Nia groaned as she pulled her self out of her silver Kia, feeling the weight of the leftover pizza she chowed down for breakfast.

"Uh-oh," Kaylee said as her boss walked in. "Looks like a 'left over bloat'." She commented. "Did Kaya enjoy the break from lard-substitute health food?"

Rolling her eyes, Nia sucked in her gut. "More than I would like." Nia admitted.

"I told you, that girl is starved on that crazy tofu diet you have her on." Kaylee said on a sigh, exaggerating the poor girl's plight.

"We are not on a tofu diet!" To prove her point, Nia snapped, "Shepherd's pie is far from tofu."

Ducking the swat aimed at her head, Kaylee just laughed as the offended woman turned on her heel and strode down the hallway. "Oh wait!" She shouted. "Mr. Wayne called! And it was him, not some secretary."

Nia paused in the doorway leading to the back room and turned back to her almost incompetent technician. "What did he say?"

"He left a name of a rehabber just outside the city limits. Apparently Wayne already contacted them, and asks for you to call if there is anything else he can do."

Nia was impressed. She knew he was one for charities, but those were big events. Helping out the local veterinarian seemed too simple of a task to even register on the billionaire's radar, let alone for him to make the call personally. "Was there anything else? Did he leave a number?"

"No," Kailey said. "But his secretary did. I wrote it down and left it on your desk."

"Ok, that works. Can you do me a favor and check the P.O. Box when you get the chance?"

Nodding, Kailey replied "Yeah no problem. Expecting anything special?"

Sighing, Nia shook her head. "Nah, just bills. What else?" Turning on her heal once again, the vet left the other woman so she could get ready to start her work day.

Three hours later, Nia was painfully aware that she needed a bigger staff than her and Kailey. She'd tentatively put an ad in the paper, but unfortunately got no hits off it. Not any good ones anyway. Got a couple druggies whose hands shook so bad they couldn't hold a needle, not that she would let them. Maybe she should put out a new ad, maybe even put a hiring sign in the window. Couldn't hurt, could it?

It wasn't until they caught a break between appointments and minor emergencies, that the two women were allowed a moment to breathe, never mind a moment for Kailey to give Nia the day's mail. It was late afternoon, and too short a period to have so many patients in Nia's opinion. This city had a higher amount of car related injuries than she was used to. Before she moved to Gotham, she would only get a couple of accidents each year, but now she's had four in the last three days. Of course, before she moved to Gotham she was living in a rural farm town where the most exciting emergencies were birthing complications.

Nia was taking a well deserved break when Kailey handed her a stack of envelopes, having already placed the magazines out in the waiting room.

"Thanks." She said to the tired girl and began to flip through the envelopes. Bills, bills, fancy envelope, bills, equipment advertising, and bills. Pausing, she rifled back through the mail. Fancy envelope? From Wayne Enterprises? Frowning, she opened it up being cautious to not tear the expensive parchment on the inside. The card was think and heavy and embossed with gold lettering. The fanciful scroll of the lettering almost made the words too difficult to read. Almost.

To say the least, Nia was surprised. She stared at the card in pure bafflement. It was an invitation to a charity event. One being held by Wayne, for one of the city groups. She wasn't sure which, hadn't been involved enough to know. She shook her head; she couldn't afford to go even if she wanted to. Nia was one of two employees and the only one with a DVM. So if there was an emergency, she was the only one professionally trained to handle it. And if she closed the clinic for the day? Bad idea. She gets emergencies on most days and Nia White did not want to be responsible for a dead family pet. It happens anyways, but not if she could help it.

So the charity was a no-go, but there's sure to be plenty of other, wealthier, people attending. Surely one busy vet won't make any difference.

"Dr. White," Kailey called from the hall, "We have another patient."

This patient was deemed a minor emergency, though. The poor puppy had gotten into a wasp nest and had a nasty sting on its nose, and possibly elsewhere. When she finished ruffling through the fur and spreading the toes of the pup, Nia had found only one other sting, a minor one this time. Very minor.

In no time, the puppy was back on the road to joy and its owner carried him out with a container of topical medication for the stings.

Turning to Kailey, Nia asked "You said the number Wayne gave is on my desk?"

"Yes, sir, the animal is a premature fawn. His mother was hit by a car and I was forced to do an emergency caesarian when the doe's heart failed." She listened and answered a few more questions. Several hours had passed since the morning's minor emergency and the tired veterinarian was finally getting around to calling the number left by Mr. Wayne.

Pulling out a pen and paper, Nia wrote down directions to the ranch. "Alright, well I'll be by tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow. I want to get this fawn to you as soon as possible." Laughing, Nia began nodding despite the fact the person she was speaking to could not see her. Realizing this, she said "Yes, yes that is how it is. Look, it's only a minor trouble, well worth getting this little guy to someone who can take care of him." She sighed. "I'm afraid my schedule doesn't allow me to be a surrogate mom, especially not here in the city. A shame really." She nodded again. "Yes, he's been on goat's milk and has had little trouble since the delivery."

Kailey appeared in the doorway, coat and purse in hand, and waved. Nia held her hand out to indicate the younger woman should wait.

"Yes." Nia said. "Ok. Sounds great. Alright, bye-bye."

"You need me for something?" Kailey asked as Nia placed the phone in its cradle.

Pulling out the invitation, Nia nodded. "That was the man Mr. Wayne found for us. I'll be taking to doe to him tomorrow, so I was wondering, would you mind watching Kaya for a couple of hours?"

