Timeline: Knightfall. For those of you who read my first story, Mayday, this story takes place four years later.
A/N: Some Hebrew terminology in this chapter. Tzedaka literally means "righteousness". It is usually translated, however, as "charity". In general, ten per cent of all earnings are set aside to be given away to those less fortunate. Ima is the Hebrew word for "Mother". A mitzvah can be translated as either a "good deed", or as a religious obligation. It is a mitzvah to visit the sick. The Hebrew noun for this act is "bikur cholim". One who performs this mitzvah is "m'vaker choleh."
Chapter 5
"I Thought You Might Like Some Marzipan"
Six a.m. the next morning...
Alfred closed the door to the master bedroom softly behind him. He joined Tim, Callie, Bronwen, and Jean-Paul downstairs in the kitchen. The four might have been statues for all they reacted to his presence. Tim's eyes were tightly closed against tears that had stopped flowing. They were threatening to start again. Callie rested her forehead in her hand, oblivious to the arm Bronwen extended around her. Jean-Paul sat, unmoving, both hands gripping the wooden table as if preparing to bench-press it.
"He is... resting, at the moment," Alfred said gently.
Tim looked up at him, blinking rapidly. "He'll get better? Right?"
Alfred hesitated. "We can hope, Master Timothy."
Bronwen looked at her watch. "I'd better get moving. Cal, if things are... going to stay as they are, for the next little while, it's going to impact our... operations, isn't it?"
Callie didn't answer.
"Sis? You awake in there?" Bron sighed. Then, deliberately, she slid her crutch off of her wrist and made a show of balancing it against the side of the kitchen chair. As intended, it fell to the floor with an audible clatter, rousing, however briefly, the others from their lethargy. Bronwen lowered herself to the ground without a trace of self-consciousness to retrieve it. "If it's any consolation," she said, "I don't think my 'Pollyanna subroutine' kicked in, right after my accident, either." Her expression turned thoughtful. "If memory serves, even Pollyanna needed some time to get used to the idea after she took her tumble. Give him a few days."
Tim looked up. "How did it happen?" He asked, pointing to the crutch.
Bronwen righted the device. "I was caught in a warehouse fire," she said calmly. "I got pinned under a ceiling support. In plain language, my right leg is paralyzed. And, I have two pins in my hip due to a fractured femur. The crutch helps, though. Quite a bit, really."
Jean-Paul blinked. "This happened to you when you were in costume."
Bronwen sighed. "No, actually, it didn't. I was working as a bike courier. There was a delivery I had to make at the waterfront. A few kids were playing in one of the derelict buildings. To this day, we're not sure whether someone was negligent and left some oily rags lying around, or whether it was arson, but the building went up, and two boys were still in there. What else could I do?" She smiled ruefully. "Truthfully, I didn't even have my costume with me. Six years ago, we didn't have Kevlar. The old suits were padded. Way too hot and bulky to carry around." She raised her index finger. "I had a helmet," she said brightly. "Unfortunately, as useful as it is in preventing head injuries, it doesn't do much for spinal trauma.
"How long did it take you to get over it?"
Bronwen grimaced. "Wrong question. But it took a few weeks before I realized that the world wasn't going to just wait for me to rejoin it." She continued speaking aloud, but she was no longer talking to anyone in particular. "A few weeks, followed by a lot of family support, a few late night phone calls to a distress line, rehab, therapy, career counseling, wheelchair basketball... that may have been the longest year of my life." She focused directly on Tim. "Don't use me, or my experiences as any kind of benchmark, though. He'll do things in his own time. Just... be alert. Some people are pretty direct about asking for help. Somehow, I can't shake the feeling that he's not one of them. It could have something to do with the positive dearth of JLA members chasing down the Arkham escapees." She yawned.
"I'd better go home, have breakfast. Cal, you alright for food?"
"Bring some round, when you drop off Jaime," she said. "Precooked."
Alfred cleared his throat. "If you wish to leave, Miss Callie, you may certainly do so. Should Master Bruce's condition change, I can contact you, directly."
