Authors' Note: In the aftermath of the gala, it's time to hear from a few of our villains. Good luck guessing what we're foreshadowing here...

Bruce had waited for all of them to gather up before he debriefed them all, and Jay felt a little bit like a heel for having played hooky so long. The next instant, he decided fuck it, they deserved a break. After what happened at the gala, he couldn't blame himself or K for needing a night off.

Dick met them at the entrance to the Cave, and was just glad to see them both, wrapping Kala up in a tight hug. He stepped back and looked at her seriously. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, just rattled," Kala said with a smile.

And then Dick looked over at Jay. "How about you?"

"I'm fine, I'm not the one who got my throat cut," Jay replied, confused.

Dick just looked at him like he was being incredibly obtuse. "Jaybird, I'm shaken up after that. Kala's your trainee and your girlfriend. I know perfectly well you're not all sunshine and rainbows right now."

Jay was right back to feeling like a jerk again. Not that he wasn't shaken up – more than that, there was a deep nameless fear lurking down in his soul that he kept stamping on so he wouldn't have to see it. But Dick made it sound like he didn't care, like he wasn't taking this seriously, when the truth was he was just putting up a front.

It dawned on him that he didn't have to put up a front for his family. They weren't the enemy anymore. Hell, they never had been.

Kala saved him with a chuckle. "Dick, if he ever starts acting all sunshine and rainbows, I'll have him committed. Don't worry, we're both dealing with it. And at least one of us has had enough therapy to deal with it in a semi-healthy way." She gave him a wink, and he had to admire how adroitly she'd balanced between making light of the incident, and acknowledging the dangers.

Bruce had asked them to meet in front of the main computer, and Selina had taken that chair. As soon as Jay and Kala walked in – with Miss Kitty trotting along beside Kala, and thank God she'd ridden quietly in the Charger – she sat up straighter. "Hello, sweetheart, did you miss me?"

Miss Kitty broke into a run, head-butted her shins, and climbed into Selina's lap. Jay couldn't help grinning a little at the reunion, as Selina petted her cat and crooned while Miss Kitty rubbed her face against Selina's hands.

Suddenly, Selina yelped and Miss Kitty jumped to the console, where she sat licking her paw. "Really?" Selina said, shaking her hand. "All right, I'm sorry I left you behind, but I was the one who was actually in danger. Biting me is just rude."

Miss Kitty paused her grooming just long enough to give Selina a withering stare, and then she resumed nibbling between her toes.

Dick chuckled at the pair of them. "You couldn't have brought her without advertising to everyone in town who you were. She's just mad you left her in a strange place."

Jay scoffed. "She's more than mad. You should see that whole floor of my apartment. Looks like a tornado hit a fork factory. There's all these neat little parallel scratch marks in the walls."

"It is pretty impressive," Kala admitted.

Bruce, meanwhile, just leaned over Miss Kitty and carefully pressed a couple of buttons. She leaned up and licked his chin, which made Bruce freeze and Selina hiss, "You little traitor! You don't even like him!" Miss Kitty curled herself up into a ball right on the edge of the console, and ignored them all.

Meanwhile the green mask of Oracle appeared on the screen. "This is Oracle and company, reporting in. Everyone there on your end, Batman?"

"All present and accounted for," Bruce said, carefully stepping away from Miss Kitty. Jay could almost laugh at Batman being cautious of an animal that weighed maybe ten pounds, but he'd seen the destruction Miss Kitty could wreak.

"Okay, this is what I have," Babs said. "I'm in Arkham's systems – they're due for an upgrade, by the way, they're running on software that's over ten years old – and Joker isn't on record anywhere saying anything. I don't like him being quiet."

Bruce nodded. "I'll want to get a listening device into his cell as soon as possible. I agree with you, he's normally very talkative. Being quiet makes me wonder what he's thinking."

Jay saw Kala take a breath then. "So … I might've started that. He complimented my mask, said I was wearing harlequin colors, and I told him the last time he crossed a harlequin, he ended up in the hospital."

"You what now?!" Jay yelped, staring at her. "Jesus fuck, K, you told me you set him up to snatch you instead of someone else, you didn't tell me you fucking antagonized him too!"

"He was in my face, I was trying to keep him off balance," she explained, looking a little hurt. Maybe she thought he didn't trust her to handle herself – when the truth was, he didn't trust anyone not to get hurt or killed when Joker was in the mix. And then, when Bruce only looked at her steadily, Kala continued, "I also told him there was a rumor Harley had left town."

"Well, that explains why he's not talking," Babs said. "He said to tell Harley that was for her. One of his motives here was to flush her out of hiding. By murdering a hostage in front of Batman, he was sending her a message, and getting himself sent to Arkham would be the perfect place for her to meet him and finish it. Now that he knows she's left town, he'll be planning his escape."

Kala nodded soberly. Bruce just said, "That was my impression, too. He must think Selina is in contact with them. Sending a message like that to me would get back to Harley eventually."

