Blessing In Disguise

One

I know two things coming back from the dead. First, that it hurts like nothing I have ever experienced. Or that I will, for that matter. The second is that I hate whoever is doing this to me, but I'm uncertain I wanted to stay dead.

It seems, to me at least, like electricity shocking my nerves out. It singes my skin in a way acid would. I decide it is akin to my skeleton being glass and shattering.

My eyes are stuck closed with a moist substance, lashes clumped together too thick to be opened. I'm bare, naked, and cold, despite the heat radiating from whatever liquid it is that surrounds me. It stinks like a sewer.

I want someone to help me, but all I can do is scream. My voice knows no words, however many of them that my mind has been taught. And then, in the midst of the pain and the whirlwind of knowing and not knowing, I'm given the gift of sound.

I recognize the voice, belonging to a man. The accent as thick as a summer storm, the speech pattern, it is definitely Ra's al Ghul. I don't recognize the Arabian speech of the man's cohorts, which are probably just his assassin underlings, but that gives me a clue to my whereabouts. I really don't like things now.

The dialect the immortal's inferiors were using mean that I'm in the middle east somewhere. Ra's would have people speaking the native language if they were somewhere else. I don't like this because this means I can be sure I'm not in the States, and not close to my father. Oh. Bruce isn't my father, not really.

With that thought out, I rip free of whatever is binding me down. I tear my eyes open, but it's hazy. I make my way to an open square that I assume acts as a window, and I fall out. It's many stories, but somehow I'm still alive at the bottom.

I tell myself I will be alright. My body's still bare, save for the strips of bandage over me, which tear off as I run into a forest-like area. As I move, I decide I am afraid. First, of dying, because I'm still on the brink of life. Secondly, getting caught, because I don't want to end up back there and told I'm indebted to the villain. I would have to work for him, which I would hate, however noble he may seem at times.

Another thing I fear is myself. This is due to many things, first and foremost being that I got myself into the mess of getting caught by that clown and getting beaten and then- No. I won't go there, not here and definitely not now.

I'm also afraid because I'm scared to see what the liquid and death and everything have done to me. My hair's thinner, I can feel it, and my skin seems to be a separate entity from my body. I don't want to know what it looks like.

I run because some instinct, somewhere within me, that this is the direction of home. Of the Batcave and the Manor, anyway. I start moving fast and can't stop. Until someone steps out in front of me, throwing a cloth over the rapidly decaying bandages and wrapping me up.

I'm too weak to fight.

"Jason!" I know this voice. Unlike Ra's, I don't recall it from a tape on the computer. This one is from a vivid memory.

"Tal-" I cough out before collapsing. I'm on the ground within seconds, my eyes directed to a star-blanketed sky and the trees between me and those sparkles. The someone moves into my line of sight, but at least I can see clearly now. I won't complain.

She-Talia. Talia al Ghul. She's doing her best to move swiftly and quietly. She wraps me in a robe, and I remember Bruce having one like this once. It was so soft I fell asleep against it once.

She lifts me then, surprising me with her strength. Then I decide it is due to the fact that she is Ra's daughter. He would most definitely have trained her to be so strong. That was also one of the reasons Bruce used to like her, I decide.

When I wake up, I'm in a soft bed. I don't remember falling asleep or how I went from that cold forest to here. I shake my head to get the fuzziness of sleep out and I dare to try sitting up. It comes to me surprisingly easy.

I hear a clicking of heels on hardwood and Talia appears at the doorway to the room, which I haven't bothered to look around at yet. The woman moves close and pulls a wet cloth from a basin at my side, pressing me gently back down. I obey with no other options, still too weak to try fighting.

"Rest, Jason. It will take a long while for you to recover, and I suspect you will want it to be as short as possible." Her tone leaves no argument. I close my eyes again.