The hospital halls were wide. Someone had decided beige was better than clinical white, but the tint just added an aura of jaundice. The tiles were grey, flecked with brown. And the halls weren't just wide; they were long. Alex had paced up and down them, clutching her IV pole like her life depended on it—which it somewhat did. Several nurses had tried to convince her to sit down and spend the rest of her time waiting in a chair, but she'd brushed them off and snapped at them for trying to redirect her. Instead, she walked. The hallway outside the empty room—the one that had been designated Dick's recovery room—was two hundred ninety-eight steps from one end to the other, though it would probably be fewer if she wasn't hobbling so much from her injuries. Her body kept cycling through hot and cold flashes, and sometimes the entire world would sway until she was nauseous. She'd been nauseous for hours now.

"Miss Wayne. I was told I would find you here."

She turned, dragging the IV pole with her and almost toppling as she unbalanced. She squinted at the swimming image of a man in front of her. He was wide and short, stocky like a toad. There was something familiar about that bald head and wide bow tie, and it took her a moment to place just who she was looking at. "Commissioner Loeb." She couldn't find it in herself to be polite. "What do you want?"

"Maybe you should sit." He swept a hand, holding his hat, towards one of the benches along the wall.

She grit her teeth, and her jaw squeaked. She'd been hit there a few times. "Maybe you should tell me why you're here."

"To offer my condolences, primarily." He held his hat to his chest. "I'm sorry for your loss. For both your brother and—"

"He's in surgery. He's going to be fine."

Loeb paused. "Yes. Yes. That's good to hear. Excellent, really. I wanted to have a word about this whole situation, actually. I understand that Gordon will be back soon with his own questions, but I wanted," —he waggled his head for a moment— "my own understanding."

Her knees were shaking, cold and threatening to buckle. She tightened her hold on the pole. "And?"

"Why exactly were you and your family at Amusement Mile?"

"We were having a picnic. Why the hell do you think?" she snapped.

"It's just an investigation, ma'am. I don't mean anything by my questions." He smiled. His lips were so glossy that they were almost slimy. She wished she knew what brand of lip balm he used so she could avoid it.

"We didn't choose to be there." She stared him down. Bruce would have been nicer and more cooperative. He didn't like Loeb.He hadn't liked Loeb. She'd seen enough of his files to not like him either, and she was in no mood to be nice or cooperative. "We were outside at home. Dick's gotten into stargazing. And the next thing I know, Joker—" She choked. The words were a lie, but the way it was suddenly too difficult to talk was real.

"You called Gordon. Not 911."

"I didn't call Gordon."

"Someone called Gordon."

The wide double doors at the far end of the hallway opened. Alex's attention went there, and Loeb no longer mattered when she saw just how small Dick looked on the bed the medical staff was wheeling along. She stepped forward only to stumble when her IV pole caught. She looked down at the wheels to find them unblocked. Instead, a hand was grabbing the pole. "Let go," she growled.

"Miss Wayne, I really just have a couple more questions. If you will—"

She yanked on the IV pole and found that the grippy bottoms to her socks didn't have as much hold as she would prefer. The ground rushed up to meet her, and a jolt shuddered up her spine, shunting her vertebrae together. The world went fuzzy, and something was buzzing loudly in her ears.

"—enough, sir!"

The world snapped back with a pop in her jaw. She screwed up her eyes against the drill at the front of her head.

"Miss Wayne? Can you hear me?"

"Yeah," she grunted, squinting. Alex fit one hand against the ground to—

"Don't move just yet," the nurse urged. "That was a nasty fall. Let's take it slow."

Alex was helped to her feet and into the waiting recovery room. Her vision was still swimming, but she did her best to focus in first on the nurse. She was shorter than Alex—most women were—and her hair was pulled up in a tight ponytail. The badge on her chest read Clara Martinez. Alex moved on past her to focus on Dick. He was so small in the bed. Somehow, he seemed smaller than he had when he'd been eight and too skinny and Bruce had brought him home. "How is he?" she croaked.

