A.N. I'm sorry, i dont have word or a beta... so there's a lot of errors in this, please be kind.

Alfred

I remember that horible day. every time I think of it all i see is a little boy's face, eyes glazed over and cheaks red with tears. I remember Gordon riding up in his police cruzer, coming, to tell me that we had lost the last good hearts Gotham had. I remember...

Bruce was never quite the same... his smile was never as bright, his laughter, rare. i dont know how. how. i had missed this change in him... then i suppose that he never realy changed, and that was the problem... Bruce always tried to hide the ever present pain... but it was like an open sore in his side that was unable to heal. I supose that i, like he, had simply goten used to it.

But then, he disapeared.

I remember Gordon, seeing him in his police cruzer brought the night that Martha and Thomas had died back, and i prayed. that he would not say what I knew he would.

That Bruce was gone.

first was fear. Terror that he was hurt, that he was somewhere dieing. then came Pain, we were sure that he was dead. after all this is Gotham, after a week the police stop serching for a person, and start looking for a body.

For seven years, i dont think i left the mannor. Rachel was the only one who came to see me, the only one who tried... For seven years i mourned. For seven years, I was dead.

Then when he returned, came both hurt and joy. I was happy to see him, alive and for the most part, well. But as the shock and happieness at seeing him alive wore away the hurt that he would leave came... I thought he was dead... I thought he was gone...

i supose thogh... that he never realy came back... no. Bruce was gone. now it was Wayne, and of course... Batman.

Batman, the lunitic.

Batman, the vigilantie.

Batman, the hero of Gotham.

Bruce was gone, but then he was so much more.

I still worry of him. still see the glazed eyes and shining tears of that terrible night, and i know that that night stole Bruce from us, that that night was when Batman was born. But i will allways remember Bruce, the little boy with glassy eyes and shining cheaks, who died with his parents in an ally.