"I'm just plain 'Callie', Mr. Pennyworth," Cal returned. "And given the choice between going home and making myself crazy worrying, or being here just in case, would it be a terrible imposition if I just stayed where I am? I'll help you tidy up," she added.
"That's unnecessary, Doctor Aaronson. But I must admit I am concerned about your nephew's imminent arrival. Small boys have a tendency to be curious. They frequently like to explore new surroundings. Certainly, you can appreciate the risks involved in your nephew arriving here at this particular time."
Bronwen said her goodbyes and left, closing the door behind her.
Callie nodded, acknowledging Alfred's concern. "Jaime is inquisitive. And he does like to examine his surroundings. For all that, he also knows that most of the people with whom he currently interacts have private lives, which are best kept private.
"While we were downstairs, waiting for Mr. Wayne to regain consciousness, I did take some time to think about the situation. It seems to me, that, if we don't clean up in the den right away, we can tell Jaime that that particular room is off limits because of the broken glass. That would neutralize the danger posed by his exploring and potentially finding the way into the cave. On the whole, my nephew is a quiet boy. I'll admit that's a double-edged sword. His stealth capabilities are at level eleven already..."
"Level eleven?" Tim interrupted.
"Out of a possible eighteen," she said with a note of pride. "That's not scaled down for his age, by the way, that's according to the same yardstick against which we measure our own talents. In other words, we will have to watch what we say, because he might overhear."
"Surely he knows that eavesdropping is bad manners?"
Callie looked embarrassed. It hit her that what she was revealing wasn't helping her case. Honesty won out. "He understands the theory, Alfred. His problem is in reconciling what we tell him with... what we actually do."
Tim grinned despite himself. "Does he know how to fight, also?"
"Oh, yes," Callie returned the smile. "Judo and karate right now, but he'll start hapkido in the fall. As far as that's concerned, we've told him never to instigate. Martial arts are primarily taught for self-defense, at any rate. Anyway, on the plus side, he's not normally given to running around shouting at the top of his lungs. If you show him where the library is, he'll probably be happy until dinnertime. We can tell him not to open any doors that aren't already open—and just make sure ahead of time that all the necessary ones are closed."
"Callie?" Tim asked, "maybe I could keep an eye on him."
"That would be a big help," she agreed gratefully. "Thanks."
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"Can we stop at Zaretsky's?" The little boy asked, bouncing up and down with excitement as his mother shut the door behind him. "Please?"
Bronwen held his hand gently but firmly. "We don't have time. We're running late, as it is."
"But I just got my allowance," he protested, brandishing a five-dollar bill. "See!"
"And so now, you want to spend it all."
"Not all of it," he protested. "I get six dollars a week. One for each year old I am. I told Ima it should be six dollars and three quarters because I'm six and three-quarters years old now, but she said no. So I put sixty cents in the tzedaka box, and forty cents in my giraffe bank, and I want to spend five dollars at Zaretsky's."
"Hmm," Bronwen said, opening the back door of her Camry. Jaime climbed in. "I thought you were supposed to put half your allowance in the giraffe?" She reached in to fasten his seatbelt, while her nephew squirmed uncomfortably. "Don't wriggle."
"I asked Ima. She said I could use the five dollars, if I was doing a mitzvah with it."
Bronwen raised her eyebrows. "All of a sudden it's a mitzvah for you to eat candy? How is that a good deed?"
"It is if I buy to share," he explained as Bronwen shut the rear door. As she opened the driver door, he continued, "Ima said I'm going to a house where there's a really sick man, so I wanted to buy him something really good so he'd feel better."
Bronwen put her key in the ignition. WGKN came on with the motor. She turned the volume down a notch. "And what were you thinking to buy for this really sick man?"
In her car mirror, she saw the small boy's face light up. "Marzipan! I can get two pieces for five dollars including tax, one for him and one for me. So can we please stop at Zaretsky's so I can buy it? Please? Pretty please?"
Her lips twitched. "Why not buy one piece for him and get yourself some jelly beans or something?"
"Because," he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, "if he has marzipan, and he sees me eating jelly beans, I think he'll be sad that I don't have any marzipan for me, and he won't enjoy his as much, and I want to give him the marzipan to cheer him up! Please?"
