Alfie is Alfred Pennyworth (iquakewithfear) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2010-11-18 14:59:00 |
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Entry tags: | alfred pennyworth, batgirl |
Who: Alfie and Quinn
What: Alfie wants to know why Quinn does not have a five-year plan.
Where: Outside Aubade
When: Day after Penguin Pals
Warnings: None
Quinn was still twitchy from what she considered a loss. It may have been inevitable in a way, being out numbered and out gunned would do that to you. Not that it had made her feel any better. She hadn't bothered to go home until the early dawn light peaked over the horizon, but then she didn't sleep at all. While running on coffee and fumes of adrenaline from the night before, Quinn had decided soundly that she'd go see Luke. Perhaps it'd be enough to take her mind off of things. Maybe she could talk him in to going with her to spar until she finally exhausted herself.
Quinn remembered how to get to where he was currently living, but in hindsight probably should have contacted him before she showed up. There was no one actually home to let her up when she arrived, no matter how many times she demanded the doorman to let her up. They probably wouldn't have thought it was entirely kosher if she were to punch out their doorman. With a heavy huffing sigh, Quinn went to sit outside Aubade on the curb. She was a sight in a half, dressed entirely in black with a heavy overcoat and sunglasses on in a dreary Seattle day. If Luke wasn't home, well, she could just wait until he showed up right here.
Alfie had spent the morning going through reports of the previous evening's activities. She'd done so in the comfort of her living room, clad in a silk a robe and while nursing an espresso the housekeeper had made her. By the time she'd finished reading, she had a migraine that she was certain even a well publicized Thanksgiving dinner would not be able to ease.
Alfie'd dressed, in a suit skirt and jacket, and she'd left the apartment, designer briefcase in hand and her phone at her ear. She considered stopping upstairs and checking on Luke and Thomas, but she had to be at the office in an hour to meet the lawyer handling the adoption, and she was afraid a stop at the Brandon penthouse would result in a long talk. She put it on her Blackberry calendar as "sanity check" and scheduled it for 5:15 pm.
That decided, Alfie stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby. She was slated to have lunch with the adoption judge, an old friend, to discuss Luke and her own inheritance situation. She found that wealthy old men were, at times, the best confidants in matters of money - as long as you weren't young enough for them to discount you outside of bed.
When the elevator doors opened, Alfie stepped out, only to be stopped by the guard about the girl on the steps outside. Someone waiting to be allowed into the Brandon apartment, the man informed her, and Alfie thanked him for the information with a generous tip and a smile that was still evocative, even at her age.
Alfie walked out into the Seattle sun, and she looked down at the small, nothing child sitting there. "May I ask what you're waiting for?" she asked plainly.
Quinn fiddled with her phone while she waited, playing one of the games she made Oracle download for her. She thought of calling Luke, but she wasn't technically supposed to have his phone number. She had a lot of phone numbers she wasn't supposed to have at her fingertips as she lived with Oracle. Instead of looking up as people entered and exited Aubade or walked on past, she just tapped her fingers against the touch screen and continued to wait.
Quinn's head jerked up when she heard someone address her. The woman in front of her didn't look threatening, but Quinn was hesitant to answer her. "Um...." She pressed her lips together and shrugged a little. "Waiting for my friend. Lives in there." She jerks her thumb over her shoulder at Aubade.
Alfie knew quite a few things she wasn't meant to know. More to the point, she knew quite a few things Thomas would prefer she not know. Her knowledge included quite a bit of information on the vigilante set, and she wondered if this girl was somehow involved in that. She matched the description of a girl shot a few months back, and if she'd had the time to pull out her phone and hunt up the security footage from her hospital stay, for purposes of comparison, she would have. She did not, however, have that sort of time.
"I see. And would your friend have a name, or perhaps a phone number that you could use? It is poor manners to leave a young lady sitting outside for an extended period of time," Alfie told the dark haired girl.
Quinn stuffed her phone in her pocket, looking up at the older woman. The sunglasses slipped down the bridge of her nose a little, letting old woman peer in to dark eyes with darker circles beneath. She pushed them up again before she said, "Luke Henry." Her voice was lined with wariness at the continued questioning. She was perfectly fine to sit and wait until he came home then to go anywhere else. It wasn't like she had much to do in her spare time.
"Dunno where he is," she said simply, like it would explain away the fact she was just waiting on the curb. "So I'll wait."
"I believe Luke is not yet home from school," Alfie told her. "He has morning classes, if I am not mistaken." She knew Luke's schedule perfectly, of course. He was much easier to keep track of than Thomas, at least at this point. Someone, she thought, should be keeping track of this girl, with those dark circles beneath her eyes.
