A/N So…I totally wrote a paper on fan fiction for my Theory of Composition class, and my professor loved it! In fact, I believe her exact comment was, "This is great!" So next time someone gets on your case about fanfic, inform them that it is, in fact, a legitimate area of study in the academy.

Thanks to my bat-beta, IcyWaters! (Although, I only managed to get part of the chapter written for her this week, so all typos are upon my own head.)

Disclaimer Plastic packaging may cause suffocation and death. Dispose of properly.

Chapter 44

Not every end is a goal. The end of a melody is not its goal: but nonetheless, had the melody not reached its end it would not have reached its goal either.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

Gordon stood next to Captain Stark, eyes fixed on the school. He had delivered an abridged and somewhat censored account of what had happened to him since he had disappeared into the school, and Stark had agreed that some sort of team should be sent to the factory. Since then, they'd been on the radio with the commissioner, who was reluctant to pull anyone off the current situation to go chasing such an improbable sounding story. Gordon was about ready to give up, and go back by himself when the front doors of the school burst open. The SWAT team stiffened to attention, but the only person who emerged was a black kid in a tuxedo. He pelted into the parking lot, stopping abruptly when a voice bellowed, "Freeze!" The kid threw his hands in the air, a scared look on his face.

"It's ok!" he shouted. "The Batman took care of them!"

"Cover me," Gordon muttered, before running forward to grab the kid and pulling him behind the relative safety of a squad car.

"What's going on?" he demanded.

The boy grinned, his momentary fear disappearing behind crazy excitement. "The Batman! He just jumped on them - all four at the same time!" He shook his head, still grinning. "Beyond wicked."

"There were four?" Stark, who had joined them, asked.

"Yeah. Oh, and a door guard that he took out first."

Stark glanced questioningly at Gordon and the lieutenant nodded. "Sounds like his usual M.O."

Fiskers radioed the rest of the force. "We're going in. Be advised that the building may not be clear, and remember that it's full of scared children so think before you shoot."

Gordon ran just behind the first wave of SWAT, and saw the body of the guard as they burst through the front door. The kid hadn't said anything about guards on the school's other exits, though. Gordon stepped out of the main rush and after a minute of hunting found the stairway he had been taken down blindfolded. The basement was musty, and the dim incandescent lights didn't do much to pierce the gloom.

"Over here," a voice rasped.

Gordon spun and found the Bat looming over the fallen body of a clown. "They have a tunnel…"

"I found it," Batman interrupted.

Gordon nodded and handed over the keys to the Batmobile. "I parked three blocks straight east of here. The kid's still in it." Then, because he was dying to know, he ventured, "How'd you get here?"

The Bat regarded him obliquely. "I borrowed a car."

"That's it?" Gordon asked before he could stop himself.

"Actually…I was hoping you would return it for me." The Bat tossed him a set of keys embellished with a pink rabbit's foot. "I didn't ask first."

"Right, sure," Gordon muttered, fingering the rabbit foot. "No problem. What happened back there?" he demanded before the Bat could melt away. "Somerville said it was a trap. For you."

"She was wrong," the Bat said coldly. "It was about the Grayson boy. He's come into a valuable inheritance."

"She also said you'd been keeping tabs on Richard Grayson."

"He was a target." A new tone was creeping into the Bat's voice, softer, smoother, and more frightening than anything Gordon had yet heard out of his masked ally. He realized he didn't actually want to know. Not about the Bat, not about Somerville, not about anything.

"Ok," Gordon said simply. "It's going to be a while before the police make it over there..." He left unspoken the second half of the statement. …so if there's anything you need to get rid of...

The Bat nodded, and then he was gone.

- - - - - -

Twenty minutes after he'd gotten the call, Alfred pulled up to the curb behind the Batmobile. He'd been bending the traffic laws again, but fortunately there hadn't been any officers of the law around to observe him.

