-watt bulb and the walls were a faded pale pink, an effort to provide a calming environment to those easily agitated. The only furniture in the room was a large leather chair, bolted to the ground, and a long leather couch, also bolted. Both pieces of furniture were unremarkable, standard in psychologists' offices everywhere, except that the couch had been adjusted with metal loops and fixtures for binding people down.

As the drilled in wall clock clicked over towards three o'clock pm, a couple of guards unlocked the cell of The Zoo's star attractions, commanding him to turn around and raise his arms to be fastened into his straitjacket.

Several floors above, a young Doctor paced nervously in her office, trying to quell the slight tremble in her hands, attempting to bolster her confidence by reminding herself how far she had come so quickly.

She left her office at precisely the moment the inmate in The Zoo was led from his cell. Their destination was the same.