Disclaimers: See first chapter. And the title of this chapter is borrowed from a poem not written by me. The full line is "do not gently into this good night," by Dylan Thomas (or at least, his is the poem closest to the one I was thinking of).

Summary: Faith, hope, love. Dick's family will need all that and more to get themselves (and Dick) through this aftermath.

A/Note: We pick up the story a few hours before the dawn of the next day, with a little switch in POV... And, since this is my story, Donna wasn't killed by DC. :D

Thanks again to Char, for helping me wrestle these scenes into a semblance of order. Thanks also to Jenihenpen, Rob, Kirsten Z, annie, and of course everyone at the Blüdhaven group, who've helped make it so much easier to post.

CALL OF DUTY
High Noon

Part Six
Faith At Any Cost

We live by admiration, hope and love.
-William Wordsworth-

Your heart must ever cherish
Some faith at any cost.
Some hope, some dream to cling to,
Some rainbow in the sky,
Some melody to sing to,
Some service that is high.
-Harriet Du Autermont-

The quiet hospital room held no sign of movement, nothing an observer could quickly pick out as something that meant activity and thus life.

The windows were shut, the curtains pulled, allowing no air past their combined barriers to stir the darkened room beyond. There was no fan to swirl lazily overhead to provide some distraction from the monotony. The walls were typical of a hospital room, a mix between beige and taupe that was supposed to be soothing but just came off as nauseating if stared at too long. There wasn't even a print to break up and interfere with the stark...blankness of the walls. Not that anyone was spending much time staring at the walls; all attention was focused on the single hospital bed, and its single, unmoving, occupant.

Yet as much as there was no movement, there was still life in here, even if only in those silently watching without moving. Although there were apparently three chairs in the room, only one was occupied, the one pulled up alongside the bed, where its occupant was in easy reach of the patient's torso and hands. At this particular moment, however, the chair's occupant was too busy sleeping to reach out. Head resting on the bed on folded arms, resting on the prone arm of the patient, so soundly asleep that they made no move at all. Not even any REM movement of the eyes disturbed the room's stillness.

Nor, for that matter, did the room's other occupant make a move. He was standing, leaning against the wall opposite the bed, one arm folded across the chest and the other cupping his face as if thoughtful...or quietly despairing. Either emotion fitted the man at the moment. Thoughts and memories stirred through his head, of times past – far sweeter times – but mixed in with them were the sombre words of the doctors, their predications and diagnosis of the room's patient being anything but hopeful. 'Too long without air, too much trauma,' they'd said, 'too much for us to work with.' Even the family doctor, the only one who knew the most, had all but given up hope.

'It's just too close to call... I'm sorry, Bruce. It's up to him, now.'

For all this, however, Bruce Wayne might as well have been made of stone for all the movement he made. There was no indication of the turmoil that lay beneath the surface of the man, of the despairing emotions running through his soul. That, at least, he could control... Hell, it was the only thing he could control, and so he controlled his outward show of emotion fiercely and without letup, as if it was his lifeline to sanity and to reason...because it was.

In fact, the only real sign of life ironically came from the bed and its occupant...or rather, the machines hooked up to the sleeping patient. These, at least, made noise, even if it was artificial. The machine monitoring the heart beeped rhythmically, if monotonously, never changing in pitch or spacing. At least it was beeping. That was something. He had to believe that. The ventilator was much the same, humming and thrumming quite routinely and without letup, although it did sound more like an asthmatic dinosaur trying to be quiet than a life-saving machine. It kept the chest moving though, and that was all that mattered. The EEG machine for the brain was much quieter, though. The brain activity was down on par with the comatose and those for whom death was not far away.

The man tried not to think about that, about death being near, although the other option – comatose – wasn't much better. But at least with the idea of a coma, there was the hope, however dim, that his son would one day awaken...and death was so final. A lot more final. And there was no way that Bruce Wayne was going to let Dick Grayson die, no matter what all the doctors and even Leslie said. So he stood, waited, and watched for that small sign of life, the small twitch that meant his heart could start beating once more, that he could start living again. And still the machines beeped and huffed on into the night, unchanging and unceasing.

