A/N: I saw the news that BDS 2 is a go and it reminded me- I've had the beginnings of this story on my computer for eons now and figured it was time to dust it off and let you all have a crack at it. Let me know what you think, good, bad or indifferent!

-MBA

The battered old grandfather clock in the hall had just begun to chime nine o'clock when she heard the pounding on the kitchen door. All of Katie Fennessy's chicks were tucked safely in the house, so when she went to the door to answer, she left the chain across. Couldn't be too careful in this neighborhood. She peered through the crack between the solid oak door and the frame. "Yes?"

Two men, one dark and one light, stood in the pool of dirty yellow light in the small back garden. The blond, wiry and grim, stepped forward with both hands in the air. "'M lookin' to find Dhurata Zareed," he said, the lilt in his voice unmistakable. "Heard tell she was living here." He studied the small woman, or what he could see of her with the bright interior lights at her back, and added a lopsided smile and a dash of charm. "Don't mean any harm, ma'am, but she took somethin' o' mine that I'll be needin' back."

Katie sighed even as she fingered the sheathed knife affixed to the doorframe, carefully unsnapping the guard and easing the blade out to slide it up into her sleeve. Dhurata, all of seventeen and brash as a brass lamp, had a habit of stealing things that Katie knew would one day get her in serious trouble, and here was the proof standing in front of her. Even had she been simple and innocent, she'd know these two were the kind of business to stay away from.

The aura of leashed violence fairly rolled off of them despite their attempt to look harmless. They meant to be talking to Dhurata one way or another. Better to do what she could to control the situation. "Weapons," she said evenly. "I know you have them." She nodded at a half rotted wicker basket on the stoop. "Put all of them in the basket, please. I'll not have two armed strangers in my house. Unloaded, as well."

Two Glock 9mm pistols left underarm holsters in tandem and were checked for an engaged safety before the clips were ejected. Katie's eyebrow went up a notch as they placed their guns in the basket, but she gave them a practiced sweep of inspection as they bent to the task. "You, blondie, can empty that inner pants holster as well, if you please." Her gaze shifted to the other. "And the dark devil here can remove that ankle piece." The comforting weight of the blade in her hand made her add, "And any knives you've got strapped on, too. I'll be making you shift clothing to prove you're unarmed, so you'd do well to be straightforward about it."

The brothers looked at one another, silently wondering where such a small scrap of a woman had come from that she'd known exactly where their backup weapons were. Murphy grinned. "That's a neat bit o' trick ye've there, lady. Bending ta drop the guns showed the weight o' other ones, didn't it?"

She nodded. So they were reasonably intelligent. "An old method I learned in another life, but it works well enough. If you came to shoot, you'd have done so already, but I'd be a fool to have two armed men in my house." She shifted her weight. "All right, off with the jackets. Lift the sleeves of your shirts first, then the hems and turn a circle. Next the waistbands of your jeans and finally the pants legs, turning again." As they complied with her orders, Katie thought she detected identical amused smiles on their faces.

"December in Boston isn't the time o' year I'd be choosin' ta do a strip tease, lady. I just need ta be speakin' ta Dhurata and we'll be outta yer hair quick enough."

Adjusting her grip on the blade in her right hand, Katie slid it further up her sleeve until it snicked into the forearm harness she always wore. Feeling a bit more in control, she stepped back and disengaged the chain. Opening the door, she said, "Come in then, and mind the top step. The wood's a bit rotten."

As they trudged past her into the kitchen, she noted the identical tattoos on their necks with interest and found they also shared etchings of a cross on their arms and a Latin word along one hand. Katie's lips twitched. "Lovers or brothers?"

They spun as one to face her, each radiating alert wariness. The blond gaped at her. "And what be makin' ye think we're either?"

Katie smiled fatly. Certain skills never really faded, she thought with satisfaction as she noted the reactions of each man. Neither was overly tall or beefy, but they reminded her of alley cats- all lean muscle, tough as nails and a force to be reckoned with when you were between them and something they wanted. She trusted her gut on these things. It hadn't failed her before. "Brothers then."

Now it was the darker one's turn to stare at her, the Irish brogue thick with amazement. "Christ Jesus, what are ye, a fuckin' mindreader?"

Her hands snapped to her hips automatically. "There's children in this house, and I'll thank you to be minding your mouth. No f-word allowed." Her lips tipped up. "And I'm a witch, or so I'm told at least seven times a day. And who are you two, then?"

