How to kill a relationship slowly (Alternate Universe)

Ivy hadn't claimed to ever be in love. She hadn't talked about the idea of her, Ivy Weaver college student falling for just any guy. Or girl she recognized the fact that she was young and it was okay to experiment even though she had been raised Catholic. She just wouldn't lead anyone on. It was as simple as that really.

She did not expect him though. She met him when she was twenty-two. They had similar friends but he was older. He caught her when she slipped on some ice out side of Arkham Hall at the University. His hands had felt very warm when they were buried against her coat for that brief minute as he helped her right herself. Then she found herself agreeing to go out for coffee, she really liked coffee.

They hit it off. He was about to join the police force. She wanted to be a lawyer. He thought she would be great at it and she thought he was brave, everyone knew the stories about the Gotham PD after all even if things were changing.

They danced around their feelings for a long time before they decided to move in together. He was finally on the force and she was going through law school. They were both very happy and Ivy thought the future looked bright. A year before she would take the bar exam he asked her to marry him. She was stunned but agreed and he tossed her over his shoulder and she giggled as they disappeared into their bedroom to celebrate.

They married and he kept her from crawling up the walls as she studied for her bar exam. He did so by giving her lots of back rubs when he was home. And called her whenever he had a break. She always found herself smiling with glee whenever she heard his soft but firm voice.

She passed and eventually found herself working for the District Attorney's office. It had been her dream since before she met him. Before she fell in love and was happy with everything. He became unhappy. He remembered Harvey Dent. All he could see was how idealistic his pretty wife was and how hard and far she could and would fall. No one could work and live in Gotham unchanged. So he tried to talk her into quitting. Talked about them having children. Moving to a different city, a different state.

Anything to save her. He would transfer anywhere to protect her. But how does one protect someone who doesn't believe they need protecting? There is no way. She got mad and stood firm. She wouldn't leave Gotham. She was in love with the city. She wanted to save it. Like a knight crusader only a little tarnished from wear and tear; she knew she wasn't perfect after all. All Bill her wonderfully protective husband could see though was a damsel in distress lost in the woods.

She refused to leave the forest. Didn't want to abandon Gotham. So he who thought he was the knight crusader trying to save something precious did the one thing heroes should never do if they want to stay to the end of the story and to grow old with the person they loved. He took a transfer and walked out.

Ivy didn't understand she didn't see he was trying to protect her. She was hurt though deeply by his sudden departure. So she did a perfectly reasonable thing and threw herself into her work. She stopped talking to their friends who thought she was crazy for not going after him and she cried a little over a broken heart. It took her six months to decide to send him the divorce papers; he left her first after all but she would make him hurt right back she had every right to feel petty and angry she was injured first.

They still talked after that. It was self-destructive at best and bitter sweet at worst. They were both stupidly in love still and they both knew it. The last nail in the coffin though was when Bill got drunk and slept with a teacher in the town he was working in. Ivy was mad and jealous. Even more so when she found out there was going to be a child and all Ivy had was her work and empty coffee mugs all over her apartment.

"I don't hate you," she told him finally over the phone. "I just can't stand who we've become. Good bye Bill."

And she hung up on him and walked away for the last time. It hurt less to just end it after all.

"Well I don't!"

The trial had been very heated. It was rare to find such fierce competition in the court room for someone like Two-Face. Ivy insisted on calling him Harvey Dent. That didn't mean the papers didn't call him what she called him. She liked to identify them as a person rather than as the manifestation of their illness. Harvey wasn't what anyone would call sane after all.

And hearing his lawyer pick up on that. Try to weaken her stance that Harvey needed to go back to Arkham because Blackgate was what Harvey wanted this time for reasons Ivy didn't want to think on.

The lawyer said he believed in Harvey Dent. That struck a different cord within her.

She stood up cane in hand and turned to the jury. They felt nervous about this. So she smiles kindly at them. Everyone likes a pretty young woman she has found. It sets them at ease.

"Well frankly? I don't believe in Harvey Dent." She lets that sink in.

"You've seen and heard the evidence. And I'm sorry to say we are all biased in some form or another by Harvey Dent's infamous career. Which is a shame." She shakes her head sadly.

"I wish we could be fair. This is as fair as we can get. But let's try to be for a minute ladies and gentlemen, shall we? Pretend you never heard the name Two-Face. Now imagine someone else doing this. Imagine if you will someone going into a jewelry store."

She had heard hints that it had mafia connections. That perhaps this was why Harvey had flipped a coin to decide on his actions.

"Mister Dent confessed to flipping a coin before he walked in there with his men. To decide if he was going to threaten everyone in there or not. Now, that isn't so bad, is it? A fifty/fifty chance to start. Either you do something like that.... or you don't.

What followed though is worse though. Every time a coin is flipped the probability changes. The chances get narrower. He saw there were customers. Yet he still flipped a coin. And he is educated enough to know that the chances were going down. Further and further to if he was going to shoot or not. And he did shoot the employees. It was not in their favor. He knew that and could have stopped. Yet every time he was left with two choices he confessed he had to do it. He claimed he couldn't stop himself. You and I and everyone else heard him ladies and gentlemen of the jury. So I ask you, don't believe in Harvey Dent.

He is not well. Our only hope for us and for him is to send him back to Arkham. Where they can help him. Maybe one day in the future you and I can believe in him and his hopeful recovery but not today, please not today."

If Harvey wasn't insane Ivy would have crusaded for him to go to Blackgate or anywhere else but Arkham she thought grimly. It wasn't the best place to go really but it was safe enough and recived fairly decent funding. She felt bad for not saying she believed in him. She had faith that if he stayed in Arkham and got proper treatment he could get better. She honestly didn't believe that he was a bad person just very ill. He needed their help and not their scorn even if she still found some of the past cases very chilling. At least she thought though that this would never turn into a death penalty case as it wasn't constitutional in the state of New Jersey, she did not think that Harvey deserved that fate. Now there were a few others she could argue for that being the fate they deserved but she wasn't sure it was something she had the right to decide.

Even when the public bayed for vengeance. No they had to take the moral high ground. These people deserved their help not their righteously angry 'justice'. Which was why she was secretly thankful that the Batman and his ilk never went too far even when some thought it would be okay if they did, Ivy certainly didn't and wasn't even sure that the masked vigilantes should even operate in Gotham. Though she couldn't and wouldn't deny that somehow they made things almost safer.