"Oh good, if I tell him I snapped my sim card and have no idea where they are, will he leave me alone?" Selina asked plaintively.

"Unlikely. He'll suspect you have some way to reach them. Even if you don't, you're still the most likely person either of them would contact," Bruce replied.

"You wound me with the 'if', mister," Selina said archly, but Bruce just looked at her without surprise or condemnation.

Jay cut in then. "All I want to know, what're the odds Joker figured out who K is?"

Beside him, the woman in question winced. "When he grabbed me, one of his goons said he'd seen me dancing with one of the Waynes. Not which one, just that he knew I was connected to you guys."

"Yeah, but we bring a lot of people to parties," Dick said. "He only saw your face for a few seconds."

"He might guess she's the Blur," Bruce cut in. "We have to assume he knows the hostage he took last night was a metahuman. Any normal human being would have died, even with swift medical intervention. And there are only two female metas who have been in Gotham recently. Joker might suspect Troia, but Blur has been here longer and works more closely with us more often. What remains debatable is whether he knows his hostage was Kala Lane-Kent, or KLK."

"He only saw her face for a few seconds. And there's no records of her being in Gotham this month," Dick pointed out, as Jay's stomach flip-flopped. "There's no reason for anyone to suspect that Blur ever left Gotham, or that KLK came back after the summer."

"And no official connection between Kala and Jay besides the video from Denver, which was never identified as Jay, and which is now hopelessly blurred," Babs added.

Jay gritted his teeth. "Yeah, but he might've realized Blur was reacting to kryptonite, when we ran into him at the school over the summer. And she used heat vision on the deadman switch he was holding."

"I don't think he realized that's what I did," Kala pointed out. "I was moving way too fast."

"If he has the slightest hint you might be Kryptonian instead of Amazon, he could ferret out your identity eventually," Bruce said grimly. "All he would need to do is investigate every woman significantly connected to us over the last six months. Anyone looking for a Kryptonian who realizes KLK stands for Kala Lane-Kent would draw the obvious conclusion. There's nothing more we can do to minimize that connection."

"It's still a long shot, predicated on him noticing something months ago that he's never bothered to try and follow up on," Babs replied. "And we know Joker is mainly focused on Harley right now."

Bruce shook his head fatalistically. "This is still not a risk we can safely take. We know Joker has had access to kryptonite in the past. He may acquire it again in the future. From here on in, we need to use extreme caution – and that means Kala is off the roster if we go up against Joker."

Jay saw the reasoning in it, and couldn't blame Bruce for being cautious. He couldn't disagree either. Images from nightmares haunted him, Kala's blood on his hands.

And then Kala lifted her chin, and said with a hint of the Empress in her tone, "With all due respect, Uncle Bruce, fuck that."

Everyone in the room turned to look at her in amazement, and Jay heard a noise over the comm like Roy stifling a laugh. Jay spoke up, even before Bruce could, telling Kala, "He's right. I'm not risking you."

"And I'm not risking you," she shot back. "I'll be careful, you know I will, but I'm not going to run home with my tail tucked under because Joker might know who I am and might have kryptonite. No, that's not how we do things."

"The way we do things is to accept orders from those with more experience than you," Bruce added sternly.

Kala rounded on him. "Look, Uncle Bruce, I'm good and spooked, okay? I know I took a lot of risks last night, and I won't let him get that close again. But I'm not going to let you all wrap me up in cotton wool and keep me safe from the big bad Joker. He's not the only one in town who has kryptonite. Hell, it's not just kryptonite I have to worry about, Ivy or Scarecrow can get me with biochemistry, anybody with magic can knock me down, and apparently I also have to worry about freaking Lazarus blades too. I'm not as invulnerable as I thought I was, but so what? It doesn't keep any of you out of the field. Why should I let it hold me back?"

Jay just marveled at her for a moment. All of those nightmares, everything he feared, and Kala was squaring up to it. He knew how much it frightened her to be vulnerable. And yet she was arguing with Bruce over being allowed to go after Joker. What the hell had he ever done to deserve a woman like her?

Nothing, that's what. Someone like K only came into his life by sheer luck. Jay didn't believe in grace.

Bruce regarded her stonily, and Babs spoke up. "This isn't a question that has to be answered right now. Joker is in Arkham for the moment. We'll get listening devices into his cell so we'll know if he's asking questions. And when he does break out, we'll all be ready for him."

"It's better to have this understood ahead of time," Bruce said calmly, looking into Kala's defiant hazel eyes. "Your father trusted me to train you and guide you. I might have let Jay handle your training, to the benefit of both of you, but your guidance is still my purview. And no matter what you believe, you are still not ready to take on Joker, especially not if he knows what you are and all of your weaknesses."

Kala set her jaw. Jay couldn't help remembering the last time they'd all been down here together; he'd been sarcastic and defiant, all nervy from the battle plan that was risking his trainee, and Kala had been polite and respectful, calling Bruce 'sir'. He didn't think they were gonna see that courtesy again for a while. "Is anyone ever ready for Joker? I'm an asset, not a liability."

