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“I feel them,” is one of the first things she says to her, eyes staring at her crisscrossed arms wrapped around her body, the stark white jacket tight around her.
She looks up after a few moments. “They have voices, you know. I can hear them rejoice. Their songs are beautiful.” Her green eyes darken then. “But I can also hear them wail. Their screams haunt me as humanity taints the earth more every day.”
When she goes quiet, the room has gathered its usual chill. The warmth has seeped out with her words. A typical day at Arkham devoid of anything good.
Harleen shifts her eyes from Ivy to her report. She hasn’t written anything the entire time.
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Harleen watches her stand underneath the tiny window inches above her head. One that very little light gets through, not near enough to illuminate her drab cell.
She watches Ivy close her eyes against the faint shine, wonders if she’s hearing the whispers of nature through the cinder block walls.
Like she said she could. Like Harleen would like to believe.
It’s late fall now and the days are often gray. Two months of knowing the woman behind the glass. She still finds it hard to write down anything in Pamela Isley’s file.
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The prison break happens one early spring evening. Harley runs past the cell, the one she’s visited countless times in the past. Deep in the corner, she can make out her faint outline.
Skidding to a stop, she holds the gun up and wipes the blood of a guard off her now pale skin. Ivy doesn’t move, but her green eyes almost glow in the dimness of the room.
“I’m bustin’ out of this joint, Red!” Harley exclaims with wild adrenaline pumping through her body, the blaring sirens sounding overhead.
She points the gun at Ivy’s cell, right at the plexiglass barrier. She fires once. It creates a divot. Ivy doesn’t flinch. Not even when Harley unloads an entire clip on the electronic keypad to the room.
The door hisses open and Ivy exits slowly, eyeing Harley and the gun. “Why’d you shoot the glass if you knew it would do no good?”
“I’m good at destroying things. Now let’s go.” Harley takes her by the arm and drags her into the night.
As they exit the askew gate hanging on its side, Harley fixes a dipped pigtail and watches as Ivy sheds her uniform, her body immediately growing leaves and bark like a hide, like Ivy’s second skin.
Now it’s Harley’s turn to look surprised. Ivy’s face is impassive though, clearly not processing that Harley is seeing her abilities for the first time.
“Ya weren’t kidding when ya said you could feel nature, huh?” Harley eyes the form-fitting cover.
“No, I wasn’t,” Ivy answers seriously, walking off into the deep night.
Harley feels an inexplicable pull to follow instead of going back to the funhouse. It passes. She lets Ivy go and turns the other way, bare feet hitting the dewy ground as fast as they can.
Summer
Harley crawls to her doorstep one muggy and humid night. When Ivy answers the door, she looks blankly down.
Not surprised then.
“Heya, Red,” Harley leans against the door frame, stares at Ivy’s delicate green feet.
“I’d ask what happened, but I already know.” Still not one for conversation but more than she used to say during their sessions. Her voice sounds bored, almost flippant. “Come in.”
She makes Harley drag herself in, holding her broken body in a number of ways. When the door closes, their first year begins.
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When it happens, Ivy addresses it before Harley can even say a word. “We’re connected.”
She points out across the expanse of land, the dying rays of the summer day casting a hazy shimmer over her head. Harley takes in the way the tendrils seem to curl and shiver a little as they turn a deeper crimson, swaths of orange interweaving.
Harley reaches out to touch a strand but halts her hand midway through the air, depositing it back onto the hood of the rose colored car. Her mouth drops when yellow petals unfurl from the recesses of Ivy’s locks, stretching to soak up the light.
“We both like the sun,” Ivy glances sideways to Harley and offers her first genuine smile.
“I like it,” Harley grins.
They watch the sunset together. They stay until it dips below the horizon.
Back at home (because that’s what it is now, even to Harley) she grabs her mallet and takes a bit of nail polish to it, a ream of tape. She’s midway through when Ivy walks by and watches her in a silent ask. The Black Eyed Susan is still in her hair.
