A/N: Hi. Don't mind me, just tearing my heart into pieces as I come up with new angsty one-shots for these two. Um... anyway... leave a kudos and comment if I made you cry. Not that I mean to, but this fic might make you cry...is what I'm trying to say.

Even under the lone, flickering street light, Poison Ivy is a sight to behold.

Her blood-red hair is free and flowing, resting in gentle curls on her bare shoulders, shimmering like rubies yet unmined. Her face is uncharacteristically made up, but delicately, with only her signature dark-green lipstick and a touch of rouge. Not that she needs any more to accentuate her beauty, she's always been classic that way.

"Beautiful." Harley whispers into the frigid night air.

When Ivy finally stops before her, the jester is able to catch a better glimpse of her ivy-green (hehehe, get it, ivy?) strapless dress as it gleams under the pale light, and the generous split on the side that offers up glowing white freckled skin to her thirsty eyes.

And yet, for all the beauty that stands before her, it's different, not seeing her girlfriends's gorgeous green skin, and Harley – the plain-spoken little jester that she is - says so.

"You don't have to hide from me, Ive."

Ivy drops to her knees, "Harley-"

"I like your green skin…" The response would have read as a pout if only she had the energy to keep her eyes open. "It lets everyone know just who you are." And that you're mine, and mine alone.

"Harley-"

"You feel like Pamela today." It's a rather pathetic diversion on her end, but Ivy had always indulged her before.

And to her relief, tonight, she does so again. "R-really?"

From her position, Harley manages a slow, painful nod.

But the slow smile that spreads across Ivy's face makes it worth the effort. "Would you think it strange if I told you that was my intention?"

There's a hesitation in Ivy's demeanor, a painfully vulnerable admission from a reluctant voice. One that makes Harley truly believe they were treading on delicate territory. She opens one eye to gaze upon her lover. "No stranger than anything else we've ever done."

Ivy – no, Pamela – nods sadly. "That's why."

"Why what?"

"That's why I chose to be Pamela tonight."

Crickets chirp in the air around them, enveloping the lovers in a gentle night all their own. She had been shivering before, but here, with Pammy, she'd never felt warmer.

"Then can I be Harleen?" Blue eyes beseech. "Just for tonight?"

She must be imagining the glossy sheen that greets her in Pamela's glowing green eyes. "Of course, Harleen. You can be anything you want. I've always believed that, especially for you."

The words bring shame with them, shame and regret for learning her lesson too late. I know, Red, I'm sorry I never shared in that belief. But you always had more faith in me than I ever did.

She settles for pulling Pammy's arms closer around her frame. "Then tell me, Pammy. Tell me their story." She cracks her classic toothy grin, "Ya always tell the best stories."

"Alright then," A ghost of a smile emerges on green lips for just a spell before it too fades into the night. "It's another long day. I come home from work-"

"Wayne Enterprises."

Pam pauses, "What? Why them?"

Harley unwraps one of Pam's hands and presses a kiss to her palm. "Nothing but the best for my girl."

It warms her heart to hear the small honest chuckle that escaped Pam's lips. I did that, me!

"Fine, Wayne Enterprises, I'm their head botanical researcher specializing in plant/human hybridization. Okay?"

Harley beams, "Perfect, and I'm making real change at Arkham, actually helping people like I said I would."

There's so much that goes unsaid, but Pam takes the changes in stride. "I come home from work to find you lounging on the couch, still in your daywear, waiting for me."

Harley surprises them both to add, "And you plop down onto the couch beside me and kiss my cheek with a soft hello, one that makes every hellish moment of my day evaporate as if it never even happened."

Freckled fingers comingle with pale ones, accepting all they have to offer. It's their story, after all. Of course, they should tell it together.

"We lay there in comfortable silence," Pam whispers softly, "content just to be there with one another…"

A snort escapes Harley's chapped lips. "Until I remember that I left a chicken in the oven."

"You don't remember," Pam rolls her eyes fondly. "The oven begins beeping and startles us out of our little bubble."

Harley can see it all before her. "We both run to the kitchen, and the more daring soul between us – AKA you – opens the oven and pulls out the poor charred bird."

"And here's where I remind you I'm vegan."

Harley pouts. "The bird's for me, Pammy. But now I'm out of a dinner."

Ivy chuckles, "So I decide to take charge instead. We work together, like it's a dance we've done for years. I cut, you season, I clean up, you set the table…and then we eat, together."

"I hold your hand the entire time," Harley adds with a touch of melancholy. "You run your thumb over the back of my hand, and I smile softly at you, even though we do that every day, during every meal..."

Pam picks up, "You tell me about your day. Always cutting out the bad parts so that I won't be upset, always turning everything into a funny story to keep me in stitches because you like to see me snort wine out of my nose-"

"Cause it's adorable, Pammy."

Pamela continues through the blush. "And then I tell you about mine, but I'm nowhere near the storyteller you are, so I quickly bore you, but you pretend you're fascinated by what I do, just to make me feel better…." A strange expression takes over her gentle features, "Because that's the kind of person you are. Thoughtful and compassionate to a fault, even to ..."

