LONDON CALLING

Jessie looekd at the porter and asked if it could be brought to the cabin " um..can you bring it here please and thank you" he said noting Brian heading to his bunk. Jessie continued to play his cards while he waited for the porter to return. Which he did and Jessie was glad , the tray had several diferent types of food and a cup of coffee which he was glad of. " thank you" he said taking it and setting it down ontop of his game.

He sat and ate quietly " anything good in the news?" he asked not exspecting any responce from Brain but wanting something other than his thoughts.

Ruby looked up and heard Abby " oh " she said picking up Abby and moving to the door " can I help you sir?" she asked looking at him "and is Robert exspecting you?" she asked him making sure to watch him closly she saw the bag he held and tipped her ehad in curiosity.

"Just muggle news. Gotta expect that from muggle papers, though. Their politics are so stupid. It's all about childishness and greed, if you ask me," Brian said. "Not that our own ministry's issues are all that much better. And it looks like they're going to televise some sort of big cricket championship. I've been to a couple cricket games. Been to more baseball games, actually. American baseball is something I really do enjoy. And their football. Baseball championships are in the fall, and thats when football season starts. Might need to take a hop to Colorado and catch some games. Have you ever seen any American sports?"

"I'm Jeffrey Burnstein," the man said. He was strikingly handsome, and he had a polished, charming mannerism about him. He was a gentleman. "Robert is expecting me." He smiled brightly at Abbey. "And who are you?" he asked her.

"Abbey," she said. "You know my papa?"

"I do," Jeffrey said, taking it that she must be Robert's granddaughter. He didn't know Robert actually had a granddaughter, but he clearly saw Kate's resemblance in her little face. "Do you know where he is?"

"Over dere," she said pointing to the main house. "He and Gam making bugs for Stickee!" She had known that Kate was going to make fresh food cubes for Fudge this morning, and Robert was going to help her find a fresh supply of the wood lice that bowtruckles loved.

"Making bugs? Who's Stickee?" he asked.

Jessie listened to Brian and shook his head " politics never intrested me and not realy, followed a bit of baseball though but not realy into sports, closest I got was busness end of the baseball bat when I stepped out of line as a kid." he said as he drank his coffee and picked at his food some what.

Ruby smiled at the man as he introduced himself to her " nice to meet you Im Ruby Tyler, Abbys right though , the main house is over there, we can walk you if you want" she said and chuckled at his confushion to Abbys words " hes a Bowtruckle thats taken a likeing to Abby, Kate had divised some insect cubes that he seems to like, and his name is Fudge but Abby calls him sticky," she said as they walked to the main house. Opening the back door she stepped back to let him enter.

"Robert theres some one here to se you, a Jeffrey Burnstein." she said walking into the living room. " he some how found his way to the duplex." she said looking back at Jeffery she smiled " thats where myself, Angus and Edward live and miss Abby visits for sleep overs." she chuckled a she lightly tickled Abbys tummy.

Abbey giggled when Ruby tickled her. She enjoyed being with Ruby, and she liked the new house and the sleepovers she got to have with Ruby because it made her feel grownup.

"Nice to meet you Miss Tyler," Jeffrey said. He didn't know who Angus and Edward were, but he figured he would find out in time. He was more than happy to have them walk him over to the main house. He went inside when she opened the door. The size of this mammoth house was impressive. His main clinic building wasn't far off from this size. The square footage probably was just about the same, he guessed.

When Ruby called, Robert came quickly, and when he saw Jeffrey, he smiled.

"Jeffrey," Robert went over and shook hands with him. "Thank you for coming. Ruby, Dr. Burnstein here runs a private clinic in Switzerland where he treats physical and mental health issues. He's agreed to come and see if he thinks your brother would benefit from going to Switzerland and working with Jeffrey for a bit."

"Oh. He's your brother," Jeffrey said, looking at Ruby. "Do we have time, before he arrives, for you to perhaps tell me about him?"

"They won't get in until tonight at about seven," Robert said. "You've got time. Ruby, I figured that since the team isn't coming in til supper time, Jeffrey would probably spend the night and then, if Jessie agrees, they would probably head out tomorrow. Jeffrey, I'll take your bag up to a guest room if you don't need it, and you and Ruby can get acquainted."

