Sixty hours later, Magnus could have said the exact number of minutes… and the exact number of times he'd found himself hearing and/or talking about cows, the Lightwood-Bane family was in a newly acquired SUV and leaving New York City for rural upstate. It'd been a long two and a half days. Extremely long, if Magnus had describe it, and now the stage was set for three days of farm life.

Being a connoisseur of classic, retro sitcoms, Magnus was expecting to feel a little like Oliver Wendell Douglas in Green Acres.

The Douglases didn't have kids, though, so he hoped that change in the equation would work in his favor.

"It could be worse," Alec said quietly as Magnus drove, not wanting to disrupt the boys as they watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on the portable DVD players.

"I'm not complaining about anything, Alexander," he said, magicking some trendier sunglasses onto his face. "Not unless we end up owning cows, in which case, you can find yourself a nice merman to settle down with because that's how life will be."

Alec thought that it was more like Magnus would end up giving in somehow, but he couldn't say just how so he kept quiet. "Luke and Jocelyn are there now and said they'll stay long enough to introduce us to the neighbor, but then we can have the place to ourselves if we want."

"You told them that wasn't necessary?"

"I did. I figure the boys will badger them into staying anyway." He knew he spoke the absolute truth. His sons had loved Robert and they adored Maryse. Somehow, and he wasn't sure Magnus could explain it either, Rafael and Max had adopted Luke and Jocelyn as their sort of surrogate grandparents. Neither Alec nor Magnus minded and neither Luke nor Jocelyn seemed to mind at all. In fact, they seemed to adore the boys as any good grandparent would, to the point that Isabelle had hinted that Maryse was, sometimes and always carefully, jealous.

Nobody screamed in the enclosed space of the car until they arrived at Luke's farm, then the screams were ones of happiness when the boys realized they'd arrived. And then a brief but passionate shouting match and scuffle ensued over who Poppy Luke would get out of the car first.

Ever the fair surrogate grandfather, Luke settled the disagreement by unbuckling Max from his seat while Rafe got himself out. He told them both to stay in the car, then stand beside each other at the door. And he lifted them out at the same time.

Trying to put them down on the packed dirt driveway was another story, since neither one of them let go of either his neck or his hips, which they'd wrapped their legs around.

"I'd apologize or, you know, try to pry them off," Magnus said to Luke in greeting, "but you seem to be enjoying this rather a lot."

"Don't you dare try to pry them off," Luke chuckled, carrying the boys toward the house.

Magnus grabbed Alec by the shoulder, causing him to drop the bag he was getting out of the car but not caring about it. "Look how much he likes them, and they like him, Alec," he said, pitching his voice just low enough that Luke and the boys couldn't hear him. "I wonder if we couldn't finally get that weekend away together."

"Maybe," he agreed, being vague because he had his secrets to keep for now. "This weekend we're focused on cows, though. In case you forgot."

He gave a weary sigh and grabbed a couple bags. "I promise that I did not forgot."

They'd expected their sons to be eager to run directly off to meet the neighbor and his cows but they were already sitting at the kitchen table with pieces of apple pie in front of them. "Can they have ice cream with their pie?" Jocelyn asked. "They said they ate their lunch so they could have dessert. I should have verified that with you, I realize now."

"They did eat their lunch," Alec said, "even the vegetables so pie and ice cream is fine."

As Magnus and Alec carried their things, and more toys than a child should really need for three days in the countryside, to the bedrooms where they would stay, they heard the boys detailing just how they planned to buy cows. They dawdled putting the stuff away, setting up the camp beds the boys liked to sleep on, and only returned to the kitchen when they thought their absence might be noted by someone.

Luke immediately gestured for them to follow him out onto the side porch while the boys helped Jocelyn wash the dishes they'd used.

"How do I make them do that at home?" Magnus said, watching the very strange sight as he went outside.

"No idea," Luke chuckled, "but that's not why I pulled you out here."

"By the Angel, don't tell me you've agreed to buy them cows," Alec groaned.

"I love them, but I'm not that much of a pushover. No, not that. When I asked Hawking if the boys could see his animals, I didn't realize his farm is actually for sale so…"

Magnus closed his eyes. "You think they're going to want to buy a farm."

"I think you should know that they might get that idea in their heads."