Dick was curled into a tight ball in the driver's seat of the Tumbler, but as Alfred unlocked and swung open the door he jerked upright with a gasp. His face was smeared with dust and tears, and his fine blond hair was matted to his head with sweat. When he saw Alfred he lunged forward and wrapped his arms around the butler's neck. "It's all right, Master Dick," Alfred soothed, holding the trembling boy tightly. "We're going home now."

The butler drove with one hand, keeping the other comfortingly on Dick's shoulder, but the boy continued to shiver all the way back to the Manor. Alfred led the way straight up to the boy's room.

"How's your head?" He gently brushed the blond hair out of the pale blue eyes.

"Fine."

"Is there anything you'd like to talk about?"

The boy shook his head.

"I'm going to run your bath, then." Alfred led the unresisting boy into the bathroom and started the water before helping him undress. As he pulled off Dick's t-shirt, something furry fell to the floor.

"Rachel Jr.," Dick said with a trace of surprise, the most energy he'd shown since Alfred had pulled him out of the Tumbler.

Alfred clapped his hand over the animal and was relieved to feel it quivering. For a moment he'd feared it might be dead. "I'll just put her back in her cage, shall I?" When he returned to the bathroom, he was immensely relieved to find that Dick had finished undressing and had put himself in the bathwater. Alfred shut off the taps. "I'm going to go and prepare a little supper while you wash."

He waited until Dick obediently picked up the washcloth and soap before heading downstairs. As he passed the front hall he heard the front door open, and Somerville entered. Alfred stood stock still, his eyes narrowed. Bruce hadn't explained what the social worker's current status was.

She was kneeling on the floor now, setting down what looked like a piece of computer equipment. "Miss Somerville," he said, striding forward.

"Mr. Pennyworth." She stood and gently nudged her previous burden with her toe. "Would you give this to Wayne? He'll know what to do with it."

Alfred settled on the direct approach. "If you don't mind my asking, what happened?"

She looked at him and he saw that she was dressed in a coat that was not her own and smudged here and there with dark patches that looked suspiciously like blood. "From what point, Mr. Pennyworth?"

"Let's start with when Master Dick disappeared this afternoon."

She adjusted her glasses and eyed him severely. "Richard sneaked into my car and hid in the back seat. I, unfortunately, didn't discover him until I reached the social services building, where Henry Judas commandeered us with the aid of a firearm and carted us off to chat with a gentleman by the name of Mr. Gatsby, now deceased. There was a great deal of unpleasantness, which I'd rather not go into just now."

"I see."

"I should hope so. Good night, Mr. Pennyworth."

- - - - - -

Cecilia sat motionless beneath the shower, letting the scalding spray beat across her bowed shoulders. On her left side, the water that flowed over her arm created a pink stream that splashed along the white ceramic of the tub before swirling down the drain.

At last she rose and shut off the water, dried herself awkwardly with one hand, and then wrapped the towel around her arm. She pulled on pajama pants and a loose fitting tank top, then peeled the towel off and looked critically at her arm. It was, as she first thought, no more than a graze, and the bleeding had slowed considerably. The droplets that still oozed up were blazingly scarlet against the blackly bruised skin. She folded a t-shirt into a pad, then pulled a pair of pantyhose out of her drawer. With the help of her teeth, she awkwardly knotted one of the legs around the make-shift bandage. It would have been easier with some help, she reflected as she wound the rest of the nylon tightly around her arm, but she had a sneaking suspicion Pennyworth would have insisted on the hospital. She definitely did not want to go to the hospital.

The childproof cap on the bottle of sleeping pills proved to be a problem. Both of her hands were refusing to grip properly, and she finally had to use her teeth to push and turn, nearly dislocating her jaw and spilling the pale blue capsules across the dresser in the process. She snatched up a double dose, swallowed it without water, and crawled into bed, careful to prop up her arm on a spare pillow. She had no intention of talking to anyone until tomorrow.

