Here is the next chapter! Thanks for reading! Also, warning Bruce swats Ella a couple of times as punishment in this chapter, so careful if that isn't the sort of thing you care to read. Nothing explicit or intense. Disclaimer: I own nothing Batman/DC
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"It's March 13th," said Ella.
"Excellent. You know the date," said Alfred, standing from Bruce's desk chair and scooping up the stack of books before him. He went to the bookcase and began putting the volumes away in their respective places.
"So that means I have four days," whined Ella, narrowing her eyes.
Alfred knelt down, sliding the final book into its spot and sighed, "Yes. Four days left out of the fourteen you started with. It was your own choice to put it off this long."
"We were busy!" shot back Ella. "How was I supposed to write a book report while driving back and forth to the hospital all the time?"
"Watch your tone," warned Alfred, pointing his finger at the girl and giving her a meaningful look.
Ella blushed and sunk into her chair on the opposite side of the desk, "Sorry, sir."
Alfred sighed again and gazed down at the girl. "Now, come on, darling," he said, his tone softening. "How about you move to Bruce's chair and spend an hour writing. Just an hour, alright? You'll be surprised how much you can get down. I'll go and check on Master Wayne."
Ella stood and pushed her notebook, pen, and a leather-bound copy of To Kill a Mockingbird to the opposite side of the desk. She had finished reading it only two days after Alfred had informed her that she would be writing a book report on it, and had spent the next week and a half procrastinating the actual report.
"This is the only schooling you've had for almost a month," said Alfred, holding the desk chair as Ella dropped into it, and then sliding it in closer to the desk. "I know you've got a lot of brainpower stored in this hard head." He tapped her head as he spoke. "Show me what ideas you've got locked up in there."
"Two whole pages," groaned Ella, picking up her pencil.
"I know you can do it," called Alfred, already on his way out the study door.
Ella groaned and let her head drop onto the desk. "I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this," she whispered, kicking her shoes against the sides of the desk. "I should be checking on Bruce, too. Do Jem and Scout matter more than my father?" She felt a strange jolt in her stomach, and she sighed. Her father. She hadn't called him Dad since…well, since he had been dropped unconscious by Selina Kyle. She wasn't sure what had happened. During the chaos of Selina taking the Tumbler, the GCPD showing up, being hospitalized, and learning of Vince's death, she had simply stopped calling him Dad. In fact, she had purposefully been avoiding using any name when she spoke to him, greeting him instead with a smile and a hello.
Ella didn't know it, but Bruce had noticed the absence of fatherly titles. It had brought him an incredible joy to hear his girl call him Dad, and it was apparent to him that she hadn't said the name in weeks. In fact, Ella had called him merely Bruce for a few days in the hospital. At first, he had accepted it as a fluke due to the confusion of all that had taken place, but when she stopped calling him anything, he began to wonder what was going on.
Ella kicked the chair back and stood, dropping her pencil onto the desk and ran across the room. She pulled the door open and looked out, making sure Alfred was nowhere around. A plan was not precisely what Ella would call the idea formulating in her head, but her emotions had the better of her, just as they had for the past several weeks, and she didn't stop to think as she hurried across two halls and into an open gallery. Beautiful carvings decorated the walls and an ornate ceiling stretched overhead. The floor was a brown and white tile and lead to an enormous fireplace opposite of Ella. The room was truly breathtaking, but it was not a place Ella spent very much time. In fact, she had only been through it several times before, but her eye had always been drawn to the four stands in each corner of the room holding intricately designed vases.
It took her only a second to reach the nearest one, and she rested her hand on it, ignoring the shaking in her arm. "Why?" she said out loud. It surprised Ella to hear her own voice, but her heart knew the answer to the question. She was going to break the vase and the reason was so that Bruce would be angry at her. Ella wanted Alfred to drag her through the halls to Bruce's room and inform him what she had done. Ella wanted Bruce to be confused and yell at her and she wanted to yell back. She wanted to be grounded for a month or sent to her room without supper. It wasn't right that Bruce was so kind. He had been shot and, apart from that, the old injury to his knee was bothering him badly and he needed a cane to walk.
