I'm back. Sorry for the wait, I ended up re-writing the ending to this chapter almost four times. I hope you enjoy and are all staying safe and healthy in these trying times!

Barbara

Barbara runs into Tim outside of Jason's room speaking to a stern looking woman in hushed and frantic tones. She wheels up quietly beside him and puts a hand on his arm in what was meant to be a comforting gesture. He jumps slightly under her touch and turns to her. Barbara's mouth goes dry at the sight of him. He's only been here with Jason over the night but he looks considerably different from the boy she saw yesterday. His hair sits upright in tangled spikes, his clothes are a wrinkled mess and hang off of him as if he's been pulling anxiously at them for hours. His usually tired eyes are puffy and red like freshly picked strawberries. He rubs a hand across the tear tracks under his eyes and clamps a shaky hand on Barbara's shoulder.

"Dr. Young this is Barbara, my cousin. Babs this is Todd's psychiatrist Dr. Young." Tim says easily. Barbara shakes hands with the woman, nodding hello. The doctor offers a tight, manufactured smile that leaves Barbara with a bad taste in her mouth. As expected, the smile falls away immediately after the exchange and is replaced with a very serious grimace of displeasure.

"I am afraid that Todd's mental state may only get worse, especially in the next few days. We plan to start him with a physical therapist and get him up and moving which, without the help of narcotics, will be extremely unpleasant. Although, he is no longer needed to stay in an emergent patient room and will be moved to a normal patient room today. If he still presents as a danger to himself after he is cleared medically, we will discuss his transfer to our psychiatric ward." She says tightly, gripping her clipboard close to her side.

"Wait." Tim says shakily, waving his hands in front of his face. "Worse? Dr. Young I don't know if there is any worse than where he is right now."

Dr. Young, reaches out a hand to squeeze his shoulder sympathetically. She leaves with a final tight smile and disappears down the hallway. Tim turns back to Barbara, the heels of his hands digging into his eyes in a desperate attempt to keep his emotions at bay. She takes one of his wrists in her hands and rubs small circles with her thumb. She's trying to make eye contact but he seems to look anywhere else but her face.

"Hey, Tim, look at me." She says softly. He drags his gaze to meet hers, eyes glossy with sleeplessness and emotion.

"He's made it through worse, trust me, I've seen it and he always comes out on top." She assures him. Tim just shakes his head.

"That's just the problem Barbara." Tim responds adamantly

She feels her brows draw down into a frown. "What do you mean?"

He shakes his head. "You'll see." He moves to leave but stops to turn back and say one last thing that makes the center of Barbara's chest go cold. "Just... brace yourself, okay?"

He lays a hand on her shoulder as he passes, clasping down on it in a comforting gesture. Then he lingers, his weight shifting back ever so slightly so that the pressure increases. He holds fast for just over a second before he releases her and walks away without another word.

Inside the room the air triples in weight as Jason sleeps restlessly in front of her. Her hands begin to shake and she couldn't begin to understand why. Some animalistic part of her knows that this time it's different. She wheels up beside him and reaches out to grab his hand. But for some reason she's afraid to touch him. Tim's words bounce around in her skull and no amount of rational thought will silence them. She retracts her hand and buries it in her hair anxiously.

It has been twenty-six days since that night on the roof. It took them eighteen days to finally take him to the hospital, and since his being here, he has almost been moved out of the ICU twice. With it being three days since his set back when Kori was here with him, he's hopefully going to be moved to a patient room today.

Her hands slide off of her head and she reaches to clutch the back of her neck. The obnoxiously bright Florida morning sun casts golden stripes across the room. She reaches out again for Jason when the boy jolts awake, eyes glassy and breath fluttering past his chapped lips. She jumps slightly, and places her hand on her chest to calm herself.

The room is silent besides their breathing and she has yet to speak when Jason disrupts the static surrounding them.

"Barbara?" He croaks. His words are dripping in disbelief and for some reason she suddenly feels like she wants to cry. Why does he sound so surprised? Why would he think her presence here beside him is so unthinkable?

"Yeah big guy, it's me." She nearly whispers. One corner of his mouth twitches ever so slightly upward and he releases a breath. "How are you feeling?" She asks, as casually as she can manage. His smile falls and she reaches for him, holding fast to one of his hands.

"I'm fine." He responds weakly.

"You are not fine, Jason." She finds herself saying, anger turning her cheeks pink in an instant. He turns his head to look at her, and his face softens when their eyes meet, as if he still wasn't sure she was real.

"Barbara." He whispers again, the disbelief still present. And there is something about the way he looks at her, and says her name that makes him feel out of reach. She really wants to yell at him, to make him get better, to force him to heal and go back to the way things were, to make him want to stay here. But of course, she can't do that. Things have changed. And this time, she realizes, there is no more anger in him to keep him here. Maybe she should be happy for him, for the peace that he might finally feel. But she's decided that angry and hurting, no matter how selfish she may seem, is better than him being gone forever.

"Still me." She replies, forcing a smile.

"Promise?" He asks sleepily, his eyes drifting closed with a sigh.

