A/N It's my birthday, I can post if I want to!

As always, thank you, thank you fabuloso reviewers! You rock my world. I appreciated and loved every single message you sent me.

Chapter 24

They went to sea in a Sieve, they did,
In a Sieve they went to sea:
In spite of all their friends could say,
On a winter's morn, on a stormy day,
In a Sieve they went to sea!

-Edward Lear

Alex sat on the edge of the bed in his air conditioned hotel room. Yesterday, he'd been flown from the Colombian army base where the hostage exchange had been made to the American Embassy at Bogotá. In addition to receiving a medical exam and telephoning his mother, he had been answering questions from both Colombian and American officials for two days. He was now free to go home as soon as he liked, and, in fact, had a seat reserved for him on a plane to Houston, but the thought of leaving Colombia with Richard still missing seemed impossible.

Alex had called Wayne Manor, of course, the moment he'd had access to a phone. In an awkward conversation with Alfred, during which he was painfully aware of the need for secrecy, he'd managed to say that Richard was all right, as far as he knew. He hadn't asked to talk to Wayne and Alfred hadn't offered to switch over the phone. In fact, Alex had no idea what he was going to say to Richard's guardian, and the thought of trying made him feel a little sick.

A soft knock sounded on his room door, and Alex went to look through the peephole, wondering whether someone from the embassy had come to invite him to dinner. His heart skipped in shock when he saw Bruce Wayne standing in the hallway.

Pulling off the security chain and turning the deadbolt, Alex opened the door and gaped at his employer. "What are you doing here?"

"Stupid question, Peaceable," Wayne hissed, shoving past him into the room.

Alex relocked the door. "Right. Rick. But … nobody knows who he really is. Won't your presence raise suspicions?"

"Let's just say I'm traveling incognito," Wayne said coldly.

As Alex's surprise faded, he realized that the man who stood in front of him was not the playboy he knew and despised. A handful of times during his employment as Richard's tutor, he'd seen Wayne shaken out of his shallow egocentrism. Usually, it happened so quickly that afterwards he convinced himself that he'd only imagined it. But there was no imagining away this frozen-eyed, expressionless stranger.

"Start with Richard's arrival, and tell me everything," Wayne said softly.

Alex did.

"We have to get off the river," Somerville said.

They'd been gliding with the current for over an hour, ignoring the motor and only using the paddles to keep their course straight so that their passage was noiseless.

"Where are we?" Rick whispered.

"The Vaupés river. Somewhere." He thought her whisper sounded entirely too cheerful considering that they were lost in the middle of Amazonian rain forest with the FARC after them.

They paddled to shore and then used the paddles to push the boat back into the pull of the current. It disappeared downstream. "If we're lucky, it will be destroyed by rapids and never seen again," Somerville remarked before they set out along the riverbank. She had a flashlight and after a few feet located a trodden place through the undergrowth that might have been an animal trail. Rick tried not to think about what kind of animals they might run into on this trail in the dark.

They walked for half an hour, and then Cecilia stopped and ran the light over the surrounding trees until she found one with fat vines curling around the trunk and broad branches not more than ten feet off the ground. "We can't go any farther in the dark, and we should try to save the batteries. Up," she ordered. "And watch that shoulder."

Rick grabbed hold of the vines and worked his way up the mossy trunk, trying to favor his injured shoulder. Cecilia followed.

"Are we supposed to sleep up here?" he asked.

"If you can. It's safer up here than on the ground."

"What about jaguars?"

"Lucky for us they're endangered. Not many of them around any more."

He thought he heard a smile beneath the wry comment, so he persisted, "What about snakes? What if I fall out of the tree?"

"Good idea. I bet we could find a boa constrictor to hold you to the tree branch."

More seriously, he asked "What about FARC?"

"They'll search the river first. It was lucky for us they only had the one boat tied up."

"But there were two other boats!" he protested. "At least."

"Not tied up," she said mildly. "By the time they made it down to the river and found the sentry, they had probably been pulled away by the current. Somebody was very careless."

"Lucky for us," he echoed. "So what do we do now?"

"We go north. The next major river we come to will be out of the demilitarized zone."

Rick thought about that. "How far to the next river?"

"About a hundred kilometers."

"Of jungle?" he asked in disbelief. "And we're walking?"

"That's why it's the last direction they would expect us to take. What's the matter, city boy?"

"Oh besides the jaguars, snakes, sleeping in trees, and possibility of getting shot, not much. Hey, Miss Somerville?"

