For this chapter (and all the ones in this "series" [ie, Part 1, 2, etc.]), we'll be seeing Barbara's perspective in italics, since her world is kinda sideways, and plain text for 3rd person omniscient. Though hopefully I'm a good enough writer that you can figure that out for yourself…

I reached for the grapnel gun on my waist and shot it in the direction of a roof that I knew lie to my southwest. The hook must have grabbed onto something, and it pulled me up and away from Crane.

I felt heavy, or my arms felt weak. Either way, it felt almost impossible to hold onto the grapnel gun as it reeled me to the rooftop. The skies above me grew bright, but not with sunlight- with a dark, amber, ominous glow. Almost like it was on fire. My head reeled and spun. I landed on the rooftop I'd aimed for, my knees hitting the concrete below me first. I almost collapsed entirely in a struggle to regain control in my dizzying state.

I wasn't far enough yet. Scarecrow was still too close. I needed to move. I forced my feet under me, my weight feeling impossibly heavy. Voices overwhelmed me through my earpiece, voices that I logically knew had to be Batman's or Alfred's or Nightwing's, but it didn't sound like them.

"Breathe deeply," Scarecrow called in my ear.

"It would've been a mercy, if it had been me," Two-Face reminded me.

"She's not looking too good," Joker noted.

"Stupid Batgirl," Harley Quinn giggled.

I got on my feet and ran towards the other end of the rooftop. "Batman! Nightwing!" I called into my comms unit, the panic unable to disguise itself as I questioned if that really was more roof ahead of me or if I'd hallucinated it and would fall to my death. Everything around me blurred and bled into each other, like I was trapped in an Edvard Munch painting. I couldn't find a solid point to grapple to; I wasn't thinking clearly enough to trust my senses. As I turned around, the rooftop seemed to extend in all directions infinitely; all I could see was the dark silhouettes of buildings in the distance, too far to reach, and the ominous orange sky contrasting against the black concrete beneath me. I looked down, realizing that the black of the ground could have been infinite nothing I was falling into.

I closed my eyes, unable to decide if I was safe or dying. I came to my knees, my hands reaching for the ground. The grit of concrete reassured me; it felt like it was supposed to feel. Touch felt like the one sense that hadn't been totally hijacked by Scarecrow's toxin. I tried to feel in front of me to see if I might find the true edge of the roof by feeling along the ground. Hand over hand, I crawled over the rooftop, beginning to feel dizzy and sick. As I crawled, my hand slammed against something cold and hard; it was a metal box, maybe an air conditioning unit or an electrical box. But I couldn't see any trace of this metal box in front of me. It was there, though… I could feel it, an invisible wall. I pushed my back against it, clinging to the one semblance of reality I could anchor myself to.

"I need help," I called into the darkness, but Batman and Nightwing didn't answer me. I closed my eyes, pressing my back flat against the cold metal and hoping that the chill of it might stir me back to reality.

"Nowhere to run now, Batgirl," Penguin's voice swirled in my ears.

"I'll help you outta here… for five minutes under the cape," Alexander Neill's voice edged into my mind.

"She hasn't got five minutes," Black Mask said in a low voice. Was that pity?

I pressed my palms flat against the concrete beneath me, shutting out the voices, trying to establish as much connection to reality as I could.

"Batgirl," Scarecrow's twisted voice eventually called to me, but this time it wasn't through my comm unit. I raised my eyes and saw him, standing 20 feet away from me on the rooftop that stretched into oblivion. "You're looking unwell," he said as he took steps closer. Was he real, or was he a hallucination? "Perhaps you should see a doctor…"

It hadn't taken Nightwing long to get there. As soon as he heard Barbara make that sound over his comm unit, that surprised, attacked yelp, he began running back to his motorcycle.

"Batgirl," Batman had demanded into his comm unit, almost sounding angry at the turn of events. But something was wrong; Dick could sense it. Either Black Mask's men had set up an ambush for Batgirl, in which case there was torture (or worse) in her future, or she'd succeeded in finding Scarecrow and was facing him down now.

