A Birth day

"Absolutely," Edward said. "I'll be happy to." He went downstairs and saw the bathroom was beautiful. "It's awesome. You did a great job. The girls are going to love it. And Angus is going to be impressed. Thank you. That's needed to happen for awhile now, rather than them having to go clear up to the top floor to shower. I'll cover the costs for it. I'll pay for the materials and I'll pay you all for your time. Then he can pay me. It's great. All the guests are going to want to use this bathroom now."

Angus hadn't thought a moment about where he was going, and when he had gone, he had simply grabbed the key to the main house in Tuscany. He rather surprised himself by ending up here again. Standing in the foyer, it rather made him feel like he was going from the frying pan into the fire. He felt like the bad seed now in England and in Italy both. He was feeling his energies leave him quickly.

"Come on. Let's find you someplace to sit and rest," Marcus said. He helped him through to the sitting room and lowered Angus down on the sofa as he heard rain hitting the windows outside. "Looks like you won't be sunbathing today."

"That's okay," Angus said.

"You need to rest a bit," Marcus told him. "And you haven't eaten yet today. I'll see if Rosaria can fix something."

"No, I'm really not hungry..."

"You can't heal without rest or without nutrition. For a chef, sometimes you don't think. Stay there. I'll be...." Marcus was cut off by Rosaria coming in and chattering to them both in rapid Italian. Marcus made the request to her for a quick, light lunch, and she hurried to the kitchen to fix something.

Jessie followed Edward down to the bathroom come shower room " yep and don't worry about it " he said smiling " we added a small closet into it for towels and the shower has an opitonal rain fall setting, double sink so one each with a cupboard underneath and above with mirror for each girl." he said then showed Edward the lighting " each mirror has its on light for maxamum makeup aplication" he said with a chuckle as he switched one on to show him.

Now with the tour done Jessie moved back up to the living room as the workers cleaned up and left the house via tyhe back door. Ruby he could see was busy in the kitchen but he just left and went on his patrol with Yu.

Edward went to his place and wrote checks for the supplies and for very generous payment for each crew member who worked on the project and a larger check for Jessie since he had been the foreman of the project. He put them in envelopes with a quick, personal note of thanks to each person who got a check, and then he took them and delivered them by hand to each one.

Rosaria made a soothing stracciatella soup, followed by tortellini with vodka sauce, a beautiful piece of swordfish, and then followed by some orange ricotta cookies and some espresso.

Jessie saw Edward and chuckled " you don't have to do that " he said with a smile " it was our pleasure to make sure the girls are comfortable" he added " besides with my sister being as she is, an ass, we needed to keep busy" he added placing the envalope with the check in his pocket to return at alater date. As Jessie walked with Yu he felt he knew where Angus had gone " you think he'll come back from Tuscany?" he queired as he looked at him.

Yu stood next to Jessie and shook his head gently " let them sort it out " he said softly to Jessie who smiled and nodded.

"I am not going to say that about her," Edward said, wanting to choose his words carefully. "I'm sure they'll work it out. It's an unusual match, those two, because they're so very different from each other, but they chose it themselves. So I'm sure they'll figure it out."

Angus and Marcus sat in the dining room, and they ate quietly. Marcus knew Angus was in need for some peace and quiet, and without anyone else knowing they were here or in the house, there was no one to disturb him. Nor did Marcus get the feeling Angus wanted anyone to know where he was.

"You alright, Mate?" Marcus asked him.

"I will be," Angus said. "Thanks. I'm actually glad you're here. There's no point in continuing to try to work things out when I'm not sure she's hearing me. She immediately jumps to thinking that I'm either saying or thinking horrendous things about her that she stops listening and starts defending and making decisions by herself about us that affect both of us, and I am so sick of that. I just needed to make it all stop for a bit. We didn't accomplish a damned thing."

"That damned anxiety of hers kicked in and she missed your two key points, I think," Marcus replied. "What I heard from you were two things. First, you wanted her to simply ask, next time, if she needs to leave the baby for a period of time, for someone to take care of her so that someone knows to assume the task when she's not there, if you're not caring for her. No one is going to just presume that its their job to step in and take care of someone else's child. She needed to ask and she didn't."

"Correct. That was precisely the point."

"And, second, you wanted her to know that when the two of you have guests at your home and one of you is ill and not able to host, when the second one walks out on the guests, that's generally taken as a sign that the event is over and the guests are supposed to leave. It's sometimes understood, and at other times that behavior from a host is taken as rudeness. Either way, your guests won't feel welcome and they'll leave. She does not understand that her behavior directly caused Evan believe you two had relationship problems and he needed to take his family and go home, and she still doesn't get it."

"And won't. Won't ever get it."

"And so what are your options?"

