LONDON CALLING

Brian apparated back to headquarters with Fiona, and he offered her a cup of tea. She accepted. He added a slight calming potion for her, and he sat with her while she told him where she lived and about the dog. He agreed, for now, to get the dog, saying others would pick up her things later. That was fine with her. One of the women from upstairs introduced herself to Fiona, and that freed Brian up to go get the dog.

Angus came out of the command post while others straightened the space. In his lap he had two tins of Robert's almond tea. He watched Yulong with the children. When Yulong was finished with his performance, Angus gave him the tin of tea.

"Robert wanted me to give this to you. He said you would deliver one tin and the other tin he hopes you and your men can enjoy," Angus told him. "We couldn't have done it without you tonight. Thank you."

Brian went to Fiona's humble little home in England and found the body of her father. He would have to alert the aurors. For now, though, he was interested in Finn, who was standing a relentless guard over his master. It took a bit of coaxing for Brian to win over Finn, but once he did, he easily got a leash on the handsome little border collie, and picked up what he saw were a couple well loved dog toys. Then he apparated back home.

It was late, but he hoped Ruby would still be awake.

"Ruby," he called, "I've got a present for you and Angus and the boys." The boys camr from nowhere.

"A dog! is it our? What's its name? Can we keep him?" Sam and Victor were all about it.

"His name is Finn, and you can have him if Angus and Ruby says you can have him," Brian said. "He's a misfit, just like the rest of us, but I thought perhaps he'd be a welcome little addition to your duplex, if you think you can share him with Edward and Simone."

Yulong finished his show and had all the children clapping as he put down the puppets beside him and stood up to bow to Angus. He saw the two tins of tea and took them from off angus's knee. " I will pass one to my Mǔqīn..um Mother" he said handing the first one off to one of his men next to him the second he held " we we're honered to fight at your side, and I hope to return soon, very soon." he said glancing over at Jessie. " may I ask a request?" he asked " I find my self in a dificult position, I wish to return home  but I also wish to remain." he said softly his head lowered as he spoke.



Jessie picked up the delecate puppets and marveled at hos itraget they were and smiled as he made it dance for the small girl on his lap. He looked over at Angus and Yulong as they spoke not quite with in ear shot of them.

" I do not make a habit of mixing business with pleasure but , my Línghún bànlǚ is here and I wish to get to know him." he said his eyes lowered as he spoke " I will work for my place, I will not shurk my duties, I will clean and cook, I must return first to my Mǔqīn to explain and make opologies, if you acept my preposal ."

Angus was a bit surprised when Yulong said Jessie was his soulmate. Angus, frankly, couldn't begin to understand Yulong's thinking. Angus absolutely believed in love, but he didn't understand how someone he hadn't even known existed two hours ago could consider someone else to be a soulmate that quick. A crush, maybe. An interest, definitely, but a soulmate? No. No way. It sounded really premature to Angus for either Yulong or Jessie to be making that leap. And, since Jessie had just been ditched by Kaden, it was inviting Jessie to have a rebound relationship, and Angus wasn't going to easily support anything that was going to promise nothing but more pain for Jessie. But now, Yulong was drawn to England because he thought Jessie was his soulmate? Angus had hired and done his share of personnel matters over the years, but this was probably one of the ones that he had probably the most misgivings about, simply because of how this relationship was taking off without the slightest bit of foundation.

When he eliminated the impending relationship issues w Jessie and Yulong from his thinking and simply looked at the idea of hiring another worker, he had a man that had apparently proven himself a capable fighter and capable of leading a squad and who was promising to clean and cook and to work hard.

