My first Batman: Beyond fic; it's not exactly my favorite aspect of the Dark
Knight, but to be honest this was a dream that I elaborated on a little, which
explains the creepiness. Anyway, that said, I've pardoned myself-- read on. ;)

Ghosts in this House

Haydee


It's raining when I get to the top of the hill. Dark, low clouds show
themselves even more ominous, up here on the peak, cliff overhanging one side
and the long, winding driveway down the other. I stand for a minute outside the
door, looking down the side of the mansion as it seems to curve away from me,
the eerie, heavy air playing tricks with my vision. A low rumble works its way
into the hollow of my chest, and I turn my face up into the torrent just in time
to see the flash of yellow burn across the sky, its after image blinding me even
after the moment is gone. I blink and it breaks into spots, and glance upward as
I turn to let myself in. I stop with my hand on the doorknob, looking up;
lightning flashes again, and for a moment I seem to see a face in the upper
window, one I do not know. My imagination makes it an old man, bald on top, hair
still lingering around the sides. Neat, black moustache, thin, angular face. I
blink again and it's gone.

I turn the knob and push in. Sometimes this old place creeps me out.

Inside, it's dank, humid almost with the moisture in the air. The door swings
shut naturally, and I'm long past spinning to see if someone's there. No one is.
My hair is soaked, like the rest of me, slicked down in little black points on
my forehead, the tip of each dagger dripping beads of water. I drop my shoulders
and with a heavy noise my backpack lands on the floor.

"Pick it up."

I almost jump. I didn't expect him to be there, waiting, not at this hour.
Usually when I get here, he's in the library, sleeping in that huge overstuffed
chair of his. Snoring. Usually I let myself downstairs for some warm-up and he
shows up when he wakes. Old guys need rest, I gather. Especially ones who tend
to stay up all night.

Me, on the other hand-- couldn't get it if I wanted it.

Today's been rough.

"C'mon..." I half-whine, mostly just tired.

He steps from out of the shadows of the library door. He hasn't been sleeping,
because he moves like he's tired, needs to sit down for a while. He's an old
man. I looked up his birth date.

"Pick it up," he rumbles, and I know that's the last time he's going to ask.

I do. By now the heat my body put off climbing up that long hill from the bus
stop is wearing off, and the dampness is creeping into my bones. Sometimes Bruce
picks me up after school. And sometimes he doesn't.

He turns, not waiting to see if I'm going to hang it up like he wants, leaning
on his cane down the hall. His body language says I'm to follow, so I keep my
backpack and hurry behind. He stops at the bottom of the stairs for a moment,
before I come up along side him take his arm.

He's an old man. I don't want him to get hurt anymore than you do.

Top of the stairs, I let go of his arm, seeing where I got him wet, but he
doesn't seem to notice, just goes to the door at the end of the hall, the one
that opens up into his room. It's a big room, big bed, big windows, big
everything. I think maybe it belonged to his folks, before. He wouldn't have
chosen it.

By now I know what he wants so I follow him inside. Besides the room there are
three other doors, one to the closet, one to the bathroom, and one to a little
side room that has a small set of stairs down to the kitchen, a little room that
I think maybe was used for servants a long time ago, because inside there is a
bed that looks older than my great-grandfather.

Bruce stays in the bedroom, and I go into the side room.

What comes next would sound strange to someone who doesn't understand. I don't
understand either, but I'm used to it and I've stopped questioning. He doesn't
answer.

I sit down on the cot, leaving the door a crack open, a crack I am not supposed
to look out of and a crack which there would be no point in looking out of
anyway because on the other side there's a folding divide, flimsy, with an asian
print. It's yellowed and old but effective.

So I sit on the bed and let the backpack slump off beside me, it waterproof
enough that it's only damp and my books are only damp, but me still soaking.
Rain.

I look at the floor and then I look at the ceiling in the dark, bare little
room. Everything is grey, old. I get up again and go to the small window. I look
down to the front lawn, now obscured by the flood of water from the sky, but
from what I can see overrun with water. It doesn't matter; the grass died out
there a long time before I came along.

I sit back on the cot. I look at the crack, light coming in faintly. From the
window the eerie clouds shed a pale, reflected light, not enough to make the
window slats a shadow on the floor, but enough to illuminate the half of my face
turned towards the window. I look at the crack again, and begin.

