Elspeth waves back. "How'd you get in without using the door?" she asks.

"Dreamed my way here," he says serenely. "I'm the only person I know who does it."

"Huh. I wonder how that works."

"Does it work?"

"Sure it does."

"Ah-huh. And what non-trouble do you tend to get up to to pass the time instead?"

"Whatever I feel like," he shrugs. "How 'bout you?"

"What's your mother's name?"

"Isabella Marie Swan Cullen, HIM," recites Elspeth. "And as Jacob has demonstrated, I'm Elsie - Elspeth - and who are you?"

"Does it say why?" he inquires lightly, glancing away.

"No. It says you're probably safe for alts of yourself and for Bells, though."

"She put me on the asteroid because I'm a mass murderer," he says casually. "That's not a big mystery. The mystery's why she leaves little warnings telling people not to talk to me. Not that I don't have a theory or two."

"Could be she's mad 'cause I fucked her boyfriend," he says. "But I don't think that's it. She is, but she's not usually that petty."

"I don't think any of the Bells except for Mama are monogamous," says Elspeth.

"Oh, she's not mad that I fucked him. She's mad about how."

"I'm surprised she wanted to know enough to find out," remarks Elspeth.

"She was reading his mind the whole time. If you wanna know why, you better ask her."

"I might, I guess. I might not."

"If you don't," he says, "how are you gonna find out?"

"Well, I guess I wouldn't," Elsie says reasonably. "I'm not as curious as Mama is."

"Hon," he says, "I don't think that's saying much."

"Well, no," agrees Elspeth. "And I'm not sure if Mama is even the most curious of the Bells. Although I haven't met all of them, only read the book."

"I liked the one I met," he says. "But it, ah, wasn't mutual."

"I don't think it can possibly just be that you killed people. Most of my mother's friends and family have killed at least a few people. She must have thought you were going to kill more of them."

"Of course she did," he says. "She knows me. Mmmmbut it's never really that simple."

"No?"

"Course not," says the Joker. "Here I am on this asteroid. Maybe I could leave if I tried, but maybe I couldn't. And if I don't, I'm gonna be there until I die, all alone, thousands of miles from anybody I could talk to." He closes his eyes. "Some days, I'd rather she'd just killed me."

"That's the thing I haven't tried," he says. "It might kill me, and some days I don't want it to."

"It won't kill you," says Elspeth absently, and she takes a swig of golden bubbly.

"...And you know that... how?"

"I sometimes just say things, and they're true," says Elspeth. "Usually they're things I actually have some way to know, but sometimes they're not. That's why Jake wanted me to tell him if you were dangerous or not. That works pretty well because Jake cares a lot about the answer. I don't think I can reliably do Milliways physics questions, but I did that one."

"Heh," says the Joker. "Now I just need somebody who'll let me visit."

"Well, if you'd kill a lot of people wherever you went, you might have some trouble finding takers," says Elspeth.

"It's not exactly a hobby of mine," he says. "Try getting you-know-who to believe that, though."

"If I took you through my door now, you wouldn't hurt anybody," says Elspeth. She blinks. "Well, since I can say that, I'm allowed to take you through, if you want a change of scenery."

"I'm not sure I believe you," he jokes. "Sure, let's go! That sounds like fun."

"Okay. Bar, two cases golden bubbly and a six of the blue for Uncle Jasper?" Elspeth asks politely, waving a shiny gold credit card in the bar's direction. She collects her purchases and she and Jake lead the Joker doorward.

He bounces as he walks. New people! New places! New places, oh, how he's missed those.

"Hmm," he says, "did I bring another one," and he tilts his head thoughtfully and searches his pants pockets, and comes up with a second joker. Which he kisses and hands to Nathan.

The Joker cocks his head and regards Nathan thoughtfully, eyes sparkling.

