Appearances are vitally important. Anyone from the most pre-eminent social psychologist to Hyacinth Bucket will tell you that keeping up appearances is the only way to get people to treat you as you want to be treated.

Troy Grey knew this and knew it well. Admittedly, actually putting the knowledge into practice was an ability that he sorely lacked. It was all well and good to look like an up-and-coming doctor in his official white coat. Without that official-sounding confidence to back him up, though, he may as well have been a child playing dress-up.

Of course, since he wasn't an up-and-coming doctor anymore - since, in fact, he'd exited his employment at Arkham Asylum with as much grace and decorum as the average nuclear explosion - that white coat wasn't going to come in useful any time soon. In fact, thanks to his little temper tantrum in the staff meeting, he was fairly certain that no-one in Gotham was ever going to hire him again, unless the job's most demanding requirement was the ability to inquire of customers whether they'd like fries with that. There was only one thing left to do before he shelved his entire career.

He had to find Sorrow.

It was bad enough that the doctors at Arkham were planning to unleash all sorts of revoltingly overdone security measures. It was even worse that all of these measures would be directed solely at Sorrow. But worst of all, it was his fault. How could it not be? He had been there, he had had the chance to talk them out of it, and he had failed.

Well, he wasn't going to fail her again. He'd find her, and let her know how much danger she was in, and then...well, he'd have to come up with a suitable and then after he was done broiling in self-loathing.

But for now, thanks to his somewhat overgrown sense of duty, he was sitting alone at the main bar of the Iceberg Lounge in the middle of the afternoon. Everyone that worked in Arkham knew that it was where the rogues hung out. Even the news articles occasionally name-checked it, mostly in sentences containing the polite newspaper euphemisms for 'horrific violence' and 'alcohol-fueled insanity'. Troy was willing to bet that, had he shown up in his starchy white lab coat and dangly plastic nametag, he would have been on his way to the emergency room within minutes of stepping inside.

Of course, since he wasn't in his work clothes - since, in fact, he'd traded in his lab coat for a blue greatcoat and smeared his face with greasy grey makeup - no one had given him a second glance when he'd timidly crept into the bar. The long blue coat twisted uncomfortably around his legs as he perched on his barstool. He felt absolutely ridiculous.

"Hey," the bartender grunted. Troy blinked in mute panic. "You want a drink?"

"Er...um...a Coke?" he suggested.

"A Coke," the bartender repeated flatly.

"Yeah. I'm, um...waiting for someone," he invented madly.

The bartender scowlingly shoved a glass full of fizzy liquid his way. His scowl disappeared as Troy carefully paid him twice what the drink was really worth. Troy searched his memory for some bar lingo. "Keep them coming," he instructed.

The bartender shrugged. "Whatever you say," he muttered as he sauntered away.

The plan had been to sit and wait for someone who looked...well, rogue-like to come in, recognize who he was supposed to look like, and tell him where to find Sorrow. Admittedly, the plan had some flaws - who went to the bar in midday? What rogue was even awake before the sun went down? - but he was reasonably confident that someone might tell him. Maybe a henchman would wander in for a drink before showing up for work. Maybe one of the staff members would happen by and give him some information. (He knew how this sort of thing worked. He'd seen movies, after all, and his pocket was stuffed with twenties in order to bribe anyone who might need it. Actually offering the bribe might be tricky, since he'd never done such a thing before, but maybe the money would smooth over any...awkwardness.) Yes, maybe he could get an answer sooner or later...

Cheerful footsteps skittered across the floor. Troy immediately turned to his drink, eyes down, and tried to shrink into his coat. Of all the maybes he'd considered, he hadn't once thought that maybe miss Harley Quinn herself would skip up to the bar and seat herself next to him. He'd wanted a rogue to talk to, yes, and someone who actually knew Sorrow was a bonus...but did it have to be the one that hung around with the Joker? Why couldn't it have been someone marginally safe, like the Ventriloquist?

"Hey Pete!" Quinn chirped as she plonked herself down on the barstool. "Glass a water an' a Jean Harlow, please."

A what? Troy, with his face firmly tilted downward, looked up through his eyelashes at the bartender as he disappeared into a cunningly concealed doorway in the bar's faux-ice exterior. The man returned with a long, thin black bag draped over one arm and carefully handed it across the bartop to the lady in the dull grey jumpsuit.

