[ 48 ] 2014

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"We can't let him go like this."

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Her parents talked to the school's counselor for permission for Harley to stay home the next few days due to her injury. Billy brought her homework for her everyday, and Cindy offered to do her hair, make up, and nails. Though Harley thought it pointless since she wasn't exactly leaving her room in those days because she was on bed rest, she indulged Cindy anyway. It was her friend's attempt at making her feel better. 

They were sat on Harley's bed, with Cindy doing her nails in a French manicure style and Harley commented genuinely. "Cindy, you should think about going into cosmetology. You're really good at it."

Cindy crinkled up her nose and shook her head before offering her response. "I do this stuff for fun. I want to go to a prestigious university and get a degree in math or science, or something nerdy like that. Something my parents and Billy can be proud of." Harley felt for Cindy in that moment. Her parents never paid any attention to her and Luke, and she wanted to get that attention by achieving something big at a university. When it came to Billy, Harley guessed that she wanted to get a degree in something he was interested in, to keep him around longer. 

"You know, Cindy," Harley said, her words full of friendliness and compassion, something that was normally unlike her. But so many things had happened since her family arrived in Sydney that she had learned to treat people better. One never knew when they would be gone. "Don't do something you don't like just to impress your parents and my brother. Billy will love you no matter what you chose to study, and if he doesn't...then its his loss, and I'd be forced to beat him up because none of my brother's previous girlfriends have been as good as you." 

Harley thought back to her brother's previous relationships. All of them seemed to look like Cindy, in the sense that they were popular girls and cheerleaders. But they had all been snobby, and treated Harley like she was less of  a person because she wasn't popular--not in front of Billy though. In front of her brother, they treated her in a false sweet way which Harley saw right through.

Cindy was genuinely nice to Harley, and she had grown on her. Harley already considered her to be one of her closest friends.

Cindy's blue eyes glossed over for an instant and her lips trembled with emotion. She threw her arms around Harley and pulled her close, shouting, "Oh, Harley! That's so sweet of you! When Billy and I get married and we have our first baby girl, we're going to name her Harley in your honor. I've already decided. Wouldn't you like that? A little Harley Quinn Jr. running around?" 

"That's great Cindy." Harley replied, her voice muffled by Cindy's blouse.

In the room by her computer desk, Ashton stood with a hand over his mouth to muffle his laugh as though Cindy could hear him. 

When Cindy left, Harley was visited by the hunters. They brought her news that Arthur's condition was the same, and was showing no signs of making a recovery any time soon. 

James and Paúl only stayed for a short while, having other business to take care of, and Dempsey sighed sadly when they left. "Paul and James don't even come in to sleep anymore because they're out taking care of the boss' business." She said to Harley, biting down on her lower lip nervously. "I'm always alone in the house with nothing to do. With Paul...I feel like all this responsibility he now has is driving him away from me. We're not as close as we used to be. I only feel close to him now when we sleep together and I hate it. Is it the same for you and Calum?"

Harley felt a slight blush tint at her cheeks. But she wanted to be serious about her response, since Dempsey seemed to be serious about the conversation as well. "Uh...Calum and I haven't..."

"But--I mean--you and Ashton surely..." She trailed off.

Harley shook her head.

"Oh." Dempsey shot her a look of surprise.

There were a few moments of silence between the two girls.

"You should visit me more often." Harley offered, changing the subject when the silence had gotten too awkward. Trying to lighten the situation, she wiggled her eyebrows at her friend. "Cindy can give us make overs and we'll watch girly movies together. Maybe we'll start acting like real cheerleaders for once."

Dempsey cracked a smile. 

"And about Paul..." She added after a moment, "Just talk to him. He won't know any of this makes you upset unless you tell him. He can't read minds. That's Hazel's special ability."

"Speaking of Hazel..." Dempsey trailed off as she remembered something.

"Is Michael coming back?" Harley's eyes lit up with excitement.

Dempsey crinkled up her nose, making the excitement fade from Harley's face momentarily. From her expression, it seemed that news was probably not too great. "Yes. I mean, no. Not exactly. Well, that's the plan. Paul and James sent a letter out to him days ago. They don't have a phone where we can reach them or a computer because they didn't want the other hunters to track Hazel and Jack down. All they left for us when they fled Sydney was an address to a PO Box at an airport in Trinidad and Tobago. We tried to send news for them through one of Naileah's portals...but that didn't work."

Harley fathomed the thought of a letter making it oceans apart, to another country. "By the time it gets there, he actually gets to read it, and comes here, it might be too late." She said, thinking about Arthur's condition. She didn't want to be negative about it, but there was a chance he wouldn't make it. Harley wanted her brother Michael to make peace with him.

"We paid for super fast priority mail and sent it out like three days ago." Dempsey informed with a bit of optimism. Though she added a warning, "But that's still going to take at least a week to get there."

Harley sighed, knowing that there was nothing more she could do but wait. 

-

She spent the next back from the hospital in her room--in bed. She only left whenever she was sneaking out with Calum to visit Arthur and make sure he was doing okay. The investigation for the death of Cold Hood had been concluded, when James convinced the police--or mind controlled them, more accurately--into believing that it had been out of self defense. And it wasn't a lie. He had shot at them first, and they only defended themselves.