On a day like this, it doesn't even sound like my voice, really. First time, I
was nervous, voice high, unsure and feeling stupid. Now the words, an
undercurrent of thunder, take on a life of their own, and my voice, soon
becoming a man's, is low and certain.

"Our Father," I intone, "who art in heaven; hallowed be thy name."

There is a flash of lighting and I see my shoes, shoelaces, in the middle of
two rainpuddles forming on the floor. There is almost a noise from the next
room, but I miss it in the thunder.

"Give us this day our daily bread; forgive us our trespasses--"

I pause, for another roll of thunder.

"As we have forgiven those who trespass against us."

Thunder again, and a sharp crash; I stand, taking one quick, sudden step
towards the door, and then stop. No. I sink back to the cot.

"Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the
kingdom and the power and the glory--"

Crack of lightning. Rolling echo of light.

"Forever and ever--" thunder rolls again, joining my last spoken word. "Amen."

For a moment I am silent, listening to the storm outside. The wind comes up
now, hurling the rain against the little window so that it is all a flurry of
foam, white water dashing against the glass. Then I stand, and move with quiet
steps to the door. My hand touches the knob, and it swings open. On one corner
of the divide hangs a white bathrobe, waiting.

I take it, and, peeling off my wet clothes, toss them on the already soaked
matress of the cot and slip into the robe. Not warm, but dry. My body heats it
quickly.

Again I slip through the door, cautious, quiet. I look around the divide, and
then step into the room. It is dark, the curtains pulled. But the sky is bright
now, outside, and through the cracks the strange, crackling thunder illuminates
the room. He's in the bed, asleep. No sign of the dog.

On silent feet, I backtrack, treading down the steep little stairs to the
kitchen below. Here, the tile, the counters, make it even colder. I would build
a fire, but without something from downstairs, I don't know how. Instead I turn
on the oven, leave the door open to heat the room. After a while, it works.

No-- I do not understand-- any of it.

But I know he needs it, like he needs his pills-- just like. The first time, I
refused; like now, I didn't understand, and it used to be that I had to object
when I didn't understand. I refused, and he struck me. Hard. He's an old man,
but he knows things nobody else does. Maybe there's things he knows that I don't
want to understand.

Like faces, faint and insubstantial, flickering in window reflections.

We almost came to blows, when he hit me-- but I won't hit an old man. So we
nearly parted. I nearly left. He nearly ordered me out. But like the pills,
without *it,* he gets weak, breath comes funny, painful. Gets so he can't hardly
stand up. Winces, clenches his teeth. That first time, I had to help him into
bed.

Now I do what he wants, what he doesn't have to ask. He's an old man; I don't
want him hurt any more than you do.

Then, as I'm sitting in the kitchen, I feel the hair go up on the back of my
neck. Natural reflexes or what, I don't know; in this house, my body listens for
things I don't understand in my mind. Without me knowing it, I'm standing again,
running up the stairs in back to the little room, the little room I realize
looks out over the front door, the room that flashes in lightning with faces
I've never seen...

I burst into his room, past the divide, and stop in the middle of the floor, my
hair going up all over now. That lightning, strange, crackling, electric, is
somehow here, in the room. Not like outside, not yellow and blinding, but here,
like static, in the air, in between my hands and feet and whatever I touch.

Bruce lays in bed, not asleep, but eyes open, watching. Watching I don't know
what. And then I do. The curtains are drawn, but still the lightning flickers
outside, in the black, and for a moment the room is illuminated through the
stips of light at either end of the windows. Then everything is dark, and
after-images dance on the inside of my eyelids. The room, the bed, him-- and
her.

Then, I know her shape, and my eyes know what to see-- and she is there,
crouched, poised, lithe, beautiful, on the end of the bed. Back stretched
proudly inward, tail arcing back and forth in sudden, powerful sweeps, fingers
with nails gripping tight, digging in, between her feet on the bedpost. Small,
rounded ears complimenting her face below.

"Selina," Bruce's lips murmur. He pushes himself up, grunting, with effort. I
am frozen. His body sinks against the bedrest behind him, his hands tightening
at his sides. "Why are you here?"

She blinks, slowly, long lashes and large orbs glowing yellow in the dim light.
"You know," she whispers, her voice a hiss. "You know-- you mussst come."

"No," he returns, his voice faint, cold. "Not yet. It's not over--"

"It never will be over!" her voice peaks, cracks, screeches. "It never is--
never. Never. The eternal ssstruggle-- you cannot conquer it. You mussst leave
it. For the othersss to fight."