Harley squeaked excitedly and unzipped it. Black and red fabric spilled exuberantly out as a double-horned hat jingled to a halt perilously close to Troy's Coke.

"Sorry," she chirped, sweeping her costume into a pile in front of her.

It was now or never. He had to talk to someone, and Harley was the only possibility. "S-slipping into something more comfortable?" he stammered nervously.

"S'right!" Harley beamed. "Hey Pete, no ice in that water! It's freezing out!" she complained, examining a clump of melting snow on her pant cuff.

"Just break out?" Troy asked as casually as possible, painfully aware that she wouldn't be out and about in an Arkham jumpsuit if she'd gotten out legally.

"Well, not so much break as bribe," Harley giggled. "You slip a coupla grand to Doc Lucas and he's putty in yer hands."

Lucas? Lucas?! That smug, superior, holier-than-thou asshole had let Harley Quinn out and he'd had the nerve to look down on him when he hadn't done anything wrong! The sheer hypocrisy of the man almost gave Troy an aneurysm right there. "That jackass!" he snarled.

Harley looked at him curiously. Oh, shit, he'd said it aloud. "You got a problem with that?" she inquired.

"Not with you," he amended hastily. "No, it's just...he..." Why wouldn't a rogue want a doctor to be bribable?

Harley was apparently asking herself the same question. Her eyes narrowed as she studied his face under the thick, hastily-smeared makeup. "You look familiar..." she accused.

"No! Um, no, I'm not-"

"You're that doc at Arkham!" she said, happy to have identified him. Her smile quickly turned into a frown. "What're you doin' here?"

"I was just...um..."

"And what's with the costume? When they say get in yer patient's head, they don't mean like this," Harley pointed out.

"No, I know. I just..." Troy gave up all hope of having this charade ever work. "Where's Sorrow?"

"You think I'll tell you so you can take her back to Arkham? Not a chance, kiddo."

"No!" he said vehemently. "I..." He raked a hand through his hair, not noticing the wide grey streaks of makeup that were left behind. "I don't work at Arkham anymore. I quit! I quit my job, and I bought this costume, and...I just need to find Sorrow," he said desperately.

He could almost see the wheels turning in Harley's head. He'd quit his job and purchased a costume, which added up to true love in costumed form. Fine. Let her believe it for long enough for him to warn Sorrow about the doctors, and then he could go home and start wishing that he'd never been born.

"Well, why didn't ya say so?" Harley demanded, grinning. "We gotta get you an' yer new boss back together, pronto!"

New boss? "No, I'm not..." Shut up! his brain screamed. If she thinks you're her henchman, she'll take you to her, and then this nightmare can be over! "...um, I'm not officially her, uh, henchman yet," he mumbled.

"You got a name?"

"Uh...Troy?" he said, confused.

"Not a name," she said, exasperated. "A name. Ya can't be a henchman without a name!" She picked up her hat and jingled its tassels at him. "Get thinkin'! I'll be back after I change." And with that, she was gone in a cartwheeling blur.

A name. Oh, a villain name. Right. He took a drink of his Coke. Well, Harley had just chopped bits off of her name...but his name was hardly long enough to do that. Could he just go by Grey? No, no, it needed to be something allied with Sorrow. The Joker had his Harlequin. The Riddler had his Query. The Mad Hatter had his Alice. And Sorrow had...had what? Sadness? Depression? The Suicide Squad? No. Good grief, he was being so stupid today…

He paused. Grief. Sorrow and Grief. That just might work! It's not like it had to be a perfect name. He was only using it to make Harley happy, after all. He'd just wait for her to come back and lead him to Sorrow, and everything would work out all right.

Troy had had many gaps in his education. One of the most serious omissions was this: nothing in Gotham ever works out all right.

Rogues did not take well to the concept of cooperation. If there is loot to be had, they point out, surely it should be mine. Why should I allow anyone to interfere with my own brilliant schemes? But then, life was not always so easy. Sometimes, the perfect plan required a hint of mind control, or perhaps a soupcon of sparky electrical death. When it came right down to it, the rogues would grudgingly work together, if there was a large enough payoff in the end.

