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I'M SO OVER CLOWNS
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A shrill ringing interrupts what Charlie Swan is doing in the kitchen of his home. He has been making Bella and himself a small breakfast before he heads to work. It consists of well-seasoned eggs, crispy bacon and some cinnamon waffles. Although he cannot cook very well, this is the only thing he knows how to make. It is too early for this, he groans, thinking that his boss is calling him because he wants him for work an hour early. He staggers away from the popping bacon and towards the telephone, creating the offending noise.
His tired eyes stay level with the wall in front of him as he presses the telephone to his ear.
"Charlie here," Mr. Swan answers, his voice husky and not a little annoyed.
Whoever has answered on the other line changes his demeanor immediately. Charlie straightens up, his face going flat with distaste. "She's not here right now," he answers, his voice tight. Silence. "What I'm saying is that she's gone missing. Nobody has been able to find her for months now."
There is some short reply, a request for more information it seems. Charlie is beginning to grow angry.
"What does it matter to you?" He blinks, holding the phone abruptly from his face. "Asshole hung up on me."
"Who was it, dad," Bella Swan asks abruptly, appearing completely out of nowhere.
He turns around to look at her, seeing that she has finished her morning shower with a towel wrapped around her body. He looks at her cautiously, chewing on the inside of his lip for a second, then decides to tell her.
"It was Edward," he admits, disgust lacing his voice. Bella just nods her head, puzzled, but not asking anymore questions.
"What's for breakfast?"
Alice Cullen and Harley Quinn have stopped for snacks and gas at the nearest gas station. Meanwhile the petite vampire is inside of the stop, grabbing different drinks and snacks she is sure Harley will enjoy, Harley is sitting in the car, reaching into Carlisle's glove compartment in search for something she'd hidden there ever since James' attack on Bella.
When Alice flew to Gotham, Carlisle had shipped his car for her to get around through a transport company. Harley hopes that they hadn't found the item, or worse, confiscated it. She digs her hand all up in there in, finding it finally and pulling out her hand with the object — her precious Love + Hate gun.
Her blue eyes glance over to the shop, which Alice is still inside of, and then opens up the chamber of the tiny handgun. There are ten bullets inside, just as she left it. She is quick as she stuffs the dangerous weapon inside of her blue jeans. Her outfit consists of blue jeans, white converse and a basic blue top. It isn't what she would normally wear, but it's what Arkham left her with. It was either this or her beige patient uniform.
Her abnormally pale hand reaches into the backseat of the black S.U.V, picking up the black plastic bag full of items Joan Leland stuffed inside for her. It consists of the outfit last wore before she was caught, random toiletries, a lipgloss, and lastly her phone. She takes the small device in her hands, running her fingers gently over the different-colored gemstones glued to look like a cartoonish version of the Joker's face.
Her days in hell are finally over. Alice has bailed her out, like her very own guardian angel, and carried her off into the sunset. She is free, and soon enough, she will be back home. She is going to find her smile again, that is buried deep somewhere in this rubble, a mountain of dust and death.
Although she is still a bit cautious of her return, because a small part of her believes that Amanda Waller will be waiting for her just to lock her back up again, she is still the tiniest bit hopeful. And that smallest bit of hope is enough to push everything else away, bury the bad memories so deep she can never reach them again. She is hell-bent on just erasing everything. No past. No reflections. No joker. She is wild and free, and ready to start her life again. It will be like the Joker had never appeared to her.
To her, he remains dead.
Quinn's head picks up again, and this is when she catches it. Aching emptiness in the red eyes that practically pierce her to her seat. Eyes filled with the hurt and pain of untenable loss that she has seen in her own mirror every day since he left. Crimson red eyes are shown on her side view mirror, but when she turns to look at it directly, they appear.
Indeed, there is nothing and nobody there. It's as if she had just imagined it...
A knock on her window frightens her out of her seat. She looks up to find Alice Cullen holding a ton of plastic bags filled with drinks and snacks. It is still nighttime, and they are only fifteen minutes away from the closest airport. Quinn rolls down the window and smiles at her as the kind immortal hands the bags food over to her.
"Thanks, cupcake," she gives her thanks in a chirpy voice, putting those familiar ruby orbs into the back of her mind. She convinces herself that she had imagined it.
Alice replies with a smile of her own and a small laugh, before rounding the car and getting into the drivers seat at human speed. Harley is in the process of removing the memory card out of her bedazzled phone, as she starts up the engine. She gives the blonde a curious look as she tosses the card and her phone out of the window with no remorse.
Harley catches her looking at her and just smiles with a simple shrug, leaning in to turn on the radio. "I'm so over clowns."
Alice Cullen parts her lips to say something, when she is suddenly pulled into a vision. Harls instantly shuts off the radio and stares at her with curious eyes, waiting in silence. She watches as Cullen's face turns into a look of horror struck.
