Fic: Alfred (BoP, PG, B/H)
Fic: Alfred (The Single Series)
Author: Barbd
Summary: A long standing relationship through the eyes of many is sometimes seen in many different lights.
---
Our story could begin on a dark and stormy night. It could begin at the end of a pistol; it could begin with the sharp glint of a knife.
My old memory drifts these days. I find myself drifting to the happiest of my memories, to living the high times through my own hallucinations. But such is the way of an old man.
I have cared for some of the strongest men and women, strongest heroes, known. Then I looked after their children, and their children’s children.
Through the long hard seasons of bitter loss and the impeccable timing of good news, I have loved them all as my own.
I have shared a lifetime, maybe three, with a family that has never had anything in common except for the stubborn will to do right by the people of their city.
My services have always ranged to include all the possible needs of my charges. Food service, party planning, monitoring the police radio scanner, entering data in the computers, cleaning and laundry.
And of course, in some circumstances, I may serve as a match maker. In the rarest of situations. After all Ms Kyle and Master Bruce managed to share a great deal of *time* together.
However their daughter was another situation all together.
Ms Helena, such a complex array of situation and emotion. I see so much of her parents in her. With Master Bruce’s steady stream of brooding silence and Ms Kyle’s childish play at the end - just to remove the largest globes of serious tension from the atmosphere around her.
Finding Ms Helena love was something I promised myself I would achieve before I passed from this world.
I never expected it to be quite as easy as it was.
---
“Do you think Helena will ever get the courage to actually make a move?”
Miss Dinah, such an inquisitive mind, a child’s heart wrapped in an adult’s mindset.
“Miss Helena is quite courageous. She simply chooses to be cautious towards matters of the heart.”
I cannot help my disturbed grimace as the young girl continues to shovel viciously sweet, barely nutritious cereal into her mouth. The mumbled words that spill from between her clenched teeth sounds - to me - along the same lines as ‘cop out.’
I simply raise my eyebrow.
“They’re so Xena and Gabrielle.”
Ah, yes, the hero Warrior Princess and the Battling Bard. How very strange that I manage to grasp that minor amount of pop culture. Silently, I can thank Master Bruce’s late night pay-TV obsessions.
“Soul-mates,” she explains, rather unnecessarily. “I mean, Helena is dangerous, sexy.”
“Xena, Ms Dinah?”
“No, Gabby.”
“And Barbara is so -?”
“Miss Barbara?”
“Exactly. Well come on, are they claiming seven years of post traumatic stress?”
“Indeed,” I busy myself at the dish washer. There is no need to drag Ms Dinah into my personal tirade to find love for my two charges.
The glint in Ms Dinah’s eye is enough to tell me that something is about to happen and there is no guarantee that it will be a wanted or happy thing.
“Maybe she needs help!”
“Ms Dinah!?”
Oh dear. Much to late to stop her now.
---
“Sometimes she’s so dense she doesn’t even realise that I’m flirting with her!”
“Have you ever asked her out? Dinner? Movie? D.A.T.E?”
A good Butler does not eavesdrop, he simply finds himself in the right location at the exact right time.
“What do you want to do?”
“Boink her brains out. Duh Kid! You saw the short version, you little mind perve.”
“I already said I was sorry about that.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Silence reins. I know they are thinking, scheming and I know that soon innocent bystanders will be involved in their group seduction.
I am discrete and I am not listening but the plants near the door out of the kitchen need to be watered. They shall have to stop speaking if they do not wish for me to be privy to their conversations.
“You know who would be a really great help?!”
“No!”
“Oh, come on Helena. We aren’t blind. You aren’t sharing, like, a gigantic secret. Plus, Alfred is like the king of organization and he’s English! Have you ever watched a James Bond movie?”
My surprise shouldn’t be so great, in my heart I knew Ms Dinah would, some how, at some time, offer my services. Living with a young, barely in control mind reader sometimes had its moments.
“Go on.”
She is nervous which I find to be very entertaining.
“I would suggest flowers, not daisies. Try tulips, they’re her favourite. Try to get a mixed bunch, she doesn’t have a favourite colour. “
Without looking up I give her the instructions and information she will need to begin her very own seduction.
“The New Gotham Orchestra starts at Wayne Plaza next week.”
“Thanks Alfred.”
“I am pleased to help Ms Helena. I‘m sure your irresistible charm will serve you greatly.”
Now … when was the last time I swept the clock face.
---
“What if she says no?”
Ms Helena, a Nervous Nelly, perish the thought.
“God, what if she’s disgusted?”
“She won’t be Ms Helena. Stop worrying yourself.”
“That’s easy for you to say, Mr Cool-Calm-and-Collected.”
The Butler and carer in me cannot let her rush into a nervous situation with her hair and clothes rumpled. I straighten the collar of her jacket and brush the sides of her hair behind her ears.
“You will do fine and if you become tongue tied just remember to give Ms Dinah the signal and we will help you as much as we can. Now take a deep breath.”
She breathes deeply and closes her eyes for a few seconds. She turns but does not move closer to the Delphi monitor where Ms Barbara is busily starting her day of weekend crime fighting.
She needs a little shove to make it through the door.
---
**“What’s that?”**
**”The new T1 line.”**
**”What happened to the old T1 line?”**
**”Nothing.”**
**”Then why are you putting a new one in.”**
**”Needed updating.”**
The silence between them is excruciating, the room filled with only the sound of rapid tying. The tension is almost too much to stand. It is palpable, even through the thin optic connection Ms Dinah and I have to the inside of the Clocktower.
Popcorn crunches in my ear. Ms Dinah watches with rapt fascination as Ms Helena paces nervously behind Ms Barbara’s chair.
**”Do you ever do anything away from the Delphi?”**
**”I teach 5 days a week.”**
I have been around the usually stoic redhead enough to notice the slight lint of happy amusement in her voice.
**”Well, duh. But do you do anything for fun, away from the Delphi?”**
**”I suppose I don’t but the Delphi provides me with everything I could possibly need.”**
**”Human interaction? Food? Sex?”**
**”Alfred provides the rest.”**
A good Butler never laughs at his charges. He may, at appropriate times, smile to himself when he finds something one of them says to be quite comical.
**”Ohmigod, you’re having sex with Alfred?!”**
Trust Ms Helena to jump at any chance to tease her oblivious partner.
**”What? NO! Of course not! What?”**
“Do you think they could get any more off track?” Ms Dinah asks as she leans over my shoulder to see our monitor better.
“Indeed,” I agree quietly.
**”So, how about we go out sometime, do something that involves human interaction, food, good times.”**
“Good move, Helena!”
Ms Dinah pumps her hand animatedly as Helena leans against the Delphi and smiles a grin that is entirely Master Bruce.
**”And sex?”**
**”I thought Alfred provided that for you?”**
**”Funny. Are you asking me out on a date, Helena?”**
**”That depends, are you accepting?”**
“She’s so going to say yes.”
Ms Dinah wiggles in her chair, she is like an excited child at Christmas time.
I cannot blame her, so am I.
---
TBC