At the back of Angus's mind was the fact that he himself still wasn't able to do his full physical duties, and even when he could get back in the kitchen full time, he was sure that Robert was not going let him dive straight back into his old schedule. Angus most likely wasn't going to start out by doing a full workout, cooking breakfast, then tending the barn chores and coming back to cook lunch, then cleaning house and hustling out loads of laundry, tending Abbey, and maybe his own baby by then too, and then cooking supper, going for a night run, and prepping breakfast before going to bed. He had a partner and children now to consider. His life was changing. They deserved a piece of his time, and he knew that his schedule was going to have to change too. It was likely going to take more than one person to pick up some of the slack.

"I might be willing to take you on," Angus said, "but, first does Jessie know you're thinking about wanting to do this for him? And my second issue is that, for awhile, I might well need you to float between any number of different duties. What experience do you have with tending animals or with gardening? I know you fight, and you say you cook. What other skills do you have?"

Yulongstood watching the expressions on Angus's face as he seemed deep in thought but soon he spoke and Yu listened to him as he finished. Yu spoke softly " I understand your concern and no he does not know, I do not wish him to know until he is ready, as for the other, I tended the garden for my grandmother, so am used to planting rice in the rice fields and grew herbs for the kitchen as a small boy, I have tended goats, horses and pigs along with bowtruckle, Jin Chan, Jueyuan, even had the honour to tend to a Chiwen that protects against Fires, floods and typhoons." he told him "I had a Tiangou as a boy that only I saw." he smiled short lives small smile.

"Know this, I am not here to disrupt any operation you have, I only wish to share my knowledge and over time grow to know my Línghún bànlǚ, but I am aware he has been hurt so do not wish to add to that, but to help "Acquire new knowledge whilst thinking over the old, and you may become a teacher of others." he said bowing to Angus.

"Well, alright, so you do have some experience in working with gardens and with animals. Understand that every employee we have works for Robert, and he could assign you to any duty at any time. Also, every employee has a probationary period before they are hired in permanently. He determines when that period ends, but it normally is somewhere between 3 or 4 months. As for housing, some of our employees choose to live off the estate grounds, but most choose to live in one of the log cabins that we have for employees. There are a few of our employees that do periodically stay in the main house but very few. Most everyone prefers their own home. If you want a cabin on the grounds, you'll have to let us know. I'll take you on, on a probationary basis, and we'll see how it goes. When do you think you would want to start?"

Sam and Victor noticed Ruby hadn't come when Brian had called her, so they took it upon themselves to make a decision that they were going to keep the dog. They rather liked the name Finn, and they simply presumed that Angus and Ruby were going to go along with it. They petted the dog and were all excited about the border collie.

"You two know if you own him, then you'll be responsible for taking care of him when you're here, right?" Brian asked. "And that he'll live over at your house."

"Got it," Sam nodded.

"Dog food," Victor looked at Sam, knowing they were going to need it. Sam nodded.

"Toys, leashes, bowls, all that stuff," Sam said.

"We gotta find a pet shop," Victor said.

"They're all closed at this hour," Brian laughed. "You still need to make sure it's okay with Ruby and Angus."

"Angus is gonna love it. And if Ruby doesn't love it, well, she's just outnumbered," Victor said. Brian laughed.

Yu looked and listened to Angus and nodded his head "Shì de" he said in agreement "I can start when you need me." he said bowing once more to Angus.


Ruby had heard them call her but stid watching now she walked out and smied " awe, what a cute dog?" she said and knelt down next to it " whose is it." she asked as it licked her cheek. " whats his name?" she asked stroking it behind his ear as she petted it gently. Here eyes sceretly looking over the dog for a tag with a name. " and has he had all his vacinations?" she asked " becuse if not he'll have to have them, and whose walking him?" she chuckled at the boys as she spoke " hes cute."

"How about you take a couple of days to get your things in order, and if you find you need more than that, you let me know. If you need more time, we can alter the start date. Since you know your way here, just come here, and I'll have one of our guys pick you up here and bring you to the estate. You tell me what time you'll be here, and our man will be waiting here for you when you get here."