"Richard, we're sleeping in a tree in the middle of DMZ. I think you can call me Cecilia."

"Uh, thanks. So why tonight? Why did we have to run tonight?"

"El oscuro wants you."

"Who?"

"Someone I've never heard them talk about before. But apparently, he thinks you're worth six American rockets. The teniente was going to trade you in the morning."

"The dark one," Rick translated. "You don't think Bruce …"

"No. This was the same person who paid for the kidnapping of Dr. Marquez."

"Did they say whether he's ok?"

"No. I'm sorry."

Rick fell silent. It was only now that he realized that when Cecilia had woken him back at the camp, he had followed her into the darkness without hesitating.

He had thought of her every so often over the years since she had come to Gotham in the guise of a social worker. After he'd begun his training as Robin, Bruce had told him the truth about everything that had happened that winter. He knew about her work for the DEA and the traitor she'd come to Gotham to expose. As he grew older, he'd come to understand the ways she had shielded him during their abduction. He also recalled how cranky she'd been most of the time and that she'd been terrified of his pet mouse.

But mostly, he remembered learning to play chess.

And not a day had gone by since that he hadn't played. If he couldn't actually wheedle someone into a match, he played against himself, read about classic strategies, or analyzed old games. Sometimes he imagined math problems laid out on black and white squares, shifting the components like pieces until they made sense. When real life was too much, as it had been more and more lately, he could retreat to the unchanging board and its immutable rules and feel that, after all, the earth rested on a secure axis.

And through all of this, Cecilia had been there, a brusque, nearly forgotten voice that had ordered the game. Ordered the world.

When he thought it through, it didn't sound like a good reason to get lost with her in the DMZ. But it didn't change the way he felt.

Alex had already repeated his story several times to various embassy and military officials, so he didn't have to think much as he rattled off the details. Wayne slumped in a chair, listening in silence until Alex narrated the arrival at the guerilla camp. "There were two other prisoners. One was a missionary doctor named Nina Jenkins. The other was Cecilia Somerville."

Wayne sat bolt upright, his face stunned. "What?"

"Richard's old social worker, Cecilia Somerville."

Wayne looked grim. "What the hell was she doing there?"

"I told you, she was a prisoner like us."

"A prisoner? Are you sure?"

"She said so, and she slept in the tent with the rest of us."

"How long had she been there?"

"She said a year and a half. Why does it matter?"

"A year and half. She'd just been sitting around a guerilla camp for a year and a half," Wayne repeated, sarcasm heavy in his tone.

"In the middle of the jungle, guarded by men with big guns. What's the problem? Richard was happy to see her. At least he was with a friend when we were separated."

"You shouldn't have left him," Wayne said coldly.

"What choice did I have?" Alex shot back, although he'd been telling himself the same thing, over and over. "If I'd resisted, FARC might have shot us both."

Wayne's jaw line tensed, but all he said was, "Tell me the rest."

Rick's eyes fluttered open and he stared at the dim green roof above him. He remembered that he was in the Amazon rainforest, that he'd been kidnapped, that he had escaped, and that he was sleeping in a tree. Carefully patting the rough tree bark on either side of him, he started to sit up.

"Richard, don't move."

He froze at the low command, suddenly aware of a weight sliding over his legs and pulling at the fabric of his pants.

"Don't move," Cecilia repeated.

Rick slowly lifted his head anyway, just enough to see the lithe brown and green body, slowly slipping down from the branch above, landing on his legs and slithering over his feet along the branch. It was as big around as a personal pizza, and the length of it seemed to go on forever as he lay frozen, holding his breath.

"You're doing fine," Cecilia said softly, and then the tail finally sailed down and followed the rest of the snake to the end of the branch and onto the neighboring tree.

Rick exhaled and sat up fast. "I thought you were kidding about the boa constrictor."

"Just trying to broaden your experience. You wouldn't want to go back to Gotham without a snake story."

"You know, I think I would have been okay with that."

They climbed down the tree and paused at the bottom to shake the kinks from their muscles. Cecilia poked around the ferns at the base of the tree and uncovered a metal canteen, covered in stained drab canvas.

Rick stared in surprise. "Where did that come from?"

"I dropped it last night," she said wryly. "Fortunately, I'd gotten the cap back on. Before that it was in the boat." She unscrewed the lid and held it toward Rick. "Drink."

He lifted the canteen to his mouth, but quickly pulled it away again as a strong chemical smell assaulted his nostrils. "Gross."

