beforethepunchline | I've been searching city streets

I've been searching city streets

It's kind of a nutty idea, even for Harley Quinn.

She lives pretty frugally, but that doesn't mean she can wholly sustain herself on her Darrow income. And, anyway, it gets boring. Sometimes she fights crime for kicks, but it's not the same, really, not without her Pam-a-Lamb or a real cause to get behind. Mostly she just doesn't like people who hurt for fun.

So she needs something to do with her time.

It's pretty easy to get licensed again. They look at her funny, sure, but she fills out the paperwork, studies hard to get caught up with modern practices, and takes the exam. Easy-peasy.

But no one wants to hire a clown-faced psychiatrist, so Harley figures there's just one thing she can do: rent out her own office.

She's wandering the city when she sees it, a for rent sign in the window of a tiny office building, and she stops, delighted, to peer through the window. "Ooh, gotcha," she says. "All you need is a little fixin' up montage and we're in business. Dr. Harlee—Harley Quinn."

It feels like no time at all before she's hanging up her sign.

[ Feel free to come by at any point — when she's found the office or after she gets it set up, etc. Open until this says otherwise. This will be linked for January. ]

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She'd never needed the pills, not really. It had been her mother's doing, of course, something to keep her on track. To help her be perfect.

Only the way she knew she didn't need them was the fact that they did nothing for that tense, coiled feeling inside of her, that she could only push down by clenching her hands so hard that the dig of fingernails into skin distracted her from it. And, increasingly, not even that.

But as time went on in Darrow without them, she started to wonder. She needed something. Because there was something else, now, something atop or beside or within that dark place inside of her. She was hearing things. Seeing things. She'd opened one of her notebooks to find it was covered in writing in someone else's handwriting. Only when she'd taken up a pen, it had come out in the same scrawl, archaic but wild.

Only later had she registered she'd been writing with the wrong hand.

After waking from another dream about lying on the shore of a lake, dark red water lapping at her side, she had with a kind of despair decided that she had no choice but to see someone. Her call had directed her to the first available psychiatrist, a new practice that still had space for her at short notice.

A Dr Quinn. That seemed familiar. She couldn't place it. She could only wait for her appointment and hope that Dr Quinn would be able to help.

For Harley, it's a kind of compromise. She tries to dress professionally, though she feels as if the neat blouse and pencil skirt are suffocating now in a way they weren't before. Her hair, she fixes into a careful French twist, and in her office, she has everything set up in perfect array. There's a comfortable couch for her patients, a big armchair for her, a new notepad and pen on standby.

But she's still Harley. There's no amount of playing at grown up that changes that, not unless she wants it to, and she's made up her mind lately. She is who she is, and that doesn't have too much left to do with ol' Harleen.

She opens the door just before the hour, stepping out to see a young blonde waiting. "Betty? I'm Dr. Quinn."

Was she wearing greasepaint?

Prior to Darrow, Betty might have asked. Or, actually, she might not have, might have had to debate internally whether it was rude to ask about it. Here, she had to debate whether she was actually seeing what she was seeing. She was becoming less and less sure about it.

In which case, starting off that way might convince Dr Quinn that she was a hopeless case. That the only choice was to immediately commit her to whatever horrible place Darrow committed people. She knew Innsmouth was closed, but frankly the fact that the city had ever had an asylum named after an H.P. Lovecraft story did not inspire confidence in their care of the mentally unwell.

So she controlled her tongue. Her face did its own thing, as it always did, flicking from the little diamond to her eyes and back, mouth working as she attempted to summon a response that wasn't is that greasepaint?

"Yes," she said, popping up from her seat. "Thank you for seeing me. Doctor."

She couldn't help the slight lilt that crept in, the hint of a question on the title. Because, well, possible greasepaint.

No, she had to be seeing things, which meant she was in the right place. Unless she wasn't, in which case she might be in the very wrong one.

The look is a kind of a litmus test, only Harley hasn't yet figured out what the answer sheet looks like. What she does know is that Betty is clearly wondering, but she doesn't ask. That in itself is worth noting, and she jots it down mentally, to do so on paper later.

"Of course," she says, standing back to usher Betty into the little office. "It's my pleasure. So what brings you in today, Betty?"

