All hail the Five Foot Ninja and arg914 for their beta-reading prowess.

Roy had not quite touched the doorbell button when Clark opened the door and pulled his old friend into a suffocating bear hug.

"I hope you're hungry," Clark said, as Roy breathlessly declared, "It's great to see you, man."

"We're always glad to have you here," said Clark, leading him into the living room. "Lois will be home in a few minutes. Come into the kitchen for a minute. I have to chop some vegetables."

Roy started to offer his assistance, but he hadn't managed to get his mouth halfway open before noticing that the previously empty space in front of Clark on the kitchen island had been magically replaced by a heaping plate of finely sliced tomatoes, celery and peppers. Clark was turned towards the sink, washing off a razor-sharp vegetable knife.

"Can I help set the table?" Roy asked wryly.

"What, you didn't see me just do it?" asked Clark. He grinned at Roy's dumbfounded look and handed his friend a trio of dinner plates. "Just kidding."

Lois joined them a few minutes later, threw her laptop and three briefcases onto the couch and gave Roy a warm hug.

"Where's Midori?" she asked.

Roy's faced darkened. "Out at the movies with her new friends."

"Oh, honey," Lois said sympathetically. "You didn't really think she was going to sit in that apartment every night and tinker with her microchips?"

"I kinda did, actually," Roy said morosely. Lois smiled, took his hand and led him to the table.

"It's better this way," she said. "You want to be her choice, not her only option."

This sounded really good in theory, Roy thought. He was not sure how well it was bearing out in practice. Midori had called him every night while he was sick, but their conversations invariably included an update of her nonstop activities with a bunch of unfamiliar names, among them Tasha, Molly, LaTonya – and Ryan.

Eager to change the subject, he asked, "Where's Clay tonight?"

Lois frowned. "Out with his new girlfriend."

"You don't like her?" Roy asked, selecting a piece of garlic bread from a tray Clark was holding out to him.

"It's not that," said Lois. She spooned some salad onto her plate and passed the bowl to Roy. "It's just that he met her when he was covering a story. She was a witness. I'm not nuts about the ethical questions that presents."

"That's right," Clark deadpanned. "Perry White would never have let one of his reporters date someone they'd quoted describing an armed robbery. That's almost as bad as – I don't know – writing article after article about a guy you'd been crushing on since he'd stopped your Space Shuttle from making a crater out of Metropolis."

"I'm going to hurt you later," Lois informed her husband, as Roy laughed and bit into his garlic bread.

Clark gave Roy a cautious glance. "It's our other child I'm wondering about."

"What are you wondering?" Roy asked with forced politeness. Clark and Lois were cherished friends, but Martha was his daughter's best friend and a respected member of his team. He did not feel it was his place to disclose her current state of health or the interesting developments in her previously antagonistic relationship with Bruce Wayne. Lian had had quite a lot to say on that last subject – not all of which Roy had taken seriously. Still, he had been intrigued yesterday when he had flown into Gotham to check up on Martha and found her recuperating in a glass-enclosed arboretum at the top of Wayne Manor.

Clark seemed a little embarrassed and Roy could tell he was choosing his words judiciously.

"They still going at it?" he asked finally.

"Oh," said Roy. "No. They're behaving themselves." Or at least they're not fighting, he thought, wondering if Clark should look quite so relieved.

The night had been frigid again and largely tranquil. By the time the Batmobile glided into the cave, its driver was more than glad to be home. He jumped out of the car, slipped off his mask and headed quickly for the shower. When Alfred's voice broke across the silent cavern, Bruce was almost surprised. There were still a few hours left until daybreak; the old man was rarely up this early anymore.

"Another early night, sir?" Alfred asked. There was a hint of smugness in his tone.

"There's no crime out there," Bruce said defensively. "It's too cold."

"Gotham has become a bastion of peace and tranquility over the past few days," said Alfred with his usual understated sarcasm. "The citizenry will certainly commend your efforts."

Bruce opened his mouth to respond, thought the better of it, and continued towards the shower. He managed about three steps before the butler's voice stopped him again.

"Dr. Kent is better and she's leaving," announced Alfred, as if this was Bruce's fault.

It seemed kind of soon to Bruce, considering the extent of Martha's injuries, but he turned to Alfred as if he couldn't understand why this development should bother the old man.

"Well – we want her to be better, right?" he asked. Alfred glared at him.

When Bruce walked into the arboretum ten minutes later, Martha was fully dressed. She had styled her hair, applied her make-up and was one-handedly balancing the heavy hospital bed over her left shoulder. She swung toward the door when she heard the ding of the elevator and nearly decapitated a dazzling winter orchid with the end of the bed. As soon as she saw him, Martha smiled.

