Fast forward: Pregnant, five months. Do I hate my life? Why yes, my children, I certainly do!

Having a tummy is a horrible experience. No, seriously, I really can't stand it. Everything is inconvenient, including the constant need to piss, the sporadic and occasional vomiting and the stomach-aches that don't end. I hobble awkwardly, but all things considered I am not the size of a house. I'm still pretty small, honestly, so I guess I should be grateful.

We're guilty of so many things. Minor kisses, small ones, weak ones, ones against walls, ones on beds, soft ones, meaningful ones.

The most relief I have ever experienced has to be the newspaper. It reads, in thankfully bold writing, Joker Targets Wayne Enterprises. Twelve People Killed.

Those twelve people just paid a hell of a lot for my peace of mind.

But it's fine, because Cleveland's not dead and I can escape the guilt-monster.

"Ivy?" I mumble, and she stops playing with my hair long enough to lean over where a leg is wrapped around mine and make a low, inquisitive sound, "For motherfu-fuck's sake, can you turn off the goddamn Mozart? Does it need to play when we sleep?"

My hormones make me angry.

Yeah. My hormones. Those are it.

"The flowers, Ha—"

"Yeah, I get it. Plants are your gimmick, it's your thing, every super-villain needs a g-gimmick but for fuck's sake, Ivy."

"Are you unnaturally badly tempered just for today, or is it a continuous statement? The music needs to be—"

"The music's on, I'm going back in my own room. It's one or the other, hon."

"Must you be so bull-headed? Isn't that a masculine quality? How impossible is it to just stop acting like a beast? Really, now, can you not merely calm down? I really can't comprehend why you always ask me to change my normalcy simply because it's not the same as yours."

"Because, where I come from we don't set up orchestras for the flora outside our door."

"Where you come from," She begins nonchalantly, and curls the tips of her nails against the kanji on my neck, tracing the lines idly, "your cousins mate with their cousins and the offspring ends up with a multitude of peculiarities, among those being an abnormal fetish for clowns."

We don't talk that night.

Sometimes, we prefer not to talk at all.

She holds a firm position of resentment for Cleveland and I do all I can to dodge those fights. She opens her mouth when she knows she shouldn't and, later, when I'm curled up reading a book in her chair (Miss Genius refuses to own a television with cable. All I can watch is Two and a Half Men and The Simpsons. Charlie Sheen's antics shame me, and I don't know how anyone can keep under the illusion that he's attractive) she'll sneak up behind me, put her lips just next to my ear and whisper that she didn't mean to hurt my feelings. But it'll never be an 'I'm sorry' or an 'I was wrong'. It's always 'I'm sorry I hurt your feelings'.

I get it, world. I'm a fuck up pregnant with a psychotic's child. Is it necessary that every factor possible remind me of this?

"Yeah," I'll mutter, because I'm vindictive and cold where she's vindictive and warm. I won't ever say 'it's okay' because it's not and she knows it, but taking shots at her plants is the same as taking shots at her children.

My sensitivity level has declined to negative nine-thousand.

Actually, it might be over nine-thousand.

I think it is over nine-thousand.

She slinks calmly over to the couch and plops down, curling up in the most elegant way. Her legs tuck behind her and her feet seek the cuddle of the cushions. She's cute, in an odd way, in lazy, red and green striped pajama pants (my Christmas presents are so witty) and an emerald colored top that leaves her midriff bare.

"Have you thought of a name?"

I look up from A Writer's Diary (she and I share similar though clashing opinions about Virginia Woolf. I believe she was brilliant all the way through, and Ivy insists she had 'moments of subtle ingenuity') and make a little 'hmm' sound in the back of my throat. I lean against the pillow behind me and nod, but keep on reading.

I love playing the silent treatment.

"Well, provided it's a boy or a girl, what names have you managed to decide on?"

I waver, and just speak. "Boy, Richard, girl, Rosalia…or Rose, for short."

Her face lingers into a soft smile and her fingers curl inward just so in that way I find so endearing in such a sweet way. "No Harvey?"

"Not for any reason, never."

The cat I demanded she let in mewls idly as she approaches Ivy. The kitten's name is Fuzzball (as requested by me, of course) and she's a little, stuffy Persian. She struts around like she's the only one in the home and her eyes are blue like when you throw water over ice. Her fur is the same color as the snow. It took a good, long time to convince her to let the stray in, but in the end I always somehow get my way.

Fuzzball jumps on the couch and casually burrows behind Ivy. She doesn't seem thrilled, but she awards the little thing what she's looking for. Cuddly closeness.

This is one of those felines that never really care. I pick her up, sometimes, and use her like a cuddle-monster or some kind of furry pillow. She's well-behaved and tiny, composed more of fur than of actual flesh.

She tried to eat one of Ivy's daisies, once. That did not go over well once she had a complete heart attack and I had to scream at her to keep her from throwing Fuzzball back outside into the street. I refused. I have become attached to Fuzzers, even though she prefers Ivy over me to umpteenth degree. Why that is, I'm not sure even I know.

"I dare say I've rubbed off on you. Rose?"

"It's pretty. I love roses."

"You like white roses, don't you?"

I tilt my head curiously and, a little perturbed, I nod and give her the 'what the fuck are you magical?' look.

"You're not the red rose type. You're easily readable."

Fuzz purrs like the sound of rolling marbles across the floor. The sun peeks in through the heavy, velvet curtains. My alarm in my room goes off. I've developed an obscure kind of insomnia; my sleep patterns are all out of whack.

L is for the way you look at me…O is for the only one I see…V is very, very extraordinary…E is even more than anyone that you adore and love is all that I can give to you…love is more than just a game for two…two, in love can make it take my heart but please don't break it, yeah…love was made for me and you…

"Do you seriously have that on your music player?"

I avoid her eyes. She's grinning, and Fuzz peeks over her thigh deviously. She and the cat are in cahoots.

"Make me a waffle-bacon-sandwich with syrup in the middle and shut the fuck up."