Alfred Pennyworth awoke to the needling feeling in his skull, or possibly the intense burning in his arm. Upon reflection, it may have been due to the blinding agony running gruesome little circles around his chest. The incessant beeping of an EKG faded into the numb gonging of a brain trying to pound it's way out via the ears.
A bruised eye, the other swollen shut and a rotten eggplant colour, wandered through a bloodshot haze to take in the sparse faded white stucco room rich with disinfectant and other hospital smells. He recognised the design of the small four panel window bolted into the wall as one of several belonging to the Gotham Free Clinic.
He relaxed somewhat in this knowledge. True, crime alley was not the best place for an invalid to spend a night, but one could not find one's self in more capable hands. And residents in Crime Alley had access to the best locks manufactured anywhere. The Wayne Foundation saw to that.
An inspection of the near by bedside table found several cards bearing well wishes ranging from genuinely hand written from the likes of Master Dick, Miss Gordon and the Drakes, to generic company scrawls from the Kents, Miss Diana, Mr Queen and something called the Green Lampoon core or some such rubbish. He couldn't tell, his eye was watering.
A few painful blinks cleared it, and the card in the exact centre of the mess caught his attention. How could it not?
A left hand, shaking from either pain or fear (he suspected he was far too full of pain killers to make an accurate distinction) charted a wobbling course across the room, clamed a still working thumb and forefinger around the very tip of the upper right hand corner, obscuring the sharp wing of the bat emblem printed neatly on the cover. It tumbled into his bed sheet ridden lap, flapping open to reveal the neat private school hand writing.
Alfred,
Lesley says it's simply a compound fracture and a concussion. Ask for this supposed 'back pay' again, and I'll do to you what I could hypothetically do to Kent. Get better soon! Your humble employer
Alfred shrugged as best as he was able.
At least Master Bruce had taken the time to apologise.