Disclaimer: The usual. DC owns anyone you recognize from the comics. They also hold copyright to some of the dialogue in this chapter. Check out the back issues compiled in the Knightfall: Who owns the Night TPB to find out which. Psion Force is mine. All original dialogue is mine.

Timeline: Knightfall. For those of you who read my first story, Mayday, this story takes place four years later.

Chapter 3

The Road Not Taken

Four nights earlier…

"Well?" Robin asked. "How is he?"

Alfred answered first. "He's in shock. And he's lost a great deal of blood and there are certainly massive internal injuries and…" He hesitated.

"And?" Tim prompted.

"I think… I think his back… may be…"

All the color drained from the boy's face as he realized what Alfred was trying to tell him. "Oh my G-d." His expression hardened. "We've got to get him to a hospital."

"We are taking him back to the cave."

Robin looked to Callie for support.

"Honestly, Mr. Pennyworth," Cal said quietly, "he might have a point."

"We will do the best for him that we can. I've repaired his broken body many a—"

"Has it ever been broken this badly?" Callie asked.

"Listen to me, Alfred!" Tim pleaded. "We have got to take him to a hospital. We've got to save his life."

Alfred spoke firmly, calculating the effect of his words. "The only life that's important to him is his life as Batman. Take him to a hospital and you'll expose Batman to be Bruce Wayne. You'll save his body, certainly. But you will have killed the man."

Tim swallowed and nodded his understanding. Callie thought back to a night, over four years earlier, when she had been in a similar situation. A teammate injured, a lack of confidence in her fledgling medical abilities, no doctor. Faced with the same decision, she had made the opposite call. In retrospect, she still felt that it would have been the correct move—had Kensai and Umbra not given her new information. But now, she was a little older, a bit more experienced, and somewhat more knowledgeable. She considered. The ink was barely dry on her medical diploma—but she had it—and eight years of education under her belt. Alfred might not have the piece of paper, but his medical expertise currently outstripped her own.

She checked herself. "All these years, all these lessons," she muttered furiously to herself, "and you're still not getting it." She wasn't the one in control. Life and death were not in her hands. The only thing expected of her was everything she could do—nothing less, but nothing more either. Leave the rest to the One in charge. Batman's condition was still critical, but it was stable. Between her and Alfred, they should be able to recognize any change for the worse. Then difficult decisions might be forced upon them. But for now, she would do her part. Then, later, she could devote some energy toward finding Bane and making him pay.

"Mr. Pennyworth," she said, "If this is how we are to proceed, I'm bringing one of my sisters up to the manor." She pulled out her cell phone and dialed a number before Alfred could stop her. "Bron?"

"Callie! How is—"

"This line is not secure," she cut her older sister off smoothly. "Come to the same place we brought Jill last time. You know how to get there?"

There was a moment's pause. "Yes. Alright, I'm on my way. We have a few things to discuss."

Alfred was frowning as she put the cell away. "Miss Callie, I must protest—"

"Mr. Pennyworth," Cal interrupted firmly, "believe me when I say I understand your position. Allow me to make mine clear. If I honestly felt that I'd done everything I could here, my next move would be to throw caution to the winds, and go hunting for the… entity… that did this! Yes!" she replied to his shocked stare. "Even after seeing what he can do. Even knowing that going in recklessly is suicidal. Right now, the only thing holding me here is duty. And when that is no longer reason, nor reason enough… I'm going to need Bronwen."

The cave was a shambles. Not that Alfred, Jean-Paul, or Callie were paying much attention. They were too busy hooking Bruce to the medical equipment. Tim looked around. Interesting. The trophies, whether normally stored in the open, like the dinosaur and giant penny, or encased in glass, like Jason Todd's Robin costume, were in disarray. Display cases had been shattered, wooden furnishings splintered, and there were fresh dents and scratches on most of the computers and laboratory equipment. He blinked. The medical equipment, however, was virtually unscathed. Why? Had Bruce steered the fight away from the sickbay area knowing he'd need it later? Somehow, knowing how exhausted Bruce had been for the last few weeks, Tim doubted it. But Bane… Tim gasped. Bane hadn't wanted to kill Batman at all! He'd wanted to destroy him, but make sure that he was alive to… to… witness his enemy's triumph. Leaving the medical supplies intact, making sure Alfred was incapacitated but not seriously hurt, Bruce's injuries… severe, maybe permanent, but not necessarily fatal… all of it had been calculated. It had to have been. In sudden rage Tim kicked one of the swivel chairs. It flew into the computer console with a less-than-satisfying crash, and rolled back. He couldn't tell if the dent left behind had been there before.