"You will do as I tell you, if you want to continue working in Gotham," Bruce said simply.

Jay expected an eruption of profanity, and got ready to bodily drag Kala away if need be. Instead she just glowered at him. "Fine. But you can't stop me from watching and listening. If Joker gets out, I'll be on standby. You don't have enough kryptonite to keep me away, anyway."

"Your protectiveness does you credit," Bruce replied, and changed the topic as he so often did. "Now what was this about Lazarus blades?"

Shit, Jay thought, because he hadn't said anything about that recent revelation. There hadn't been time. And also, he didn't really want to let Bruce know the kris was a gift from Talia.

Kala must've caught onto that, and she changed tactics, too. "Oh, we found out in a sparring session that Jay's knife can cut me. Since the kris came from the League of Shadows, we suspect it might have been Lazarus-quenched, and that's why it can bypass my invulnerability."

That was massively understating the whole situation, and Bruce looked at Jay flatly. It was all too easy to read mistrust into that expression – but Bruce had no reason to suspect. Trying to be as nonchalant as Kala had, he shrugged. "We found this out right before the news came in about the fire being targeted at all of us. Joker knowing our identities seemed more important than a knife I've had for years."

Bruce nodded, and held his hand out. "Let me see the knife."

Jay couldn't help bristling. "Am I going to get it back undamaged?"

"Probably," Bruce said.

"Then no dice. Sorry, B, the thing's too damn useful to risk. I don't have many weapons that'll work on the next General Zod or evil Amazon or whatever supernatural threats are out there." Jay hoped he'd said it lightly enough.

Kala didn't like him keeping the knife already. He did value it, first and foremost, as an extremely useful tool. But it was also just about the only memento of his training in the League of Shadows, and dammit he had a right to be proud of being good at what he did. Very few other people were on his level, and Bruce was one of them. Ironically, Kala resented the kris because Talia had given it to him, and that was the least of his reasons for keeping it.

Bruce looked at him curiously. "Ra's al Ghul would tell you not to value a weapon too highly. All of them can be replaced."

"Men most of all," Jay replied, echoing a saying he'd heard from more than one of his trainers. "Yeah, you trained with Ra's, I trained with Talia. And she doesn't let a good weapon go to waste just to make a point. Also, if this is what the deal is with the kris, I wouldn't be surprised if all her personal blades were Lazarus-quenched. Probably all of her dad's swords, too. Something to watch out for, if Daddy Demon ever decides to go up against the heavy hitters in the JLA."

"Duly noted," Bruce said.

Babs cleared her throat then. "If you two are finished? I have some contacts who might be able to examine the kris and promise not to alter it. This is worth watching out for."

Selina had been watching the back and forth, and now she smiled. "Hmm, if I went and borrowed Talia's sword from her flat in London, would that repay the favor, Jay?"

"No, because she'll hunt you down and kick your ass six ways from Sunday," Jay said quickly. "Do not screw around with her personal weapons." He still remembered the look on Talia's face – and the carefully worded, very controlled warning she gave him – the one time he picked up her engraved Python revolver.

"I may have an example we can study," Bruce said. "Before we get any further off track, I called you here to debrief. Last night all of us performed at the peak of our capacity. Kala, what you did was outside of scope, but given the outcome, it was the only thing you could have done. No one was hurt, and the only person whose identity was further compromised was yourself."

"Very Super of you, risking yourself instead of us," Dick said lightly. Jay just rolled his eyes at that one.

Kala shrugged. "I saw you all leaving, and I couldn't catch up without causing a disturbance. I knew I was just buying you time, and I knew if he took a hostage, better me than someone else. I couldn't leave Dinah hanging either, she had her hands full with civilians."

Over Babs' comm, Dinah's voice came in clearly. "I never did get to thank you for that, by the way. I was planning on being the hostage, until I saw that one kid. Even if you could've gotten me to a hospital fast enough to survive, I'm glad it wasn't me last night."

"Yeah, so am I," a male voice added fervently. Though Babs herself didn't speak up, Jay thought her lack of castigation at Kala for compromising herself was enough.

Bruce just nodded. "You did well. We all did. And Joker is safely back in Arkham, behind more layers of security than ever before."

Part of Jay hated that, knowing it'd be even harder to get to him now. He still wanted Joker dead more than locked up. If he had to accept locked up for now, he could do that. He still had Kala at his side, no matter what.

Selina spoke up then. "If we're done here, I suppose I'll head over to your place and survey the damage. With Joker locked up, the cats can come home again. Unless you'd like to adopt?" She raised an eyebrow at Jay, smirking. "The pitter-patter of tiny feet does tend to liven up the place, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, I had seven fucking cats in my bed this morning, all lined up sleeping on top of Kala 'cause she's warm," Jay laughed. "Nope, I'm not adopting anything that gets in my way like that. But you know how to get in, so go for it."