"I don't know," he sighed. "right now, I don't see her as being able to participate in a solution because she doesn't recognize a problem. I see it as being far more of a need for me to figure out a resolution. As I see it, I can either stop having entertaining or I can just make sure that if I want to include others at a meal or something that I do it elsewhere--like at Edwards or at the main house or someplace else other than our house."

"What would that prove?"

"Nothing," Angus sighed, feeling hopeless and dead ended. "You're right. the location isn't the problem."

"Because it isn't. It's a fine house. It wasn't an arranged party. It was a fight, and your family supported you like they always do."

"She's got some nerve, you know. Accusing me of running off when it was her running off and leaving everyone standing there and leaving the baby without anyone assuming care for her that caused all the problems. Her one action caused all kinds of problems. I was just starting to make some sort of relationship with my brother, after a lifetime of having a gap with my family, and then they felt chased off. I don't have any way of knowing if that chance will ever come about again."

"What is it you want from her? An apology perhaps?"

"No. Those are just words. I don't care about that. I want to see her not repeating those mistakes. And I do think it was just a mistake with multiple consequences. I don't need a freaking apology. Even if she was upset with you, leaving the room and not coming back was a crappy decision. I don't want her to do it again. Period. That's all."

"Then, at some point, when she stops the fricking panicking, maybe you can say that to her."

"No. That won't happen. Sometimes she really needs to think she wins, and I don't think it should be about winning or losing. I'm not insisting on winning. She's normally a sensible person. I only want her to see that there might have been a far better way to handle that."

"Well, maybe she needs to start working with Jeffrey again or something," Marcus said. "She had great intentions of it, and it just fell off for her. Maybe i she could get past the anxiety, she wouldn't need to feel like she's being attacked. I don't know."

"Maybe, but I'm not the person to bring that up to her. That has to be her choice, not mine. She knows if he helps her or not. I don't have a clue about it. I only know how much it helped the staff members who have seen him."
"Are you even going to tell her how it frightened you that no one was taking care of the baby? Or how much it shook you that her behavior might have closed the door between you and Evan again?"

"Absolutely not," he said quietly but firmly.

"Why?"

"I won't be that vulnerable to her right now. She prefers it when I keep my opinions to myself, I think, and when I just do the things that she can't or won't do. Right now I just need peace in the house for the kids. The hell with the rest of it. That just doesn't matter."

"I see. So, this was about getting your head straight. Okay. Makes sense. So then, what are you plans for the afternoon? Is there anything you need to do for Cora?"

"Screw Cora. I'm getting past thinking I need to try to mend things for people that can't stand me. If nobody claims her, I guess she'll just rot wherever Edward put her. Maybe I should do something, but I'm not going to, not unless Edward suggests that I should," he said. "Right now, what I really want is a cigarette and a shot of firewhiskey and some peace and quiet."

"And that all sounds doable to me," Marcus said, laying down Angus's cigarettes on the table in front of him. He went over and poured two glasses of firewhiskey and set one beside the cigarettes. Then Marcus lit a cigarette for himself and sat back down to enjoy the other firewhiskey.

Ruby with Caprice finished dinner preperations and cleaned up writing anote she sent it threw the floo to Jeffery asking if he could pop in for a session. She sat on the couch and took Caprice out of the sling and placed her in her seat on the floor with some toys. Taking out a book she sat down to read needing to stop her thoughts spirling out of control about how she has been towards Angus, she felt it was wrong and she needed to talk to some one about it and how to correct what she ahd done, she did know to leave Angus to cool off but wanted to make sure it didn't happen again.

Walking over to the floo she opened it " Jeffery are you there?" she asked trying to keep her composhure and not break down .

It took several minutes for Jeffrey to answer because he was busy, but, he did, eventually, open the floo.

"Ruby? I'm here. What's going on?" he asked.

Angus had smoked a cigarette and finished a drink of firewhiskey, and the storm over Tuscany was getting worse and not better. Angus went to the long windows and looked out over the sea. This was not going away soon. The skies over the Mediterranean were almost as dark as night. The worst weather was yet to come.

Edward had gotten some messages from Patrick about Cora and tentative arrangements for a funeral for Cora, and Patrick had warned Edward not to try to come because the storms were supposed to be quite severe, and they were predicting fierce hurricanes over the area. Patrick feared that if the storms were as bad as it was predicted to be, Edward would surely end up splinched if he tried to port through the storms and the lightning.

Concerned for Angus, he went to the fireplace and opened the floo.

"Angus," Edward said, "I know you wanted to be left alone but this is important." Angus sighed heavily, annoyed.

"Shall I get it?" Marcus asked.

"Please?" Angus asked. Marcus walked over to the fireplace.

"We're here, Edward," Marcus said. "What's up?"

