Author's Note: Works as a counterpart to "Abstinence" to show her perspective of their separation. This is a prequel to "Life and Death."

The Usual Disclaimer: This is based on Harley's and Joker's relationship as portrayed in Suicide Squad, which is quite different from the original portrayal in a number of ways. Based on Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn and Jared Leto's Joker.

Warnings: Graphic description of violence, abuse, blood, sexual themes, mental illness. This is a very dark piece looking into Harley's mind.

You can find the playlist for this story on my blog Crystallinee-waters (dot tumblr dot com) / tagged / gohome. (Remove all the brackets and spaces. This site won't let me include links. )

PART I

We laughed at the darkness
So scared that we lost it
So tell me your secrets
I just can't stand to see you leaving
- Heaven, Beyoncé

It must have been the car crash.

After all, the impact had thrown her half-way out the wind shield, leaving her out of breath on the hood while fragments of glass cut into her middle. She didn't feel any pain back then, grasping for the knife hidden underneath her thin dress and lunging at her rescuer. The force of the crash had been enough to throw off even her; she had felt the air pressed out of her as the plum purple car drove into the banister separating the road from the harbor.

After that, she was drifting in and out of a playful state of mind, not really thinking at all. Back and forth, her head was way too crowded. She did not exist, until reality dawned on her with a literal blow to her head and she was back in the hole they called a prison, thick bars and grey walls, heavily armored guards everywhere.

That certain guard was still there, oh how she hated him, that creepy plaything, "Alpha01" written on his armor. When she got out, and she knew she would, he would be the first to taste her gun. She would shove it down his throat and choke him with it. Until then he was her personal devil, but she knew how to dance with them.

He grabbed her scalp and welcomed her back with a grin as he threw her onto the floor again. Harley just couldn't resist fighting back. When she woke up later, she had a faint memory of his hands prying her fingers from his throat. She had laughed at him as he straddled her, all the while trying to bite his face off. He had pushed her thin arms down, reaching for something out of her sight, and then she was screaming.

She had woken up eventually, after floating in and out of consciousness for a while. She was still on the floor, wearing her filthy and torn prison clothes that hardly covered her body anymore. She was too gone to form any coherent thoughts, but the laughter spilled off her lips nevertheless. They must have given her a heavy dose; it was like someone was trying to press her eyelids together.

She waited until the haze lifted.

There was dried blood between her inner thighs. It was way too thick and it lingered on her skin, she smelled like a living corpse. She tasted it, felt the fleshy consistence. It was not fresh, it was old blood. The kind that never comes from open wounds.

Harley sat up slowly, her entire frame trembling as she grasped her stomach. She threw her head back and laughed until she was out of breath, choking on it. The laughter turned into high-pitched wails, it reminded her of a dying dog.

So much blood, it kept coming, as if to taunt her. For a few days she was too exhausted to move at all. She lay on the ground and drifted in and out of a blinding white utopia, even the voices were silent. She reached for him, gasping, and he smiled back at her, a dark, metallic grin. She knew he must be looking for her. He must be wondering where his Harley had gone, and when he realized, he'd come for sure. If he was here now, this wouldn't happen. Between her legs was the flooding of something that shouldn't be there, something that wasn't allowed to leave her. No, no, no.

Her trip to heaven was interrupted eventually. Wildly throwing her arms and legs around, she tried to take them on, but her entire body fell limp. Meal replacement pumped into her body to keep her alive, the gagging ball in her mouth, the twisting and turning in her bones - she screamed until she couldn't no more. Then she still tried.

The blood was gone all too soon, washed away, gone down the drain. No, she wasn't dying, they couldn't throw her into the backyard dumpster just yet. She was back in her cell again, she and the empty hole in her belly.

Alpha01, or as she dubbed him in her mind, The Boy Band Leader with his gang of scared little boys, gave her new names. Yours Craziness. She was the bitch who sent half of his squad to the intensive care unit just because she was bleeding her guts out. Just to fuck with him, she played along. Next time he entered her cage, she'd be ready.

The missing thing inside of her made her wonder. Harley stared blankly at the thick bars as the days passed by, unmoving, a filthy and defiled angel with a long blanket of hair. It had been stolen from her.

Maybe it wasn't the car crash. It wasn't the first time, after all.

Maybe it was a defect from before she was born, Harleen whispered in the back of her mind. She sounded so close, as if she was sitting beside her on the stained floor.
Maybe it was because of that time when she was eleven years old and her uncle bruised her during the party, in the dark bedroom.

Or maybe, the most excruciating possibility of them all, it was his fault. But if it was, it was hers too. Live fast, die beautiful, that was her motto.

Their first time had been terrifyingly painful and pleasurable, all in one. It happened afterwards; she was still going numb and her vision was blurry, dots appearing and chasing each other in her vision. She couldn't even remember her own name, much less where she was. But she remembered him, and in her deranged state of mind he was a green-haired angel.

After 450 volts frying her brain, she was only happy when Mr J took her on the examination table. She had teased and urged him on, although faintly, laughing all the while. He had moved so roughly on top of her, pounding into her so hard her vision shattered. She had grasped his toned arms on either side of her head and leaned into his bruising kiss. He was pounding her to life again until her consciousness drifted away. His growl and harsh pants in her ear were her lullaby. The warmth in her was the last thing she remembered of that time, her insides filled up.