"Tim! A little quiet, please." Callie didn't manage to keep the irritation out of her voice. After her one outburst in the ambulance, she had reverted to the calm, confident demeanor that she had previously demonstrated. True, her gestures seemed slightly quicker and jerkier. Yes, her boots stamped a little louder on the stone floor than was absolutely necessary. Alfred was apparently choosing to overlook this behavior. But Tim was relieved that he and Cal were on the same side.

"Sorry." He picked his way through the debris to stand by the bed. "How is he?" He asked.

"He's stabilized, somewhat," Callie replied. "Pulse is steady and getting stronger. Breathing's improved—Alfred do you think we'll need to aerate his left lung again?"

"Quite possibly. I'll monitor."

"So he's out of danger?" Jean-Paul asked.

"No," Alfred replied. "Not entirely. His temperature is alarmingly high. And he's still comatose."

Jean-Paul thought for a moment. "The first twenty-four hours of a coma are the most important, right?"

Callie nodded. "That's when he has the best chance of recovery."

Tim gripped the edge of an equipment table with one hand, while forming a fist with the other. "Come on, Bruce!" He all but snarled. "Fight it! If you're going to come out of this, you have to fight."

Alfred placed a reassuring hand on the boy's shoulder. "He'll need more than his fighting spirit, Tim. His fever won't go down unless I can stop the swelling in his spinal tissue."

"And can you do that?"

"Not with what I have here," he admitted. "We'll need a drug called Decadron. It's specifically made for the treatment of spinal trauma. It's the only way to reduce the swelling. But only if it's administered within the next hour."

Tim shrugged off the hand, and shoved his mask back on. "Then what are we waiting for? We'll get some. Paul, we'll take the Batmobile!" He dashed off in the direction of the car without a backwards glance.

Jean-Paul hesitated. "Go." Callie said urgently.

"I—" he began.

"Alfred didn't tell him everything," she said softly. "If Batman doesn't get the Decadron, he'll be paralyzed for life. Go. Hatzlacha."

"Hatzlaha?" He tried unsuccessfully to pronounce the fricative h.

"It means success. Go."

He went.

Callie cleared her throat. "There's nothing more I can do without that drug, except pray. So, I'm going upstairs to do that, while I wait for Bronwen." She looked away. "I didn't mean to just barge in and take over, but this whole thing is hitting me a little closer than I'm comfortable with."

"If there is something you would like to discuss?"

Callie gave him a wan smile. "It would probably help to pass the time—and maybe I will later. It's just that… if I start talking about some of this, it may… betray certain confidences. It's possible that the people involved won't mind, but I'd need to clear it with them first. Tabitha told me four years ago that certain questions came up that she had to sidestep. Maybe it's time to answer them. For now, let's just say I went through a period when I had real trouble delegating responsibilities. It's hard to say definitively that I would have had a physical or mental breakdown, but it probably wasn't outside the realm of possibility. I'm going to say this wrong. It's going to sound callous but…" Her eyes darted over to the bed where Bruce lay unmoving.

"There but for the grace of G-d…"

Callie nodded. "Exactly. Forget the talents He gave me for a moment. He also granted me a great support network, and the guts to try using it before things got as serious for me. Bronwen's always been a major anchor for me. And when the main thing running through my mind is: find the one who did this to him—" she gestured toward Bruce, "and give that one a dose of his own medicine… I need someone who can hold me back."

A buzzer sounded in the cave. "That would be the main gate," Alfred said. "Under the circumstances," he beckoned her to the security camera display, "can you confirm the identity of this individual?"

Callie glanced at the screen. "Yes, that's Bron. I'll go upstairs." Alfred started to demur. Callie stopped him with a smile. "You'll do more good down here as a medic, than upstairs as a butler, opening a door I can open for myself. Don't you think?"

Without waiting for an answer, she dashed up the stairs.

