Carol Fox remembered the last time her little brother had asked her for a favor. She had been eighteen and he had been twelve. A skinny, wiry little boy with freckles, glasses, and a perpetual smirk. He was always getting into mischief, even at that age. They'd lived in a tiny house with a basement that he'd claimed his own right from the start, and he was always tinkering away with something or another.

One day he'd ventured into her room looking shiftier than usual, his eyes not meeting hers. It was rare that anything quieted Lucius, but he looked quite troubled in that moment, his skinny little arms swinging awkwardly at his sides and his glasses sliding off his nose.

She'd taken a long drag on her cigarette. "Well?" she'd prompted him, blowing out smoke.

"I, uh." He'd cleared his throat. "I . . . well, I was launching the, uh, bottle rockets downstairs and I—"

"You lit the house on fire?"

"No!" he'd exclaimed, his big eyes bulging even further. "No, no, it's not like that. I just busted up the wall."

"You . . . what?"

He took a step backward, cowering from her. His voice was small when he admitted, "I was fiddling around and I launched a bottle rocket into the wall."

"A bottle rocket?" Carol had fumed. "How can a bottle rocket make a hole in the wall?"

"Well," Lucius half-chuckled, looking smug and offering no further explanation.

"How big is this hole in the wall," she'd asked menacingly, narrowing her eyes.

Lucius had bitten his lip. "Big?"

Carol had wanted to wring his little neck. It figured that the little pest would knock a hole into the wall when she was watching him. They would come home and see the disaster and, as usual, blame her for his antics. Yes, she was "supposed" to be keeping tabs on him. But how the hell was she supposed to know that he was blowing crud up in his dungeon down there?

But he'd looked so genuinely guilty and afraid that she'd let him off the hook. She drove out and found the matching plaster to fix the hole, and she'd bought a painting at the five and dime to cover it up. She'd used up that whole week's spending money and missed movie night with her friends, but together they'd filled that stupid hole and hidden it so well that their mother never had so much of an inkling of the mess they'd made.

It was that memory, of all things, that was dancing on the fringes of her thoughts as she was focusing on this favor Lucius had thrust upon her. A hole in the wall was one thing. Secretly operating on a dying vigilante—a man half the city was out to kill—was quite another.

This was her job at stake. This was a man's life at stake. This was . . .

Bruce Wayne?

Carol didn't dwell on it. She often didn't dwell on her patients when she operated. Call it heartless, call it rude, call it callous—but she only did it for the welfare of the patient. If she spent all too precious time thinking of the human being she was cutting apart or piecing back together, she'd never get anything done right.

It was easy to let it go. It was easy to forget who it was on the table, it was easy to forget that she was in this alone—hell, it was even easy to forget the mind-boggling notion that her little brother had obviously been in league with the Batman all this time.

Of course that was the easy part. The hard part would be keeping this faceless man alive.

"I can't have you hovering there," Carol said without thinking much on the words.

Lucius left the room obligingly, but she hardly noticed. A part of her was aware that he was still peering in from one of the windows and it irked her in the same way it had when as a little boy he'd crowded around her at the typewriter. She was too preoccupied with her business to shoo him any further though, and she knew he was only concerned.

It had been tricky business, trying to get this man inside unnoticed. First there had been the matter of clearing the back hallway on the first floor. Simple enough, thanks to the immaturity of a few of the interns—it only took a few of their fake plastic throw-up pieces to clear out the already quiet, unnoticed hall. The other challenge had been ensuring that the elevator was clear and wouldn't stop on any of the other floors. Thankfully one of the mousier residents who didn't ask many questions had dependably posted "Out of Order" signs on every floor. But then Lucius had taken another precious few minutes trying to detach the Kevlar from the man, which apparently had imbedded electric shock security of some sort, which only a series of codes and locks would undo.

Time had been wasted. Carol knew she was a pretty damn great surgeon, but with all the extra measures they'd had to take and the complete lack of help from anyone else in the hospital, she wasn't sure if she could pull this off.

In a weird sort of way she felt responsible—beyond the normal responsibility she felt as a surgeon, when she knew the patient's life was in her hands. It was the same sort of responsibility she'd felt that time Lucius had blown that hole into the wall. As if it were still her job as the older sister to fix his mistakes, hide his secrets, even if fifty years had passed since she'd ever had to take care of him.