Right to it. Well, that made sense, that was how it worked. You had an issue, and you came in, and you talked about the issue.

Except she didn't want to talk about the issue because it made her sound insane.

(you are. she can't help you)

Which wasn't something she should worry about, given where she was, except she absolutely did. Also, her psychiatrist might or might not be wearing greasepaint.

"Are you from here?" she said, which was not ignoring the question. Not exactly. She was trying to lead in to it. Of course, it was possible her problem had nothing to do with Darrow -- she'd had her issues before Darrow -- but the city was definitely exacerbating things. Her increasing inability to know what was baseline normal, for one.

For instance, her psychiatrist might or might not be wearing greasepaint. She realised she'd raised her hand to touch the spot on her own face that corresponded to the diamond and snatched it back down to clasp in her lap. "I'm not from here. I think I might be having trouble... adapting?"

Harley takes her own seat opposite, considering Betty. Already she has notes to make, but she doesn't yet. There's something jarring, she's found, about the sight of a doctor with clipboard in hand, scribbling things down. Her memory's pretty good; she'll get to that part later. For now, she wants to encourage Betty to trust her, to open up. Making her feel watched won't accomplish that.

"I'm not, no," she says, folding her legs neatly at the ankles. Harleen isn't entirely gone, she thinks. She could still pretend, if she wanted to. But she doesn't want to. "I'm from London, actually. It's quite the adjustment to make. There's a lot to adapt to." She's struggled with bits of it, but she is, she thinks, by nature, better at adapting than a lot of people are. But this isn't about her.

Maybe it was an alternate London, where that was the style? Being incredibly pale had been in fashion in Victorian times, hadn't it? Before being tanned was the thing to be. People had poisoned themselves doing it, because society forever insisted women injure themselves to achieve some absurd beauty standard.

But that wasn't what she was here about, as much as she would have preferred to talk about it.

"There's a lot," she said. "I don't know what your London was like, but I was from Riverdale. It's a small town. There was more going on than people think, but there wasn't giant plastic animals, or people duplicating themselves, or, or, magic. Supposedly. Apparently."

They had a little bit of those things — not the animals, but the magic, certainly.

Well, there'd been animals once she left London, but they hadn't been plastic either.

Coming from somewhere without such things, she can imagine Darrow's quite a bit of a shakeup, especially for a young woman on her own, as Harley guesses she must be. That's what happens to them, those of them not from Darrow. They come here alone.

"And here you're surrounded by it," she says. "People duplicate themselves here?"

She took a moment before saying, "Yes!" because she had to build up to how emphatic it was, eyes wide and eyebrows high, not exactly nodding but vibrating on the spot, slightly. "Okay, so, there's this guy I know from school. And there's a guy here who claims to be him, only he's older and Caucasian. And then at New Year's Eve, there was two of him. Everything here is insane!"

"Okay, I'll give you, that is — that is properly bonkers," Harley admits. It's occurring to her now that she may be slightly underprepared after all. Back in London, she was a prominent psychiatrist, well-known and well-respected in her field. It was also all she really had going for her. Here, though, there are things she's never had to address. Magic, for one, was never a big deal in sessions before.

Oh, she knew it existed. It just didn't tend to come up, except with some of the more special patients.

"It sounds incredibly stressful."

"It is! It is very stressful, and I'm not even sure talking about it is going to help. It's not going to stop being insane," Betty said.

Because, for instance, she was talking about it to a psychiatrist who may or may not have been wearing greasepaint. She still couldn't bring herself to ask. Partly because it might reveal the degree to which she was seeing things, and partly because it sort of seemed rude. Which was ridiculous.

"No, probably not," Harley agrees, nodding. "But in my experience, it can be very helpful just to talk about it." She wonders if that's all Betty's coping with here. The girl fidgets nervously from time to time, but that could easily just be because she's anxious about talking to a therapist. It may well be that she just needs help dealing with how strange Darrow is. Harley sure couldn't fault her for that.

"So it's the magic that you're having trouble adjusting to?"

"Yes! No!" Betty said, first leaping on this as an obvious answer, but then rejecting it as the sole answer. She was having trouble adjusting to the magic. She was also having trouble adjusting to the everything.

Particularly the seeing and hearing things, but she didn't want to bring it up, now.

