A Birth day

"I'm afraid I don't have birthday candles either," Simone said. "However, I do remember seeing an old tea chest in the pantry at the main house. This was before Nicky had ever been hired on, and at the time, I remember of being surprised at how well prepared Angus was because he had stuffed that old tea chest full of those little boxes of birthday candles--you know, the ones that are only a couple inches high--and they were in every color of the rainbow. I remember thinking there were enough candles until just about Armageddon. I think we could surely borrow a box and no one would ever miss them. I'll try to get over there and get a box. I think your frosting flavors sound lovely. I'm not an expert at making icing look good, but I do know how to make roses with a piping tip."

Minos waved at Ruby and Simone, and he made some gestures that took Simone a moment to catch onto.

"Oh! I think I see! I think Minos is saying that the Fae women can use some magic on your icing to decorate the cupcakes if you like. Now, how's that for an offer? Not everyone gets their birthday cakes decorated by fairies. She's one lucky baby," Simone smiled.

Ruby listened to Simone disappointed she didn't have any candles but was pleased there might be some in the main house . Hearting her mention Minos she looked over at him and heard Simon explain what he was trying to say . " that would be wonderful, thank you Minos" she said smiling " and it would be perfect" she said smiling as she looked at the main house " I'm going to go over and see if there is any in that chest" she said smiling a she finished her coffee and placed the cup in the sink.

Walking out the back door she headed over to the main house and in the back door " Hi Nicky just checking out something in Angus office." she said heading to Angus office behind the kitchen. Now inside she began looking for a chest . She found it in an old storage closet and pulled it to the main floor of the office. Opening it she found all she needed for a little girls birthday, Taking what she needed she set about returning the crate to its original place then headed back to the duplex. " Look what I found" she said showing Simone " I think these with a bit of flare will be perfect" she said spreading out the table cloth on the table, it was a light pink.

"I think it will look very nice," Simone said. Hearing the door on her side of the duplex, she turned and saw Edward coming in. He handed her a huge bundle wrapped in white paper, and in his other hand, he had his muggle cell phone. 

"Put these in the fridge here would you, Dear?" Edward asked Simone, clearly having something else on his mind. She took the bundle of fish and put them into Angus and Ruby's fridge.  "Ruby, phone for you. It's Marcus, and he's still in New York. They've run into a wee bit of trouble. They're safe now, but they're going to be a bit longer than expected." He handed the phone to her.

"Ruby," Marcus said when she answered, "Just so you know, we've had some developments here, but for it to make sense, I have to back up a step. I've been getting the muggle newspaper from New Orleans since we were there just because things weren't settled there, and they come a day or so late by the time they get through all the red tape from the American muggle world to our British wizarding world. Anyway, there was a photo in the New Orleans paper that I started to read this morning, showing a photo that was supposedly taken yesterday in front of the House of Voodoo--Priscilla's shop--announcing their Grand Reopening after the fire that Angus set there a short time back. And in the photo was Priscilla standing out in front of the shop. So, Angus and I took that photo to Robert immediately this morning, and he contacted Lee Shepard at MACUSA. We came here with Robert, Michael and Daniella. And we found out some new things that we did not know before. 

"There was an attack on the MACUSA offices here while we were here. We've got things under control now, but that's when we learned a few things. One of the people we saw here looked exactly like Priscilla, but we now have that person in custody. Apparently, Priscilla made or bought a significant amount of polyjuice before she lauched this last series of attacks that landed her in jail in Paris. The person we took into custody here in New York turned out to be one of those folks using polyjuice. Lee now has all of Priscilla's polyjuice that we know about. 

"That's the good news. The skirmish caused Angus's shoulder to start bleeding again, and Robert doesn't believe he has a choice but to do the correct repair to stop the bleeding. He doesn't believe it will work to continue to ask Angus to baby it anymore. We're here at Nigel's clinic, and Robert and Nigel are going to repair his shoulder, and then the plan is to bring him straight home. Angus is absolutely not happy, but it can't be helped. When I hang up with you, I will be with him from that moment on until we get him home. But we could be a few hours, depending on how meticulous Robert needs to be to do these nearly microscopic repairs. He says it isn't particularly dangerous, just time consuming. Are you lot going to be okay there until we return? At this point, I think we probably will be back before supper time, but I'm not sure exactly when."

