A/N: Thank you for the reviews! And thank you to AngelQueen for the beta. And for those of you complaining it was all Sarah, this chapter is in Nick's POV. Enjoy.

Chapter Six—Life: Interrupted.

Someday Nick was going to get permanent retina damage. No matter how many dozens of times a day he had his photo taken, the massively bright flashes of cameras never failed to make his eyes sting, whether it was the paparazzi or hysterical teenage girls wanting a photo with the hottest bachelor in America.

He knew Dad and Sarah saw their life as celebrities as a necessary charade at best, but Nick had never tried to hide it—he enjoyed it. It was great to get fast-tracked to the front of lines for clubs, get free tickets to movie premieres and the unlimited use of the Wayne Enterprises private jet. Yeah, he could fly himself, and yeah he had the invisible jet and Javelins, but it was hard to join the mile-high club in one of those. One of the reasons he and Michaela had gotten together in the first place, he suspected, was because it was an ambition for both of them to do it in the Javelin. And if wasn't one of her ambitions, then she'd certainly gone along with it with…enthusiasm.

But he liked the life. He liked the girls and he liked the special treatment and the parties and everything else. It wasn't his whole world, and of course if push came to shove he would chose Prometheus, but still—it was fun. And Nick was twenty-two—he saw no reason why he shouldn't have fun. Only he was sure Sarah could give him one or two reasons not to…or a dozen…

Never mind.

The girl behind the camera looked at the image she'd just taken, then grimaced. "Aw, the colour's all wrong!"

"It's alright," Nick grinned easily. "You can take another one."

"Ohmigod you are just the best!" she gushed, before reaching out and collaring a passer-by. "Hey, can you take a picture of us?" She shoved the camera into his hand without waiting for an answer, and then wrapped her arm tightly around Nick. Which then descended for a quick squeeze—one part of the star-life he wasn't so keen on—once the photo was taken.

As she went squealing off to tell all to her friends who-were-just-not-gonna-believe-this, Nick's cell rang. Caller ID said it was Sarah.

"Hey. What's up?"

"H-hey. Um, where are you?"

Her voice was shaking. Why was her voice shaking? "I'm in the city—are you alright? Is it," he lowered his voice, "is it your wound? D'you think you're getting an infection or something? Is it still bleeding?"

"I'm fine, Nicky, it- it- I've found something. You really need to come home. I can't tell Mom and Daddy, it- It doesn't even make sense, it's impossible, I–"

"Okay, Sarah, calm down," Nick said quickly, seriously worried now. He'd never heard his sister so upset before, or at least not in sixteen years. She wasn't even making sense now. "I'm on my way home—you in the Cave?"

"Yeah. Nicky, hurry."

"I will."

He'd come into the city in one of his father's Lambourghinis, thankfully, so it wouldn't take him long to tear home. He managed to keep to the speed-limit until the outskirts of Gotham—after Sarah's stunt with her bike, Nick didn't dare get caught speeding; Dad might just lose it—and after that the roads were pretty quiet. Nick put his foot down, and going at speeds that, if he crashed and was an ordinary human, would certainly have killed him, managed to get to the Manor in less than twenty minutes. Neither parent seemed to be in when he got there, so he flew up the stairs and into the library without fear of his mother's disapproval.

When he entered the darkness of the Cave, it took him a moment to find Sarah. Eventually he spotted the brightness of her blonde hair. She was sat in the computer chair, but a good fifteen feet from the computer, curled up in it, her chin on her knees.

"Sarah, what is it? What's wrong?"

She pointed at what was onscreen. "That."

He crossed to it and looked at the result. It didn't seem all that unusual to him—DNA match to both his parents. "So this is you or me? Why the hell's that got you so freaked out?"

She shook her head. "It's not you or me," she said quietly. "It's Terry."

"What?"

"I put Terry's DNA into the database, and it ran the normal checks. The results matched him with Mom and Dad. I cross-checked it three times with other programmes, and they all gave out the same result. Somehow…and I have no idea how…Terry is their son. Our brother."

"That's impossible," he said flatly.

"Science doesn't lie, Nicky. Half his DNA comes from Mom, half from Daddy."

"But–"

"Yeah."

"That can't-"

"No."

They both stared at the result for a very long time. Nick's mind raced—not at the speed of Sarah's, he suspected, but it raced nonetheless. There were too many questions. First possibility: their parents had accidentally conceived Terry and given him up for adoption. Second: they had somehow…forgotten about Terry's birth. Third: there was some other insane answer.

He looked at Sarah. "What do you think?"

"I don't know what to think," she said, shaking her head. "Except that we need to tell Mom and Dad. Only they could have an explanation, if there is one."

