Note: I forgot to mention in previous chapters that reviews are welcome.

Chapter Eleven: Odding the Evens.

Buffy took the elevator back up, stomped up the staircase, tried her hardest not to force the bookshelf open and to let it open on its own, and then went in search of Alfred. She found him just down the hall, dusting some items in another room. There were so many rooms and a lot of them looked like what to her would be a living room or sitting room. She didn't know what to call them all.

"AH! Miss Summers. Is he gone already?" She nodded. Now that she had worked a little of her anger off, another emotion was taking over – the weepy one. She fought it hard and was winning. "Can I get you anything?"

She shook her head. "No, thank you, Alfred. I need to get back to the museum. Bruce said you would take me."

"Of course," he said, setting the duster in his hand down. "I will bring the car around."

Buffy surprisingly found Bruce's room without too much trouble. Her dress and shoes were harder to find. She didn't find her torn underwear and she thought maybe it might still be in the Lamborghini, but she was not about to ask Alfred if it was okay if she went and checked. She dressed and then laid the robe on the bed, not knowing what else to do. She took a moment to look around the room, taking it all in. The unmade bed, where he and her had slept together, where they had made love twice more before going to sleep. Looking at it, it seemed like it had been days ago, not hours. It made her heart ache a little.

Sighing, she left the room quickly and went out front to where Alfred waited in the car. She opened the front passenger side door and got in, closing the door and putting her seatbelt on. When she looked over at Alfred he was looking at her with an unreadable look on his face.

"Is something wrong?" She asked.

"No." He shook his head. "I am just not used to someone sitting next me."

"Oh!" She glanced into the back seat, and then looked at him once more. "I would really rather sit up here."

"Very good, Miss Summers." Alfred gave her a genuine smile, and started the engine.

"And please, call me Buffy."

"Alright, Buffy," he said, smiling once again.

Once off the property and on the road to Gotham City, she could not help but ask him the question that she wanted an answer to, or at least one of them.

"Bruce said you were the one who told him my real name. How did you know?"

Alfred stared ahead, and for a moment she thought he wasn't going to answer her, but then he sighed. "I lied to him. I told him that a friend of mine had called and said that you were in town. He told me that you were the Slayer and you came here to take care of something, and that we should be careful. Then I explained to him what a Slayer was, as was told to me by my friend."

"And what is the truth that you didn't tell him?"

Alfred sighed again. "That my friend's name is Rupert Giles. That I have known him since he was a boy. That my parents were watchers, so that is how I knew you were the Slayer. I also did not tell him that I was the one who had called Rupert, not the other way around."

"Wait! Your parents were Watchers?" She asked in disbelief.

"Oh yes, and my grandfathers, no both sides of my family, and on back for several generations. I even went through the Watcher training, for a short time." His glance shifted back and forth between the road and her. "But, they had other plans for me."

"What plans?"

He chuckled. "To keep my eyes open for a legacy. Truth is, I am still not sure what they meant by that, but I realized that it was not for me, and I took the appointment of butler to the Wayne family. Never looked back."

Buffy sat back in her seat, absorbing all that he had told her. She still had a feeling he was leaving something out. She didn't press him on it any farther.

The rest of the ride to the museum was a quick and silent one. When the Rolls Royce pulled up to the curb outside of the building, Buffy removed her seatbelt and put her hand on the door handle.

"Miss Sum- Buffy," Alfred said, halting her. "I know it is not my place to say anything, but you have to be patient with him. I know that the both of you have lost so much in your young lives, much too young lives and a great deal to much to have lost, but unlike you, he only had an old butler to see him through it." He sighed, shaking his head. "What I am trying to say is that the only reason I was allowed into his life was because he knew someday he would have to stop running and return home, and I was all that was going to be there when he did." He paused again, looking out the window on his side for a few moments. "He loves you. I can see it in his face, his eyes, in the way he looks at you." He turned back to her. "No matter what happens, do not doubt that for one second."

Buffy nodded. She opened the door, but before she got out, he leaned over and kissed him on the check. "Thank you, Alfred."

"You are most welcome."

With that, she got out and went to the museum door, knocking on it to let the night guard know to come and let her in. She waved at the Englishman as he pulled away and he waved back, and then the door was unlocked, and she was allowed inside.

The guard, who let her in, Mitchell, was an older gentleman with thinning white hair, and a sweet man. He locked the door up behind her and she took the elevator to the top floor where the room was she had been staying in. She showered quickly, and changed into her black leather pants, black tank top, and threw an equally black hoodie over it. Black boots, a stake in her back pocket and back to the elevator she went.