Selina chuckled at that, and knocked her shoulder against Kala's. "At least we know she likes cats…"

"Stop it," Kala laughed.

Bruce ignored all of the joking. "That's all for now. Stay sharp – if Joker does know something, he'll make a move eventually."

…

Harley and Pam were all done, ready to load up their score and head out. This whole legitimate business thing wasn't so bad. Next thing you know, Harley might just get her medical license back. She still had all the skills and intuition she'd need to be a pretty good clinician.

"There was one more thing," Neal said, as Harley stacked the banded bills back in the first briefcase.

"Neal," Stephen said warningly.

"Look, you saw what she can do. It's not impossible. And you know how incredibly valuable it would be. There are literally no pure males in the United States," Neal argued.

"It's outside the scope of what we asked for," Stephen countered.

"Okay, I'm curious now," Harley said, looking at Pam. The redhead looked interested, too, and she arched a brow at Neal.

"Oaxacan Highland Gold," he said, as if they would know that name. At their questioning expressions, he continued, "It's another historic landrace strain that grew wild in the mountains around Oaxaca, and was very popular in the sixties. It grows twelve feet high, it doesn't even look like the sativa strains we're used to, and it takes a long time to mature. Over the last few decades, the cartels have taken over that part of Mexico, and they plant all kinds of hybrid strains that cross-pollinate all the way up to the old highlands. You just can't find pure Oaxacan Highland Gold anymore. There's a guy who got hold of some and managed to pick the seeds out and successfully grow a female plant, but he didn't have a male to breed it with. He's working on a project to try and breed back the original type by crossing it with some of the strains that were developed from the original, but it's going to take years."

"And this is Neal's pet project that he's been bending my ear about since we started this business," Stephen put in.

Neal just rolled his eyes, and Harley couldn't help feeling camaraderie. The guy was clearly passionate about this, and he had about as much patience for administrators as she did, back in her professional life. "Anyway, I happen to be have a sample that was taken from a breeder back in the day, so there might be both male and female plants in it. It's been carefully preserved; there's no seed, but I've got leaves and buds and a little bit of stem. I was wondering, if there was any possible way you could maybe … bring it back to life?"

Now that was interesting. Harley couldn't help remembering the way the bookcase in their apartment had sprouted, when the arboretum burned. Pam could go that deep into the Green … but it wasn't safe.

This wasn't Harley's call to make, though, and she looked at Pam, ready to back her up whichever answer she gave. No one else could really gauge the extent of Pam's powers; if she said she couldn't do it, Neal would be disappointed, but he wouldn't know it had ever really been a possibility. If she did decide to try, it was her risk to take, and Harley just had to be ready to call her back. The Green might be some quasi-divine archetype of all plant life on Earth, but it couldn't be allowed to take Pam from her.

"Let me see the sample," Pam finally said, and Neal ran out of the office like a little kid told he couldn't go to the amusement park unless he got ready right now.

Stephen just sighed. "This is Neal's dream, but I admit, it would be extremely valuable. No one else in the northern hemisphere is able to breed pure Oaxacan."

"You asked me to grow up ten strains for you, at two million each," Ivy said. "What is this one worth?"

"Honestly, if this were another batch of seedlings like the rest, it'd be worth the same. But I understand there's more effort involved, though. Perhaps … five million?" Stephen was just making a guess, Harley could tell.

Neal came running back in, with a plastic bag that had a paper bag inside it. "I've been keeping this in a hermetically sealed safe since I got hold of it. Some desiccation is inevitable, given the age, but I know a team in Greenland has sprouted ten-thousands-year-old seeds they found in permafrost. So maybe…"

"You're not asking me to germinate seeds," Ivy said, cutting him off, but her tone was gentler than it usually was. She had a soft spot for botany geeks, too. "You're asking me to reanimate something that's dead. Admittedly, plants are a bit more forgiving in that regard than kingdom Animalia. Let me see it."

Almost trembling in anticipation, he handed over the bag. Ivy opened it, extracted the paper bag inside, opened that … and looked up at Neal. "You must be joking."

His face was the definition of crestfallen. "No, but … I knew it was a long shot. I just heard so much about you, half of what you do is impossible under the laws of science as we know them, I figured there might be a chance…"

Harley hated to see a man's dream die. Hell, these were decent guys, legit businessmen, they'd treated her and Pam like professionals instead of a freakshow. So she peeked over Pam's shoulder at the 'sample', ready to offer an encouraging word.

There was nothing encouraging to see. That was definitely some fifty-year-old weed. It looked completely dried out, like the last time it'd been smokable was before the invention of the computer, and as Pam tilted the bag, bits started to break off. "Okay, seriously, I was rooting for you – ha! Rooting, I didn't even do that on purpose! – but this is ridiculous. You need Plant Jesus for that resurrection."

"Harley," Pam said, with the hint of a smile. It was funny, dammit.

