I Never Knew…

The radio was playing her song again. It was an old song when she first discovered it, and by now it was practically ancient. Still, it was a nice song. Full of swing and rhythm and heartbreak. It matched the forties well and matched her even better. When was the last time she had heard it? Ah. She had been singing it. Boxie had the Batman tied down and she was singing to distract the gangsters while Robin slipped in through the window. So long ago that was. It was odd. Hearing those old lyrics again. They had described her so well. So full of love that she never saw the evil. So full of worship that she never saw the abuse until it was over. She hummed for the first verse and wondered if the singer had ever overcome the lover who lived in that song.

"I never knew," she quietly sung on the second verse, "that our romance had ended. Until you poisoned my food." She coughed a little, unable to hit the same note of the singer. She waited and then joined back in on the next line. "I thought it was a lark when you kicked me in the park. But now I think it was rude." She was happy to find it was still easy to hold the notes on the final sentence and she began to sing a bit louder.

A knock on the door silenced her while the female soloist continued singing. From her placed in the armchair, she glared at the door and debated if she should move. Her cane was in the kitchen but it was used mostly to scare the twins without hitting them. Besides, she could easily walk to the door but should she? It had been a mistake to take in the twins, she thought as the knocking cut into another line of her song making it seem as though horrible words were being censored.

"Though I tried to be aloof—" A knock. "You—" Another knock. "Me off the roof. I feel our romance—" Knock. "Is dead."

She knew the lyrics by heart though and filled in the words as she thought. Like the singer, she should have been the danger. The twins would have been better off staying with their paternal grandparents or maybe an uncle or aunt. They would have been poorer but they would have been better off. Or maybe she should have moved from Gotham and taken the twins with her. She never knew why she remained in the old hell-hole and with all her old ties gone it would have made sense to move anyways. But she stayed and she kept the girls with her.

A mistake, she thought darkly as she pulled her creaking bones from her armchair. Over the sounds of the knocking and her own movements she heard the singer cry, "You didn't even scold me. You just tried to disfigure my face."

The knocking continued and she slowly walked into the hallway but she did not call out yet. She could still give up. She could pretend she wasn't home. She could abandon the girls to their fate and maybe, maybe that would snap the two out of their obsession with the wrong crowd.

The knocking paused and she hesitated in the hallway as the thought crossed her mind again. She could leave the girls. With their nanny gone, the girls would be shipped off to the next guardian. Maybe that person would be able to remove the clown faces that covered the girls' naturally tanned skin. Maybe that guardian could get the twins to see that crime was a one-way street that ended in jail and alternating heartbreak and abuse.

The singer was weeping as she sang the next few lines and Harleen remembered her feelings when she sang the same lines. "Won't you please put back that acid? And say that we're sweethearts again?"

Harleen banished the thought of leaving the girls from her mind. She knew the twins. They were like her. They were like the singer of her old song. They never learned. They never saw the truth everyone else tried to warn them about. They never knew that the romance had ended until that bottle hit their heads.

The knocking continued and she shouted she was coming.

It was funny, she thought. Harley always thought the singer was a nut for not letting go of the abusive jerk but never had she realized she was trapped in the same situation. Not until after it happened. It was only after he had died she was able to realize it was over and return to Harleen. It was only after that incident Harleen was able to move on. The twins were like Harley and not like Harleen. They did not see where the romance was headed. They did not see the abuse and danger until it was in their faces but then it vanished and so did their recollection of it. However, Harleen could also see they weren't fixated on a man. It was the thrill with them and that was a harder sweetheart to leave.

The knocking had stopped, showing that the officer had heard her and the song had finished in the radio. However, Harleen took it upon herself to mutter the final stanza as she removed the locks. Just like the singer, she could not let go. Not of crime. Not of Mr. J. And never of her two girls.

"You'll never know how my poor heart is breaking.
It looks so helpless, but then
My love can go just so far.
Won't you please put down that crowbar
And say that we're sweethearts again?"

A/N: To the curious, the song is 'Say that we're Sweethearts Again.' It was sung by Dorothy Shay in 1946 and is considered common property or whatever the term is. Harley actually did sing part of the song in the Batman the Animated Series' episode called "Harlequinade." The cover is also a photoshopped version of the title card for that episode.

Anyways, I was in a Harley Quinn mood and decided to write a small fic for her. Originally, I wasn't going to include the song but it just seemed to work. Of course, that could just be in my head. Anyways, thanks for reading.

-d101