"Gonna swipe a set of pamphlets, Princess," Nathan says over his shoulder, "explain to -" He deliberately looks at the back of the playing card, winks, and goes on, "mister registered trademark of Bicycle Playing Cards here, what has just happened." Lightning-quick he's at the stacks of pamphlets in their file folders behind Elspeth's desk, and he chooses a selection and hands them to the Joker like a bouquet.

Well, now he's giggling too hard to read any of them.

The Joker continues to laugh, clasping his hands together and hugging them to his chest and listening attentively (with giggles) to Nathan's explanation.

"Well," says the Joker, grinning. "Don't I feel special."

"The specialest," says Nathan. "I've been around for hundreds of years with a power that has obviously had it up its sleeve to show me where to find me a mate all along, and it waited for you!"

"...Well," says Elspeth. "Maybe."

"Mama, that'd be a PR disaster," says Elspeth. "Nathan didn't do anything, and his mate didn't do anything here, and what he did do wasn't any worse than dozens of things you issued amnesty for during the takeover."

"I've let Dwi know, he's issuing the general announcement to the coven," says Elspeth quietly.

Nathan holds his hand absolutely still when the Joker touches it - not tense, just not trusting himself to move and so refraining from motion. "And don't even bleed around a full vampire unless it's only Carlisle, too, and - Why not, babe?" he asks.

"Elsie," says Bella, "go run around opening doors for a bit, will you?"

"All right," says Elspeth, and she lets herself out of her office, revealing Renata (staring into space) and Edward (also staring into space, but less happily) where they were left when they accompanied Bella to the scene.

"And if you make me a vampire I'll probably kill myself," he says cheerfully. "Which is why you," he taps the end of Nathan's nose, "don't want me to be one. See?"

"Babe, no, why would you do that?" exclaims Nathan.

He laughs and shakes his head. "It's complicated," he says fondly. "Don't worry too much about it. I'll stay nice and safe for as long as it takes to work all this out, just as long as nobody tries to change my mind or my species, okay?"

"Well, I like to know about it," he says, and grins expectantly at Edward. Because really. That was obvious. He's not mad, though, it's cute.

"Ah, that's fine," he says unconcernedly. "Thanks."

"Aww, I do love you," he says, grinning at Nathan. "You're very lovable. But I don't wanna marry you and I don't wanna vampire-marry you either."

The Joker gives Nathan a hug.

"Sure," he says brightly, snuggling up a little.

Nathan's certainly not going to interrupt snuggles. He (carefully carefully carefully) scoops his mate right up off the floor. "So this is the Princess's office," he says, and then he heads out the door and in the opposite direction down the corridor from the Empress and her contingent. "The entire PRPR department is down here; they handle turning people and telling folks everything that you know is a lie, vampires and magic and werewolves oh my, and making sure that Her Majesty doesn't do anything particularly tactless without having a really good reason."

"I try. And I'm trying very, very hard to make a good impression, 'cause any scenario where I don't could go very badly," says Nathan, belying his light tone.

"Well, I like your sense of humour," he says. "That's a good start."

"Hi!" says the Joker, and he waves.

"Sorry, hon," he says unapologetically.

"Aww, sweetie," says the Joker, ignoring Addy and cuddling Nathan.

Nathan avoids squeezing - he hasn't handled humans much; it'd be dangerous - but he is obviously appreciative. He starts down the hall again. "R&D doesn't give tours without notice. They deal with all sorts of chemicals, anyway; you could get hurt. Down this way is the liason offices for human governments so we can get up to shenanigans and not have to deal with Interpol or anyone trying to involve themselves."

He giggles softly.

"We could look around in there but it's just offices and people on the phone with the prime minister of this and the president of that," says Nathan. "And except for the wolf village, which I'd rather skip because wolves do not smell so great, that's the Capitol." They're currently standing in a covered corridor, between R&D's building and the liason offices, looking out through glass at a beach. "D'you want to go outside? It's allowed, here, they keep humans well away from this beach so no one sees the dead giveaway of vampire-in-the-sun."

"Ooh, let's," he says, grinning.