"Not even Plant Jesus, I mean Lazarus was only dead for like four days," Harley pointed out.

"Harley," Pam said again, and caught her gaze. Harley blinked, realizing she probably was stomping all over Neal's dreams, and one look at his woebegone face proved it. Besides, she wasn't the one who could decide if this was possible or not.

"Sorry," she said, and felt her shoulders try to rise in the beginnings of a cringe.

"It's fine," Pam told her, and turned back to the men. "She does have a point. This is on the order of a miracle, and I'll be frank, I don't know if I can do this. I do know that trying is going to be exhausting. And dangerous."

"Dangerous?" Neal echoed, looking worried.

"I have to tap into the Green to work with any sort of plant life," Pam explained. "This would mean going deeper than I ever have before. And there's always a risk I might not come back."

"What does that mean?" Stephen asked cautiously.

Harley chipped in with, "It means she'll probably just kill all three of us for fertilizer, and a year from now this whole place will be a rainforest with a living goddess named Poison Ivy at the center of it. But Pam, the person who likes extra cream in her frappuccino, will be gone. I kinda have a vested interest in not dyin' today, and an even bigger interest in her not gettin' obliterated." She looked up at Pam, meeting her gaze steadily. "You sure you wanna risk this, babe? It's just money."

"Not for him," Pam said, looking right at Neal.

He bit his lip. "Look, uh … I don't know you, or anything. Not really. I did read your wiki page before I talked Stephen into this deal, so it's not like I'm a total idiot here. But I don't want you to get hurt because of us. I mean, it's heritage cannabis, it's our specialty, and if this worked we'd have a corner on the market. If. We don't even know for sure if there's parts of a male plant in there. Back in the sixties, people included more leaves and stems than just buds, and I know that sample was intended to show the distinctive leaf shape, not for smoking, so there's a chance. But I can't tell you to risk that much for just a chance. It has to be your call. We're not twisting your arm here."

Pam looked at him intently, and Harley figured they were both seeing the same thing: a fundamentally good man with a dream. Harley wished he had a better sample of the stuff, he'd be exactly like a kid at Coney Island if Pam could pull this off.

And then Ivy turned to Stephen, her eyes calculating. "How much is it worth to you? For me to even attempt this, and for a success?"

"It's a great deal of risk for you," Stephen said.

"So is showing my face anywhere outside a heavily-concealed bunker," Pam told him. "I haven't often had the pleasure of meeting anyone who truly loves his plants like Neal does. Not to mention, we are talking about bringing a nearly-extinct plant back to life, which appeals to my sensibilities. Consider me intrigued."

"You think you really could?" Neal asked, brightening up again.

"I cannot promise you results, but I can make an attempt. I'll need more than five million dollars, though. And more than just a pot of soil. If you have a greenhouse, and if you can make it worth the risk…" Pam trailed off, raising an eyebrow.

"Take it out of my stock option," Neal said, looking at Stephen. "C'mon, this could be the biggest score of the century!"

"Neal, please let me handle financial negotiations," Stephen said, but he was beaten and they all knew it. Neal's interest was far too obvious for him to try bargaining down the price, and it wasn't like anyone else could even attempt to play Plant Jesus. (Harley fully intended to call Pam that, in a week or a month when she'd mostly forgotten this whole situation, just to see the look on her face.) Stephen sighed, and looked at Ivy. "I can't do this in cash. It would have to be wire transfer. Five million for the attempt, another five if you succeed?"

"Five for the attempt, ten for the success," Ivy said.

"That's fifteen, almost what we paid you for ten other strains," Stephen pointed out.

"I only saved you time with the rest of them. This is an entirely different matter," Pam countered.

Stephen looked at Neal's hopeful puppy face, and sighed. "Five and eight?"

"Done," Pam said. "Harley, you're going to have to drive back if this works."

"Are you sure you don't wanna wait 'til tomorrow?" Harley asked. "I mean, you did flex a lot of plant power today."

Pam smiled at her. "I do believe the gentlemen will be happier without a second visit. You cleared out all of your employees for this, didn't you?" That was true, they hadn't seen anyone else despite walking through so many rooms.

"If this went wrong, I didn't want to risk anyone but us," Stephen said. "I also turned off the cameras. I assumed you wanted this visit strictly off the record just as much as we do."

"Do we really need another thirteen million?" Harley asked, biting her lip nervously.

If she'd questioned Mistah J like that, she would've gotten backhanded immediately for her temerity. And probably given a stern talking-to later on, as well, one of those conversations where Joker let his fists do most of the talking. Ivy just smiled wryly at her. "The more money we have, the more secure our future is. And I'm not taking any chances with you."

That went right to Harley's heart, and she smiled back. "Aww, Pammy. You're so sweet."

Pam smiled slightly, and looked at Stephen. "Give me a greenhouse with good soil, and I'll try. Only Harley can be there with me while I'm doing this."

"Whatever you need," Stephen said, and Neal looked like he might literally jump for joy.

