Laying in the clown's bed, staring at the ceiling. Tucked safely underneath the covers, hearing the man silently breathing into her shoulder. He was on Clara's left, therefore Joker fell asleep with the Flying Dutchman's tattoo staring back at him. He was a weird man, indeed. His sleeping habits were bizarre, but nighttime routine completely reasonable. He projected normality in various fields, and that's what always confused Clara. After all, shouldn't the most notorious Gotham's criminal be sleeping in a coffin, or at least have a bath of blood in the evening? Something highly unusual? Instead, he was not just a neat eater, but also a neat human-being in general. His house was spotless, the bed free of any traces of substances that shouldn't be there, the bathroom, too, didn't have anything unusual in there. When compared to Clara's home, the Joker's house might have been confused with a politician's, who could allow himself to have a daily cleaning by a maid.
The weirdness of the man emerged only when he was asleep. Clara remembered noticing something out-of-place before when they were sleeping at her's, but the surgeon didn't care to analyze that at the time. Now, on the other hand, the time was her friend, and she had the whole night for the medical examination.
The Joker didn't lay on the pillow like a normal human. Instead, his head was placed way below it, only the tops of the greenish hair touching the soft material. Therefore the man was able to keep the eye-to-shoulder contact. Blowing gentle gusts of air into it, he forced tiny goosebumps to appear on the woman's skin.
With a deep sigh from her own lungs, Clara relaxed. She was used to the exasperating thoughts emerging out of nowhere, at random times. Disgusting thoughts, various stories and experiences, staying in her head for longer than she would have liked. Or simple, ordinary worries, undemanding ideas. Various wonders, refusing to leave the woman's head, during the most inconvenient times. If she was operating and something like this happened, Clara would sing a song inside her head. Following the lines of a poem of some sorts was helpful too. And now, the surgeon would have started to do exactly that if not a nasal voice interrupting the quietness of the bedroom.
"Sto-p thinkin'." Clara stayed unresponsive, just staring upwards. "I know you're not sleeping, little assassin." A slow smirk stretched the woman's lips, transforming the shadowed face into something less gloomy. Into something more humane.
"Have you considered the option that I was indeed sleeping, and you've just woken me up?"
"You were no-t."
"I wasn't."
"Why's tha-t?"
"I don't know. A different environment perhaps?"
"Hmm-mm." The man t=rolled onto his back, stretching the long body, tutting silently. "We-e-ell," Joker put his hands behind his head. "then you can take the guilt of forcing me ou-t of sleep too, little assassin."
"I'm not forcing you to stay awake, clown. It's your own choice."
"It's no-t, as I don't feel safe being awake with an assassin breathing down my neck. It's your fault for being awake, toots."
"Your logic is flawed."
"Your, uh, perception is narrow."
"Right." She received a low chuckle from the body besides.
"Righ-t, huh? Are ya agreein' with little old me?"
"I am."
"You never do tha-t, toots. Did Batsy squish your brains a little, uh, too har-d?" The chuckle transformed into dog-like barking, drowning the dark room into a humourless laugh. The woman turned her head, not saying anything. She simply stared at Jack with her eyebrows raised a little. His mocking died down, and the man turned to her once more. "No-o-o, huh? Runnin' out of ideas here, little assassin. Help a little." Not receiving an answer, he sighed. "Right. If not talking about ya, then tell me a story." This melted Clara's rigid exterior slightly. Story-telling was a safe zone.
"What kind of?"
"I dunno. Something about war as it is the only thing that ya have anything to say abou-t." The misty gaze turned back towards the ceiling. A momentary silence enveloped the room, and yet, Jack knew that it won't last long. For him, Clara became a rather predictable woman.
And he wasn't wrong.
"A few years ago, I was sent to Iraq..."
"Wait a sec, I thought you were in Israel?" Clara rolled her eyes.
"I thought I was supposed to tell a story, and not answer your questions?" Without waiting for his answer, the woman continued. "In Iraq, as you know, a militant group called ISIS is in power. They tend to cause a lot of trouble not just for native people, but for the remaining world, too. But lately, the group has been continuously losing control of its cities to the Iraqi army and U.S. military allied against it."
"Yeah, I'm familiar with the information. Although I never cared enough to actually analyze what kind of weirdos are those clowns."
"Well, ISIS is actually supposed to be a religious group whose ideology represents radical Salafi Islam. They promote religious violence, and regards Muslims who do not agree with its interpretations as infidels or apostates."
"It would be nice if only I understood what you are saying to me." With a sigh, Clara slowly explained.
"Infidel is a term used in certain religions for those accused of unbelief in the central tenets of their own religion, for members of another religion, or for the irreligious. Apostasy is simply the formal disaffiliation from or abandonment or renunciation of a religion by a person. ISIS does not allow people to have atheistic beliefs, to put it even simpler. Am I clear?"
"Hmm-mm."
