TITLE: A Vine of a Good Soil (X) 1/1
SERIES: Casa Harris 3
AUTHOR: Don Bentley
E-MAIL: dbentley@albedo.net
SUMMARY: none
RATING: none
TIMELINE: the indeterminate future beyond season 7.
SPOILERS: none
*****
"A little higher on the left," a beat, then, "Lower."
Xander Harris sighed, ignored the unsolicited advice, squinted at the level
with his good eye, and raised the right side of the shelve just a touch.
"Perfect."
The speaker, an aristocratic English woman of indeterminate years, stood
in the middle of the room and surveyed his work carefully. On closer
examination, she was not one hundred present satisfied.
"Over to the left a touch."
"You sure?" he asked, his voice thick with resignation.
"Yes," she affirmed. Another beat. "No. The right...."
"Mrs Upton?"
"There! Perfect," she pronounced with satisfaction.
"You sure?"
"Of course, I am sure," she declared tartly. "Really. I trust
that you were not this difficult with your earlier clients. Would tend
to cut down on the repeat business, I am quite sure."
"Never had any trouble with repeat business," Xander protested, as he double
checked his alignment, carefully marked the shelf's position with a pencil,
then, laying it aside, picked up a cordless drill.
"Yes, well, some people may be happy with relaxed standards. Us Uptons,
on the other hand-"
Exactly what the proud Upton family thought about such matters was lost
when the phone rang.
Dismissing Xander, Mrs Upton stepped around the large antique desk that
dominated the room, and picked up the receiver before it could ring a second
time.
"PA to DOps," she said, while miming 'a little more to the right' at Xander,
who ignored her and lined up his drill bit, waiting for her to hang up before
he started drilling.
"When?" she asked after listening for a moment. Her voice had abruptly
turned flat and impersonal.
Xander put his drill down and turned to look at Mrs Upton. "What?"
She ignored his question, but as she nodded unconsciously at the phone,
she pulled his suit jacket from the back of his chair and held it out for
him. "He's on his way. Have you informed the Director?
Very well."
"Let me guess," Xander started, even before she had hung up the phone.
"Tehran."
"Young Wells would like to see you in the Duty Centre," she said, deliberately
cutting him off.
"Now what did she do?" he asked, his voice hard with anger.
"He didn't say," Mrs Upton replied, as she helped Xander into his jacket,
delicately brushing a tiny fleck of wood dust out of his hair. "And
do I have to remind you that you did promise to give Miss Kennedy the benefit
of the doubt?"
"I was lying," Xander snapped back harshly. "After what she did to Willow,
she's lucky she's still a Slayer."
"Fortunately for her, that was not your decision to make." Mrs Upton reminded
him automatically. She was long since resigned to having to repeat herself
on this particular issue.
"Don't think I'm not still working on that!"
Mrs Upton followed Xander out of his office, and across the grand entrance
hall that, in times past, welcomed visitors both high and low to Abingdon
Manor. Their footsteps echoed softly throughout the large, richly furnished
hall.
"Where is everybody?" Xander growled as he stalked into a side corridor.
He was venting. He knew full well that it was Saturday, and that most
of the staff was away for the bank holiday. He still mostly thought
of it as a long weekend, but when in Rome....
"And such lovely weather, too," said Mrs Upton, knowing full well that Xander
knew what day it was, and, subsequently, where every one of the staff was,
and that he was just trying to change the topic. "A gorgeous summer,
and it promises to be a beautiful autumn."
"We've got three teams out," he grumped, as if she hadn't spoken at all.
"Twelve Slayers on ops. I don't care if it's a long weekend or not,
there should be more-"
"Xander," Mrs Upton interrupted. She had stopped in the middle of
the hall forcing him to stop and turn about himself.
"Huh? I mean... What? What's wrong?" he stumbled on a
bit, taken off guard by Mrs Upton's infrequent use of his first name.
"False pretences, I'm afraid," she confessed. She looked at him with
honest affection, which only added to his confusion.
"Tehran? Kennedy?"
"Everything is proceeding according to plan at last report. No problems,"
she said.
"Then what the hell is-"
He stopped, and swallowed heavily, his mouth having gone suddenly dry, even
as his palms and brow moistened with nervous perspiration.