When the dark-haired one scowled and opened his mouth, the blond touched his arm gently and looked at him. Having reached some sort of silent agreement, he said, "Me name's Connor and this is me idiot brother, Murphy. He pops off at the mouth, but he's harmless." Wincing at the sharp elbow he got in the ribs from his affronted brother, Connor asked, "And who might ye be?" The question was asked with interest as his eyes swept over her. What with the exchange in the back garden and her demeanor, he'd thought she was a middle-aged woman running a boarding house, but she couldn't have seen her twenty-fifth year.

Katie sighed. If they knew Dhurata was staying here, it'd be easy enough for them to find out her name, too. "Katie Fennessy, at your service. I run this nut house."

"That's fuckin' obvious," Murphy muttered grumpily. When he met two sets of disapproving eyes, he rubbed the nape of his neck awkwardly. "Sorry! Christ, Connor, but it feels like Ma starin' me down with a spoon. I ain't had ta watch me words for years." His dark eyes, which Katie couldn't quite make out the color of, flashed in annoyance. "Don't know why a girl younger than me feels like Ma, but there it is."

She couldn't help it. Katie grinned, walked to the battered kitchen table and pulled out a chair, waving them to seats as well. It wouldn't hurt to chat with them a few minutes; it'd help her size them up better. "Didn't your mother tell you?" she said, feeling mischievous. The dark one's discomfort was as amusing as any of the teens she had tucked upstairs. Leaning forward conspiratorially, she braced her arms on the table, automatically cocking the right one so the movement wouldn't give away the wicked blade concealed along the underside of her arm. "Kids really do come with manuals. Chapter Three is on how to scold and put snotty children in their place."

Connor snorted. He liked this woman, though there were some things about her that triggered alarms in his brain, like the way she shifted weight on her right arm. As she teased Murphy about manuals and how they came with a wooden spoon, he studied her body movements across the table. He couldn't be sure, but he thought she had a knife sheath on her forearm, which made her left-handed like him. It wasn't like he was planning on getting into a scuffle with her, but life had taught him to take information like that and file it away. It might save his or Murphy's life at some point.

"Yer fuc- freakin' lyin'," Murphy accused mildly, amending himself before the curse slipped out, but it was damned hard. It was near automatic these days to use 'fuck' as everything from a noun to a verb to an adjective. He used it in ways that would make old Mrs. Murray, his primary school teacher, turn in her grave, God rest her soul. "If ye've got teenaged kids, then I'm the bleedin' Pope."

Katie tapped down on the surge of amusement and crossed her heart. "I do. Four of them upstairs, right this very moment, and two little ones besides."

Murphy's eyebrows rose to nearly his hairline, giving him a comical look. "Six fu- freakin' children? Did ye start havin' babies when ye were still in nappies, woman?"

Connor jabbed his brother in the ribs as payback for Murphy's earlier swipe and was gratified at his grunt of pain. "Don't be so gullible. She's pullin' your leg."

"Aren't you the sharp one?" She tossed her dark braid over her shoulder. "Maybe I didn't carry them, but they're mine all the same. They all needed a home and someone to be minding how they grow up. I've got a set of eight year old twins, a fifteen year old boy, another girl the same age, and a sixteen year old that just found out she's pregnant." Pushing back her chair, Katie held Connor's blue gaze. "Which brings us to my oldest girl up there, Dhurata. I'd like to know the story before you go scarin' the life out of her."

He blinked slowly and settled back in the rickety chair. "Didn't know she was only a kid," Connor started sheepishly, fingering the wooden rosary hanging around his neck. "Met Dhurata at the bar an'…" He flushed to the roots of his blondish-brown hair and cleared his throat.

Ah. Katie fit the pieces together quickly. "If it makes you feel better, I've taken three very good fake IDs off her since she came to live here. I've had a sneaking suspicion that she'd gotten another. And she looks older than she is."

Grasping at her offered explanation, Connor nodded rapidly. "Aye, thought she was in her early twenties. She said she worked at a foster home."

Katie shook her head with a rueful smile. "The best lies always have an element of truth," she sighed, not noticing the sharp look that passed between the brothers. Smacking a hand on the table, she jumped up. "I'll be putting the kettle on for tea. Would you like any?"

The offer was surprising, given that they were strangers that showed up in the dark, but both Murphy and Connor nodded unenthusiastically. Americans' version of tea was an abomination, pale little bags barely steeped or worse, microwaved. Murphy shuddered at the memory of his first cup of tea in the States. It was like drinking week-old dishwater. He didn't often long for the country of his childhood, but he did entertain a fantasy about a proper tea now and then even though he had accustomed himself to the bitter bite of coffee.

