Disclaimer: As always I own nothing but the original characters and the situations all characters end up in. Everything else belongs to someone else, and that's the way of it.
Talk, Talk, Talk
It seemed to be Harry's day for unexpected visitors, as he'd no sooner gotten rid of Merlin than there came another knocking at his door. This certainly did not bode well for him getting his work done on time, Harry mused as he called out for whoever it was to enter. But hopefully whoever it was just needed a quick word with him and then he could get back to the most unrelenting foe he'd ever faced. Paperwork.
His assistant stepped into the doorway, her tone regretful as she apologized for interrupting him. His housekeeper had dropped by and was hoping to speak with him for a few minutes. Mrs. Talbot was willing to book an appointment if now was too inconvenient.
Given that he could count the number of times Mrs. Talbot had ever 'dropped in' on him on one hand, with fingers to spare, Harry told Margot to send her right in. And hoped that whatever had brought her by wasn't going to be bad news, pipe dream that it was. She wouldn't be coming by if it wasn't serious enough to warrant face to face.
Rising to his feet when the woman in question appeared in his doorway, Harry welcomed her into his office.
He always thought that Mrs. Talbot kept herself looking just like the rooms she cleaned. Neat and in perfect order. She was in her late fifties, her hair iron grey and he'd never seen her wearing makeup in all the years he'd known her. She wasn't the type to care about such things. What you saw was what you got with Mrs. Talbot, which was one of the reasons Harry had always liked her. You always knew where you stood with her.
"I apologize for interrupting your day, Mr. Hart. This won't take long as all."
Harry motioned to the chairs situated in front of his desk. "It's no problem at all. Please take a seat and tell me what I can do for you."
"Thank you. Taking a seat Mrs. Talbot sat ramrod straight, her hands neatly folded in her lap as her hawkish eyes held his gaze. "I need to speak with you about my hours."
"Your hours?" He had been worried about how the arrival of Daisy and Eggsy would add to her workload. Eggsy had assured him that he was more than capable of cleaning up after himself and Daisy, and the house was always in excellent condition whenever he came home.
"They need to be cut back. Significantly."
"Cut back? May I ask why?" Harry wasn't entirely sure what was going on here.
"The boy. He does my job for me. Many times I come in and there's not even an hour's worth of work for me to do, Mr. Hart. Never in my life have I met such tidy and neat children. Even the girl picks up after herself without being told." Mrs. Talbot shook her head like she still couldn't believe it. "The only places he doesn't keep in order are your bedroom and study. And if you told him he was allowed to attend to those rooms he'd keep them spick and span for you as well."
"Oh." Well that was excellent. "He's really doing that much?"
"Have you learned not to leave half-drunk cups of tea all over the house and not to drop crumbs on the furniture and floor?"
Ah. He did have the bad habit of doing that. He'd lost count of how many times he'd reached for a cup automatically only to discover that what was inside had been sitting for a rather long time and had stopped being palatable quite a while ago. And she had commented more than once about him getting crumbs in and around his couch when he was watching something on the telly. Eating alone at his dining table had rarely appealed so in the past he'd usually eaten elsewhere. Which Mrs. Talbot had never appreciated.
"I see. Well…once a week then, instead?"
"That's fine. Though if you're willing to allow the boy to deal with your dry cleaning, laundry, and tidy up your rooms during the week once every two weeks for a thorough extra cleaning would most likely suffice. What he doesn't know how to do he asks or shadows me." Her approval of Eggsy came through loud and clear, which was quite the thing since Mrs. Talbot was not the sort to praise lightly.
Impressed with Eggsy, as well as appreciating her honesty about her services not being needed as frequently as before, Harry stated that he'd prefer the stick with once a week for now. He wanted Eggsy's primary focus to be on Daisy after all, and adding to the boy's workload when he didn't have to was something he'd prefer to avoid.
"As you like." Mrs. Talbot got to her feet in one smooth motion, her hand coming up for him to shake. "You lucked out with that boy, Mr. Hart. I very much approve of what I've seen from him thus far. He's a hard worker, that one, and excellent with the girl."
Taking her hand Harry shook it firmly. "Thank you, Mrs. Talbot. I value your opinion."
Inclining her head in acknowledgement Mrs. Talbot thanked him again for seeing her and wished him a productive day.
Showing her out as good manners dictated, Harry was only momentarily surprised to find Addison speaking to his assistant when he stepped outside his door. He had sent an email asking the other man to make an appointment to see him sometime during the day.
Better to get all his interruptions done and out of the way, Harry decided as he said goodbye to Mrs. Talbot and then walked over to his assistant's desk, wherein he was informed that she'd just booked Addison in for ten thirty if that suited him.