Alfie had always been terribly certain that her disappointment in her own daughter stemmed from a lack of interest in doing anything of merit, but looking at this small girl (and thinking of what she was, no doubt, up to) made her wonder if perhaps Martha's choices, however boring at the time, had been better than possible alternatives. "Your name?"
"Oh," was all she said. Of course he'd be in classes, Luke actually could sit in a classroom and gain something beyond the complete inability to comprehend. Quinn fidgeted a little under the woman's look. She didn't like it. It made her feel like she was being judged. There was another long pause when the woman asked her name. Rather, she looked away for a moment down the street, as if Luke would suddenly appear.
"Quinn," she finally answered the older woman, turning her head to look back at her again.
Quinn. Of course. It was the girl from the hospital. Oracle's charge, then. Smaller than she expected. "Well, there is little point in sitting there all morning. Come along," she said, walking back to the doors and holding one open for the girl.
Quinn's eyebrows shot up practically to her hairline. She didn't really expect this woman to actually let her in. "Oh, um. Okay," Quinn climbed back to her feet and followed her inside. There was a quiet moment before she asked, "Um. Who're you?" A little blunt, but she was genuinely curious to this woman.
"Stephen," Alfie told the guard. "Please allow this young woman up to the top floor lobby. She is here to see young Luke."
Alfie turned her attention to Quinn then, not rushed at all when the guard went and took up position by the elevator with endless patience. "My name is Penelope. Among other things, I ensure Luke has groceries to eat." She looked at her watch, then back at that young, skeptical face. "What do you do with your days? Do you attend university?" She didn't ask what the girl did with her nights; she knew the answer to that already.
Quinn almost laughed when she called Luke 'young Luke.' She did eye the guard with a wary caution, as if she was worried that he'd actually try to stop her. She almost missed Penelope talking to her before she snapped her attention back to her. "Um," there was another pause as she searched for an answer. "I don't...do school."
"Do you have gainful employment?" Alfie asked. Personally, she thought someone this young belonged in school, lest they think Thomas' way of making a life was the only option available to her. She held her tongue, however. Perhaps the girl had a useful job, one that would pay her rent if the need arose. She doubted it, but she was willing to consider the possibility yet.
"Uh...no," Quinn answered Alfie, with a shrug of her shoulders. She twisted a thread from her jacket around her fingers, pressing her lips together. She didn't really have gainful anything. Her job was to do errands for Oracle, but she didn't actually get paid for that. "Help care for my..." she trailed off, trying to figure out the word. "friend? Do errands. Free place to live."
Alfie watched the twist of fingers in jacket with a detached eye, and then the girl began talking about Oracle. Well, she assumed it was Oracle. Alfie did not know Gwen Dailey and Oracle were one in the same, but now she knew that Oracle needed caring for. That was unexpected. She'd always thought of Oracle as imminently capable. She decided, right then, to pay the woman a visit once her work day was completed.
"Helping to care for a friend is, of course, admirable," Alfie told Quinn. "But it will not carry you through life," she added. "And your activities in the evenings, those will only carry you until your knees give out with age." She looked down at her watch again, and she motioned to the guard to press the elevator button for himself and Quinn. "You cannot depend on others for your basic needs." She didn't suspect the problem to be monetary. She had complete faith that Oracle would have found a technical way to get Quinn into college, had Quinn wished it. "We will speak again later in the week," she told Quinn. "Between now and then, a list, if you would, of things you could see yourself doing if your knees gave out this afternoon. We'll discuss options."
Then, before even walking away, Alfie put her cellphone to her ear and called her own apartment. "Yes, Nancy, it's Penelope. There's a young girl coming up to the top floor salon in a few moments, bring her a plate." She gave Quinn one last look. "Perhaps two sandwiches would be a good idea."
Quinn jerked her head up quickly, eyes widening at Alfie. There wasn't much she could actually say in return, almost completely flabbergasted by the older woman. "Wait. What?" She tried to interject, but Alfie didn't seem to be taking in account she may not actually want the "help". Quinn didn't bother to think about what she was doing a this evening, so the idea of coming up with a list was nigh on impossible.
Quinn, also, wasn't going to share the fact her reading skills had apparently been in a backslide since the portal. Thinking up a job for a person who couldn't really do much of anything beyond fight? Yeah, it really wasn't going to happen at all. She almost thumped her head against the elevator doors as they closed between her and Alfie.
What'd she gotten herself in to?