"You're wearing a green sweater," she said.

"Close," Bruce said. "It's teal."

"I think it's green," said Martha, as he held up three fingers. "Three."

He added a finger. "Four," she said. Glancing back at the hospital bed dangling from her shoulder, she added, "I was looking for a place to put this."

"Just leave it," Bruce said. "You know, you don't have to – you could stay an extra day, just to be sure."

Martha smiled. "Thanks, but I've gotta get back to work. And you guys have had your lives disrupted enough." She set the bed down carefully.

Bruce slipped his fingers through his hair just above his right temple and absently cupped the back of his head. Martha had disrupted his life, and not merely by being his houseguest. He saw with a miserable clarity that he wanted her to keep disrupting it.

He did not realize he was staring at her until Martha dropped her eyes to the hospital bed and asked awkwardly, "Are you sure you don't want me to put this somewhere?"

Bruce shook his head. "I don't know where it belongs."

She took a step toward him and started to say something, when the elevator dinged and Alfred pushed the rolling serving cart past the spreading double doors.

"We can't persuade you to stay another day?" he asked. "Your health –"

Martha offered him the same gracious smile. "I'm perfect, thanks to you guys. And I've gotta get back to my –"

"—life," Bruce filled in, scowling at Alfred as if he were the only one trying to make Martha stay. Martha gave the butler a helpless shrug.

"I expect we'll still see you for brunch next Sunday?" Alfred asked.

"Of course," replied Martha, as Bruce said suddenly, "I want to talk to you about that."

Martha tilted her head toward him, but it was Alfred's inquisitive gaze that Bruce met.

"I want to discuss this with Dr. Kent," he said. "I'll fill you in later."

He was getting used to Alfred's dirty looks. As the elevator doors closed behind the indignant butler, Martha asked, "Did you tell him?"

Bruce looked away, but he could feel Martha's hope-filled eyes linger across his face.

"Christmas," he muttered. "Isn't that when everyone gets all sentimental?"

She smiled. "What about Sunday?"

Finally, he was in comfortable territory. "We couldn't see much of your fight with – what are they calling her?"

"Telekinesis Girl," said Martha wryly. "Let's stick to Chatichai until we can come up with something more original."

"Fine. Like I said, it was pretty hard to see, but I think I could show you a few things that could help you next time you go one-on-one with someone who provides more than the average challenge," he said. "Maybe hone those fighting skills a little bit."

"I'm a good fighter," Martha said indignantly.

"Take away the superpowers and the insane determination," said Bruce. "Could you take Grendel?"

"Well, he trains all the time," said Martha. "He's obsessed."

"Lian?" asked Bruce.

Martha made face. "Sunday after brunch?"

"Before brunch. I don't want you to puke on me. Wear your bracelet," he added, referring to the silver bangle Superman had designed in collaboration with a cadre of Cadmus scientists in order to help his wife cope with a hyperactive flying toddler. While the alien circuitry and metals encircled Martha's wrist, she was no more super than anybody else.

"OK. Thank you," she said quietly. "And for this," she said, gazing around the plant-filled atrium. "Guess we're even."

"I don't want us to be even." The words left his mouth before he could stop them.

"No, I mean... I didn't…." She gave up. "Thank you, Bruce."

He leaned into the hug she gave him with his fists jammed in his pockets. Martha gave his arm a final squeeze and brushed past him. Bruce heard the elevator doors open and the soft pad of her sneakers as she stepped inside. He could feel her eyes on his back, but he didn't turn around. When the heavy double doors closed behind him, he walked over to a large window facing the vast greenery in the rear of the manor. It was still dark when Martha emerged from a back door a few minutes later. She gave the lonely estate a cautious glance, then segued into her statuesque blonde counterpart and shot into the sky.

The cup of coffee Alfred had left on the cart for Bruce was cold by the time he stepped away from the window. He drank it anyway. He wasn't worried about the caffeine. He knew he wasn't going to sleep anytime soon.

Harvey was usually irritable with Martha when she was away from Arkham for more than a few days, but when she opened the door to his cell this time, he gave her a sharp look and followed her quietly downed the corridor. It was already late afternoon and the staff parking lot was nearly empty. Harvey walked towards Martha's office window and gazed at the sinking blood-orange sun.

"So what did the Justice League need you for this time?" he asked, as Martha closed the heavy wooden door behind them. "Someone get hurt at SuperMax?" Arkham prisoners weren't allowed access to the news, but Harvey had made an art form out of extracting information from guards who believed weren't telling him anything. Martha smiled. She had brought a few of Josh's days-old newspapers for Harvey to read, but she wanted to make sure he was doing all right before he became absorbed in them.