"His name is Finn, and he's ours," Sam said. Sam was almost immediately irked that she expected all of Finn's things in order straight off. "You're not expecting much with an emergency rescue of an animal, are you?" His tone was a bit sarcastic. "I'm sure we'll put it all to rights. No vet is going to be open at this hour, though. I'm more concerned we find him some food and water first."

"We don't know about all that yet, Ruby," Brian said. "The boys are right, it was an emergency rescue. The owner is dead, but his daughter might know. She was orphaned tonight by Gelding's men, but we'll try to get more information from her. And, it well may be that, if we can detect if a person has certain medications, a vet might be able to detect if he's had his vaccines or not." He looked at the boys, "Did you know that border collies are the smartest of all dog breeds? It's true. You might find that Finn is remarkably smart."

"Of course he's smart. He's ours, isn't he? He's wicked smart," Victor said.

Yu bowed agai and nodded " I will do so" he said " I actualy need to talk to..my mother about what has happened today and give her the tea" he said glancing back at Jessie but nothing showed on his face to how he felt.

Ruby looked at Brian " ow a rescue " she said softly " okay , food and water and a warm place to sleep first, boys there might be some meat in the pantry spare that he..Finn can have and theres a stainless steel bowl undr the sink were not using he can use as a water bowl." she smiled at them " we can sort the rest of it all out in the morning, Sam take him inside and get him settled" she said standing to look and smile at Brian " your right he'll make a great addition."

"Of course. Family should come first," Angus said. "So does she live alone? My understanding is that in Chinese culture, the son is largely expected to be the caretaker for the mother. Tell me about her."

"She said Finn was her dad's dog, but since she's orphaned now, she was concerned that he was taken care of. The only option she could think of was to turn him out in the street and hope someone took him in, so i told her I knew of someone that would love having him. She was deeply relieved. I'm sure I'm going to have to go back and gather up her things and whatnot. Maybe she'll be able to tell me who the vet was and maybe he's got more things there. I just grabbed him and the toys that I found on the floor. He looks like a young dog, so hopefully he has a lot of years ahead of him."

Sam was already in cabinets getting a couple bowls for Finn, and then he headed straight to the pantry. Brian called Sam into the walk in fridge and gave him a package of beef stew cubes.

"That ought to fill his belly for tonight," Brian told Sam. "We can order food for him in the morning. We can ask Kate tomorrow if there are any spare animal beds in the barn. If not, we can get him one."

"And treats! Dogs need treats!" Sam said.

"Angus has a great recipe for homemade treats. You can ask him, and I bet you can help him make them," Brian said. "They use bacon drippings and whole wheat flour and some other things. When we've had a dog or two here, they seemed to go bananas for them."

"Can we take them over to our place and get him settled in?" Sam asked, but at the same time, they were already gathering up the bowls, the meat and the dog and taking off out the back door.

"Well, there they go," Brian laughed. "I think they just answered their own question. Hopefully they'll keep with the responsibility after the newness wears off. Angus is an animal lover, no matter what sort it is, so I don't think he's going to have a problem. I expect him back shortly. He's tidying up some loose ends in Paris, but the mission itself is over. You know what that chaos is like when we get kids back at headquarters. It's a madhouse for a bit, but I presume that they'll all be back shortly."

Yu looked at Angus and nodded " yes, but I have an older sister who lives with her, she is firey and indipendant, headstrong and carrys a burden as if it was the weight of the world." he said " My sister is calm and quiet she makes my mother pause and meditate on her actions." he smiled "Keeps her on the right path."

Ruby listened then was about to say they could keep him but they ran out of the back door. " go on" she said softly and chuckled as she shook her head " its okay and yes I know Angus will have then keping up with chores to look after Finn." she said thinking Finn might be a good guard dog for the baby. She listened more to Brian and relaxed when he said Angus was going to return soon " thats good he needs to rest" she said and nodded at the mention of the children in the paris house " I remeber how it was when I was there."