"Harley, are you feeling up to visitors?" asked Dr. Leland. "Your parents are here to see you, along with…your former fiance."
Harleen had had nothing to distract herself with since being confined in the asylum except her own thoughts and despair over Jack's death. She had only been confined to Arkham for a few days, but it had seemed like years, and so any distraction, however unpleasant, was welcomed by her.
"I'd like to see them," she murmured.
"Follow me to the visiting room," Dr. Leland said. "And feel free to ask them to leave the instant you feel uncomfortable. Remember, you're just sick, and you need help. And the only effective help is looking after yourself and listening to your feelings. That's how we heal – not by repressing, but by embracing."
"Maybe you're right, Joan," agreed Harleen. And maybe she was, she thought, as Dr. Leland led her out of her cell toward the visiting room. She had vowed never to go back to the pathetic shell of a woman she had been before she had met Jack. For his sake, she was going to embrace her true self, and live freely. Even if that freedom was temporarily curtailed by confinement in a mental asylum.
She entered the visiting room and noticed the looks given her by her family and former fiance. Disappointment burned out from them, but they tried not to show it by smiling at her. Strangely, the fact that she had upset them didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered anymore now that Jack was gone.
"Harley, baby, how you feeling?" asked her mother, gently.
"I'm fine, Mom," said Harleen, taking a seat in front of them. "How are you all doing?"
"Oh, as well as can be expected," replied her mother, with a forced smile. "With our daughter temporarily…confined."
"Dr. Leland says I need to be in here to get better," said Harleen. "I'm sure she's right. She says I'm just sick, and they're going to help me get well here."
"I'm sure they'll try," agreed Mrs. Quinzel. "But I, for one, have never had a huge amount of faith in shrinks or their psychiatric mumbo jumbo."
"Yes, I know," murmured Harleen. "You expressed that view to me many times throughout my degree."
"The whole family sends their best wishes for a speedy recovery," continued Mrs. Quinzel. "I told 'em you're a fast healer, even when you were little, so you should be outta here and back to normal in no time. And then things can continue as planned."
"What do you mean?" asked Harleen. "What things?"
"Well, the wedding," said Mrs. Quinzel, nodding. "I haven't canceled any of it yet, and I told the extended family to hold off on getting flight refunds. I said my daughter was never sick for very long, and she'll beat this thing in time for the wedding…"
"I'm not marrying Ricky, Mom," interrupted Harleen, firmly. "I don't love him. Especially not after what he did."
"But what did he do really, Harleen?" asked her mother, gently. "Just think about it. He did his job, his job as a police officer that requires a lot of courage, risking his own life to catch criminals. And in the end, when he had to make a choice between his own life or that of a criminal, he chose to let the criminal die. I'm sure we'd all make the same choice in that situation…"
"He let Jack fall on purpose," interrupted Harleen. "He knows it, and I know it."
"Believe what you want, Harley," said Ricky.
"I will," retorted Harleen. "I believe you were jealous of Jack, so you killed him. But your conscience would never let you live with that fact, so you made up the lie that you now believe, that you had to kill him to save yourself. So you can tell yourself it was self-defense, not murder."
"Harley, you know Ricky only did the right thing," said Mrs. Quinzel. "He's a good guy, unlike that other guy you thought was a good match for you. I mean, I understand why they think you're crazy here."
"His name was Jack," replied Harleen. "Jack Napier."
"He was a criminal, from what I hear," said Mrs. Quinzel. "Worse, a non-Jewish criminal. You must have known it could never have worked out between you. If you had just taken a moment to think about it…"
"I've spent my whole life thinking about it," interrupted Harleen. "Taking my time, considering the rational option, and doing the right, sensible thing, whatever the cost to myself. Now that I know who I truly am and what I truly want, thanks to Jack, I'm never going back to the person I was before. I'm going to be happy being who I truly am. It's what he would want."
"Harley, he was a criminal, and a murderer," retorted Mrs. Quinzel. "A cop killer. I think if you just think about it, you'll realize he was nothing special…"
"He was the man I love," interrupted Harleen. "And my whole world. Which has come crashing down at his death, along with my mind. And it's all his fault," she said, glaring at Ricky. "And you expect me to still marry him?"