The hospital had released him just two days before, and Bruce had spent much of that time asleep. He was still frail, and with the pain in his knee found it easier to remain in his room. Yet through it all, Bruce had remained gentle and loving with his daughter. He had spent long hours talking about everything that had happened to her, making sure she was alright. Vince's death particularly worried Bruce, and he had done whatever he could to make sure Ella was emotionally secure after the news.
And it confused Ella to her very core.
How could Bruce have gone through so much pain and trouble and still love her? He had been shot, knocked unconscious, and battled a terrible bout of pneumonia in the hospital that had overtaken him the day after Ella was released.
"It was all my fault," said Ella, her hand still on the vase. "None of that would have happened to him if it wasn't for me."
So why was she breaking the vase? Ella pushed the rational questions from her head and growled. Break the vase. She was going to break the vase and snap Bruce out of this gentle spirit. Just push it. Just push the vase, and gravity will do the rest. A single shove was all it would take. One finger could do the job.
Ella pushed.
She closed her eyes as the vase shattered, millions of pieces scattering instantly across the tile floor. It echoed loudly through the room, and Ella swore it had to have been heard through the entire manor. For a few seconds, she didn't move at all, but finally, she turned and left the room, deciding to go back to the study.
"What on earth was that?" came Alfred's voice.
Ella spun on her heel as she left the room and saw Alfred at the end of the hall, walking towards her.
"Ella, are you alright, darling?" he asked, looking genuinely confused.
"I broke it," said Ella, staring at Alfred, unsure of what on earth she was even trying to accomplish.
"You broke it?" asked Alfred, stepping around her and peering into the room. "Oh…well…I, oh, that's alright, dear. We'll get it cleaned up. No harm is done."
"I wanted to break it," said Ella, realizing Alfred thought it was an accident.
He stopped and turned to face her, "What's that?"
"I broke it on purpose," said Ella.
Alfred looked genuinely confused, "You…well, why on earth did you do that?"
"Because I felt like it," shrugged Ella. "I didn't want to write that stupid report. So, I…broke the vase."
Alfred stared at Ella.
Ella stared at Alfred.
"Alright, bye," said Ella, turning and running as fast as she could down the hall. Alfred called after her, but she ignored him and pressed on towards Bruce's bedroom. Why was she heading to Bruce's room? She honestly did not know. It was as if someone else was entirely in control of Ella's mind, and making her do weird things that she didn't really want to.
Ella knew who it was, too. It was the old Ella. It was the Ella that had purposefully made her foster parents' lives miserable so she would be sent back to the children's home because she was tired of getting beaten by drunken dads and screamed at by stressed-out moms. But why now? Why was old Ella taking over seven months after moving in with the kindest caretakers she could possibly have imagined?
"Idiot!" hissed Ella as she ran. "Why are you such a total moron?"
She was at Bruce's door now.
"Bruce!" she yelled, pounding her fist against the door.
"Ella?" came Bruce's voice from inside.
She threw the door open and stormed in. "Bruce, I broke a vase," she said. "A vase in that one big room with nothing in it but vases. It's a stupid room. I wanted to break it. I did it on purpose. Alfred is making me write a dumb book report, and I don't want to. And I want you to stop being so nice to me. None of my foster parents were ever nice to me. This is ridiculous." Ella slammed the door closed and crossed the room to Bruce's bed.
The man was sitting upright, his lower half covered by blankets and his back propped up by pillows. A book was in one hand, a glass of water in the other, and a confused look graced his face.
Ella stopped at the end of his bed and kicked the frame, "Yell at me! Make me go to my room! Stop being fake!"
"Fake?" asked Bruce, setting his water down. "What on earth is wrong with you, Ella?"
"I don't know!" yelled Ella and promptly dropped to the floor. She rested her back against the bed and pulled her knees close, hiding her face.
"Ella," came Bruce's voice. Ella could hear him grunting as he struggled to stand, and a few seconds later, his hand was on her shoulder. "Hey, sweetheart," he said, slowly lowering himself down beside her. "Ella, what's going on?"
Bruce's strong arms wrapped around Ella and pulled her close, but she stayed stiff and ignored his embrace.
