August 16, 0132h

	From her control center, Babs tripped the locks on the front door 
barely seconds before a red blur whisked through it, too urgent to 
remember that it should be locked.  Wally West skidded to a frozen stop 
in the middle of her kitchen, looking around wildly.  "Barbara!" he 
called.
	"Right here," she answered, wheeling out of her work room.  "I-"
	"C'mon!" he insisted, scooping her from her chair and bolting 
toward the city docks.
	A signaler on her wrist shut and relocked the door, that gesture 
filling the time of Flash's mad dash to Nightwing's warehouse.  Then her 
stomach lurched as he stopped too quickly at an access door and made as 
if to set her down on her feet.
	"Flash!" she objected, clinging to his arms.
	"Omigod'msorryBarbara!" he blustered, tightening his grip and 
reaching to open the door.  "AnIfogot-"
	"Wally, hush!" she ordered, her eyes scanning the warehouse 
desperately.
	Bright light filled one corner of the space, drawing her eyes to 
the screened off operating space STAR Labs had teleported down.  
"Barbara!" Superman stepped toward her from a spot near the curtains, 
his face pinched with worry.
	She wasn't seeing him.  His movement opened a clear line of sight 
to a small form clinging to the curtains.
	"Spud!" she cried.  Without prompting, Wally zipped her to the 
boy's side, settling her down gently on the ground beside him and then 
stepping back once she had arranged her legs enough to balance herself 
in a sitting position.
	From beside the curtain she could hear metal clinks and the 
burbling squeal of suction.  The physicians' murmurs were low and urgent 
against an unsteady beeping of monitors.  She heard someone announce 
that BP was dropping, then a faint clash of instruments and scrambling 
sounds.  By her side, Spud tightened his hand on the curtain, his eyes 
screwed tightly closed and his face frighteningly pale beneath the 
streaks of blood.
	"Spud," she said again softly, reaching a hand up to rest gently 
on his back.  The contact sent a shudder through his body.  His eyes 
opened, darting crazily for a moment before focusing on her.  He opened 
his mouth as if to speak but instead took a gasping breath.
	Babs made herself not listen to the curse of a doctor on the other 
side of the curtain, instead reaching for Spud's clinging fist.  "I'm 
here, Spud," she said soothingly, forcing a calmness she didn't feel.
	He took another hiccoughing breath, then suddenly he flung himself 
at her, tangled in her useless legs, arms wrapped around her waist as he 
sobbed against her stomach.  She tried to stroke his curls, but they 
were too blood-matted to admit her fingers.  So instead she only held 
him, her eyes caught by the red handprints he had left on the pale blue 
curtain.  Her world was just this tiny circle - the blood-covered boy in 
her lap, the hand-shaped blood stains on the curtain, and the voices 
over her husband trying to find all the places the blood was coming 
from.   She tightened her grip on her son and closed her eyes.