Chapter Text
She was walking down a dimly lit hallway of an old building, and somewhere the sound of a dripping pipe echoed along the walls.
Is this… Arkham? She’d walked these halls many times before, on her way to visit Jonathan. But the halls were empty and dark now, and her heels didn’t click along the tile floor. She was barefoot and cold.
Things were starting to look familiar, and she noticed the nurses’ station that she passed on the way to Jonathan’s room.
Am I visiting Jonathan? She continued slowly, cautiously, until she neared the large glass viewing window that marked Jonathan’s room. She peered inside. He didn’t look much different that he usually did, she thought. He was huddled in a corner, sitting on his cot, long hair shading his face. He didn’t seem to be shaking, or crying out, and Harley hoped that meant he was getting better.
“Jonathan?” She knocked on the glass. “It’s Harley, can I come in?”
She watched Jonathan jump, then slowly lift his head. His hair fell back out of his face, and Harley retched.
Jonathan’s eyes were gone, replaced by empty sockets. Trails of blood flowed down his cheekbones, dripping onto his filthy straightjacket. With bright orange thread, his mouth had been sewn shut, pulled into a grotesque smile. She watched him, horrified, as he stood and made his way to the door. She turned to run away, run back down the hall, and she ran into someone else.
There were at least fifty of them standing in her way. Her mother, her father, Jim Gordon, Harvey, Nygma, Leslie, her cousin Liza, everyone. Everyone that she had ever known was standing before her, staring at her without eyes, grinning at her with their huge yarn smiles, all different colors.
They advanced upon her as a pack, and her only choice was to back down the hallway, past the viewing window, to a set of doors she had never gone through. Jonathan joined the group that was cornering her, still grinning.
They all grinned at her; they all stared emptily at her. She could feel tears brimming in her eyes. “What happened to you?” She whispered, because she couldn’t find the strength to scream.
She was running out of hallway, she noticed, glancing behind her. The two doors at the end were fast approaching, and all she could do was wait for them to come.
Suddenly she felt the cold steel against her back and hands, and she pushed through the doors, the pack of doll-people following her. She looked around, suddenly knowing that she wasn’t in Arkham anymore.
She was in an operating theater, one that she knew very well, despite only being in it once. There was nowhere else to go. She was going to die in this room as she had before.
Cold hands took hold of her and she screamed, trying to fight them off. What was left of Nygma and Harvey had taken her by the arms and lifted her onto a gurney. A gurney covered in dried blood. They forced her wrists into the restraints, and Harley’s scream came out a sob.
All of the grinning doll-people circled her bed, staring. “Wh- Where are your eyes?” She sobbed, looking from person to person.
Suddenly, all together, their lips parted, straining at the yarn, and they began to laugh. The sound was haunting and echoed along the high ceiling of the theater, and Harley felt it move swiftly through her, abolishing any hope left in her heart.
“Dollbaby.” They all said at once, making Harley close her eyes in terror. “Dollbaby, Dollbaby,” They chanted, growing louder. “Dollbaby! Dollbaby! Dollbaby!”
“Harley!”She was being shaken, violently. Disoriented, she threw a fist and felt it connect with skin. “Ow!” Nygma yelled, and her eyes flew open.
She sat up suddenly and took in the scene she’d woken up to. Her, sleeping on Nygma’s couch, once again. Nygma, holding a bruised -possibly broken, from the way her hand felt- nose, getting blood all over his mint green pajamas.
“Nygma, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to!”
“I know,” He said, standing. “You were screaming again.”
“I was having a nightmare.”
Nygma walked to the kitchen sink and began to wash his face gingerly. “I usually try to leave you be, but sometimes I’m afraid in the other apartments it sounds like I’m murdering someone with an ax.”
Harley laughed. “You could never murder someone with an ax, Nygma.”
“How am I going to explain my nose to everyone at work?”
“Hmm…” Harley wondered. “Someone made a vulgar comment about me when we were walking home last night?”
“No, of course not. They’d notice by the lack of yellowing around the bruise that it happened this morning, rather than last night.”
“You’re reading too much into it. The only person that might consider that is Leslie, and I doubt she’ll care.”
Nygma scoffed. “I’m going to get ready.”
They headed out the door in precisely half an hour, walking through the chill morning air to the precinct. “You know, I’m going to tell Harvey you keep having nightmares.”
Harley sighed. “Why? He’s not my father. And he worries enough as it is.”
“You should really see a therapist.”
Harley blew a warm breath between her cold hands. “It can wait until I’m a therapist myself, thank you.”