The Tears of a Clown (an Arthur Fleck/Joker love story)

Ten

"Alice, you're my angel. I had to come back. My life just doesn't work without you. Will you be my girl?"

"Oh Arthur! You've made me so happy. Of course I will. I...I love you."

Arthur felt his face split into a wide, goofy grin, looking every inch the besotted, love-sick fool that he was. "I love you too..."

"Did you just say something boss?" The man sitting across the room spoke, rudely interrupting Arthur's daydream.

He coughed awkwardly. "Uh, no."

"That's funny, J..." The woman sitting at the desk opposite chimed in. "...for a minute there I thought you just told Ten that you love him."

"Maybe he was talking to you." The man fired back at her with a triumphant grin.

"Shut up! Mister J is a very sick man."

"Flattery won't get you anywhere." Arthur quipped, making Ten laugh.

The woman pouted. "Actually I was referring to you being lovesick. You must be if you're talking to yourself."

"I was just thinking out loud it's no big deal." Arthur rambled. He stared down at the worn desk in front of him, littered with papers, blueprints, plans.
How could he focus on any of this when his thoughts were still filled with Alice? Like now, playing-out numerous conversations and scenarios in his head.

Alice wasn't here but his heart was full of her, and he needed her. Needed her back in his life to function properly.

So much had happened in the past week his head was still reeling. He'd gone from being a nobody to inadvertently starting a movement and now fronting it. The Clown protestors were now not only his followers but also his personal mob to command.
Different gangs, disgruntled political activists, petty criminals and even a few notable names of Gotham's crime underworld had all come forward with propositions, hoping to form an alliance with Joker as their leader.

It was exiting. Overwhelming. Quite terrifying, Yet Arthur still wasn't as excited as one might expect him to be, because the fact of the matter was, although he had a purpose he missed Alice.

None of this empire he was building would mean anything without her.

Admittedly, he didn't know the first thing about running such an operation. Though perhaps people didn't give him credit for the skills he did have, for example he was very observant. He watched and nothing ever got by him. He saw everything but said very little. That was a good enough place to start.
Arthur was also intelligent. Just because he was socially awkward and lacked perception in certain situations, sometimes misinterpreting and misunderstanding things, didn't automatically make him a fool.

He'd always been polite, shy, and generally nice. Prior to Randall having given him the gun he'd never seriously broken the law or treated anyone cruelly or had the desire to be violent towards anyone.

Okay so he had regularly had negative thoughts. Dark thoughts, such as fantasising about ways in which to take his own life, to end his miserable, lonely existence.
He'd hidden his melancholia from his mother, not wanting to cause her concern. Not that she'd ever expressed much interest in his private life or personal thoughts.
If she'd have found out no doubt she would be stricken.

Why?

Because Penny Fleck had been a devout Catholic and had raised Arthur in much the same way. And suicide was a sin.
The pair of them had attended Mass every Sunday at the church and when her failing health prevented her from going out the local priest would pay home visits.
This had led to one of Arthur's secrets being discovered.
He had stopped attending Mass and lied to her about it, but the truth was he'd never been a believer and certainly didn't consider himself religious.
The reveal had almost broke his mothers heart as much as it had when she'd discovered some provocative pictures glued inside his journal that he'd cut-out of a playboy magazine. Her reaction crushed him and made him feel ashamed, but as a fully-grown man he was bound to be sexually curious and had been for a very long time. Obviously it was only natural for him to have occasional sexual thoughts and desires.
However his catholic upbringing meant he had to express chastity through sexual abstinence. But there'd never been any chance of Arthur marrying, let alone securing so much as a date, due to his crippling shyness which hindered all social interaction with females and the older he got the more awkward he became around women.