G picked up the paper cup sitting on the floor beside him and took a sip of the now-cold tea it contained. He hadn't realized how long he'd been sitting here, staring at Bruce, still lying unresponsive on the hospital bed.

Sam had offered to sit with him when G came to relieve Babs from her shift at Bruce's bedside, but G declined. "You don't know him, Sam. No reason for you to sit here doing nothing all day when you could be out seeing the sights."

"Gotham has sights?" Babs had quipped.

Over Sam's chuckle, G said, "Cathedral Square, Kane Bridge, Gotham U, Giordano Botanical Gardens. You know the kids will never forgive you if you don't bring something back for them."

Sam couldn't argue that, and Babs had offered to show him around. With a last inquiring look at G, to which G gave a simple nod of acknowledgment, Sam agreed.

A glance at his watch told G that conversation had happened four and a half hours ago. No wonder his tea had gone cold.

Still, he drained the cup and stood, stretching muscles that protested at being in one position too long, before turning to the door that would take him past the nurses' station to the waiting room and refreshment area where he could refill his tea and maybe find something to eat other than this morning's donuts.

Just as he was reaching for the door to Bruce's room, it started to open from the other side. G stepped back, smiling involuntarily when he saw Alfred with, of all things, a very large picnic basket in one hand.

"I suspected you might want a proper tea, rather than what the hospital passes off as tea."

G grinned. "Thanks, Alfred. I lost track of time."

"Understandable." Alfred came into the room and pulled the overbed table between the two guest chairs.

G watched as Alfred lowered the table's height to match the chairs and then began setting it.

"Only you would bring a linen tablecloth to a hospital." G didn't bother to hide either the amusement or the admiration from his tone.

"Ritual brings comfort in times of stress," Alfred answered as he laid out china cups and saucers, along with small plates of sandwiches and cookies - or biscuits, as Alfred called them - followed by a large thermos.

"Two places." G observed. "You're actually joining me?"

"I thought perhaps Master Bruce might wake and want some tea."

G studied his old - friend? mentor? foster-grandfather? whatever Alfred was to him - for a moment, then decided that Alfred must be joking. As prescient as Alfred was, there was no way he could predict when Bruce would wake from the coma. If Bruce would wake from the coma.

But then Alfred had always insisted on strict propriety, so -

"These must be dark days, if you're sitting down with one of the family." Not that G was, strictly speaking, family anymore. If he ever had been. If Bruce even knew what a family was anymore.

Bruce had known, once - G knew that. As surely as he remembered his own family, Bruce remembered his, and therefore what a family was. But for whatever reason, Bruce chose to ignore that, to eschew family and all its possibilities, had even kicked G out when he realized G was getting too close to family for comfort.

Or that's what G told himself, at least in the early days when he was trying to figure out what he'd done, when he still thought it was his fault, not Bruce's, that Bruce had kicked him out.

"Family." Alfred's voice brought G back to the present, and he blinked when he saw Alfred sitting in one of the chairs, two cups of tea steaming on the table between them. "That is what this is about, isn't it?"

G snorted even as he sat in the other chair and reached for the cup nearest him. "It's about Bruce taking one damn chance too many."

"It could have been any moment, any chance, that brought him to this state," Alfred said. "It could even have been simply the progression of time."

"Not Bruce," G said immediately.

"Yes, Bruce," Alfred corrected gently. "Assuming he survives his chosen mission, time will come for him as it comes for us all."

G shook his head, but he knew Alfred was right. Still the image of a doddering Bruce, rattling around in an empty Wayne Manor, didn't fit.

Much like Bruce lying comatose in a hospital bed didn't fit.

"Whatever the reason, you would still be here."

G shot a look over his teacup at Alfred. "I would?"

"You are his next-of-kin," Alfred said simply.

G set his cup down carefully. "I'm what?"

"His next-of-kin," Alfred repeated. "Who else would fill the role?"

"You. Babs, maybe. Robin, when he's old enough."

"He named you the day you turned eighteen," Alfred said. "To my knowledge, he has never changed that designation."

And Alfred would know. There wasn't any aspect of Bruce's life that Alfred didn't know about, even manage.

"I wondered why you contacted me, after what happened," G said finally. "Yes, I wanted to know he's hurt, but -" he blew out a breath. "Let's just say it was a definitive parting on both sides."

"Perhaps," Alfred allowed. "But the fact remains that you are the only one he could trust with this kind of decision."

"He trusts you."

"But not with this." Alfred looked away from his cup, toward where Bruce lay, and for the briefest of moments, G saw grief, dismal and pure, on the older man's face. But when Alfred turned back to G, his expression was as composed as ever. "Not with this. He doesn't trust me with this because I don't trust me with this."

G swallowed past a sudden tightness in his throat.

"But," Alfred continued, gently but implacably, "that is not why I am here this afternoon. It is not yet time for that particular decision to be made."

"No," G agreed. "Not yet."

Not while Bruce still had a chance. Not while the doctors reported that his brain function wasn't impacted. Not while he might still wake up.

"There is, however, one decision to make now."

G had never believed in premonitions - how could he, when he'd had no idea that his parents would be killed? - but something in Alfred's tone or his words made foreboding settle heavily in his stomach. "What's that?"

"Whether you will keep his identity safe for him."

Gotham City wasn't New York or San Francisco, but Sam had to admit that some of its sights were impressive. Or maybe he was just impressed with Barbara's commentary, delivered with a sharp, dry wit that reminded him oddly of G.

