"But you don't know that," Bella says.

"I don't know that," he agrees. "But if it takes long enough to show up, I might not care. And I really don't wanna die all alone on an asteroid in the middle'a nowhere, either way."

"Once you were safely stranded on the asteroid," Bella says, "perhaps I could wait a couple days and see what you say about the presence or absence of Milliways when you wake up. I don't anticipate being in a hurry on that time scale."

"I actually don't know if I have the stomach to kill someone when there's another option," she says conversationally. "I'm quite sure I could do it if there wasn't, by the way, so cornering me won't yield any interesting facts... But I could check. And even if I didn't I could arrange for you not to be alone."

"I'd like that," he murmurs.

Bella nods.

With the same bizarrely innocent curiosity from before: "Would you care?"

"Some."

"Aww."

"You could've been like my Alice," she says softly.

"What's the difference, to you?"

"Alice has never killed anyone," she says, "for one thing. And he's about whimsy - not mayhem - and he's mine."

"The hell he is," the Joker says amicably.

"He's not my slave or my appendage or my trained ferret, but he's mine."

"How d'you figure?"

"In what sense of the word do you object? You weren't complaining when I called him my boyfriend."

"He loves me," Bella says. "I can make him feel better when he's upset. I go around referring to him as my pet masochist. And he's mine."

"I know he loves you. When'd you make him feel better?"

"Most recently? My alternate's bodyguard wanted his 'real' name," Bella says. "I warned him before we even walked in that I didn't want any interdimensional incidents - so he ran to the moon instead. I made up a name for them and went up after him."

"You are a sweetheart," says the Joker.

"I care about him. He was hurting."

"I knoow. It's sweet," he says.