I know I said 6 would be the last chapter, but the beta readers suggested a split that I really liked. Rest assured the rest of the story is here, it's just broken into more pieces than originally planned.

So this is it...the end of the road. Seventy-three pages, forty-four thousand words, and almost two years of time all brought down to this. I've had my closing notes prepared for a long time, but now that I'm sitting here trying to write the beginning of the end, I'm coming up short on words. I guess all I have to say is that I trust the story will speak for itself. And I hope that each and every one of you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Feel free to review with whatever's on your mind. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

To my beta readers: You two are wonderful. I don't think I can conjure up enough words from the English language to express my appreciation for all you've done for me (especially on these last chapters). But I will say that this story would have been significantly empty without your help. Thank you, Johnny and Neptune47. It's people like you that make writing so enjoyable.

And finally, I have a surprise for you, one I've been saving for the entire story: Within the next few days I will be posting all of the Extras for this story into a livejournal entry. Included in these will be author's notes and a GIGANTIC amount of deleted scenes because I cut a lot of stuff out. But best of all—and here's the surprise—I'll be posting another Justice League fanfiction that was the birth of this one. The two stories are different, but the concepts between them are the same (hence the reason it's going under author's notes and not its own title). It's about thirty-eight pages long and 90 percent finished, so you're not getting stiffed. It's called Through the Looking Glass and it was almost complete when I realized I hated it and decided to merge it with another idea I had. That's where Deep Within came from. It's a pretty good story for a first draft, so be on the lookout for that. The Extras and Scribbles can be found under the "Cutting Room Floor" link on my ffnet author homepage.

Ok, enough talking! On with the show...

Chapter 6

"Clerrace" J'onn muttered to himself, reading the green street sign as it passed gracefully beneath him. Focusing his mind, he disengaged his powers of flight and began his descent to the streets below.

The face of Gotham emerged from the shadows as the pavement moved up to greet him. Crooked alleyways and scraps of trash wound their way amidst a myriad of decrepit buildings, all dark like blackened souls standing against the last threshold of hell. Some of the edifices looked so pathetic he wondered if even hell itself had forsaken them. Surprisingly, in an area that seemed conducive to housing a swarm of thugs and gang members not a single soul occupied the shadowed streets...except for one.

J'onn alighted on the cold concrete, his cape fluttering softly to a rest behind him. A man across the deserted street was watching him intently from beneath a lamppost, his right hand tucked casually into the pocket of his ebony suit. As J'onn approached he could see the shadows playing throughout the small circle of light as if called there by sheer force of will. But even they were not dark enough to mask the blue eyes watching him.

"You must be Mr. Wayne."

The surprise in his voice was impossible to hide. When dealing with Batman it was usually wise to expect the unexpected, but this...

He was fairly lean—much leaner than the clothes he wore around the tower made him appear. The dark fabrics selected for their precise shades always seemed to layer themselves around him, making it difficult to distinguish exactly where he was underneath. Having seen him fight, J'onn understood how hard those layers made it to follow his movements. Before criminals could process the flash of black or the flutter of fabric they were usually sprawled on the floor, unconscious.

The man nodded, his eyes intense. In many ways seeing Batman without his concealing cowl was much more unnerving than it was with it on. When his eyes were shaded by the mask his penetrating gaze was only generalized, but with pupils and retinas to give his sight substance, there was nothing to blunt his intense glare. J'onn found himself immediately uncomfortable beneath the calculating grip. It had been a long time since he felt the real fear of having his mind read by another.

"I need you for a catharsis" Batman said detachedly.

J'onn was confused. Aside from the timing the request was not unusual. In the wake of Dr. Destiny's rampage he'd done hundreds of them.

A catharsis was a type of mental purging process. In terms of an alien psychic, it meant J'onn would enter the mind of a victim and attempt to coach them out of the mental prisons that bound them. He and Batman had become the somewhat self-appointed cleanup crew for such instances. His knowledge of healing coupled with Batman's proficiency in human medicine made them ideal for the task, and together they had spent countless hours tending to the victims of Destiny's wrath.

Generally, their nights during that time had been spent all in one place—a hospital for example—where they would move from room to room as a team. Batman would translate the medical charts and then keep watch as J'onn attempted to cure the patient. It was a delicate and painstaking process. It had taken them roughly two weeks of work before they had found all the victims, and even then some were beyond any help. Every once and a while afterward they would stumble upon a straggler they had missed, but the last one they had found was well over six months ago, and they had never met like this.

