Monday, August 10, 2009 – 12:04pm – Gotham Century Towers; Gotham City, New Jersey

It was the throbbing that made him stir. The throbbing of his shoulder, of his limbs from lack of movement. His eyes were heavy, as if he hadn't slept in days. That was a familiar feeling, but he was scouring his memory now, trying to remember the last time he slept before this. Only he couldn't even remember going to sleep. Without opening his heavy, sleepy eyes, he moved just to move, to make the blood pulse through his limbs again. He began to roll onto his side when a searing pain woke him up more abruptly than any nightmare would have.

His eyes darted open as he hissed in pain, glancing to where it was radiating from. His shoulder was shrouded in a white bandage, the rest of the appendage in a proper sling. He fell back on his back to save his shoulder from the pain he was causing it, but quickly used his other arm to prop himself up to survey the rest of the damage.

"Lay back down," a stern voice, that wasn't Alfred's, commanded.

Instead of doing what he was told, he glanced to the source of the voice, and surprise was an understatement. Surely he was still asleep, drugged up on an excessively high dose of morphine so Alfred could make sure he didn't get up and injure himself further. It was impossible for her to be here.

Anastasia Williams, who was seated in a chair next to an empty bag attached to his IV hanging from a standing lamp, blinked at him as she tried to keep the smirk off her face when she noticed he wasn't going to listen to her. She tried to remain stern. "I told you to lay back down."

He responded by pushing himself up into a sitting position and releasing a sigh mainly to test out his torso, to see where it hurt most. Then he straightened out his back, flexing the muscles, popping his spine. He took his time, feeling her eyes on him. It was pointless to do anything different, to hide or pretend otherwise. When he heard her stand, his blue eyes smiled.

She circled the bed to stand in his line of sight. "I know you're on drugs and probably can't feel much of anything right now, but you need to sleep."

Maybe it was the drugs making him act like this—and enjoy it. Maybe it was the fact that she was here right now. Maybe it was that she knew—yes, she had to know now. From what he remembered, she was too bright to dismiss all the evidence as nothing when it was laid out in front of her. Instead of panicking, of coming up with some kind of explanation, he was enjoying the silence, the agitated but amused look on her face, just her mere presence.

He hadn't seen her in nearly a decade, and here she was, bandaging him back to health after two gunshot wounds like she was his on-call nurse and this was just another day.

He definitely was delirious on drugs. What was she doing here.

"I can feel plenty," he muttered, his voice stronger than even he expected it to be. With these types of injuries, he was usually out long enough for his throat to dry out and leave his speech raspy when he woke. His eyes darted to meet hers, and she appeared startled for the first moment, but it quickly passed and she resumed an air of authority. That was new.

"All the more reason to give you more morphine, then," she commented over her shoulder as she moved back to where she started from. "To knock you back out."

Without a second thought, he neatly yanked the IV needle out of his arm and put pressure on the site before looking over his shoulder at her, watching her move out of the corner of his eye. "What are you doing here?" he finally asked. No more beating around the bush. He wanted to know.

"Keeping an eye on you," she replied without looking at him, withdrawing a capped syringe and a bottle from a small medicine bag on the nightstand.

"No, what are you doing here?" he tried again, his sidelong stare never moving.

She finally glanced at him, knowing exactly what he meant, in all levels of context. "A job," she adamantly responded with as she went back to removing the exterior cap, but she noticed the dangling tube. Frowning, she only huffed a sigh before setting down the morphine to fill her hands with gauze instead.

"Anastasia," he murmured, and suddenly she stopped what she was doing, her cold hands—she was cold?—shooed his hand away and pressed upon his arm, the gauze soaking up the growing red stain.

She glanced at him again from under her eyelashes. She had no makeup on, but the basics were still the same. Her eyes were still the same bright blue as they always were, and her skin tone was still dark from years of sun. She was still the same beautiful girl whom he had caught falling asleep on a surfboard all those years ago. What was she doing here.

"I'm in town for a job. Leslie brought me here to help," she sighed as she reached for the medical wrap and began to circle his arm with it, her long, slender fingers treating his arm as delicately as glass. "I should be the one asking the questions-"

"How long have you been here?"

"What the hell did you do to yourself?"

She glared at him. He glared right back. They both refused to answer one another.

Alfred, with his ever impeccably terrible timing, traversed across the hallway and into the bedroom, the smell of lunch from his tray in hand preceding him into the room. "It's good to see you up, Master Wayne," he commented as a mere acknowledgement before turning his attention to Ana, cutting through the tense air with his calming presence. "I brought you some lunch, Miss Williams. I wasn't expecting Master Wayne to be up quite yet."

Glad for the interruption, she immediately released her delicate grip on his arm and stood to take the tray from the elder butler. "Thank you, Alfred. You really didn't have to." As she took it, Bruce's eyes followed the exchange.

"It is the least I can do, Miss Williams," he replied with a little more emotion than normal.

Remaining standing, Ana added, "Alfred, do you mind if I eat this out on the patio? I need a little fresh air."

"Of course, Miss Williams. I believe the door should be unlocked. Would you like me to carry this down for you?" Alfred politely asked, gesturing towards the tray.

"No, it's fine, Alfred. I've got it. You can keep an eye on him now, right?" she questioned, bobbing her head in Bruce's general direction but not bothering to look at him anymore.

"Certainly. Enjoy your lunch."

