The fairy kept giggling, even as Oliver and Anabella descended to the basement at the sound of a muffled ringing. It spooked Allen, who the elder had to dismiss with the excuse that they were going to run errands. He sucked up the excuses, happy that he got away with free cookies and a friend.

"What could possibly be so funny?" Oliver hissed to Lila. "Unless you are trying to annoy me, which I will admit, it is working."

"What is working?" Nikolai's younger ears caught what Anabella did not. He proudly announced with pointing a glove saturated in red to a cooler sitting on the floor, "Not me! I am finished!" The boy stared at the lump on the table, thankful for the plastic sheet covering it. The operator lifted his hand held bell from his coat pocket, and shook it again, earning Oliver's attention. He giggled at the scowl he received. "Take care of the goods. They are a good batch this time!"

"Oliver, can you take that to the car?" Anabella said, "My keys are hanging in their normal place."

"Do we do anything else, besides deliver the parts?" The teen eyed the covered body. "That is a mess you have there."

Nikolai held his arms over the sheet, hissing, "It is my mess."

Oliver frowned, and grabbed the cooler. Anabella wished Nikolai a fine evening, trailing after the boy. The basement door shut loudly, closing off the faint buzzing of coal tars, and Nikolai's strange, huffing laughter. The teen grumbled, "Goodness, he is an odd one."

Anabella was close enough to catch the comment. "It takes one to know one."

"Bella!"

Lila let out a long groan from his head, breaking her endless giggling fits. "Oh no."

The boy slowed his steps in horror, earning a bemused look from his boss as she padded to the car. "What?" He almost inaudibly said.

"I'm going to be sick. Too much milk. Oh no. I have to go." She disappeared in a flash of glitter. Oliver was left to blink in confusion, and continue with his life from the sudden departure.

Once the cooler was deposited in the trunk of her shabby sedan, Oliver wiggled into the front passenger seat, and gleefully announced, "I do not get many opportunities to be in a car!"

The elder glimpsed at the boy as she revved the engine, which sputtered in a fit of coughs as she did. "You do not have driving experience." It was not a question.

"I...no, I was separated from my parents before either of them could teach me."

"Good thing I am here," Anabella pulled away from the curb with a jerk of the vehicle.

"Y-you do not have to do anything! I was not implying that you should-"

"Do you want to continue working in my bakery after I am gone?"

Oliver quieted. "Yes."

"Then you need to learn how to drive, after we get rid of these organs, of course." Anabella did not make room for disagreement, focusing on not getting her car clipped from all sides of the insane roads. A bus stop stood alone along the side of the triple-lane street, protected by its own lane. Three people clad in long white overcoats huddled close to each other from the late winter winds. When the elder pulled to the curb after just missing a huge truck nearly ripping her side view mirror off, they snapped up their heads at the disturbance. One of the two men lifted his arm over his head, and limply waved it at her.

"Bella, your grandson is here," Oliver said, feeling stupid as he remembered Louis picking up one of the coolers a while back.

"I see," Anabella giggled. "Make sure you get out on this side, Oliver. I do not want the traffic getting you."

Oliver looked out his window, at the endless stream of cars zipping by, and eagerly crawled over his boss' seat. The three doctors let out whoops for Anabella, causing her cheeks to become rosy with laughter. "Oh, you!"

The other man claimed, "We missed you, Bella!"

"I can tell," the elder said, opening her trunk. Oliver rushed around the car to pluck the cooler from the back, so she would not have to, but sort of regretted it as he stumbled from its great weight. He towed the goods to the sidewalk, and set them down with a rough huff. The lady doctor broke from the huddle to grasp it.

"No, seriously, do not help the poor kid," she muttered to her companions.

Louis plucked the cigarette from his mouth to kiss his grandmother's cheeks. "It goes well?"

"I am fine, but you will not be if you keep popping those things in your mouth like candy!"

The man flinched from the old woman's scolding, and dropped the butt onto the unforgiving ground. "Ah, yes, Bella." He glanced up from the sidewalk, from his abandoned cigarette, to Oliver thanking the other woman. With a sideways glare, the boy warned him not to come closer with his stench, but the look was ignored. "It has appeared that I have been wanting to see you again without realizing it."