Either way, the sound she made wasn't one of a woman in charge. And why wasn't she answering?

"Alfred, send me her location!" Nightwing demanded as he revved the Nightcycle to life and started heading towards Gotham; he already knew she was either on Bleake or Founders.

"I've just sent it to you both," Alfred said, and his map showed her pinging location on Founders. She was moving, but not fast. Her signal suddenly pinged to an adjacent rooftop. Maybe she'd gotten herself out of whatever mess she'd discovered.

"Batman! Nightwing!" she called through the comm unit. Her voice sounded pleading, desperate.

"I'm on my way," Nightwing said through his comms unit, not hestitating or asking permission. He knew Batman would be feeling torn between pursuing Joker and coming to the aid of his partner. Batman didn't answer straight away, and that told him everything he needed to know; Dick wouldn't wait on him to make the right call.

"I need help!" Batgirl called into her comms unit as Nightwing pulled onto the island.

"Batgirl, what's going on?" Batman demanded answers from her. She didn't answer, but Nightwing could hear her quickened breathing and the edginess of panic in her voice. She was still in trouble. "I'm coming. Stay calm."

"Sir, Batgirl's telemetrics are spiking," Alfred said.

"Is she engaged in combat?" Batman asked, the sounds of his revving Batmobile behind his voice.

"No, sir… from what I can see, she's sitting still," Alfred said. Nightwing's curiosity was piqued, but he didn't ask any more clarifying questions; he had arrived. He ditched his bike as quickly as possible and shot his grapnel gun up to the roof. He rolled forward, ready for combat if it was necessary, and saw her.

Batgirl sat with her back pressed up against a large air conditioning unit, her hands pressed flat into the ground beneath her and her knees bent in front of her chest. She was shaking, her eyes forced shut, and she had traces of a white powder on the front of her suit.

"Batgirl," Nightwing called to her. She opened her eyes reluctantly, meeting his. But her face tightened in anger and resolve. The white powder… it must have been Sample X. She must have inhaled some, she was drugged. "You're gonna be okay, we need to get you back to the Batcave."

She forced herself to her feet, her legs and arms straight as she stared Nightwing down. "You don't scare me, Crane," she spat at him. Nightwing raised his hands defensively as he tried to process what she was saying.

"Batgirl, it's me," he said, not even trying to disguise his voice like Batman might. But he couldn't use his real name. "It's Nightwing," he reminded her, wondering how lost in the drug she might be. He noticed that she kept one foot back against the air conditioning unit behind her and she wasn't moving; she was grounding herself there. Why? "Let me get you home." She quickly reached to her belt and grabbed a batarang and flung it at Nightwing. He bent back to avoid the strike and rushed forward, clicking on his comm unit. "Batman, she's inhaled Scarecrow's toxin. She's hallucinating, she's combative."

"Sedate her. I'm almost there," he said. She continued to grab gadgetry off her belt and throw her arsenal at Nightwing; sedating her was easier said than done.

"Batgirl, it's me," Nightwing called as he dodged the batarangs and the grapnel gun that she shot at him. As he grew closer, she tried to shoot him with explosive gel but missed; her aim in general had been off, like she was dizzy or falling. "Let me help you!" Nightwing shouted as he grew close enough for close quarters combat. And she didn't hold back.

She fought him with everything in her, though her form was weaker and shakier than he'd normally seen. He realized that all the times he'd sparred with her before, she had never wanted to really hurt him; now, she was throwing punches that could knock a man out and kicks that could break limbs. She was fighting to incapacitate; maybe she was fighting for her life. She raised a roundhouse kick that landed across his cheek, making him question if she had loosed any teeth. He needed to knock her out before she flattened him.

His only advantages were her weak form, and her apparent inability to step more than a few feet away from the air conditioning unit. Why wouldn't she step away from the unit? At one point, he parried a punch and pushed her backwards to see her reach back in a panicked fumble, searching with her hand for the air conditioning unit. She was using it to anchor herself; maybe it was the only place she'd identified as safe in her hallucinations.