"That's just the Globaline. It's safer than what we drank at camp, even when Nina succeeded in making them boil it."

"There was Global-whatsit in the boat, too?" he asked, stalling.

"In my pocket. I was saving it for a rainy day. Drink," she ordered again. "Out here, dehydration can kill you."

Rick held his breath and gulped several mouthfuls of the foul tasting water. "I don't suppose there's breakfast?" he asked, handing back the canteen.

Cecilia reached into her pocket and pulled out a chocolate bar. "Courtesy of our boat sentry," she said, passing it to him before she drank.

"You're like Mary Poppins," Rick commented, accepting the candy and peeling the wrapper away from the melting chocolate. He wolfed half and tried to hand it back.

Cecilia shook her head. "I already ate mine. I was too hungry to wait for you to wake up. Let's go." She hung the canteen around her neck and strode forward.

"Where are we going?" Rick asked, trying to hurry after her and lick the wrapper clean at the same time.

"North to the Guaviare river. We can follow that upstream out of the DMZ."

"How far is that?" he asked, tucking the wrapper into his pocket.

"A ways. Watch for fruit trees, that was the last chocolate bar."

"How far is a ways?" Rick insisted.

"A hundred kilometers or so."

Rick groaned. "That's the shortest way out of here?"

"No. But it's the one we have the best chance of surviving. If they figure out we left the Vaupés, they'll expect us to go south or west." Cecilia paused to pick up a stout stick, which she used to part the vines that hung over their path.

"Why is that?" Rick asked as he stepped through the cleared space, not sure he really wanted to know.

"Those are the closest towns. North, they can expect the jungle to do their work for them."

Rick thought about that for a while as they trudged through endless mounds of dead leaves and rotting ferns. "You think it's better to die out here than get caught by FARC again," he said at last.

"Yes," she answered.

Rick didn't know whether he agreed with her or not.

"Show me," Wayne said, pulling a map of the country out of his pocket and laying it flat on the table.

"I don't know," Alex responded, which was what he had told the embassy. "I don't even know what direction we traveled."

"This is Marquez's compound," Wayne continued, as though he hadn't heard. "How many hours in the truck?"

"Eight. Ten. I don't know."

Wayne traced a rough circle on the map, then tapped on a wavy line. "The river had to be the Vaupés."

"That's what the embassy thought," Alex agreed.

"Do you think Somerville is still there?"

Alex blinked in surprise. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, do you think she's escaped?"

"I don't think so," Alex said slowly. "She had a routine—gambling for cigarettes, eavesdropping on the captain. Her attention was focused on coping where she was, not looking for ways to escape."

"When you left, did she give you any messages?"

"Yeah," Alex said slowly, remembering. "She caught me right before we left. She said to tell you not to do anything stupid."

"That's it?" Wayne asked tersely.

"Yes."

Wayne swung away from the table and paced once across the room, came back. "Say the camp is here," he said, jabbing a finger at a spot along the river. "Looking at the map, how would you escape?"

Alex stared at the outline of the river. "I guess I'd steal a boat," he said at last. "And then ride the river out of the DMZ."

"That would be the easiest way, wouldn't it?" Wayne muttered. Then he folded up the map and stepped toward the door.

"Where are you going?" Alex asked.

"To find Richard? Or did you think this conversation was because I missed you? By the way, I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't mentioned seeing me."

"I'm coming with you," Alex said.

"The hell you are."

Cecilia rested her chin on her knees and wished she dared smoke a cigarette. They'd been tramping through the jungle for hours, and she had called a break when she felt her legs shaking. She'd never quite recovered from her last bout of malaria, and now she worried again that she lacked the strength to make it out of the DMZ. She was also concerned about Richard. He hadn't complained, but he looked pale, and she knew his shoulder hurt.

Dammit, Wayne. We could use one of your heavy handed extractions right about now. It was difficult to believe he had sent his ward to Colombia without any kind of emergency contact plan. A wisp of memory teased the edge of her consciousness, and she closed her eyes and tried to remember a long ago night in a far away city.

"Richard, are those your shoes?" she asked suddenly. "The ones you originally brought to Colombia?"

He looked down at the battered sneakers and shook his head. "No, one of mine got ripped up by a dog at the compound, so I was borrowing these to play soccer in."

Shoes are too easily lost. He wouldn't have stayed with shoes.

"Why are you scowling at me?" Richard asked.

"Ah." Cecilia's expression cleared. "Show me your scars."

