I posted an extra chapter on Thanksgiving, and it is the first part of a three chapter plotline, so if you haven't read that yet you'll need to do that to understand what happens in here. Anyway, hope you like it, please review!

The pain in her voice snapped Alex out of his daze, and he went into his doctor headspace, blocking out the novella playing out around him. "How long has he been like this?" he asked, grabbing the other arm and helping Mallory bring him to the exam room in the back.

"I don't know, maybe half an hour. He was already bad off when he called me."

They got him up on the table, and he gave her a once over. "Is all of that blood his?" he asked.

She looked down at her costume, drenched in the villain's blood, confusion on her face for a moment. "Yes…uh, no, some of it's mine."

He nodded, wanting to check her over too, but she was standing, and he needed to prioritize. He grabbed the bandage scissors off the counter and thrust them into her hand. "Here, get his clothes off, I need to see what I'm working with."

She nodded and started cutting his shirt off while he turned to the sink and ran the water, gathering what he would need while he waited for it to get hot. A general surgery pack, a scalpel blade, suture, fluids, lidocaine, he ran through the list in his head, laying everything out just the way he had a hundred times before. But he'd never operated on someone this far gone, and never alone. The clinic didn't keep a steady stock of anesthesia, they used it when they got some in, but they didn't do many surgeries, mostly superficial bullet extractions. If this man died…

He shook the thought away and went back to the sink, scrubbing up and grabbing his gown and gloves. When he turned back to Mallory and the patient, she had him stripped down to his boxers, and she had his hand in a death grip, staring down at his face.

"He's barely conscious," she said, not looking away from him. "I should have gotten him here sooner. He should have called me! The idiot, he should have called me, I would have been there. He didn't have to do this alone."

Alex narrowed his eyes, refusing to let her get into his head. "Hey!" he said firmly, interrupting her pending breakdown. She looked up finally, and he took the opportunity to take charge of the situation. "You asked for my help, and you're getting it, but I need you to calm down. I can't operate on him by myself, so you're going to need to get control of yourself, ok?" She took a breath, narrowed her eyes, and nodded once. "Ok, good. First, he's going to need a blood transfusion, do you know what his blood type is?" She froze for a second, then shook her head. Alex blew out a frustrated breath. "Of course not." He reached into the cabinet over the sink and pulled out a blood type tester.

"Will that tell you?" she asked anxiously.

He nodded once, swabbing some of the blood from the open wound and rubbing it on the circles of the test card. "All we have supplies of right now is AB, so we'd better pray that's what he is," he muttered, more to himself than her. The test would take ten minutes to run, and he didn't have that kind of time to spare, especially not with the hero looking like she was going to start panicking again any second. He looked at her. "I'm going to start cleaning the wounds, I need you to go wash your hands up to your elbows, get all of that blood off, put a gown on, there's one in the drawer in the corner, and come help me. Ok?"

She nodded again and started to follow his instructions, and he let out a relieved breath, grabbing the chlorhexidine scrubs and washing away the blood, starting with the hole in his stomach. The ice that had stayed some of the bleeding was mostly melted, and he could see that the bullet was lodged inside him just above his naval, though it wasn't as deep as he'd originally thought.

Mallory appeared at his side. "What do you need?" she asked.

"Here," he said, looking at the gashes on his head, arms, chest, and legs. "Use this, clean the cuts and bandage the smaller ones. Some of them are going to need stitches, just leave them, I'll get to them when I'm done with this."

"I can stitch them," she said easily, looking for the needle and suture and putting them where they would be handy. Alex stared at her, and she looked up and shrugged. "What? I've had practice."

He shook his head and opened his surgery pack, trying not to think about how little he knew about this person he once thought he was close to. They worked on Icicle Jr for over an hour, Alex on putting in an IV, getting the bullet out, and fixing the internal damage it had caused, and Mallory on treating the lesser wounds. Once he had the bullet hole closed, Alex took a breath and nodded, letting himself relax a little. He looked over the areas that Mallory had sutured and raised his eyebrows, impressed at the small, efficient line of subdermal stitching, and the neat little knots holding the top layer together. "You have had practice," he said. She shrugged, not offering specifics. "Here, help me turn him over, I want to look at his back, make sure nothing else needs attention."