"Actually I only need you for a couple minutes if you have time now, Bors."
"Fine."
Sharing a knowing look with his assistant Harry smiled and then motioned for Addison to head into his office head of him.
And true to form the door hadn't quite closed behind him before Addison was demanding to know what he wanted as he had things to blow up in his workroom.
For the sake of his sanity, not to mention his plausible deniability later, Harry didn't ask about the impending explosions. Or the likely damages that would result from them. Instead he got straight to the point for both their sakes.
"Do you have plans for this coming Sunday?"
Harry was a little shocked when the man looked visibly pleased to be asked, though when Bors asked him if he had a mission for him Harry made the leap to assume either the man had family plans he wanted to avoid or just didn't want to stay home feeling sorry for himself.
"Your presence will be required here at some point so that you can be presented with a cake and a birthday card. Daisy spent hours working on it yesterday and I won't have her disappointed."
Addison's mouth opened and closed like a landed fish.
"The picture inside the card is supposed to be of you and Tally playing in the park by the way. It's not…readily apparent that that's what it's meant to depict, but she worked very hard on it for you and I expect you to be polite and thank her for it. And eat at least one slice of the cake Eggsy is prepared to make for you as he's insisted you must have one. He was thinking of strawberry shortcake if that's agreeable to you. He's willing to make something else though as I have no idea what sort of cake you enjoy."
"You can't be serious."
Lips twitching over Bors's expression and blurted out words Harry assured him that he was quite serious.
"Why on earth would the child make ME a card?"
"She likes you."
That seemed to flabbergast Addison even more than learning he was getting a homemade card and cake.
"Does tea time suit you for Sunday? I will be extending the invitation to the other agents and your handlers should they be available to attend. Otherwise Merlin will eat everything and then heaven help us all. But I shan't make you stay more than half an hour, all right?"
A man in a daze, Addison nodded his head.
"Excellent. I'll send out the email and inform Eggsy. You can go then."
Nodding again the older man headed for the door, pausing there with his hand on the doorknob.
"Hart."
"Yes?"
"If anyone but the child sings me happy birthday I'll shoot them as soon as someone gets her out of the room."
"I'll make that clear."
"Good. Strawberry shortcake is fine."
Harry waited a minute, until he could be sure Addison was far enough away not to hear, before he broke out into laughter, muffling the sound with his arms as he laid his head on the desk.
)
Once he got ahold of himself Harry sent out a text to Eggsy confirm Bors's cooperation before sending out a mass email to the relevant people informing them of the impromptu tea party for Addison's birthday. For all their sakes he added that there was to be no singing and as always Bors would be given the customary bottle of whiskey and a meal at the restaurant of his choice on Kingsman's tab. They had until the middle of the week to RSVP so that Eggsy would know how many he was feeding.
No surprise that Merlin was the first to respond.
By lunchtime Merlin, Lancelot, Kay and one of Bors handlers had stated their intention to attend. Percival was going to try and rearrange his plans as he wanted to meet Harry's boy and try his cake. Not a bad turnout if that was all that could come. Especially since over half the agents were out of the country at the moment.
By two Percival had messaged that he could make it while Bors's two other handlers had sent their regrets, which Harry translated to mean that they had to deal with Addison enough without voluntarily spending time with the man. The one that had agreed to come was the only one Addison remotely behaved for. And it was shortly after Harry had received a regretful decline from Tristian that a familiar, and not at all welcome sound filled the air.
The Twilight Zone intro.
Pulling his cellphone out of his pocket Harry took a deep breath for strength and then accepted the call.
"Hello, Mother."
"Harry, Darling. It's been far too long."
"It has. What can I do for you?"
"Really, Harry. You don't need to say it that way, like the only reason I ever call you is because I need you to do something for me."
Making a sound that was up for interpretation, because they both knew that his mother rarely called him without a reason related to her, Harry sat back in his chair and asked her where she was.
"Australia, Darling. It's absolutely lovely this time of year. You really should visit. Plenty of butterflies for you to chase if you must. Though your time really would be better served on the beach. So many handsome young men out there to choose from."
Knowing that tone of voice well, it warned of motherly matchmaking and manipulations, Harry made sure to use his firmest voice as he reminded her that they'd had a very serious talk about what would happen if she attempted to force him into another blind date from hell. And he'd meant what he'd said about calling up certain people and telling them certain things about the past his mother would prefer remained unknown.
"Blackmailing your own mother. Aren't you ashamed?"
"Not in the slightest. Now I love you, very much in fact, but I do need to get back to work if my love life is all you want to discuss."
