Title: Holding on To You

DEDICATION: This installment of the Rooftop series is dedicated to all those people who gave me long, detailed reviews for "Making Ends Pre-empt the Means". Your comments were invaluable and your continued support in spite of the fact that many of you disliked the direction I was taking the story in is amazing and a huge vote of confidence. So thank you; and I hope you enjoy this. :D

THANKS TO: Warriora, my marvelous beta-reader.

NOTE: I've divided this installment of the 'Rooftop' series into three parts. All three parts have already been written so you won't have to wait long before I update. This is also the first story in this series to be written from Bruce's point of view, and will probably be the only one. Both these are deviations from my original plan, which was to have the entire thing as a series of one-shots written entirely from Gordon's perspective. So this particular fic is a direct result of your reviews from the last time- I haven't changed the direction I'm taking the story in but I wanted to give something back to those who spent so much time and thought on their comments.

So…I sincerely hope you enjoy this, and even if you're still not convinced, will continue to review and criticize my work. I really love you guys! :D

Part 1: Barely Breathing

I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing,
With a broken heart that's still beating,
In the pain there is healing,
In your name, I found meaning...

- Lifehouse, "Broken"

Midnight. The party was at its peak. And for the first time since he had taken on mantle of both the Batman and Bruce Wayne, he couldn't find the energy to pretend any enthusiasm for it. He sat at the bar in the formal dining room, sipping on a dry martini, brooding. The sounds of the party washed over him- soft, formulaic music, people making meaningless small talk with people they barely knew, people pretending to make meaningless small talk but really cinching important business deals with people they barely knew, overdressed women flirting coyly with men twice their age.

He had hosted and attended so many of these events in the last few years that it had all become routine. If Alfred were here, he would have …he cut that thought off by gulping down his drink so fast that it left his throat burning and his eyes watering. He had always hated these parties. Their sheer meaninglessness always left him feeling like he was dragging his parents' names and everything they had stood for through the mud. The apple has fallen far from the tree. That was what old friends and colleagues of his parents thought of him as.

And yet he had always been able to pretend to enjoy it all, because he had always been sure that protecting his identity had been worth the subterfuge. After all, it didn't take a genius to figure out that the man behind the black mask and the cape and cowl was a man of means. Not everyone had the resources to design a bullet-proof flight-suit and a Batmobile. All it took was a little bit of digging into the activities of the R&D department at Wayne Enterprises- it had been embarrassing how easily Coleman Reese had figured it out- and just like that, he would be finished.

The only protection he had was if people believed that all he cared about was partying and throwing a fundraiser or three so he could give himself an excuse to party. And it worked; no one would even remotely suspect that Bruce Wayne, notorious for his excesses and his hedonistic tendencies could possibly be the vigilante that spent his nights jumping off rooftops. So he tolerated it…

But today was the first party he had hosted since Alfred's death- it had only been a month, but still far too long for someone like Bruce Wayne to spend in grief for a mere butler. His "friends" had been dropping hints all over the place, and eventually he'd cracked. The house had felt far too empty without Alfred; the nights, though he spent most of them stalking the city, were still far too long and fraught with bone-chilling nightmares that made him wish he could just go without sleep.

In sheer desperation he had thought filling the house with people might help...but these people, if they weren't just rich and looking for a good time because they had nothing better to do were shallow social climbers or aspiring business owners who came only for the contacts they might be able to make over free drinks and food. He gulped down the last sip of his martini and made a small gesture to the bartender to hand him another. It was his fourth, and he normally didn't drink this much out of a paranoid fear that he might reveal something while inebriated, but tonight he couldn't bring himself to care.

Alfred had kept him grounded, had seen past both his masks, 'Bruce Wayne, Playboy Extraordinaire' and 'Batman, Misunderstood Vigilante', to Bruce. Just Bruce. With the sardonic glances that conveyed so much while seeming to say so little and his dry, humorous understatements he'd managed to keep Bruce from dying of boredom and loneliness. An image of the butler rose unbidden in his mind, old as he had always been, but strong and healthy; eyes smiling in spite of his stern face.

And then, even as love and pain knifed through him at the memory, another image rose of the same man lying spread-eagled on the floor of a grocery store between two aisles of laundry detergents and breakfast cereal, blood pooling under his body and eyes open and blank as the Batman swooped into the room seconds too late—choking, Bruce downed his glass in a single gulp. This time the bartender just set another glass in front of him without his needing to ask, and he started to gulp that down, too, although a voice in his head was warning him that if he drank anymore he'd have an extremely painful hangover tomorrow. His mind was already starting to buzz strangely, the sounds of the party felt a million miles away; even the hand holding his drink felt disconnected from his body.

And then somebody- a woman- screamed.

He had followed Lamburn for two days through the Narrows, mind still reeling from what Gordon had asked him to do. He couldn't…his one rule…

And the crime scene photographs of how those girls had been found flashed continuously through his mind. He'd watched as Lamburn had stalked a young woman who worked the evening shift at a strip club. She was paying her way through medical school and her stage name was Randy and her real name was Harriet Randall. She had brown hair and blue eyes that always seemed scared, and she carried pepper spray in her hands as every night she walked the distance from the strip club to the bus stand as if expecting someone to jump her at any moment. As if she could feel someone watching from the shadows.