"What?" Oliver crinkled his nose from the doctor's breath billowing out into the cool air. "Why would you do that?"

"Come on!" The other man groaned. "He's like, twelve."

Anabella's eyes crinkled with relentless laughter from her grandson's dejected face. "Watch where you put your hands!"

"I am almost fifteen," Oliver spat.

"Oh," the dark haired doctor raised his hands in the air. "My apologies, dear almost-fifteen-year old."

"Well, I guess it is up to me to pay you guys, huh?" The woman announced loudly so her partners would settle. She reached in her coat for her wallet, and produced a hefty amount of cash. Oliver's eyes bugged out of his head from the sum Anabella took.

"Thank you. See you next time, the same time." Anabella nodded to her charge as the doctors murmured their own farewells. "Pay attention from here on out, Oliver," she said as if he was not. "It is a day of learning."

~.~

~BOING~

~.~

Learning was not the most fun thing to do. She told him what a lot of the buttons are for, including the weird triangle in the middle of the dashboard. When Oliver had gotten a basic understanding of the mechanics, Anabella dared to put him behind the wheel. She found an abandoned parking lot for him, so nobody or nothing would be potentially harmed.

"Brake! Brake! That is the accelerator!"

"Oops!" After a while, "Ew! There is a dead squirrel in the car park!"

Anabella still had enough patience to drop Oliver in front of the House's main gate. Once on the walkway, he bent forward to peek at his boss. "Thank you, Bella. Truly. I know I may have been difficult today."

"Do you expect me to accept your apology for educating you?" The elder asked. Oliver dumbly stared at her. "Away with you, now. Come again to the bakery late tomorrow morning. We have a cake to bake for a wedding."

"Why would you need a cake for a wedding?"

She laughed as if she had a joke with herself. "Perhaps they are having a big party for a big, happy marriage. None the less, let them eat cake!"

Oliver chuckled, too. "All right, Bella. Tomorrow." He turned from the vehicle as his boss cranked up the window and pulled away. The tall wooden gate greeted him, his home. "I should have known I was to stay here." Without a reply, he raised a hand to his hair, and swished at the absence, remembering Lila excused herself out of sickness from consuming too much milk.

As soon as Oliver opened the front gates, a small group of boys glanced up in surprise, all hooting greetings to him. He stopped in the middle of the opening, and jumped when the gate swung and clapped his back. "H-hello?"

Another teen moved from the back of the gathered mass, and made his way up front. His neighbor, again, had that snarky hint of a grin on his gnarled face. Oliver's presence must have made him a happy person. "I thought that old lady wouldn't let you go."

"No, no, I am back now."

"I can see that." His neighbor swished a hand at the other boys. "Are you still coming with us?"

"Oh, for food," Oliver was not too hungry, but he was not going to pass up the chance of company. "Of course. Where are we going?"

"Uptown a little bit." The gate slammed shut again with a loud collision of metal and wood, and a few snickers rose from the others trailing behind.

Their sneaky noises made Oliver shiver with goose bumps, but played it off with his own attempts of a cool grin. He did not know any of these kids' names, and yet he was walking along side of them as if they owned the world. It made him feel gloated, and he definitely knew that if Lila was there with him, she would be condemning his decisions. He pushed those stupid stomach feelings down, so he could enjoy himself for the moment.

His neighbor suddenly swerved into an alleyway between two shops, and Oliver glanced around in alarm as the others automatically followed his steps. Not wanting to be left in the dust, he hurried after the small group where it made a giant U-turn around the rear of one of the buildings. The other teen held up a hand, and everyone stopped. One boy twisted around to investigate Oliver who accidently rammed into his back and bounced off, and he bared his teeth in an odd smile.

"All right," Oliver's neighbor turned around to face the group, and spoke in a hushed tone. "We got this, right guys? This is a simple task, so there should be no muck-ups this time. You two," he gestured to two boys and then made a sweeping motion to the street. "The usual. You know what to do. Get in there, get out. Then rest of you, once you hear Porky's signal, all of you are going to charge in."

