sinner saving sinners

“Oh no, not yours at all. Here.” Anna offered the woman the champagne glass in her hand. She hadn’t drank from it yet, but she didn’t mind. It seemed like this person needed it more than she did. “I’m so clumsy. I don’t come to these things very often, y’know? It’s nice, though.” 

Shrugging, she smiled at a waiter who came by with another tray of champagne, but politely declined a glass. She didn’t want alcohol clouding her judgment, even though the effect would be slight.

Alyce was never one to turn away a drink, so quickly took a huge gulp of it, hoping she could get a tipsy enough to forget how much she hated these things. “Mmm it’s not how I look at them. When you go to these things as often as I do, you start to realise just how bad they are.” 

“You are obviously new to it though if you’re not drinking to get through the night. Oh how I envy you.” She laughed, although she wasn’t completely joking. “I’m Alyce by the way. Alyce Sinner."

   evie held her hands up in defence when the woman held the weapon up to her. “woohhh okay okay –– calm down.” the girl said with a deep, shaky breath. “i’m not armed or dangerous.”

Alyce sighed, placing her gun down quickly, guessing that she had scared the poor girl enough already .”You can’t be too careful in this city. Especially when you have as many enemies as I do.”

Rocket hadn’t been on Earth for very long… and he was already ready to leave the damn planet. “Great,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Because so am I. So, how about you go your way and I’ll go mine before anybody gets hurt?”

The Enchantress did not always have full control. She didn’t have to. It was too easy to overtake June, a weaker personality, who wouldn’t know what to do with her powers. But when she had full control, she was invincible. 

“Alyce Sinner,” she greeted softly, with a little, enigmatic smile. Her appearance began to inexplicably shift, and within seconds she was June; the physical change was so gradual that it was surely a trick of the light.

Offering her hand, she cradled the documents against her chest. “Harvey has mentioned you. You are the… director of Star City Asylum. Isn’t that right?”

There was something different about her. Of course for someone who had seemingly returned from the dead it was to be assumed they wouldn’t be the exact same, but Alyce’s intuition told her that something just wasn’t right. 

Still she took the woman’s hand, giving a quick firm shake. “Yes, that’s correct. It’s funny Harvey has told me about you as well. Last I saw he was mourning you in fact.” Despite her profession Alyce was never great when it came to being tactful.

With how Harvey had been recently though, she wasn’t exactly trusting of her, not knowing the role that she played in his changes. 

Harley let out a laugh, then another, and another, until the room echoed with the sound, until her face was just inches from Alyce’s. They’d been here before, of course at the time Alyce had been in control, at the time Harley had played along—things were going to be a lot different this time. Alyce wouldn’t slip from her grasp as Harley had. “Is that what you have to tell yourself to go to sleep at night? That people care? That someone actually cares? Please. Everyone sent you out to take out the trash because they can’t be bothered.”

Many people would have cracked in those circumstances, but they didn’t have the experience that Alyce had. Her faith was quite low at this point though, the chance of escaping this pain free. “At least you admit that you’re the trash. I may be low, but you’re the lowest. The only person you seem to care about does not care about you, and now you’re bringing a poor innocent child into this mess.” Alyce was laughing too, right in her face at this point. “You’re a mess Harleen. But waste your time on this shit. I don’t care.”

Harvey paused for a moment, looking down at his watch. “I thought you might think that.” As if on cue, sirens started going off in the asylum. “Make no mistake, Dr. Sinner, I’m the one in control of this place. And I’m sure it wouldn’t look very good if you had a security failure.” The sirens stopped. “Do as I say.”

The sirens caused her to flinch, but she quickly caught herself, her repose taking over once again. “Control? All I see in front of me is a man spiralling further out of control. Don’t mistake having power for being in control, that’s a very dangerous thing to do Dent.” Still she knew she was stuck, the board were already looking for a reason to get rid of her, and that would be the final push. “Consider it done. But remember every action has a consequence.”

