Dear readers: Thank you so much for holding on, and continuing to hold on, and continuing to hold on! Ne quittez pas, s'il vous plait! I have been deathly ill since the week before finals with disabling attacks of vertigo and migraines, probably caused by hyperthyroidism (I've lost nearly twenty pounds, which while that's a good thing…is kind of strange for me, as I have a really hard time losing weight.). I go see the endocrinologist Thursday, and back to see the neurologist next week, and hopefully we'll be able to get this straightened out without too much more fuss or medication. (I'm more drugged up than a hippie at Woodstock!)

This is Alfred's side of this mess. Cass is just not behaving. And Alfred always behaves. (My boyfriend and I almost came to blows over whether or not Michael Caine was going to make a bitchin' Alfred or not. I'm for yes, he's for no, and as I've read the over 800 issues of Batman, and he's read, maybe, 1, I win.) Anyway—sometimes, you just need a little Alfred for perspective.

Chapter 10: Morning Cookies, Afternoon Tea

I should never be surprised to find hands sneaking in my cookie jar. It's happened since Master Bruce was a small boy, continued through his teen years, since Master Dick came to live with us, then Miss Barbara, occasionally Commissioner Gordon, Master Jason, Master Timothy, Miss Stephanie. The Black Canary is especially fond of my chocolate chip cookies, and even the Superman believes he can slip by me without notice. He is quite mistaken. One occasion, even Miss Selina Kyle, the Catwoman herself, attempted to steal from my cookie jar, but that is a tail—ahem—a tale for another time. I believe Leslie is the only one who consistently asks permission before engaging in cookie consumption at Wayne Manor.

But for the moment, the hand in my cookie jar at barely thirty minutes past seven in the morning belongs to one Miss Cassandra Cain, who is sitting at the counter with, heavens, the carton of milk and a cookie in one hand. She takes one despondant bite, and washes it down with a drink of milk before I can stop her.

"Miss Cassandra, what have I told you about glasses?" I say, striding into the kitchen. There's a sticky spot in the floor in front of the china cabinet that's catching my slippers. I'll have to clean that up after breakfast. I take the carton of milk away from her and pour her a glass before she manages to get any more cookie crumbs into the container. "They are aplenty in this house, and you have no fear of having to wash them."

"Sorry," she mumbles around a mouthful of oatmeal raisin. At least she hasn't yet found the chocolate chip I was saving for Leslie at the bottom yet.

"Now," I say, grasping the cookie jar, and moving it away from her, putting the lid back on with a ceramic clank. "Cookies are meant for afternoon snacks, and perhaps, on particularly troublesome occasions, mid-morning snacks, but as it is seven-thirty, it hardly qualifies as mid-morning, even by the strange hours that you keep. Would you like some breakfast?"

She shakes her head no, propping her chin up on her hands, having demolished the rest of the cookies. "It's been a bad morning."

It's only seven-thirty. If it's been a bad morning, then I would rather not face Master Bruce when he comes down without a full meal before him. I move to the refrigerator and pull out some eggs. The milk is already out, and I suppose the quick biscuits for the morning will have to have a few oatmeal raisin cookie crumbs in them. "And you came out here to comfort yourself in my cookie jar?"

She nods without removing her chin from her hands. "I didn't have any."

"Master Timothy is in possession of an entire batch at the moment," I point out to her. "And rarely have you ever had a night or morning so bad that you have felt the need to comfort yourself in the style of Black Canary and dig into my cookie jar. So this must not be the normal type of bad morning we are used to around here."

"It's not," she says grumpily. Someone must not have gotten much sleep, which surely must contribute to not having a good morning. "Last night wasn't fab—fabu—fab-ou-lous."

"Fabulous," I say gently, giving the biscuit batter a stir before dropping it onto the cookie sheet. "Here, put these in the oven please."

She finally did, taking the pan and sliding it into the oven. "Boys are weird."

"If you mean the entire male gender in general, I'm afraid I must take offense to that, Miss Cassandra," I say, whipping several eggs up into a bowl. She'll get hungry once she smells the scrambled eggs cooking, and I pour a little milk into the eggs. "If you mean the younger generation of your acquaintance, then I believe weird is a term that is not incorrect."

She scowls. "They are weird."

I glance at her out of the corner of my eye as I pour the eggs into the pan. If glares could cook, I would have no need for the skillet. "Are you going to talk about it, or should I guess?"

"Don't want to talk about it," she mumbles.

I turn to retrieve the plates from the cabinet, and the silverware from the drawer. It is only breakfast, so we will not eat in the main dining room, especially since Master Bruce will be in a hurry this morning. I hear the shower cut off upstairs, and he will be down in a few moments. "You've already made the statement that boys are weird. Apparently you want to talk about something."

She sighs. "I wish Babs was here. Or Black Canary. Or Ste—"

She catches herself, setting the plates down on the table. Miss Cassandra is a master of body language, but I am no mere apprentice myself, and I see the drop in her shoulders noticeably more, and I remember that Miss Stephanie's death is still grating on the nerves of everyone in our family, not just Master Bruce and Master Timothy.

"And there being no young ladies around, my cookies and I will have to suffice?" I ask, trying to lighten the mood.

She nods, setting the plates out, one for myself and one for Master Bruce. She hands one back to me with a setting of silverware. "Here, Alfred. I'm not that hungry."

I stare at her for a moment. Miss Cassandra is never not hungry. I open up the cookie jar, and pull out one of the chocolate chip cookies that I'd been saving for Leslie. I don't think she'll mind—Leslie always has had a soft spot for the hurting, and for this child. "Another cookie then?"

