George, Nina, and Annie gather in the kitchen for breakfast the next morning, Annie setting mugs of tea in front of George and Nina.
"Nina," George says hesitatingly, "there's something Annie and I need to tell you."
"Oh God," Nina says. "You two haven't invited another zombie to stay, have you? I still haven't gotten the sheets clean from the last one."
"No, no," George says. "But we did invite someone to stay last night."
"What?" Nina screeches, infuriated that Annie and George decided this without consulting her. "Who? It's not another vampire, is it?"
"No, it's a ghost," Annie adds helpfully. "I think she's rather lovely, except for the fact she's tried to kill us before."
Nina is dumbfounded for a moment. "Who, exactly, did you two invite to stay?"
"Lucy," Annie says, going back to the stove to start cooking eggs.
"Lucy?" Nina screeches at a pitch her and George would be able to hear while transformed. "But she tried to kill us, and then she led Kemp to us so he could attempt to kill us again! I can't believe you two went ahead and decided to let her stay without consulting me!"
"You were asleep," Annie says helpfully, putting a pot of spaghetti-Os on to cook after checking on the eggs, "and your sleep is more important than whether we let a person sleep here. You're fourteen weeks along, but looking more like twenty-eight. You need to rest and make sure the baby is safe. George and I can take care of ourselves."
"Oh, you can, can you?" Nina asks sarcastically. "Then why was Mitchell around?"
"Mitchell was around because he was a friend, and acted like a father towards our protection. All he wanted was to make sure we were safe, but we had saved him as well, when he got himself into scrapes. Besides, when Lucy first knocked, I went and got George, so we were safer."
"Good to know you kept your heads," Nina says with a sneer.
"We did," Annie says, "and it's not like when the boys first met me and came at me with an umbrella and a cricket bat. We were more sophisticated than that."
"Hey!" George protests. "For all we knew, you could have been an axe murderer who had snuck into our house, ready to kill us in our beds!"
"Instead I was a lovely ghost who makes you tea, even when it's that weird chamomile, herbal...thing," Annie retorts.
"Yes, and I thank you for that," George says with affection. "Anyway, we just wanted you to know so you weren't completely surprised when she finally comes downstairs," he says, addressing Nina now.
"You did that at least," Nina admits, grudgingly. "Which room did you put her in, dare I ask?"
"Sasha's old room," Annie says. "It's sort of becoming the 'where do we put the supernaturals we take in' room."
"Right," George says. "Because the attic's out because that's where Herrick stayed, Mitchell's room is out because it was Mitchell's. Thank God this was a B&B, actually. If we keep taking people in, we would have needed more beds a long time ago."
"Right. So, what is her purpose for being here? I mean, she's almost had us killed twice, why not go for a third time?" Nina asks derisively.
"She claims she needs a place to stay, so drunks won't puke in front of her, and that she has things to do, that she needs to be here for. She didn't disclose what those things are, though," George says. "Can't blame her for wanting to get away from the drunks though. Some of the things that come out of their stomachs, disgusting," George shudders.
"Oh, like you've never gotten completely pissed with Mitchell and come home smelling like piss and beer," Annie says sharply. "I seem to remember one time when Mitchell brought you home and you were going on about how all the fluffy pink cats were going to eat you 'cuz they just knew you were a werewolf. We could barely get you up the stairs before you were sick all over the floor."
Nina's lips curve up in a smirk as George has the grace to look ashamed.
"Well," he mutters, staring into his tea and playing with the tag on the tea bag, "that was only the one time, and I still maintain that I was slipped a Mickey. Mitchell has been worse for getting pissed."
"Very true," Annie agrees, while rolling her eyes at George's assertations. "He's had times where he was pissed once a week for months. Not completely sure why, though."
"I think he said it took the edge off," George says.
"The edge off? From what? He had nothing to have the edge taken off from, did he?" Annie asks.
"Blood, I think. Every so often he would get the itch to take a drink really bad. He claimed getting pissed made him forget about blood and yearning for it," George replies.
"Ah, makes sense," Annie nods. "It must have been hard for him to resist what he was for every minute of every day."
~BH~BH~BH~BH~BH~
Lucy stands in the middle of the bedroom, taking it in, again. She is mildly surprised at how ... normal the entire house seems. If you weren't aware of the true natures of the inhabitants, it would seem like any house with any couple just starting out their life together, living with a couple of roommates. Except none of the inhabitants are normal, being two werewolves, a vampire, and a ghost. Of course, it had been like that in Bristol as well, with very few mentions of their other lives. It was almost as if, for all practical purposes, Annie, Mitchell, George, and Nina considered themselves normal, twenty-something humans, although they could never be.
Deciding she should probably head down to breakfast, Lucy leaves the bedroom, and goes down the hall to the room Annie said she would be in if Lucy needed her. Peeking into the messy room, with retro movie posters and general disaster, Lucy doesn't find Annie and surmises she is probably in the kitchen already. She heads slowly down the stairs and goes through the house to the kitchen, still in wonder at the normality of everything. Stopping outside the kitchen door, she listens for a few moments as Annie and George discuss George and Mitchell being pissed and finally pushes open the door.