He hated to use that against her, but he didn't have a choice. "Sorry, Batgirl," Nightwing said under his breath. Her pupils were dilated and jaw clenched as she stepped back into fighting position, preparing some kind of kick at him; he couldn't help but admire her, and he felt a stab in his stomach at the idea of hurting her. But it was only so that he could help her. He raised his leg and kicked her in the stomach, pushing her back up against the air conditioning unit, then ran at her and clothes-lined her over it. She was dizzied, disoriented, lost though her eyes were wide open. Nightwing rolled her off the unit and onto the ground and straddled over her, sitting on her hips to keep her from rolling away.

She wasn't going to give in without a fight, though. She tried to raise her legs to grab onto his torso with her thighs and roll over him, but he batted them away. Then she tried with her hands, reaching at his face and hair in desperate claws, and he batted away her hands. He needed two more hands to be able to restrain her and administer his handy sedative.

Luckily, Batman arrived just in time.

"Hold her down," Batman demanded of Nightwing as he pulled a sedative in the pneumatic injector off his toolbelt. But Batgirl noted Batman's arrival, and she began flailing and fighting against Nightwing even harder than she had before. Nightwing grabbed both of Batgirl's hands, pushing them up over her head and pinning them to the ground.

The last time he'd held her in this position, it was under far more romantic circumstances. Then she'd consented to the hold and only resisted him in fits of pleasure. Now, she pushed back against him with every muscle she could activate. The toxin had weakened her, but that didn't mean she couldn't put up a hell of a fight. He pushed one of his fingers into the palm of her hand and ran his finger discreetly over her palm: it was the only gesture he could think of to tell her it was him, he was here, he would take care of her, without sharing their secret with Batman. Not that she would've understood what he said anyway…

But she paused a moment in her fight against him; she stared up at him a moment, still with panicked eyes- but there was a question in them. Maybe some how he'd reached her, let her know she was safe.

"Steady," Batman insisted as he knelt down, pushing her face to the side as he positioned the injector above her neck. She fought against him, though not with the fury she'd fought Nightwing previously. The muscles in her neck bulged as she let Batman approach, and her mouth opened in a defeated, desperate battle cry as the needle went into her neck.

She quickly weakened in her combative state, the sleep overtaking her quickly. Nightwing and Batman stopped restraining her and knelt over her as she lost consciousness. She turned her head and looked up at Nightwing sleepily, tears in her eyes. "Nightw….," she said in a soft, sweet voice that made Nightwing want to hold her. "Night..." She trailed off into unconsciousness.

Darkness enveloped me; it was like the black ground beneath me had swallowed me whole. I didn't know what to expect next.

Fighting Scarecrow, and him actually being a formidable opponent, was enough of a shock to me- though I couldn't help but notice that the feel of hitting him didn't seem to match what it looked like. When I kicked him across his face, it didn't feel muffled at all by the cloth of his mask; it felt like kicking flesh and bone.

Of course, I kept myself as close as I could to the metal object I had found. I didn't want to lose track of the only landmark I had, and I didn't want Scarecrow to lure me in a fight off the edge of the roof. That was a sure way to guarantee my death.

But that had been my downfall. Scarecrow figured out my reliance on the metal object and used it against me. He pinned me to the ground, his lanky limbs somehow powerful enough to restrain me. The drugs must have weakened me more than I realized.

And that's when he stepped into view. How he'd gotten onto that roof with us or why they were working together, I couldn't tell. But that sickening smile was enough to make me fight as hard as I could to get up again.

"What's wrong, Batgirl?" Joker's giddy voice asked. "Not enjoying Crane's special sauce?" He brought his hand out from behind his back to show a fat syringe in his hand with a bright green liquid inside. I pressed my hips up against Scarecrow, desperate to buck him off me. But Scarecrow pressed his weight down and grabbed hold of my wrists, pushing them over my head and pinning me to the ground. "You know, dear," Joker continued as he knelt down beside me, "you'd be far prettier if you smiled more."

There was no way out. No way out.