The machines never stopped, and his son never stirred.

The first change in the room came not long after dawn had come, shortly after the golden light of the sunrise had faded into the whiter light of the proper daytime.

That was when the door opened and another occupant came into the room, shutting the door as soon as they were through. "How is he?" inquired soft tones reminiscent of the English countryside, barely above a whisper for the sake of the one still sleeping in the chair by the bed. Thus was the entrance of Alfred Pennyworth, adopted father-grandfather and butler extraordinaire.

Bruce shrugged, his first movement in hours, but his eyes never left the bed. "The same," he replied in the same hushed tone, his voice even and not allowing out any hint of his tumbling thoughts.

"I see," the kindly butler sighed quietly, the only sign he showed that he, too, had hoped for an overnight miracle, that the doctors' prognosis and timeframe had been wrong. But it had only been that, a hope, not a reality. It looked like he had to deliver that message after all. Alfred cleared his throat slightly. "Doctor Thompkins wants to see you, Master Bruce," he added in the same, soft tones. "She has some...news you may want to hear."

"She can tell me here," the reply came, harder edged than before but just as quiet. Just as final, just as lethal. "I'm not leaving him."

"Master Bruce, please," Alfred remonstrated gently. "Let me watch him while you talk to her. I promise to call you the moment there's any sign," he avowed, his deepening accent confirming his sincerity.

Strangely, there was no argument.

"...Okay," Bruce replied softly, the only sign of his tiredness. Only an extremely weary Bruce would agree to leave, even if only for a few minutes and then only if he was leaving his son in Alfred's capable hands. And so he left, more than a little reluctantly, in search of his family doctor and a small scrap of hope...because that small scrap of hope was all he had left.

As soon as the door closed quietly behind his eldest charge, the English gentleman went over to the second chair in the room and settled himself down. It was surprisingly semi-comfortable for a hospital chair, but he paid it no heed. He, too, had his attention firmly on the bed's occupant.

The room was silent for well over a minute. Then the solitude that had settled over everyone was broken by a single word:

"Alfred?"

He started, surprised for one of the few times in his life – he could count such times on one hand and have digits left over – to hear a voice not his own. The brief spurt of hope that Dick had awoken died a quick death when he recognised the voice. It was definitely female, not male, and still husky with sleep. "Yes, my child?" he answered gently.

"Do you think he'll make it?" Barbara Gordon asked quietly, also needing someone to give her the courage to keep hoping, to keep trusting that the love of her life would return to them.

"Of course," he responded quickly, as if anything else were inconceivable – and perhaps it was. "Richard is not one to go quietly into the night." A pause, then he continued more firmly then before: "He'll come back to us, my dear Barbara. We just have to wait."

And wait they did, not in despair, but in trust, in hope.

The room's mood changed once more an hour later, long after the dawn, when the door opened to admit another visitor. This one was slight, smaller than the others, but quick, quiet and sure on his feet like few could dream of being, despite the gangly limbs of youth and puberty. It was Tim Drake, a part of their family in all ways but blood.

"There's been no change yet," Alfred quietly replied, before the inevitable question could be asked once the door was shut. The news was not good, but still Tim smiled in return. No news is good news. Yet. There was still hope. He would believe in that. He approached the bed with that in mind. It gave him courage to look upon his sleeping brother – he and Dick had needed no blood ties to know they were brothers. That was why Dick was only sleeping to Tim, not borderline comatose. His brother would never willingly abandon him, of that Tim was sure, let alone the rest of his family.

Besides, Dick certainly looked like he was only sleeping, his face all relaxed and innocent, untouched by life's worries and burdens. But that was an illusion Tim could maintain only if he ignored the machines, still blinking and beeping and humming away, if he didn't see the IV drip running carrying antibiotics directly into Dick's right hand. He'd also have to ignore the way the other hand was heavily splinted and encased in a fibreglass cast to keep it immobile, let alone the one-size-fits-all hospital garment that was far too big but somehow still too small to contain his brother.