Harley let out a laugh when Alyce made a run for the door, then another even louder laugh escaped her lips when the brunette thought her remarks would somehow hurt her. The sight in front of her, or better yet her reaction to it, was proof enough of how much she loved all of this, the trill that came with cornering someone, watching the fear raise in their eyes—watching them squirm with pain. And she loved it even more when it was against Alyce. “Poor second best Alyce. Does it sting? That I got everything I wanted and you’re still here?” The question was spit out just as Harley took another seat in the great director’s chair. Her legs crossed over the desk, her hands toying with a shiny new gun. “Is that the best ya got? Hopin’ to make me cry or somethin’?”

Alyce had dealt with her fair share of dangerous moments, but looking into Harley’s manic eyes, this was probably the most scared that she had ever felt. She had separated her from the one she loved, and if anyone knew what that could make you do in revenge, it was Alyce. “This is what I wanted Harley. I’m the director of Arkham, and what are you? Some second rate criminal?I’m never going to be jealous of you.” The brutes who had hold of her were not giving her a chance of escape, not for a lack of trying. “What is this then? Do you really think you’re going to manage to do something to me without being found out? People will notice Harley. Despite your own opinion I am valued in this city. I have enough influence for people to care when I just vanish.”

Harvey shook his head. “You like to pretend you’re in control, but you aren’t, and you know it.” He rubbed his coin between his forefinger and thumb. “You’re going to falsify a psychological profile. Everyone is to believe that besides the expected amount of trauma, that I am completely fine and really just need some rest and time to recover.”

The laugh that escaped her lips was not purposeful, but she couldn’t exactly help it. The full situation was ridiculous. “And how are you going to enforce this Harvey? I can change it the minute you leave the room, and if you hurt me then everyone will know you’re not as sane as you want them to think. Unless I’m getting something out of this it is not worth my time.”

She recognized the figure approaching down the hall before she could make out her face.  It was a walk and stature that was burned into her brain like a branding.  Pamela’s time with Alyce was one she buried into the back of her mind, in an effort to forget.  She would have been more than content to never see the woman again.

Alyce’s voice caused a physical reaction that even Pamela didn’t anticipate.  A shiver that ran through her body, mixed with a draining of color from her face, it felt as if the words slammed straight into her core.  The smirk on the woman’s face instantly took her back to her days, held prisoner to her mind games, and it took all of her being to stop from recoiling away from her.

“Not long enough,” was all Pamela could respond while she focused on standing her ground,”  I had hoped you had stayed to rot back in Gotham.”

Pamela’s reaction was all that she could have hoped for and more. Some of her old patients seemed to lose their fear when it came to Arkham. They had forgotten just how cruel she had been despite her best efforts to ingrain her practices in their minds. For some they remembered, but instead of fear, they just felt anger. Harley Quinn was the prime example of that. And then there was her accomplice the Joker. She still hadn’t forgotten the threats he had thrown at her the other week, still slightly on edge.

But then she had a prime example of her treatments success in front of her, which managed to cheer her up slightly. “I’d have thought that you’d have had a little more respect for me Isley. I mean think of all the history we have together.”

The list of people that had at one point of another angered Harley wasn’t a short one, but even then a few names stood out. Alyce had been not only the reason Harley had met Joker, but the reason she was forced into the Asylum as well. If Harley had to pick one person to point this all on, it’d be her. With a hand on her belly Harley’s head tilted, eyes on Alyce. “I come all the way over here to share the good news and this is what I get in return? You being mean to me?” She shook her head, the frown on her lips twitching every few seconds– even she couldn’t contain her excitement for what was to come. “Good luck with the door. There are three guys out there waitin’ for ya, ya know, in case you try to leave me alone or something.”

In the papers people often placed Joker as the mastermind of everything, and Harley as the poor girl who got herself caught up in the mayhem, but Alyce was smart enough to know that wasn’t true. Harley was smarter than she let on, which was probably part of the shtick. The brunette would never admit it, but they both had so much in common that it was easy for her to profile the girl in front of her, although looking at the stomach she could see that Harley could still surprise her. “If you want to leave then I’m not stopping you.” The excited look on her face was not a good sign, so instead of just standing there she decided to call her out on her bluff, making a run for the door. She didn’t even manage to get out of the doorway before one of the guys grabbed her, dragging the woman back effortlessly, despite the struggling. “So this is it. Your big plan. It’s funny I was expecting something more dramatic from you. You must be losing your edge.”