Summary: Scientific talent minus money usually equals unemployed scientist plus no scientific breakthrough. The Neuro-Mechanical Science offices equal scientific talent plus organizational and social talent minus money. Thus, a grant proposal. Oh dear.
"Don't wriggle."
"I am not wriggling."
"Well, then, hold still!"
"Miss Pleasance, I assure you that t-this is completely superfluous!"
"I suppose that you're trying to cow me by using that name?"
"Intimidation is not for gentlemen."
"And neither is messiness, so stop squirming."
Alice twisted the collar held in her fingertips and flipped it crisply over. She cradled the tie's knot and straightened the length, smoothing it down with a palm. The lapels of the tweed blazer were straightened with surgical precision, the shoulders smoothed out to form a perfectly symmetrical silhouette.
"I am beginning to think you have an obsession with neatness, my dear."
"Everyone has a vice."
"I feel rather like a dressed goose."
Alice whipped a small comb out of her pocket. "As long as you don't act like one, you'll be fine."
"Is the comb strictly necessary?"
"Yes, Jervis, trust me. You want—scratch that, need to make a good impression, don't you?"
"Well, yes…"
"Trust your secretary." The scientist made a sound rather like a polite "harrumph" and fell silent. Alice quickly tamed his somewhat unruly hair into a presentable style, stepping back when she was done. Giving him one long look from his shoes to the crown of his head and back down again, she nodded slowly.
"Very nice. Very handsome," she pronounced with all of the solemnity of an grave empress.
"Truly?" Jervis blushed and attempted to twist a bit, in order to see the effect. "You think so?"
"Yes, of course! Now, do you have your notes?"
"The ones you made me? In my pocket."
"Good. Your topics?"
"Yes."
"Your presentation?"
"It's set up in the room."
"Your pachyderm?"
"Ye—my what?"
Alice laughed. "Sorry, just trying to loosen you up. You'll knock them dead, Jervis, I know you will."
"It's nice to have your vote of confidence, my dear," he said, fidgeting, "but I feel like I'm heading up to the executioner's block."
"You don't need to be nervous. Urania really did some of her best work on that grant proposal, and you know what you're talking about more than anyone else in the world!"
"Be that as it may, I…" He sighed. "I'm just not much of a public speaker."
"Well," Alice floundered for a moment, thinking of something to boost her employer's confidence, "well…pretend it's just me. Pretend you're explaining it to me."
"I ought to imagine that you are going to fund my project?"
"It's not the most unlikely situation in the world…besides, I would say just imagine everyone in their underwear, but I think that would just make you more nervous."
"Ulp. Mm. Excellent point," he mumbled, feeling his face heat up.
"I have every faith in you, Jervis. You're going to do perfectly. You ready?" Alice headed over to the meeting room door, beyond which the grant foundation representatives, department directors, board members, and even Bruce Wayne himself waited to hear Jervis Tetch's proposal.
"Absolutely not."
"I'm right out here, with my fingers crossed! I'll be rooting for you the entire way."
Jervis straightened himself, his shoulders back and posture strict. He shook out his hands and took a deep breath, and looking at his companion, released it. "You promise you'll come to my funeral if they eat me alive?"
"How about I buy the victory dinner when they give you the grant?"
"One cannot believe impossible things."
"I've been practicing."
"Very well, my dear," he said, and opened the door.
"Good luck," she whispered, and he was gone.
"Wow, you practically had to shove him in there, didn't you?" Urania Stuart was coming down the hall once the meeting room door was closed.
"Jervis has a few self-esteem issues—nothing a pep talk can't cure. He hasn't given a presentation in years and he's just really worried about this particular proposal."
"Yeah; Jervis the Nervous."
"Come on, Urania, that's mean."
"Mean, but true."
The two women headed back toward Alice's station. "Thanks again for working so hard on that proposal."
"It's a living." Urania was always a little awkward about taking compliments.