"Good morning, everyone," Lucy says as she walks through the door to sit down at the table. "I hope everyone slept well."
"Yes, we did, thank you," Nina says. "I hope you had a good night off the streets with the drunks?"
"Yes, I did. Very refreshing," Lucy says. "So what is everyone up to today?"
"Well, George and I are going to work, and Annie is going to stay here, and clean, I think. Or she may go for a ramble. You're welcome to join her if you like," Nina says.
Annie looks up from the pan of bacon she is now frying. "Oh, yes, please come along for a walk. It gets boring sometimes when there's no one else in the house. Would you like some tea?"
"Um, yes, thank you," Lucy says. "Is Mitchell here?"
"No, he's gone," George says, exchanging glances with Nina and Annie which go unnoticed by Lucy.
"Oh, well, I'll speak to him when he gets back," Lucy says.
"Right," Annie says dubiously. "Well, here's your tea," she says, walking it over to the table.
"Thanks," Lucy says, accepting it. "So what are you making for breakfast?"
"Eggs, bacon, toast and spaghetti-Os, and, of course, tea," Annie says, going to toast bread.
"Sounds lovely," Lucy says. "Pity I can't eat any of it. Does anyone else cook breakfast?"
"Well, George does when it's a weekend, Nina when it's a weekday, and I'll do it whenever they don't feel like cooking," Annie says.
"What about Mitchell, does he ever cook?" Lucy asks.
"God no, he's as likely to burn something as to make it taste good," George says.
"Ah," Lucy says, understanding. "So no going near the kitchen for him, hmmm?"
"Not particularly, although he does the washing up if Annie or I get after him," George says. "He's even put on Marigolds when he's said he doesn't do them."
"Now if only we could have had him continue to the next step: cleaning the bathroom or hoovering," Annie adds. "Well, here we are," she says, and goes on to place heaping plates of eggs, bacon, and spaghetti-Os on toast in front of George and Nina. "Enjoy."
"Cheers, Annie," George says, and digs in.
"So who was in the room I'm staying in previously?" Lucy asks. "I'm only saying because there's a faint odor of rotting flesh in the air."
"Really? I thought we'd gotten the smell out. I guess we're going to have to spray air freshener in there again," Annie says. "A girl named Sasha stayed there before you."
"So, if she was a girl, why is there the smell of rotting flesh?" Lucy asks.
"She was a zombie," Annie says. "I was out for a walk one night and she spotted me and followed me home. Gave me a fright, too."
"Scared Mitchell and I as well when we opened the door and she hissed at us," George says. "I had gotten up to go pee and got sucked into doing a load of other things as well."
"Really? Like what?" Annie asks, curious.
"When I was trying to go pee the first time, Mitchell barged in asking me to talk. So we talked about his love life and then you popped in and were freaking out about a drunk dead woman following you, so then we had to deal with that. Then Sasha hissed at us, freaking us all out, even though we're supposed to be the scary ones. Then we decided to let her in, and figure out what to do with her. You and Mitchell went off to the hospital, I went pee, and then went back to bed, sleeping on your floor because Nina had thrown me out of our room," George explains, coming to the end of his ramble.
Lucy focuses on one thing. "How did a zombie come into existence? In the year of study at the facility, we never discovered one."
"Oh, it was our fault really," Annie says. "When Mitchell went through the door to save me, we think it put the Door out of commission for a bit, so people couldn't go through. They were stuck here, just with a dead body instead of being a ghost. There were more of them, but they were experimented on until they were incinerated. It was our duty to Sasha to take her in."
"So how did she die ... again?" Lucy's eyebrows furrow as she tries to make sense of it.
"We think that whatever that was keeping her from going couldn't handle the stress of decay anymore, and it was just a matter of time before she died," Nina says.
"Ah," Lucy says, understanding.
"Well, I'm done. Thank you, Annie, for breakfast, it was lovely," Nina says, getting up. "George and I have to go to work now. See you later, yeah?"
"Yeah," Annie says, going to clear George and Nina's plates.
"Have fun today, but be careful," George says to Annie as he gets his coat to leave.
"Aren't I always? You two have fun at work, too. Bye!" Annie waves as George and Nina leave.
A/N: Big thank you to Laffers18 who has been reading this over making sure the characters are correct and has been helping me bounce ideas.
Sorry I've left you hanging. I was wanting to get the next chapter written before I posted this one, but I've hit a bit of a block, so rather than leave you stranded, I'll post this one before finishing the next.
Thank you to all who have reviewed so far, I really appreciate it.
Happy belated Canada Day to all my fellow Canadians out there. :D
Also, I'm starting to "hear" and "get" Lucy now, so her characterization should, hopefully, get better, but let me know if there's still something off.
I have Twitter, so if you'd like to follow me, I'm Book_Junkie007. My current profile pic is of a pin which reads, "Reading is sexy".
