A/N) I haven't updated this story in a year or so - sad, I know. But I have had at least five more chapters in serious need of major editing written down for a really looong time.

I'll just get those out this week just to get them off my conscious.

Enjoy?

Part Three

Chapter one.

Barbara was in a living coma

She felt like she wasn't in contact with her own body, someone else was controlling it and seeing things through it. She was currently slouched into the sofa as Alfred poured her some nerve calming tea. The elderly man gave her a small comforting smile which she couldn't return and went back into the kitchen.

After that ninja kid Green Arrow had dragged in, spat out that information, everybody blew up. Tim started cursing loudly and pacing like a mad man, Annie and Zatana had tried desperately to calm him down, Dick had all but fainted, Alfred actually turned a surprised face at them, and Jason, still in handcuffs, had literally burst into a maniacal laughing fit . . . nobody got why.

Barbara just lost function of all her brain. Unable to speak. Ollie threw a fit and smashed the com Batman was trying to talk through on the floor, let out a curse and bolted out the door.

Now it was eerily calm. Annie was shivering as she and Zatana helped clean up the last bit of glass off the wet floor. Jason was pinned to the wall after his laughing fit by Dick, he made no move to escape. Dick looked like he'd been stabbed as he tried to mop up the floor, as if that would make up for all his stupid mistakes.

Tim . . . Timmy had run to his room.

The new addition. . . Barbara noticed him out of the corner of her eye, he was walking around in an unruffled manner, observing paintings and old vases like a museum curator.

He seemed fine enough.

Barbara sipped the too hot tea and ignored the burning on her tongue. At least she knew she wasn't dead and she could feel pain, even if she hadn't responded to it.

This is were the story should end in a book. She thought blandly, her mental functions coming back, this is supposed to be the end, we aren't supposed to go on . . . because . . . how does one go on with life after all of this? In a book, Characters just end when their story ends, no need to move on and figure out details, lose the magic they've built with others, no need to live on and change . . . but this . . . this wasn't a story.

Was it?

"Tt, this is ridiculous. I command you to call my Father and inform him that he needs to return so that we can meet properly." The ninja kid bit Babs out of her delirious state.

She blinked. Once. Twice. The kid just stared at her with a face that said 'I expect to be obeyed.'

Hell no. I have way too much to swallow to deal with this. She stood up, her head buzzing, she couldn't handle this, not one bit. Sure, she could handle mad criminals trying to kill her, nearly burning to death in bombed buildings, heck getting lost in space was even easier to chew. But This . . . all of this!

"I need to go Alfred." She said, unaware her voice was quaking, "I -I might not come back, " She resisted the word 'ever', "T-today or this week." She cast a small glance towards the blithering idiot she knew, or thought she knew, as Dick Grayson in the corner looking at her guiltily.

"Understood. I will deal with this myself. Good night my Dear."

"Sorry." She whispered, through unsuspected tears and practically ran out of the manor into the pouring rain and chilling winter dark.

Maybe she really shouldn't go back . . . ever again.

But she had to go somewhere . . . she couldn't go home. A cold shiver ran down her spine. No, she needed somebody to talk to. To bear her aching soul to, and she knew just who that somebody was.

The hard knocking surprised him.

Wally yawned and stood up out of his warm bed, stumbling through his dark apartment. Who the heck's here at such a freaking late hour? He muttered incoherent sentences under his breath and reached the front door.

"Yah?" A yawn split his head, "Can I help-"

"Wally."

His eyes widened, "Babs? What're you doin-"

She shoved past him, grabbed his arm and slammed the door shut before bursting into tears on his shoulder.

To say he was stunned awake would be an understatement, "Barbara, what happened?"

"I- you won't believe how much-" She sobbed, unable to continue.

The young man decided there was way more here than was normal.

"It's ok Babs. We'll talk, it'll be ok." He whispered soothingly, patting the shaking red heads back, little did he know what story she had to reveal to him . . .

Tim stared at the ceiling, left over tears forgotten as he tried to make sense of the nonsensical patterns of the popcorn spray that littered his ceiling.

The dots where in no order, but yet, if you squinted hard enough or tilted your head certain ways you could almost always make some sort of picture.

That was how his life was. Days littered it. None of them fit together to the immediate observer, but if you looked, really looked, they all connected somehow to make a picture, a big, twisted, warped picture of something.

But that was the problem. Tim knew it made a picture, but he just didn't know what that picture was.

He remembered when his parents died. How Dick found him in that state, lost and scared and sad. Dick had been in a needy phase back then. He needed someone to fill up Jason's place. So he swooped up the first broken kid he found. Tim figured he was lucky it was him.