"I agree." Nick reached for his cell phone again, but then stopped. "Sarah…what if they don't know anything about this? They wanted another child so much, you know how…"

"Yeah," she said softly, her eyes suspiciously bright. "I remember, Nicky."

"We'll just have to make sure Mom's sitting down before we tell her. And that Dad's pacemaker's working properly. Maybe both of them are restrained."

She didn't even crack a smile, but then Nick hadn't expected her to. It wasn't a joke. Opening the cell that Sarah had custom-built for him for their last birthday, he dialed Wayne Enterprises and got through to his father's private line.

"Wayne."

"Dad, it's me."

"You're not at Police HQ are you? Because, so help me, if you are–"

"No. Sarah and I are both fine, Dad, but you need to come home. As soon as you can."

His father's voice sharpened. "Why? What's happened?"

"Nothing's happened. We've found something, that's all. Something you and Mom need to see."

A brief pause. "Alright, I'm on my way."

"Thanks, Dad."

Sarah was at the computer, sending a typed message to Diana, on monitor duty on the Watchtower. She waited for a reply and then turned to her brother. "She's on her way home. Daddy?"

"Yeah, he's coming too."

By unspoken mutual consent, they both turned to sit at the computer again, staring silently at the screen. "Theories?" Nick asked.

Sarah nodded. "A few."

"Like…?"

"Magic is one possible explanation."

Sarah's voice held none of the contempt for magic and the gods that their father's so often did—Nick might be the one with his mother's powers, but Sarah was the one who shared every other aspect of Diana. She was equally devout in her faith and allegiance to the gods as their mother was, and the two women often worshipped together, observed festivals and holy days as well. Sarah might not have been blessed by the gods—and Nick wasn't entirely convinced that they hadn't bestowed some less-obvious gifts on her—but Hera, Persephone (Sarah's namesake), Aphrodite, Artemis and Hestia were never left out of her prayers. Athena, especially, was her favourite—and obviously her most benevolent patron. Sometimes Nick was sure his sister was actually channelling the goddess of wisdom and war. Her intelligence certainly could not be doubted, and he'd never met a tactical genius to equal her. If she thought they had something to do with the impossibility of Terry, then she would equally think they had a good reason for it.

"And if it's not magic?" Nick asked.

"Science. And the list of people with the resources to do it isn't long."

"Who's on the list?"

She shook her head. "Wait till Daddy gets home."

Their parents arrived a few minutes apart, with Diana touching down in her jet, landing alongside the batwing. She got out looking worried. "What is it, what's happened? Are you both alright?"

Sarah had switched the computer screen off as the invisible jet had come into the Cave, and she got up to greet her mother with a reassuring hug, which Nick repeated. "We're both fine, Mom, I told you. We just found something…"

"Highly unusual," Nick completed.

"Exactly."

"What is it?"

"Daddy's not back yet."

Even as she spoke, they all heard the clock entrance open, and the steps of Bruce coming down the stairs. He moved fairly quickly, obviously unnerved by the tone of his son's voice over the phone. He arrived in the Cave and looked at his wife. "You don't know what this is about either, Princess?"

"Not a clue." She turned to the twins. "Well? Now that your father and I are both here–"

"You should sit down."

Sarah nodded in agreement. "Yeah."

Now looking more than a little concerned, Bruce and Diana sat. Sarah moved over to the computer. "I put Terry's blood into the database this morning, and the computer ran the usual tests and cross-references."

"It found something," Bruce said.

She nodded. Nick said, "We really hope you two have an explanation for this." Then he switched the screen back on and stepped back.

Both Bruce and Diana were exceptionally intelligent people, and Nick wouldn't have been surprised if his father hadn't already suspected it, so it didn't take long for them to grasp what the computer insisted was the truth.

Diana's mouth fell open, and she was the one to speak first. "Athena's mercy…how is that possible?"

"We don't know."

They all looked at Bruce, whose eyes glittered darkly. "You suspected," Diana said in a low voice.

"Not this," he shook his head, "but something. He picked up the techniques Sarah's been training him in remarkably quickly; quicker than she did, despite the fact I started training her at a younger age. And in his face there are certain physical resemblances between him and us. He doesn't look like Mary McGinnis, or Warren. I haven't pursued it any further than idle speculation."

They all nodded, knowing this would have come to light sooner or later. With Bruce, 'idle speculation' didn't stay idle for long.

"And there can be no mistake?" the princess pressed. "Terry is our… Our son?"

Sarah nodded. "Yes. All of his genetic material comes from the two of you."

Another silence, before Nick spoke. "So...the question is, do we tell him, or not?"

"No."

"Of course."

Both mother and daughter regarded each other in surprise. Sarah spoke first. "Mom, we can't. We can't risk it. There's no point in causing unnecessary trauma; Terry's lived his entire life without this knowledge, and things could deteriorate rapidly if he knows."

