"Don't tell me if I'm dying,
'Cause I don't wanna know.
If I can't see the sun, maybe I should go.
Don't wake me 'cause I'm dreaming
Of angels on the moon,
Where everyone you know
Never leaves too soon."

"Angels on the Moon" –Thriving Ivory

Chapter Nineteen:

Four jobs in one week.

Mooney, it seemed, had believed in using Margot sparingly. Penguin, not so much. Freddie showed up on her doorstep, first with one photo and location, then with two the next night, and another a couple of days later.

Hits, Margot heard him call them. That's what she was now. A hitman.

An assassin.

The words sounded so ugly, even when she didn't say them out loud.

These people were criminals, she told herself, some of them possible rivals of Penguin's, others people that were in debt to Falcone and refused to pay Penguin. People like her.

She was just tired. Tired of killing, tired of being used, tired of lying on her mattress at night, chasing sleep that never came, haunted by ghosts—most of them nameless faces that she'd seen solely through the crosshairs of her scope.

Back at work, Alfred didn't bring up the dinner she had never made it to, and she was grateful for that, at least. He left it up to her to talk about it when she felt ready, and Margot wasn't ever going to feel ready, so the subject remained buried, just another awkward thing to remember and not discuss whenever they saw each other.

Still, Alfred seemed concerned about her. Even Margot was concerned about herself—her lack of sleep, her distraction, her recent habit of drifting off during work. Just the other day, she'd collapsed behind the shrubbery and woken up an hour later with a branch poking her in the eye. Fortunately, neither Bruce nor Alfred had noticed, but her exhaustion and distracted behavior were beginning to tell.

Alfred mentioned it one afternoon, when he entered the kitchen and found her sitting at the table, finishing off her late lunch.

"Margot," he greeted her with a nod.

"Alfred."

She expected him to turn away and begin to busy himself with something—preparing dinner, polishing the silver, hell, fetching himself a drink even, but he did none of those things. He pulled out the chair across the table from her and sat in it, clasping his hands in front of him and regarding her solemnly.

"You've looked better," he noted.

She scoffed, "Yeah."

"What's wrong?" he inquired.

Margot shook her head. "I'm just tired."

"Exhausted, more like it." He sighed and asked, "What can I do to help?"

She frowned and narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him. "What do you mean?"

He shrugged. "Is it making the drive out here every day? It was fine when you were only here three or four days a week, but now that you're here full time, perhaps you ought to consider boarding here."

"No," said Margot emphatically. "I'm still looking after my mom. I can't leave her."

"Do you need an assistant? Is that it?"

"No, I can handle the work," she replied stubbornly.

Alfred frowned. "Then how am I to help you, Margot?"

"You can't," she told him honestly. "It has nothing to do with work."

The man sat back in his chair, his shoulder slumped in tired defeat, his mouth a flat line of displeasure. "If you don't want help, that's fine," he said after a moment. "But," he added, "don't go killing yourself for pride's sake."

She nodded, softening a bit. He really did seem genuinely concerned for her.

"I'll be all right," she reassured him.

She'd be fine, she told herself in her head. Just as soon as she got Penguin off her back.

The wind was cold, even by Gotham's standards, when Margot returned home one night. It bit through her jacket like thousands of icy knives. One of those freak wintery storms that wouldn't have been out of place in January, but was getting a little tiresome in April. She shivered and hurriedly made her way up to her apartment.

She flipped on the light, expecting to find her mother asleep in the lounge chair, but she wasn't there. Was this one of the rare nights when she'd managed to move herself to the bed?

"Mom?" Margot called tentatively, setting her rifle case down behind the sofa.

She moved through the living room and down to the end of the hallway, cracking the door to her mother's room open. She was there on the bed, and Margot let out a soft sigh of relief. Except something didn't seem quite right.

"Mom?" she whispered.

She received no response.

Margot's heart rose into her throat as she flipped on the light and entered the room.

"Oh God..."

The words dropped from her mouth just as her backpack slipped from her shoulder, and she ran to the woman, who lay facedown on the bed, her face buried in a pillow, limbs extended stiffly.

"Mom!"

She turned the woman over, feeling for a pulse, finding nothing, attempting to revive her.

"Mom!"

She scrambled for her phone, calling for an ambulance, still trying to revive the woman.

"God, no…"

She was in the waiting room, the doctor's voice echoing in her head, when Alfred found her.

