DISCLAIMER

I don't own The Jungle Book or its characters, this is a fanfiction without any economical aim. It's just for fun. This is an AU fiction, and ALL the characters will be humans beings. This fic will be mostrly Bagheera/Baloo, with some hint of Bagheera/Shere Khan, Shere Khan/Kaa and mentioned Raksha/Akela.

I want to apologize for my bad english; it's not my firs language, but my country's and my language's fandom is really poor, so I decided to write my fanfic in english. I'm really sorry for my possible mistakes.

Hope you enjoy.

"Thank you for have taken care of Mowgli, Bagheera. I really appreciate it." Raksha smiled, while observing the kid calmly sleeping in his bed, covered by new cotton sheets. "I had to take Gray to school, it was his first day, you know, and Akela is still in India..." The man in front of her smiled back, making her silent with a little movement of his left hand. "Don't worry, Raksha. If I can help, I do it with plasure."

With his hazel eyes he looked at the sweet face of the woman. She was still beautiful for her fourty-five years; she had really gorgeous blonde hair, long, a bit curly, and such deep eyes, dark, like a night-sky. But, Bagheera thought, her sweet expression was absoulutely stunning; it was impossible not to love her halfmoon shaped lips, and her cheeks always a bit red, in contrast with her alabaster skin. She just had the faces of a mother. And she actually was; she had five children with her housband, Akela, three boys and two girls; the "cubs", that's how their parents called them, even if the oldest one was, like, seventeen. The youngest child was Grey, an adorable six-years boy so full of curiosity, always happy, and so in love with life; for him, everything was a miracle, something incredible and wonderful. He was so exited about school! He was just too happy to handle the situation; all the day before he went actually crazy: he wanted to learn, and he would have done that until he was a man. How naïve; probably he would discover that school isn't always that exciting.

But, as said before, Raksha was a mother. She was born to be one, and "just" five children weren't enough. She wanted to do something, she had this wish since her adolescence. She wanted to adopt a child. In India, were she was born, there were so many little boys and girls hoping for a family, and Raksha wanted to help. She convinced Akela -how could he possibly say no to his wife's eyes?- and then Mowgli arrived. He was just two when he was adopted, he was an year older than Grey. At the beginning, the other children -except Grey, he was too young to understand- weren't so happy; they were afraid, afraid of loosing their parents attention. But Mowgli was such an incredible creature, really intelligent, and impossible not to love. He became part of the family in so little time.

"Thank you, Bagheera. You really are a friend." She smiled again, caressing her little boy's hair. "Has still got the fever?" Raksha asked, visibly worried.

"No, don't worry. I misured it before. Come on, just look at him, he is sleeping like an angel!" Bagheera said in a little laugh, watching his little friend. He had always find Mowgli really nice, and vice-versa; the came along pretty well, even if the boy was more rebel with him than with his parents, and it was probably normal. But there was just one person that Mowgli totally adored, and that person was Baloo. Baloo was a childhood friend of Bagheera, that had been living with him for five years, more or less; he had hard problems finding a stable job and well-paid job, but for Bagheera wasn't such a big deal. His salary was high enough for both of them, and also Baloo earned some money as a worker in a shop. Not very much, but it was still something. Bagheera was convinced that, if Baloo was so loved by Mowgli, he could have been a wonderful teacher in a kindergarden or in an elementary school; the only problem was that there, in London, institutes preferred women for that particular job. And, we have to say, Baloo never tried that much in that possible job, so he was still working in that little market, near Bagheera's house.

"I hope you didn't have problems at work, today..."

"Don't worry, dear Raksha. For just one day there won't be troubles. Baloo wanted to join me, but he can't affort another layoff." Bagheera worked in a company, and he was a hard-worker; he was always at work, in his office, even when he was really sick, taking some aspirines to feel better, so nobody would had said anything if he staid home just once in a while.

"By the way, how is Akela? Will he come back soon?"

"Yes, in three days. He wanted to see his father, he had an accident and he broke a leg."

"Damn, that's bad."

"I know; Akela was furious. I mean, he was worried, of course, but it's, like, months that he says to him to stay home and relax... but he wants to work, he can't accept the fact that he is getting older and older."

"Who actually does?" Replayed Bagheera in a little laugh, making Raksha smile widely.

"Well, you're right. Oh God, I'm keeping you here forever... it's already five p.m.! You can go."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, thank you. Goodbye Bagheera."

Bagheera was driving back home. He was a little tired, he ad to admit that; sometimes it was hard to stay with a young boy, mostly if he was sick. Mowgli had been having a fever for three days, and he was so nervous about that. He really didn't like staying in a bed for so long, and he passed all the day complaining. Now the hazel-eyes man just wanted to lay on the sofa, watching a movie. With Baloo, maybe, if he wasn't so tired. Yes, it was a great idea. Suddenly, his phone rang. Who could it be? Raksha? Akela? Baloo? Bagheera pressed the botton on his earphones, starting to speak.

"Hello? Bagheera's speaking".

"Oh, Bagheera, it's a pleasure to hear your voice."

Oh, God. It was him. Bagheera recognised immediately that malicious and ironic voice, with an accent so British that was impossible to tell that the man on the other side of the phone came from India just like him, Baloo, Raksha and Akela.

"Khan, what do you want?" Bagheera didn't really like his collegue, Shere Khan. From the first time he saw him, he felt something wrong about him. Maybe because of is grin, he couldn't really tell.

"You are always so hard with me. And not in the sense that I'd like to be..."

Oh, yes, there was also that little, not so little, problem. Khan just loved to tease him in that embarassing way, and Bagheera just couldn't stand it.

"I really don't want to know about your wet dreams, Khan."

"That's really a shame" the other man replayed, theatrally sad, "tonight I dreamt about you in such a way that... oh, I wanted to tell you today at work, but you were absent."

Bagheera knew that Khan was laughing, in that moment. The dark haired man actually didn't know if he really had those dreams, but he couldn't care less.

"Well, I'm almost home now, and I don't want to talk about your perverted mind. If you have to talk about work, fine, otherwise I'll hang up."

"I think you should hang up. I don't want to talk about work."

"You made me loose time."

"Oh, I'm so sorry."

Bagheera knew it wasn't true. He pressed the button again, putting an end to that pointless conversation, without even say "goodbye".