A week later, Eve left the hospital with a smile on her face, a ring on her finger, and a bag of prescribed painkillers.
Of course she'd said yes - there was never going to be another answer to that question, coming from that person. The beautiful ring that Ivy had chosen for her now sat comfortably on the fourth finger of her left hand, and during the days that had followed the proposal she felt like she'd showed it off to every nurse that she'd seen, once the news of hers and Ivy's engagement had spread around the ward. Even when she was alone, she kept sneaking peeks at it; it had taken some getting used to, at first, catching sight of it out of the corner of her eye whenever she moved her hand and the gemstones sparkled in the light, but now it felt like it belonged there. It was something real, something concrete, something that said I am in love and I am loved in return.
Ivy had been right about the change it would make to her outlook on the future, too. Even though she still wasn't really sure what she wanted to do now work-wise, she had another destination; the day when she would be married to the woman she loved. They had started discussing, half-seriously, where they could get married, what they would wear, and who they'd invite, if anybody. It was fun, even if most of it was just pretend.
The biggest question of all was how Ivy was going to manage her paperwork, so their marriage would actually be legitimate - she had a criminal record, of course, under her real name, but that wasn't so much of a problem. People with criminal records could still get married, after all. She would, however, need some kind of identification, one with her real name on it. She didn't want to jeopardise their marriage by using false information.
She did still have documents from when she had been Pamela Isley, locked in a safe deposit box under a pseudonym; passport, birth certificate, driving licence...originally, her transformed self had wanted to destroy every vestige of her old life, but some small rational part of her had persuaded her to keep something. Just in case. She'd used many fakes and forgeries over the years since, but the original documents were still there, in case she ever needed them.
At least, she thought they were. She hadn't been back to check on them since she'd put them away - there was a chance they had been removed from the premises once it was known that she was a criminal.
Ivy was pondering this one evening, as the two of them sat on the couch half-watching a movie. Eve was wrapped in a blanket and balancing a bowl of popcorn on her knees, resting her head on Ivy's shoulder contentedly. Absently, Ivy stroked her fiancée's hand while she thought.
An idea struck her, and she rolled her eyes. Of course.
Tapping Eve's leg to get her attention, she started to get up off the couch. "Can I borrow this?" she asked, gesturing to the plant on the coffee table. "I need to call someone."
Eve nodded, slightly bleary-eyed from the painkillers she was on. "You could just use my phone,"she said sleepily, nibbling some more popcorn.
Ivy shook her head. "I don't have her number anymore." She kissed the top of Eve's head in thanks, then took the fern into the bedroom and closed the door. Sitting on the bed and shutting her eyes, she placed her fingertips on the fern and reached out into the Green, searching slowly. She wasn't absolutely sure if the woman she was looking for was in town or not, but she thought she'd try at least.
After a few minutes, she sensed something familiar, and a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. There she was. Through the Green, she could see the luxury of the room her consciousness was now in, and she wasn't exactly surprised. Selena had always had a taste for the finer things in life.
As if on cue, the woman in question walked into the room. She'd clearly just stepped out of the shower, and she was drying her short black hair with a towel, the nape of her neck exposed and dripping with water. She didn't notice Ivy's presence until she looked into the mirror and saw that the houseplant in the corner was looking at her sternly. A smirk crept over her face. "Hey, Ivy. Haven't seen you in a while." When she turned around, her tone of voice and her demeanour were deceptively casual, but they both knew what the other was capable of. Theirs was an...interesting friendship.
"I need a favour," Ivy said, getting straight to it.
Selena raised an eyebrow. "That's a new one. What's up?" She crossed the room and arranged herself on an elegant chaise longue.
"I need you to go to Blüdhaven Bank for me," Ivy began. "There's something in a safety deposit box there that I need."
"And you can't go yourself because…?" Selena shifted position so her legs were tucked underneath her, and waited for a response.
"I'm...housebound, for the time being," Ivy said carefully. "I have to stay where I am and take care of some things. That's why I need you to do this for me."
Selena thought for a second. "Are you going to pay me?" she asked, fixing the plant-Ivy with a steady look.