She had accepted it all so willingly. Who could have known her most deranged and psychopathic patient would be the one claiming her womb in the end? It was all she ever wanted.

But most surely that time, it must have been the chemicals: the acid that bleached her skin and hair. It killed the little lump of cells that had already started growing in her core. He had laughed so heartily and she had laughed with him. Celebrating the death of their little one, the minimal remains corroded away.

Empty. Her fingers grazed her bruised skin, burying her nails into the spot below her naval. Shadows were moving in the edge of her vision now, in the ceiling that consisted of electrified bars, they danced and moved in front of her eyes. She raised one arm and tried to grasp them, but they always got away.

Nothing left. She had had a part of him inside of her. And now he was gone. It was such a long time since she had last seen him; even the hallucinations started fading away. Instead the memories, the only thing not even electroshock could take from her, took over.

She collapsed in front of the toilet, throwing up her insides. She almost choked on it. Standing on wobbly legs she turned to the sink to wash her face. She noticed how pale her face had become, no makeup in the world could remove that sickly tint.

The makeup was running, the nausea held her in a death grip. It had been plaguing her for weeks, but she had tried to drown it out with alcohol. It was harder to dance in the club, but she tried her best still. She would do anything to please Mr J.

She stumbled out of the bathroom. "Puddin'", she called faintly, making her tone as sweet as she could. She tried her very best to put on her usual seductive smile. He looked up at her; he was sharpening his favorite knives, but stopped when he saw her staggering through the door.

"Yes, Harls?" he replied, a dark undertone in his voice. He didn't like it when she got drunk. She took a step forward but the world caved in on her, she had been awake around the clock. It flashed bright black and white in front of her eyes. His arms caught her before she hit the floor.

If only she was back with him, she'd be good again. She ran towards the electrified bars with a scream, and the scream didn't fade until she was lying on the concrete floor again. She liked the world best when it was just fading from her vision.

She woke up slowly, dim lights in the ceiling blinding her for a moment. Her throat was burning, it was too thick to swallow. She looked around; she was lying on crumbled up sheets. A glass of water on the nightstand, what the hell was going on?

She tried to sit up and she grasped for the white pills beside the glass, popping them all. The door opened and she recognized Mr J's most trusted henchman standing there.

"Ms Quinn," he began. He usually never spoke to her, something was definitely up. She stared demanding at him. "Where's he?"

"He had business to attend to," Jonny Frost replied. "I've been assigned to stay with you."

Stay with her? She chuckled. "I don't need no babysitter, honey."

She moved up from the bed, noticing she was still wearing the same golden dress as before. She was still a bit unstable on her feet, but got used to it quickly. She looked around for something and smiled when she found her beloved "love/hate" gun on the dresser. She grabbed it and took a quick look in the mirror; she needed a shower.

Frost knew better than to ever question the Queen, but orders were orders.

"He said you should stay here. The doctor will be back shortly."

The… doctor? Harley froze, gun still in hand. He had brought a doctor? In other words, the doctor must have been brought with the barrel of a gun pressed against his neck.

"What?" she hissed, almost laughing at the thought. Mr J hated doctors. He had a certain thing for playing Russian roulette with them. Most of all, he would never call for one.

"You were out for a long time", he replied, poker faced like usual.

"And what?" she snapped. She noticed he was slightly taken aback, but he did his best not to show it. "What did they say?" She snapped her teeth, not in her usual seductive way, the frustration overtaking.

A knock on the door. Two henchmen were pushing a struggling woman into the room, one pressing a gun against her back. Jonny Frost nodded his head in her direction. "She'll tell you."

Sometimes she dreamed. She dreamed that Mr J was there to take her away, she was in his arms again and nothing else mattered. One day he would come and get her for sure.

She would request her Puddin' took special care of the leader though. Alpha01 would have his gray substance shattered across the floor, after kissing the ground at her feet.

The next time the boy group and their leader came for her - vanilla or strawberry? - she didn't bother teasing them. They thought they had finally broken her.

Harley shoved the woman to the ground, gun pointing in her face. "Stop fucking around, dollie, or I'll have to correct that brain of yours. Just keep it off my clothes; 'kay? I'll be going out tonight."

The doctor stammered: "I-I-I ran some tests on you and it-it- it was positive, I'm sure – "

Harley lowered the gun. Wide eyes, her heart beating like a drum in her ears.

The other hand moved to her stomach. She stood completely still, biting her lips until her mouth was filled with the taste of iron. So she had been the last to know. Everyone else was already in on it.

She finished the woman off with a quick shot. While the henchmen disposed of her body, Harley remained completely still. Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply.

She felt a smile spreading across her face.

Still limp after the last time the guards had overpowered her, Harley rested on the cold floor. Her mind was trying to stir her awake again, and she slowly moved her dizzy head to glance at the fluorescent lamps high up above.

In her mind, Mr J was carrying her out of the water before Batsy had a chance to take her away. He knew she couldn't swim and while he used to tease her sometimes by pushing her into the water, he would always come for her. He would never let drown.

One day he would be there and set her free. She knew it.

And maybe, she thought and rolled over, then she wouldn't feel empty anymore.

.

So go on, go home.