- - - - - -

He shot the Tumbler through the waterfall and screeched to the usual bone-jarring halt. He pulled off the cowl and wearily climbed out of the machine. Next to his own computers sat a strange desktop chassis, hooked up to a monitor. Alfred had called after Somerville had returned to the Manor, and Bruce had asked him to attempt to access whatever was on the hard drive. According to the display, the decryption program was still working on Gatsby's passwords.

He began removing his armor, uneasily running over the last part of the night in his mind. After making certain the situation at the school was under control, he had returned to the factory and found that the death toll had risen. The League pawn he had fought upstairs – the one who had seen his face – had regained consciousness and somehow, despite his wire bindings, managed to impale himself on a long and slender knife, although death could not have been instantaneous. Bruce had wondered grimly what dark code of honor the man had been indoctrinated with, and was at the same time aware of relief. He would not have to deal with the problem of a personal prisoner. Not this time.

Downstairs, he had found that the other ninja had imitated his associate's final gesture. This one had managed to free his hands and drive the blade truly home. And nearby, Carlos Morales lay with half his head blown off, to all appearances by his own hand.

Henry Judas, on the other hand, was very much alive and cursing violently as he struggled against his bonds. He had abruptly silenced upon catching sight of the Batman, and made no protest when a gag was shoved in his mouth and he was deposited unceremoniously in the other room.

He had spent the rest of the hours going over Gatsby's office, inch by inch, and digging through as many of the files in the project graveyard as he had time for. In the end, he had found nothing particularly useful. If anything was to be salvaged from the wreck of Gatsby's headquarters, it was in that hard drive.

Bruce had just finished putting away the suit when Alfred entered the caves. "What happened tonight, sir?" the butler asked without preamble.

"It was the League of Shadows, Alfred. They still have a presence in this city. But tonight – tonight was the beginning of the end for them." Bruce hesitated, toying with a thought that had been flitting seductively around the back of his mind ever since he had seen Gatsby's mutilated body. "Once the League is purged from the city…the police should be able to handle things on their own."

"I sincerely hope so," Alfred said quietly.

Together, they took the lift up to the study.

"How's Dick?" Bruce asked as he swung the shelves back into place.

"He's been…" Alfred broke off as the faraway sound of screaming drifted into the room. "…dreaming…" the butler sighed, but Bruce had already shot out of the room.

Dick was sitting bolt upright in bed, wide-eyed but unconscious as he cried out in terror. Bruce grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. "Dick! Come on, buddy, wake up."

The screaming abruptly stopped. The boy gasped and jerked, then slumped over. Slowly, a look of confused consciousness covered his face. "Bruce? Why are you here?"

"You were having a dream. Sounded like a bad one. Do you remember?" Dick shook his head, causing a stray lock of hair to fall into his eyes. Bruce reached out to push it back, and froze as Dick flinched away.

"I'm sorry for bothering you," the boy said stiffly.

"You aren't bothering me." He waited but Dick just sat hunched over, not looking at him. "What's going on?" he finally asked.

"I should probably go tomorrow."

Bruce scowled in confusion. "Go where?"

"Away. I know I can't stay here anymore."

Bruce felt stunned, then angry. If Somerville told him that… "Says who?"

Dick gave a little sigh. "Rachel. I heard you and her talking."

Rachel... It took him a moment to remember exactly what she had said. You can't raise a child and be Batman... "You heard that, huh?"

"Yeah." Dick's voice was quiet and resigned. "That's why I hid in Miss Somerville's car. I thought I should just go and not bother you anymore."

He was angry again, with a blazing, righteous wrath worth of the D.A. herself. "You don't bother me."

"But Rachel said…"

"Rachel was wrong."

"But…"

"No buts. This is your home now, Richard Grayson, and if you don't like that, you're just going to have to deal with it."

Dick stared at him, wide-eyed. "What about Miss Somerville?" he finally asked.

"She agrees with me." And if she didn't, Bruce reflected, she was just going to have to deal with it too.