Scarecrow ran a finger over my palm and I stopped fighting for a moment. The movement didn't fit with the scenario I found myself in. The finger stroked the inside of my palm, calming and comforting- it was the same kind of touch you'd have if you were petting a dog on the bridge of their nose. It was endearing, not threatening or possessive or hateful. I stared up at Scarecrow, my eyes wide and uncertain. He stared back maliciously, but he didn't stab me with his syringes or hurt me or say anything malevolent; he just held me down and stroked my palm reassuringly.

There were two possibilities: either the hallucination had distorted reality, making me believe that the men helping me (possibly Nightwing and Batman) were actually here to hurt me; or what I was seeing was genuine, and Joker and Scarecrow were about to kill me.

If the latter was true, there wasn't anything I could do at this point; they had me pinned, I was weak, I couldn't separate vision from reality. But if the former was true…

It was the only chance I had. As much as it terrified me to think of, I needed to surrender control and pray that they had my safety at heart. I stared into Scarecrow's mask, hoping that maybe, possibly, Dick was somewhere in there.

"Say cheese!" Joker grinned as he pushed my face aside. I couldn't help but resist, though I tried to force myself to let it happen. As I felt the needle pierce my neck, I released a bellowing yell. It was a desperate scream, praying I'd done the right thing. The pain went away, and the sound of a switch being flipped echoed around me. The orange sky began to darken section by section, as if the lights were all being turned out. Scarecrow and Joker stood up and stared wickedly down at me. My body began to sink into the darkness and I felt like I was floating in thick concrete. I took quick, deep breaths, as if each was my last.

Maybe it was.

"Nightwing," I whispered, hoping he would answer me. Please… just tell me I made the right choice. "Nightwing," I tried to say again, but the thought just echoed around me. The forms of Scarecrow and Joker seemed to stretch away from me and fade into the darkness.

I was sinking.

I was falling.

All that was left was darkness.

"Where's the car?" Nightwing asked as he cradled Batgirl's body in his arms and lifted her up. "We have to get her back to the Batcave."

"Below," Batman said, reaching out for Barbara and taking her from his arms. Nightwing wanted to resist, wanted to hold her body close. She was his, he wanted to see her to safety. "I'll take her. Get back on Joker's trail, see if you can find his base of…"

"I'm not leaving," Nightwing insisted. He could take her out of his arms, but there was no way he was going to chase down Joker while she lay helpless in Bruce's trunk. "She worked on synthesizing an antidote to Sample X. I can help…"

"This isn't Sample X," Batman said over his shoulder as he walked with Barbara's dangling body to the edge of the roof. "The previous toxin didn't have any hallucinogenic qualities. He's added something to the compound, we'll need to decipher it before we can administer an antidote."

"I can help," Nightwing insisted. "She recognized me, she's probably…"

"Find Joker. If we don't stop…"

"Joker will surface again, in no time. If for no other reason, to get revenge on Penguin," Nightwing shouted. Batman turned back to face him, clearly picking up that there was something larger going on. "I'm going with her," Nightwing- no, Dick- sternly told Batman. Batman nodded.

"You can take the car," Batman said, then turned and stepped off the roof. Batman glided safely to the base of the building as Nightwing parkoured down the fire escape. By the time he reached the bottom, Batman was already loading her body into the backseat. Nightwing tossed Batman his keys to the Nightcycle. "Take her back and start engineering a cure. I'm going after Joker," he said as he caught the keys and stepped away.

"What about Scarecrow?" Nightwing called after him. "We're just gonna let him go?"

"Batgirl will have information," Batman noted. "We wait until she's safe. Then we go after him together." Nightwing clenched his jaw. This was one of the many things he hated about Batman: his inability to show emotion when it mattered. Nightwing wished he would show his concern for Barbara, rather than hand her off and get back to the job at hand; he wished at least he would be so angry at Scarecrow for the assault that he'd chase him into the ground. But he returned to business as usual.

And that's why he worked alone now.

