As a licensed psychiatrist, Harley was pretty great about understanding the minds of other people.
But she was shit at analyzing herself.
Harley preferred to ignore her problems. Maybe if she didn’t acknowledge them, they’d simply go away. Which had – time and time again – proven to not be the case. Back when she had been with the Joker, she had convinced herself that she was fine with his abuse. And as she had been developing feelings for Ivy, she had chosen to bottle them up instead of addressing them. Now here she was in Dunwich, pretending that being a cop was absolutely her vibe and not at all messing with her head..
When it was. Big time.
She had felt guilty for arresting Mr. Wright with Kay. Like yeah, sure, the dude totally murdered his partner and that was, you know, bad. But Mr. Wright was so old. Could he really do any more damage? Were they really helping anything by throwing that dinosaur in jail?
Harley hadn’t spoken with anyone about this. She had kept it to herself because why on earth would a cop second guess arresting a murderer?
Kay arresting Pam had kinda been the last straw with this internal struggle going on inside of Harley. She knew why Pam had done it - why she had gone into a rage and threatened violence. And absolutely, Harley was glad that Kay had cuffed her before she could hurt Hop. But damn, she couldn’t help but side with her housemate, just a little bit. She understood caring about someone so deeply that it could blur your judgment.
Friday morning, Harley woke up and wandered downstairs, ready to make some coffee, when she realized that the coffee maker was very much shattered on the floor. As in.. it didn’t look like it had fallen off the counter. Someone had thrown that thing on the ground. It couldn’t have been Pam. Harley would have noticed if the coffee maker had been broken the night before. So was it….
“Ive? Babe? You awake?”
Ivy was awake.
She hadn’t wandered into the kitchen yet, though. She’d called it on even trying to open the Coffee Green today, on account of it being an absolute goddamned shit storm out there – but that didn’t mean she was taking the day off. She’d spent more time than she probably should have outside in that torrential downpour, making sure that her plants, the garden and all the Green was in fighting shape, despite the wet weather. And maybe, possibly, she was taking some of her feelings about the last few days out on the mud and the wind, because Ivy wasn’t really the sort for … big displays of anything.
Except annoyance, maybe.
But it was with a towel around her shoulders and another twisting her hair up to soak up the water that she wandered into the kitchen. “Yeah babe, what’s – what the actual fuck?”
What the actual fuck indeed. It sounded like Ivy had no idea this had happened, so it hadn’t been her..
Maybe it had been the hyenas somehow? Maybe they had hopped up onto the counter and bumped it?
Except Bud and Lou were currently peeking around the corner of the kitchen doorway, but Harley hated the way they were looking at her. It wasn’t guilt in their adorable little eyes. They were nervous. And they were looking at Harley.
Harley quickly turned her attention away from them, hoping she was just thinking too deeply on hyena expressions. “You got a rogue plant running around here, Ive?”
“No,” Ivy said, because there was no such thing as a rogue plant when it came to her – especially not in her home. Even Frank who had a mind of his own had always heeded Ivy. And no one fucked with the coffee pot. That was just an unspoken rule.
Ivy glanced from the shattered glass to Harley, to the hyenas and then back to Harley again.
“Babe,” she said after a moment of consideration. “Anything you want to talk about?”
Ooooh shit. Ivy saw the way Bud and Lou had been looking at her. Harley didn’t know why they were looking at her like that, but it was super off-putting. The hyenas were always happy to see her, so this was.. weird.
Deep down, yes, there was something Harley wanted to talk to Ivy about, but she wasn’t convinced that now was the time to bring it up. This whole internal conflict made her sound so fucking indecisive. She’s the one who had willingly signed up to join the police department. Now here she was, just three months later, thinking about quitting. It was embarrassing. Right now, too embarrassing to admit to her girlfriend.
Harley knelt down, picking up some of the bigger glass shards from the floor. “I mean yeah, the very pressing issue of what kinda coffee maker should we replace this one with?”
Well, if that wasn’t just the worst deflection she’d ever seen. “Really, Harls?” Ivy said, throwing up her hands with enough force to dislodge her hair towel – red came tumbling down, and the towel hit the floor a little wetly. It was a strangely depressing noise.
She picked it up and then moved to the little closet off the kitchen in order to get a broom. “Don’t pick it up, glass cuts are the least sexy kind.” The glass jingled against the tiles of the floor as she swept. “Is this about – Pam?” Pam, who was probably seething in lock up right now, over someone Ivy half considered to be a sleazeball.
“I am worried about her..”
Hold up, though. Ivy’s reaction had the gears in her brain turning. She frowned, then asked, “You think.. I broke the coffee maker?”
It had happened back in their world, too, now that she thought about it. Appliances mysteriously breaking while she’d been living with the Bat Family. A mystery that seemed to have followed her here to Dunwich. And the only thing connecting those two mysteries was…
Harley.
Well, shit.
“I mean.. I don’t remember breaking it?”
Ivy paused over that, softening slightly – at least, as much as she ever did. She was naturally a bit prickly, as Harley well knew. But –
“I – well. I didn’t do it. Pam isn’t here. And it doesn’t really seem like the Hyenas went on strike against caffeine.”
But Harley looked confused so– well. “I don’t know,” she finished off lamely.
Harley had stopped fiddling with the glass, letting Ivy sweep it up. But instead of standing back up, she just stayed crouched near the floor, silently watching the mess get contained.
Their house wasn’t haunted. Never once had this place ever felt eerie or weird (which was kind of a miracle since this was Dunwich). So she couldn’t blame a ghost. And literally no one would break into a house purely for the sake of smashing a coffee maker.
Harley wasn’t quite ready to admit that something was off. That there was an elephant in the room that she was very actively ignoring. She finally stood up, giving a little stretch.
“Y’know, maybe there was a little tremor or somethin’. Shook the house. It’s just a fluke. Won’t happen again.”
And no one would break into their house, period. Not unless they had a deathwish, anyway. Not that Ivy had thought that that was ever really a consideration that was on the table.
Neither had been a tremor that’d be shaking the house, though.
But there it was, and it seemed like that was where Harley wanted to leave it. So, for now, Ivy didn’t push. “Well. I guess we’re going to have to go out to get coffee today,” she said after a hard stare in Harley’s direction. “Think there’s brunch open in a hurricane?”