Disclaimer: I do not own The Simpsons

Smithers was awakened at four in the morning by the insistent ringing of the doorbell. Horribly hung over, he crawled he crawled off the couch where he had passed out, nearly tripping over his Yorkshire terrier, Hercules.

Montgomery Burns stood in the hall outside his door. He wrinkled his nose in revulsion at how sorry a sight Smithers was, but he said simply,

"Er, well my decision will be a welcome one at that. I don't suppose you'd relish going to work today, any more than I'd relish having you there in this shameful condition. You have this weekend a Monday off, and I'm here to suggest you take the whole of today off also." He looked at him sharply. "Not taking my suggestion is not an option. Catch an early flight."

Smithers ran a hand self-consciously through his hair. Yesterday was my last day and I didn't even know it. He gulped and it was unpardonably audible.

"Sir," he queried, "How did you get here this morning?"

"Oh, pish posh, nothing to it! It's too early for many of the all and sundry to be about. And my driving has greatly improved- I only hit two mailboxes and the crackle berry peddler." He smirked proudly for a bare second, then a look of caution came back into his eyes. He cleared his throat.

"Toodle-loo!" he called and headed down the hall.

The flashback ended and Waylon was still lying on the bed, the stone where his heart used to be yet rendering him immobile, the crippling pain in his gut present and accounted for. He stared at the wall. Vacation, indeed.

He wished he could have just received his death sentence at the trial.

Saturday

The last few times Waylon Smithers had had a vacation or a day off, Charles Montgomery Burns reverted to a backup plan. This time was no exception. He used the auto dresser and ate a cold breakfast of bran cereal. The difference was on those previous occasions, he rarely wondered what his assistant was doing at the same time. Upon his return, Monty daned to ask only a sparse selection of questions, then congratulated himself on faking interest in an employee's tiresome antics.

(The man never brought any pictures back, anyway.)

This time, however…

He was consumed by thoughts of the man. Not exactly what he was doing; if he had really found out what he'd thought he'd found out then he didn't want to know.

Monty had been about to walk into Smither's office on Thursday night when he heard two voices coming from inside- one slurred and fairly loud, the other (very familiar) hushed and desperate. Curious, he paused outside the door and opened just a fraction to have his ears greeted with,

"…you won't let anyone be possessive of you."

The rest of what he heard…well he couldn't rightly say that he couldn't believe it. He could, actually. And therein lied the problem.

Oh, sure, Burns had tried to reason with himself. After all, much of what had passed between his assistant and that drunken clod could be explained away. Perhaps that man- John, had Smithers called him?- had known some woman Smithers had been involved with and was criticizing his handling of the situation. Perhaps 'Grady" was a female name- even though it did sound masculine. And as for the photo, well, of course Mr. Burns was Smithers' top priority. Smithers' only function was to serve.

Yes, maybe all these things were true. Or, maybe, Monty had just had all his suspicions confirmed.

He had had suspicions about Waylon Smithers for a long time. Just what he was suspicious of, he wasn't quite certain (until now). Smithers had just always been vaguely unsettling, at various times and to various degrees.

But Burns' dependence on him always demanded that he shrug it off. Why, in this new modern world they lived in, it seemed everything was always evolving, always improving, getting more efficient, faster, better.

And so Smithers' devotion could be looked upon as merely a trait of the sort of Super Assistant 3000 model he seemed to be.

Did Burns have his answer now? Was Smithers, the person he spent more time with than anyone else in the world, truly a…well, in Monty's day they called them sodomites. But Lord knows he

wasn't the morality police. More to the point, was Smithers one of…them and in love with him?

It struck Mr. Burns quite forcefully that this was his greatest fear.