But you cannot work with someone that you cannot find. And so the Penguin, in all his criminal cunning, had put together a makeshift phone directory stashed behind a loose panel in the old-fashioned phone booth near the bathrooms. (The Riddler, in a somewhat more lucrative use of his skills, had provided each rogue with their very own cell phone, fully outfitted with a delightful bit of techno-wizardry that allowed them to travel freely about the city without attracting any caped attention. They, in turn, had provided him with enough money to pay his rent for a year, if he actually bothered about rent, which he didn't.)

Harley, freshly dressed in her jestery glory, pried the guide loose with practiced fingers and skimmed through the entries. Who was out? Who would know where Sorrow was? And, more importantly, who might have some spare weaponry around so that she could destroy the bits of Arkham that were inconveniently placed between her and her Puddin'?

"An' the winner is...Red!" she beamed, dialing the number with practiced ease.

On the fifth ring, Ivy finally answered. "Hello?" she snapped into the phone.

"Hey Red! How's it goin'?"

"Harley," said a much warmer tone of voice. "How long have you been out?"

"Coupla hours. I'm down at the 'Berg - wanna come say hi?"

There was a distinctly long pause at the other end of the line. "I'm...busy," Ivy said uncomfortably.

"Got a visitor, huh? Is it Sorrow? 'Cuz I'm lookin' for her," Harley said, a little hurt that her bestest-ever pal would give her the brushoff.

"No, I haven't seen her," Ivy answered. "No one's here, Harls. I'm just...busy. You can come here, if you want," she offered.

"Dunno, Red. I might be...busy," she shrugged.

"I didn't mean it like that," Ivy said, exasperated. Something in the background rattled ominously. "I've got to go!" Click.

Harley blew a raspberry at the phone and hung up. Fine. She'd just find Sorrow herself. Who else was out...who else was out...the paper said Crane was free, but she knew for a fact that he was still locked up in the infirmary. Good. She didn't really want to call him anyway.

Harvey! She didn't even need to look at the phone list to call him. 222-2222. It rang once, twice -

"Hello?"

"Hey, Twofers! You seen Sorrow lately?"

There was a muffled sound, as if the phone had been tossed across the room to someone else, and a crackle of static as the phone was raised to a different mouth.

"Hello?"

"Sorrow!" Harley chirped delightedly. "Found ya!"

"Harley? How'd you know I was here?"

"Lucky guess. Hey, you doin' anything? Girls' night at the bar!" Harley said temptingly.

"I can't," Sorrow said regretfully. "I just broke out last night, and my stuff's all the way across town."

"What if I brought ya yer costume?" Harley wheedled.

Sorrow audibly perked up. "Throw in a first-aid kit and you've got yourself a deal!"

"Be there in half a jiff!" Harley hung the ancient phone up with a triumphant grin. She stuffed the bit of paper back behind the loose wall and pressed it shut. Then, with a blown kiss at her reflection in the glass for luck, she slipped out of the booth.

With a hop, skip, and a flip, she skated into place next to Troy at the bar. "Found her!" she announced triumphantly.

He grinned, his teeth showing whitely between his grey lips. "You did? Where is she?"

"Hold up there, Troy-boy." She examined him closely. "You got a name yet?"

He shrugged. "Grief," he muttered, somewhat embarrassed.

"Could work," she nodded. "So anyway, I'm gonna go get her, and we'll be back for ya!"

"Couldn't I just...follow you or something?" he asked desperately.

"Sorry kiddo! No boys allowed!" She wiggled her fingers at him in a cheerful farewell and skipped out of the Iceberg.

The night before, Two-Face had offered Sorrow a place to stay. Rather, his coin had offered it to her, a distinction that both of them were very pointedly remembering as they entered his current, somewhat dilapidated abode.

After so many years in the business, Two-Face had run out of classy addresses that featured the number 2. 22 2nd Street, possibly his favorite address, had been torn down and turned into a parking garage before he'd even had the chance to threaten his way into occupancy. In fact, there were hardly any 2 addresses left in the city that hadn't been demolished, renumbered, renamed, or secured beyond any hope of getting in without drawing obscene amounts of attention.

After his last lair had been discovered and subsequently destroyed by the police, he'd begrudgingly moved his operations to 10 Motzkin Street. (As the saying went, there were 10 types of people in the world: those that understood binary, and those that did not. Post-acid Harvey Dent was a devout supporter of it, needless to say.)

