LONDON CALLING

“”Clearly you didn’t know as much about your mother as you were entitled to know,” Michael replied. “Understand that I never loved anyone else the way I loved her, but you need to know the truth. Your mother was a very self serving woman. She loved expensive things, but she couldn’t afford it. She taught herself to steal, and she enjoyed the big games. The problem was that she believed she was a real genius at it. The sad fact was that she wasn’t as good as she thought she was. She ended up getting in jail or in trouble with the law on a regular basis. More often than not, any big score she made was because I helped her do it. And more than once, she framed me for a bungled up job she did. Your mother was a burglar, and so you know, I’m ten times the burglar she was. The fact is that there are times when even the good guys need someone to take something out of the hands of the bad guys or get someone out of a mission gone wrong. It was the job I wanted. It didn’t interest Alette because she didn’t think it would have the same time excitement that she got from the big score jobs. There aren’t many people who have the skills I do, so I get paid very well to do it.

“As much as I loved her, I knew she was the most selfish person I ever knew. My guess is that she didn’t want me to know about you because I would have cramped her style. I would have expected you to have a decent mom that actually took care of you and didn’t ship you off to boarding schools, and if she hadn’t been a decent mom, I would have definitely taken you from her, flat out. The one thing she didn’t ever like about me was that I am a man of my word.”

“I can tell you that there isn’t anything I don’t know about Michael, and he’s my best friend and the finest man I’ve ever known,” Robert said.

Rowan nodded at Michael's words " this explains why she barely spoke about you but she did do one thing.." Rowan said as he took a deep breath "My full name is Rowan Michael Woodward, guess she wanted to carry on your name," he said then heard Robert talk "and knowing the good reputation you have, I accept our word." he said and stood up, walking over to Michael he stood facing him " well it nice to finally meet you..dad" he said and held out his hand for him to shake.

Jess moved from her bed and dressed ready to return to St Mungos to assess the damage repair situation. She'd wanted the kitchen to be repaired as quick as possible. She walked down teh stairs in her casual gear , slack and a light over shirt. She stopped listening to the conversation " ther is a test for that, it gives immidiat results" she accioed two small vials with yellow liquid in them and two swab. walking over she held the swab out to Rowan."okay, just swab your cheek, both of you" she told them then looked t Robert " its one of our reserchers results , its quick and painless" she told him then turned back to the pair of them " now place the swab in the vial and leave it, if there the same color congrates your a father." she sid smiling " if not, then, well, you know."

“I don’t need a spit test, Jess,” Michael said, dismissing it. He shook Rowan’s hand. “Its too bad you went so long without knowing the truth about your family.”

“Lovely, now give him a couple puppies,” Robert said. The others in the dining room burst into laughter.

“You never went to get those damn dogs,” Edward said. “I think you should take the boy with you, introduce him to the dogs and your quirky butler.”

“And the kettle and the rest of it,” Robert said.

“Ruby was going to go with me, but maybe Nigel and she are staying in Paris all day. If Rowan goes with me, you’ll need to let him go, Robert.”

“I told him he would be on his own time at daybreak, so he’s on his own time now,” Robert replied. “I’m going up to check on Angus.” He went upstairs.

“I do need to get the dogs. They’re probably all out of socks. You want to tag along?” Michael asked Rowan.

Rowan smiled at shook Michaels's hand happy to know " let me guess wonky enchantment?" he said "I got a cat cushion like that" he laughed as he glanced out the window to see the sun was up " all right let's go, dad" he chuckled liking but finding it unusual to say aloud. 

Jess popped the top back on each of the vials and smiled " all right and she was going to go but then the paris thing came up, im sure the dogs are still okay." she said then chuckled " yeah they love argile" she said as Rowan pulled up his trousers slightly to show his socks that were Argile socks. Jess laughed and looked at Robert knowing they would not come back on his feet.

Michael apparated them to his stone cottage, and as soon as they landed the mailbox started banging her flap. Michael went up to the mailbox.

“What’s the matter? Did you have a fight with him?” The little mailbox whimpered at him. “I’ll try to straighten him out.” He patted her gently. He unlocked the door and heard what sounded like an entire dog kennel’s worth of dogs barking. And then he saw them. Otto, Faline, and puppy after puppy. He groaned. He started to count. Sixteen. It looked like two different litters, one litter of seven little footstools slightly older than a newer nine. Tiny barking, peeing footstools running everywhere.

“Otto, what did you do? Really? Sixteen? This house is a mess. And they’re all hungry. And not a one housebroken.” He looked at Rowan. He pointed to the plaid footstool. “That one is Otto, and she’s Faline. Snidely! Where are you?” The hat rack came scampering down the stairs.

