Please read the author's note at the end.

LIFELINES

CHAPTER ONE

The first week went by in a haze.

Dick had been in the hospital almost the entire time, giving blood sample after blood sample and numbly signing documents his doctor handed to him.

It was as if the more the doctors told him about his condition, the more unreal everything became.

Only when they finally settled for the date of the first chemo dose did the whole thing crash down on him. His heart started to pound twice as fast, and Dick vainly tried to hide the trembling of his hands when he said his goodbyes.

Stepping outside into plain sunlight made him sick, nausea hit in a matter of seconds, and for a moment he actually scanned the hospital yard for some place to empty his stomach. His breath hitched in his throat and he sat down heavily on a bench, right beside an old man who was sucking air out of an oxygen mask in rattling gulps.

Oh, God.

Richard fled.

He could deal with the Joker, Blockbuster, Ra's, the Batglare and a horny Poison Ivy, but this was different. This..

Back at home, he grabbed the phone and dialed the first number that came to his mind.

It was Barbara's. The effect was immediate: only hearing her voice made all the worries go away. Why hadn't he called her earlier?

Of course, she noticed something was off in a matter of seconds. There was no way of telling such a diagnosis gently, so Dick just blurted it out. Barbara told him that that was his worst joke ever. When he didn't respond, he could hear clatter from her side of the conversation.

"Are you hacking the hospital?" he asked with a faint smile, the first one in days.

"Shut up, short pants."

A second later he heard her gasp, a curse almost inaudible.

They talked for the next two hours. He asked her not to tell anyone. She wanted to know if he was nervous about next week's chemo session. Richard hesitated for a second, then answered honestly:

"Terrified."


And he was.

He had barely slept the two nights prior to his chemo appointment, although Dick didn't know if that was thanks to anxiety or to the pre-chemo meds his doctor had given him. The list of side effects on the small pill bottle read (he swore to himself to never ever read about side effects again) that insomnia was common, but he doubted that he would be able to sleep without taking them.

Instead he was laying awake and stared up at the ceiling, wracking his brain about Jason, Bruce or Tim. So far he hadn't come up with a master plan or told any of them.

Bruce was out of town. Out of country, actually.

An email told him that Cassandra needed Bruce's help, and he was trusting Dick to take care of Gotham. No such luck. By the time he read the mail, Tim had already called him with news about his and Steph's adventures on patrol, so at least everything was fine in the crime fighting department. He had wanted to tell Tim, he really did, but then he had decided otherwise. His little brother had sounded so happy when he told him about the look on Killer Croc's face that Dick already felt the bad conscience bubbling up for dragging Tim down.

Jason was untraceable. He had asked Barbara to find him, but she couldn't. And if she couldn't, nobody would. It was safe to assume that he was alive and well, but there was no chance in hell of finding him when he didn't wanted to be found.

His mind wandered on to the faces of his colleagues when he told them about his sickness. Turning his police badge in for the time being felt terrible; his boss had almost doubled over with promises and affirmations that he could return anytime he was up to it again. Amy cried, even though she hid it well. That scared him senseless.

Amy's red eyes haunted him. In his sleep-deprived mind, they morphed into Tim's (likely) or Damian's (unlikely) and made the cycle start again.


So when Richard stepped tiredly into the oncological unit of the Blüdhaven All Saints Hospital, his intestines turned to ice, colder and colder with each step.

The nurse escorted him to a bed behind a flimsy curtain and instructed him to take off his jacket and shoes. Dick complied without bringing one word past the lump in his throat. He barely nodded when she asked him if he was ready, even though he actually wanted to scream bloody murder when she plunged the needle into his left arm.

She left him with an encouraging smile and a pile of paper to work through (hadn't he signed and read everything last week already?), but he couldn't tear his eyes away from the small glass bottle that hung from the I.V. pole, connected to his vein and dripping a clear fluid into the steady flow of isotonic saline solution.

There was a biohazard warning on it.

A freaking biohazard sign! Seriously?!

Indeed he was so caught up in staring and awaiting sickness and pain in any second that he jumped and yelped in surprise when his mobile phone buzzed against his thigh.

Cursing, he fumbled it out with his right hand and barked a breathless "Yeah!" into the speaker.

"Did I miss anything?" Barbara's voice came through.

He stared at the phone. "No, just started. What are yo-"

"Hair still in place?"

"Everything where it should be," he loved her straight- forwardness. "Although I could totally pull it off."

She sneered. "Like that time you and Wally blew up Gotham Academy's chemistry lab? Trust me, your boyish charms depend heavily on your eyebrows."

Then she began telling him about her week, and after a while he leaned back, relaxed, and listened to her chit-chatting the time away.

Fifty minutes later she excused herself and hung up. He glanced warily up at the biohazardous bottle above his head and realized flabbergastedly that she had talked him through the whole procedure.

Faintly he ran a hand through his hair - still there.

He checked for any pain in his body - nothing but the ordinary, slight aches in his limbs.

When the nurse returned, he was about to wave a hand in front of his eyes (- everything clear) and grinned up at her sheepishly. She was taken aback, but then grinned back. "You feeling alright, hon?"

"Yeah, it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be.."

After taking out the needle, she told him to stay put for a few seconds before sprinting off. An awkward silence ensued while Dick pressed a soft fabric against his bleeding arm.

"So, um, when will the side effects kick in?" he asked reluctantly.

The nurse looked at him sympathetically. "You got a staircase to climb at home?"

He nodded. Three, actually.

"You'll know then."

She was right.

-tbc-


Coming up next: Bruce!

I promise to stay as close to medical authenticity as possible, but I'm pretty sure that I'll mess up sooner or later. Please keep in mind that there are different versions of chemotherapy, and they affect each person differently.

I'll also take my liberties with the ages of the characters. I imagine Richard as about 23; he should probably be older, but I don't want there to be such a big age gap between him and his brothers. Jason will be 21 (barely drinking age :P), and Tim probably 16, 17... Damian is 11, and Bruce's age is one big mystery^^

Feel free to point up any mistakes you find. I'm still trying to figure out how my profile works (editing, hello?), so please bear with me.

(important stuff ends here, blablaing begins)

I'm completely blown away by your nice reviews and support! Thank you SO much. English really is my second language, but thank you very much for not believing it :D. I'm usually quite confident in it, but this is the first time I wrote anything in English, so I was nervous.

To express my gratitude, this chapter reaches you earlier than my schedule wanted it to!

Love, Pekuxumi