Which Way is W.i.t.c.h.?
By: A J
Disclaimer: I do not own W.i.t.c.h. or Amber. I'm merely a Fan of both expressing my appreciation through this original piece of fiction, with no monetary gain sought.
Chapter 3
'Unexpected Company'
Shortly after two o'clock, most of the girls showed up, with Cobalt Blue in tow. Will didn't blink twice over it, she merely introduced the band to her mom. Susan had to hide her smile as she shook hands with each boy in turn. There was Will's boyfriend Matt, of course, guitar player and lead singer; Nigel the bassist, and Taranee's BF, as Susan had learned that morning; Joel the drummer, who was dancing with the idea of dating Irma; and their most recent addition, Eric. The shy young boy was the replacement for their long-standing keyboardist Dominic, who'd recently moved to L.A. with his father. Eric played saxophone as well, and (surprise, surprise!) was welded to Hay Lin at the hip.
The group had arrived in Joel's van, an old red extended-passenger model with the last seat ripped back out to make room for the band's instruments. Just as Will turned to ask Irma where their missing friend Cornelia was, the blonde ice-skater herself, her boyfriend Caleb, his best friend Aldarn, and Cornelia's BFF Elyon all came riding up on their bikes.
The other Guardians had to fight down their giggles. The two boys were perfectly fine, but usually-impeccable Cornelia and Elyon were sweaty, out of breath, and looking at Caleb and Aldarn with murderous intent.
"You know," Cornelia started, once she'd gotten enough air in her lungs. "We could have taken our time. Will's not going anywhere until tomorr … OUMPH!" She was summarily silenced by Caleb, who pulled her into a kiss until she was breathless again … and blushing, to boot.
While the others broke into fresh gales of laughter, Irma nudged Will, who was safely encircled in Matt's arms. "Looks like rebel-boy's finally learning how to handle her," she whispered. Then out loud, Irma crowed, "Just look at it this way, Corny. Keep biking like that, and you'll keep that figure forever." With a smirk, she added, "And that boyfriend!"
Caleb blushed as well at the laughs this time, while Cornelia yelled back "Don't call me Corny!"
Elyon came forward, shooing Matt away from Will, then wrapped her own arms around the red-haired Guardian. Pulling back, she kept hold of one of Will's hands while Matt resumed his embrace.
Susan, who'd been watching the silent byplay with a bemused smirk, was surprised when Elyon took hold of her hand as well. With bowed head, the young platinum-haired girl said quietly but clearly, "On behalf of us all, our condolences in your hour of grief."
Will burst into fresh tears at the solemn phrase, and Matt suddenly found himself at the center of a Guardian group hug as Irma, Taranee, Cornelia and Hay all embraced him and Will in a sympathetic rush. Matt exchanged an embarrassed glance with Susan's amused one, while the other guys razzed him about 'always getting the girls, just 'cause he was the lead singer'.
As the girls released their leader and her beau one-by-one, Hay gave Will a wink, and turned to Susan. "Alright, you two are coming to the restaurant for dinner tonight. No excuses," she added, as Will started to squirm in Matt's grip. "I figure you've got enough to do, so making sure you're not worrying about your next meal is the least I can do to help. Settled?" She glared – grinning the while – until Will and Susan both nodded with relieved smiles. "Good. Now, what else can we help with?" Hay continued as they all went inside.
"Actually, there isn't a whole lot, you guys," Will responded with a sigh. "We're already packed for the viewing, and the funeral's Wednesday night. Anybody willing for the trip is welcome, of course," she added, knowing Cornelia and Serena had become fast friends, fashionistas that they both were, and Irma had taken to her father Tony readily enough, once she was sure the business advisor wasn't gonna try to steal her new best friend away from Heatherfield. "The stuff at the lawyer's supposed to be easy, too. Right Mom?" She barely got an affirming nod from Susan before continuing. "Dad already had a will, scarily enough, with funeral decisions and everything written almost a year ago. It's kinda creepy, like he was expecting something to happen."
"That might have been the 'Herald's idea, honey," her mom said. "Serena told me they had to upgrade their life-insurance carriers when they got married, so one of the stipulations might have been a will."
"May have been part of a pre-nup," Irma guessed, her 'daughter-of-a-cop's mind, and way too many hours watching CSI programs, kicking in. Susan paled.
"No way," Taranee countered. With a lawyer father and a mother who was a judge, the braided Fire-mistress knew enough about the law (and just about everything else!) to be a veritable authority. "That kind of thing is to settle the monetary questions if the couple doesn't think things'll work out. A will only gets done up when the going looks good."
"Well, I know for a fact Serena had her own account from her modeling work still," Cornelia said. When all the other women looked at her strangely, she just shrugged and added, "What?" I asked her, since she and I were talking about modeling, and I mentioned that my dad's bank was canvassing for a new teen-account poster girl. When I told her which bank it was, she said that that's where her account is."
W.I.T.H. and Elyon all gave her appraising – or re-appraising – looks. If Cornelia, flighty Cornelia, was looking seriously for work, the world as they knew it had to be coming to an end.
The teens spent the climb upstairs in good-natured gossip and news about school. Taranee promised Will she'd get the red-head's class assignments to make up, resulting in several seconds of teasing from Irma until with one pointed comment about Irma's current history project, (long on research, short on work, and practically overdue,) the Guardian Leader turned the tide of conversation neatly back on her Watery friend.
Susan turned to unlock their apartment door to hide her smile, only to find that it was already open. 'That's odd,' she thought. 'I know I pulled this shut behind us … I heard the auto-lock catch …' "Will?"
