It's dark, so dark. It feels like there's someone inside my head, pounding and chiseling away, threatening to bust out of my skull from the inside. It throbs, it hurts!

Suddenly I'm awake. There's no gradient to my consciousness, it's just snap and everything screams back into focus way too fast. It makes me nauseous, and immediately every muscle in my body springs in on itself and I lurch up to a seated position, my hands flying out in front of me to fight off some unseen enemy. I immediately regret the motion as every muscle in my body throbs at once, doubling me over. My arm burns and prickles strangely. When I clutch it, I find tight, precisely wrapped bandages. My head throbs again, and my hands fly up to my forehead and find a tight wrap of gauze there instead of the blood crusted skin I was expecting.

Who…?

It takes me longer than it should to realize I'm not in my apartment. In fact, it looks like I'm nowhere at all. It's so dark I can barely see my hand just a few inches in front of my face. I lower my hands from the empty air they hang in and let them fold into my lap. I can hear a distant echo of my own breathing, and a few clicking and bleeping noises from a far-away computer. The air is cold, clammy feeling against my skin. It feels like someone has spritzed me with water.

Suddenly, a single thought barrels to the front of my mind.

Dick.

Where is he? Is he alive? I have to find him, I have to help him! I rock on the bed, swinging my legs up and over the side of the mattress.

"How are you feeling?"

The voice seems to come from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. I just about jump out of my skin, and draw in an enormous gasp of shock, frozen awkwardly halfway off the medical bed. As my eyes continue to adjust in the dark I can begin to determine a large form beside the bed I'm sitting on.

Batman sits on the leading edge of a metal folding chair with his elbows perched on his knees and his head low behind his knitted fingers. His dark eyes are shadowed by the overhead hanging light, but even so, I can feel their gaze on me.

"Ah, umm." My hands float up to my face and I realize that the reason my cheek feels so stiff is because there's a gauze bandage taped to it.

"Do you know where you are?"

"Errr." I close my fingers over my eyes nervously. "Should I?" I blurt out.

"It depends."

"I-I know I'm not at home, but I can't say much more than that."

There's a grunt, but it has an air of approval to it. Silence presses in on me, making the hair on the back of my neck prickle. I'm keenly aware of how awkward I look, sitting on the side of the medical bed with my legs dangling like a child. I'm also feeling incredibly vulnerable. I have no idea where I am, I'm injured, and I don't think Batman has made up his mind about whether he likes me or not yet.

"Thank you."

"Eh?"

"For his sake." Batman nods his head to something past me in the dark, and I follow the gesture with my eyes, swiveling on the bed.

Around five feet away, illuminated under a pale yellow standing light and the blue glow from a multitude of monitors displaying medical charts and graphs is another medical bed. Laying in the bed, with the sheets pulled up high over his chest and an oxygen mask secured over his nose and mouth, is Dick.

I stare for what feels like forever, filled with so many different emotions I'm not sure how to process them, until my vision is blurred into obscurity by the tears welling up in them. How did I not see him before? My head pulses, the concussion reminding me why. A million thoughts are blasting through my mind. I want to jump up and run to him but I'm sure Batman wouldn't appreciate me sniffling and sniveling all over his sidekick. I want to call out to him and my mouth is halfway open before I realize that might not be the best idea.

Dick himself had been a little worried about how Batman would react if he found out he'd given me his real name. I don't want to give Batman any reason to be upset with me. But even so… He looks…

He looks awful. The dim light has turned his skin sallow and throws terrible shadows around his eyes, hollowing them and sinking them back. He looks thinner than I remember, smaller even. One arm is still in the sling, the other resting atop the tightly tucked blanket with a myriad of tubes protruding from it, many of which are dark with blood. It makes me feel sick looking at him. I feel like I might actually vomit at all the medical "worst case scenarios" that are popping up in my mind.

It takes way to long for my sluggish brain to grind out any kind of response to the situation. I blurt stupidly, "St-Steve…"

If I could have seen Batman's eyebrows, I would have guessed they raised. "Steve?" He repeats flatly. I turn back towards the larger man with my mouth hanging open, expecting to have to explain myself to him. I'm more than a little surprised to see an amused smile on the superhero's face.

All right, he must not be in as bad a shape as I thought if Batman can smile like this.

"You can drop it, I know he told you his name. "

The more I hear it, the smoother and softer his voice sounds to me. It's almost as if as I'm relaxing he is as well. That said, I still catch myself flinching when he leans back in the chair, straightening his spine and letting his hands slide loosely between his thighs. He's still smiling, but it seems to be tainted with an air of worry and he isn't looking at me, but over at Dick. "You wouldn't be here if I hadn't already decided you were safe."

