Title: It's Just Allergies (2/??)
Author: Allaine
Email: eac2nd@y...
Distribution: Probably at fanfiction.net and the
factsofslash group. Anyone interested should just ask, and can expect a positive answer.
Spoilers: Takes place after the New Batman/Superman Adventures, with one alteration - in my story, Ivy's skin never turned white like the Joker's. So she still looks like you and me.
Feedback: Well, this fanfic is uncharted territory for me, so reader opinions may very well determine whether I finish it or not. So I would encourage it even more than usual.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimers: All characters belong to . . . let's see, DC Comics, Kids WB and the Cartoon Network, the producers of the two Batman serials, the talented artists and voice actors, etc. I have borrowed them entirely without permission, for which I humbly beg forgiveness, but I seek no form of profit from this undertaking.
Summary: When Poison Ivy finds her well-being threatened by the unlikeliest of sources, Harley Quinn proves that Ivy doesn't have to be alone anymore, ever again. My first Batman fanfiction.
_____________________________________________
Chapter 2
"Yes, please come in, Pamela," Dr. Park said cordially. "And how are we doing this morning?"
"Okay," she replied apathetically as she sat down.
Truth be told, you could tell just by looking at her that she was definitely _not_ okay. She had barely slept the night before. It was not due to her recent bouts of sickness; her symptoms had not returned since the plants were removed from her cell. And yet she had tossed and turned all night, when she wasn't staring up at the ceiling, because she knew something was very wrong with her, and it was throwing off her equilibrium.
Plus, she hadn't fully recovered from her most recent attack. Her face was still all red and tingling, and she had very little energy. To top it all off, she had not cried this much since the time the Batman had ruined her cover as the perfect suburban housewife and forced her to flee the city. She supposed she was clinically depressed at this point.
"Good thing I'm in a mental hospital, then," she thought. She would have started laughing hysterically if she didn't feel so lethargic.
"Oh, come now," the head doctor at Arkham replied. "Here, these tulips will pick you up. Take a big whiff." He pushed a glass vase filled with colorful cut tulips and water towards her.
Ivy hesitated. She really didn't want to risk another episode . . . feeling annoyed by her indecisiveness, as well as her irrational (or was it?) fear of plants, rebelliously she leaned forward and buried her nose in the blooms, smelling deeply.
Their scent was lovely, but more importantly, it didn't cause her to break into a rash or make her eyes water or give her cramps. In fact, it made her feel better already. She closed her eyes and smiled.
"There, you see?" Dr. Park said, a grandfatherly smile on his face in response. "And how about these roses?" He moved the tulips back. In their place he put down one of those potted plants they sold in supermarkets, the kind with purple foil around the pot. The dirt was a deep, rich brown, and the yellow roses looked fresh. "Just watch out for the thorns."
Feeling her self-confidence sweeping aside all her past doubts, Ivy just shot him a look, as if to say, "I think I've handled roses before." Getting out of her chair a little, she bent over and sniffed their familiar aroma.
"You see?" he asked as he took the potted plant and set it next to the files in front of him on the desk.
"Yes, Dr. Park," she said dryly. "That did 'pick me up'."
"No, you don't see," he sighed, shaking his head. "But you will."
She cocked her head, not knowing what he meant. As she was about to ask, however, she was suddenly struck by a wave of nausea. "Oh, God," Ivy groaned. "Not again." She clapped her hands over her mouth as she tasted bile.
Dr. Park just pointed to a side door. "Bathroom is that way, Ms. Isley." He then folded his hands in his lap, as if nothing unusual was happening.
Ivy somehow managed to hold it in until she got to the doctor's toilet. Then she proceeded to regurgitate everything she'd had for breakfast. It hadn't been much that morning, and she was quickly reduced to a series of dry heaves.
When it was finally over, she coughed violently and rubbed the back of her hand over her mouth. "This isn't fair," she moaned as she fell onto her side. "Why is this happening to me?"
She looked up and saw the doctor standing over her. "It's quite simple, Ms. Isley," he replied. "You are allergic to plants, severely allergic."
"You're an idiot," she croaked. "I'm a trained botanist. I've worked with every species of plant imaginable in my life, and I have never had an adverse reaction. I am not allergic to plants!" She was shrieking by that time.
He raised an eyebrow. "Well, not dead ones, anyway." Then he turned around and walked out of the bathroom.
Her eyes narrowed, and she scrambled to her feet. "What the hell was that supposed to mean?" she growled as she followed him back out into his office.
