A/N: Thanks again to everybody to reviewed. I really appreciate it.

Batman & Benson

Five

"Sanctuary In The Shadows"

'It was the Witness Protection Program,' Olivia thought. 'That had to be it.' When Alex came out of hiding over a year ago to testify against the assassin who tried to kill her, she had been living in Wisconsin. When she went back in the protection program after the successful trial, the Federal Marshals must have moved her here to Gotham City. And, somehow, the Penguin captured her, along with the other women.

'So much for being protected,' Olivia ruefully thought. But did the Penguin capture Alex because he found out who she really was? Or was Alex merely another piece of 'merchandise' to him?

She glanced up when the car shifted gear. Olivia had been so lost in thought regarding Alex that she never even realized that they were no longer in Gotham City. There was nothing but blackness beyond the car and the lonely road that it sped upon.

"Where are we?" Olivia asked.

"Close to home," Batman replied. He glanced sharply at her. "Can I trust you to close your eyes from here on, or do I have to blindfold you?"

Olivia just gave him an exasperated look. Then she faced forward, closed her eyes and then covered them with her hands. "Happy?"

"It'll do."

"You sure girls are allowed in your little clubhouse?" Olivia sourly asked. "I wouldn't want to be breaking any rules."

"I'm making an exception tonight," Batman wryly replied. "Consider yourself one of the boys."

"Oh, gee, thanks," Olivia said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

Olivia kept her hands over her eyes until she heard the car's engine echoing in what sounded like a tunnel.

"You can look, now," she heard the Batman say.

Olivia opened her eyes just in time to see Batman bring the car to a halt onto a wide, circular platform.

"Honey, we're home," Batman said sarcastically, as he flipped a switch on his armrest.

The roof of the car slowly slid back to reveal a massive cave with glittering walls made of black stone. The cave was illuminated by various hidden lights, which exposed a metal staircase that led from the platform the car was on up to a craggy outcropping above. Olivia did a double take when she noticed the penny. It was a humongous copper one-cent penny, about two stories tall, that leaned up against the wall of the cave. Next to it was a life-size mock up of a T-Rex.

As Olivia got out of the car, she was startled to see the floor was moving. Then she realized that the entire platform that the car was parked on was slowly spinning around 180 degrees, so that the car would be facing back out without needing to turn around.

'This is some set up,' she thought, impressed. She stared wide-eyed as several bats flew above her head, squeaking loudly.

"Detective Benson," Batman called, as he stood on the steps. "Come with me, please."

"Why did you bring me here?" Olivia asked, as she followed him up the stairs.

"To show you something," he answered. He walked over to an imposing plasma view screen that seemingly turned itself on once Batman took a seat before the console. Olivia saw there were several smaller view screens surrounding it, and they all showed various news channels and other assorted data.

As Batman typed something into the keyboard, Olivia glanced over her shoulder in amazement at what looked like a fully stocked crime lab, complete with microscopes and DNA analysis computers. 'Warner and Siper would be drooling with envy over the stuff he's got here,' Olivia thought with wonderment.

"Benson," Batman called. He gestured for her to come back over to the computer screen.

"Uh, yeah, right with ya." Olivia had been so caught up in this strange, astounding place that she momentarily forgot herself.

When she came over to the console, Olivia saw that Batman had a black and white photograph of her up on the plasma screen. "Where did you get that picture of me?" she asked, annoyed.

"Look again," Batman told her. "Look closer."

Olivia glanced hard at the photo, and realized that the signs on the street in the photograph were all in French. Although she was fluent in French, Olivia had never been to France. When she looked at the woman again, Olivia realized that it wasn't her, but another woman who looked remarkably like her. The resemblance was so close it was striking.

"Her name is Moiré Detune," Batman said.

"Moiré!" Olivia said with a gasp. "That was what the Penguin kept calling me!"

"Obviously the Penguin thought you were her—as did I," Batman added, "when we first met."

"Who is she?"

"One of the deadliest assassins working today," Batman replied grimly. "Born in France, she works mainly in Europe, operating out of Belgium. This is the only known photo of her when she was in Paris, taken by an INTERPOL agent who was later found dead. She's here, in Gotham City. And I believe her target is the Penguin."

