"Wait, you met Bruce Wayne? Prince of Gotham, Bruce Wayne?" Barbara asked over the phone.

Casey smiled. "Yeah. I never thought in my entire life that I would meet him. Like it was something out of a rom-com. Poor girl meets rich guy in the street. Next thing you know the paparazzi finds out and I'm a social pariah." She frowned. "Oh god, what if the paparazzi finds out?"

"Calm down, Casey," Barbara said. "You just met him the one time. It's not like he asked you to dinner or something."

"Right," Casey said as convincingly as she could. "It's not like we're going to see each other again. He's got a company to run. And he's probably dating a supermodel or something." She despondently poked at her small love-handle; she wasn't exactly built like a model.

Argh, why was she thinking about this so much? Sure Bruce Wayne was handsome, charismatic, and had a set of gorgeous blue eyes that made Casey go weak at the knees. And she would be lying if she said she didn't look up his Wikipedia page on her phone when she got home.

She knew the local story of Thomas and Martha Wayne's murder. She hadn't been born yet but it was one of most told stories around Gotham when she was a child. Thomas and Martha Wayne had been shot to death in an alley behind Monarch Theater. What she didn't know was that they were killed in front of a young Bruce, as Wikipedia told her.

Casey couldn't even imagine what it would be like to watch her parents die in front of her. A part of her could see it happening to her father and another part of her wouldn't care but her mother... Her mother didn't deserve something like that. She already went through hell once before.

"Casey? Are you still there?"

Casey snapped back to attention. "Yeah, I'm here. Sorry."

"You drifted there."

"Just thinking." She heard a whistle come from her kitchen; the water was hot. "Uh, listen Barbara. I gotta go."

"Yeah, sure. How's the investigation going?"

Casey groaned. "I wish it wasn't but the guy in charge says I have a good case. But that's all I'm going to say."

"I just want to say that I believe you're going to get off. You didn't do anything. Nashton was the crook."

"Thanks Babs." Casey said goodbye and hung up.

She stood and headed into her kitchen and poured some boiling water into a mug and dropped a vanilla chamomile tea bag in. As her tea steeped, she rummaged through her pantry looking for the honey. She bought some chamomile tea on her way home after getting off the ferry; she read chamomile tea was the way to go when one couldn't sleep.

"Hope it works," Casey muttered to herself as she pulled the tea bag out and threw it away. She poured in a teaspoon of honey and stirred. She blew on the hot tea and took a tentative sip.

Hrm, not bad, she thought. She wasn't much of a tea drinker since coffee was her preferred choice of hot drink (and coding into the night demanded several cups of the stuff.) But she could get used to tea eventually.

Casey curled up on her couch, setting the mug on her coffee table and turned the volume of the tv up. It was some new crime drama that had been getting good reviews lately and she decided to watch since she had nothing to do without her computer.

After nearly half an hour, she decided it was an okay show. She had to laugh at how tacky their computer expert was. Hacking was not a few keystrokes like the shows made it out to be. It took time to write up a code and test it out, making sure it worked before actually using it. (Casey actually ruined several school computers in college thanks to a worm gone bad.) But hackers were creatures of habit. If they had a hacking program that worked, they would use it until someone caught onto it.

Not as glamorous as the media made it out to be.

Casey drained the rest of her tea and lay down, pulling a blanket over herself. She dimly listened to the show and closed her eyes…

"What's your name?" She asked as she booted up the computer.

"Adam Jenkins," he replied. "Can you only believe it's my first month here? My wife told me I should take it for the meantime until something better came along."

Casey didn't reply as she kept on typing. "Now let's see if I can get the lock-down doors working."

"That won't do anything, Casey," Adam Jenkins said from above her.

She looked up and screamed.

Adam stood over her, a single bullet hole in his forehead. Blood dripped from it, pooling around his eyes and mouth

She tried to back up, get away from him, but Adam's hands shot out and gripped her throat. "Look at what you did to me, Casey," he whispered to her, blood pouring out his mouth. "If not for you, I would have lived."

His hands tightened around her throat and she gasped for breath, clawing at Adam's hands. She wanted to scream but she couldn't. Adam's hands got tighter and tighter around as he continued to scream at her. Then Adam's faced transformed into a pasty-white face with ruby red lips. The Joker grinned at her and laughed.

Casey tried to close her eyes but she couldn't look away.

