[debut] if you go chasing rabbits and you know you're going to fall

[beforethepunchline]

It's been a long few weeks. The last while has taken her from Harleen Quinzel to Harley Quinn, from London to Leningrad, from psychiatry to fighting Nazis and monster armies. (Seriously, is she crazy or did everyone in this arc have a monster army? What is that about?) It's brought her from being alone to love. Heck, she even had a vacation under the sea.

All in all, it's been a pretty good time.

Okay, so there were the giant monster octopus things and that General Faora lady and Killer Frost, and she'd been real worried about Raven for a minute there. But they've turned it all around. Leningrad hasn't just survived the siege; it's blossoming in the depths of winter, entirely literally. That's all Pam-a-Lamb. While everyone recuperates from the last fight, she's covered Leningrad in fruits and flowers.

The air is sweet with it, redolent with rose and daisy and violet. It does nothing to help Harley stay awake where they lay, curled together on the grass, vines and flowers around them. The stingray Mera lent them, now small, floats down to rest on her hand, and Harley closes her eyes. They've had their share of war. There's no escaping the fact that, soon enough, they'll get right back into the fray. For now, though, they've earned their rest.

The air is different around her when she wakes up, warm, with a hint of aged upholstery. She sits up slowly, fingers curling tight into the seat as she looks around, heart skipping a beat.

She's on a train, that much is clear. How she got here, though, she doesn't know, and she isn't too keen on that. Appearing in places she shouldn't be with no sign of Pamela in sight, that isn't all that funny, and she's not sure, for a moment, how to make it be. She looks out the window for help, but there's just countryside rolling past, the ocean visible in the distance, a city coming into view that she doesn't recognize.

And then there's the fact no one else is on board. Oh, she can see and hear people in other cars, glimpse them through the windows in the doors, but there's not a soul in this car with her. So when the train pulls into the station and comes to a stop, it's a surprise to Harley that the door opens. She steps off the train with a handful of other passengers, and no one seems to give her so much as a second glance, which is kind of weird in itself.

She approaches the information booth, but the girl there just glances up for a moment before handing her a heavy manila envelope. "This is yours," she says, incredibly bored by it all, and then closes the window before Harley can ask any questions.

She's not sure what to make of it, that she's suddenly been handed this or that the girl seemed to recognize her as the intended recipient of the package. She's not sure what to do with the contents of the envelope either, which she starts to examine as she leaves the station. There's cash, which is great, even if it's an unfamiliar currency, but the ID is kind of creepy, and then there's a strange object of metal and glass that has Harley hesitating. She doesn't know what it is, but it looks pretty futuristic, and the cars and clothes around her ain't like anything she knows from home.

"Oh, no," she says, "time travel." She taps on the booth's glass front. "Hey, I didn't sign up for this."

Comments

[itsdarkcorners]

"I've never time-traveled," Karen says, a little apologetic, "so I can't really help you on that front. I can kind of give you the rundown, though, show you around a little if you want." It seems like the least she can do. No one should be left to try to take all of this in on their own, especially with so much time to try to catch up on. She'd been helped the night she arrived; it seems only fair that she help someone else in turn, knowing all too well what a strange adjustment this is. Even for the people who take better to this than most, it isn't easy. She would be crazy to think otherwise.

Suddenly remembering herself, she lets out a soft, self-deprecating little laugh. "I'm Karen, by the way," she says. "Karen Page."

[beforethepunchline]

"Hiya, Karen," Harley says brightly. "I'm Harley Quinn! Pleased to meetcha." In spite of the situation, she really is. Karen seems swell; she's really nice and helpful, and it can't be easy to deal with someone who's new not only to this place but this time. She doesn't have to offer to show Harley around, but she does, and it means something. Even if Harley could try and figure all this out on her own, she'd rather have the help. Besides, being thrown into what may or may not be another dimension is no reason to be rude.

"And that'd be swell. I wouldn't know where to start all on my own." She wonders how long Karen has been here, and if it's rude to ask.

[itsdarkcorners]

It's surprising, though not unpleasantly so, to hear that sort of cheerfulness in a situation like this. Karen decides that she likes her for it, what she can only guess is a determined optimism, something she's had to rely on more than a few times herself. She smiles and says, "It's nice to meet you, too," meaning it entirely. Harley may look a little unusual, but that's nothing compared to some of the things and people she's seen before, and she seems sweet. Even if Karen didn't already want to help, she thinks this would make her want all the more to.

"And, yeah, it's... a lot to take in. I could show you to your building first? You're — If you look in the folder, there should be a key and an address. It's to an apartment. Saves the trouble of having to try to find a place to stay."

[beforethepunchline]

Harley's brow raises at that. "Well, that's sure thoughtful," she says, though there's a wryness in her tone. In a way, it's actually pretty creepy, just like the ID with her picture on it. Even so, she figures, it's the least whoever's behind this could do. She's just been kidnapped; they ought to at least give her a place to stay.

So she digs into the envelope, pulling out a key, rooting around until she comes up with card to go with it. "Number 19 Chelsea Cloisters," she says. "You know where that is?"