"What are you gonna do otherwise?" demanded Mrs. Quinzel. "Mope around this dump of an asylum forever? Or get out, move to some dingy apartment on your own, adopt a couple of cats, and die alone? That's such a waste of your potential, Harleen…"
"You mean it's a waste of your potential for me," interrupted Harleen, coldly. "Every day of my life I have lived in the fear of disappointing you, which I thought would be the same as disappointing myself. But now that I've finally done it, I'm not disappointed in myself. I've never felt more free, and more happy to be me. Jack did that. Jack was the only person in my life who never expected me to be anybody else other than who I was. And even though he's gone, I'm going to stay true to myself, for his sake. I'm going to spend the rest of my life not being afraid to disappoint anyone but myself. So I'm not sorry to disappoint you, Mom, and I'm not going to live out your vision of your ideal life for me. If I do cure myself and get out of here, I'm going to get my own place and live my own life alone."
"And how are you gonna live?" demanded Mrs. Quinzel. "You think anyone's gonna hire a shrink who's been in the nuthouse herself? Or do you think people are gonna forget your name was splashed all over the papers? Do you know what they've written about you, Harleen?"
"I don't care," retorted Harleen, firmly.
"You don't care?" repeated Mrs. Quinzel, incredulously. "I care! I care when my daughter's name is smeared across headlines like some notorious criminal! I care when people write columns calling you an accomplice to a murderer, a sick freak who left her good cop boyfriend to take up with some piece of criminal scum! You've thrown away your life and reputation for a fling, Harleen! And you could maybe claw it back somehow if you get outta here, marry Ricky, and put this whole horrible affair behind you!"
"I'm sorry, Mom – that's not gonna happen," said Harleen. "And if you keep talking to me like that, I'm going to call the guards and be taken back to my cell. I don't want to cut you out of my life, but if you can't accept me for who I am, I'm going to have to. So let's talk about neutral subjects, or let's end this visit."
Silence fell at this, and Harleen finally cleared her throat and said, "So, Ricky…how's work?"
"Fine," he retorted. "We've got a big case going on at the moment."
Silence fell again. "Anything you can talk about?" pressed Harleen.
"Not to you," he retorted. "I know how that ends."
"Ricky, Jack's dead," snapped Harleen. "And I'm not interested in helping out any other criminals, despite what Buzz said. Anyway, it's gotta be better than sitting in long, awkward silences."
Ricky sighed. "There's some kinda freak who dresses like a clown prowling around out there," he muttered. "He's committed some really horrible crimes – murder and mutilation of the bodies. He leaves them with big smiles carved on their faces. It's just what Gotham needs, another psycho on the loose. No offense."
"None taken," retorted Harleen. "Anyway, I ain't on the loose. Not yet, anyway."
"I dunno what's wrong with this city," sighed Mrs. Quinzel. "The criminals just get weirder and weirder."
"Worse, he seems to be targeting cops in particular," said Ricky. "We've had three fatalities in the last week. That's almost as many as Jack Napier took out in one day, with Harley's help."
"The only reason you're here today is because Jack Napier spared your life for me," retorted Harleen. "And then you couldn't even do the same for him. I know which man really loved me."
"I really loved the Harley I knew," retorted Ricky. "Before Jack Napier got his hands on her, and twisted her mind into something sick and wrong."
"Oh, Ricky," sighed Harleen. "That was never the real Harley."
"That's too bad," said Ricky. "Because I really miss her. And I'd do anything to get her to come back."
"I'd do anything to get Jack to come back," replied Harleen. "But he's gone, Ricky, thanks to you. So I guess we both have to miss the people we love forever, because they're never coming back."
"Harley, if you'd just reconsider and be reasonable…" began Mrs. Quinzel, but Harleen stood up.
"That's pretty impossible, Mom, being a lunatic," she said. "I'm going back to my cell now. It was great to see you all. I hope you'll visit again soon."
She turned and left, escorted by the guards back to the cell block. The door shut, and Harleen sat back down on the bed, feeling tears come to her eyes at being alone with her thoughts again.
"Dr. Quinzel?" said a familiar voice.
Harleen looked up to see that the voice was coming from behind the neighboring wall. "Ivy?" she asked.
"Yeah, I saw you being led in," said the voice, which did indeed belong to Poison Ivy. "What are you doing locked up in here?"
Harleen was silent. "The man I loved madly…is dead," she murmured.
Ivy sighed heavily. "Well, if anything is gonna drive you crazy, that'll do it."
"Yeah," agreed Harleen.
There was silence, and then Ivy said gently, "When Jason left me…I was alone, and I couldn't talk to anyone about it. I think it might have helped if I had, with someone who understood what I was going through. So…you wanna talk about it?"
Harleen smiled, for the first time since Jack's death. "Yeah," she murmured. "I really do."