"Oh, you know: Had to patch someone up," she said.

Harvey's eyes narrowed. "Was this someone yourself?"

Martha's smile faded.

"You've lost about ten pounds," Harvey said. "You look like a skeleton."

"Major exaggeration," Martha, reaching into the refrigerator under her desk for a few bottles of iced green tea. She added reluctantly, "I kinda ended up in the line of fire for a minute."

"Just a minute?" he asked skeptically.

"It only took a minute," Martha said. In response to his dark look, she added, "Believe me – I've learned my lesson."

"I don't want another doctor," Harvey said ominously.

"Don't worry," said Martha. "You're stuck with me."

She turned the conversation toward Harvey and how he'd been feeling over the last few days. He'd been bored, of course, having spent more time alone in his cell than when Martha was working. But he was sleeping better and his nightmares had become less frequent.

"How about that twitchy thing your hand was doing?" Martha asked, leaning back in the padded green office chair and crossing her legs.

He shrugged. "Still twitching. Mostly at night, right before I fall asleep."

Apologetically, Martha said, "I'm sure it's a side effect of all the medication you're taking. I can give you something that would probably make it stop."

"No thank you," said Harvey. "I'd rather twitch. Oh, hey," he added. "Did you hear about Fray?"

Martha planted both feet on the floor and leaned forward in her chair. "No. What about him?" Harvey's network of gossip and hearsay extended way past Arkham's barbed wire gates.

Harvey grinned. "Joker tried to kill him."

Martha gaped at him. "No."

"Yep," said Harvey, obviously pleased with himself for having delivered an exceptionally luscious piece of gossip. "Tried to kill him. Failed to kill him."

She moved around her desk. "Harvey, are you sure about this?"

"I'm sure," he said, studying her urgent expression with interest. "You know my sources are solid."

"Please name them," whispered Martha, taking a step closer.

Harvey hesitated. "I'll give you one. Hartrampf's lawyer told him and he told me. Our one-man-gang is scared shitless. He doesn't want anyone to think he's taking sides."

Martha threw her arms around Harvey and planted an impassioned kiss on his scarred cheek.

"That was completely unprofessional," said Harvey sternly. "Do it again?"

Martha escorted Harvey back to his cell immediately. She didn't need to explain herself; Harvey assumed she was going to take the information straight to Batman. He was almost right. Martha returned to her office as quickly as she could – the hallways were vacant, but there were cameras everywhere, so she couldn't move at super-speed. She locked her office door, grabbed the tiny hologram projector out of her pink nylon backpack, flung open her second-story window and rocketed toward the Narrows.

She wasn't big on reading the news, but as the daughter of two veteran journalists, Martha understood the need to confirm information before reporting it. She was cruising over Crime Alley within seconds and found Pepper Bennett in the middle of a corpultheszine deal fifteen minutes later. Once more, Bennett's desperation to evade Superwoman saw him charging headfirst into a wall.

She did not envy Bennett his dilemma: scoring corp in Gotham City bought what amounted to a life sentence; sharing the Joker's private business with a crime fighter would result in a death sentence – if the mad clown heard about it. Superwoman tipped the scales by asking the acrophobic hoodlum if he had ever been to the top of Cleveland's Schuster Tower, at 135 stories, the tallest skyscraper in North America. She was headed there now. Would he like a ride?

The Joker, Bennett gasped hysterically, had tried to kill Sean Fray.

Superwoman shook a few details out of Bennett, pocketed the bag of corp and headed for the office of Michael Harftrampf's attorney. Everyone in law enforcement knew Carson Faeder. He was rich and sleazy – and also as hardworking as Martha Kent. Superwoman found Faeder at his desk and asked the lawyer why he had a bag of corpultheszine in his top right hand drawer. He immediately named his source on the Joker-Fray split and gave her an address.

Martha Kent landed feet-first through her office window less than an hour after she'd left it. Pacing excitedly, she jabbed at a number on her speed dial menu and nearly destroyed her cell phone when she slammed the small device against her straining ear.

Alfred answered on the second ring and handed the phone to Bruce.

"I have an early Christmas present for you that can't wait," she said, her voice nearly vibrating with glee.

There was a long silence on the other end of the line. "Is this a metaphorical Christmas present?"

"It's a great one," said Martha rapturously. "You know that old Masonic temple on the edge of Crime Alley? The one with all the gargoyles on it?"