"Cupcake? What's wrong," she asks after a moment, beginning to grow alarmed at her unseeing eyes. They finally refocus on her, looking at her in sheer terror and pain.
"Edward," Alice chokes, and Harley feels a shiver of fear slide down her spine like ice. Uh-oh, that doesn't sound good.
"What did'ya see? Alice, what's wrong?" Her fingers grip the hem of the plastic bag so hard her knuckles are beginning to turn white. Her ears feel flogged, like someone has stuffed cotton into them.
"What is he thinking," Alice cries suddenly, her body trembling in distress. "I have to call Carlisle," she mutters so fast Harley almost doesn't hear her. She grabs a small silver phone from her purse and her fingers dial the numbers so fast they are a blur.
Quinn can just sit and watch, her mind running wild with endless possibilities.
"Rose? I need to talk to Carlisle, now," her voice whips through the words. "Fine, as soon as he's back. No, I'll be on a plane. Look, have you heard anything from Edward?" She listens then with an expression that slowly grows from confused to appalled with each passing second. Her mouth opens into a little O of horror, and the phone shakes in her hand. "Why," she gasps. "Why would you do that, Rosalie?"
Whatever the answer is, her face instantly morphs into fury.
"Well you're wrong on both counts, Rose, so that would be a problem, don't you think," she bites back acidly. "Yes, that's right she's perfectly fine. I was wrong, it's a long story... No, you're wrong about that part, too, which is why I'm calling." She hisses. "Yeah, that's exactly what I saw." Her voice is beginning to grow very flat and hard. "It's a bit late for that now, Rose. Save your remorse for someone who believes it." She snaps the phone shut.
Her eyes are tortured as she turns to look at Harley, who hasn't moved an inch.
"Harley..." she moans and sinks in her seat. Harleen is instantly alarmed, her eyes are practically budging out of their sockets — she has never seen a vampire in such position.
"What, Alice," she asks, beginning to grow frantic. "What is it? Tell me."
Alice's voice sounds helpless. "It's Edward. He thinks you're dead."
The horror dawns on Harleen slowly. And once it all fully sinks in, she instantly sits up in her seat and throws the plastic bag back into the backseat, before clipping in her seatbelt. "We need to get ta him," she says in her thick Brooklyn accent, blank in the face and reaching out for Alice's phone. "Lemme use yer phone real quick, I need ta call him an' let 'im know I'm still alive." She can't abide Edward thinking that. Even if he doesn't want her anymore, she knows it would hurt him to think that she is gone.
"Harley, he won't answer," Alice whispers, but gives her the phone nonetheless. "He believed her."
The room feels like it is starting to spin slightly on its axis. "Believed who," she questions loudly, practically yelling, but Alice says nothing. "Alice, who did he believe?!"
Alice shakes her head after a moment. "Rose called him and told him about my vision, about how I thought you were dead," she spits.
None of this is making any sense to her. "But, wait, didn't you guys tell her that you were told I was locked up? An' that you an' Carlisle were workin' on gettin' me out?" It makes sense that she would have known this.
Alice Cullen just shuts her eyes closed and lets out a deep, unnecessary sigh. "Carlisle and I didn't want to tell any of my siblings that there a possibility that you were alive, because we didn't want to give them false hope. We, ourselves, didn't believe Waller when she told us over the phone."
Okay, that explains it... "So, what now? What else did he say?"
"Rosalie said that he's going to Italy."
The meaning of what Alice has said slowly falls into place, and the faint echo of his words come back to Harley, from a time when she would have bet everything she owned on the fact that he loved her.
It was the night of her eighteenth birthday and they were on their way downstairs, when they had passed by an eighteenth century oil painting. It depicted three figures in robes looking down upon a bacchanal.
"They are the Volturi," Edward explained to her, seeing that the paining had caught her attention.
"What is a Volturi," she asked curiously.
"... The Volturi are a family. A very old, very powerful family of our kind. They are the closest thing our world has to a royal family, I suppose. Carlisle lived with them briefly in his early years in Italy, before he settled in America. Do you remember the story?"
She replied with nodding her head.
"Anyway, you don't irritate the Volturi, not unless you want to die – or whatever it is we do," he explained. "They're very different from us. They punish with death and eat from human flesh."
"He's gonna kill himself," Harleen screeches, the denial making her voice climb several pitches. "Alice, how can he? How the hell is that the answer ta anything? What the fuck is wrong with him?!"
She flips open the vampire's small, silver phone, frantically pressing numbers that link to Edward's mobile. It goes straight to an automated voicemail.
"No! No! No! No! He can't do this ta me," she cries out loud and angrily stomps her foot, guilt and despair crashing through her like a maelstrom. She attempts to get in contact with him by dialing his number again, but it goes to voicemail.
