It was the "lazy". He knew he'd taken things a bit too far with his caretaker when he'd called her lazy. He'd watched her for two solid days and what he'd found had been anything but laziness, and yet he'd called her lazy anyway. Now she was angry. It didn't take a genius to see that.

Clean the glove, he'd said. And she had. In fact, she'd taken a page out of his own book and made a show of it. That night, when she'd brought him dinner, aside from their two plates, the tray she'd carried in had a third plate on it, upon which she'd laid the glove. It was so clean that it practically sparkled, even in the firelight.

And she was so angry that she practically outshined that firelight.

He snatched it off of its place on her tray and examined it himself all the while feeling the heat of her eyes on him. Over and over and over he'd turned it in his hands, looking for something, a smudge here, dust there, a scratch anywhere! But there were no marks, no smudges, no imperfections at all. He hadn't wanted to ignore someone so bad since he'd lived with Milah. But when she kept his food from him, he found he had no choice but to look at her. Fire blazed in her eyes. How women could master looks that were both cold and hot at the same time was a mystery to him that was greater than how she'd gotten the glove so clean. But when she finally raised her eyebrows and offered a small haughty smirk, he felt something in his belly drop to the floor.

She was angry. There was no doubt about that as she grabbed her own food to sit and eat by the fire and left him to move his own plate. He didn't dare order her to come back and serve him. He knew enough about women to know better than to do that.

He had questions, he had curiosities. He did desperately want to know if she'd tried the thing on, but he didn't ask. He'd been tempted more than a dozen times between then and now to check on her, but he'd followed his own recommendations and curbed that particular desire. If he really didn't care about what she did or what she thought, then he had to start acting like it. The first step in that was to stop watching her and get back to the real task at hand. If he needed her, or needed someone to wear the Gauntlet, he'd know right where to find her. That was also why, tempting as it was to see her smile, he didn't pay attention to her reaction when he left a fresh stack of paper, a couple of jars of ink, and a few quills in her library the next morning.

She didn't deserve them, not after she'd practically thrown his plate at him that morning, but when he recalled the shine of the Gauntlet and how he'd called her lazy, he'd been compelled to do that one, last, little thing for her. Perhaps it would improve her mood; his plates couldn't continue to take the abuse if it didn't work.

Fortunately, it seemed to work. When he sat down that afternoon for tea, she seemed her normal self, though that meant she was neither angry nor pleasant. She set his saucer and teacup on the table lightly and poured him his tea as a proper lady should without a hint of malice in her actions or even her demeanor; no nasty smirks, no glares, no raised eyebrows. He could have wept with relief at that. Gods, she frustrated him. Probably just as much as he frustrated her. In some ways, he felt like it was only fair. She was the first person he'd met in a long time that refused to come quaking and shaking before him or serve him as a dark and frightening being. Instead, he almost felt merely human again when she was around, and that made him feel…he didn't know what to call the feeling. It was far more exciting than normal, and yet it wasn't quite powerful. It was just…he didn't know.

"So…" she sighed as she handed over his tea gently. "I've figured out why you collect so many magical objects, like the Gauntlet from Camelot…"

He was grateful that the cup hadn't quite made it to his mouth yet, for surely he would have spit his tea out at her assertion. He was amused again. Whatever deep psychological conclusions she'd come to were sure to be wrong but entertaining. Unfortunately, he'd promised himself he'd stop looking to her for entertainment, so he tried not to show it. Instead, he dramatically set his tea back on the table and rolled his eyes at her.

"I really need to find you more tasks…" he muttered before glancing up at her and preparing himself for whatever she might need to say.

"You have a hole in your heart," she commented as if she was commenting on a bird with a broken wing or a snail who had lost his shell.

A hole in his heart? He didn't know what she expected him to say to that. Did she think he was going to confess that she was right, that he missed his son more than anything and it was in his absence he'd become who he was now? Or was he to joke with her about some sort of mysterious physical ailment that literally put a hole in his heart?