She only wished that this was as easy as blowing money on plaster and slapping a painting over it.

Gordon didn't want to be up in the operating room. He was still supposed to be patrolling, for one thing. He may be Comissioner now, but that didn't mean he wouldn't have to answer to anyone if he skipped out on the job without so much as a word.

And that aside, he was just too tense. Standing there and watching would only make it worse. He could do absolutely nothing to help upstairs, nothing all his supposed expertise could offer. Instead he stood in the hospital cafeteria with a cup of coffee that he was currently ignoring, staring out at the rain and listening to it beat on the windows.

This whole experience, this whole night—looking back on it he felt as though he'd been walking through a dream. It all just seemed too far-fetched. The invincible Batman, laying helpless in the streets. Succumbing to, of all things, bullet wounds. Such a human, commonplace weapon.

But Bruce Wayne was what made it completely unbelievable. Even sitting here, knowing that Bruce Wayne, or Batman, or whoever the hell Gordon had been dealing with all this time was above him on an operating table, he still couldn't quite grasp the reality of the situation. It was as if someone had photo-shopped Bruce Wayne's head on Batman's body. The image seemed disjointed in his memory, too dim in the dark of early morning to see clearly.

His phone rang. Dazedly he retrieved it from his pocket—the caller ID read GORDON. "Barbara?"

"Jim," she snapped, sounding both relieved and cross. "Where are you?"

"The hospital."

"What?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine," he assured her quickly, "it's just that—"

"Some men are calling me from the station saying you haven't made any contact in hours! That you were supposed to be checking on some disturbance and no one heard from you!"

"Barbara, I can explain—"

"I'm sick of this! I'm sick of thinking that—" She broke off and muttered something incoherent under her breath. "It's not fair that every time you do this . . . I always think that . . ." She pulled herself together and said brusquely, "Well? What's happened, then?"

Gordon scanned the room. The cafeteria was mostly empty, and there was no one within earshot. He lowered his voice and said, "It's the Batman. He was the victim of the . . . disturbance."

"What?" she asked, dumbfounded.

"I think he'll be alright," he lied. Gordon hated to upset his wife anymore than he had to.

"How did you—you took him to a hospital?"

"We really didn't have any other choice," Gordon mumbled into the phone.

"They're going to skin you alive," she hissed. "You could lose your job, James." Gordon winced. She only used "James" when she was exceptionally angry. "And where would we be then? God, think of what you've done! There's money for that thing's head!"

"That thing saved our family," Gordon reminded her as gently as he could manage.

"After he likely put us in danger in the first place!" she shot back instantaneously. Her voice lowered and she sounded exhausted and overwhelmed and she said, "You've already sacrificed so much for this job. We never see you anymore, you're working nonstop, I hardly ever know where you are. How could you possibly put everything on the line and ruin that, after we've all given up so much for it?"

What Gordon wanted to say was, Because he puts everything on the line for Gotham and asks nothing in return. Because we owe him our lives. Because there would be nothing to give up in the first place, had he not saved it.

Instead he said softly, "Believe me, this entire situation is being contained."

"Are you so sure?" she asked lowly.

He pursed his lips. No, he wasn't. And she made a valid point: if he should be discovered secretly hiding and releasing the wounded Batman, he would lose his position as Commissioner and have absolutely no fallback job with enough income to support his family.

Before he could finish thinking and reply, Barbara cut him off. "Call the station. Make something up, I don't even care what. Just fix this before you put our children in danger again."

He kept the phone up to his ear until he heard a dialtone, and even then he remained still, absorbing her words. He loved his wife and children more than anything in the world. His own father had never been around for him, and he'd decided from a young age that he would grow up and be the man his father never had been. In every way he tried to be involved in their lives, attending little Barbara's karate tournaments or Jimmy's orchestra concerts whenever he could. Barbara may accuse him of not being there for them, but if he'd had a choice he would never miss an event as long as he lived.

But what Barbara needed to understand was that this was so much more than their compact little family. It was the whole of Gotham at stake, thousands of other families like their own, most of whom were not as well off as they were. It wasn't a question of whether or not he could be there for his family. It was a question of whether or not he was selfish enough to turn his back on the rest of Gotham for them.

