LONDON CALLING

"I agree. I'm sure Michael's making something wonderful, probably considerably better than anything we could get here, except for maybe at Sparks--maybe," Edward said. "If I can give you a little fatherly advice. Well, grandfatherly advice perhaps, you'll probably deal with things better if you keep yourself busy. Check in on him every five minutes if you have to, but get something to do that keeps your hands and your brain busy. Bake, knit, crochet, paint--something. I can't tell you how this is going to go for him, but I can promise you one thing. He isn't going to die in Robert's hands--not without Robert throwing absolutely every ounce of knowledge and skill and magical power he has to try to prevent it. If it gets that bad, he'll use magical life support spells and he'll notify us. The fact that he doesn't need life support is encouraging in itself. It tell me that he's improved enough that he's holding his own. And that certainly has to be better than where he surely was at St. Mungos. Surely there were some frightening moments at St. Mungos, but he's not that critical right now, so let's take the hope where we can find it, and let's use our energies to take care of Jess and Robert and Brian and Kaden and all the healers at the house that are going to be needed for awhile. We can clean and cook and take care of Abbey and the animals and that weird little bowtruckle. We can do anything that might otherwise take them from Angus. Let's pitch in and do our parts so they can stay with him. What do you say?"

"He's still holding his own," Robert told Jess. "He's not on any support spells, so that's improvement. He's very disoriented yet, but that's to be expected as critical as he is. Michael was going to make some beer cheese soup and some burgers for our meal and noon, so we won't have to cook. You might be interested in this, though. One potion instead of of about twelve. Tricky business to blend it, that. But it's worth a try, Edward and I thought." He handed her the bottle of new potion and the book with the formula of all the other potions that they had worked to blend together so it was one highly concentrated potion instead of bothering him with dose after dose of a dozen different ones. She might have an understanding of how difficult it had been to accomplish.

"Oh, Jess, do me a favor, please" Robert continued. "When you see Jack, send him up, please. I'm going to have to ask him to delegate some things around to other folks for a few days."

"Wait," Robert told Jess. "It isn't formulated for them. Y It's formulated for Angus's specific issues--the overdose of Supershock and the virus. You won't be able to use it at St. Mungo's. The chances of us having a patient that has both of those simultaneously like he does should be almost nil if our staff is doing its job. I don't think we need to bother taking some to St. Mungos, not of that, anyway. It was tricky business, though. I might send for Nigel to help me formulate a better remedy that we can use for the St Mungo's population. I'll try to send him a note.

"Michael should be in the kitchen--unless he's setting out food in the dining room. He was making lunch. He figured we would be hungry by noon. So if he's not in the kitchen, then I guess we'll all starve," Robert said. "Anyway, we've had a situation here. Long story short, Angus ran a couple errands for us to Diagon Alley this morning, and, being a good samaritan, he took an injured old woman to St. Mungos. Some moron saw that Angus has that stupid teal rash on his neck, forced him into treatment against his will, threatened to admit him against his will, and then gave him the wrong potion and a massive overdose--enough to kill over 240 people. Thank goodness Brian and Jess were there, and they worked like the devil to save his life. Obviously, we couldn't take the chance of any further incompetence, so we brought him home. I'm going to be treating him here just as if he were in the ICU unit at St. Mungos. His condition is critical. Needless to say, everyone's rattled. And, Angus isn't going to be doing anything until further notice.

"I need you to take charge of the outdoors operations. I offered Jess a promotion at St. Mungos, and I need to offer you a new position too. I'd like to create a new position here. For a lack of a better name at the moment, I'm calling it a Groundskeeper, but that really isn't an adequate name. I'm going to leave Angus in his position of taking care of the affairs at this place and my farm, but he isn't going to be doing the outdoors work for awhile. I'd like to promote you to take charge of the outdoors operations for here and for my farm both--the farming, the animals, the barns, the security, all of it. You'd report to Angus and to Brian and me. It would be taking a bit off of Angus's plate, but right now, I don't have a choice. It would, of course, include another pay raise and an increase in benefits. For now, I'll see if Simone and Michael can handle the operations inside for both places. I'm sure Ruby will pitch in, and I would include her in dealing with the inside operations, but I think she's a little preoccupied with Angus at the moment. Kate can take care of the inside of our house over at the farm like she's always done. Give it some thought, and then let me know if you're interested in this new job."

Michael called everyone for lunch. He had a large tureen of cheese soup, and some thick, hearty cheeseburgers on pretzel buns. He had taken the leftover berries and yogurt from breakfast, sweetened it a bit and turned it into a mixed berry frozen yogurt for a quick dessert.

