I allow myself an smug smile. It has been a while since a woman has been moved to propose by my performance in bed.

"I'm serious, Alfred. Quit your job and let's marry."

I snort in that "British" way I know she finds charming. I actually learned it from a teenager in Turkey. Thinking of Turkey drives me to the reason why I can't go back, ever, to my former post of employment.

"I seriously doubt the MI5 would want me back."

Leslie rests her chin in my chest and looks at me with the full, breathtaking intensity of her will. She doesn't know the details of my former life, and I think we are both thankful for it.

"Then be an actor, or a chef, or help me here at the clinic. Just... just leave that cursed mansion before it kills you or drives you insane."

I smile gently at her, but there's no denying the mocking sting in my words.

"Would you stop treating him when he crawls bloodied to your back door?"

She bites her lower lip - her only, endearing, gesture of helplessness.

"You know I can't do that. He has been using that... that monstrous costume for a year now, fighting murderers and lunatics and... and," -she shook her head, trying to find the words- "I'm a doctor."

"And I'm a servant."

She scowls at my words, almost ready to slap me.

"I love you," she says.

I caress her hair. "I love you, too. But he needs me, he needs us, more. And I'm beginning to think this city might need him."

Sighing in -tempory, I'm sure- retreat, Leslie snugs against my neck. "At the cost of his life? Of his soul? What sort of man sacrifices himself like that?"

"One we raised?," I ask with a wry smile.

I can feel her tears on my skin, but also her small smile pressed against my neck.

"Go to hell, Alfred Pennyworth." she says good-naturedly.

"The entry is surprisingly easy" I remark. "There's this clock, you see, and behind it some stairs damnably hard to dust..."