"I assume you know who I am as well then?" I surprise myself with the strong, cool voice that leaves me. On the inside, I'm on the verge of having two completely different panic attacks, one because the Batman himself is sitting here having a conversation with me, and the other because he may or may not ever let me leave.

"Julie Matthew's, senior ER nurse at Gotham general hospital. You're 28 years old, born in Chicago to parents Maureen and Bob, moved to Gotham when you were 19 to attend medical school. You have a master's degree in nursing. You've lived in the same apartment the entire time you've lived here, you always pay your rent early, you have one cat, you're allergic to petunias and when you were three years old you broke your left arm." Batman replies simply, speaking as if he's reading off a list even though he's making direct eye contact with me. He pauses for a moment, then points to my bandaged arm and adds, "That's a deep tissue wound, but your bone and arteries are fine."

"Oh…Thank you…"?

Another grunt.

I reach up to touch my shoulder, and I'm a little surprised by the quality job he's done. The bandages are tight and well secured, but not so much that they impede circulation. I can't say I'm not impressed. Though, I guess I should really be, I'm sure he's had lots of experience with rescue medicine given his "profession". Actually, can I even call it a profession? Maybe a hobby?

*Cough*Cough* "Ahhhh, shit that hurt…"

My heart stops at the sound of the familiar voice. I know that voice. It's been teasing and harassing me for almost a week now. I launch myself off the gurney and move to run towards it, but before my feet have even touched the ground, Batman has flown past me, black cape billowing out behind him and blocking my view. I blow through the fabric seconds later, ignoring the dizzying pulsing in my head and chest from finally being upright.

Dick has pushed the thin blanket aside, revealing a heavily bandaged chest dotted with leads and wires and more splotches of blood than I'm comfortable with. Wheezing heavily, he's already begun to curl up onto his elbows, fumbling at the oxygen mask with shaking fingers. He begins coughing again, his entire body shaking with each gasping hack. The monitors and devices around him erupt in a chorus of bleep and alarms.

Batman and I are both at his side in seconds, pushing him down onto the medical bed again. Batman's hand closes over Dick's, gently pressing the mask back down over his nose and mouth. Dick makes an odd face, then blinks in recognition. His good arm swings out, and Batman catches it, squeezing it in a firm handshake. Dick nods his head and smiles weakly as his head falls softly against the pillow. He closes his eyes and breathes deeply as his gauze-covered chest rises and falls fully. His face is stuck in an odd expression, appearing relaxed but tense at the same time, as if he's exerting energy to keep it still. After a moment more, Batman takes Dick's hand away from the mask and deposits it at his side, leaving his own-gloved hand atop his ex-sidekick's.

It takes Dick a few minutes to catch his breath enough to speak again, and when he does, his voice is hoarse and wavering. His tired face breaks into a happy grin and he glances towards me. "Good to see you again, Julie." His eyes slide closed as he coughs again, instinctively raising a fist to his lips. His fingers brush against the plastic mask, and his hand hovers there awkwardly for a moment before Batman pushes is back down again.

"It's good to see you too." My words sound choked and squeaky escaping from my throat. My face feels hot and itchy, and my eyes are burning. I know I'm crying, and for some reason it makes me feel self-conscious. It's stupid, and a part of me knows it, but I don't want to cry in front of the Batman. It feels lame.

As I look down at Dick's damaged body, my guts twist and knot against each other. It's killing me to see him like this. I want to throw myself on top of him, just to hug him and never let him go. But, unfortunately there are a few reasons why I can't do that. Not the least of which being that I'd probably crush his already badly damaged lungs if I did.

At the very least, I want to touch him, if only to prove to myself that I'm not imagining him here, like a fever dream. My hands are folded in front of me, and my fingers begin to move on their own, twitching, reaching out towards Dick's hand where it lays atop the thin sheets.

Perhaps he saw the shy flicker, or perhaps he simply felt he needed to comfort me. Either way, before my hand has made up its mind if it wanted to really move or not, Dick suddenly reaches out and takes hold of my palm. He squeezes tightly and pulls me a little closer to the bedside as I stare down in surprise.

Dick is smiling again, but this time his eyebrows are tilted sadly, his face as sympathetic as it is haggard. "Don't cry." He says with a guilty twitch of his eyes. He squeezes my hand again, pressing his fingers against the back of my hand.

I can't hold back the embarrassed laugh that bursts out of me, an odd, squawking noise. Giving in to the rush of relief and sadness and exhaustion, I press my free hand against my eyes as fat tears roll down my cheeks. My shoulders are shaking, and all I can do is gasp as the sobs roll through me and the tears come fast and hot. Dick's hand around mine feels like the only thing that is keeping me from floating into oblivion. He's rooting me in reality, helping me to hold onto the very last drop of my sanity.