They thanked him for the warning and stayed outside while Max and Rafe finished helping in the kitchen. Magnus looked at Alec, and saw him staring into the distance. He knew what it meant, that look of longing in Alec's depthless blue eyes. And he realized he was okay with it. "Let's look at the place first, alright?" he said softly, reaching out to twist their fingers together.

Blinking in some surprise, he focused on Magnus. "What?"

"Let's see the Hawking farm, see the damn cows… pretend we don't already know that we're going to buy the farm."

"We are?" He wanted to, wanted to have some place Max would play and be himself without being glamoured. He hadn't expected Magnus to be on board before he even asked.

"Aren't we?" he said, turning the question back.

"You'd live somewhere so… rural?"

Magnus chuckled at his word choice and nodded. "I'd live in a yurt on the plains of Outer Mongolia if it made you happy," he said with an even balance of dramatic honesty. "Besides, I said once that you're my first many things and, well, I haven't lived on a farm since I was a boy and I've never owned so…"

"Papa! Daddy!" The boys burst through the screen door so close together they were almost running as one. "Time to go!"

So they went.

The boys ran ahead of the adults, picking wildflowers along the path and presenting them to Jocelyn with all the shyness of two little boys who adored their grandmother. They were, tentatively, starting to call her Moppy Joce, because Max seemed unable, or unwilling, to say Jocelyn.

"Huh."

"Deep thoughts," Magnus said in response to Alec's noise.

"Oh, shut up," he muttered with a dramatic roll of his eyes. "I was just thinking…"

"Do you need to sit down and rest?"

Luke coughed to cover a laugh as Alec punched him in the arm, obviously careful to do if fast enough that the kids didn't see it.

"I was just thinking," Alec repeated, making like Magnus hadn't spoken, "that since the boys have my mom… it's almost like Luke and Jocelyn are your surrogate parents. Which is good since, you know, your father is a Prince of Hell."

"What?! Is he really?!" Magnus stuck his tongue out at Alec and turned to Luke. "I'm not calling you dad, even if you aren't a Prince of Hell."

"Please don't change that," Luke chuckled, pretending, not very well, to be offended by the idea. "We have grandkids and I was never desperate for a son. No offense."

Magnus took none and the matter was dropped because they arrived at the fence, really more of a gate on a semi-worn path that could have been walked around as easily as it was gone through. They went through the gate, because it seemed polite, and walked along the path as it led from a stream up a sloping lawn to a rambling old farmhouse. Rafael and Max got suddenly shy and grabbed hands, holding onto each other as they each held onto a father who was not the same as them.

"Mr. Hawking, ma'am," Luke said to the elderly couple at the bottom of the steps. "These are the friends I was telling you about, Alec and Magnus, Max and Rafael. Guys, this is Mr. and Mrs. Hawking."

"Or Linda and Bert, as we keep telling him to call us," the man said as he crouched to the kids' level. "I hear you two want to meet some cows?"

"Buy some d'em cows," Max corrected him.

Bert exchanged a look with Luke. "Well, sir, I'm afraid my cows aren't for sale."

"None of d'em?" he asked, sounding more than a little brokenhearted. "How many you got?"

"Almost three."

"Almost?" Alec blurted out, unable to stop himself before either kid said it. "I'm sorry, but how do you have almost three cows?"

Linda made what Magnus thought could best be described as a Proud Mama noise. "Clara's expecting," she explained.

"'Pecting what?" Rafe asked.

"A baby cow," Alec replied, his voice colored with the weary knowledge that they'd soon be buying a pregnant cow, probably.

"Can we see? Please?"

Bert and Linda said they could and the odd little group made their way from the farmhouse to a barn painted the faded red that seemed to signify a farm that was loved just enough to keep going. It hadn't been converted into a guest house or a home office. The barn was a barn, with Clara in a stall beside Cow #2 who was named Belle. There were three chickens and a rooster, a barn cat that Linda thought might be pregnant too, two Shetland ponies - a black one named Cinder and brown one named Cinnamon, and space for more.

"You said they had cows," Magnus said to Luke through the corner of his mouth, "not an entire working farm."

Luke ignored him.

Clara and Belle were all well and good, in the eyes of the boys who came wanting to buy cows, but it was the ponies that seemed sized just for them that really caught their eyes. Max literally fell over in excitement when offered a ride on the little horses.

And Alec knew then that it was going to be the start of something good, even if he was starting to feel a little overwhelmed by what they might be getting into. It'd be fine, he was sure.