Right. Well. Okay, I know it's been just shy of a year. However, in this year I started a new job, started college, developed a few health problems (one of which required surgery, the other resulted in my being prescribed an albuterol inhaler with spacer), plus all the regular joys of everyday life. So this wasn't just me being lame; I think I broke my brain. On the other hand, will it make people feel better if I mention that my GPA was 3.73?

Small detail- I haven't seen Justice League for a couple of years. I moved in April '03 to a place where I couldn't get Cartoon Network and then to a place that had no cable at all. So I guess this is even more AU than it had been. Basically, if it wasn't in Batman Beyond or ROTJ, it ain't in here.

A number of people commented on the breakup. This isn't going to change. He's also not going to start dating Max, Melanie, or the candystriper who keep sneaking him rocky road fudge. All this means is that another high-school relationship didn't survive the maturing of the two involved. Very few do. I can count the ones I've seen that did on the fingers of one foot, and those were pretty stable. I don't think Terry and Dana were stable enough to last, and I think I took the nice way out. They're still friends, they will continue to hang out together, and they may even escort each other if one of them needs a date for something. And maybe someday down the road they may get back together, but not during the course of this story. This is simply where they need to be at this moment.

Also, Inque's actions have been questioned. Don't worry, she's still a thief, murderer, and saboteur. She's just a bit taken aback after discovering one of her favorite targets wasn't even legal drinking age. She'll probably avoid working in Gotham for a few years, but she is not going to reform. Right now she's just feeling sorry for Terry because of all she's observed in the past few weeks, not to mention the unconscious feeling that Batman lying in a hospital bed and unable to walk is just wrong. And you'll notice that she did what she did when she thought there was nobody around to see her. You'd think someone with her background would remember security cameras, though.

Individual response time-

Rebecca- 1) Nothing in the show said how long Terry and Dana have known each other. I just grabbed a random number out of the air.

2) The whole McGinnis family thing is to give people something to concentrate on other than waiting for Terry to finish recuperating. Also, because I looked at Terry and his father, saw absolutely no resemblence, and got a plot bunny.

3) Dana's family? They only showed her father and never said anything about any other family, so I took liberties. As for her father's actions, let's just say that any man who would knock around a kid half his size is someone whose personality is not going to impress me. Granted, he's not really as controlling as Dana thinks he is, but where Terry's concerned he's a jerk.

4) Well, there was that scene in Terry's bedroom with Terry and Melanie making out on Terry's bed just as the camera faded out. g

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Bruce stood at the door, suddenly wondering if he really wanted to do this. There were better ways of spending a Sunday afternoon than confronting his protege's mother about a situation which really wasn't any of his business anyway. On the other hand, the situation was hurting Terry, so it had to be fixed. If the way to do that involved delving into Terry's past, then that's what Bruce would do.

Even if I would rather be facing off against, well, almost any of my old enemies.

He rang the doorbell. Mary opened it, still looking rather pale. He knew she hadn't been back to the hospital since yesterday; she was afraid that Terry wouldn't want to see her after hearing what he'd remembered. He couldn't blame her for that, knowing what his own reaction had been when he'd listened to Terry's quiet, stumbling recitation of what he remembered from his dream. Terry had admitted that some of the details hadn't survived his waking from the dream, but the boy had recalled enough to set Bruce's blood boiling.

"I guess I know why you wanted to talk to me. He doesn't want to see me, does he?" Mary sounded resigned.

Giving up without a fight again. Well, not this time

"Actually, that has little to do with why I wanted to talk," Bruce said, "but since you mention it, yes, he does."

Mary gaped.

"He does?"

"He said, and I quote, 'We both get mad and said stupid things. Not the end of the world. Besides, she always spends at least a week apologising when she does.' And then he was very pleased with himself for remembering that. But as I said, that's not why I'm here."

Mary looked confused, but let him in anyway. The inevitable time-wasting details of settling down for a long and probably painful discussion were dealt with as quickly as possible, and finally Bruce turned to Mary and bluntly asked the question he'd been obsessing over for two days.

"Who is Terry's father?"

"His name was William Phelan, but we always called him Liam. How did you- oh. Her. Do I even want to know what she said?"

"Probably not. At first I dismissed her claim, but then I found a few discrepancies when I investigated."

Mary lifted an eyebrow at that.

"Let me guess- you expected to need the information to keep her away from Terry."

"Exactly." Bruce glared into his tea, knowing he couldn't affor to frighten or antagonize Mary just yet. "Why didn't you tell him?"

Mary sighed, her shoulders slumping in defeat. After a few seconds of fidgetting with her teacup, she arose and went to her desk. She found what she was looking for fairly quickly and returned to her seat, handing the photo to Bruce.

