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"I don't know...a tree?"
"Nope."
"A trash can?"
"Nuh uh."
They'd been playing this stupid game for nearly an hour now and all because they were waiting to see if Pam would show.
It was Harley's idea to play I-spy and as much as Selina used to like this game when she was kid, she found that she hated it now.
"Come on, Kitty! This is an easy one!"
Selina sighed and lent back against the wall as she sat on the ground.
Harley was hanging upside down from a sign post just above her, ever the acrobat.
"I give up."
"You can't! You're so close!"
"I haven't guessed anything right yet! I'm starting to wonder if it's things you see in your head."
Harley paused as she took a moment to think and then shook her head.
"Nope. It's not in my head."
Selina sighed loudly.
Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. Maybe she didn't need two other people, maybe she could do this on her own and she didn't need help from anybody.
Just when Selina was about to suggest going it alone, a certain red head appeared.
Harley's eyes lit up and she jumped down from the sign post.
"Pammy! I knew ya would come!"
Pamela just shrugged with a small smile.
Selina walked up to her, the blonde in tow.
"What made you change your mind?"
Pamela gave Selina a strange look and then just simply said;
"Options."
Selina shook her head with an amused frown and decided to let it go.
She knew she couldn't trust these two completely but for now, they were all in it for the same thing; takeover Gotham and make it their own. Start over.
"Pam's gonna find a way to get my boys back, aren't ya, hon?"
"I'm going to try." The red head replied.
Selina noticed that Pamela seemed a lot calmer now. More controlled, more together and sure of herself, just like she used to be before she'd gotten involved with the little blonde psycho over there.
Selina could always work with that woman. She knew what she was doing, she was strong, confident and clever. Since she'd been with Harley, it was like she'd toned herself down a little.
"Well now that we've decided to all go together, shall we?"
Pamela nodded and walked beside Selina while Harley lagged behind, one thing or another catching her attention.
"So you and blonde, you want to tell me more about that?" Selina asked Pam as they walked side by side. It was still a little way to Gotham yet and Selina had a head full of questions for the mysterious red head.
"Not much to tell."
Selina gave a snort of disbelief.
"Oh ok, because I'm going to believe that."
"No really. There's not much to say."
"Well how did you get shacked up with her?"
Pam glanced back at Harley and then focused on ahead.
"I was on a bank job. She just happened to be there, nearly got collared by the police and I saved her."
Selina frowned.
"Why?"
Pam shrugged.
"I felt sorry for her."
"Why?" Selina repeated.
Pam chuckled.
"Oh I don't know, maybe she ticked all the boxes for me at the time."
"And now she doesn't?"
Pam eyed Selina curiously.
"I think I've set my sights on something else."
Selina grinned at her.
"Really?"
Pam nodded.
"Is this something a little more...feline?"
"Oh now that would be telling."
Both women laughed as Harley started jogging to catch up.
"Hey guys! What's so funny?!"
Pam and Selina exchanged a look.
"Nothing." They both replied in unison.
Harley hummed happily as she skipped along behind Selina and Pamela.
'Going back to see Mista J, are ya?'
Harley nodded to the voice in her head.
'What makes you think he'll want you?'
Harley stopped walking, her smile fading quickly.
"Harley? What's keeping you?" Selina called back to her.
Harley ignored her as she frowned deeply.
"He will. We're forever." Harley whispered.
'Hahahaha! You think so? Well where has he been all the time you've been gone? You left Gotham months ago. He hasn't bothered to find you now, has he?'
Harley whimpered as another voice joined the conversation.
'Poor little Harley thinks she's special. Baby, no one cares about you! You're nothing to no one! Everyone tolerates you because you're such a needy little bitch! The truth is that no cares if you live or die!
Another voice came through and it had Harley clutching at her head and squeezing her eyes shut.
'In fact, I'd think they prefer it if you never even existed!'