Margot didn't remember calling him, but she must have, because there he was, face full of concern as he touched her shoulder, saw the tears she held back, and pulled her into an embrace so tight it was as if he was trying to squeeze the sorrow from her. He'd had practice, she thought, realizing how many times he'd probably done that very same thing to Bruce.

"She's gone," she whispered when they parted.

He kept an arm around her shoulders and gently but firmly led her away. "Let's get you home," he murmured.

She'd ridden over in the ambulance, so she didn't need to worry about her bike as Alfred led her to the car, making sure she was settled in. Margot sat in the back seat, staring quietly through the window as they left the hospital, driving through the dark streets.

It was raining.

He didn't take her home, but to the manor instead. Margot wasn't surprised, nor was she particularly upset. She didn't want to return home, where just an hour previously, she'd found her mother.

The worst, she thought as Alfred opened her door for her, was that she felt relieved in a way. No more trying to enforce strict diets on the woman, no more expensive doctors' visits and hospital bills and insurance copays, no more being awakened in the middle of the night to take care of somebody else's needs. Did that make her a horrible daughter?

Alfred took her to the kitchen, where he sat her down and poured her a drink.

"Thanks," she said with soft gratitude.

He nodded, pouring himself a drink and sitting beside her. "You should stay tonight. It's not good for you to be alone right now," he told her.

She wasn't sure she agreed, but Alfred wasn't intrusive. He simply sat quietly at her side, nursing his drink, waiting for Margot to speak—or not speak at all, depending on how she felt.

She simply drank, and when her glass was empty, he poured her another. The warm burn of the scotch as it went down her throat seemed to numb the ache that she felt inside. She'd known it would happen sooner or later, that her mother would leave. It had felt like slowly tearing off a bandage, a slow, agonizing process. And now that the bandage had finally and abruptly been ripped off, she felt nothing but a numb kind of ache.

One thing surprised Margot, though. She'd thought that she would feel alone, abandoned, and in a way, she did. But to reach the hospital in the time that he did, Alfred had to have left immediately after receiving her call. He'd come straight to her, looking put-together as usual, except now that she looked closer, she noticed that he'd missed a button on his waistcoat, his tie was unusually askew, and his hair was ruffled.

That didn't feel like being alone to her.

"Where's Bruce?" she asked quietly.

Alfred glanced at her. "Asleep." His brow furrowed, and he added dubiously, "Or reading files by flashlight under the covers."

Margot smiled weakly. The latter sounded more accurate. "Are you sure he'll be all right with me staying?"

"Nobody could understand your predicament more than Master Bruce," he pointed out.

She nodded. "Thank you, Alfred."

"Of course, Margot." He rested a hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently. "Bruce and I…we care for you a great deal, you know."

Margot knew that. She'd felt it before, but she'd never heard it, and hearing Alfred tell her that he cared sparked a hint of warmth inside her that soothed her hurting in a way that the scotch couldn't. The drink just numbed her. Alfred's words, the look of concern in his eyes, it made her feel strong, it gave her something to reach towards, to cling to. She'd be all right, because she wasn't alone.

Maybe it was gratitude, or just a surge of emotions that refused to be bottled up. Maybe it was the drink. Whatever it was, Margot barely had time to think before she reached out, grabbed the man, and pulled him into her, meeting him in a fiercely desperate kiss, inhaling sharply and breathing in the scent of his cologne, tasting the scotch on his lips, the saltiness of his skin, feeling his warmth, warmth that radiated from him like a furnace.

For a moment, it filled her, that kiss, like a flash of light in the darkness, consuming her sorrow, her pain, and she felt warm and safe.

Until he pulled back, avoiding her gaze, pushing her away gently. "Yes, well…" he murmured uncomfortably. He reached for her glass and moved it out of her reach. "That's enough of that."

Margot felt as if she'd been drenched in cold water. "I-I'm sorry," she stuttered. "I don't know—"

Alfred looked up at her, smiling kindly as he hushed her. "Come here," he told her as he stood and helped her to her feet. "Let's get you up to bed."

He led her to a guest room with his arm around her, sitting her on the settee at the foot of the bed while he made a quick pass through the room, making sure she had everything she'd need.

"Looks like everything's in order," he said with satisfaction. "We'll see what to do about clothes in the morning," he added. "How does that sound?"

She nodded without looking up at him.

He hesitated, and she felt his gaze on her for several moments, before he tucked his hands behind his back and murmured, "Well then, I'll just be off. If you need anything, Margot…"

"Thank you," she whispered.

He left, glancing back one last time before he closed the door softly behind him.