He was sitting at his desk again, looking totally unconcerned by the disturbed woman in front of him. "Well, can't you see? You smelled the tulips, which were cut some time ago, and you felt fine. And I'm told you've been eating your vegetarian platters with no ill effects whatsoever. Yet when you smelled these roses," and he gestured to the pot, "still rooted in soil, you became sick to your stomach. Now do you see?"
Ivy stared at him, appalled. "What did you do to me?"
Dr. Park pointed to her seat. "I'll explain when you sit down."
"You'll tell me now," she hissed, "and then you'll fix whatever it is you've done, or I'll strangle you where you sit. I don't need a choking vine to throttle you."
"I'll tell you when you take your seat," he replied sternly.
Snarling, she leapt at him.
Defensively he took the pot of roses in both hands and held it out in her direction. If she'd been a second slower, she could have reacted in time and simply knocked the ceramic pot aside with her hands.
As it was, however, her outstretched hands had a nasty run-in with the roses' long stems. Several thorns left scratches all over her hands. They began to bleed in four or five places.
"Ow!" she yelped, stumbling backwards. "You dirty son of a . . ." She was unable to finish her thought, because she felt dizzy. It felt like the room was spinning. Before she knew what was happening, her eyes rolled back into her head and she hit the floor like a sack of bricks.
The doctor put the pot back down. Some of the stems were now broken. "A waste," he sighed. Then he got up, sat on the corner of his desk, and waited.
Five minutes later she slowly came to. As her eyes opened, Ivy saw that she was lying on her side, stretched out on the floor. "What happened?" she said thickly.
"You had an especially severe reaction," Dr. Park informed her, "when you were scratched by the thorns. Your bloodstream was affected."
"I'll kill you," she muttered, getting up. The only thing was, she wasn't. Ivy's body had suddenly stopped responding.
"I can't move," she whispered. "Why can't I move?" She tried to move her arms, her legs, something, but all her body did was flop around a little. She felt like a fish out of water.
"I told you," he said patiently. "It's in your bloodstream. Your entire body needs time to recover. Until then, I'm afraid you'll have to remain there. I could help you back into your chair, but you might just fall off. And anyway, obviously you can still move your head, and for all I know you might try to bite my nose off."
"And I would!" she yelled at him. "This is all _your_ fault!"
"No, it's yours," he said quietly. "You're the first patient here to participate in a radical new procedure of my invention. I'm going to ensure that maniacs like you can no longer threaten the people of Gotham."
"What procedure?" Ivy asked. "I don't remember any procedure."
"The other night," he explained. "We had you sedated without your knowledge. Then, while you and everyone else on your wing slept, we had you moved to our surgical room. It's a revolutionary idea, really," he confided. "It takes several hours, but it works wonders, as you can see. We've altered your body on a genetic level, so that you now become sick whenever you touch or smell live plants. The more prolonged the exposure is, the sicker you become. And interestingly enough, the reaction varies depending on the type of plant it is." He seemed almost boyishly pleased with himself.
"But, but that's impossible," she gasped. "It can't be done."
Now it was Dr. Park who rolled his eyes at her. "Think of Clayface, Ms. Isley, and what he's become. Think of the Joker and his bone-white skin, or that 'Man-Bat' who periodically terrorizes this city at night, or Bane and his venom. Then try telling me again that such a procedure is impossible. Or what about the mutated monstrosities you yourself make plants into?"
She had no answer.
"See, that's why I say you brought this on yourself," he continued. "I have reached the conclusion that you cannot be trusted around any plant which you are capable of distorting and twisting. You claim to be a 'defender' of endangered plant life, and to love plants more than people. And yet you warp the very things you claim to love. You make them something they're not, you bend them to your will. You're as much an exploiter of plants as the businessmen you once poisoned."
"Stop it!" Ivy yelled at him. "Just stop it!"
"No, see, I don't have to," Dr. Park reminded her. "Because I'm the head of this asylum, and I can say what I want. And you're temporarily paralyzed, so you can't leave anyway. Pamela, you're a menace to people _and_ to plants. A rose should be a rose, but not after you get your hands on it. Well, I've changed that. Now any exposure to plants can be dangerous." He leaned over her. "Prolonged exposure can be lethal."
She shrank backwards. "You don't mean that."
"Dr. Warner told me you had trouble breathing last night. How long would you have lasted if you'd left those plants in your cell?" he asked.
She couldn't even look away. "Please, stop it, stop it."