"No…in my stomach! Because while you so ably made me tea, you forgot all about the tea cakes!" he shouted instead. He snapped his fingers and a plate of tea cakes stacked one on top of the other appeared there. Figures, he hadn't watched her, but every other week, on this day, she'd brought him teacakes and so he'd taken a guess and summoned them from the kitchen. There they were. She hadn't quite forgotten them, she'd just forgotten to bring them up. Lucky for her. "Must I do everything?"

He prayed she'd take his cue to pretend she'd never said what she'd said. He hoped that instead she might just pour herself a cup of tea, take a cake, and go sit in his chair by the fire quietly reading her book like she always did. What he wouldn't do to go back to just before he'd given her that dress and things had been simpler. When she'd been down and out because a curtain had been too dusty for her to handle. He wanted her to leave well enough alone, but he knew who he was dealing with. They'd been living together now for long enough that he wasn't surprised when she didn't take her tea or cakes and go sit down like a good little girl might. When she had something to say, there was just no getting out of it.

"You're a lonely man," she insisted as he tried to ignore her by taking a cake. The problem was that she was difficult to drown out. "But the fact is no matter how many things you acquire, that's all they'll ever be…things! And…an awful way to fill a heart."

Well then, she'd only got part of it right. She didn't know as much as she thought she did. A hole in his heart he would admit to, he missed his son in a way that any parent would miss their child. But his artifacts didn't fill Bae's departure, they didn't make him feel better or replace his son. They were merely the tools to getting back the most important person in his life. He wasn't about to forget that. And he wasn't about to let her go about making her assumptions incorrectly. If his options were that she could be angry with him or questioning his every move, he would prefer her to be angry.

"There is only one thing missing in my life right now…clean clothes!" With another snap of his fingers, he summoned every item of cloth he could think of, every shirt, every sheet, every towel, every linen, and piled them up on top of the table before her.

"But…I…" she stepped forward and examined the pile, shaking her head in disbelief. "I-I scrubbed these just yesterday!"

"Well, scrub them again, dearie!" he insisted. There was a difference between being beautifully bold and proudly annoying, it was a thin, thin line, but she was coming to cross it. After Robin he was committed to keeping her here with him until he could figure out the plans the Seer had for her, he could handle being kind to her, giving her a library to make her smile, and clothes to make sure she was kept modest, though her cleavage might say otherwise at the moment. But he'd be damned if he was going to allow her to walk all over him as she was. He was the master, she was the servant. She had to learn her place.

"You're getting too big for your britches! You should remember your place…cleaning mine!" He took a cake and sat back proudly as he watched her shift back from curious to angry and felt pride swell. There. He'd pushed her over the edge again. It was a job well done.

"Maybe the next time you want to insult the person making your food, you should-"

Before she could finish, he snapped his fingers again and sent her and the laundry out back to where she did the laundry.

And there was that temptation again, the urge to get up, to go to his cauldron, to watch her and see how she'd react…

He fought it back.

He paid her too much attention as it was, allowed her too many privileges. She had a tendency to make him so angry he could shake. Maybe it would do her some good to be so angry with him that she shook too. If they returned to the quiet angry tension they'd had before he'd tried to smooth things over with paper and quill, then at least he'd have peace and quiet in his home.


So, it's small, but this chapter, as well as the last, really work to enable the next chapter. How so? Because up until this moment it's quite clear he's been watching her. But in this episode, it's also clear that he's no longer watching her, because if he was then he wouldn't be so surprised to find she's missing and have not a clue who took her. Nimue's comment a few chapters ago serves it's purpose in that it forces him to say "I don't care about her, look I can stop watching any time I want!" Of course, that has some pretty poor consequences for our next chapters.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Grace5231973 and Jennifer Baratta for your continued support and reviews throughout this fiction. They are wonderful, wonderful encouragement to keep going. I hope that you'll continue to read and enjoy, because there are some really yummy Rumbelle chapters in our future! Peace and Happy Reading!