"Where?" he asked. It was a struggle to keep his voice calm and steady
for even that one word.
Mrs Upton pointed to a closed door, one that led to a small library that
was mostly used for pre-mission briefs.
"When?" he asked. A couple deep breaths had helped to calm him down.
Had helped to centre him long enough to start taking control of himself.
"Her flight came in a couple of hours ago," Mrs Upton explained. She
stepped up to Xander and straightened his tie. "She came straight here
from Heathrow. Just arrived- the call was from the front gate- the traffic
was atrocious, as one would expect."
"You lied to me!" Xander accused her.
"Of course," she admitted easily. "And if I hadn't, you would be halfway
to Oxford by now. Wouldn't you?"
"I..." he answered lamely. "Did she say-"
"She said nothing to me," Mrs Upton interrupted in her firm professional
voice. "And I would not have let her, in any event. You asked
her to marry you, and you deserve to be the first to hear her answer."
"Uhh... okay... I, uh... I can do this," Xander babbled.
"No, I can't," he said an instant later, looking down the hallway past Mrs
Upton, as if seeking an escape route.
"You most certainly can do this," Mrs Upton said, her voice softening.
"What if she says no!"
"Then a great many other women will have cause to rejoice," Mrs Upton smiled.
"That's not what I meant!"
"I know what you meant," Mrs Upton said gently. "It will hurt, there
is no doubt about that, but you will heal. Your friends will help."
She nodded at the door. "She will help. Whatever the answer, don't
you dare think that she does not love you."
"Okay," he nodded, then, unconsciously, he needlessly adjusted the black
patch over his left eye, only to have Mrs Upton take his hand in hers, before
brushing a lock of his hair back into place. She smiled her approval.
"Good luck," she said, topping it off with a maternal kiss on the cheek.
Xander smiled weakly, wiped his palms along his trouser legs, and knocked,
then entered the library.
Behind her, Mrs Upton could hear the others slip into the hallway from their
various hiding places as soon as the library door clicked shut.
"Did she give any hint?" Giles asked softly.
"Of course not," Mrs Upton snapped back, fixing him, and the others with
an icy stare. "Now be quiet, all of you. If you have nothing better
to do than lurk outside doorways, then at least be quiet."
That she herself did not move from her place was not lost on any of the
others.
"Five quid says she accepts," Rona whispered from the back of the pack.
"No bet," hissed Faith as she pushed past.
*****
Xander stopped just inside the door, blinking against the late afternoon
sun that poured through the large French doors that opened on to the garden
beyond.
"Dawn?"
"Out here."
He followed the voice out through the doors and onto the terrace.
She was leaning against the stone railing, looking out over the rich, colourful
garden. Hearing his footsteps on the terrace, Dawn Summers turned around.
"Hey," he said, not trusting himself to risk any more than that.
Xander stared at her, desperate for some sign, but there was none to be
found on her lovely face. The time when he could read her like a book
was long gone. Gone with the twelve-year-old kid he could always beat
at poker, and long gone with the teenager and her childish crush.
"Hey," echoed Dawn.
"You, uh... you look great," he said. He meant it. Though he
had always thought of her as a pretty girl, at twenty-seven Dawn had grown
into a very beautiful woman.
"I'm a wreck," she answered frankly, if inaccurately. "You try spending
fourteen hours cooped up in cars and planes and see how well you look."
Dawn grinned as she went on. "Actually, you'd look entirely handsome.
Always said that tussled suits you."
"Uh... good flight?" he asked, wincing at the inanity of his question.
"Not really. Late leaving LA, and there was bad weather over-" she
stepped in within arm's reach of him and smiled. "You don't care about
my flight, do you?"
"Not so much, no."
"Afraid of bad news?"
"Not afraid so much as terrified."
"There is," she said, stepping in even closer. "Bad news."
"Oh God-" Xander started to deflate.
Dawn silenced him by pulling him into her arms, and kissing him deeply.
"I have to be back in LA by Thursday," she said, finally breaking their
kiss. "And Wesley needs me at least until January. So, I'm calling
your bluff, Xander Harris."
She held her left hand up between them.
"Where's my ring?"
*****
Take a vine of a good soil, and the daughter of a good mother.
English proverb.
*****
Glosssary
PA personal assistant
DOps Director of Operations
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