Somewhat to Bruce's surprise, after the storm there was calm. They sat side by side on the ledge, looking out over the sparkle and gleam of Gotham on the horizon. He'd gone downstairs, picked up the bottle and brought it back with him. This time they didn't need glasses.

Nothing had really been permanently fixed. Really, if he could have brought himself to accept it, he had always known that the doctor was truly insane. Much more so than any strength of medication was going to do anything other than mask. Tonight had finally forced him to face up to what that was going to mean. For both of them. And right now it would have to be enough for him. What he couldn't hope to cure he was going to have to live with.

The whisky burned a long clean line of pain through his tired chest. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and passed the bottle.

Now that the last of the sunlight was finally gone the evening was turning colder. Crane shivered a little in the chilly night air, hunching his slender shoulders together. With the innate instinct of a man who'd been raised a gentleman, an instinct that he knew was going to lead to an sharp and immediate rejection, Bruce turned round to pick up the coat that had dropped to the floor earlier.

And suddenly everything was terribly, terribly wrong. He heard the glass that he had put down on the edge of the parapet opposite scrape across the tiles a split second before it crashed to the floor. Looking up he saw the black clothed men who were so quickly climbing over the low walls, tried to count them, six, seven?

Before he even had a chance to stand up they were already on the terrace coming rapidly towards him, an aggressive assurance in their speed and purpose. He straightened up, the balls of his feet pressed hard to the tiles, the adrenalin hot slamming against the small of his back.

Dr Crane, who had spun round like a startled rabbit at the sound of the glass smashing, was standing by his side. Almost unconsciously Bruce shifted to stand a little way in front of him, blocking the slim body with his own. He ignored the small offended sniff which came from behind his shoulder.

"Don't move." he ordered Crane, his voice harsh. The space on the roof was too limited for fighting man to man in the dark, he didn't want to inadvertently knock the doctor over the edge. No weapons. The last thing he needed was have somebody in the way to fall over. In the three seconds before the first thug reached him he had time to wonder if Crane had planned this all along. Then he was fighting for his life and little questions like that ceased to matter as much.

It took only an instant for him to realise yet again exactly how dependant he'd become on being Batman. The effect of his appearance, the weapons, the costume and the way it adapted easily to his every move. The comforting protection of the armour on his chest, the firm touch of the mask tight over his face. He was naked and exposed without it. And there were far too many of them for him to fight alone.

The first man went down easily enough but then there were three and even he could not keep them all at bay. Through the blur of movement, the sound and the fury of the fight, he knew that at least one had got past him but there was no time to turn.

The sudden crash from behind his back was loud enough to make both him and his attackers stop and look round.

Dr Crane was still standing, very pale, but the line of his mouth set firm, holding the jagged neck of the whisky bottle in one shaking hand. At his feet the body of one of the men was slumped in a heap, covered in shards of broken glass. He could see a patch of bright blood smeared on the back of the head. No, Crane wasn't ever as defenceless as he seemed, and the realisation made Bruce smile a little even as he turned back to take on his own enemies.

Unequal as things were he began to believe that this was a fight he could win, the three men beginning to weaken under his renewed attack. He pushed them harder towards the edge of the roof, his anger rising at the thought of the presumption, the arrogant boldness of these men in daring to take him on in his own home.

They fell back before him like children running from his rage and the warning that was beginning to scream like a siren in his brain had barely reached him when he saw the eighth man crouched silently in the corner of the terrace. He was holding what looked like a gun, but when he fired there was no sound other than that of Bruce's own laboured breathing.

There was a jarring instant of stabbing pain and then, surprisingly, there was none. He looked down dully at the tiny red dart that was sticking jauntily out from the muscle of his shoulder.

And realised his mistake. It wasn't him that they had come for.

Bruce's eyes went straight to Dr Crane, now pinned down between two balaclava clad heavies, arms twisted behind his back. There was a fierce pride in the look that came back, in the head that was held so high despite the obvious fear. Any question that he might have held a moment before about the doctor's innocence in the assault was instantly erased. The tallest of the attackers, features covered by a long black scarf, walked swiftly across the rooftop and stepped between him and his last glimpse of Crane's face.

Then the darkness of the drug slid over his body like a greasy wave and he went down into it without a murmur. As he fell he heard Crane cry out in pain, just once, and the sound followed him like the cold snap of a breaking bone. It was a sound Batman had never succeeded in prising from the doctor.

And then, then it was dark for a long time. Bad dreams forced him to run through shadowy places, far from the known reaches of his own sane mind. He was looking for something, something that had once been left behind. Every time he felt he was starting to come up to it another turn in the path would sweep him hopelessly away from his goal, and he couldn't even remember exactly what it was that he had wanted to find in the first place.

Time moved unutterably slowly. Until, finally, he remembered just enough to force him to start out on the long painful struggle back towards consciousness. Coming round was, he thought wryly, never the easy part. He didn't know exactly what he'd been shot full of this time, but he thought that Dr Crane might have recognised it. His brain felt as if it had been dragged through a wringer. His head hurt. The side of his body on which he had fallen was now pleading for the touch of something softer than the hard cold tiles of the roof. It took him more than one attempt to lift himself up far enough to see, as he had known that he would, that the terrace was completely empty.

He was lying among the broken fragments of the bottle, sharp tiny splinters embedded deep in his hands and arms. There seemed to be a lot more blood now than there had been when he fell. As he struggled to his feet the effort made him retch, again and again, the sour taste of the whisky rising up in his throat, dizziness forcing him to slow his movements.

The whole attack, he thought wonderingly, had had been so swift and silent that Alfred, sat down the stairs in the kitchen, could never have heard a thing. He looked numbly at the place where Crane had been standing such a little time before.

And a single piece of paper fell from the clear sky as he finally stood up, alone on the dark roof. It fluttered gently in the early autumn breeze before it dropped to the ground at his feet. He knelt to turn it over where it had landed on the glazed tiles, resting among the broken pieces of the bottle.

It was a small old fashioned patience card, the pattern on the back constructed from a mass of entwined snakes. And on the other side the dancing figure of the Joker stared up at him, a smile that was a shade closer to a sneer than a grin stretched across the painted face.

He picked it up and held it tightly in his bloody hand, and the cheap cardboard crumpled in his fist like a fallen leaf. Purposefully he moved to the edge of the parapet and looked out over the city.

"I will find you." he said, speaking the words out loud into the night air. Even this early in the year the first cold winds of winter were beginning to blow in from the sea fifty miles away over the hills. The night was still bright and moonlit.

Then the terrace was empty.

Fifteen minutes later Alfred jumped up from his chair to the sound of the Batmobile screaming in a blaze of light and engine noise across the lawns. Inside the big car Batman leant forward over the wheel, his eyes narrowed, his teeth clenched shut. And a wild storm of righteous vengeance blew on the sea wind towards the streets of Gotham.

The End. Or, possibly, The Beginning.

Thanks so much for all the reads and reviews. Very much appreciated. HEARTS. And thanks again. It would never have been done without you.