Then again, if Barbara had babysat G when he was a child, it would be natural for him to have learned some of her humor.

Sam was surprised when she turned toward Wayne Manor.

"Not the hospital?"

"Doctor Thompkins will be there. She comes in every evening before starting a late shift at her clinic," Barbara said. "Between us, I think she doesn't trust the doctors there."

Sam laughed at that. "I guess I get that. See you tomorrow?"

"See you tomorrow." She smiled, and Sam tapped her door twice, signaling that she was clear to pull away.

"Evening, Alfred," he said as the door opened even before he reached it.

"Good evening, Master Hanna," Alfred said. "There is still some time before dinner."

"Where's G?"

"Downstairs."

Something in Alfred's tone made Sam shoot him a look. Alfred met his gaze impassively.

"How long has he been down there?" Sam asked finally.

"Since we returned from the hospital."

"There a problem?"

"I'm sure I don't know."

With that, Alfred disappeared deeper into the house. Sam frowned after him. He'd only known the man a few days, but Sam was very good at reading people. He had to be, to be a successful undercover operator, and there was something about the butler that reminded him of Hetty Lange.

All of his instincts told him that Alfred would never risk breaking a confidence, but still Sam had the sense that there was, in fact, a problem. The question was, what was the problem?

There was only one way to find out. He grabbed two bottles of water from a cabinet in the study and headed for the concealed entrance to the Batcave.

The name still made him grin. The grin faded when he saw the entrance standing open. Alfred's doing, no doubt.

Damn, he really was like a male Hetty.

Sam stepped through the doorway, securing it behind him, and headed down the stairs, scanning the cave as he descended.

G stood before Batman's body armor and weapons. Sam crossed the floor to him.

"No change?" Sam asked by way of greeting.

"No." G took the bottle Sam offered, his expression suggesting he wished it was something stronger.

"I can get something from upstairs," Sam offered.

G shook his head immediately. "I have to think, and I have to be clear-headed when I do."

Sam frowned, the lightness he'd felt after spending the afternoon playing tourist eclipsed by the grim reality facing his partner. "Whether or not it's time?"

"Huh?" G looked up, confused for a moment. Then, "No, not that. Not yet, anyway."

"Then what?" Sam took a long pull of his water.

"This." G gestured toward the armor with his own bottle.

"What about it?"

"Bruce has kept this secret for years," G said. "Only the people you've met know. I'm sure Commissioner Gordon and Doctor Thompkins suspect - hell, they've probably figured it out. But Bruce never told them."

"So that's where you get it from," Sam quipped, and was rewarded with a twitch of G's lip.

Then, "They want me to go out tonight."

"Out?" Sam frowned. "On a date?"

"No. On patrol." Again, G gestured at the armor with his water bottle.

"Why?"

"If Batman goes dark at the same time Bruce is injured, that could be enough for others to figure it out."

Sam got it. "Others as in criminals."

"He's made enough enemies that - well." G cracked open his bottle and downed half the contents.

"If he's … incapacitated, would they go after others?" Sam asked.

"Are you willing to chance it?" G countered. "More to the point, am I willing to chance it?"

"You think they'd come after you?"

"No," G answered immediately. "If NCIS couldn't find my real name, it's not likely anyone else can. But Alfred, Babs, Robin… I'm the only one who can go out as Batman and keep up the illusion that he and Bruce are separate people."

"Why's that decision bothering you?"

G stared at him. "Why wouldn't it? I'm a law enforcement officer. Do you know how many laws I'd be breaking if I went out as a vigilante?"

Sam couldn't help the laugh. "Seriously, G? You told me yourself you don't break the rules, you bend them. You're the last person I'd worry about crossing those lines."

But G's expression said there was more to it than that. "What is it?"

"I loved the trapeze," G said finally. "Loved flying through the air, waiting for Mom or Dad to catch me… I thought it was the closest you could get to flying. Then I was Robin, swinging from building to building on a jumpline."

"Seriously?" Sam blurted the question, almost an accusation.

"Seriously," G said. "We moved fast, and I really was flying." He looked away for a moment, then met Sam's gaze fully. "You have to understand this, Sam - I loved it."

And then Sam understood - not loving it, necessarily, but what went with it. "You're afraid you'll love it too much."

"Almost as much as I'm afraid I'll slam into Wayne Tower and break my neck. I am out of practice."

"Do you have to swing from buildings?" Sam asked when he thought he could speak normally again. His world had turned upside down so many times during this trip that he wasn't certain it would ever right itself again.

"Have to?" G considered the question. "Maybe not. Maybe I can be convincing enough on the ground."

Sam nodded, as though he understood and agreed with G's position completely. Then he tried to bring the conversation back to the, in his opinion, more important issue. "And the other?"

"The other?" G frowned for just a moment. Then his expression cleared. "The temptation."

"If that's what you want to call it." Sam leaned against the display case, only half surprised when no pressure-sensitive alarm went off. "You think you can wear the suit and still be an agent?"

G took a swallow of his water, apparently focused intently on the action from beginning to end. Then he looked up to meet Sam's eyes. "I have to."

Sam met G's gaze, intent as it could only get when they were on a hunt for the bad guys. Sam nodded once. "You want me on comms?"

"Please," G said immediately, and Sam grinned. As many times as G had pulled him back from the brink of doing something he'd regret, Sam was more than willing to repay the favor.

"In that case, Master G," Alfred's voice made Sam turn, "we should see to your fitting."

Alfred moved soundlessly across the cave.

"How does he -?" Sam began.

"I don't even wonder anymore," G answered.