Dick took a deep breath. "I didn't want to go," he confessed.

"That's good because I didn't want you to go either."

Dick took another shuddering breath and dissolved into tears, great racking sobs of sheer relief. Bruce pulled him close and let him cry. The kid had had one hell of a night.

- - - - - -

There were rats. Everywhere. She was stretched on her back, unable to move as they swarmed unceasingly across her body. She knew it was a dream but no matter how she struggled, she could not escape the weight of the hundreds of tiny bodies atop her own. At last she gave up and simply screamed. She screamed until the screaming and even the terror became monotonous, but she continued to scream because there was nothing else to do.

At last, something changed. The rats stopped moving. A shadow was falling. She could feel the rush of cold that swept before it, sensed the darkness that accompanied it. The rats scattered, afraid of the shadow, and she tried to follow them because she was afraid too, and even the rats were better. But the shadow fell fast, faster than she could run, and she was gripped with a sense of her own doom. The shadow was the one thing she could not fight...

With an excruciating effort, Cecilia pulled herself out of the dreams and opened her eyes to the dark room. She was panting and soaked with sweat, unable to shake off a woozy feeling of unreality. Slowly, she untangled herself from the covers and turned on the bedside light. Even before she put on her glasses, she could see the blotches of crimson on the sheets. She must have been thrashing violently during her sleep and had bumped her arm, knocking the bandage askew and restarting the bleeding. The sheets were liberally streaked with blood as were her pajamas and, she realized, pulling a sticky hand away from her forehead, her face. Sighing, she looked at the clock and saw that it was nearly 5 a.m. – sleep medication made for very protracted nightmares. She climbed out of bed and shoved her matted hair away from her face, then went to the bathroom to wash off the worst of the blood. What she needed, she reflected as she gingerly removed the soaked t-shirt/nylon combination and dropped it in the bathtub, was a proper bandage, and considering the house, there must be something of the sort on the premises. The question was where.

She drifted out into the hallway and, after a moment's hesitation, took the stairs up to the third floor. All things considered, she thought Wayne would be more likely to let her do things her own way than Pennyworth. But when she approached his bedroom door, she found that it was open, and although the lamps were on, it was obvious the bed had not been slept in. Shrugging slightly, she went in and found the door to the bathroom. It seemed like a logical place to start.

She found toothpaste, cologne, hair gel, aftershave, and two razors that were probably worth more than her life insurance policy, but no bandages. Irritated, she shut the last drawer with a bang and glared at her arm, where the blood was beginning to seep through the towel. All of the medical supplies were probably down in that nasty hole…

"What are you doing in here?" a cold voice asked.

She jumped in surprise, causing the hand holding the towel to jerk against the wound. The spurt of pain brought on a wave of dizziness and her knees buckled; she had to drop the towel and hold on to the sink. "I was looking for a…a…"

"You had better sit down before you fall down." Pennyworth sounded distinctly unhappy, but his hand on her arm was gentle as he guided her out of the bathroom to a chair. "Is this the only place you got shot?" he demanded as he carefully turned her arm toward the light.

Trust Wayne's butler to recognize a bullet wound. "Yes," she admitted grudgingly. "And it's just a graze."

"Nevertheless, you should seek proper medical attention."

"I knew you would say that," she muttered. "I don't need a doctor."

Pennyworth's face took on a look of longsuffering patience, but all he said was, "I'll just fetch something to patch you up with, then."

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What, no argument?"

"I've learned to pick my battles where doctors are concerned," he said dryly. "Stay there."

After he left, she slipped off the chair to sit on the floor because it seemed like an awfully long way to fall if her head started spinning again. The floor was highly polished hardwood, most of it covered by pale gold rugs with an intricate flowerlike design. Very nice rugs, she thought, digging her fingers into the thick pile. It was with a ridiculously poignant regret that she realized she was bleeding on it.