Motzkin Street had a reputation for being, in polite terms, a shithole. Two-Face's lair wasn't much better than the half-ruined warehouses and crumbling buildings that surrounded it. Someone, presumably his henchgirls, had done their best with the inside, transforming half of it into something that was merely as bad as the average frat house in terms of disgusting filth. The other side was a fabulous display of every retch-inducing example of bad housekeeping that had ever appeared on reality television.

Roaches, too fat to bother running from the light, lounged indolently on beds of rotting newspapers. Various dents in the rubble near abandoned shopping carts testified to the building's former use as an unofficial homeless shelter, while various smells from dark corners testified that they hadn't bothered much with plumbing.

Sorrow edged away from an inquisitive spider. "Nice place."

"It's temporary," Two-Face grumbled. "We'll be out of here after the heist tomorrow. There's some spare clothes in the girls' room back there." He waved half-heartedly at the doorway leading out of the cleaner half of the room. "We'll be..." the coin flew into the air and landed scarred-side up. He visibly bit back a curse. "We'll be over here," he muttered, wading through the debris on the messy side and disappearing through a door. A resounding slam was probably his way of saying 'good night'. She had merely taken enough time to find a blanket and roll herself into it on the floor of the henchgirl's bedroom before she fell fast asleep.

Two-Face had spent the day killing cockroaches and planning that night's heist on a well-worn legal pad. Sorrow had chosen to spend her morning picking glass out of her face. Eventually, with nothing better to do, she had given up playing doctor and turned to doing her bit to pay Two-Face back for her accommodations by continuing to clean the half-scrubbed mess on the good side of the lair. They hadn't spoken more than a few words to one another until her very brief phone conversation with Harley.

"You're leaving?" he asked, pretending not to notice the large cockroach scuttling across his foot. Sorrow nodded, gaze fixed to the enormous insect. Dent returned to his plans. "Good."

A very large group of henchmen had shown up not two minutes after the call. After Dent had shouted at the group for being late, being unarmed and (the greatest sin) being odd-numbered, he'd shot the last one to come in the door. The rest had scurried in and out in pairs for half of a very frenzied hour, hauling guns and ammunition from hidey-holes that were almost invisible under their layers of muck. After the whirlwind of activity had ceased, and the men had left, Sorrow kicked a layer of old newspapers over the new corpse and settled down to wait for Harley.

She didn't have to wait long. The jester burst in through the main doors of the building as if all the hounds of hell were hot on her heels. A black garment bag flapped in her hand as she whipped it through the air. "Cops!" she explained, bouncing over the detritus and scurrying toward the back door.

Sorrow rolled to her feet and pelted after her. "How many?" she gasped.

"Dunno! Does it matter?"

"FREEZE! POLICE!" The sound of breaking wood behind them was definitely the cops kicking down the door. The unfortunate squishy sound that immediately followed was most likely the cops discovering the fresh corpse. From the amount of swearing that accompanied it, they had probably found it with the front of their uniforms.

"Here!" Sorrow hissed, yanking Harley through a half-rotted door. They tumbled onto the street and immediately kicked into an all-out run, dodging bums and garbage as they ran.

"Stop!" came a wheezy wail from behind them. "I said stop...or I'll....shoot!"

"Cops in this town have no stamina," Harley grinned as they hurdled a tipped-over garbage can. "Two more minutes and we're free an' clear!"

A cop car screamed down the road toward them. They immediately ducked into a narrow alley and sprinted away. "Or not. Oh well, time for plan B!" Harley cartwheeled into the road and drew her popgun, aiming it directly in front of her at an unimpressed-looking taxi driver. "TAXI!" she chirped merrily. He skidded to a halt, his front bumper almost clipping her knees as she turned a neat flip in the air and landed on his hood.

Sorrow threw herself into the backseat. Harley, with a few more unnecessary gymnastics, stuffed herself into the other side of the car. The original passenger, a businessman, clutched a stack of reports to his chest as he realized just who had interrupted his ride. "Get out," the driver growled. "I already got fare."

"You new in town?" Harley asked pleasantly.

"Yeah. So?" He scowled darkly at her.

Harley beamed at the suddenly sweaty businessman in the three-piece suit that was sharing the backseat. "You wouldn't mind sharing a cab, would ya, sweetie?"

"S-sure. No problem," he nodded, gaze glued to her popgun. "Just...just drive, okay? Just do what they want!"

A stream of foreign grumbles emanated from the front seat as the driver shifted gears. In defiance of the laws of physics, the little yellow cab suddenly appeared to be doing Mach 2 down the street.

