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December 15th:
“Red? Red, I don’t…”
“Quiet.”
“But, Red…just tell me…why—?”
“I said, QUIET, Harley.”
Commanded to silence but not to immobility, Harley forces her body into a crawl, as much as can be mustered in her current state and not without the icy dread of inevitable punishment, should Ivy prove to be in as disagreeable a mood as Mistah J in the face of disobedience. Her hand touches the windowpane, blue eyes finding the uniformed officers leading her employer – her lover, her Puddin’, her everything – through an otherwise empty street. His body convulses with hysterical expulsions, the reason for which she hasn’t the faintest idea.
The Bat’s dark cape flutters in the wind, every bit the wings which folks say he possesses, as he stands alongside the commissioner. A handful of officers skulk in the shadow, guns drawn and at the ready. They’re looking for her. The Bat and Gordon look grim, a detail clear as day even at this distance, because they can’t find her. The officers will keep looking, and the Bat and Gordon will continue to look grim, because they won’t find her. Red, Ivy, has made sure of it. They will never think to look in this tiny crawlspace, shoved unceremoniously into the warehouse top level; small and narrow in construction, the air is thick, stuffy, and she nearly suffocates with each breath.
This warehouse, until an hour-some earlier, was the Joker’s secret hideaway; the intended birthplace of his latest, and greatest, achievement against the Bat, the city, the world, as much as the intended scene of her death: an unmarked gravesite for her to rot away without much concern from the law and certainly none from her beloved.
Harley bites her lower lip to stifle a whimper. The two-foot crawl to the window had her body screaming silent protests from ribs which didn’t feel broken but were certainly (and severely bruised) from fists and shoes. Every inch hurts. It’s never been this bad before, but she’s never messed up this bad before. If only she hadn’t been so clumsy, so stupid. If only she noticed her screw-up before it was too late, before his hands threw her against the wall. The drywall unyielding against her head, there was an immediate sharp pain at the skull, then a familiar trickle of blood down one cheek. She barely had a chance to whimper before his hand was around her throat. She choked – again, a familiar sensation – while his voice, screams of rage, assaulted her eardrums. And through it all, a single thought so familiar and rehearsed that she questioned if there was ever another thought in her head: It’s my fault…all my fault…
And then, once he choked the confession out of her, the beating began. It was almost a relief when everything went black, and she had the assurance that it would be over soon. To die at his hands would be agony, but short-lived. And it was a mercy compared to the thought of being locked away to starve and wilt like a trampled flower in the asylum’s depths.
But the sirens came. The police came. The Bat came. And she was denied death yet again.
Two hands descended from her darkness, softer and not wanting for tenderness: one checked for a pulse; then both slipped under limp shoulders and eased her upright. She was half-dragged, half-carried, across concrete floor with a voice she vaguely recognized telling her to walk, that she had to walk no matter how much it hurt – and it really, really, hurt – so she focused on the voice and forced herself to walk no matter how intense the feeling was of being shot and carrying a bullet hole in her most sensitive regions.
When she finally regained the ability to open her eyes, she found herself staring into Ivy’s green eyes and told, in no uncertain terms, to be quiet and stay that way.
“It’s my fault.” Harley whispers, watching the events conclude with the asylum van leaving the street and the police cars, one by one, disappearing into the night. “It’s all my fault…none of this would’ve happened if I—”
“Oh GOD, would you change the record already, Harl?!” Ivy’s voice, much sharper than usual, makes her cringe and retreat at the rage lacing her friend’s, her only friend’s, voice. “Do you want me to drop you down there? Is that what you want?? You want me to hand you back over to the police, and then your precious Puddin’?” physically, she’s shaking, with green eyes blazing hot with a fury Harley expects from Joker, but not Ivy…never Ivy…Ivy is…supposed to be…different… “Then maybe that’s what I should do, Harl! Lord knows it will be much easier on me if THAT’s the case! I’ll dump you back in your precious clown’s arms, and then why don’t we see what happens next time, hmm? We’ll see how sweet and loving he is the NEXT time you make him angry! In fact – you know what? I will bet my greenhouse that, the next time I see you, I’ll be identifying you in the morgue!!”
“Red, stop! Please STOP!” huddled on the floor, tears seeping down her bruised face, hands clasped tightly over her ears, the attempt to block out the stinging truth of her companion’s words is pitiful at best and Harley knows it, “You don’t understand, Red…you don’t know what it’s like! You’ve never had to deal with it – you’re too smart to fall in love! Not me. I threw everything away – I threw away my LIFE for him! If he doesn’t love me, then what do I have left?!”