Harley holds up chaotic lines of yellow tape, the red polish painted smiley face. The brown sharpie splattered eyes.
“I wanted us ta match,” Harley points to the flower in Ivy’s hair. She thinks she sees Ivy’s lips threatening to turn up again.
She walks away quickly, letting Harley finish her work.
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The umbrella flaps in the breeze and Ivy situates herself underneath it atop her towel. Nearby, Harley has her own setup, cooler beside her, and string bikini showing as much flesh as she can get away with without being indecent.
Ivy looks over the rim of her sunshades, watches Harley lay back against the sand and throw a towel over her eyes to block out the sun.
“You’re going to burn,” she warns lowly.
Harley growls. “I know! I can’t help it that the acid made me look like a ghost. I was hoping to get a tan.”
“The only thing you’re going to get is red,” Ivy shrugs.
“Mmm, like your hair,” Harley says dreamily.
Today, it’s a little brighter than the time they’d watched the sunset, not as deep. Still hues of the summer, scarlets and candy apple reds, but today there are faint lines of pale white running through them. Almost looking like the outer ring of the sun.
Harley tosses the bottle of sunscreen, scoots closer to Ivy, and unties her top from around her neck. Ivy wordlessly begins to apply it to Harley’s already pinking skin.
She thinks of the ocean in front of them, of seaweed and kelp. Or coral and algae. Of the hibiscus resting in Ivy’s beautiful mane.
Red still, not green. Harley asks this without thinking, Ivy’s hands continuing to rub the thick protectant on her. She stills when the question is asked.
“Never green,” Ivy mumbles quietly.
It hits Harley. She knows exactly why.
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After the beach, Harley spray paints her entire bat the color of the flower from Ivy’s hair. She delicately sketches lines to resemble the petals, the long stigma and baubles of the anther.
It’s a shame that she bashes people’s bodies with something so beautiful. Even more ironic that when she does, it reminds her of her gorgeous best friend.
Maybe her heart swells.
Fall
When the weather in Gotham begins to change, it’s not the only thing that does. There is a noticeable shift in Ivy’s mood. As if she could become more tucked into herself, could withdraw any further.
On most days, she keeps the appearance of fallen leaves in her hair, the fibers of some of it becoming a chestnut color amidst the dimming flame of it.
Ivy becomes autumn walking, even her movements reflective of what’s going on outside of their flat window. When she can stand it no longer, Harley takes Ivy’s hand and pulls her to the park.
“I always hate this part,” Ivy tilts her head and throws Harley a tight smile. Instinctively, Harley reaches for her hand and threads their fingers together.
“You feel them,” Harley repeats, a thing she’s heard multiple times for multiple years. She says it to keep reminding herself it’s true.
“It’s almost as bad as them dying.” Her face goes pensive, introspective. Then a dark look passes over her face. “I was created during this time.”
The last part is barely audible, but Harley feels the tightening of Ivy’s fingers in her own. Ivy is referring to when she lost most of the components of her humanity.
The part that felt empathetic towards human emotion. The part that may have wanted someone around. The part that could have eventually longed for someone to share their life with, would have wanted someone for that.
And all she’s got is me . Harley feels sullen. At the things that Ivy has lost. Of the things Ivy never got to have. She wants to hug her. She doesn’t. Instead, she reaches a finger up to touch one of the crisping leaves in her hair.
“Let’s get out of here,” Harley sighs.
That night, Harley lays awake in her bed. The ambient light from Gotham filters in and she tosses and turns. She thinks of Ivy’s words, of the traces of grief etching her features.
It has her moving from her bed and padding into Ivy’s room. She doesn’t even ask permission before she enters her space, wrapping her arms tightly around her like she’d wanted to do in the park.
The leaves are still in her hair. Harley presses her face against them, breathes in their earthiness. Has a hard time imagining them falling from Ivy in death.
