I do not own Boondock Saints.


When they got to the apartment, Grace immediately began working on sleeping arrangements. She pulled out the sofa bed and made it up. The apartment was simple. It was basically one big room and a little bathroom to the side.

"Alright, you boys will sleep on the sofa bed, Rocco on that bed over there," she said, pointing to her own."

"Why am I on that little one?" asked Rocco.

She raised an eyebrow. "Because I assumed you'd want to sleep by yourself. But which one of the boys do you want to share with?" she asked.

Rocco was not amused. "I'll take the little one."

Murphy clapped him on the back. "Consider yourself lucky, Roc. Connor snores."

"I do not!" Connor cried, indignant.

"Where does the dog sleep?" Rocco asked.

"Where ever he wants," she replied pointing to it. "Be prepared to wake up to his face. That door leads to the bathroom. Leave the seat up, and you'll wish you were dead."

"So we're all sleeping in the same room, then?" Murphy asked, looking around.

Grace raised an eyebrow. "Got a problem with that?"

"I'm fine if you are," he said.

Audrey was busing herself in the kitchen, fixing some food. Grace had no idea what she was doing, but she trusted Audrey in the kitchen. Whatever came out of there would be good. Rochester butted his head against his owner's leg. She smiled, gave him something. "Here you go boy."

"You spoil him, silly," Grace said, scanning the ingredients. "Beef?"

"Smells good," said Connor. She looked up to see the three men standing around the room.

"Meat pies in the oven. Here are the rules," Audrey said. Grace grinned, knowing what came next. "Whoever doesn't cook does the dishes. It'll go a lot faster if one of you washes, one of you dries, and one of you puts them away." She pushed past them and sat at the counter, reading one of her books.

"Wh- But we've got a job to do!" Murphy protested.

"In four hours. The food will be done in about twenty minutes. That's plenty of time for you to eat then do the dishes."

"We have to get ready!" said Connor.

"Then the dishes will be here when you get back." She smiled sweetly at them. Grace watched from a distance, smothering her giggles.

"There is no way you're getting out of this one, boys. Not if you want to eat that," said Grace, nodding her head in the direction of the oven. "If you start now, you'll be done with most of that before the food is done. I'll put the stuff away, because I know where it goes. Pay attention."

The boys grumbled. Audrey kept reading her book, but Grace could see she was grinning. "Come on boys," she said, piling the dishes in the sink. "Rocco, you wash. Connor, you rinse. Murphy, you dry. Let's go." She clapped her hands.

Grumbling, the boys all walked over to the little sink and started doing their jobs. Grace joined them, standing next to Murphy, waiting for him to hand her a dish.

Rocco was filling the sink with water when Audrey's hand shot between him and Connor and under the faucet. "No good. It has to be hot water. Nearly scalding." She looked at Connor. "Same for rinsing."

Then she backed out and caught Grace's eye, glancing between her and Murphy, then raising her eyebrows. Grace blushed and frowned at her friend. Sometimes Audrey was just too smart for her own good. She had this annoying tendency to ignore her own love life and pay attention to Grace's. "Shut up," she said in Greek, taking the dish Murphy handed her.

Audrey only laughed, going back to reading her book.

"What did you say?" Murphy asked, whispering to her.

"Nothing," she said, putting the dish away. "It's nothing."

"So what was she laughing at?" Murphy asked. Grace realized that they were really close. Well, she knew they'd be close, because she'd set this up for that very reason, but… she hadn't expected her heart to beat so fast.

Grace grinned at him. "She likes making fun of me. It's fair though. I like making fun of her, too."

Murphy smirked a little and handed her another dish. "You-"

The oven's timer went off. "Hello," Audrey said, putting her book down. "That's convenient."

"So convenient," Grace muttered, rolling her eyes. Audrey was pulling some really tasty looking pastries out of the oven. "What did you say this was again?"

"Meat pies. Something I could bake without requiring much stove work," Audrey said, setting the cookie sheet of pies of the table. "There's five of us and thirteen of them so it's not coming out even."

Rocco frowned. "You girls get two, we get three. What's so hard about that?"

"Are you kidding me?" Grace asked. "Why do the boys get three? I haven't eaten all day!"

"What kind of sexist are you?" Audrey asked.

"No, it's just that-" Rocco stuttered.

"Just that what? Are you saying we're fat?" Grace's eyes got wide, and she pretended to cry. "He just called me fat!"

"Did you just call her fat?" Audrey growled, picking up a steak knife and jabbing it in his general direction.

"I-" Rocco stuttered, caught between the knife and the tears. "I- uh- I didn't"

Audrey dropped the knife and started laughing. Grace looked up. "Audrey!"

"I'm s-sorry," she said, in between giggles, "did you see his face? He really looked scared!"

The boys burst out laughing. "That was-" Connor said.

"You guys were just fucking with me?" asked Rocco. He stood up. "You know, I'm sick of always being the butt of the joke!"

Grace laughed. "You're not," she said giggling, "always. We play jokes on each other all the time," she pointed between herself and Audrey. "And when you make it so easy…"

"We just can't resist," Audrey finished. "You're the Funny Man. Don't you ever do anything like that?"

Grace frowned. Funny Man? What was that about? Rocco was frowning too. "How did you know I was the Funny Man?"

Audrey shrugged. "I'm not sure. I can't remember who told me the ginkgo is the oldest tree in existence either. When you're quiet, you hear lots of stuff, and I worked at a church clinic. Good mixture of people come around there."

"So… do you know what that means?" Rocco asked.

"Not at all," Audrey said, stabbing a pie with her fork and dumping it on her plate. "You guys going to eat?"

They were all looking at each other, but Grace shrugged and started eating too. Then everybody else started eating. It was a kind of tense silence that Audrey acted oblivious to. But Grace knew something was up. She'd been the one to teach Audrey to lie convincingly. Why was she lying now?