The silence to follow is almost worse than the blow of fists or the merciless reality of words. She wearily opens her eyes, bloodshot and smeared with tears old and new. Any relief felt by the simple fact that Ivy hasn’t left her is dampened by the expression found on the redhead’s face. On a regular basis, Harley finds she struggles to read Ivy’s facial expressions; right now, with her awareness sliding in and out of focus, she can’t even make a reasonable attempt.
“Calm down, Harley,” Ivy says, very quietly, and bends down to bring Harley’s weight upright and against her, “I’ll do most of the work this time…Just keep quiet.”
***
The greenhouse is alive, as always. So alive that, at the present moment, it makes Harley feel even more dead inside than her body feels on the outside. Their travels from warehouse to greenhouse were silent, silent as stone and stars, but in Harley’s head it was anything but quiet.
“I will bet my greenhouse that, the next time I see you, I’ll be identifying you in the morgue!”
Accepting the truth is, shockingly enough (or not), worse than hearing it in the first place. An hour’s drive will do that to a girl, and she’s the lucky girl tonight with the honor of accepting the truth of it all. Joker, her beloved, her Puddin’, her everything, would have killed her. No more chances. No more forgiveness. No more anything. Fade to black. Rest in Peace.
…So how long before she—?
“Here,” Ivy’s voice is a quiet interruption from behind; when Harley turns, she finds the redhead standing with a small covered pot in her hands, “I want to show you something.”
“What?” her voice sounds wrecked, and her sinuses are clogged from all the tears. She must look like roadkill.
Ivy slowly joins her on the bed, previously the scene of First Aid kits and bandages but now cleaned for Harley to try and get comfortable, “You asked earlier, what do you have if you don’t have him? Now, it’s my turn to ask a question, Harleen,” the use of her full name prompts another cringe; that name sounds so wrong now, after all this time, like ‘Harleen’ was another person entirely who delivered a terrible slight that can never be forgiven, “Do you honestly think so low of yourself that you willingly let yourself wither and die in this…this rotted, infertile soil in which he has planted you?”
A sane person (Ha Ha…there’s a joke no one is going to laugh at) would have stared blankly at Ivy. Harley avoids looking at her altogether – not because she doesn’t get it. It’s because she does get it. Gets it like a line-shot to the face with an anvil.
A soft rustle of fabric makes her look up. The covering lays loose in a pile, revealing its contents: a soft layer of dirt nestled around a flower. Truth be told, Harley can’t say it looks awe-inspiring, or beautiful, or anything. It looked bland and ugly. Like, really ugly. It doesn’t look like it belongs here, in a place of exotic beauty and foliage the likes of which could never grow in Gotham, with a withered bud surrounded by thick white trim that looks like mold.
“It’s a winter rose, Harley.” Ivy continues in the same neutral tone; now that Harley lends a thought to it, she realizes how unnerving the change is, from angry outbursts to total calmness, “Many people don’t believe they exist, simply because they’ve never been seen. There is no place for the flower to grow in this concrete scab of a city. I have the only living one here in my greenhouse.”
There’s an unsurprising fact. Most of the greenhouse is flowers and plants the likes of which can’t thrive in Gotha. Even the city’s botanical gardens can’t hold a candle to the vast collection in this place.
“You see,” Ivy, Pamela, Pammie, drops her voice to a murmur, “something makes this little flower very, very special, Harleen.” Again, that name makes Harley cringe, “Do you know what it is?”
Harley shakes her head. “This flower blooms only in winter.” Ivy continues, “From the darkest, most infertile earth comes a flower with incomparable beauty. All it needs,” two gloved fingers run a delicate path up stem to bud, “is a little help, a chance for life…and the willingness to survive. And that, by the by, is what this little treasure is: a survivor. It has to push its way through frost and cold and ice, and it fights for every last inch, until it finally comes to life.”
Ivy calmly ties the covering back into place, then sets the pot in Harley’s lap, “It’s yours.”
“What?” she jerks, nearly off the bed, and catches the pot before it goes toppling to the floor, “Red, no…you know me! I can’t take care of plants, not even if my life depends on it!”
“That’s the point, Harl.” Ivy calmly stands up, “Your life does depend on it. And this time, you’re on your own.”
