"No… NO!" A scrabbling of heavy boots against dry ground.
"C'mon, Meat, we don't have time for this. Just grab the bloody stuff, we need to get put of here before the pigs turn up."
A shriek, and the sound of sirens.
Footsteps.
Silence.
Out of the many things Khashoggi could deal with, shock was most definitely not one of them. As his previous position had required him to come across situations which would have repelled the average GaGa, he had needed to steel himself against many feelings. Someone in a profession which contained (but wasn't limited to) cruelty, violence, and some occasional torture (both mental and physical) needed to be carefully managed, to make sure that they could stay relatively sane.
Accordingly, Khashoggi had spent a long time honing his ability to remain composed in strange and unpleasant circumstances. However, these skills seemed not to work in particular situations. It seemed that one of these was the event of a small child appearing in his office. And this meant that he had absolutely no idea what to do about it. A desperate glance around the office brought no inspiration, and so he looked properly at the child for the first time.
He stared at the young girl, almost unable to comprehend the fact that she was stood right in front of him. Only the strange snuffling noises she was making were making him certain that she truly was there, and wasn't just a hallucination brought on by the weirdness of living with the people he used to despise. After several seconds of incomprehensible staring, it occurred to him to check what the snuffling noises actually were.
Unsure as to how to go about figuring this out, he awkwardly knelt down, to be at eye level with the small child, who regarded him with huge, uncertain eyes. Khashoggi, for the first time in his life, was in a situation in which he was completely at a loss for what to do. Having never been in close contact with a child, he did what seemed reasonable to him, and patted her slightly awkwardly on the top of her head.
"Hello." He managed.
The child blinked.
"What's your name?"
Blink.
He frowned. "Do you know where you are?" The child frowned back at him, her bottom lip trembling slightly. Then she snuffled again, and a tear trickled miserably down her cheek. If Khashoggi had been apprehensive before, it was nothing to how he felt now.
Many attempts at conversation with the child had proven fruitless. She had answered a few of his questions, which initially seemed a hopeful start, but he quickly became exasperated. She couldn't tell him where exactly she was from, ("Ma house,") how old she was, ("M'small.") or when her birthday was ("Presents?"). At a guess, he would have said she was three – although this was of next to no help, since this gave him no clue as to how he was to resolve the problem, or what one actually did to care for a three year old in the meantime.
For God's sake, what was he meant to do?
Khashoggi, at an utter loss for the first time in his life, sat in his chair, and buried his head in his hands. Surely, the best thing to do would be to just calmly work through his day to day tasks, until his head had cleared somewhat.
He sat back in his chair, and let his eyes glaze over slightly. There was, for the foreseeable future, a small girl in his office. A girl he did not know how to change back to her future self. A child he might have to take on the responsibility of. He glanced through his hands, and swore.
A child who was, at that precise moment, stabbing away at a hundred-year-old laptop. With quicker reflexes than he knew he had, Khashoggi swiftly moved across the room, and snatched the laptop from her grasp, giving her a frown for good measure.
He eyes widened, and her hands stretched out for it. He winced, as he recognised the earlier signs… and sure enough, she started to wail. Looking around for something – anything – to pacify the howling child, his eyes paused on Scaramouche's desk.
What happened next caused him to realise just how much his brain was actually trying to cope with at the time – too much.
Scaramouche was off ill, and at home. She was also (although a mature one for her age), a teenager. Therefore, she was probably asleep. The general code of conduct when preparing to wake Scaramouche in a normal state of affairs was to perform the action with care, almost silence, and the promise of hot coffee, and expensive chocolates.
If she was ill, then the action should be completely abandoned, for fear of possible violence, should her glare fail her.
And all of this reasoning paled in insignificance when the fact existed that he had, somehow, produced an unexplained toddler.
Within seconds, a plan had been formulated. The girl – well, Meat, he realised he might as well admit it had to be her – was sitting contentedly on the floor, drawing ( and emitting the occasional pointed sniffle, which he was trying to ignore) with a pack of highlighter pens and a stack of printer paper, while he sat watching her. Holding a phone tightly to his ear, he prayed desperately for his collague to be in a vaguely hospitable mood. Since this was about as likely as divine intervention, he prayed for both.
Blessedly, she answered after several rings.
"What."
"I need your help." Bluntness was the only way, he had decided. "Seriously. Please come down."
"You taking the piss? I've got flu."
"So bring some Lemsip." There was a 'humph', and a slight rustle. Her voice came back, clearer than before.
"Bollocks, I hardly ever take time off, and now I'm genuinely ill, and you're making me come in?"
He pressed a hand to his forehead, and sighed. "I'll give you the next week off. Just, please, come in."
There was a pause. "This isn't for work, is it?"
He looked at the child, and drew his hand across his eyes. "Not exactly. Look, I'll tell you everything when you come in."
"Be there in half an hour, stick the bloody kettle on."
Thank God. He let his head fall forward onto the desk.
The sound of the door slamming brought him out of his reverie, and he looked up to see an (angry) Scaramouche in front of him. One hand was on her hip, and the other clutched a mug of coffee he vaguely remembered leaving next to the door.
"This better be bloody good." She said, shortly. In answer, he opened one eye, and nodded towards the child, who was sat on the floor behind her. His eyes were closed again before the coffee hit the floor.
The minute or two it took them to clean the floor and pick up the shards of porcelain painstakingly avoided the obvious. When they both stood, the child had slumped down on the floor, and appeared to be asleep.
Scaramouche and opened her mouth. He expected incredulity, or (more likely) a furious rant about what, exactly, he had managed to do to Meat Loaf. Her next words were neither.
"… Well, someone's been busy."
