August 19, 1945h

        He supposed that it was dark because he hadn't opened his eyes.  He
was in no hurry to do so. The dark was warm and comfortable, and dim memory
told him that it had not been so comfortable for a while.  He felt himself
smiling as he lay still, unwilling for the moment to move any other muscles.
        He opened the range of his hearing, listening beyond his immediate
space.  He could hear the clinks of silverware on plates in the distance,
and something smelled wonderful.  Dinner time, he thought, slowly
registering the low murmur of conversation.  They had company?  Why hadBabs
let him sleep through company?  Must've been a tough night.
        Should he open his eyes?  The dark was so soothing...
        Yes, he thought, time to open his eyes.  He felt too floatily
unfocused in the dark.
        It took a moment for him to really see or make sense of what he was
seeing.  The light in the room was faint, like twilight through thick
curtains.  His eyes focused on a vague blur slightly above him and to his
right.  A balloon?  No, an IV bag, he registered suddenly.  His face
creased into a frown.  Must've been a really tough night.
        Was he badly injured?  He hesitated.  Best not try to move just
yet.  Just a little turn of the head to continue looking around the room.
His neck muscles protested vaguely, as if he had jerked around suddenly at
some earlier point.  What had happened?
        His eyes widened as they fell on the rack of medical equipment now
rolled away from the bed.  Cardiogram, respirator - how long had he lain
here?  He had no memory of being hooked up to such equipment, but it would
not be here otherwise.
        Unless - a panic-stricken thought occurred to him.  Babs!  But no,
his subconscious reassured him almost instantly.  Babs was okay.  Or at
least, she wasn't the reason for this equipment.  He relaxed and squinted
at the IV tubing hooking into his arm.  No, whatever had happened had
definitely happened to him.
        He noted as he looked down at his body that his left arm lay on top
of the blankets, heavily bandaged.  Not splinted, just bandaged.  He
stretched his awareness and felt the weight of similar bandages all along
his left side, wrapping around his torso.  He must've run afoul of
something, he mused.
        Carefully, gingerly, he began to test small muscle groups, curling
his toes, shifting his leg, wiggling his fingers, working up from his
extremities to his core.  Everything seemed to be in working order,
although a deep full body ache was beginning to make its presence felt to
his consciousness.  Yep, definitely ran afoul of something.
        He found himself momentarily distracted by another whiff of
something wonderful from the kitchen.  He felt - not exactly hungry - but
something like hungry.  "Well, Grayson," he thought to himself, "I think
it's time to see about getting up."
Pushing aside a sudden sense of misgiving, he began to tighten his
abdominals to pull himself into a sitting position.  His sudden gasp seemed
to correspond to a clatter in the kitchen, and he lay back in the pillows
suddenly drenched in a cold sweat.  For a moment, his brain seemed numbed
by pain, and it occurred to him that there must be a heavy painkiller in
his IV drip that he had not felt a warning against trying that maneuver.
What he had felt as he tried to sit up had only just been short of searing.
Now, however, the vague body ache of before had concentrated into a
torso-wide ribbon of pain.  He waited as it subsided.
        "Don't use your abs this time, Grayson," he chided himself when the
pain had subsided sufficiently for him to contemplate rising again.  He
moved slowly, using his arms and legs to lever himself around with a
minimal amount of bending in the middle.  Eventually, he was able to use
the IV stand as a support to pull himself to his feet.
        He stood gasping for air for a long moment, fighting nausea.  His
legs held, however, as he clung to the bed and IV stand for balance.  A
really really tough night, he decided, feeling a familiar cracked rib ache
amidst the other pains of his body.
        Once the nausea passed, he gave himself a moment to inspect
himself.  The bandages on his torso were hidden by a loose pajama top.  He
needed his right hand to maintain his grip on the IV stand, and although
the fingers of his left hand were unbandaged, any effort at coordination of
the limb or digits prompted painful protest from both.  "Guess I can't
peek," he thought.
        More sounds penetrated from the kitchen, and Dick looked down at
his pajama clad form.  "No hope of changing," he decided.  "Just have to go
out like this.
        With painful, shuffling steps and the aid of the IV stand, he moved
himself into the hall and towardthe kitchen.  As he got closer, he began to
make out individual voices.  Barbara and Spud, of course.  Another woman's
voice - Leslie?  And there was Dinah telling Spud to take his plate to the
sink.
        Dick smiled softly, finally able to see into the room enough to
watch Spud move away from the table and look toward the hall...  There was
a sudden shattering sound as the plate Spud carried fell to the floor.
Dick, having moved forward another step, saw all the heads at the table -
Bruce? he registered in surprise - swivel in the direction of the sound.
Then Spud was tangled in his legs and Bruce was at his side, supporting
Dick as he nearly toppled under the force of Spud's desperate hug.
        "Easy, James," Bruce chided gently.
        James? Dick wondered, leaning gratefully against Bruce's strong
arms.  "Hey, everybody," he said weakly, smiling through vision too blurred
to make out the expressions on the faces of his family.
        Spud took a step back, his face twisted with angry tears.  "You
were going to leave me!" he suddenly screamed, but the hint of violence in
his body language was immediately contained in a tight embrace from Leslie.
She looked up into Dick's bewildered expression as she tried to calm the
sobbing boy in her arms.  "You are really going to regret this jaunt when
that painkiller wears off," she said sternly, although her voice sounded
more happy than angry.
        "Dinah, can you get me a wheelchair?" Bruce asked gently, still
easily holding Dick.
        Dick shook his head.  "I'm-"
        "No, Dick," Bruce stopped him.  "You've given us quite a scare, and
you shouldn't be on your feet yet."  His tone, like Leslie's had a strange
lightness to it.
        Dick stared at his mentor for a moment, then shifted his eyes to
where Barbara still sat at the kitchen table.  She had turned her
wheelchair in his direction, but she had not moved.  Dick's vision cleared
enough to register what she was doing.  She was crying.
        "Babs?" he asked uncertainly, fighting Bruce's hold to step toward
her.  "Barbara?"
        "Here you go, Dick," Dinah interrupted, wheeling a chair behind him
and holding it as Bruce settled his son into it.  Once Dick was seated, she
laid a hand on his shoulder, and Dick could see a kind of relief in her
eyes as she looked at him.  But his wife still sat crying.  As did his son,
now passed from Leslie to Dinah's comforting arms.  What had happened?
        Suddenly Leslie was in front of him, studying his face intently,
asking him to track her finger, then listening to his lungs and inspecting
his IV.  Dinah had taken Spud to his room, and Dick could not see where
Bruce had gone.  "We almost lost you," Leslie explained softly.  "You've
been mostly unconscious or incoherent for more than three days."
        Three days!  Dick stared incredulously at Leslie, at the same time
remembering the search for Spud and the rooftop battle with the bounty
hunter, the unexpected appearance of the long blades.  "Is Spud-? Tim?" he
asked in sudden alarm.
        "Tim's fine," Bruce's voice reassured, unexpectedly coming from the
kitchen side of the hall.  "He's coming back here in the morning.  He's
covering my patrol tonight.  Spud-"
        Suddenly Dick felt soft fingers twine in his and turned to see
Barbara's tear streaked face.  "Spud is scared," she said, looking
earnestly into her husband's eyes.  "And so was I," she whispered.
        Ignoring the protests of his bandaged arm, Dick reached for his
wife and held her in an awkward embrace as she wept.  Bruce and Leslie
quietly stepped away, allowing the couple a private moment.