They rested against the sides of the couch together, touching at the shoulders. Both women looked as though they had been through the proverbial wringer. Their hair was matted and tousled, crimson cuts and bruises flowered on their smooth white skin, and their clothing was ripped and shredded where they had put their hands on each other, fighting for their lives just a short while ago.
Ivy had reiterated to Harley that she really had been away for years now, and that Harley's wedding had been spoiled by an Ivy impostor of Pamela Isley's own creation. Now there was only abject silence. Both women stared straight ahead, the soft sounds of their breathing the only sounds in the small apartment, which now looked a little like Arkham or Blackgate after yet another prison break attempt.
"So when did you pull the switch, Red?" Harley turned her head slightly to the left to look at Ivy, who was still looking at the far wall of the apartment.
Ivy looked back at Harley and paused before replying, as if she had been storing up an answer for a long time and was still hesitant about finally releasing it.
"It was after the last time I escaped from Arkham by myself, Harley, when I went down to the Amazon."
She related the tale of how she had gone down there to get away from Gotham for good, as Ivy felt it was finally time to give up her criminal ways. She felt it had gotten her nowhere in her life, hadn't really done anything in her drive to save nature from humanity, and she was tired of constantly matching wits with the Batman and coming up short.
He's never going to leave me alone, she thought, that self-righteous S.O.B. He spoils everything I do, every plan I make, every action I take. Well, she surmised, if Batman won't stop bothering me, then I'm just going to stop playing his game, and that long-eared do-gooder can find someone else to play with. Enough was enough, she thought, and she decided to cast off her criminal career and get back to her scientific roots. She decided it was time to stop being Poison Ivy, plant-based femme fatale, and go back to being Dr. Pamela Isley, professional botanist and upstanding member of the (ugh) human race.
It took a while for all the toxins and serums that had built up in her body over the last several years to expel themselves from her systems, but with time and some of her own genetic manipulation, she gradually began to shed her green-skinned, nymph-like look, and went back to how she had looked when she had first turned to a life outside the law. It helped that she had met Dr. Alec Holland while down in the Amazon. At first she had been angry that any human had dared to trespass on her land, but after talking with him at length, she realized that he wasn't like other people. If anything, he was like her, someone dedicated to saving flora from fauna, and especially from mankind.
In time, he in turn grew to look past her lawless past and see her for the fellow brilliant scientist that she was - and something more. After several months in the Amazon, he finally asked her to accompany him back to the States, to help him perfect his bio-restorative formula that would change the face of the world, and to her surprise she accepted his invitation to join him in Louisiana, just the two of them.
At first she thought the move would simply be a great cover for her identity, especially if Batman ever came looking for her in the Amazon; but then she realized it was really because she wanted to be with Holland. She couldn't remember when she had last been so happy, not even that time when she had fashioned her own human family out of mutated plants, only to see the Batman spoil that happiness, too. Life with Alec Holland was better than Pamela Isley ever thought life could be, and it was making up for the all past indignities of her existence.
She hadn't told him about her duplicate, though. There had been no need - she had crafted the clone from her own genetic material before she had met Holland, just before she left Gotham the last time for South America. She had birthed it as an adult, so that it could take care of itself from the get-go, and as such it also possessed all her memories and impulses, harbored all her dreams and desires. She also planted a subliminal message in its mind that allowed her doppelganger to believe it was the one-and-only Pamela Isley a.k.a. Poison Ivy. She left it to wake and take her place in Gotham City a few months after she had left for the Amazon, to baffle the Bat and his underlings, and also to keep Harley company.
She had made vegetable creatures before, but this latest duplicate was her best, designed to live for a few years instead of a few days. It would become more plant-like as it passed through its life cycle, and would eventually die and dissolve; but perhaps by then, Batman would have forgotten all about her, and Harley would have found someone else to play around with besides Ivy. If the clone came to its messy end in front of someone else, then it was likely that people would also believe that Pamela Isley was truly gone for good, never suspecting she was alive and well and living a decent, innocent life in Louisiana. She hoped it wouldn't happen in front of Harley, but she had no way to ensure that, and she hoped time would heal Harley's heart regardless.
This clone's creation had actually made Isley sad, as knew it meant she was saying good-bye to Harley for good. Alec Holland, though, had helped her to fill that void in her heart for Harley's company. Ivy also felt she had said her good-byes to Harley when she last escaped Arkham, and in retrospect, she felt that was the best way to end it. No one needed to know that this "new" Poison Ivy wasn't the genuine article, and it would be best that way, for Harley's sake. No amount of interrogation by the Batman or Commissioner Gordon - or torture by any of Gotham's rogues - could force Harley to reveal a secret she wasn't privy to. Isley was dismayed she wouldn't get to spend time with Harley anymore, even with all of Harley's quirks and screw-ups; but now she had Holland in her life, and she was sure her duplicate would watch out for Harley until its dying day, whenever that came.