"I know, but it seemed particularly good."
The women walked in silence until they reached Alice's desk.
"So, how're you going to spend the free time? In fact, how do you spend the time you don't have free? I can't imagine that you're really busy back here."
Alice smiled. "You'd be surprised, actually. I take care of a lot of little organizational things and order supplies…plus, somebody's got to make tea."
"Tetch's office has always been a little mysterious to the rest of us…would you mind if I took a peek in?"
Alice hesitated. She wanted to oblige her colleague, but she didn't think that Jervis would be pleased to have anyone else in his office. He would hate the idea if he were here and she didn't want to violate his trust by giving a tour of his private lab to all and sundry. Besides, what was wrong with a little mystery?
"Sorry, Urania—I think he locked it before he left."
"You don't have a key?" The brunette raised an eyebrow from behind her glasses.
"I need to get one made…I'll add it to my to-do list. Come to mention it, I am a little tired of getting accidentally locked out and having to bang on the door; he tends to get lost in his work. I'm pretty sure a bomb could go off outside the door and he'd never hear it."
"Scientists," the grant writer said with a shrug, "what the heck can you do? Some other time, then."
"Sorry about that," Alice said.
"No worries." Urania looked over at the clock above Alice's head. "Hey, I need to get back to my desk. If you wanna have dinner later, give me a shout."
"Sure thing—and thanks again."
"It's what I do."
Once the brunette was completely out of sight, Alice headed over to her employer's door. Wondering if it actually was locked, she tried the knob, only to find that it opened easily. Glancing over her shoulder, she sidled into the office and quietly shut the door behind her, feeling unreasonably sneaky. After all, she had full run of the office; needed full run of it, in fact, to do her job. Why did she feel so antsy?
Looking around the room, Alice sighed slightly. It was a disaster zone, and had been since three months ago, when this presentation date was announced. She and Jervis had been so busy lately that she hadn't had any time to straighten up.
Deciding that now was as good a time as any, especially since Jervis wasn't here to be bothered by her, Alice rolled up her sleeves and headed over to the bookshelf-desk to start at the heart of the problem.
Ten minutes later, she was sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by papers and books on everything from electrical wiring to microchips to brain waves. Jervis was brilliant, of course, but Alice never really got the scope of how brilliant. Looking into some of the books and scientific journals she had found, Alice felt her eyes crossing and mind jumbling the sentences before her. How did he do this?
As Jervis explained more and more of his project to her, Alice realized that she began to understand less and less. All she knew was that it involved the brain and the electrical impulses that communicated the brain's intentions, and that he was working on something mechanical to…what? Influence it in some way?
Usually, confusion over highly technical issues didn't bother her very much—she knew she wasn't a scientist and that she didn't have the education to fully understand it. But Jervis' work really lit him on fire, whereas Alice couldn't seem to master the basics. What was it that had him so fascinated? Alice found her employer to be a source of boundless interest; he always seemed to be mentioning something curious and wonderful as if she wouldn't possibly be interested in it whenever she spoke to him.
She hadn't been able to gleam much about what he was doing from the little bit of research that she'd done when she first got the job. Alice understood some very basic principles, but she knew that Jervis was exploring uncharted waters in his work—why he was doing it was a question that fascinated her, but the 'how' was even more enthralling.
Looking around her at the papers and books around her, Alice saw a perfect opportunity to gain a little more knowledge about what her friend was up to.
Finding a collection of worn, spiral-bound notebooks, Alice began leafing through his notes. She hoped he wouldn't mind; after all, she typed up his reports and routinely needed information from him to competently do her job. Maybe if she understood his ideas more, she'd be able to help him more. At the very least, it would help satisfy her rampant curiosity.
Squinting at the small, hurried script, Alice began to read.
Feeling vaguely as if he'd just been attacked by a Jabberwocky, Jervis wiped a handkerchief against his brow. The entire meeting had all become a noxious blur between when Alice wished him luck and when he stepped out of the room, two hours later.