In an instant he became the good doctor again. "Not that you can't live a full, normal life. I made sure that you wouldn't be affected by dead plants. After all, we can't have you throwing up every time you put a piece of lettuce in your mouth." He chuckled. "Someone might think you were in here for an eating disorder."
Ivy closed her eyes and tried _willing_ her body to life, but her arms wouldn't respond. She banged her head on the floor softly.
"Oh!" he added. "That reminds me." Returning to his desk, he came back with a signed statement. "Here are your signed release papers. You'll be free to go tomorrow morning."
Just when she thought she couldn't be shocked any further, she stared at him, open-mouthed. "Wh-what? I'm being released? Why?"
"Well, isn't it obvious? You've been rehabilitated! You're no longer a danger to society. Without your plants, you're no more threatening than the average woman of your height and weight." He took her limp hand and, in a half-mocking gesture, pumped it up and down. "One day you'll thank me for this!"
She was going to be sick, and it wasn't because of the roses.
_______________________________________________
Ivy sat on her bed and stared at the vase filled with tulips which Dr. Park had been so kind, so _generous_ to give her. Their scent served only to underline just how upside-down her life had been turned. She felt like everyone and everything in it was laughing at her.
She wouldn't be here tomorrow. She hated this place; she escaped whenever she could. She should have been glad. Part of her was. The longer she stayed here, the more likely it would become that one of the other inmates would discover her new sickness, and then she'd be able to count her remaining days on her fingers and toes. She was not much to be afraid of without her plants. Unless, of course, the more violent ones chose to let her live as the laughingstock of Arkham, someone they could push around.
She used to be Poison Ivy, but now she had neither the poison nor the ivy. What did that make her? Nothing. Or Pamela Isley, which was much the same thing.
And what would Harley say? Would she think less of her? Certainly this spelled the end of their collaboration in the future; she wouldn't impose her useless self on Harley.
Yes, part of her was very relieved she was leaving. What if Harley took it upon herself to "protect" Ivy from Arkham's predators? That would be funny in other circumstances, but not now, when it would mean Harley Quinn going to the infirmary again, this time because of her.
On the other hand, what did she have to look forward to in the outside world? Her career as a criminal was over. She supposed she could start carrying a gun and rob banks or something, but then everyone would see how she had become different. The mockery of the ignorant masses - that was definitely something she could do without.
Dr. Park had told her what she had to look forward to. He had arranged for her to stay at a halfway house for now. Meanwhile, she would have a job. A fucking _job_. And here was the best part - she was going to work for a floral delivery service. She didn't know if the doctor was trying to be thoughtful or cruel, but her days would consist of carrying around dead flowers, grown and cut down for the sole purpose of making people happy.
She doubted she would last long in this line of work. It was debatable whether she would beat a customer over the head with a bouquet of lilies, or quit in despair after carrying one too many flowers under her nose. Each delivery would be a constant reminder of how much she had lost.
Ivy stared at the tulips. How _noble_ of him.
With a cry, she grabbed the vase and hurled it across the cell. It smashed against the wall and flowers sprayed everywhere.
"Ivy?"
Poison Ivy - no, she was Pamela Isley again; maybe she would dye her hair so that people would not recognize her - looked at the open door. Harley was standing there, looking scared.
"Hi, Harley," she said softly. "Why don't you . . ." Her breath caught in her throat. Only now did she see that Harley was carrying her shooting star vine in her hands. Instinctively she crawled backwards.
Was it instinct for her to shrink from a plant _already_? Oh, hell.
"Come in?" Quinn finished for her. "Thanks." She stepped over shards of broken glass. "So I heard the news."
Ivy sat up straight. "The news?" If that bastard had told everyone about her condition . . .
"You know," Harley answered, beaming now. "They released you. You'll be free again this time tomorrow." She came closer and grinned slyly. "You can tell me," she added in a conspirator's whisper. "Did you seduce another doctor?"
No, of course he wouldn't have told anyone. Despite his assurances, Ivy suspected this wasn't entirely on the up-and-up. She wondered what the Bat would think about it. But she couldn't tell anyone; it was too humiliating to even consider.
"They think I've been rehabilitated," Ivy told her. "I didn't do anything." Boy, was that the truth.
"Oh, come on," Harley scoffed. She was now close enough with her flowering plant that Ivy's back was flush against the wall. "People like us will never be rehabilitated. I mean, I tried, remember? I tried to be good. I even thought after they brought me back in, okay, I got that one little slip-up out of the way, and that'd be it. But it didn't happen that way."