Tim tore his gaze away, directing it instead towards the ever-vigilant girlfriend by his brother's side. "How you doing, Barbara?" he asked softly, not game to call her 'Babs'. That was Dick's nickname for her, not Tim's. No one needed that painful reminder right now.

She shrugged listlessly. "Okay, I guess," came her tired reply. Sleeping in a hospital was never a comfortable or refreshing affair. Her eyes had dark bags underneath and her clothes were as rumpled as her reddish-auburn hair. She'd dozed all night with half an ear cocked for any sign that Dick was waking up. She did indeed look far from her best...but most friends and family did when visiting loved ones in hospital.

"Do you want some coffee or something from the cafeteria?" he offered, knowing Barbara needed to keep her own fluids up. Coffee was hardly ideal, being a diuretic as well as containing caffeine, but it was technically still a fluid and at least heading in the right direction. If he could get coffee into her, he might also be able to get some juice or water in there as well, maybe even some sugar. She needed nourishment, just like he did – that was the only reason he'd choked down breakfast this morning, even though worry had kept him from tasting a single crumb of it.

"Sure," she replied just as tiredly as before, then cautioned, "but you'd better pick up a few napkins as well." The last three cups she'd had here had leaked all over the place. "Just make sure the coffee's strong," she added, almost as an afterthought, although that was one thing that was certain about cafeteria coffee: it was always going to be strong, but the taste was debatable and would probably end up as something of a mix between year-old gym socks and wet cardboard depending on how much sugar you dumped in.

Tim hid his relief at her acceptance; it was just the opening he'd hoped for. "Then you'd better come with me," he told her, injecting a small note of helplessness into his voice while sending a quick confirming glance towards the elderly gentleman silently watching them all, "cause you know I can't get your coffee the way you like it." Besides, if he got her to the cafeteria, he had more of a chance of getting something else into her as well. World's greatest hacker she may be, but she was still just as susceptible to impulse buying like every other female he knew.

Barbara, however, was not cooperating like he'd planned. She shrugged, her gaze never leaving the bed and the cast-free hand she continually stroked. "So? Almost any coffee will do right now, Tim."

"That's the point," he pressed gently. "This is cafeteria coffee from a Blüdhaven hospital. You'd better come with me to make sure it's digestible, let alone coffee."

She hesitated, hearing the truth in his words and also from spending far too much time in hospitals herself. If even the best hospitals in the world had cafeteria's serving coffee made from the bottom of a swill-bucket that could melt solid metal spoons, how much worse would it be in a Blüdhaven public hospital? But still... "I don't want to leave him..." she protested faintly, a faint waver in her voice.

"He won't be alone," Tim promised, seeing her hesitation and pressing his advantage. "Alfred's here already, and the Titan's said they'll be here in ten minutes. He won't be alone if he wakes up while we're gone."

Barbara finally nodded, reluctantly admitting that she wouldn't mind getting some air. Her stomach had been empty for hours anyway, and it needed something if she wanted the doctors to let her stay and keep her vigil. "Fine," she sighed and gave Dick's hand a final squeeze, then turned and abruptly fixed a hard glare on Tim, "but those ten minutes are all I'm giving you."

She and Tim left then, but not after more than one long glance at their unconscious friend, brother, and companion. Their thoughts were the same as they shut the door behind them:

Come back to us, Dick.

It was only once they were gone that Alfred left his perch in the room's second chair. He stood and walked over to the windows, pulling open the curtains, expertly adjusting the blinds to let in the ambient light but none of the sun's rays. Satisfied, he went to the bed and retrieved the chair that had been pushed aside to make way for Barbara's wheelchair. He put it down in the same place Barbara had had her chair and settled down to keep his own vigil.

Reaching over, the kindly old man took hold of Dick's undamaged hand and clasped it gently between his own hands, careful to avoid the IV line taped to its back. And then he began to talk softly, the start of a running monologue based not in despair or in hope, but in faith. "Come back to us soon, dear Richard. I fear I'm getting too old for this kind of waiting..."