"Yeah, I promise." She combs a trembling hand through his hair, her mind immediately being pulled to how greasy it is, like he'd just taken his helmet off after a long patrol. Maybe, if she closed her eyes and really focused on the feeling, she could convince herself that he had just fallen asleep on one of the beds in the medbay, and that everything was just how it should be. But with the loud rasping of his breath, the constant chirps of his heart monitor and the clatter of busy bodies right outside the door, it's impossible to remove herself.

"You need a shower." She finds herself saying absentmindedly. He sighs again, it sits shallow in his battered ribcage and catches momentarily as he releases annoyance very evident in his breath. She allows a small and crooked grin to creep onto her face for just a second, just one, before she pushes it away.

A young male nurse enters cautiously and meets her gaze as he says hello and good morning. She nods back in greeting, her mind still preoccupied with the boy in front of her. The nurse, Malcolm, makes friendly chit chat as he changes Jason's IV bag and checks over his bandages. Barbara's gaze becomes trapped by the sight of Jason's bare chest, slathered with gauze and bruises. She can almost count his broken ribs from her chair. Malcolm says something about upping Jason's antibiotics and that he'll be transferred to a normal patient room a few floors up. She answers him with a numb "Thank you." as he leaves the room.

Her mind is still tripping over itself, struggling to find the right words to break the silence. What words will he listen to? What words will convince him. "Just... brace yourself, okay?" She did, she is bracing but it seems every second her breath is knocked out of her chest again. She thinks back to what Damian and Cass told her, how he needs to be convinced to stay. She searches her mind for something to say to him. What could keep him here?

"The kids in crime alley have been asking about when you're coming home. They miss you." Her words have an immediate effect on him, and she knows that he knows exactly what angle she's playing. He turns to her with real hurt in his eyes.

"Don't." He whispers harshly. "Don't do that."

"Don't do what?" Barbara questions, her tone harsh as well. She's angry at him all of the sudden and she doesn't know exactly why. Jason glares at her and turns his gaze away.

"What should I tell them Jason?" She asks bitterly as she wheels closer to his bedside. "Should I tell them that you've given up on them? Should I tell them they're on their own? Should I tell them that they've been abandoned again?" She's almost yelling now, and it's cruel, she knows that but if it keeps him alive she doesn't care. Jason is stewing silently before her refusing to engage, but lucky for her, she's known him long enough to know just what buttons to push.

"How could you do that to them, Jason? Especially after the childhood you had."

Jason turns on her faster than she thought possible given his injuries and points a shaky hand in her face. "You don't know shit about my past and you don't get to talk about it and you know it Barbara." He warns.

The eye she can see is cloudy with tears and his voice is thick with repressed memories. She knows it's going to hurt, that he's going to yell and curse and fight. But that spite, that rage is all she knows can keep him here, keep him fighting. He's never going to forgive you. Her mind whispers to herself. You'll never forgive yourself. And it may be true, but Jason's need to prove himself is stronger than anything else in this world.

"I can't believe you'd condemn them to a life like that." She shakes her head, and can feel his stare bore into her temple. "You'd really leave them alone? With no one to protect them?" She meets his eyes now, and can feel the rage and guilt radiate from them. His entire body trembles with the strain it takes to hold the anger in. Barbara readies herself for the final blow. "You are just like your father."

It has the desired effect. Jason jolts as if he'd just been electrocuted and has to take several minutes to remember how to breathe. A sliver of panic races up Barbara's spine as she watches him. Maybe she went too far, crossed a line, did way more harm than good. She just about to open her mouth and let every apology that's ever been spoken pour out of her when Jason turns to her very slowly. His gaze is glassy with pain and he nearly bares his teeth at her as he speaks. "When did we become strangers again?" He asks, his words small and sharp.

"Jason, I-" She tries to backpedal, tries to explain the desperation. She wasn't thinking clearly, she couldn't have been. But the look in his eyes says he knows exactly what she was trying to do, but that doesn't mean the words hurt any less.

"Get out." He whispers.

"Jason, no-" She begins.

"Can we not fight? Please? Just for once?" He yells, tears forcing their way down his sunken face. "Please?"

His trembling has gotten worse and his whole body shakes with emotion. Barbara shakes too, her hands gripping the arm rests of her wheelchair so hard her hands have gone bloodless. She feels tears at the back of her throat, threatening to silence her.

"You know what? No!" She says firmly, pushing past the knot in her throat. "No! You fight because you can't die quietly! You should know that better than anyone Jason." The minute it leaves her mouth she wishes she could reclaim it, erase it from the surrounding air. Jason just shakes his head.

"Wow."

"I didn't mean that." Barbara replies earnestly.

"What I know is that we were kids, not heroes!" He yells at her.

"That doesn't mean you shouldn't fight!" Barbara shouts back, slamming her hands down on her arm rests.

"You don't get to tell me when to fight! Not anymore!" Jason retorts, sweat beginning to run down his temples.

"Someone has to!"

"I've fought enough Barbara! I'm done!"

"No! No! You don't get to be done!" tears are starting to pour over her lashes and she wipes at them angrily.

"Please just go!" Jason gasps, his breath beginning to rattle.

