A/N Yay! Three beta'd chapters in a row!

As most of you have probably figured out, this story is not going to be finished by August 1. Sigh. But it WILL be finished! If it's the last thing I ever do!

Thank you to my beta, IcyWaters, who has a nice eye for subtleties.

Disclaimer My mother was named after an actress. I wasn't named after anyone. So far as we know, neither was Bruce Wayne.

Chapter 32

Let sleeping dragons lie.

- Colloquial Proverb

In the old days, it wasn't a stupid crook who committed a crime two blocks away from the police station. After all, the building itself was all but the Mecca of the city's crime and corruption. But half a year and one giant bat later, things were different. Now, the chance of an encounter with an officer on the right side of the law had moved from unlikely to probable.But it was something a lot worse than a good cop that dropped on the head of the unsuspecting stick-up man.

He had his gun leveled on a young couple who had been (stupidly) necking in the entrance of an alleyway. He could tell from their clothes that they were from a slightly more upscale part of town and probably had a good collection of credit cards. "I want the purse and the wallet," he hissed. "Now!"

As the woman's trembling hand unhooked her purse strap, the dim light from the street caused her ring finger to glint. The thief gestured with his gun. "I want jewelry, too," he snarled. That was when a smothering piece of the night detached itself from the sky and dropped onto his head.

His gun was wrenched from his hand, and his head bounced off the wall. Blinking his eyes dazedly, he saw his victims, horrified looks on their faces, turn and race from the alley. Then a black elbow was nailing his chest to the wall, and the devil was glaring down at him. The cold metal of a gun was pressing against his cheek.

"Does this make you feel big, little man?" Batman hissed, giving the gun a fierce twist so that it dug into the thug's face.

The unlucky criminal felt a peculiar vibrating sensation against his heart. For a wild moment he thought he was literally being given a heart attack, and then the butt of his own gun crashed against his head. He fell to the ground, unconscious.

Batman stared at the gun in his gauntleted hand. Its weight was oddly soothing, and he could imagine how easy it would be to pull the trigger and make sure the scum at his feet never hurt another woman… What am I doing? With a sharp move he flung the gun away. It ricocheted off the alley wall, creating a shower of concrete shrapnel.

The gunman, the couple, the demand for jewelry – the whole scene had hit a little too close to home. The only thing missing was…

Batman brought an insistently vibrating wrist up to his mouth and demanded in a low voice, "What's wrong?"

"Bruce, are you coming home soon? There's a funny pounding coming from upstairs."

Oops. "Go back to bed, I'll be there soon."

"Can I watch TV?"

Batman rolled his eyes. "Sure."

"Thanks. Bye, Bruce."

Batman moved the thug to the mouth of the alley, then took off over the rooftops.

He didn't mind turning in early, he reflected as his car sped toward the outskirts of town. His sleepless night was beginning to catch up with him. But before he could go to bed, he was going to have to figure out what to do with Somerville. Considering the trauma she'd been through, he'd hoped that the sedative would knock her out for a full twenty-four hours, but apparently that wasn't going to be the case. And clearance from Washington or not, he was reluctant to once again give her the run of the house. The fact that she really did work for the government didn't mean that she was going to keep her mouth shut.

At home he found Dick in the TV room, his eyes glued to the giant flat screen as a fairy with red eyes and long yellow fingernails raised what was apparently a giant dripping tooth (it was hard to tell beneath the gore) to stab a sleeping child. "What…"

"Aaaah!" Dick yelled, jumping off the couch.

"What are you watching?" Bruce demanded, grabbing the remote and clicking off the screen.

Dick's terror faded into sheepishness. "Just a dumb movie."

"No more dumb movies at one in the morning," Bruce ordered. "Go get in bed."

"Ok. Did you find out what the pounding was?"

"I'm just about to go investigate."

"I could come with you!"

"Go to bed, Dick."

The boy sighed heavily. "Ok." He trudged slowly down the hall, then stopped and looked back over his shoulder. "We don't believe in the tooth fairy, right?"

Bruce repressed his own sigh. Was this what Alfred dealt with every night? "Right."

When Bruce began to climb the steps to the fourth floor, he heard the pounding his ward had described. Slow but regular, it grew louder as he approached the door of the spare bedroom where he had locked up Somerville. He turned the key and swung the door outward.

Somerville stood with the stand of a heavy brass lamp on her shoulder, poised for her next swing. From the looks of the marks on the inside of the door, she had been at it for some time. Bruce half expected her to try for his head, but she set down the lamp and brushed her hands off as if she had just finished some heavy task. "Ah, Mr. Wayne. I quite understand the security measures you've taken, but would you relent enough to point me in the direction of the nearest bathroom?"

Wordlessly, Bruce pointed down the hall.

"Thank you," she said politely, and took off with a controlled, but definitely brisk, pace.

Bruce felt an unexpected pang of guilt. He hadn't meant to come across like Gestapo guarding a plaza full of Jews. When she reappeared, he politely informed her that the mansion phone lines were now accessible only with a code, that the alarm system had been turned on to guard all exits, and that her laptop had been removed from her room.