He looked like he wanted to ask why, but instead jerked up one leg of his jeans. "That's where I fell off my bike when I was eight. And that's where I fell on a rusty nail."

She pushed hard on each of the scars and shook her head. "Got anything bigger?"

It was in his shoulder that hadn't been shot, underneath a scar that Richard claimed was a six years old sledding accident. Cecilia probed the almost indiscernible lump and nodded. "That's it."

"What's it?" he demanded.

"A homing chip. Wayne's got you tagged like an endangered tuna."

He looked stunned. "He knows where I am all the time? But … If he does, why are we still here?"

"This is the jungle, Richard. Whole planes are swallowed up and never found. And whatever isn't being absorbed by the trees is covered up by the rest of the signals that flood this place. Military, paramilitaries, FARC are all trying to communicate and jam everybody else's signals. But it might be useful if we ever get clear of the trees." She rose and stretched. "Come on. We need to make a few more kilometers before dark."

There were a lot of things that Alex didn't know.

He didn't know how he'd talked Wayne into letting him come (he'd suggested his Spanish skills, his familiarity with Colombian culture, and his time with the guerillas as assets. Wayne had dismissed it all, and then said, "Peaceable, if you slow me down, I'll truss you up and throw you into the jungle myself," which statement Alex had interpreted as his employer's version of "Glad to have you along").

He didn't know where Wayne had picked up his obvious familiarity with the roads.

He didn't know where they were going, but fervently prayed they would arrive in the same number of pieces they had started out in.

He didn't know why the familiar stranger next to him scared him so much.

He didn't know why he felt so confident that they were going to get Richard back.

Rick lay back on his tree branch and tried to ignore the hollow feeling in his stomach. Further along the same branch, Cecilia sat upright, her legs dangling over the edge. Even though she was less than five feet away, Rick could just barely see her silhouette in the darkness. Around them, insects shrilled, cutting off when a larger animal crashed through the underbrush and picking up when all was calm again. He remembered the snake and repressed a shudder, hoping he wasn't sleeping in the middle of anybody's road tonight.

"Why are you lost in the DMZ, Richard Grayson?"

The question out of the darkness pressed a weight of loneliness around his heart. He closed his eyes against the night and wondered why she asked him. He was pretty sure she had grilled Alex about their reasons for being in Colombia.

Silence grew between them, but Cecilia waited patiently. He imagined that she would wait forever, there in the darkness. And to his surprise, he found that he wanted to tell her the truth. Not "There's a serial killer loose in Gotham who might be after me," and not "I saw my classmate kill himself." He wanted to speak to whole truth, even though he wasn't quite sure what that was.

"Bruce changed," he began, and then stopped, the old habit of secrecy not so easily cast aside.

"After you became Robin?" she asked, making it easy for him.

"Maybe he didn't change. Maybe I never really knew him. I always knew what he was, but I didn't know … I didn't know Batman. I thought I did, but I didn't. He scares me sometimes," Rick admitted, which was something he'd never even told Alfred. "And it scares when I think that I'm becoming like him. I don't think he likes it either." He sighed, trying to figure out how to explain what he meant. "Before David shot himself, all I was thinking about was how to take the gun away. I assessed him as a threat, as a target. But maybe I'd been thinking like Richard instead of like Robin, things would have been different. So I don't know why I'm lost in the DMZ. Maybe it's because I was doing a bad job. Or maybe it's because I was doing a good one."

"If it's any consolation to you, Richard Grayson," said Cecilia, "you will never become Bruce Wayne. Not even if you live a thousand years."

Rick shook his head, even though she couldn't see him. "I'm already like him."

"I grant you, you are both obsessed with doing the right thing, whatever that may be. And you both rack yourselves with guilt when you think that you've failed. But if it's the isolation you're afraid of, the loneliness and the bitterness, I promise that it won't happen to you."

"Why not?" Rick asked.

"Because you are stronger than he is. You always have been. And because of that, you have never been alone." She fell silent, and Rick thought the conversation was over. But then she said, "You're not going to forget David. And you'll never stop asking yourself whether you could have stopped him."

Rick found that his cheeks were wet, and then he buried his face against his knees and sobbed. Cecilia didn't speak again until the storm passed, and the tears dried into stiff streaks on his cheeks. Then she said, "Next time a madman has a gun to a head, whether it's his, or anybody else's, you'll stop him."

"How do you know that?" he asked.

"Because I know everything," she answered. "Now go to sleep."

He did. And for the first time since David Stern had died, he slept in peace.

To be continued