She nodded and went to his legs, letting the doctor take the top half so he could make sure the fluid and monitor lines were all right. When they got to his back, Alex squinted slightly. There were only two new cuts, barely even worth attention, but the majority of his back, much like his chest, was marked with scar tissue. He looked at Mallory. "Did you know about this?" he asked.

She narrowed her eyes. "Just worry about the fresh ones," she said, her tone a clear warning not to ask too many questions.

He did as she said, cleaning the two cuts and taping gauze over them, but he couldn't help but wonder who, or what, she was protecting him from. He moved on to the back of his head, feeling the skull to rule out obvious fractures or swelling. His finger caught on a familiar, coarse material and he parted the hair around it, tilting his head at the small bald patch he found. "And…did you know about this one?" he asked.

Mallory peered over his shoulder, her eyebrows furrowing in question. "No," she said slowly, looking down at the small X that had been cut into the base of Jr's skull. "What…what would do that?"

Alex rubbed his gloved finger over the X again, knowing all too well what the cause was, but he couldn't figure out a reason. "It's a clean cut, likely a scalpel blade, and it was closed with skin glue," he explained.

"But…why? Why would someone cut someone there?" she asked.

The doctor shook his head. "I don't know, but it wasn't done by any amateur. I couldn't have gotten the skin to sit that smooth, and I've had three years of practice." He watched as she backed up a little, her face still confused as she tried to understand it. After a few seconds, Alex turned his patient back over and paled when he saw how out of it Jr was. He looked over the lines and cursed under his breath when he realized that he'd completely forgotten to give him the blood transfusion. Mallory raised her eyebrows, looking too scared to ask what had happened, and he just turned around and looked at the tester, still sitting on the counter, long since finished running. He cursed again, fear seeping into his chest. All of this couldn't be for nothing.

"What is it?" Mallory asked.

He took a breath. "He's type B, I can't use the blood we have on hand. What's your blood type? If it's a match, I can-"

She was shaking her head slowly. "I'm part alien, I don't think I can give him my blood," she said.

Alex tucked that piece of information into the back of his mind to ask when there wasn't a crisis on hand and winced, then started to pull out the tubes he needed. "I'm type O, but I can't hook him up to me by myself. Do you think you can do it if I talk you through it?"

She nodded, and he sat in a chair beside the table and pulled off his gown and gloves, wiping his arm with alcohol, and doing the same to Jr. "Put your finger above the vein and press down on it until it starts to pop. Ok, good. Now, put your thumb on the other side of it, sliding the catheter in until you...Good. Tape it down, and do the same to Jr." Blood had already started to flow into the tube, so Alex took it from her and held it up, the gravity stopping the flow until she could get the other catheter into Jr's arm.

She had them hooked up in minutes, and finally she was done. Alex times the transfusion to make sure he didn't lose too much, and he looked at Mallory, who was starting to look exhausted as the adrenaline began to wear off. When he did finally pull the tube and wrap some gauze around his and his patients' arms to stop the bleeding from pulling the catheters, he finally looked at the hero, motioning to the chair he'd been occupying. "Ok, now you," he said, shifting his priority now that the critical one was stable. Mallory looked confused for a moment, and he arched an eyebrow and nodded to her side.

"Oh," she said, as if she had actually forgotten about the torn flesh. "No, I'm fine, I'll just-"

"Sit," he ordered, grabbing the things he needed and pulling on a fresh pair of gloves. She sat on one of the chairs, and he rolled his little stool over and gave her a once over. "Is that the only thing?" he asked. She nodded and unzipped her costume without hesitation, leaving her in a sports bra as she slipped out of the arms so it would clear her stomach. He started to clean the wound, but he could feel her eyes on him as he did. Finally, she broke the silence.