- - - - - -

Dick had finally fallen soundly asleep, his breathing deep and even with a look of peace on his wan face. Bruce carefully tucked him in and straightened up, feeling his own exhaustion kick in. If he was lucky, he would be able to grab a couple hours of sleep before it was time to face the daytime aftermath of last night. As he approached his room, he heard a sharp cry followed by, "That's my arm you quack!" Somerville was sitting on the floor while Alfred wound her left arm in gauze.

"What happened?" Bruce demanded, irritated at the intrusion.

"She got shot," Alfred responded, not looking up. He tucked the end of the gauze under and taped it in place. "That should hold for now."

"Are you sure it's tight enough?" Somerville asked sarcastically. "I think I've still got some circulation in there."

"If you won't see a proper physician then don't complain about the treatment," Alfred snapped back and gathered up the supplies before rising to his feet.

"Who shot you?" Bruce asked.

"Morales. I suppose I should consider myself lucky. The next person he shot was himself in the head."

"I saw."

She tilted back her head and squinted up at him. "Speaking of shooting, you still have my gun. I want it back."

"No," he said, wondering why, after all that had happened that night, they were about to launch into a fight.

"No?" Somerville asked, her tone dangerous.

"No," he repeated. "I'm tired of you pointing guns at me."

"If you'd behave like a reasonable human being, I wouldn't have to do it."

"I was holding Richard,"he exploded.

"Exactly. The child has already lost two parents, and you seemed intent on depriving him of a third," she said icily. "Furthermore, I merely threatened to put a bullet in your shoulder, after you half strangled me."

Her words stopped his temper cold. His eyes rested on the dark bruises around her throat and a wave of guilt crashed through him. "About that…"

"Don't apologize," she interrupted crabbily. "I know perfectly well why you did it. I'm only pointing out that you don't have any room to criticize."

He stared at her, then turned away, rubbing his face wearily. "You give me a headache."

"Then I consider us even." She sighed. "Look, what happened tonight was – inevitable. I'd rather just forget it. All of it."

"Whatever." He still felt guilty, but more than anything he wanted to her to go away so he could go to bed.

She shivered, wrapping her arms around herself. "If you feel compelled to apologize for something, let it be for freezing me in your drafty manor."

She appeared to be serious. "Sorry," he muttered.

"And I am sorry," she began, slowly rising to her feet, "for bleeding on your carpet. Now that we all feel better about that, I'm going back to bed." She headed for the door. "Thank you, Pennyworth. Goodnight, Wayne." She disappeared down the hall.

Alfred was looking at him strangely. "What?" Bruce snapped.

"Did you hear what she said?"

"It didn't make sense to me either."

"Mr. Wayne?" Somerville had reappeared.

Bruce gritted his teeth. "Yes, Miss Somerville?"

"Are you actually going to marry that woman?"

"No," he admitted, the conversation with Dick still fresh in his mind. "Not that it's any of your business."

She looked past him toward Alfred. "Tell me that isn't the best piece of news you've heard all night." Switching her gaze back to Bruce she added, "And it is my business. I wouldn't wish that woman on a boa constrictor." She left.

"It is not your bloody business," Bruce muttered.

"Undoubtedly, she was thinking of her recommendation to Judge Farr," Alfred pointed out.

"Oh, undoubtedly." Bruce looked at his butler, and suddenly noticed how worn the old man's face looked. "Go to bed, Alfred."

"It's hardly worth it at this point, sir."

"You can afford three hours. I'll sleep if you sleep."

It was proof of how exhausted Alfred was that he didn't even try to bargain. "Very well. Good ni…rest well, sir."

To Be Continued

A/N I'm sorry guys, but I'm not going to get review responses written for the last chapter. Life is a little insane right now. But thank you most exceedingly to everyone who reviewed! Reviews keep the muse happy, jolly, and prolific! Thanks also to those of you who reviewed the Halloween fluff.

Only one chapter (and the epilogue) to go!!!!!