“It’s just time for them to sleep,” Harley delicately runs her hand along the sweeping expanse of Ivy’s hair. “They’ll wake up again, just like they always do.”
Harley knows Ivy doesn’t need an explanation of how seasons work, of the life cycle of a plant. But she feels comfort in the idea that maybe Ivy needs reminding of it, like maybe she would appreciate Harley’s version of how things work.
There’s the other beast now to address too. Or continue to ignore. So rarely has Ivy talked about how she became what she is though, that Harley would be a fool to ignore it.
“And just like these leaves, you keep coming back. You continue to grow, no matter what. Ivy, you’ll always be able to.” Maybe not the most profound. Harley thinks a little, feels Ivy shift against her. She leans against her ear. “You’re stronger than the tallest tree, tougher than the spruce in the deepest of winters. You rival the most elegant flower in the spring.”
It’s a whisper and Ivy is a shudder. Harley holds her as her body shakes. She does not turn her over to see her tears fall. They sprinkle the flesh of her hands and arms and she lets them rest there.
Harley tries to be a branch as Ivy is a trembling leaf in the wind. She never wants to lose her.
When she rises the next morning, she sketches the foliage onto the wide rounded circles of wood. When she swings it, they drop like the ones outside. Like the ones drifting slowly from Ivy’s hair.
Winter
Gotham is catapulted into one of the coldest winters Harley can remember. As snow lines the ground, she looks out at the slush in the streets and the growing piles on the sidewalks.
Ivy retreats from it all, spending time under her sun lamps in her greenhouse. A place where it is always spring and summer. When everything is always in bloom.
When she does leave though, Harley notices the way her hair shifts to an almost silver, threads of faint blue interweaving with the others. It makes Harley think of snowflakes on her tongue, of icicles hanging from the eaves.
She drags Ivy outside one crisp and cold day, their boots trudging in the sparkling white. Ivy looks like a winter fox, a snow angel blessing the land of mortals with her presence.
Harley splats her with a packed snowball to remind herself that Ivy is real. That she’s full of life and not a dream.
When December arrives, Harley knows better than to ask for a tree. Ivy would refuse a corpse on display in their home. Instead, she gases up the car and they both drive south to the woods.
They spend hours walking through the pines still attached to roots. She lets Ivy point out plants and asks questions to keep her animated and jovial. The smile never leaves her face. Harley just never wants to leave.
As they head back to the car, Harley chances grabbing something to take back. If Ivy feels it being plucked, she never says.
At the door of the car, Harley opens Ivy’s side but neither one moves to get inside. Flurries fall down slowly and Harley thinks it must look like they’re stuck in a snow globe.
Reaching into her jacket pocket, she withdraws what she’s taken, putting the sprig of mistletoe behind Ivy’s ear. Her hand lingers there.
“Most people would choose poinsettias this time of year,” Ivy raises an eyebrow. There’s a hint of mirth on her face.
Harley touches the white berries, the elliptical leaves. “Poisonous, like you.” She shrugs. Can tell Ivy appreciates the sentiment because she nods. Something else bubbles in Harley and she lets it spill over. “Make it green.”
She hovers over the loose ringlets, looks into already green eyes. A rebuff should come, too much meaning packed into what Harley is asking. She gets something else entirely instead.
“Would it make you love me?” Ivy wonders.
Because that’s Harley’s pattern, isn’t it? Losing herself in the swirl of it, of going blind at its pigment. Of letting her heart fall for its various shades.
But this isn’t that type of story.
“Impossible,” Harley answers and watches as Ivy’s face falls. She hooks a finger under her chin, bringing up her eyes once more. “I can’t anymore than I already do.”
As they kiss for the first time under the falling flakes, Harley has her eyes closed when Ivy’s hair slides into an olive tint to match the sprig. It doesn’t even matter because Ivy’s lips are the only things.