It wasn't some cliched fantastic resemblance, but Bruce couldn't deny that there were certain similarities between the man in the picture and Terry. Their hair was the same glossy blue-black, although Liam's was curly. Their facial features were similar, although Terry's were a bit more rounded. What really clinched it, though, were the distinctive ice-blue eyes and the smile. Those were unmistakably Terry's- or more accurately, Terry's eyes and smile were identical to his father's. But the man in the picture couldn't have been much more than twenty-five when it was taken.

"Where is he?"

Mary sighed again, still not looking at Bruce.

"There wasn't even enough left to bury."

Hm. I should have thought of that.

"What happened," he asked, gentling his voice.

"It was one of those horrible cliched romances from the start," Mary said with a sad laugh. "I was just eighteen, a junior at MIT, doing lights for a production of Iolanthe, and he and Warren were both in the cast. I saw him and dropped a stack of gels all over the place. He helped me pick them up and sort them, and then asked me if I'd like to get a coffee with him after rehearsal. It only got sappier from there. We were inseparable, and more often than not Warren was helping us out. There was some talk, you see- as I said, I was just eighteen and Liam was twenty-four. But my family liked him, and so did my friends, so we didn't care. We took things slowly, or at least it seemed that way to us. But he proposed on my nineteenth birthday, and I said yes. I probably don't need to tell you what happened next, but two months later I slipped on some wet grass and broke my ankle. In a roundabout way, that's how I found out I was pregnant."

"Emergency room?"

"Exactly. I told Liam as soon as I found out, and he was stunned, but started making plans immediately. Oh, we knew we weren't ready and that it wouldn't be easy, but it never occurred to us to do anything else. We decided to move the wedding date up considerably, which sent my mother into a tizzy." Mary laughed again, this time merrily. "Mom's an Irish bartender in South Boston and as tough as they come, but when it came to her baby girl getting married, oh, lord, she was the epitome of the mother of the bride! Well, except that she adored Liam. Then, with two weeks before the wedding, Liam got a phone call. His aunt had just died of cancer. He told me he loved me and got the next flight to Dublin. He never got there."

Bruce stayed silent as Mary struggled with tears. He'd come up with any number of reasons for Mary's silence, some of which he wished he hadn't, but a tragic romance had never even crossed his mind. It should have, he knew; he'd seen the effects of them far too many times, not to mention having experienced them for himself. How could he blame Mary for keeping silent on a subject he himself would never discuss?

"His- his plane- an explosion- something about the fuel tank- it was just a stupid accident, but it killed over two hundred people. And it almost killed me."

Bruce looked up sharply at that.

"Terry's slipping away when things are too much? That, he got from me. I was pretty much catatonic for a week after- and when I came out of it, I was a mess. For a while, I even considered ending the pregnancy, because I knew there was no way I could raise a child by myself. Then I realised that that was stupid- my family had already promised to help, and Warren was right there by my side the whole time. Even with my family's support, I couldn't have done it without him. I guess that's why I asked him to marry me."

"You asked him."

"He'd made it clear that he wanted to continue to be part of my life. Oh, we weren't in love- but we'd both loved Liam, and we'd gotten along from the start. He wanted so much to have a hand in raising Liam's child, and I needed someone I could rely on to be a father to my child. Oh, I knew my brothers would have helped, and a few of their friends had already offered to stand as father, but they had all these romantic fantasies about comforting the grieving widow who then fell madly in love and I'll spare you the rest. But at the time, romance was the last thing I wanted, and Warren wasn't offering any. He was being a friend, and I'm afraid I took advantage of that. Not deliberately, but I did. So we ran off and got married very quietly. It wasn't until graduation that I met his family. You can probably guess how that went."

"I'm guessing they weren't happy."

"The phrase 'scheming trollop' was used a few times. So was 'low-life Southie Irish trash', which she was stupid enough to use in front of my parents. While they were having a diplomatic discussion, Warren and I slipped away. Then we laughed ourselves sick. He'd warned me about them, and I'd said they couldn't possibly be that bad. For the life of me, I still don't understand how that pair managed to raise three wonderful human beings like Warren, Edward, and Trista. Well, there's a reason Warren and Trista stopped talking to them. Edward's too much the peacemaker, or he'd have done the same. Anyway, Warren had a job offer from Wayne-Powers, and I was attending grad school at GSU, so we moved to Gotham. Ed and Tris were more than happy to baby-sit, and their friends helped out, too. But there was always That Woman trying to make trouble. Calling Child Welfare every other month, hiring a lawyer to prove my marriage to Warren was invalid, calling Warren at work to tell him I was having an affair- he ended up asking them not to let any of her calls through. Guess who got the blame for that? Warren never asked them to our place, either, but that didn't keep her from showing up and expecting us to drop everything and bow to her."