After setting the old kettle to boil, Katie leaned against the stove and crossed her arms. "So you met Dhurata at some bar. What happened then?" Connor flushed again and Murphy scowled. With a dark humor, she quipped, "Please tell me she didn't wait until you were stinkin' drunk and then picked your pockets. I thought I'd broken her of that."

Murphy flashed even white teeth as he grinned at her. "Sure, and he was completely piss-faced drunk, off drowning his snit in a bottle of Jameson's. When I finally showed up ta cart his sorry self ta bed, he was sitting next to a pile o' his own sick in the alley."

"Oh, aye, an' it's all me fault, ye fuckin' idiot." When she cleared her throat sharply, he dipped his head. "Sorry. But if me moron brother here hadn't picked that night to act like some squalling babe who'd lost his teddy, I wouldn't be soothin' me temper with whisky."

The kettle whistling sharply gave her a ready excuse to turn and hide her amusement. For two guys that gave off the 'dangerous' vibe like they did, the Irishmen were astoundingly similar to the pack of teens she called family- never happy unless they were poking and instigating at every turn, picking fights for the hell of it. Katie pulled out the old ceramic teapot and filled it with boiling water before moving over to dig the tin of tea out of the pantry. She allowed herself a quick snicker with the pantry door as her cover. Men were nothing but big kids after all.

"So Dhurata fits into this how?" Katie emptied the pot into the sink, quickly measured out the tea leaves into the warmed pot and poured more boiling water in. Hearing the telltale squeak of the floorboards as someone passed the island, she turned just in time to see Connor peer right over her head at the teapot as if he'd seen a ghost. She gave him a light shove to the chest, just enough to tear his attention away from the gaudy pink-flowered pot she'd had her whole life. "Is there a reason you've got my spleen having an intimate meeting with the counter?"

He blinked once, slowly, before backing up a step and giving her a brilliant grin. "Katie Fennessy, yer a good Irish lass!" Connor proclaimed, looking as if he wanted to hug her.

"The name didn't tip you off?" Her voice was dry enough to suck to moisture from a sponge.

He did hug her then, bending down and catching her by surprise. Yes, that was definitely a blade along her right arm. He found himself glad for some reason that she would be armed before allowing strangers in her home. Smart lady. Connor released her and whirled to beam ridiculously at his brother. "Are ye seein' what I am, Murphy m'boy?"

"Tea," he breathed reverently, his eyes shining with hope. "From me mouth to the Lord's ears, real tea!"

Katie looked between them, suddenly wondering if she'd seriously misjudged their intelligence. Both men looked on the verge of dropping to their knees to pray. "As opposed to fake tea?"

Leaning forward in his chair, Murphy buried his face in his hands. "Ye make a proper pot o' tea, Katie. Ye didn't put a bag in a cup and microwave it."

She shuddered. "My grandmother would rise from her grave to haunt me forever if I did. Ugh." She wrinkled her nose.

Moving back to lean against the refrigerator, Connor sighed happily. "And what was the name o' this paragon of Irish womanhood, so I can put her in me prayers tonight?"

"Joan Ogden," she replied, her tongue firmly tucked in her cheek. "From Gloucester."

"English!" They both looked at her in horror, but Murphy pointed rudely and said, "Bloody English bastards. Yer none o' theirs. Yer Irish, ye even look it."

She sent him a glare. What was it about the Irish that if you had an ounce of their blood, they claimed you as their own? She was a mutt and damned proud of it. "I'm American, actually, born and raised."

Murphy swallowed the nasty retort that sprang to his lips when she turned that disapproving little look on him. She wasn't his ma, dammit, and he didn't have to act as if she were. "An' where'd your folk come from, then? Fennessy is as Irish as it gets."

"My father's grandparents came over from Ireland way back, making me third generation American. My mother's mother emigrated after World War Two from England and there you are. A typical American mixed pedigree. The only thing she brought with her besides her clothes was an abnormal fondness for tea that my mother inherited and passed down to me." She stabbed a finger at the teapot. "Now what do you want in your tea?"

Connor gave her an absurdly hopeful look. "Ye don't have cream, do ye? If ye do, I'll get down on one knee and marry ye now."