…

Adem couldn't get to his quarters fast enough. He dialed the number he had for Talia, and when she answered, the first thing he said was, "I finally met a girl."

The barest pause, and then she sounded completely natural. "Did you? Baba will be proud. What is she like?"

That was a request for him to tell her what he'd learned. Adem didn't dare throw out even a hint of what he'd overheard, but he also had no doubt Talia knew exactly what was in these mountains. "You know my type, little sister."

"Stop calling me little, I'm older than you," Talia scolded. "And I don't want to think about your type."

"You are littler though," Adem replied. More filler, and she might have been warning him to stick to their roles; they had said he would be the younger brother. The tone of his calls fit well with sibling teasing, though, and made it easier to mask their true intent.

He was also aware that Talia really would not want Shiva to get her hands on what was in Tibesti. She spoke again, asking, "I take it things aren't quite so lonely, then?"

Which was back to code, and no, he wasn't in Shiva's inner circle. He'd just overheard the information. Adem saw the perfect way to communicate that. "Well, no, not really. I didn't actually meet the girl. I did see her, though. At a distance. She's very pretty though."

Talia mulled that over, and Adem willed her to draw the right conclusion. "Only you would take having glimpsed some girl at a distance as something to tell Baba about," she finally said. "Little brother, you're a scoundrel."

Which he took for praise, that only he could've ferreted out the information she needed without getting too close to Shiva. Adem chuckled. "No, I'm only lucky."

"Well, I'm glad you like your new job anyway," she began, and Adem startled to his feet as his door crashed open. Tareq, two of the other men, and Shiva herself all glared at him from the doorway, weapons drawn.

His stomach plummeted, but he reminded himself savagely to play this to the very hilt. Talia's success, and his own, depended on it. "What's this?" he demanded, drawing himself up.

"Take his phone," Shiva said.

"Who are you calling?" Tareq demanded.

"My sister," Adem said, trying to strike the right note of indignation as one of the other men yanked his phone away.

Shiva took it, and raised the phone to her ear. "Who is this?" she asked silkily, and Adem wondered just how well she knew Talia's voice. His life hung on the answer.

…

Half an hour later Harley was standing in a small, hobby-sized greenhouse. All the big ones on this property had concrete floors, and the plants in them were grown in huge tubs of soil. That didn't work for what Pam was trying. She needed nothing between herself and the Earth – you could hear the capital in her voice – but natural materials. Cotton, wool, and leather in her clothes were okay, the concrete floor wasn't. Luckily Neal had a small greenhouse with a dirt floor that he used for some of his pet projects, and that was where they ended up.

Pam rolled back the floor mats so she could sit on the hard ground, and Harley sat cross-legged in front of her. They had a whole box of Neal's personal potting soil mix, that smelled wonderfully, well, earthy. The plastic walls and roof of the place let the sun in but kept the wind out, and it was surprisingly warm for December, but Harley still shivered a little; it was colder at ground level.

Taking a deep breath, Pam looked straight into Harley's eyes. When most people did that, it came off as challenging, threatening, like they were trying to zap her with eye-lasers or something. When Pam did it, Harley found it soothing, like she could just fall into Pam's gaze and live there for a while. And then she asked a sobering question. "Harley … if this starts to go wrong, will you stop me?"

"We don't have to do it, babe," Harley told her. "Just sit here for half an hour, then tell 'em you tried and collect five mill."

"No," Pam said, and to be honest even as she'd spoken Harley had felt an unwelcome little stab of guilt at the idea of screwing over these two guys. She didn't need any of that, if she started feeling guilty for stuff she had a backlog that not even being Jewish and going to Catholic school could prepare her for. Stephen and Neal weren't her friends, this was just business, and she couldn't afford to grow a conscience regarding normal people. They were decent enough guys, but they hired a freaking supervillain, it wasn't like they could complain to the Better Business Bureau if Pammy ripped them off.

Pam sighed. "I don't want to start the next chapter of my life by cheating someone who dealt with us fairly. And I want the whole thirteen million. I'm going to need land, Harley. Not just acreage. Hectares. Every dollar is another piece of the world I can protect, and that can protect us. I'm not going to jail or an asylum ever again. Not after this. I want us to be free, somewhere we'll never need to worry about Joker or Batman or any of them. Thirty-three million is going to be a fortune in the kinds of places I have in mind."

"I mean, it's kind of a fortune here," Harley pointed out.

"Live like queens for the rest of our lives and still die rich, kind of fortune," Pam replied, with a little smile. "Harley, you saw what happened in the apartment in Gotham. I probably can do this."

Harley leaned forward and put her hands on Pam's knees; she was leery of touching the bag of antique dried marijuana that Pam was holding. "Yeah, but you gotta go to a scary place to do it, Pammy, and I just want you. I'll live on ramen if I hafta. I've done it before."

