Rosa opened her eyes and evaluated her surroundings. Grey ceiling. She was definitely looking up at something, but she didn't know what. Her head hurt, straight on the back. Why is it that a certain type of man always knows right exactly where to hit a person? She wondered, a bit incoherently. She began to reach her hand around the back of her head to feel the sore spot – and realized that she was laying on something hard and cool. A soft moaning came from beside her.

She remembered.

Rosa shot up from her position lying down on the slab of concrete, almost losing her balance and falling face forward onto the chain-link floor of the catwalk. She turned abruptly, balancing her hands on the table, and looked at Rachel, whose eyes were wildly rolling around and whose arms were endlessly twitching; plucking at her shirt one minute, swiping something out of the air the next, catching an invisible speck between her thumb and forefinger.

She had no way of knowing what Rachel was seeing, but she knew whatever it was was terrifying. That thought brought another one on its tail-end : Dr. Crane and the poison spray… how long had she been out? A minute? Two? An hour?

She whipped around again, now facing the set of double doors. There, to her left, slumped against the concrete wall, was the man who had been holding her back. He made a slight move, and Rosa crouched automatically to ready herself to pull out her gun, but the man was unconscious. It seemed that gravity was still paying him a visit, and his arms slouched forward. That helped Rosa immensely – at the most, only a few minutes could have passed since she herself had been hit.

Then, she smiled. Batman was on the premises. She knew the technique well enough. After all, thumping around on the ceiling had already terrified the drug workers at Wayne Enterprises' docks. If it had worked once…

And sure enough, the workers on the lower level of the room were looking around suspiciously, some had pulled weapons from unknown recesses; others were surreptitiously making their way out of the workroom through a door in the back.

There was a large crashing noise, and Rosa directed her attention to a newly dented laboratory table. Apparently, one of the huge florescent lights from overhead had fallen on it.

Nice effects, Bruce.

Immediately, one arm snaked around her waist, and another around her neck.

"This is getting really annoying," Rosa said, but the hands tightened.

"You want to play, Bat Man?" Eugh. Jonathan Crane's hot breath breezed past her ear and cheek. "Come and play, winner takes all…"

"You creep, get your little creepy hands off of me!" Rosa screamed, and slammed her foot to the floor in defiance. The heel of her stiletto hit something firm, but sunk in. Crane's hands immediately left her body as he jumped back, leaning against the concrete table to examine his foot.

Rosa ran over to the table and leant over Rachel, who wasn't in very good shape. She was alternately moaning and whimpering softly, and her eyes continued to roll. At one point, her hands drifted up to her hair and she grasped it as if hanging on to a lifeline, pulling at her long, straight hair as if the hallucination would stop if she managed to take chunks of it out. Rosa took Rachel's wrists in her hands and forced them down by her side, getting up on the table and holding her down with a leg.

"Rachel, listen to me. It's Rosa, Rachel. You're going to be all right. Close your eyes, Rachel… It's me! It's Rosa!" Rosa became more frantic as her words had no effect on her friend.

"She can't hear you," came a wheezing, laughing noise behind her. "She's going to be gone… soon…" Dr. Crane had clearly left the building, Rosa thought audaciously.

The wheezing laughter continued as Rosa placed her hands on top of Rachel's, holding onto them tightly, then it suddenly stopped.

"It's about time," Rosa muttered as she looked up to see Batman slam Dr. Crane against a set of metal shelves. Batman looked over at Rosa, holding Rachel down on the table with a slight roll of his eyes, then turned his full attention onto Dr. Crane.

The suitcase of hallucinogen was still in Crane's right hand, and he moved so that the hand with the bulb in it was tilted upward toward Batman's mouth. Again, the spraying sound was heard.

Batman smirked, and, grasping Crane by the throat with one hand, he used the other to pry the suitcase and bulb from Crane. He pointed the bulb directly into the doctor's face, and Crane's eyes widened for a split second as he understood what was going to happen. Crane's mouth opened, most likely to protest, but it was too late.