“That’s Snidely. Snidely, you’ve been rude to Rosie again, and you made her cry. Now you make it right with her.” The hat rack blew raspberries at him. “No, don’t give me any of your lip. Just do the right thing, Man. Make it right with her.”

He accio’d the carrier, enlarged it, and set it on the floor.

“Get in the box, you little monsters,” he said. The puppies responded by peeing on the side of his sofa and yanking on his pantleg.

Arresto Momentum!” He cast a spell to freeze them in place.

“Help me scoop them up, Lad, and shove them in the box. Snidely, where are their socks?” The hat rack shrugged. “ That’s what I was afraid of. They’re out. I’ll have to get more straight away.” He flicked his fingers to set a cleaning spell to clean up his place.

“It doesn’t ever look like this—except when I’m overrun with freaking puppies.”

Rowan looked at the house infront of him and chukled as Michael talked to the letter box then opened the door he was about to step back when the cutest ever bunch of foot stools came running at them " awe I think ther cute, but yeah they need trainning." when Michael froze then Rowan began picking them up and palcing them in the carrier he moved to the larger ones and spoke softly " don't worry Im sure there fine and will have good homes" he said and palced them among the litter of puppies. " yeah, I'm guessing you don't ushaly have this many puppies on the go" he said picking up two more he'd found under the sofa and placing them with the others as he did he looked around and chuckled " your a collecter too i see?" he motioned to the books and paintings he had around the house.

"I altered the house to have an exstencive book case in one room, it holds the books I collected. He saw an amour and walked over to it " I have one like this but mines a reproduction, this though is the real deal."

“I am a collector,” Michael said, “ but over the years, I’ve learned to be more discriminating. Otherwise I’m just hoarding stuff, but yes, that’s a real suit of armor.” He went to the fireplace mantle and shrank a box that was on the mantle and put the box in his pocket. “ I think I’m ready to go. I have some things of Alette’s somewhere, but I’m going to have to find them. Let’s stop in at Gladrags and buy some socks. I know they’re hungry. They normally eat black socks, and they like argyle as treats.”

They made a quick stop in the village to Gladrags, and the owner gave Michael a large box of black socks and a smaller one of argyles. Michael paid for them and told Rowan he was ready to go back to Brian’s.

Rowan chuckled and picked up the carrier " all right, now I know where I got that from, mom was forever throwing stuff out" he said following him to a shop called glad rags. " okay thats a lot of socks" he said feelign teh pups starting to come round. " hold on" he said and slipped off his shoes and then his socks" here I don't mind" he said stufing it threw the bars of the carrier. 

"okay hold tight" he said and ported them back to the kitchen and palcing the dog cage down on the floor " um best to let these out outside , or the barn." Jessie stood up and walked up tothem.

"I'll take it to the barn theres a free large stall" he said and Rowan nodded but he saw one of his men walk over to them.


"whats up?" he asked him.

"suns up most of the men are gone a handful want to stay and help Roberts men there kinda..well.." he looked at Robert " no offence or anything but their a bunch of iddiots, six of us wanna stay in our own time and train them right." he said glancing from Rowan to Robert and back. Rowan looked at Robert.

"They have my aproval , its their own time, what do you think?" he asked. " it would add to your task force and you'd get skilled fighters in the meantime."

That’s fine with me, but it sounds like I need to get with Jack and Brian and find out what’s going on with them,” Robert replied. He hadn’t heard there was an issue with his ground crew. And if there was, Robert needed to get to the bottom of it quickly. For starters, he summoned Jack. Jack was the supervisor for outdoor services, and if there was a problem, he trusted Jack to be on it. If Jack wasn’t on it, then he needed to investigate it. “By the way, I’ve asked this before. Why don’t we have either Ruby and Nigel home or a reason why they’re not back yet? Where the hell are they? If I have a crap grounds crew and 2 first stringers missing, and nobody’s on it but me, somebody is going to get fired. Full stop.”He was getting irked that this question had been asked several times and nobody had a stinking answer.

Ruby appeared just as he finished talking with Nigel " sorry got held up, here now though " she said letting go of Nigel " toms fine, he was sleeping when we left " she said and smelled the cinnamon rolls " oh this smells wonderful" she said then saw the new guy " um new face?" she asked. Rowan looked at her and then Robert.

 "Ruby and Nigel, I presumb?" he asked chukaling at her appearance seemingly as if on cue. Jack walked in with a face like thunder.

"only some of my guys are iddiots and they are teh ones who are standing in the rest know there job, you trin the iddiots and leave my guys alone" Jack said to Rowan who nodded.

"sure, sure no argment here, just tell Grant, tall dark haird guy with a biker tattoo on his right arm" Rowan said " he'll let the others know. He watched as Ruby moved around the kitchen. " um she awlays eat pickles and custard! blecth" he pulled a face at the concockshion she was eating.