The Joker leaned his face close to hers as if he was about to kiss her. "Remember me, Casey?" He sneered and laughed in her ear.

Casey's eyes snapped open as she jolted awake, wheezing and trying to catch her breath. She massaged her throat; it was burning hot as if someone's hands were just around it. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the armrest.

Just a dream, she tried to tell herself. It was just a dream. The Joker was locked up in Blackgate and she was alive.

But Adam Jenkins wasn't. He was dead in Blackgate with a hole in his head…

Casey shook her head vigorously, trying to expel the image from her head. She put her head in her hands and let out a sob. Adam Jenkins was dead and it was her fault. If she has been paying attention to what was going on outside then she would have seen the Joker coming and they could've hid or something.

She could've done something—anything—to stop the Joker from killing Adam.

But she didn't. And Adam paid the price for it.

Casey curled into herself and cried.

-x-

She fell asleep and woke up three different times over the night before moving from the couch to her bed. But nevertheless, she finally got up at six and made breakfast. She checked her email on her phone and found a message from IA saying to come into the precinct at nine for her next interview with Harvey Dent.

Bet they found the Playboy files, she thought as she ate her eggs listlessly. Thanks to not sleeping well, she felt exhausted and could barely keep her eyes open. She set some coffee to brew and hopped into the shower, hoping to wake her body up.

An hour later, she poured coffee and creamer into her favorite blue thermos and put her coat and hat on. She left her apartment and locked it and was on her way.

By the time the ferry landed on the other side of the bay, she felt wide awake. She slipped her thermos into her bag and called a taxi.

She was more than early than the email told her but she didn't care. She waved good morning to some people but for the most part, she was still receiving ugly looks and glares.

"You're early," Gordon said as he emerged from his office. "I was told you'd be here at nine."

"Keeping tabs on me, Gordon?"

He shook his head. "IA has been giving me some insight into the investigation. Not much because I bet Dent suspects I'm bias towards her due to your relationship with my daughter. But I'm allowed to know how the investigation is going."

"Sounds great," Casey said gruffly.

He followed her down the hall to where she'd meet Harvey. "How've you been?" Gordon asked.

"Fine," she lied.

He stared at her as if he could see her lie. "You can tell me the truth Casey. You went through an extreme ordeal and now you're under investigation. It's understandable if you're having a tough time."

"I've been a little stressed," Casey finally admitted. "It's not fun when everyone thinks you're the one responsible for the department going under."

"Has someone been bothering you?" Gordon demanded.

"Gordon, people have been bothering me since I started working here. It's nothing new," Casey said.

He put a hand on her shoulder. "Casey, if you need anything, anything, at all, you know I'm here to help."

"Thanks Gordon." Casey smiled.

"Ah, you're here early." Harvey Dent emerged from another room, briefcase and cup of coffee in hand. "Good, good. We can start now if you don't mind, Casey."

Casey shrugged. "Sure, I don't mind."

"Good luck," Gordon said and gave Casey a smile.

Harvey opened the door for her and Casey walked inside. She took off her coat and slung it over the back of her chair and put her hat on the table alongside her bag and sat down.

Harvey set his coffee and briefcase down on the table and opened his case. He took out some papers before putting the case on the floor and sat down across from her. He pressed play on the recorder.

"We found something serious on your computer last night, Casey," he said as he shuffled through the papers. "There was an encrypted file and it took our techs all night to crack it. And when they managed to open the file with the password 'funnybunny' they found Playboy images."

Casey forced herself to adopt a look of innocence. "Playboy's not illegal," she said quietly.

"But why was the file encrypted?" Harvey asked. "The techs scoured every single file and there was nothing hidden in there. I'm not judging you for the porn but the fact that it was encrypted makes me suspicious."

"Why?" Casey asked blankly.

"You're a smart woman, Casey. I've looked at your records. You passed all of your computer classes with top marks. It's natural for me to believe you had something on your computer but you got rid of it and replaced it with Playboy."

Casey blinked. Harvey was smarter than she gave him credit. "Being a hacker also means being paranoid," she said slowly. "When you know what kind of hackers are out there, you want to protect anything that could harm you or your family. If someone tried to go through my computer while I was working here and found the Playboy or my personal information, they could try and use it as blackmail or ruin me."

"Just for having Playboy on your computer?" Harvey replied and raised a brow. "I seriously doubt that. As you said, Playboy isn't illegal. What's to bet none of the officers don't have porn of some kind in their own homes?"