There was nothing to do but shake her head. "I am so not getting a proposal from some random hoodlum that showed up at my door armed in the middle of the night." Motioning him away from the refrigerator, she burrowed into its depths. "And you're in luck." Her voice came out muffled. "I've half a carton in here from teaching the kids how to make whipped cream. It's not even expired," she added triumphantly, emerging with the cream only to be picked up around the waist and exuberantly kissed on the cheek.

"Yer a saint, Katie."

She shoved the cream at him and moved warily to the pantry. "No kissing me," she warned with a finger pointed at him. "I don't even know you. For all I know, you could be a cold-blooded killer, which makes you very much not my type." Katie whirled to Murphy, who was straddling the chair backwards now, his chin resting on his crossed arms on the back. "I suppose you'll want cream, too?"

The irony of her words weren't lost on either brother. Murphy eyed her lazily, finding her discomfort at Connor's display of joyous gratitude amusing and fitting for her earlier treatment of him. He decided to add to her uneasiness by pasting a sweet smile to his own lips. "Lemon and honey, if ye've got either, but I'll drink the whole pot as is right now if I have ta and be glad for it after. Ye may have ta decide which brother's proposal to accept."

She eyed him beadily. "I liked you better when you were annoying and rude, Murphy. Thankful meekness doesn't sit well on you."

Connor snorted. "Meek, me arse. Murph's the nastiest lump you'll ever meet, and he's a rotten sense o' humor, ta boot."

They grinned at one another as she harrumphed and banged about in the pantry, finally emerging with a bottle of honey and a sugar jar with a plastic lemon container balanced precariously on top. "No fresh lemon, but I have a bottle of lemon juice here that'll do you."

Dumping everything on the table and giving Murphy's foot a not-so accidental stomping on her way for the cups, spoons and teapot, Katie shook her head and stopped cold. This whole scene was absurd. Well, she'd already made the damned tea and gotten their hopes up. Too late to demand they tell her what Dhurata stole so she could see it returned and shove them out the door. She scooped everything onto a tray and brought it back to the table as the brothers leaned forward in their seats with identical faces that would have been more appropriate on men in a strip club. "Oh, now that's just wrong," she murmured and, at the questioning eyebrow she got from Murphy, Katie clarified, "You look like men gathered around a stripper pole, not a teapot."

He gave her a devilish look. "Now how would ye be knowin' what a man's face looks like at a titty bar? Do ye have a secret life as a Candy or Bambi, Katie?"

Katie snatched the cup he was about to add lemon juice to. "Go on then, you can just watch us drink this whole lovely pot of tea all by ourselves."

Connor smiled nastily at his brother and took a sip from his teacup, exaggeratedly rolling his eyes back in his skull as he moaned. "Oh, saints above, that's good. Aye, Murph, you'll be missin' out on a truly wonderful tea." He reached over to pat his brother's shoulder and got a swift punch to the side for his teasing.

"Gimme the tea back," Murphy groaned, looking longingly at the steaming cup in front of Katie.

"Can you keep your mouth shut?" She was being arch, but she found that something about the dark-haired brother annoyed her. She chalked it up to being opposing personalities, but there was nothing wrong with tweaking him just a bit. "Say 'please'."

Murphy looked between the cup and her smug little face, narrowing his eyes as her blue ones danced with merriment. Damn her, she had his back to the wall and she knew it. "Please." His voice could have chipped ice and his eyes promised retribution, but she didn't know him well enough to realize that.

Handing him the cup with a self-satisfied smile, Katie returned her attention to Connor. "Is he always so moody?"

"Ye should see him on a bad day," he said before diving back into the tea and simultaneously avoiding the kick aimed at his shin under the table. "Ye need to stop telegraphin' yer moves, Murph. Saw that kick comin' a mile away."

Draining her cup and reaching for the pot, Katie glanced up, sorting out the scant facts she'd gathered thus far. "So you met Dhurata in a bar and you were drunk. What did she take and do I need to buy her a pregnancy test?" Her voice was perfectly calm, as if she was asking if there'd be snowfall that week.

When Connor spewed the tea in his mouth all over himself and began coughing fitfully, Murphy leaned over and pounded his brother on the back, all the while glaring at Katie. "Christ, woman, ye've the timing of Satan himself."

Winding down to a wheeze, Connor gasped, "An' where would we be doin' what yer implyin' in a bar?" He dragged a hand over his face. "'Twasn't more than a bit o' a snog outside, but I was good an' pissed. Never realized she lifted it off me until I woke up the next morning without it."

Nodding, Katie automatically handed him a napkin to mop up the mess. "And you checked to make sure you didn't just drop whatever you're missing or leave it at home?"

