I sit around for hours after falling in and out of sleep. My consciousness lazily wafts from fully there to shatter to bits. I'm too tired to do anything but feel half conscious and consider. In between 'considerations', I scribble down pros and cons to birthing the child of Satan. My forehead twinges. My mood is gradually waning.

Within a good few moments, my temper heightens to super-bitch. My irritation lies in the fact that no matter how hard I force it, I just cannot remember.

"Ho-kay, Harvey-cakes, I'm just gonna make totally sure that you're all jim-dandy with this because—"

"Yuh."

It's all I hear when I shut my eyes. It's my own voice, it's weird, small. I realize that I acquiesced to it, but I remember him like some kind of great, soft beast. I remember shrinking under his hands like a weak child; I remember thinking only one thing in a stupid, foggy haze.

He's my God. Undoubtedly, unquestioningly, I'd let him be my God.

And there's a fire in me that slowly builds. First, it's kind of like a tiny ember, and then it sparks and gets higher and higher. I'm super frustrated by this fact, because—well, because I had sex with him, and he had sex with me after my brains were rattled around in my head.

In what world was that willing?

Tramps like us...baby we were born to run…

I've dealt with all of it. The threats on my life, the threats of injury, the bad jokes, the mean jokes, the jokes at my expense, the shots at my ego, the dangerous situations he's willingly put me in.

No. I'm not dealing with it. Not after learning this.

"Hey, Harv-uh-ee, we'll be havin' pizza boy for din-dun and—" He pauses in the doorway. His face falls into a look of confusion, and he points a long, thin finger at the ratty messenger bag I'm throwing things into, "—uh—toots, where you headed out—ah…to?"

For good measure, I force my harpy into my pocket and grit my teeth. I can't believe this. I can't believe he would do something like this. Am I a jack-ass for giving him the benefit of the doubt?

So my voice turns to ice. I sound more sure of myself than I have in years. I wish my third boyfriend would've been given the same treatment.

"I'm—ah—leaving." I reply, and my eyes refuse to find his. If I look up into them, it'll all crash down. Those watery, puppy-dog eyes, those fake eyes. Not the eyes of the famed king of gore, not the eyes of a criminal, human eyes, normal eyes. I refuse it, and instead start to force my three Bruce Springsteen t-shirts and four pairs of jeans into the bag. They hardly fit, and I for my five other t-shirts of various band fames in there.

"Where—ah…where ya leavin' to, Harv? And where…and why ya goin' there?"

If I didn't know him better, I'd say he sounded nervous.

"So I can g-get away from…you."

I almost choke that time. My own anxiety eats at my stomach, and for a second I get so dizzy I can almost cry.

The highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive…everybody's out on the run tonight, but there's no place left to hide…

"Now—ah—Harvey, why would you wanna do thaaaat, sweetness, darling-heart, girly, girly, girly?"

If I didn't know him so much better, I'd say his voice is shaking. His tone is the inevitable; it can change into something so much more vicious. It's waiting to turn on a dime.

"Because you let me make one of the bi-biggest decisions of my life while I was indisposed for your own fucking benefit."

I can feel his heat against my back, but I don't glance. I shake, but I keep packing things. I ignore things. If I don't turn around, I don't have to know he's there.

"You said yes, Harvey-cakes. You. Said, and I distinctly remember, it was a 'Yuh'."

"Cleave, I haven't been able to focus on a coherent train of thought since then, you bastard! What? Doesn't that tell you something, you fuck!?"

I ignore it. He can't stop me, but I whirl so hard I smash into his hip and he almost accidentally moves aside. The messenger bag weighs three tons, and clothes are spilling out heedlessly left and right. I kneel and stuff them back in, frustrated with myself. I wish death upon him. I hope he gets anally violated with a kitchen knife.

I cannot believe him.

You have got to be kidding me.

—Tramps like us, baby we were born to ru—

I grab my iPod up from the docking bay and the Boss can roar no more. Cleveland's steps shadow mine, only his big feet stomp so loudly it drowns out the blood rushing through my pounding head.

Outside, it's been snowing for a good hour. Winters in Gotham are merciless, the weather capable of dropping to a sporadic twenty or thirty degrees. The wind howls in a dull whistle and smacks against the dirty, stained windows. I can hear it through the outdated brick.

"Takes two to tango, toots!" He yells after me, and the sound of a crash resounds. I stuff the gun from so long ago into the bag. The steel is still cold and heavy, but the urge to point it disintegrates down to nil. I don't have the guts to, so I just relish the brief, frigid sensation and remember where it goes. It's the catalyst, the singular centerpiece for the rest of my life.

"Takes one to fucking force the other one to d-do it!" I howl, and slam the front door open. It's hardly recognizable, a grey blotch among the rest of the hulking dark.

Snowflakes fall like white-glistened pixies that flutter on the breeze. They dance and grin and wink about in all the worst, irritating ways. I hate how beautiful life is, when everything in it is just about to go wrong. When I hurry down the front steps, something lands with an explosion of white powder and I almost fall over out of surprise. The teddy bear lies motionless in the snow. I hear a voice behind me,

"Come back when ya get yourself a sense of selflessness and a heart from the wizard, ya bitch!"

His laugh, that hyena-laugh, dies on the stinging wind. My ears burn from the sensation, and I turn. Harley Quinn falls out of my bag and lands in a red and black heap. The cuddly stuffed animal is warm in my fingers.

"Learn how to act like a man and not a God-complex'd jerk and I'll co-come back!"

The door slams. I stop caring in a good two minutes. I just stand there as Harley at my feet dusts over with white grains of winter. I cling to Mister Snookums like a life-line. I wonder miserably if I'll have a little guy or a little girl. I feel sick again.

Six-hundred-and-sixty-six Bay Terrace.

Next destination.