He's doing it again, saving my ass when he's the one in bigger trouble. Back at my apartment, he protected me even though he could barely stand up. He fought for me, knowing it would only result in more pain for him. Even now when he's breathing through a damn tube, he's worried about me.

All that I can do is squeeze his hand back, and hope that I'm able to communicate everything that I feel, and how grateful I am.

Dick's thumb rubs in small, soothing circles on the back of my hand. I rub my eyes clear of the moisture and glance back down, sharply aware of everyone's eyes on me. Batman is still standing beside me, his arms folded across his chest, watching me out of the corner of his eyes. Dick's smile has faded into a pained look of sympathy.

"Julie, listen…" He starts slowly.

I sniffle, drag my hand away from my face, pulling at my eyelid.

The smile flashes back across his face again, now looking pinched, and something else I can't quite place. Is it…embarrassment?

"I- " Dick starts again, then stops, swallowing and clearing his throat with a dry grunt. "I want to apologize, for getting you dragged into everything. I should have… I don't even know." He closes his eyes and furrows his brows into a frustrated frown. "What I'm trying to say is, I'm sorry."

The tears are back in seconds, and I'm suddenly sobbing again. I'm not even really sure why. Through the distortion I can just make out a somewhat startled expression on Dick's face.

"Ah, uh-"

"I'm just so happy that you're alright!" I blurt out between my hysterical gasping. If I didn't know better, I might have said I even heard a little chuckle come from Batman standing next to me.

Dick makes a strange coughing noise, and I realize a moment later that it's as close as he can get to laughing at the moment. The surprise slides back into a warm smile, and it almost seems as if there is a slight pink flush returning to his tired cheeks.

Dick closes his eyes again, and his hand squeezes tightly around mine once more. "Me too." He says softly. "I'm glad too."

His eyes open, and I'm momentarily caught off guard. How is it that even under the direst of circumstances, those eyes are always the same?

"You saved my ass Jules." Dick says. "You fought back in a situation where even I couldn't. You were…" He pauses, and the smile slides, changing into that sly grin I saw so many times in the last week.

"You were pretty damn cool."

I blink at him.

Suddenly, there is a pressure on my arm and on the small of my back that wasn't there just a moment before. I blink again and realize that Batman is much closer than I remember. He's practically holding me up. When did that happen?

"Julie?"

I stop staring at Batman and swing my gaze back down to Dick. He looks very concerned all of a sudden, shifted up onto his elbows with one arm stretched out, holding my hand by the wrist. My hand looks like a dead fish in his grip, pale and clammy. When did that happen?

"Huh?" The word falls out of my mouth like a rock.

"She can't stay here. She's going to need a real doctor." Batman's gruff voice comes from over my shoulder. The grip on my back adjusts, sliding up between my shoulder blades. Part of me wants to shrug him off, but I'm suddenly feeling very tired.

"What?" I say again, feeling out of the loop.

Dick is still staring at me with his eyebrows furrowed together. "Julie, are you alright?"

I blink at him. Once, twice. For some reason, I can't get my eyes to focus on him. It almost seems as if I'm looking at him through a dirty window. When did he get so blurry? "I'm perfectly fine." I try to say, but the words emerge stretched out and heavy, like taffy being pulled from a mixer. The thoughts in my head feel even slower.

"Julie? Hey, Julie!"

I can feel the pressure on my wrist that I know is Dick squeezing it worriedly, but his voice sounds as if it is coming to me through miles of water. Suddenly, my head is pounding, pulsing, from the inside out. I try to raise the hand that Dick is holding to my head and immediately my knees buckle out.

Batman, or I can only guess it's Batman, doesn't miss a beat. I feel myself lifted off my unreliable legs and cradled like a child. A very small part of me registers embarrassment, but the rest of me is entirely too tired to care. I can hear my name again, more than once, as well as garbed snippets of a conversation I am no longer a part of. I can barely tell the difference between Dick's voice and Batman's anymore.

"—wrong, is she alright?"

"—concussion and has lost a lot of blood—go to the hospital—"

"—promise—take care of her—"

My heavy lids fall shut, and when I have the energy to pry them open again I seem to be in a vehicle. I can feel and hear the rumble of asphalt beneath tires, and the pressure of a belt across my chest and lap. Bright lights flash and blur through the windows and the engine growls as momentum presses me down into the seat. I try to move, to lift my head, to do anything, but all my muscles feel like they are made of pudding. I simply can't get any of them to obey me. That tiny flare of frustration registers again. I want to look around, I want to see where Dick is.

I wanted to talk more. I wanted to see him more.

A hand squeezes my dead shoulder. I guess that it belongs to Batman.

My eyelids slide shut again, but this time it feels as if my body is pulled deep into a heavy bog. It is thick, and dark, and heavy, and it feels like I stay there for a long time.