Ivy knew why. Her "puddin" had poured on the charm the following month. He'd heard about her kissing the Bat, and it had driven him insane with possessiveness. No one took something of the Joker's. So he twisted her around his finger again, and when Harley had come down for lunch one day with a black eye, fawning over him, Ivy knew Harley's fling with the straight line was over. She had come to despise the Joker even more that day.
"Yeah, I couldn't be the good girl and still be with Mr. J," Harley went on blithely. "Or you," she added.
The other woman blinked, and then blushed a little. Harley had never told her that.
"So what's the real story?" Harley asked. "And what's with the throwing things?" She sat down next to Ivy.
Ivy felt her nose hitching, and she edged away from Harley. "Oh, you know, I can't stand those things. They're just the victims of a billion-dollar industry that exploits flowers so men can get women into bed."
"That reminds me," Harley said. "I think it's broken."
"What is?"
"This plant you had them bring to me," she said. "Thanks, by the way."
"You're - welcome," Ivy replied.
"Anyway, it had these pretty flowers all over it yesterday, and they came out of nowhere," Harley said excitedly. "And then, like ten minutes later, they all turned brown and fell off." She held it up for Ivy's inspection.
Panicking, Ivy moved still further away from Harley, but the confused young woman just pursued her.
"Atchoo!" she sneezed. And again. And again.
"Bless you," Harley told her.
"Just put it down over there," Ivy managed to tell her through her gasps and sneezes.
Looking more confused than ever, Harley put the plant on the floor, and Ivy felt her nose returning to normal.
"It's called a shooting star vine, something I invented," Ivy told her. "And it's doing what it's supposed to be doing. You'll get more blossoms like that every night at sunset, and then they're gone a few minutes later."
"Ohhh, I get it," Harley answered brightly. "That's where the name comes from."
"Precisely."
"So," Harley continued, becoming utterly serious, "you gonna tell me what's wrong?"
Ivy looked away. "Nothing's wrong."
"You're about to be released from Arkham, which is really weird by itself, and nobody knows why. And you don't look happy about it. And you won't look at my plant, and you keep sneezing. Is that why you gave this to me?" Harley asked, hurt. "Because you didn't want it anymore?"
"No!" Ivy replied. "I wanted you to have it because, well, it made me think of you. You're like a sudden flash of color too, you know?"
It was now Harley's turn to blush, but she wasn't entirely satisfied. "Okay. Then how come the rest of your plants are gone? And what's with the cold?"
"It's not a cold, it's just . . . allergies," Ivy finished lamely.
"But you don't have allergies. And there's nothing here for you to be allergic too. Except - "
"Go, Harley," Ivy interrupted, turning away from her. "Just leave. I want to be alone right now, okay?"
"Red, please," Harley said, putting a hand on her shoulder.
Nobody called her Red besides Harley. Ivy liked that nickname, but hearing it now, it made her hurt that much more painful. "I mean it, Harley. Go. Go back to your precious puddin'." She curled up and faced the wall.
"Red . . ."
"Get the fuck out of here!" she screamed.
She felt Harley's hand leave her shoulder suddenly, as if jolted. "Yeah, sure, whatever," Harley muttered, annoyed. Scooping up her plant, she stormed out of the cell.
Harley stopped in the hallway outside of Ivy's cell. She watched, unnoticed, as Ivy cried silently in the corner. More concerned than ever now, she left to put her plant back and think things through.
____________________________________________
"Well, Pamela, I hope this is the last time we see your pretty face here," Dr. Park told her as he faced her outside of Arkham.
"Thank you, Doctor," she said through clenched teeth as she carried in a box her few possessions that weren't plants.
"And remember - the more you stay away from those plants of yours, the less likely you return to a life of crime," he reminded her.
Or, she thought, the less she stayed away from them, the more likely she lost her life, period. She thought of how he had called prolonged exposure "lethal", and she shuddered.
Looking up at the walls of Arkham, she saw several faces at the windows. But the only one she cared about was Harley Quinn's. She peered down at Ivy from the second floor, looking quite miserable. The Joker had his arm around her shoulders and was pressing her tight against his side. He gave Ivy his best shit-eating grin and waved.
"Cocksucker," she muttered.
"Excuse me?"
"Nothing, Doctor."
As she got on the bus that would take her away from this place, she thought about how she and Harley now had something else in common - the things they loved hurt them the most.