"I don't even know what counts as magic. Did I get here through magic? Are all the strange things that happen magic, or is there some kind of scientific explanation? For some of it, at least."

The world Betty comes from sounds significantly less strange than Darrow or even Harley's own world. It's no wonder all of this might prove overwhelming for her. It would for anyone, Harley figures, but someone from a less magical world all the more so. And Betty seems like a bright, curious girl, the kind who likes answers, who hasn't yet figured out — or accepted, at least — that sometimes the world just doesn't deal in answers. That, Harley feels pretty sure, is a trademark of every world. Not everything adds up.

"For some of it," she says, nodding. "And sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between the two anyway."

Later, when she examines this whole scenario, Rebecca will think it had been a little like Alice falling down into Wonderland, only she didn't have the luck of any weight loss when she stepped into Harley Quinn's office.

She hasn't called or made an appointment but that's kind of her deal and, she's pretty sure, kind of why she tested Dr. Akopian like no patient likely ever had. At least she's coming through the front door of Dr. Quinn's office instead of climbing through the doggie door of her actual house.

It's progress, she tells herself, although she doesn't really feel like she's made any.

Coming into the waiting room, nothing seems all that different from the countless other waiting rooms she's been in and she stands at the reception desk. "Um, hello? Is anyone ho––in?"

Harley's between patients when she hears a voice from the other room.

Like, really far between patients. There aren't really very many yet. Some people have shown interest, made calls, but it's still early days, and a couple of people have already decided that they aren't quite that crazy, never mind, thank you very much. She's not sure how to explain she is, in fact, an extremely good psychiatrist without making this more about her than it should be, though.

So she steps out of her office and takes in the sight of the young woman — her own age, maybe, give or take — standing there, looking around. "Hi," she says. "Can I help you?"

For a moment, Rebecca almost asks whether the woman is the one that needs help, given the fact that she's wearing full face clown-like makeup. Of course, then she remembers what the sign had said and the familiarity of the name and, well, of course.

This is Darrow and these are the things that happen to Rebecca. Like goddamn dream ghosts following her to New York, comic book villainesses are apparently man the mental health field here.

"I — I don't know," she says, in part because she doesn't know whether she can be helped and in part because this doesn't seem like the best way to go about it if she can. "Can you? I don't — I don't really know why I came here."

There's really no mistaking a face like that. As far as Karen is concerned, that isn't necessarily a bad thing, either. She's seen far weirder things on a regular basis than someone with a penchant for wearing facepaint. Hell, she'd be surprised if there weren't at least a few people in New York who did the same thing for no reason except that they felt like it. It doesn't seem worth giving much thought, especially not when she likes Harley. Most people don't take as well to showing up here as she did, at least not that Karen has seen, and she can appreciate that. Catching sight of her on the sidewalk now, outside a building with a sign for a psychiatrist — a Dr. Quinn, in fact, which she supposes can really only be one person — she smiles as she heads over, figuring she might as well say hello, catch up.

"Harley, hey," she says warmly. "It's nice to see you again." Nodding towards the office building, she asks, "This is you?"

Edited 2018-01-17 10:23 (UTC)

Harley grins, leaning over to kiss Karen's cheek in greeting. "Hiya, hot stuff," she says cheerfully. "One of me! It's not the name I usually practice under, but, oh, well. I'd say I don't suppose you know anyone who needs therapy, but we all do."

In her case, it's her, granted, but that doesn't mean she isn't also perfectly qualified to give it. The best psychiatrists she knew sought therapy in turn. It's a business that could drive anyone crazy.

"I'd definitely say everyone I know does," Karen says, grinning at Harley's response. That includes herself, too, but she doesn't think she would have the first idea what to say to a therapist of any kind, even one she's been friendly with outside of that sort of relationship. There's too much of her past that's better kept buried, that she doesn't talk about even to her closest friends. "So you're opening up a practice here, huh? That's great."

"Thanks," Harley says happily. "I used to work at this place back in London, Arkham Asylum. Mostly criminal types in need of a little therapeutic assistance, you know, but at the end of the day, people are people. We all need help of some kind." Her clientele might change here, but her approach won't. No matter what crimes people have committed, they're still people in her eyes and deserving of help. "Plus I was getting bored."

