Sorry for the short chapter, but I thought I have to write a little bit before I´m gone for a week. When I´m back you will get the rest. :o)

Thank you for your reviews.

Alfred met Barbara and Lucius on the door. They greeted each other silently. There was no need for words.

The three hurried to Bruce's room when suddenly a loud thud echoed through the big halls of Wayne Manor. They accelerated their pace.When they entered Bruce's room, he had left the bed and was with his knees down on the floor writhing with pain clutching his head with both hands.

"No", Bruce panted heavily, his shirt stick to his sweat soaked, worn out body.

The bullet cut through the air and pierced skin, flesh and bones with a sickening sound. Thomas Wayne sank to the ground.

Something wasn't right, deep down Bruce knew that he was just hallucinating. His body was too weak to maintain the defenses he had built up.

But it was so real. He could feel the cold, wet concrete on his knees that were pinned to the floor as if they were filled with lead. His body didn't obey his orders.

He wanted to help them, save the people he loved. But his legs wouldn't move.The second bullet hit its target. Bruce struggled and fought against the forces that hold him down. To no avail.In vain were his efforts. In vain all the screams into the pitch dark night that made his throat sore. It was all in vain for his parents died that night.

After Barbara had overcome her shock at the heartbreaking sight of her best friend's son her doctor mode kicked in. Opening the bag she had brought with her, she told the two men:

"Hold him still! I have to sedate him or he will go into shock!"

Lucius and Alfred grasped the upper arms of the younger man who was still kneeling on the floor, eyes squeezed shut, pressing his hands against his temples.

Bruce felt hands around his arms, holding him down."They want to take me away. The want to prevent me helping them"

Bruce fought and resisted, trying everything to break lose from the firm grasps holding him down.

Alfred and Lucius had to struggle to hold the much stronger man who was writhing under their arms.

"Restrain him, or he will hurt himself further," Barbara yelled preparing a syringe to take a blood sample and an injection to sedate Bruce.Using their entire body weight, the two men pinned Bruce with his back against the floor.

"No, I have to avert it!" Bruce screamed "Let me go!" his distant, unfocused eyes were now wide open, disturbed by an unseen horror.After having taken the blood sample, Barbara emptied the contents of the syringe into Bruce's blood circulation.

His struggling got weaker and Bruce succumbed slowly to the effect of the sedative fighting against the black darkness of sleep till the very end.

"I could have preven…should help…" then Bruce closed his eyes.

Alfred and Lucius laid him back into the bed.

"I'm going to analyze this", Lucius whispered as if afraid to wake him and still shocked at that what they just had witnessed, "I try to synthesize an antidote."

"Thank you." Alfred was pale and exhausted.

Lucius nodded and left.

TBC