Selina glided through the door, the aura about her intoxicating. Bruce took notice first of her clothing. She'd obviously come directly from the cave - his territory - although she now wore clean, low heeled boots and as well as a longer leather jacket, both of which subdued her look. He swore he could smell the damp rock and earth as she sauntered towards him. She smiled serenely, unaware of the affect her wet hair, gleaming, wide eyes, black clad body, and contented expression had on him.

He swallowed uncomfortably, contemplating the limits of his current physical and mental condition that Leslie had explained to him a short while ago before she stepped out. He'd give anything - anything - to proceed how he wanted with the woman who, according to Leslie, has made all the difference in his recovery since Batman died.

Instead, he sat entranced in his chair as she hefted two bags onto Bruce's bed with impressive ease and slipped off her jacket. He paid no heed to the bags. The flushed, vibrant appearance of Selina - which he was certain was caused by her visit to his cave and how could she not get a high from that - offered Bruce much more than the contents of the bags did. He stared unapologetically, eyes sweeping her entire tightly clothed physique, from the curve of her toned legs, to her perfectly rounded hips, and then to the sultry lips he'd have to kiss to get his head on straight. Her lips twisted into an amused smile as she realized his blatant attraction and where his eyes had traveled.

"Cat got your tongue, Mr. Wayne?"

"Quite." He cleared his throat. "Miss Kyle."

"We really are past formalities." She admitted, sitting on the edge of his bed, only inches away.

"How...how far past?" He furrowed his brow.

"Friends..." Selina's eyes glimmered as she stood again. He didn't believe her. "However, you did kiss me the other day but sometimes you don't remember."

"My loss, then, unless you want to see if I remember this one." Unexpectedly, he stood, supported with his cane. He wrapped his free arm around her to pull her close. His mouth covered hers hungrily, and even more as she wove her hands into his hair. He groaned.

"Bruce," she whispered when he paused and rested his cheek against hers. He couldn't get enough, however, and pressed his lips on hers, deepening the kiss. He knew she was enjoying it when she made a sound at the back of her throat. But she was the first to pull away, breathless and achingly beautiful.

He reached for her again, but she gently pushed against his chest. Slightly stunned, Bruce stared at her, unsure of how to react to her retreat.

"As much as I'd like to continue along these lines, we have work to do, Bruce." Her voice washed over him, silken and soothing. But it was her eyes, afire and yearning, that gave her away.

Satisfied that he'd made an impression she clearly appreciated, he leaned on the cane with both hands, a smug smile playing on his lips.

"You really shouldn't had done that," she tsked. "Now I'll feel guilty."

"Don't feel guilty. I don't."

"One of us should and being that you're the one who won't even remember that means me."

"So you're the responsible one in our relationship?" He asked, the idea instantly thrilling. "I didn't expect to hear that."

"We aren't...we..." Selina sighed. "There is no relationship."

"Why not?" He asked honestly. "I may be a man hindered in mind, but not of heart. There is something going on between us."

"You. That's why...Bruce." She frowned at him, but didn't deny his claim. "The last memory you have of me. What is it?"

He frowned back. "That's not a fair question."

"Answer me, please?"

"You took me to Bane, just as I had asked," he said, meeting her gaze straight on but unwilling to go further for one reason - he'd forgiven her. "But this. You being here...it proves I was right."

"No. It doesn't. Your answer is to my question is why we shouldn't be in any relationship."

"So, does this mean you're here out of misplaced guilt?"

She looked at him, silent.

"If it is, I won't make you stay. That's not fair to either of us."

"I don't...I..."

"You don't...what?"

"I don't want to leave," she said. "Maybe this is the worst timing and too soon for us both. Maybe we really are suckers for wanting to save each other. But I can't leave you, Bruce. At least not until you're better and you're memory has returned."

"It is guilt, then."

She unzipped one of the bags, her sigh heavy and distracted. "Let's get down to business. I only have a few hours before I have to leave and take care of things for you."

