LONDON CALLING

Ruby placed down the tray and chuckled as he motioned to teh curtains, pulling them back she gasped " wow " she said opening the doors and marveling at the design not just of the window but the furniture. Hearing his words she moved back to him " yes, yes I can, I can't think of any place better to raise our children but here in this house with you and the others. " she raised her hand and placed it genty on his cheek " they will have everything they need , a father who loves them, family who care about them and lots of space to run, and a guard who can catch them." she chuckled thinking of Jack and his need to run off steam.

" I don't want to be anyplace else, im happy here." she kissied him gently then stood up taking his hands in her own " now let eat on the balconey this morning." she smiled at him.

"I think that's a great idea," he said. He got up, wrapped his robe around him and took the tray out on the balcony. "I really love this house. I love the people here, I love having Edward so close and knowing he'll get to know our kids and be such a strong part of their lives. I don't even hear him thinking about going back to Tuscany. He's got a good life here. He's got us, and he's got Simone, and he's got a house that he and Simone designed together. Benjamin isn't haunting him anymore. His life has gotten dramatically better.

He heard the downstairs clock chime 8 am, and he wondered if Jeffrey and Jessie had gotten off to Switzerland on time. And then, it occurred to him that he was normally up way before this.

"If I keep sleeping over here, I'm going to have to go back to setting an alarm clock. I've missed my usual time by almost four hours," he laughed. "I keep meaning to ask. How's your training in Paris going? I'm glad you took the morning off from there this morning. I suppose we'll have to get back into the rhythm of things tomorrow. Aside from Robert wanting to do the normal debriefing, I don't think I have anything out of the ordinary on my schedule today. What about you?"

Ruby smiled following him with the tray out onto the balconey. " I agree its beautiful here and yes Edward is settled now, just as I am with you." she heard him ask about her trainning and she smiled " well until Robert says Im all finished I think I just keep going, Owens says Im improving leaps and bounds, but I think its your influance" she chuckled kissing his cheek lightly as she sat down next to him so she could pore some coffee. " well I'd have to get one too, but Owens said becuse I had done so well he'd let me have today, also becuse you were coming back last night he said I'd not be in any fit state to train." her cheeks flushed a light pink at Owens insinuation.

She heard him continue and smiled " only for a fre more weeks I'm guessing." she said " then I can help you in the kitchen and help little Abby more." she smiled seeing the tree house from their balcony. " one day our kids will slep in the tree house just like I did with Abby the night before you came home."

"One alarm clock should work since we get up at about the same time," he told her. He laughed when she told him about sleeping in the treehouse. "Brian built that for her right after she was born. She was born in April, close to Khaat's birthday, and so the minute St. Mungos' released Abbey and he brought her here, he and I did the drawings for it, and he and some of the outside crew hammered that out before she was one month old. She's just now old enough to enjoy it, but that does mean that one of us has to take her up, stay with her to make sure she doesn't fall out of it, and get her back down. But she absolutely loves it. It's big enough and strong enough that it will last for decades and it will hold lots of kids all at once. And--he's got a whole portfolio of drawings of expansions he wants to do as the kids get older to help the treehouse grow as they do.

"I am not worried about whether you'll measure up in training because I'm sure you will. But here's the thing. Somehow we were followed onto the Orient Express and followed straight through to Budapest. And, somehow they tailed us to our hotel. Michael chose the hotel for us when we got to Calais. it wasn't anticipated prior to that. But, they followed us to the hotel where they tried to off me. I am very grateful Jessie was at the gym with me, but they clearly believed that since Jessie was in the weight room and I was in the pool, they believed they had me isolated.

"We changed our itinerary somewhat and took an entirely different route to the mines and cut over 2 days off our trip. That let us get to the mines by taking an old route up the mountains and not the original route that Edward and Gabe had planned for us. The new route is easier but it takes longer. The old route is a lot quicker, but a lot more risky. By taking the old route, we were able to get up and back and home before the shapeshifters even got to the area. So, what this means is that they somehow knew our every move before we made it. And, it seems to me that must mean that we have a mole. Someone somehow isn't who they claim to be, and my guess is that it is someone in Paris. Don't think I'm not considering that you might need to take a bit of a break from training. Either that, or I might need to go with you or something. I don't want you in that sort of isolation that far away, because it would make you a prime target for Gelding's people. I'm not trying to make you afraid. I'm only letting you know it could be very risky for you to keep training in Paris. I'm thinking for now, you might want to join the regular training this team does right here."

Ruby listened to Angus as he spoke of Brians plans and expanshions for the tree house " oh its beautiful by the way" she said smiling " and I can't wait to sit here and watch our children playing on it" she then heard him speak what happened while they were away fetching the stones " But the miners killed the shapeshifters that followed you there, there dust."she said then thought more " but I do agree with you seperating one would leave them open to manipulation or attack, we can speack to Robert once we've had breakfast he might be able to get a full report from Owens in paris, oh and Jessie and Jeffery have left already so don't worry about him." she said. She knew Jessie would keep in contact with her by letter as he was old school that way.

"but would it be alright if I wrote to him, I know he'll write me, as mad as I am at him he is still my brother and only relative, well one I call a relative." she asked not wanting to go behind his back and contact Jessie with out him knowing.

"Well, yes. That part of the world seems to get more shapeshifters than we do, and I don't know why, but they look at them as just vermin. They aren't afraid of them. They're irked by them. At any rate, yes, we took out those two, but I think there is an excellent chance that we still have a traitor somewhere in our organization. Robert is aware that we very likely have a mole, and I know he said he was working on some sort of a plan, but I don't know what that is. I just would prefer you wouldn't be so far away, in Paris without one of us there until we know who we can trust and who we can't. It's your choice, of course, but it could be exceptionally dangerous when that wouldn't need to be. I do understand sometimes risks are very necessary, but if we have other options, they're worth at least discussing, if for no other reason than to rule them out.