Precisely ten minutes after they left, accurate right down to the second, Tim held open the door for Barbara as she wheeled herself inside the room. He went to enter the room behind her, but happened to look up just before he passed the door. That was when, by sheer coincidence, he got to see down into the waiting area. Turning back, he popped his head around the door Barbara had just gone through.

"Alfred?" he called softly.

"Yes, Master Tim?"

"The Titans are here. I'm gonna go and talk to them, okay?"

Alfred nodded and gave him his blessing, his attention never wavering far from the bed as Barbara silently joined him in their vigil.

Tim backed out of the room and quietly shut the door behind him, then quickly made his way down to the reception area in the waiting room. Four of the five core Titans were already at the reception desk, dressed casually but making a statement all the same. He got there just as Donna started to speak, the three boys – Garth, Roy, and Wally – waiting anxiously behind her.

"Hi, we'd like to see Dick Grayson. Can you tell us what room he's in please?"

"I'm sorry," the young nurse at the desk replied apologetically, "but we're only letting close friends and family in to see him at the moment." The name-tag on her white uniform was Jocelyn.

"It's okay," Tim spoke up from where he'd stopped a few metres away. "They're Dick's best friends, and they're pretty much our family anyway."

"Okay then," nurse Jocelyn replied, smiling at the teen. "Do you want me to take them to him, Timothy?"

He shook his head, returned a weary half-smile of his own. "Nah. I'm heading there already, but thanks anyway Jocelyn." Tim then turned his attention to the Titans. "Down this way, guys. It's not far."

Roy waited until they were out of earshot of the reception desk before sighing. "Man, how do you and Dick do that?"

Tim shot him a puzzled look. "Do what?"

"Pick up every good-lookin' chick in a five mile radius. It's gotta be the Bat-thing."

"Roy," Donna chided, blushing faintly. "This isn't the time or the place."

"Besides," Tim offered with another tired smile to cover his own embarrassment, "I didn't even notice."

"So who's in there with him now?" Garth broke into the banter with his naturally quiet voice.

"Alfred and Barbara," the reply quickly came. "Bruce is arguing with the doctors about his treatment." Tim didn't elaborate. He couldn't. He didn't believe it himself...not yet.

"Ouch," Roy winced, imagining the scene all too well, having been on the receiving end of one of Batman's dressing-downs far too many times himself. "They don't know what they got themselves into. Twenty says the docs'll lose."

"No bet there," replied Tim, inwardly cringing at how forced he sounded and could only hope it wasn't as obvious to the Titans as it was to him. Shaking his head slightly to clear his thoughts, he stopped outside the door to Dick's room but didn't offer to show them in just yet. "Before you see him, I'd better tell you what to expect," he warned, his voice dropping naturally into more serious tones. "He's unconscious, almost comatose, and as much as I hate to say it, that's probably the best place for him right now. Not only are his heart and brain wired for sound, but they also put him on a ventilator almost as soon as he got here because his lungs are too weak for him to breathe by himself, and you know what he thinks about that."

They all exchanged a knowing glance. If there was one thing Nightwing hated with a passion, it was being stuck on a ventilator, and not being able to speak had never restricted his ability to make his feelings on that matter clear. Put it this way: if anyone ever said that the eyes couldn't shout at you (in colourful languages, no less) obviously hadn't met Dick on a ventilator.

Donna rubbed her temples tiredly. It was a relief to finally hear that Dick was relatively okay – in their line of work, a still beating heart could classify as 'okay' – but it still shook her to hear how bad it was. Both as himself and as Nightwing, Dick had always seemed virtually invincible, so to hear how far he been taken down...she didn't know whether to laugh in her joy that he lived or to cry her grief for him to the heavens. She didn't even have to look at her fellow Titans to know that they were feeling the same conflicting emotions. Swallowing hard, she forced her voice to work past the lump in her throat. "What happened to him?" she asked softly, hoarsely.

"Did you see the news this morning?" Tim asked first, apparently changing the subject.

"Yeah, but what's that got to do with Dick?" Roy protested even as his stomach was sinking, afraid he already knew the answer to his question.

Tim just ignored him for the moment. "What about the segment on the man that yesterday opened fire on Blüdhaven citizens during the late lunch hour, putting a few civilians in the hospital?"