"W-wait," Oliver piped up, and bristled as several pairs of eyes turned on him. "What are we doing?"

"I already told you. The rest of you sweep in, and take what you can, and get out. It shouldn't be hard," his neighbor said with a hard glare to a specific member, who ducked his head to the asphalt. "Okay, you two are up."

This had nothing to do with sitting down at a restaurant and opening menus! One of the boys jogged out onto the street, and another, chubbier one awkwardly shuffled/jogged after him. He hollered after the other, "Get back here! I still gotta gut you like a fish!"

"Yeah?" The other boy called back, his voice fading down the street, "You'd probably eat the leftovers, too!"

The rest of the group posed ready for who knows what at the foot of the alley, and Oliver glanced around the dark and grimy walls for some sort of answer. There was a sharp collision, and something big collapsed to the ground. "Argh! You guys!"

Oliver neighbor hissed, "There it is! Let's go!"

That was the signal? Oliver uncertainly followed after the group's eager charge into the walkway. It sounded like a lonesome cat howling at the moon! One of the boy's that went first, Porky, as he was so cruelly nicknamed, was in the mist of a mess of wood, baskets, and apples that were tumbling and bouncing all over the concrete and into the road. The owner of the fruit stall, a short old man, held his hands up, and his mouth gaped, as if he did not know how to react to the mess of his destroyed stand.

"There they are! Grab them!"

Oliver slowed to a walk, wondering what to grab. His company took to the ground, plucking the apples as if they were beggars and it just rained money. The boy lowered himself to the concrete out of confusion, and simply followed what the others were doing. The teen caught in the middle of the wreckage suddenly burst out of the pile of wood with an evil laugh, gobbled some of the fruit in his grubby hands, and shoved by everyone else in a grand escape.

"Whoa, what-" Oliver leaped to his feet as the rest of the team hastily retreated. He locked eyes with the old man, and just as the elder flushed red with rage, pointing a crooked finger at him, the boy spun on his heel to flee just like the others. It happened so fast; all he knew was that he had two brown apples in his hands, and was slinking through the alleyways with his Housemates, taking the hidden route back to the hostel.

Another signal from his neighbor prompted the group to stop again, just before a turn out on another street that led back to the House. "You did good this time! Got in, got out, just the way it should be."

Oliver fumbled with the fruit in his hands, and blurted, "What are we going to do with these?"

The first boy that began the initial chase met up with the larger group just in time to hear the question. He plucked one of the apples from Oliver's hands, and took a large chomp out of its side. "What else do we do with apples, huh? We eat 'em!"

The group came alive with snorts and sniggles, and Oliver's ears burned red. "But what about that poor old man, and that cart that got destroyed?"

"Oh, those things are crap. A freaking fly smashes into it, and they break. It was only a matter of time for him."

"Are we not going to pay for these?" Oliver asked in a last desperate attempt to be a civil human being.

His neighbor raised his hands, and the boys that were huddling menacingly closer to Oliver took a step back. "Oliver, Oliver, why pay for it? We have the fruit in our hands...literally, so it doesn't matter anymore." He bit into one of his own apples, and gnashed it between his teeth. Juice flung out of his mouth as he said, "It's over now, and you did a good job. Eat up, and stop complaining about it."

Easier said then done. Oliver was more than eager to flee into his bedroom that night without looking at any of his other Housemates in the eye, in case they mysteriously found out what he done by a guilty glance. He gave his stolen apple to the cat-monkey chimera that hid amongst the trees, rather than eat it himself. Hoping to forget about what happened to ruin an innocent man's day, he wiggled into bed, and meditated on the Realm of Sprits. He had news to give to his mother, but the boy knew deep down he just wanted to get away from his hectic consciousness for a little while.