The door swung open, and Alfred's voice rang out, "Ella, wh…oh, dear."
"It's alright, Alfred," said Bruce, looking up. "I've got this."
"Of course, sir," nodded Alfred, stepping back and closing the door behind him.
"He'll be mad, too," said Ella, her voice muffled in her arms.
"Ella, hey, it's alright," soothed Bruce. He had no idea what was going on, but he knew it probably had something to do with Ella's strange attitude over the past few weeks.
"Let me go," snapped Ella, pulling free of Bruce's hug and scrambling to her feet. "I'm sick of doing whatever everyone says."
"Hey, missy," said Bruce, his voice strained as he struggled to stand up, "you aren't making any sense. Are you feeling alright?"
"Yes," said Ella, stomping across the room to the window. She pushed the curtain all way aside and placed her palms against the glass, staring out over the lawn. "Just do it."
"Just do what?" asked Bruce, limping towards her.
"Punish me!" cried Ella, spinning to face him. "You are so dense!" She stepped towards him and landed a hard smack to his left shoulder.
"Hey!" said Bruce. "Say, what on earth is wrong with you?"
"I can't believe how hard this is," said Ella, staring at Bruce in a state of confusion. She had fully expected him to explode in a rage by now and send her to her room, or at least lecture her sternly. "How are you too stupid to understand that I'm bad? You're an idiot!" The last word was accentuated by another solid smack, this time to Bruce's right shoulder; the gunshot side.
"Ah!" cried Bruce, stumbling backward and grimacing from the sharp pain that shot through his arm. He glared at Ella and, in a flash, had wrapped his hand around her left arm and pulled her close to his side. Before either of them knew what was happening, Bruce had landed four hard smacks on Ella's bottom and then held her with both hands at arm's length. "Now, that is enough of that!" he said sternly.
Ella stared at him, shocked by the sudden turn of events.
"Now, I don't know why you've been acting so funny for the past few weeks," said Bruce, relieved he seemed to have her attention, "but it's time to snap out of it. If this is about your brother, then you need to tell me, and we can get help. There is nothing to be ashamed of if you're upset. But you aren't going to go around yelling and hitting people. No more, young lady. Do you understand me? I love you too much to let you act like this."
"Yes, Dad," whispered Ella, her chest heaving as she stared up at him.
Bruce's face softened, and he relaxed slightly from his tense position. "Okay," he nodded, his heart swelling at hearing the name Dad again. "Okay, missy. Come here. Let's sit down."
"Dad," whispered Ella, her feet staying firmly where she was as Bruce tried to lead her towards the bed. "Dad, I…" she stopped and fell forward into his arms, sobs overwhelming her.
"Okay, okay, it's alright," soothed Bruce, pulling his daughter close. "Ssh, it's alright, missy. Hey, hey, now." He leaned down, kissing her head gently and shushing her gently, "It's alright, missy. Hey, sweetheart." His calming voice continued to mutter terms of endearment as he turned and awkwardly pulled Ella towards the bed. Slowly dropping down, with a grimace as pain shot through his knee, Bruce cradled Ella in his arms as she wept.
"Dad!" sobbed Ella, barely able to say anything more through her tears.
"I'm here, missy," said Bruce. "It's okay."
They sat for almost five minutes as Ella cried, but eventually, Bruce grew stiff and groaned as he shifted. "El," he mumbled. Ella sensed that he was uncomfortable and pulled away as he switched his position. "It's alright, kiddo," said Bruce, holding his arm out again.
"No," she whispered, standing up and brushing at the stray tears on her cheeks. "It's not. I'm sorry. I've been a jerk."
"Ella, come here," said Bruce, wanting to stand and go to her, but unable to move. His knee had locked up, and the pain was incredible.
"I don't know why I did that," sniffed Ella, pushing some stray curls back from her face. "All of that. I'm sorry I broke the vase." She felt strangely free, at least freer than she had ten minutes before. "I don't really…I was dumb. I knew I shouldn't do it but I wanted your attention. I guess I wanted to see what you'd do if…"
"If I was pushed to the edge?" offered Bruce, starting to understand.