"Well?"

"Well what?" he asked tiredly.

"What do you want to know?" she asked. "You have to have questions, and I meant it when I said I'd answer them."

Alex shook his head, keeping his eyes focused on his work. What did he want to know? Honestly, so much was becoming clear with this revelation, it felt like most of the pieces had already fallen into place. Still…

"Why did you come to me?"

She seemed surprised that that was his first question, but true to her word, she was ready with an answer. "I didn't have anywhere else to turn."

He nodded. That led him to his second question. "What the news has been saying about you, is it true?"

"No. Not really."

He raised an eyebrow slightly, starting to stitch up the gash. She didn't even flinch when the needle pierced her skin. "So, you didn't kill those men?"

"No, that one was a lie, just Luthor trying to stop me from being a hero before I really became one."

"So you're not a criminal? You're just a victim of some big conspiracy?" he asked.

She picked up on the sarcasm and anger lacing his tone, and her eyes narrowed a little. "I know you're angry right now, but there is more going on here than you know."

"So you're completely innocent? They made up the people they say you hospitalized? And you didn't just bring a supervillain to my door instead of to the police?"

She ducked her head. "It's…complicated," she said quietly.

He shook his head, finishing the last knot on her stitches and rolling away a little. "Sure. You know who else uses that excuse? People who are guilty. What am I supposed to do? What, do I just let you and Icicle Jr walk out that door when he wakes up? I could be arrested, lose my job, my license–"

"When?" Mallory repeated, looking at him with cautious hope.

He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck to get the tension out. "Yeah, he should make a full recovery. The bullet wasn't in deep, it must have gone through something else before it hit him, my guess would be ice. It lodged in his abdominal muscle, he'll be sore for a few weeks, but all his internal organs were untouched, just a little nick in a artery that I sealed up. As for the cuts and bruises, I would assume he was beaten up pretty bad before he managed to get out. He has a mild concussion, and then there's that incision on the back of his neck, but…"

"But he's going to be ok?" she repeated, searching his face for the truth. Alex nodded, and she blew out a breath, all of the tension going out of her shoulders. "Thank you," she murmured, then she focused on him and said louder, "thank you, Alex."

He shrugged. "I had to," he replied, trying to brush the gratitude off.

"No, you didn't," she said. "You didn't owe me anything, and now you could get in trouble over this."

He shrugged. "I'll be fine. No one's going to blame me for doing this when Inferno was standing over me the whole time." He shook his head. "I can't believe I went all those years, and I thought I knew you. I thought I could read you so well, but…the whole time, you had a whole other life you were living, and I had no idea."

She chanced a smile, her eyebrows raised as she tested the field. "Well, it is called a secret identity, you know."

He chuckled, shaking his head to himself. "All those times we talked about the League, you just sat there and listened to all my theories and opinions, and never let on…"

His voice drifted off, and she tilted her head. "What?" she asked.

"You did, once," he explained, remembering one conversation that they'd had where her reaction had been just a little different. It was when he'd told her that he thought Batman was a meta, and she'd found it just a little too funny. "You knew him, didn't you?" he asked.

"Who?"

"Batman."

Recognition came to her face, and her smile widened a little. "Yeah."

"And?"

She shrugged. "I guess you do owe me something."

"Ugh, no! There's no way he's just some normal guy in a bat suit. Come on, he has to have something. Super intellect? Strength? Agility? Reflexes?"

She shook her head, and he rolled his eyes and pulled his wallet out of his back pocket, pulling out a five. Mallory chuckled, shaking her head. "Keep it, I shouldn't have gone in on the bet in the first place, since I already knew the answer."

"All right, I'll take it as my payment for all this."

The smile fell off her face. "I'll pay you for everything," she promised.