"Here's yer stuff," Harley said, handing over the garment bag.

"Thanks," Sorrow said, immediately pawing out a pair of gloves and slipping them on. The businessman quivered at a much more respectable seven on the Richter scale as he realized that the two women crowded in around him weren't interested in killing him.

Nothing had ever felt quite as nice as feeling that big warm coat wrap comfortingly around her shoulders. "Did you have any trouble finding my stuff?" she asked, doing up the buttons down her front.

"Nah. Well, a little," Harley confessed, resting her crossed legs comfortably on the rigid man's lap. "The cops were still watching yer place, so I had to go in through the roof. Y'know, you should - "

"Where you girls going?" snapped the cranky driver. "You going with him?"

"Nah. There's a greenhouse on the west end of town, over where Collins turns into Brookview." She patted the terrified man on the cheek. "I'm sure you won't mind covering our tab, will you, sweetie?"

"No! No, no, I'll pay," he nodded. "Whatever you want!"

Harley smiled and tweaked his nose. "An' they say chivalry is dead. So anyway, S, I was thinkin' about how you could redecorate..."

The greenhouse was dark. A small tin-plated building resting against the glass wall glowed with a dim orange light through the cracks where the plates had shifted away from one another. For some reason, an enormous hole had been punched into the corrugated tin that formed the building's makeshift roof.

"See ya around, sport!" Harley called after the driver of the cab, who took off without looking back. "Friendly guy, huh?"

"Yeah. Great," Sorrow muttered, shivering deeper into her coat as they trudged through knee-high snow drifts toward the greenhouse's door.

Harley handsprung ahead and rapped on the door with both hands. "Iiiiiiiiiiiiivy! Knock knock!"

"Who's there?" came Ivy's voice, weary of the joke.

"Ike 'n' Harley."

"Ike 'n' Harley who?"

"Ike 'n' Harley believe you haven't let us in yet!" The door opened slowly to reveal a very tired Poison Ivy leaning against the doorframe. "Come on in, Harls..." She blinked, slowly registering that Harley was not alone. "Oh. Sorrow. Come in," she invited listlessly, waving them in with one hand while the other maintained its deathgrip on the doorframe.

"Hey, Red, you don't look so good," Harley said, unofficially entering the running for Most Obvious Statement Of The Year. "What's up?"

"Nothing," Ivy snapped irritably. "I'm just a little tired, that's all." She stumbled inside, sprawling in a convenient nest of vines as Harley and Sorrow brushed the snow off of their coats.

The little tin building was obviously Ivy's workshop. Glass beakers and tubes cluttered the tables, filled with a variety of liquids that remained ominously still as a pair of vines twined themselves through the glassware like loving cats. One table was filled with notes scrawled onto stacks of little chalkboards. The sharp smell of something in the other room made Sorrow's nose begin to itch.

From her protective nest, Ivy looked Harley over thoroughly. Her green eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Did he throw you out again?" she demanded.

"No, no," Harley dismissed. "I just got outa Arkham today! Stopped at the 'Berg, called up Sorrow, got chased by the cops a little - you know, the usual."

Ivy's deep green skin paled. "The cops," she repeated flatly.

"Yeah."

"The police."

"Yep. Y'know...guys in blue? Funny hats?" said Harley.

The vines trailing across every surface of the room pulsed wildly. The comfortable nest in the corner exploded into a thrashing bundle of green anger as their caretaker propelled herself to her feet. Ivy, flushed with fury, grabbed Harley by the collar and shook her like a dog killing a rat. "You're telling me that the police were chasing you and you came here?"

"Yeah! I mean, they weren't chasin' us anymore, Red. We lost 'em!" Harley gasped, tassels jingling as Ivy thrust her away.

"You lost them," Ivy sneered. She turned to glare at Sorrow. "How did you get here?"

"Taxi," Sorrow shrugged.

"If the cops followed you to Sorrow's, what on this green earth makes you think they didn't follow you here?"

"I toldja, Red, we lost 'em!"

Ivy breathed a very deep, very forced sigh, and buried her head in her hands. An incoherent mumble emanated from her hidden mouth as if she was an ancient sorceress summoning a demon to swallow Harley whole.

"Red?"

Ivy reappeared from behind her hands like a trebuchet swinging into position. "You." She pointed at Sorrow. "Put everything on that counter into the box on the floor. I'll get the rest of my things."

