"Quinn." A voice called out, stirring Harley from her sleep abruptly.
"Nyeh!? I didn't order the potatoes..." she stammered as she sat up, her hair falling down in her face so that she was briefly doing an impression of cousin It before she brushed her bangs away and looked around. Holly Madison and Margaret Oak stood at her cell door. For a moment they stared at her and she stared back, then she pointed at the wall between her cell and Ivy's.
"Sorry, you want my neighbor, next house over." She declared, then she lay back down.
"Get up, Harley, Dr. Birch wants to see you." Margaret said, wrapping her nightstick against the reinforced glass.
"Me!?" Harley exclaimed, sitting back up. "Aw come on its..." She stalled here, having no real way of guessing what time it was in the dark halls of Max. Sec. "It's early!"
"It's 11:30 in the morning, Harley." Pamela's calm voice called from the next cell.
"Aaaaaw..." Harley pouted and stood up.
"C'mon, Quinn, we don't want to keep the Doctor waiting." Margaret said, standing next to the door slot. "Put your hands through."
"Really ladies, are handcuffs necessary? Harley can be a good girl, can't you, Harl?" Pam cooed from the next cell.
"Of course I can!" Harley exclaimed, pouting at the two guards. "I was a doctor here too, ya know! It's not like I don't know the rules."
"Then you know why we have to cuff you." Margaret persisted.
Harley sighed and slipped her hands through the slot. "Thanks for tryin', Red." She called out as she stepped back and Holly opened the door, pulling her out of hr cell with a yank that made the blonde squawk in surprise.
"Ladies!" Pam snapped from he chamber. "Be gentle with her, she Is Not. Dangerous."
"Sorry, Pamela." Both guards stated promptly, making Harley eyebrows jump in surprise. The blonde looked between the two guards as Holly's grip on her arm loosened slightly, then she looked over at Pamela's cell.
Harley could just make out Pam in the corner of her cell peering at them through the glass with narrowed eyes, her expression that of a disapproving and over protective mother. Harley smiled at her and puffed a kiss through the air at the redhead, drawing a small smile from Pamela as she responded by kissing her fingertips then pressing them to the glass of her cell as the two guards began escorting Harley down the cell block.
"Good morning, Harleen."
"Mornin'!" Harley grumped, stalking into the room and slumping into a chair like a petulant child.
Dr. Birch sighed softly and jostled her pen between her fingers. She knew she had to put up with Harley's childish behavior in order to find out what she wanted to know. "I'm hoping you can help me with something."
"Like what?" Harley asked, still sounding 'just rolled out of bed' grouchy.
"I was hoping you could tell me about Pamela.. From your point of view."
"Ooooh, so the Doc's finally getting interested in the Arkham gossip huh!?" Harley exclaimed with a giggle. "Weeeell, I dunno if I should tell you! Might get me in trouble with Red, spilling the beans about her! Heh, Beans! She'd either snicker or slap me for using a veggie pun!"
"I've spoken with Pamela about this meeting already, she's completely comfortable with us having this discussion." Dr. Birch assured Harley with a smile. It was an outright lie, she'd not mentioned a single word of this meeting to Pamela in their last session and didn't plan to bring it up in any future sessions either, she just wanted Harley's cooperation at this point.
"Oooh, well... Okay!"
"Excellent." Dr. Birch smiled again, then paused, thinking about what Harley had said. "Would Pamela really slap you, Harleen?"
"Call me Harley, everyone does! And... I guess it kinda depends." The blonde replied, shrugging her shoulders.
"On what?"
"On how horny she is." Harley replied, giving Dr. Birch a mischievous 'naughty school girl' grin.
"O-oh!" Hazel sputtered, her cheeks flushing a light pink. "S-s-s-so, you and she actually are-"
"What, didja think we were just really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really good friends?" Harley asked with a giggle. "I'll admit to start with I wasn't really into the idea. Pammy was nice and all but for awhile I thought've her more like a big sister... Actually I still do a lot of the time, so I suppose technically you could say our relationships slightly incestuous."
Hazel's mind reeled. She was trying to follow what Harley said, but the off the wall woman was very good at leading people in circles until they were too dizzy to keep up with her. It seemed like normal bimbo blonde babbling, but hazel knew better. While it was babble, it was also intentional, an easy method of making someone lower their guard by distracting them with a flood of disjointed, misaligned topics of conversation.
"Harley, slow down please, I'm having trouble keeping up." Dr. Birch declared, interrupting Harley in mid-sentence.
"Oh, sorry doc! Sometimes I get carried away with myself, want me to start over?" '
"Please."
"Okay... Uhmmmmmmmmmm..." Harley dragged the sound out in a long hum, sticking her tongue out between pressed lips and rolling her eyes back in her skull as in a state of deep contemplative thought; as deep as she could get these days anyway.
"You were discussing you and Pamela's sisterly relationship." Hazel prompted cautiously.
"No I wasn't, I was discussing our sexual one!" Harley blurted out abruptly, proving she actually was still quite aware of what she'd been discussing moments before, contrary to the vacant eyed expression she'd been showing.
Dr. Birch sat back in her seat and waited. One thing Harley lacked was patience, eventually she'd start talking again. As predicted, after three minutes of silence Harley heaved a sigh of boredom.
"Red's like Shrek."
"I'm not sure she'd appreciate being compared to a cartoon ogre..."
"Not what I meant, geeze didn't you ever see the movie!?"
"Well, just once.. And it's been quite awhile since that movie came out..."