He stared at her hands busy with the bag, hating himself for even beginning their day the way he had. He was miserable. As soon as she waltzed into the room, he'd lost his mind. Completely, if he wanted to be entirely honest with himself. If she carried misplaced guilt over what Bane had done to him and Bruce was limited by his mind as he was, what hope did he have that she stayed here for him and him alone?

"Oh no," Selina said in a dry tone. "Please don't brood, Mr. Wayne. You've done that before and it's not fun to watch."

"I'll try not to, then." He gave her a saddened smile, trying hard to calm the war raging within him. "So, the cave, huh? What did you think?"

"Impressive," she murmured in a tone huskier than normal and looked at him almost regretfully. "But you should've been there with me."

"No," Bruce sighed and carefully sat back down in his chair. He kept the cane within his grasp. In his mind, he was strong enough to walk a million miles for this woman, but it was far from his truth. "I don't think it would be the best thing for me to go back there right now. I couldn't anyways."

"You really are going to ask Blake to replace you."

"It seems that's what I wanted to do, Selina." He motioned to his notes on his table. "I can train him-"

"Train him?" Selina pursued her lips.

"Yes, train him."

"Eventually, you mean. Not now."

"You're not happy with the idea." She was right. He wasn't in any condition to train anyone. It took a mental strength he didn't have, obviously, and the physical fitness he'd have to regain. Add in the surgeries he needed on his knees - and his back - with weeks and weeks of recuperation and therapy traditional training was a long, long way off.

Selina sent him a dark look as she began to pace. She was high strung and it unnerved him. He sighed inwardly, wishing that he could start the day over with both feet firmly planted on the ground.

"I don't care who you choose to fight crime in your city in your place. I care that you're one hit short to the head to becoming a vegetable or dying, Bruce. And I care that you don't seem to understand that."

"I do understand that, Miss Kyle." He said, emphasizing the fact that he'd return to formalities.

"Do you?" She stopped pacing and cocked her head at him in a challenge. He glanced down at the bag Selina had set beside him and grazed the top of it with his hand, unwilling to part with the idea of bequeathing his cave to a man eager to do good and smart enough to learn how to use the skills Bruce had acquired. "One hit in the head, Bruce."

"I won't get hit in the head."

"You can't prevent something like that. Even in training you could be hit." Selina shook her head. "Anyways, it's not like you can mail it to him with your return address. Bruce Wayne is dead."

"Maybe you could drop it off at his apartment for me."

"I will jump through a waterfall for you, but I draw the line at making a house call to the kid who arrested me," Selina huffed.

"You will have to deliver it somewhere for me, you know. Is that going to be okay-"

She rolled her eyes. "Wayne. Please. I'd go through the front door of Wayne Enterprises in broad daylight if it meant sorting this out."

Wayne Enterprises.

"Didn't you write in my notes that you found out they'll be reading the will and dispersing of what's left of my estate soon? I can't imagine with all that has happened in Gotham that they've even begun the process."

Selina glowered at him, as it were him who had been throwing curveballs all this time.

"You're the one who gave me the idea, Miss Kyle." Bruce brushed her off casually. "The broad daylight thing may just work. You can handle that. The only way for this to go through the appropriate people and then to Blake is if you first take it directly to Fox."

Her frown lifted. "Fox. I'd like to see him again."

"Of course, this means my secret is out to one more person, but it's not like Fox wasn't going to figure it out anyways. Since it's likely I did use autopilot, he'd know from checking the software patch."

"I'm sorry you can't remember, Bruce."

Surprised at her sincere apology, Bruce gave her a smile. "Don't be. I figure things could be a lot worse, Miss Kyle."

"'I'd say this was 'a lot worse' in my book," Selina muttered, now pacing the room.

He fell silent, wondering what had really been the thing to set her on edge, and fingered the name tag attached to the bag. Robin Blake. Training Blake would be a challenge, an almost impossible one. He couldn't do it alone. Selina was right. Bruce glanced up at Selina, who had an odd expression on her face.