Ella shrugged, "Yeah. I guess. Wasn't really expecting that."
"That?" asked Bruce, raising an eyebrow.
"The…you whacked me," said Ella, blushing.
"Yeah, I did," nodded Bruce, somewhat surprised at himself. Alfred had spanked him growing up, but he had never envisioned using that form of discipline on his own children. The reaction to spank Ella had shocked him, and he was a little nervous about how she would respond.
"No one's ever done that," Ella sighed, focusing on her shoe as it traced a line on the carpet. "Spanked me, I mean. I've gotten beat a lot but always on my arms or face."
"Ah," said Bruce, feeling unsure of how to proceed and waiting for Ella to continue.
"So, you still love me and all?" asked Ella, wanting to turn and face Bruce but feeling quite ashamed at her actions.
"Still love you?" chuckled Bruce. "Well, I should say so. It'll take more than breaking a vase to make me not love you. Actually, I don't think anything could make me not love you."
Ella turned and made eye contact with Bruce. His gaze said it all. "You love me," whispered Ella. "I love you, too."
Bruce sighed and leaned back against his pillows, "Come here, missy. Sit down."
Ella obeyed, sinking down at the end of the bed so she could face Bruce.
"This is the story, kid," said Bruce. "You've been through a lot. You've been through more than anyone should ever have to go through. You've been treated wrongly, and you deserved none of it. That's all in the past. You are safe here. Well…" Bruce blushed, "relatively. Obviously, not when people come in and kidnap…"
"I know," interrupted Ella. "I knew, but I was all weird in my head and I don't know why I did it but suddenly I needed to prove it and…" Her words died off and she sighed.
"Yeah," smiled Bruce.
Ella groaned and covered her face, "Oh, I'm sorry, Dad! I am so horrible! I doubted you!"
"Ella," said Bruce, his voice firm and smooth. "You didn't doubt me. You just deepened your confirmation, eh?"
Ella looked up, meeting Bruce's eyes, and made a face. "Don't stick up for my stupidity, Dad," she said. "Let me wallow in my pain."
Bruce smirked, "Nah. I'm too great of a father for that. Come here, missy."
Ella scrambled up the bed and snuggled up to Bruce's side, staying mindful of his sore body, but wrapping her arms around his stomach as she longed for the physical touch. Everything inside of her felt wildly different than it had before, and the thought of her actions confused her. How could she have ever thought that Bruce would treat her like the foster families? This was Bruce! The man that had taken her in when no one else wanted her, taken an honest interest in the furthering of her mind through education, provided for her every need, given her his family name, and risked his life to get her back. Of course, he loved her.
"I think it wouldn't hurt to talk to a therapist," said Bruce, tenderly running his fingers through one of Ella's curls. It got tangled and he groaned, "Eh, how do you deal with this hair?"
"I just do absolutely nothing and hope for the best," shrugged Ella. "Therapists are for kids who exhibit hostile or psychotic behavior."
"Now, where did you hear that?" asked Bruce.
"It's on a paper tacked to the wall by the main desk at the children's home," replied Ella. "If a child exhibits hostile or psychotic behavior, contact a therapist as there may have been past abuse in the home. Or something like that. I was in the office a lot, and I would read the posters while I waited to get yelled at."
"Therapists are not solely for hostile and psychotic people," said Bruce. "Can you move to the left a little? Yeah, that's better. Okay, you can put your head down again. Sorry, my knee was in a weird spot. Okay, so get this. I've had a therapist."
"Alfred?" asked Ella.
"No, Alfred does not count as a therapist," said Bruce. "Though he probably could do the job. I want to introduce you to the lady I use to meet with. She is excellent and I think she could help you. This is the second weird mood swing you've had and I don't think it would do any harm to get some help."
Ella sighed and thought for a minute. To be honest, talking about her feelings didn't seem like a terribly bad idea. It was a little strange to discuss female things with Alfred and Bruce, and there was also something weirdly difficult about conveying her problems to parental figures. But, on the other hand, she wasn't entirely sure how to put into words what she had felt during her little outburst. It was a strange thing in the pit of her stomach, and to explain it seemed impossible. "I dunno," she sighed. "Guess it wouldn't hurt."