"I did spend quite some time in Iraq, together with my team that I responsible for. And we've met various people there. A rare person actually agreed with the ISIS's philosophy, and even rarer wanted to talk about the horrors experienced in their camp. But some did. And I happened to be one of the few that lived to re-tell the story."
"Very dramatic, little assassin."
"It should be, clown." Clara took in a slow breath, her gaze was unwavering, facial expression cool and stoic. "There was this girl. A few months into being there. Perhaps more like a young woman already. Still, a child in my eyes. She was rescued from the ISIS's camp, taken care of by the U.S. military. She've told the American soldiers how's everything in there." The woman's tongue darted out, wetting her chapped, dry lips. "They asked them to take off their headscarves, and loosen up any buttons to reveal their chests. The courtyard became a marketplace where ISIS men came and chose girls they liked. First, they sent elder women to one place, and the women with babies and children to another. The girl didn't know the whereabouts of them, and that included her mother and sisters. She'd had her period that night, and no matter how much she told him, he did not believe her. He ordered her to strip naked in his room. Then he stuck his fingers in her vagina, and saw that she was indeed bleeding." Disgust appeared on the surgeon's face, disfiguring the once attractive features into a macabre mask. "Only then did he believe. That did not mean that he left her alone. The girl said that he then turned the air-conditioner on a really high volume, said that she's to sit still the whole night in her nudity, and he molested her throughout the whole time. By the time morning arrived, she was frozen both physically and physiologically. It continued for a week until she escaped and ran to us." One of Clara's hands rose towards her mouth to rub the lower lip lightly, then lowered towards her neck, stroking the deep hollows just above the collarbones. "They all had long beards and long hair, but the worst of all was their smell. She'd never smelled such an awful smell in her life. They do not bathe. I haven't come into such close contact with them myself to get a whiff of their odour, but I imagine they feel more like beasts than human. As long as the girl had some breast, she was considered a woman, and that entitled them to rape her. Some girls were as young as ten and eleven years old. She had no past and no future at that moment. She was stuck in her anger and her pain at what ISIS did to her family, her community and herself. I noticed she developed a habit of washing her mouth several times in an hour, as a result of what they did to her." As the woman finally fell silent, the quietness continued for a good few minutes.
"When I said 'story', I was not, uh, expecting a disgusting one." The Joker's voice was flat, no emotion projected in it.
"You said 'war'. I gave you the war. Simple as that."
"Nah, I was no-t asking for a rape scene. No-t a fan of rape, toots. Not. One. Bit. Give me something else." That forced Clara to turn her head in disbelief.
"So now the war is filled with rainbows and unicorns, huh? Just because a certain someone is not a fan of reality?"
"I was not, uh, saying that. I asked ya to give me war, not rape." The surgeon could detect a shadow of boredom in the clown's nasal tone, which sparked annoyance inside her.
"Good. In fact, I have experienced something very intriguing. Myself, this time. Not a mere girl, crazy with her own pain, unable to give us some real information." Clara lifted her upper body, twisting, turning around graciously, facing the laying man. He, too, moved a little, bare, scarred face projecting an honest interest. "Just one month prior to my departure back to the U.S., I went to an island. An island where the dead piled up. A terrible scramble, I would say. People crowding and fighting around the bags of flour. Dead bodies everywhere. A hundred or more, and lots of people crying 'Give us bread!'. 'Miss, it's been two days since we've been given anything to eat. They're trying to make us die of hunger and the cold.' They told us that people had begun eating dead bodies. That they were cooking human flesh." The surgeon followed Jack's reaction closely. She noticed the side of his lip twitch slightly.
"Jesus, woman. Where have you been?"
"Far away, clown."
"I can tell tha-t."
"Good. I appreciate that you've managed to get at least that from my nighttime story. Continuing on, the scene on the island was dreadful, appaling. Throughout the next three days, my men counted seventy additional bodies. In five cases, they emphasized, the liver, the heart, the lungs, and the fleshy parts had been cut off. On one of the bodies, the head had been torn off, along with the male genital organs and part of the skin. These mutilations suggested strong evidence on cannibalistic acts. On the same day, the deportees themselves brought us three individuals who have been caught with blood on their hands, holding human liver. And there was an elderly peasant woman who reported the same that we've seen ourselves." Clara crawled upwards a little, making herself more comfortable so that the ribs wouldn't start hurting all over again. "There was one guard named Costia. A young fellow, he was courting a pretty girl who had been sent there. He protected her. But one day, he had to be away for a while, and he told one of his comrades to take care of her. But with all those people and the chaos around, the comrade couldn't do much. People caught the girl, tied her to a tree, cut off her breasts, her muscles, everything they could eat. They were hungry. They had to eat. When Costia came back, she was still alive. We've tried to save her, but she had lost too much blood. I couldn't stop the bleeding." The assassin gave Jack a pointed look. "Did you enjoy this story a little bit more than the previous one, sweet pea?"
