A/N Ach, I really need to upload more. Anyway, are y'all looking forward to Cameron Stewart/Babs Tarr taking over Batgirl. I am, but I may have possibly cried when I found out Gail Simone was leaving, she's what made me want to write this. Anyway, I'm quite proud of this chapter, especially Babs' little speech. Let me know what you think!

The hotwired car wove through the backstreets in tense silence, broken only by Blake's fingers tapping against the steering wheel and the occasional distant scream. With her dad sat shotgun, Babs sat in the back and dozed off during the short journey to one of the GCPD's safehouses. It was a flat in one of the calmer districts, to the north of Gotham, with a couple of bedrooms and- most importantly- a shower.

Half an hour later, her hair turned dark by the water, she pulled on some of the clothes she found in a drawer and wandered into the tiny lounge, where Blake and the commissioner were. As she went to push open the door, however, she paused, listening to the TV, and the deep, crackling voice issuing from it.

"…tearing down this corrupt city! Let me tell you the truth about Harvey Dent, from the words of Gotham's police commissioner, James Gordon."

"Oh, God," whispered Barbara, "oh God, no."

"'The Batman," Bane sneered, his voice broadcasted across the city, "didn't murder Harvey Dent, he saved my little girl, then took the blame for Harvey's appalling crimes, so that I could- to my shame- build a lie around this fallen idol.'" He spat the last couple of words, his voice filled with carefully performed disgust. "'I praised the madman who tried to murder my own child. But I can no longer live with my lie, it is time to trust the people of Gotham with the truth, and it is time for me to resign.' And do you accept this man's resignation?" Cheers, corrupted with static, filled the room. "And do you accept the resignation of all of these liars?" Bane yelled over the top of them. "The corrupt?!"

"All those men locked up for eight years in Blackgate," she heard Blake say, softly, "and denied parole under the Dent Act… it was based on a lie."

"Gotham needed a hero," replied Gordon.

"It needs one now more than ever." She could hear the disgust in his voice, adding an edge. "You betrayed everything you stand for."

"There's a point… far out there when the structures fail you, and the rules aren't weapons anymore they're… shackles, letting the bad guy get ahead. One day, you may face such a moment of crisis, and in that moment I hope you have a friend like I did!" His voice rose in its anger. "To plunge their hands into the filth, so that you can keep yours clean!"

There was a pause.

"Your hands look plenty filthy to me, Commissioner," muttered Blake, before turning and walking out of the room.

He didn't get very far, though, before Barbara shoved her palms into his back and kicked the back of his knee, making him stumble as she drove him forward and pinned him against the wall, arm across his neck and knee digging into his groin.

"How dare you!" she hissed up at him. "You think that because you've suffered, you have any right to judge someone else? You weren't there! You didn't see what happened!" Blake stared at her, slack-jawed, as as she stormed into a bedroom and grabbed some shoes and a couple of jackets. "Get your gun," she snarled, throwing half of her supplies at him and turning to yell through the door. "Dad, I'm taking him to 250."

After a short silence, her father assented. "Be careful," he said- she was sure he wouldn't let her go if it hadn't been two blocks south of where they were. She would talk to him, soon, but not yet.

It hadn't changed at all- kids and graffiti artists must have been too scared to enter this broken, charred shell of a building, where Dent had died and the Batman became a fugitive. Barbara walked, slowly now, a few paces ahead of Blake, nudging lumps of charcoal with her foo. If death had a smell, it would smell like here- cold, dry and still.

"He flipped a coin," she said, loud enough for the officer to hear. "That was his thing, after he went psycho- you know he had a double-headed coin? One side got all messed up when his girlfriend got exploded here. That's what drove him over the edge. So he took me and Mom and my brother Jimmy here, and waited for Dad to turn up. And then he did, and he hit him, round the back of the head-" she tapped her own skull- "with his gun, and then I kind of blacked out a bit, but, um, next thing I remember, the Batman was here. And Dent just shot him. Flipped a coin because he said that made it fair, and shot him in the gut. I didn't think it was fair." Her voice sounded smaller, younger. "And then he went to shoot me. And Dad begged him, he said, please not Barbara, shoot me instead, and I didn't want him to die, he wasn't allowed to die, and then he flipped the coin and- Bruce, Batman, he tackled him, and we all went flying over the edge, and Dent fell, but Bruce caught me and lifted me back up but then he fell too-" she choked on a sob and her hand flew to her mouth as she felt John's rest on her shoulder. She brushed him away. "And then, um, he was running off. Batman. And Dad said we had to chase him- he didn't want to, but we did. Not we, but like, the police. And then the ambulance came and took away Dent's body, and the way they carried him meant I couldn't see the scars, and he looked like he did on all those campaign posters. Like a hero. And the Batman could never have looked like that, because he didn't have a face, but Harvey had two, so he wore the bad one instead, and let Gotham have the good one."

She turned to face John, chin held high. "You can say what you want, but you know what they did that night was the right thing to do."

"Babs," he began, but she cut him off.

"Don't pity me! I don't want it. I want you to know that my father was a good guy, just as much as Batman was. Better."

The corner of his lip twitched upwards, and slowly, he nodded.

"Good. Now we've got work to do."