After Work

"I used to see him a lot in your room standing next to you," Khaat said gently. "Its not unusual for death to be nothing more than a mere inconvenience when someone really loves us. The love never really dies. It looks like he's here because he chooses to be. That, and sometimes, we draw those we love to us by our own grief. They need that reassurance that we will be alright before we can move on. I know--from experience. " She ate the fries and then decided to cut a piece off her father's burger. "Serves him right for leaving the burger right in front of me."

She cut a small wedge off the burger and ate it, along with the large crisp deli pickle on the side of the plate. Just as she was crunching on a bite of the pickle, her father apparated back, two cheesecakes in hand--one to go home, and the other one already cut and ready for serving. He set the cut one on the table and put the other nearby. He saw her crunching his pickle and noticed the piewedge shaped piece cut out of his burger along with several missing fries. He tried to look serious about it, but he could not hide his amusement.

"Shall I get you one of your own?" he asked her.

"No thanks. I"m eating yours," she replied, undaunted.

"So I noticed," he laughed out loud. "Oh, fine. I guess I'll share. Take half."

"I was going to. I was just being nice about it for now," she laughed.

"Can I at least have my own slice of cheesecake?" he asked.

"Probably," she shrugged, as he sat back down at his place. He cut the burger in half and gave her the rest of her half that she had not otherwise already eaten. "Thanks," she grinned at him.

"You'd think the girl hasn't eaten all day," he told them.

"I haven't," Khaat admitted. "And you';re right, Daniel. Stan has a great sense of humor. I think I like him."

"He seems to be drawn to you because of your strong feelings," Khaat said. "That can be a comforting thing for us to have them closeby. I'm sorry that the Gryffs were so cruel. Sometimes Gryffindors can have really strong personalities and it makes them headstrong a lot of the time when they shouldn't be. I come from a long line of them. Gryffs sometimes don't consider others feelings and they expect others to be as strong as they are. Well, you're amongst family and friends now, so that should make you and Stan both feel better." She motioned to a stack of plates sitting on a table beside the bar. A stack of dessert saucers came over and set themselves beside the cheesecake. She served up several slices of the delicious chocolate orange cheesecake that had chocolate crust and had a dark chocolate ganache drizzled over the top with candied orange peel garnishing the top. Khaat's favorite part was the candied orange. "Help yourselves. Its our best selling dessert this summer," she said. "Oh. Forks. " She accio'd several dessert forks that flew over to the table, handle first, and landed very politely beside the cheesecake. Khaat took a slice for her father and one for herself, and took a fork for him and one for her.

"Its just Stan's touch you're feeling. You'll get used to spirit energy if you're around it enough," Khaat said. "He just is reminding you that you know better than to believe in some other person's negative vindictive feelings. Stan seems to know that business is just nothing but nonsense now. I don't think he puts the same weight on someone else's mean words and actions as he once did. Generally, we change our minds about a lot of things once we move on. Things come back into a much clearer deeper perspective once we don't have a lot of worldly cares to preoccupy our minds. So--how's the cheesecake?"

Khaat took a bit of her own cheesecake. It was pure chocolate decadence. Luxurious. Lizzie had outdone herself when she had created this version in the Sparks kitchen. The only thing that could make her happier with it was if she had a large cup of really good coffee along with it. But the Leaky did not serve her beloved French Roast.

"Here," Robert said to her, "Allow me." He knew her far too well. He conjured a large mug of the tar black, full bodied coffee for her to accompany her cheesecake. "Extra strong, no cream, no sugar," he told her.

"Thank you," she smiled, picking up the mug and sniffing it. It smelled almost as good as coffee made by hand in her own coffee pot, when she took the time to actually grind the beans herself and make the coffee from scratch. Her father picked up the pen and made hasty work of signing the forms she brought and put them back in her bag for her.

"I suppose the staff would like to be paid, wouldn't they?" he smiled at her. "And don't worry about Stan. He seems to be happy, Daniel. "

"His energy seems to have a lot of contentment in it," Khaat agreed. "Well, thanks for dinner, Daddy. I'd better get these forms back to accounting so they can issue the payroll. Nice meeting you all, " She rose. "See ya, Stan," she smiled at the apparition. She leaned down and kissed her father, picked up her bag and the large mug of fresh coffee and apparated back to her office at St. Mungos.

"I have no idea where she gets her workaholic nature from," Robert sighed.

"Oh, I wonder!" Brian echoed sarcastically, rolling his eyes in disbelief and laughing.

OOC: Skeeter, where did you go??? Come back!