Chapter Eight

            Barbara was silent for a minute before saying, "That's when I passed out. I woke up a few days later in the hospital. I wasn't awake a great deal of the time them but when I was, I was fairly coherent. When the pain got too great, they'd give me some medicine and I'd be out again moments later.

            "The point is your mother stopped the Joker. We'd won. I don't know exactly what she to him but when she got done he was a bit worse off than I was. I woke up. He didn't. He's been in a coma ever since. His body just disappeared from the hospital. Whether or not that means he's woken up, I don't know. That's what Batman is currently looking in to."

            "How can you not know what happened? You were there, you have all these computers connected to who knows where to get you whatever information you want and you claim not to know what happened?"

            "I never asked. I got a few bits and pieces from other conversations while I was in the hospital but that's it. I've tried to put the rest behind me, tried to lose myself in my work here. It's bad enough I still have nightmares about it. I just couldn't bring myself to relive it while I was awake, too."

            "None of us quite recovered from that day," came a smooth baritone from the top of the stairs. Helena leapt to her feet again but Barbara calmly looked over her shoulder, looking more irritated than worried.

            The man walked lightly down the stairs, making very little noise as he settled on each riser. He was tall, slender, wearing a black bodysuit which covered him from neck to toe. A stylish, sharp-angled bird in flight etched a blue streak across his chest from shoulder to shoulder. A domino mask cut a figure eight around his eyes and his thick black hair was wind-blown and mussed.

            "How the hell did you get in here?" Barbara asked him. "I've reset all of the access code since you were last here."

            He tossed her a small, mirrored disc, which she caught easily.

            "You had a fourteen degree blind spot on the east side of the building," he said, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Don't worry, I fixed it for you."

            "Thanks, Dick," she said, an extra emphasis of sarcasm bouncing off his name. His eyebrows shot up briefly and she realized she'd forgotten about Helena standing in front of the couch. He turned and offered his hand to the wide-eyed girl.

            "You must be Helena," he said. "I'm Nightwing."

            "Hi," she said, her eyes darting back and forth between the two adults. "So your name is Dick?"

            "That depends on how arrogant he's acting," Barbara said, giving Nightwing a sly smile. "So what are you doing here?"

            "Just making sure everything was okay," he said. He perched on the arm of the sofa. Helena took the hint and sat back down as well. "Things were a bit slow down in the 'Haven. I got here a little while ago but didn't want to interrupt. The two of you seemed fairly engrossed in your conversation."

            "So you saw what happened that night, too?" Helena prodded.   

            "Yeah," he answered. "I was a little unsure at first about having your mother come in with us, but in the end I was damn glad she did."