Transference - (Jonathan Crane, Harley Quinn)

Chapter 4

After a long weekend of partying, Monday came and Harley arrived almost exactly on time for psychology class for what may have been the first time in the history of her academic career. She smiled and waved at Crane when she entered his classroom, but he was too busy writing "HISTRIONIC PERSONALITY DISORDER" on the chalkboard to pay her any mind. One or two students noticed her waving at him and made curious faces at each other—why is she so happy to see him? sorts of faces—but everyone had the good grace not to start gossiping where their professor could overhear.

Harley took a seat in the second to last row and pulled out her notebook and pen, eagerly preparing to take notes. Crane was wearing his tweed jacket again, she noticed, but this did little to stop her from superimposing the image of him in just his shirt and vest over it. The memory had stuck with her more than she thought it would, undoubtedly because it was so strange to see him out of "uniform." Seeing him out of his jacket was like seeing the sky turn green one day: so unusual that the memory took precedence over the ordinary.

Professor Crane turned around to face the class and Harley did her best to grin wide enough to catch his eye.

He didn't so much as glance at her. In fact, he didn't acknowledge she even existed for the entire class, his eyes seemingly skipping over her with every sweep across the room that they made. Despite the project the two of them had shared—the rapport and camaraderie of a common goal that she thought they had developed—he didn't even know she was alive.

When class ended, Harley left with her brow furrowed and the corners of her mouth down-turned into the tiniest of frowns. She started toward the quad, deep enough in thought that it was troubling.

Though it was slight by anyone's standards, her change in demeanor was still pronounced enough that it prompted no fewer than six different guys to offer to cheer her up by any means possible, with proposed methods ranging from doing funny voices to doing her. Granted, she received at least a dozen of those kinds of offers on a good day anyway, but even the sleaziest frat boys noticed that she looked grumpy, and they didn't notice much of anything going on above the neck.

Tuesday went much the same way Monday did. Wednesday and Thursday, too. With each passing day, her smiles and waves upon entering Crane's classroom grew a little more exaggerated; when he asked a question, she thrust her arm in the air a little more desperately. Every day she moved up a row until she was sitting front and center, beaming at him from her seat, hoping he'd give some indication that their project—no, that she—was important enough to acknowledge in some way. Any way.

Still he didn't notice her.

It didn't make sense. Why wasn't he paying any attention? And why did it bother her so much that he wasn't? Perhaps, she theorized to herself, because everyone paid attention to her wherever she went?She'd never actually gone wholly unnoticed before. Everything about the very notion was positively bizarre to her.

After four solid days of being ignored, Harley decided it was time to try a different tactic on Friday afternoon. She flounced into class with her hair in a ponytail, wearing her best and tightest Gotham University sweater over a button down shirt. She took a seat in the very back row, which was empty, daintily crossed her legs at the ankles and took out her notebook.

As the hour wore on, she fanned herself with her hand a little, feigning being overheated, and made a great show of pulling her sweater over her head, thrusting her torso forward as she did so. Harley dropped the sweater next to her desk and rested her chin in her hand, returning her attention to Crane's explanation of Bipolar Disorder.

After a few more minutes, she casually unbuttoned the top button of her shirt. A few minutes after that, the second followed. The third—which was the last she could undo without her appearance becoming downright obscene—was undone about ten minutes before class was scheduled to end.

When class was dismissed, Harley put all her books in her messenger bag and put her sweater over her arm. She did this slowly enough that she was one of the last students to leave the classroom and—when she finished gathering up her belongings—she headed for the door, taking the ponytail holder out of her hair as she went. She passed Crane's desk where he sat grading papers and, just as she stepped out into the corridor, she shook her hair loose in a tumble of white-gold waves.

Harley flipped her hair and said over her shoulder, "See you Monday, Professor Crane."

Much to her consternation, he did not look up or acknowledge her in any way.

The hair toss always worked! She'd done a subtle strip tease over the course of a full hour, just for him! What was wrong with her?

Harley practically stomped back to her dorm room.