Aidan strides into the garage beneath the funeral home to talk to Bishop, smirking at the fangs clacking together in the pocket of his leather jacket. He brushes Marcus aside when he tries to stop the older vampire, walking up to Bishop who has been poring over ledgers at his desk for the past three hours.
"Bishop, we need to talk," Aidan says firmly, standing in front of Bishop's desk and glaring down at his maker.
Glancing up and putting down his pen, Bishop replies with a sigh, "Aidan, I'm in the middle of preparations, can this wait?" Aidan maintains eye contact with Bishop and doesn't move an inch, save for his hand reaching into his pocket and slamming the fangs down on top of Bishop's ledger. Bishop picks up the fangs, examining them in the light as a broad grin spreads across his face.
"So I see you've met the Father at the hospital," Bishop says, leaning back and crossing his arms. "Are these… what I think they are?" he asks, poking a sharp fang into his fingertip.
"Yes, they are. I can't believe you would have one of your lackeys turning people at the hospital, where I work," Aidan says. A knowing look suddenly crosses Aidan's face, and he turns to look at Marcus sulking at the door, and looks back at Bishop incredulously. "Is this about that recruiting thing that Marcus told me about?"
"Look Aidan, I know you haven't been around much in the past few months, which pains me more than I can say, but big things are happening," Bishop says, a look of saccharine grief flashing on his face when he mentions Aidan's absence.
Aidan smirks and gestures at the vampire at the door, "At least you've still got Marcus," earning him an eye roll from Bishop. "And what are these 'big things' that are happening?" Aidan asks suspiciously, eyeing Bishop sitting at his desk like a king at his throne.
"Well, you see, I'm creating an army, one large enough that we will finally be able to live openly with humans. There's safety in numbers, you know," Bishop adds as if speaking to a child.
"Okay, I get it, you want me back. Can we just focus on the important things right now, like the fact that you've finally lost it?" Aidan steps back from the desk and chuckles, putting his hands on his hips and looking at Marcus. But Marcus remains stoic, and Aidan realizes that Bishop is serious about this plan.
"You can't be serious. You can't be serious, Bishop," Aidan says, hoping to make Bishop see how ridiculous he sounds.
Bishop leans back and steeples his fingers, bringing them to his lips and looking back down at the ledgers spread out on his desk. "Well, we'll just have to see what the Dutch have to say when they arrive tomorrow." Bishop looks up at Aidan, looking to shock the young vampire into dropping the subject of his recruiting plan.
"The Dutch? They're coming? Tomorrow?" Aidan asks, shocked and worried at this sudden news.
"Yes Aidan, and I need you to be here for their visit. We need to keep up appearances. You know how strictly they follow the old ways, and we would hate to shock them with your new… doggie roommate," Bishop says, adding the last jibe with a smirk at Aidan.
Ignoring Bishop's joke about Josh, Aidan sighs, conceding to Bishop's wisdom in keeping the Dutch in the dark about his unorthodox living arrangements. "And if I do this for you –"
"You can have your freedom. I promise," Bishop says sincerely, holding Aidan's gaze for a moment before taking up his pen again and turning back to his ledgers. "Now, I have more preparations to make. I can count on you tomorrow?"
"Yes Bishop, of course you can count on me," Aidan says with a sigh.
Aidan's mind flashes back for a moment to his service as Sergeant Waite under Lieutenant Bishop during the Revolutionary War, to the moment that Bishop turned him and changed his life forever. Bishop had asked then if he could count on Aidan to be a soldier for him, and more than 200 years later, standing in the garage of a funeral home, Aidan realizes that Bishop will always be able to count on him to do what needs to be done.