Ruby chuckled at Simone and nodded she looked up as Edward returned with something wrapped up she took it to be the salmon and the muggle phone in his hand that she frowned at when he said it was for her. " oh?" she aid and took it placing it against her ear and hearing Marcus's voice on the other end . She listened and sat down as he spoke , then took a deep breath in to internally calm herself. Once Marcus finished she spoke " okay go be with him I'll be right here with Simone and the babies, I'll fetch the girls and get his recliner ready for when he comes home, and Marcus, We'll be fine, Just tell him I love him and let me know when he's out, please. " she said as she shut down the phone and gave it back to Edward.

Now looking at Edward and Simone she spoke " Roberts having to do surgery on Angus shoulder and I'm guessing its going to take a while since Robert is being really really carful about it" she said to them both " so, if I can ask for your help that would be great" she asked looking at both Edward and Simone. "internally I'm freaking out but externally I'm keeping it real" she said and chuckled.

"Don't worry, Ruby. It's routine, and I'll be right with him," Marcus said. "I'll get in touch as soon as I can. Do try to get Edward to take the lock off of the living room floo, please, and I'll try to contact you that way first. If that doesn't work, I'll call Edward's phone again."

"Calm, Ruby," Edward said. "Remember, Robert knew this was coming at some point, and, from what Michael's told me, Nigel's clinic in New York looks space aged compared to St Mungos, even with all the improvements Khaat's made. It's a top notch facility, and with Robert and Nigel both there, Angus couldn't be in better hands. He'll be safe because Marcus actually does go into surgery with him and stays right beside him every single minute. There will not be one moment when Marcus isn't with him, so he'll be safe. 

"Actually," Edward said, "I'm glad that it played out that Robert was with him when this became necessary because I'm sure that minimized any blood loss, and Robert's already figured out that Angus is going to give him complete crap about it so when it becomes necessary, Robert just tunes him out and does what needs to be done--rather like when we stop listening to an overly tired toddler and we go ahead and put them to bed."

"Why does that make Angus so anxious?"

"Because of the time he trusted a healer there, and the healer damned near killed him by overdosing him and wiping out his magical system," Edward said. "Now, if he learns he has to be in a position where he has to surrender control, he just wants no part of it. Robert completely gets that, but by the same token, if something has to be done, eventually Robert has to overrule Angus. And, in this case, it isn't so much dangerous as it is something that is just going to take time. If it were any other surgeon, it would be a very quick in-and-out repair, but Robert wants it done right the first time."

"Well, that sounds preferable to me," Simone said.

"I'll send word over to Andrew's apartment because I think some of that medical equipment got stored somewhere," Edward said. "He needs to get his little butt over here and set up whatever Angus is going to need. I think you should keep focused on what looks like Caprice's first birthday. Say, when is Diamond's birthday anyway?"

"Angus said she's three months younger than Caprice," Simone said.

"Well, then we're almost right on her one year birthday aren't we? Maybe we should make it a double baby birthday," Edward suggested.

Ruby listened to Marcus and smiled even though he could not see her " thank you Marcus and I'll get him to do that, speak to you soon" she said then listened to Edward and nodded " your right focus on Caprices birthday, oh the cup cakes" she said standing and returning to the kitchen pulling out perfectly cooked cup cakes " wow that's good timing" she said taking a deep breath and placing them on the cooling wire.

She then as Edward mentioned Dimond's she chuckled and nodded "okay double birthday for Dimond and Caprice" she said smiling.as she took out a piping bag and started to pipe the colours on the cakes . It wasn't too long later she heard the babies start fussing for food and placed down the bag , pausing she made something simple for the girls and placed them into the high chairs so she could feed them.

While Ruby was piping some cupcakes, the Fae women put a standard sized layer cake in the oven to bake. They took all the rest of the cupcakes, and the first thing they did was to take all the cupcakes out of their papers, turn the upside down and ice them with chocolate icing and sculpted the cupcakes they were taking care of to make them look like little Fae stump houses, each one different. They used the colored icing to make tiny mushrooms and flowers to decorate on top of and around the little stumps, made windows with that looked like there were little sparkling yellow lights on inside, and curtains in all sorts of different colors on the windows. Then they arranged them on a large platter to make it look like the Fae garden outside, and frosted a tiny duplicate of the brick paths between the stumps and piped little plants in the garden patches. 