"Look at you," he says delightedly, and kisses Nathan's cheek.

Nathan grins brilliantly. "Occupational hazard. This capitol's called Safesun because we can go out without getting a dozen cell pictures taken and posted on the internet."

"You're all sparkly," he says. "Now I wanna make you pretty clothes."

"You sew?" prompts Nathan, intrigued. "I've never thought much about my outfits. My closets in all the capitals are stocked with stuff like this."

One of Nathan's hands is already on the shirt, on the Joker's upper arm. He slides a finger across the fabric (carefully, carefully). "Nice," he says. "And colorful."

"Mmhm," he says proudly.

"What's all this then?" Stella inquires, when she and Jacob have been joined by the group.

"My fault," says Elspeth. "I was here, I met the Joker, I could say all he can do is talk to Jake so I thought it'd be harmless to have him over for a bit, and then Nathan walked in and now he's mated."

"Nathan is magically important," says Golden, "as well as having been a friend of the family for going on two decades now, and he will be - at best - miserable for the rest of eternity if the Joker can't - at minimum - make routine visits." She glances at how cozy he and Nathan have gotten. "Which doesn't seem to be a problem of willingness on his end, at any rate."

"I like him," the Joker says contentedly, leaning his head on Nathan's shoulder. "He's a sweetie. I wanna move worlds."

"Is Golden going to have a terrorism problem if you do?" Stella asks.

"If something like that does come up, he's just a human," says Golden. "He doesn't even want to turn. So I'll have a depressed-imperial-minister-of-temporal-affairs problem in fifty or sixty years, but." She shrugs.

"Unless you do want to do the 'work-release' idea," says Elspeth. "In the manner traditional for Bells and Whistles."

"Elsie," says Golden, "the manner traditional for Bells and Whistles is very much not an option."

"Unless he did the minting himself and just turned in coins to you," says Elsie. "Stella has extra mints now, she doesn't help them as well as Alice."

"I do," says Stella, "but handing him mint power would be - eegh." Pause. "Perhaps I should go get Alice."

"Ooh," says the Joker. "Yeah, do that."

"Nathan, you should probably be aware that your mate's template doesn't come in monogamous," says Stella, rising out of her chair and heading for the door.

"The template doesn't..?" says Nathan blankly. "Huh?"

"I'm a huge slut," the Joker translates, patting Nathan fondly on the shoulder. "And so are my alts."

[Hey Alice. One of Golden's staff met the Joker and mated to him and now they're talking about maybe having me remand him to Aurum. Want in on the conference?]

In they go. "Golden, Elspeth, Jacob, you remember Alice. Nathan, Alice; Alice, Nathan."

"Aw, honey," he says fondly. "Can you put me down for a sec?"

Nathan sets him on his feet, confused.

He kisses Nathan's cheek again, then greets Alice with an enthusiastic hug.

Awwww. Alice hugs him back.

"I can certainly avoid any large-scale human-caused disasters," Golden says, mostly to Stella. "The mint idea is - higher variance. Could improve things, could worsen them, would definitely make any recidivism harder to contain."

"If you wanted to have a mint, you could've asked me instead of just perpetually trading for the coins, I was able to find two suitable ones on my world when I thought I didn't have Alice anymore," says Stella, ignoring her boyfriend and his alt while they hug. "It doesn't necessarily have to be this one. It only takes a star to send the notes to the candidates and then you have a bunch of people to interview. Less of a headache than wondering if the Joker's going to decide to blow something up this week."

"I'm not running my empire in the open yet. If you found two, in a world of six billion, I'm going to have a bit of trouble finding even one in an informed population well shy of a hundred thousand."

"Mm. There is that. And my extras probably don't want to emigrate. You could do what Shell Bell did - pick someone you trust who's up for the job, nudge them the rest of the way with a pentagon."

"Mama looked for volunteers for that already, among the coven and the wolves, and no one wanted it," says Elspeth. "Except Addy. Who isn't trusted that far, not with magic."