The proposal had not been successful. All he'd been able to garner was a pittance, the equivalent of the pittance he'd been granted a few years ago to start his research at all. There would be no specialized equipment, no cutting-edge technology, no resource of supplies and texts.
On the whole, this didn't matter too much to him. He had very much wanted to be able to use more highly specialized tools, since what he was doing was by no means easy. He'd be able to fashion more primitive editions of the desired tools out of the small resources the new grant would allow for; all this did was force him to push back any major experiments a few months.
But what a waste of a perfectly good three months! All that time, wasted.
'Time won't be pleased with that at all. I'll be lucky if it does anything I ask from now on,' he thought, grimly. A whole season had been lost to the panic of pulling together a potentially-successful grant proposal, and it had flopped catastrophically. For what reason, there was no knowing. Jervis was fairly certain that he hadn't done too badly on the presentation and the question-answer portion of the meeting—he didn't remember Dr. Cates glaring at him any worse than usual, anyway.
Trying to be philosophical about the result, Jervis sighed and stretched a little bit. What he needed was a good cup of tea and he'd feel better about the whole affair. He knew Alice would be there to sympathize with him, and that made him smile a bit. She could always make him feel better.
He was about to make for his office when a voice called from behind. "Mr. Tetch?"
Jervis spun about, coming face-to-face with a smiling Bruce Wayne. "Y-yes, Mr. Wayne?" This pulled-together, eloquent man made Jervis a little uncomfortable; he seemed to be a paragon of men, and next to him, the scientist felt like a mouse. "Is there anything I can do for you?"
"I just wanted to say that I found your proposal very interesting, Mr. Tetch. I feel that it has real potential, and I'm sorry the grant representatives didn't give it more thought. If there'd anything I can do to help your project along, I'd be glad to hear from you." The millionaire smiled charmingly and handed Jervis his card.
"T-thank you, sir. It's very kind of you to offer!" Jervis felt a little flabbergasted; this was certainly a curious turn of events.
"Bru-uce!" Dr. Cates called from down the hall. There was practically a sparkle at the end of the name.
"Excuse me, it looks like my supper date needs me. Good luck!" Wayne grasped Jervis' shoulder for a moment, then strode away.
"Curiouser and curiouser," Jervis murmured to himself, as he began to head back to his office.
Alice wasn't at her desk, which shouldn't have been surprising but was. Nor was she in the kitchenette, nor (he presumed) the ladies' room, since her purse was still on her chair. The last place to check was his office, which seemed somewhat unlikely. Alice never entered his office without him that he knew of, although she was of course always welcome.
But where else could she be? She wouldn't leave without checking with him first, and clearly hadn't, if her things were still here. Even if she had gone somewhere else, she would've left him a note.
Quietly walking over to his door, he silently turned the knob, opening the passage a bit to gaze in.
Alice was sitting, legs curled under her, head bowed to some notebook in her hands. Her hair had fallen over her shoulders and she distractedly slipped a hand along the back of her neck to push it aside; he watched, enamored, as the golden strands tumbled down her back and exposed her lovely throat. She cradled the book in two hands, reading intensely, a little frown creasing her forehead as her lower lip peeked out, trapped between her teeth.
He looked closely for a moment, forcing himself to look away from the woman and towards the book in her hands. Didn't he recognize that…
One of his notebooks. Alice Pleasance was reading one of his notebooks. With anyone else, he'd have been enraged at the violation of his privacy, but with Alice, who had full run of the office, he was delighted. There she sat, holding one of his books with reverence, staring at his words, tumbling them over in her mind, absorbing them, accepting them, even asking for more! She listened to him! It was almost too much for his poor heart to bear!
By the queen, this woman had to be perfect. Simply had to be. It seemed like every day he found something more wonderful about her. She showered him with attention even when she didn't know she was doing it.