Casey laughed. "Because all those cops are in their own groups. They followed Loeb and Branden in their corrupt circles. None of them were going to blackmail each other when they were already dirty. I'm not dirty. People have always been looking for an excuse to give me hell here."

"Why?"

"People knew I wasn't taking bribes and I wasn't losing evidence in the system like they wanted. When I first started here, I was vocal about fighting corruption. People got angry, made threats against me and so I stopped."

"Did that make you want revenge? Did you snoop into their lives and find evidence and pass it onto Nashton?"

Casey shook her head. "No. Like I said before, I did what Edward assigned me and kept my head down. I made my private life completely private and barely made any friends."

"Would that explain why no one, not even Jim Gordon, knows you have a restraining order against your father?"

Casey's blood ran cold. "I don't see how that's related to this investigation," she said slowly. "The restraining order is something completely unrelated to my work."

A shadow crossed Harvey's face but he smiled. "Of course. I apologize. I was merely curious about it."

"It's personal and private," she told him curtly.

He reached out and stopped the recorder. "I think that's a good stopping point. The techs should have more information from your computer later this afternoon. Could you come back and we can resume?"

She shrugged a shoulder. "Sure."

"Good. Let's say two o'clock?"

"Fine with me." She stood and put her coat and hat back on. "I'll be back here by then."

Harvey opened the door for her and Casey made a beeline for the bathroom. She used the toilet and splashed some water on her face as she washed her hands. She had dodged a serious bullet in there. Harvey was so close to guessing the truth. She had replaced the files with Playboy and he almost caught her.

She needed to be more careful with her answers. Stick to the truth that she had no idea about Edward's allegiance and that she was completely innocent. She could ride this out until the investigation was done.

Casey checked herself in the mirror and flinched. While the bruises on her neck were nearly gone but the shadows around her eye were getting darker. No wonder, Gordon asked her if she was doing okay. She looked like a mess. Obviously, the lack of sleep was getting to her.

She fluffed her hair, arranging it so most of it covered her neck. And she reached into her bag and pulled out a compact. She covered the shadows around her eyes with the powder as best as she could. It made her look a bit more perky and less tired.

As she walked back out, there were more people in the pulpit as she walked out. She could still feel their glares on her back as she headed for the door. But she ignored them and no one approached her this time.

As Casey was trying to figure where she could go loiter for five hours, somebody called her name. She looked up and her jaw dropped open when she recognized the figure of Bruce Wayne walking towards her.

"Casey, right?" He asked as he came closer.

"Yeah," she said. "Uh, fancy seeing you here again. Still trying to get help on your building?"

"Nah, I've been stuck in a meeting all morning. Thought I'd get out and stretch my legs. Was just in the neighborhood and I saw you." He smiled at her and Casey felt a flutter in her stomach.

"Oh yeah, I see. I'm on a break right now so uh—"

"What a coincidence," he interrupted. "Would you like to go grab a cup of coffee?"

Casey's stomach did a backflip. "Uh, c-coffee?" Holy crap, is he asking me out on a coffee date? "Sure," she said. "I could use some more coffee."

Actually, caffeine was probably the last thing she needed right now but when Bruce Wayne asks you if you want to get coffee with him, you don't say no.

He grinned. "Great. I know this place on the other side of the Diamond District. Real discreet too. Let me just call Alfred. I kind of gave him the slip when I left the office."

"Can't we walk?" Casey asked as he pulled out his cell phone.

"It's all the away across the district," he said.

"I've got plenty of time," Casey replied. "I need to be back here by two."

Bruce checked an expensive-looking silver watch on his wrist. "That's plenty of time. Let's go."

They walked side by side at a leisurely pace. Clearly, Bruce was in no hurry either despite that he was probably working today.

"Don't you have a company to run?" Casey asked after a few minutes of walking.

Bruce laughed. "I have Lucius Fox, my CEO, for that. He can take care of anything in Wayne Enterprises when I'm not available. And right now, I'm not available to anyone at Wayne Enterprises."

"Wow," Casey murmured. "I didn't know business owners could be so… cavalier."

"I'm allowed a certain amount of freedom. Or at least I try to get it. Sometimes someone just absolutely has to talk to me about something or other. Running a company is hard work."