Harley rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Okay, look, you remember the onion thing?"
"Oh yes! All right, now I think I follow you." Hazel replied, nodding slowly, then she paused. Ir was a plant analogy, she wondered if Harley chose it as an example specifically because of that. "So you're saying Pamela's like an onion?"
"Right-a-roonie! She's got a lotta layers. Each ones a bit different, thicker on the outside, softer on the inside.. But with a bit of a bite to it; and she can make ya cry pretty easily."
"Oh really? Has she ever made you cry..?"
"Gee, Doc, don't you think you're focusing an awful lot on me? I'm not even your patient."
"I'm intrigued by your relationship with Pamela, Harley. You're the only person she's allow to become so close to her."
"Jealous?" Harley asked with a smirk.
Hazel huffed slightly and brushed her bangs back away from her face. "That's absurd, please Harley, let's stay on track."
"Sure, sure... It's all perfectly professional." Harley mused with another giggle. "All right. It's like I said, Ivy's got layers; a whole lot of 'em!"
"Can you be more specific?"
"Well, for starts, she protects people.. a lot more than she'd like folks to think.. First there's me of course, and she's helped Catty out a time or two, and the kids-"
"Kids?" Hazel interrupted, her eyes darting in surprise. "What kids?"
"Ya mean you don't know?!" Harley squealed with excitement. "Ohmigawd, she's worse than Brangelina; one time I saw a whole dozen kids in the park!"
"Harley, slow down, you're going to fast again. What do you mean kids in the park?"
Harley rolled her eyes in annoyance at being asked to slow down yet again. She took a deep breath, then began speaking in an over dramatically slow fashion akin to William Shatner. "Ivy, takes children in, and protects them. In her garden. In the park."
"Robinson park, she takes children there?"
"She doesn't take anyone... She won't separate a kid from it's mama, never ever... She'll kill a whole family but she wouldn't separate 'em; never, ever, ever."
"She would have killed a family; she's not like that anymore." Hazel declared, sounding quite convinced with this personal analysis of Ivy's mind.
"Sure, sure." Harley agreed nonchalantly. "Anyway, these kids are all urchins. Regular Charlie Dickens types; most of 'em are runaways... Lotta runaways in Gotham actually. We got a high family abuse rate in this city, don'cha know. Lotta kids run off, some run from family, some run from foster care, some were caught up in the underbelly and finally tried to get away. These types are the ones Red takes. Whole flocks of 'em!"
"And she brings them to her lairs?"
"It's like a regular Peter Pan and the Lost Boys thing she's got goin'. All these little miniature Tarzans, running around plastered with leaves and wearin' loin cloths.. It's kinda funny and creepy all at once."
"Do you know why she does this...?"
"She cares, of course! She cares about the planet, she doesn't hate everybody, just the folks she thinks are beyond help... Me... I like Red, and I like what she stands for. Mr. J doesn't seem to get it; he and Ivy don't get along too well, but I think she's swell! And the kids...? Well, they've all lost out haven't they? No families, no homes... She gives them all that; she can't have 'em herself you know?" At this Harley turned abruptly serious and somber. "She's always talkin' so grateful for what Woodrue did to her.. But she hates him too... He took away the one thing she wanted more than anything."
"So she replaces that desire with surrogates... like you and the children."
"Told ya our relationship was incestuous." Harley said with another burst of amused giggles.
"I suppose you're right." Dr. Birch conceded with a disturbed grimace. "You're like a daughter and a lover all in one for her.. Someone for her to always take care of."
"Yeah..." Harley replied, looking almost wistful. "She really does. She's one of a kind, ya know?"
"I'm beginning to see that yes... So tell me, I know you're already up for parole in the spring. Have you two made any plans?"
Harley gasped at this. "Me an' Red? ... Nah, she's not like that. She's... I dunno. She's not as spontaneous as Mistah J but... Well, sometimes Red needs her space. She's got these moods, especially round now.. winter times nasty for her."
Dr. Birch straightened up, looking more alert at this. "What do you mean, Harley?"
Harley shrugged uncertainly. "Well, I can't rightly say!" She paused, pinning her tongue between her teeth in thought. "It's like... Well, ya gotta think like a plant, ya know? Ivy does that all the time... And when winter comes around, all the plants rest. It's when Red goes her thinking, she doesn't have as many babies to take care of, so she takes some time to think about her next step. Ya can see it when ya watch her, or listen to her."
"How so?"
"Just pay attention, Doc!" Harley snorted.
"Come on, think about it... When you're in sessions with her, do her eyes wander out towards the trees?" Harley gestured outside at this, grinning at the recognition on Hazel's face. "And when she talks, her voice is all husky, almost sleepy. Makes ya wanna lay down and nap, don't it? It's deep, and sultry and... Mmmmh."
Harley squirmed in her chair. "I wanna melt just thinkin' about it. She's special like that. She has times, and seasons, just like all her plants. Winter is when she gets her thinkin' done. Just you wait, watch her now that it's getting close to spring, you'll see it coming... It's easy to see, I can hear it in her voice already," Harley giggled and shivered with pent up excitement, "I can't wait to find out what she's planned this time!"
Author's Note: This chapter was a nightmare for me. I rewrote it over and over and I'm still not happy with it, but I knew if I dwelled on it any longer I'd never get past it. I will probably re-write this chapter completely, as I plan to do with several others, once I've finished my initial version of the story. Stay tuned for Chapter 20, I plan to have it up soon.