Ruby listened to Robert and nodded " yes , he is" she said then looked to Kate " would you mind taking Abby " she asked and let her go to Kate. " would you like to sit in the living room, this will be a long tale" she told him as they moved. Sitting in the living room she sighed " hum where to begin, I guess it was when he was young about ten I guess, he always had to look out for me, you see our father wasn't the nicest of men, he had this twisted thinking that women were only good for two things keeping house and producing children and they had no brains, they did as they were told." she huffed a little at that thought " anyway he always thinks I need protecting, he was fine once I left and made my own life but since I met Angus who work for Mr Lupin, Robert, and fell in love with him hes changed, he acts like Angus is going to do something to harm me, which I know he wont ever."

She sat back in the chair and took a deep breath in " well recently I have told him to back off and let me live my life, Angus and I are happy the way we are, but hes got this notion that becuse we aren't married or having kids Angus dosn't feel the same as I, well hes wrong becuse we both do, were open and we talk and it has nothing to do with him, but.." now she felt her own anger rising and she slowled herself down " while on a mission he acted as if Angus had betrayed me becuse they stayed with an old girlfreind he hadn't seen in ten years, I've spoken to some one who knows her too and shes married and a lovely woman with three kids too, but he won't acept Angus can have a female freind and not have relashens with them, he gets me so made, and then he stops talking to them all, like shuts down." she explained " but I think Im missing some things here, Robert and the others can fill you in more about what happened, but he need to stop this thinking that every man is out to hurt me, its wrong, I can take care of myself, as you will see when he gets here." she follded her arms across her chest and gave a smirk.

(i made a mistake. they'll have an overnight on the train. they won't get in until tomorrow evening. oops)

"Well, alright, so it sounds like you've been trying to stop him, and you're considering perhaps blasting him either verbally or physically when he gets back. You could certainly try that, but it also sounds like you've already tried that repeatedly. And now, for whatever reason he's become more aggressive, so I'm not sure that your trying to meet his aggression with aggression is likely not going to impact him the way you like. It sounds like he's been pretty dug in with his opinion, and he's been that way for years. I'm not going to know until I meet him whether he actually realizes that he's sort of stuck in his own beliefs and attitudes or not or whether he has any real insight that what he's doing really isn't healthy for him or for you either one.

"It sounds like, in his own way, he's almost acting just like his father, demanding that you do whatever he tells you. Is that right? So what's so different about Angus that seems to have brought this aggression out in your brother? Is it actually Angus, or is there some new level of seriousness in your relationship with him that makes your brother think that Angus just isn't good enough?"

The porter came back awhile later, after Jessie had had plenty of time to eat, and he took the tray. Then Brian looked at him.

"Jessie," Brian said quietly, "we're going to be in this train compartment for the next 36 hours. I am not your enemy, so it would make it a lot easier for both of us if you stopped treating me like it. As it is, it's just worked out that you don't have to contend with Angus or Michael, and maybe that's for the best right now. But do you realize that for the four of us to travel twice on the Orient Express in this level of accommodation, when you add the cost of meals and gratuities, it's costing Robert over 30,000 pounds each way? That's over 60,000 pounds. There is nothing we can do here about Angus or Ruby or your feelings for them, so I suggest you set that aside, take advantage of the stress reliever this trip really could be for you and enjoy the views out the window because they're pretty incredible, allow yourself to actually taste the five star cuisine, and keep your mind busy with other things. You can read, we can play cards, we can borrow the chess board from Angus and Michael. They'd gladly let us borrow it. Or any other number of things. It's not healthy to continue to just let this roll this all around in your head for the next 36 hours."

Ruby looked at Jeffery and shrugged her shoulders " we talked about maybe one day having kids, we're living together and maybe one day we will marry but right now we're fine as we are, and your right I have told him and no your right agression with agression dose nothing and Im not that kind of person." she told him.

Jessie looked at Brain as he spoke and nodded " chess does sound good"he said " anything to take my mind off ..well you know." he said now eating more of the food infront of him " it is good" he said " and teh views are spectaculer, wish I had a muggle camera." he said as he bit into a peice of steak.

"Okay, I understand you're serious with Angus. That's not exactly my question, though. Is this the most serious you've ever been in a relationship? I'm not talking of Angus's feelings towards you. I'm talking about you and any other relationships you might have had. Was there ever anyone else you were this serious about that Jessie would perhaps feel some parallel to? Is there some reason this relationship should trigger something for him, a memory perhaps, that you can think of?"

The chess game had struck a cord with Jessie. It was something he was willing to consider. Good. That sounded promising, then.

