I guess I've gotten a little dark, by this point. XD I'm writing this in the middle of English composition class and I'd like to say thank you so much for the reviews, the entire lot of you. I'm enjoying this fanfic way too much for it to be normal, but bah! I haven't enjoyed writing this much in awhile. Anyway, thanks again for all your feedback. Cleave's going through some…problems, you could say. Honestly, I, myself, am curious about how he'll react to what he did. I don't think even the great Joker himself could cope easily with something like that. Anyway, onto the Harvey/Ivy slash! On with the show!

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It takes a few minutes before I start to cry hysterically. It's not really a cry so much as it is a desperate sob. I should be wearing my seatbelt. I don't really care, but I curl up as my insides lurch horribly and force my knees against my stomach. Getting arrested for lack of seatbelt, I think, would be the equivalent of Hannibal Lecter being arrested for running a red light.

Everything stops; the car, the movement, the low, lulling drone spreading through the seats. It's lost, and I feel like I'm in the middle of a black hole. I'm halfway ashamed that I'm small enough to seem so tiny on her leather seats. They feel all-encompassing. I'm shrinking by the minute. Soon, I'll collapse in on my own epicenter; I won't even exist, anymore.

The door clicks open and I hear it slide. I don't notice when a hand slips over mine. The touch is almost timid, and once the stimulus hits my brain I fucking snap to attention. My eyes flick upward so quickly and my jaw sets and I try to look anywhere but her eyes. I feel like there are black spiders crawling all over me; a disease of the flesh.

I feel something tickle at my shoulders. I realize, in the strangest lucidity, that my hair's gotten so long. It curls just under my neck, from what I feel. My bangs coil into my eyes. I feel like a different person.

I trusted him. Why would he do this?

I trusted you.

Her arms and warm and soft. She pulls my glasses off gently and folds them neatly, enfolding herself around me until she draws my head into the juncture where her shoulder and neck connect. I feel a slight anxiety. She's not the only firecracker, anymore. Little sparks of light go off in my head, alarms, and warning signs. They're loud, obnoxious and ring in my ears obsessively. I dull them until the only noises are her breaths trying to slow down and synch with mine.

I think the milk is going to go bad.

I think your Christmas cookie ice-cream is melting.

I think you're too close to me.

I try to accommodate and my problems fall into perspective one by one. I focus horribly. I need to throw things out of the spectrum for once. I need to avoid it at all costs.

I think you can hold me if you want to.

I sound so distant, so far away, "He hates me."

"Why do you care?"

Her tone is more scolding than I can cope with, and I shrink a little at the thought that she's disappointed in me. She doesn't know why I feel like I do for him. She doesn't understand it, she shies away from it and it scares her. She doesn't comprehend how I can doggedly cling to a man who just raped me in a—

Dark so dark and cold so cold and hard and rough and hissing in my ear words I don't fully understand but pleading whimpers and soft moans Harvey Harvey why did you go Harvey? Why? And pain such pain and so much pain ripping me in two and clawing clawing at me—

"Harvey?"

Ground control to Major Tom.

I spiral back into orbit and figure out who I'm looking at, what's happening. Her fingers stroke my skin like someone strumming the strings of a guitar. I halfway flinch.

"I still apologize for—"

I'm startled by my sudden bravado.

My tiny finger (I'm an idiot, I'm an idiot, what am I doing? I'm not this bold...) rests at her lips, my arm awkwardly bent to accommodate. I gulp so hard that my stomach almost sloshes around and I mutter, "D-Don't tell me you're sorry. Tell me you're happy I'm not dead. Not that you're sorry for what happened, but that you're happy I'm alive. Just—Just please…tell me you'll protect me."

"To the best of my abilities, of course, you don't deserve—"

She confuses me. I've known her for about four days or so (might be more, might be less. I haven't thought clear in a long time.) and she's acting like a cross between my mother and my (some of the time) second boyfriend. Of course, both of those are before my mother descended into public drunkenness and my second boyfriend began the process of calling me a useless whore on a steady basis. Regardless, focus on the good.

Can you get this attached to someone in four days?

I just said four sentences in a row and I only stuttered once. My eyes, cloudy grey and chestnut, glance up in surprise at that thought.

Through a series of deeply unnerving events, I'm starting to….improve.

I close my eyes, and I crawl a little forward. My nose bumps her shoulder but I rub my cheek there and as I allow the dark to set in, I drift. There's so much you notice when you're not looking that you don't when you are.

You can't really appreciate someone with your eyes open.

Sometimes, you just need to close your eyes.

An odd thought returns, but there's some kind of weight to it. It' obscure, random.

I think She bought me white cheddar Cheez-its.