Hi this is your admin, big dumb dumb. I know I was supposed to upload yesterday, but I ended up going home for the day to see my family and grab some stuff to bring back to my apartment. I didn't even realize I missed upload until I was at my other friend;s apartment last night and nowhere near my laptop so I could upload it really quick.
I also realize I do a lot of stuff out of order of the DKR movie, but I need stuff to happen a certain way so I can line it up the way I have it planned. I hope you guys aren't bothered by that. But please enjoy this next installment and I'll see you guys on Friday (hopefully) next week!
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Anslee had arrived back to the manor in the late afternoon, she'd used her keys to unlock the front door and stepped inside. However, she could already hear voices coming from just outside the foyer. They sounded like her father and Alfred. Curious, Ans slipped off her shoes and headed to where she heard the voice, just below the grand staircase.
"You see only one end to your journey," Alfred's voice spoke, "Leaving is all I have to make you understand."
This just had to be the moment that Anslee arrived home. She knew it was going to be inevitable that Alfred would announce to her father that he had decided to step down from his position at the manor in order to get Bruce to perhaps change his mind. She just wished she wasn't going to have to be there to witness it knowing Bruce would not have handled it well at all.
"You're not Batman anymore. You have to find another way. You used to talk about finishing it. About a life beyond that awful cave. Getting back what you lost after all those years you were gone."
"Alfred, Rachel died knowing that we had decided to be together, I could be there for Anslee finally, they could both have had the lives they only ever always deserved. That was my life beyond the cave...I can't just move on. She didn't. She couldn't." Bruce's voice responded, though it was low and somber. Much less firm and pronounced like Alfred's.
Anslee looked to the ground hearing her father say that. She held her breath, bracing herself for what was to come, knowing all too well what Alfred was about to reveal to her father.
Alfred was silent as well, Anslee could almost picture the look he was giving Bruce.
"What if she had? What if she wasn't intending to make a life with you?"
Bruce immediately retorted, "She was, I can't change that-"
"What if before she died, she wrote a letter? Explaining that she'd chosen Harvey Dent over you?"
There was another silence before the older man continued, "And what if, to spare you pain...I'd burned that letter?"
"How dare you use Rachel.." Bruce spoke in a grave tone, "To try to stop me."
"I am using the truth, Master Wayne. And maybe it's time we all stop trying to outsmart the truth and let it have its day," Alfred stated, his voice obviously becoming more choked up as he talked, "I'm sorry."
"You're sorry? You expect to destroy my world, then shake hands?"
"No..I know what this means," Alfred almost muttered.
"What does it mean?"
"It means your hatred," the older man's voice cracked, "And it also means losing someone that I have cared for since I first heard his cries echo through this house. But it might also mean saving your life. And that's more important."
Anslee's own eyes had filled with tears just hearing the two exchange such bitter conversation, she could hear the anger in Bruce's voice and the heartbreak in Alfred's. She couldn't help but sympathize with Alfred and feel his pain, it was all too much.
The silence was deafening after Alfred's statement, but the tension in the air was high and left the situation less than resolved.
"Goodbye, Alfred," Bruce muttered before his footsteps could be heard bounting up the stairs.
Anslee reached up and wiped her eyes with her jacket sleeve, sniffling from holding back small sobs and tears themselves. After a second she stepped out from behind the corner she was standing behind while listening to the two men talking. Her eyes landed on a misty-eyed Alfred and immediately she walked towards him with her arms outstretched.
The man took the girl into an embrace, but the one to let the water works start was Anslee. As soon as her head hit his chest, tears free flowed down her cheeks, cascading one after the other in a seemingly never ending flow as they soaked the front of the man's sweater vest.
"I'm so sorry, Alfred," she muttered, holding onto the man who had always been like family to her.
"There's no need to be, Miss Wayne," he replied, his voice still choked, "He's got every right to be upset with me."
"But he doesn't," Anslee pulled away slightly and looked up at him, "My dad has held on for too long..he's too clouded by his own self-pity to see that what you did benefitted him more than he knows. I just wish that meant you didn't have to leave."
"It's better that way," Alfred smiled weakly down at her.