"I'll go find their compartment and borrow the chess board, and I'll be right back," Brian said. When Jessie mentioned the muggle camera, Brian opened his pack and got out a muggle cell phone.

"I realize these are contraband, but yes, I have been known to carry one for emergency purposes on a mission before. And, yes, it does have a camera on it." He handed it to Jessie and went down the train from car to car til he came to Michael's and Angus's compartment. He knocked on the door. Michael answered.

"How's it going?" Brian asked.

"Oh, we're fine," Michael said. "We're playing peanut poker."

"Peanut poker?"

"No matchsticks and not enough pennies, so we're using peanuts," Michael said. Brian laughed.

"You two are pitiful," Brian said. "Who's winning?"

"Me," Angus called.

"He cheats. He's eating the ante," Michael laughed. Brian looked over at Angus just in time to see Angus take two of Michael's peanuts and eat them.

"You're right. He cheats," Brian laughed. "Anyway, could I borrow the chessboard?"

"Certainly," Angus said. Michael handed him the miniature chessboard and the little box of chess pieces. Brian put them in his pocket. He would resize them in the compartment.

"How are you two managing?" Michael asked.

"We're alright," Brian said.

"Let us know if you're not," Michael said.

"We'll be fine," Brian said, feeling they could certainly manage til tomorrow night. He thanked them and headed back to his compartment. When he went in he looked at Jessie.
"They're playing poker with peanuts," Brian laughed. "I don't think anybody's going to win because they're eating the peanuts."

Ruby sat and thought " I've had several boyfreinds but none this serious, and no I never slept with any until Angus." she sighed and thought more " everytime I brought some one home two days later they would call it off, now I wonder if Jessie said anything to them, one even said sosmething about being too controling but I just brushed it off that he was not ready, makes me wonder now."

Jessie sat he watched as Brin got up from his bunk and passed him a muggle cell phone , his eyes lit up as he brought up the camera and hear him leave, now he snapped away and saved only the best smiling each time he took one of the mountains of a small village they passed threw. Hearing Brin return he chuckled " I'd be the same, here look some of the photos I took" he said and handed brian the phone so he could see them.

"It certainly is possible that he warned them off," Jeffrey said. "Does he have this same controlling behavior in his own relationships, do you know?"

"Great shots," Brian said. "You know, if we can find someone to do some muggle editing, they could take those pictures and enlarge them and perhaps make some nice prints that maybe you can Kaden might want to hang some of them in your own place."

He took the chess board and pieces and resized them so they could be played. He asked the porter if they could have a tea tray so they could enjoy some fresh tea while they played, and they got it within mere minutes.

"White or black?" Brian asked.

Kate, Robert, Edward, and Simone all went over to Ruby's and Angus's. Kate had stumbled across a notebook in Angus's office that had Angus' rough ideas about what should go where, and they used it as a guide to help place the rest of the things that Ruby had not yet gotten unpacked. There were to sections--one for Edward's half, and one for Angus's half. Now they knew what Angus had had in mind.

There were pieces of southwestern art that Brian had helped Angus acquire, Native American pottery and blankets and rugs and sculptures, and all manner of decorative items. There were kiva ladders to place and blankets to hang on the kiva ladders and more. By using magic to hang things, it saved a lot of time, and they were able to start seeing things take shape. Robert and Kate believed this was going to be a real showplace of southwestern decor and art. And Kate's pottery and stained glass were the real masterpieces in both houses. This was going to be nothing short of spectacular.

"I almost don't want her to see it now til we're finished," Kate said, getting excited about it.

"We could manage that, I think," Robert said.

"Of course," Edward said. "I'll tell her that her in-laws-to-be have put it off limits to her now until we're ready to reveal it. She'll have to sleep in the main house tonight. Or outside. Her choice."

Kate went upstairs and into the master bedroom and saw there was pair of guys working there, doing something to the ceiling.

"I thought you were done," Kate said.

"So did we, but we got a message last night from Angus with a change. So we're getting it done. We used one of your leaded glass pieces. Hope you don't mind, but Angus was specific."

"I don't mind at all," she said. She went to see exactly what they were doing, and they were installing a leaded glass piece in the ceiling above the bed. This piece of leaded glass was a huge window Kate had done that was in an Aztec geometric pattern, and now that pattern was above Angus's and Ruby's massive southwestern bed. Kate could only imagine how incredible it was going to look at night, to be able to lie in bed and stare up at the stars. She wasn't sure what had possessed him, but she thought, in its own way, it was incredibly romantic.