"What about me?" Harley pinged a tassel back into place with a flick of her fingers.

"You," Ivy spat, "just sit there and try not to break anything." She wearily flounced out of the room. The sounds of chemicals being hastily transferred into portable vessels sloshed noisily from the back room.

Sorrow carefully avoided looking at the hurt on Harley's face as she gently loaded the chalkboards into the box. "Bad time for visitors, I guess," Sorrow muttered, lowering the tiny slates until they clicked quietly into place.

"Yeah," Harley agreed softly, gingerly settling down on the floor. "Maybe she-"

Ivy reappeared, clutching a large Rubbermaid container as if it contained everything she'd ever cared about. Taking small, wobbly steps, she tottered across the room and carefully deposited it by the door.

Harley's chipper cheerfulness was rarely put off for long. "Whatcha got in there?" she inquired, scooting across the floor to the large opaque tub. One red-gloved hand began to pry the lid off.

A set of vines whipped out from the wall and dragged the jester back to her original position, staying wrapped around her like the latest in leash technology. "It's private," Ivy hissed, not bothering to look as Harley tried to wriggle free.

"Look, if we're interrupting something, we can go. Really," Sorrow said, nervously eyeing the vines next to her.

"You'll just call another cab, I suppose?" Ivy snarled, storing chemicals with shaking hands. "And then the cab driver will tell the police where he picked you up, just like the other one probably already told them where he dropped you off, and then they'll come after me. I can't afford to be interrupted! Not now!"

Packing up her entire lab in order to take it wherever she was planning on taking it seemed very much like an interruption to Sorrow. Given that she enjoyed breathing, though, she refrained from mentioning it.

Ivy carefully stowed the chemicals in the container and clicked the lid shut. "Come on. We're leaving," she grunted, hoisting the tub up to her chest and staggering out of the little shed. Sorrow helpfully scooped up the small box of slates and followed Ivy out the door.

"Little help?" Harley called. The vines reluctantly unwrapped themselves and withdrew to the corners. Harley, free again, bounded after her friends. "Wait up!"

Ivy led them to a snowy mound near the road that they'd arrived on. Snow dropped to the ground in sparkly whumps as a mound of greenery shook itself clean and rose to reveal a little pink car. A branch obligingly opened the door and popped the trunk open as Ivy approached. She settled the tub inside as gently as she could, trembling with the effort it took. When the container was in place, Sorrow slipped her box inside and closed the trunk.

"I call driving!" Harley chirped, diving into the driver's seat. Ivy, too exhausted to argue, settled herself in the passenger seat as Sorrow sprawled comfortably in the back. Harley carefully backed the car out of its all-natural garage and floored it toward Gotham. "So where do you wanna go?"

"Your place. Your new place," Ivy clarified.

"That one? But it's not even done yet!"

"Exactly. No one knows where it is." Ivy examined her fingernails as they roared past a fleet of minivans leaving an environmental museum.

Three entire seconds of silence passed. "So what's in the box?" Harley asked.

"An experiment."

"But what is it?" Harley pestered, darting in and out of traffic like a hummingbird zipping through a flower garden. In the back seat, Sorrow tightened her seat belt.

"Never mind what it is."

"C'mon, Red, you can tell me!" Harley wheedled.

"Curiosity killed the cat, Harley."

"Yeah, but neither of us has a bullwhip."

"Drop it," Ivy snapped. The cute little car skreed noisily around a corner. "I thought your place was north."

"It is. We've gotta stop ta make first." Harley turned to face Sorrow, ignoring the world rushing by at sixty miles an hour. "You remember that cute doc from Arkham?"

"Yes," Sorrow said flatly. The lack of joy in her voice was probably a hint that she didn't care to remember him, either.

Harley ignored it as she ignored the series of red lights that they were currently whipping through. "Well, he's -"

"Will you watch the road?" Ivy interrupted peevishly, taking hold of the wheel and abruptly steering them out of the path of an oncoming semi.

"You worry too much," Harley sulked. "Anyway, S, he's got somethin' ta tell ya. He's at the Iceberg. I saw him there just after I got outta Arkham."

Ivy snorted in disbelief. "You left an Arkham doctor in the Iceberg...alone...for six hours...and you still expect him to be there when you get back?"