"She's gunning for the Penguin? Why?"

"Because of you, Detective Benson."

"Me?" Olivia said incredulously.

Batman nodded. "When you and your Special Victim's Unit comrades took down that slave ring in New York, you basically wiped out that whole gang. Their ringleader, Giles Neufeld, fled the country—but not before hiring Detune to kill the Penguin. Apparently Neufeld believed the Penguin ratted him out to you."

"We never received any anonymous tips," Olivia said, uneasily. She had been taken aback to hear Batman speak of Giles Neufeld, their prime suspect. "How do you know so much about Neufeld?"

"I have very good sources," Batman told her.

"Did you dangle those sources over the side of a roof like you did to me?" Olivia asked tartly.

"Just trust me, Benson; Neufeld's your man. Whatever the reason behind the hit is not the issue right now. We need to find the Penguin's lair, and fast, before he ships those women away. My same sources tell me that will be tomorrow night."

Olivia shuddered at the thought of Alex and those other poor girls being loaded onto a ship like so much freight. "I thought we were just in the Penguin's hideout," she said.

Batman shook his head. "That was where he kept the women. But since I breached the security of that facility, the Penguin will be moving them to his lair for safekeeping. The problem is I don't know where that is. But there's someone who might."

"Who?"

"Moiré Detune," Batman said with a slight smile. He hit a button on the console, which brought up the interior of a lobby. "I've been tracking her since she arrived in Gotham. After my mix up with you earlier tonight, I picked up the real Moiré's trail again by retracing her back to this building, where she's rented an apartment. I found where the Penguin kept the women by simply following her there. Apparently she was going to try and kill him right there and then, but got interrupted."

"By you," Olivia said, "when you were busy saving my life, right?"

"You have nothing to be sorry for," Batman told her.

"I wasn't apologizing," Olivia said curtly. Then her tone softened. "But thanks, anyway…."

"No need to thank me, either." Batman fast-forwarded through video footage showing people walking in and out of the lobby of the building. "She hasn't returned yet. And there's not much we can do until she comes home."

"What will you do when you find Moiré, dangle her off the side of the roof, too?" Olivia asked.

"We all have our hobbies," Batman said. He glanced at her, and then added, "What brought you to Gotham City in the first place, Detective?"

"Police business," Olivia said tersely. "Look, thanks again for saving my life, but can I go now?"

"You visited someone at Arkham Asylum, today," Batman persisted. "What did that have to do with your slave ring investigation?"

Olivia simply folded her arms and glared at him. "Can I leave, or what?"

Batman stood up and faced her. When he did this, Olivia inadvertently flinched. Crazy or not, he was still an imposing figure. "There's a lot more riding on this case for you than you're admitting, Benson. It's personal, isn't it?"

"What do you mean?"

Batman typed in something on the keyboard, and Olivia was stunned to see the smiling face of Alex Cabot appear on the screen. But it was the dark haired Alex, and in the photo she was accepting an award from Commissioner Gordon. The headline above read: Southside Angel Receives Commendation From Police!

"She's Nora Bradshaw," Batman said, indicating Alex, "and since she moved here about a year ago, she became an influential advocate for battered and abused women in the Southern district of Gotham City. Bradshaw aided the police in their investigation of several kidnappings that occurred on Gotham's Southside, serving as an invaluable source for information, until she disappeared as well. I suspected the Penguin's men had abducted her. And I was proven right when I saw Bradshaw there tonight. I also saw you call to her, Benson—only you called her Alex. And she knew who you were."

Olivia ignored him; instead she stared at the screen, deeply moved at all that Alex had accomplished in her short time in Gotham City. 'No matter where she is, Alex is always fighting to make a difference, always trying to make life better for those around her,' Olivia thought. She glanced with pride at all the newspaper headlines on the screen, all of which referred to Alex as the Southside Angel. 'They're right, Alex, you are indeed an angel.'

"Who is she, Benson?" Batman asked softly. "What's her real name?"

Olivia steadfastly shook her head. "I'm never telling you."

"Why? Because she's here working undercover here for the NYPD?"

"No! Look…yes…she was someone I knew," Olivia admitted. "But she's now in the Witness Protection Program. Do you understand why I can't tell you who she really is?"