"I'll bet," Casey said. "But you've got an entire team of business people to keep it from running into the ground."

Bruce chuckled. "That I do. But still, there are a lot of ways for a business to go out of business."

The coffee shop was a local one but also high end, judging by the absurd prices. Casey would never be caught in here. She couldn't afford it.

The barista was a bright-eyed young woman who gave Bruce doe eyes. But if she recognized him as Bruce Wayne, she didn't say anything. Bruce ordered a simple coffee and Casey decided on a caramel mocha latte. She inwardly flinched when the order came to sixty-five dollars but Bruce didn't seem bothered as he handed over his card.

He handed Casey her drink and led her up to a second level in the shop and they settled at a table in the corner by a fire place. She took off her coat and hat and sipped her latte. It was… delicious, she realized. The drink was perfectly creamy and the moca, caramel, and espresso were balanced just right.

"Holy crap," she said. "I think I understand why this costs so much."

"They're fairly cheap but I find they have the best coffee in Gotham."

Casey snorted. "I don't know about you but thirty-seven dollars for a cup of coffee is not cheap." He's a billionaire, Casey. "Uh, well for someone like me, that's a lot for a cup of coffee. Heck, thirty-seven dollars is a meal at a restaurant for me. Actually, that's reaching a lot. Depends on how much alcohol I get. I spend more like twenty or so." Casey, just shut up. She laughed nervously and took another swig of her latte.

But Bruce didn't seemed bothered by her little outburst. Instead he chuckled and drank his coffee. "So tell me about yourself, Casey."

Casey raised an eyebrow. "Beg pardon?"

"Aren't coffee shops the place where people talk about themselves?"

She let out another nervous laugh. "I suppose," she trailed off. "I can't say I've ever been in the coffee shop situation before." Her dating life had been very minimal. There was a guy from her computer science class she went to prom with and then a couple guys during college but none of her relationships lasted long. One moved away and a long distance relationship was too difficult to maintain, another they just fell out of love, and her prom date was better off being her friend than a boyfriend.

"Well what about you?" Casey blurted.

"About me what?"

"You ever been in a coffee shop situation before?"

He smiled and laughed but shook his head. "No one I've dated was ever interested in coffee. Most of my dates were expensive dinners or benefits."

That made her feel a little bit better. They were both out of their comfort zone. "Well," Casey began, "I work in the GCPD as you already know. Uh, I live alone in New Gotham and my sole interest all my life have been computers."

"Where'd you go to school? Hometown?" He asked.

"Born and raised in Gotham. I went to Gotham University and got a job in the Cyber Crime Division some time after graduating," she replied.

"So what made you interested in computers?"

"Ah, they've always been a passion of mine in high school. It was something I wanted to do with my life." Casey shifted uncomfortably in her seat. This felt too much like the sessions with Harvey.

"Can I ask about you," she asked hesitantly.

He cocked his head to the side. "I'm rather boring if you think about it. You can Google my entire life story."

"I can Google it." She already did the night before. "But Google and the tabloids never have the full story. No one really knows your private life, do they?" Casey had seen the interviews Vicki Vale tried to get with him; she was always asking Gotham's most eligible bachelor about his dating life.

"No, they don't," he said. "But the thing people want to know most is who I'm seeing. No one ever cares about my company unless it makes a mistake or an employee does something illegal." He leaned back in his chair. "People don't really care about who I am as a person. They just want dirty gossip to sell another story."

"Oh." Casey stared at her latte and took another drink. She guessed that the rich lifestyle was just as lonely as the poor one. Casey had only few friends because of her work but Bruce was always surrounded by people: paparazzi, reporters, and members of Wayne Enterprises but she never guessed that he was also a loner. "But there are people who care about you?"

"Of course there are," he said amicably. "My butler, Alfred, is like a father to me."

Because his own father died when he was a child. But she wouldn't say that out loud. That would be the absolute worst thing she could bring up. "That's… good," she struggled to say.

"You alright?" He asked her.

Casey chewed on her lip. Subjects on fathers always made her uncomfortable. "Just ran out of things to say. I'm not very good at this. I'm sorry."

"I think you're doing just fine," Bruce said. "But if you'd like, we can do something a bit differently." He took a long swig of his coffee. "I ask you a question, you answer, and then you ask me a question and I answer."

"Sounds cool."

"Great. Let's start something simple… Favorite movie?"