"The doctor is gonna to come here in just a bit," the nurse reassured, guiding her down into a chair. "Let me look at your IV. Make sure you haven't ripped anything."

"I'm fine," Alex insisted, trying to lean around the woman to get a better look.

"I'll be the judge of that," the nurse huffed. She pushed Alex back with a firm hand.

"Is he okay?"

She paused. "Yeah, hon," she said softly. "He's okay. He did real well. You've gotta worry 'bout you, too."

Alex barely looked away from Dick as the nurse checked her over and as the doctor came to speak with her. Once he'd left, the sound of the door clicking closed stabbed into her head. She winced and stood. Shoving the chair up to the side of Dick's bed was a struggle. Finally, she managed to sit with the side of her knees pressed up against the plastic frame.

She leaned forward, curling her hands in his sheets instead of taking up his own hand for fear of hurting him further. Almost his entire head was bandaged, as was his neck. She could match the bandages to the injuries she'd seen on him when she'd first arrived.

His doctor came and went a second time. Alex rested her head against the mattress, head spinning. It was so tempting to finally give in so long as she was right there for when Dick woke up. She fisted her hands in his warmed blanket. "Fuck."

"That will be a dollar for the jar, I'm afraid."

She jerked back, spine jarring. Those words shot a jolt of fear through her. "Sorry," she gasped in knee-jerk reaction. It did little to take the curse back.

Alfred regarded her for a moment before sliding his gaze to Dick, letting the door close behind him. "Miss Alex. How is he?"

"He's—" She hesitated.

Alfred didn't smile. He had a small suitcase held tight in one white-knuckled hand. "And yourself," he amended. His gaze trailed to her IV pole, and his expression pinched between his brows.

"They said he'll pull through," she said, sitting up and rubbing at her nose. "But they don't— His leg and throat should hopefully heal well. They said he was lucky with the cut. But we just have to wait for his head." She took a breath. "They don't know about his hearing, either. And I never learned ASL."

"That can be easily rectified." He put a hand on her shoulder. "You've always been quick with languages." He gave a light squeeze and turned away to put the suitcase next to the reclining chair. "Detective Gordon is here. I asked him to wait while I came in first." He paused. "He has someone with him to collect clothing and other things for evidence. His partner—Merkel—is at the scene."

"Okay." She shifted to sit up straighter, back twinging with pain. "Send 'em in."

"Alright." He lingered for a moment. When he went to the door, he held one arm politely behind his back, fist clenched. "Sirs," he greeted.

"Pennyworth," Gordon said in return, as if they were distant strangers and not two men embroiled in whatever situation she'd put them all in. "Miss Wayne, Officer Driver just needs to collect a few things, and he'll be on his way."

The officer with him seemed vaguely familiar through the haze that had become her reality, and she thought she could distantly connect him with high school bleachers. "They have all my things." She pulled at the patterned white and baby blue t-shirt they'd put her in.

"Need to take some DNA, Al," Driver said, pulling gloves on. "You good with some nail scrapings? And I have to do some GSR wipes, though I'm guessing you've washed your hands."

She looked down at the hands she'd scrubbed clean of Dick's blood. "Yeah." She shifted and held her hands towards him, resting them on one arm of the chair.

It took Driver only a few minutes to collect what he needed. As soon as he was out of the room, Gordon shut the door tightly. "I just need to go over some questions. Make sure we're on the same page," he emphasized.

She nodded. As he sat and got out a notebook, she said, "Bruce, Dick, and I were planning to camp on our property tonight. There's a little area out near the northern edge. Good clearing. Old fire pit from when I was a kid." It felt like her voice was pushing through one side of her throat. She stopped to swallow.

"Okay. How did you end up at Amusement Mile?"

"I'm not sure exactly what happened. I woke up there with my head aching."

"You were hit, then," Gordon said, scribbling something down. "Or gassed. Either way, knocked out. Missed the transport. Can't pinpoint a time, location, vehicle."

"Right," she agreed. Credibility to her lack of knowledge was important here.

"Okay. So you woke up. What happened next?"