Welcome to what I think will be the very last chapter of this entire series—unless, of course, I crank out some pathetic one-shots like I'm known to. I've got one in the works, actually, and interestingly enough I have a collaboration idea with two friends on a BatmanXWrestling cross-over, but that's still in the planning stages. Trust me, it'll be amusing. Anyway, I want to thank everybody for sticking with me for…oh, wow, way too long, specifically through three installments in this series. I had no clue it was going to wind up being this long, but I think I'm glad. It means a lot to me that you guys like it, and I'm grateful for all the feedback. Without further ado, on with the show!

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Like a thief in the night, he's gone, and I feel even emptier than I have in years. Having money stolen from me by my parents, being kicked out by my parents, watching a ten year old die, becoming a criminal, having bottomless sex with the Joker, being kicked out by the Joker and being raped by the Joker all do not add up to this single feeling.

I know I'm being whiny, now, folks, I know I've used the terms hollow, empty, weak and vulnerable a good eighty times, but now I really do mean it.

I've lost a good half of myself.

"You look horrendous."

Ivy's voice is so vague and distant. I realize that I've gone from vengeful to utterly helpless in no less than five minutes. The miniature bundle of warmth is gone, and the separation anxiety is like coming down from a tremendous buzz. The sheer, slight seconds of fulfillment have fled and I'm alone in my tunnel-vision darkness. My every muscle feels hot, heavy and I turn the pillow over to lie against the cooler side. It doesn't help. I'll start crying in a few minutes or so.

"I know for a solidified fact that the Bat is far too much a believer in morality to lay a hand on that child. He'll get older and be a….dignified member of the festering mass of meat-bags known as society." She stops talking when she realizes I don't want to hear it. I go quiet, dead.

The silence is all-encompassing. It's not the good kind; not like a hug, or a cuddle or even a gentle embrace. It feels like an enfolding hopelessness.

Holy fuck, I'm so emo.

When she finally has the bravado to hug her arms around waist, I feel her nose burrow into my neck and her breaths effortlessly move together with mine. In rhythmic time, I feel even more solitary than ever. She mutters, "It's not fair that someone your age should have to have made a decision like this. No one is equipped to handle such a choice."

My words are like the insides of a church bell as it rings, "Leave me alone, Ivy."

Her turn is sudden and almost alarming, but I pay no heed to it. She pushes against me but doesn't detach completely, just shoves me at arm's length and keeps her palms pressed just at my hips, "Of course, Harvey, because you always need to be left alone. Because when everything knocks you down, destroys you, leaves you with nothing left to turn to, you simply slink off and turn from the things that seek to console you. You want to be left alone."

Her frustrations remind me of Cleave. All of this enrages my muddled mind; everything miserable in my life slips right back to the subject of Sir Cleveland Roger Punsworth. Embittered is the only way to describe the air. Her wrathful anger at me does nothing to dull the razor sharp atmosphere that blankets us both.

"You're alone because you want to be alone, Harvey."

You're alone because you want to be alone, Harvey.

I really can't believe she just said that.

"If left alone, we all know exactly what will happen, Harvey. I know it and, above all subjects, you know it as well. You're sure of the occurrences that will go on. You'll kill yourself, or you'll hurt yourself, because you can't take it at all. But you beg for this solace that will never come because you simply won't let it. You're a hypocrite."

My mind numbs over slowly along with the rest of me. It's the easiest process, to let go. Just flick the inner switch and it all shuts down so easily, so quickly. My skin is chilly, or is it hot? Or is it so hot that it's cold? I don't really know. I don't care.

I hate the sudden weakness that spills out of my mouth.

"Not now, Ivy. Anytime else, not now."

The words taste somewhat like bile.

The mattress squeaks.

The dark sets in.

I'm alone.

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I wake up to the sound of something very loud and very harsh. It's a clattering, a shattering, something in the kitchen breaking to bits.

Someone shrieks; it's a loud, feminine voice, and someone else follows with a voice like a lion-roar—

"Where-uh's my little fella, toots?!"

It shakes the walls. It takes a battering ram to the forefront of my mind. My bones shake inside their skin-casing, and my throat goes so dry that I can hardly swallow. I affix the pillow on top of my head and crawl under the material. I press it around my face and try to scream into the shallow hush. My fingers are like little strips of fire against the pillow. My entire lower half scrunches up painfully.

SHATTER. Something else breaks.

I think He's here to kill me.

I think I'm done for. I'm dead.

I think He's going to do worse than murder me.

Above all, it piles into a heap, I think Ivy's done for.

And it brings back that throw-up feeling.

"She lost the baby, he-of-much-Maybelline. She's resting in the bedroom. She's very much not well. The entire experience proved fatal for her, emotionally and physically. She's exhausted."

There's a relief that washes over me in an instant wave. She lied for me. She told one huge, huge lie for me. Such a calm comes toward me like a rushing bull and I exhale deeply. I'm hyperventilating under the smothering pillow. I owe her more gratitude than I do anyone in the entire world. I owe her more than is humanly conceivable.

If I were her, out of spite, I would've sold me out completely.

The air is thick with this kind of tension that I can't explain, but after seconds I realize something. When the voice, the voice I know as Cleave's, comes back, it sounds like it's cracking. His voice runs with the undertones of a fragile laugh, like a continuous giggle, like the kind of laugh you make before you're ready to cry like a bitch, "She—uh…she lost the—the kiddo?"

Buried under the covers I start to cry, too.

Where is this guilt coming from? My intestines are knotty and criss-crossed over each other. I can hardly breathe.

It falls apart it my feet in a hasty second. I stare at the broken shards of memory flickering before my eyes. I've ruined two separate people's lives, and in the process I've destroyed.

More screaming. Shrill. It fades into my ears like an endless pit, a siren. My mind dims it, and there's quiet, but nothing more than the ringing in my head. I just keep gripping the pillow and crying, crying, crying.

A pair of cold hands scoop me up and into their overly powerful grip. They're bony, thin, slender like a skeleton's, and the ragged edges of a shredded mouth presses against my ear and keeps saying, "Come on, Harv-uh-cakes, home, home, home-uh."

Someone's screaming.

There's so much screaming.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry I'm a bad person.

Forgive me?

"Home, Harvey, home, we're goin' on home-uh. –That's where we're—ah—goin', that's where, Harvey-cakes, home."

Forgive me.

Both of you.