"I love you. You're the only one who can bring me back from that, Harley. Let me at least try." That was another new thing for Harley, someone asking her permission, and she didn't want to screw it up by saying no. So she swallowed her worries, and nodded.

"Will you stop me, if I go too far?" Pam asked again.

"I'll try," Harley said.

That earned her a stern look. "Harley. I know you're armed."

"And I ain't gonna hurt ya, Pam-a-lamb, so get that thought outta your mind," Harley shot back. "If you go full Mother Earth, well, I guess I'm callin' dibs on being the first follower of the new religion."

"Harley," Pam scolded. "I could hurt you."

"I doubt that. As long as you're you, you won't hurt me," Harley said. "And if you're not you anymore, it's not your fault, it's the Green."

"I could've killed Joker, the night he burned the Arboretum," Pam said musingly. "If I'd gone that deep, it wouldn't matter where I was. I would've been in the Green, I could've found him and killed him. But to become that, I would've had to let go of you."

"I'm not letting go of you, either," Harley promised. "And you won't let go of me. So let's try this, and if it gets too hairy, I'll try to snap you back. But I'm not gonna hurt you. I mean that."

"At least run for it," Pam cajoled.

"Nah, I can't run. I gotta try to bring you back. Besides, not like running would do much good. I'm in this with you, Pammy. I'll do my best." Harley tried not to betray the queasy feeling in her stomach as she said that. Too often, her best hadn't been good enough.

"I suppose that's the best we can hope for," Pam sighed. She settled herself again, and slid the scraps of stem and leaf out of the bag, into her waiting palm, wincing. "So cold, so thirsty," she murmured, and her eyes began to glow.

She wasn't talking about herself. Or, she was, but part of her self was now part of the plant, too. Harley froze, keeping her hands on her lover's knees, hoping the weight of her touch would somehow help Pam stay human despite the song of the Green reaching out to her. Pam took deep breaths, grounding herself. Her eyes were seeing something Harley couldn't even imagine.

It wasn't magic, what she did. Harley had seen magic before. There were no spells, no incantations, no artifacts. Pam just slid deeper into being Poison Ivy, and the natural world responded to her. It kind of was like being a goddess, Harley thought.

The shelves in this little greenhouse held orderly rows of seedlings, Neal's pet projects. Funnily enough, most of them weren't marijuana. He was growing a bunch of tiny leafy things that Harley couldn't identify. When Pam breathed out, all the little seedlings rustled, and grew. Some of them burst into flower, tiny delicate spiky flowers in incredible jewel tones. But the pitiful sample of Oaxacan Highland Gold lay inert, cupped in Ivy's hands.

"Not enough," Pam murmured.

"Okay, well, we tried, and he can tell we tried," Harley said, watching as the nearest plants dipped and reached their blooms toward Ivy.

"No. I just need something… I had wrath, last time," Pam replied.

"Yeah, 'cause making you angry is a brilliant idea right now," Harley scoffed.

"Say his name," Pam told her. Harley tipped her head sideways, questioning. Roots began to crawl out of all the tidy rows of seed-pots, and Ivy gave her a feral smile. "Say his name, Harleen. That should be enough of rage to aid me."

"Seriously? You get that pissed off just by me saying Joker?" Harley asked. Pam's eyes narrowed, and Harley winced. "Oh. Um … you mean if I say Mistah J…"

Ivy growled, and Harley cowered – but she didn't let go. And all those little seedlings grew together in a frantic riot of green. The bare ground under them began to sprout up with grass, seeds that must've lain dormant a long time.

And the pathetic scraps of stems in Ivy's hands began to move. They plumped up, looking greener, and tiny leaves began to sprout. "He burned the Arboretum," Ivy said softly, her eyes no longer remotely human.

"Yeah, he did, but the firefighters put everything out," Harley said quickly, sensing that they were sliding down a very perilous slope. "They even saved that oak tree, the one you said was older than Plymouth Rock. C'mon, Pam, don't lose your grip here."

"He hurt you," Ivy said, her voice low and terrible. Tiny roots spilled from her hands, and Harley quickly dragged the pot of soil over. What Pam said next chilled her. "How many broken bones did I set? How many bruises, how much blood, how many scars? And for fear of him you gave your only daughter away…"

"Yeah, but I got away. He's never gonna hurt me again. You took care of that," Harley said quickly. "C'mon, Pam, they're started, snap out of it."

Gently, reverently, Ivy placed the new seedlings into the soil. Their roots squirmed into the rich loam gratefully, and their stems began to reach upward, growing fronds and leaves. With her fingers buried in the dirt, Ivy looked at Harley and said, her voice sounding less human with each word, "And you still went back to him. Every time. I saved you, I cared for you, I loved you, and you went back to him. You left me for him."

Oh, shit. This was the thing they never fought about, and Harley knew there had to be a deep well of resentment lurking in Pam. She was a psychiatrist, she knew no one could be as patient and forgiving and kind as Pam tried to be all the time. People were fallible, they were broken and hurt and selfish and mean and petty, but they tried to be better. Pam always tried. She'd never, ever raised her hand or even her voice to Harley. Just because she never acted on it, didn't mean she never felt anger toward Harley.

