Author's Note: I know we're running late on this series due to my being sick over the Christmas weekend, but I'd like to finish it off with a couple of New Year's tales instead of the Santa story I previously mentioned. That being said, here is a piece from Alfred's POV that centers on the old 'first-foot' tradition that's held to in some parts of England and elsewhere in the world.

I am also very pleased to announce the launch of my website featuring my original fiction. All of those stories are and will continue to be free to read, so I hope you'll venture over to jleehazlett dot com and check it out. There's only a few things there right now, but beginning with this month I will be posting one original short story concurrently with a new piece of fan fiction. My Batman blog, Fanon Fanatic, has also been relocated to my new site, so keep your eyes peeled for new extra content to go along with upcoming fan fiction stories.

Happy New Year, and happy reading!

Midnight had passed, and the new year had begun. As Alfred surveyed his quietly buzzing brood, a soft smile ventured across his lips. The boys were gathered around the exquisite chess board on which generations of Waynes had learned to play. All three of them already knew the rules, but Dick was whispering advice into Damian's ear anyway. While the youngest of the trio would never admit it, he probably did need the help. He was playing against Tim, after all, who held the family record for most times checkmating Bruce. Without assistance he might have been trounced, and Alfred didn't want to see the new year ushered in with a fraternal fistfight.

Bruce himself was pressed far back into an armchair, his feet up, one hand wrapped loosely around his Champagne. Each time one of his sons made a well-advised move he lifted his glass and sipped. Alfred suspected that this pattern was a ruse to cover up a pleased smirk, but he couldn't be certain. Bruce had become too good at subterfuge over the years, and the butler was at an age when even the most well-honed of senses begin to dull. In the end he supposed it didn't matter why the crystal flute rose with such regularity so long as his charges were content.

Not all of Alfred's old tricks had worn out yet, though, and consequently he sensed that they weren't alone in the house before anyone else did. Perhaps he was alerted by the faint breeze that whispered through the downstairs hallways whenever the clock was closed over its secret passageway; perhaps it was some primordial protective instinct that picked up the presence of another living being inside his domain. Whatever it was, it dropped his smile into a faint frown and drove him into the corridor.

"...Mister Kent," he greeted with surprise when he met the intruder in the foyer. There were very few people who could waltz into the house unannounced and receive a warm welcome, and Clark was one of them. "What a lovely surprise. We missed you at Christmas dinner." The Kryptonian's arms were full of boxes and bags, and Alfred reached forward to unburden him. "Please, allow me."

"Sorry about the unexpected arrival," Clark apologized as they started back towards the formal living room. "I didn't know I'd be back tonight, and I wanted to bring these things by as soon as I could. Some of them are perishable, and I know Dick would be disappointed if his black pears went bad before he got any."

Alfred cast a dubious look at the gaily wrapped packages in his hands. "Black pears, Mister Kent?"

"It's all off-world foods. I've been on about twenty planets since I left a couple of weeks ago, and when I realized I was going to miss Christmas I thought I'd try to make up for it. Nothing I can get on Earth compares with your cooking, but some of this stuff is pretty good."

"You flatter me, sir. You also worry me; off-world food or not, a black pear simply doesn't sound edible."

Clark chuckled. "I'll let you take that up with Dick. He loves them."

Alfred thought it strange that the most open of all his boys wouldn't have shared the existence of a favorite food with him. Then he decided that it must have been an issue of availability. Dick knew that Alfred did everything in his power to keep up a steady supply of things that he liked, and off-world foods would be nigh unobtainable. Rather than send him on a wild goose chase, the younger man had likely chosen to keep his preferences secret.

It was Dick who first noticed them coming into the room. "Hey!" he exclaimed. "Uncle Clark's here!"

"Here late," came a laconic rejoinder from Bruce's chair.

"It wasn't my idea, I promise," Clark replied. "But I brought a peace offering anyway." Taking a bag from Alfred, the Kryptonian crossed the room and dropped it into Bruce's lap. "Merry late Christmas, or happy New Year. Whatever you prefer."

"What do you say, Bruce?" Dick jested. "Can he stay?"

"...A bottle of Jivesech that's older than I am is an olive branch I'm prepared to accept," the billionaire answered as he examined his gift. "He can stay."

Dick's eyes widened. "Wait. If you brought Jivesech, then that means-"

"That you were on the planet with those weird peaches Dick likes," Tim finished.