"No, but I started wondering." The Joker interlocked his hands, giving Clara a curious look. "There are some, uh, things that I don't understand, toots."
"I'm all ears."
"The first being, as far as I am informed, is that ya ran from your pas-t. But it seems that the only thing that you actually did is run into it. No-t from it."
"It's hardly a question."
"I said I wonder, not that I will ask you anything."
"I see."
"But you're free to answer." With this, the man gave her a charming smile. "Back to the topic, shall we? Ya didn't eliminate the old environment."
"The difference is that I wasn't running around murdering people. At least not actively."
"What did the, uh, therapist say abou-t that?"
"Jonathan?"
"Yeah."
"If you hadn't realized yet, he's not my father, nor my boss to command what to do. Furthermore, the change in character, but not the environment was rather helpful. It showed me that I can indeed behave differently, even in the same situations."
"I will let this one slip for now. Nex-t." The Joker caressed his lower lip with the wet tongue, thinking deeply. "What have ya been doing there?" The question confused Clara. She didn't understand where he was going with this, as the answer was seemingly obvious.
"I'm not sure what exactly do you mean."
"I asked you what have you been doing in such place. Nothin' to get confused about."
"Apparently, I was on holidays. You know, taking a break. Relaxing." The sarcasm was evident now, getting through the seriousness of Clara's tone.
"Docs are supposed to stay sound and safe within the walls of a camp, no-t wander around to get themselves killed."
"Are you trying to imply something?"
"I am."
"That's very smart of you. To your own credit, I wasn't just a doctor. After a year or so, the leading bodies noticed my abilities in the battle beyond just the medical field. I was placed under the sharp eye of authorities, and then, a few more months, and I finally became a commando myself. Being one meant also travelling with my men wherever they had to be."
"So this is where that motherly instinct of yours came from."
"I beg your pardon?" With disbelieving eyes, Clara watched the man grin in the dim light, which was coming through the window. The sun would rise in a few hours, traces of the upcoming new day already evident in the horizon.
"Did I stutter?" His grin widened, transforming into a malicious twist of the disfigured mouth. The woman blew out the air that she was holding, and with an impatient sigh lowered herself down.
"Idiot."
"Watch your tongue, Ira. You're getting braver and braver with each passing hour."
"Thanks to you and your insufferable statements."
"Insufferable, huh? Isn't it a, uh, wrong usage of the word? Inaccurate context, perhaps?"
"Jack."
"It's me."
"I really don't understand whether you're playing smart with me, or are you serious."
"I migh-t just leave it for ya to decide." They both fell quiet. Clara was back on her back, analyzing the fraud riddle that the man had just bombarded her with, whilst Joker was just... Well, he was the Joker, tutting underneath his breath.
The suspicious normality of their positions, the relaxed behaviour was disturbing. They shared minuscule pieces of their pasts with each other, at least Clara did so, and from the facts that she presented and from his reactions they both were able to build some kind of patterns, proceeding the laying out of the puzzle further and further.
The main thing that attracts someone, is a mystery. A riddle, if you want. A secret that a person carries. An enigma. The cracking of the uncrackable nut. And in the meantime of forcing out one's deepest secrets, you get used to the person next to you. At least that's how Clara understood the situation, and she knew that the Joker, with a tiny, sane part of his brains, realized that, too.
Finally, a dreamless sleep drowned her in its slumber. The woman didn't know nor feel a pair of dark, bottomless eyes staring at her for a long time after the molasses-like state enveloped her. Like a hawk, the man traced the barely visible lines of inked skin, hollowed and rising areas of the graceful, powerful body, debating mentally with himself. For the first time in many years, Jack was lost. There were far too many options to choose from, and he didn't particularly like it. Having the ideas were good. Possessing too many of them could be dangerous. And now, when faced with the possibilities, he had to think throughout the potential outcomes. The Joker had to plan. And it wouldn't be particularly bad if he knew that the situations would turn according to those plans. But there also was a wild card somewhere in the deck. An uncontrollable woman, a commando with the spirit of steel. He could try to trick her into doing something, but that might work only for a short duration of time until she cracks his great schemes. He can use force, of course, but that also would benefit him only for so long, until he turned his back to her. A choke from behind would come immediately, except this time it might not be as merciful as it was before. He can reason. Logical arguments, huh? There was only so much logic behind what the anarchist intended to do. Emotional pressure? Not with the ancient creature that laid somewhere within the woman's mind. Not with the soldier that experienced the horrors of war.
When the man finally dozed off, a new day was breaking through the dark.
"Don't allow yourself to be outsmarted by a woman, Jack. Helen was the downfall of Troy. I wish you will never meet your Helen."
In Jack's dreams, there was a tall, dark-haired woman in his dreaming self's peripheral vision. He tried to catch a clearer glimpse of her, but the creature kept moving around. Before he gave up, a smell of something foul burning reached his nose. Low voices of men could be heard, singing a ghastly tune. The odour of scorched flesh was the last thing before everything transformed into the blackness.