Kailey grinned. "Me and the munchkin? Throw in take-out and you have yourself a deal."

Nia smiled, relieved. "Done."

After that, Kailey left Nia got up to check in on Kaya. The girl was curled up on a cot in the back room; set up for overnight stays with critical care animals.

"Hey, sweetie." She said softly as she sat down on the cot by her daughter's small body. "Wakey, wakey, girly-girl."

Turning over, Kaya rubbed the sleep from her eyes. "Time to go?"

"Yeah, baby girl. Time to go."

In little time, the pair were out of the clinic and on the way to the small apartment that served as their home. The poor girl fell asleep on the way home too, and Nia carried her in to the girl's room. After Kaya was sufficiently tucked in, her mother went out into the main room pulled out her Bible, settled herself on the end of the sofa, and opened the book to read of Elijah.

Wena rushed from literally one end of the ER to the other, nurses around her heading for the same place as her. The current source of chaos in the typically busy section of the hospital was a gentleman who had just collapsed in the men's room, ending up sprawled in the doorway. They way he fell meant he would have to be lifted before he could be moved to a back board or stretcher.

Kneeling beside him, she could see that the man was still conscious, but incoherent.

"Sir," she said. "Sir, I need you to look at me." Not waiting for him to comply, she pulled out a pen light. After checking that his eyes were dilating correctly, she tried to communicate with him. She had little success. As she did so, she began palpating his abdominal region, checking for any potential internal bleeding. His abdominals were rock hard, but beyond that she felt no swelling or distention anywhere.

"Alright," she told the nursing staff around her. "We are going to have to move him out of the doorway before anything more can be done. Nurse Calridge I want you to handle his feet. I'll get his torso and Maria? Support his head."

There had been a day past that her directions would have caused confusion and protest on both nurses part. The man they lifted was a large black man, possibly an athlete due to the lack of body fat, and although Calridge was not as large as the man on the floor, he wasn't small in stature. Clearly, he should have been the one to lift the gentleman's torso, not the smaller Hispanic woman. Yet, the trio acted as they would while performing a normal routine.

With care, the gentleman was lifted up and placed on a stretcher before being rushed out of the waiting room.

Close to 2 a.m. Dr. Verde was forced into a coffee break by Calridge. Grumbling, Wena grudgingly went outside to settle on one of the more private benches. She sipped her coffee slowly, savoring the bitter flavor and praying the caffeine will provide a boost for the next few hours.

The early September air was relaxing and in an effort to ease the tension in her shoulders, Wena reached up a hand to rub the back of her neck and shoulders. She sighed and closed her eyes. She heard a grunt and opened her eyes.

And screamed.

There was a man on the ground in front of her, having just been deposited there by Batman. Who was standing behind him. And looking intimidating as… Hell.

Wena spent barely a moment on Batman before getting up to kneel before the injured man.

"What happened?" She tersely asked.

"Ran in front of a car," Came the gruff response.

"'Ran', not 'pushed'? Damn, he's just a kid." When she looked up Batman was gone.

In reality, Batman was on a nearby roof, watching as she called for other nurses. He watched as the young man was hauled up on a stretcher and taken inside. His injuries didn't seem too severe, but as a precaution Batman brought the young man to the hospital. No more deaths need to be pinned on the caped crusader, especially not ones that were avoidable.

What had that kid been thinking, anyways? The boy had walked into the alley where a drug deal had previously been set to happen, until one very large flying rodent stepped in and was still in the midst of settling. The young man panicked, took off out of the alley and ran into the middle of the street. Was he just afraid? The blind panic that appeared to have gripped the young man was a kind generally only seen in criminals, but lately, lately that panic had been present in almost all the individuals he came across.

Fear had always been a part of his disguise, a part of Batman's symbols. Fear put into criminals but a something stronger than them, something willing to step out and stop them.

But now, ever since Dent's public funeral even the innocent ones have blindly ran.

To say the least, this has become highly annoying. At least two people have now run from him into worse situations.

One was a woman who came out to the roof he had currently been interrogating a criminal on. She had shrieked and in her fear forgotten that a stairwell was behind her. Fortunately, she only fell half a flight before she was up and running again, screaming for all she was worth.

The second had been this young man, this kid who couldn't have been any older than a teenager.

It was a grim sound, the one his body had made when the taxi hit him and he bounced off. Traffic had never been too good on the main streets of the Narrows, and tonight had been no exception. The young man was lucky. Hopefully. If his minor external injuries gave any indication.

Later that night, when Bruce told Alfred about the boy, the butler gave a very delicate snort.

"What did you expect, Master Wayne?" He asked. "The Batman isn't exactly a gentle character."

Bruce shook his head. "I don't revel in their fear, Alfred."

"I'm not saying you do. You are not like Scarecrow, who helped incite terror in the city for his own greed, his own enjoyment, and perverse curiosity." The older man looked directly at his charge's face. "No, you, Batman, use that fear to convince criminals the life of crime isn't the one they want. I'm saying that you shouldn't expect for only criminals to be afraid of you. Or do you regret sacrificing your alter ego's good name?" His sarcasm was light, but still present.

"I don't regret it, no. I just don't like the results of it. Either way, it's better than the alternative." Bruce stood up to leave, to head upstairs when Alfred spoke again.

"Don't forget, Master Wayne, that Harvey Dent sullied his name all on his own. Through his own choices." Alfred emphasized the last part, trying to will the younger man to accept his words. It didn't work.

"That doesn't change anything. It was still my fault."