"Huge fan of Aladdin, the Disney movie. Favorite… tv show?"

He smiled sadly. "I don't watch that much tv. Favorite food."

"Hm, hamburger and fries but I'll never say no to tacos. Favorite actor?"

They went like that for some time, going over what they liked to do and read and so forth. Casey felt herself relaxing each time he asked her question and soon she was smiling and laughing as Bruce told her about one time when he nearly killed himself riding a horse when he was a kid.

"Alfred told me that I wasn't getting another horse until I was at least twenty after that," Bruce finished.

"Wow. I have never been on a horse and after hearing that, I don't think I want to."

"Good. I'm rubbish on a horse," he said.

They descended back into a silence as Casey finished the remains of her latte. Bruce cleared his throat and Casey looked back at him.

"I'm, uh, having an award ceremony for Ferris Boyle on New Year's Eve at my manor. I was hoping you'd like to accompany me, Casey."

She barely caught herself just in time or else her mouth would have dropped open. Was Bruce Wayne asking her on a date? Did an award ceremony count as a date? Nevermind that, why in the hell was Bruce Wayne of all people asking a woman like her out on a date?

She opened and closed her mouth several times, trying to find the right words to say. "I'm sorry," she finally managed to say. "You kind of just caught me by surprise."

"If you want to think on it for a day or two, you're welcome to." He smiled warmly at her. "I'm not expecting an answer right away."

"Sure," Casey said. "I'd like to do that, actually. Um, do you want my phone number?"

"That would be a good idea." He reached into his suit jacket pocket and pulled out a sleek, black phone. She told him her number and he told her his which she put into her own beat up cell phone.

"Call me when you've got an answer." He scrolled through his phone and shook his head. "Unfortunately, Lucius is calling for me. I need to return to Wayne Enterprises. I'll call Alfred and tell him to take you to where you need to go."

"You don't need to do that," Casey protested. "I can walk."

But Bruce shook his head. "No, it's the least I can do for you. It's snowing out and I don't want you to freeze."

She flushed. "Thanks."

Bruce didn't leave the coffee shop until the familiar black car was stationed outside. He opened the door and said a few words to Alfred, telling him to take Casey where she wanted.

"Thanks for accompanying me for coffee," he said and smiled.

She smiled back at him. "Thanks. I had fun." Without thinking she added, "Let's do it again some time."

He laughed. "Then we will. Just give me a call when you're free." He shut the door.

Casey put her seat-belt on as Alfred pulled away from the curb. "Where to, Miss Wilson?" Alfred asked calmly.

"Just back to the GCPD," she replied. It was barely noon so she'd have two more hours to kill. Maybe she'd get a lunch in the cafeteria from the vending machine or something.

"So you've been Bruce's butler his entire life?" Casey asked.

"That's right, ma'am. I've served the Wayne family for many years now."

"Cool," Casey whistled.

She chewed on the inside of her cheek. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Certainly, ma'am."

"Has… Has Bruce done this often?"

"Done what often?"

"Ask girls out to coffee and then ask them to a ceremony as a date?"

"I can't say that Master Bruce has asked women out in this manner. Then again, he has not dated very often or extensively in the past."

"Often?" Casey asked.

"Let me clarify, women flock to Master Bruce but, and while he is accompanied to many events by someone, he never saw anyone past that."

"So if I go with him to this award thing, he's probably not going to want to see me again?" Casey asked and started picking at her fingernails.

"If I may, Miss Wilson," Alfred started. "I believe Master Bruce has a genuine interest in you. He spoke highly of you when you departed the car yesterday."

"He barely knows me" Casey mumbled. "Guys like him don't go for girls like me unless it's a joke."

"While the tabloids of Gotham paints him in a certain light, I have raised him since his parents died and I have known him all his life. Believe me when I say that Master Bruce's feelings are authentic. He just wants to know you better."

Her heart felt a little bit lighter after he said that. She let out a small grin. "Thanks," she said to him.

And her decision was made. She swiped her phone on and texted a short message to Bruce: I'll go to the award thing with you.

She looked up and caught a glimpse of Alfred in the rear-view mirror and saw his face crinkle up as he smiled too.

-x-

So the first date is done and now Casey is going to the award ceremony with Bruce. And we all know what happens on New Year's Eve. Fun and scary, life-threatening times are ahead.

Reviews, favorites, and follows are love! See ya in chapter thirteen!