Rosa forced herself to watch the doctor's knees give out. He would have sunk to the floor had it not been for Batman holding him against the shelving by the throat.

"Who are you working for?!" Batman growled, and even Rosa winced at the anger evident in his voice. Beneath her, Rachel let out a fresh moan and, with a strength that seemed beyond her, pushed Rosa off her and onto the floor.

"Ow…" Rosa said quietly.

"Who do you work for?!" Batman snarled again.

"R'az… R'az al Ghul…" Crane said, his voice breaking with fright.

"R'az al Ghul is dead," Batman roared, and picked Crane up from the floor, his fist wrapped tight around the doctor's neck. "Who are you working for?!" Silence. "Answer me!!" Batman grimaced until all of his teeth were showing. His canines seemed longer than usual, as if he was about to rip into Crane's flesh.

"I'm sorry… Doctor Crane isn't in right now, but if you'd like to leave a message…"

The good doctor stared blankly into Batman's blazing eyes and he suddenly slumped to the floor as Batman let go of him.

"Bruce!" Rosa shouted from her position on the floor. Her left ankle was twisted; she cursed silently as she tried to regain her standing position but fell back to the ground. "Damn it!" she said violently. She knew she probably looked ridiculous, sprawled on the floor, her black dress up around her knees. She twisted around and found Batman kneeling on the catwalk next to her, his arms already going around her in order to lift her up.

"No, you idiot! Not me, Rachel! Crane got to her… that fucking poison…" Rosa brought her fist crashing down on the floor so hard that it came up with the grid of the catwalk imprinted on it.

"I can't just leave you here…"

"You don't have to. They called the cops, before you decided to drop in. Gordon might be here! He'll take me home. I'll explain what happened. Just get…" Rosa grunted with pain; she had tried to put weight on her ankle again, "…Rachel… out of here!! Get yourself out! They'll arrest you!"

But Batman just stood up and ventured out into the hallway.

"You stubborn idiot… Jesus Christ, will you listen to me!"

"No." Came the response from the door, as Batman re-entered the "pharmacy." Rosa screaming in his ear all the way, he lifted her from the floor of the catwalk and sat her on the table, then picked Rachel up. "Wait here," he said authoritatively.

"Oh yeah, like I have any other choice!" Rosa shouted bitterly.

"Just… stay!" Batman said, then all Rosa saw of him was his black cape as it billowed out of the double doors.

There was harsh talking out in the corridor, and Rosa sat still, stretching as far as she could toward the hallway without falling off the table… again.

"Can you take her?" It was Batman's voice.

"What do you need me to do?" Gordon!

"Just get her downstairs. She's been infected with a powerful hallucinogen. If I don't get her to the cure soon, we'll lose her."

"But how will you…?"

"Look, we don't have time. Just get her down to the Narrows-facing alley. I'll take care of the rest." Then, Rosa heard a constant, high beeping noise, and a few seconds later, it seemed as if a thousand screeching animals had surrounded them.

"What is that?"

"Backup." Rosa could hear the smirk in Bruce's voice. She listened carefully as more shuffling and moving noises came from the hallway, and then Batman came back in, heading straight for her.

The screeching was getting closer, and suddenly, Rosa was able to identify the sound.

"Huh." She said, unimpressed. Then, "Hey!" as Batman picked her up under her knees and armpits. "I am perfectly capable of moving around by myself, thank you very much, your Batness."

"Really." Batman kept walking, and they met a stairwell at the end of the hallway. Strangely, Batman brought his left heel up in front of him.

"This isn't really the time to practice tai-chi, or whatever the hell you're doing," Rosa spat. She felt very stupid and very helpless, and her arms were crossed in front of her sulkily.

"Take off the red, beeping part." Rosa reached down and removed part of Batman's shoe. "Now, we wait."