"Easy to do around here," Karen laughs. She keeps busy, mostly, but that's because she has a nose for trouble and an inability to ignore it. Besides, having two jobs — her day job as a reporter, her side job as whatever it is she could call what she does with John and the others — is time-consuming and exhausting. None of that happened right away, though, and from what she can gather, this seems like a good path for Harley. "That must have been pretty intense work, though. I — I mean, it's different, obviously, but I had a job as an assistant for a couple of defense attorneys for a while. Like you said, people are people. They all need help."

Harley nods. She's worked with defense attorneys a few times, a special witness with insight into the criminal mind. As far as she's concerned, it says good things about Karen that that's the side of the law she chose to work on. It's not that she's got anything against the prosecution, but people tend to need help that being dropped in prison doesn't usually provide.

"It could be," she says. "I met some very strange and violent people, but... they were just people. No excuse for some of the things they did, but some of them were too far gone to help it and not getting the help they needed until they came to me. I don't expect this'll be quite so exciting." It's better, though, than nothing.

She thinks of Frank, of course. Karen would never try to make excuses for the shit he's done; she firmly believes that, back home, he really would have belonged in prison. But she's seen the man behind the monster everyone else made him out to be, seen a man kind and loving whom no one else bothered to even try to catch a glimpse of. He shouldn't be written off entirely because of the things he's done. No one should.

Maybe it's a little bit because she'd like to think that the same applies to her, too, but that doesn't seem worth mentioning. No one needs to be burdened with her past.

"Hey, around here, you never know," Karen says with a shrug. "Just when you think Darrow's about as dull as any place could be, everything turns itself on its head. Probably as many strange and violent people here as there are anywhere else. You can't always tell what's happened to them before, either."

"Well, sure," Harley says wryly. You don't up and dress the way she does 'cause nothing happened. She was a pretty normal girl once, an unassuming young thing, nothing worse than bored.

That was a long time ago.

"Everyone's got their story. Everyone has their baggage. Some of us just need more help unpackin' it. And with new people showin' up here all the time, I bet I get some pretty interesting patients. You know, if I get any." She gestures to herself. "Apparently this ain't always so reassuring to new patients."

"I don't see why it should make all that much difference, especially in a place like this," Karen says, shrugging easily. It's true enough. The choice may be an unusual one, but there are plenty of people around here who look weirder and do weirder shit all the time. A little face paint doesn't change someone's abilities as a doctor any more than their clothing or other general appearance would. As far as she's concerned, it sounds like Harley knows what she's doing and like her heart is in the right place, and those are the things that matter most. "Hopefully people will have enough sense to realize that."

Harley grins, pleased. "Well, I sure hope so," she says, "'cause I'm not planning on changing a thing." At least, not right now. Who knows? Maybe one day she'll miss being Harleen, but it'll be her choice if she does. In the meanwhile, she has to hope her patients understand that she's living out what's right for her, the same as she'll always encourage them to do. "We all got our thing, right?"

"You should've seen some of the things that people in my world had," Karen says, grinning in turn, head ducking in a nod. "I don't think this—" She gestures towards Harley, the face paint and the skimpy clothes. "—is as strange as all that. Different, sure, but what's wrong with a little individuality, right?" For her, blending in is important, but Harley owns the way she's chosen to look, and Karen can respect that. "It works. Anyone who doesn't think so, that's their problem."

"Darn tootin'," Harley says cheerfully, but she can hardly hide the air of pleased relief about her. It's not like she's anything less than confident in her look and her choices, but there's something validating about Karen's approval all the same. She doesn't have to choose. She can be Harley Quinn and she can run her practice at the same time. People in Darrow are used to all kinds of crazy anyway. "And they'd be comin' to the wrong gal for therapy in that case anyhow."

"They definitely would," Karen says, grinning. A part of her wonders absently what it would be like, to sit and open up to someone, to talk about all the things she deliberately doesn't talk about, but she doesn't think that's something she's willing to do yet. Hell, she's spent so long keeping it as buried as she can that she isn't sure she would know where to start. Certainly not with the crony of Fisk's she still sees sometimes when she sleeps. "But, hey, looking at the kind of people — and other beings, or whatever — we have here, I think there are plenty of potential clients who won't give a damn."

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I've been searching city streets

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