Batman accepted him true, Tim figured he was in a needy phase too. But then both started realizing that no matter how hard they tried . . . Tim just wasn't Jason. He couldn't fill in that hole the previous Robin had left behind.

The previous Robin.

Tim bit his lip, tears started stinging again.

He had died. That broke this family. Timmy was swept up to fix it. He couldn't. The fact still remained that Jason Todd was dead . . . but now he wasn't.

When Dick had found that out, he'd left. The family broke even more. Then Batman left. Tim wasn't enough to hold either of them down. The family continued to crumble. Tim couldn't hold his small part up. He felt used, useless, especially now that that guy was Alive! Now nobody would ever need him again. He had been a miserly excuse for a filler.

Jason was back now. The way Dick and Batman had flipped out and away proved how much of a dust speck Tim really was. They never wanted him.

They just thought he could dim the hurt. Now he was the one hurting.

He admired them all so much it hurt. Jason though, that boy was a legend in this house. Tim both hero worshiped him and despised him.

Hero worshiped because he had been an amazing Robin.

Despised . . . because whatever affection Dick and Bruce had built up for him . . . he took with him to his grave.

Leaving Tim with nothing, except a shadow to try to live up to.

Which he couldn't.

"I can't live up to that." He whispered to the dark ,"I won't." His heart hurt as he sat up, his misty blue eyes looked towards his door.

Somebody was yelling.

But nobody cares about me . . . he muttered to himself.

He decided he didn't need to know what that noise was.

Curses invaded his space. He grit his teeth and stomped towards the door. Carefully pulling it open he walked towards the grand stairs, now the voices came loud and clear.

"I said No!"

Dick glared at the younger boy as they argued, "Come ON Jay! Did you not see the reaction! If you leave now I'll have no choice but to treat you like a criminal. Please, take this chance!"

Jason's face looked murderous, "Oh. I get another chance huh? How noble of you to bestow that upon me your graciousness! Fuck off!" He shoved the dark haired hero out of the way, biting down the temptation to murder him.

"Jason! Stop. Come ON!" Dick was at the end of his rope. He'd left everything behind for this kid, Babs was never going to speak to him again, Tim probably hated his traitorous guts, nobody would ever look at him the same . . . plus Batman had a freaking biological son!

God. He knew he deserved ten times worse, he knew he'd broken a lot of things when he left. But hell will freeze over if he was gonna let this little jerk just walk away after all that mess.

"I said no. Leave me alone. My business is mine and only mine. You stay out of it." Jason seethed as he headed for the door, "Besides Dickie," He taunted looking at the 'golden Robins' distraught face, "You know I still have to get the monster who's responsible for ruining my life. Just be happy I haven't shot you yet, ok. Tata." He yanked the door open just as a blast of lightning streaked the sky.

Dick felt desperation choke him. He raised what looked like a gun and shot it at his undead brother.

Jason yelped, and yanked the dart out, turning to glare at the older male, "You - son of a . . ." He swayed and fell with a resounding thud on the hard wood floor.

"Dick!" Zatana gasped in shock as the older boy lifted the now unconscious one over his shoulder, he gave her a grim look.

"Not this time Zee. He's not walking out on me. Not after all of this." He shifted Jason's weight and headed for the cave.

The others, excluding the ninja kid, watched him walk away in shock and a little fear.

"Oh Dick . . . you've really messed up." The magician looked near tears.

Dick heard her.

I know. Boy, do I know.

". . . So. That's it." Wally's eyes had gone large and nearly pupil-less.

Babs had spilled out her entire night. She couldn't handle the years of stress piled with that much all together. She felt considerably lighter now as she drank the coco the red headed young man had so kindly made for her.

"Yah. That's it." She sighed dejectedly.

Wally looked emotionless.

She bit her lip. Maybe that was too much to spill out in one night. She suddenly was worried she'd blown up his brain.

"Wally?"

"I . . . am processing this. Dick's back. Jason's the killer we've been chasing. Batman has a freakin' biological son! What. The. Hell."

"Yep."

It sounded a lot more believable oddly enough now that she'd heard it out loud from someone else. But maybe the shock and hurt was wearing off.

"Babs . . . I - seriously. Now what?" He looked at her blankly.

"I have no idea." A wave of pure exhaustion slammed over her, "I'm exhausted in so many ways. Can I-"

"Yah. Here." He lifted her up mechanically and zipped to his room. He set her on the bed. And headed out the door. His movements like a lifeless robot.

Barbara suddenly felt guilty for smashing all that on him. He was as effected by Dick leaving as she was and then all of the other stuff - she forgot her train of thought as darkness surrounded her.

The next instant the little apartment was filled with Babs's quiet snoring and Wally's soft whimpers.

I'll probably update whatever I have in the next few days.