Harley feels something twist in her stomach. Nausea? No…not quite. Worse. Must worse. “W…What are you saying, Red?” she whispers.
“We’ve been in this…relationship for two years,” Ivy’s voice is much too calm, “Two years, Harleen. And in those two years, all you’ve done, your only actions, have been cruel. You took advantage of my sympathy, my compassion, my hospitality…each time giving me some small fragment of hope that you would stay with me for good; that I wouldn’t have to watch you go back to that animal – always with this disgusting fear inside me that the next time I saw you would be my last. You took my feelings for the only friend I’ve ever had – the only person I’ve ever let into my life this way…You took all of that, Harley, and then you never returned a single one. I’ve never suffered as I have with you in the last two years with you. And I don’t suppose you plan on telling me just how you can make up for all that, do you?”
“Red, Pamela…no, it’s not…” Harley whimpers, eyes wide and pleading all with the fear that it won’t be enough to crack the wall she can see in the other woman’s eyes, “I wasn’t trying to hurt you – I wasn’t! I swear! You just don’t…you don’t get it! You’ve hurt me worse! Worse than him…You…you’ve always been the one…the one I’m most afraid of! Not Joker…not the Bat…YOU!”
Just when she thought the tears were dried out, more come with a vengeance. “I…you were my friend. The only one I knew would be there, every time he kicked me down. But even then, being here with you, it was like…like you kept pushing me away. And I just waited for the day when…” she swallows, hard, and weakly finishes with, “…when you would finally get tired of me too.”
“I had to keep my cool, Harley.” Ivy, Pamela, answers without a hint of emotion, “If I didn’t keep my head, keep you at arms’ length, I thought I might burst.” She laughs. It’s a horrible sound. “So many times, I thought I finally had you. And then you would flutter off, right back to his arms. Again...and again…and again.”
“Red…”
“I suppose in my own way,” Ivy continues, like Harley never said a word, “even if I’d like to deny it, I can be, among many things, extraordinarily selfish. Suppose there has never been such a selfish little girl like me, has there?” green eyes turn to stare at nothing – nothing, as far as Harley can tell, “A little girl who doesn’t like to get hurt. Hates to lose. Once I’ve gotten ahold of something, I never want to let it go…and I certainly never want to share.”
“Red…” her voice is barely a quiver of sound, “Red, what…what are you saying?”
“If you’re planning to reject me, Harley,” she answers, “now is your chance. And that little flower is your goodbye present.”
“G-Goodbye?” more tears, bubbling up and dripping down her cheeks, “Goodbye? R-Red…?”
“I’m giving you time to get away.” The redhead is already moving towards the door, “You can stay here until you feel better. I’m going away, back home. So, here’s your chance, once and for all.”
“B-but…”
“But,” Ivy turns once in the doorway, facing Harley with a painful air of finality, “if you come to me one more time…I think you know what will happen.”
***
December 24th:
Snow swirls outside in the cold night air. Streets and sidewalks are covered in a thin blanket of white crystals: an indiscriminate veil of perfection stretching as far as eyes can see. Inside the greenhouse – the fruits of a labor which was effortless on her part, beyond a kiss, but mandated weeks of work on the part of the man kind enough to do as he was told and prepare her a paradise – Pamela stretches across the window seat with feline grace. Her chosen attire, a strapless top and shorts, is in blatant defiance of the weather outside but stands as a testament to her overheated state following a long day’s work. Perhaps later, she’ll bundle up. But not now.
What little is not home to the abundance of plant life is presently covered in scattered headlines. The newest one, currently closest to her perch at the window, reads Joker in Arkham; Quinn still at large. It tells her that Harley hasn’t yet throw herself at the police or the Bat. Perhaps she is still in recovery, letting her body heal for its next assault after she goes back to her darling psychotic. Or she could be laying low as a means of avoiding the asylum, at least for a little while longer. Either way, her decision is clear, and Pamela would be lying if she pretended to not be, at least a little, disappointed.
“Red?”
There, standing on tiled floor with her hair a thick mess around the face and shoulders, stands Harley. The extent of her injuries presents itself now in ways it didn’t before: both arms are bruised blue and purple; there are multiple cuts grouped together with additional bruising on knees and shins; from the sheer multitude of cuts and bruises in place, it’s obvious her chest and face received the worst of it, matched only by the sickly shades around her throat where hands had tried to strangle the last breath out of her.