With prom, the twelfth year trip to an amusement park, cheerleading competition, and graduation right around the corner, Harley knew that her injury couldn't have come at a worse time. She was Calum's date to the prom, the cheerleaders were counting on her for competition, and she needed to make sure she would get at least passing grades in order to graduate from St. Genevieve's. She had also already gotten her acceptance letters for some of the universities she applied to, and her parents were counting on her to pick a good one to go to for the next four years.

It was one week before prom when Cindy dragged Harley, Dempsey, and Andrea out to shop for dresses. She took them to the most expensive stores in the mall and told them not to worry about a thing. She would pay for their dresses, shoes, and accessories in order to fix this mess, as she put it.

"I can't believe you three haven't picked out your dresses yet." Cindy scolded them as she led them expertly through the mall to her favorite store.

Harley gestured to her side. They couldn't see it underneath her clothes, but they knew that was where her healing gun shot wound was. "I didn't exactly have the time to go looking for dresses while I was in a hospital bed recovering from a gun shot wound." She offered as her excuse.

"True." Cindy agreed. Looking to Dempsey and Andrea, she added, "What's your excuse?"

"I was also injured if you remember correctly." Andrea lifted her index finger in the air, matter-of-factly.

She had also gotten a gun shot to her leg when they were saving Harley and Dempsey from Professor Barnes, something that had happened weeks before Harley's incident. No one but the people in their inner circle knew about it, and Andrea played it off as being a cheer leading injury. It served to keep her out of the team until very recently. Harley felt guilty about the fact that the injury had left Andrea with something of a limp when she walked, barely noticeable. But Andrea never blamed her for it, which was something Harley found strange.

Dempsey sighed when Cindy looked to her solely now, expecting a good answer. "I really have no major excuse. But since Paul's chaperoning and he invited me, I thought we wouldn't be going anymore since he's so busy. Also, we haven't exactly been on speaking terms lately."

"I thought you guys were gonna talk it out." Harley said.

Her friend shrugged. "It was mostly yelling, and then I told him to go to hell."

Cindy tried to cheer her up. "You can be Harley, Andrea, and my date. I'm gonna give you a make over and get you in such a pretty dress that his jaw is gonna fall to the floor when he sees you. When I'm done with all of us, our boys won't be able to keep their hands off us." She said with a grin that caused the other girls to smile as well.

"Niall already doesn't." Andrea winked.

"Oh God." Harley laughed, but said no words of disagreement.

She remember that time they were in a hotel, with Michael nearly bleeding to death. Niall and Andrea had been arguing all afternoon, and just when it sounded like they were close to killing each other, their fight blew over. When Harley went to check on them, they were in bed together.

"Same with Billy." Cindy agreed.

"Okay, I did not need to know that." Harley said, feeling awkward. It was one thing to hear about Niall and Andrea, but it was another thing entirely to hear about her brother and Cindy. It was more awkward because they were related and she didn't want to know what he did in his spare time when he was out with Cindy.

Cindy placed a hand on her friend's shoulder, almost acting as though she were her older sister and not like they were actually the same age. "You'll understand when you and Calum start getting it on."

"When the heat starts." Andrea wiggled her eyebrows at Harley.

-

The night before prom, Harley was in the hospital with Calum and Dempsey, in Arthur's room. He was still comatose, and the doctors had asked Calum if there was any adult available. He wanted someone to make a decision to pull the plug on him, since he gave Arthur no plausible chances of waking up. Calum and Harley said they were the only people he had, and Calum was already eighteen. He insisted on keeping him hooked to all of the machines. The doctor said they could do it, but it would cost the family, and the hospital a lot of money.

"We can't let him go like this." Harley cried into her boyfriends arms while Dempsey called James to let him know what the hospital wanted to do. She and Paúl were still not speaking to each other. James instructed her to insist that they keep him on the life support machines.

The doctors warned them that if that was what they wanted, they would have to move him out of the hospital and into their house. They cared more about what it would cost them to keep him there, over their patient's health. 

"Everything's going to be okay." Calum assured Harley.

The doctor left the room to get paper work which stated they were going to move Arthur to Calum's house, and that the hospital was no longer responsible for him. Calum painstakingly pulled away from Harley and left the room to follow him, in order to provide all the necessary signatures.

Both girls sat in the room silently. Nothing hung in the air along with their silence but fear and worry. They both turned as the door knob twisted slowly and the door opened. Harley expected Calum to be back already, though he hadn't even been gone for five minutes. Dempsey expected it to be James or Paúl, back with news from the work they were doing back at headquarters. It was probably hard work doing Arthur's job, and keeping up with all the hunters stationed at different locations.

Instead they were met with three people they hadn't seen in a long time.

"How is he?" Michael asked with concern, rushing into the room.

Harley's brother was back in Sydney.

-

so my winter vacation starts tomorrow, but i will be working at my school's library. and i  anticipate that there will be about twelve more updates before this story ends. then i will go back and start writing the alternate endings. 

i hope you're all having a good december so far ^.^

question of the day: favorite christmas song? mine is "campanas de plata", which translates to "silver bells" from spanish. but its not the same "silver bells" we known in english. this one is entirely different. they just happen to have the same name. its a really good song, and i really like how miriam hernandez sings it.

thank you for reading and supporting!

-clary xx