In the middle of the night, the heavens opened and poured torrents down onto the streets where Ivy stumbled; hurt, confused and alone. She'd managed to wrangle herself free the moment Derrick Carter fell asleep. As soon as she was able, she retrieved her items and hurried onto the street. She was free at last. Except it didn't feel like a victory at all, quite the contrary in fact. Something in her had perished in that room, she felt it crumble to dust beneath her waking breath. She didn't know what it was, but it felt important.
Every street light glared menacingly, every splash of raindrop cruel to her ears. The seedy eyes of strangers followed her everywhere she went, all wanting to devour a piece of her; like scavengers scouring the scraps of a predator after it had had its fill. She wanted to break apart as the rain continued to batter indiscriminately on her aching body, but she willed herself to continue trudging on, telling herself that Oswald would care. He would shelter her. He would get revenge for her.
But it wasn't Oswald who met her at the gate, it was Victor Zsasz. The man who specialized in a hundred methods to inflict the most torturous wounds on his enemies, had become calloused to the sight. "I've got specific instructions to keep you out." He stood in her way, without a single sign of sympathy at the state she was in.
"W... why?"
"You've been late, and you haven't been... all here. Those were his words. As such, it's my duty to inform you that you're fired, Ivy Pepper."
"I've had things happen to me! I've had a really really crappy day, I don't want to deal with this now," she cried above the sound of the rain. "Let me in there immediately!"
"Nope," Zsasz wouldn't budge, holding a hand out to stop her. "You don't belong here anymore. Time to scoot along."
"Has Oswald forgotten that it was me who fished him out of the harbor and nursed him back to health? He wouldn't be alive if not for me."
"Don't care," said Zsasz, completely disinterested in her story. "Tell that to someone who bothers."
"So you'll what? Turn me away in the middle of a storm?"
Zsasz nodded. "Looks like it."
Ivy let out a low growl as she unleashed herself at Zsasz that she might tackle him away from the door. Unfortunately, true to his reputation, Zsasz already had a revolver pressed against her forehead before she even managed to touch him.
"Try it," he dared her. "My finger's getting slippery."
Her growl had turned to a quiet whimper. She knew she wasn't getting past Zsasz, and probably what he said was also true - that Oswald didn't care for her anymore. Oswald had been getting increasingly impatient with her. Her lateness had probably exacerbated things. As she backed away from the gun, her whimper turned into weeping as she realised that she'd come to the end of the relationship she once had with Oswald Cobblepot - as for helplines go - she had a final one. One final friend to look for.
"Where's she?" Barbara burst out at Selina, her hands threatening to strangle her ex-partner's mentee. This made Edward Nygma nervous. It wasn't even a day and Selina had already lost sight of Tabitha. He silently chided himself for leaving his potential enemy in the care of an eighteen-year-old girl.
"I thought she'd come here!" stated Selina, partially relieved not to have found Tabitha in the middle of shooting up the Sirens Club. Her being missing still presented some measure of concern though, especially now that Barbara had just caught wind of it.
"Where did you two idiots deposit her?" Barbara asked sharply, looking also at Ed.
"The Narrows," Selina replied when Nygma chose to keep mum.
"What the hell? You think she wouldn't come straight back?"
"Where in God's good earth did you think we could deposit her and not have her return, Barbara?" Ed said in a rhetorical fashion. "Might've been better if you'd killed her when you had the chance."
"Yeah, you'd love that wouldn't you?" Barbara snapped at him.
"Maybe you wouldn't have this problem in the first place if you hadn't gone and killed Butch," reasoned Selina.
Barbara turned to her. "You weren't here kid, you didn't see them plotting against us. And to think all this started because of Butch's jealousy."
Nygma grinned regardless of the situation. Selina let out a sound of disgust. "This is ridiculous! You're all ridiculous. I can't believe I came here to learn from people like you. You guys have nothing to offer me." She turned around to leave.
"Oh yeah?" The click of the safety being taken off a gun echoed in the emptiness of the Sirens Club. Selina turned to see Barbara with a gun aimed at her. "Rule one, always exploit the chance to hold your enemy's mentee for ransom, especially when your enemy is out for blood."
"You really want to do this?" Selina asked. It wasn't even funny anymore.
A second gun from Nygma lowered itself in front of her face. "I'm only good when I'm kept, but when I'm shattered, trust is broken. What am I?"
"Who cares with..."
"A promise!" he explained with some measure of irritation at her unwillingness to play along. "We all know that Tabitha is on her way here. You'll be seated here, front and center. Let's see if you give your mentor pause at all."
Just a few hours after Selina had departed for the Sirens Club and had unfortunately been detained, Ivy came pounding for minutes on the door to her apartment. Unaware of what it was that kept her friend from being there for her as she had been for her. The injustice of it all weighed heavily on Ivy, feeling more alone than she'd ever felt before - even beyond the great suffering she'd endured sleeping alone inside cardboard boxes in cold alleyways slightly before her transformation. She wondered if Selina, like Oswald, had forgotten how she'd once saved her life, and intended to shut her out like he did.
Humanity was indeed a cancer; ungrateful, uncaring and altogether evil. Ready to chew up the innocent and spit them out in disdain. She couldn't understand the reasoning of people, and in many ways, she'd always struggled to identify. Sometimes it was easier just to shrink away to what she understood best.
Resigning to her mental conclusions, she slid to the floor and coincidentally found herself seated beside a shriveled potted plant that was just struggling to survive with minimal sunlight in that long hallway. She picked it up. Its leaves were as faded as was her heart. It hung low, barely recognizable as what it would've looked like if it were healthy. Nobody could hear its cry except her. Nobody could feel the faint of its spark of life except her. "Don't worry little one, I'll bring you back to life," she promised. "And I won't let anyone hurt you, ever again."
She rose from the ground with the plant in hand. It seemed to glow in her presence, glad to finally be rescued.
And she too... for the first time that night, she smiled.
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