To be continued . . .
Author: Allaine
Email: eac2nd@y...
Distribution: Probably at fanfiction.net and the
factsofslash group. Anyone interested should just ask, and can expect a positive answer.
Spoilers: Takes place after the New Batman/Superman Adventures, with one alteration - in my story, Ivy's skin never turned white like the Joker's. So she still looks like you and me.
Feedback: Well, this fanfic is uncharted territory for me, so reader opinions may very well determine whether I finish it or not. So I would encourage it even more than usual.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimers: All characters belong to . . . let's see, DC Comics, Kids WB and the Cartoon Network, the producers of the two Batman serials, the talented artists and voice actors, etc. I have borrowed them entirely without permission, for which I humbly beg forgiveness, but I seek no form of profit from this undertaking.
Summary: When Poison Ivy finds her well-being threatened by the unlikeliest of sources, Harley Quinn proves that Ivy doesn't have to be alone anymore, ever again. My first Batman fanfiction.
_____________________________________________
Chapter 2
"Yes, please come in, Pamela," Dr. Park said cordially. "And how are we doing this morning?"
"Okay," she replied apathetically as she sat down.
Truth be told, you could tell just by looking at her that she was definitely _not_ okay. She had barely slept the night before. It was not due to her recent bouts of sickness; her symptoms had not returned since the plants were removed from her cell. And yet she had tossed and turned all night, when she wasn't staring up at the ceiling, because she knew something was very wrong with her, and it was throwing off her equilibrium.
Plus, she hadn't fully recovered from her most recent attack. Her face was still all red and tingling, and she had very little energy. To top it all off, she had not cried this much since the time the Batman had ruined her cover as the perfect suburban housewife and forced her to flee the city. She supposed she was clinically depressed at this point.
"Good thing I'm in a mental hospital, then," she thought. She would have started laughing hysterically if she didn't feel so lethargic.
"Oh, come now," the head doctor at Arkham replied. "Here, these tulips will pick you up. Take a big whiff." He pushed a glass vase filled with colorful cut tulips and water towards her.
Ivy hesitated. She really didn't want to risk another episode . . . feeling annoyed by her indecisiveness, as well as her irrational (or was it?) fear of plants, rebelliously she leaned forward and buried her nose in the blooms, smelling deeply.
Their scent was lovely, but more importantly, it didn't cause her to break into a rash or make her eyes water or give her cramps. In fact, it made her feel better already. She closed her eyes and smiled.
"There, you see?" Dr. Park said, a grandfatherly smile on his face in response. "And how about these roses?" He moved the tulips back. In their place he put down one of those potted plants they sold in supermarkets, the kind with purple foil around the pot. The dirt was a deep, rich brown, and the yellow roses looked fresh. "Just watch out for the thorns."
Feeling her self-confidence sweeping aside all her past doubts, Ivy just shot him a look, as if to say, "I think I've handled roses before." Getting out of her chair a little, she bent over and sniffed their familiar aroma.
"You see?" he asked as he took the potted plant and set it next to the files in front of him on the desk.
"Yes, Dr. Park," she said dryly. "That did 'pick me up'."
"No, you don't see," he sighed, shaking his head. "But you will."
She cocked her head, not knowing what he meant. As she was about to ask, however, she was suddenly struck by a wave of nausea. "Oh, God," Ivy groaned. "Not again." She clapped her hands over her mouth as she tasted bile.
Dr. Park just pointed to a side door. "Bathroom is that way, Ms. Isley." He then folded his hands in his lap, as if nothing unusual was happening.
Ivy somehow managed to hold it in until she got to the doctor's toilet. Then she proceeded to regurgitate everything she'd had for breakfast. It hadn't been much that morning, and she was quickly reduced to a series of dry heaves.
When it was finally over, she coughed violently and rubbed the back of her hand over her mouth. "This isn't fair," she moaned as she fell onto her side. "Why is this happening to me?"
She looked up and saw the doctor standing over her. "It's quite simple, Ms. Isley," he replied. "You are allergic to plants, severely allergic."
"You're an idiot," she croaked. "I'm a trained botanist. I've worked with every species of plant imaginable in my life, and I have never had an adverse reaction. I am not allergic to plants!" She was shrieking by that time.
He raised an eyebrow. "Well, not dead ones, anyway." Then he turned around and walked out of the bathroom.
Her eyes narrowed, and she scrambled to her feet. "What the hell was that supposed to mean?" she growled as she followed him back out into his office.