He jumped in the Batmobile and started it up; being allowed to take his car was one of the only signs that Batman was taking this seriously. Dick had only driven the Batmobile a hand full of times (only once was a joyride- Jason had been a very bad influence) and Bruce was very protective of his car. Nightwing drove it as quickly as he could back to the Batcave, pinging a comm line to Alfred on his way.

"Master Grayson…" Alfred answered.

"I'm in the Batmobile, I've got Barb," he said. "Get Jason down there, have him cue up the antidote for Sample X. We need to tweak it to help Barb."

"Is she alright?" Alfred asked with genuine concern.

"She's safe for now. She was hallucinating, but she'll be sleeping peacefully for a while," Dick said, repressing even his own fears that maybe she wouldn't be alright when she awoke. "We've got a few hours to figure out a cure before she comes to and starts hallucinating again."

Nightwing arrived in the Batcave and parked the car; Alfred had already brought the stretcher close to the pad to help move Barbara. Nightwing opened the hatch and there she was, her body limp as she rested. Nightwing couldn't keep himself from her. He carefully put his hands on her cowl and slid it off her head, her hair sticking to the mask and to her neck with sweat.

"Barb," he whispered to her, placing a comforting hand on her cheek. His finger stroked her cheek, hoping it might somehow stir her to her senses.

"Master Grayson," Alfred urged him in a serious voice. Nightwing understood and bent over, hooking his arms under her knees and around her back to lift her and place her on the stretcher. "We should get her connected to our biometrics feeds to get a fuller view of her health," Alfred insisted as he wheeled her up the ramp and towards the Batcomputer, where Jason had just cued up the files on Sample X. He turned around and looked at Barbara, and his eyes grew wide.

People always look different when they are on a stretcher.

"Whoa," he whispered to himself, then looked nervously at Nightwing. "She gonna be okay?"

Nightwing removed his domino mask and placed it on one of the tables by the computer. "Of course. We'll make her okay." Jason seemed reassured enough, though watched nervously as Alfred pushed the stretcher into the alcove they kept prepared for medical emergencies. Nightwing felt uneasy as Alfred pushed her back there, knowing he'd be stripping her out of her Batgirl suit to hook her up to heart monitors and an EKG and blood pressure monitors and whatever else he could think of.

"You want help?" he offered uncomfortably, knowing that Alfred had no idea Dick had seen Barbara out of her clothes, had held her naked form close to his, had handled her with delicate touches before. Accordingly, Alfred dismissed him.

"I rather think Miss Gordon would prefer privacy for this part," he said, and he pulled the curtain shielding her from view. Dick knew Alfred would be gentle, knew he would give her every courtesy and avoid violating her privacy at all costs; and he knew how important it was that her health be monitored. He just wished it could've been him.

He distractedly turned himself back to Jason. "The new sample has a hallucinogen in it; we need to identify it and account for it in the antidote."

"How do we do that?" Jason asked as he let Dick take the controls.

"We need a sample of the drug. And a sample of her blood," he said.

"Both of which I can have for you momentarily," Alfred shouted in reply.

"Hopefully it's just a small variation on Sample X, something we can account for and add to the antidote quickly," Dick said as he hurriedly typed.

"Hey," Jason said quietly after a long, quiet moment, placing his hand softly on Dick's forearm. "Are you okay?" Dick smiled to himself.

"Ah, yeah… she kicked me pretty hard. But no visits to the dentist for now, I'll be fine," Dick tried to shrug away.

"No, man," Jason said quickly. "You know what I mean."

Dick did know. Barbara had done a good job of keeping her feelings for Dick hidden from Jason; but Jason and Dick were too close for such secrets. They were brothers- not by blood, but by upbringing. Bruce and Jason were the closest people in Dick's life, they always would be. And Jason knew that Dick kept cool in emotional situations by leaning on sarcasm, humor, and self-deprecation. It was a crutch adopted through years of being beaten up by bad guys; he couldn't let them see his pain, but he could wise-crack.

"Yeah," Dick answered more seriously as he stared up at the monitors. "I'm good."