He sighed. Now his coffee was cold, a pointless notion because he knew he wasn't going to drink it anyway. He moved his cell phone from his ear and speed-dialed the station, racing to create an excuse for his mysterious absence as he listened to it ring.

When they'd arrived, Lucius Fox had told them to wait in a room on the fourth floor. He'd seemed surprised at Rachel's presence but did not let it rattle him and thankfully made no objection. If anything, he set into motion faster, pulling them away from the window that peered into the operating room.

But Rachel had still seen. Bruce's ashen, lifeless face. The shock of blood that made it impossible to see the source of it. Rachel had seen plenty of gore in her line of work, but how odd that it was someone she knew, someone she loved. It had never been someone she loved before.

Alfred was more composed than she was. It was an almost dream-like feeling—he led her back to the stairs, a firm hand on her shoulder, directing her to where she needed to go. She made no effort to think for herself and let him lead her down. She was too stunned to protest and too shaken to think for herself. The last time she had been so absolutely reliant on another human being she'd been . . . well, with Ramirez in that building, just before she'd almost been blown to pieces.

She took a seat across from Alfred, too dazed for a moment to speak.

"He was shot," she said throatily. Her voice didn't seem like it belonged to her.

Alfred nodded solemnly.

"But he's still alive."

Another nod. Rachel sensed Alfred didn't much feel like speaking, but she had to ask, "What's going to happen to him?"

Instantly she felt foolish. It was an immature, irrational question to ask. But she meant it in so many different ways. How were they going to hide the screaming, conspicuous, fear-inducing icon that was Batman in a hospital that had already proven its vulnerability to the Joker? How was Bruce ever going to live through this and be the same as he was? And even if by some miracle he did fully recover, how would she know he was still Bruce? How would she know if she loved him?

Would he be as stubborn and thoughtless as ever and continue playing Batman if he made it through this?

The thoughts were all too unbearable. If he . . . died—well, then of course the whole world would know who he was. The infamous Bruce Wayne and the infamous Batman couldn't hide from the limelight, even in death. In a way she wanted them to know. All the men who'd ever muttered about Bruce not living up to the standards of his parents, all those hardly-hushed comments about his character that Bruce pretended not to hear—Rachel knew it gnawed at him because she could see him flinch even if no one else could. How she would relish spitting that in their faces. Bruce was more than Thomas Wayne could ever be.

But that satisfaction would be entirely empty and worthless if Bruce weren't there.

Alfred never answered the question. He didn't have an answer to give. Rachel supposed there was a first time for everything, wasn't there?

Instead the old man said after a few minutes, "He's terrified of bats."

Rachel snorted without meaning to. What an odd thing to say. "Bruce has always had a backward way about him," she acknowledged, her face reddening in embarrassment at her reaction.

"I don't think you ever realized how much you meant to him. Even when you two were little . . ." Alfred was looking at the ground, lost in the thought. Rachel felt her throat constrict. "Sometimes he would barely utter a word for days, and you'd come over and he'd light up and become a different person. He's different around you, you know. The way he was before."

"He's not a little boy anymore," Rachel said, her tone regretful. "I doubt he feels the same way now."

"In all due respect, Miss Dawes, I think differently on the matter."

She sighed deeply, her breath hitching with pent up emotion. "When you're little you just assume you've got forever. But we grew up and everything changed." She smiled ruefully. "I became mortal and Bruce became invincible."

"Well," Alfred said gruffly. "Not quite."

The door opened softly and Rachel looked up to see Commissioner Gordon. Her eyes widened upon recognizing him, but she immediately shrank back, remembering she was supposed to be dead. Too late she averted her gaze, trying to pretend not to know him.

Gordon wasn't a fool. "Rachel Dawes?"

She hesitated. "Yes."

Dumbstruck, he managed, "I don't understand. You're dead."

"It's a long story."

"I'll bet." He sank into a chair and laughed lowly. "This night . . ." he muttered exhaustedly. "Oh, God, this night."

Rachel nodded her agreement and something unusual caught her eye—her wet, bare feet. Her shoes . . . she'd left them outside the manor when she'd run to her car. She was completely barefoot.

"Oh, God, this night," she echoed, laughing her own empty laugh.