He was sitting at his desk again, looking totally unconcerned by the disturbed woman in front of him. "Well, can't you see? You smelled the tulips, which were cut some time ago, and you felt fine. And I'm told you've been eating your vegetarian platters with no ill effects whatsoever. Yet when you smelled these roses," and he gestured to the pot, "still rooted in soil, you became sick to your stomach. Now do you see?"
Ivy stared at him, appalled. "What did you do to me?"
Dr. Park pointed to her seat. "I'll explain when you sit down."
"You'll tell me now," she hissed, "and then you'll fix whatever it is you've done, or I'll strangle you where you sit. I don't need a choking vine to throttle you."
"I'll tell you when you take your seat," he replied sternly.
Snarling, she leapt at him.
Defensively he took the pot of roses in both hands and held it out in her direction. If she'd been a second slower, she could have reacted in time and simply knocked the ceramic pot aside with her hands.
As it was, however, her outstretched hands had a nasty run-in with the roses' long stems. Several thorns left scratches all over her hands. They began to bleed in four or five places.
"Ow!" she yelped, stumbling backwards. "You dirty son of a . . ." She was unable to finish her thought, because she felt dizzy. It felt like the room was spinning. Before she knew what was happening, her eyes rolled back into her head and she hit the floor like a sack of bricks.
The doctor put the pot back down. Some of the stems were now broken. "A waste," he sighed. Then he got up, sat on the corner of his desk, and waited.
Five minutes later she slowly came to. As her eyes opened, Ivy saw that she was lying on her side, stretched out on the floor. "What happened?" she said thickly.
"You had an especially severe reaction," Dr. Park informed her, "when you were scratched by the thorns. Your bloodstream was affected."
"I'll kill you," she muttered, getting up. The only thing was, she wasn't. Ivy's body had suddenly stopped responding.
"I can't move," she whispered. "Why can't I move?" She tried to move her arms, her legs, something, but all her body did was flop around a little. She felt like a fish out of water.
"I told you," he said patiently. "It's in your bloodstream. Your entire body needs time to recover. Until then, I'm afraid you'll have to remain there. I could help you back into your chair, but you might just fall off. And anyway, obviously you can still move your head, and for all I know you might try to bite my nose off."
"And I would!" she yelled at him. "This is all _your_ fault!"
"No, it's yours," he said quietly. "You're the first patient here to participate in a radical new procedure of my invention. I'm going to ensure that maniacs like you can no longer threaten the people of Gotham."
"What procedure?" Ivy asked. "I don't remember any procedure."
"The other night," he explained. "We had you sedated without your knowledge. Then, while you and everyone else on your wing slept, we had you moved to our surgical room. It's a revolutionary idea, really," he confided. "It takes several hours, but it works wonders, as you can see. We've altered your body on a genetic level, so that you now become sick whenever you touch or smell live plants. The more prolonged the exposure is, the sicker you become. And interestingly enough, the reaction varies depending on the type of plant it is." He seemed almost boyishly pleased with himself.
"But, but that's impossible," she gasped. "It can't be done."
Now it was Dr. Park who rolled his eyes at her. "Think of Clayface, Ms. Isley, and what he's become. Think of the Joker and his bone-white skin, or that 'Man-Bat' who periodically terrorizes this city at night, or Bane and his venom. Then try telling me again that such a procedure is impossible. Or what about the mutated monstrosities you yourself make plants into?"
She had no answer.
"See, that's why I say you brought this on yourself," he continued. "I have reached the conclusion that you cannot be trusted around any plant which you are capable of distorting and twisting. You claim to be a 'defender' of endangered plant life, and to love plants more than people. And yet you warp the very things you claim to love. You make them something they're not, you bend them to your will. You're as much an exploiter of plants as the businessmen you once poisoned."
"Stop it!" Ivy yelled at him. "Just stop it!"
"No, see, I don't have to," Dr. Park reminded her. "Because I'm the head of this asylum, and I can say what I want. And you're temporarily paralyzed, so you can't leave anyway. Pamela, you're a menace to people _and_ to plants. A rose should be a rose, but not after you get your hands on it. Well, I've changed that. Now any exposure to plants can be dangerous." He leaned over her. "Prolonged exposure can be lethal."
She shrank backwards. "You don't mean that."
"Dr. Warner told me you had trouble breathing last night. How long would you have lasted if you'd left those plants in your cell?" he asked.
She couldn't even look away. "Please, stop it, stop it."
