How is this helping me? Bruce wondered, feeling himself pulled around.
"You have to rebuild your soul before you can go back into your body."
My soul? So I really am just a…spirit? That explained a lot- the fact that he couldn't hear, smell, touch, taste or see. And yet, he could still sense some things. Like that he was moving. And that he was surprisingly at ease with whomever this voice belonged to. It made him suspicious, but, being a sliver of soul as he was, not like he could do much of anything at this point.
"Yep, you're at my mercy." The laugh was beautiful, a cadence of amusement. Bruce was once again suspicious of how nice he found it. "Oh look we're here." Bruce then felt like he was falling, falling like at night from rooftop to rooftop; he enjoyed the short feeling of familiar exhilaration.
Then suddenly opera music and warmth, the smell of homemade food and the feel of velvet on fingertips. The vigilante knew what all this meant, even without his senses. Alfred. His trusty butler, guardian, and friend was an almost absurd (if it wasn't Alfred of course) mix of wealth and modesty. He ached for his long-time companion, trying to rush closer when the man fleshed out before him.
Alfred was asleep. It's been a long time… Bruce thought as seemed to hover above the butler's bed, not really remembering the last time he'd seen Alfred sleep. It was the gentleman's modus operandi to be awake whenever Bruce was awake. He sighed to himself, slowly drifting downward to the side of Alfred's bed. Oh Alfred…
They'd been through a lot together, or well, Bruce had put the older man through a lot. It was ironic really how Bruce had been broken down and glued back together so many times while Alfred remained as unscathed as a stone. Though, that was what enabled the vigilante to piece himself back together every time, because he had help, because he always had help. Help for the small things, like the stupid projects when he was school, to the big things, like keeping the family together.
Alfred had helped Dick break in to his heart, taught Jason how to get under his skin, gave Tim a pedestal to stand beside him, and made Damian feel human. And always made the girls feel welcome where Bruce fell short. Alfred was definitely the embodiment of home, safe and secure. He was the roof over their heads and the pillars that stood tall.
Bruce could muse for hours about the wonders of Alfred. The man who could command like a hardened general and yet took commands as his butler with such grace. The gentlemen who could be rough and tumble if required and yet delicately tie a tie in, hell, 60 different ways?
Alfred woke with warmth in his chest. He hadn't had dreams like that in a long time, the light-hearted ones, the ones with memories of Bruce before the 'mission' absorbed the boy's life, and the few good memories that came afterwards- letting Dick 'accidentally' find the Batcave, teaching Jason to cook things that even the 'great Batman' couldn't, always allowing Tim in where Bruce tried to shut him out, and never permitting Damian to put his nose up too high.
A chuckle was brought to his lips when he thought about Bruce's forced waffle morning with the girls. To think the Batman didn't know how to use a waffle iron (not that Alfred thought he couldn't figure it out) but he'd left the Batgirls the job of teaching the man one morning and had returned to a messed up kitchen. It was worth it though, as the waffle classroom had spiraled into a waffle competition at some point and ended with happy bats around the table; even the big bat that pretended to be grumpy because Stephanie had won.
"You better wake up soon, Master Bruce." Alfred murmured to his empty room.