"If you did fix the autopilot, you'd know it would show up on the software patch, Bruce. That means you already knew Fox would find out. You wanted him to discover for himself. And Blake."

"That seems a little mean," he muttered, cross with himself. He'd strung the logic together on his own, before she came through the door. But it didn't meant he knew what to do with all of this information. They were facts - and facts, only.

"No," she said softly. "Don't think of it in that sense. You had to stay buried. Maybe...maybe you wanted a little time to yourself. You deserve it."

Maybe he wanted a lot of time to himself. What Selina explained made sense.

"Gordon will find out tonight, whether or not it was in my plans initially. But, what about Alfred, Miss Kyle?" Two of the people he cared about most. And the third - Miss Kyle?

"That is something I can't answer for you." Selina hesitated, watching him warily from the foot of the bed. "Do you want Alfred to know you're alive?"

He did, but the pain Bruce could still inflict upon Alfred wasn't worth the risk. Bruce sighed, hoping he was making the best decision and not revisiting his selfish, reclusive ways. "No, not now, not when I'm like this. We parted ways badly."

"I would think that the way you parted would be of no consequence once he hears you are alive."

"It hurts me to keep this hidden from him, Miss Kyle, but I don't want him to feel guilty for what happened to me. He feels enough guilt." He forced himself to stop there and avoid any detail on that matter. "I also don't want him to feel burdened in any way. I've put him through so much over the years and this would be too much. He can't know. Not yet."

"Okay."

Selina's quiet, acquiescent reply delighted him. He smiled at her with gratitude. Now he was ready to go over the rest of the details with her for the night.

Bruce's memory flourished at an astonishing rate as they planned the unveiling of the bat signal and meeting with Gordon as well as taking the bag to Fox. Selina held her breath, not quite knowing how to proceed when pieces of Bruce's short-term memory stretched to yet another hour and then by two - and then three.

That was the peak, and as Bruce fell distant and vague, withdrawing from her questions, not completely comprehending her explanations, and hardly knowing she was even in the room with him when by early afternoon, she realized they may have taken one step forward only to take two steps backwards. Bruce dug his fingers into his skull, already having hit his pillow with a thud and been administered a good dose of painkillers.

"I'll try to find Leslie." She ran a hand gently through his hair, wishing she could take away his pain.

"Who? What?"

"Your doctor."

"Oh. Stay."

Her heart clenched hearing his agonizing whisper. Ever since he kissed her that morning, Selina stepped back from him, thinking that he'd focus on the more important tasks at hand. It hurt to shut down his hope that they were in some definitive relationship, but she'd no choice even though it wasn't entirely truthful. They were something. But her plan worked. That, at least, had made her 'cold-shoulder' facade worth every painful minute she endured.

She pulled away but Bruce's strained, almost incoherent stay made her pause. "I'm not leaving the room right now. I need to get my phone. That's all."

He mumbled, his words muffled as he pressed his face partway into his pillow.

Selina waited, seeing that he seemed to what to tell her something. "Bruce, did you need something?"

His hands came down from his skull to the bed and he lifted his head barely off the pillow. "Fresh air..."

"What?" The man couldn't be serious. "I don't care if you are Batman, you're not up to doing that."

"Please," he weakly replied.

"Now, when you're in the midst of this? Bruce..."

Bruce pushed himself up and gave one limp nod, hardly enough to convince her. "I'll...work through it. The meds...will help."

"Have you ever thought it may be best to stick around here since you can't even open your eyes, handsome?"

"Tired... of being...a...shut-in." He winced, stepping towards his chair aided only by his cane. "Remember. No day off."

"I had no idea when I signed up for this that you'd be so stubborn, Mr. Wayne."

"I'm stronger...than I look."