In an instant he became the good doctor again. "Not that you can't live a full, normal life. I made sure that you wouldn't be affected by dead plants. After all, we can't have you throwing up every time you put a piece of lettuce in your mouth." He chuckled. "Someone might think you were in here for an eating disorder."
Ivy closed her eyes and tried _willing_ her body to life, but her arms wouldn't respond. She banged her head on the floor softly.
"Oh!" he added. "That reminds me." Returning to his desk, he came back with a signed statement. "Here are your signed release papers. You'll be free to go tomorrow morning."
Just when she thought she couldn't be shocked any further, she stared at him, open-mouthed. "Wh-what? I'm being released? Why?"
"Well, isn't it obvious? You've been rehabilitated! You're no longer a danger to society. Without your plants, you're no more threatening than the average woman of your height and weight." He took her limp hand and, in a half-mocking gesture, pumped it up and down. "One day you'll thank me for this!"
She was going to be sick, and it wasn't because of the roses.
_______________________________________________
Ivy sat on her bed and stared at the vase filled with tulips which Dr. Park had been so kind, so _generous_ to give her. Their scent served only to underline just how upside-down her life had been turned. She felt like everyone and everything in it was laughing at her.
She wouldn't be here tomorrow. She hated this place; she escaped whenever she could. She should have been glad. Part of her was. The longer she stayed here, the more likely it would become that one of the other inmates would discover her new sickness, and then she'd be able to count her remaining days on her fingers and toes. She was not much to be afraid of without her plants. Unless, of course, the more violent ones chose to let her live as the laughingstock of Arkham, someone they could push around.
She used to be Poison Ivy, but now she had neither the poison nor the ivy. What did that make her? Nothing. Or Pamela Isley, which was much the same thing.
And what would Harley say? Would she think less of her? Certainly this spelled the end of their collaboration in the future; she wouldn't impose her useless self on Harley.
Yes, part of her was very relieved she was leaving. What if Harley took it upon herself to "protect" Ivy from Arkham's predators? That would be funny in other circumstances, but not now, when it would mean Harley Quinn going to the infirmary again, this time because of her.
On the other hand, what did she have to look forward to in the outside world? Her career as a criminal was over. She supposed she could start carrying a gun and rob banks or something, but then everyone would see how she had become different. The mockery of the ignorant masses - that was definitely something she could do without.
Dr. Park had told her what she had to look forward to. He had arranged for her to stay at a halfway house for now. Meanwhile, she would have a job. A fucking _job_. And here was the best part - she was going to work for a floral delivery service. She didn't know if the doctor was trying to be thoughtful or cruel, but her days would consist of carrying around dead flowers, grown and cut down for the sole purpose of making people happy.
She doubted she would last long in this line of work. It was debatable whether she would beat a customer over the head with a bouquet of lilies, or quit in despair after carrying one too many flowers under her nose. Each delivery would be a constant reminder of how much she had lost.
Ivy stared at the tulips. How _noble_ of him.
With a cry, she grabbed the vase and hurled it across the cell. It smashed against the wall and flowers sprayed everywhere.
"Ivy?"
Poison Ivy - no, she was Pamela Isley again; maybe she would dye her hair so that people would not recognize her - looked at the open door. Harley was standing there, looking scared.
"Hi, Harley," she said softly. "Why don't you . . ." Her breath caught in her throat. Only now did she see that Harley was carrying her shooting star vine in her hands. Instinctively she crawled backwards.
Was it instinct for her to shrink from a plant _already_? Oh, hell.
"Come in?" Quinn finished for her. "Thanks." She stepped over shards of broken glass. "So I heard the news."
Ivy sat up straight. "The news?" If that bastard had told everyone about her condition . . .
"You know," Harley answered, beaming now. "They released you. You'll be free again this time tomorrow." She came closer and grinned slyly. "You can tell me," she added in a conspirator's whisper. "Did you seduce another doctor?"
No, of course he wouldn't have told anyone. Despite his assurances, Ivy suspected this wasn't entirely on the up-and-up. She wondered what the Bat would think about it. But she couldn't tell anyone; it was too humiliating to even consider.
"They think I've been rehabilitated," Ivy told her. "I didn't do anything." Boy, was that the truth.
"Oh, come on," Harley scoffed. She was now close enough with her flowering plant that Ivy's back was flush against the wall. "People like us will never be rehabilitated. I mean, I tried, remember? I tried to be good. I even thought after they brought me back in, okay, I got that one little slip-up out of the way, and that'd be it. But it didn't happen that way."