Bronwen managed to suppress her laughter, but it was a near thing. "Zaretsky's is on the way. If I can find parking, we'll stop." A grin split his face from ear to ear. "I said, 'if'" she reminded him.
"This is Deirdre Campbell for WGKN news at noon." A woman's voice cut cleanly into the car via the radio. "There is still no word on the Batman. Crowds in Robinson Square last night got a rare, and horrifying view of the costumed vigilante, as he was thrown from the roof of..." Bronwen turned the radio off with an angry twist of the dial.
"What happened to Batman?" Jaime demanded.
"Since when do you listen to the news?"
"Since they started talking about Batman. What happened? I know it's bad and that's why Ima wants me to stay with Aunt Callie. She said she has to practice hard now, because Batman might not be able to go out for a while and the team needs her. But what happened?"
Bronwen slowed, looking for a parking spot. "He lost a fight." She said, finally, as she turned off of Mooney and onto a quiet side street. "He got hurt."
"Bad?"
"Bad."
"Can Aunt Callie fix him?"
Bronwen slammed the brakes. Seatbelts protected them both from flying forward. "Why Aunt Callie?" She asked.
"No reason," he said, bewildered. "I just asked her once why she wanted to be a doctor, and she said that because when people like us get hurt bad, going to a hospital makes other people ask all kinds of questions, and she wanted to be a doctor so she could fix up the team and those people won't get a chance to ask all kinds of questions. Wouldn't they also ask all kinds of questions if Batman goes to the hospital?"
Bronwen maneuvered the car into a parking spot leaving about a foot to spare in front and behind. "Probably," she admitted. "And if Aunt Callie knew where he was, she would be helping him. But Batman never told us where he lived, so how would she know where to find him?" She opened the door. Jaime already had the seatbelt off.
"She'd know." Jaime said, as he clambered out. "She knows everything."
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"I'm back, Alfred," Bronwen said with a smile, urging Jaime forward. He shifted the small white paper bag to his left hand, which was already holding a copy of The Magician's Nephew, and extended his right to the tall man in the black suit.
Alfred accepted the hand gravely. "So I see. And, good day to you, young sir."
"Hi, Mister. I'm Jaime. Jaime Cardozo." Seeing Alfred's serious demeanor, the boy immediately copied it. "How do you do?" He asked formally.
"Very well, thank you, young sir. And yourself?"
"Well, thank-you, Sir." He might have been doing a screen test for an education video on good manners, Bronwen thought to herself. She sent a friendly smile to the boy standing behind Alfred in the foyer. He had changed to street clothes, but Bronwen recognized that he had to be Robin.
The youth smiled back, guardedly.
"Alfred," she said briskly, "There's a carton in the trunk for Cal. It's not really heavy, but I'd need both hands for it. Could I ask..."
"I'll get it," 'Robin' pushed past Alfred.
"And I'll take that from you," Alfred said, gesturing to the small overnight bag Bronwen held in her left hand.
"Thanks, Alfred that's a help." She turned to the teen. "I'm sorry, I don't think I caught your name?"
"Tim."
"Tim. Thanks." She turned back to Alfred. "Any change?"
"Not at present, Miss Bronwen. I looked in on him not long ago, and he was still asleep."
Bronwen nodded. "And Callie?"
Alfred seemed to collect himself. "I apologize, Miss Bronwen. I should not have kept you standing outside. Come in, both of you. I'll bring you to her."
Alfred led them back to the kitchen. Callie was seated at the table, writing on a pad of loose-leaf secured on a clipboard. She looked up as the three entered. "Bron! Hi! Hey, kiddo!" The boy ran to her. As she stood up, he launched himself into her arms. She embraced him, tightly.
"Aunt Callie! I haven't seen you in CENTURIES!" He exclaimed.
Callie bestowed a kiss on his forehead. "Centuries, huh? Mmm, I guess when I convert that from kid-years to real time..." she set him down and made a show of toting up figures in the air. "I guess it has been almost a week."
