Alfred had been sitting snugly in bed, a blanket draped over his legs, sipping a cup of hot cocoa as he watched a rerun of Fawlty Towers.

The satellite dish at Wayne Manor literally had thousands of channels, he had no idea how Bruce had managed it, it seemed he had somehow tapped into every frequency in that side of the world,but he certainly wasn't complaining. Sometimes he got homesick, and watching the show was a good remedy. It reminded him of what he might have been doing had he stayed at home-running the small inn his mother's family owned at Dover Beach. Lately he had been wondering about that, if he had made the right decision in coming here. The Pennyworth's had served the Wayne's for generations, but he was starting to think maybe he would have been happier back home.

Nonsense. I have a good life here. It has its wild moments, but it is better than most people will ever have in their lives.

Saying it has its wild moments was a gross understatement. But Master Bruce was getting better at his nighttime activities. He hadn't had reason for worry in ages. Plus the weather here was better.
Well, not exactly... In many ways Gotham was just like home. Cold, grey, dark, misty. The skies were dull more often than they were bright. Not so different from home then. The staff quarters were miles above what he had though, and he got to drive Bentley's and Roll's Royces on occassion. How many people could say that about their lives?

That was when the alarm went off, a low whine in his earpiece, which he always wore when Batman was on the prowl, just in case.

Dear Lord, just when I thought...

He quickly slipped his feet into the carpet slippers and dashed downstairs to the 'basement' as quickly as he dared. When he got to the computer console and saw the message flashing across the screen, his heart sank.
Code black meant Master Bruce was fatally wounded.

The last time that had happened the blood stains had taken a week to clean off of everything, and the sheer amount of gauze, stitches, cotton swabs and alcohol rub that had been used was staggering. It had been extremely close, and it was from this last time that they had learned to keep reserves of Bruce's blood on hand, just in case he required a transfusion.
Alfred rushed to the medical cabinet and readied the supplies. There were no painkillers. Master Bruce hated painkillers, claiming the loss of pain, or 'discomfort' as he called it, wasn't worth the reduction in his cognitive and reflexive abilities.

At times Alfred suspected Bruce liked pain on some strange, animal level.

He tried sitting calmly at the console, but after a few seconds he knew it was no good. He paced up and down impatiently, awaiting Bruce's arrival.
After what seemed like ages but had actually been 3 minutes, the ground began to hum, and shortly after a large metal vent in the walls gave way, the Batmobile screaming through and crashing heavily onto the ground, skidding to a halt with a handbrake turn. The roof panel opened, revealing an unconscious Batman, and an interior that was sticky with blood. That would take a lot of hot water to clean.

"Master Bruce!" Alfred shouted in alarm, breaking the cardinal rule of referring to his civilian identity when he was in costume. He lifted him out of the seat and carried him to the operating table.

He was so heavy...

Immediately he set upon removing the costume, touching the secret crevices known only to him and Bruce that would allow the armor to come off without alternately electrocuting or gassing the handler. The wounds were terrible, much worse than anything he had seen before. The cuts were clean, neat, almost surgical in precision.
Whatever had been used had barely missed the vital organs. Alfred shuddered. He had the feeling whoever did this did it on purpose, it wasn't a kill shot, it was to maim. To cause maximum suffering without killing straight away.
His head throbbed with an uncharacteristic burst of anger at the person who would do this to his son...

The wounds had clotted somewhat, but they were still bleeding far more than he would have liked. He checked his pulse.
It was weak, but there. His breathing was shallow. After carefully examining the wounds he knew they were too much for him. He had some dressing skills for field wounds, but this was beyond him.
He made up his mind without even thinking about it, reaching for the cell phone in his pocket. He was stopped short by Bruce's hand. He nearly screamed in terror, but he was pleased that he was conscious at least.

"What are you doing." Bruce said, rather than asked.

Alfred tried to wrench his hand away, but he found the grip on his wrist surprisingly firm.

"You know exactly what. I must call an ambulance."

"No Alfred. No hospital."

"Sir-"

"No!" He began coughing violently, his face a paroxysm of pain. Alfred couldn't bear to see him suffer so. He was shivering too,and his skin was turning a sickly grey-blue, both sure-fire signs of massive blood loss.

The next stage would be...

"Sir, I'm afraid I must insist. Your injuries are too severe, they require surgery and medication, this isn't something I can do here."

"Do..what you can... Just...give me a transfusion... Stitch them up...I'll be fine... Lived through worse..."

Lived through their deaths.

His eyes looked wild. He was delirious.

"You have never before been this severely injured sir, you know it as well as I do."

"You should see...the other guy..."

Telling a joke at such a time was a sure sign that Bruce was out of it.

"Master Bruce, please-"

"No hospitals!" Bruce bellowed again, this time the look in his eyes intensified, and the wheels of understanding slowly turned in Alfred's head.
It wasn't delirium he saw in them, it was fear.
Fear that he would be outed as the Batman, that he would no longer be able to continue his crusade.
He feared the discovery of his secret more than death itself. This angered Alfred more than anything else.

"My God,are you mad?! Do you want to die here, now, like this!? I can't fix you, don't you understand!? This is beyond me! There is nothing I can do!" He wondered at the double meaning in his words even as he said them.

"F...fff..find..a way...We always...always find a way..."

Alfred was struggling to hold back the tears that brimmed at his eyelids.

"I can't... I can't work miracles Bruce...I can't..." his voice was thick with emotion.

Miracles, yes, he'd need all the miracles in all the good books of the world to save him now.

He had never believed in them. Had never believed in God either, though he had read all types of holy scripture from cover to cover, back when he had foolishly sought a reason for his suffering, for the senseless violence he had didn't believe in God, perhaps the concept of one, but not in the deity itself.
Not in a world this screwed up. Even if he did exist, he obviously didn't care.
So why bother?
It made no difference in the end. You are born, you suffer, and then you die.

He looked up at Alfred's face.

It was blurry,hard to make out. He could hear him speaking, but he sounded like he was on the far end of a tunnel.

I suppose there are worse ways to go.

This would hurt Alfred, he knew it, but it could have been much worse. He could have been called by the Police to identify a severed head and mutilated body.
At least this way he could say goodbye.

If only Zatanna was here too...

Yes.

Yes! Should have thought of it before...

"Zatanna...Call...Zatanna..." he said, then everything faded to black.

A/N: Read and review