She took a second to go down to archives to check her hiding place for the dagger. She did not need to touch it or go near it to know that it was undisturbed. Then out the back door and out to patrol.

Her Slayer senses were tingling almost immediately. She slowed her pace, wondering if this meant that they were going to try and get into the museum for another attempt at stealing the dagger.

She had been so right. She watched them come around the corner and to the door she had exited not five minutes before. There were six of them: Four vamps and two humans. Buffy knew she had to get to them before they got inside: Mitchell was the only one on guard duty tonight.

Hesitation was bad, so she took off for the group at full speed. One of the vampires just happened to turn and see her, managing to call out a warning just before her fist connected with its face. The other three vamps were ahead of him, and they turned to face the threat upon them. The humans just froze.

Another punch to fang face and he went down. By this time vamps two, three, and four were upon her. Not fair odds, but their kind never played fair. She was the Slayer – uneven odds were her specialty.

Just maybe not tonight.

The nearest one, vamp number four, got a kick to the knee, but number three was quicker than she had anticipated and played dirty: he grabbed her by the hair on the back of her head and then proceeded to slam her face into the wall. The pain was horrible, but she had managed to turn her head just enough so her left cheek took the brunt of it and not her nose, which definitely would have broken it. Not a good look to have in any situation, in Buffy's opinion.

Number three pulled her head back again, preparing to slam her into the wall again. Buffy reached back with both hands, one on the vamps wrist while the other one got purchase on the back of her head, and, ignoring the pain, pulled with each. It took some effort due to the odd angle, but she managed to free herself from the vamp, losing some hair in the process.

Just as she was about to turn and give number three a good pounding for messing with her 'do, vamp number one proved he was not out of the fight. Buffy felt a stabbing pain in her stomach and a twist. She screamed, instinctively reaching down to the area in pain, only to find the hilt of a knife. Now vamp number two was joining the fray. He kicked her in the back of her knee, causing her to fall forward; when she did vamp number four kicked her in the ribs, knocking the breath out of her.

"Well, well, well. Aren't we the lucky ones?" One of the vamps hissed. "Imagine us, just here to break into the museum, and we end up killing the Slayer."

"Extra points." Another snickered.

"Yeah. Fargre'an will be very pleased." Still another.

"Shut up, you fool," snapped someone else. As Buffy lay on the ground, the pain from the knife in her gut excruciating, she believed this was one of the humans talking.

"Why? She isn't going to live long enough to tell anyone. What does it matter anyway?"

"Just kill her al-" The word was cut off, replaced with a groan.

"Oh no!" A voice filled with panic. "It's him!"

"Who cares? We took down the Slayer. What is a human dressed up as a flying rodent got to be afraid of?"

She was kicked again, this time in her back. She rolled over with the blow, now facing up instead of facing the ground. She had to pull the knife out. She had to get to her feet. She had to help him.

She looked up just in enough time to see vamp number three turn to dust, something sharp flying through his neck, decapitating him, and embedding into the wall. It was shaped like a bat. Focusing on it, the image blurring from the tears in her eyes, she pulled the dagger free, letting out another scream. She tossed it aside, rolled over, and tried to get up onto her knees. One step at a time, but she had to take those steps fast, faster than her battered body was willing to go.

Though she hated the fact that he was doing her job, doing it because she had screwed up, she was glad that the attention was off of her. It was a struggle but she got to her feet. Looking around, her right hand warm and sticky from her own blood, which was pouring out of the wound, she saw that there were only two vamps left, and the two humans were tied up, leaning against the back door to the museum. The remaining undead were several feet from her, nearly in the same spot that she had been standing in when she had first spotted them, and they were not alone.

She wondered how much protection the armor that he wore was protecting Batman from the vampire attacks. Pulling the stake out of her pocket with her free hand, forcing herself to forget the pain that she was feeling, she made her way up behind them. Batman took a serious blow from one of the vampires, which dropped him down to one knee, but he was back up in a flash. The blades on his wrist guards were sharp and he drove them into the face of the vampire that had hit him. Just as the other vamp was about to attack, Buffy drove the pointed end of the stake through his back, puncturing the heart, turning it to dust. While it was still screaming in denial, she spun, driving the stake into the last vamps heart. Done and done.

"Buffy." Gravelly voice. He was standing right next to her, but he sounded so far away.

"I'm fine," she said. But she wasn't and she knew it. "I just need to –" Her world turned dark, and she felt herself falling.