The face of plant-Ivy shifted, the shining green leaves that made up its mouth reforming into a wry smile. "How mercenary of you."
"Hey, if I want to keep living here - and I do," she gestured around the lushly decorated room before continuing, "then I'm done doing smash-and-grabs for free on the basis of our past...collaborations. What's in this for me?"
"I'm asking you to break into a bank, Selena. What you get out of this is as much as you can carry. Do we have a deal?"
Seconds ticked past while Selena thought about it, her head cocked slightly to one side - a cat trying to figure out if it was worth chasing after a bird. She knew she could keep Ivy waiting for a little while, but not too long; her presence in her home was already quite unnerving, but she should have prepared for the possibility of this happening when she chose somewhere that had houseplants. Eventually, she put on her best disinterested expression and nodded. "Fine. Give me the box number, and a drop-off point."
Ivy breathed a sigh of relief, not even trying to hide it - Selena noticed this, frowning slightly. "Thank you. Once this is done, I won't bother you again, I swear." She quickly gave Selena the details, anxious to get it sorted out, then began to retreat from the Green.
"Ivy, wait," Selena called suddenly, getting up and approaching the shrinking plant. Slowly, Ivy's face reemerged and took shape in the leaves again, its expression quizzical. "This box. What's in it that you need so badly? I want to know what I'm doing this for."
There was a beat of silence before Ivy answered. "Legitimate passage out of Gotham," she said at last.
Selena's eyes widened. "Wait...you're leaving the city? Properly?" Ivy leaving Gotham and vanishing was nothing new to her or any of their mutual acquaintances, but actually using the proper documentation to do so? That was new. "Why?"
Ivy hesitated, then decided she could probably add Selena to the short list of people that knew something of her plans. God knows they'd been through enough together; Selena had saved her life more than once.
"I'm getting married," she said, enjoying the words as she said them - telling someone else confirmed that it was actually happening, that it wasn't just a fantasy. She would be marrying her Evelyn.
There was a smile on Ivy's face as she withdrew from the Green, her consciousness making its way back into her physical form, reuniting body and mind. Withdrawing herself from such a powerful connection to the Earth always left her feeling a bit bereft, like waking up after a wonderful dream, and she clutched the little fern tightly between her hands until she felt a bit more stable. Slowly, she returned to the living room, where Eve had dozed off on the couch, snuggled under her blanket. Her face was serene, but her hands were clenched into fists, and as Ivy watched she let out what seemed like a groan of frustration or pain. Ivy sat down beside her and started to gently stroke her hair, all the way down to her shoulders, over and over, soothing her bad dreams.
Eve's recovery progressed faster than expected, but it was still slower than she wanted it to be. Her days were a jumble of sleep, physiotherapy exercises, trashy tv shows and nutritious meals (or as nutritious as a diet that primarily consisted of takeout food could be), and while it was nice to have Ivy taking care of her, she longed for a bit of independence. Having to rely on another person to help her dress herself, wash herself, even pour herself a drink...it made her uncharacteristically irritable. It wasn't that she wasn't grateful to Ivy, or that she felt guilty - it was, after all, Mortimer's fault that she was in this state, not hers - but she couldn't wait for the day when the stitches were out, the bandages were off, and she could move about freely on her own again.
She was complaining about this very thing in the bathroom one evening, sitting on the edge of the tub in her dressing gown while Ivy carefully brushed her just-washed hair. Normally, having her hair brushed helped her relax, but just then it felt like everything was rubbing her up the wrong way.
"I'm just so bored," she grumbled, picking at a piece of loose skin next to her thumbnail.
Ivy made a non-committal, sympathetic noise - she had encountered Eve's stubborn side more frequently since they'd left the hospital, and past experience had taught her how to treat her when she was feeling like this. "I know, my love," she said, "it's no fun being cooped up. Maybe you need a...goal? Something to strive for?"
"I have a goal. Getting better is my goal. But it's not happening fast enough." Eve was well aware of how whiny she sounded, but she couldn't summon the impetus to care.