"I know you are." She allowed himself the solitary struggle of getting himself in the chair and smirked a little at the weary smile on his lips. He was stronger than he looked but that didn't make it any easier for the man. She tucked a blanket under her arms before she began their journey through the clinic's subdued hallways. The almost-silent clinic was a blessing, really. Bruce kept his eyes shut for the most part. But when Selina pointed the chair towards the patio, he jerked himself wide awake. She turned the doorknob, ready to give him the fresh air he'd requested when she met with resistance.

Bruce's arm stretched out and his hand pressed against the door.

"No," he whispered.

Selina released the knob slowly. "It's not so cold today. In fact, it smells like spring out there. You picked the perfect day to ask-"

"No."

"Bruce? This was your idea, remember?"

"No. She...took me...here."

Her stomach recoiled. "You remember Nurse Be-"

"Don't say her name. Don't take me out there...please."

"I won't, big guy." She set her jaw, determined not to show him that he'd set her on edge with his reaction.

Bruce withdrew his arm and slumped in his chair, head bent and held up by his hand. Her instincts had told her that this would be too much but his pleading broke her heart. And now...she couldn't imagine what thoughts raced through Bruce's mind. Leslie should be informed. She'd know they should proceed.

But for now, she'd set Bruce on a different course. Distract him. Tell him the truth.

"Bruce," she whispered. "About us."

"Mmm?" He perked up, if one could call the small lilt to his noncommittal answer "perky."

Selina inhaled sharply. "We're..."

"We're what?"

"I lied before. About our relationship. There is...something."

"I know. Your eyes...gave you...away."

How could the man's whisper sound so smug? He'd read her well, yes. Maybe she should give him the credit he deserved.

"Bruce, there is something between us...but we...haven't defined it."

Fearful of saying anything else, Selina bit her tongue. She gripped the handles of his chair and had nudged him away from the hellish reminder when a familiar, small voice whispered from a few feet away.

"It's him, Mommy!"

Selina's confession helped Bruce work through the onslaught of painful, emotional memory as he shied himself from the rest of the world.

That nurse - a woman who surely had taken lessons from one of his worst enemies- whatever she did was irrelevant. He couldn't remember, anyways. He remembered only her face and the feelings she'd elicited from him, some of which tortured him in that very place - the patio. Despair. Hopelessness. Forgetfulness. Pain. They were descriptions of his worst nightmare. But Selina's admittance, although reluctant, chiseled away at the terror.

"You have visitors, Alex," Selina whispered. "Annette and her daughter, Cora."

He suppressed a sigh. He'd have to fake being well and being whomever it was he was supposed to be. Apparently...this time it was Alex.

"This must be a bad time," Annette's quiet voice came from Bruce's left. She'd come closer, perhaps was leaning in towards Selina to present her questions. "Is everything okay?"

"Maybe another time would be better. He has a pretty awful headache." Selina's hand squeezed his shoulder.

"I understand. I'm sorry we came over at a bad time."

Hearing the sniffle of a child, something broke the present, remaining bonds of his bitter memory of Nurse Beth - and Bruce opened his eyes, scarcely squinting at the lights around them.

"It's the perfect time." Selina's wary glance hardly deterred him from smiling at Cora. The hopelessness and fear he'd felt was waning. His migraine wasn't so bad after all, as long as he had a goal. Talking with Cora wasn't anything he couldn't handle. Even though he knew in a blink of an eye it could render him useless, the chance was worth it. "I feel better."

He didn't but training and self-discipline gave him the balance he needed.

After looking pointedly at Selina, he turned his still-pounding head to Cora. "Hi, there."

His greeting put everyone at ease and before he knew it, Bruce found himself playing Candyland with a three year old in the rec room.

Annette and Selina watched the game from another table. Bruce didn't mind. He liked having this adorable and charming little girl to himself. Everytime she smiled at him, it was for him only and each time a little piece of his headache disappeared.

"I need to make a quick phone call to postpone an appointment," Selina said after some time.

He couldn't remember anything about an appointment. He frowned at her.

"It's not important. I'll explain later, alright?" She said softly to him. "Annette will stay here with you until I come back, okay?"