"He's already made up his mind, Harley," Alice says numbly.
"B-But... he's the one who left! He said that he didn't love me anymore! What difference does it make now if I'm dead or alive, I was gonna die someday anyway! Does he not understand that," she throws her hands out in exasperation. She cannot accept that this is happening. She won't.
"I don't think he ever planned to outlive you by long," Alice says quietly.
She feels something akin to hysteria bubbling up into her throat, her hands trembling uncontrollably as she shouts at her. "What kinda logic would a sane person use ta reach that conclusion, Alice? No, tell me! That is insane, he can't do this! He can't do this! He can't! We have ta stop him!"
Quinzel is in hysterics as she feels Alice's cold touch on her shoulder, shuddering as she feels her care and worry for her, undercut by a stronger, darker emotion she is trying to suppress. She turns to her, tears streaming readily down her face.
"Alice... I can't be th'-th' reason he dies," a sob hitches down her throat, and her mouth twists into a grimace. "I can't. I won't."
Alice's lips tilt down into a deep frown. She has only ever seen Harleen cry once — and that was when her and her family practically abandoned her in the middle of a street.
"This is all my fault," Harleen cries, closing back up again as she buries her face into her knees. She weeps like never before, flashes of Edward's decapitated head causes her heart to ache. "Oh, God! Please, don't let 'im die because of me." Whenever she is in serious trouble, or going through a dark time, she always goes back to her Catholic roots.
Alice wraps her up into a side-hug as she gives herself to heart-wrenching sobs. She is going to be the reason why Edward kills himself. Stupid girl. Stupid girl. Stupid girl. There is nothing more she wants to do than to just slam her head into something.
"Harley, we can still save him if we hurry," Alice begins, uncertainty colouring her voice.
"What do ya mean?" Quinzel gasps, trying to get a grip on her rioting emotions. She looks up at her through watery eyes, desperate for an answer. A miracle. Anything.
Her gaze moves down to her in trepidation. "I don't think I can ask you, Harl — "
"Ask me, Alice," she commands her, her jaw set. She will not let him die like this. "Ask me anything. Tell me what ta do, and I'll do it! God, I'll do it!"
"Harley," Alice rests her hands on her shoulders, speaking lowly. "We may already be too late. I saw him going to the Volturi and asking them to die." The two girls both wince in unison, and her fingers flex nervously on Harley's shoulders. "It all depends on what they choose. I won't know until they make a decision."
"No," Quinn chokes out, her breath coming faster as sobs overtake her again. "No, no, no, no..."
"Harley, listen to me. Aro might say no. He's very fond of Carlisle, they spent many years together and he wouldn't want to offend him. Edward has a backup plan. He's going to force their hand if they say no. He thinks they'll act to stop him, and he's right. They will."
Harley shakes silently, wiping the tears from her face as she stares at her in frustration. She hasn't heard anything yet that can save him.
"If... if they agree to grant his favour, we're too late," she continues, her voice warped by pain. Quinn whimpers slightly, curling inwards at the thought. A new pain rips it's way through her chest, leaving a gaping hole in its wake. "If they say no and he comes up with a plan too quickly to offend them, we're too late. If he gives in to his more theatrical tendencies... we may have some time."
"Then what are we waitin' for," Harleen cries, signaling to the wheel of the car. "Let's go, Alice. We have no time ta waste!"
"Harley, this is an extremely dangerous situation. We will be in the heart of their city, Volterra. If he's successful, I will be considered an accomplice and destroyed, and you will be a human who knows too much. There is a very good chance we will all be eliminated."
Harleen can feel herself breaking into two, torn between what is the safest thing for her to do and what she needs to do to save Edward. On some level, she knows Alice is absolutely right. She can die trying to save him, and it would have all been for nothing. She would leave Charlie and Bella alone and broken — permanently. For nothing.
But the alternative is unbearable, too.
"We have to try, Alice," she insists, sobbing and shaking her head. "We have to." Her voice is raw with pain. Her heart is broken into bits, shattering like so many glittering pieces of glass. She wipes away her tears with the hem of her blouse, looking over at Alice with a fake confident look. "What do I need'a do?"
"Do you have your wallet and ID with you? I don't have time to forge one, so I hope you have it with you," Alice says as she starts to pull out from the gas station.
"Yeah," Harley mutters, glad for some instruction on what to do so she can stop focusing around the pain practically incapacitating her. She moves a piece of hair behind her ear, grabbing the bag of items behind her and shuffling through it, in search for her documents. She finds her ID inside of her wallet as Alice speeds away.
It seems that with every passing mile they draw away from the gas station, the worse her pain gets. She begins to shiver, then sweat, alternating between the two. At some point, her crying becomes little groans of distress. She catches Alice staring at her in worry a few times, and she soon resolves to gritting her teeth through the suffer in silence.
FIN