If only Ivy had known how well the clone would have done its job before unexpectedly returning to its creator like a spawning salmon, and breathing its last in Holland's arms before returning to the green, she might have scrapped the whole plan. It sounded so far like her replacement had caused more trouble than the whole scheme had been worth. Her plans had a tendency to go sour like that, she mused.
Harley & Ivy still sat back against the couch, bleeding and sweated and breathing heavily, both women just staring straight ahead, not yet daring to look at one another on a continual basis. It was Harley who finally broke the silence after several long, anxious moments, following Ivy's confession.
"Why didn't you just tell me the truth, Red?" she murmured, and then turned slightly to her left to look at Ivy. Her blond hair was matted and tousled, one ponytail remaining where two had been, her face cut in several places and blood tricking out of one corner of her mouth.
Ivy looked ahead, then up at the ceiling, as if trying to measure what she was going to say.
"I was afraid, Harley."
"Afraid of what? Me?" Harley looked incredulous, and a little hurt. Ivy laughed softly, not to deride Harley, just because now this all seemed somewhat funny to her. A small part of her could understand why Harley acted so nuts almost all the time - lunacy could be fun, in small doses.
"If I knew you were going to try to kill me, Harls, well, yeah."
Harley smiled a little. A small, weak one, but a smile nonetheless.
"I wasn't going to kill ya, Red," she said sadly, looking ahead at the far wall. "Like you said, we've been through so much together that in the end I just couldn't do it. I thought I would - I mean, I was so mad for so long after the wedding - and then it turns out, that it really wasn't you at all, breaking it all up."
"In a way it was, Harley," admitted Ivy softly, also gazing straight ahead. "I mean, that clone was developed as an adult, and as such, she had all my memories, all my desires, all my feelings. She wasn't exactly me, but she was close enough."
Harley still looked ahead, but then the corners of her mouth turned down, and she looked over at Ivy. "So is that how you really feel about me, Ives? Me and Mistah J?"
Ivy looked quizzically over at Harley, a small patch of blood drying at the corner of her mouth, sticky and alkaline.
"You mean, would I try to stop you from getting married to the Clown Prince of Psychotics?"
Harley didn't like Ivy's pet name for her one true love, but she ignored it and soldiered on.
"Yeah, if I was going to hitched to Mistah J, well, would you come crashing in on a vine or a tree or something to stop the whole shebang, and then try to off my Puddin' to boot?"
Ivy smiled her own weak smile.
"No, I don't think I'd go that far, Harls. If anything, I would hope I'd be your maid of honor."
Harley looked stupefied, mouth so agape her lower jaw looked like it would literally crash to the floor.
"R-Really, Red? You'd want to be up there with me on my big day?"
"Well," backtracked Ivy quickly, wondering if she had gotten too maudlin. "It's no secret that I have no great love for the Joker, and I'm sure he feels the same way about me, plant clone or otherwise. The one thing, the only thing we have in common, really, is you - and there's just no way that I could hurt him without hurting you."
Ivy thought for a second, then forged on.
"I am afraid for you, Harley, for what he might do to you just by being with him; but I also know you're an adult, and that's a decision that you have to make yourself, not me or anyone else.
She paused again, measuring what she would say next. She was just so tired that the words she had harbored so long didn't come easily.
"I'll admit there were times I've thought of just wrapping that ghoul up in a creeper and squeezing him 'till he pops like a zit; but if I ever did that, then you really would hate me, and getting rid of him is not worth losing you."
Her face turned sad before she finished.
"If I haven't lost you already, that is."
Harley looked a little sad herself.
"I wouldn't say you've lost me, Ives," she remarked, "but ya gotta admit, this is all a lot ta take. I mean, first my wedding goes plotz, then you disappear, then you come back looking like yer old self, only to tell me that I haven't been palling around with my best friend the last couple of years or so, just a vegetable copy of you that got weirder and weirder and finally up and croaked."
Ivy wondered if she believed it all herself now, hearing it like that from Harley. The former Dr. Quinzel had a habit of simplifying things, almost like a little girl, but in the end her simplification almost always made sense.
"It is a lot to take, I'll admit, Harley," sighed Ivy. "I know my intentions were good, in not telling you the real story to protect you from Batman and everybody else; but I did lie to you, and for that, I am truly sorry."
She looked deeply into Harley's eyes, hoping to express her true sympathy, and also hoping to find some sign of forgiveness, even if Ivy didn't feel she truly deserved it.
Harley looked straight back into Ivy's eyes.
"It's OK, Red, she sighed. "Just so's you know, I'm not the real Harley Quinn, either."
Ivy's jaw dropped. Harley looked absolutely serious, then stuck out her tongue.
"Gotcha," she snickered. Ivy gasped, then frowned and smacked Harley on the shoulder, eliciting a laugh and an "ouch" from her blonde-headed buddy.
"Sorry Red, I couldn't resist," admitted a giggly Harley at teasing her old friend. She then returned her focus to the matter at hand, and sighed once more before continuing.