That was the best Jason could hope to get out of Dick. He knew the true translation was, 'I'm doing my best. I just want to fix it.'

So Jason set about doing just that. After Alfred stripped Barbara out of her suit and hooked her up to the biofeedback machines, he drew a blood sample and brought her suit, still with flecks of the white powder all over it, back to the others. Jason helped pull the sample of the drug off the suit as Dick analyzed Barbara's blood. The drug had acted fast and some of the effects of the cocaine seemed exaggerated by whatever else Scarecrow had put in it. He noted the high levels of CRP, fibrinogen, and vWF that often accompanied cocaine use, but seemed even higher than normal. It was something to do with Scarecrow's new component.

Jason finally got a clean sample of the drug and they analyzed it as quickly as possible. They were able to separate out all the previous components of Sample X. "So Scarecrow didn't take anything out of his recipe," Dick said aloud, partly to help educate Jason and partly so he could process the information quicker, "he just added something new."

"The hallucinogen? What is it? LSD?" Jason asked. Dick shook his head- the chemical structure didn't match up. Besides, LSD was too easy to solve for- Scarecrow was too advanced for that.

Batman pinged across the communication units. "Joker escaped," he said, which came as no surprise to any of the men in the Batcave. Jason strayed away from the computers, not wanting Batman to accidentally hear his voice and know he was helping with Barbara. "I've backtracked to Founders where we found Batgirl. I'm looking for any clues of where Scarecrow went."

"Thought you said we'd be doing that together," Nightwing sniped at him, calm on the surface but incredibly annoyed underneath. Batman didn't respond to that.

"Be careful, Master Bruce," Alfred advised him. "Batgirl is quite cautious and Scarecrow was able to surprise her. It could be a trap."

"Maybe. But I'm doubtful Scarecrow stuck around. He knows he's got my attention now," Batman said, then clicked off the channel. Dick shook his head as he continued working on identifying the hallucinogen. It wasn't LSD, it wasn't peyote, it wasn't DMT…

"Hey guys," Jason called. He was standing beside Barbara's body, looking down at her face. "Come here." Anxiety triggered in Dick and he jogged hurriedly away from the computer, Alfred shortly behind him. Jason pointed down at Barbara's face.

"What?" Dick asked, unable to see anything.

"Idiot," Jason said, leaning forward and pointing to her eyes. Dick saw it then. Beneath her closed eyelids, they could see Barbara's eyes darting back and forth and around. This wasn't altogether strange, it was a part of deep sleep (the namesake for REM) and an indicator that she was dreaming. But Barbara wasn't supposed to be dreaming.

"The sedative is supposed to induce a dreamless sleep," Dick said as he turned to Alfred, who was already moving around the bed with a small flashlight. He pried open her eye and flicked the light across her pupils, looking for a change, but the pupils seemed to not react. "She's not supposed to be dreaming, Alfred," Dick said, getting angry.

"Okay, wait, what does that mean?" Jason asked nervously, sensing Dick's edginess. Alfred leaned back, a look of disappointment and worry on his brow. He hurried away from her bedside and back to the Batcomputer, where he pulled up her biometrics on a separate monitor. He flicked over to the EKG, which revealed a map of her brain and the active synapses firing. "What's that mean?" Jason asked as he pointed at a small part of the brain at the top of the brainstem which seemed abnormally bright with activity. Alfred let out a saddened, heavy breath as he looked to Dick.

"It's the amygdala," Alfred answered his question. "The fear center of the brain. It would seem the sedative put her to sleep but did not stop the hallucinations."

"She's not supposed to be dreaming, Alfred," Dick said again, as if it were somehow Alfred's fault, even though Bruce was the one who had designed the sedative.

"To be frank, Master Grayson, she's not dreaming," Alfred said, looking back towards Barbara's still figure on the gurney. "She's having nightmares." Dick and Jason nervously followed his gaze.

"How long until it wears off?" Jason asked.

"Hours," Dick bit back, his fear for Barbara translating into rage.

"I'm afraid so," Alfred confirmed. "Until that time… we've trapped her with her nightmares."