His fingers played with his wooden rosary and Connor closed his eyes for a moment. When he spoke, there was a deep sorrow in his voice. "It was a present from Ma that I never take off, and it wasn't at the bar. I asked there first. She's got it, or she's sold it and knows where I can go ta buy it back." He sighed. "Murph, show the lady what me necklace looks like."

Slowly, Murphy unfastened the top buttons of his shirt and, bypassing a wooden rosary that matched his brother's, lifted out a silver chain. He leaned forward so she could get a good look. "It's the twin o' this."

"A St. Christopher's Medal." Katie wasn't particularly religious anymore, but she recognized the icon from the faith of her youth. "And that's real silver, if I'm not mistaken."

"Aye." Murphy caught a whiff of her perfume as she leaned in close to him to examine the medal. The scent was some sort of pleasant floral, delicate and feminine and the thought occurred to him that it suited her. An odd thought, to be sure, since he barely knew this woman at all. "Me ma had these made from the same piece o' silver for gifts this Christmas past, so they really are two halves o' a whole. There'll only ever be the two, and they came from a goblet me Da's family had handed down as a charm for good luck. She thought with the two o' us, we should each have its protection."

A lump rose in her throat and Katie wondered at the rush of emotion. "That's lovely," she said quietly, running a finger over the medal one last time before sitting back in her seat. "And that means you're twins, then."

They nodded together and Katie stood up. "All right, let's go up there and get your necklace back and-" She folded her arms and sent a burning scowl up at the ceiling. "And I've a mind to let you scare the daylights out of her before I ground her until she's of legal age."

"First, do ye have a toilet I could use?" Connor looked apologetic. "I've a powerful need for one."

Katie nodded towards the refrigerator. "Turn the corner there and it's on the left."

Silence reigned as Connor jumped up from the table and followed her directions. She turned to the other brother, who had propped himself against the island counter with a deceptive ease. He was fishing about in the breast pocket of his workshirt for something.

Murphy tapped a cigarette out of his pack with a practiced gesture and set his lighter to the end just as the filter touched his lips. He watched in amazement as her little freckled face darkened and she flew across the room at him before he could even take a decent puff.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she hissed, literally slapping the cigarette out of his mouth before crushing it beneath her heel on the scarred wooden floor. "Didn't I just tell you a few minutes ago that I had a pregnant girl here?"

She was just a foot away, hands fisted on her hips and head tilted back so she could glare up at him haughtily and he had to struggle not to pick her up and shake her. Or turn her over his knee. Or kiss her silly. He wanted to do all three, for this slip of a woman got beneath his skin and irritated him like a sliver that had been left to fester, and he'd only known her less than an hour. He pitied the poor people living upstairs. "You'd do well to shut yer mouth, woman," he growled, eyes narrowed as he used a sudden burst of temper to bury the strange desire to shut her up by covering her mouth with his own. He'd always been good at hiding one emotion with another. "I forgot ye'd said that, and all ye had to do was be askin' nicely. I'd have put it out without ye slappin' at me like some squawkin' guinea hen."

"Guinea hen?" He was outrageous. A guinea hen, indeed. She'd smack that scowl right off his face and then she'd use that big mouth of his to wipe the floor. Katie felt her blood surge and her temper rise. "I'll give you a slap to whine about, you jack-assed son of a-"

"Sweet Mother above." Connor stood in the door of the bathroom and studied his brother incredulously. "I leave ye alone for two minutes, Murph, an' yer drivin' the poor woman to cursing. Did you not get an ounce of MacManus charm, then?"

Katie colored and took several steps back, because she was afraid that he had gotten a good dose of that so-called charm. She knew the look in a man's eye when he wanted to kiss her, and unless she was very mistaken, that look had drifted through his blue eyes a moment before. And they were blue, she realized with another rush of color blooming on her cheeks. A very unusual and nice blue that would look black in anything less than direct light because of the heavy lids. She took another step back. Or up close. Kissing-distance close let you see the blue irises, too.

Interested now, Connor stuffed his hands in his pockets and surveyed the scene. Katie, who'd shown nothing but an iron backbone since she'd opened the door, was blushing like a virgin in a whorehouse and backpedaling so fast that she'd bump her arse on the table in a moment. Murphy, on the other hand, was trying to glare a hole through the wall as a muscle jumped in his cheek. Well. Very interesting. "Shall we go and pay young Dhurata a visit?" he asked mildly.