"As far as Jessie goes, I'm not afraid of him. I avoided him because he pissed me off. I was more afraid of what my own reaction to him might be if he kept pushing the issue of you and me and Ana and what a tosser I am. It's none of his business. I'm not ever going to tell you that you can't contact him or see him or talk to him. But if he ever, ever hurts you one more time, I'll have him Ru. On the train, I told Michael if Jessie did it again, I was going to kill Jessie, and I'd like to hope I wouldn't. But I have a feeling he's done this behavior before and run off your any previous boyfriends you had. He doesn't get to do that again. Never. I will do whatever it takes to make sure it doesn't happen anymore. If Jeffrey does his job, then Jessie will be alright, and I won't have to take measures into my own hands. I really don't want to do that."

Ruby listened and nodded to Angus " agreed some one is the mole and we can't trust any one, If Robert agrees then I'll stay here and train with you or Jack." she said she heard him talk about Jessie and she nodded " I wouldn't have held it against you if you had, I didn't know he'd done it so many times, I thought it was just the two but no, more" she sighed and took his hand as he said he woukldn't let Jessie do that again. " so does that mean Im stuck with you and you stuck with me now?" she said smirking.

Leaning back in the chair she smiled " this feels perfect" she said leaning against Angus's good shoulder " oh I forgot hows your shoulder , you were moving it alot better when you got home." she said her hand lightly brushing over it."

"I'm afraid so, my dear," Angus said. "Maybe that's part of what pisses him off. Maybe the others who wanted to get close were warned off really quickly. And I doubt he likes me being an immoveable object, but there it is. I'm not going to be run off by anyone other than you, if it were ever to happen. Certainly not by that little punk of a brother of yours. I think you're stuck with me for as long as you'll have me.

"Brian was pretty diligent in working with my shoulder all the way to Romania. I think that helped. He applied healing spells to it, and helped me start to move it again in some pretty controlled ways, but I am getting movement back, and it isn't as painful. So I think I'm on the mend. Much as I really want to lounge around here all day with you, I'm sure we both have things that need doing. Thank you for a wonderful breakfast. I could get to like the first part of our day spent without other people, but I'd better shower and shave and get on with it. I know I have lunch and supper to fix, breakfast prep to do, a debriefing with Robert, inventory for the grocery order, checking up on the livestock and their supplies in the barn, and a hundred other things. And I know you have a very energetic three year old to chase after. Of the two of us, I think you have the busier schedule."

Ruby smiled at his words and nodded " well I can tell you your stuck with me till death us do part" she told him " and don't worry about my brother, I swear my mother must have dropped him on his head as a baby but I think the rocks he has for brains are removable so he'll come around." she told him.

On hearing him mention rian was pretty diligent in working with his shoulder she was relived. " thats good " she laughed as he said she had the busier scedual " well at least I get to come home to a warm bed and hot boyfreind" she said grinning to him. " but yeah we should make our persance known so they know we didn't elope" she chuckled picking up the tray and empty plates. Walking in she was about to tell him wher the bathroom was but stopped her self knowing he designed the whole house. " I'll put these in the dishwasher downstairs,unless you want me to join you?." she said with a teasing smirk.

"You," he kissed her forehead, "are a tease. If you do that, I'll never get a single thing done, and neither will you. We'll not get out of the house to get to work. Alright. I'm off to the shower to scrub off the Romanian dirt." He headed for the shower, much as he really would have preferred to be there with her. It didn't take him long to shower and dress and shave, and within about fifteen minutes, he arrived back in the kitchen in the main house. He started with checking the fridge for fixings for lunch. It was an easy choice. He had some fresh rolls, and some ground sirloin, and some excellent cheese. Pub sized cheeseburgers it was going to be, and American style 'french fries.' And he was going to treat them with brownie sundaes for dessert. That was the noon meal decided. He would have to do some digging for what he was going to fix later for supper.

He started the prep for lunch by scrubbing some potatoes and cutting them into the proper shape for 'french fries.' He got out the ground sirloin, and he made up a large platter of huge 8 oz ground sirloin burgers, sliced generous pieces of an excellent cheese, and sliced open some fresh rolls to be pressed into service as burger buns. He made a wonderful steak sauce to use on the burgers instead of catsup, and got out a lovely stone ground mustard to add, sliced some thick slices of heirloom tomatoes, cleaned some crisp butter lettuce, sliced up some sweet onions to add to the burgers and took some fresh cucumbers and did a quick pickle on them so that people could have some freshly made, spiced pickles for their burgers. They were going to be mammoth burgers, with piles of toppings, and heaping helpings of 'french fries.' He baked some deep, triple dark chocolate brownies, added chocolate ganache on the top and sprinkles. For dessert, he would cut them into squares, add, some french vanilla ice cream, some hot fudge sauce, whipped cream, chopped nuts and a cherry for a perfect brownie sundae. That would be the noon meal.

He wasn't certain what he would do for supper, but after a heavy lunch, he was considering doing something a bit lighter. After a bit of debate, he decided on barbeque chicken tostadas, some Spanish rice, and he would make flan for dessert. It would be light, quick and easy, and it would give him time for breakfast prep in good time so he didn't work until midnight, drag home for about 4 hours of sleep and then try to get up and do it all over again. He could finish up his cooking tasks earlier and get home sooner. And that was important now. More important than spending all his waking hours working.