"Right!" said Dick. "So, ah...I don't suppose...?"

Clark chuckled and held up another bag. "Relax, pal. Your peaches are right here. There's something for everyone, actually, and a few extra things that I figured you'd all like."

"I'll make room for everything over here," Alfred put in. Handing his load of gifts back to Clark, he moved to the table he'd filled with an assortment of foods earlier in the evening. The meat and cheese trays were depleted enough that he could combine them, and that plus a little re-arranging left plenty of space for the new things. "...Master Wayne? Shall I pour you some of your...whatever it was?" He seemed to recall having heard the name before tonight, but its pronunciation was so foreign to his tongue that he didn't want to risk it.

"Yes. But you'll need wooden cups to do it right."

"Wooden cups, sir?" Alfred thought hard, but he was certain they had no such things in the house. "Is there a reason crystal won't suffice?"

"Jivesech comes from fermented tree bark," Bruce explained. "You can drink it from something other than wood, but the flavor won't be right."

"Don't worry," Clark broke in before Alfred could voice his regrets about their lack of appropriate vessels. "I've never known you to not be able to come with whatever was needed, Alfred, but I had a sneaking suspicion that wooden cups were one of the few things you might not have tucked away in a cupboard. So I brought these." He lifted the lid from a box to reveal a set of pale green chalices.

"Ooh, those are the good ones," Dick sighed as he peered at the gift. "Real Wreknect wood?"

"Drinking Jivesech wouldn't be the same if it wasn't," Clark verified.

"Alfred, pour a cup for everyone," Bruce requested. "Yourself, too, if you want. Damian can have a quarter-cup. Jivesech's alcoholic, but this is a special occasion and he won't be able to drink it off-world for a few more years still."

"Do we dare keep this stuff in the house?" Tim asked from beneath knit eyebrows. "I mean tonight's fine, obviously, but I can't see us eating everything in one sitting."

"Who's going to come over and see who doesn't already know what we do, Drake?" Damian scoffed. "Besides, we're rich and people are stupid. If someone who doesn't know does see something, just tell them it's from an obscure country and act like it's not a big deal. They'll be too intimidated to ask for details."

"I can hide anything terribly suspect in the depths of the kitchen, Master Tim," Alfred promised. So long as nothing Clark had brought required an unfamiliar storage routine, he was confident he could disguise any leftovers.

"...Okay," Tim shrugged. Then he turned back to the chessboard and moved a piece. "Checkmate."

Damian's expression was instantly stormy. "What?! Grayson! Explain this!"

"You lost, Dami. Sorry. Here," Dick offered him an unopened box. "This one's got your name on it."

The boy regarded it warily. "But I've never been off-world with you," he addressed Clark, "and Grayson clearly didn't know you were bringing food. How did you know what I'd like?"

"I didn't," the Kryptonian confessed. "Which is why I got you what I got you."

Damian's present, it turned out, was an assortment of alien sweets. Some of them were bizarre to Alfred's eyes – at least one compartment appeared to be filled with jelly bites that had sprouted tentacles – but others looked normal enough. It was to one of the more innocuous pods that Dick pointed in warning. "Eat those ones slow, Dami. Like, no more than two a day kind of slow. That's going to be tough, because they taste like chocolate-covered strawberries are exploding in your mouth, but your intestines will hate you if you overdo it with them."

A spark of interest appeared in Damian's gaze. "Dangerous candy," he said with a shallow nod of approval. "Not bad."

"Mister Kent," Alfred asked in a low voice as Tim tore the wrapping from his own gift, "I mean no offense, but are you certain these items are all safe for human consumption?"

"Don't worry," Clark promised. "I wouldn't bring them anything that might cause real harm. You're the only one here who hasn't had at least some of this stuff before, and I've personally witnessed humans eating everything I brought. The worst thing that might happen is that Damian spends a couple of days locked in the bathroom if he goes overboard with the candy Dick pointed out to him. Or with the purple one," he frowned. "He should eat that one slow, too."