"Then," says Stella, "I acknowledge that there's a quandary. But I'm willing to force the door - if it'll go - and fetch the Joker down from the asteroid, and hand you him and a pile of coins."

"Somehow I was hoping you'd have more clever solutions up your sleeve," sighs Golden.

"The asteroid was my clever solution."

Golden shrugs. "Maybe Nathan buys you guys a house on a Phillipine island and he works by phone and after he gets incubus lessons from Tanya you live there peacefully forever and I send Razi by twice weekly to pick up coins and my only problem is to make sure Addy never gets her hands on them. Maybe you talk him into sneaking you into Ireland and you pick a fight with Siobhan and then I have to kill you or deal with a revolution that would actually stick. Maybe you start setting sub-Saharan Africa on fire, and you have this convenient mated vampire with a convenient power to make you a thorn in my side even if I siphon coins away from you as fast as you can make them. It's a lot of maybes. You're a literal wild card."

"Mm, I don't think I'll settle down," he says. "Don't think I'll set any continents on fire, either. Who's Siobhan?"

"An Irish vampire who wants control over the comings and goings of anyone other than ignorant humans as regards her island. Nathan is the only person with the distinction of having flouted her in the past, which is why I thought of it, and he has stopped since joining the Golden Coven, but if anyone could talk him into doing it again it would be you."

[Yes?]

The Joker smiles in a not-particularly-reassuring way.

[I could use your help for a bit of a mess with Golden and an Alice-alt and whatnot. Are you free?]

[Sure,] says Mary.

"Well," says Golden to the Joker, "what would you be inclined to do, with mint powers and a mated vampire and the run of Aurum - less Ireland, because frankly I don't think Siobhan is going to tolerate you anywhere within her territory."

"Wander around," he says, shrugging. "Get into trouble, but probably not the kind you care about."

"Sounds about right," volunteers Mary. "With some variance." She explores a little more. "Depending largely on the terms you work out, but I don't have enough good guesses about those to pin it down further."

"How much do either of you know about what kind of trouble I care about?" inquires Golden.

"The bulk of probability says this guy is not going to do anything that disrupts your life significantly or makes you express a reaction more negative than exasperation or nervousness," says Mary. "With mint powers and a mated vampire and the run of Aurum." She checks something. "Actually, if you don't give him mint powers, he's much likelier to cause trouble. By a factor of more than ten; my numbers aren't exact."

"...Seriously?"

"That's extremely counterintuitive," says Golden.

"Not really," says the Joker. "Makes perfect sense to me."

"Perhaps you could elaborate."

"And yet the trouble you could cause if the mood struck is correspondingly more significant, if you have not only coins but also unrestricted ability to use them," she says. "At that point I can no longer decide you're a net liability and straightforwardly send Razi to kill you - hypothetically, Nathan. At that point I can't stash you in the hiding place - which might be a terrible idea anyway, if the way you're describing the situation is accurate."

"I don't do things I don't want to do," the Joker explains patiently. "And I don't want to throw big magic around to cause trouble. No interest at all."

Golden looks at Mary.

"I'm not a lie detector," she says. "I can tell you he's really unlikely to do that, but I can't tell you what would make him do that unless somebody suggests a possible cause and I check."

"I suppose Alice - my sister, not him," she clarifies with a gesture at Stella's Alice, "could potentially help, but she can't do anything here, this place makes her dizzy..."

"This is all looking like a much happier ending than I'd anticipated. Previously my best idea for a more humane solution to Gotham's little problem looked like 'maybe send him home with Angela to wander around on that continent full of Edori'," Stella comments.

"So this is how I think it should work," he says. "If you really don't want me causing trouble. Don't make rules. Don't threaten me. Don't spy on me every minute to make sure I'm behaving myself. Don't make it hard for me to cause trouble, or I'll want to. Just let me know what you'd rather, and leave me alone. And I'll play nice as long as I don't have to go too far out of my way to do it."