She trails off with a pained look, one Harley recognizes all too well.

"And then?" She squeezes the hand entwined with her own. "What then, Pammy?"

Pamela closes her eyes, but there's a slight crease in her brows that wasn't there before. "And then….then we do the dishes together. I wash, you dry."

"And I, being the mischievous and clever jester that I am, decide to make things interesting by throwing a wet sponge at your perfectly coifed curls."

A faint smile emerges. "And I retaliate by dumping a bowl full of water on your dyed blonde hair, you traitorous brunette."

Harley gasps, "No."

Pamela's smile grows once more, her eyes opening to reveal a genuine amusement. "Why yes, indeed. And then we both proceed to engage in a water fight so pathetically childish that it puts preschoolers to shame."

"It totally would, wouldn't it?" Harley guffaws at first, but then something changes.

"But then, sometime during the splashing and the tickling, I notice that you're sopping wet, and that I'm sopping wet too…"

Pam raised an eyebrow, hesitantly, curiously. "And then?"

"And then?" Harley closes her eyes, her imagination drifting to recreate just such a wonderful moment.

"Then, standing there in a puddle of soapy water, watching you dripping all over the kitchen, your lustrous red locks falling loose from your bun to frame every curve, every angle of your beautiful face, your emerald green eyes locked forever with mine…"

"I realize just how much I love you."

She hears the small surprised gasp from Pammy, but she's too immersed in her vivid fantasy to stop.

"I realize how much I will always love you, and how that love will never stop because what we have….it's real, tangible, vulnerable…safe." Here, she feels Ivy's hand tense in hers and she knows she's breaking the rules of their little game but she doesn't know how much longer she has and if she doesn't say this now, she will never be able to say it again.

"With you, I can be Harleen, a woman who loves life and her girlfriend and enjoys yelling at the Olympic gymanasts on TV or falling asleep on your shoulder during those boring nature documentaries you like to watch…"

"Harley-"

"And I want that." She finally admits to herself, to Ivy – no, Pamela, her Pamela - and to the whole world. "I want to just be Harleen…and I want that with you, Pammy."

But her Pammy is shaking her head. "Harley…"

"But the world's a fucked up place, ain't it Pammy?"

She reflects on that for a moment, on perhaps the truest thing she's ever uttered in her entire criminal, thieving existence.

The world is plenty messed up. But when she's with Pammy, it never really feels that way.

"If I'd met you first, maybe… maybe we would have had that life, Pammy."

Regrets, so many regrets. But this is the most painful one of all.

"I wish I'd met you first... if only I'd talked to you first...we'd be happy."

It turns out she was never imagining the shininess in her eyes. Pammy was just that good at keeping her tears at bay. But she's struggling now.

"W-We still can, darling." Her fingers betray her, shaking in Harley's weak grasp. "We can have all the happiness in the world…please, just let me help you."

Harley merely shakes her head. Not long ago, she would have been selfish. Would have accepted Pammy's offer of help, let the woman heal her, would have allowed herself to blossom like a daffodil in her care…

And then she would have left.

She always did. It was a compulsion she couldn't quit, not even on pain of death. (And now here she was. Funny how the world works, right?)

But Pammy deserved better. She deserved an independent, confident, sane person like Harleen, not the broken, scarred, tainted wisp of a human that was Harley Quinn.

But Harleen was long gone, and soon, Harley Quinn would be too.

"M-Maybe next time." She presses a kiss to Pamela's cold knuckles. "Maybe next time, Pamela and Harleen will have a happy ending. Just like in your story." She manages a cheeky, teasing smile, "You always did love a good happy ending."

Pam's already shaking her head, her voice barely audible. "I…I only ever wanted one with you."

She see the raw pain eating away at Pam's heart. Knows she is the reason behind it. But this time, there's no comfort to offer her love.

Only an apology for a life they could never have. A cry for the story they could never share.

"Maybe we still can," She tilts her head up, offers her crying angel a warm smile and a classic wink, though it's hard with two swollen eyelids. "After all, doesn't every happy ending have a true love's kiss?"

But the words have barely left her mouth before her lips are covered by Pam's. The kiss is salty from Pam's tears, or her own perhaps, she doesn't know if she's begun crying, but she can feel every word left unspoken between them, every memory they never got to experience, the alternate reality they both desperately wished to share…she feels all of that in their tender kiss.

And it is then she realizes how stupid she's been.

She doesn't want to die. She wants to be selfish once more. To ask Pam to heal her with her magical touch so that they may experience everything they've ever wanted. The life they never got to live.

But there's a darkness tugging at her consciousness, drawing her further and further away from the kiss that grounds her to reality – bitter painful reality – and soon, even that connection grows faint until all she can think is one thought.

Even under the lone, flickering street light on a dim street corner in the heart of Gotham, her love, her life, her Pamela is the most beautiful angel she's ever seen.