Thank you to Samantha Winchester for her continued support as I struggle through the prompts from hell with these Ways (lol) and for the continued editing she makes time to do for me!

Way 41

"Take only half the clothes that you planned to take with you on holiday."

Penelope stared at her bed, brow furrowed in a way that would most certainly bring on premature wrinkles. She bit her lip as her closest confidante whistled long and low from the doorway of her bedroom.

He whispered his way into her private sanctuary, only the faintest scuffing of his workboot-clad feet against the Oriental rug telling of the movement. She felt his presence there solid, true, more dependable than the rising of the morning sun.

A rising which had happened more than an hour ago, when they were supposed to have already been on their way.

But instead of being seated comfortably in the back of FAB One with a cigarette holder in one delicately-gloved hand, the Lady of Creighton-Ward Manor, most elegant of socialites and deadliest of spies, had spent that hour in great consternation over the piles of pink luggage custom made for her by Francois Lemaire, that were strewn across her bed in a most haphazard fashion.

Usually, when she was preparing for a trip to her Australian sheep ranch Bonga Bonga, packing for the journey and the stay were activities she barely had to spare a thought for. This was something she could do in her sleep. No matter the type of trip she was preparing to undertake, Lady Penelope always knew instinctively which suitcase or bag, which items of clothing, which disguises, wigs, shoes, boots and jewelry would be required.

For some reason that she had not yet determined, however, this particular job of preparing for a much-anticipated holiday had become nothing less than a confounding problem that even she, with all her smarts, was at a loss to solve.

After all, there was no telling, this time, what type of apparel would be required. Most certainly she would need all her jeans and working shirts, for as elegant a woman as she was, Penny also insisted upon working hands-on with her sheep and helping with the various duties normally conducted by her many ranch hands. Therefore, the two suitcases carrying those articles of clothing and boots were required, as were the three hat cases that went with them.

Then there were the four garment bags jam-packed with lovely gowns, half of which she had yet to wear. She'd barely been able to zip each of them closed. Another suitcase carrying all the shoes which matched each outfit went with that lot, and six accompanying hat cases as well. One never knew when one would be invited to participate in local events requiring the finest of dresses, nor what the color schemes involved might be. And Penny was nothing if not always prepared for any eventuality.

Three more suitcases contained all manner of what she dubbed casual attire, never mind that the least expensive item among them was a rather body-hugging pair of diamond-studded blue jeans. Those outfits all had multiple possibilities for hats, shoes or boots, and thus required four extra suitcases to hold all the potential combinations.

There was the single smaller suitcase of a decent portion of her jewelry collection, of course, for one never knew what any occasion may call for where the appropriate adornment of ears, neck, wrists and fingers was concerned.

And the final suitcase, the top of which was leaning against the headboard of the large bed in which she had slept peacefully the night before, was the one she knew had drawn her friend and butler's gaze from the doorway. She smiled as she turned to look at Parker, hiding the widening grin behind a demure hand when she saw that yes, indeed, he was staring at the contents of that suitcase quite openly.

Well, she had to admit that what she'd placed inside of that one was a departure from the norm where her visits to Bonga Bonga were concerned. After all, the sheep had never cared to observe her in revealing lingerie to date, and so she'd never before taken with her anything but her most standard of underthings, lacy and sexy though they might have been in their own right.

Yet this visit was going to be different. This time, it wouldn't simply be her and Parker on holiday there alone. This time, they were going to have a guest. And unlike previous visits, this time Jeff Tracy was not only coming of his own free will, but he was coming specifically to spend three weeks with her.

As in, with her.

Their long-term friendship had recently blossomed when, during a routine visit to Tracy Island, Penelope had found herself on one of the island's tranquil beaches being very thoroughly kissed by the head of International Rescue. To her credit, she'd initiated the first one. To his, he'd taken over as soon as his brain had caught up with her advances.

She felt a bit of heat rise from her neck to her cheeks and knew they must be flushed pink from the way Parker glanced knowingly at her.

Yes, this trip was most definitely going to be different, because she fully believed that it would see her and Jeff consummating an eight-year-long dance around what had been there between them from the beginning.

Parker cleared his throat. Penelope attempted to divert her thoughts from the extremely naughty road they'd been heading down.

"H'if I may, Milady?"

Not trusting her voice, Penelope simply nodded for him to continue.

Parker walked alongside the bed, stopped at the head of it, reached out and closed the lingerie suitcase. He snapped the latches down with such finality that the sound seemed to echo in her head as she watched what he was doing. Then he grabbed the handle of the suitcase, lifted it from its berth and turned to face her.

"H'if you'll h'excuse the h'observance, h'I don't believe 'er Ladyship will require h'anything more."

With that, he exited her room, suitcase in hand.