"More than most people, I can certainly appreciate the need for a secret identity," Batman said with a nod. "Say no more about it. But understand this, if you want to help 'Nora' and those other women imprisoned by the Penguin, then you've got to trust me, Benson. I saved your life, now please allow me to save theirs, as well."

Olivia stared at him uneasily. Then, with a glance at the ground, she said, "I was at Arkham today visiting Annabelle Justino. She worked for the slave ring up in New York. We think she might have just been working for the front operation, the machine shop, but we couldn't be sure. She ran from New York shortly before we raided the shop and came here to her mother's house."

Batman leaned over the computer and started typing again. "Annabelle Justino," he said, as he glanced at the information that came up on one of the smaller screens. "Yes, she was admitted for trying to kill her mother."

"I don't know what happened, but she apparently went berserk and stayed that way," Olivia told him. "Dr. Solana says she's not responding to any of the treatment they're giving her."

"Do you know if she has any history of mental illness?" Batman asked.

Olivia shook her head. "Dr. Solana didn't say she did."

"An abrupt onslaught of mental illness that doesn't respond to treatment," Batman said thoughtfully. "That sounds all too familiar. Scarecrow."

"Who or what is Scarecrow?" Olivia asked.

"He's an old enemy of mine, his real name is Jonathan Crane. He was a psychiatrist who found a way to prey on people's fear through the use of an airborne toxin which he infected them with."

"Nice shrink!" Olivia said with a shake of her head. "So in addition to the Penguin we now have to worry about this Scarecrow guy?"

"No, Crane's still where I put him, locked up at Arkham," Batman said. "But I wouldn't put it past the Penguin to have managed to get some of the Scarecrow's toxins for his own use."

Olivia thought back to when the Penguin knocked her out by spraying something in her face. "Um, I think he used that stuff on me. When the Penguin captured me, he sprayed me with—"

"It wasn't the same thing," Batman quickly assured her. "If it was, you would have felt the effects by now and we wouldn't be having this polite conversation. Excuse me," he said abruptly, "I have to go check on something. Please don't touch anything."

Batman got up and strode from the console, his cape flowing behind him. He walked to an elevator that was built into the craggy cave wall and pressed a button. The elevator doors opened for him. He paused and said, "Are you hungry? Do you want anything?"

'Just to get out of here and find Alex,' Olivia angrily thought. But she left that unsaid and simply shook her head in the negative.

Batman entered the elevator and rode it up to another outcropping above, one that had a railing running along the edge. Olivia watched him until he walked into the darkness, and then she ran over to the elevator and pressed the button.

Olivia cursed under her breath when the elevator would not come down for her. 'He's locked me up down here!' she angrily realized.

"We'll see about that," Olivia muttered as she gazed at the craggy rock wall. She normally went rock climbing at the gym. 'How hard could this be?' she wondered. 'Thing is, I don't have my climbing shoes with me.'

She solved that problem by removing her boots and socks. Barefoot, she easily tackled the wall, which was cold, but just craggy enough for Olivia to get a comfortable foothold. The climb up to the outcropping was just under one story; this was an easy ascend for her, and Olivia broke into a broad grin when she stepped under the railing and emerged onto the outcropping.

She glanced around and saw a doorway, through which she ran, entering a narrow hallway that led to a blank wall.

'Dead end!' Olivia thought, until she saw a switch in the wall at her side. When she flicked it, the wall in front of her slid open.

She stepped into an elaborately decorated room that was filled with antique furniture. A fireplace crackled at one end of the room. The Batman stood in the center speaking with a tall thin elderly man dressed in a suit. He had the dignified, yet subservient look of a butler.

Olivia let out a gasp when she realized that Batman no longer wore his cowl. As stared at him, Olivia was stunned to find the multi-millionaire playboy owner of the vast Wayne-Tech Industries staring back at her with an equal measure of amazement.

"Bruce Wayne!" Olivia said, stunned.

While Olivia and Wayne continued to gaze at each other in astonishment, the butler glanced at the both of them and, in a clipped, British accent, dryly said: "It appears I may have to set an extra plate for dinner, tonight, Master Bruce."

To Be Continued...