"There's a hurricane headed straight for you. It's not at all good. They're saying it is easily a catagory three and they expect that by the time it reaches landfall there, that it could be a catagory four," Edward said. Marcus looked at Angus, and Angus nodded. With all his sailor training, he was not at all surprised.

"Angus says that makes sense from what we're seeing here," Marcus said.

"I was talking to Patrick about Cora, and apparently the ministry there suggests that no one try to do any more porting until this passes because it isn't at all safe. They're saying that splinching is a likelihood. Look, I think you should just hunker down there til it passes. There's plenty of food and water. Angus has plenty of clothes there that the two of you could get by."

"I don't want everyone to know I'm here," Angus told Marcus.

"Angus still wants his privacy right now," Marcus said.

"I haven't told anyone, and I don't intend to," Edward said. "I just want you boys to be safe. He knows to go downstairs if he needs to. Don't be foolish. Stay put and take care of yourselves. We don't have anything like that here, so we're fine." Angus got up and walked over to the fireplace.

"Thank you," Angus said.

"You alright?" Edward asked.

"Yep. Fine," Angus replied, taking the last sip of his firewhiskey.

"Keep us posted, won't you?" Edward asked.

"Of course," Angus replied.

"Good enough," Edward said, closing the floo.

Ruby heard Jeffery and sighed in relif " I messed up, I let my axiaty get the better of me again and I think Angus is realy mad this time" she said " I felt like he didn't trust me and he thought I was a lier." she told him as she took a deep breath in " and I didn't ask any one to look after Caprice when I went up stairs , but I heard Marcus comming up from the basement." she added looking over at Caprice who was happily playing with a stuffed broom toy. " I over head him and Edward talking and caught i think him saying he didn't belive me when I said I didn't know what my family were, I told him I didn't which is true, but...I don't think he belives me or trusts me any more." she said " I ned to stop over thinking things and going off half mast." she said sitting in a chair close to the floo " if I can get some one to mind Caprice , I feel an intensive session is what I need, I need to do something about this its not right."

Jessie had heard Edward and nodded as he had said he was sure they would work it out " yeah , not getting involved with that" he said " well you know where I am if you need me" he said and headed out and over to his cabin where Yu stood at the door waiting for him.

"That's exactly my thoughts. I'm not sure I'd get involved even if they asked me," Edward laughed. "Thanks. I do know, and I will ask. I appreciate it." He went home to his side of the duplex, and Simone made him a lovely mocha cappuccino. He sat down with an Italian wizarding newspaper to read as Finn made his way over to Edward's place and curled up on Edward's feet.

"Well, I told you at the outset that coming for awhile was certainly an option for you," Jeffrey told her. "It didn't work out or you to try to do regular shorter sessions because you've missed quite a lot of them. And I know you know that you can't progress if you miss appointments. So, coming to stay for a bit is a good idea, I think. We can talk about all those issues when you get here.

"So, if you want to come, you need to pack clothes for about a month. You can do laundry every seven to ten days. Since we're up in the alps here, it stays significantly colder this time of year than what you're used to in May. On average, here it is 9 degrees C during the day and -1C at night. So bring sweaters, jackets, warm pajamas, that sort of thing. Some things to do. Jessie can perhaps give you some advice on things he found helpful to bring.

"Definitely find someone to mind the baby. It is not good for you to bring her with you because it will greatly hinder your work if you can't focus. Make sure someone knows where you've gone and that this isn't going for an hour or two.

"And--one more thing. There is a very strong hurricane moving along the northern edge of the Mediterranean. There are a lot of strong warnings about not porting through those regions. If I were you, I would port to Paris, to Bern, and then on to Blatten to Restaurant Blatten. Everyone there knows it. I'll send someone to meet you there and bring you on to the resort. Do not go any further south than you have to because Spain, Italy and Southern France are all going to be right in the path of this hurricane. You'll end up splinched if you go south into that region. Got all that?"

Ruby listened to Jeffery and she could not disagree with him " okay, and yes , the short sesions arn't working , let me talk to Edward and Simone and I'll be on my want to you" she said and relaxed as she heard him mention the hurricane " all right, paris and then on to Blatten to Restaurant Blatten, got it." she said picking up some tissue, I want to work this out , I don't want to lose him or Caprice" she said to Jeffery," all right I'll see you soon" she said and closed the floo after Jeffery had finished.

Standing she picked up Caprice and moved to the deck where she saw Edward walking over she stood in front of him " um..I have asked Jeffery if I can go to his clinic, I feel I need a more intensive focused sessions, but I need to ask if you could look after Caprice and Angus for me , its..its going to me for a month." she said her head down as she spoke to him. " i feel this is the only way I can stop over thinking about things and get control of the axiety." she added hoping he would agree.