"Yes."

"How soon can you meet me there?"

They agreed on an hour. It was a twenty-five second flight for Martha, but she was there fifteen minutes early.

Bruce stared at the telephone mouthpiece with mild amusement before replacing it on the kitchen wall. Then he poured himself a glass of water and added a dropper full of concentrated vitamin supplements. Swirling the mix idly, he asked, "Did we get Dr. Kent a Christmas present?"

"Yes," said Alfred, turning towards him from where he stood at the sink. He waited for the obvious question.

"What did we get her?" Bruce asked, as he took a swig of water.

"A five hundred dollar gift card from Victoria's Secret," the butler said evenly. Bruce spewed water all over his pajama bottoms, his bare feet and some of the floor. Alfred whipped back around to the sink to conceal a smirk.

"Very funny." Bruce glared at Alfred's shaking shoulders and reached for a roll of paper towels.

Alfred faced him again. The old man's faded blue eyes shone with mirth, but he folded his arms determinedly across his chest and said, "You've a week left until Christmas. I'm sure you'll be able to find something for her by then."

Bruce hadn't chosen a present for someone by himself in more than ten years, and that had been a retirement gift for Jim Gordon. He was sure Martha wouldn't want a new bag of golf clubs. He did not want to have to think about what kind of gift would make Martha Kent happy. He thought it best not to think about her at all.

"You didn't get her anything?" he asked helplessly.

"The gift I bought for Dr. Kent," said Alfred. "Is just from me."

Martha was straddling a gargoyle when Batman crept onto the rooftop. He watched the soles of her Reeboks bounce restlessly against the stone beast's flanks like a cowgirl coaxing a reluctant mare. He allowed one of his boots to drag briefly against the gravel roof, making just enough noise to let her know he had joined her.

As she leapt off the gargoyle and rushed toward him with nearly maniacal excitement, Batman said, "Someone's going to think you're a jumper."

Martha shook her head. "No. This is the dark side of the building. It's like being invisible."

Batman gave her a peculiar look. "You hang out here a lot?"

"Yeah. It's a great place to think," Martha said.

"I know," he said. He'd been coming to this spot for the past thirty years, whenever he needed to think or sometimes to just clear his head.

Martha reached out and gently took his gloved thumb.

"Ready?" she asked softly. Her eyes shone beatifically.

"I think so," he said, uncertainly. His boots felt as if they were welded to the rooftop.

She shut her eyes, savoring the pure joy of what she was about to tell him, then opened them and said, "The Joker tried to kill Fray."

"What?" The news should not have surprised him: Double-crossing his partners was hardly out of character for the Joker – yet Batman was thunderstruck.

"The match made in hell is Splitsville," said Martha giddily. She told him about Harvey's revelation and the lengths she had gone to verify it.

"Really good work," said Batman, still trying to wrap his mind around the news. .

Martha beamed. "It's going to be so much easier to catch them now."

She let go of his thumb and stepped back to look more comfortably into his eyes. "I mean, I know you're going to want to go after Fray alone."

Batman felt a lurch in his chest that had nothing to do with Fray's expulsion from the Joker's deranged orbit. In all likelihood, he would have learned about the split before the end of the night's patrol. But he had wondered for months how he would make Martha see that as glad as he was to have her in on the legwork, in the end, he had to take down Fray by himself – and it turned out she already knew.

Alfred had said something at Thanksgiving regarding Martha's ability to understand Bruce's life's work, but this was about more than that. It was about Martha understanding him. Other than Alfred, Dick and Tim, there weren't a whole lot of people who had ever done that. None of them had been women.

"I figured I could still get in on the Joker, though, right?" Martha was saying.

"Of course," Batman said as he struggled to get a grip on his overloaded head.

Martha looked up at the moon as if it were a watch and said, "Well, I've got to get back to work. I'll be playing catch-up for days." She meant twenty-four hour days.

As she stepped jauntily onto the head of a gargoyle and reached towards the projector on her hip, he called, "Martha."

Their eyes held together and suddenly her jubilant smile melted away. She seemed bewildered – vulnerable – and very young.

"It was a great one," he said. "Your present."

With startled eyes still locked on Batman's, Martha stepped backwards, forgetting there was nothing behind her but air. She lost her footing on the gargoyle's granite skull and plummeted toward the street.

Alarmed, Batman rushed to the edge of the roof. As he peered into the darkness, Superwoman torpedoed past him, hurtling straight into the heavens and too quickly out of his sight.

Next Chapter: A lonely Christmas starts looking better for Roy; the Joker's new partner - and his plans - are finally revealed.