Title: I'd be Delighted

Author: Syberin5 or tsarcasm

Author's Notes: This story is part of the Black Swan Cycle (in the Block of Wood 'Verse) which started out as a single story, pit stopped around a trilogy, and blossomed from there to become an AU starting in and around 10/23/2009. While canon for Luke and Noah, I may be messing with things that happened outside their storylines as I didn't watch it [grovels in gratitude at the feet of LukeVanFan]. {WARNING: This story UMBRELLAS!} As such many things seen and unseen become involved. Most of them will do nothing to enhance your enjoyment of the story—like knowing that three or four years prior to the start of action in this story some of the characters waltzed through a GH story I wrote or that in six or seven years after this action ends some of the characters in this story will waltz through a QaF story I'm writing—some of them might. Like the prologuey prequel Tortuga. The titles and many of the references come from an old Tyrone Power and Maureen O'Hara movie called The Black Swan which has significance only in my very troubled mind. This is a Work In Progress I have over 60,000 words written but not edited. It is near completion and is, in my opinion, safe to start for it will be finished.

Chapter One

But I meant what I said about not wanting this to be about my long forgotten—shudder—birth.

"Oh, ho ho. I know where this is going darlings and absolutely not." Lucinda waved around her reading glasses.

Luke rolled his eyes and looked at his mother, her face brighter than usual, if pretty dim for the woman who raised him. The message was still clear: they were a united front. For now.

"Mother, you can't just let this pass you by. It's a huge milestone and we would all like to celebrate it with you."

"Ha. No. If you think I'm going to publicly acknowledge the year I was born you're insane. I love you," she patted Lily's cheeks, "but you will have totally gone round the bend. No. Absolutely not. I have nothing else to say on the matter." She turned her back on them and plopped down in her desk chair.

"Mother…"

"I said no, Lily. This year will be just like every other year. We will celebrate Christmas and the birth of someone," she chortled shortly, "who is older than me. Now scoot. Both of you," Lucinda slid on her glasses, "I have work to do." She tried to be enraptured in the stock projections in front of her but she could feel Luke and Lily fighting something out silently.

Luke looked at his mother, imploring her to just go. Let him try and reason with the old bat on his own. They had always been able to deal best with each other on a blunt level. But Lily wanted to stay, wanted to make Lucinda see that all she had been through in her life was worth celebrating, honoring. Especially after the last year.

It wasn't easy for her to give in to the other two strong wills in the room and she had to practically drag herself out the door, Throwing one last pleading glance at Luke, who tried to look confidently reassuring, she left, closing the door behind her.

"Grandmother."

"Grandson," her tone was mocking, flat, and holding that vague seriousness his had been.

"What if I said that I think you should do this for totally different reasons?"

"I don't intend to make a standing bull's-eye of myself, sorry darling."

"But it's not about you. I mean yeah, Mom has a point you've been through so much, you should be proud of everything you've accomplished in your lifetime—so far," he added at her over-the-glasses glare. "But if it wouldn't be a celebration to you then you shouldn't do it."

"Thank you for your permission." She went back to her paperwork and Luke sighed.

"But she's not asking for you. She asking for her." He paused for the snarky comment Lucinda had waiting in the wings. When she let him continue he took it as a sign she was listening. "She's been through so much with the kidnapping, and Damian and Dad and the dead thing. She's lost all the things she can count on, besides you and me." He made the face he used on her when he was a child and wanted ice cream and cookies. "There's only so much she can do with the foundation and I'm worried. What if she turns to the pills?"

Lucinda took off her glasses, rested her chin on her bent wrist. "You think I haven't realized all that? Luke, baby, I have known her longer and better than you all your life." She sighed and groaned all at once. Her family would be the death of her. "You, my love, are getting too smart and too good at this kind of thing for comfort, you know."

Luke just smiled at her as she leaned back in her large chair. Lucida had every intention of caving.

"We'll do it I just didn't want to give in too easily, you understand. Then she'd think it was pity and get all moopy and sullen and you would see what she was like when she was 15. But I meant what I said about not wanting this to be about my long forgotten—shudder—birth."

"Well then what is the party supposed to be for?"

"Let's make that your job. You come up with something feasible and you can tell your mother you've convinced me. And put some arbitrary stipulations on it that she can argue with me about for the next few weeks. Like all of Worldwide's board has to be there or some outrageous thing."

Lucinda was in her reading glasses and professional demeanor again when Luke wrapped his arms around he shoulders and kissed her cheek. "You always were a special kind of awesome, Grandmother."

"Awesome? Is that on a comeback again? Is tubular too?" He laughed as she pat his hand. "You were always a special kind of awesome too, kid. Right from the moment your parents brought you into this world."

Part of Luke winced. His parents who had been there the day he was born, whose marriage, whose love seemed to finally be over.

He wanted to say something to show just how much her loved her, them, how much he was hurting for the whole family over this situation. Instead he took a page from Noah's book and kissed Lucinda again before leaving.

He was already formulating a perfect reason for Lucinda to agree to a large and lavish party.

"But when was the company actually formed, Luke?" Noah asked, bringing much needed logic to the table. "Wouldn't something like that be written down where most of the board members and shareholders could easily find it?"

Noah watched Luke's face scrunch in the way that made his heart squeeze just a little from the geeky adorability. "Yeah, I guess."

"How about how long Lucinda's been running it?"

"No good," Luke said taking Noah's hand around their dinner plates.

"I thought this had been her company for… a really long time."

It has. But she hasn't run it consistently. There have been hostile takeovers and abdications and blackmailings and God-knows-what-all up the wazoo. My Dad was even an executive there for a while."

"Holden?"

"Yeah, can you imagine? He wore a suit." Noah's face and eyes went wide. "Yeah, everyday."

"Holden? Your father Holden?"

Luke laughed. "I always thought he looked so dashing in his work suits." He scrunched his nose again and smiled. "Maybe that should have been a clue."

They laughed, bodies moving towards each other as if the table wasn't there.

Moments passed with them just lost in each other's eyes.

"So… what are you going to tell your mother?"

"That we should make the party the celebration of Worldwide Industries 54th fiscal year?"

"Which started in November."

"Well that's almost as close as it is to Lucinda's birthday which was Mom's plan so …"

"Yeah and that plan didn't have holes?"

"I'm out of ideas Noah." He rubbed a desperate thumb over Noah's knuckles.

"Well," Noah said, watching Luke's skin run over his own, feeling it in the back of his neck and other places. "Why don't we…" his eyes snapped to Luke's and a grin he couldn't help spread across his face, "sleep on it. Tonight."

Luke's own face split open and he sighed a laugh. "I like the way you think, Mayer." He used the hand he still held as a lead to pull Noah all the way in for a kiss. Lucinda, Lily, and all the Snyder relations were quickly forgotten.