His eyes harden, narrow. "You were never part of that fight," he rumbles.
"That's not why you come."

For a moment there is silence, and other flicker of lightning, and on the other
side of her body the second bedpost is illuminated. "No," she says.

"Then what?"

One hand, one claw, extracts itself from the bedpost. Inches forward, stretches
fully and caresses itself onto the matress between his legs. The other follows,
and then her body, sensuous and slow. "Ahhh," she whispers, drawing out out. Her
eyes close, and open slowly to meet his gaze. "You know why *I* want you,
Batman. Come... with me... be what you were always meant to be. We wore the
masks, a symbol of what was to come-- but now I am what I have been... and I am
whole. Come, Batman, and take the night..."

I do not hear his response, what he has begun to say. She reaches for his face,
not to harm, but to caress, to tempt, and suddenly something fills me, something
solid and certain-- and I rush forward, knocking her back. My arms open, pushing
out between them, away.

"Leave him alone!" I shout. "Let him be!"

She hisses and spits, furious. "Get away from me, old man," she snaps, leaping
to the second bedpost. "You know nothing of his heart."

"More than you!" I cry. "There is no heart in you-- only lust, and frozen
emptiness. He is not what he seems, not-- not an animal. Now let him be-- leave
him in peace." My chest is heaving. I won't let her, I won't let her-- what?

"I want him!" she hisses, drawing close. She turns, and speaks to him. "You are
Batman!" she insists. "The executor of vengeance! You feel it in your heart!"

Silence.

I stand, panting. "Tell her," I say, my breath hot, my temples pounding. "Tell
her you are Bruce-- tell her who you are. Who I know you are."

His face is troubled, wraught with something-- incomprehensible. Indecision?
No. Surely not.

"Batman?" she demands.

"Or... Bruce?" I say, quietly.

"You mussst choossse."

He closes his eyes. "I am both," he says. "Be gone."

Lightning flashes, and one of the window panes swings open, blowing aside the
curtain and letting in a torrent of rain. She is gone, and I run to the window
to close the latch, close out the frozen air. A strange silence hangs in the
room, and the air is heavy. I go to the side of the bed, and help him gently to
slide back beaneath the heavy blankets, pulling them up about his broad
shoulders. He is breathing heavily now, although I am not, and seems
disoriented, confused.

"Which am I?" he asks, his lips scarcely moving as he murmurs the words. "I
don't-- I can't decide. Not yet."

"Shh," I say, using the sleeve of my robe to wipe the cold sweat from his brow.
"Shh. Shall I say it again, Master Bruce?"

He closes his eyes. "Yes, old friend. Slowly."

I kneel down beside the edge of the bed, my hands on top of the blanket where
beneath his arm lays at his side. "Our Father..." I begin, quietly, slowly. When
I reach the end, his eyes are closed, but he is not asleep. I get to my feet,
preparing to leave him in peace, but stop, looking down at him. His eyes flicker
open, tired.

"What is it?" he rasps.

I frown slightly, and feel as though I've suddenly lost something. I ask it
anyway. "Who is-- Alfred?"

His eyes close again, and he lets out a slow, deep breath. His lips press
together for a moment before he speaks. "Who?" he asks.

I open my mouth, but whatever it was, it was gone. I shake my head. "Nothing, I
guess." I say. "Never mind."

"...No patrol tonight," he says, and I can hear his voice drifting away into
sleep. "Get some rest."

Yeah, it's been a rough day. Sleep would be nice, maybe a hot shower
beforehand. "You too," I say, patting his shoulder roughly before I turn to go
out, through the servant's room to pick up my backpack on the way.

"There are many ghosts in this house," he murmurs, almost from sleep, as I
disappear behind the divide. "Many ghosts, in this old house."

I stop in the dark little room, cool and musty, and go to the window. It's
still raining, but the storm has passed now, blown over and past this craggy
hill, and in the far distance I can see jagged bolts of light cut through the
sky. A thunderstorm is a strange, awesome thing.

I look down, to the yard, and now that the rain has cleared I can see to the
ground, to the steps leading up to the door. And I realize again, absently, that
this was indeed the window with the flickering face, if it was ever there.

The End


Thanks for reading! Okay, weird, I know, but I have weird dreams. Now, be a
considerate reader and gimme a review! ;)

--Haydee