“I’m not even mad you killed a plant,” Ivy laughs against Harley’s lips, the action causing smoking vapor between them.
“This was totally worth it.” Harley leans in again.
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“Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal,” Harley winks and then it’s lights out.
The last thing the CEO sees are smears of white, of faint green marking the wood of her weapon. Of a red ribbon tied around the base of it as Harley Quinn swings for the bleachers.
Ivy stands in the back, the pad of her index finger running over the berries. Poison. Yet somehow, the weight behind them is anything but.
Spring
She has Ivy mix up the color in two separate trays. Makes her glob the thick substance on the ends of her hair and wrap them up in foil.
She turns on the bed and their bare knees brush against one another, Ivy setting the now empty containers on the floor. She reaches out to tuck a stray piece of blonde bang behind Harley’s ear.
“We should go to that rally,” Harley says out of nowhere.
Ivy’s face goes pensive then. “It’s in DC.”
“And? Let’s take a road trip, just you and me. Do some grassroots activism.”
“You’re serious,” Ivy looks a little incredulous. She’d only mentioned it briefly, the story popping up a couple of nights ago on the national news.
“Just think about it, okay?” Harley rises from the bed, already missing the tickle of their skin touching. She pads into the bathroom to rinse the dye.
While she’s perched on the edge of the tub, Ivy comes to stand at the door. Her oversized light blue shirt rests on her shapely hips, her thighs and legs wonderfully bare.
The drain swirls pink and blue and Harley wiggles her toes to smear it more as it washes away. “What’s up, Pam-a-lamb?”
“Okay, so I took a whole five seconds to think about it,” she jokes. Smiles. “Let’s do it.”
Harley bounces off the edge of the tub. When she kisses Ivy, droplets fall onto her nightshirt. She pulls it from her, tossing it to the floor.
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It’s the peak season for the blossoms as they walk along the Tidal Basin. Everywhere they look, there is a burst of color. The pink of the buds and the sharp white of the blooms.
Ivy’s pink hair glints in the sun and Harley bends to pick up one of the fallen blooms to put into her hair, watches as Ivy closes her eyes and makes it expand in size.
“You never cease to amaze me,” Harley feels pride fill her completely as she wraps an arm around Ivy’s waist.
The chocolate coloring of Ivy’s dress, the matching hue on her nails, makes her resemble one of the cherry trees surrounding them.
They’d spent the day before on the capitol lawn, 7000 other souls holding signs and practicing civil disobedience in order to get people to give a shit about climate change and the state of the world.
Ivy had been electric, the green paint on her cheeks vibrant and the passion in her voice profound. The current had carried over to Harley, the vines on her arm extended up to the sky in a fist (ones that Ivy had meticulously painted before the rally).
Of course, the cops had come in after a while and a bunch of people ended up zip tied and getting sore bottoms from sitting on the ground for too long. The two of them managed to escape the fray though, already masters of getting out of a dangerous spot before the fuzz arrives.
“What about you? Never in a million years did I think you’d partner up with me. Especially on something like this,” Ivy shakes her head.
Harley has to wonder what’s left to do for Ivy to trust that she’s in this thing deep. Like once before, in another time when she was too full up, this leaks out too.
Ivy stops their forward progress and turns to face Harley. There’s a deep seriousness her expression holds.
“You gotta know by now that I’m not the same person I was. You’re not the same one sitting across from me and holding everything back. I’m yours in every season, Ivy. I want you to be mine in all of ‘em too.”
“I think…” Ivy begins and bites her lip. “I think I always have been.”
A gusting breeze flings itself into trees around them. The cast-off blossoms spin in a funnel near their pressed together bodies. Harley winds her hand through Ivy’s pink and white hair, kissing her with everything she’s got.
While all the seasons are nice, this might be her favorite one yet.
That spring, she paints her mallet an array of pastels, soft pinks and blues. With it on one hip and Ivy on the other, Harley knows she can take on the entire world.