Left alone with Bruce, Alfred sank wearily on to a stool. "Do try to hold on, Master Bruce," he whispered as he absently pushed a stray lock of hair back from the injured man's forehead. He rechecked the monitors. There had been no change in the last five minutes. Not that he expected one. All he could do was pray that Tim and Jean-Paul returned soon.

Callie led her sister silently back into the den, ignoring the smashed clock and battered, fragmented furniture. She lowered her lanky frame onto an ottoman footstool, which had been spared the damage. "Talk me down, Bronwen," she said quietly. "Before I do something I'll regret."

Bronwen sat down in the armchair behind, leaning her forearm crutch against the side. "Tell me what you've already told yourself. Repeated lectures go in one ear and out the other," she said mildly.

Callie sighed. "Come on."

"Seriously. Let's go through the list. Callantha Aaronson's best tongue-lashings, volume one: running off half-cocked isn't just irresponsible—it's stupid. Your first responsibility is to your patient. Your second one is to the team." She looked sharply at her sister. "You won't be doing either any favors if Bane drops you in Robinson Square," she continued.

"Nice to know you think so highly of me," Callie muttered.

"I think enough of you to know that you're looking for good reasons not to go getting yourself killed. You're getting them in the order in which they occur to me. Remember Tabitha's pearls of wisdom? When you go swimming, you go with a buddy. When you go camping, you go with a buddy. When you go rock climbing, you go with a buddy. And when you take on a bully who's just taken down someone you've spent the last few years looking up to, you…"

Callie was silent.

"Cal?"

"Take him down hard before he becomes a threat to the rest of the team," she replied wearily.

Bronwen made a sound halfway between a snarl and a sigh. "You're being deliberately difficult."

"There's a man downstairs who needs a drug we don't know if we can get, within the next forty-five minutes or he'll be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life," Cal snapped back. "And, instead of maybe agreeing with Robin and insisting we take him to a hospital, where maybe, just maybe, they'd be able to administer the stuff, I let Alfred convince me to take him back here, so we can keep his secret identity secret—even if as a result it becomes moot, because Batman is never heard from again." She spun away from Bronwen, and waved her hands at their surroundings. "Besides which it looks like Bane already knows."

Bronwen let out a long breath. "Oh-kayyy. So. You acted against your better judgment. You're mad at yourself for acquiescing to someone else's decision, especially now that it looks like the consequences are pretty severe. You're probably mad at Batman, because you've spent the last few years trying to match his skills—"

"What?"

"Maybe not consciously," Bronwen amended hastily. "But you know, I've lost track of the number of times I've seen you practicing some kata or other, for hours on end, until you're well past what Sophie would have called the 'point of diminishing returns. And whenever anyone tells you to take a break, you say something like 'he wouldn't.' And now, he has the gall to end up like this and you're taking it personally."

Callie rose to her full five-feet-eleven-inches, towering over her older sister. "I cannot BELIEVE you just said that! Of all the—"

"Are we all done feeling sorry for ourselves, now?" Bronwen asked brightly.

Callie choked off the words in mid-sentence.

"Good. Now listen. Right decision, wrong decision, it was made. Is someone trying to get the medication?"

Callie nodded.

"Good. That's something. Mr. Wayne's condition is stable?"

"For now."

"That's something else. Think he'd be touched, guilt-ridden, or furious if he knew you were going to try to get yourself killed avenging him?"

Callie looked sharply at Bronwen.

"Hey, just asking. Listen, do you really want me to tell you the story about the man and the sticks, again?"

"The one where the father shows his sons how easy it is to snap an individual branch in half, but not a whole bundle, the moral being united we stand, divided we fall?"

"That's the one. Look, you don't need someone to state the obvious. If Bane can take out Batman, he can take out any one of us, with varying degrees of difficulty. But if we bide our time, work as team to keep the crime situation in Gotham stable for now, and later work on Bane, again as a team, I think it could play out a little differently." She sighed. "Then again, I'm not the leader of this little outfit of ours. Maybe I missed something. But if you put that forward in a strategy session, I'd second that motion." She put her hand on Callie's shoulder. "What do you think?"

Callie placed her hand on Bronwen's opposite shoulder. "I think you've convinced me to stay put tonight, anyway." She frowned. "You said something about other business to discuss?"