Diana remained unconvinced. "They could also get so much better! Sarah, we could be a family, a true family–"

"We're already a family," her daughter pointed out. "We have our family; Terry has his." She paused, wondering how to phrase it. "...I understand why you want to, but–"

"No, Sarah, you don't understand," her mother said flatly. "You don't. You have no idea how hard your father and I tried to have another baby after we got married. You have no idea how heartbreaking it was to fail, again and again. To know that you'll never–" She cut off, turned away with a hand over her mouth.

Bruce pulled her into his arms, rubbing her back softly and whispering words of comfort quietly. Sarah watched, hating that she'd made her mother so upset, but refusing to back down. Her eyes met her father's, and she knew he agreed with her.

Her mind drifted unwillingly back. Seven years old, about ten months since Mom and Daddy's marriage. She knew Daddy was thinking of the same thing.

Sixteen Years Before

Bruce methodically went through his work while on Monitor duty. Since the expansion of the League, he hardly ever had to take part in it—given the fact that he usually made up the schedules, he could conveniently leave himself off it—but today he had actually agreed to take Wally's shift so that the he could accompany young Iris and Isabelle on a check-up and ice cream afterwards.

Not that Wally actually admitted to ice cream after their check-up. Bruce just took that as a given. Wally was the type to bribe his kids with sweets so that they'd behave when the situation called for it.

Bruce didn't like to admit it, but he was actually grateful to get out of the Manor, if only for a few hours. Diana's despair hung over the house like a cloud that just refused to disappear. Nick seemed to be going through a stage of wanting to make as much noise as possible, and Sarah was spending all of her time on either her laptop or the Bat computer, apparently indifferent to her mother's misery. Bruce had tried encrypting the Bat computer to keep her off of it—there were many files on there he hardly wanted his seven-year-old daughter to see, no matter how intelligent she was—but either she was breaking them each time or she had blackmailed Dick or Tim into giving her access. Bruce was leaning toward the latter, if only for the sake of his own ego.

The doors to the monitor womb slid open. Bruce did not turn around, but instead studied the reflection to determine who had entered the room. Even that simple exercise added to Batman's image of having eyes in the back of his head. He smirked inwardly. Doing this never failed to freak Wally out.

In this case, it was Vic Sage, who was actually supposed to relieve Bruce at the end of his shift.

"You're early," he commented.

"With good reason," the other man replied, his tone distinctly snappish. Bruce raised an eyebrow.

He watched Vic lean over and tap a few of the controls, quickly disabling the security cameras in the room. Bruce turned in the chair to face him. "What's this about, Question?"

Vic stepped back a pace, and Bruce took him in. The man wore his usual faceless mask and trenchcoat, but there was something in his manner that fairly screamed 'frazzled.' Unusual for a man thought to be as unflappable as Bruce himself.

"Your kid," Vic stated, "has kept me up for the past six hours trying to keep my files protected."

Sarah, Bruce thought immediately. What on Earth was she doing?

"She's a decent hacker," the conspiracy theorist continued, unabated, "I'll give her that, but she's not perfect at it. I detected her break-in and have been backing up and reinforcing my files ever since. She wouldn't stop! I finally got her onto instant messaging and demanded to know what the hell she was doing. She wanted to see if I'd found anything in the old Cadmus files that might help two people have a baby, of all things."

Bruce felt like he'd been sucker-punched.

"I was hardly going to tell a seven-year-old what I found in those files. Some of them sickened even me." Vic pointed at him, his finger tapping lightly on his Kevlar. "I'm warning you, Wayne. Tell that demon you call a little girl to stay out of my files, or I'll screw her laptop up so badly she won't be able to play Pacman on it!"

Bruce nodded numbly, but didn't say anything more. He couldn't. This was what Sarah had been doing? She didn't not care about how upset her mother was; she was trying to help in the only way she knew how—using technology to do it.

The sudden urge to hold his daughter was overwhelming, swiftly followed by the urge to tell his wife that they had the most incredible children in the world.

When Bruce transported back to the Cave, he wasn't surprised to find Sarah scooted up close to the Bat computer, a pillow beneath her so she could more easily reach the keyboard. He watched her, and then flicked his eyes up to the screen. He recognized the instant messaging window. The screen names—WonderBat#1 and ? ? ? ?—made his lips twitch.

Sarah looked up when he approached. "Daddy," she wailed, "Uncle Vic says he's going to destroy my laptop! Make him stop!"

"Just tell him what happened when your last laptop was broken," Bruce told her, a little amused.

She stared at him innocently. "I had nothing to do with what happened to Goody Goody Kent's bear," she replied. "I already said–"

"Uh huh," he cut her off. Leaning over her, he typed, Q, stop threatening her. The situation is being dealt with. Goodbye.