Tim entered and set the carton down on the table. Callie smiled her thanks. "What's that you're reading?" she asked her nephew.
He held the thin volume up proudly. "It's about what happened to the professor in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, when HE was a little boy. And him and a girl called Polly got into a wood that could take them into all kinds of other worlds. And I'm at the part," he paused for breath, "I'm at the part where they're in a world called Charn, and the professor, his real name's Digory Kirke, Digory just rung a bell and he woke up a lady who was sleeping like a statue. And you want to know something?" He asked, eyes dancing with excitement.
Callie peered down at him, as if he was about to disclose the secrets of life, the universe, and everything. "What?" she asked eagerly.
"I bet, I bet the lady turns out to be the White Witch from The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe." He said, with a satisfied smile.
Cal tousled the hair at the back of his head. "Maybe I'll read it when you finish." She sobered. "Aunt Bronwen and I need to talk about a few things. Have you met Tim, yet?"
Jaime pointed. "You're Tim?" he asked.
Tim Drake nodded.
"Ok, we've met."
"Good. Tim," she beckoned, "could you show someplace quiet, where he can read, and Bron and I won't disturb him."
"No problem. C'mon kid."
"I'm not 'kid,' I'm Jaime," he protested. "Or 'Kid-O' sometimes. But not 'kid.'"
Before Tim could respond Callie broke in. "Jaime," she said seriously. "This isn't our house. It's big, and very easy to get lost in. And I don't know my way around it all that well."
"You mean," he asked, grinning, "this is a very strange house, and even you know very little about it?"
"There are no wardrobes leading into Narnia, here," she replied crisply. "I know that much. Also, there was a big accident in one of the rooms and there's a lot of glass on the floor, and broken wood. You don't need to get cuts or splinters. So, don't go exploring, and don't go opening any closed doors."
"'Kay," he mumbled. "I hafta go to the bathroom."
Alfred smiled, slightly. "I believe that door may well be shut. Master Timothy?"
"I'll show him." He took Jaime's hand in his and led him down the hall.
Callie watched them leave. She peered into the carton. "How much did you bring?" she asked.
"Six meals, a couple changes of clothes, the latest Logic Puzzles 'mag', and," she said, reaching in and pulling out a thick file folder which had been slipped vertically into the box, "the team's reports on last night's performance."
"I'll look at them later." She saw the small bag on the table. "What's that?"
Bronwen grimaced. "Two pieces of marzipan. One for him, and one for Mr. Wayne. Jaime's idea. He's going to want to bring it up to him, you know."
Callie was shaking her head. "Not the best idea, right now."
"I'll let him hear that from his intrepid leader. He played the 'mitzvah' card on me. He wants to be m'vaker choleh."
"Actually, Doctor Aaronson," Alfred interrupted diffidently, "that might not be a bad notion."
Callie raised her eyebrows. "That's not what you said, this morning."
"I realize that. However, based on the small sample of his character that I've witnessed thus far, his presence might prove beneficial. Certainly, we're having worse luck."
"Oh, he's a charmer," Callie admitted. "You'll pardon, however, my reluctance to press him into service as a therapist three months before his seventh birthday."
"Callie!" Bron interrupted sharply, "let me ask you one question: if the setting were a hospital, and he wanted to visit with a patient, any patient, and maybe try to cheer him up, would you put that argument forward?"
Cal looked away.
"By your own admission, Mr. Wayne should be in a hospital—sorry Alfred, but it's true. This place seems to come equipped with the necessary machinery. Is it so terrible to include a volunteer?"
"He gets... intense... about things. He's still so young."
"Sounds familiar," Bronwen smiled. "He focuses. Most kids his age have a shorter attention span. Frankly, I like how he's turning out."
"Me too," Callie admitted. "I just want him to be a kid a little longer."
"He will be. Right now, well if you don't want him going upstairs, it's up to you, but are you sure you want to discourage him from thinking that way?"
"No. I just don't want him making the same kind of mistakes I made."
Bronwen raised an eyebrow. "You want him to make others? Ones you maybe won't know how to deal with? Sophie's doing a great job with raising him. You're enhancing her groundwork. He's human. Of course he's going to mess up. We all do. But the last thing you should be encouraging him to do is stop the car, just because the road's a little bumpy."