He shook his head. "Don't worry about it. Services are free here, we've been getting a lot more donations lately, the Wayne foundation and Queen Consolidated started making donations a while back." She made a face, and he tilted his head. "You had something to do with that, didn't you?"

She shrugged. "I have a friend who's in touch with someone from the companies, I may have dropped a few hints after I saw you last year. It's good work you're doing, Alex. I wanted to find a way to help you keep doing it."

He stared at her for a long time, watching as she zipped her costume back on, rubbing at the dried blood on it and fingering the tear where the bullet had pierced it. Maybe she really wasn't so different from the person he'd thought she was. He'd always had a sense that he could trust her, even on the day they met. Why should he let all of that go now?

"Well, at least I finally have an answer to once thing," he said, standing and starting to clean up the room.

"Oh, yeah? And what's that?"

"Why you never wanted to go out with me in college," he replied.

She chuckled, rolling her eyes. "Yeah, I'm sure that's been tormenting you ever since," she said sarcastically.

He shrugged. "Well, not anymore."

Icicle Jr stirred on the table, and Mallory leapt to her feet, practically diving to his side. "Tana?" he murmured, his voice weak but steady.

"Yeah," she replied, earning a confused look from Alex. She didn't notice, all of her attention focused on the man on the table.

"I'll be right outside if you need something," Alex said, feeling awkward to stay for this.

Mallory looked up and nodded. "Thanks," she said, and somehow he knew she wasn't talking about him giving them the room.

"How do you feel?" Mallory asked, searching her ex's face for signs of pain.

He tried to sit up and winced slightly. "Sore," he complained, putting one hand to his stomach where the bullet hole had been. "But…alive."

She smiled, biting her tongue for a second to keep from letting the tears out, purely from relief. "Told you," she said, laughing softly.

He grinned. "Yes, you did. I should have believed you."

"Why did you do that?" she asked.

A flash of awareness went through his face, really it was almost fear. "How long was I out?" he asked.

She glanced at the clock on the wall. "Four hours, give or take a few minutes. Cam, what's wrong? Why are you here? You're supposed to be in Belle Reve. And why would you try to take on your dad and his entire gang without backup? You know better than that." He lifted his arm, scratching at the back of his neck, and Mallory narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "What's the incision on your neck?" she asked.

His eyes widened slightly, then went back to normal. "Nothing, just got in a little fight with my cell mate before I broke out, no big."

"You broke out?" she asked, not believing him for a second. "There's only one person who has ever managed to break out of Belle Reve, and it was in the middle of an attempted prison break. You should know, you were there."

He waved a hand dismissively. "Yeah, I was, and I've gotten to know that place pretty well."

She shook her head, not buying it. "You were home free, you would have been out in a few months. Why would you throw all that away and go on this suicide mission?"

He shook his head. "Don't worry so much, T. Hey, thanks for getting me out of there. And, you know, not taking my word for it that it was too late." He looked around the room. "Where are we, anyway?"

"A clinic."

"Oh? And who was the guy that just left?" he asked, raising his eyebrows suggestively.

She smiled, rolling her eyes. "A friend. He patched you up and dug this out." She handed him the bullet. "Let's make it the last one, ok?" He chuckled, then sobered, rolling it between his fingers thoughtfully. She sighed, knowing he was thinking about his father. "I'm sorry, Cam," she said quietly.

He shrugged. "About what?" he asked, his tone a little bitter. "I only spent my whole life doing everything he ever asked, taking all his punishments without a word, defending him to anyone who cared enough to try to get me away from him." She stayed quiet, letting him vent, but once the anger was out of his system, the devastation started to set in. His eyes filled with tears, and his body was too weak to fight them. "He was going to kill me," he muttered.

Mallory clenched her fist, hating Icicle Senior all the more for doing this to his son, and pulled him into a hug. "I know," she murmured, not really knowing what to say to ease the hurt at the revelation.

They stayed like that until the door opened and Alex came back in, his eyes darting between them for a second. "Hey, sorry, but the clinic opens in an hour, and the workers are going to start coming in soon to set up for the day. I don't mind doing all this, but I'd rather not have to explain it to my colleagues."