"As it happens that isn't why I'm calling. In fact, I called the house first thinking to leave you a message there so as not to interrupt my very important son while he was working."
Oh shit.
"A very interesting sounding young man picked up the phone though, and while he was willing to take down a message for you I decided I should call you to congratulate you. After all you've never been serious enough about any man to ask him to move in with you. It's about time, really. And I would have thought as your mother you'd have given me a heads up about it, but I'm sure it just slipped your mind."
"The way it slipped you mind to introduce me to Stefan before you married him?"
Silence.
"And speaking of phone calls, Mother, did you receive the ones from a social worker here in London?"
"A social worker? Why on earth would one of those contact me?"
"Because one of your grandchildren required a new legal guardian."
"One of my…Harry, please tell me you aren't going senile already. You are my only child as you well know and you have about as much interest in women as I have in shaving my head and tattooing something vulgar there. And if you were to have a child you would certainly-oh for heavens sakes. Are you talking about the offspring of one of your step siblings? They don't count, Dear. I didn't go through hours of labor to bring them into the world."
"You had a C section, Mother."
"It was still very trying."
"So you've always said. And yes, I was referring to the offspring of one of your former stepchildren. Dean's, to be exact."
"Dean?" It took her a few moments. "Oh, him. Pity he lived long enough to breed. I hope the child doesn't take after him."
"Thankfully, no. And she is now living with me, along with her much older half-brother who is acting as her nanny as he's too young to raise her on his own. His name is Eggsy."
"The boy who answered the phone."
"Exactly."
"And they're both how old?"
"Eggsy is twenty two and Daisy is three."
"Darling…what do you know about being a parent to a toddler?"
"More every day." Was his honest response. "And as Eggsy is now also a part of our family I'd appreciate you treating him as such whenever you speak to him." Especially since the way people kept assuming he and Eggsy were a couple was seriously demoralizing. As in tempting him to tell his morals to fuck off.
"Well if course I will. I'll send them both something lovely from Australia. Should I send her a koala bear? A stuffed one of course. The real ones are rather vicious actually. Did you know?"
"As it happens I did."
"Well it was all very sad, when I found out. I thought they were such cuddly and cute creatures." A loud sigh of remembered disappointment. "So you aren't seeing someone right now?"
"No, Mother."
"At this point I suppose I should say I'll never be a grandmother if you keep this up, but now you've gone and informed me that I have two of them. And I'm far too young to have a grandson in his twenties!"
Actually she wasn't, obviously, but Harry wisely opted not to point that out. "Just think of him as family. He and I don't have that sort of relationship." Thank God. "Nor I and Daisy for that matter. She calls me Uncle Harry and Eggsy simply refers to me by my first name."
"Fair enough. Though I still can't believe you've gone and adopted a child. Or that the social worker would give you one for that matter. There was no one else to take her?"
"Just you or I."
"I see. Well you'll be sure to send me pictures of the both of them, yes? I can't buy things for people I've never seen after all. They'll think I have no taste if it doesn't suit them."
"I'll send you pictures of Daisy as soon as I get off the phone with you." He was going to hold off on sending her pictures of Eggsy until it was unavoidable or she'd met him in person.
"Good, good. I can't wait to see them. And I was thinking-oh, hold on a moment please, Darling."
"Of course."
He didn't have long to wait before she was back on the line, apologizing for cutting their talk short but she really had to get going if she was going to make it on time to the opera.
"It's no problem. It was lovely to hear from you." And since he didn't want to give her a reason to call him again any time soon... "But before you go, perhaps you could tell me what it is that drove you to call me originally."
"Oh, yes. Of course. The shock of your young man AND learning I have a grandchild has left me quite out of sorts." A pause for emphasis. "I called earlier because I need you to make an appearance at your Aunt Celeste's charity event two weeks from now. I promised her you'd make an appearance."
"Didn't we have a talk about you volunteering me for things without asking?"
"I'm your mother. And this is for family."
"I'll call Aunt Celeste and get the details from her." That way they'd be accurate. "If nothing comes up I'll try to make an appearance. If not I'll be sure to send her a cheque."
"There's to be a polo match in the afternoon. I'm sure Daisy would love to see the polo ponies."
"Females are generally very fond of them, aren't they?" Or at least that had been his experience. And it would be good to introduce his ward to the animals early. Some of the ponies participating in the match would no doubt belong to his aunt's family.
"Apparently there's some show called 'My Little Pony' that's very big with little girls at the moment. Or at least in America. Emma was telling me her granddaughters are mad for it just the other day."
"Thank you for the tip, Mother."
"Of course, Darling. Of course."