For such a big man, Trevor Lamburn could be very stealthy when he wanted to be. He was a regular at the strip club, and watched her perform every night. He only followed her until she climbed onto her bus, and then he climbed onto the next bus and went home to his brother, the D.A., who pretended not to notice his absence.

Bruce barely slept during those two days and nightmares haunted him when he did. Images of Harriet Randall lying naked and bleeding on the street. Images of other brunettes he'd seen emerging from the strip club late at night, wearing that same, scared look. Fleeting but terrifying visions of a bleeding Alfred advancing on him as he covered between department store aisles holding laundry detergent and breakfast cereal telling him he was nothing but a cold-blooded killer, that he should have given up on him a long time ago.

And still Bruce struggled, wavering upon a knife's edge. Could he do the one thing he had sworn never to do? Or could he not do anything, and live with it when he read in the newspaper a few days later that Harriet Randall had been raped and killed? On the third night Lamburn finally did more than follow her - as she rounded a corner he jumped out, knife in hand. She tried to use the pepper spray, but he knocked it out of her hands with laughable ease; she tried to fight him as he grabbed her arms and shoved her against a wall. And Bruce watched, unable to move, unable to breathe as he tried to rip off her blouse with his teeth.

She screamed. Blood-curdling, terrified, helpless, and he reacted on pure instinct. Swooped down, pulled Lamburn off her, and snapped his neck, in one quick, efficient motion, just as he had been trained. The girl took off running, leaving him standing there, staring down at Lamburn's body, wondering what he had done.

Bruce shot to his feet, knocking his glass over, head whipping wildly in search of an attack, a rape- here at his party- and then he stopped. In the split second it had taken to get to his feet, the scream had dissolved into drunken laughter. It hadn't even been a scream, he realized, just a woman squealing in excitement or joy. A little too loud and indiscreet for a party like this, but it was not so very uncommon for someone to get a little too tipsy. His nightmares- his every living moment- had been so haunted by that night- that scream and what it had compelled him to do- that the smallest thing was enough to take him back there, to that alley.

Bile rose in his throat as the images flashed through his mind again. Before anyone could stop him he strode out of the room into the hallway, heart hammering. He had to take quite a few turns before he found an unoccupied guestroom. He shut the door and locked it behind him, and then hurried out onto the terrace, needing to get as far away from the party as possible. The cold air hit his skin as he left the central heating of the house- that night was cold, too; so cold- and that thought was all it took for his already churning stomach to rebel. His knees began to buckle as he coughed up the contents of his stomach into a bed of nauseatingly sweet-smelling flowers, but a hand suddenly closed on his arm, propping him up. If he'd had the energy, he'd have jumped out of his skin, but as it was he was too busy throwing up to even look around and see who it was.

There was no way he could mistake that voice, though, in the last place he had ever expected to hear it- here, at one of his parties. "Here- let me-"

"Gordon?" He straightened as the nausea abated.

Gordon blinked at him. "Mr. Wayne?" he asked, sounding just as surprised to see him- clearly he hadn't recognized him in the darkness. "I, uh- are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Bruce said, pulling away from him, needing some distance, because seeing Gordon on top of what he had just relived wasn't doing much good for his mental state. "Just had a little too much to drink, that's all."

"I apologize," Gordon said hurriedly, sounding for all the world like a kid caught stealing cookies. "I shouldn't have come in here; I just needed some air-"

"My house is completely open to all my guests, Commissioner," Bruce interrupted him, trying to regain his composure. He had invited the man, after all. He always did- it wouldn't do for such a respected man to not be invited to one of Bruce Wayne's parties- but Gordon never came except for the occasional fundraiser, and this wasn't one of them. "You just surprised me."

Gordon looked at him more closely, and Bruce suddenly wished he was wearing his cape and cowl. "Are you sure you're okay?" he asked. "You look…"

He turned his face away, knowing the floodlights illuminating the outside of the house would make visible what the dim lighting inside had masked- the dark circles under his eyes, and his exhausted, pinched appearance. What with the nightmares and the lack of appetite, he knew he looked like hell. "I'm fine, G- Commissioner. Really I am." He cursed himself for almost slipping on the name twice- he was ridiculously off balance today…

There was a long silence, and Bruce prayed the man would just leave. He didn't have the energy for this, not tonight. But for some reason, Gordon hesitated.

"Mr. Wayne…I know I should probably go, but that day, you thanked me for being there, even though…even though I barely know you." Bruce couldn't stop himself from flinching, and he knew that Gordon had noticed because with his next words he sounded more sure of himself. "So I have to ask again, because I don't think you have anyone else who will- are you sure you're alright?"

He opened his mouth to say yes a third time, but something in Gordon's eyes made the words catch in his throat. He wasn't alright, and he didn't know if he ever would be, and he just didn't have the strength to pretend anymore. Losing Alfred, this endless charade- Bruce Wayne by day, Batman by night, with no one there to know who he was anymore; and now the fear that had always haunted him, that he would become what he had been trained to be- was destroying him, piece by piece. And he had no one. Because Gordon was right, no one else had asked him that, until today, not even Lucius Fox.

Swallowing hard, he turned away from Gordon, not wanting him to see that he was fighting tears. A hand descended on his shoulder, warm, solid, silently comforting, and the simple touch, after so many weeks of no physical contact was all it took to break him. His eyes flooded against his will and his shoulders began to shake. He had always cried silently, ever since he was a little boy, and now was no exception. The hand on his shoulder tightened imperceptibly, but other than that Gordon didn't make a sound.

TBC…