"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"
Pamela spun around as Harley went to her knees, screaming shut up continuously.
"Just shut up! That's not true! None of it is!"
Pamela dropped to her knees beside the blonde, shaking her shoulders gently, trying to calm her down.
Selina walked calmly back to where the red head was kneeling next to Harley.
"What's wrong with her?" Cat woman drawled as though she didn't really care and who knows, maybe she didn't.
Pamela looked concerned for the blonde as she rubbed soothing circles on her back.
"It's the voices."
"Voices?"
Pam nodded.
"Harley has voices in her head; they tell her awful things, they make her hate herself and she can't always shut them out. It comes from her years of mental manipulation and abuse from Joker." Pamela explained, a hard edge to her voice.
Selina's jaw clenched a little at that.
"How do we snap her out of it?"
Pam glared at Selina.
"What do think I'm trying to do?" She snapped.
Selina shrugged as Pam pulled Harley into her lap and started rocking her back and forth, trying to calm her as much as possible.
"It's okay, Harley, I'm here. They're just voices, they can't hurt you."
Harley grabbed Pamela's arm and bit down into it, drawing blood.
Pam gasped and resisted the urge to slap the blonde.
Selina saw her fist clench at her side, watched her jaw twitch with the effort of holding back and admired her control. If that had of been Selina, she would have knocked the little bitch out cold.
"Harley, it's me. Come on honey, come back to me."
"Joker hates you-hates me-hates everyone but I can change that. He'll love me. He calls me at night, wants me to come find him. Wants me to give you to him. I will. He knows I'll do anything for him. Blue birds don't like the light either." Harley babbled, some of her words didn't make any sense.
In actual fact, it was creeping Selina out a little.
"Ok Pam, slap her something. It's starting to get too asylum-resident for me."
"I can't just slap her. We have to wait for her to come out of this on her own."
"The bitch just bit you!" Selina raged.
"You call her that again and we're going to have a real problem. Now just let me handle her."
Selina groaned and walked away from the two.
She kept her back to them but she was listening all the same.
Pamela lowered her voice as she spoke to the blonde.
"I won't leave you, Harley. I love you. Come on, it's ok. They can't hurt you anymore. Come back to me, Harls...please, I can't do this without you."
Harley stopped squirming and her blue eyes looked straight up at Pam as she laid in her lap.
"Pammy?"
"Yeah, Harls. You ok?"
Harley reached up and touched her hand to Pamela's cheek. She then looked down at the bite mark on the red head's arm.
"Did I do that?" Harley asked, fear in her eyes.
"Yeah but it's fine. You didn't know."
"I hurt you..."
Tears filled the blonde's eyes as she pulled Pamela into her, holding her close.
"I don't wanna hurt ya."
"It's not you, Harley. I know that." Pam said soothingly.
"But it is me!"
"You can't blame yourself for what the voices tell you to do."
Selina let out a loud sigh and turned to face the two women on the ground.
"Are you two done? We have to get to Gotham."
Pamela glared at Selina, those green eyes seeming even more vibrant when she was angry.
Selina found herself wondering just how angry she could get the red head before she exploded completely.
Maybe she'd try it some time.
"Do you have voices in your head, Selina?"
"I'm pleased to say I don't."
"Then keep your mouth shut about things you don't understand." Pam growled.
"She's holding us up. Get her under control or we lose her."
"If we lose her, then you lose me and I have a strange theory that I'm the one you really want with you on this suicide mission."
Selina smirked.
"Full of yourself, aren't you?"
"I know you, Selina. You have a plan for me. You could have chosen anyone else to help you take over Gotham but you chose us. You're not stupid, you have a plan and I think Harley was just the bargaining chip into getting me to play ball."
Selina put a hand on her hip and grinned down at the red head.
"Beautiful and smart. I knew you were the whole package."
"Flattery gets you nowhere with me." Pam spat.