"I am an empress. I make laws. And associated standard sentences for their breakage. I'm not going to add exceptions to them for you."

"You sure?"

Mary winces.

"I can work without Nathan if I have to."

"It would be problematic to publicly except him," Elspeth says. "Other people would start looking for leeway. But I can keep a secret if I have to. Can you just forget about the ones that don't carry the death penalty, Mama?"

"Keeping that sort of thing secret would itself constitute a rule," Golden points out.

"I don't care if you have laws," says the Joker. "Lots of people have laws. It doesn't bother me. What I want you to understand, if we're gonna work this out in good faith, is that laws don't keep me in line. Nothing keeps me in line except me deciding to stay there. And I can do that. I don't need an official exception."

"No idea," says the Joker.

"Not very consistent," says Mary. "Sometimes as much as Alice's, sometimes nothing for a month." She chews her lip for a moment. "But he's generally likely to come up with coins you ask him for when you ask him for them. Note that the difference between 'ask' and 'demand' is crucial here."

"Can I get a starter array?" Golden asks Stella.

"Of course. Unless that means you won't funnel me nice little packages of 2030 tech anymore."

"What's that, sweetheart?"

"Reminding myself to trust my timer," mumbles Nathan.

The Joker turns around and hugs him.

"If you do this the way he suggested," Mary says to Golden, "and keep to his terms, it works out fine. He barely ever annoys you. No big disasters. There's a certain amount of flexibility there, too. Just... don't get heavy-handed. It's when you get that way and stay that way that things start going south."

"In what ways am I likely to cross the line?" asks Golden tiredly. "For that matter, I'm not sure I fully understand the terms. It might be easy to do by accident."

"If you do it by accident, I can ask you nicely to quit that," says the Joker. "I'm not out to get you, here."

"Will it be a problem if Siobhan asks for and gets permission to kill you if you enter Ireland?" asks Golden. "How much spying is too much spying, especially since my favored methods don't involve any way for you to notice without minting yourself relevant detectors? Does it help any if I primarily communicate with you through Nathan?"

"Don't care who gets permission to kill me when," he says, "as long as I know about it. Doesn't make a difference either way if you talk to me through Nathan. Too much spying is enough spying to make me feel like you're expecting me to fuck up and waiting to catch me when I do."

"Stella, how much weight should I be putting on Mary's predictions?"

"Plenty. She doesn't think to look for one hundred percent of things, but she's very good at what she does think to check and she doesn't have your Seer's outright blind spots - although I don't think she's getting full color pictures either."

"What happens," says Golden, to the Joker and Mary both, "if I simply wish to call off the deal and send both the Joker and Nathan out of Aurum?"

"I don't know what happens, but the problem with that idea is that the only other world they can visit without help is the one with Gotham and the Batlady and so on in it, and I have heard it suggested by one of the Whistles that the Batlady is a key catalyst in provoking... misbehavior."

"I'd be sad," says the Joker. "And your boy'd be sad, too, in seventy years when I died of old age."

"There's no widespread destruction," says Mary, "but it very rarely works out to a happy ending for the two of them."

"I can tell when people are about to ask me things," says Mary. "Do you want me to answer that one?"

"Uh," says Nathan.

Stella flicks her fingers in Nathan's direction. "Brainphoned," she announces. "Privacy."

Mary brainphones him, [Well?]

[As long as everyone else isn't listening, sure,] Nathan says.

[If he comes through as a mint, he'll be immortal. There's even an outside chance he'll turn to your kind of vampire someday, in a few hundred years. If he goes back to his asteroid, he won't.]

"Whatcha talkin' about?" wonders the Joker.

"Can I tell you in private later, babe? Or - Stella - can you brainphone him too?"

Stella makes a face, but she waves her hand at the Joker.

[I asked her if it was going to be a problem that it'd be so easy to hurt you. She said it wasn't, if we talked about it, which I confess confuses me, talking won't make you less - fragile,] says Nathan to his mate alone.