"Sure did," Wally replied proudly. He rarely watched the news, but he'd managed to sit down long enough to watch a record five minutes yesterday. "They said a young police officer took him down, but the taxi the gunman tried to escape in ended up flipping. The perp was taken into custody and then to the hospital, along with a few citizens he'd injured along the way. They said no one was seriously hurt before the officer chased the guy down..." He trailed off, the horrified realisation suddenly hitting him and hitting hard. "Don't tell me Dick...?"

Tim nodded wearily. "Yep. Yours truly was the officer...and one of the civilians," he indicated with a nod of his head towards the room beside them. "He was off-duty at the time. What the media didn't say is that the perp was vindictive with a capital 'V'. After Dick took the nutcase into custody, he somehow escaped his cuffs, knocked a few cops unconscious, pulled out a gun, and opened fire again."

"Great Hera," Donna exclaimed softly. "Was anyone hurt?"

"Yeah." Tim nodded again towards the hospital room, his expression tireder than ever. "He was aiming for Dick, so he was hurt the worst. In the leg and in the chest. They think they got the bullets out in surgery, but that isn't quite what's keeping him out. The anaesthetic would've worn off," he checked his watch, "about three hours ago." He rubbed at his tired face, really wishing there was an easier way to someone tell bad news. "While he was pursuing Diablo – that's the perp's name, by the way – he got hammered in the lungs...by an elbow and then by a bullet. Apparently two ribs pierced his left lung. Just after he got shot, he, um, stopped breathing when his lung collapsed, and they, uh, literally had to stick a tube in his chest to get him breathing again." Breathing deeply, he forced the last few words out: "And they kinda...um, lost him, for a while there."

Tim quickly turned away from them then to face the wall, unable to meet their shocked gazes. He ran his hand through his dishevelled hair and absently smoothed down his rumpled clothes, knowing he looked like hell – a night of pacing instead of sleeping will do that to you – and felt like hell too. Actually, more than anything else, he felt...kinda lost, and it showed.

For that matter, the Titans didn't look much better. None of them had slept well since receiving the terse phone call from Oracle late last night that Dick was in a critical condition in a hospital and that she'd get back to them when she had more details. When the phone call didn't come, they'd taken it upon themselves to visit Dick. They'd been waiting outside the Blüdhaven hospital, waiting for the doors to open, for hours – and just like with Tim, the stress was showing.

Finally Roy sighed and spoke into the silence: "Sounds like a pneumo."

"Say what?" That was from Wally.

"A pneumo, short for pneumothorax," explained Roy, drawing on his medical training as a government agent. "When a rib breaks, it can tear a hole in your lungs. When this happens, the inhaled air goes out through the hole in the lungs, and gets trapped between the rib-cage and the lungs. Given enough time, the pressure will flatten your lungs and your heart up against the other side of your ribcage. If you haven't stopped breathing by then, the heart failure will kill ya." He turned back to Robin and asked, "So how long did they lose him for?"

Tim shrugged. "I don't know. A few minutes, maybe less, maybe more; no one really told me a figure. All I know is that the doctors are arguing about how much damage there'll be, not whether there'll be any. They think that's why he's borderline comatose. So we won't know anything for certain until..." Tim's voice choked and he quickly turned to hide the betraying tears. He had to take a couple of deep breaths before he choke out: "That is, if he wakes up."

"Do they have a timeframe?" Garth asked softly.

Tim swallowed hard and brushed away the tears, forcing his face to at least appear composed before he turned to face them. He shrugged again and suddenly looked every one of his sixteen years...and more. "Sure. Anywhere from now till whenever, and all the way down to never. They're still favouring the 'never' bit." The boy looked down at the last word, a heavy sigh following from his lips as his hand once again raked through his hair.

Donna turned and looked pensively towards the shut door into his room, fear for the friend she loved as a brother flickering over her face before she managed to hide it. "So...now it's a waiting game..."

"Yeah. Now...we wait," Tim whispered hoarsely, closing his eyes and seeing the still form of his brother flashing before his eyes in a relentless onslaught.