Mary was on a roll now, pacing back and forth, hazel eyes flashing. Bruce much preferred an angry Mary to a submissive one, at least when the anger wasn't being directed at him. Besides, her blowing off steam meant he was getting more of an idea of what Brenda McGinnis was likely to pull in the future.

"And as Terry got older, she started focussing on him. I suspected she hit him when we couldn't see her, and- but I'm getting ahead of myself. I know she was always making absolutely poisonous remarks to him from the start, and went out of her way to make trouble for him at his schools. She ended up getting banned from Vreeland Elementary. You know, I really don't understand why that woman wasn't locked away years ago, unless it's because that smiling idiot she married kept bailing her out. Ever notice how some deserving people don't have grand pianos fall on their heads?"

"Frequently."

Mary didn't seem to have heard him; he wondered how long she'd bottled this up.

"I still think she was the one who destroyed his Science Fair project. Despite what she said, neither Warren nor I helped him with it, and it was brilliant. He left it at the fair in perfect condition, and when he came back the next day, it had been smashed. Nobody else's had even been touched, but Warren told me that I was just being paranoid. Well, maybe it was Charlie Bigelow- he'd been pretty mad that Terry had spent so much time on that project. But you know that scar of Terry's? The one he got falling out of a tree? I know for a fact that That Woman was directly responsible for it."

"What?" Now Bruce was on his feet, furious.

"Terry was at Ed's place while I was in the hospital giving birth to Matt. But his wife Cassie decided to go into labor at the same time and he panicked and called the wrong number. He thought he was calling Trista, he told us later, but he called Her instead. We found out later he dropped Terry on Trista's doorstep and took off. Well, Cassie was a month early, so his freaking out was understandable. Anyway, She was waiting and took him to her place and set him loose in her back yard while she fixed a room for him. She made special care to tell him about the wonderful climbing tree in the back corner. What she didn't mention was that it had been damaged in a big wind storm and was supposed to be taken down in a few days. Luckily, one of the neighbours was out in his own yard and saw the limb come down and Terry with it. They had to cut the limb away..."

She broke off, once again struggling for composure. Bruce had progressed from furious to enraged. Even if he allowed for a bit of exaggeration due to Mary's obvious hatred for the woman, there was no doubt that something had to be done. There was no doubt in his mind that That Woman's actions had been an exceptionally clumsy attempt at killing Terry.

"And when the paramedics came, she no doubt told them that she'd warned him about the tree," he growled.

"Oh, yes. But only Edward believed her- or rather, he thought she'd told him about the old climbing tree and Terry hadn't heard the part about its being dangerous. Mr. McGinnis didn't even believe her, but he claimed that it must have just slipped her mind. Warren and Trista made it very clear that she wasn't welcome at either of our houses, and even Edward was a bit cool to her for a while, but that wasn't the final straw. That came about a year later, when we finally caught her hitting Terry. Funny thing was, he shrugged it off like it was nothing and everybody else hit the ceiling. He just said he never expected anything else from her, so why should he care? It wasn't like she was anyone who mattered to him. God. Poor Warren. I never meant to put him in a position like that, but he ended up having to choose between us and his mother. He chose us, but having to do that ruined our marriage. You probably know what happened after that- the constant bickering that turned into fights, Terry turning to Charlie more and more as that rotten dreg tried to warp his mind, then Juvy, then Warren's murder- which I would like explained later. She was at the funeral, of course, and I nearly hit her for what she said to Terry. Then I let Edward talk me into that fiasco of a Christmas reunion because as much as hate the old harridan, she is Matt's grandmother, and, well..."

Bruce was silent for a moment.

"In other words, a dangerously unstable woman who has already tried to hurt Terry has fixated on him as the cause of her eldest son's death."

"Dangerously unstable? You think so too?"

"I thought so the moment I saw her in the hospital, and what you've just told me has me convinced. That Woman is a threat to Terry, and she will be stopped."

Mary gaped at him, then a familiar gleam appeared in her eyes.

"So what are we going to do about her?

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They couldn't have looked more respectable. Two elderly ladies, one in a twin-set and pearls and wearing sensible shoes, the other as elegant as a pure-bred cat, walking through one of Gotham's better neighbourhoods. They stopped outside the well-kept Victorian and checked their palm-top.

"You're sure about this, Ca-uh, Selina? I mean, broad daylight?"

"I hate taking the easy way."

"They aren't home."

Harley and Selina turned to find a middle-aged man glowering at them.

"You friends of theirs?"