The absence of proper clothing puts the damage on further display: an overlarge sweater, hanging almost entirely off one shoulder, and black cotton shorts offer no protection from the winter chill. Her bare feet are red, nearly raw, from walking in this weather without proper coverage. She looks like she grabbed something random from her closet, or stole out the back door of a thrift shop.
In her arms, tightly wrapped as a shield from the cold, is a brown clay put covered in a white cloth. Without a word, Harley walks over to the window and puts the pot down in Pamela’s clear line of sight. Her fingers, obviously numb from the chill, fumble with the knot for a minute, then the cloth falls with a quiet sound to pool around the pot. There, nestled in fresh dirt, the rose proudly stands with petals of luscious pink spread wide with a thick trim of white floral lace. The leaves are equally matched in splendor: pristinely pruned and of a vibrant green color. The rose looks healthy, as healthy as if Pamela herself had been taking care of it. She almost smiles to consider that Harley might have been listening to the lectures on proper plant care.
“It bloomed.” Harley croaks; her voice sounds like she hasn’t been using it much (if at all) in the past two weeks. The hollowness of her tone, the damage of her body, the shadows pooled dark under both eyes: it’s all a broken image left in the wake of so much cruelty, hopelessness, and despair, that the thought briefly occurs to Pamela that this woman might in fact be beyond repair. This isn’t a human being standing in front of her. It’s a trampled flower barely able to drag itself through one more day.
“So it did.” Pamela says, quietly, “Now the question remains: why are you here?”
“I wanted…wanted to return…to give it back.” Harley tries to wet her lips to no avail, “I don’t…don’t deserve it.”
“You could have just left it by the door. It would have been fine.”
“I…I wanted to give it…in person.”
“Why?”
“I…I just did.” Her voice catches, “So you…you’d know it was…was safe.”
Pamela huffs an irritated burst of air. “Just tell me why you’re really here. Stop playing games. Just spit it out.”
The silence is almost more aggravating than Harley’s inability to string words together into a coherent statement of fact and truth. Until Harley is the first to break it.
“It’s not fair.” She whispers; the accent which has coated her words from day-one is faded until it’s almost inaudible, and Pamela can only think she sounds, and looks, explicitly childlike, “You always look like you’re fine, even when you’re alone. All by yourself.” Any protest on Pamela’s part, that she’s never, in fact, alone when she has her plants, her babies, is never given the opportunity, “It makes me…makes me want to get you to look at me.”
“I am looking at you.”
“REALLY look at me.” Harley rasps, “Look at me and see…”
“See what?”
Harley leans forward, nearly off-balance; her cheek meets Pamela’s in a clumsy motion. “…See that…that I had to come back. That I had to see you. I didn’t want to just leave the flower. It would’ve been like…like saying I’d done enough.”
A single stream of tears slides down her bruised cheeks, “…See that I…I don’t want to die anymore.”
“There is no death in my world, Harley.” Pamela smooths the hair from her face, mindful of the bruising and cuts, “There is only life.”
“I fought, Red…” she leans into Pamela with a broken sound, “I kept on fighting…fighting and fighting…but…but I’m not strong enough anymore.”
“Then let me bring you back to the light.” Her thumbs caught the stream of chilled tears, brushing them away with firm tenderness, “Stay with me, Harley, and you will grow for the rest of your life. But if you don’t…then I can’t help you.”
Silence, again, then Harley lifts a weary hand and wipes at her eyes, “Are you still angry?”
“A little,” Pamela’s mouth quirks in dry amusement, “And can you blame me? I’ve been waiting a long time…and you certainly took your share of it.”
“Will you take your time with me, now?”
“Oh, yes,” slim fingers curl in the matted strands of blonde, “as long as it takes, until you can see yourself as I see you.”
“Tell me?”
“No.” her free hand fits to the low curve of Harley’s back, sharing warmth to chase out the cold, “I’m going to show you, one day at a time, until you truly are my rose.” She sets a tiny kiss to the blonde’s forehead, “My winter rose, through and through, in full bloom.”
Trembling fingers curl around and into the graceful roll of both shoulders, “Pamela,” her voice creaks around the name, as if she’s trying it out for the first time – which, in fact, she might be, “…I’m in love with you. So please…don’t make me be the only one to say it this—”
“I love you, Harley.” Fingers thread deep into hair and further erase distance between their lips, already sharing each other’s unsteady breaths, until mouths meet for the first – but certainly not the last time.