[itsdarkcorners]

Thoughtful is only one of several words that Karen would use to describe what happens when a person shows up here, but she doesn't think she needs to spell that out. The circumstances alone make it clear enough, and there's no sense in trying to drive home how weird all of this is when it speaks for itself, especially upon arrival. Instead, she nods, because attempting to offer some assistance is something she can do, and no one should be left to try to figure all of this out for themselves.

"Yeah, I know it," she says, nodding. "I'd be glad to take you there, if you want."

[beforethepunchline]

"Well, I don't wanna put you out," Harley says. Karen's been real nice already, just stopping to talk to her and explain this place (as much as it seems like anyone could). She doesn't want to pull her away from whatever it is she was doing before she happened across Harley. That said, she doesn't know how she's meant to find this place on her own. It's not like she knows this city in the least. Figuring it out is going to take some time, even if she thinks she saw a map in the envelope.

She opens it again now to look for that. "It'd sure help, though, if you don't mind."

[itsdarkcorners]

"Oh, I don't mind at all," Karen promises, shaking her head. It isn't as if she'd been particularly busy before wandering by the train station, or like there's anything else she could be doing that can't be put off for a little while. There are plenty of people who could give directions, and, as she recalls, a map with the belongings that people get upon arrival, but she still wouldn't want just to turn someone loose in a strange new city with barely so much as a word.

She keeps thinking, mostly, of the night she arrived, injured and feeling like she'd lost everyone she cared about all at once, and how Tony had given her a ride into the city and then brought her home with him, fed her, let her use his shower even though she had an apartment of her own (and in his building, no less). Granted, she has no intention of sharing a shower with a woman she's only just met and whom she knows next to nothing about, but she thinks she can do a little more than the bare minimum here.

"You're not putting me out, I promise."

[beforethepunchline]

There's a lot of things people will do for the sake of politeness, Harley has found, but politeness has its limits. Most people would stop about here. Granted, most people aren't welcoming someone into an entirely new dimension, so maybe that changes the rules here, but it's still going above and beyond in Harley's book.

"Great," she says brightly. "Alright, Chelsea Cloisters then. Lead the way." It sounds like a damn nunnery, but it's probably just a name, she figures. Americans don't have many of those. Of course, this is a different world, not necessarily America, despite Karen's accent. "Whereabouts you from then?"

[itsdarkcorners]

"New York," Karen answers, a response that's become instinctive since she got here. Maybe it isn't wholly accurate, but New York feels more like home than Vermont ever did, and has less of a story behind it, too. She doesn't want to get into what living there was like any more than she wants to talk about why she left. Like so much else, it's better left buried. "Hell's Kitchen. But I've been here for... a while, now."

Starting in the direction she knows Chelsea Cloisters to be, glancing over to make sure Harley is still with her, she asks, "What about you?"

[beforethepunchline]

"Nailed it," Harley says cheerfully. "Knew you were American, even in the middle of this madness. I'm from London, love, though I've bounced around a bit. Just came from Leningrad." And then there's the massive time difference. She doesn't want to think about it too much, because it'd be easy to get bogged down in fright over something like that and she's got to keep a calm head on her shoulders. It's impossible not to, though. Just walking down the street with Karen, everything is so different from the architecture to the cars to the way people are dressed.

[itsdarkcorners]

"That's a long way," Karen says lightly, head tilting to the side. To her — a small-town girl at heart, in spite of everything she's seen and done over the past few years — it sounds terribly exciting. Once, she hadn't been able to imagine a world outside of Vermont at all. After moving to New York, she hadn't been able to imagine herself living anywhere else; certainly she would never have gotten to travel. Here, of course, she's stuck in one place. Granted, she's never had any aspirations about seeing the world, either, but it's fascinating even so. "I never really got to do any traveling."

[beforethepunchline]

"And now you're here," Harley says, pulling a face. "That's a shame. I hope you get to give it a go one day. I've been traveling all over the place lately and it's..." She smiles. "Let's say it broadens your horizons. 'Fun' would be a bit more apt if we weren't in the middle of a world war, I reckon."

She tries to convince herself this might even be a good thing, being here. She's at least out of the thick of it. But Pam's not here, and that makes a whole hell of a lot of difference.

[itsdarkcorners]

"I... Yeah, I'd imagine that would make a difference," Karen says, nose wrinkling in turn, though she's careful not to sound overly weighed down by the mention of it. It's the sort of thing that could very easily be too serious — and rightfully so — but that doesn't mean Harley wants to give it that sort of time and attention now. There's so much else at hand, it might very well be too much. "Probably not the most ideal way to see the world."

She can easily imagine herself doing so all the same. Trouble and danger, they don't exactly follow her around; she goes rushing headfirst into them, dealing with the consequences later. "Is that why you were traveling? The war?"

[beforethepunchline]

"You betcha," chirps Harley. She looks around as she walks and talks, almost too distracted to walk straight. Everything here is so strange — not too different, just different enough. "Well, it started as a trip to meet up with my ex-man, but that was a bust, so it turned into a whole helping hide people from Nazis thing." She's not always the best at hiding; she has a tendency to stand out. But where people — her people — needed help hiding from monsters, she wasn't about to do anything but give it. "And then it was a defending a city under siege kinda thing."