Alfred waited for her to disappear down the hall before moving to sit down in the seat that Ana had previously been in. "She never left your side, you know," he commented as he carefully lowered himself into the sofa chair.

Bruce, his hands now firmly on the edge of the bed as if he were planning on standing sometime soon, glanced at Alfred, ready for the follow up statement.

"As soon as she saw you, she never questioned anything and never left. This is the first time she's left this floor since she arrived."

"How long?"

"Two days."

"Why did you let her come here." It was more of demand than a question.

"Your injuries were far beyond my skill alone. I called Dr. Thompkins. Dr. Thompkins brought Miss Williams for additional assistance."

Bruce blinked, shell shocked. Not only was Ana in Gotham, but she worked with Leslie? Why was just now hearing about this? "How much does she know?"

"I haven't told her anything. Whatever she may know, she has gathered for herself. Which I would expect is an awful lot, knowing her."

"She can't stay here. She needs to leave."

"On the contrary, sir, I believe she should stay. Her business in Gotham is requiring her to stay for an undetermined amount of time. Staying in a hotel in the meantime, in my opinion, is absolutely absurd when she has friends in the area."

Even more clues, but Bruce was failing to put them all together. It had to be the morphine. "A hotel? Alfred, how long has she been in Gotham? What is she doing here?"

Alfred paused, eyeing his charge warily. But after a quick glance down the hall, he seemed to quickly make up his mind. As he leaned forward, reaching in the bottom shelf of the nightstand, he pulled out the magazines and newspapers displayed there for aesthetics. What vain playboy wouldn't have various reading material such as Forbes or the latest tabloids laying around? "Since she probably knows plenty about you, it's about time you finally get caught up on her."

Bruce blinked when Alfred handed him a fresh tabloid straight from the newsstands this morning. He never even acknowledged this garbage unless Alfred pointed it out when Bruce Wayne made a publicized spectacle of himself. Ana wasn't the center of People magazine, but she was on the cover. Top left corner was a candid picture of her at the European Crystal, with Williams confirms movie rumors splashed underneath. He quickly flipped through the thin magazine while Alfred leaned back in his chair. He spotted her seven different times throughout the tabloid, once where she was even seen emerging from Leslie's clinic. There was also an entire page devoted to these movie rumors with quotes and pictures. Not only was she an apparent celebrity actress, but she was here in Gotham to film in a movie about Batman.

He wasn't sure which floored him more. Anastasia's new lifestyle, her presence, or the fact they were making a movie about his alter ego. It had to be the drugs. He just woke up in a nightmare.

He finally closed the tabloid and set it on the bed next to him. Addressing Alfred's notion first, "Alfred, she really can't stay here."

"And why not, sir?" he inquired.

"If she has the paparazzi tailing her as much as I do, and this movie business…she can't stay."

"It would serve as an excellent alibi—"

"They would hound us—"

"Precisely, sir. If she is up to the task, you would have a partner in crime to deviating the press—"

"As well as putting her in danger. Look at what happened to Rachel, Alfred."

"Rachel knew what she was getting into. She knew the risks—"

"And Ana doesn't know the risks—"

"Ana is not the assistant district attorney—"

"But she will be associated with me." Bruce paused, closing his eyes as his fingers pressed against his brow. "If she had been in Rachel's place at that fundraiser, she would've done the exact same thing, and I would've reacted the exact same way. It was because of that the Joker went after Rachel. Not because of her job." Alfred's blue hues twinkled with hope. Bruce sighed, "She can't stay in the city."

Alfred remained silent.

"I need to get back to work. How many inmates have the police caught?" Bruce started again, mentally preparing himself to lift himself from the bed.

"Sir—"

"How many, Alfred?"

After a long pause, and a dangerous look from the older man that soon turned into an exhausted one, he finally replied, "None of the infamous ones from your rouges gallery, sir."

Bruce gave one solemn nod in acknowledgement before he pushed himself up to stand. After the momentary flash of red accompanied with the light-headedness associated with loss of circulation, he found standing up wasn't that hard. After all, his legs worked just fine. If anything hurt, it was the breathing. And this time Alfred didn't protest. He watched Bruce sluggishly reach for his robe, and lumber his way towards the door and down the hall quietly.

He could see her before he had even reached the bottom of the carefully curving stairwell. Her food remained untouched in front of her, the glass of water still full, the lid still covering the freshly made lunch, and the napkin and silverware still neatly where Alfred had put it on the tray. He paused at the bottom of the stairs, watching her as she lounged, her eyes on the skyline.

He tried to picture Rachel instead of her, dark hair instead of light, fair skin instead of sun-kissed. But he had only seen Rachel be lost in thought once. She did her thinking quickly and quietly, too busy making things happen, or at least trying to. Not like Ana. Rachel's shadow refused to cover where Ana sat now, lost in deep thought. Ana was completely different. But that was what was so alluring about her, so mysterious, what caught him all those years ago. She was always thinking. His thoughts went back to Hawaii, when he had never thought anyone could brood as much as he did, yet there she was, a million thoughts a second racing behind those bright baby blues. And he had thought the same thing then as he was thinking now: What does she think about me?

He tried to clear his head as he turned away. He had more important things to think about, to do. He had to get caught up on the situation, on the inmates, on the bombings, on the stranger in the trench coat, on what she had been doing for the past ten years...

Damnit.