Alfred still wasn't sure he was comfortable with so many unusual items going into his charges' stomachs, but so long as none of them would be damaged by what they were consuming he would try to keep his concerns to himself. There were moments when that proved difficult – when he poured out the Jivesech, for example, and the wooden cups began to give off a dense almond-scented smoke – but he maintained his countenance as best he could. Relief swelled in his gut when Tim's present proved to be an assortment of nuts. A few of the selections were shaded with absurd fuchsias and turquoises, and one seemed to glow faintly in the dusky light of the room, but at least he could take solace in the normal-looking ones. That solace was brought to an abrupt end, however, when Tim pitched what looked like almonds into his mouth and let out a pleased groan. "...I'm always disappointed when I eat Earth almonds and they don't taste like a super-smoky ham," he said. "Ham should seriously be a crunchy food."

"Like a potato chip," Dick put in around a mouthful of pear. True to its name, the fruit's flesh was a deep, ashen gray. Alfred couldn't decide whether he was intrigued or disgusted. On the one hand Dick was plainly enjoying his treat, but on the other what he was eating seemed to have some strange disease.

"No, I like the sweetness that you get in the nut form. A potato chip would be too salty."

"Those are Corick nuts, aren't they?" Bruce inquired from behind his still-smoking chalice.

"Yeah," Tim replied.

"Mm. I always thought they'd be good as a cracker."

"I wonder if you could grind Coricks into flour and use them to make a really crusty bread," Dick mused.

"They do that," Clark shared. "In this little city I hadn't been to until this mission, actually."

"Is it good?"

"I didn't try it."

"Aww..." Dick's face fell, then brightened again. "Now we have something to look forward to the next time we get sent off-world, Timmy. We can try to find the Corick bread!"

"Sounds good to me. Bruce?"

"So long as it isn't too far from our mission base. We're not making side trips halfway across the universe just for a loaf of bread."

"Dami?" Dick turned to his youngest brother. "You in on this?"

Damian swallowed the tentacle-jelly he'd been chewing on for five minutes. "Carick nuts are disgusting. They taste like old sweat."

"You would be the one who dislikes them," Tim sighed.

"Don't worry, Timmy. He'll come around. I didn't like Caricks the first time I tried them, either, and I was Dami's age then." Dick stuck out his tongue suddenly and caught a drip of smog-colored juice before it could run off of his peach and onto the rug. "This is a great New Year, Uncle Clark," he said after he'd ended its break for freedom. "Thanks for all the amazing edibles."

A general consensus went around that the Kryptonian's appearance had been a good thing. Alfred agreed half-heartedly, torn between two powerful emotions. His family was happy, and he didn't begrudge Clark's inclusion in their joy whatsoever. What he did begrudge, though, was his own feeling of ostracism. Earlier, when everything had been chess and Champagne and quiet cheer, he had been in his element. Now the talk was all based around places and topics he had no knowledge of. Standing silently in the back of conversations that he knew all the details of was one thing, but listening to debates that he had no context for was something else altogether. It made him feel a bit stupid, if he wanted to be honest with himself. He was the only person in the room who had never gone further from Earth than the Watchtower, and for the first time he realized that there was a canyon of ignorance between himself and his charges when it came to things of an extraterrestrial nature.

But there was no point in feeling sorry for himself. He wasn't likely to travel to another planet any time soon, but he could still take advantage of tonight's smorgasbord to broaden his range of knowledge and – if he could bring himself to chance putting any of Clark's gifts in his mouth – his palate. It was for that reason that he took Dick's elbow in his hand when the younger man approached for a refill of Jivesech. "Tell me, young sir; are those awful-looking pears you're eating as good as you seem to think they are?"

Dick's mouth opened in surprise. "Oh! Alfred, I'm sorry. You've never tried any of this stuff, have you?"

"No, Master Dick, but to be honest with you I'm happy to skip anythings with tentacles."

"You're missing out. Those tentacle-candies of Dami's taste like cookies and cream. I have no idea how that's possible, but it is what it is. Here," he said, and pressed a smoking chalice into Alfred's hand. "You try this while I make you a sampler plate. Don't worry, I won't give you anything too out there. Be right back."

Alfred's forehead creased as he regarded his drink. It wasn't hot despite the opaque steam rising from its surface, but he couldn't help imagining that it might burn a hole in his esophagus. Still, it was scented pleasantly enough, and no one else had been sent into fits by it. He let a little wash over his tongue, which picked out licorice, cherry blossoms, and something piney. The concoction left an oily sheen on his teeth that crept up to his gum line and began to prickle. There was only the faintest of alcoholic burns in his throat after he'd swallowed, and nothing more than a gentle warmth in his stomach after that. For all that it was fermented from the bark of a tree native to a foreign planet, Jivesech was downright quaffable.