No, she just bottled it up, trying to be the opposite of Joker, and sinking into the Green had somehow loosened the cap on all those negative feelings.

The delicate little flowers reached down, the grass reached up, and Harley felt them taking hold of her. She could rip free and run for it, there was nothing here strong enough to bind her – well, the marijuana, eventually, there was a reason rope was made from its close relative hemp – but she wasn't going to do that.

Time to be the shrink again, and if she fucked this one up, she wouldn't live to regret it.

"Yeah, I did," Harley admitted, looking straight into those unearthly eyes. "I did all that, and it was wrong of me. I could tell you about gaslighting and abusive relationships and how messed up my head was, but none of that matters. It doesn't change the fact that I hurt you, a lot. I'm sorry. I won't do that again – I'm never going back. It took Bud getting shot for me to admit to myself that Joker would kill me, and worse, he'd kill our daughter, that he didn't really love me and he never could've loved Lucy."

It hurt to admit that, hurt to look inside herself so unflinchingly, but in her melodramatic teenage years Harley had once written a terrible poem that began and ended with the line, 'Pain is the highest power of love'. She'd spent most of her relationship with Joker trying to prove that letting him hurt her meant she loved him. Now she found herself dealing with a different kind of pain. Half of her internship practice had been about guiding people to admit painful truths to themselves, Harley knew how hard that was for other people. Her own willingness to hurt herself to save Pam was more genuine. Letting someone else make her suffer just proved her delusion; forcing herself to do something difficult that was better for both of them proved her love. Even if the words caught in her throat like fragments of razor blades, even if tears stood in her own eyes to say them.

Ivy was silent, staring into her soul, as the plants grew higher. At least she hadn't wrapped one of them around Harley's throat. She took a deep breath, and continued, "I screwed you over. I'm sorry. You didn't deserve it, I never should've treated you like that. But even if you decide to kill me for it, Pam, I'm not gonna fight you. I hurt you enough. Besides, getting taken out by the closest thing on this earth to a literal goddess has got to be a legendary way to go. I'll take that as better than I deserve."

One green hand rose to cup Harley's cheek, and trailed a streak of earth along her pale skin. Her eyes were still strange and otherworldly, and Harley figured this was gonna be the end for her. She'd played her hand as best she could, and if Ivy was too far gone, well, that was it. At least Lucy was taken care of, and the boys would chew their way out of the kennels and out of the house if she wasn't back in a couple hours. Hopefully Neal and Stephen had the sense to run for it.

Part of her was kind of annoyed that she'd done so much and come so far only to be strangled by a rare pot plant in a greenhouse in Colorado, but hell. There were worse ways to go. And at least if she died for this love, she was dying for something real. Not something she only believed in because of Stockholm syndrome and sunk-cost fallacy.

And then the light in Ivy's eyes changed, becoming warmer and more human. Her lips curved in a heartbreaking smile. "Harley, damn you, I told you to stop me. Or run."

"I'm not running from you. And I'm not gonna hurt you either," Harley said.

"You impossible woman," Pam scolded, and leaned forward to kiss her, the plants obligingly shifting out of the way.

Harley smiled, and when she drew back asked, "So, I take it you're not gonna kill me now? Despite the fact I probably deserve it?"

"You don't deserve it," Pam retorted. "Harley, I shouldn't have said those things…"

"It's true, though. I did pretty much treat you like my backup plan. The thing is, we're still here. I've got a chance to prove you mean more than that to me. And now you've got enough money to buy us all the time we need."

Pam gave her a weary smile. "That's true. Neal's going to be ecstatic. Do not let him hug me, please."

"I don't think he's that clueless, but yeah, I'll protect your personal space," Harley chuckled.

Just then, Pam's phone chirped, alerting her to a new email. She pulled it out and read the message, her expression brightening. "Selina's all right," she said, and held the phone out to Harley.

The PM from MeowMix92 simply read, 'Never came near me. All good here, even got Hood to cat-sit. Let me know how you are – no trackable details! New address is gmail, my middle name and the house number from the last address I visited with your gf.' Harley snickered; very few people knew Selina's middle name, and of course no one on Capespotting would know anything about the trip to Brooklyn.

Now that was the perfect topper for the day. Pam hadn't lost herself in the Green, they were millionaires, and their best friend was okay and back in touch. Harley could take all of it as a good omen for her new Joker-free life.

She kissed Pam impulsively, and said, "Let's go collect our cash and get outta here."

"Yes, let's. I already booked another long flight, and then there are plans to be made," Pam told her with an arch of her brow.

"Another long flight? Breaking our trail again, that's smart. Any hint on where we're going?" Harley asked. It wasn't about trust anymore, they'd pretty much proven that, so she didn't feel bad about asking.

"Someplace warm," Pam answered with a grin.