Daphne fidgeted, adjusting her seat, opening the tray in front of her, closing it again, fumbled with the seat buckle and then twisting around in her seat.

"Sweetheart, please." Niles tried to placate her, sitting next to her after he had finished stowing the bags in the overhead compartment. "Calm down. I'm sure things won't be that bad."

"Won't be that bad?" Daphne repeated, fixing her husband with an incredulous gaze. "You've seen my family. Think of my mother's most hideous moments, my father's most loutish behaviour, factor in all my brothers, including the four you haven't met, now imagine the genetic minefield covering an entire room!"

Niles suppressed a shudder, shooting a nervous glance over at Frasier for support, but his brother was busy interrogating a stewardess about the serving conditions for the on-flight wine. He gave Daphne a reassuring smile.

"Look, it's going to be alright." He put his arm around her, planting a kiss on her forehead. "Frasier and I will both be with you, and besides that we'll be in the middle of London. There will be plenty of opportunities to lose ourselves in a crowd should the opportunity arrive."

"I suppose." Daphne smiled apologetically, somewhat calmed. "Thank you for agreeing to come to this with me. I know my family aren't exactly your kind of people..."

"Hey. We're married now; we are each other's people. I wouldn't dream of leaving you to go to England for two weeks on your own." They kissed. "And besides, Frasier heard we were going to London and he just had to come. I hope, after all that speech he gave us on the way here, he can actually find a Royal Shakespeare Company production..." Niles trailed off, as the stewardess took her position at the front of the plane and began demonstrating safety proceedings. Daphne tried to settle herself, but she was still nervous.

This was to be a family gathering of epic proportions. Both her maternal and paternal relatives, not to mention siblings, spouses, aunts, uncles and cousins that had previously (and perhaps for the greater good,) scattered themselves across the globe were not to be gathered in one hotel ballroom for Grammy Moon's ninetieth birthday. Daphne had considered this was somewhat counter-productive, celebrating that the woman had lived so long by putting her in the best situation to provide a heart attack. But then, perhaps her mother was that desperate to get at the old woman's pension fund.

No, that was a horrible thing to think. Horrible, but not necessarily unlikely. Daphne shook her head, and focused on the safety instructions. She was being silly. This was her family, the people who, although misguided at times, loved her no matter what. Niles was there, and so was Frasier. How bad could it honestly be?

The 8am flight from Seattle coincided nicely, thanks to the time zones, with a sleepy, grotty little bookshop in Bloomsbury stirring into life, a good few hours behind everyone else. A short, hairy man in a Hawaiian shirt casually waved a duster at the towering piles of old hardbacks, and flicked through the mail, selecting all the ominous final notices and filing them in the time-honoured fashion (i.e. in the wastepaper bin). He found a cream coloured envelope, with a familiar name written in calligraphic scrawl. Puzzled and curious that such a nice envelope should be addressed to such a dingy hovel, he dropped it on his employer's desk.

"Bernard?" He walked into the kitchen, calling up the stairs. "Bernard!"

"G-Jjaah!" Bernard Black shot up from his place beneath the kitchen table, his wild black hair somehow even messier than usual, and his bleary eyes suggestive of the immense hangover that was brewing in his cranium. "Manny, why am I on the floor?"

"I don't know... how much did you drink last night?"

"No more than usual." Bernard crawled out and stumbled to his feet. He then stumbled some more. "Well... maybe a little. But I had lots of water. In that big... glass bottle... in the fridge..." Manny gazed at him, piteously. Bernard continued. "The one with the red lid... and... and the label... the label that said..." Bernard suddenly clutched the chair in front of him, and pressed a hand to his forehead. "And that was vodka, wasn't it?"

"Bernard, you have gone through three bottles of wine and one bottle of vodka. On your own."

"Well of course." Bernard snapped, stumbling through the curtain separating the kitchen from the shop. "Of course I drank them on my own. You weren't bloody there, were you? Hmm?" He gazed at Manny, somewhere between scorn and betrayal. "You were off on your... your date." He spat, rummaging in his coat pockets for a packet of cigarettes. "With Rowena the clinically mad."

"She's not mad, Bernard."
"She finds you attractive." Bernard countered, without tearing his gaze from his cigarette as he lit it and felt the slight relief of nicotine. "And Fran wasn't here. She was at the library doing her damn family tree. Geneaology. Phah. What good has finding out about family ever done... any... Manny what's this?" Bernard was distracted by the pretty envelope, out of place on his desk.

"It came in the post." Manny shrugged, flipping the sign on the shop door from "Closed" to "Closed". Bernard frowned at his name, staring back at him in curling black ink, before flipping the envelope over and ripping it open. An ornate, printed card fell onto his desk. Bernard picked it up. He read it. He screamed. Manny jumped in shock, and fell face-first on the floor, knocking down an avalanche of books. Bernard was aware the noise should have destroyed his dehydrated synapses, but he was too much in a state of catatonic shock to be conscious of such piddling things as hangovers. This was much more devastating.