May God help him, he was in love with Alice Pleasance.
He must've sighed, because she looked up at him abruptly and gasped.
"Oh! Jervis!" She looked around at the mess. "I guess you caught me red-handed," Alice said, blushing. She closed the notebook abruptly and stood, brushing down her skirt and tripping lightly over the mess around her to approach him. He entered the office and closed the door, momentarily at a loss for words. He smiled to show he wasn't upset.
"So…" she clasped her hands together and tried to read his body language. "Did we get it?"
"Hm?" What was she talking about? Oh! The meeting. "Unfortunately, my dear, we did not. I'm afraid we'll just have to continue on as we have been, although this will set us back a few months."
"Oh, Jervis," she cooed, disappointed, putting a hand on his upper arm. "I'm sorry. Do you know what happened?"
"I have no clue, my dear Alice, except that somewhere along the line we were not the top contender."
"Apparently." She leaned a hip against the side of the counter and crossed her arms. "What an awful waste. You must be devastated."
"Not as much as you might think, actually." Jervis rubbed his hands together and glanced around his office. "It rather makes the process more organic, if you catch my meaning. I would've liked to have the more sophisticated supplies, of course, but I don't much mind the extra work, as long as I'm able to do it myself. The real problem is avoiding the Queen."
"The Queen?" Alice looked at him quizzically for a moment, then smiled. "Oh, of course. 'Heads will roll!'"
Jervis had to chuckle at that—it was an eerily good impersonation. Looking down at the jumble of papers and books that littered the floor around his desk, he raised an eyebrow.
"It seems you've been having troubles of your own."
Alice smiled sheepishly. "I'm sorry, Jervis. I just got gripped by curiosity…I've realized that I haven't a clue about how you're doing what you're doing, even if I know what it is…" She trailed of, as if reflected over her previous statement. "I mean…er, am I making any sense at all?"
"'I think I should understand that better, if I had it written down,'" he replied. Alice raised an eyebrow of her own and twitched her lips.
"I think I know what you're doing, is what I mean. What I don't know, is how."
"Ah, perfectly lucid that time. So you came in here to look?"
"Well, the looking was sort of a by-product of trying to tidy up." She looked despondently at the larger mess on the floor. "I am unsure of my success."
"I suppose now is as good a time as any to handle it. I am looking at the first of a few long nights here, since we'll need to start ordering materials as soon as possible so that I can have something pulled together by the time Dr. Cates decides to make an inspection." Jervis rubbed the back of his neck with a hand and sighed. "Such is the glamorous life of a scientist."
"I've got an idea. Just the thing to cheer you up," Alice said with a smile. "I promised you a celebratory dinner, should we be successful. Since we apparently have not been so, why don't I order something to commemorate our…well, failure."
"An 'uncelebratory dinner,' my dear?" His heart thudded against his ribs.
"I think so. I can clean up in here and you can make a list of the things we need. We will 'uncelebrate' the fact that we are going to have to plod along as best we can. We'll make an evening of suffering in our new-old situation." She grinned at him. "What do you think?"
"It would be my distinct pleasure to 'uncelebrate' our failure, my dear Ms. Pleasance." Jervis couldn't help but smile at the fond look she gave him, as she headed towards the door.
"I'll be right back, then. Why don't you put on your lab coat? You look far to successful for an 'uncelebration.'" The blonde tossed a teasing grin at him and disappeared.
Smiling at this mess on his floor, Jervis decided that if these were the repercussions of his failures, he never wanted to succeed again.
A/N: Is it squishy to a fault? Positively gooey? Overtly sentimental to the point of being the fanfiction equivalent of a Norman Rockwell painting? Pandering? Offensively sugary?
Why, yes. Yes indeed it is. Because happiness actually happens, as staggering as it may be to believe.
Lewis Carroll seemed to have a certain affection for 'un' things; it appears that Jervis and Alice do, too.