A/N I know, I know…It's short. It hasn't been beta-ed (my fault, I missed my deadline). It might not even make a whole lot of sense. (I think it does, but I'm not trusting my judgment right now.) Let's just say that between writer's block, getting settled into my new job, and a series of manifestly Unfortunate Events which took place this evening (And If ANYONE can explain to me why such a large number of otherwise intelligent Americans REFUSE to keep toilet plungers by ALL their toilets in case of emergency, I will be extremely grateful), you're lucky to get a comma splice, much less an entire, if anemic, chapter.

DISCLAIMER GO AWAY AND LEAVE ME ALONE! Plus, dogs are gross. They have an unpleasant odor and they make nasty sounds when they lick themselves.

Acknowledgement All those helpful government sites on illegal drugs :) I would also, at this time, like to express my appreciation for Bounty paper towels – the quilted heavy duty kind.

Chapter 27

FOX: The nomex survival suit for advanced infantry. Kevlar bi-weave, reinforced joints…

BRUCE: Tear resistant?

FOX: This sucker'll stop a knife.

BRUCE: Bulletproof?

FOX: Anything short of a direct hit with a large caliber slug.

Adapted from Batman Begins: The Novelization

(Which, by the way, I did not find overly impressive. Novelists make good comic book writers, but comic book writers do not usually make good novelists.)

She knelt beside Simon's body anyway, feeling for a pulse. His head was thrown awkwardly to the side, and she suspected his neck was broken, probably with the same convulsive jerk that had smashed his head against the corner of the coffee table. Some kind of seizure, she thought, with a clinical corner of her mind that remained detached and clear. Simon's face was frozen in a tight, twisted mask smeared with blood and vomit, teeth clenched, his eyes rolled back so that only the whites showed. Biting her lip against a sudden swell of nausea, she turned her head and saw an empty syringe, an evaporating pool of water, a trail of fine white powder. Damn it. She stood up and stumbled away, tripping over the leg of the table. Damnitdamnitdamnit.

She stopped by the entrance to the hallway, her back firmly to the scene in the living room. In the light from the low watt bulb she could see the blood on her hands and coat. Automatically, she moved to the bathroom and turned on the faucet. The groaning pipes spat out a jet of reddish water, the same color as the liquid on her hands. I should have guessed…those mood swings. There was something white bobbing in the water that swirled around the sink. Oh, Simon. She picked up the toothpaste cap and automatically reached for the tube. She had the cap back on and was setting it on its shelf when she noticed five tiny glass bottles that had appeared in the cabinet. Where did those come from? She picked one up and squinted at it. "Insulin?" she muttered out loud. "What did he need that for?" Still holding the bottle, she absently reached out a finger and pushed the door of the cabinet shut. Directly behind her, darkly reflected in the peeling mirror, stood the Batman.

"You," she hissed, spinning, forcing herself not to back up against the wall. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask the same thing. You seem to find yourself in all sorts of unpleasant situations."

"I'm a friend of the deceased," she muttered bitterly.

"A friend? Then of course you would know he has the insulin because he was diagnosed with type one diabetes a year ago."

"He was?" She still wasn't thinking with her usual clarity and the question escaped involuntarily. She bit her lip in consternation and then demanded, "How did you know that?"

"Maybe I was his friend, too."

She would sworn he was laughing at her. "Or maybe you're just a nosy bastard." Gritting her teeth, she plunged forward and pushed past him into the hall.

"By the way," he rasped after her, "insulin should be refrigerated."

She stopped, staring down at the bottle she still held in her hand. "I know."

"Then why were you putting it into the medicine cabinet?"

"I wasn't. I was taking it out."

"Really. How long have you been here?"

"I don't see that it's any business of yours," she snapped, walking toward the kitchen, carefully not looking toward the far half of the living room.

A regrettably familiar iron grip grabbed her shoulder and spun her around. "When people are murdered in this city it is always my business."

"Murdered?" she repeated in disbelief. "He overdosed. Or didn't they teach you what that looks like in bat school?"

"No one breaks their own neck like that." He shook her slightly. "How long have you been here?"

"Less than ten minutes," she replied absently, mind racing, finally throwing off the paralyzing shock that had seized it when she had flipped on the lights. "I found him like that."

His grip shifted to her wrist and he shoved up her sleeve, lifting her forearm to the light. "We weren't needle buddies," she said coldly as he repeated the process with her other arm, "if that's what you're looking for. Although," she said thoughtfully, "if he was murdered, then maybe he wasn't…"

"Oh he was," Batman interrupted. "All the signs of extended use are there."