Callie smiled faintly. "And I suppose that, were I to point out that he shouldn't be driving for a number of years yet, you'd call me 'deliberately difficult' again, right?"
"Uh-huh. You know where I'm going with the analogies. You don't need to pick them apart, necessarily." She kissed her sister on the cheek. "Call me later. I'll see whether I can find out anything about Tabitha."
Callie flinched. She had almost forgotten about her youngest sister.
As Alfred escorted Bronwen to the front door, Tim returned to the kitchen with Jaime in tow. "He said he left something on the table," Tim explained.
Callie picked up the bag. "This?"
The younger boy broke into a large smile. "Yes! Can I take it up to the man?"
"The man has a name, you know."
"Ima didn't say what it was."
"It's Mr. Wayne," she replied.
"Mis-ter Wayne," Jaime repeated, slowly.
"That's right. Tim, would you bring him upstairs?"
Tim frowned. "Are you sure?"
"No. But Alfred and Bronwen seem to think it might be a good thing." She bent down to eye level with her nephew. "Now, Jaime, Mr. Wayne might be sleeping. If he is, you just leave the bag on the table by his bed, and tiptoe out. Make sure you don't wake him up."
The boy's eyes widened. "I'd NEVER do that!" he exclaimed. "That's stealing!"
Tim glanced sharply at Callie. She stood up. "Waking someone up without his or her permission is considered a form of theft; he's right," she explained. "Basically it amounts to stealing sleep." It was incredible what Jaime's mind picked up, sometimes, she thought.
"Callie," Tim began. "I—do I have to go into the room with Jaime? Y- you saw before..."
Callie's eyes widened in comprehension. When Bruce had regained consciousness that morning, when he had understood the enormity of his defeat, Tim had taken it badly. It was hard to tell whether he was more upset by the fact that Bruce currently had no feeling from the waist down, or from Bruce's reaction to the news. In any event, Alfred had managed to get the teen to control himself until they moved the injured man back into the master bedroom. But then, Alfred had asked Bruce whether there was anything else he needed. Bruce's reply "No... just turn out the lights... and leave me... in the dark," had torn at her own heart. Tim had slowly walked out of the room, and run down the stairs, slightly ahead of his tears.
"You can wait outside for him," she said. "This time. Tomorrow, I want you to try going in. Work on psyching yourself up for it."
Tim nodded uncertainly. He motioned to Jaime to follow him out of the kitchen. Taking the paper bag with him, Jaime complied.
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He sleeps fitfully, and his dreams are not pleasant, although they sometimes start out that way. He should know by now, thatthe pleasant oneswon't last, but in dreams, one forgets, and yet, perversely, one remembers some things more clearly when dreaming, than while awake. Some things. Other memories are confused, ostensibly unrelated, yet the subconscious can create parallels which the conscious mind oftentimes glosses over...
In this dream, it is night. He is safe. The film at the Majestic was incredible. He wonders how he could ever have thought that a movie had to be in color to be interesting. The Mark of Zorro, with Tyrone Power changed all that. He walks between his parents, now running ahead, brandishing a stick he picked up somewhere, attacking lampposts with it. "Take that Captain Pasquale!"
He narrowly misses skewering a jogger, who sprints by with a large dog on a leash. The dog is well-trained. It doesn't even turn its head. The jogger, on the other hand, glares at him.
"Bruce!" His father calls sharply. "Come back here!"
He obeys, and his father takes the stick from him and throws it in the gutter. "You don't want to hurt anyone, do you son?" He says as they walk on. Young Bruce shakes his head. They turn into the alley. "Let's cut through here to the car."
"I do not wish to hurt anyone either," says a harsh voice with a harsher accent. It sounds vaguely Spanish, but different. Santa Prisca. The name of the country leaps into his mind unbidden. How can he know that? He's eight years old and he's never even heard of Santa Prisca before. Somehow, though, he knows. "But I will," the voice continues."If the woman does not hand over her pearls, now!" And he waves the handgun to emphasize his point.
