Title: Alone and by Your Side
Challenge #89: Family
Fandom: DCU
Rating: G
Length: 1356 words
Summary: Everyone has a different sense of what is considered family. Or, an outsider's look at the people in Dick Grayson's life. (Not New 52 compliant)

Oh, in the strangest dreams, walking by your side
It is the hole you impose upon your life
When you're out, loneliness, it crawls up in the ground
It's what you feel, but can't articulate out loud.
"Sleepsong"- Bastille

---

Ramona had been in and out of the hospital for years. The doctors had all these fancy names for what was wrong with her but, boiled down, what it all meant was she was old. Eighty-seven to be exact and, even with all their testing, annoying procedures and various medications there was just only so much a body, even one with a ridiculous amount of money, could do about that.

The hospital administration and her had come to an understanding though. If she had to be admitted for any length of time and things were busy enough there weren't any single rooms to be had, she was going to get assigned the quietest roommate. Someone unconscious would be ideal, a coma preferable, but if that wasn't possible they should be at least antisocial and alone.

At first it seemed like the young man in the bed on the other side of the room (the one without the view from the window, mind you) fit the bill nicely. He didn't watch television or listen to the radio; he didn't talk, to either her or the nurses, and he didn't have any family or friends come by at all the entire day. Other than the occasional whispery moan and the soft beeping of his monitors, she might have wondered if he was one of those CPR rescue dummies that someone had wrapped in bandages and shoved into a bed as a joke. It would be disconcerting if it weren't so convenient.

One of the nurses drew the curtain around the sleeping man's bed, removed his untouched dinner tray and, after a quick check of both their vitals and lowering the overhead lights, they were left alone for the evening. Using the small bed lamp Ramona went through the reading material she'd brought with her and was twenty pages into her regency era light-hearted interpersonal relationship-themed novel (it wasn't a Harlequin romance, not technically anyway) when she was distracted by a soft noise that was out of place for the typical hospital night.

It was maybe a scraping sound? Or perhaps it was more like scratching? Either way she couldn't figure out what was causing it, but between the low lights in the rest of the room and the fact she didn't have her glasses on, it wasn't like she could see much anyway. After a soft thud it stopped. She thought about calling the nurse, but she didn't want sleeping pills and besides, elderly people admitting to hearing strange noises rarely ended well.

A soft murmuring from behind the young man's curtain drew her attention. She hadn't realized he'd had a visitor, especially this late. What was his name again, Mick? Rick? Something like that. Leaning forward and straining to hear she could make out a few words, enough to recognize a lecture anyway.

"Seriously, Dick, what were you thinking ... not fucking invulnerable. What did you ... Of all the stupid-"

"Little wing?" the new voice was gruff and crackly, obviously that of the man on the bed, but the two words were enough to stop the other's flow of words.

It was an odd nickname, but then brothers were like that. Well, she assumed they were brothers anyway, going by the general build and the angry, worried tone of the visitor. The voices dropped then, the visitor's becoming softer, less edgy and, unable to make out any more of the words, Ramona turned her attention back to her book. Despite never having seen him leave, the next time she looked up her roommate was alone, the curtain had been pulled back and he appeared to be asleep again.

She'd just gotten to the good part, where the pirate price was introduced (there were always pirates or royalty in these books, it was ridiculous, but that was half the reason she read them) when she realized there was a person sitting in the chair next to her supposedly friendless roommate.

The new visitor was small and young sounding, maybe ten or twelve to her roommate's mid-twenties, and he seemed mad. "-Unacceptable, Grayson. You, flat on your back ... should have been faster. Father said ..... Next time-"

The mention of a father meant this was another brother then, despite the age difference. Having no interest in the family dynamics of a perfect stranger, she went back to her book. After having discovered the pirate prince was neither truly a pirate or a prince she stuck her place mark in and was just reaching to call for a nurse when she realized it was quiet and the man in the other bed was alone and already back asleep so she had somehow missed his brother's exit.

After aiding with Ramona nightly ablutions, the nurse's aide was helping her back to the bed when he stopped to frown at the two girls, one blonde and the other dark haired, sitting quietly at the bedside of Ramona's roommate. "I didn't see you come past the desk," he said, sounding confused.

"You must have missed us, but don't worry, we're not staying." The lighter haired one, a little slip of a thing, unfolded herself from the chair and addressed friend? Brother? Lover? "Get better soon, Dick," and then pressed a soft whisper kiss onto his forehead. Relative of some sort then, Ramona thought, probably sister or sister-in-law. "Sorry to bother you," she said, addressing Ramona as she made for the door. The other girl, well, women really, had been holding the young man's hand and gave it a squeeze before rising herself and following the first out of the room.

"Well," huffed Ramona as she settled back into bed, "for someone who is supposed to get a room with little traffic, this is certainly not turning out to be the case."

"Sorry, ma'am," the nurse replied. "I'll see what I can do about getting you moved to a different room in the morning."

"Thank you," she said politely. There was no point in pushing the issue tonight, in her experience while the night staff was more than competent they rarely had the power to institute sweeping changes like moving a patient from one room to another so there was no reason for her to press the issue at the moment. The request being noted in her file was all she could hope for at the moment.

Things were quiet once the young women left though, or as quiet as she could hope a hospital would be anyway, and she fell asleep pretty easily. She only woke twice. The first time was the unavoidable vitals check at midnight, Ramona has never been able sleep through that. The second time was a few hours later when a low rumbly voice interfered with her dream and she woke enough to see a figure looming over the man in the other bed. It didn't even occur to her to be scared, not with the tender tone the man, and it was a man, was speaking to the bed's occupant.

"It'll just be for a few more hours, Dick, until the cave... Tim said it was a-"

A cough and a bleary "Bruce?" interrupted the soliloquy and Ramona watched as the gentleman, as Bruce, rested his hand on Dick's shoulder, quieting him. How long Bruce stayed she couldn't say, since she fell back asleep before either of them moved or said anything else.

The next morning the bed across from hers was empty, Ramona assumed he had been moved to a different bed and didn't give it a second thought until one of the nurses commented about her roommate signing himself out AMA and how the poor man had been by himself with no one to help care for him.

Ramona gave a rather unladylike snort at that. The young man might have been by himself, but he wasn't alone; she was sure of that.