"Right. Alison called from Chicago. The sports medicine conference is over in three days, but the two she really wants to hear speak are presenting at the end. She said she's usually back in the hotel room after six, and you can call her for advice, but she seems to have gotten fooled like the rest of us, and is convinced you know what you're doing.

"Cal. That was a joke. You can laugh."

"Ha-ha," she said without inflection.

Bronwen sobered. "More seriously, Sophie put herself through a training assessment, and she's nowhere near up to speed. Apparently her regular workout regimen isn't enough. She says it'll probably be a few weeks before she'll be ready to really be out there, but she's working on pushing that up a bit. She's taking off work this week, anyway, and Jaime starts summer camp next Monday. The problem is that someone's going to have to watch Jaime this week. Raul's doing that LA consulting for the next month or so."

Callie frowned. Her brother-in-law was an economic consultant, whose work currently involved periodic travel. Usually that wasn't an issue. Now, however, there was a six-year-old nephew to consider. A six-year-old nephew, possessing the ability to increase and decrease the mass of an object at will, but who still needed supervision and training. If Sophie was that far off her game, she was going to have to spend most of her free time retraining. Kay was doing a summer assistantship in criminal law and working long hours. And if Callie was calling up the lone reserve member, there was no way that she could justify pulling an active member off of the duty roster.

"Can't you take him?" She asked.

"To baby-sit, at least during part of the day, yes. But I can't train him, and if his control slips, I can't help him. Maybe Umbra could look after him, when you're not teaching him—"

"I can't pull Umbra off the streets with what's doing out there."

Bronwen was silent.

"What?"

"She's not here, then." It was a statement, not a question.

Callie shook her head. "No, of course not. She's needed out there." Her head snapped up. "Are you saying she's not out there?"

"Nobody saw her after she went upstairs with you." Bronwen said. "You don't think something happened—"

"To her? No. If she was in real trouble, she'd have a way to signal." Callie hoped. "Did she leave a note? Anything?"

"No note. Her costume and gear are gone, and so is one of the knapsacks. I called the TRAFICK Centre—you know she spends a lot of her free time there to…"

"Help the kids stage plays," Callie said impatiently. "Yes, I know. Obviously she wasn't there…" she closed her eyes, focusing her telepathic talents, scanning for her youngest sister. "I had to go teach her how to shield," she snapped. "There's no way I can find her if I don't know where to look." She exhaled noisily. "There's nothing I can do right now but leave it. How could she just… run off like this?"

Bronwen shook her head. "Maybe she thought she had something more important. I've got both home phones on forward to my cell. The minute she calls, I'll let you know. And Jaime?"

Callie closed her eyes. Alfred was not going to appreciate this. "I'm here for the duration. He… he may as well join me. We'll work something out. You'll bring him round tomorrow?"

"Around noon. Oh, and Natalie gave me a message for you."

"I'm almost afraid to ask."

Bronwen smiled. "You'll like this one. Her exact words were: 'tell Cal I've been thinking about Beaver Creek, and I think this is something he should hear from us before he does his own checking. If he finds out some other way, it's only going to make things worse.' Does that take a load off?"

Callie nodded. "It would. Unfortunately a lot more has been piled on lately."

"Yeah," Bronwen said, studying her sister critically. "You do have that crushed-between-the-millstones look to you. You're staying tonight, then?"

"I'm working. I have to."

"I'm not arguing. Do you want me to stay, too?"

She considered. "How much time would it take you to get back here with an overnight bag?"

"It's already in the trunk. Let's just say I played a hunch."

Behind Bronwen, a throat cleared. Callie stepped around her sister. Jean-Paul stood at the head of the stairs leading down to the cave. "We've returned," he said unnecessarily. "Alfred is feeding the Decadron into the IV as we speak. He said your sister can join us, if she wishes."

Bronwen picked up her crutch. "Are the stairs alright?"

"There's some broken glass on them, but they're not slippery or anything," Cal reflected.

"Then show me down," she said, sliding her forearm through the aperture.

The two followed Jean-Paul back to the cave.

"What happens now?" Robin was asking Alfred.

"The hardest part," the older man replied soberly. "The waiting."