Much of what Dick brought him back to nibble on was equally delectable. Alfred had a few of the ham-nuts that the others had been talking about, and even dared to sample the black pears. The fruit's moist body relayed a tart mint flavor to his taste buds that would have been too strong were it not for the undertones of umami that came with it. He couldn't fathom how that was possible, since to his knowledge no fruit on Earth was a source of umami, but after his second bite he let the question go. The thing was good, and that was what mattered. In that moment, he didn't feel quite so cut off anymore.

The room fell silent as everyone present filled their stomachs to maximum capacity. Looking around at the sated expressions on the faces of his charges, Alfred decided that he owed Clark a real thanks for the unusual gifts he'd given them. "I am reminded, Mister Kent," he began, "of an old tradition that you brought back tonight."

Clark stirred in the seat he'd taken up near Bruce. For all that he had no physical need to sleep there was a slight droop to his eyelids, and Alfred made a mental note to offer him his usual guest room before it grew much later. "What tradition is that, Alfred?"

"The first-foot tradition. It is a superstition in some areas, parts of England included, that the first person who walks through the front door after midnight on New Year's Day is a harbinger of the family's luck for the coming months."

"Does the cave count as a front door?" Tim wondered idly.

"Why not?" Dick replied with a yawn. "We go in and out of the house through there just as often as we do the actual front door. More often, maybe. Go on, Alfred."

"Oh, there's not much more to it really, Master Dick. Just that the first-foot tends to bring gifts, often food and drink, all of which have their own associations of health and good fortune and other such things."

"What do you think tentacle candy is associated with?" Dick joked.

"I don't know that I care to imagine, Master Dick. The point is that Mister Kent happens to fit the description of the ideal first-foot in the regions whose superstitions I'm familiar with, and he happened to bring relatively traditional first-foot gifts with him tonight. That being said," he inclined his head, "thank you, Mister Kent, for bringing us not only the materials for an interesting New Year's night but also, one must hope, good luck for the coming year. Both of those presents are very much appreciated."

Clark smiled. "Any time, Alfred. Happy to do it." He raised his drink. "Here's to a healthy and happy New Year for all of us."

"Here here," Alfred agreed heartily. "...Goodness, but that liquor does go down easily."

"Looks like it put Dami to sleep," Dick remarked as he gestured down at the boy leaning against his knees.

"We should follow his example," Bruce suggested.

"Yeah...I'd better be on my way," Clark said, rising from his seat.

"Won't you stay the night?" Alfred offered. "Your room is made up, as always, and you'd be welcome at breakfast in the morning."

"You don't want to miss New Year's breakfast," Dick advised. "There might not be any off-world food on the buffet, but there's guaranteed to be pretty much anything else you can think of."

"Well when you put it that way, how can I refuse? That okay with you, Bruce?"

"I don't care," the billionaire opined as he, too, stood. "It's three in the morning, and I'm going to bed. If I see you later, I'll see you. If I don't, it's your loss. Dick's right; Alfred's New Year's breakfasts are excellent."

Dick nudged Damian into wakefulness then, and they all filed out of the living room and towards the stairs. Alfred stopped Clark as the Kryptonian made to follow the others. "Is there anything special I need to do to preserve what you brought?" he asked. "I wouldn't want your gifts to go bad due to my ignorance."

"I think if you throw the pears and Jivesech in the fridge they'll be fine overnight. Everything else should be okay if you just cover it. Oh, I almost forgot..." Clark reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew a small, flat package. "I got so busy giving everyone else their presents that I never gave you yours. Here."

"...For me, Mister Kent?"

"Yeah. I know you don't have the off-world experience that the rest of them do, but I thought you might like this anyway. It's a tea that comes from the same tree as the Jivesech. They make the tea from the leaves and the booze from the bark. The taste is similar, but without the alcoholic effect."

"What a useful little plant," Alfred breathed as he took his gift.

"It's not so little, actually – it reaches maturity at a height of about seven hundred feet. The oldest ones are half a mile high. But it is useful." Clark smiled. "Good night, Alfred. I'll see you at breakfast."

"You will, Mister Kent. And thank you again." When he woke he would postpone his cooking long enough to sample his new tea. After all, he thought as Clark vanished into the corridor, what better way could there be to start a new year than welcoming an unexpected visitor from another world?