author's note: Hey, ya'll. Trigger warning on this one, maybe. If you remember Ivy's Mad Love backstory...just a quick trip down memory lane. You know yourselves.
Harleen woke with a start at the sound of the sprinklers turning on. She felt nauseous, from the booze and from the guilt. Blinking her eyes to adjust to the light, Harley realized she'd fallen asleep on the couch. It was early morning—6, maybe 7. Saturday, thank God, meaning she didn't have to get Anthony to school. The light was cold and the morning crisp. Harley had forgotten to turn the heat on in the house the night before, so that was what she did first before realizing the reason she was still on the couch—Pam hadn't come home. She panicked, ignoring her nausea to sprint up the stairs to their bedroom.
Empty.
The bathroom was next, followed by the kids' room and Pam's office.
All empty.
Fuck.
Pam definitely hadn't slept on the couch, since that's where Harley was. She should have been able to hear her if she'd entered the house…
Wait, that wasn't the sprinklers, that was the garden hose! Harley's heart lept as she peered out the back door to see Pam standing in the garden watering the plants. Her skin was green and her dress was smudged with mud in a few places, but other than that she looked pretty alright.
"Pam!" Harleen left the door open behind her as she burst out into the yard. "Oh my god, I was so worried!" Harley continued toward her but was stopped by her voice.
"Good morning, Harleen." She said, icily, not turning to face the other woman.
"Hey, hi! Yeah, good morning." Harley was too relieved to hide her excitement. "Where did you sleep last night? I thought maybe you might be cold…"
Pam didn't respond, just calmly went to shut the hose off before heading back into the house and up the stairs. Harley jogged after her, hoping that maybe she could just be mad and they could get past it. Pam stopped short of their bedroom door and finally acknowledged Harley.
"The kids need breakfast." She said, before shutting the door in her wife's face.
Harleen stood there in the hallway for a moment, studying the design of the wood in front of her. Well…I think that could have gone worse…Breakfast, yeah, she could make breakfast. She could make the best damn breakfast her kids had ever eaten! Best damn breakfast Pam had ever seen!
…
"No-o-o-o-o-o-o!" Jo fussed, banging her cup of dry cheerios on her high chair. "No!"
"Mama…" Anthony cautiously eyed his sister. "Jo doesn't like cheerios."
"Jo doesn't like anything," Harleen grumbled as she was pelted with her daughter's now empty cup.
The girl began to cry, seemingly at her sudden self-induced loss of food. Anthony watched her for a moment before getting up and crossing the living room to the record player. He switched it on and gently set the needle down on the record, and suddenly, Jolene fell silent, listening to Dolly Parton repeat her name over and over again.
"She likes the song," Anthony explained as he took his seat at the table once more, just in time for Pam to walk down the stairs wearing a turtle neck sweater and jeans, her hair still a bit damp from the shower. "Mom!" Anthony grinned.
She offered him a half-baked smile in return, coming around to kiss Jolene on the head and then grab an apple from the fruit bowl. "I'll be in the greenhouse." She told them, leaving as quickly as she'd arrived.
"Wait! Pam, hold on…" Harleen pulled on her winter coat. "Anthony, you're in charge of Sis for a second. Just make sure the song keeps playing, come get me if you need to." With that, Harley jogged out after her. "Pam, please. Can we talk? Look, I'm really sorry. I seriously fucked up, OK?" Pam was sitting down behind her work bench, so Harley let herself in and closed the door behind them. "I just—I was really angry and pretty drunk and I wasn't thinking. I'm sorry." She concluded.
Pam took a bite of her apple, watching her where she stood near the entrance. "I can still see the ceiling."
"What?" Those weren't exactly the first words she was expecting.
"Have you ever been raped, Harleen?" Pam asked, putting the piece of apple in her cheek so she could speak. "And not statutory rape. I mean, have you ever been held down, gagged…had your legs forced open, and something—not necessarily part of the human body—shoved inside of you? Have you ever been torn apart, Harleen? Ripped in two?"
"I—uh—no." Harleen stammered, her stomachache worsening.
"Mm." Pam nodded, chewing and swallowing. "The ceiling…it was cement. He moved me down to the basement. We used it to store equipment, but he used it to store me."
"Pam, I'm…I'm so sorry," Harleen breathed.
"No you're not. Not really, anyway." Pam said, taking another bite. "The ceiling had a few cracks in it. On the first day, I thought they were just cracks, but by the end of the first week, that ceiling could have very well been the Cysteine Chapel for all its intricacies. That's what I see when I close my eyes at night. 55 years later, that ceiling is what I see."
Harley swallowed, hard.
Pam got up from her chair and walked around the bench, casually leaning against it. "I could hear people walking above me. Just…going about their usual days. Sometimes I'd wonder if it was my friends up there—Alec, Damian, Linda…but it was usually him. I'd scream until my voice went hoarse…or at least I thought I did. With what was being pumped into my system, I could have made it all up. But I'd scream and he would come. Have you ever been fucked by a dog, Harleen?"
Harley's mouth fell open, the color draining from her face.
"Oh, don't worry. Neither have I." Pam waved her off. "But if you were to ask my drug-addled brain that question back then, I'd probably have a much different answer. That was one of the more vivid hallucinations I experienced. He took the form of a giant, salivating hound…In reality, though, it was just my brain attempting to assign him another face."
Unbidden tears were gathering in Harleen's eyes. "Pammy, I—"
"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" Pam rifled the apple at her, and Harleen had to duck to avoid it. Pam tapped her wrist in a pattern that she'd learned through their EMDR therapy, and in another moment she'd calmed back down. "Nobody came to save me, Harleen. No one heard my screams. Leather is an impressive material, truly. If I wasn't now frightened of the feeling or the smell, I would employ it more often in my work…turns out leather is much studier than the human wrist and ankle bones." Pam rubbed her right wrist soothingly. "Do you understand the level of desperation required to purposefully snap your bone in half? To focus all your energy on hurting yourself so severely?"
Harleen nodded, silently.
"And then I ran on it," Pam laughed, mirthlessly. "For two miles through the streets of downtown Seattle on my broken ankle, completely naked…I didn't have time to feel ashamed, I just had to get away…and after that…I didn't see the world again for another four months, and when I did, I was…" She held up her green hands. "This."
Harleen had forfeited to her emotions at this point, allowing tears to roll down her cheeks. "Pamela, I am so. So. Sorry." Harley wanted to go to her, wanted to reach out, to touch her, to kiss her…to fix her. But she didn't dare take a step closer.
Pam was watching her again. "How long have you had that in your holster? How many times has it been on the tip of your tongue? Was it your fail-safe? If an argument ever got out of hand, did you keep your finger in the pin of that grenade knowing it would ruin me? When I gave myself to you for the first time, when I asked you to marry me, on our wedding night, when Anthony and Jolene were born—were those phrases there, swimming around in your mind, poised for your selfish use the whole time?"
"No, no it wasn't like that, Pam. You have to believe me." Harley pleaded.
"Were you curious, Harleen?" Pam asked. "Curious as to how I would react? Did you think about it when we were having sex? Did you make me pull the car over last night because you knew that's when it would hurt the worst?"
Harley sniffed and wiped the tears away from her face.
"I can't stand the smell of you," Pam said, disgusted. "I trusted you, Harleen. I trusted you with everything and you threw it back in my face. Get out. Please."