Though at first Penelope protested and insisted he attempt to bring the rest of the luggage – most of which neither of them had been able to close to begin with – by the time her first week with Jeff at Bonga Bonga had passed, Penny had to admit Parker had been absolutely correct in his assessment of what she would and wouldn't need.

And if what she and Jeff had been doing for the entire week was any indication, he wholeheartedly agreed.

Way 42

"Help your children with their homework every night, and have an open dialogue with their teachers."

Not everything could be learned from books.

Jeff had discovered that fact during his youth, when faced with life and death on the farm as he rose before dawn to help his father with tending to animals and crops, and worked well into the night after his homework was finished to ensure fences were intact, wheat was harvested and barns were mucked out.

He was further convinced that book learning wasn't all it was cracked up to be when he joined the Air Force. Nothing he'd learned from textbooks and lectures could have prepared him for the rigors of training. And no amount of hours sitting in a classroom learning about the cockpit of a fighter jet taught you as much as actually piloting it.

The same was true of his forays into space. No matter how many tales he asked his instructors to tell of their experiences on rockets and in Zero G, nothing really prepared an astronaut for the actual experience of being in space.

The thing he remembered most from all the learning experiences he'd had, where there'd been books before there'd been him applying what he'd learned firsthand, was that in each and every case, his instructors had told him as much.

His father and mother had laid great importance upon his school education, but had laid equal importance on him learning the ropes of farming. Hands-on was the only real way to learn how to live life, they had drilled into his head.

While it had been of the utmost importance to learn what each button, gauge and instrument in a jet's cockpit was, the hours he'd put in flying with his father, who was a damn good pilot in his own right, had prepared him more for his first solo flight in an Air Force jet, than all the hours he and his fellow aspiring pilots had spent in the Air Force's flight training classrooms.

And the actual blast-off to space, which included flying the rocket once it was out there, numerous space walks and both landing on and taking off from the Moon, had taught Jeff way more than he'd learned in any training school or NASA simulator.

Books were the foundation. But the teachers...they were the real gems. Whether they'd been his father, his physics professor, his flight instructor or the veteran astronauts he'd trained under at NASA, it'd been their anecdotes, their insistence upon telling him what it was really like no matter what the books said, that had made the most difference in Jeff Tracy's life.

So while he and Lucille stressed the importance of a formal education to their children, and did all they could to help the boys with their homework...a practice Jeff tried to continue in earnest after her death...he also taught each and every one of them everything he'd learned from the people in his life, and from his own experiences, with equal fervor.

He'd kept in touch with their teachers throughout their elementary, junior high and high school years to be sure they were doing well in their studies and address any problems which arose. He took calls at all hours of the day and night, when away from home, whenever the boys hit something in their studies that they needed help with.

Scott consulted him often during his early years in the Air Force.

Virgil talked engineering problems over with him during his years at the Denver institute of Advanced Technology.

John spent long hours talking various aspects of space travel over with his father during his years at Jeff's astronaut training school.

Gordon talked over everything with him from girls to his desire to be aquanaut rather than an astronaut, to his ideas for using the oceans of Earth to provide for men and women who might try deep space exploration or colonization of other planets.

Alan spent many hours talking of his desire to follow directly in his father's footsteps, finding out from his father exactly what it was like to be out in the vastness of space and wholeheartedly throwing himself into that world.

And so everything Grant and Ruth had taught their son...everything that teachers, instructors and friends had taught him...and everything he himself had learned over his lifetime, Jeff passed along to each and every one of his sons.

Now, as a man nearly to the age of one hundred, Jeff could only smile as he sat back to observe his sons with their own children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Over the years he'd watched each generation help the youngsters of the next with their homework. He'd listened as they'd handed down things Jeff had taught his sons when they were children.

He reflected upon the fact that his very own family was proof that no human experience is ever lost when a person dies. Rather, it is carried on through the generations, through schools and instructors, through parents and grandparents and children. All that his boys had learned, all that he and others had taught them, enabled them and those who came after them, to save the lives of other people who had themselves taught things to others, been taught, and would be able to continue to teach thanks to living rather than dying.

Jeff knew that when his time came to pass along to whatever lay beyond this life, his experiences and knowledge and legacy would continue living through Scott, Virgil, John, Gordon, Alan and their spouses, their children, their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren. Their friends, associates, those with whom they had working relationships. Through everything each and every one of them did day in and day out.

He could only feel pride. Pride in his parents. Pride in his own life. Pride in the lives of his sons. Pride in his grandchildren and in his great-grandchildren. International Rescue, his billion-dollar corporations and the entire planet would be okay after he was gone, so long as people never stopped learning, sharing, teaching and evolving.

In the end, as important as he still felt schooling was, Jeff's family confirmed his belief that Life was the greatest teacher of all.