The small bubble of sudden hope burst, and she jerked her arm away from his gloved hands and continued her march toward the kitchen. In the dark room, she leaned against a counter top and breathed deeply, trying to hold back the confusion and grief that threatened to overwhelm her. I thought I knew you, Simon. She shook her head and walked back to the doorway, hoping that the Bat would have disappeared as silently as he had come. He hadn't. He was standing over Simon's body, head bowed, motionless.

Cursing silently, she moved back and bumped against the phone that hung on the wall. I should call the police, she realized, surprised she hadn't thought of it sooner. She picked up the receiver and held it to her ear. There was no dial tone.

She silently hung up the phone and very slowly edged sideways so that she could not be seen from the other room. I am trapped in an apartment with a dead man and a vigilante who has no good reason for being here. I will not panic. She crossed to the window and peered out. The fire escape was on the other side of the building, and it was too far to jump. It looked like the front door was her only exit option.

Drawing her Beretta, she flipped off the safety, muffling the click beneath her sweater. Then, holding the gun so that it was concealed by the long sleeve of her coat, she walked calmly out of the kitchen and toward the door.

The Bat ignored her until her hand was resting on the doorknob. "Going somewhere?"

"I'm leaving," she said firmly and twisted the knob. The door was locked. She fumbled at the deadbolt, and it finally screeched back. She wondered how he had managed to slide it without her hearing.

"I wouldn't advise it."

"Are you going to stop me?" she asked frankly.

"Yes."

Without hesitation, she lifted her arm and fired. She managed two shots before he tackled her, the gun still recoiling in her hand as her head slammed against the wall and everything faded into flashes and a high humming noise.

When she could see properly again, she discovered that she was in the shower stall, her hands and ankles bound, and the Bat's glove wrapped viselike over her mouth. Before she could do more than wonder why she was in this detestable position, there was the sound of the front door opening, and footsteps walking into the apartment.

The next moment, a high, thin voice demanded, "What did you do?"

"I had to, Boss, he wasn't dead yet," the second voice, despite its gruffness, sounded nervous.

"You idiot, no one is going to think that was the result of a seizure." There was a short silence, and then the "boss" asked, "Out of a morbid sense of curiosity, what did you do with the bottles?"

"You said they were medicine, so I, uh, I put them in the bathroom."

"And you didn't notice that I pulled them out of a refrigerator when I gave them to you."

"I…uh…"

Whatever excuse the flunky was about to offer was drowned out in a burst of high laughter. At last the boss said breathlessly, "My dear Max, you really are too much. I thought henchmen like you only existed in the movies." He paused to control another bout of giggles. "But I suppose we should at least remedy that little error, and let some mysteries remain mysteries, hmmm?" A moment later, a beam of light shone through the shower curtain as the door was pushed open. There was the sound of someone fumbling in the medicine cabinet and then the light disappeared. Less than a minute later, the sound of the front door closing drifted back to them.

Cecilia was still trying to process what all this meant when the Bat gritted in her ear, "Stay here and keep quiet."

For once she had no inclination to disobey. (Not that she much choice about the staying put part.) The Bat apparently knew that because he slipped away as soon as he had spoken. She heard nothing from the front door, but as long minutes passed, she became convinced that she had been abandoned.

"Well this is just peachy," she muttered, slipping down the wall so that she could examine the binding on her ankles. It was nothing more than a slender piece of wire, but it was appallingly effective. She imagined herself sitting in the shower for days on end, drinking rusty water that dripped from the shower while Simon's body rotted away in the other room. Cecilia bit back a hysterical giggle and buried her face against her knees. Despite the evidence of her own eyes, she still struggled to accept the facts – not that Simon was dead but that he was a cocaine addict. She had known him only briefly five years ago, but she had always remembered him as a truly good man. Now she wondered how much of his life had become a lie. Because there were always lies. Lies about what you were doing, how you felt, where your money was going…

She leaned her head back against the wall and thought about how much she wanted to kill Carlos Morales.

To Be Continued…

A/N I'm sorry, guys, I have no idea when responses to reviews will be up. Possibly not until the weekend. Definitely not until then if the rest of the week goes anything like today. Hopefully, though, it was just Monday being Monday. You know how it is.

Leave me lots of reviews to wash away my Monday blues!