"My I-Pod too, I suppose?"

"And your spare ammunition clips."

She shrugged. "Fair enough. But I am permitted to return to my room?"

"Yes." He followed her down as far as the third floor and went to check on Dick. The boy was obediently in bed, but his lights were on and he was staring wide-eyed at the ceiling.

"Hey, we don't believe in the tooth fairy, remember?" Bruce walked over and sat on the edge of the bed.

"I wasn't thinking about that," Dick told him. "Did you take care of the pounding?"

"Yes. Miss Somerville got herself locked in a room. That's all."

"Last night, Miss Somerville…" Dick trailed off, still watching the ceiling.

Bruce waited patiently. He had held off questioning his ward about his encounter with Miss Somerville in the study. Dick usually owned up to things if given enough time.

"Last night I couldn't sleep, so I was waiting for you in your thinking room. Miss Somerville found me, and she was showing me how to play the piano, and a secret door in your wall came open."

"Is that all?"

"Yes. It shut and we went to bed."

Well, one of you went to bed.

"Are you mad?"

"No." I'm not sure who's fault this is, kid, but it's not yours. "I never told you not to go in there."

"You said not to bother you when you're in there," Dick recited.

"Right. But in the future, it's probably best if you stay out."

"Ok. Thanks for not being mad."

"No problem. Thanks for telling me what happened."

"No problem."

"Can you go to sleep now?"

"Yes." Dick closed his eyes, and Bruce turned out the lights and shut the door. A quick snack before bed sounded appealing, so he headed downstairs to the kitchen. Somerville was already there, scrambling eggs in a frying pan.

"Do you want this rice?" she asked as he opened the fridge.

"Nope," he said and watched as she dumped dinner's leftovers into the pan with her eggs. He turned back to the pitifully bare fridge and pulled out the applesauce. There wasn't much left, so he leaned against the counter and ate it straight out of the jar. Somerville sat at the breakfast bar and drowned her eggs and rice in salsa.

"Is that how they cook in Colombia?"

"It's how my mother used to cook. She hated the kitchen."

He supposed that Somerville must have had a mother, but it was hard to picture. For a while, the only sound was the clink of silverware on glass, and then she said flatly, "I want your file on the Joker."

Bruce thought about it and decided it was a reasonable request. "All right."

"Just leave it outside my door." She dumped her plate in the sink and crossed to the door. "Wayne?"

He was intent on scraping the last of the applesauce out of the jar. "Yeah?"

"I apologize for calling you a bastard." She waited until his startled gaze swung up to meet hers and smiled sweetly. "There's obviously no doubt as to your parentage."

He could think of a few remarks to make about her parentage, but restrained himself to muttering darkly at her retreating back. He waited until he was certain she was safely away, then slipped down the hall to his study and the caverns.

Bruce scanned the file on the Joker to make certain there was nothing he wanted to keep out of Somerville's hands and printed it off. After a moment's thought, he also printed his file on Andrew Williams and a copy of the information on Carlos Morales that Alfred had sent him. He dropped the whole stack outside Somerville's door, and with a vivid sense of relief went to bed.

He couldn't sleep. Images of the Joker, Earle, Bubbles, Somerville, and Dick kept swirling in random patterns through his mind, like puzzle pieces that belonged together but couldn't find their perfect fit. Frustrated, he forced himself to crawl out of bed and stretch, walk around the room, get a drink of water. When he climbed back between his sheets, he forced himself to think of something completely unrelated to the mystery.

Rachel. He thought about how much he had enjoyed kissing her. And then he thought about how much he wanted to do it again. And again, and again, and… He groaned in frustration and pulled a pillow over his face.

Whether it was weariness or partial asphyxiation, he fell asleep.

He crouched on the edge of the rooftop, peering down at the gunman and helpless couple. He had to jump, was already falling, but something was wrong. Something was missing. He landed but the pavement gave way beneath him, and he fell through to another alley, empty and endless.

Slowly, pushing because the air was thick and resistant, he turned. A slight, blond headed boy stood staring toward the unseeable end of the alley. "Dick?" he asked hesitantly, stepping forward, reaching out. But he could go no further. Around the boy, pearls tumbled in a silvery patter; a scarlet flood, rolling into darkness.

- - - - - -

Judas settled into his usual chair on the far side of the desk. "I hear that last night's operation was muffed?"

Gatsby shrugged in resignation. "Fortunately it doesn't matter.The important thing is that Golding is implicated and through him, every important executive in Wayne Enterprises."

"I just don't want my part in the business coming out, that's all."

Gatsby smiled. "Well, that's going to depend on how well you did your job, isn't it? About the woman…"

"I haven't heard from her since the day before yesterday."

"But you're convinced she knows more than she's telling you."

Judas shrugged. "I think if it was there to find, she'll have found it by now. Besides, we're running out of time."

"Then we set the next part of the plan in motion. You know what to do."

Judas nodded. "I'll get the boy."

To Be Continued…

A/N Responses to reviews for the last chapter can be found by going to my bio and clicking on my homepage.