Good old Rodney.

"Of course, Love," he said. He wasn't aware how wide the smile on his face was, or he would have stopped. "I'd love to."

With his wife in arm, she led him up the stairs to see their son, who lay sleeping soundly. He only had a moment's notice to glance around the blue walls of Danny's room, and at the scribbles of presumably classmates tacked upon the wall... his racketball racket stashed neatly under his nightstand, before the boy snapped up in his bed. "Father?" His son had learned to recognize his father by the sound of his footsteps. The kid really did have a way of breaking his heart.

"Good morning, Danny," he said quietly.

"I'll leave you boys to getting dressed and unpacking." Marissa beamed as she tapped Lawrence's suitcase with soft up-kick of her perfectly pink heels before turning to head back out the hall of the reclaimed factory loft turned comfortably modern home. "Breakfast in fifteen minutes boys. I was going to do scrambled eggs, but since this is officially a special occasion, we'll have homecoming pancakes, with chocolate chips, and sausage links."

"Good morning Father." Danny said as he stood up and darted across the room to hug his father. He must have grown four inches taller since Lawrence last saw him in September. His smile beamed brightly enough to light up a room as he looked up at Lawrence. "I knew you'd come home for my birthday! I just knew it! You will be here for the party this weekend, won't you? We're having it at the country club. Mother made a big donation to get them to clean up and repair the racquetball courts just for me, and Audrey Keenel and her father are flying in just for my party. Aunt Josephine even said she'd be there and she hates children's party's but since I'll be ten and ten is such a very big deal everyone is coming!"

He felt as though the child had reached through his chest, grabbed his heart, and pulled it to his knees. If he didn't feel like a neglectful father before, he certainly did now. But he put on his best smile. "Of course, son! You know I wouldn't miss your birthday. Now off with the pyjamas, you've got school. Perhaps your mother will let you help her in the kitchen if you hurry."

It may have taken a bit of prying to get the boy to loosen his grip, but Danny eventually let go of him as soon as he promised that he wasn't going to disappear as soon as he did.

The moment that he escaped the tight grip of the boy, he slipped behind the door and stifled the urge to beat himself up. No, he saved that for when he made his way to the kitchen. There was no sense hiding his guilt. "I am the world's worst father," he announced quietly to Marissa as she bustled about in the kitchen.

"Don't worry love." She whispered back with her usual quiet composure as she handed him a printed order and shipping conformation from a high end shop in London he'd seen in passing, complete with item pictures and Euro to Dollar conversion rates. "You got him a beautifully hand made racquet, some new footwear, and a few other random bobbles and bits. They're in a new high end duffel in the safe in my closet, complete with airport luggage check tag still on it to make it seem like you brought it with you. If you hadn't been able to make it I was going to have Randal bring it and say he'd asked you to come and pick it up personally."

Danny's footsteps sounded in the hall as he excitedly padded out, but before he could even reach the end she stopped him with a word. "Tie." A frustrated groan came from the hallway, but the footsteps darted back down it regardless, and her attention returned to Lawrence. As she took the papers back from him to slip them into her apron pocket, Marissa once again kissed his cheek, and promptly wiped it away. "Don't beat yourself up Darling. You have allot on your mind right now, and being back over there can't be easy. You know I admire your strength for being there at all. I'd be a headcase within five minutes of being back there if I'd tried to go."

"I don't understand." Danny proclaimed rather suddenly this time, evidently having chosen to sneak down the hall with his messy, loosely tied yellow and red striped private school tie still hanging out of his dark gray sweater vest. "Why do you both hate London so much? And if it's so horrible, why are you working over there Father?"

"Because, Danny," he said, kneeling to straighten his son's tie. "Sometimes grown-ups have to do things they don't want to do and go places they don't like so that they can make them into better places for others." He attempted to tame the fine, white-blonde hair but failed when it returned to its permanently-tousled state as though having a mind of its own and made a conscious decision to stay tousled. Danny himself seemed unaware of his hair's sentience, and peered up at Lawrence with eyes larger and more curious than his tiny head should have allowed. His father sighed. "One day I'll take you with me to London, Danny. When you're older. I want to make sure its safe for you when I do." One last try at taming his mane. Nope.

He stood. "But, not now. Your mother is making a breakfast too delicious for words, and it would be a shame for you to hop off to school without it."

Marissa smiled and tried to keep her mind occupied as her boys talked of the home of her nightmares, but she couldn't hide the little shudder that ran through her body when Lawrence mentioned the idea of taking Danny to visit someday. None the less, she forced her smile back into place, and hurried to plate their breakfasts.

"Well, let's eat up. Can't have you getting to school late Daniel." Breakfast passed with minor chitchat. Mostly Danny telling his father about his new school, and how much more comfortable he was there than he had been in Chicago. He even went on to tell his dad about how many other children there were that were that had fabulous and peculiar gifts like him. Once the food was gone and the plates were cleared away, Marissa handed her son his cliche gray tweed prep school jacket, complete with elbow patches and school insignia embroidered on the chest pocket, and hurried him off to gather his backpack, speaking to Lawrence as she did. "Will you take Danny to school love? I know he'd like it. You can come back when you're done, put your feet up, relax for a while. I've an easy morning, so we could sit together in the atrium on the roof, perhaps even take a morning tea there."

Lawrence shook his head, not in refusal but in amazement. "I don't know how you manage this," he said with a smile as she handed him the keys. "Being so damned perfect all the time, I bet it wears on you." He offered another near-peck on the cheek, wondering if perhaps he was overdoing the saccarine.

"Alright, Danny," he said. "Why don't you tell me more about your friend at school? What was his name?"

"Eric, Father," Danny said with a grin a mile wide. If anyone would have caught a glimpse of them they might have suspected Prozac in the drinking water. But no, no... and it pained him dearly to think that of all the things that could have made him happy this was it. But walking hand in hand with a little boy who he called his son, who would have ever guessed?

He was so happy that he almost forgot why he was here. Until his phone sounded a quiet 'beet-doot' of a text message received. Immediately he checked, thinking that Gregory's pow-wow with the demon was done. It was an unlisted number, but the message made it absolutely clear who it was from. 'Have a job for you. 1:00.'

"Rubbish," he mumbled under his breath before ducking into the car.