J'onn searched Batman's face. Without a mask to conceal anything he expected to be able to see the emotions playing across the man, but he was surprised at how difficult it was. Batman offered no hints to what he was thinking, no clues as to why he was falling so far out of character. In addition his mind revealed nothing...because J'onn could not read it.

Masked—it was the only word he could think to describe the sensation, as he had never felt anything like it before. On one hand he could feel Batman just as strongly as he could any human, but instead of the thoughts and emotions that should have been reaching him, all he sensed was a continuous stream of a single, powerful image. The image was symbolic, of course, as most things concerning the mind were. J'onn understood without explanation that it represented something far more that merely its content. It was...an ideal...a mantra...a source of inner motivation strong enough that it had almost taken a life of its own. And its presence was so overbearing that it drowned out everything else, making it the only thing he could see and therefore read from Batman's mind. The fact that a human could do such a thing was nothing short of remarkable, but at the same time the image disturbed him.

He was standing in an alley. At his back, the bright marquee of a theater lit the grimy streets beneath his feet.

He had seen that place before...

"My car's nearby" Batman stated in his usual assertive fashion. His gaze quickly flicked down and then back up. "You might want to change."

The others would have wanted to know what was going on. They would have asked questions, voiced their own opinions, expressed their annoyance at being kept out of the loop.

J'onn did not.

Bruce watched with a detached interest as the Martian gathered his concentration and shifted into his human form. After only a few seconds he was left staring into the eyes of a man of approximately forty-five wearing a tan suit and trench coat. When he saw all was ready, he turned and led the way to his vehicle parked discretely some blocks away. He wasn't worried about his black Jaguar being burglarized in this rough area of town. The Batman had been sure to make a fearful appearance earlier that day that would linger for several hours.

Silently, they got in the car.

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"This requires a great deal of trust."

J'onn's voice seemed to drift out of nothing, much like his characteristic phasing ability. "I am deeply honored."

"It was necessary" came the ungracious reply.

"...Of course."

There was silence for a long time. The Martian's eyes drifted almost mechanically to the road, watching the yellow stripes emerging out of the cloaking darkness to fall into the car's headlights.

A pair of eyes was staring back at him, ones he had seen before, headlights in the darkness.

He turned away from the images. He had long ago figured out where they had been coming from—in fact, a part of him might have always known—but he hadn't been this close to Batman since it started. He was beginning to believe everything he had been experiencing over the last few days was connected together somehow, and it all centered around this. He thought about the alley, the hospital, the strange and sudden request; but the more he dwelled on the pieces, the farther away he seemed to drift, almost as if he were reluctant to truly see the final picture.

Batman's mind wasn't able to mask itself forever. As the drive dragged on and the silence grew thicker, whatever resolve was holding it together began to deteriorate beneath other distractions. Though the alley, or rather the idea of it, still hung heavy in the foreground, J'onn started to feel what was stirring underneath. Most prevalent of all was a sorrow...a deep, raw sorrow that felt new and yet old at the same time. Very old. There was anger and concern but there was also a strength, albeit an uncomfortable strength that seemed unsure of where it was supposed to stand. It puzzled him as to why, but he sensed Batman was not holding this meeting entirely of his free will.

He wanted to talk about it. As both a Martian and an individual it was in J'onn's nature to discuss what was on his mind openly with others. He had come to realize long ago, however, that human beings guarded such things very carefully from one another, particularly where emotions were involved. In numerous situations they actually seemed to prefer lies over truth, silence over honesty. At first he'd simply attributed this to their naturally competitive natures, but he'd gradually come to realize that it was more of a necessity than it seemed. Unable to use physical weapons in many of their societies, humans had grown to wield emotional ones instead. Angry children ran away, jealous marriages ended in affairs, heated words grew into arguments, and misplaced relationships destroyed entire lives. It was different from his culture, but in a way it was the same. Human beings protected themselves from mental harm just as his shield protected him. The only difference was in the methods. Martians had their ways of hurting one another; humans had ones entirely different.

J'onn shook his head. Even within a homogenous society there was so much distrust...It was a wonder his presence had been accepted into this culture at all. The humans had been more than a little wary of him at first, but it had not taken long for them to accept his membership with the Justice League as proof of his integrity. By now most had taken to his powers extremely well. He couldn't help a sideways glance, however, as he thought of others who had not.

Batman had never warmed up to his psychic abilities. It was a sore spot between them that had been festering for a long time. Though the Dark Knight had never brought it up in words, he didn't like how easily J'onn could penetrate any and every façade he wore. On one level this gained the Martian respect and trust that none of the others had; on another, it also gained him a deep resentment, possibly deeper than Batman himself even knew he possessed.