"I know," Anslee spoke sadly, laying her head down back onto his chest, savoring this last embrace she might ever get with one of the last family members she had left.
XXX
Anslee had finally let Alfred go so he could go and begin to gather his things before leaving off to wherever he planned to go. She figured he wanted to keep it pretty under the radar for the time being, but he assured her that he would keep in contact with her.
The woman had climbed the stairs and headed to where she knew she would find Bruce while he was in a state of being distraught. Thomas Wayne's study seemed to be his favorite brooding area in the manor.
Once outside the large dark oak wood doors, Anslee knocked three times before reaching for the handle and pushing the door open. Gloomy light illuminated the room from the windows with half drawn sheer curtains. Sitting at the desk with his hand on his chin was Bruce. He looked to be upset yet deep in thought, but when he heard the door open, his eyes averted to his daughter in the doorway.
"Did Alfred send you in here to berate me too?" He asked bitterly.
"I didn't come in here to talk about that, and I won't talk about that. I'm not gonna be your happy medium in this, so don't drag me into it," Anslee replied, the same bitterness in her tone, "If you're only interested in wallowing then I'll leave."
Bruce observed his daughter, noted how headstrong and serious she was about the words she spoke. His heart ached at the constant reminder of how much like Rachel she was.
"No," he shook his head, "Did you find anything else out that might be helpful?"
Anslee walked in and took a seat across from her father, "No...Detective Blake and I really didn't discuss anything like that. I told him what I knew, but that' the extent of it."
Bruce raised an eyebrow at the girl, but shook it off, "I'm still looking into Daggett . He was trying to acquire shares in Wayne Enterprise without many people knowing, but I still retain a clear majority so it wouldn't do him any good."
"Why would he want shares when Wayne Enterprise is losing money?" Anslee questioned.
Bruce flashed her a look, "Someone's been hacking into the Wayne Enterprise systems again."
Anslee rolled her eyes, "It gets a little boring around here at night, but I'm not wrong. When you funnel the entire R and D budget for five years into a project that you then mothball, your company is unlikely to thrive. Even with a wildly sophisticated CEO like yourself. Your company is running out of time and Daggett is moving in. The hit on the stock exchange is proof of that and likely only the beginning."
"I don't have many options, Anslee," Bruce sighed.
"What about the machine? The one in the R and D bunker, the one Miranda Tate is always emailing your people about? And why is she apparently playing a big role in all of this?"
"I can't do that. And she made a large investment in the clean energy project, but the investment just didn't pay off," he glanced to the window, his chair swiveling to the side a bit.
Anslee snickered, "So you used a project failure as an excuse as to why you disappeared off the face of the Earth after everything that happened five years ago."
"I thought you said you weren't coming in here to talk about that," Bruce glanced back at her, quirking a brow again.
"What about Selina Kyle?" Anslee quickly changed the subject.
He sighed once more, "She was looking for a program called 'The Clean Slate'. It was the ultimate tool for someone with a record like her. You type in a name and date of birth and within a couple hours that person ceases to exist in any database. Ryka Data took it to the prototype stage and Daggett bought them."
"Is it real though? Is that the thing Selina wanted from him last night when you found her? He said it didn't exist."
Bruce just gave her a look and sat back in his chair, "Fox should be getting back to me about the coded trades here soon. I'll keep you updated."
Anslee stood up from her chair and nodded, "Good talk.." she looked down at him for a few seconds and pursed her lips. She turned to leave the office, but stopped at the door, glancing back at her father one last time. She wanted to say something to him about Alfred, but it seemed too soon to say anything. However, another thought struck her mind that she wanted to pick Bruce's brain about.
"The Wayne Foundation used to fund a boys home in the city, Saint Swithens.." she began, making Bruce look back at her.
One of his eyebrows raised in response to the statement, "I thought I heard Alfred say something about you going to see Officer Blake."
"Detective Blake," Anslee corrected him, "Why did they stop funding it?"
Bruce scoffed, "You said it yourself. My company isn't thriving. The Foundation is funded from the profits of Wayne Enterprises. There have to be some."
Anslee merely hummed in response to his question before turning back to the door and wrapping her hand around the cold metal handle. She pulled the door open and walked out to head back to her own room.