"Well, what were you expecting to happen? You'd come home from hospital and be absolutely fine within a week?"
Eve's shoulders tensed slightly. "So, what, I'm not trying hard enough?"
"That's not what I said," Ivy countered gently, still brushing Eve's hair in a steady rhythm. "I just meant that maybe you're focusing too much on your recovery. You're so invested in the finish line that you can't see the progress you have made, how much better you're looking, how much easier it is to move around. You're stuck in a rut."
Eve picked the loose skin free and brushed it away, watching as a small bead of blood appeared in its place, and made a begrudging noise that might have sounded something like "I suppose so", if you listened closely.
"What you need," Ivy continued, putting the hairbrush down next to the sink and leaning forward to wrap her arms around Eve's shoulders, "is something to distract you. How about some wedding planning - seriously, this time? Or looking for a new job? You're incredibly smart and highly qualified; you'll find something in your field easily, or you could switch it up, try something new." She kissed an exposed patch of Eve's neck, where the skin was soft and sweet-smelling after the shower. "And if that doesn't work, I have plenty of other ways to distract you…"
They hadn't really discussed sex, or any kind of intimacy beyond kisses, since Eve had come home, but when she felt Ivy's lips on her neck a familiar shiver ran through her body and, well...maybe it wasn't completely off the table. Just not right then - her stomach was rumbling. She leaned back against her lover's chest and sighed. "Tempting as that is, I'm starving. Can we raincheck for now?"
"Whenever you're ready; I'm not going anywhere." Ivy helped her stand and led her into the kitchen. "What do you fancy? We have leftover chow mein, some pad thai…"
"Chow mein," Eve answered, already seated at the kitchen table and pulling her laptop towards her. While Ivy reheated some dinner, she began to research - this, at least, was something she didn't need two properly functioning arms to do. "Hey, how do you feel about a Vegas wedding?" she called, glancing up from the screen to see Ivy's surprised expression. She grinned. "Just kidding."
"Shouldn't we set a date, first?" Ivy asked a little while later, wandering over with two bowls of steaming Chinese food. She pulled back a chair and sat cross-legged, elegant as ever in borrowed leggings and one of Eve's loose shirts, her green skin vibrant against the white cotton.
Eve bit into a spring roll thoughtfully, her engagement ring catching her eye and making her smile. "Do you have any preference?"
"Spring is my favourite season," Ivy said, twirling noodles onto her fork as she turned the idea over in her head. "Everything's new, beginning again, like it's all starting a new chapter at once. I think that's quite appropriate for you and me."
Eve blushed prettily, glancing back at the screen. "That's when my favourite flowers grow. Crocuses, snowdrops, scilla, muscari...I'd love a spring wedding. Not in Gotham, and not in Chicago either, but somewhere."
"Vegas is out, too," Ivy agreed, "and Florida."
"What's wrong with Florida?"
"I'm just not a fan," Ivy shrugged.
They continued to toss ideas back and forth over dinner, coming up empty. Engrossed, Eve didn't notice when Ivy got up and cleared the dishes away, bustling around the kitchen making tea. She was even humming, which was something she'd never done before. As much as she would hate to admit it, it seemed that a certain level of domesticity suited her.
She was stirring half a teaspoon of sugar into a cup of peppermint tea when a loud gasp came from the direction of the kitchen table. Ivy spun around and almost ran to Eve, expecting to see pain on her face, but there was a huge smile instead.
"How about this?" she began, the cleared her throat. "Wildwood Point. 'Your wedding celebration will have an impressive backdrop of towering spruce trees, a rushing river, and acres of lush green forest.' We can have a ceremony with just the two of us, stay over for two nights with breakfast in the mornings...what do you say, Pamela?" She grasped Ivy's hands and held them tight. "Think you'd like to get married in a treehouse?"
Smiling at the obvious excitement on Eve's face, Ivy crouched down so they were level, planting a tiny kiss just below the ring on her fiancée's left hand. "As long as I'm marrying you, it's going to be perfect."
A/N: We're almost at the end now, everyone. Thanks so much for coming along for the ride x