Ivy knew why. Her "puddin" had poured on the charm the following month. He'd heard about her kissing the Bat, and it had driven him insane with possessiveness. No one took something of the Joker's. So he twisted her around his finger again, and when Harley had come down for lunch one day with a black eye, fawning over him, Ivy knew Harley's fling with the straight line was over. She had come to despise the Joker even more that day.
"Yeah, I couldn't be the good girl and still be with Mr. J," Harley went on blithely. "Or you," she added.
The other woman blinked, and then blushed a little. Harley had never told her that.
"So what's the real story?" Harley asked. "And what's with the throwing things?" She sat down next to Ivy.
Ivy felt her nose hitching, and she edged away from Harley. "Oh, you know, I can't stand those things. They're just the victims of a billion-dollar industry that exploits flowers so men can get women into bed."
"That reminds me," Harley said. "I think it's broken."
"What is?"
"This plant you had them bring to me," she said. "Thanks, by the way."
"You're - welcome," Ivy replied.
"Anyway, it had these pretty flowers all over it yesterday, and they came out of nowhere," Harley said excitedly. "And then, like ten minutes later, they all turned brown and fell off." She held it up for Ivy's inspection.
Panicking, Ivy moved still further away from Harley, but the confused young woman just pursued her.
"Atchoo!" she sneezed. And again. And again.
"Bless you," Harley told her.
"Just put it down over there," Ivy managed to tell her through her gasps and sneezes.
Looking more confused than ever, Harley put the plant on the floor, and Ivy felt her nose returning to normal.
"It's called a shooting star vine, something I invented," Ivy told her. "And it's doing what it's supposed to be doing. You'll get more blossoms like that every night at sunset, and then they're gone a few minutes later."
"Ohhh, I get it," Harley answered brightly. "That's where the name comes from."
"Precisely."
"So," Harley continued, becoming utterly serious, "you gonna tell me what's wrong?"
Ivy looked away. "Nothing's wrong."
"You're about to be released from Arkham, which is really weird by itself, and nobody knows why. And you don't look happy about it. And you won't look at my plant, and you keep sneezing. Is that why you gave this to me?" Harley asked, hurt. "Because you didn't want it anymore?"
"No!" Ivy replied. "I wanted you to have it because, well, it made me think of you. You're like a sudden flash of color too, you know?"
It was now Harley's turn to blush, but she wasn't entirely satisfied. "Okay. Then how come the rest of your plants are gone? And what's with the cold?"
"It's not a cold, it's just . . . allergies," Ivy finished lamely.
"But you don't have allergies. And there's nothing here for you to be allergic too. Except - "
"Go, Harley," Ivy interrupted, turning away from her. "Just leave. I want to be alone right now, okay?"
"Red, please," Harley said, putting a hand on her shoulder.
Nobody called her Red besides Harley. Ivy liked that nickname, but hearing it now, it made her hurt that much more painful. "I mean it, Harley. Go. Go back to your precious puddin'." She curled up and faced the wall.
"Red . . ."
"Get the fuck out of here!" she screamed.
She felt Harley's hand leave her shoulder suddenly, as if jolted. "Yeah, sure, whatever," Harley muttered, annoyed. Scooping up her plant, she stormed out of the cell.
Harley stopped in the hallway outside of Ivy's cell. She watched, unnoticed, as Ivy cried silently in the corner. More concerned than ever now, she left to put her plant back and think things through.
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"Well, Pamela, I hope this is the last time we see your pretty face here," Dr. Park told her as he faced her outside of Arkham.
"Thank you, Doctor," she said through clenched teeth as she carried in a box her few possessions that weren't plants.
"And remember - the more you stay away from those plants of yours, the less likely you return to a life of crime," he reminded her.
Or, she thought, the less she stayed away from them, the more likely she lost her life, period. She thought of how he had called prolonged exposure "lethal", and she shuddered.
Looking up at the walls of Arkham, she saw several faces at the windows. But the only one she cared about was Harley Quinn's. She peered down at Ivy from the second floor, looking quite miserable. The Joker had his arm around her shoulders and was pressing her tight against his side. He gave Ivy his best shit-eating grin and waved.
"Cocksucker," she muttered.
"Excuse me?"
"Nothing, Doctor."
As she got on the bus that would take her away from this place, she thought about how she and Harley now had something else in common - the things they loved hurt them the most.
To be continued . . .