J'onn's human eyes, now colored a passive green, fell downwards. Maybe, in light of what his abilities had evolved into, that resentment was well deserved.

He gave himself a mental shake before the thought could wander any further. There would be time to worry about himself later. Right now, Batman needed his help.

"I am assuming we are headed to one of the nearby hospitals" he said. "May I ask the name of the victim?"

"Shouldn't you know that already?"

The statement was not offensive, merely a question, but J'onn felt a twinge of guilt all the same. "I must admit your call was...unexpected. I, like the others, have long worried that something is amiss, but I doubt the situation is much clearer to me than it is them. I try not to intrude, even given my gifts." He paused. "However...There are some things I do know. I sense this matter is most grave. I know some terrible fortune has recently befallen you and those you care about. I know you are aggrieved, I can feel you are in pain, and I am probably one of the few who knows exactly how much you are sacrificing to come to me like this. I know all of these things without meaning to, and as someone who seems to take particular offense from it, I extend my deepest apologies."

"No need. I'm surprised you even got that far."

J'onn tried to force a smile. "You do not exactly make it easy. Out of everyone, I would say I know you the least, and I am psychic."

Batman's lips suddenly thinned. "Well" he said softly, "you're going to learn a lot about me tonight."

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The car came to a stop between the stone walls of a narrow dead-end alley stretching between two nondescript buildings. As J'onn stepped out of the car and began to follow Batman out of the shadows he tried with little success to determine where they were. He knew from paying attention during the drive that they were somewhere in the inner city, approximately forty minutes away from where they had met, but it was not until he saw the familiar letters lit in neon white far above his head that he realized where he stood.

The name flashed in his mind even though he could not read the words: Gotham Hospital.

He turned. The parking lot stretching before him was instantly recognizable now that he knew he was viewing it from another angle. His gaze swung to take in the enormous building reaching for the heavens in all its manmade splendor. Though this was the first time he had ever seen this place, he found that he knew a substantial amount about it. He felt the information gathered from countless hours of intense study begin to flow through him as readily as air through his lungs—but the air was cold and foreign, unnatural, and he knew instantly that it was not his, even though he had no choice but to breathe it.

The hospital was built in 1992 to assist its sister facility located a few blocks away with the inflow of patients. It was remodeled once last year to fix an ongoing problem with water damage in the hallways due to a poorly designed draining system, and had received fourteen upgrades to its security system since it was first built. There were seven security monitoring rooms within the hospital, the largest of which was located on the top floor. The system consisted of the basics in protection such as a live video feed from each exit, entrance, and elevator and automated alarms on each. The cameras, however, due to a last-minute budget cut, were unable to be installed in each of the hallways. Instead, the hospital had opted to cover only one-third of the building which included the operating rooms and those holding expensive equipment. This made it fairly easy to break in providing those hallways were avoided.

Several alleyways towards the back of the building were reserved for the hospital staff to deliver supplies and were hardly used at this time of night. In fact, there was one loading dock that was barely used at all anymore, and that currently housed a black Jaguar that had been parked discreetly so as not to attract attention. As he approached the front doors to the lobby, overwhelmed with the information he suddenly realized he had memorized, J'onn could not help looking up at the windows peering down at him from the floors above. Automatically, his gaze slid to one in particular situated on the eastern side of the sixteenth floor. The analytical presence receded with his dread.

Inside, the waiting room was brightly lit. It never ceased to amaze him how crowded hospitals always seemed to be, particularly at night. Blue plastic chairs with connected metal armrests were stretched in rows wherever they could fit and almost all of them were filled. Left with nothing better to focus on, the glazed eyes occupying the seats glanced up whenever the doors opened. The long hours of monotonous staring, however, were broken when Bruce Wayne walked into the room. J'onn followed awkwardly behind as Gotham's billionaire celebrity crossed the floor to sign in at the front desk. The number of eyes following the two of them were painfully obvious, to say nothing of the flurry of mental speculations that suddenly buzzed in the air, but he tried his best to ignore them. After only a few moments the receptionist waved both of them through, flashing a shy smile at Bruce Wayne as they left.