Michael made a tray for Robert and Kaden and added one more mug of soup for Angus, and then sent it upstairs. Kate brought Abbey down for lunch. She had given Abbey a bath, and Abbey was dressed in a pair of leggings and a tunic top just to be comfortable.

As they were all sitting down to eat, just as the clock was striking 12 noon, Khaat and Marcus came home, like Robert had asked Khaat to do.

"God, that smells good," Marcus said, feeling very hungry.

"Come tuck in. There's plenty," Michael said.

"I'm sure we will. We're going to go check to see what Robert had in mind and then we'll be back--because if we don't, I'm going to be gnawing on the furniture," Marcus told him. They went upstairs, and Robert and Khaat met about Redfern and Finch and the lawsuit Edward was mounting, along with Angus's condition. Khaat had already decided to fire Redfern and Finch, but Robert didn't want her to have to deal with the confrontation. Robert wanted to deal with it himself. He updated Khaat on the change of positions for Jack and Jess, and she approved completely.

Robert woke Angus, and, with incredible patience, he fed him the cheese soup. By the time Angus could drink no more Robert had determined Angus had had almost six ounces of soup. He felt Angus had done far better than he had hoped he might.

"Robert," Angus said, as Robert laid him back on the pillows. "Truth. How bad is it?"

"Truth," Robert said in a very paternal tone, "you had one hell of an ordeal. I don't suggest you repeat it. You were extremely critical for awhile, but it is definitely better. You're not in the same sort of danger you were earlier."

"Where am I? I can't think straight."

"I know. Your head isn't going to completely clear for a bit yet because you had a massive amount of drugs. We'll just keep reminding you til it makes sense. You're home, at Brian's in your own room. You're safe."

"The box. Give Ru the box," he said.

"I'll give her the box," he told Angus and then he simply sat and soothed Angus for a moment or two before Angus fell back to sleep. Then he knew he had to keep his word to Angus. He got out the box from the nightstand drawer and took it downstairs.

"Angus has been very specific. He wanted me to give this to you," Robert said. "And for whatever it means, he said I am to be sure not to let you think he doesn't mean it. I have no idea what he means, but he said you would know."

"I think I understand what he meant now by wanting me to make sure that you didn't think he didn't mean it," Robert smiled. "Maybe he just needed to know that you already know he means it. You've known for a long time how he feels."

"More or less," Edward said to her when Ruby asked him if he knew "He told me what he wanted. He told me he wanted a star, and he didn't want a little ring. He wanted a ring that was certainly larger than normal but Michael and I talked him out of having one made that was so big that it was going to be a hindrance for you to wear every day. I gave him the name of a couple good jewelers, but I think Michael actually went with him. You have to admit, there probably isn't anybody here that knows diamonds better than Michael. I can assure you that there isn't going to be another like it because he had that one especially made for you. It was already on order before they went to Romania. I think that it was especially important today for him to know he'd given it to you."

As he spoke a message came by owl for him. He took the envelope and opened it and read it. It made him angry. He took a breath and then he looked up at Ruby.

"It's from our lawyer. They've started some background checks on Redfern, and they found something on their very first look. Guess who Kyle Redfern worked for just before he got a job as a healer at St. Mungos. He joined St. Mungo's staff 3 weeks ago. And before that, his boss was Reginald John Tyler--your father."

"We aren't going to do anything until we know more," Robert said to Ruby firmly. "We need to know if it stops with him or if it goes deeper. If it stops with him, then, Edward, I will remove my hands entirely from it and let you do as you see fit."

"I'd be happy to," Edward said, trying to reel in his rage.

"If it doesn't stop with him, then I want the whole nasty chain," Robert said.

"If there's a chain, we'll have them," Michael said. "Every single disgusting link."

"Absolutely," Brian agreed. "I think I'm going to do a backgrounds check through some of our own sources on both your mother and your father. Let's find out what they've been up to, shall we?"

"Don't leave any stone unturned," Robert told him.

"Ruby, I'm going to have to go to Paris to access some of our best contacts at digging for the darker background information. Want to go meet a couple informants this afternoon with me? After all, this does involve your family. Robert, is Angus stable enough for her to go?"

"For now, yes," Robert said. "Michael sent me up an mug of soup for Angus to try, and he drank three fourths of a cup. A good, full six ounces. I didn't expect him to do nearly that well. I sent Nigel an owl about the virus and about Angus. Nigel is coming this afternoon to lend a hand for a day or two or however long we need him. It'll be good to have someone of his caliber here for now to lend a hand with Angus and to help with the virus. So, yes, Ruby, if you want to go with Brian, go ahead. If we need either of you, we'll page you with the medallions."