[If I'm a mint,] he says, [I can make myself less fragile. I probably will anyway.] He tips his head at Alice. [Other-me's favourite pastime is setting himself on fire.]

The Joker laughs, and wraps his arms around Nathan, and kisses him.

Stella looks around in case someone has further input.

"Everything looks good from here," says Mary.

"Mmm," says the Joker, mostly to Nathan.

Stella makes a stocked bandolier for Golden and hands it over. No one else can see what's in her hand, but Golden takes it and puts it on.

"Shall we?" sighs Golden, getting to her feet. "Stella, do you mind noting this in the Belltower?"

"Can do."

"Have fun, guys," Alice says cheerfully to Nathan and the Joker. "Want me to spot you a couple useful things?"

"What kind of useful things?" Nathan wants to know.

"My healing power for him," he says with a gesture to the Joker, "and for you, the air filter I've got that makes it so I don't smell humans unless I want to."

"Yes please," says Nathan at once.

"...Wait a sec. Is he awake or dreaming?" Stella asks. "I have to go actually fetch him physically down from the asteroid if he didn't walk in here through a door to begin with, don't I?"

"Yep," says the Joker. "Zzzz."

Alice doesn't do anything visible, but Nathan gets his air filter.

Nathan experimentally sniffs the air and grins, but doesn't do anything about it when his mate's right about to disappear anyway.

The Joker, of course, takes the opportunity to plant another kiss on Nathan's cheek before he disappears.

A square induces such disappearance. "C'mon," says Stella neutrally.

It's not, but he's going to be Golden's problem, now. She holds the door, looking at the ceiling.

"Sorry, hon," he says softly, and he comes through and heads straight for Nathan.

"No problem," says Stella. "Best of luck."

The Joker kisses back happily, in complete disregard of their audience.

"Sure," the Joker says agreeably.

"Everybody here's got good ears," says Nathan. He grins. "D'you care?"

"Nnnnnope."

"My room's thisaway." And he scoops the Joker up off the floor and goes thisaway, at a bit of a run.

"Babe," Nathan murmurs, "it's not strictly impossible for me to accidentally nip you if you keep doing that - I've got sharp bits - and you don't wanna turn."

"Fun, though," he says, undeterred. "I'll quit it until I've minted myself immune."

"You want some help with the minting?" Nathan's hands are a blur; he can't seem to decide where of many delightful locations to put them. He's careful. But not very very careful. The Joker's probably acquiring some bruises.

"Ooh, pretty please," he giggles.

"You wanna help me out with the details, babe?" Nathan's left hand settles more or less stationarily on a thigh; the other one's behind the Joker's back for leaning-on. Left hand starts pressing. Slowly.

"That's niiiice," he sighs, eyelashes fluttering.

"If I were mortal you'd be the death of me," says Nathan in a half-purr half-growl. "It is very, very good that I cannot smell you right now, or I'd just - bite - your - throat - out." And he reaches, and crushes one foot and then the other and works his way back up the other leg.

"I love you," he sighs, shuddering. He isn't looking anymore, but that has got to be a hex.

Nathan's hand tightens harder than he means it to on the knee. "I love you," he whispers back, sliding his hand up to find an uncrushed spot to destroy. "I love you forever."

"Oh, sweetie," he murmurs, and he gives a happy wriggle and kisses Nathan's cheek.

Nathan's all out of leg to crush. He wraps his arms around the relatively unharmed middle of his mate and squeezes. Slowly. And kisses his mate in all the safe places where he can't accidentally twitch a lip into the path of an envenomed tooth. "How much of this can you even take?" he murmurs into a recently kissed ear.

"Lots," he says confidently, leaning his head on Nathan's shoulder.

"Anything that happens, the magic'll fix...? I've only got one of you," Nathan says. But his arms are still tightening and ribs are starting to creak.

"You got it babe," purrs Nathan, and he is less careful this time.

Nathan could have continuous sex for weeks before the need to break for a meal intruded, so he's not in the least a bad person to find this out with.