Cameron looked around. "Where are my clothes?"

"Oh, I had to cut them off," Mallory explained apologetically.

He groaned. "That was my favorite shirt," he complained.

She arched an eyebrow. "It was an old wife beater. I think it's a small price to pay to still be around to complain about it."

He glared at her, but it was so pitiful even Alex ended up chuckling. He went to a drawer and came back with some loose cotton drawstring pants. "Here, these should fit," he offered.

Icicle Jr raised an eyebrow. "And a shirt?"

"You want my jacket?" Mallory offered.

He rolled his eyes, looking at the cropped leather jacket with short sleeves draped over the back of the chair. "Yeah, it should cover all of three inches," he said sarcastically.

"Well, it would be a fashion statement," Alex mentioned. He went back out to the reception area and came back with a flannel shirt. "Here. I never get cold, anyway."

Mallory shook her head, knowing that wasn't true, and appreciating the gesture more for it. Between the three of them, they managed to get the patient dressed and standing by leaning against the sink.

"Are you sure you'll be alright getting out of here?" Alex asked doubtfully.

"Oh, yeah, sure," Cameron replied easily, though his legs and arms were shaking with the effort of holding himself up.

"I'll get him somewhere safe," Mallory assured the doctor, giving her ex a look.

"Ok, well, I guess this is just a normal Tuesday night for you guys," Alex muttered. He wrote something on a piece of paper. "Here, I don't know if you need this, but I'm writing you a prescription for a mild painkiller, and giving you orders to stay off your feet as much as possible. You lost a lot of blood, it will take a while to build that supply back up. Eat iron-rich foods, meat, fish, that sort of thing, vitamins C and B-12, so citrus fruits, eggs, dairy products, and folate, leafy greens, carbs, beans. I wrote it all down, just make sure you follow the instructions, unless you want to survive all this just to die a few days later by falling down stairs or something."

"Yeah, sure, thanks, Doc," Jr said dismissively, but when he shook his hand, there was real gratitude in his face. Mallory put one of his arms around his shoulder and helped him out of the clinic, leaving the doctor to finish erasing the evidence of their visit.

Twenty minutes later, Alex was just finishing cleaning the exam room, getting rid of all traces of his night's activities until even he was starting to think it had been a dream. He had just made it back to his desk when the front door swung open, and Maria walked in, looking at the shattered lock cautiously. Oops. He'd completely forgotten about Inferno kicking the door in.

"Alex?" she said when she saw him. "What happened? Did someone try to break in?" She squinted, then tilted her head. "Did you go home at all last night?"

He shook his head, suddenly exhausted from the long day and night he'd had. "No. The door's just from some kids who tried to bust in. When I turned the light on, they ran back out. I meant to fix it before you got here."

The woman shrugged, tossing her purse in the same chair she always did. "Well, I'm glad you're alright." She looked at the stack of medical notes that he'd barely managed to make a dent in. "You sure didn't get a lot done in all that time," she commented.

He groaned. "I'm aware," he said, smiling. "Look, can we leave the twenty questions for later, like, noonish?"

She chuckled and nodded. "Sure."

"Thank you. You take the first patient, huh? I'm gonna go take a quick shower and find some scrubs to change into."

She nodded her agreement, and he grabbed the clean scrubs off the shelf and headed for the employee bathroom, where they had a shower and supplies in case the employees got fluids on them during the day. He shook his head as he got ready for the day. There was no way it had been real, right? But then his hand snagged on the bandage on his arm, and he pulled it off, revealing the little dot of a scab left from his last minute blood transfusion, and he thought of her, the image crystal clear, Inferno pulling off her mask to reveal Mallory. It was real, all right. A thought popped into his head, and the grin that it brought stayed on his face for hours, coming back every time he thought about it: he knew a superhero.

Also, what do y'all think of the new picture? Please review!