"Hell, no! -Uh, I mean, no, we're just- um-"

Selina shook her head; she should have left Harley behind. But the man had stopped glowering the moment Harley had started yammering, so maybe it wasn't so bad.

"So if you aren't friends, what do you want with that lot?"

Wonderful, nosy neighbours. Just what we needed.

"We have a mutual acquaintance who wishes to be kept apprised of her movements," she told him. The man looked at her, still suspicious.

"You don't look like any parole officer I've ever heard of."

Harley and Selina both gaped at him.

"Parole officer?" they chorused.

"If she doesn't have one, she ought to, the murderous old-" he cut himself off, glaring toward the McGinnis' backyard. The two women looked in that direction but didn't see anything.

"Tried to kill her own grandson. I was recovering from a broken leg at the time, so I couldn't get to him when the branch he was on broke. It was damn near the size of a tree on its own, and the poor kid got tangled in it as it fell. Broken branch went right into his gut. I called 911 the second it happened and tried to get to him, but the whole backyard's fenced off as you can see, and I couldn't get over the fence. Paramedics ended up busting part of it down to get at him. She didn't so much as poke her head out the door until the ambulance was here. A cop ripped into her, but she claimed she been at the front of the house and hadn't heard a thing. Hell, the whole damn block heard the kid's screams. I still hear 'em in my nightmares sometimes. And I can't say's I've noticed any hearing loss at any other time. But the cop bought it- or was bought. In this town, you never can tell. I keep hoping she'll get hers someday, and that I'll be there to watch."

Selina and Harley exchanged a quick glance and an evil grin.

"That," Selina purred, "could be arranged..."

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Dick Grayson sighed as he put away his ID. Whatever reason they'd had for tightening security around the kid, it had to be bad news. He just wished he'd taken the time to catch up on local events before dropping in on the kid. He'd been out of touch for a good two weeks, and any number of things could have gone wrong in the interim. Still, he felt strangely obligated to check up on Newbie any time he was in town, so here he was.

Entering the room, he noticed that a lot of the machinery was gone. That was a good sign. And he seemed to be sleeping more lightly.

Maybe he'll wake up soon. God, I hope so.

He started to sit, only to jump back to his feet as the "comatose" boy spoke groggily.

"If this is more physical therapy, I'm going to start throwing things."

"You're awake!"

A crystal blue eye opened.

"No. I'm not." Groggy had given way to cranky.

"I mean, you're... awake!"

The other eye opened, and Terry looked at him dubiously.

"Yeah, you mentioned that already. Believe me, it was not my plan for the moment. I know the physical therapy is necessary, but that doesn't make it suck any less."

"But you're awake!"

"Okay, having driven that point firmly into the ground, let's just say that I'm... not asleep. We clear on that?"

Dick sat shakily. He was starting to realise he was making an ass of himself in front of the Newbie, which was something he wanted to avoid at all costs.

"Why didn't anyone tell me?" He knew it wasn't a fair question and that he was whining, but he was never at his best after he was startled. Then he noticed the kid was getting a slightly panicky look in his eyes.

"Um, are you someone who- ah, crap, this sucks."

"Well, we've never met face to face, but you've probably heard of me. I'm Dick Grayson." He was surprised at how much Terry's look of utter incomprehension hurt. Hadn't anyone told this kid about me? I know Bruce isn't Mr. Information, but Babs and Tim should at least- "I used to be Bruce Wayne's ward."

The kid brightened up considerably. Dick worried a bit about Bruce letting someone whose feelings were that transparent carry a secret like Batman.

"So you aren't- well, that's different. Mr. Wayne's not here right now, but if you can stick around long enough, he'll be in eventually. Stops in every day."

Dick felt a bit better. It was a good snow job; if he didn't know better, he'd swear the kid didn't know a thing about the other part of Bruce's life. Newbie was a good actor, even under these conditions. Still, there was one thing he had to know.

"So, New-uh, Terry, did, uh, any of them ever tell you about me? At all?"

Terry snorted.

"Boy, are you asking the wrong person. For all I know, Mr. Wayne could have greeted me every day with, 'you're late, and by the way, I had a ward named Dick Grayson' and I still wouldn't have recognised your name."

He was starting to feel like his stomach was on a rollercoaster, because it sank again.

"Please tell me you don't have amnesia."

"Okay," Terry said with a grin, "I don't have amnesia."

"You're lying, aren't you."

"Like a cheap rug."

"Ah, crap."

"That about sums it up."

Dick looked over at Terry, and the two of them started to laugh. Suddenly, Dick felt like less of an idiot, although he couldn't say why. All he knew for sure was that he was going to like the Newbie.

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To be continued. No, really.