The dream always stops here, with the sounds of the two gunshots, with his parents falling to the pavement, with the blood... with the knowledge that his parents are gone, and that his life has been utterly, totally, destroyed, but now impossibly the scene has shifted to the manor. Does that mean that tonight, it is not a dream? That, perhaps, the murder was a dream, and that now he is awake and his parents are well and always has been?" Hesitantly, he pushes open the front door.
Alfred lies at his feet, bleeding from a scalp wound. No! "I have left him alive," says the voice, that same voice from Santa Prisca. "It is not he I want. It is you." And the figure steps forward from the shadows, half-again his height, heavier, bulkier, faster, stronger. Bruce wants to run, but his legs won't move. He looks down and sees that he is sitting on the floor. He can't move his legs! He can't even feel them. And the man-mountain is coming toward him, pumped with Venom, out for blood, his blood. And he... can't... move! No! NonononoNoNOOOOOOOOO! "Noooo!"
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Cold. Wet. On his forehead. Terrycloth. A... washcloth? Yes. His throat felt dry. "Al—Alfred?" But this didn't feel like Alfred. The cloth wasn't evenly folded. One end flapped over his eyes. It wasn't well wrung out, either, he realized as he felt a rivulet of water trickle past his temple, onto the pillow. Alfred was never that sloppy. Tim, maybe?
"No," said a soft light voice. A child's voice. What was a child doing here? "Just me."
He'd never felt this weak. It was an effort to even push the cloth back onto his forehead. He tried, though. As he did, a small hand took hold one end to help him. He grabbed the hand, and pulled its owner forward. Turning his head, he looked into a pair of large brown eyes, pupils wide in the dim light. Dark hair, an inch or so past his ears, with an embroidered hat of some kind, covering the entire crown of his head. "Who are you?"
"Jaime Cardozo."
That told him nothing. "What are you doing in here?"
"I..." he swallowed nervously, "I thought you might like some marzipan."
Bruce didn't know what he'd been expecting to hear, but that wasn't it. "What?"
"Marzipan. It's almond paste made to look like fruit. It's really good. See?" He pointed to the night table where a small replica of a pear reposed on a piece of waxed paper. "I got a piece for me, too."
Bruce frowned. "I know what marzipan is. What I want to know is what you're doing in here. How did you get into my home?"
Jaime stood unmoving. "Your doctor is my Aunt Callie," he said after a moment. My Ima's busy so Aunt Callie has to look after me. And Ima told me you weren't feeling well, and I know it's polite to bring something when you go to visit someone, and I like marzipan so..."
That was somewhat clearer. Somewhat. "You could have just left it with Alfred."
"I know. But I wanted to make sure you'd get it. Aunt Maybelle always says that sometimes, if she's alone with an open box of chocolates in the morning, well, in the afternoon, she's just alone. And the marzipan isn't even in a box; it's just wrapped in wax paper. And it's better than chocolate. It's not that I don't trust him, I just didn't want to take a chance."
Despite himself, Bruce felt his lips twitch. And, somehow, for a moment at least, he had been focused on something other than what Bane had did to him. That... had to be a good thing. "There's a chair over in the corner by the window," he said, after a moment's deliberation. Do you think you can move it over here, by the bed? It's on wh-rollers," he added.
Jaime looked at the chair. "I think so, Mr. Wayne."
"Do that. Then, you can sit down. If you want to." Belatedly, it occurred to him that the kid might not want to stay in the room with him. That maybe he had just wanted to deliver his gift and go down the hall to watch Sesame Street, or Pokemon, or whatever it was that little boys watched on weekday afternoons.
The boy, however, beamed at him and walked quickly to the chair. He pulled it slightly forward so that he could maneuver himself behind it, and then pushed it from the back. Unfortunately, he couldn't see where he was going, so the chair knocked gently against the bed. "Sorry, Mr. Wayne." He said. "I'm almost there."
"You're doing fine," he encouraged. "Oh, and Jaime?"
The boy succeeded in nudging the chair into place. He peered questioning around the back of it. "Yessir?"
"Call me Bruce."