Will's head snapped around at the worried tone of her mother's voice. "What is it, Mom?" Susan held up her keys, shook her head, and gave the door an infinitesimal push. When it glided silently open a few inches, ('Thank god Dean reminded me to keep the hinges oiled!' Sue thought,) the old 'We've got a problem!' signal registered in her daughter's eyes. It was something the two women had worked out a year ago living alone, after a spate of robberies in the neighborhood.
Susan watched the change that came over Will and most of the other teens in that next instant with the kind of fatalistic dread one watches a nearby auto accident; as an unavoidable circumstance you can't change, but also can't help but bear witness to. Without a single spoken word, Will was suddenly standing in front of a hardened line of defenders, who quickly and quietly created a half-circle in front of the Vandoms' apartment door, edging Susan back to one side.
With just a look and a nod, Matt, Nigel, Taranee and Will entered the door like a trained S.W.A.T. team, and the bewildered mother left behind in the hall watched as the rest of the teens closed their ranks, and Irma and Caleb both pulled out cell phones but didn't dial … yet. The tension in the corridor was palpable, and Susan couldn't help but notice that the only other one who didn't seem to know what was going on was Joel the drummer. He noticed her looking his way, and shrugged, just as confused.
Then Will's voice rang out to the hallway. "Who the asterisk are you?" Susan thought the tone was odd for someone confronting a burglar, but the answer they all heard next really threw her for a loop.
"Will! So, we finally meet!" There was a pause, during which Susan felt for a pulse at her own wrist, certain that she must have fainted, or … something, to hear Tony Vandom's voice coming from, apparently, her living room. "Sue! Come in here, please. Your daughter doesn't seem to recognize me, even with the family resemblance, and I'd like to get things cleared up, here. I understand we have a busy few days ahead of us, and I really don't have the extra time to explain things as well as I'd like …"
The eerily similar voice cut off as Susan shoved her way between a surprisingly resistant Hay Lin and Irma to enter her apartment, to find Will and the other three teens facing a lanky young man who looked just like her husband had when they married. He was lounging on their sofa, with one of her good tumblers full of bourbon in one hand, and Will's new Stephanie Meyers novel in the other. He had the air of someone who'd been waiting for hours, even though Sue knew they'd barely been out of their apartment fifteen minutes.
"Well?" the handsome cad continued after downing the double shot. "Aren't you going to introduce us?"
Glaring at him, Susan fumed for several tense seconds, then … "Of course, where are my manners?" Will looked askance at her mother's sudden solicitousness as the raven-haired woman blithely named off all the teens in turn, including the ones still peering in from the hall, then turned back to face her. "Will, this is your uncle, Martin Vandom."
Matt put a reassuring arm around her shoulders, and Will looked back and forth between the two adults from that safe vantage. "I have an Uncle? D-dad had a brother?" Her expression was incredulous, and Susan couldn't blame her; Tony had never willingly talked about his estranged family, and Sue had taken the cue from him.
"A sister, too," mystery-man Martin said. Will was relieved, if only slightly, to see that this was news to her mother as well. Several more seconds crawled agonizingly by, then he smiled winningly at Susan. "Join me, Sue? You know how I hate to drink alone." She felt her newly born resolve to tell him where to go as im-politely as possible flag, as it had so many times over the years when Tony had smiled at her like that. But one look at her not-so-little girl, now staring at Martin accusingly with her girlfriends arrayed supportively alongside her, each with their corresponding muscular – and glowering – boyfriends backing them up, reinserted the steel in Sue's spine.
"I don't think so, Martin. As a matter of fact, we were just getting changed to go to dinner … at the Lins'. Isn't that right, Hay-hay?" Susan, like the rest of W.i.t.c.h. and their families, had long ago adopted the silly nickname Irma had given Hay Lin back in grade school, much to the Chinese girl's chagrin. (To the other girls' humor, she had confided that it was better than 'Corny'.)
"Huh? Oh! Yes, that's right! My Grandma thought, and quite rightly too, that our girls had quite enough to think about, so we're feeding 'em tonight." She looked inordinately proud about that as she said it, and Irma knew why: the idea to invite Sue and Will to dinner had been all Hay's doing back at lunchtime, when the Water Guardian had appraised the others of their Leader's tribulations. Yan's only input had been as the deciding vote on whether to go along or not. Actually, it had been Hay, Joan and Chen against Yan and her Altermere 'twin sister' Mira. The elderly Lin women had been looking forward to a quiet Monday night at home, but now faced the inevitable insanity of dinner with the younger Guardians. Or half of them, anyway; Cornelia and Taranee couldn't get out of their own family plans, so mostly the Lins were subject to the insanity that was Irma.
"I … see," Martin responded, with the air of someone decidedly unused to not getting his way. "Well, I'll call on you in the morning, then. Goodnight, Sue; Will." With parting nods to them both, he took his leave, breezing through the last few confused teens still near the doorway like the owner of a nightclub crossing his own dancefloor.
"God, what a …" Cornelia started.
"Jerk," Elyon finished the telepathic sentence. The other four girls looked at her in relief, certain Cornelia's chosen adjective would have been much racier, if more descriptive.
"Well, grab what you need," Hay Lin said after the still-mystified Joel had shut the door behind the departing Martin. "And we'll get you two out of here before Mister Uncle gets a fresh bug up somewhere and comes back."
Will and Susan nodded, chuckling, and rounded up their purses, keys, phones and in Will's case, real shoes. She'd gone down to meet the others at Joel's van in her froggy slippers, earning her a good-natured round of giggles and 'ribbits'. (Her words to her mother in self-defense had been "Hey, nothin'll cheer me up faster than cheering then up.")
Thus prepared, they all headed down to their vehicles. Matt and Nigel good-naturedly offered to take Cornelia and Elyon's bikes as far as the Silver Dragon for them, and the two girls' enthusiastic acceptance had the others laughing all the way to the Chinese restaurant.