She slowly peeled off her jacket and kicked off her boots. She didn't see the shell casing that dropped to the floor and rolled under the settee, the casing that she'd picked up and tucked in her pocket so that she'd leave no trace behind when the police came searching on the roof, looking for the sniper that had killed four men that week, the one they joked was doing their job for them by taking out various criminals with links to the gangs.

It simply lay on the carpet, half hidden in shadows while Margot finished undressing and crawled under the soft covers of the bed, probably the biggest and nicest bed she'd ever slept in. Except she didn't sleep. She just stared up at the ceiling, smelling the hint of gunpowder residue on her fingers every time she reached up to wipe her face.

Gunpowder. She'd killed a man just a few hours ago, left him dead in the street. Up until that point, she'd managed her guilt by convincing herself that her targets were bad people, and she was doing it for a good cause. But where was her good cause now? Her mother was cold and stiff in a morgue, while she was in a warm bed, in a room that smelled faintly of freshly cut flowers and wood polish. Nothing had come of her sacrifice, except a debt that was starting to seem like it would never be paid off, and even once it was, she would still be a killer.

She didn't belong there, in that warm bed. She didn't deserve the kind of concern that had carried Alfred so quickly to the hospital. What would he say if he knew?

She tried to tell herself that he'd never find out, but that was an exercise in futility. He'd find out one day. She'd slip up. The police would catch her. Or Freddie would swing by at just the wrong time. Or maybe the guilt would just explode from within her and she'd confess.

Whatever happened, she knew she couldn't stay at the manor. She was dangerous. And even if she would never do anything to harm Bruce or Alfred, she couldn't promise that she could protect them from the other dangerous people she was involved with. She wished she'd never entered that nightclub, that she'd never seen Freddie that afternoon. She hadn't felt like she had a choice then, but now it was even worse. Her life was a prison that she couldn't escape.

Something had to be done. She had to protect Bruce and Alfred. Even from herself. They didn't deserve to be dragged into her world. She shuddered as she thought that. Her world. Gang wars and hits and deals under the table. It repulsed her down to every last fiber of her being. But it was her world. It had become her world, and she was slowly acclimating to it.

Margot stared up at the ceiling and felt the tears spill over.

Wayne Manor was the world she wanted, the safe haven she'd always wished for. She'd come so close to having it, too, so close to becoming a part of it. But she couldn't be a part of both worlds. The longer she tried, the closer they came, and one day both worlds would meet, and she didn't want Bruce and Alfred becoming a part of it. For their sake, she'd have to do the most difficult thing she'd ever done.

She'd have to leave.

Alfred was in the kitchen the next morning, and he looked up with a smile when Margot entered. Wiping his hands on a dishtowel, he draped it over his shoulder and greeted her pleasantly, but not so cheerfully that it was off-putting.

"Good morning. Fancy anything for breakfast? Eggs? Toast? Pancakes?"

Margot had intended to lead into it, to let him down gently. But when she saw him, heard the caring in his gruff voice, the guilt overwhelmed her.

"I have to go."

Alfred stared at her, his brow furrowing slightly. "You what?"

"I can't work here anymore. I'm sorry."

The man was dumbfounded. He stood in numb silence for a moment before replying, "If this has anything to do with last night—"

"No," she interrupted. "I've just…I've given this a lot of thought. I need to leave."

"To do what, may I ask?" he inquired with an edge of steel in his voice. Now that the idea was sinking in, he seemed to be resisting it forcefully. "You can't just up and leave." His tone softened a bit, and he added, "Take the time that you need, but don't quit."

Margot stared at the floor, her shoulders hunched, hands in her pockets. "Alfred…" she began, shaking her head.

He reached for her, taking her by the shoulders. His grip was so firm that it almost hurt. "You can't go," he insisted, forcing her to meet his gaze. "You're more than a gardener to us, Margot. Bruce needs people he can trust. He needs you. I need—"

She stopped him before he could continue. "No." She forced her voice to be steady as she explained, "I've made up my mind."

Alfred was breathing fiercely through his nose, struggling not to lose his temper, but when he spoke again, his voice was soft. Pleading, almost. "Don't go."

"I'm sorry."

She pulled away from him and pushed past him, letting herself out the kitchen door.

She could feel his eyes piercing her accusingly as she left.

Dun dun DUN! I just thought I'd give a quick "thank you" to you all for bothering to read up to this point. I really do appreciate those of you that have favorited/followed/reviewed so far. I even appreciate you silent readers. ;)