She takes it and absently munches on it. "I'm worried about Tim."

"I don't think you're the only one, Miss Cassandra," I say, giving my eggs a stir. One of the keys to creating good scrambled eggs is to leave them alone, and not to stir anymore than necessary. "We are all quite concerned for his well-being."

"He's weird," she said, scuffing the toe of her boot against the floor. Of course, the sticky spot in front of the cabinet—her boots may have non-marking soles, but they are still leaving spots on the linoleum.

Ah. We have come to the root of Miss Cassandra's problem, then. Master Timothy has either acted suspiciously enough to cause her unease, in which case, I believe either Master Bruce or I would have noticed already, although we have tragically been wrong in cases like this before, or they have had some sort of a conflict which has left her feeling uncomfortable.

Master Bruce enters the kitchen. "Good morning, Alfred, Cassandra."

"Morning," Miss Cassandra mumbles around a mouthful of cookie, and I see Master Bruce look at me quizzically, because he is well acquainted with my rules regarding cookies during morning hours, especially those he knows I have reserved for Leslie.

"Everything all right?" he asks, his voice rumbling in a tone nearer the voice he uses for the Batman than for Bruce Wayne.

Miss Cassandra, however, is immune to most of Master Bruce's attempts at intimidation. "Yeah."

I put the eggs on a plate and pulled the biscuits from the oven, putting them on a plate with some bacon and set it before Master Bruce before preparing myself a plate. "Miss Cassandra has just made two interesting discoveries this morning. One, young men are 'weird' and two, Master Timothy particularly so."

I would imagine that I will have to send her home with a batch of cookies entirely her own in apology if the glare she just shot at me was any indication of her feelings. However, for once, I see something resembling amusement in Master Bruce's eyes, and any pique Miss Cassandra may have to suffer on account of that is worth it. "Cassandra," he says, "sit down."

She does as he asks, sullenly, and stares down at the edge of the table, picking at it with a fingernail. She's painted them black again (another disastrous fashion statement for which I blame the Black Canary and the Huntress), but she's been chewing on them, despite the nail care set she was given for Christmas. "Is there something wrong?" Master Bruce asks.

For being the Batman, Master Bruce can be woefully unskilled in the art of interrogation, especially in the manner of an unwilling subject. She stares down at her fingernails. "Not really."

He looks at her. "Is there anything wrong with Tim?"

She just keeps staring at her fingernails. "Not really."

"Cassandra," he says, and she finally looks up at him. "If something is wrong with Tim, we need to know now. I'm not going to take him off patrol, unless you think he's a danger to himself—"

"No!" she says, nearly shooting up out of her chair. "No—it's—" She searches around for the word for a moment. "It's not business. It's person. Personal." She sits back down in the chair, looking entirely miserable. "I wish Babs was here."

Master Bruce looks like he feels much the same way at this moment, trying to deal with a young woman in her late teens with little female help. "Did you two have a fight? I'll say something to Tim—"

"No!" She shoots back up out of her chair and away from the table. "No, don't say anything to him. We'll—we'll fix it, I promise. Just don't say anything to him."

She runs a hand through her hair and grabs her backpack with the other hand. "I'm going back to Blüdhaven."

"You just came to raid my cookie jar?" I ask, standing at the kitchen bar with a pan in hand.

She smiles at me, the first smile she's cracked the entire time she's been here. "Yeah. Cookies are good for breakfast."

She ducks out of the kitchen before I can say anything else.

xxxxxx

I pour the tea for Leslie, and offer her the cup. "Thank you, Alfred," she says with a smile, and takes a sip. "I love your tea."

I smile back at her. "Thank you. Would you like a cookie? I'm afraid Miss Cassandra was in them before eight this morning, but most of them escaped."

"Eight?" she says, leaning forward to take one of the cookies. "What in the world was she doing?"

"I believe she and Master Timothy have had a falling out of sorts," I say. "Most of what Master Bruce and I were able to obtain was that boys were strange, Master Timothy extremely so, and that she did not want any of this mentioned to him at all. Also that nothing was extremely urgent, and it was personal. He and I therefore concluded that they've had words and will need a day or so to apologize to one another."

Leslie is staring at me for a moment. "Stop. She started with boys were strange."

I take a sip of my tea. "I believe weird was the actual term. She seemed to wish that Miss Gordon was around to speak with. I wish there were more women around for her to speak with. I'm afraid I've not been a good father—I'm not sure I make any better a mother."

Leslie pats my hand. "You've done a good job as a father," she says comfortingly, even though we both know otherwise. "And if not with Bruce, then with Cassandra. She did come to you, didn't she?"

"My cookie jar," I say, taking Leslie's hand in mine.

She laughs. "But I think you and Bruce are falling into the age old trap of being men."

"I beg your pardon."

She laughs again. Leslie has a beautiful laugh, and it becomes harder to get out of her the more she works with us, so I am constantly attempting to sharpen my wit to keep her humour intact. "Alfred, if she's sulking about a boy, Timothy in particular, she wants chocolate and a mother figure, then they've had more than simply words. Cassandra loves Tim. I've seen it for a while. But I think Tim is in a dangerous place right now, and he will hurt her if he relies on her to get past this place now. And if she's looking for comfort in a cookie jar, he may already have."

I sit in silence for a moment. "My word."

Leslie pats my knee. "Cassandra is still very young. She still has years of learning to do that we all learned in grade school." She leans forward and kisses my forehead. "Just be there with a listening ear and a hug if she needs it and remember that daughters love like their fathers."

xxxxxx