"Bet under the right circumstances it'd get me somewhere." Selina purred.
Harley looked up and frowned.
"What's she mean?"
"Nothing, Harls. Selina's just talking out of her ass again." Pamela replied, throwing a dirty look Selina's way which only caused the cat woman to smirk.
Pamela stood and held her hand out to the blonde to pull her to her feet.
She was still unsteady on her feet and she fell into the red head as Pam held her up. Harley rested her head on the red head's shoulder and groaned with how groggy she felt.
"If we're going to do this, we all go together, no exceptions." Pam told Selina.
Selina just shrugged carelessly.
"Whatever. I just hope she can keep up."
Pamela nodded that she would and surpported Harley as they walked through Arkham.
The voices had stopped but Harley felt drained as she leaned on Pam.
The voices had only started after she'd left Arkham asylum and began working with/for Joker.
Maybe if she looked at things from a doctor's point of view, she could have seen the damage coming.
Maybe if she'd been smart enough, she would have been able to see the sign of Stockholm syndrome setting in.
What Harley had confused for love was actually emotional abuse from a narcissistic psychopath.
Joker had been her friend at one point. He'd told her all good things, told her she was important; smart, pretty, anything that would get the young woman to fall in love with him and she had. She had fallen hard.
She could never forget the night when she'd helped him escape. She'd killed three of her former colleagues to help him and she hadn't given it a moment's thought. All she wanted was what Joker wanted and during that time, all he'd wanted was to be free and she vowed that she would do anything to help him achieve it and by God she had.
Even after, she'd begged him to come back for her, to take her wherever he wanted to go, she didn't care where it was as long as it was with him and little by little, she'd become so enraptured by him that she'd disregarded everything she ever was.
He used to be beat her, call her useless and annoying. Sometimes he would kick her out onto the street late at night, purely because he wanted to be alone and have some time to 'think', well that's what he'd told her. She'd often caught him shacking up with some other clown whore who looked nothing like her. She'd pretended she hadn't noticed or hadn't seen anything and then go back to him the next day, acting like nothing was wrong.
The last straw had been when she wanted to help him plan a heist and he'd beat her and sent her away. So she had gone on one herself, determined to show him that she could help him, that she was valuable to him in some way, however small, and that was when she'd met Pamela.
Pamela was different.
She'd saved her life when the cops started closing in and they opened fire on her but Pam was there to get her to safety and once Harley revealed who she was, Pamela had taken care of her. They became the best of friends and then things had gotten complicated. They'd slept together a few times, it didn't mean anything but then Pamela had started acting jealous when Harley brought anyone else home, which she sometimes did and they'd have huge fights about it that resulted in Harley staying out all night, leaving the red head worried about where she'd gone or what she was doing and who with.
Then she'd come home the next morning, they'd talk and make up and then it was like nothing had happened, but this still became a vicious cycle and it kept re-occurring.
Now Selina had turned up at the point where Pam and Harley were starting to question just how strange their 'friendship' was and how far they wanted to take things with each other, even though they'd pretty much crossed every line that friendship required to be put in place so that was all it was, and now they were back to working together and Pam felt all those old feelings brewing again. Harley had to admit that when she'd seen Pam and Selina share a private joke, she didn't much like it either.
Maybe she did have feelings for the red head but would they ever come before her beloved Mista J? She doubted it.
"We're here!" Selina announced as they crossed the bridge that lead straight into Gotham.
Harley looked up weakly into Pamela's green eyes.
"Are we?"
"We sure are, Harls. Home at last."
Pam calling Gotham home?
Things must have changed on the way over here.
Maybe her and Selina had chatted about taking over Gotham and what it would mean for them both.
Harley could find Joker and maybe with a little encouragement, her, Mista J and Pammy could be one big happy family.
She was dreaming, right?
A/N- Hope you're all enjoying this so far. Let me know what you think, reviews make me happy ;)
Chapter three will be up soon x