They didn't have to wait long. A swift black shape came flying past, running into Rosa's cheek, but recovering quickly. It was followed by another, and another… and soon hundreds of bats were flying in a column around the pair.

"Drop it down the stairwell." Batman said, and Rosa did. She definitely wasn't prepared for what happened next, as Batman leapt over the banister and they were falling… falling…

"Now would be a good time to employ the flying mechanism!" Rosa shouted somewhere between the eleventh and tenth stories.

"Anytime now!!" She screamed between the seventh and sixth.

It seemed they were about to hit the floor at full impact when Batman finally electrified his wings, and they shot out, immediately slowing down Batman and Rosa. By that time, Rosa's face was mushed into Batman's shoulder, which was, she noticed, very uncomfortable.

As soon as they stopped moving, she slapped Batman, hard. Which just ended up hurting her hand, as his face was encased in a hard black material.

Batman ignored the attempted injury and began to move even more quickly. He gently set Rosa on the ground (well, as gently as he could under the circumstances, thought Rosa, whose hand and bottom were now hurting). Batman retrieved something small and black from the floor and pressed a button. The high pitched beeping suddenly stopped, and all of the bats left by the nearest open exit. Rosa heard the satisfying sound of grown men letting out noises of extreme discomfort, and was about to enjoy her mental picture of Fleiss being bombarded by a horde of bats when she was suddenly picked up again. Batman kicked the side door open, and they were soon in the side alley, meeting Gordon, who was carrying Rachel.

Gordon's face morphed into an expression of surprise and suspicion. "Rosa?"

"Hey there…" Rosa said, waving.

"Explanations later," Batman growled. "Rachel's getting worse, and I need both her and Rosa to a safe place… Look, go back to the top floor with your policemen. Crane and his buddies have been dumping a poison into the water supply; probably have been for months now."

"Then why hasn't it affected us yet?" Gordon said, keeping one eye on Rosa.

"It's ingested through inhalation. I don't know yet what his plan was… and the man he said was planning I know for a fact to be dead. Just be prepared. Something was up their sleeves, and I don't think Crane would have gone to all that work for nothing. Now," Batman paused, and sighed. "Rosa, there's a button on my belt…"

"Say no more," she snapped sarcastically. "Just let me know which one, I don't want to punch the wrong thing." She finished, indicating that she would like nothing better than to hit Bruce Wayne, Batman, whatever he was calling himself this particular moment, exactly where it would hurt him the most.

"First on the left."

"Whose left, your left or my…?"

"My left."

Rosa's fingers trailed across the belt, and she smiled as Bruce took a quick intake of breath that had nothing to do with the dire situation. Just as quickly, she pressed the indicated button, and a large black vehicle came bursting out of a shack behind them, its top shifting until there was a visible opening.

"Put Rachel in," Batman said to Gordon, then, "I'm sorry, but you'll have to share a seat. This is a strictly two-passenger vehicle."

"No problem." Rosa rolled her eyes as Batman lowered her down into the Tumbler. Rachel was shifting around restlessly. Suddenly feeling a great sense of sympathy for her friend, Rosa wrapped her arms around Rachel and began to whisper in her ear. "It's going to be alright, Rach. Close your eyes, just listen to me…"

The next thing she knew, Batman was in the seat beside her, and the top was sliding shut. "Gordon!" Rosa shouted through the crack in the car. "Don't worry! I'm going to be fine! Just get that Crane jerk in a straitjacket, where he belongs!" And then it was closed.

Gordon felt rather peculiar. For one thing, he wasn't quite sure what had just happened in the past two minutes. For another, he had only a vague idea of what he was supposed to do next.

But then something occurred to Sergeant James Gordon that had been nagging at him for the past minute or so.

How did Batman, the city's most notorious vigilante, think he was going to keep Rosa safe? And for that matter, a much more important issue entered Gordon's mind. How the hell did the man in black know Rosa's name?!