Disclaimer: Let me say it again...I don't own the Batman, or the very lovely Bruce Wayne, or even Alfred or the Batmobile. I basically only have a dime and a Beagle to my own name. So there!

"Your eyes will fall out if you keep glaring at your computer that way."

Victoria "Vic" Kensington jumped at the sound of her fellow journalist, Ed Bailey's voice. "Shut-up, Ed." She snapped. "Are you leaving?"

"Yep. Unlike others in this room, I like to work normal hours so I can get home in time to see my wife while she's still awake."

Vic rolled her eyes. "And unlike you, I don't have a wife to go home to, or a significant other, or even a cat. So I think I'll stick around here a little bit longer and see what I come up with." She went back to typing.

"You'll never have a significant other or even a cat if you keep working yourself into an early grave like you are now." Ed added, leaning against the door jam as though he were settling in for a long conversation.

"Good night, Ed." Vic replied without looking up. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah, I hope so." Ed muttered. "Unless that crazy guy you've been covering the news comes out here and kills you. It's not like he wouldn't know where to find you."

"Ed!" Vic sniped. "Door!"

"I'm locking the front door behind me." Ed called as he left office door slightly ajar behind him and his footsteps faded as he made his way out into the parking lot.

Pushing back from her desk, Vic heaved an aggravated sigh. She stood up and began to pace like a caged tiger. Laying her glasses on the table, she mentally reviewed all of the known facts about the latest crazy to swoop into Gotham. "It just doesn't add up." She spoke out loud. "Nothing here makes sense."

Growling in frustration she shoved all of her papers off of her desk and kicked her rolling chair across the room. A moment later this was followed by a distant thump. She looked up. "What...was that?"

Creeping out of her office she snuck out in the hallway. "Hello?" She called softly, afraid of actually being heard. "Ed, are you still here?"

Another thump echoed further into the building.

"Oh, for god's sake." She muttered, striding down the hallway to the editor's office. With Ed's cryptic words about lunatic murderers coming after her dancing through her mind, she flung the door open and flipped the light switch, expecting the crack of a gun to soon follow. Instead she saw nothing as the pale yellow light flooded into the room. Everything was in its place.

"Maybe I am working too late." She digressed, as she wound her way back to her own office which was really more like an over-sized closet with one very small dingy window. "I'll just finish my paragraph and then leave." She decided firmly, pushing back the nervous inklings that caressed the back of her mind.

Vic had just reached her office when the mother of all thud's reverberated against her office door. "What the hell?!" She paused and pressed her ear to the wood, listening intently. "Who are you? What are you doing in there?" She whispered. Someone was, without a doubt, in her office, rifling through her scattered papers.

Oh, crap, what to do now?

Backing away from the door, she dashed down the hallway in the other direction and went skidding into the coat room. Finding the massive old umbrella that had been housed there since her internship there as a teenager six years before, she walked resolutely back to her office door. Without thinking, she kicked it open, and with roar, ran in swinging only to find an empty room.

"What in the name...," she mumbled, still standing with the umbrella poised over her head, ready to come crashing down on the supposed attacker. Her eyes carefully scanned the room once more. Nothing seemed out of place, or at least no more than it had been already. As her arms lost all their strength, she dropped her age umbrella on the floor and waded through all her things, noting each one and carefully checking for each piece. "Nobody took anything that was in here. But I heard someone! I know I did...didn't I?" She stomped her foot on the floor. "I have definitely not gone insane! Someone was here...so how in the hell did they get out?"

"I'll figure it out tomorrow." Vic decided, gathering her purse and cell phone off of the desk. With one last glance over her shoulder, she flicked the light switch and left her office without noticing the bat that clung to the building just outside her window.

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Early Friday morning Vic stormed into the office of the Gotham Gazette and charged over to the desk that belonged to Ed Bailey. "Just who did you let into this office last night?"

Ed looked her blankly for a moment before catching her burning expression. "Um...uh, n-no one...?" He stuttered.

"Wrong answer!" Vic bellowed. "I know you let someone in here before you left last night, because all the doors and windows were locked, and yet "somehow" there was a prowler thumping and bumping around the place. And you," she pointed an accusing finger, "were the last to leave!"

"But...but that doesn't mean that I-that I let someone in...a prowler as you put it. If there was someone of the kind lurking about the place, he-he could have even been hiding in here before I left." Ed said defensively, sitting up in his chair.

"Please," Vic guffawed, slamming her paws down on the nicked up wood of the desk. "That is as likely a story as I ever heard."

"Vic, I didn't let anyone in." Ed emphasized, throwing his hands up in the air in an act of surrender. "If someone got into this building, I certainly didn't help them. Why would I do that to you?"

"You're right." Vic deflated. "I'm sorry." She paused. "But someone was in here, and I want to know who, because they were snooping around in my office, looking for god only knows what."

Ed chuckled. "Hey, you never know, maybe it was that Bat guy you're so fond of, stopping in to say hello."

Vic wrinkled her nose with a snort. "I doubt it was him. The loony bin usually has such advanced cases locked up at that time of night."