After a few moments, he managed to push the images away enough to open the door and let the Titans file in to see Dick. He didn't follow them in himself. He'd talked to Dick for hours yesterday, and talking to the Titans just now had left him feeling emotionally raw. Talking about it had forced it to start hitting home how badly Dick had been hurt, and how much he already missed his brother. And it wasn't just Dick that he missed, it was the little things he did too. That cheeky smirk that promised entire worlds of mischief waiting to be unleashed, the million-watt smile that never failed to melt those on whom Dick bestowed it, and those god-awful puns of his that made you want to laugh and puke at the same time as you bashed some criminal's ears too...

Tim sighed and shook his head, rubbing his temples wearily. This was gaining him nothing beyond a headache. Maybe that nurse on reception – Jocelyn, wasn't it? – had something for his head. Yeah, that was it. He'd go talk to Jocelyn and see if she let him borrow a few aspirin and then a phone so he could plead in sick or something to Brentwood. Then he'd go looking for Bruce.

An hour later, Tim hadn't got much beyond the aspirin and phone-call and was still talking to Jocelyn, who was now off-duty. Actually, he was doing the talking, and she was listening to him. More to the point, she was just letting him talk, mostly about the man he considered his brother. The kind young nurse knew better than most that not only was it therapeutic for him, but it was also distracting...a distraction from his worry that she knew he craved.

The latest story was of the time Dick had helped him teach a long-suffering mutt some neat tricks a few years ago. He was careful to edit out the bits about picking up the mutt after a night out as Robin then a few adventures with the mutt in the cave, and all that kinda thing, but he couldn't help but include (and exaggerate a little) the bits about Alfred's reactions and a few of his and Dick's more unusual training adventures in the Manor. Then he was just getting up to the bit of how they'd finally dressed the mutt up (like a certain big-dark-and-you-know-who vigilante) and sprang the mutt on—

Bruce.

All words died in Tim's throat and the blood slowly drained from his face as he saw the man in question coming down the hallway. Bruce was back. And he was on the warpath. Somehow, he wasn't surprised to see the Titans hurriedly exit Dick's room as Bruce entered. He might be Robin, Batman's partner and so used to some of Bruce's more unusual "mood swings", but not even he would be game to face this Bruce. Sometimes discretion really was the better part of valour.

It was only a few seconds later that Alfred and Barbara emerged as well, and one look at their faces was enough to enough to make his heart clench in fear.

Barbara's face was solemn and forced into composure, as if the sheer strength of her will held back soul-deep pain, but that wasn't what made Tim feel like his heart had stopped beating. She'd pretty much looked like that ever since she'd arrived at the hospital. Rather, it was the glimpse of Alfred's eyes before the older man's outward mask dropped. And he knew...or thought he did. No...no. It can't be...

Without even being really aware of what he was doing, he was saying his goodbyes to Jocelyn and hurrying towards his surrogate family as they headed to one of the waiting rooms, hurrying to catch what Alfred was already starting to explain.

The young nurse smiled sadly and watched him go. It had been nice, while it lasted, to listen to such a handsome and caring young man talk about a family that obviously didn't need blood ties to love each other. A lot of people that came through the hospital doors never having had the chance to have what they had, and she envied all of them for it.

And she prayed that their love would be enough to hold this family together through what was to come. Because sometimes prayer was all she had to offer.

Numb. Lost. Alone.

No one here. No one. No one but me. And it's grey. Very grey. Not white. But it's cool. Safe. I can drift. There's no pain.

Pain is bad. Don't want pain. Empty is better. Much better. Safer. Quieter. Muted. No soft talking. No words I can't quite hear. Quieter...is better.

Don't. Don't want it. Just go away. Stop. Tell the voices to go away. Can't listen, don't wanna listen.

So don't. Forget it. Relax. Let it go. Be lost. Be numb. No pain. Better. Easier. Safer.

Blacker now...not grey. That bad? No. No worry... Let it be. Let it be . . .

So dark . . . . lonely . . . . . .

Once again, TBC...