"No way! Nope! I am not looking at you, Mister Six Inch Fangs. Yes, I acknowledge your appearance is frightening, but is that what you are hoping to achieve? I have you know you will not make friends growling and glaring like that," Oliver chided to movements in the surrounding trees. Sure, his being trembled with the prospect of being swallowed whole by the dark forest's characters, but he realized they were only curious about the flames he carried as he trekked to the center of the woods.

The five man long creature let out a low groan, as if weary. Oliver sighed, "Oh, I know. Today was just awful, and tonight is going to be worse, but it will get that dreadful weight off my shoulders." Another spooky serpent ran along the intertwining branches above his head, and chittered at him. He listened to each of their voices, realizing that together, they made a chorus.

However, they shifted away from the approaching brightness, grumbling how it hurt their sensitive eyes. "Do not be fret," Oliver told them. "I will be back on the return trip." He clamped his hand, banishing his summoned flames. His mother sat on the largest toadstool, about the size of his own height. Her posture was slouched with her back to her son. Her journey must have not been as kind to her as it was to him.

Oliver treaded on a small shroom, which let out a small hiss as his foot crushed it. Marionette gasped, and twisted around. Her tired face lit up at the sight of her child, and slipped from the rubbery toadstool. "Oliver!" She pattered to him, arms open and inviting. The boy made a pained whine from the back of his throat, clenching his fists at his sides. He had not took a step to her, and she skittered to a stop, tilting her head in confusion at her son's cold reaction. "Oliver, dear, are you all right? Was the trip unkind?"

"Not to me. I am fine, Mum." Oliver dropped his gaze to the bicolored grass when she kept staring at him. "The trip was fine."

"You do not seem fine."

The teen gathered his courage with a few deep breaths, and then spoke in a low and quick voice, "Dad is dead. I was going to tell you the last time we met, but..."

Marionette nodded when her son lifted his head to meet her gaze. "We both were caught up in the moment." Oliver's eyebrows mashed together in slight confusion from her reaction. "I know your father is dead."

"What?" Oliver gasped. "How? Did someone tell you?"

"The spirits, honey." Marionette took an uncertain step toward him, tugging at her fingers to keep her hands busy. "I looked for him everywhere, but I could not even feel his soul. Were you...Oliver, were you there when he..."

Oliver meekly nodded. "Yes."

"Oh!" His mother raised a hand to her mouth, staring as if Oliver was the one that was slain before her eyes. "Oliver-"

"I rather not dote on it, if you mind," the boy said quietly yet firmly.

"Oliver," Marionette tried again, mouth gaping.

"I know. This was not supposed to happen, but it did. I really do not know what to say about that, Mum."

She had caught on his formalities, slowly lowering her hands from her tear streaked face. "Oliver, dear, are you...are you furious at me?"

The boy lightly scoffed, dabbing at his eyes with his shoulder sleeve. "I am certain if I was angry, I would be kicking and screaming." He gave his head a little shake as his mother weakly laughed. "No, but Mum, you will not be able to get out of prison, and I am stuck at the House...the youth hostel until I can get out."

"You are leaving, then."

"I will leave when I can."

"No, honey, I mean you are leaving the Realm of Spirits."

Oliver felt his insides twist in self-disgust. "W-well, I have a job now at a local bakery, and my friends have been dragging me to all these places. It is not so bad coming back from here, but every night takes a toll on my awareness during the day..." He trailed off as the guilt clawed its way to his face. "Oh, Mum, I am the worst-"

Marionette rushed forward, obviously startling her child with her sudden motions. She clasped her hands on his cheeks, forcing him to look her in the eyes. "Oliver, do not apologize for having a life. That is what I wanted of you in the first place! You should not stand by and let opportunity to pass by because you were waiting from my choices!"

"S-so you are not angry?"

"Never with you, dear."

The teen scrubbed at his eyes, now smiling, and leaned to his mother's embrace. "I love you, Mum. When I can, I will visit you."

Marionette planted a gentle kiss to her son's forehead. "I will be waiting."

A.N.- The two other doctors besides Louis (2p!France) are just random doctors. Or...my old beta said they could be 2p!Hungary and 2p!Spain. Whatever humps your camel.