A.N. I am so terribly sorry that it has been over a year since I last updated! I could go on and on with excuse after excuse, but I'll just let you read the new chapter instead.

Disclaimer: I do not own Batman, and that makes me sad.

Gordon watched from a distance as the solemn butler guided the little girl into her father's room at the hospital. He remembered when he first stumbled upon the dying Bruce Wayne.

While walking, he thought he had heard an all too familiar sound ring out: a gunshot. He tore away from Lucius Fox and raced towards the technicians, his own at the ready. As the finale of the fireworks lit the way, he saw a big bump on the path. As he got closer, he got a better look, and to his dismay, he saw that it was a person lying in blood. When he knelt down to check for a pulse, saw the face, and saw that it was the emotionless face of Bruce Wayne. Only twenty minutes ago he was playing with his adoptive child, and now he lay dying in a pool of his own lifeblood.

There was a weak pulse, but it was fading fast. He stripped off his jacket and pressed it against the wound, but it was quickly absorbing blood and the pool was still growing. Lucius had appeared a few minutes later and took over while he called for reinforcements and medical help. Both had tried to awaken him, tried to speak to him. But there was no response. The minutes crawled by, more blood, a weaker pulse.

As soon as the ambulance arrived and he was loaded up, they charged through the crowd of fear until they found the rest of the Gordons and the Butler holding the sleepy child. With the still fresh blood on both their hands and a frenzied look in their eyes, the others knew that something had happened when the child asked for her father and got no answer.

At the hospital, Bruce lay comatose for three days in the hospital, hooked up to an assortment of wires and tubes while guards were posted outside. Alfred had feared for the worst when he heard that his ward had been shot. After hearing that he was still alive (barely) and on the way to the hospital, he left immediately, for not all hope was lost. No one was permitted to see him for hours though, and by then, the sun was blinding as if mocking the night. There were mixed feelings about bringing Jillian to see her new daddy at death's door in the hospital.

How do you explain to a child that her father might not be there when she graduates or to walk her down the aisle when she gets married? Might not be there to teach her how to ride a bike. To tell her for the second time that her family is destroyed because of the city, because of Gotham? Alfred had none of these answers. Gordon did not either.

The entire time, Gordon kept seeing that dark alley years ago when he found the teary-eyed son of Thomas and Martha Wayne, clutching his father's coat. It kept replaying over in his mind, coming across the corpses resting in their own lifeblood and the trembling child. He felt that he had to make sure that it couldn't happen again.

Meanwhile, Lucius Fox wasn't faring any better, he was deeply worried about the new Wayne family. He visited once; he saw how Bruce Wayne's body lay lifeless still.

He was still on his way to technicians when he heard a shot ring out, just barely heard over the now going fireworks display. He watched the Commissioner split away from him in mere seconds and he was filled with a bad feeling. Something was wrong and he felt Commissioner Gordon would find whatever it was.

The Commissioner had found where the shot occurred, and Lucius felt ill as he approached. He was rather accustomed this sort of violence in Gotham, but to his horror he saw that it was his partner in business that had been shot. There was Bruce's head, turned slightly away from them, as if avoiding the cussing spilling from the Commissioner's mouth.

He knelt down next to the Commissioner and put pressure on the wound while Gordon called for back-up and to have the area instantly combed for the shooter.

Bruce Wayne was changing; with the need for Batman down, he had more time to devote to something. The company was doing well enough with Bruce no longer using meetings as nap time.

He did not want Jillian to turn out like her new father.

A.N. Short chapter? Well that is because I included the next one right away! I will have chapters six and seven up soon.