Barbara shakes her head "You're acting like a child!"

"Babs-" he coughs harshly.

"No! Just stop!" She yells.

Jason's panting now, his brow slick with sweat. Without any morphine the pain has overcome him. He's gone stiff in his bed, his right hand clutches a handful of bed sheets and his face is tense with discomfort.

"Jason?" She reaches out for him, "Jason!" But he can't respond, his jaw is locked shut.

"That's it, I'm getting you something for the pain." Before she can wheel herself away he has grabbed ahold of her hand as tightly as his trembling fingers will allow.

She wants to wrench free, to move to the nurses station and make sure that his need for relief is stamped across his chart in bold letters, so that no amount of pleading could allow them to deny him what he so desperately needs. She allows herself one desperate tug on her arm but he cries out so pitifully that she stills. She refuses to meet his eyes, because they are filling with tears and she wants nothing more than to be able to be strong for him, to be able to ignore his rambling as just tired whispers of a severely injured boy.

"Barb." He wheezes her name. His pulse has skyrocketed, and his heart monitor blares into her ears. He must know that the nurses will be in soon to check on him. "Barb," He says again. Pleading with her. "Please look at me."

She does, and although one of his eyes is still obscured by gauze his stare freezes her breath in her throat.

"Please don't. They'll put me to sleep and I don't want to go to sleep." he begs softly. The words tug on something from the past. She'd never really put two and two together but Jason doesn't sleep, hardly ever, and when he does it is only for a few moments and always when it's light outside, that is when he has any choice in the matter. Is it really that awful for him? Are the nightmares so toxic that Jason, a man who in waking laughs in the face of danger, who is headless of risk, who is never scared enough, would be too terrified to sleep in the dark? The dark, where all those things he can't fight against can come for him. But she can't just let him wallow in his own agony can she?

"I'll make you a deal." She says. "If you let them give you pain meds, just enough to take the edge off, then I'll have it put in your charts that you're allergic to sedatives. Okay? They'll never put you to sleep again. But you have to let them help you." He's staring right into her eyes, still considering every word. The nurses are moving in now, checking his wrappings and measuring his pulse manually. This is it. Either morphine or a sedative, but she'll wait for him, she'll wait for him to give in.

Finally, he closes his eyes, and nods. She clears her throat. "Todd has decided he'd like some medicine to help with the pain."

Barbara excuses herself and after catching one of the nurses and making sure his aversion to sedatives is added to his chart, she makes her way outside his room and down the hall to the breezeway that connects the emergent side of the hospital to the oncology center. Sitting in the glass filtered Florida sun her first thought is to call her roommate and friend, Alysia. Although, she's never really confided in Alysia about her relationship with the Wayne boys and technically Jason has been dead for years. So, instead she finds herself calling someone else, someone who still doesn't quite understand her complex relationship with the bat brood, but knows enough to be helpful.

"Barbara?"

"Hey Dinah. Do you have a second to talk?"

"For you, I've got a whole minute," Dinah's voice smiles through the line "What's up?"

A dam bursts somewhere in Barbara's head and every awful thing that has happened over the last few weeks comes flooding out in a mess of tears. Dinah listen's intently hour after hour. Talking it over with her.

"You can't force him to stay Barbara." Dinah says calmly.

"Watch me." Barbara answers, wiping her nose with her sleeve.

"You can make him get treatment, you can force him through PT, and you can watch him around the clock but Jason isn't a normal man with a normal life. If he really doesn't want to be here, the second he is given the opportunity to end his life he'll take it. And, if somehow, he makes his way back on the streets as Red Hood all he'd have to do is pick a fight with the right guy and he'd be gone."

"This can't just be it Dinah! There has to- There's gotta be something that I can do!"

"Barbara-"

"No, don't make me stop, please don't make me stop!"

Dinah takes a long breath and ponders for way longer than Barbara has patience for.

"Just keep trying to convince him to stay. But not by pissing him off again, please. Remind him of what he'd miss, of what he loves. That's all you can do for him." Dinah says sternly.

Barbara thanks her and ends the call just as a nurse comes to collect her and take her to Jason's new patient room. Remind him of what he'd miss, of what he loves. She can do that, right?

Inside his room, which has a beautiful view of where the sun will be setting soon, Jason has resumed his favorite pastime of picking a ceiling tile and staring blankly upwards. He seems more relaxed though, Barbara notices as she wheels to his bedside, the morphine must have done the trick. She closes her eyes for a moment. What he'd miss, what he loves.

"Dinah wanted me to tell you that Diana wishes you well and sends her love" she says. A small smile tugs gently on one corner of his mouth in boyish resemblance of the little punk he used to be. His ghost slips out of that smirk and plows into Barbara's chest.

"Really?" he asks, glancing over to look at her.

And right there she promises herself that she'll see him smile for years to come, that nothing will keep her from preserving that smile. There has to be a way to keep him here, and whatever it is, she'll find it.

"Really." She grins.

And, Jason smiles.

Finally a little hope maybe? I have BIG plans for next chapter which will hopefully be out in a few weeks. Let me know what you guys think!

MS