Not waiting for an answer, Bruce tapped a few controls, powering the computer down to stand-by. "Come, Sarah," he ordered, holding a hand out to her, "we need to have a talk with Mommy and Nick." In retrospect, his son's recent unusual behavior was beginning to make sense as well.

Sarah didn't hesitate to take his hand and hop out of the chair, but she eyed him curiously. "What's going on, Daddy?" she asked. "Am I in trouble for sneaking into Uncle Vic's files?"

He squeezed her hand and smiled. "No, Sarah, you're not in trouble. I just realised something today, that's all."

"What?"

"Wait till we tell your mother."

Her mouth twisted, and he knew she wanted to ask more, but didn't. He felt another surge of pride in her. An insatiable appetite for knowledge, tempered by patience. Definitely a good combination.

They got up to the Manor, and as soon as the clock slid back it was easy to hear where both Nick and Diana were – in the drawing room. Diana was yelling at her son. "...extremely old, Nicholas, it was planted more than a century before you were born! What in Tartarus were you playing at?"

Nicky's reply was inaudible; Diana's reaction to it wasn't. "You were bored?" she shrieked. "Would you smash one of your father's cars if you bored?"

Sarah smirked up at her dad as he winced, then pushed open the door. "What's happened?" Bruce asked.

"Your son decided the uprooting the willow would be a good idea, because he was bored," Diana said furiously.

Bruce nodded seriously, and let go of Sarah's hand, taking his wife's instead. She frowned at him in puzzlement, but sat on the couch next to him.

"Kids, come here," he said.

The twins exchanged a look, but did so. Nicky looked totally abashed, but also strangely defiant. Sarah reached out and took his hand. Bruce looked at his daughter. "Sarah, why were you trying to hack into Question's files?"

She shrugged. "Because I wanted to try and help you and Mommy have a baby. I thought Uncle Vic's files might have some information that you could use, 'cause you and Uncle Vic's both like to know everything, but I thought there might be a part of everything that he'd discovered that you hadn't yet."

At his side, Diana's face was shocked. "Sarah..." she began.

Bruce shook his head slightly, indicating he wasn't done yet. "And Nick – why have you been acting up so much lately? The tree today?"

Nick looked at Sarah. She bit her lip, but nodded. Nick took a deep breath. "I was trying to make lots of mess and lots of noise," he finally said.

Diana rolled her eyes. "Yes, Nicholas, we got that much. Why were you trying to cause so much disruption? Especially when you know how hard Alfred works to keep the house tidy–"

"I didn't do it to make things harder for Alfred!" he replied, looking horrified at the very idea. Even Sarah appeared scandalised at such a suggestion.

"Then why did you do it?" Bruce asked calmly.

Nick shrugged. Sarah squeezed his hand. "It's okay, Nicky," she said quietly. "Tell them."

He took a deep breath. "Well that's what kids do, isn't it? Make lots of noise, and mess and stuff... I thought if I did, then maybe–"

"Maybe Mom and I wouldn't want another baby?" his father supplied.

Nick nodded.

"It's not like we don't want you to have a baby, Mommy," Sarah said. "But you're really sad all the time. And me and Nicky...we don't like seeing you sad."

"Oh Hera," Diana whispered. "Children..."

"We're sorry, Mom, we just–"

"You're sorry?" Diana repeated. "Oh my little sun, there's nothing to be sorry for! Come here!"

Nick, not looking as though he understood at all, came forward, and was immediately engulfed in a hug by his weeping mother. He shot a slightly alarmed look at Sarah, who shrugged, looking to her father for answers. She came toward him and hoisted herself onto his lap. "Daddy? Why is Mommy still crying?" she whispered. "Is she still unhappy?"

"No, sweetie, I don't think she is."

It was quite clear that Diana was sad, though, and had been so for a long time. After a minute or two, Diana collected herself, though it was clear the rein she kept on her emotions was tenuous, and she kept hold of Bruce's hand. "Regardless of what I may feel," she said, "Terry deserves to know."

"I agree," Nick said.

"What are we hoping to achieve from this?" Sarah asked. "Terry has a family. He has his mom, and Matt, and he's happy. We're just going to tell him that none of that is real? Added to which, what about Matt? However this has happened, then it stands every chance that Matt is your child as well. He's eight years old, we can't screw with his life like that."

There was a silence, the two halves of the family at loggerheads. "We can't do anything for now," Bruce finally said. "Not before we know how this has happened."

"So how do you think this has happened?" Nick asked.

"Given that Mom and Dad would definitely remember having two more children, I can see only one possibility," Sarah said.

Her father confirmed it. "Cadmus technology."

A/N: Review please!