"Really?" asked Bruce. "Thought you'd be against that. Well, that's great, missy. I'll set up a meeting with her. If you don't feel comfortable after you meet her, we'll move on from there."
"Thanks, Pop," sighed Ella. "I'm sorry I broke that vase."
"It's okay," replied Bruce. "You're right about that room. It is sort of stupid to have a giant space dedicated to four vases. Well, three now."
"Oh, hey," said Ella, sitting upright and looking Bruce in the eye, "about the thing you did. You know."
She stopped talking and narrowed her eyes at him. He looked back, eyebrow raised.
"The thing?" he asked.
"You know," prodded Ella. "The smacking that took place."
"Oh, the thing," nodded Bruce. "What about it?"
"Is that a regular thing?" asked Ella, blushing at the thought. "Like if I'm bad, will that be a normal occurrence?"
"It worked, didn't it?" shrugged Bruce, amused by her concern. "I don't see any reason to rule it out as a possible option."
"That sucks," huffed Ella, dropping down onto the pillow beside Bruce and crossing her arms. He looked down at her and chuckled, earning a glare, "Hey, man, it feels a little babyish. Don't tell me you were getting smacked when you were thirteen."
"Oh, hey, now!" said Bruce, "I'll have you know that Alfred spanked me until I was seventeen-years-old!"
"Say what!" cried Ella, sitting upright and staring at her father. "Alfred spanked you?"
"I'll say he did," nodded Bruce. "That man has a heck of a hard hand. He knew how to set me straight." Bruce stopped and smiled at his daughter, placing his left hand on her face, "Listen, El. Spanking is not my ideal form of punishment. I absolutely hate the idea of it. But it sure worked on me. Don't dwell on it, but keep it in mind if you ever think about building a bomb in the library or putting snakes in Alfred's bed."
"Speaking from experience?" questioned Ella smirking.
"No, just from fantasies," laughed Bruce.
"Okay, well, thanks for this incredibly awkward conversation on discipline," said Ella, scrambling up from the bed. "I actually have a book report to write, and I should probably let Alfred know I'm sorry for breaking the vase."
"Oh, he's probably standing right outside the door listening in," surmised Bruce. "And he is welcome in now if he would like."
The door opened, and Alfred stepped in, looking respectable as always despite his eavesdropping. "Shall I set up an appointment with Miss Reynard, sir?" he asked.
"That would be great, Alfred, thank you," nodded Bruce, regarding a well-known Gotham therapist, Teresa Reynard.
"Alfred, I'm sorry," said Ella, hurrying across the room and falling into the butler's embrace. "Sorry I didn't write for an hour and that I broke a vase."
"Yes, dear, I heard the whole thing, and you are more than forgiven," nodded Alfred, patting her head.
"Should I go down and work on the report now?" asked Ella, stepping back and leaning her weight from one foot to the other.
"Yes, I think that would be a good use of time," nodded Alfred, smiling slightly. "I'll be down before too long."
"Okay, see you later!" called Ella to both men as she ran out the door, her footsteps sounding down the hall.
Alfred turned to Bruce and went to collect the empty water glass. "Well, that was an interesting event. I think you made the right decision suggesting a therapist," he pronounced, shifting the pillows behind Bruce to a more comfortable position. Alfred picked up the water glass and glanced down at his master, "And you were eighteen when I stopped spanking you."
"I thought it was when I went to college?" said Bruce, pulling the blankets back over his legs. "I was seventeen then."
"Christmas break?" reminded Alfred.
Bruce closed his eyes and groaned, "Oh, yeah. The motorcycle incident."
"Mmhmm," nodded Alfred. "Call if you need me. I have a book report to supervise."
"Thank you, Alfred," said Bruce. "I don't know where I'd be without you."
"Probably dead from driving a motorcycle across a board over a pond," said Alfred, and he promptly shut the door before Bruce could respond.
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Thanks for reading, guys! You are all the best :) And thanks for the reviews from the last chapter! It is so sweet to hear what you guys think!