-This is a work of fiction based on characters created by Monkey Punch (Kazuhiko Kato). It is drama/action/romance with a hint of lemon. Rated T for language and sexual situations. Lupin, Jigen, Fujiko, and Zenigata are © Monkey Punch, and are used without permission. This work is written purely for entertainment value. Please don't sue me.-

-This is a sequel to The Sound of Her Breathing, but will also stand alone. Special thanks go to Berke Breathed for the earlobes that resemble fishheads.-

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The Importance of Catching Earnest
by Elisabeth Henry

Alexis Finch woke from a dead sleep and groped around on the bedside table for the phone. It was very, very loud. Or perhaps she'd just had too much to drink the night before. Her hand connected with the receiver, knocking it onto the floor. After another moment or two, she managed to find it and bring it up to her ear.

"H'lo?" she mumbled, her head still half-buried in the pillow.

"Wake up, Alexis."

Alexis was awake. Instantly. She sat up quickly.

"Mother?" she said. "How did you get this number?"

Her mother ignored the question. "Your father's had a heart attack."

Alexis reached for her cigarettes and fumbled one out of the pack. Her lighter flared in the darkness of the hotel room. "And this affects me how, exactly?" she muttered into the phone.

"Alexis!" Her mother sounded scandalised.

"All right, mother." Alexis sighed. She rested her forearms on her knees and savoured the sharp taste of the tobacco. "What do you want me to do about it?"

"Why, you're to come home, of course." Her mother's voice was crisp, and brooked no argument. "I've contacted Stephen, and he should be flying in from Sri Lanka any day now."

Alexis rolled her eyes at her mother's naïveté. Stephen hadn't been back to The Hawthorns -- he blasphemously referred to it as the Crown of Thorns, when he spoke of it at all -- since the day he left home. He was always good at putting off their mother, though. Alexis wished she had the same skill. Still, she made the effort.

"Mother, things are terribly busy in Vancouver just now, and I --"

Her mother's voice came down the wire, crackling with impatience. "Nothing is more important than your father's health," she said primly. "We must show solidarity, and..."

Alexis stopped listening to the words, and just waited for the song to end. Her mother frequently went on about the family, and how important it was to be a cohesive unit, and how their father was the most important thing, blah blah blah, world without end. Alexis had learned years ago that the only way to keep from going mad was to tune it out and just nod and smile until the lecture was over.

"All right, mother," she said, her voice heavy with resignation. She looked at the glowing clock on the bedside table. It read 3.56, and Alexis groaned softly. "I'll catch the first flight out in the morning." It would be a very long flight, but at least she'd be tired enough to sleep for the duration. She certainly wouldn't be getting back to sleep tonight, that much was certain. "I'll call you from Heathrow."

"Good," her mother said. "Gordon will be there with the car."

Alexis considered telling her mother that she was an adult, and could get to The Hawthorns on her own, but it would have been pointless. Instead, she nodded and smiled, though her mother couldn't see her.

"Yes, mother," she said. "Goodbye, mother." Alexis hung up the phone and leaned back against the headboard. "Sod off, mother," she muttered to herself, taking a long pull on her cigarette. She'd lied, of course; the only thing on her schedule was a class at a local cooking academy, but the school had a Belgian campus. It could wait until she returned to the continent.

Which would, Alexis decided as she extinguished her cigarette in the cheap hotel ashtray, be shortly after she arrived in England. She didn't like the Isles, and she didn't like The Hawthorns. And she most definitely did not like her family. With any luck, she'd be able to offer her condolences and then bugger off back to Brussels.

Alexis rolled out of bed and started packing. In less than three hours, she'd be flying out of Canada and back to old Blighty.