Then, as the huge finale, they took the standard sized cake out of the oven, cut it into pieces and stacked it high, frosted it, and made a scaled duplicate of Mino's tree trunk palace, all decorated with miniature duplicates of the little lanterns and decorations until it looked as exact as they could make it.

While that was going on, Edward had sent word over to Andrew's apartment, and Andrew had come and taken charge of getting out the wheeled equipment cart that they used to hold dressings, bandages, potions, lotions, clothes and other things, and he set the cart in place and made sure it was completely equipped. He brought extra pillows, a blanket, a large insulated jug to hold a cold drink, and one to hold a hot drink so Angus could have his pick. He set out several new magic wraps, and everything he could think of that Angus might need. 

Edward unlocked the living room floo, and Simone repackaged the salmon into manageable packages, deciding that she would leave out enough for supper tonight and put the rest in the freezer. 

"Ruby," Simone asked, "how about I make some of this beautiful fresh salmon for supper? I have a good recipe for a pistachio crusted salmon, and we could put some cheesy polenta with it and make some grilled asparagus. Angus has a recipe where he wraps the asparagus in prosciutto and grills it, and it's amazing."

"Oh my goodness. Look at that. The Fae are honoring the babies by making a duplicate of the entire fairy garden in cake and icing," Edward said. "I don't know when I've ever seen something that was that meticulously detailed. It's beautiful."

Ruby let the Fae do what they had to and smiled seeing what they had down with the cupcakes " wow , that's fantastic" she said smiling then looked to Simone 2 that would be great, I'm all over the place today" she said then nodded when Simone mentioned Angus recipe for wrapped asparagus in prosciutto and then he grilled it. Looking in the folders in his office Ruby finally found the recipe and copied it for Simone

" here its there recipe Simone" she said and gave it to Simone , seeing Edward and Andrew behind her setting up equipment she sighed and smiled " never thought to have a med bay in my living room" she said " but its looks good , thank you Andrew and Edward." she said walking over to them both.

"Thank you, Ruby," Simone said. "It will all go together pretty quickly when it's time to cook supper."

"Well, I've got all the medical things contained on this wheeled supply cart," Andrew said. "With the stuff I know Robert's going to want and all the things Angus will need, it's rather like learning how to pack ten pounds of groceries in a five pound sack, but it's all here. Pillows and a blanket on the bottom shelf on the left, clean clothes on the bottom shelf on the right. Insulated mugs for both hot and cold on the second shelf, along with magic wraps, old school ice packs and heat packs, a bath towel, and some small hand towels and washcloths, and a clean basin, with a bottle of surgical grade soap, in case we need it. Top shelf has bandages, dressings, scissors, tape, small medical basin, sterile suture kit in case he blows a stitch, potions, a couple of pens, and a couple of clean potions cups. And the hanging pocket on the end has a folder with forms for charting. I think, for now, we have everything that he's going to need most immediately. If Robert wants anything else, I'll bring it. I think everything should be set. I really don't think you have any cause to worry because this surgery really is pretty routine. The only thing that isn't routine is the level of perfection that Robert insists on, but I'm learning that's just Robert and how he does things. The only thing I haven't heard yet is if he's going to want us to put his bed back up in here, but I do rather doubt it. I honestly don't think he's going to think its necessary."

Ruby smiled to Simone as she thanked her then she listened to Andrew talk about what he had on his tray ready for when Angus came home for Robert " oh I'd better get some clean Panama's for Angus to change into so he's comfortable" she said heading up and returning with a clean folded PJ top and bottoms she placed it next to the chair ready . She heard Andrew talk again and nodded her head " I know , its just my internal worry wort going, externally thanks to the techniques Jeffery showed me I'm good with it and know he's in safe hands both with Robert and Marcus" she said smiling. looking over at the cake the fae had made she smiled " okay where can we put the candles on that ?" she said chuckling " I'm think we should take a pic of it first , it looks super good, thank you" she said to Minos and the Fae that had put it together.

Ruby saw the babies were finished with their dinner and lifted them out one at a time to wipe down their faces and hands then placing them into the Play pen to play for a while.