"Yeah. I do," Harley said, squealing in delight as she managed to launch the car ever so slightly off of some newly-abandoned construction equipment. "Howzabout it, S? Wanna go say hi?"

"No."

"Aw, c'mon! It's important!"

"No," Sorrow repeated in the same emotionless tone.

"Please? Pretty please with sugar an' sprinkles on?" Harley wheedled, batting her eyelids like a five-year-old convincing Daddy that she really, really needed that pony. "Pleeeeeeeeeeease?"

"Will it get you to shut up about him?"

"Yep!"

"Fine."

"Yay!"

The Iceberg Lounge was never really a busy establishment. It didn't need to be. When ninety percent of the owner's profits came from quiet deals in little back rooms, there was no need to worry about catering to the public.

A selection of enormous plastic snowdrifts with only a light coating of dust on them rested tiredly against the walls. Behind one of them, Sorrow squinted carefully at the lone figure at the bar. A small mountain of empty glassware was stacked in front of him, surrounded by an avalanche of shredded bar napkins. His dark blue coat was speckled with bits of the thin paper.

Blue coat? She leaned slightly out of her fake-iced hidey-hole and peered at it. He was in a blue coat, sort of like hers, and he'd smeared his face with some cheap grey makeup...sort of like hers.

Was this a trap? No. Well, probably not, she decided, watching him diligently trying to get as many shreds as possible out of a single napkin. She was well aware that he had some kind of a crush on her, or at the very least that he acted as if he did. People who had crushes on other people didn't tend to turn them in to the cops...that is, unless certain people were just making up their romantic attachment.

He glanced vaguely in her direction. She ducked back behind the fake snow, hiding her face behind a huge gaudy penguin in a top hat. This was ridiculous. Showing up at the Iceberg in her costume meant one of two things: either he was a spy or a lovesick idiot. It was hard to imagine which might be worse.

She crept out of the plastic penguin habitat and dusted herself off. There was no time like the present to screw up the future. When he turned his attention back to his drink, she sidled up beside him and settled down onto a barstool. "Well?"

He turned to her, beaming with a grin that disappeared faster than a house key down a sewer grate. "You look terrible," he gasped.

"Thanks," she said dryly. "You look pretty interesting yourself."

"What...this?" He tugged on the coat, embarrassed. "Look, I needed to find you, and...can we talk?" The barman studiously began to polish the bar top in a spot that was just close enough to hear every detail. "Privately," he added in a low whisper.

She considered him for a moment. If he was a spy, they certainly couldn't hang around here. At any minute, the place might fill up with cops, Bats, or a delightfully violent combination of both. "We can talk. Not here," she added as he opened his mouth. "I'm on my way to Harley Quinn's place." She stood up. "Coming?"

His face twitched lightning-fast into a bizarre variety of expressions as he considered her offer. Terror was there - who wouldn't be scared of showing up uninvited to the Joker's hideaway? - accompanied by the uncertainty of going anywhere with a brand new ex-Arkhamite and the slightly jittery look of someone who had been mainlining fizzy drinks for the past several hours. Finally, the quivering jello of his expression firmed into nonchalant agreement (or at least, something that could pass for nonchalant agreement among the half-blind in a dimmed room). "Sure," he said, sliding off of the barstool. Tiny scraps of napkin showered down around him like confetti. He brushed at them with a black-gloved hand, embarrassed.

"Never mind that," Sorrow ordered. "Come on. Let's get out of here." She strode toward the door, pointedly not looking over her shoulder to see her former psychiatrist scrambling after her like a hopeful puppy.

The wintry December air cut through the tattered remains of the Arkham jumpsuit wrapped around Sorrow's legs. She drew her coat a little tighter and hurried toward Ivy's little pink car. The back seat, stained with countless bits of pollen, fertilizer, and exciting chemicals, seemed like a warm and toasty heaven after her quick walk down Gotham's snowy sidewalks. Troy squeezed in next to her and shut the door.

"You didn't say anything about him coming with us," Ivy drawled irritably. She examined him as if he were an aphid that had made a lunch out of her favorite roses.

"It's my place and I can invite who I want," Harley said mulishly. "Besides, he's kinda cute. How ya doin', Troy-boy?"

"Fine," he choked, squirming under Ivy's glare.

"Great. Here we go!"

(to be continued)

Author's Note: I am so sorry for the constant delays. I swear to you that I will finish this story. Pinky swears and everything!