J'onn was glad to step into the privacy of the elevator, though he felt it would be his final sanctuary before the storm. The ride to the sixteenth floor seemed to end all too soon. He had just begun to brace himself for what was ahead when the doors chimed and, without a word of direction, Batman stepped out into the hallway. His Gucci shoes echoed hollowly on the white floors as he led the way through the tangled masses of corridors towards the back of the building. After several twists and turns that seemed more befitting a maze than a hospital, he rounded one last corner and then stopped in front of room 1655. As J'onn watched, his demeanor made an abrupt change. His hand fell upon the cold silver bar that served as the doorknob and paused, as if taking a moment to steel itself. Within seconds the coarse exterior had receded like smoke from his face. Then, with practiced caution and care, he opened the door silently and stepped inside.

The hospital room was like the hundreds of others J'onn had been in. Cast in the shade of the industrial fluorescent lighting, the floor, walls, and ceiling all wore the same motif: white. The color seemed to have a sterilized feel to it, one that was not judgmental or threatening. To the left of the door was a silver counter with a few tattered magazines scattered on its surface. Across the room, three worn chairs covered in cheap leather fabric were resting haphazardly against the back wall beside the window. One had obviously been pushed back from a much closer position beside the bed. On the right side another door led discretely to a bathroom which, in turn, opened up into room 1654. With a familiar reluctance, J'onn then turned his eyes to the bed.

A young child lay there, covered up to his chest in papery white sheets. His large brown eyes were barely visible through the numerous strands of dirty black hair lazily scattered across his brow. He was staring blankly at the ceiling, his small chest rising and falling gently in time with his breaths. Dangling over the side of the bed from just underneath the sheets was a small section of thick leather strap. As it was now, the restraint was not being used.

The child's empty gaze did not falter as the two visitors entered the room. Captivated by what he was being shown, J'onn found himself stepping towards the bed before the door even had time to close. The boy looked to be thirteen by human standards. His youngest had been about that age. Instinctively, he placed a fatherly hand on the child's chest. His eyes then turned disbelieving to Batman...no, Bruce.

"Is he yours?"

The reply was not immediate. Bruce moved to stand at the edge of the bed. His hand gripped the railing as he leaned off of his left leg. "He's my responsibility. His name is Timothy Drake. He's an...associate of mine."

J'onn's gaze turned thoughtfully back to the child. An associate? He wasn't fooled. He used to have sons of his own. He recognized all too well that look in Wayne's eye, however skillfully suppressed. He had felt that look upon himself before...in a time that seemed so, so long ago.

"What happened to him?"

Bruce paused, pain flashing unchecked across his face for a brief, vulnerable moment. Then, he spoke:

"It was the Joker..."

Silently, patiently, J'onn allowed him to explain everything at his own pace and terms. As he listened, the mask hiding Bruce Wayne's thoughts began to fade, and he finally began to realize the horrible significance of the images that still sat burned into his memory. On some level Batman had to have known his explanation was unnecessary...but maybe, J'onn thought—just maybe—he was not as cold as he tried so hard to make everyone believe. Maybe even he needed a friendly ear now and again.

"That was three days ago" he finished. J'onn noticed offhandedly that his voice was much more subdued than when he had started. "Since then Tim's done nothing but get worse. Normally I would have kept the public hospitals out of this altogether, but my usual source was out of town the night it happened. She's seen him since then and promises she'll do her best. She's a friend of mine, a respectable psychologist...but she doesn't think it will be enough. Neither do I."

Bruce sighed tiredly, expelling the weight of the world and then drawing it back in. "As it is, Tim's in a real danger of becoming catatonic. I've managed to keep the doctors from moving him, but if he slips any more they've made it very clear he will have to be committed." His eyes gave a sudden, violent flash of anger. "He is not going to Arkham."

The flare receded and was instantly filled with fatigue, concern, worry. For the first time since they entered he turned his eyes to Tim. His shoulders seemed to visibly cave at the sight of the child lying helpless in the bed. "The doctors have done all they can" he finished quietly. The sentence cadenced with a hint of hopelessness.

J'onn, too, looked down pitifully upon the small figure. It was true he had done this several times before, but those victims had all been strangers. The things he learned and saw within their minds were nothing more than occurrences that, to him, held no meaning. This was different.

Swallowing once, he inched closer to the bed, his human form melting away as he did so. The mind was an extremely delicate organ. He could not afford to be distracted once inside it. Automatically, he raised both his hands, fingers spread, ready to set them on the defining places of the human skull to allow the most efficient transmission—but inches from touching Tim's skin, he stopped.

"...You realize once I do this...I will know things."

"It doesn't matter."

J'onn nodded. With that final signal, he placed his hands on Tim's head, burning with fever and sweat, and then the room faded from awareness.