"Sure," Bruce said lightly as he reached for a card in the pile. The end was near. He could taste the victory. Until he read the card. Bruce frowned at Cora. "You, young lady, were not supposed to win like this."

Cora cupped her hands to her mouth and her eyes sparkled with laughter. Selina rolled her eyes before she left.

"Handsome, you can't always be the best. Don't be a sore loser."

Bruce laughed. Before he turned his attention back to Cora, he realized her grandfather had come into the rec room and now stood within a few feet away. Fredericks' body appeared considerably thinner. More creases lined his face but his expression struck Bruce more than anything.

Bruce's smile somewhat faded. This was it. A moment of truth.

"Ah, so this is where you two go for a good time." Fredericks stood in curious study of Bruce and the game he'd been playing with his granddaughter. "And I assume you are the patient who made sure Cora was safe the other day?"

"Yes, sir." Bruce had already attached a light rasp to his voice, but he enforced it a bit too much in his greeting. He cleared his throat. "Excuse me."

"I'm Douglas Fredericks."

Bruce shook the man's hand, careful to shake it the way Bruce Wayne would never shake someone's hand - purposefully, with the utmost respect. "I'm...Alex. Your granddaughter is quite charming."

"Cora is a special child. She has a way about her."

"Cora?" Bruce frowned.

"Don't you member my name?" The little girl widened her eyes. Bruce restrained a groan, realizing his error.

"Yes. Of course," Bruce thoughts raced, coming up with a plan to hide his mistake. He smiled brightly at Cora. "Eloise."

"No," she giggled.

"Maybe...it's Matilda? Gwenyth?"

"No," she said with a three-year old's dramatic impatience. "Mommy, tell him my name."

"Wait," Bruce interjected. "I know what it is."

Cora leaned forward and gazed widely at him. He paused, enjoying the growing anticipation on the child's face. This was a ridiculous amount of fun and he was certain he wanted to play Candyland for another time tomorrow if he could.

"Cora, Princess of Candy Land," Bruce announced with a grand gesture, and Cora begged to play another round.

Finding that his headache had all but disappeared, Bruce easily agreed. He and Cora shared their made-up tales of kings and queens and candy and frogs as they landed on spaces and flipped over colorful cards. Bruce did not look at Fredericks more than what would be deemed polite. When Selina returned, he could hardly tear himself away from the game to give her a reassuring smile. She was tense, and he knew why. But Fredericks had not given any indication he recognized Bruce. And he shouldn't recognize Bruce- nothing was the same. He'd longer, much darker hair, a thinner face, a beaten body, a scraggly goatee, a rasping voice - not even the way he gave so much attention to a child was the same.

The game reached its end when his body could no longer handle sitting like he had been for so long. It cruelly reminded him of who he had become - an forgetful cripple with a back burdened with chronic pain. Which, in turn, ushered in the migraine he'd fought only an hour earlier. People faded and all was pain and confusing and dark until Selina's hands gently guided him to sit back in his chair.

But he could hardly bear to sit. His muscles rolled tautly, his hands straining against the misery gripping so many parts of his body. Her hands brushed back his hair back into a ponytail, ridding him of some of the warmth creeping along his neck. She rubbed his shoulders.

"Hey," she whispered in his ear. "Stay with me. Remember what I told you? About us?"

"Mmhmm."

"Good. Think on that. We're going back to your room," she said kindly in his ear, as if she were the professional, compassionate nurse, not the thief he desired. He didn't remember where they were now, or why they'd come, or why they were going back to his room in the first place. But Fredericks showed keen interest in the disguised Bruce, which meant trouble. And the adorable child had given him a tiny hug, which left him happy.

"I'm sorry." He managed to mumble the apology before the haze thickened.

"I understand." The quiet answer came from Fredericks. "Your father suffered horrific migraines early on in his marriage to your mother, Martha. He found the proper treatment, but it took some time."

Fredericks, who now knew Bruce Wayne was alive.